Analyzing My Dog's Eating Behavior, and My Reactions - Day 157

Hazel basil!

Tonight I want to write about my dog. I was inspired to finally do this after reading this post, because my dog is getting older every day (she is 9, nearing 10), I do not want for her to pass away, and I realize that I care more about her in my imagination of her passing than I do in her actual presence here with me, alive.

In the past I have begun to write about my dog because I have struggled to understand her eating behavior, and I have wanted to figure out what's going on with her relationship to food and how I can support her. 

I've begun to write, and then seen the obvious, and then scratched writing because I felt I already knew what to do (well, that is not the whole truth; I will get to that). The main thing I thought I should do is return to regularly scheduled feeding times, as that is how her eating was when I first got her (when she was already 5 years old), but eventually transformed into irregular feeding / keeping her bowl full for the most part. She seems to get anxious about food this way, and seems to stand and stare at a full bowl and whine at me, sometimes until I coax her to eat her food / give her permission, and sometimes she will not eat until I am also eating something (this I sometimes see as neat because sometimes I am delaying eating and am hungry and am risking a migraine, and she whines at me like as if to remind me that it is important to eat; but maybe that is just my imagination!). 

Sometimes she will go a day or two without touching her food, although lately, since I have begun to feed her more consistently every morning and every evening (would I previously go a day or two without giving her food...? I don't think that long, but perhaps I was not consistent enough for her to trust that she would be fed!), she seems to eat at least one serving (bowl) per day. Some days I come home from work and she still has not touched the food from that morning. Some mornings I wake up and she has not touched the food from the previous night. 

I don't know what happened with her previous owner. Although she was never without a sheltered space to live and someone who I assume fed her, she was basically abandoned, so I don't have a lot of information about her life before I met her. 

Truthfully though, my primary aim in trying to figure out her eating behavior has not been to support her. Primarily I have reached the point of figuring this out not out of curiosity or a desire to make her life the best quality I can provide. Instead I have in the past come to the point of figuring this out because I get so frustrated by her whining. Because I am more interested in doing whatever it is that I am doing, as if it is so important, indeed more important than this other life to whom I am the sole provider of care and who depends and relies on me for her livelihood, entertainment, protection, understanding, etc.  

So self-judgment on that point has been part of why I have stopped myself from actually figuring it out and making practical commitment / solutions to try. Instead I shut myself up in shame / guilt and a belief that I am a terrible person / pet owner. 

I have kind of tried to implement one basic change that I discovered through my preliminary writing, which is to return to a more regular feeding schedule. She seems to do better with regular feeding. However she still treats her food with mostly a seeming disdain, until I add fish oil capsules or some coconut oil, or scraps from my own meals. 

When I first took her into my care, she was eating Iams, which I have heard, although I've not researched for myself, is filled with things that are rather bad for dogs; maybe even roadkill. I think that I bought one large bag of some fancy kibble from some specialty pet store, then switched her over to raw food. I had met a dog a few months prior who was on a raw (homemade) diet and its fur was extremely soft; I couldn't believe how soft. So I wanted my dog's fur to be this soft. Interesting to recall this now, since her fur is actually why I started writing this particular post. Now in reflecting I see that this dog's fur was very much a different texture and length and style from my dog's fur. I thought that raw food would like magically make her fur soft and fluffy and light, but her fur is naturally straight and coarse. It's kind of medium in length, but sticks relatively close to her body. Labrador fur, basically, and australian cattle dog -- the two breeds I was told she's a mixture of. 

She was on raw (store-bought) food for quite a few months and she was voracious about her meals during that time. I purchased raw food patties, basically, and also turkey necks (which she preferred to traipse off with into corners of the house to enjoy by herself, but due to the mess factor I could not allow this), which I kept frozen, then thawed, then gave to her. She would generally consume her meals during this time in literally under 5 seconds. The whole thing was quite an ordeal that involved a lot of scheduling and cleaning. It was also extremely expensive, so much so that I was not really able to feed her quite enough (although as far as I know, dogs who eat enough raw food are still rather skinny, as was the one with soft fur that I first met). So, eventually I switched her back to kibble.

I don't know a lot about dog kibble beyond what the employees at the fancy specialty pet stores tell me. I've had her on at least 3 different highly recommended kibbles. Whenever we first make a change, she is usually excited and eager for about the first week, if that. However, every time, she eventually treats her food with somewhat of a disdain again. Leaving the dish full, avoiding it, just looking at it or ignoring it. 

Some other points to mention include a behavior she has toward her dish that she has displayed ever since we first moved to Denver (I don't recall her doing this in Seattle... I believe I had her on a timed feeding schedule for all of our time there, so perhaps it is part of this food anxiety from the change in feeding schedule that promotes this behavior?). She will nudge her food dish around with her nose, often ending up with the dish pushed under a shelf or otherwise inaccessible, or with the dish knocked upside down, often covering the food, so that in these instances her food becomes inaccessible to her and as far as I can tell she has eaten none. (hmmm, like burying her food??) She used to pretty much only do this while I was away at work, and I would also come home to find items (such as socks) that I had left on the floor put into her water dish (these I believe she was trying to nudge over her food dish, but her water dish at the time was positioned right next to it in a kind of wrought iron holder). This is unusual, but most alarming to me is that this has often resulted in her creating a little open wound on the tip of her nose which bleeds and scabs over. I don't suppose she's actually trying to hurt herself, but it bothers me that this is the result, perhaps in part because of my own history of intentionally hurting myself, and also seeing for example incidents wherein children have inadvertently hurt themselves due to engaging in maladaptive coping behaviors. 

Okay, so she is probably not trying to injure herself. She is probably, most apparently, trying to bury her food. Save it for later? Again this points to not trusting that she will be fed regularly -- so to go back to a strict timed feeding schedule. 

Another point to mention is that it seems that no matter what kibble I give to her, she eats dog poop at the park, and with the kibble she currently eats, she is also a voracious grass eater, every day, most opportunities she can get (so, I don't think it's that she's sick, because she very rarely throws it up). Recently she has also started to eat dirt, although it's not just any dirt, it seems like she'll find a spot she likes and come back to it -- so perhaps there is something else in that spot that I am unaware of. Some people I have talked to suggest that this might mean she is missing nutrients in her regular food, but this is frustrating to me since I buy her very expensive and highly recommended food. I suppose I need to learn more about what exactly is in it, and what exactly she might need. 

She also will eat any food trash she can access, and I have always had to use a baby gate or somehow otherwise make the trash inaccessible. This might again point to a lack of nutrients. It could also indicate that she is very bored with the taste and/or texture of her kibble, which could be the consequence of having been "spoiled" with raw food. It could also say something about her food-related anxiety, like that she will eat whatever she can get, except the food that is actually given to her, which she seems to either reject as worthless, or set aside for later as very valuable... How to tell which, I'm not sure. 

One thing I see repeatedly here is that I am frustrated by her behavior, when her behavior is most likely an indication that she is probably very frustrated herself. 

And so then that leads me to why I really started this post, which is her skin / fur. Part of why I choose to buy her such expensive food is because every pet store employee I talk to tells me that this or that kibble should be good for her fur, and make it soft. 

She has very bad dandruff. Usually even just 2 or 3 days after a bath, her fur is oily and/or dry and flaky. She also absolutely loves rolling in grass, although one person pointed out that she might actually be allergic to grass and this act of herself trying to scratch her own back might actually be making her condition worse. Or, she might have some other kind of allergy about which I am unaware.

(It has been presumed by many that she has an allergy because she is basically bald around her eyes. But, in the almost 5 years that I've known her and the variety of different foods she has eaten, this has never really changed.)

The main point for me here is that I do not like to pet, scratch, or even really touch her once her fur gets to a certain degree of being dirty, which happens quickly. So now I have a dog living under my care who does not like to eat the food I give her, and whom I do not touch as much as she would obviously like and deserves. 

The interesting thing here is that when I first got her, she was very very very un-trusting of me, and did not really let me touch her hardly at all, as much as I wanted to. So I took a long time gaining her trust, only to now be abusing it because I know that she loves me and needs me and wants my attention, and yet I do not give it to her because of details she cannot control -- details which in fact probably bother her a lot more than they bother me, because it is obvious that her skin is very uncomfortable and itchy for her. 

