You Are Who You Think You Are

From the summer before seventh grade until I left for college, I lived on a small farm in the Missouri Ozarks.  It wasn’t much, 25 acres of woodland divided by a rural highway and no crops, but I couldn’t have picked a better place to spend those angsty teenage years.  Lush trees, no neighbours, a sprawling backyard garden, and a party barn made it practically the ideal place to live if it weren’t for all the hard work that comes with a wood-burning furnace and a clay/rock mixture instead of dirt.  And the animals.  We had so many animals.

At its peak, our non-working farm hosted: five dogs, seven cats, four pigs, two mules, one horse, two dozen breeding/eating rabbits, twelve chickens, six guinea hens, a goose, a turkey, and a nanny goat.

Oh god, the goat.

Mom bought Addy in a whirlwind of make-your-own-cheese excitement.  We’d milk her!  And make cheese!  And she’d mow the grass!  When we unloaded the hip-height, white critter into the yard, things seemed promising.  Addy liked our grass, and she let us milk her without horning us in the face too much.

But after a couple of weeks, we realized something wasn’t right.  Addy did all her normal goat activities and enjoyed free reign of the farm, but she’d been spending an abnormally large amount of time with the dogs.  The beasts stayed outside and had the run of the place, forming a tight gang of ruffians that had been known to drag in calf carcasses from the ranch next door.  For whatever reason, Addy decided that she’d found her people (metaphorically speaking).

The goat thought she was a dog.

Addy would jump up whenever you came up to her, front hooves digging into your collarbone.  She’d bleat loudly at intruders in the yard.  She harassed the guinea hens.  She sprinted madly with the pack after uncatchable cars on the highway.  I think we broke down and got her a collar.

And because she did dog things, the dogs accepted Addy into their rural gang.  It was the weirdest goddamn pack you’ve ever seen: a Cocker Spaniel, a Brittany Spaniel, a Great Dane (who had cat tendencies), and a nanny goat.  They ran around blissfully unaware of how bizarre they were, just happy to be doing what they loved.

However, the human beings in Addy’s life didn’t approve of her lifestyle.  She was a milk goat, dammit!  The last thing we needed was another renegade dog.  We wanted her to, you know, be a goat.

To that end, we corralled her in a special enclosure off the chicken barn.  She still had loads of room, but she’d been cut off from the pack, unable to roam as she pleased.

It only took a few days for her to get depressed.  She sat sullenly in her pen, rarely moving except to nibble at her feed.  We tried milking her, but she didn’t produce much.  Even the dogs moped, glum to have lost their fourth.

We’re soft-hearted folks, so we didn’t let this go on long.  Rather than force her into milk-maid-hood, we found a family nearby who were delighted with her personality that wanted to keep her as a farm pet.

If Addy thought she was a dog, Addy could be a dog.

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You Are Who You Think You Are

Our minds are amazingly good at defining ourselves for us.  Once you get some concept of yourself fixed in your mind, it sticks there and no outside influence can change it for you.  If you’re convinced you’re a horrible, worthless person, then that’s your truth.  If you know you’re all that and a bag of chips, then no one can tell you otherwise.  Whatever you believe about yourself is true.

The only way to shift your self-belief is to go inside.  You already know the truth.  You’re not a horrible, worthless person who’s too fat and sucks at their job.  You’re a fascinating individual who’s their right shape and who might need more training.  Listen to what your Self is telling you, what you know is who you really are.

Other People Can’t Decide For You

When the humans stepped in to remind Addy of what she was, of what we thought she should be, it crushed her.  We were happy to have her back in her comfortable-for-us role, but it was clear that Addy wasn’t happy about it at all.

You’re the only person in charge of your destiny.  No one else gets to tell you who to be.  They can wish and scream and beg all they want, but if your true Self isn’t who they want you to be, tough titties.  If you give someone else the power to direct your life, you’ll only be miserable.  Be who you are, and fuck anyone who wants you to be different.

If you know you’re a dog and people say you should stay a goat, be a dog.

Want to go deeper?  Not sure which voice to listen to or not sure who your Self is?
Book your headology session and we can find your inner doggyness together.