I'm sensitive-wondering how many of you are too?

Oct 21, 2023

Happy Saturday friends!

Before I tell you a story, I wanted to extend an offer—$75 for an hour of Equine Gestalt Coaching from Saturday, Oct 21st until the 27th! I can also do these sessions remotely, as in, we are on Zoom, I'm with the animals and you are in whatever state you live in :-) Amazingly, it still works.

Fine print:

Book during this week and use before the end of the year. Why? Because we are headed into the holiday season and I know how that is—we could all use a little extra support. ❤️

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One morning this week I took I Love Lucy out to say hi to our friend Bonnie. The Polar Bear was already loose since Bonnie had been visiting for awhile. I Love Lucy went squiggling over to say hi (on leash because she's a runner—"See ya later, bye!" and she disappears into the forest) while the Polar Bear was loose because she's a Livestock Guardian Dog and you couldn't pry her away from us or this land. So anyway, I Love Lucy said hi while Polar Bear looked on with a slightly disapproving air.

My intuition went, "Gulp."

And just as I thought that, Polar Bear decided it was absolutely not okay for another dog to be giving affection to HER Bonnie.

Oh dear.

I haven't seen it go this way yet. Before we kept them separated in the house, the Polar Bear would creep down the hallway, peer into Lucy's room (my office), and occasionally try to sneak her toys away. Lucy would come unglued.

The few fights they had were epic looking and sounding. Never blood thank god. Lucy weighs 35 pounds and Polar Bear weighs 85. Yikes. But Lucy is scrappy and has always held her own and has given as good as she got. So scary to try to separate two dogs with teeth flashing, who won't give up. Luckily I was able to keep Lucy on a tight leash and away from my body while using one leg to fend off the growling white floof. Bonnie was able to catch her and I picked up Lucy and carried her to the house.

Wow, the adrenaline. It took me awhile to slow my breathing and heart.

By late afternoon I still couldn't take a deep breath and realized I was on the edge of a panic attack and couldn't figure out why. Helloooooo 👋🏽 🙄

But this week has been interesting and I had a huge ah-ha on Monday. It feels like much of my adult life I've lived by the ADHD part of my brain: a lot of going and doing—whitewater kayaking, riverboarding, skiing, snowboarding, cycling, running, heavy gardening, horseback riding—my body has always been happiest moving, moving, moving. My emotions too, are happiest when I'm moving my body.

But I've been ignoring this other piece of me. The piece that says, "Hey, dude, that dog fight was pretty scary and overwhelming. Maybe you need to do something to regulate yourself."

Um...no. Thanks anyway. Must keep doing. Not doing anything (aka "rest" to normal people) is a waste of the day. It's lazy. It's wrong. It's b.a.d. BAD.

Good LORD.

Hey there crazy girl.

So this week I'm paying attention to this other part of me. The part that often finds the world overwhelming. For awhile I thought it was PTSD. And it is of course. I lived 6 years with a very scary person who was intent on harming ManChild and me.

This other part of me could possibly be called Highly Sensitive Julia or Sensory Julia. The one who is affected by loud noises, the news, the pillows on my bed not being quite right. The one who, as a child, was freaked out by my sock seams not being straight, tags in my clothes, my food touching, and God forbid you suggest I wear a turtleneck. Way back 54 years ago, they called that being "picky."

I've been shoving her down and away for decades.

But the past few weeks, I've been doing some research on some things and thought to myself, "Self, do you suppose that some of the things you've been struggling with these last 10 years might have to do with, I don't know, maybe, you know, possibly, not attending to this part of yourself? Maybe? Just a thought..."

Huh.

Don't I do that already? My brother has teased me for years about needing to make sure my "levels are topped off" like I'm a car 😂 I feel like I'm already pretty careful with myself. I recognize the value of animals in my life. I usually make sure I eat regularly and pretty well. I do neurofeedback. I have coaching and energy work and grief counseling. Isn't that enough?

Well, I don't know Julia, are you still having panic attacks? Are you still fighting Chronic Fatigue flare ups?

Oh.

So today, when I was wondering why I wasn't able to take a deep breath and feeling on the verge of a panic attack, instead of powering through, I thought about it and figured it was probably that fight that set me on edge. I pulled B-Rad's 20 pound weighted blanket off the bed, sat in a recliner with it on my chest and took a 30 minute nap. When I woke up I could breathe again.

The mean part of me says, "It was a dog fight, not even, it was almost a dog fight, you big baby. Get over it you ding bat." She's not kind at all. Thinking about that voice too this week. Where it comes from.

This week my mantra is: Attend to the minutia. What I've been finding is that I am calmer, easier going, more willing to go with the flow when I do allow myself whatever it is that I need. I'm writing this with a weighted blanket in my lap and noise cancelling headphones on—happy as a clam.

So, I'm "sensitive." So what? Wondering how many of you are too?

THE RANCH:

This:

Has brought about this (well, that and the shorter days) aren't they gorgeous!:

And because of the cool weather, I'm able to spend more time outside, yay! I've been out twice just to sit in the pasture and see what happened with Jaffee. I like to sit on a stool that is about 6 inches off the ground so I can be at eye level with the donkeys. That is Little Man's favorite. They both came over to work on me for a bit, it is a lovely feeling to get energy work from animals. Little Man has always been very intentional about it. He's not real thrilled when someone laughs, "Oh look! He wants his butt scratched!"

He wants you to know: He. Does. Not.

If you are lucky enough to receive energy work from the donkeys, just sit quietly and let it flow over you. It's an amazing experience.❤️

When they both came over to me I asked Little Man if he was showing Jaffee what to do. He said, "I'm reminding him what to do. He knows." And he was right, he did already know. So cool! They use their bodies nearly identically and it makes me wonder, do all donkeys do this?

Look at Jaffee's soft eyes:

Double root chakra, Jaffee on right:

You can see my little black eye here:

Good boy Jaffee! He might be seeing clients sooner than I thought! If you'd like a session that includes some donkey energy work, give me a call!

The horses and donkeys have been in the upper pasture this week with all the nice weather so it's easier to let the girl goats out to play. Dancer is always doing this to her mother. Too bad mom didn't have twins, she would have had a built in playmate:

Dancer and her mom Alaska:

Haaaa! Look at Dancer's googly eyes!:

Look! The doors got painted for Josh's wedding! (pics to come at some point). It was a rainy day so it was inside the house. It cleared up at the end so all the pics could be outside at least. This week I bought giant yellow mums to replace the impatients in the big pots on the right: