I had a really, really, really, really good month last month. I met up with some old friends I hadn’t seen in years, found a great campground, had a good month work wise, found a new group of friends to go fishing with this month and all in all - just had a great month!

But I also took on more than I could handle in a couple of areas and learned once again that if you juggle enough plates one or more WILL come crashing down.

It hurts when that happens. You disappoint people. They disappoint you. You look up and say, “Oh yeah, THAT OLD HABIT rearing its ugly head once again.” And you feel shame, resignation, anger, frustration and guilt. Once again - I crashed and burned by trying to please everyone else before having MY business in order. So I jokingly told a friend I was angry with myself for not holding onto my boundaries and doing the people pleasing thing again…so I was going to hibernate - just sleep for a week and try to forget about it and then start over - go back to square one.

She listened, as she does SO well….and suggested maybe retiring to a corner to lick my wounds might be better than hibernating. Yeah. Confusion on my face too. She comes by this spiritual advice-animal wisdom thing naturally since she runs a dog rescue and spends a LOT of time with her animals. But she explained that when a dog is bested, beaten, whipped or hurt it does the smart thing. It finds a quiet corner where it can still watch what is going on and it licks its wounds and rests, and watches. It doesn’t remove itself entirely from its surroundings unless it is truly mortally wounded.

But it does retire to the sidelines and takes the time it needs to heal before jumping back into the fray - whether it’s an hour, a day or a week. It doesn’t stop functioning. It just takes care of “numero uno” instead of trying to keep up with the pack. And that’s a good thing.

Unlike people, who eat, drink, gamble and have sex to divert their attention AWAY from the pain or doing what they need to do to heal it, dogs FOCUS on it. They’re tender with it. They pour their entire being into being with and tending to the pain. Then they rest. As a society we understand broken bones and cuts and serious injuries, but we ignore our emotional pain. We don’t cry, we avoid anger and condemn it in others, and we turn away from anything that smacks of soul searching outside of therapy or a weekend of Oprah reruns. Small wonder so many of us are fat (self included).

Dogs understand both worlds. Ever see one retreat when you yell at it? They go away, lick themselves and watch and then reenter your world when they’re ready to see if you’re over it too.

When they have a cut or pain or other physical problem they will lick for awhile, then leave it (unless something in their environment prevents it) then go back to it again and again, then less and less until it’s healed and they can turn their focus elsewhere. And as long as no human steps in to distract them and comfort them too soon in the process - they heal the minor stuff pretty quickly on their own.

So we talked a bit about metaphor and how far it goes, then just out of curiosity I started checking online and I found this at http://dogguide.net:

“And while it’s certainly good to keep your pet from licking freshly stitched cuts (he might pull out stitches and end up with a bigger, uglier scar), once the stitches have been in place for a few days and begin to dissolve or are very soon to be removed, letting the dog go ahead and lick may even promote healing.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it’s true that dog saliva has antibiotic properties. Specifically, dog saliva contains lysozyme, an enzyme that lyses and destroys harmful bacteria. This means the enzyme attaches to the bacterial cell wall – particularly gram-positive bacteria – and weakens it, leading to rupture.

The second reason is direct stimulation of the tissues and small blood vessels surrounding the wound site. This helps to increase blood flow and promote the growth of new capillaries, while the blood brings white cells, platelets, growth factors and other of the body’s natural healing agents to the wound site.”

To push the metaphor to its limits I started looking at my situation - ignoring my pain and feelings usually results in eating or overeating to stuff the pain. Hibernation might stop the eating temporarily, but what happens when I wake up?

What I came up with was my friend was right. The dogs are onto something. When I stopped and FELT the feelings, focused on the pain and did some “self-soothing” by reminding myself of the times I’ve gotten things right, and the good month I had otherwise, and I focused on my personal growth successes, I noticed that the pain of dropping all those plates sort of went away. Good thoughts and self-talk is the “anti-biotic” of that phase. That’s the “self-stimulation” of generating GOOD feelings and thoughts and digesting the bad….

I didn’t replace the pain. I felt it. I still feel it. It doesn’t feel good - but it won’t kill me. It’s an emotion. It’s like loosing a ball game. You hurt -but you know you’ll get another shot at winning next week. Same here. It hurts.

My suggestion? Feel it. Soothe it. Feel it some more. Soothe it and then get on with it. Hibernation merely delays the inevitable…as does eating, drinking, or all the things so many of us do to avoid the feelings of failure. If you’ve been stung by a remark, hurt by a slight, dumped, yelled at, or whatever - try it. FOCUS on the pain, the hurt. Look at it. Experience it. FEEL it and then soothe it - not with drugs or sex or alcohol, but by loving yourself. Sure - the bear is cuter and the idea of sleeping it off SOUNDS better, but the idea of HEALING is ultimately more appealing.

I always thought the old adage, “I’m going to go away and lick my wounds,” was synonymous with DEFEAT, not with HEALING. WRONG. It’s good advice actually.

How about you? Hibernation or Lick your wounds?