Self-Care with Charlie

Six weeks ago, I got a puppy. There were lots of reasons for this decision, but one of the many motivations for getting this new roommate was to help with self-care. I figured it would force me to come home on time, to get more exercise as I walked the dog multiple times per day, and give me a good reason to enforce better time boundaries in my life. So far, all of those things have been true. I've been able to spend more time at home and I've actually lost weight from eating more home-cooked meals and getting more regular exercise. But there have been some unexpected self-care lessons, too.

Charlie reminds me of the importance of stopping to sniff things. Charlie doesn't just stop to smell good things, he stops to smell grass, pine branches, and even other dogs' poop. His sniffing is an investigation: he's gathering data about the world and those who have gone before him. It often helps me, too, to stop and investigate things further before acting. Charlie reminds me that it helps if I stop for a few minutes and investigate people's motivations and the potential consequences before moving on.

Watching Charlie also reminds me that it's not healthy to keep obsessively chewing things that are bad for you. On our walks, Charlie likes to pick up bits of mulch, dried worms, litter--anything that he can find and fit in his mouth, really--and chew on them obsessively until I take them away from him. I tend to do the same sort of thing with ugly situations in my life. If something has hurt or angered me, or if there's a challenge that I can't seem to overcome, I'll turn it over and over in my mind, mentally chewing on it. It never helps the situation, and it's bad for me, just like that chewing is bad for Charlie. Plus, if he eats too many of those things it makes him sick. Likewise, if I obsess about stuff like that too much, I just upset myself. Each time I pull Charlie away from a worm or dig a piece of mulch out of his mouth, I try to remember that I need to let things that aren't good for me go, too.

When he's tired, Charlie just flops on the floor and goes to sleep. He plays hard, runs around and has a great time, but when he's worn out, he lets himself rest. This is an example I should seek to follow, I think. I could definitely take a napping lesson from the puppy.