Elvis
I’m an animal lover. Dogs and cats. As a kid growing up I had both and now as an adult, not much has changed. They are especially fun when they’re small, full of energy and very animated. And with puppies, there’s that wonderful smell of puppy breath.
Now a lot of folks love puppy breath but plenty of others don’t like it. When we added to our dog family this year with our goldendoodles Rusty and six months later Elvis, it brought all of that warm feeling back.
But then, one morning driving on some back roads, I saw a dead skunk on the road. Then it hit me: puppy breath smells exactly like a skunk. It’s no wonder some folks don’t like puppy breath. The associations are really strong. It didn’t matter to me though. I still associated it with young Rusty and Elvis.
Associations are common and important to identify. All of us are impacted by people, places, and events. Our senses keep a permanent reminder and it brings it back, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a negative way. I hear certain songs and they bring back good and bad memories. I smell a particular type of floor cleaner and it brings me back to the bad old days of Dental Technician “A” school when I was in the Navy. I’ll hear smooth jazz songs and they remind me of a particularly boring job I had while living in the Washington DC area (I listened to a jazz station on my way to work…in awful traffic!)
The key though is to distance ourselves from the negative triggers and associations and compartmentalize them. If we don’t, we risk never moving past them. To help you process this, I recommend the following steps:
- Identify the trigger. Is it a song, smell, or sound?
- Identify the feeling it elicits. Anger? Frustration? Sadness?
- Now look at the trigger from a different perspective. Reframe it with your CURRENT state rather than the PAST state that cemented the mindset.
- Make a commitment to move forward!
I don’t expect you to love puppy breath but just for a moment, think about how a playful puppy can put a smile on the sourest face. Focus on that and not on a dead skunk and you’ll maybe develop a new appreciation for it. If you aren’t feeling that, then do the personal inventory and follow those four steps. I’m working on it and I hope you will too!