I am a little late posting this because my planned topic took a little twist yesterday with a trip to the vets.
I had wanted to review some of the approaches to actually
thinking positively; or to put it another way: attempt to provide an answer to
what exactly one does to think positively. One of the things I had mentioned was
that to my way of thinking there is a very fine line between positive thinking,
meditation, and prayer. Some may say they are one and the same thing, but one
distinction is that prayer usually refers to speaking to some one or some thing outside oneself. To me
the word prayer does not necessarily
imply worship but does suggest a
belief in the existence of an external "higher power" or "infinite
intelligence".
Bear with me while I explain the events that took my
thinking in this other direction. My wife
and I own two rescue dogs which came into our lives two years ago this coming
June. They were part of an abandoned litter found under a house porch. Our daughter and we agreed to take the entire litter of five and the love that
these dogs have brought to our families has been nothing short of remarkable.
The love of their human guardians is expected or at least hoped for as part of
pet ownership, but the love and affection they demonstrate toward each other is
truly astounding.
Denny, the male of the sister/brother pair that came to us, was discovered to have a serious heart murmur during his first visit to a veterinarian. (Murmur refers to an abnormal sound as the heart beats usually heard only with the aid of a stethoscope.) I can hear the typical whooshing sound with my ear to his chest. His murmur was rated a 6 out of 6 on "loudness" level. He was not expected to live. Denny and I spend a few minutes almost every day with him looking into my eyes and me, with hands on each side of his chest, telling him that his heart is beating too hard and asking him to relax and slow things down a little. This does me a lot of good, and I will leave it at that.
I decided to change vets this spring for a number of reasons unrelated to Denny's murmur. The new vet rated Denny's murmur a 5 out of 6 which is a subjective rating, of course, except for one factor in this case. A rating of 6 indicates that the murmur can be heard "outside the chest" meaning it is audible in a perfectly quiet room without a stethoscope. Denny's murmur is not that loud.
Yesterday Denny's sister, Abby, went for her checkup and the new doctor discovered that she now has a murmur. I heard it myself with the stethoscope. It is much less severe than Denny's, but a real downer nonetheless. Let me mention that this condition is not painful to the animal, and if anything happens at all, they usually just collapse while running across the yard.
To the next step -
I found myself wondering if animals think. Clearly they have the ability to reason as the following behavior I witnessed recently indicates. Another dog and its owner were walking along the road in the front of the house (west-facing) going in a southerly direction. Our pups were blocked by a fence and just stood and barked until the intruding pair got out of site at which point they glanced at each other and simultaneously turned on their heels, ran to the rear of the house around the back where the other dog came into sight again, and they resumed their barking. This certainly demonstrates an ability to predict and communicate to each other. This example is probably more instinct than thinking, but how do animals think anyway? Certainly not in words.
To the final step -
I wondered if it is possible to have positive thoughts for
animals the way one might have positive thoughts for other humans. That is when I realized that what I was really thinking about was prayer. It put things
in a brand new perspective for me. We frequently pray for friends and family members in times of adversity. Perhaps by putting it in the context of having positive thoughts about your own issues but substituting the other person's name everywhere you would have thought "I" would be a good approach. Just reverse the way you have been thinking about it.
"[insert name] is getting healthier every minute. He/she loves life and is so happy to be a part of his/her family. He/she has wonderful friends who care about him/her and they are using their combined power of positive thinking to bring continued happiness and good health to [name]. Thank you so much."
See how this works for you, and I will be back next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment