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Transcript

Are You Too Attached to Your Pet? · Happy You. Happy Dog.

• 0:03
  Coco Moon: Welcome to Happy You Happy Dog. This show is for you,
• 0:10
  the human behind the leash. I'm Coco, Animal Naturopath, and
• 0:17
  this is Mana, the Mulltipoo. We are so delighted you are here.
• 0:24
  If your dog is attached to your hip, your cat is supervising
• 0:31
  your every move, and you are curious about the wisdom,
• 0:37
  connection, and joy that blossom from sacred companionship. You
• 0:44
  are in the right place. Our pets don't just need us; they help
• 0:51
  shape who we become. So let's chat. Hello, darling. Can I ask
• 0:59
  you something a little personal today? How many pictures of your
• 1:06
  doggy do you have in your phone? In fact, let me grab mine. Okay,
• 1:14
  let's see. So, my phone says I have 66,768 pictures and videos.
• 1:21
  I know, like 50,000 are Mana and my boys, the cats. Actually,
• 1:28
  that's probably an underestimate. I probably like
• 1:34
  majority, like 98% of it is Manna and my boys. The cats, not
• 1:41
  the two like adult kids. And for cat parents out there, is cat
• 1:48
  hair your secret topping For everything, it is in my house.
• 1:55
  So now, have you ever softened the way you talk about your fur
• 2:02
  baby? Because you worried someone might think you were too
• 2:09
  attached. Maybe you laughed and said, "I know I'm a little
• 2:15
  ridiculous, or, "Yes, my dog is completely spoiled, or perhaps
• 2:23
  you quickly explained, "No, she's not just a pet to me. I've
• 2:29
  said it all, all of them. But I've always wondered, actually,
• 2:37
  why do we feel the need to explain this love at all? The
• 2:43
  little apologies we make, like yes, she sleeps in my bed. I
• 2:50
  know I scheduled the entire day around him. Of course, I left
• 2:57
  the party early. I had to feed them. No, I can't move. The cat
• 3:04
  is sleeping on me right now. We often say these things with a
• 3:11
  little laugh, right? As though we need to reassure everyone.
• 3:18
  Don't worry. I know this is a bit much.
• 3:23
  When I rescued Hoku, none of it was planned. I was supposed to
• 3:30
  leave for two-week holiday in Greece. I think it was like nine
• 3:37
  days later. At that point, absolutely nothing was
• 3:43
  refundable. I interviewed an experienced kitten sitter. I
• 3:50
  visited a boarding facility. I tried to make myself comfortable
• 3:57
  with leaving, but my heart kept saying no. It wasn't that I
• 4:04
  needed to stay, or that I couldn't go. I simply didn't
• 4:10
  want to. I didn't want to leave my Hoku. I mean, he was
• 4:17
  premature and sick. His eyes were kind of shut with all
• 4:23
  gooey, yucky stuff, you know, around his eyes because he had
• 4:30
  eye infection, and he had this wheezing breathing because he
• 4:37
  had a cold, and he was just so tiny. He needed medicine, and I
• 4:44
  didn't want to leave him in someone else's care. He was
• 4:51
  mine, my baby, so I didn't care about the vacation anymore. Yes,
• 4:58
  some people were frustrated with me. Of course, understandable.
• 5:06
  Even the travel agent tried to change my mind. But looking back
• 5:13
  now, we. Can I make the same decision? Absolutely.
• 5:19
  But really, who decided how much love is too much? Have you ever
• 5:26
  chosen your fur baby, even when other people didn't understand.
• 5:33
  I think in our society, attachment frightens us. We've
• 5:39
  heard something like, "Do not depend too much on anyone. Stay
• 5:45
  strong and independent. Do not make another being your whole
• 5:52
  world. Do not love blindly; you will get hurt. Our culture can
• 5:59
  be loud and fast, and sometimes silently demanding. We admire
• 6:06
  independence. We admire resilience, we admire people who
• 6:12
  seem to have it all together, and those are admirable
• 6:18
  qualities. But somewhere along the way, have we also started
• 6:24
  believing that needing love somehow makes us weaker. That
• 6:30
  leading on someone, even someone with four pots, is something we
• 6:37
  should lightly laugh off. Somehow we feel the pressure to
• 6:44
  make ourselves just a little smaller, I've certainly done it.
