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 Practice Dog awareness ^ If you take a genetic dog for a walk you will observe something. Dogs notice everything... every bush, every plant, every fire hydrant. Take the same animal on the same walk as many times as you like and it is always a new experience for him. Dogs live in the here and now. When we practice "dog awareness", we notice that our mind is usually somewhere else. Try eating a meal and tasting every mouthful. Talk to a friend and hear every word, look at their body language, listen to ALL that they are communicating. Listen to a song, hear every note, listen to how if fits together. Take a walk and see every tree, see how the sun light plays through the leaves, smell the air, how long ago was the grass cut, on the breeze can you catch the scent of the Hot Dog stand that is just around the corner, what of the scent of the runner that just passed? Affirm to yourself: "I have plenty of time" and relax and let experience all you can, exercise your senses. As you make such affirmations they drift into your subconscious, you can make additional ones, like quitting smoking, sticking to your training program at the Gym or with your Master. So often we just run on auto pilot, we go through the motions whilst our brain is out to lunch. This is fine sometimes, like when your Master calls you to Heel! you respond instantly, when he commands Down! you drop to your knees like you have lost your legs. This is a sign of a well trained dog, but does the dog not also fully experience the total feeling of kneeling at his Master side, the movement of people around him in the club or at the park ? The more you practice this the better it gets. With our lives we are so "Results Orientated", like your Boss has never said "I am a Results Guy", and yet when you start playing with your subconscious, it is quite different. You cannot chase results. You know there are long term benefits, but your attention must be in the present, in the hear and down. The act itself has its own reward. For once, you are not trying to "get" something - you are "being" rather than "doing". When you were a boy and saw your dog curled up at your feet or resting in front of the fire, it is hard to imaging that such a creature is a stress victim and yet when a slave gets a job, and may choose a career that has tough expectations, you get carried away and become a 'stress victim'. Where you cannot sleep ok, cannot concentrate, get depression and your body then begins to suffer - this process can happen slowly that you integrate it into your life. It need not be this way, although dogs are always enthusiastic, they are not "Urgency Based", then do not live in a hurry. Becoming "Dog Aware", life takes as long as it takes, in the Office, that pile of paper will still be there in the morning, there is no point rushing for the bus, the train. If you have not time to relax, you absolutely must do it! Well your Master is out to control your mind as he trains you, this can be for all sorts of reasons, often to help you through your training. There are also other reasons:
Getting that new car, that new bit of HiFi, that new hood, that bit of software is just substituting. If only I had X and then I would be happy... in 24 hours you would have forgotten about it and be bitching about something else. From our earliest memories we are conditioned to thing that 'X' will make it better, then the mother gives the small child the candy bar, to divert the attention. We all live in the same world, in this town we all have the same sunshine, this field has the same grass. As time goes on you realise that it is thoughts that make us unhappy - and these we can change. In general it seems that:
The Mindfulness that Dog Awareness and livining in the moment brings helps brings you to a calmer mind that is in balance. These things help you both with your life and in your journey as a slave.
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