Let’s talk alarms…and dogs

My dog, Bruno, was taking an afternoon nap on his comfy cozy bed one day when he heard a noise outside. He barked, got up, looked out the window, and barked some more.  

The barking alerted me to go the window to check it out. I peeked through the blinds and saw a delivery truck with a person delivering a package to a neighbor.  Bruno had barked for a reason. It made sense. But was the delivery truck driver going to hurt us?

No.

So I thanked Bruno, acknowledging that he did a good job of alerting me to potential danger but since we were safe he could go back to his nap. And that’s just what he did.  

It might sound silly, but we all have little dog alarms in our bodies that go off at different times.

The little dogs take naps throughout the day in the attic of our brain (subconscious) until a noise or situation will hit differently and the barking begins.  

And by barking it’s a list of potential alarms: headaches, butterflies, sweating, shaking, etc. Each of our alarms will present differently but at the end of the day? It’s dogs barking. Notifying us of potential danger.

Which is pretty incredible that our body protects us like this but…  here’s the thing…  

When an alarm sounds we have 2 choices:

1. Get scared and hide from it

2. Get curious and lean into it.  

Let’s say you’re the delivery person dropping a package off to a house with a dog foaming at the mouth and the door wide open.

Yeah, that’s not a time we should sit in the alarms and get curious. 

But there are other times when the alarms go off and we aren’t in danger. Like when we learn a new skill, make a mistake, lose, etc. We may be uncomfortable but we aren’t going to die. That’s a good time to meet the alarms head on and get to know those dogs a little better.

It’s a leveled up way of thinking.

I’ve practice this way of thinking for a few years now and it has literally changed my life.

I highly suggest this to athletes, coaches, parents and humans of every walk.

Next time your alarm sounds, the barking starts, and you aren’t in danger…go to the "window", shine your "flashlight" out to see what’s causing the alarm to sound, and try to get to know it better.

Sit with it awhile.

Then and only then will you be better because of it. 

Here's the problem...

What we all really want to do is choose option 1. Put that loud, obnoxious, little barking dog back in the attic box of your subconscious never to be seen again. And that might work for a little while. Even a long while sometimes.

But you know what eventually happens? That darn puppy gets loose again and again and again. And every time, as we put the naughty dog back in the box in the attic, we are yelling at it to shut up, demanding it stop being bad, shaming it to behave. 

Without acknowledging it, without leveled up thinking, the dog will randomly escape and bark for the rest of your life and you will beat yourself up. Every. Single. Time.   

It’s hard. And we won’t always get it right. But when we do, and you will, the leveled up thinking will connect dots that will blow you away. The more we do it, the quieter the barking will get. And we will be stronger because of it.

Both on and off the field.

In Your Corner,

Nikki