Here at least is a nice example of a time that we
learned and were challenged together to conquer
an apparent fear of swimming with a blatant
love of squeaky tennis balls. :)

(And here I could go off into a tangent about the quality of my relationship with her in general, what it is like for us to exist together in this home, and how it is unsatisfactory and really not acceptable that we are not more of a "team" so to speak, for lack of my own participation in creating / sustaining that kind of relationship.) 

Presently I try to give her a bath about every 2-3 weeks, although tomorrow I am planning to give her another one after only 1 week having passed because her fur is so dry and itchy. I have a "medicated" shampoo that has green tea and tea tree oil in it, but it does not have oatmeal which is one of the #1 things I have heard recommended (and which when I have used in the past has worked well), so I will have to also purchase some of that kind of shampoo and maybe switch back and forth. 

I also have to continue to stick to a routine feeding schedule, and I should probably also go back to having her sit and wait before releasing her to eat as this is what she was used to from when I fed her raw food and had her on a timed eating schedule, and is perhaps why she sometimes just stands there and whines at me until I encourage / coax her to eat. 

I can also investigate food ingredients and nutritional needs and see what other foods I might try. I can also continue to supplement her food with tasty treats that will entice her to eat the entire dish. 

I can rule out that the kibble is too hard, as compared to raw food, because she is a lover of bones and spends the majority of her day gnawing at them, so I am certain that her teeth are quite strong, but perhaps there is another point to look at in that realm, I do not know. 

I can be sure to brush her regularly too so as to release shedded hair so that it does not add to her itchiness (or my floor!). 

I can also suck it up and give my dog some physical attention multiple times throughout the day, and just wash my hands after since they become so dusty and dirty from touching her even less than a week after her last bath. 

I also really need to be on top of getting her nails trimmed regularly, which I have already determined will happen every other Monday morning, because I see that when they get too long her nails begin to bend toward or away from each other, which invariably affects her toes and joints and I have heard that this is how dogs get arthritis, among other avenues. 

I can also take her on more and longer walks, and we can also go running again like we did for a short while months ago. 

I can also be more observant and make greater efforts to understand her, rather than just becoming frustrated by her whining and other "strange" behaviors, because these behaviors do communicate something if I am willing to listen. 

I mean honestly at this rate I am not an appropriate person to care for a dog, but I see how I can do better, and so I will, because she deserves the best as life. 

So my action plan is as follows, I commit myself to:

