The Quality of Connection

To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts unexpressed — that can make of this earth a garden. — Goethe

You know how I am about process and quality and connection and dog training – this lovely passage from Suzanne Clothier’s “Bones Would Rain from the Sky” has it all. I’m really enjoying this book.

When we enter into a relationship with a dog or any other being, we are seeking a connection or, perhaps more accurately, what we feel as a result of this connection: comfort, love, acceptance, peace, joy. What we are seeking and striving for is a quality of connection that is — hopefully — a mutually pleasurable state, a dance of two spirits moving in agreement. Though we may be unable to articulate precisely what we seek, we recognize it when it happens. Simply stated, it feels good when it is right, and it does not feel good when things are wrong. And when it is right, it’s delightfully, incredibly, inexpressibly right. And when it is wrong, it can be terribly, unbearably wrong. What drives us crazy at times is that even when the connection is powerful and good, we may not know just how that moment was achieved or what magical ingredients helped to create it or, sadly, why it just as mysteriously dissolves into the mundane or routine.

Because this kind of profound connection is elusive (whether we seek it with other people or with animals), we may not understand that it is not a goal or a “thing” but rather a process, and a dynamic one at that. Despite the messages from advertisers that assure us that with their product (their car, soap, beer, dog food, jeans) we will be able to have the fulfilling relationships we seek, the truth is there is no particular formula by which a powerful connection may be summoned or created. In our restless searching through books and videos and seminars, we are asking for the recipe that can help us create what we know exists. Such a relationship between us and our animals is possible, though not necessarily easy, certainly not automatic. We’ve tasted it, or we’ve seen it or perhaps we even just read about it — and we want more. We want a road map to There, because we’ve been there or we know others who have, and we know it’s where we want to go.

None of us deliberately sets out to create a relationship filled with conflict, frustration or disappointment. But the deep connection we seek may be missing, especially if we mistake the technicalities of dog behavior training theories and techniques for a relationship. To find what we are seeking, we need to begin at the beginning, examining the foundation on which the entire relationship will turn: the quality of the connection itself.

Each time we interact with a dog or another being, we have an opportunity to create an event of quality, or not. Our relationships with our dogs are dynamic, responsive to and informed by every choice we make. Each of our actions, whether intentional or inadvertent, will move us in only a few possible directions — away from or toward greater intensity of connection, or we do not move at all and remain still.

If quality is indeed an event, then in every moment, we have a choice. Relationships are not mechanical processes…. Our world is not one of simple cause and effect, but one of dynamic interactions, right down to the cells within our bodies. .. A relationship is also — at its core — a seamless integration of information. By the very act of choosing to be in a relationship — even casually — with another being, we open ourselves to the dynamic process of both putting forth and receiving information.

To fully embrace the idea that quality is a dynamic event that we can choose to create is both a heavy burden of responsibility and one of the greatest of all freedoms… The event of quality is one that we can actively choose, every day, each time we are with our dogs.

The idea of choosing in every moment what you will create in that moment is absolutely central to Tao. It is what people mean when they talk about being “in the moment” – not just living moment to moment, but actively understanding what it is you are creating moment to moment, and accepting responsibility for that. I think it is what a lot of people do not understand about me — I’ve always accepted the responsibility for my actions, and known what i was creating — even in those times when I was “crazy” and “out of control”.

I have always been well aware of the quality of the connections in my life. A good friend called me this morning and thanked me for that, for which I will be eternally grateful. I do not think I had realized until today that the depths of how much I care for other people and value them is not a character flaw, but probably the deepest part of my character itself. One friend would chide me in the past for being “too intense”. But I think that only meant he was afraid of having intense experiences in his own life. Another friend stepped away because they didn’t feel the intensity of the relationship that I did — or so he claimed. Yet, looking back, I know very well that the intensity was there on both sides. Yet another friend stepped away because they didn’t like my intensity – and yet gossiped about me to all her other friends. I suspect she was actually jealous of my own ability to create a relationship worth gossiping about.

And those friends who have stuck with me, through everything, and especially my wonderful husband – those are the ones I love most of all. People like that will be the ones who can get me through anything.

And the ones who read here, who have even that much interest in my life to casually check and see what I’m doing or what I have to say — you are the special ones, the ones that indeed, make my world a garden.

Thank you.