Who says you can’t coach with the animals?   In indigenous cultures, animals often serve as spirit guides to shamans or anyone sensitive to the world’s aliveness.  In the WB movie, The Lone Ranger, Silver was the legendary masked man’s white horse and his spirit guide.  Hi yo, spirit guide!

If you allow yourself to be coached by animals, you can learn invaluable lessons.  A dog will give you the rare experience of being loved unconditionally. In your marriage you’ll not find unconditional love.  Husbands sometimes don’t hear the end of it from their spouses when they leave the toilet seat up and wives sometimes catch flack for taking way too long to get ready for a night out.

Cats will show you how full of wonder life is when your natural curiosity is awakened.  A duck lets water roll off his back, which demonstrates that you can let stress roll off yours.  A camel will lead you to your potential to endure much more than you can imagine, and a donkey demonstrates how to handle burdens without complaining.

On the more pleasurable side… a dolphin, playfully diving in and out of the ocean, can give you a glimpse of what life would be like if you took such pleasure in waking up each morning.   A rabbit, Nature’s great procreator, embodies the joy of sex and breeding.

Animals can even coach you on your finances.   A squirrel, for example, is a great saver, and can inspire you to put part of your current bounty away for the future. A bird builds a nest egg and, with the aid of a good financial manager, so can you.

There’s much to learn from four-legged friends, as well as those who swim the ocean depths or fly the boundless skies.

This happy story about my 88-year-old mother, who had Alzheimer’s Disease (http://www.alz.org/index.asp), may bring tears to your eyes.   Mom enjoyed the moment, even if it was a visit from her son who she carried for nine months, lived with for 18 years, bragged about for 25 more, but didn’t know from Adam.  She thought I was her brother, who died at 91; her husband (a corpse for 10 years); or her father (who’d be 118 if he wasn’t dead for 25 years). So much for my liveliness.

When I arrived, she was kissing a stuffed animal like a new-born grandchild. When your mother has Alzheimer’s, you go with her reality, so I asked if it was her daughter.  She said yes, so we played with her flesh and blood stuffed animal.  Mom laughed excitedly, and asked repeatedly, “We’re having a wonderful time, aren’t we?”  We were.  I hadn’t laughed like that with my mother since I played with stuffed animals.  It was the most enjoyable time I remember spending with my mother.

Mom had no past and no future—only an eternal present which, like a child, she enjoyed immensely.  She was an 88-year-old wheelchair-bound child.  My heart broke to see what became of the mind of the woman who brought me into the world and brought me up to join it.  If the dark cloud of Alzheimer’s has a silver lining, it’s clearly that the so-called sufferer has much to teach us (http://www.memorystudy.org/alzheimers_care.htm, also here is a great article called “Caregiving Tips:  Strategies for Success.”  The following things I learned from my mother during this visit–things you can incorporate into your life starting now:

1. Enjoy the present because that’s all you have.
2. It doesn’t matter what time it is, because time doesn’t exist.
3. You don’t have to know who people are, or what they do for a living, to have a ball with them.
4. Stuffed animals make great playmates and, if necessary, friends or family members.

Dear Reader:

Welcome to my blog.

Cary Bayer

As you can see from the drop-down menu, there are many different entries in this blog area of my site. Most of these can help enrich the quality of your life—your relationships and communications, your finances, your career, and your overall sense of purpose in life. Some help you awaken to a deeper appreciation of the world around you.

So grab a coffee, relax, and browse—just make sure your coffee doesn’t get too close to your computer.

Have a nice read.
—Cary