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by Liane

Take heed of one's own advice.

The processes of rebalancing, recalibrating, rectifying and reducing stress when life drifts off course often detract from the main plan ...as is my case ... 

Since my last blog, I've strived to adhere to my personal doctrine to embrace my passions and create meaning from them. Nonetheless, my passion for soccer achieved me a double break of my nose and a major concussion; my dog care business saw me make a poor judgment call and sustain a major bite, both incidents sending me to urgent care and subsequent doctors appointments.

When these types of events force us off course, anger and frustration typically blend together establishing a negative disposition from which it is usually difficult to be productive and profitable. Over the years, I've tried to manage these life events in ways that are different from my past ways or patterned behaviours so that I can grow forward and ideally change my own DNA. Part of this process involves stepping away from the emotion of circumstances. For example, in the case of the soccer nose crunch and concussion, I managed the moment of the incident without retribution. I extracted myself from the game and attended to the trauma immediately by going to the hospital. In earlier days, I likely would have placed a stop measure on my bloody nose, ignored my ringing head and sought revenge. After all, right before the ball smashed in my face, I'd made a very poor decision to encroach illegally the regulation space between the free kicker and the space I was to block.
 
As for the dog bite, again I took responsibility for my own poor decision: normally when I bring a visiting dog into my home, I bring it through the side gate to the back yard so as not to place Sadie (my full-time care dog) into defence mode. On this particular day, I was in a rush and decided to bring Naja (a husky-shepherd pup) through the laundry room door directly from the garage after I went to pick her up. As I entered the house, Sadie greeted us both and decided she was not in the mood to host Naja this particular day and growled and lunged at Naja. Naja returned the favour and the two dogs began their war. Thinking I might be able to break them up with a knee chop beneath their snoots, I jammed my leg in between their snarling snoots and Sadie chewed right into my inner thigh. It required stitches and it's been more than a month and my leg still shows bruising and a lump beneath the surface.
 
I'll admit my first instinct was to take Naja back home and to punish Sadie for what she'd done to me, but truly the result of this incident was a fault of mine alone. I left the two dogs alone for a couple of hours while I went to urgent care to rectify my new wound and when I returned home again the two dogs were habituating happily together.
 
The next part of this process of change for me (after I excepted blame for both incidents) was to forgive myself in order not to feel stress or anger. I will attest that it is much easier to forgive myself than it is to forgive others, so that was a fairly easy process.
I returned to soccer this week after the headaches subsided just a couple days ago. The plastic surgeon suggested that due to my age I should consider surrendering the sport I love so much. I will admit I actually contemplating his advice ....for a couple days at least ...before realizing that my life without soccer would be like driving through life with the spare tire on my vehicle. The first game back was filled with apprehension, but I stuck to my promise to not head the ball and not block free kicks. These new rules I've instilled in my future games will not be easy as my nature is more aggressive, but I also know that "at my age" if I don't make these subtle (or huge) transitions into healthier ways, I might be left wounded, angry, unforgiving and essentially stuck in my own vacuum.
Onward,
Liane
 
 
Self-Heeded Advice
So, I took the advice I delivered in my last blog, the one about resisting the shrivel; how your work can rob you of your natural juices ….your essence:
As I’d shared, my regular work had become uncomfortably light in the past several months with the majority of my work arriving in the form of referrals. The mounting anxiety encouraged me to be creative in how to formulate a new income and heed my own advice:
Dogs have been a part of my entire life. In the presence of canines I have come to realize the pure value in being “in the moment,” and above all, of being accepted.
 
Dogs never pretend.
Dogs are emotional and act on the very moment within which they exist. In this light – and my new role as “Liane, the dog walker” I have learned more about myself than I’d imagined possible when I decided I needed to take a dose of my own medicine.

One of my first dog clients was Bailey, who came into my world several months ago when I first signed up on Rover.com. His owners, two professional psychologists, had welcomed a Viszla pup into their lives. They quickly realized that this breed of dog, with his high energy and the usual puppy demands and annoyances combined were a lot to manage in light of their busy agendas and own personal needs. 

In comes my first request to board Bailey for five days. I laugh today as I recall the experience, mostly because it’s now faded and secondly because I’ve taken care of Bailey twice this week alone and three months since that day and will again tomorrow. Before I go on with this post, I will attest that Bailey has come a long way since that first super-long weekend we spent together.

Now to refocus on my own growth. When one is not operating within their full demand, feeling valued or being paid their worth, they have a lot of time to contemplate the void (or grey) spaces. In my case, since I do not advertise my business in the usual ways, the realization of the economy was pronounced; the contracts were few and far between.
Frankly, I was getting bored. I reminisced the days I would wake up and walk my dog, regardless of the weather ….and winter was quickly approaching. With it typically meant long periods of time ….sometimes days ….where I often would not leave the house since my work is freelance and did not require me to.
 
