A Self Care Guide For Overachievers and Dog Owners

I think I broke my brain

I'm brushing Shiloh’s hair on the terrace. She sheds a lot these days, making my apartment look like a polar bear hair salon. I am determined to change this.

But mostly, brushing my dog’s hair is my new mindfulness practice.

Maya is playing with dry laundry next to me. She takes my sports bra off the laundry rack and puts it on, then runs into the house, and comes back with the bra full. "Look!" she says very excited.

"You have breasts?"

"Yes! I put avocados in there!"

I continue brushing the dog while she covers Shiloh's face with sticky labels which she brought from the kitchen along with the avocados. When she gets tired, she wipes her forehead and says: "I'm hot. When we have we have breasts we sweat a lot."

Truthfully, when it's 42 degrees Celsius outside we sweat a lot regardless of the amount of breasts that we possess, but whatever.

"You can take them off. You know that, right?" I offer.

"NO! They're attached to my body!" She indignantly emphasizes the first syllable of the word 'body' as if I've just invaded her personal space.

"They're avocados," I say not taking my eyes or my brush off my dog’s fur.

Mostly I'm glad that I'm fully present here for this wonderful conversation. Because lately, I have been a little too far away in my head and always listening to some foreign language content in my earphones.

Washing the dishes and listening. Making meatballs and listening. Not brushing my dog’s hair and listening. Thinking about sorting the laundry and listening. On the one hand, it makes sense because I mostly only have time to learn by listening. On the other hand, that was a little too much listening.

My problem is that I dive all in and I don't know how to get out.

I do think that when you're learning a language, it’s important to maintain some level of intensity. An hour-long lesson once a week (or even twice a week) is not going to get you very far. I believe in overwhelming your system a little bit.

I don’t believe in overwhelming your system too much, but clearly, I don’t know how to avoid it.

My brain never told me to take a break. It doesn’t do that, apparently. I only realized it one evening when, instead of reaching for my phone and my earphones to listen to yet another something, I caught myself reaching for the dog brush. When my brain tried to convince us to take our earphones with us, my body refused to cooperate.

We couldn’t stomach the idea of listening to any words in any language. Nor could we remember anymore what got us so excited when we started this challenge. What's so fun about languages anyway? I mean it's just words upon words upon words upon words. And then some more words.

Dogs help you drop back into your body. Plus, dogs don't talk. They understand all the languages and no language at all.

By the way, Shiloh in Hebrew means "a gift to him." (shai 'gift' and lo 'to him').¹ She came with the name but the name is fitting because it was Yannai who’d begged for a dog for two years before we finally got her.

And here she is now, a gift to all of us, helping me deal with my tired and overactive brain.

One time, when I was paying too much attention to Shiloh, Maya said, "You love Shiloh more than me!"

I replied, without taking my face out of my dog's furry neck "But she's so fluffy!!"

Maya: "Well, it's not MY fault that I'm not fluffy!"

When your child cries out "It's not MY fault that I'm not fluffy!" maybe it’s a sign something is wrong with your parenting approach.

Dogs are very versatile too. When you’ve brushed all the loose hair out (or when your dog begins to hide under the couch at the sight of the brush), there are several other ways they can help your brain relax.

Draw your dog

This is what I’ve been doing most of this past week to relax when there was no dog hair left to brush out.

At first, my brain thought that we should use this paper to practice writing words (I wrote kalb ‘dog’ in Arabic, possibly incorrectly) but then we couldn’t even handle that.

Dogs are ideal models because they can spend so much time in one position

Draw your dog with your non-dominant hand

When you draw with your non-dominant hand, you use your brain differently. That’s because in right-handed people language is mostly processed in the left hemisphere (it’s a bit more complicated in left-handed people). This is also the part of our brain that’s responsible for logical and analytical thinking. When you’re using your left hand, you’re using your right hemisphere, giving the logical part of your brain a much-needed break.

All I can say is that drawing with my non-dominant hand feels more relaxing.

She changed positions before I finished drawing her hind legs so I gave her a fin

Draw your dog upside down

Drawing something upside-down (say from a photo, no need to ask your dog to do a headstand) is a little bit like drawing with your non-dominant hand. When the thing is upside down, you can’t rely on your analytical mind. All you see is lines and shapes so you draw what your eyes see instead of what your brain thinks is there.

I wrote this and then I realized that the way my dog spends her days, it’s impossible to say when she’s right side up vs upside down.

Shiloh sprawled on the floor… upside down??

If that’s your problem too, you can take (a photo of) another something and turn it upside down. By the way, in addition to helping you relax your brain, drawing upside down often renders a drawing that’s truer to life than when we draw right side up.

In other words, our brains constantly try to deceive us, and we should practice seeing with our eyes instead.

Anyway, I'm considering pivoting this language-learning challenge into a Draw-365-dog-portraits-a-year challenge. Except that then it will turn into another obsession and will stop being relaxing times. So maybe I won't.

Shiloh, after most of the sticky labels were removed from her head.

Please tell me in the comments:

1) Does your brain tell you when it’s time to take a break or do you only discover it when you reach for the dog brush (or a pencil or whatever tool doesn’t allow you to do the thing your brain is obsessing over?)

2) Would you read this newsletter if I pivoted it into 'Draw 365 dog portraits a year' challenge???

1. If you’re curious, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is probably named after a city in ancient Israel (pronounced in Hebrew shee-loh) that has some significance to Christians, rather than after my dog.