After the last session asking Anah if we can touch, she started to get a little more aggressive with her ‘No, don’t touch me’, towards her human. She was saying ‘you can give me treats but I am not yet ready for you to touch me as much as you may want to.’
This leads to what can be a difficult thing to interpret. Is it about the treats? Is it about how she is being asked? Is it about touch? Is it about the shared feeling around the touch? Actually it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we say:
“OK. Whatever it is, it is ok. We don’t need to keep pushing that, we can back off and look at things in a different way. We can have a different conversation today, and come back to that another time, when we are both ready.“
As humans we like to get a result. Animals don’t look for a result. They don’t have an ‘end goal’. They are just here today, right here, right now, and they deal with what is right in front of them. Sometimes, what is right in front of them triggers a memory, which they then need to talk about. All we need to do is listen.
The element of ‘regard’ in the Trust Technique can be a difficult one to practice and work with, with an animal who has a lot to say like Anah, an animal who wants to be peaceful, but has layers of ‘stuff’ to let go of. Sometimes she will share your peace, and you can think she has found her peace, and then the next day she will be unable to be peaceful for more than a few seconds before something comes into her feelings that causes her to be unpeaceful. One day she may lay down with you and go into a healing process. That is one layer. There may be more, there may not. Every animal is an individual, like every one of us is an individual.
Anah showing her feelings so strongly is not a personal attack. It is not something we as humans have failed at, or not understood, or not achieved. This is Success. This is her showing you that she trusts you more and more with her feelings about things. If she didn’t want you to know how she feels, she would walk away. If she didn’t want you to help her release this feeling, she would walk away. If she didn’t trust that you could help her, she would walk away.
At the beginning of this video I am interested in seeing if we can get Anah to share some more of how she feels right now. I use her curiosity to get a focus from her. I put an intent out asking her to come and have a conversation. Then I sit on a log and just be present within myself. And then wait. The intent is out there. It is now up to her. This is when our animals teach us patience.
Once she joins me I then move away a couple of times. But I am constantly ‘regarding’ her. And although I am not on camera, I am copying her. So if she drinks, I mimic drinking. When she puts her tongue out I do that also. When she is licking the minerals, I am also copying that action, and feeling what that is like.
It is a different way of teaching yourself ‘Regard’. And it is a way of learning to match ‘thinking levels’. It also changes the way you are thinking about her. It takes you out of yourself and connects you to the animal.
When Esther starts to do the same, Anah really starts to show her feelings. She has a lot to say about her personal space. She is showing us that her personal space is important to her and she is not ready yet to share that. By regarding her, agreeing with her by mimicking her actions, listening to her, and saying ‘ that is okay’, she starts to slow her reactions and slowly we come back to a calmer place with a slow blinking eye, telling us she is more at peace now than she was, with her personal space issues, and that she trusts that she is being listened to. (Some of this became more apparent when I watched the video back, than at the time – which is what I love about videos).
So where does all that leave us. Well there are some questions we can ask ourselves with regards to shared feelings:
- How did I feel when Anah showed all that aggression?
- How do I feel about my own personal space?
- How do I feel about Anah not wanting to share her personal space yet?
All these can be asked and worked through, using the process set out in section two ‘Realisation Learning’ of the Trust Technique Video Course, or if they start to bring up some deeper emotions then section five ‘Trust in your life’. Our aim should be to be in the present, and if a thought or feeling comes up within ourselves, to let it slide through and away. It takes practice as we are retraining ourselves to be more in the moment and less worried about the outcome.
In the mean time, with Anah, everyday is a new day, every moment a new moment. Just keep practicing PM and Regard and the conversations will deepen. The only aim we should have is to help her find peace, and keep telling her we are here and we will try our best to listen.