For most of my life I have been an emotional wreck, tossed around on a roller-coaster of highs and lows – one moment in the height of ecstasy, the next deep in the dark dungeon of despair – and it was within one of these lows that I found myself in April 2014. Benson, my ex’s dog whom I saw daily, often staying with me, suddenly collapsed and died.
The Passing of Benson and Realising the Mortality of Henry
I sobbed all the way home from the vets and the next week I had to take days off work; I couldn’t hold back my tears. I started getting angry with myself. I had throbbing headaches, my sinuses were screaming at me and my contact lenses were so cloudy with tears I couldn’t see properly.
I looked at my dog Henry and the realisation dawned that I could not possibly continue like this. If I were THIS badly affected over Benson’s death, how on earth would I cope with Henry’s?
At this point I turned to Universal Medicine practitioners for support and guidance because I was frightened by my coping mechanisms. I realised that these had been left unchecked and had become enormously destructive.
I had read the majority of books by Serge Benhayon and welcomed his frankness about life: there is a hard-hitting truth in all that he writes, and it really does make sense! It was refreshing to read something that was not pandering to my emotional state of mind – instead I was receiving the reality of truth – and it felt right.
Henry was my loyal and willing companion, the only being at the time whom I felt to have shown me unconditional love. It’s true to say that in him I had invested my love, my hopes and dreams, and so later that April I felt my future shattered when Henry’s mortality was suddenly realised!
We went to the vet because of a limp, the vet surmising that Henry had cancer in his shoulder that was impeding his movement: I was offered the choice of amputation or euthanasia. Stricken with fear I immediately reacted with amputation – I could not lose him!
And so we were dispatched to a larger practice with an MRI scanner for an accurate diagnosis by an orthopedic surgeon the following morning. She commented later that Henry’s eyes never left me, admiring the bond between us. I had never noticed, just taken us for granted!
That evening Henry’s own vet gently advised that given Henry’s age, his previous surgery and general arthritic condition, Henry’s movement on three legs would be very restricted. There was no doubt that he would survive the operation; in all other manners Henry was incredibly fit and healthy, but now we were looking at life quality.
The flat-coated retriever is known for its exuberance for life, its mischief, and for its love of everyone. Indeed, sharing your life with one is generally accepted as a 24/7 intense relationship!
Assistance is always forthcoming whether searching through cupboards, tying shoelaces or gardening. Gone would be Henry’s reversing skills as he cleverly extricated himself from tight situations; launching onto the sofa, sending cushions flying, charging up and down the stairs, leaping onto my bed and making a nest in my duvet and diving into his basket to retrieve one of his teddy bears.
Letting Go of Attachment and Need
That night I sobbed, and between sobs I realised that I was in a victim vortex that was spinning out of control. I desperately tried to regain some level of composure, to breathe gently, but initially my emotions fought back. As my body began to relax as I surrendered to its shudders I heard the words, palliative care, palliative care. I never listened; they were meaningless words, and cold comfort back then.
Now I understand and I appreciate and recognise the solace that was being offered to me that long and difficult night as the orthopaedic surgeon’s words of palliative care and a regime of pain therapy rang little bells of celebration in my head when I returned to discuss Henry’s diagnosis.
As I settled into a life of administering Henry’s drug therapy, I saw and continued to see and work with esoteric practitioners about my own state of being. In the beginning it was a wrench leaving him for a day as I travelled down to Oxford to see my practitioner, because I wanted to share every day with him. Every moment with Henry was so precious to me at the time, like a clinging child not wanting to leave its mother.
Through the sessions with my practitioner I realised that there was no me in our relationship; that I had delegated my life to Henry and so over time and by my own observations I began to understand my need to have Henry bolstering my life because of my own emptiness.
I had invested so much in this that I was emotionally attached, dependent on Henry utterly. And so, with my esoteric practitioner’s support I was able to work on letting go of this attachment, this need, and to focus on re-building me.
I realised that my own emptiness came from depending on another to provide me with the love I was otherwise not giving to myself. With this, I began to notice that the more loving choices I made for myself and the more I focussed on my relationship with myself, the more Henry relaxed into his relationship with me and our new life.
