Year 2 Daily Random Acts of Kindness

I thought I would share a tale of a recent adventure and see what we might learn….or not.

I was walking my daughter’s dog (Molly) on a wooded path that runs near our home.  Because she is young, smart, and high energy, she was able to slip out of her collar (Molly, not my daughter) and starting running up and down the path.  Imagine a four-year-old, totally wired on Halloween candy.  Now add four legs, a flexible spine, streamlined body and the ability to reach speeds that are close to 30 miles per hour. Zooming, running in circles, into the woods, bursting out of the woods, saying hello to everyone in our area of the path, asking if anyone would like play, wagging and hopping, a blur of doggy joy. In general, despite her enthusiasm, she was polite…although I am pretty sure she poked one young woman runner in the butt with her nose (Insert me grimacing, sorry!).  Molly thought: This. Is. Epic!

I, on the other hand, did not think this was epic.  My first response was to be really mad at Molly (Stupid fucking dog) who had obviously done this on purpose to zing me, and myself (stupid fucking self) because I know dogs and it was stupid to have let this happen.  Because 1) If you are trying to catch a dog, expressing anger at any point in the process is a great way to make sure you don’t catch that dog, and 2) I have been working on questioning my initial response to events, especially if they involve anger or avoidance, I stopped and took a quick look under the hood.  What I found was anxiety (surprised, right?).  Fear that Molly was going to run away and get hit by a car or hurt in some other way, and it would be all my fault.  And fear of embarrassment that the dog I was responsible for was misbehaving and bothering people, and might cause someone else a problem.  I am ashamed to admit it, but my biggest fear was not the safety of Molly, it was that I would get in trouble.  That someone would be mad at me and yell at me and tell me what an irresponsible, reckless, horrible human being I was. As fate would have it, the Wooded Path provided just such a person for me.

For the record, 99% of the people Molly and I encountered during this unscheduled moment of freedom were neutral to great, with a good portion of the fine folks being on the great end of the spectrum.  Several people stopped to try to help (Molly toughtt that was hilarious), including the young woman who got poked in the butt (Insert me grimacing, sorry!).  There were only 3 people who were definitely not great.  One of these small handful of fellow path travelers unleased (no pun intended) a torrent of verbal abuse at me that pretty much could have been scripted by the fear inside my head.  She yelled at me about how irresponsible I was, how out of line my behavior was (Although I would like to point out, I was not the one zooming up and down the path and did not poke the girl in the butt with my nose).  As I tried to explain what had happened and that the dog was friendly, her fury spilled out and crashed over my head. No explanation or provision of context for what she was witnessing was sufficient, nothing I could say or do had any effect.  I felt my own defensiveness rise as my willingness to play nice began to fade. Then that whatever-it-is inside my head that a year plus of daily RAKs has wedged in there asked me a question.  Why did I think she was so angry?  Sometimes I really hate that whatever-it-is.

In between spitting venom at me was fear.  I saw this woman was dog phobic.  She was terrified of the dangerous creature that was hunting along the path, which would at any moment select its prey and savagely attack. This is over-the-top melodramatic, and it is how phobias are experienced.  I wish I could say that in that moment I felt great compassion for her (That came a couple hours later).  I wish I could say that in that moment I felt admiration for her amazing courage.  I don’t know about your world, but in mine I never go for a walk/run (unless it is some god-awful, Oh-Dark-30, predawn training run) without encounter multiple canines.  Given the percentage of Jack-Asses and Fools (you can decide which camp I belong in), running into an off-leash dog is going happen every couple weeks.  Later, I was able to appreciate her being out there, going for a run.  What I was able to do in that moment was understand enough to create some space between my defensiveness and my response. Perhaps not worthy of a prize, but maybe worthy of a couple bonus points toward a prize?

Some stray thoughts to share.  Feel free to come up with your own. Or just close this blog and shake your head.  For me, there He is again, that Anxiety who lives deep down in the cold depths of the stream I swim in, and an awareness of the many ways I have across my lifetime tried to ignore and disavow His presence and influence.  In all honesty I have given up on the goal of having Him go away.  I do think He and I are beginning to have a better understanding; one that allows Him to swim up from the murk of my past, while not giving Him much say in what I do. That whole “Acceptance” and “Openness” thing.  He actually seems pretty cool with that. We will see.

Of course, the events on the Wooded Path are a classic example of that psychological truism that it is our interpretation of events that drives our responses.  All those people on the path, one dog doing the exact same behavior in front everyone (Insert me grimacing, sorry!), and only one person seriously lost her shit about it.  It is so easy for our day to be all about our history, not our day. I know I stumble over my history constantly.  Of course we can never truly step out of our stream as we are paddling along, and I believe we can know that our stream has certain currents, rocks, sink holes, monsters, and calm stretches, beautiful fish, and an interesting shore line…..ok, starting to drift into the silly here…but still….no, no I will stop.

As may be obvious to you, of all the people on the path that day, the one I have been stuck on is the single Mean Human.  All those kind people, even after being poked in the butt with a dog nose (Insert me grimacing, sorry!), who wanted to help, who knew this was not my fault, and I focus on the one who  echoed my fears of being an irresponsible, reckless, horrible human.  I know I am not alone in doing this.  In part it is because our brains are working hard to keep us from being eaten by lions.  Paying attention to things associated with bad events helps makes us wary and watchful for lions (I think this is why we are compelled to look at car wrecks, our brains are looking to learn warning signs). Stupid brain with its negative-valence oriented evolutionary advantage.  Although major chops to my ancestors for having that.  Much thanks.  I think another reason is more nuanced and complicated.  It has something to do with looking for evidence in the environment that, of all seemingly maladaptive things, confirms our worst fears about ourselves. Maybe we will talk about that another day.  Or not.

In case you are wondering, I stayed calm, spoke in soothing tones, eventually her energy level dropped and I sat down, and she came over to get scratches and I was able to put her collar back on (To be clear, this was Molly, not the Mean Human).