A day in the life of ‘Hounds Connect’
This morning on waking, I was trying to decide how to progress with my day. I had various chores and activities that I needed to do and also a host of things that I wanted to do, and I’m trying to get a bit of daily discipline. I picked up my phone to check the time and noticed I had a message from a friend of mine, asking how I was.
Which made me ask myself - how was I?
Well, I hadn’t finished my business plan, I was in a quandary about certain aspects of my work, I hadn’t revamped my business card, I was still tied up with working on the house…..A feeling of ‘Could Do Better’ from school report card days came into view….hmmm. Then I noticed a post in another group I’m a member of, about the importance of body and exercise…for dogs and people..which was something I had been wondering about as well – was I doing enough exercise? were my dogs? did it matter? what is the right balance? ……So many things to do, so many things to think about…..Then from twitter
"Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only have standing still" - Chinese Proverb
How timely I smiled!
I started to consider how I would reply to the post about exercise…then stopped myself as I realised my motivation was more about supporting the person that posted than my needs. What do I want to do? I smiled as I recognised my co-dependency. Then I got distracted some more and read an article about ‘3 reasons to be on snapchat’ and wondered if that was something I could use… “I must be focussed” I reminded myself…I’d really like to read that new book that just got delivered yesterday….I wonder if…My mind was bombarding me with questions and possibilities and I hadn’t got out of my bed! Then another quote popped up on twitter
“Wisely and slowly. They stumble that run fast” - Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare
More confirmation to take my time I thought . And then…William Shakespeare…how interesting. I’ve been reading about Francis Bacon and his links with Shakespeare, and Francis Bacon ciphering, I wonder what that quote codes to numerically….486…. The numbers were very revealing…(I’m not going to talk about numbers here, but if you want to learn more about this area or about following every day signs and messages for your own personal development I highly recommend Genevieve Lucette’s work, including her book ‘At One Forever’ )
I started to think about what my business card should look like….
“STOP, Joanne, get up, get focussed, start getting things done”
So I did. I did my exercises, and had a shower. I was going downstairs to get my breakfast and let the dogs out…."oh I’ll just take the laundry down, that’ll save me coming back up". I finally got downstairs, let the dogs out into the back garden and put clothes in the washing machine. I went into the garden to check everything was ok….where was Jack? Where WAS Jack? Nowhere to be seen, I called him, no response…well he’s a hound…Oh I could do without this, I’ve got stuff to do. I feared the worst, Jack had gone hunting. Why had I let this happen, I’m usually so careful….
There was nothing for it, I had to go out and look for him. I grabbed a lead, and Archie, and we went through to next door to track him down, Archie hot in pursuit. “How lovely the neighbours grounds are” I thought, “it would be nice to spend some time here, with the bluebells coming up, the woodland walks, next to the river……” (Our neighbours run a beautiful dog-friendly self-catering business, check it out here Ardoch Lodge)
As Archie bombed ahead of me I could hear Logan, howling from the garden, full of the energy of the hunt but frustrated by being left behind….I wasn’t going to take both of them and give myself more problems…....and then I heard the familiar sound of Jack whining when he gets left behind too! HE WAS STILL IN THE GARDEN!! Drat!!……False alarm!…”ARCHIE…” I called. Archie came careering back, full of excitement. We slipped back through the fence to the house to reunite with the other dogs…
.”Thank goodness that’s over” I thought, and then my heart sank as I watched the little yellow Labrador hot-footing it away from me, up into the woods.
“Aaaghhhhh!!” I had gained a hound and lost a Labrador!
I followed Archie’s path determined not to panic or chastise myself for the situation, but to reflect on what I was being shown. I stood at the cross-roads, trying not to over-react. He will come back after all, he always does, quite quickly usually….…well except the time someone rescued him from the bottom of our drive, when they thought he was lost.
I decided to take a right, it seemed likely he had gone that way. I whistled and waited. In the distance a yellow rocket came shooting towards me, full pelt. That’s my boy! I was re-united with my very excited, out-or-breath Labrador. I was relieved. We started home….
Then I started the recrimination “I should start on the training again” “I should help him get more self-control” “I should have waited to check if Jack was in the house”. But as mist of the recrimination cleared in my mind, and I looked down at this little bundle of excitement the message to me was abundantly clear. Archie, in his exuberance for the hunt and his full-on energy had just expressed the energy that I had been trying to channel and focus since I got up that morning, in the only way he knew how.
The dogs and I regrouped. I sat eating my breakfast, mulling over the excitement and what it had shown me. What had Friar Lawrence said – "Wisely and slowly..."! and it wasn’t even 10amyet :-)