Tag Archives: Fear

What I Learned from Obi

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“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” ― Pema Chödrön

Anyone can be our teacher, even a dog.

Two years ago today, we had to let Obi go.  Nine months earlier, he had been diagnosed with t-cell multicentric lymphoma, a treatable but incurable canine cancer.  We’d had Obi since he was eleven weeks old and he was our first dog.  That experience, from the moment our vet spoke the words “I’m so sorry, but it’s lymphoma” until he was gone, planted the seed for the life-rehab I am doing now.  I couldn’t stand for such an amazing being to have lived and loved, then suffered and died without it having an impact.  I had to change my life, otherwise it was like I was saying none of that mattered, that he didn’t matter.

Obi was my teacher, in both his life and his death.  Here’s some of what I learned from him:

Most of what you fear isn’t worth the energy, isn’t even real. Obi never outgrew was his fear of loud noises: fireworks, gunshots, wind and thunder, fans and hair dryers. Sometimes he would get himself so worked up, panting and shaking, that his teeth would chatter. Watching his fear take him over when I knew there wasn’t anything real to worry about, I learned to see that my own fears were monsters created by my own imagination, tragedies written and cast by me.  I became aware of how and where I was generating my own suffering.

Picture by Cubby

Make friends with everyone. This was Obi’s strategy about life: when you meet someone new, try to be friends, and stay friends, and the more friends you have (people, dogs, cats, foxes, birds, etc.), the better. He was all about the love. I learned from him that things just go better if you can make someone your friend.  Once they are your friend, you can relax, not worry or be afraid or on guard. You can just hang out in the backyard or look out the window together or cuddle, and everything will be good.

This moment is all there is, and it is more than enough. I have learned this from all my dogs, actually.  They absolutely and always live in the present moment.  To them, there is nothing better than what is happening right now.  My dogs have taken thousands of walks, and yet every time I suggest one, they act like they just won the doggy lottery.  They dance for their breakfast, even though I feed them the same thing every day.  When I come home, even if I was only gone for an hour, they act like we haven’t seen each other in years, wiggling and jumping and kissing, sometimes almost knocking me over with their joy.

None of us knows how much time we have, so make the most of it. One reason we rescued a mixed breed dog is because they are supposed to live longer, have fewer health problems.  And when we took Obi to the vet to have a small lump in his shoulder checked–not even worried about it enough to make a special trip, but rather “since we are here, why not check that too”–Obi had just turned seven years old, and as far as we knew, was super healthy, in the prime of his life.  Nine months later, he was gone.  We just never know what is around the corner, what will happen tomorrow.  The nine months we had with Obi when we knew he would be gone soon were intense and amazing.  We did all of his favorite things and spent as much time together as we could. I was right there with him, in those moments, no matter how sad or scary, and it was worth it, every minute, including the last one.

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
~Mary Oliver

There is a “This I Believe” essay called “We’re Getting Another Dog.”  It is so good, so right. It explains why Obi, as special as he is and as sad as his loss has left me, wasn’t the only dog, and explains why what Obi ultimately taught us is that there will always be another dog.  It’s okay to let go and do it again, even as your heart is breaking.

“Because getting another dog is the decision to run full bore towards love and commitment. It’s knowing that in 8, 10, 12 years, FOR SURE that dog is going to die and you’re going to be writhing in pain again…And even knowing how devastating that loss is going to be, even though it makes you sick to just think about it, you CAN’T WAIT to do it again…I believe that getting another dog is a physical act of pure hope and resilience. It’s a statement that I can and will bounce back from the worst of it…Getting another dog is believing in life and the real meaning of it. I can’t think of any other decision I have made in my lifetime in the name of love with such an inevitably painful outcome…Getting another dog is an act of unconditional optimism. It’s seeing the goodness and being grateful for all the blessings…Knowing this simple truth makes me appreciate all I have at this moment and makes it easier to face all the inevitable grief that is part of life.”

Shadow Comforts and Time Monsters

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I mentioned yesterday that I had watched “Wise Person Call with Brene Brown,” a video of Jennifer Louden talking with Brene’ Brown.  In it, they talked about Shadow Comforts and Time Monsters, who, from the sounds of it, are the younger siblings of these two:

Picture by Cubby

Jennifer Louden wrote her first book, The Woman’s Comfort Book, when she was 25. “I had no idea how to take care of myself. I wrote the book to discover how – and as I learned about self-care and self-nurturing, I realized how much of the time I comforted myself in ways that actually made me feel worse…I discovered that healthy comfort and shadow comfort are different in how they make you feel. More alive, more centered, more you? Healthy comfort. Dull, self-hating, anxious? Shadow comfort,” (from an interview with Jennifer on Marianne Elliott’s website).