Learning to change my life in this way was not always easy, however the commitment was all mine – and learning that the way in which I did things would make a huge difference to the outcome was a massive responsibility.
There was no quick-fix and it was sometimes challenging, but I began seeing some rewards, often just tiny ones, and with the support of Serge Benhayon and my esoteric practitioner I was able to enjoy the remainder of my life together with Henry.
Learning to be Utterly Truthful with Myself
I started not looking around for Henry when I realised that he had been silent for what I felt was too long. I would trust that he was sleeping peacefully.
I began to see my car as mine rather than Henry’s. I started returning home to me rather than to Henry, and I started to make evening plans so that Henry became more my companion rather than my constant and only companion.
I began to realise that there would be a life post-Henry for me.
To begin with it was very hard as I realised how much I needed him to protect me from those things that I didn’t want to do. Staying in with Henry gave me excuses to not venture out as a single person into a seemingly brand new and rather frightening world!
My hardest challenge though, was to learn to be utterly truthful with myself.
In the past I would con myself that things weren’t that bad! Now, I had to be very alert and acknowledge when Henry showed any sign of pain rather than pretend he was okay, because I was still frightened of losing him.
On the surface it seemed so easy to just register that he was in pain and liaise with the vets, but fear would often strike me and my insides would start to writhe with my own anxiety.
And so it was my sense of duty that ruled, forcing me to make the call: but as our routine became easier and as I worked on continuing to make more loving choices for myself, I relaxed, feeling freer to make the call out of love, rather than fear of loss.
And for those remaining months we shared a deeper quality of life.
Henry climbed up the stairs and manoeuvred his forelegs onto my bed so that I could gather his back legs and lift him up and then he would rearrange his blanket where he slept. We had the same arrangement with the car and sofa, but he always managed to climb the stairs on his own.
I admired his resilience and determination, and watching Henry over those last few months I realised that the bond that the surgeon had originally witnessed was one borne of a true love and not the emotional one that had kept us enslaved.
Looking back, Henry had always trusted me. He seemed to know when I was making him feel more comfortable, or even making him better.
A Truer Connection – Love Born of Mutual Trust
That dreadful day when I realised that Henry was in so much pain with his shoulder that he could not climb down the stairs, he waited until I returned with his harness. He worked with me, so together we managed to climb down. From then on he would always wait for me to walk down with him, sometimes wanting me to slip my fingers through his collar first.
We both knew that we could do these things together, and without realising at the time that we now shared a love born of mutual trust. We had set each other free from our emotional entanglement.
Looking back over our last few months when I watched Henry sleeping, when I told him I loved him as I stroked his chest, or even when his excitement grew as his suppertime neared, I felt that lovely warm, comforting glow from my inner heart and not that rush of wringing emotion lower down.
We shared a truer connection; and while we had for many years trusted and loved each other, I feel that we had begun to give each other more space. Importantly, we allowed each other to be our own being, respecting our choices.
We had both matured in our love and found an innate security and comfort within. Our neediness had faded – we had realised that our lives were our own journeys and not intertwined.
We shared a relaxing few weeks together that December: I read, corresponded with Serge Benhayon and my friends or listened to my audios from the Esoteric Medicine series with Henry either lying on the sofa beside me, or sprawled out on his sheepskin rug in front of our open fire. I began to feel a slightly better level of being as the days passed, but then one day I realised that Henry wasn’t quite himself.
His painkillers had increased until his cheeky smile and general zest for life faded: his heart, the biggest most generous and courageous heart I have ever known, grew too tired of life.
A few days later Henry passed over on 6 January 2015, having developed what was suspected to have been another tumor.
A few nights before I lovingly said goodbye to my best friend, after we had enjoyed a wonderfully, peaceful day together during which I held my loving connection to my being and was relaxing in bed, I realised how peacefully Henry was lying across my body, totally relaxed and at one with me; sharing our joy, love, trust and truth. I felt that he too was connected to his own inner-self and I smiled, knowing that he was preparing his body for death; a body that had given its all, but which was now ready to surrender.