1. Possibly purchase a different food dish that will be harder to nudge around or flip over due to structure and the rubber ring around the bottom. 
2. Return to a timed feeding schedule within an hour frame, taking into consideration my own eating times and when I am most consistently home at that time each day out of the week. 
• Including having her sit and wait until she is released -- I hear dogs like structure like this. 
• What to do if I feed her in the morning and come home and the dish is still full...? Should I remove the dish after x amount of time (before I leave for work) even if she has not touched the food...? This would probably only be an issue for a week or two if I do that, and then she might learn that it is time to eat when I give her food. 
3. Investigate different food options / a variety of food options.
• Within this, investigate nutrients and what she might need that she might not be getting.
• Continue to cook for myself and reserve scraps for her ***to give during timed feeding (rather than just as I am cooking / cleaning up / done eating)*** so that she has greater variety 
• Or, should I do none of this at all...? 
• One person suggested that I feed her pulp from my juicer, if/when I ever start actually using my juicer (haha). 
• Investigate how to make her food -- like the person who fed their dog raw homemade food. 
• Supplement her food with various basic "human" food options, or invest in wet dog food / canned raw food to add to her kibble
4. Bathe her frequently
• Try some different shampoos to see what works best
• Try my neighbor's suggestion to bathe her 3 days in a row to see if this will help any (boy she'll love that haha). 
5. Per the suggestion of a fellow dog-park-er, each day rub her down with a damp cloth to remove any pollen or other possible allergy irritants (also dirt, dandruff, excess fur, etc.). 
6. Brush her frequently
7. Wash/replace the blankets in her crate where she sleeps (probably lots of oil and dirt etc. in there that contributes to her fur / skin getting dirty faster)
8. Give her lots of love in the form of scratches, pets, cuddles, and words / sounds. 
9. Give her lots of love in the form of longer walks, runs, or playing fetch. 
10. No longer accept or allow myself to think of myself first when she is communicating to me about her needs. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become frustrated when my dog whines at me or seems to want my attention for any reason.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel guilty and ashamed of that to the point where I not only have not wanted to write about it / share it here, but have even ignored it as true in myself by not changing myself and my relationship with her. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore the needs of this animal that is under my care, who needs me and relies and depends on me, who I abuse and neglect by not giving her everything I can give to her, especially that which she cannot give to herself. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel guilty about ignoring my dog and basically understand this as the reason that she does not seem as affectionate as some dogs, or as affectionate with me as she is toward some people who do not seem to mind the way her fur is. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to understand that and see that something needs to change in myself and the way that I care for her, but for having not really done this as best I can, so that nothing changes and instead we are like "just two roommates sharing a space," but this is not best for either of us. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use the action of giving to my dog as an opportunity to also give to myself, giving myself a relationship and companionship with this animal and the opportunity to see myself through and as this animal and our relationship. I do see myself through our relationship, and I do not like what I see. So now I change. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to care more about my own frustration as a reaction to my dog's behavior than I do about the fact that my dog's behavior clearly indicates that she herself is very frustrated, in ways that I can assist and support her to resolve. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to fully assist and support my dog to have a wonderful quality life because I am too busy either being frustrated or guilty or ashamed. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes imagine "what if" my dog died or got very sick and then died or died suddenly, how sad and upset I would be, and realizing in this imagination that I would regret the way our relationship was, and yet not do anything to change our relationship within that realization. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wait until death to resolve my inner battles. I saw this also in my last post: "No one close to me has ever died. The few people who have died, I wasn't that close to, and certainly after they died I told myself we weren't really that close at all anyway. I mean in part this is relevant to my inability to connect with other people on an intimate level of really feeling connected in such a way that I can't just basically flip a switch and suppress any negative reactions I might have over their death (and yet look what happens if someone betrays me or hurts me in some way, how interesting)." where I saw that in life I remain in battle with myself about another, but in death I finally let go. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wait until death occurs to face myself and forgive myself for who I am and have been, and realize that I never really needed to forgive another, that they are gone and I am still here with myself and the consequences of myself, so now that they are gone I can let that go, rather than letting it go unconditionally and changing now. 

I haven't experienced that, actually. That is speculation on my part. But I haven't not imagined my dad's death, for example, or even catastrophic "what ifs" about others, and in that imagination realized (or at least believed) that it would be very easy at that point to forgive and to let go of the energy. So why not now? It's an interesting point to look at, but quite separate from this post. 

Okay, that will do.... 

I've been feeling "out of it" in a way for the last few days, so even though there is much else going on, I determined that this was something I could write out in a productive way, whereas other points I am more just trying to live out right now. 

Alcohol, Apathy, Routines, and Yoga - Day 123

It's day 4 now of no alcohol. Aside from no alcohol, not a lot has changed. My routine remains basically the same, except that now after eating dinner and watching TV I manage to read quite a few blogs and do other random things before bed.

It hasn't been too bad not drinking. Yesterday was Monday and I definitely wanted to go home and just "relax" -- ie zone out. I was threatened verbally and then also broke up a fight at the school where I work yesterday and I noticed I used that as an excuse in part to "need" to "relax." But reality is I was fine, and I continue to enjoy my job. I was just falling back on the habit I created during the first week and at other periods of time within my life of escaping and zoning out.

I do notice today that I am rather apathetic about process, and within this all the more want to just zone out. I was going to agree with myself that I did not have to write a blog today, because nothing that I was working on was really panning out in clarity. What I've learned in the past of course is that this means I am not facing something; I am suppressing the point in front of me. The point in this case would be apathy. So, write on and solve apathy.

There are many reasons I could be apathetic, not the least of which is a resistance to change, and a resistance to see myself. If "I don't care," then why would I do that?

But another reason is that I am not really supporting myself in trying to change, in trying to use my time during the week effectively, and so I am reacting to this with apathy, thinking something along the lines of "what's the point?" and also "I might as well drink, I'm still not doing anything effective / productive."

