Thoughts on giving yourself a chance

Have you paused to ponder, how often you give yourself a chance, when doing something hard?

I caught myself this week blaming myself for lack of effort.

Then I thought about this.

How often I give other people in my life a chance to improve their skills on what is hard for them.

Yet I demand from myself an ungracious amount of effort and skills while I am just starting to learn a new skill.

If you find yourself being harsh on yourself, these three things have helped me to have patience with myself.

And to hold space for my growth in a sustainable way.

1️⃣ Find a powerful thought that you remind yourself of when you would be ready to blame yourself.

For me that has been something like this, lately: "I am learning a new skill and it is okay to take time."

2️⃣ Surround yourself with people who are growth minded.

I've joined a coaching group and listen to my coach sharing her wisdom in podcasts and coaching sessions.

3️⃣ Visualize the outcome of the process.

I'm clarifying to myself how this process is part of the bigger plan I have for the future and for today. When I realize how it also serves in learning the other skill sets I aim for, that boosts my patience.

Patience with yourself, while learning new things, helps you tremendously to enjoy the process.

Hugs!

Pia

What I have learned from life with dogs - part 3

If you've ever wondered what life is like with a puppy, this is our family's honest down to earth experience.

While I'm writing this blog it's almost four o'clock in the morning and our puppy Nala is crying close by in her puppy play pen.

She just woke up, needing to go out for one more successful round of "potty-training".

As I'm not a professional dog trainer, what I've learned is one take away from an everyday dog owner.

I've gathered wisdom from my puppy's breeders advice, several dog raising books and a few dog raising series on the Disney streaming channel.

There's no one way to understand dogs and to train them, I've learned, yet finding your way brings clarity.

So here comes some of my nuggets for you.

🐾 Your puppy's and dog's needs come before your wants.

If I want to play with the puppy while they're already over tired and stimulated, what is the best choice?

I choose to put her to her playpen to learn to fall asleep on her own.

This way she doesn't end up biting my hands when her tiredness tales over uncontrollably.

🐾 Good enough dog ownership is what you'll want to aim for.

If you'll consider that you'll be a dog owner for the next decade, establishing good routines that are doable is the long term key.

It helps your family and your dog.

What are the elements for your dogs wellbeing that you can follow through everyday?

My puppy is just a few months old, and can only run around in our yard for a sec. 

Since it's freezing outside, some minus degrees Celsius, she could easily get a urinary infection. 

Nevertheless, I'm training my dog owner skills with a habit of walking, preferably for a longer while.

I tell my family I'm going for Nala's walk.

They know it's thirty minutes.

🐾 Set your boundaries.

Our dog doesn't go to or sleep in our beds or don't go to the kids room - thus the puppy gate.

She's going to be a big dog as a Labrador Retriever and we're training her with that in mind.

We don't give her food from the table either.

She follows her own meal times, right now three times a day.

We warm up water to soften the puppy large breed dog pellets.

We've learned about poisonous things for dogs, and keep away from her anything that could harm her.

Even in our garden there's a plant that's poisonous for her and we won't allow her to chew on it.

🐾 Training pays off.

Already we can see how our "potty-training" is paying off.

There's been no mess to clean after the first night, that would have happened during the night.

And during the days taking Nala outside to bathroom breaks has lessened the mess and accidents inside.

We're training her to come to us when we whistle twice.

She loves her treats and comes gladly when she hears the whistle.

She gets her food when she sits down and waits.

She is growing with patience to let the food cup go lower, and can now wait until it's down all the way.

Calming herself down and falling asleep on her own is one of the things we let her practice.

🐾 There will be mess.

We're cleaning the stinky surprises every now and then and our "potty-training" phase is still ongoing.

We're cleaning the mess after the meal times from the floor all around.

Bathing a Labrador is fun for the dog as well and within the few last week's time we've already done it a few times.

We even brush Nala's teeth with a puppy tooth brush and paste, so her breathe doesn't smell as much and to keep her teeth healthy.

🐾 Your dog will learn from your praise.

I'm being mindful of paying attention to things I want to reinforce.

I praise Nala when she does something I want her to do more.

When she sits nicely or lies down calmly, I praise her and pet her.

When she sits nicely and is not whining I go to take her from her play pen.

🐾 Puppy phase lasts for a little while.

Soon you'll have a grown up dog who knows a lot more.

This puppy phase is rewarding and at the same time you're eagerly waiting for all the things you can do with an adult dog.

Now Nala is asleep again and I'll go sleep some more.

See ya!

What I have learned from life with dogs - part 2

If you've always had a weak spot for animals, for their cuteness, character and interesting ways, then you'll get it.

That sometimes there's just this empty spot in your life, that's a shape of a dog.

Or some other animal.

I have now owned a dog, puppy we named Nala, for one week.

For me the process of being brave enough to have a dog, was a long winding road.

My kids love animals, while me and my husband too.

Yet our love for travelling and seeing the world won all the arguments, before.

What I learned in this process, I want to share with you, if it would help someone having a similar struggle.