• 6:50
  But do we need to? Why? What if loving this deeply has never
• 6:57
  been the opposite of being strong? When I go to sleep, and
• 7:03
  manna is curled up inside my arm or sleeping on my head, feeling
• 7:11
  her heartbeat and even her snores, it's comforting. I rest
• 7:17
  differently. If we have confused loving completely with losing
• 7:24
  ourselves. That distinction feels important. Being deeply
• 7:30
  attached to Mana doesn't mean I don't have a life. She is moving
• 7:37
  into the life I have chosen to love.
• 7:41
  Attachment isn't always a chain. Sometimes it is a threat. For
• 7:48
  full disclosure, though, I have said I need my Mana. But it is
• 7:55
  also Mana and I know each other. We are so tuned into each other.
• 8:02
  She knows my energy and my mood sometimes more than I recognize,
• 8:09
  and I know all the different little sounds she makes when she
• 8:16
  wants her little snuggle baby. She makes this sound when she
• 8:23
  wants her little um little ball. It's more like no, it's not a
• 8:30
  bark. It's um it's almost sneeze. For her, when she wants
• 8:36
  the her favorite ball, when she wants to go pee pee, she goes.
• 8:43
  It's almost like a silent bark. And when she read, when she's
• 8:50
  ready to be picked up for bed at night, she roll on her back.
• 8:57
  Whether she's on the floor, on the couch, wherever she's, she's
• 9:04
  just rolls on her back, and she actually goes like this. She
• 9:11
  does. Pick me up, mommy. You know I'm ready for bed. And Mana
• 9:17
  knows when her mommy is feeling little sad. She knows my hurt
• 9:24
  inside and out. So you see, we speak the same love language. Do
• 9:31
  you have a love language you share with yours?
• 9:36
  My relationship with Manna contains comfort, safety, the
• 9:42
  rhythm of life, and profound memories that some are small and
• 9:48
  ordinary, and some are unforgettable. Maybe attachment
• 9:54
  is not only how tightly we hold on to them. Maybe it is. The
• 10:00
  quiet, gentle way we have learned to belong to each
• 10:05
  other's lives. When I was outlining this episode, a song
• 10:11
  called "It's Okay" kept returning to me. There is
• 10:16
  something in that song that feels like permission-permission
• 10:22
  to be tender, permission not to have everything perfectly
• 10:28
  figured out, permission to feel a little lost sometimes, and
• 10:34
  still know that we are going to be all right. When someone says
• 10:40
  you are too attached, perhaps they were implying it's only a
• 10:46
  dog, or perhaps they were worried that loving another,
• 10:52
  loving another being this deeply makes us too vulnerable. Because
• 10:59
  when we love this much, there is something precious we could one
• 11:05
  day lose.
• 11:06
  After I lost my son, my therapist softly reminded me
• 11:13
  that the depth of my grief came from the depth of my love for
• 11:21
  him, and when I. I heard in that moment was not a measurement. It
• 11:29
  was permission-permission not to belittle love. Most of us make
• 11:37
  ourselves a little smaller, not only with our pets, with our
• 11:45
  dreams, with our success, with our joy, and with our
• 11:52
  brilliance. We soften our excitement. We laugh off what
• 11:59
  matters to us, and maybe we don't have to shrink this
• 12:06
  either. So maybe we don't owe anyone an apologies for how
• 12:13
  deeply we adore our fur babies, and maybe we don't need to
• 12:21
  explain why this bond means so much to us. It is okay to be
• 12:28
  tender here. It is okay to love completely. It's all right. Our
• 12:37
  beloved companions have become woven into our everyday lives.
• 12:44
  They are in our routines, our decisions, our photographs, in
• 12:52
  our homes, our body's sense of safety, and most of all, they
• 13:00
  are in our hearts. Maybe this love doesn't need to be
• 13:07
  defended. Maybe it doesn't need permission to be beautiful.
• 13:14
  Maybe it simply needs to be celebrated. I will love to leave
• 13:22
  you with this question today. What might change if you no
• 13:30
  longer felt the need to make this love smaller?
• 13:36
  Before we meet again, here's this week's little love message
• 13:42
  from my love messages from your pet oracle. This week's card is
• 13:49
  one heart. Maybe attachment isn't always about losing
• 13:55
  ourselves. Maybe sometimes it is the quiet way two lives become
• 14:02
  beautifully woven together, and perhaps this deep love in our
• 14:08
  hearts was never asking for an apology. I love to hear what the
• 14:15
  two of you discover together this week. Until then, take
• 14:21
  gentle care of yourself and your precious one, because your
• 14:27
  happiness matters.