With the continued love and support from the many beauty-full people whom I have met over the last few years through Universal Medicine and the unbelievable joy at my first workshops when I rediscovered for the first time in a very long while the true beauty-full me, I know that deep within is all the love in the world – just waiting for me!
By Maggie, Chorley, England
Further Reading:
True Relationships – Being Love First, not Demanding it from Others
Love and Relationship Audio
National dog day – August 26 2105
450 Comments
Thank you for your gorgeous sharing, Maggie. Imposing on another with our need to fill up our emptiness isn’t true love, it is an arrangement. When we are responsible for ourselves in every way we give another, pet or human being, the space to be themselves.
I can relate to what you write: “I realised that my own emptiness came from depending on another to provide me with the love I was otherwise not giving to myself.” I experienced it with my children when they left the house to live with their dad. And recently I realised it wasn’t gone and the relationship with myself needed to go to a deeper level after I broke up with a partner that wasn’t respectful.
Any investment we have is doomed to scatter, for there is no truth in investment.
Hear hear – very true statement indeed!
Absolutely Monika; and I am now working on acknowledging my various investments so that I can understand and then clear them. My life is most definitely ‘a work in progress’! 🙂
This is also my experience with Serge his books: “It was refreshing to read something that was not pandering to my emotional state of mind – instead I was receiving the reality of truth – and it felt right.” Like it leaves you absolutely free of any imposition and doesn’t try to lore you into an emotion that is not yours in the first place. I experience a settlement in my body, an openness and an expansion. The way I feel truth in my body.
I too can relate to developing different relationships and learning to let go of my need for my dogs to fill my emptiness with each dog I have had in my life. So now it is not about not connecting with dogs because I dread having to lose them rather a celebration of what they bring and show me in life.
When we can let go of our attachment and need for our dogs to be there because we can’t let other human beings in there is such an opportunity for true relationship to develop and thrive.
I love how despite all our emotionality dogs can so beautifully live with pain and are so practical and present with what is. We have so much to learn from these naturally energetic and instinctual beings.
Thank you Maggie for sharing your unfolding relationship with your dog Henry. Dogs so consistently and lovingly serve and serve till there dying great.
What your sharing is so important – we often have so much attachment and emotional need and love for our pets – to be something or give us love we don’t feel safe enough to give ourselves. But in hiding in our relationships with our pets we miss out on the opportunity to have what you experienced in the last few months with your dog – a connection of trust and true love without need or emotion.
When we let go of our need for another we free them up as well as our self, such a relief for both, as previously they felt responsible for filling our emptiness and we were consumed by our neediness.
So true, it just goes to show that the more we connect to our selves the more we can let go of that neediness, in fact it just starts to dissipate more and more, very liberating.
Investing in others so heavily I imagine can feel like a huge burden. I have been on the receiving end of others’ expectations and it is a weight I have carried around for years. Learning to love without attachment is something I am working on. I can feel how you released Henry from any attachment you had to him staying around for you, so that he was able to pass peacefully with your full loving support.
I have never had a close bond with a pet, but I can see how your relationship with Henry can be mirrored in our relationships with humans. Investing in people being a certain way keeps us from looking at how we are with ourselves. I have had this revelation recently and it’s been very painful, yet freeing when I started seeing how I had used the other person to not deal with my own issues.
We usually take one of two courses – either we bury our feelings and issues deeper into our body or we “let it all out” through emotion and we think this is normal and those who do one will criticise those who do the other. But there’s a third more responsible way of dealing with things as they arise and that is to stop and allow ourselves to feel and acknowledge what we’re feeling without judging it and being honest about what’s happening which allows us to better release this from the body.
What an amazing loving companion and teacher you had in your life- Henry the dog.
I loved hearing about the special times and anxious provoking times with him that brought you to a greater understanding about yourself and what unconditional love means in true relationships.
“And so it was my sense of duty that ruled, forcing me to make the call: but as our routine became easier and as I worked on continuing to make more loving choices for myself, I relaxed, feeling freer to make the call out of love, rather than fear of loss.” It’s interesting Maggie and the same can be said of all of us that the more connected we are to ourselves the less angst we have about another leaving us whether by choice or from their passing over which simply demonstrates that it’s us that we are missing and in that we then try to fill that with whatever or whoever it is outside of us.
This is a totally redefining approach for me to see how true love can exist between dog and owner and not just an emotional attachment that is so often the case with many. The dog is often there to fill a need and although this may have at times been the case in your relationship, there was also a deep deep bond which is rarely seen.
Dogs are incredibly wise creatures. They feel everything and know when we are up or down. You can see how a dog is from the expression on its face and from its body language – it says it all. I have spent many years with dogs and they are beautiful companions to have around and really do become a member of the family, so it can be hard when they come to the end of their life. But to have an understanding such as you have Maggie, about the quality of the relationship you eventually had with Henry and to love unconditionally without any attachment is inspiring. Thankyou for sharing.
I’ve never owned a dog, so have not experienced this special relationship, but I can feel how much you gained from it – this is a beautiful story of letting go of our neediness and finding the true love within, allowing the one we love freedom to be who they are.
Maggie your blog was very touching to read and although I have not had a dog in my adult years I can appreciate how much dogs can add to the richness of our lives. Letting go of attachment and need of our pets is a huge issue and looking at our emotional investments underneath of why that is can be so freeing.
A beautiful sharing and very evolving relationship with your self with the support and learning of your relationship with Henry through your esoteric understandings and support. An amazing journey to be with and very deeply felt for all to read with the importance strength and love for yourself building and the freedom and power from this. The amazing gifts dogs bring us as humans and their purpose to offer unconditional love to us is very beautiful. I am forever watching my dog Toby offer so much to everyone and their love and appreciation that comes with this never fails to bring a huge smile in my heart .
When we let go of neediness it allows a relationship to flourish – and it is possible to let go when the time is right.
Dogs can teach us about unconditional love. I love this Maggie – “the unbelievable joy at my first workshops when I rediscovered for the first time in a very long while the true beauty-full me, I know that deep within is all the love in the world – just waiting for me!” Thankyou for sharing your journey with Henry.
Isn’t it beautiful to discover that beneath the emptiness and abuse there is indeed unconditional love – for everybody. It’s still hard work to get rid of all the rubbish that stands in the way of expressing unconditionally, but there is also much support, specially from the Universal Medicine therapies.
Hi Maggie, I felt the intensity of your relationship with your dearest pet as you shared your story, and it came to me an understanding that I have not had before about a person and their pet, sensing the deep attachment to this ‘need-full’ bond. I pondered on this emotional attachment and related it to any other form of ‘looking for love in all the wrong places!” as some song used to say, and saw that your experience was no different really to mine, only that I gave my power away, not to a pet but to looking for the love to fill the emptiness in me via the spiritual new age modalities way back then. It’s interesting I find to see how varied our distractions can actually be that prevent us from looking within. So many little gold ah ha moments in your blog that express your joy in finding your way back to you once again – how beautiful.
It’s a privilege to read this blog and feel the transformation in your relationship as you were able to let go of your emotional neediness and Henry supported you to evolve and appreciate what you had together and how this gave you a wonderful platform to move forward in your life after Henry’s passing.
I really appreciate this blog to be able to put my feelings into words for a subject that is in all our best interests – How much do we love ourself?
When you feel great love from another being whether that is a dog or a person that same love is within you – it’s not not there. What I find the most difficult is when that love you feel has not being lived and confirmed in yourself first.
When my mother died suddenly I was instant intensely emotional. What I now realise it was more the case knowing the love I knew was not the love I cherished and loved myself-in, and therefore was not the love I could of expressed to her, and now she was gone.. She did not get my full love that was the devastation. BUT she and all now get it the more I love myself in each and every moment. All is not lost when you so choose to love yourself — all that is is that love past and present.
I loved reading how the way in which you deepened your love for yourself, supported Henry to deepen his own level of surrender, and to be much more at ease with you.
It also goes to show how much limiting or deepening our own love impacts on those around us.
