Do you often wish you knew what your dog is trying to tell you? Your dog probably feels the same way, but there are some ways to improve communication with our canines. The book, What Your Dog Is Trying to Tell You says, “Are they really understanding us? If the results of a study by scientists in Hungary are to be believed, then yes, it would appear that they are. The researchers scanned 13 dogs in an MRI scanner and monitored their brains while they spoke to them. Not only did they discover that the dogs were processing language in the same way as us-that is by using the left side of the brain to figure word meaning and the right to process intonation-they were able to combine the two to figure the overall meaning.” Psychologist and canine researcher, Dr. Stanley Coren says, “Dogs can learn around 165 words and signals.”  It has also been proven that they can read our facial expressions, and they learn to understand our body language.

So, if they can understand what we are saying, how do they respond back? They use body language to express what they are feeling. In Listening to Your Dog’s Body Signals, Pat Miller says, “Dogs are primarily body language communicators. While they are certainly able to understand many of the words we speak to them, their first language is body talk.”

Here are some tricks to read their body language. If they are angry, their body is tense with the tail up. And the teeth may be bared. A happy dog will have a relaxed body and tail, and the dog may be bouncing or jumping. A worried dog will carry the tail low, with ears down, and may lick his lips. A stressed dog may cower, with his tail tucked, ears back, and he may be trembling. Rolling on his back can be a sign of fear, but it can also be saying “I’m not a threat.”, or “I trust you.”

We can inadvertently make some mistakes with our body language. Eye contact should be done sparingly because dogs see it as a threat. Bending forward over the top of a dog can also bother them as well as reaching over them to pat the head.

Every dog is slightly different just like their owners, so enjoy figuring each other out as you learn a common way of communicating.  

Is it easy or difficult for you to ask for help? It is interesting to see the different perspectives of people when it comes to asking for help. Some see it as a sign of weakness, a failure to achieve, showing inexperience, or a lack of knowledge. What if it is a sign of strength, a way of using your resources to learn, or saving valuable time?

In the article, How to ask for help when you need it, Lolly Daskal says, “I am not sure how it began, but there is a definite belief among many people that asking for help is a sign of weakness. In my work as a leadership coach, I see it again and again in all kinds of organizations, companies, and teams: very smart people need help but don’t ask for it, and their refusal ends up keeping them from being as productive and effective as they could be otherwise.”

My husband is a good example of how refusing to ask for help can hurt your productivity. He will tell you that he wishes he was better at delegating work to others, but it is hard for him to release control over projects to others. He is overwhelmed with the amount of work he must produce, and unfortunately, much of his day is eaten up with meetings and phone calls. He will start on a project, and then another distraction happens. He could easily delegate some of his work, but he is afraid if it isn’t done well, it will reflect badly on him. He also refuses to ask for help with the many home upkeep projects because he feels he should be able to take care of it all himself.

Psychology Today describes why it is hard to ask for help. “In a society that praises self-help and self-reliance, it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to ask our colleagues, friends, and even our family for the assistance we need. The mere thought of asking for help can eat away at our ego, undermine our confidence, make us question our abilities, and even paralyze us with anxiety. Yet in modern life—at a time when we are more digitally connected and emotionally detached than ever—the stark reality is that no one can go it alone.”

I was the director of mentoring at my school and when I first started, I was excited to help new teachers acclimate to the school. What I didn’t expect was that some people would see being in the mentor program as an insult. No matter how many years you have been doing something, there is always more to be learned, so I was surprised at the attitude that they didn’t need any help. In this case, not asking for help can limit your opportunities to learn and grow.

Asking for help from experts for what we are trying to do can help us learn how to do something correctly the first time, and most people enjoy helping.

Here are a few ideas to help you ask for help.

Be specific about what you need.

Ask politely instead of framing it like a demand.

Be helpful to others to inspire a climate of helpfulness.

Be understanding of others’ time constraints.

Realize that most people will feel honored to be asked for help.

Do you believe in love at first sight? What can cause an immediate attraction to someone? Sharon Gilchrest O’Neill, a licensed marriage and family therapist says, “For others who have felt it—and hoped it would last forever—they’ve described it as “an immediate sense of a person” even if you only see them from across the room at a party or get introduced when a new person joins the company you work for, or a friend brings someone new along for an evening out. “It is an immediate reaction, usually first about the way a person looks, how they are dressed, their physical motions, their voice, and how they look at you,” adds O’Neill. “There is a feeling in one’s gut that there is something special about this person that you are instantly attracted to, and you sense quickly that they feel the same way.”

