Hello all! It's Tiki here with a few words of wisdom and a little fun for your morning.

So, this week I was hard at work playing guard dog at home. Usually things are pretty quiet, but this week I really had to earn my keep - there were tons of people walking by my window, and a lot of them were walking their puppies. Now most of these puppies were not nearly as well-behaved as I and were barking their little heads off at me. Not only was their barking loud and annoying, it was cutting into my nap time; all I could think about was how much I wanted them to go away and leave me alone. Then I remembered a meditation I've heard in yoga class: every person (or puppy) that comes into your life is really just teacher, placed exactly where they need to be to teach you the lessons you need to learn. Every person and every doggie we encounter, whether they are nice or rude, barking or calm, are really just Buddhas for us. So as much as I hated to admit it, I realized that these barking puppies had a lot to teach me about compassion and acceptance. Rather than just being annoyed with them, I made a choice to change my attitude and appreciate them and the lessons they were teaching me.

This concept of every person being a teacher for each of us is a concept we can really apply to our daily life because we all run into people that we wish we didn't have to deal with. And then it seems like the more you focus on wanting them out of your life, the more they stay in your face. Instead, we should remember that those people are placed there especially for us so that we can learn and grow. When we think about these situations from this standpoint, it makes our lives so much happier because we live with an attitude of appreciation and love, and we find that we remain happy and content, no matter how many little puppies are barking at us.

So this week if you find yourself becoming annoyed with someone and just wishing they would go away, try a different approach: instead of reacting to the situation, be thankful to them for the lesson they have to teach you. Notice how this attitude of gratitude changes your whole perspective on life and makes every day happier!

Namaste,
Tiki