I’m starting a new weekly series right here on my online journal, “Wednesdays with the Wisdom of Dog.” Each week I’ll share a lesson I’ve learned from my dogs, or write about something I feel they are trying to teach us. I hope you will enjoy it. I welcome your thoughts on any of the lessons or teachings that resonate with you.

As I gave thought to doing this weekly series the word that immediately popped into my head was stillness. So this is the lesson from Dog that I’ll begin this series with.

I think our dogs are masters at teaching us stillness. That is, if we are willing to pay attention and participate.

Perhaps this is just the state of being that I’ve found myself in for quite some time now, though one I grapple with on and off. It’s not always an easy place to be, that is for sure – for we restless, on-the-go, achieving humans that we are.

But as I sat looking at Gidget the other day contemplating the lesson in stillness, I heard in my mind, “Sit. Stay. Staay. Staaaay….listen. Hear that? Hush. Trust me. It’s there. Slowly tune into opening one ear. Good. Now the other. Hear it now?” Was that Gidget sharing this message with me?

I took a deep breath, and let it all out. Whooossssh.

There it was. A vast open space of what felt like nothingness all around me. Not really nothingness, but rather a calm, presence of peace that slowly and gently covered me like a warm blanket, lightly flowing from the top of my head, down to my feet. A letting go of thoughts wanting to spin an endless loop in my mind, but gently slipped away out into this open, vast space of nowhere.

What at first felt like nothing, was actually what feels like home in my heart. That right and still place within me. The center of me, who I truly am, connecting with that something that is bigger than myself—a Spirit of my understanding.

It’s always there. It only goes away when we rush through our lives, trying to figure everything out. Trying to have answers now. Trying to control every. single. moment.

But it’s the stillness that brings answers. Sometimes the answer is stillness itself and there is nothing that needs to be figured out. Right here and right now is all we need to be.

Have you felt this stillness when in the presence of being with your dog?

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