That was when my daughter told me about Rover.com.

For some time, as I repositioned my days into managing walks, with daycare and boarding and the odd writing contract that managed to find me, I tried my best to stay present and accepting, like my own gospel and a mirror, a reflection of how I saw the dogs whom I sat and fed and walked every day.

It was at the time of my first emotional meltdown – probably after a full day with Bailey -- the rambunctious Viszla – that I realized I scripted my very own evolution as I resisted my very own ‘shrivel.’
As it turns out, the canine-loving business has become quite profitable, if not a complete deterrent to my writing business (which is now picking up again). I’ve become quite selective in my ‘clients’ and decide just how long and how many I wish to manage on any given day.
 
I’ve recently adopted a larger dog for an extended period while its owners tour Indonesia for six months. Never having been a large dog owner myself, it has become an adjustment, but a very welcomed one. Knowing full well the hermit I tend to become when the weather freezes over and work slows down over the Holiday Season and somewhat beyond, I knew that caring for a large dog would force me to become more active and venture outside more than I typically would.
Today, I hosted Naja, whose owners are spending all of January in England; tomorrow (as I stated) Bailey will return to my doggy daycare while his owners tend to the psych needs of humans and Sadie, my adopted dog gal is going to be annoyed most of the day while wee Bailey plays with her toys and chews her new bone.
Me? I’m excited to report that I have a couple writing files to close off, a brand new one to begin tomorrow and a phone call from a prospective new client expected at 9am.

There is a New Moon rising tonight and with that comes the end of certain cycles and the promise of new beginnings.

