Dog Bites and Victims

Recently in Australia there has been a spate of dog attacks. The government is looking at legislating to eliminate certain breeds. I believe that these attacks have a deeper message for us all to listen to. Just recently on a trip to Sydney I was bitten by a dog for the first time.

The dog was owned by a friend. He was a Rhodesian Ridgeback and very large. It was the first time I had met the dog and I played with him very happily for the first 20 minutes.I had another friend with me and we all went into my friend's room which is where the incident occurred.

I reached down to the dog and was nose to nose with him when he growled and savagely bit me just above my eye. He opened up a deep cut on my eyebrow and then went back to being his previous peaceful self. My reaction was shock followed by a strange calm. I didn't get angry and was more intent on making sure that everyone else including the dog were ok.

An hour later I was waiting in the doctors surgery and started writing in my diary about the incident. It was then that I realised why I wasn't angered by the attack.I took myself back to how I was feeling just before the bite. I felt how dis empowered, inadequate and self disgusted I was feeling. The dog's owner has a very powerful energy and can be very intimidating to be around. Just prior to the incident I was feeling particularly weak around her and went to the dog for comfort and affection instead of speaking my mind.

As is becoming folk law animals are well respected for having high sensitivity. I believed that the dog felt my fear and perhaps saw it in my eyes. His reaction to my fear was immediate and in my opinion unconscious. He did not intend to hurt me and just lashed out at the energy I that he was sensing from me.

For me to realise this was a massive wakeup call. Previous to the bite I was becoming very tense and unaware of my state of being. I was walking on egg shells around the dog's owner and was generally adversely affecting all around me. After the bite I came back to reality and composure very quickly and realized many lessons.

My friend who owned the dog asked if I felt her energy had affected her dog to bite me. I admitted to her that I had just written as much and she proceeded to tell me about some stress she had prior to us arriving at her house. My friend is very unaware of how her moods and thoughts affect others. She has had much conflict in her life and has few friends apart from her dog. In fact she admitted that if anything happened to the dog she would be devastated.

So many things started to make sense. There was just so much to learn. I believe my friend's anxiety with life and her dependency on the dog had affected the dog's internal balance. Hence when I approached the dog with fear he was not secure enough to not react. I also realised how weak I had become in my friend's company. This gave me an awareness of my control in the incident and took away the temptation to feel like a victim. My main lesson was to not enter anyone's head space without being in control of myself first. None of us like feeling pressure and when someone projects fear, dependancy or something like disgust towards us it does feel like pressure.

I believe that we all react to energy but that those of us less stable or less rational are far more reactive than most. This is why it is so important to be aware of your energy and it's affects on others. My state of inner turmoil affected the dog to bite me. I believe that life wakes us up whenever we lose balance within ourselves.

With regards to dogs and for that matter children I think we have to be very aware of the energy we send them. If we are not at peace within ourselves I believe that our kids or pets are affected. They do not have enough rational thought control to handle the energy they receive. As such our kids and pets are really representative of our own emotional states.

I believe that my friend was inflicting much fear into her dog. She was not happy with her life and was living through her dog. She was dependant upon him for her happiness and was using him to take her away from facing the fear and confusion she had experienced in her life. Many of us try to escape from our experiences in a variety of ways. Some use drugs or alcohol, others a partner or child or pet or activity that they can absorb themselves in as a way to escape facing their fears.

I feel that the saying 'the sins of the father are visited upon the son' are very apt. Our pets and kids carry much of our fears and then project our fears back to both ourselves and on to others. Until we all take responsibility for our thoughts and emotions then we will create an ever growing victim mentality.

For mine the bite from the dog has alerted me to my friend's strength of energy, to how I handle strong energy in others and to the control I have over my life. Had I not been able to find a reason for the attack then I would have felt anger, fear and hurt. However in understanding my control in the situation I have learnt wisdom and strength.

I have been bitten many times by life and ever more I am learning to not be hurt. Each time someone or something triggers an emotion I look for the lesson. More often than not my own state of being was at least partly to blame. On a world scale the tsunami and 9/11 were examples of 2 big bites. Will the world be a victim or will it wake up and use perceived adversity as a pathway to gain knowledge.