True Spiritual Path

There’s been a buzz in the mental health community for a while now over Cesar Millan.  Cesar has a show on the National Geographic Channel called THE DOG WHISPERER (Friday nights).  He opens every show with the mantra, “I rehabilitate dogs, I train people.”  He then proceeds to help dog owners with their dogs.  But unlike any dog trainer I’ve ever seen, he goes after the “weak” psychology of the owner as a means of correcting the dog’s behavior problem.  The owner needs to be calm assertive so the dog can be calm submissive.

There’s no question in my mind that Cesar is the Jesus of the dog world – the way he controls and exorcises the “demons” every week blows my mind.  But I’m also finding that his methodology goes way beyond the dog kingdom.  It’s a way to treat human behavior problems – especially addiction and obsessive compulsive disorders.

Dogs need a few things to be healthy (notice how similar these are to humans).  They need someone in charge – Cesar calls this a “pack leader.”  Then they need to start every day with three components, in order:  Exercise, Discipline and Affection.  Once accomplished, the dog’s ready to settle into a calm submissive state.  Recovering addicts aren’t much different (myself included).  Exercise brings about endorphins and levels out the body chemistry.  Discipline shakes the mind out of magical thinking and the laziness of the ego.  And then affection comes last when it’s more appropriate.

The trouble Cesar has with most dog owners he encounters is that they are weak or lazy or both.  They’re afraid to be assertive and they just want their affection (without exercise or discipline) to make everything better.  It reminds me a lot of my old days as a fundamentalist Christian and why it was so weak and powerless to stop addiction.  The notion that God’s love was going to make everything better was so devoid of the emotional exercise and discipline of going back and finding how my upbringing shaped my being.  It was Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell that gave me the workout I needed to get beyond my sheltered childhood.  The path of heeding my unconscious (Jung) and uncovering my own myth (Campbell) keeps paying dividends as long as I’m willing to do the work.

I’m still surprised though when I watch THE DOG WHISPERER.  Such a unique combination of skills and intuitions.  I think he’s just moved into my top 3 people I’d most like to have dinner with.