O’Neil feels that love, at first sight, is more about a physical attraction. Love comes when you get to know each other and find out about interests and beliefs. She also says,” It’s important to remember that love is just one of the many components of a lasting marriage. So is healthy communication, intimacy, honesty, trust, and respecting your partner and his or her goals, dreams, and desires in life,” she adds. “That cannot be sustained by an intense spark—those take time, commitment, and work.”

Psychology Today says, “In sum, science favors the romantics. Love, at first sight, is experienced by people, but it’s not so much “love” or “passion,” Instead, it’s a strong pull or attraction that makes someone particularly open to the possibilities of a relationship (Zsoks et al., 2017). Love, at first sight, can happen multiple times, and maybe the instances where it fizzles or simply never translates into a relationship are forgotten. But when love, at first sight, does launch a sustained relationship, the story is a great one.”

Studies show that people can feel a strong chemical attraction and a feeling of instant connection, but most people agree that love must be something more that will take time to develop. What do you think? Has anyone taken your breath away the first time you met that person? Did the relationship last?

     You started out running to lose a few pounds, lower your cholesterol, or reduce your stress. You did it occasionally when you had some extra time, but then little by little it gained more importance in your life and became a part of your daily routine until now you need it as much as you need your morning coffee. Here are some hints to let you know when running has become a passion rather than a hobby.

1. You haven’t run in two days, and you are becoming very irritable. Small children and animals scatter from your path.

2. Shopping has become about the latest running shoe or a new chafing gel.

3. You arrange your daily schedule around your run.

4. You have an entire drawer filled with just race t-shirts.

5. You have become like the pony express neither wind, nor snow, nor hail will keep you from your run.

6. Your reading selections now center around training and nutrition.

7. You spend time in your car checking mileage for running routes.

8. Your neighbors start questioning your sanity because you are out in sub-normal temperatures doing an activity that they cannot imagine being fun.

9. You have become very creative with oatmeal and pasta.

10. Friends mention that they waved or honked at you while you were running, but you never acknowledged them, and you continued with a glazed, determined look.

If you recognize these symptoms, you have succumbed to the drug of running. There is no cure except to give in to the passion and reap its many benefits.

Being strong mentally can have a huge impact on all aspects of your life, so how do you strengthen your mental muscle? The people around us can have a variety of effects on us mentally, but we can choose how we react to them and come out mentally stronger. Our environment and lifestyle can also affect our mental strength, but we can also choose how to react.

Amy Morin is a psychotherapist who says in her article, 5 factors that may make some people mentally stronger than others, “But it’s not really the experiences themselves that determine the size of your mental muscles. It’s your response to those experiences that matters. Mentally strong people learn lessons that help them grow stronger and become better. They work on gaining new perspectives, expanding their mindsets, and shifting their outlook when necessary. Your environment is a major factor in your mental strength. If you’re surrounded by toxic people, unhealthy temptations, and complete chaos, you’ll waste a lot of brainpower throughout the day.

That’s why mentally strong people create healthy environments for themselves. Rather than waste willpower and mental real estate on fighting constant temptations, they preserve their energy for the most important tasks. They set themselves up for success so they can feel and do their best all the time. Mentally strong people perform specific exercises (like gratitude or facing a fear) that help them grow stronger and become better. And they know that no matter how strong they are, there’s always room for improvement.”

I’m going to discuss how people can affect us, and how we can come out stronger, and then I will give you a list of other techniques to use to flex your mental muscle.

The people around us all can make us stronger, and they can do it in different ways. They can strengthen us through their support or their lack of it, they can motivate us in many ways, and they can teach us by guiding us or causing some suffering. We can become stronger through someone who inspires us, or by watching those who struggle. Here are some examples of how others can make us stronger.

Those who give support

We all need our communities whether it is family, friends, or colleagues. They are the people who pick us back up on those bad days and make us feel like we are special. It helps to have at least one person who is your voice of reason when you let your emotions boil over. This person can help you see the truth in the situation.

When we are not supported

Sometimes even family will not support a passion or dream. A mentally strong person will carry on despite the lack of interest from loved ones about that dream or passion. Eventually, they will probably realize how important it is to you.

Motivators

These are the people who push you to be better. It could be the friend who competes with you daily to see who has the most steps on the fitness tracker or someone who encourages you to step out of your comfort zone to try something new.

Those who caused us pain

I always say the best form of revenge is to be the better person. Don’t sink to the level of the person who hurt you. Be more professional, more mature, and just generally more. Bad relationships help us to appreciate the good ones even more.

The ones who inspire us

I see people who refuse to give in to the challenges they have been given. Instead of listening to what they cannot do, they find a way to do what they can.

