192 A CALMING SENSE OF LEADERSHIP DURING CONFLICT

"The principles of calm assertive energy will help you become a better pack leader in every area of your life, improving your relationships with family, friends and coworkers."

"Animals don't follow unstable leaders; only humans promote, follow and praise instability. Only humans have leaders who can lie and get away with it. Around the world, most of the pack leaders we follow today are not stable. Their followers may not know it, but Mother Nature is far too honest to be fooled by angry, frustrated, jealous, competitive, stubborn or other negative energy—even if it's masked by a politician's smile. That's because all animals can evaluate and discern what balanced energy feels like. A dog can not evaluate how intelligent a human is, or how rich, or how powerful or how popular. A dog doesn't care if a leader has a Ph.D. from Harvard or is a five star general. But a dog can definitely tell a stable human from an unstable one. We humans continue to follow the unstable energy of our leaders—which is why we don't live in a peaceful, balanced world."

"Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of people born to be pack leaders in the human world. ... We need to be, because like it or not, the human species has taken over the planet, and we have brought many animals into our civilized world with us. ... We need to lead them for their own well-being and safety. We must also become good pack leaders for the sake of ... humans. ... We need to control (certain) instincts if we are to live in harmony among other animals and humans. ... You're relating to Mother Nature every day ... You're forced to be calm-assertive because you have to connect with Mother Nature on her terms, in order to survive." 

These quotes, taken from Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer, "address several important issues ... including what you need to know about the major dog BEHAVIOR TOOLS available ..."

I picked up Cesar's book, because a new puppy has joined our extended family. As fate would have it, I thumbed through several pages until my eye spied each of these quotes.  Upon reading the book jacket's cover flap, the words, BEHAVIOR TOOLS, jumped out at me, and I thought: WOW! The dog whisperer is my kind of guy. Here he is writing about Mother Nature, animal instincts and the need to consciously transform anger, fear, frustration, jealousy—in short, negative energy fields—into positively focused, self controlled, assertive, leadership, which inspires calmness, all around.

It should come as no surprise that making sense of leadership in the animal kingdom is no different from making sense of negatively charged nonsense in our homes—except for this:

Whereas a dog's reactions are based solely in instinct ...
Much of what we've been taught to think throws our instincts off track.
When mixed messages throw us off track for too long, it can take a herculean effort to redirect thought patterns, which have adopted a negative bent.

Knowing how consistently I've had to work to change my thought patterns, I created five simple tools, which inspire families to resolve conflicts calmly and compassionately instead of storming about, raining anger, jealousy and fear on each other's parades. When family leaders have been coached to role model patterns, which embrace five positively focused, simple rules of conduct, disputes lean toward peaceful resolution before desperation trashes the golden rule.

"Ultimately," says Cesar Millan, "What emerges ... are happier dogs and happier more centered owners."

The quotes appearing in this post were taken from Millan's book—BE THE PACK LEADER.  For some strange reason, my CAPS LOCK key failed to capitalize that title.  As frustration began to build, I switched tracks by conjuring up creativity.  Upon freeing my mind from adhering to a learned pattern, which for unknown reasons had failed, I switched to THE SHIFT KEY and met with success.

If we liken mysteries inherent in computers to mysteries inherent in life,  you can see why past experience with failure offered me good reason to create communication tools that consciously SHIFT my focus away from defensive thought processing patterns.  Each time a challenging issue calls for calm, assertive, self controlled, solution seeking skills, I call upon one of these tools.  And low and behold, as my attitude improves, my narrow frame of mind expands.

As issues are reframed and bigger pictures emerge, negative tension shifts gears, and positive energy inspires solutions to which I'd been blind.  Needless to say, I had to model these tools consistently before my children adopted positively focused, solution-seeking pathways, as well.

The memory of these words flowing out of my child's mind always makes me smile:

"Mom, we're fighting over this toy, so you'd better put it on a high shelf while we decide who'll play with it first."

I kid you not!

Interesting, isn't it, that dogs sense unstable (conflicted) leaders more readily than people can?  Whereas dogs react instinctively to energy fields,  the complex functions of the human brain have trouble sensing energy fields, which signal mind manipulation, while a speaker's words 'seem' to flow with compassion.

As Cesar Millan suggests with tongue in cheek:
"Psychologists define D-E-N-I-A-L as ... Don't-Even-Notice-I-Am-Lying."


Just as dogs sense Cesar's stabilized leadership skills,  I now realize why children sense the stabilizing effect of these tools.  As to whether these tools can successfully redirect the defensive reactions of adults—well—having led seminars for many years, I can safely say that adults who muster the courage to embrace both sides of human nature are not afraid to peel away denial's mask.

Last week, I saw BUCK, a heartwarming film about the horse whisperer.
Clearly, Cesar and Buck are my kind of guys!!! J