What a dog in a family did for us, you might ask.

It brought us together.

It taught us to be in the moment.

We saw nature suddenly with the dogs eyes.

We got excited for the bunnies in the bushes, as long as the dog couldn't catch them, haha.

Our family was so deeply touched by our friends dogs, that everytime they left from our place, the house felt kind of empty.

I missed them when I brushed the fur from the floors while they were not around to run to greet me.

Those dogs taught me with their story as well, very deeply.

Reminding how our way of treating the dog is one of the most powerful forces in their life.

Because they depend on people.

They are not like their relatives, wolves.

They have a certain bond with people, and their loyal little heart is affected by our choices.

I learned a lot about the meaning of leadership through my time with the dogs.

Now I'm learning to lead my puppy.

And some things are hard for me to do.

To put a boundary on place.

Yet I think of the grown up dog, how will this boundary now help them later, when they learn to respect and follow it.

I've started the three year period of training, I tell myself.

So I'm not living in an illusion that with some magic trick my dog will learn every important thing.

I look my puppy in the eyes, and when it sees me, I show or tell what I need her to do.

I show with very simple, clear and practical ways.

I use a whistle to tell the puppy when to run to me.

I give her lots of praise when she does what is expected from her.

When she doesn't do it I ignore the behavior.

She is a full on biter at the moment with her little spiky puppy teeth.

And the hardest part is to put a boundary on her biting, but I do it thinking of the benefits this will bring her later.

Dogs have taught me beautiful glimpses of what loyalty means, how it changes your heart, when you let it.

When you put someone else's needs before you, how that actually fills something in you.

When it takes, it gives back ten fold.

There's that belonging, lots of laughter and peace.

There are challenges where I grow.

Now our family is planning our future travels with a car.

Or a ferry.

As long as we can take Nala with us, once she is old enough.

Unless someone sweet wants to take her for a dog-sleep-over.

Or just a few of us go and rest stay at home with her.

When you have a dog in your life, even if it's a friend's dog who visits you every now and then.

Be warned.

It might happen to you what happened to us.

If someone had told me two years ago, I will have a puppy in the beginning of this year, I would have laughed long and hard.

Now I have a hard time even driving my car, when I just want to look at all the dogs walking with their owners.

Those two dogs of my friend in Uruguay stole my heart all in all.

And this is the result.

They made me a diehard dog person.

I never imagined, when on my way to Uruguay, that after that time I'd end up with a Labrador retriever girl.

Life with dogs is an adventure, that I can say.

And mine has only just begun.

Now is your turn.

If you have a dog, what it's like?

Or if you want one, what kind of dog is capturing your heart at the moment?

Or do you have some other kind of pet?

Let me know in the comments!

What I have learned from life with dogs - Part 1

 

Yesterday we came home with our own puppy, Nala.

Dogs have worked wonders in my heart.

And right now I am in a literal puppy heaven.

In this blog series I'm sharing some gold nuggets from my journey with dogs.

At first I'll take you to the winding dog life journey prior to owning our cute labrador girl.

It started early on, yet for several decades I only knew someone else's cute dogs.

While I was growing up my cousins' had several dogs.

My one cousin's family had first a male dachshund, then a male labrador retriever, a female bichon havanese with her puppies and finally a poodle.

I loved having the dogs around to play with and while going for walks.

I also saw what a powerhouse the labrador retriever was and still such a gentle hearted dog.

My other cousins had a beagle, later on a king charles cavalier spaniel and lastly a pack of three silky terriers.

It was so fun to me to compare the alert hunter dog type beagle to the ever friendly spaniel. And the dynamic within the tiny terriers' pack.

From a child's perspective I learned mostly about some of the differences between different kinds of dogs.

Yet being surrounded by several different types of dogs amazingly still taught me very little.

I had no clue what went on in a dog's mind.

My practical learning journey is still very much in the beginning.

But the last few years have been a most fruitful start for that hands on learning phase.

We were ruined for our old ordinary - life without owning a dog - when we said yes to being a holiday family for our friends' two adorable dogs.

We were living in Uruguay and our kids were eagerly waiting for the time when we would have our own pet.

We had hard time calming down our kids pet fever, yet we couldn't get a pet while in Uruguay.

What made it even harder was my own pet fever below the surface.

So we decided that being a holiday home for these furry friends, a mother and a son, was a perfect fit for us.

We fell in love with these two dogs and they seemed to enjoy time with us so 

much too.

Here are some useful nuggets I've collected from the last few years journey with dogs:

🐾 Learning about the basic instincts of that specific dog provides understanding and patience - the "I know why they…" kind of a-ha moments.

🐾 What does the dog love to do naturally? Is it driven to chase rabbits, drawn to water, loves to spend time with constant company or not?

🐾 My friends two dogs went into a high-pitched-crying-mode for a rabbit scent. Before we understood it was the unseen rabbits, we were like "what are they crying for on a walk?"

🐾 Dogs live in the moment. I've slowly learned how correcting and redirecting needs to happen in the now-moment.