Although our mental strength can be influenced by those around us, what can we do to strengthen our mental muscles?

Here are a few more things that will help you become stronger mentally.

• Keep challenging yourself to do new things and learn new things.
• Step out of your comfort zone and do something that you are afraid of doing.
• Push through failure and try again.
• Set goals.
• Practice gratitude
• Practice self-care because your mind will be stronger when it is recharged.
• Find time to be alone and restore your calm.
• Have your own definition of success instead of following someone else’s.

Go ahead and get started flexing your mental muscles!

Do you ever realize the way you have been doing something isn’t working anymore, and you need to rethink your approach? I had that realization about both the way I eat and how I exercise. I have been doing the same thing without seeing the results I want, but luckily two things happened that are helping me reset both my diet and my exercise routine.

I saw a book called, Total Body Reset, and although I don’t usually read books that look like they are going to suggest following a diet, this one intrigued me because it said your nutrition needs changed when you age. It proposed eating more protein. I decided to give it a try, and I also began drinking more water. Around the same time, I noticed a Facebook post in an ultrarunning group from a woman who regularly runs 100-mile races. She said she had been logging a lot of miles, but she kept getting injured, so she knew she had to change something in her training. She started to run fewer miles and lift heavier weights. She then did another 100-mile race and got her best finish time ever, and she has not had any injuries.

On the website, www.muscleandstrength.com, the article, 15 Ways to Switch Up Your Muscle Building Routine, tells why it’s important to change things up now and then.

“As experienced lifters know, you’re not going to get continuous growth using the same program, week in week out. The human body adapts to stress too fast. Once your body adapts to the stress level of your current routine it will see no need to keep growing.

Regular changes in your workout are essential for long-term growth. Professional bodybuilders cycle their workout continuously, change their exercises and add advanced training techniques. Using their experience, they know exactly what type of training and diet they need to build muscle or burn fat.”

Making some changes to your routine can be fun and easy. Here are a few ideas.

Changes to your diet

Experiment with some new healthy recipes

Find a healthy substitute for dessert.

Drink lots of water.

Changes to your fitness routine

Switch up your exercise and try something new

Change the number of days you train

Take some exercise classes

Take some rest days.

Changing your routines can reenergize you, and help you improve your general health.

Yesterday, I saw an ad for a show about a couple who were building an enormous estate called Versailles. I couldn’t help but wonder why you would want a home that massive. Every house needs a few things or spaces that make your house special to you and the size doesn’t really matter.

What are the favorite parts of your house? Do you love to be in the kitchen because that is where families and friends gather to share food? Is it a front porch where you can watch the neighborhood or read a good book? Is it your bedroom where you can escape a long day under the covers, or do you have a creative space that is specific to you?

In my house, I have several favorite spots. In the sunroom, we have a couch that is so comfy and roomy. When you lie on it, you sink into the cushions, and there are several blankets on top for cooler days. It is under the skylights, so when it rains, the sound lulls you to sleep. The room where I write has everything that makes me calm and happy. There are pictures of family, words of inspiration, and kind notes. There is another smaller sofa in there that the cats and dog sleep on to keep me company. The room has many floor to ceiling windows, so it is full of light and I can look out into our backyard and the garden,

I have a small green space, and I enjoy watching the plants grow and I love nurturing them.

I love food so the kitchen will always be one of my favorite spots. I have always thought that offering food is a way to show love and make someone happy. Everyone always hangs in the kitchen while we eat and talk.

Having a fireplace has always been a must for me. On cold or rainy days, it is comforting to have a warm blaze crackling in the fireplace.

My porch is one of my favorite places to be. In the morning, I take my coffee out there and walk around it taking in the beauty around me. We have a hammock, a wood swing, and a chair swing, so I have options for swinging on a beautiful afternoon. I have fallen asleep a few times out there too.

I hope you have spots in your house where you enjoy being, and that makes you want to hurry back home.  

As a society, we spend so much time worrying about our physical health, but if our mental health isn’t balanced, it can affect everything in our lives. We need to find some techniques to ease our minds, reduce our stress, and recharge. One of the ways to do this is to have some moments when we can focus on activities we enjoy and find contentment with a mental sweet spot.

In Christine Carter’s article, Three Tricks to Help Find Your Sweet Spot, she describes the mental state like this, “Athletes call this mental state being in “The Zone”; psychologists call it “flow” or peak experience, and they have linked it to leading a life of happiness and purpose. Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher who authored the Tao Te Ching, called it “doing without doing” or “trying without trying.”

