Vitality Stories
Gretchen LeMay Photography
Don’t Forget To Feed Your Inner Dog
Positively grateful
I’ve been sending a Vitality Stories Newsletter to my email subscribers every Thursday morning since last August, and then on Thursday, April 14th, I didn’t. I was obsessing about the right balance between quality and quantity, and I assumed I was the only one who was paying attention to my schedule.
And then one subscriber, David Prater, who replies with encouragement, or a story, to almost every newsletter I write, sent me a text:
My heart melted a little. Loosely and internally translated: a subscriber had missed me.
And then he wrote,
“I read a story this week that reverberates with me. Here it is, I hope you like it too: ~A man goes to the village to visit the wise man and he says to the wise man, ‘I feel like there are two dogs inside me. One dog is a positive, loving, kind, and gentle dog, and then I have this angry, mean-spirited, and negative dog. They fight all the time. I don’t know which is going to win.’ The wise man thinks for a moment, and he says, “I know which one will win; the one you feed the most. So feed the positive dog.'”
Indeed, I like this metaphor of our internal struggle to live a happy, balanced life. The story also intrigues me because not only do I know an author, Lisa Sinicki, who is working on a fun-tastic project about inner demons*, but the novel I’m writing now, In the Doghouse, is a book written from a dog’s point of view. I believe in signs, little signals that we are on the right track of…something. Here was David, one of my subscribers, throwing me a bone!
So naturally, I looked on Google. I found the story of the dueling dogs is shared by Jon Gordon in his book, The Energy Bus, and also in his newest book, The Positive Dog: A Story About the Power of Positivity, which is written from–are you ready for this?–the point of view of two shelter dogs, Matt and Bubba.
This is A BIG SIGN that writing, In the Doghouse, from a dog’s perspective is a good idea, right? The correct answer: YES.
The Positive Dog is a delightful, fast, and easy read, and at the end, Gordon offers an “11-day action plan with a daily strategy to feed yourself with positivity.” His suggestions are simple and positively rewarding.
In fact, I’m going to follow Jon Gordon’s (and Bubba’s) advice: “Gratitude is like muscle. The more we do with it the stronger it gets,” and I’m going to flex my gratitude:
- David, thank you for telling me the story about the positive dog and for your constant encouragement!
- And YOU–my email newsletter subscribers–thank you for your continued support. I’d like to give one of you** a copy of The Positive Dog. Click here and please email me by May 4th if you’d like to be in the drawing.
And as always, thanks for being you and joining me here today. Until next time, feed the positive dog!
Teri
photo by @herschelandsylvia – Instagram
*If you like the concept of positive and negative dogs, and inner voices, critics, or demons, just trust me and sign up for updates from Lisa Sinicki. Later this year, she will be sharing her inner demons in a way that will make you laugh and sigh with resonance. Here’s a glimpse: “There almost here.”
**The drawing is for email newsletter subscribers only. If you’re not subscribed, but want to be a part of the Gratitude Giveaways click here to subscribe.
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Teri, thank you for sharing about ‘the positive dog’ book. I have always lived with a positive, full of gratidute attitude and am very worried that my (almost) 12 year old daughter does not share this same innate trait 🙁 she is an avid reader & loves dogs so I’m thinking she will enjoy this book & yours (once its published).
~ Tara
Tara, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and your support. I’d love to add you to the drawing.