In her published books, she describes shadow comfort this way:

  • “A shadow comfort is anything that masquerades as a cherishing self-care technique but in fact drains your energy”
  • “Shadow comforts are encumbrances like eating too many sweets, watching too much TV, shopping for things we don’t need, surfing the Internet for hours, reading too much — numbing out. Another word for these behaviors is soft addictions or buffers [or counterfeit comforts],” and “Shadow comfort doesn’t nourish you, it diminishes you. It’s what many people think of when they think of comfort. They are actually punishing themselves instead of nourishing their souls.”

In my attempt to learn self-care, this is an important distinction.  When I was looking up more definitions for it, looking into it further, I found an old article by Jennifer Louden in which she provided an exercise to help you identify your shadow comforts.  In a continued effort to be brave and vulnerable, to be public and accountable, and thereby hopefully some kind of inspiration to someone else wanting to do the same, and as a way to help you understand shadow comforts if the concept still doesn’t make sense, here are my responses to the exercise.

1. List your favorite shadow comforts.

  • EATING, and eating, and eating.
  • Feeling sorry for myself, depression, worry and anxiety.
  • Sleep.
  • Illness.
  • Mindless TV watching, internet surfing.
  • Mindless chores, busywork.
  • Doing for others, taking care of them.
  • Working out.
  • Shame, blame and anger.
  • Smashing myself to bits.
  • Shopping online, buying books or signing up for classes.
  • Alcohol, sugar.
  • Procrastination and avoidance.

2. What are four or five situations or feelings that trigger a shadow comfort response in me?

  • My job.
  • Family problems that I feel helpless to fix.
  • Fear of failure, fear of success.
  • Shame, feeling not worthy or not enough.
  • Poverty mentality, a sense of scarcity, that there won’t be enough.

From Jennifer Louden about shadow comforts, “We often choose to do things that numb us or distract us because we are afraid.”  Based on my lists: um yeah, yup, okay, I see it, “whoomp there it is,” duh.  She goes on to say:

I know, cue smoting of forehead! How obvious but still, like many obvious ideas, huge when you get it.

We eat sugar or check email for the 1000000000000 time because we are afraid.

Afraid of our feelings, our power, our desires, our longings.

Afraid of intimacy, change, beauty, joy, the sweetness of life.

Afraid of anger, disappointment, judgment, shame.

Afraid of being afraid!

Sure, we choose shadow comforts for other reasons too (being tired, not knowing what we really want, being revved up, lack of self-permission, not thinking). And yet, behind even these, often lurks fear.

Then, there are the Time Monsters. Jennifer describes them as “Closely related but slightly different from shadow comforts are time monsters – anything we pretend is a creative, generative use of our time but is actually a way to dodge doing what we really want to do…I’ve coached many women whose lives consisted almost entirely of time monsters because they were too afraid to do what they really wanted to do – for fear of failure, for fear of what their mother/husband/children might think, for fear that when their long-held dream was realized, it would become tarnished by daily living…We spend our lives doing things that don’t matter, and meanwhile, our desires are sobbing, locked away in the basement.”

WAH!!!!  This is what I have been doing for at least the past 20 years.  20 years!  My good grades, my good behavior, my generosity, graduate school, in many ways my job…bleh. Time Monsters. Not a waste of time, just a manifestation of a basic confusion, a huge misunderstanding. I bought into what I thought I was supposed to do, what I thought would make people accept and love me, what would make them like me, think I’m cool or special.  I wanted to be smart, pretty, and popular, and I sacrificed the work that really mattered to me because I thought it would get me there. 

Photo by Toni Verdu

Again, I want to sink into thinking “what a waste of time,” but I remind myself that it was all necessary, that “It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now, and now is right on time.”

There’s hope, there’s a plan, a practice, a way out. You can learn self-care, real and true “I love myself and I am worth it and I am going to show up” kind of care. In another article, Jennifer gives a strategy:

When I look at my habits or practices as something I am teaching myself, instead of as fatal flaws that I can never change, I create enough space to identify what I am doing that doesn’t feel nourishing. Then, if I choose to, I can move into the mood of being a creator, of shaping my life, by asking some of these questions:

Is this teaching me what I want to learn?

Is this helping me live my truest life?

Is this giving me energy?

And the most powerful question of all:

What do I really want?

I have to admit that right now, it feels like I really want a cookie, or an entire chocolate cake, but I know that would be a shadow comfort. Instead, I am off to see Ira Glass, the host of one of my very favorite radio shows “This American Life,” one of my very favorite things, with a good friend.