{"id":3708,"date":"2013-04-24T16:56:53","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T20:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/?p=3708"},"modified":"2013-04-24T21:42:19","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T01:42:19","slug":"controlling-reactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/controlling-reactions","title":{"rendered":"Controlling Reactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"zoe_4997\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday was a challenge. Witnessing the difficulty in controlling habitual reactions. I feel I did well… but only relatively. In the grand scheme of things I know I can do much better.<\/p>\n

With yesterday’s events still in my mind, I entered a very passive open state of mind. In my mind, I recreated the events from last night but imagining a different reaction. It was difficult to find myself reacting differently and I knew I needed some sort of outside inspiration. Lucky for me, I’m in the presence of the most non-judgemental beings one could hope to be surrounded by…\u00a0\u00a0 animals<\/em>! More specifically, a 6 year old pit bull name Zoe.<\/p>\n

Zoe likes to jump up on me when I walk into the room, sometimes, though I’ve finally taught her not to jump up on me. However, now I would like to teach her to jump up, but only when I ask. I told her “Up<\/em>!” and patted my hips. She was, of course, confused. I gently seized her front legs and lifted her up. She would stay there for a moment, noticeably unsure of herself before slowly lower herself down. I did this three times in a row.<\/p>\n

On the forth time I patted my hips and she hesitated for a few seconds, so I leaned down to pull her up, as I did the previous three times… but then she suddenly popped up and slammed the back of her head into my bottom lip.<\/p>\n

I didn’t get angry, though I felt it inside. It didn’t take much effort to question that reaction within myself (before reacting) and found that it was a dream that I didn’t wish to create. I stood up slowly and looked down at her with a smile on my pained face. She was noticeably uncomfortable. I then relaxed more, smiled again and said, “Up!<\/em>“. Without hesitation, she jumped up, putting her front paws on my hips with that big ol pit-bull smile on her face, waiting to accept the reward.<\/p>\n

Success.
\nLesson learned.
\nBrain remapped.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

What started out as me trying to teach, ended up with me being the student. Thanks Zoe.<\/p>\n

And now to nurse this bruised and bloody bottom lip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a challenge. Witnessing the difficulty in controlling habitual reactions. I feel I did well… but only relatively. In the grand scheme of things I know I can do much better. With yesterday’s events still in my mind, I entered a very passive open state of mind. In my mind, I recreated the events […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[87,636,637],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3708"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3719,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions\/3719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerslife.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}