This is such a good example of emotional attachment. We can be this way with people as well as pets. We can experience that desperate wrench of need that keeps us wanting for something that someone else can give us. And of course it would be this way if we do not have a base of love within ourselves. Even though I have been building my self-love over time I still find myself going into need and looking outside of myself for love. It is so easy to do. What I love about your story is that you were able to change your relationship with Henry from one of need to one of love simply by changing the way you were with yourself. Letting go of emotional attachment doesn’t have to mean letting go of the person or pet, it is simply a choice to put ourselves first before another. That passionate frenzy can then transform into a deep glowing steady love that is not empty, and actually has something to give.
This is a very beautiful sharing, Maggie. You expose clearly how we can become dependent upon others for love rather than taking responsibility for ourselves and how by turning that around life becomes fulfilling and expansive.
Maggie thank you for sharing your connection with Henry and how you grew together. I had a dog growing up, and when she passed over I took it very hard. For 16 years she had been there, wagging her tail when I came back and being an absolute support for me though all the troubles of school and growing up. There is no doubt I relied on her, there was no other consistent “love” that i felt in my life, but now as I’ve built more care and love for myself I can also understand that ” I ” was very much missing from my life.
‘My hardest challenge though, was to learn to be utterly truthful with myself.’ but a challenge well worth undertaking for anyone. Being truthful reveals exactly why we are where we are and what is divinely offered to us in any situation. Letting go of the emotion relationship here and allowing a deeper connection from Love feels awesome and very healing.
Maggie this is so touching. Thank you for sharing your story. I feel like I know Henry! What a beautiful relationship you two had, and what a gorgeous story of healing.
Maggie, I love your very open, honest blog, it is lovely to read how your relationship with Henry evolved from emotional love into trust and true love and how you have been connecting to your own love inside developing a relationship with yourself, ‘I know that deep within is all the love in the world – just waiting for me!’
What a great journey you went on with your best friend Henry.
Maggie what a wonderful journey you share here with us, the journey to true love for yourself, shared by your beautiful canine friend, Henry. When we lose a family member (pet) who may have been with us for such a long time or sometimes shorter stay it can be a time of great learning as you share. I seem to have had pets that have lived for many years, dogs of 17, 14, and 12 plus a 20year old cat. All special personalities in their own way with something to offer the world and I.
The relationship between human and dog can often be an interesting one, so much emotion can be placed into it as we have a being that is dependant on us for it’s basic needs and social interaction. It’s amazing how you recognised that the coping mechanisms you had in place needed to be addressed and had the courage to look at them, it’s not easy to face letting go of something we are fed to believe will be the end of the world without this situation/person/being/object in our lives whatever that may be for each person. But those attachments don’t allow or accept whatever we are clinging to to just be what it or they are because we are imposing that it be themselves AND us at the same time which is impossible. Dropping the need allows them to be them and for us to be us, thank you Maggie.
A great description of the roller-coaster of needy emotional love and the stillness of true love.
Simply put and summed up Mary. Beautiful, honest and heartfelt blog Maggie which I have read again a year later. It brings back memories of a saluki dog my parents looked after whilst it’s owners were away. It was love at first sight between us. She was not allowed on beds but used to jump on mine but get off with the speed of light if the door opened and my parents came into my room! I cried buckets when that dog returned to it’s owner.
The more we connect with ourselves and then each
other the easier it actually is to let them go when their time to pass-over is
here. It is through the connection that we feel love which lives on irrespective of whether a
person/animal is physically with us or not.
It is so beautiful to read Maggie, that the more space you allowed in your relationship with Henry the more love was felt and lived in your being together with one another.
Emotions, our accepted normal but in-truth our biggest addiction in life is what love is NOT about. The world has painted a picture for us that it is with emotions that we feel alive, that with the ecstatic highs and crippling lows that life makes sense. This is all untrue as our bodies are very honest and no ounce of emotion felt or expresed is ever comfortable. The highs experienced being on mountain tops thousands of metres above sea level, the excitement of illicit love affairs or seeing a sportsteam win, even the controlling attention given to us by loved ones etc. these are all pictures that we are fed into us, tantalizing us into choosing emotions and mistaking it to be love. There is truth in the saying “emotional wreck”, emotions do wreck us and others, because they are poison in our bodies. To choose love again from such an ingrained momentum of emotions (that we call life) requires a deep commitment and responsibility to be love, and it has to start with ourselves. This is the only way for our world to return to love, it starts and ends with self-responsibility without any investment in how others choose. In your commitment to being true Maggie, Henry had the space to feel your true connection, what a blessing this is.