🐾 Tone matters, and so does simplicity and clarity. I've started using simple clear vocabulary, focusing on how my voice sounds - friendly, firm or something else.

🐾 A dog trainer I love to follow, called Matt Beisner who runs a Zen Dog training facility, once said an intriguing fact, that a dog can learn 250 words.

🐾 Matt's series on rehabilitating dogs has been my favorite dog related program - it's on Disney streaming service.

🐾 A fun fact. My friend's dogs were used to being around several languages, the younger dog even learned to sit and give a paw in Finnish. Yet I loved talking to them in Spanish, since their major language was Portuguese.

What kind of story do you have with dogs?

I would love to hear!

Start small & recognize when you're ready enough

Can you remember the moment, when something in your now daily life was nerve wracking and new?

That weighty feeling when you first started in your current job?

That unsure feeling when you took your newborn baby to home?

When you saw your husband for the first time, on a sudden date?

The feeling of overwhelm with a full spectrum of emotions was flushing over you. 

And then there was that fear of you not being ready for what was about to unravel.

Going back in time might serve you now.

For when you're facing something brand new and scary, that reassurance of you being able to figure things out, is just gold.

And sometimes you and I might just fall asleep into that illustrated reality, where everything (and especially you) needs to be hundred percent ready before you take the first step to try it.

Yet in the real world we know what it takes to reserve the new territory for us.

It takes grit, curiosity, nerve, joy and the list goes on.

While fear would like to feed us with endless possibilities of bad endings, we just know in our gut that we are ready to take the step.

Sometimes to be able to start something new you're very afraid of can be found by a simple question.

What is the small yes I can say today?

And what is the big no, that I can say?

Recognizing things that try to steal your time, energy and other important resources is truly powerful.

After this week something totally new starts for me and my family.

But a few years back we started the journey, by saying one little yes after another.

What is your little yes today?

Timeless Wisdom

Throughout shifting seasons and big leaps to unknown territories I have come to think of this.

Time itself doesn't often change things.

I have learned to take initiative.

Or if I have waited, it's been for the sake of preparations, inside and outside.

I've started giving credit for active growth, that's conscious and goal oriented.

In between seasons there may be pockets of time when certain things go more smoothly.

But I've chosen to appreciate the change in it's disrupting nature.

It reminds me of what lasts for real.

And what is the most important despite each passing phase.

Are there some things you've decided to outsource as something time will change?

How could you shift your perspective?

It's actually deliberating to take that responsibility to your own plate.

Instead of passively waiting for time to shift something, you're actively working to change things.

You can be proud of your efforts and know that at least you tried your best and the outcome will be it's own adventure.

Hugs,

Pia

Beauty that's worth it

Do you know the feeling, when everything depends on you?

I've sailed through the past half a week all by myself. As my responsibility I've felt the weight of kids, their new school routines, a bit of a complicated new home, new work and all that. I've done great. I could even fill the water tank in the car today to be able to wash the windshields tomorrow on the slushy roads.

But I noticed how I was a bit more on top of things all the time, I knew what the time was, I even took out the car info leaflet to study how to open the front part. 

But what was deep down, surprised me the most. That feeling of "this all depends on me". When there is no substitute. No extra route. No spare tire. No plan B. I felt the weight of there being only me. And it made me very serious. Super focused. (Until the piglet birth videos I watched with my kids for fun tonight, I admit)

And when it was time to go to bed, I saw my ongoing process lying on the bed. My planner, that I was filling with some new insight and deeper vision. And I thought of that specific setup from a new perspective.

Instead of focusing on the lack, which I felt so deeply inside me when there was only me spinning the home-school-work wheel, I chose another view. I started looking at my unfinished planner with a pair of curious eyes. Instead of the guilt I had been carrying around, about the super slow progress.

After I surprised myself by filling the windshield liquid tank in the car and being so organized with our daily life, I thought about it. What if there was another level of me, that was just waiting for me to get sick and tired of my excuses.

What if she was eager inside me, waiting for her turn to show up and change the game. That woman, who was made of steel, light as a feather while strong as a weapon.

What would happen if she would get loose. What would it take? And was I leaning on my best reasons - my family - as an excuse while I had the answer all this time in front of me.

Our minds are genius. They know how to trick us out of the biggest trouble. They love to lead us down the safest road. Yet, what if I am here to travel the unknown, search the nooks and hike the nameless mountains.

What will happen when we realize, that it all depends on us and that this is our strongest armor, no matter what. You and I as women were made for hard things. And we have the ability to bring unlimited beauty out of that spot, we thought we wanted to avoid, yet we fell in love with. As soon as we opened our eyes for it's raw beauty.

In the pressure, where the diamonds are made. In those early mornings, while everyone sleeps. Through the deepest night, where no one sees a thing, yet you hear a thousand whispers. Echoes of the tomorrows you're building, while you kiss goodnight for this day.

You found yourself along the way. Eventually you came to see, you had it all within you, hidden for a time like this. 

Hugs,

Pia

I'm throwing in a flash back picture from the day before we moved our family back to Finland from Uruguay * long term *.