At first I wrote "trying to use my time during the week after work effectively," but actually I am realizing that due to my work schedule, I could also easily utilize time before work. Instead, I sleep in. I mean it's not super late or anything; I typically get up around 7:10 or 7:30 so that I can leave between 8:15 and 8:45 depending on if I am trying to arrive early for a meeting. I am able to get ready in that amount of time without really watching the time, but in a leisurely manner eating breakfast, reading a blog or two, checking various sites online, wash my face, get dressed, pack up, and walk my dog. But I have a first alarm set for 6am, and considering that I still go to bed around or before 10, this is plenty of time for appropriate restful sleep. So, I could get up at 6, and use that time.

My after work routine then is typically this: Come home and either walk my dog right away, or try to start on my blog before taking a break to walk her (typically because she whines and I realize that I'm being neglectful and cruel... another point I resist looking at). I will finish my blog, usually a little later than I would like, and then take a shower. After showering I make dinner, watch a tv show, and still have some ice cream. Then when my show is over, I do whatever. Usually read some blogs (last night I read quite a few so that was cool) and do some stuff online. Then I get tired and go to bed by 10, where I "intend" on reading more blogs or reading from a book, but instead fill out my Way of Life app (another intention as well), check instagram, play candy crush, then play a crossword puzzle, then sleep.

What's missing from this? Art. Exercise. Variety. Cleaning / chores. Friends. Activities. Anything outside of this routine where I trap myself within my relationship to time and my belief that I cannot be productive on a work day. "Argue for your limitations, and, sure enough, they're yours." (Richard Bach) Of course I will not be productive if I do not believe I can be; I will not even try.

So today I am going to mix it up a little. Just a little. My original intention was to start a drawing, but now I am letting that go. Instead I am skipping the shower. I am going to make dinner and still engage in that routine. Then I plan to read blogs, including starting on Maya's friendship series, and maybe also her blame series as that also looks interesting and pertinent and supportive. I will take notes, as I have done sometimes when listening to interviews. Maybe I will get to some art, maybe not, I am not too concerned. I will still go to bed relatively early, with again the intent of reading from my book, which is pertinent to work. Then I will wake up with my 6am alarm, and practice yoga.

I used to only practice at home, and "I have been wanting to start that again," or, at least, this is what I keep telling others and myself. So now I will practice listening to myself, and I will support myself by hearing what I am communicating, and following through.

One problem I run into here is that when I used to practice at home, I always smoked first. This had some benefits, definitely, but even then I had friction within myself that I should not only be able to achieve that focus because of drugs.

So it's been hard for me to plan to come home after work and practice yoga. I'm tired by then, I've done a lot in my day already -- this is when I most want to just let loose and relax. However, in the morning, this is a great start to my day! And I am not yet worn out in any way from the events of the day. My body should be well rested, and this is a great time to be with myself, within and as my breath, at the very start of my day. So I am eager to see how this goes.

Then of course I will shower and continue on with my day, and see how this change assists and supports me to see more about myself and to change in other ways.

One step at a time, right?


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to turn to alcohol / substance when I have an unpleasant negative energetic experience of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to justify smoking because I have not written a commitment to myself to not smoke, and because it is now apparent that my job will not be drug testing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I have actually committed to not smoking, when in reality at least half of the reason I haven't smoked in so long is because I was concerned about potential drug testing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes sense the taste of alcohol in my mouth, both when I was drinking daily I would sense this taste near mid afternoon, or even now I will sense the taste intermittently every few days, and within this: I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react to this sense with a kind of nostalgia or missing alcohol or wishing I could drink alcohol, wanting to drink alcohol, desiring to make that taste real.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to seemingly uncontrollably drift to the thought, "wine would be nice right now," where here if I had wine I would drink it.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be trustworthy of my own trust for myself, because here I have to limit myself in even having alcohol in my possession because I do not trust myself not to abuse it within my own definition of substance abuse.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to move myself to use substances from a self dishonest starting point, whereby I actually am abusing substances because it is not purely for self honest enjoyment and relaxation but instead as a form of escape and evasion and neglect.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to listen to myself in terms of how I have said to myself and others that I want to get back into my home yoga practice. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think that this will just happen magically someday, rather than realizing that I need to actually make it happen by moving myself to enact and embody it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enter an experience of apathy and use this as an excuse to not try, within this wanting even to give up completely, simply because of a momentary experience of apathy.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to investigate the apathy and how I can assist and support myself to change my routines even more in ways that are non-judgmental.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge the things I DO, whereby I tell myself "I should not do that" rather than assisting and supporting myself by telling myself what I SHOULD do, within this "positively" supporting myself by giving myself a positive behavior rather than negating (negative support) the behaviors in which I already engage.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to expect myself to take away and disengage from a certain behavior without giving myself an appropriate functional alternative behavior.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to positively support myself through activities and supports that are enriching and enjoyable and have consequences which bring me to myself in the physical, such as exercise and yoga.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself within my yoga practice where I have established the belief / preference of only doing yoga at the studio because it is heated and I like having teachers who make up different flows each class, or the belief / preference that yoga at home is only fun or interesting, or I can only be focused within it, if I smoke first.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself limit myself within routines and the belief that I cannot accomplish anything during the work week because I am "too busy" and "too tired" and "work takes up too much of my energy."

