Here is a follow up on Obie and his aggressive behavior (Blog post Dec 2014). Obie continued to be a model citizen at the dog park and I almost forgot about his previous behavior. Then this past week I started thinking about how he used to behave and really noticed how good he had been in the months that followed. Every day for the past week I would think about it while we were at the dog park. Then the behavior started rearing its ugly head again and by the end of the week had returned almost to the level it had been before.
After my initial disappointment and frustration, I began to realize that my focus on the behavior was what was causing it to return. Even though I was thinking about how much the behavior had changed, it was still that behavior I was focused on.
It was a big lesson for me. If you have moved beyond something big in your life whether it be dog aggression, cancer, financial trouble, unemployment – move on completely – be grateful that it is gone and leave it in the past where it belongs, don’t keep bringing it to mind even to be grateful that it is gone – just let it go.
I’ve seen this a lot with mothers. Their children have had issues in the past with their health , school, drugs, etc. and the mothers live in fear that these issues will return. They continue to think these “what if” thoughts, instead of allowing themselves and their children to move forward into their new experiences.
I also see this in my sessions with clients. In the Body Code there is a mental exercise called “move the past”. It is when past memories are stored in front of a person energetically, making it very difficult to move ahead in life. We have to energetically move those memories back into the person’s past, where they belong, otherwise the tapes keep replaying in people’s heads as if they are still occurring. The mind/body doesn’t know if it is a past or present issue – if you are focused on it you are creating it anew.
