Nervous System Support and Stress Management for Overwhelmed Dog People
No doubt you’re on this site because you recognize the value of dogs and the special ability they have to improve our lives. Here are several examples of the ways they provide emotional support:
Companionship - reduces loneliness
Joyful greetings - no one is as happy as they are to see us, even if we’ve only been gone an hour
Connection - this bond is strengthened without words through the unique shared release of oxytocin (the love hormone)
Loyalty - once they bond, no one else compares to you
Happiness - Interaction with dogs can boost serotonin and dopamine levels
Great Listeners - they’ll never tell our secrets, and we tend not to feel bad even if they fall asleep while we’re talking
Non-judgemental Nature - yeah, I know, but they never say anything even when we mess up, lol
- They don’t make fun of how we sound when we sing or the way we look when we dance
- Dogs don’t care what you look like - yes, even naked
Uncomplicated, Unconditional Love - unlike complex and sometimes drama-filled human relationships, dogs tend to make us feel accepted and valued
Social Connection - people are naturally drawn to dogs, and this can be a bridge to connect with others
Trustworthiness - you don’t worry about being deceived (unless they trick you into giving them a second dinner 😂)
Motivation and Sense of Purpose - caring for them may provide us with a reason to get out of bed, out of the house, and breathe fresh air
Stress Reduction - petting a dog has been shown to lower stress hormones like cortisol, decrease blood pressure, and improve mood
Honest Affection - dogs that shower you with wiggles and kisses aren’t secretly trying to get something (unless it’s dinner time)
They Don’t Hold Grudges - you’ve already been forgiven
Entertainment - it’s hard not to crack a smile watching their playful antics
Permission to Be Silly - playing with a dog gives us the freedom to let go of self-consciousness and play like a child.
Faciliated Sessions for People
A Dog’s Gifts for Calming Your Nervous System
The ability to experience love and connection with the felt sense of emotional and physical safety is the key to healing. If you’ve struggled to reach goals, enjoy life events, connect in close relationships or with people in general, or often feel a sense of worthlessness or overwhelm, these sessions are designed to help you access your body's ability to restore or create confidence and stability by regulating your system and using the dog as a resource. Even if you do not have a dog in your life now, you can learn how to take advantage of a dog’s gifts in providing stress reduction, improving mood, calming your nervous system, and expanding your capacity to manage stress. Using a trauma-informed approach of somatic awareness, you’ll experience an environment free from judgment or expectation, designed to support you in recognizing your inherent value and abilities.
Success Story
A Whole New World, and yes, it’s dazzling
I have been depressed all my life and on antidepressants for 30 years. For the last 15 of those years I have been feeling gradually more hopeless and not able to move myself into my next phase of life, just wallowing in self-disgust and unable to do anything but the most basic self-care, a walking dead person.
I have been doing things to try to help my perspective change – therapy, exercise, talking to friends, reading, spiritual work – and everything helped a little but a regulation session with Rebecca finally did it, kicked me out of my negativity.
I was bawling. I was having to be more honest with her and myself than I ever had been (not easy). But all of a sudden, after realizing that what I was feeling was shame, I also realized that there truly was no need for that. Then I could look at myself as just another human being. I felt a thousand pounds lighter.
Over the years, people have told me that I’m fine, normal, not a failure, but I didn’t believe them. Or I didn’t explore the feelings enough to be able to see it differently. The regulation session did what (I think) the best therapy does – puts me right INTO the state of emotions but them guided me out of them, through them, to a new place.
All of a sudden I could breathe when I thought of the things about me that, just yesterday, caused me to shut down. I could see the landscape, with those “hated” aspects of me still in it, but without seeing me as terrible or fatally flawed, just human. I was giddy with joy of seeing just me in just life for days afterwards; it truly was a new perspective!
–mmdogma16