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to even try something else.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I have to pick and choose what number of activities I engage in within a day, rather than allowing myself to be focused within each activity so as to complete it in a reasonable amount of time, rather than getting distracted or being unfocused such that it takes longer than is necessary and therefore I manifest for myself a lack of time to get other things done.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes loaf around in apathy or in judgment or beliefs about time, rather than stopping, breathing, and then directing myself in that moment to do whatever it is that I want to do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to constrain myself within judgments of how I should time, where there is a subtle energy of believing others also judge me for how I use my time, and others share these expectations I have created of myself, and so within this I am living up to the expectations of others, not seeing, realizing, and understanding that I am the one who created these expectations and so I am the one who can change them.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand how free I really am, instead entrapping myself within and as my mind as all of my judgments, in this case about time and priorities and my abilities.


When and as I see myself facing apathy and resistance to process, I stop and I breathe. I realize that if I am going back and forth within my mind about whether or not I "should" write a blog, I am being self dishonest. The self honest answer will be clear. So I commit myself to writing through the resistance when I identify my experience as resistance, which in this case means that I have not been clear in my decision to or not to write. I commit myself to always coming back to the point in front of me, even if there are other points I have been putting off. I realize too that sometimes it is precisely the putting off of other points that leads me to an experience of apathy or resistance. However, once I have created and manifested the consequential experience of apathy / resistance, that is the point I must face. I commit myself to writing through my resistance as my resistance and about my resistance until I no longer lack clarity in who I am, until I can see myself, and until I see that I am once again my own self directive principle in my process and in my life.

When and as I see myself desiring alcohol consumption, I stop and I breathe. I realize that I am not stable within my relationship to myself as my consumption of alcohol. I realize at this point I cannot trust myself with alcohol. I commit myself to continuing to see myself as my relationship to alcohol and investigating this so that I can come to a point of stability. Presently I do not know what this will look like. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hope / believe within my mind that this will eventually look like me being able to enjoy alcohol from a self honest starting point periodically. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to establish this hope as a line by which I will walk so as to manifest this, setting myself up thus for the possibility of continuing to abuse alcohol out of my own self interest in allowing myself access. I commit myself to clear the point of alcohol the best that I can before purchasing alcohol again, if I ever do purchase alcohol again.

When and as I see myself resisting engaging in a home yoga practice, I stop and I breathe. I realize this is something I have been practically begging of myself to begin again -- for months! -- and that I have ignored and neglected myself by not listening and not acting on this communication. I realize that part of my ignorance of myself here is probably within the realization that my home yoga practice is supportive, and so it will support me in changing myself, and so within and as my mind I resist this productive effective way of supporting myself. I commit myself to first tonight finding some of my old favorite youtube yoga videos, and then tomorrow morning practicing from those videos. I commit myself to being with myself in all moments, and especially then in these moments, so that it is fully supportive and I can see for myself why I have been asking this of myself.

When and as I see myself feeling stuck within my routine, I stop and I breathe. I realize this routine doesn't matter, it isn't real, I created it. I commit myself to mixing things up to see how I can effectively and productively support myself in all moments, and to see how the world does not end when I stray from my routines. I commit myself to seeing how I can really actually live and be free, if I allow myself to be.