Namaste,
Liane

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Numbers, numbers, numbers …unsolicited, they keep coming at us from every direction: television, radio, financial advisors, employers, scientists, politicians ….Like it or not, we have all endured a year of measures. Beneath all these numbers lies a monster that evades access to precise measurement; that monster is mental health. Our mental health is the invisible gauge by which we pluck out our daily options and the gauge to how we perceive ourselves, how we treat others, how we make selections and decisions, how we measure our results and go about our everyday. When we exist in a secure and stable frame of mind and reference, we are capable of making sound choices, making positive things happen. Contrarily, when we are feeling defeated, disadvantaged or denied, disconnected or down, we do not exude the same level of confidence and decision-making capacities; we may resort to poor decisions, thus creating further unhealth. There are so many aspects that affect one’s mental health, for every one it may be different and thus immeasurable at the surface or at a societal level. Hence, the danger exists for the collective society and our communities …and those who love us. With governments forcing continued (and arguably unreasonable) closures of the services and businesses we all need to maintain a standard of ‘normal’ in our lives, these agencies are simultaneously feeding our angst and growing frustrations that fertilize declining mental health. We all know it’s imperative to help ourselves before we help others; we must make selfish choices (ie: self-care) to ensure we are of sound mind and health to support our families and continue to make positive strides in all aspects of life. Even access to our practitioners as we once had seems complicated now. But what of those who are overwhelmed with stress, impossible burdens and demands, sickness and messy family dynamics? How are we expected to make a difference when we have handcuffs and the whereabouts of the key to the handcuffs unknown. Despite these burdens, we must continue to operate our lives within this chaos? I have alluded in previous blogs to shifting the power of our thoughts to where one feels in control, rather than obsess about the obvious and unchangeable. I have alluded to finding meaning in areas which would not otherwise be an option, if not for the chaos. For me, I embraced my passion for art, worked extra hard on home-based fitness, researched and tapped into some new forms of nutrition and supplements, performed a whole lot of cleaning and purging, completed unfinished projects, started new ones ….While these actions do feel good and are measurable, they do not remove the realities of our finances and the fact many of our personal earnings have slowed to a trickle, and they do not mask the reality that we cannot collect the hugs we really crave from our friends and families outside our cohort bubble, or play our favourite sport each week, to elevate our endorphins and raise our serotonin levels. Frankly, this gig is getting stale and inevitably taking its toll on all of us. Perhaps there may be a small nugget of comfort in this collective phenomenon of societal despair …across the globe, with all its variants ...oh, good grief! Recently, I came across a story that helped me shift my own emotional status. I hope I may bring value to you too. During times of immense challenge, it can be helpful to examine how individuals who operate at a high level of stress (people who choose this particular lifestyle) carve balance and keep level. Not that we may become immune to our stresses, because stress is unhealthy and often propagate disease, but rather to learn some practical ways we may be naturally equipped to transition our stresses in meaningful and beneficial ways. Max Parrot , Canadian Olympic snowboard champion, a very recent survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, started his chemotherapy during Covid in 2019. In an interview , he states “I am grateful for my cancer battle …” The 26-year-old took his cancer diagnosis and used it to his advantage. About his forced journey into disease, he says the following: “I think one of the reasons why (I was so motivated to beat cancer) is because I was like a lion in a cage for the whole time. I was at the hospital and I just wanted to snowboard so bad and be back out there. So, when I fought against it (cancer) and won, they opened the cage and I just went straight to training and rode so much and was just really happy to be back on snow. So, I think that's the reason why I had such a good year last season.” Alright, so no one reading this is likely an athlete being paid to train for the next Olympics to defend his Silver, but the point is that no matter how defeated and restricted we all may feel, we can penetrate some realms of our barriers to create a more positive foundation, even when matters may seem hopeless or out of our locus of control. In Max’s case, he changed the way he looked at cancer and negated the negative connotation most people have towards cancer. “Choosing to have the right attitude in moments when you’re not supposed to have it,” …is the difference to creating positive results. This is what Max’s mental performance psychologist coach and international speaker, Jean François Ménard suggests to Max and all his clients. In his many motivational speeches as an athlete himself and sports psychologist, he asserts that moving through adversity is about shifting your way of thinking: “ Attitude is everything ,” he says to his audience, some of which are elite athletes and well-known performers like Cirque du Soleil. If one can shift her perception about the topic on the table (such as work, money, relationships, goals, etc.), then change is ripe to occur. “People with the right attitude are not only surviving in Covid times, they are thriving. Let’s face it; having an agile mindset and being open-minded to uncertainties have become necessary mental skills during this pandemic. The greatest minds know that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change .” Those who have garnered a stronger confidence, tapped into their higher selves, learned skills to rise above adversity are inarguably those who can assist us now by example with some of our own mountainous challenges. None of the notions JF Ménard projects are rocket science, but they are applicable to all of us who struggle with needing change and craving balance and normal. We are all capable of shifting our mental thoughts onto something different, something more positive in order to claim new results. It’s safe to say that we all know one thing: where the mind goes, energy follows. I took this application and applied it to one of my own personal challenges. When the pandemic robbed me of my spin classes and soccer team, with it went my balance and what replaced it was anger, frustration, tighter clothing and increased caloric intake. Intelligent enough to recognize these negative shifts, I knew I needed to find a new cardio flavour, because the cellulite creams were not working. Months ago, I took up high intensity interval training (HIIT) as research pegged me as someone who could benefit effectively and easily recover my missing balance. However, after only several HIIT workouts, I quickly decided I would rather get punched than endure the aftermath of the incredibly sore muscles HIIT gave me, most of which I neither knew I had nor really cared that I had them. The discomfort was too much, so I reverted to more walking instead, but with minimal results in the area of how my clothes fit me the imbalances persisted. Realizing that change starts with self and if myself was not willing to commit to improving my own mental state and status, how could I expect all the other aspects of my life that needed addressing to change positively? I reexamined the values of HIIT and committed to making myself accountable for my own mental and physical health. What happened was amazing! In a recent blog I shared my new love affair with the fitness app DownDog and how after the free trial expired, I purchased a subscription. Well, within this application also lives other fitness options, such as a HIIT one. With yoga being my daily source of zen, toning, core strength and simulated daily pill for destressing, I shifted my approach to HIIT by using yoga as my rewqrd for every HIIT workout I completed. Where I normally do one hour of yoga every day, I transitioned my workout into 20 minutes of HIIT, supplemented by 30 minutes of yoga to unwind, release any of those stiff and unfamiliar muscles and round out my fitness in this newish frontier called ‘still and variant pandemic.’ My newfound self-care is a wonderful success, as I have shed inches, tightened my entire bod, tossed the cellulite cream, revisited my favourite clothes and reflect a confidence to those I am lucky enough to have within my small cohort group. My own attitude adjustment is proof that what Jean François Ménard recommends does create measurable results, and the ripple effects it conveys is the silver lining …or my own silver medal. Yours in zenity, Liane