I think of this mental state as our “sweet spot,” where we have both great strength and great ease; it’s the mental state when our best work emerges without strain or anxiety. Instead of making our most powerful effort, we get to experience our own effortless power.”

Have you ever been so focused that you don’t even realize you are performing an activity? It is what the author above describes as being in the zone. It happens to me when I run. I can focus so completely on moving through my run that I have had people tell me they passed me in a car and waved at me and I did not respond. I tell them I didn’t see them because I was in my head, but I’m not sure they understand. I can also be in the zone when I am reading. I can become so lost in the story that I don’t hear anything else until my daughter calls my name the second time.

You can follow a few steps to find your sweet spot.

• Get rid of distractions. If you are working at your desk, put away your phone, turn off e-mails, and remove anything else that will disrupt your concentration.
• Avoid interruptions. Block off your calendar, put the phone away, put a do not disturb sign on your door, and generally let people know you need some time to concentrate.
• Turn on some good music. Athletes know the power of music to motivate, focus, and block out distractions. When we went to karate competitions, we put our headphones in and didn’t have conversations with other competitors. Our sensei said, “Until the competition is over, the other competitors are not your friends. Do not let them be a distraction.”
• Breathe deeply. Practicing deep breathing can calm you and help you focus.

Pay attention to how you feel doing different activities. When are you happy and productive, or achieving a goal at the same time, and you feel like it all flows? That is your sweet spot.

The way you start your morning can shift your mood, and that mood could influence your attitude for the rest of the day. Let me give you two examples of two different starts in the morning. On weekdays, my husband goes to the gym and then brings me home a coffee that I take out to the garden and backyard as I ease into the morning. When I can start a day like that I feel calm and ready to be productive. On Saturday, we go to the gym together. Last Saturday, when I came downstairs, my daughter called me and started to express her anger at several of her work situations. The emotions she was expressing were overwhelming me because I wasn’t completely awake, and well, I hadn’t had coffee yet. I was grumpy for half of the day before I could turn my mood around.

Jodi Clarke writes for Very Well mind, “Creating a morning routine is not focused on who can accomplish the most or check off more boxes than everyone else. Instead, it is about allowing yourself to begin your day with confidence, peace, and a positive attitude.

Starting the day this way can allow us to effectively complete tasks and to handle things that come our way without constantly feeling stressed or overwhelmed.”

Here are a few ideas to help you start the morning off the right way.

Prepare what you need for the day the night before. Pick out the clothes to be worn, meals and snacks, and any materials that need to leave the house. Put anything that needs to leave with you near the front door. Have a key hanger near the door too and get in the habit of always putting them there.

Instead of pressing snooze, get up and use the extra time to move at a more relaxed pace.

Exercising in the morning is good because you will get it done early, and it will perk you up.

Practice being quiet for a few minutes in the morning. You could pray, search for inspirational quotes you could share with others, meditate, or take some time to reflect.

Eat something healthy for breakfast. Food is fuel, and in the morning, you are breaking your fast.

Find the routine that works for you that will put you in a frame of mind to have a great attitude, be more productive, and be less stressed.

                                              Life Lessons From My Dog

Have you ever watched your pet and thought he knew how to live life better than most people? That’s what I think when I watch my dog Bandit. Here are a few life lessons I think we could learn from him.

• Every day is a new adventure. Bandit comes out of his crate excited about the possibilities that the day holds. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, he is ready to head outside and play. Why do we let so many things weigh on us? What if we chose joy no matter what?
• Food is meant to be enjoyed. Our dog loves food and knows the names of some. He perks up when he hears us say pup cup, (A cup of whip cream that some fast-food restaurants give dogs), or peanut butter. He waits expectantly when I finish my meal because I let him clean my plate. He enjoys good food with gusto instead of making it overly complicated like we do.
• Exercise can be fun.
• He has learned not to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong like down a suspicious-looking hole.
• He knows the power of a good nap in the sun.
• Bandit has learned that different dogs need to be treated in different ways. The dog behind us is old with a bad back, and Bandit knows he only wants to be greeted and sniff a bit. The puppy across from us wants to run and then hide under the treehouse, and the dog next to us wants to chase and play.
• He knows that simple things like a tennis ball are best.
• He gives love freely because it is as natural as breathing.
• Making friends is not complicated, share a stick and start playing.
• If something makes you happy, do it over and over. (the tennis ball)
• Following rules can keep you safe. We taught him to wait for a command to leave the car, and to eat so that he doesn’t grab something that fell on the floor that might be harmful to him.

I know he will continue to teach me important things. He has been sitting near my elbow the whole time I have been writing this. He wants to make sure I get it right.