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Changing ones mind
yagr
Veteran
in Philosophy
I know it's long...and unfortunately, it's probably not all necessary but I don't know what to take out.
One of the greatest challenges that I have had in recent years is getting along with my wife's dog. Until she got this dog, I don't think I had ever met an animal that I didn't like, or at least have compassion for. Such thoughts and feelings led me to become a vegetarian many years ago. Then he came into our lives.
The dog has brain damage of some sort. He was a rescue from a meth lab and we suspect that he got into the product before being abandoned at four weeks old. He is sixty kilo's, frightened of everything, clingy to a degree I've never seen before in any creature...I could go on but let me stop to say that my wife has trained service dogs before and knows how to train a dog - this one is absolutely incapable of learning.
By way of an example: if I call him into the kitchen, he'll leave my wife's side to come (only if I have food) and will take the shortest route to get to the food - which means that I need to be visible, because if there is a wall between us he will run into the wall repeatedly until I come around the corner and he can see a clear path to me. If our cat rubs against him he will shake violently if he see's her coming, and pee on himself if it takes him by surprise. Yesterday I cleaned up after him when his nerves set him off and he peed three times in the house and threw up twice. Incidentally, we got him at the shelter at eight weeks old and have had him for almost three years.
One of the struggles with him that I've had with him is related to my rapidly deteriorating health. I am disabled and suffer from chronic pain. Often I simply do not have the strength to get up to make myself something to eat - even if it's already cooked. But when he throws up, I must get up before he rolls in it. When he jumps on me, all sixty kilo's of him, it hurts. He's punctured my legs with his claws so many times trying to crawl into me that they are permanently scarred - perhaps a hundred puncture wounds or more are permanent. A consequence of my health condition is that my equilibrium is shot and he knocks me down or bowls me over at least once a day.
I suppose most of that was to try and keep you all from thinking poorly of me for calling the dog brain damaged and saying that I didn't like him. But here's the deal: I absolutely hated this dog. Unfortunately, he means more than I could convey to my wife. As a result, I wanted to like him. I tried. In the past, I've found that changing my behavior is helpful in order to change my mind. There's an expression, "Live your way into a new way of thinking". It is often said by folks who share that bit, "You can't think your way into a new way of living." In other words, what you think doesn't matter - it's what you do that matters. And I tried. "No honey, let me take him out and toss the ball around to him for a while." or offering to take him for a ride in the car or... etc. Nothing worked and after six months of this I gave up. Another six months and my wife, who had internalized her sadness about my relationship with the dog, broke down and cried.
I reached a new level of determination. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up, I no longer hated the dog. I even liked him. His behavior hasn't changed - he still hurts me regularly, he's still neurotic, he's still everything he was - but I'm not. It's been six months now and I still like the dog despite his difficult behavior.
I want to know how I did this. It flies in the face of everything I have experienced thus far in life but it seems valuable beyond measure. Change my mind at night - wake up in the morning and my mind and life is different. What is your interpretation of what happened? Is it reproducible? Thank you.
One of the greatest challenges that I have had in recent years is getting along with my wife's dog. Until she got this dog, I don't think I had ever met an animal that I didn't like, or at least have compassion for. Such thoughts and feelings led me to become a vegetarian many years ago. Then he came into our lives.
The dog has brain damage of some sort. He was a rescue from a meth lab and we suspect that he got into the product before being abandoned at four weeks old. He is sixty kilo's, frightened of everything, clingy to a degree I've never seen before in any creature...I could go on but let me stop to say that my wife has trained service dogs before and knows how to train a dog - this one is absolutely incapable of learning.
By way of an example: if I call him into the kitchen, he'll leave my wife's side to come (only if I have food) and will take the shortest route to get to the food - which means that I need to be visible, because if there is a wall between us he will run into the wall repeatedly until I come around the corner and he can see a clear path to me. If our cat rubs against him he will shake violently if he see's her coming, and pee on himself if it takes him by surprise. Yesterday I cleaned up after him when his nerves set him off and he peed three times in the house and threw up twice. Incidentally, we got him at the shelter at eight weeks old and have had him for almost three years.
One of the struggles with him that I've had with him is related to my rapidly deteriorating health. I am disabled and suffer from chronic pain. Often I simply do not have the strength to get up to make myself something to eat - even if it's already cooked. But when he throws up, I must get up before he rolls in it. When he jumps on me, all sixty kilo's of him, it hurts. He's punctured my legs with his claws so many times trying to crawl into me that they are permanently scarred - perhaps a hundred puncture wounds or more are permanent. A consequence of my health condition is that my equilibrium is shot and he knocks me down or bowls me over at least once a day.
I suppose most of that was to try and keep you all from thinking poorly of me for calling the dog brain damaged and saying that I didn't like him. But here's the deal: I absolutely hated this dog. Unfortunately, he means more than I could convey to my wife. As a result, I wanted to like him. I tried. In the past, I've found that changing my behavior is helpful in order to change my mind. There's an expression, "Live your way into a new way of thinking". It is often said by folks who share that bit, "You can't think your way into a new way of living." In other words, what you think doesn't matter - it's what you do that matters. And I tried. "No honey, let me take him out and toss the ball around to him for a while." or offering to take him for a ride in the car or... etc. Nothing worked and after six months of this I gave up. Another six months and my wife, who had internalized her sadness about my relationship with the dog, broke down and cried.
I reached a new level of determination. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up, I no longer hated the dog. I even liked him. His behavior hasn't changed - he still hurts me regularly, he's still neurotic, he's still everything he was - but I'm not. It's been six months now and I still like the dog despite his difficult behavior.
I want to know how I did this. It flies in the face of everything I have experienced thus far in life but it seems valuable beyond measure. Change my mind at night - wake up in the morning and my mind and life is different. What is your interpretation of what happened? Is it reproducible? Thank you.
3
Comments
That said, your wife is being spectacularly inconsiderate of you, and the fact that you feel no hostility towards the dog shouldn't keep you from finding a way for you to live without harming each other.
If it is reproducible. Patent it. Bottle it. A winner for sure.
Metta to all three of you.
Well, I didn't really 'fight' him, but he tried to push his considerable weight through me while I tried to hold him back. I told him to lay down three times, each time saying it a bit more assertive. The third time he started shaking and cowering. When I turned around to try to comfort him he ran into the open woodstove. And I thought my children were all grown up...
@anataman - 'sounds like your oldest child' had me laughing out loud.
I suspect that our brains aren't that smart sometimes; you know like when we force a smile it can influence our emotions (like our brain doesn't know the difference between a real smile and a forced one); I think the brain is a bit like with with forced behavior too. Maybe?
I remember speaking with Cheri Huber (Zen Mountain Monastery) once in reference to my becoming a dedicated vegetarian, which I did somewhere in the middle of her essay, 'One Less Act of Violence' (which can be found online and is, in my estimation, excellent). She said then, that it was likely that the essay was simply the impetus for a change which I had been considering for some time. In truth, it had never occurred to me before that moment.
She indicated that there was another way that it could have happened as well, but didn't elaborate. Her time was short and I never got the opportunity to ask her to elaborate, but I'm even more interested in the answer now.
Many times, I've found that trying to figure out why is akin in some ways to looking back at my footsteps in the sand and wondering who made them.