By Liane Angerman December 10, 2020
Bye-bye, 2020! Don't let the door hit you on your way out! That is one of the most pointed and defiant comments one can make to another, but for the majority of us ....well, ALL of us, 2020, will be embedded in our minds as a year of challenge, horror, disappointment, shrivel, lack of hope and faith. I digress. During negative times, I find it difficult to come up with positive sharings that don't sound forced or cliche, but as the year is winding down and the world is grasping a glimmer of hope for 2021, I feel the desire to reach outward to my readers and celebrate the little things we have accomplished. I have shared some things with you over this year about how I established balance and ways to rise above the challenges that faced me personally. I hope that you also have weathered these storms and, like me, dream of the next vacation on the beach or an escape to your favourite secret hideaway -- the one the government denied you for a year now. A hearty thank you to all my clients, old and new, for your support, business and commitment to me. As a freelancer, I rely on you to refer my great skills to others. So many of you have and I feel blessed. This week I launched my first newsletter after a flood of interest. If you wish to become part of this list and keep up with what's happening in my little orchard of juicy fruits and sharings, please hit the sign-up button at the bottom of my web page. I wish each and every one of you a joyous and creative Christmas whereby you find ways to make your celebrations happy, unique and a reason to start new memories and traditions. Love and hope, Liane
By Liane Angerman October 21, 2020
I consider myself a glass-half-full personality; I seek the positive aspects of negative situations – Covid 2020, included. My wish, however, was to write my next blog post on the other side of this damndemic, which is obviously not the current medical and social circumstances in the world today. Frankly, I am just tired of all of it. But two negatives actually make a positive, right? In truth, the past eight months have garnered me a lot of opportunity, not in the professional realm of contract work, but more so in the areas that may have been neglected or not so relevant if my business had been buzzing along healthfully: I welcomed a wee rescue dog, not having met him, into my life last February that allowed me the beauty of companionship and motivation to maintain my outdoor activities during lockdown. I continued to embrace my artwork and have painted more than fifty pieces in both watercolour and acrylic, and even managed to sell a few along the way. I also painted both the interior and exterior of my residence. I took advantage of the free online fitness classes and gained about five pounds in muscle and achieved a tighter physique. I joined a knit-a-long from Norway and learned how to do colour work. I managed some deep emotional healing of past scars and traumas dating back to my childhood, which have gifted me a lighter and much brighter recollection of my past. I reconstructed my vision board. I aided a friend in adopting a dog. I attended online webinars for authors trying to hone their craft. I have reunited with someone from my distant past who has swiftly and wonderfully changed the entire landscape of my life and my visions of my future. I have managed to golf more this year with the canceling of outdoor soccer league. With my business income extremely thin and the job boards flooded with keen competition for every advertised role, I took my own advice from a blog past and continued to seek employment in the areas of which I am passionate. Last year, I signed up with Rover.com and managed to truly enjoy the benefits of canine companionship, leading up to the entrance of Mr Marco into my life. Once the pandemic hit and travel stopped and owners began working from home, my dogcare business shriveled with it. Last week, with the advice of a good friend, I discovered another dog walking opportunity and quickly signed up. To date, I have walked several dogs in different areas of the city. The rates I receive for my gas and efforts are terribly low, compared to working as a professional editor or communications specialist, but the rewards are plentiful. I have explored new parks, green spaces, pathways and escarpments of the city where I’ve lived for over thirty years, all the while practicing my zen energy techniques that dogs are so tuned into by nature. With the fall yardwork all caught up prior to the snow that’s falling every day this week, I resurrected a few of last winter’s unfinished knitting projects and dusted off some books I’ve been itching to read. One of them being Cesar’s Way, written by the dog psychology expert himself, Cesar Millan. During the course of reading this book, I have learned so much about myself as a human, most specifically how positive and negative energy affect everything one does and reflects so accurately on those we encounter. Dogs, unlike humans, have the innate ability to constantly and effortlessly scan energies of all those they meet. They veer away from negative energy and sometimes respond defensively to it. “Strong assertive energy,” as Cesar describes it, is the best variety we all must harness to move through our life spaces most effectively and successfully. Since Mr Marco, the rescue, entered my life a few months ago, I have practiced this theory daily on our walks. He has never required a leash when we walk and I live on a very busy and well-trafficked drive on the edge of a provincial park. We encounter countless distractions, humans, dogs, wildlife, etc. ….and he is 100% attentive to my energy output as the dominant leader, which guides him along in order to maintain his own delicate balance, safety and confidence, all in full trust. One of my neighbours has become exceptionally jealous and vindictive of this relationship I have developed with Mr Marco. As an owner of two greyhounds, both with behavioral issues quite likely a reflection of her own psychosis, she has yelled at me for not having my dog on a leash because she admittedly is worried her own dogs might kill mine. There has never been an incident caused by Marco, but she filed a formal claim against me with the city by-law office, telling them my dog roams at large. I admit that as frustrating as this issue is, it is also very laughable. I have achieved with my positive calm assertiveness what observers and other dog owners are baffled at: a dog who walks right beside me and never …..never instigates a negative encounter with other creatures. This, my friends, is the proof of all that Cesar professes and how dogs’ abilities to read energies is impeccable. With Thanksgiving behind us for this year, Halloween around the next bend and Christmas on the horizon, I am remaining hopeful that foreign travel and vacations will be next on the dreamscape. In the meantime, I will imagine my next blog post will be about the reblooming of our economy, healthier, happier people, larger parties, sports venues and rock concerts sold out and bustling airports with travelers jetting to the destinations resembling of the images on their vision boards. In health, warmth and positivity, Liane
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