What an amazing story of your journey with Henry, Maggie, right from realising the reality of your state of emptiness and expecting Henry to fill it, to the process detaching yourself from emotional love and releasing into the possibility of true love!
This deep love and trust you had with Henry is so beautiful to read about. What a blessing it was that you could have the time to bring your relationship to true love, where the fierce emotional side is released and the deep love and care is allowed to have life and death unfold as it will. Having the support of esoteric practitioners is such a blessing. There is nothing quite like the unconditional love of a dog, they travel with us no matter what stage we are at. It is an amazing lesson for us to give ourselves the same unconditional love.
Henry to you Maggie, could be our father, husband, boyfriend, son, mother, wife, girlfriend, daughter, friend etc. We all have our attachments in life, our distraction to live truly who we are. And yet all our attachments in life offers us the lesson of awareness to return to live what is truly love.
Dogs can be a great bridge for us to realise that we are love, ourselves. We don’t need to stop on the bridge.
Thanks for being so open and honest as we can all learn a lot from what you share here, even if we don’t have a dog as it applies to any relationship really.
What a beautiful sharing Maggie. Makes me think of a lot of relationships that I have had with dogs and how I didn’t want another as I didn’t want to love them that much and be sad when they weren’t with me anymore.
Seeking love does not work; it does not come from the outside. It is simply a return to a one true love which resides inside.
What an honest and beautiful sharing. It is so very common to load up our pets to replace the lack of love we are not giving ourselves. I cannot believe how responsive dogs are, as you released yourself from the emotional shackles and came to a mutual true love giving all the space for you both to be yourselves within that.
It doesn’t matter where we go or where we look, high or low, there is no escaping the fact that the connection and Love we crave so much begins right here with us. Gosh, what a struggle and strain we put on ourselves with this search, when in the end we are the ones who are designed to cherish ourselves. Thank you Maggie for this beautiful reminder that we are to be as good-natured and faithful as Henry was to you, to ourselves. And really there is no end to this story, no death, no finish just a deepening of our care in this life, and the next.
All of life evolves us to live in the dedication to presence in even the most challenging situations, to discover that the love and connection within us is our constant guide and companion. We have asked so intently and sincerely to be shown in life the opportunties to live true love, so that time and time again we will release more of what is attachment. This cycle we will continue until everyone of us returns to being love.
I truly celebrate my choice to return to love; and this is the gift that both Benson and Henry gave me Adele.
It is wonderful to have that relationship with your dog and understandable that after he had gone that you miss him, however is it possible that being reliant on your dog to give you the love you weren’t connecting to within yourself placed a burden on your pet and possibly that’s why Henry had to stay around long after his service was complete, until you were able to let go of your attachment. The beautiful gift from Henry is that from his illness and passing you chose to connect to the love that resides within yourself and so now there is no dependancy on him or another to give to you what has always been there waiting for you to come back to – back to the love that you are.
Deidre, thank you; in a strange way you have just given me permission to ‘miss’ Henry! x
A beautiful blog Maggie, than you for sharing this with us. The connection and love between you and your best friend Henry was so gorgeous to read. The contrast in how you dealt with your two Dog’s passing over was huge. ‘I looked at my dog Henry and the realisation dawned that I could not possibly continue like this.’ These kinds of realisations are magic, as they are there to support us to make more loving choices. Your willingness to let go of attachments and needs was inspiring and the part about ‘Learning to be Utterly Truthful with Myself’ was amazing. By being completely truthful with ourselves we are able to see with clarity, have more understanding and supports us to accept who we are, and from this we evolve.
Hello Maggie and thank you for your sharing – animals can be such amazing companions that can bridge us back to some level of trust. So many of us lack trust in life, in society, in the world that we live in and also in people. So animals play a crucial role in supporting us with the return to trust. And dogs in particular have unconditional love which allows the trust to be built back for us. But it is so beautiful to hear how you gradually built back the trust in yourself and built from an emptiness within so that when your furry friend was ready to let go, he knew his job was done, as you had begun to build this amazing relationship with yourself! Well done! And in my experience it never ends, it only keeps deepening more and more!
