How we heal

The connection I made with my rescue dog has inspired to become a service dog trainer. I learned how to heal by watching her, and started my healing journey. My job from this point forward is to help others do the same. I am picking up the puppy in less than two weeks, and hoping to write a book over the course of the experience. Healing looks different for everyone, we all have different wounds. The relationship between a service pet and their companion is built on healthy attachments, which is something that many of us with trauma wounds struggle with. Learning how to form a healthy attachment is a good way to undo some of the harm that has been done to us.

Dogs respond to a different kind of authority than humans. To explain this, I will ask the questions I think dogs would ask, if they could interview you before deciding whether or not to listen to your instructions:

1. Can you sense the emotions in a room?
2. Does your energy set the tone, or do you react?
3. Can you sense the emotional intelligence of others, and do you respect their authority when their intelligence is higher than yours?
4. Are you aware of the complex implications of each choice you make?

Another way to explain this is what humans would call consciousness. Dogs will respond to you if you understand the kind of authority they respect. Their sense of smell gives them the ability to sense things that we have to take two steps to sense. To understand emotions of others, we have to hear the words they say, see their body language, and put the two together and analyze it through our own individual understandings of social constructs to sense the tone. Dogs just smell the tone, and they won't listen if they can tell that you don't have an awareness of your reactions.

To be in control of your emotions and reactions, you must acknowledge that your emotions are just reactions, a culmination of all the reactions you’ve been around. If you haven’t spent much of your adult life thinking about your reactions, then prior to the age of 7 will be the defining time for your reactions today. If that was a traumatic time for you in any sense, you may be spending much of your life in a trauma response. If you've experienced any trauma since then, same story.

There are many ways this can be defined, but there are four main categories of trauma responses: fight, flight, fawn, and freeze, Look into them, especially if you can’t define “fawn.” (If I were your teacher, that would be for a grade).

Living in a trauma response is damaging to relationships. You’re likely to abuse those around you without even knowing. When you’re in a trauma response, you slip into your ego; your protection. You only hear what you want to hear, and you say whatever it takes to make you right in the situation, according to your brain. The other person may see the situation differently. Being conscious and aware of these facts is a key step in the healing process.

For some, especially those that experience trauma responses often, getting a service dog is a good way to fight it off. They will be able to smell it before you do, even if you have exaggerated physical signs of it (like those with trauma-caused illnesses) When they sense the minor physical changes, they will come over and do what’s called “grounding.” This is to remind you that you’re in your body. They’ll lean on you, climb on your lap, whatever you train them to do. After you’ve taken a minute, after you’ve thought about a response rather than a reaction, you’re grounded. This will keep you from speaking out of turn, from saying potentially harmful or hurtful things; you’ll be a better spouse, parent, grandparent, sibling, cousin, friend, teacher, nurse, doctor, healer, pastor, barista, cashier, stocker, pet owner, coworker, employer, citizen; you’ll be a better member of society in whatever relationship you’re in.