Grief & Sadness, part of life? · Equine Experiences

Janet Wilson

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18d • General discussion

Grief & Sadness, part of life?

It’s something we all suffer from at some point in our lives.

Yesterday while out walking our two dogs, my partner threw a stick.

One of our dogs, the lab loves to chase and fetch them, the other a beagle not so, he prefers to sniff.

Unfortunately the stick hit the beagle, Stan.

His reaction was unprecedented, he screamed like he was being murdered, totally over the top.

Or so we thought.

Moments later his wee turned into blood.

Knowing instantly something was wrong, my partner scoped him up and we dashed to the emergency vets.

After scanning the vet gently explained he had a large mass - a tumour in his bladder, that had been dislodged, hence the blood.

We never knew it was there.

Denial, my partner refused to accept that his healthy dog, was not healthy at all.

I can’t do it, he said.

I just can’t.

I can I replied. To me it’s part of owning an animal isn’t it.

We are going on holiday in less than 24 hours, Stan was supposed to be staying with his daughter.

Who, let’s just kindly say, is a bit of a drama queen and not someone you want in your corner in a crisis.

For me there is the reframe.

The vet had explained that within days, the tumour would block the exit and Stan would not be able to wee and would have been in pain.

How long would it have been before the daughter noticed? How long before the vet trip and how awful to be away.

To me, it’s better a day to early than a day to late. That is my view and model of the world.

My partner blames himself for killing the dog. He said that had the dog not been hit by the stick he would still be alive.

Now, here is the point of the post, it’s not to elicit sympathy, it’s to highlight something that I have been learning for some time.

Let them.

At First I tried to reason with him, explaining as if to a child the implication of this not happening the way it did. The unnecessary pain and suffering for the dog and his daughter and in turn for us, away and powerless.

But he would not listen and kept saying, I am the worse person in the world.

How could I stop this? Make him see it my way? How?

I can’t. I have to let him grief his own way, if he needs to blame himself, I have to let him. I can’t control his feelings or reaction.

Sometimes we have to let people do what they want, everyone has their own model of the world.

In situations like this, all we can control is our reaction to it, we can’t control it or how others react to it.

It’s one of the first things we are taught during NLP training, people have their own unique model of the world. We can only change this (ie remove limiting beliefs, build confidence etc) if they want us too, and this has to happen at an unconscious level.

Yesterday, I finally understood the Let Them Theory.

Want to know more? I would recommend the book on this subject by Mel Robins.

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