PHYSICAL, MENTAL & EMOTIONAL HEALTH

For me, animals have always felt easier to understand and safer than humans.

Of all the humans, non-human persons, animals, everyone and everything I've had the privilege of sharing time and space with, I’ve found it easiest to connect and have a longer, closer, more meaningful relationship with dogs.

English is my second language, and since I can remember, for various reasons I've struggled with communicating and connecting with other humans. I found that it can be a helpless and horrible feeling to be struggling internally and externally, all while the well-intentioned people around me are unaware and mean well, but may unintentionally and unknowingly make things worse. Also, it can be a horrible feeling when I am doing my best but struggling, and have the people around me make interpretations that suggest that I am basically “being bad” or “doing it on purpose”.

Since I can remember, I’ve continued learning first-hand about the effects of Chronic and Acute Fear, Anxiety, Stress on my Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health.

I was born with a lot of sensitivities and for most of my life I've had various difficulties with my health. For almost 30 years, I was blissfully unaware of the dangers of being tough by pushing through, doing my best to mask as “normal”, and neglecting my mental and emotional health. I basically continued telling myself and others that “im fine”, until I began experiencing more obvious physical, mental, and emotional health difficulties that I was unable to ignore- the years of neglecting my mental and emotional health finally caught up to me!

I’ve tried a lot of different Mental Health Professionals over the years, and so far, the person I’ve found most helpful is Colleen Pelar. She has helped me a lot with my more recent struggles with compassion fatigue, burnout, imposter syndrome, and my emotional + mental health in general - a lot of unpacking of things that go far beyond the dog world and can go back to my earliest memories! For resources plus more about Colleen’s incredibly helpful and powerful work: https://colleenpelar.com/

I am a huge fan of her podcast: https://colleenpelar.com/podcast/ there are so many incredible conversations about things that translate to so many different aspects of life, going far beyond the dog and cat world!

She also has some highly recommended work about kids and dogs: https://colleenpelar.com/livingwithkidsanddogs/

Through a variety of outlets, Colleen has helped me begin understanding a lot of invaluable (new to me) concepts – among many things, I am beginning to truly understand how to show up for myself, as myself. I am also learning to do the best I can with what I have, and truly feeling satisfaction from doing my best, truly understanding that I am enough, and being kind(er) to myself.

Thank you Colleen!

Learning for life!

Hurray for being a lifelong learner, especially when sharing life with dogs!