When and as I see myself neglecting and becoming frustrated with my dog's whining for attention, I stop and I breathe. I ask myself what she might need -- are there any basic needs I have not supported her in meeting? I then go over to her. I give her attention. I pet her and scratch her behind the ears, on her back, and on her belly. I talk to her. I realize I am all she has. I commit myself to further investigating my relationship with her, my relationship with animals, and how this relationship can assist and support me, and her, in my process and our lives.


Relevant past posts:
I am a Brick Wall: Seeing Myself by Seeing My Experience of Myself - Day 36
Routines as "Rules" - Day 94
Showing Up for Myself Part 5: Suppression, Depression, Mania, & Writing - Day 95
Self-Efficacy in Time Usage & Practical Daily Living - Day 99
SF in Response to Forum Post Pt. 1 - Day 112 (Listening to myself)

Ambivalence and Emotional Energy + Animal Relationships -- Free Write

I'm finished with my current writing section on DIP Lite. I'm trying to read through the next section and take notes on my response. It's going okay. But I need to write... about other things... Blah. I'll probably post some of my interaction with DIP Lite soon though. 

I got offered that job. And that's really awesome. That, coupled with spending a few hours in some sunshine: I was rolling in positive energy today. Great mood. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna take the job, even. Main thing keeping me from freaking out about it right now is that they're totally chill with me giving a full 2 weeks notice AFTER I pass the background check etc., and I already told my boss unofficially. So I don't have to feel like I'm jumping ship on a group of people who have been really good to me, a job that has been really good to me. Plus I have time to embrace the change gradually. And, a small voice says: time to back out. But let's not do that! And let's write about it later if we must. Moving on:

There's a couple things going on right now. One is that I'm absolutely exhausted with the emotional/feeling energy that's coming from a push/pull I'm creating. An ambivalence: what else is new? A like and a dislike. A desire, and at the same time disgust. Maybe not disgust, that's pretty harsh. But I KNOW certain things which I think any other person would see undeniably as a reason for A, and yet I still want B. And this is typical for me. Once B becomes, it is. Once the desire appears, it remains. It's mythologized, idealized. I commit myself and my energy and my loyalty to something that isn't even real. And every interaction is an exhausting dance between these poles, forever trying to figure out where they stand in relation to me (and what they can give me, what I can get from them, how they can make me whole). 

Separate. Not one and equal. Incomplete. So maybe that's the problem.

The weird thing is that one of the things that has persisted in confusing me about desteni is whenever polarities come up. I don't get it. I don't get the solution. Love vs hate: apparently we want neither. So then what DO we want? I'm sure I just don't understand. I'm sure I just don't get it yet. 

But I wonder if my continual struggle with ambivalence and indecision has anything to do with my utter blind spot when it comes to the concept of polarities. Maybe if I can figure out one I can figure out the other.

The other thing that's going on, and that has been going on, is a really ugly frustration with my dog. It makes me feel very ashamed and guilty. I think I know the answer, why she cries and whines. It's obvious and I just ignore it because I feel so ashamed and guilty. She has expensive food. She has plenty of water. She has a million bones, some of them filled with peanut butter and fish oil. She's been outside, she's run around, she's done her business. But she just sits and stares at me and whines. 

And it's obvious. She wants attention. I've been gone all day. She adores me. I'm all she has. But I come home and barely pay attention to her for more than 5 minutes. I take her to my mom's some days to make me feel better, but I know she doesn't get attention there either. It makes me think I shouldn't have a dog. Which is a terrible thought and feeling. It should make me think, OH HEY, play with your dog. The main deterrent there is that she's dirty. She has bad skin, she gets really flaky and oily. I say I can't afford to take her to the groomer, but I can wash her at home, or at least take her to a self-service dog wash. So I'll do that in the morning. 

But anyway. Dogs. Animals. They're us. She is me. I want attention. I do not get the attention I want. I plead for it and it doesn't come. I practically glare at my dog's beautiful eyes when she whines at me and think, "why can't you just be enough for yourself?" I am asking myself that question. And my relationship with my dog has had its ups and downs as far as the closeness I feel with her. I know that when I bond with her, I am bonding with myself. By taking care of her, I am taking care of myself. I am coming home, being home, she is home, I am home. If I am frustrated with her, I can only be frustrated with myself. If she needs me, I need me. So before PETA gets on this I'm gonna publish and give her (me) some love.