I do believe our dogs are with us to serve and reflect, and I learn much in watching their body language and the messages they deliver, when I am connected with me the dogs do not require any pandering attention. When I go into treating them say in a mothering way, I will get the reflection and they become demanding and misbehave.
But the biggest reflection for me is their ability to share their love unconditionally but at the same time reading the situation and not compromise, they discern and will avoid some people, places, other dogs and even foods.
I am really looking forward to sharing my connection with my next dogs; to continue to learn. They are such beautiful companions.
We are so scared of losing each other and this fear is fed by the belief that death is a finite end point that we, or those we love, will reach and then…nothing. But this is only true if we are looking at the world in a vastly reduced way and only acknowledging the physicality of us. In the world of energy, of which we are forever an eternal part of, there is no death. There is only a passing over from one form of expression to another and in this passing over, all that we have truly loved will move with us to lay the foundation of the new cycle we begin. Nothing is truly lost when we do not let go of love. It is our attachments we need to let go of but never the love that that we are made from.
So beautifully expressed; thank ou Liane.
What a wonderful release Henry received, knowing he had your loving support without any attachment through his final days before he passed away. I could feel in your writing Maggie the deep love and trust you had for each other.
Thank you Alison; what we shared ultimately grew to something very meaningful. My love for dogs (and all animals) has not changed, but my love for myself has; and although I am still dealing with issues which sometimes drag me down a little, I enjoy a freedom now that I hadn’t previously.
I realise it’s so easy particularly with dogs to have a very close bond, as most are pure unconditional love and it’s very rewarding to have a companion that doesn’t answer back, loves you to pieces regardless and is loyal and protective to the end and yes they can totally fill the void. But it can then become all about their life rather than the quality and connection in our lives. It’s our responsibility to know who we are and not come from neediness, imposing on the dog.
Absolutely and I am so joyful that I was able to help Henry get back his own life after all my years of neediness.
One of my dogs taught me so much about acceptance. She was a Labrador that lost her sight at age 7. I went into a panic about it, until one day I realised she had accepted it and was just getting on with her new way of living, and learning to navigate her world. It was such an ‘aha’ moment when I realised this, and saw how I’d projected my own feelings of what I ‘thought’ life would be like for her rather than seeing it how it was. She lived for 6 years as a blind dog, and blew me away by her ability to adjust and still be her usual joyful self most of the time.
Absolutely Sandra. Animals, pets and birds show me daily their enormous capacity for just ‘getting on with it’ no matter what the circumstances may be. They completely surrender to life.
Maggie, I am deeply moved by what you have shared. To have evolved in this way together, human and dog, out of the shackles of comfort and need and back to true love, says to me that the true path home is through the love in our hearts and while we can’t expect to be given all that we deny ourselves by another, we can share the journey with them by walking beside them and not entwined with them. Henry has taught you how to love without attachment. The greatest gift a friend can give.
What a stunning blog Maggie, thank you for sharing it with us. I do very much relate with what you’ve shared, having been blessed to share my life with 2 dogs who passed over in their old age. They taught me what grace looks like in old age and both of their passings were a very beautiful experience.
To live from our own essence drops the attachment, the enmeshing need with another, and allows space for us and for others to be … how loving and supportive for everyone.
A journey of incredible healing between you and Henry. I can feel from your writing how much you both grew in the final months and how the connection you had together was so strong. I love how you describe Henry lying with you listening to Serge Benhayon. What a gorgeous experience you shared with Henry during his last days.
Oh we certainly did Fiona, I was off work for two weeks for Christmas; and they were very beautiful, very relaxing and self-indulgent for the pair of us. I would read one of Serge’s books, listening to Chris James, or just listen to the audios on Esoteric Medicine, or by then the Living Sutras of the Hierarchy, pretty much all day; lots of beautiful energy around the house all day long! It was fabulous; very healing for both of us.
To become enmeshed in another’s life is so common in todays world – we become so focused on another’s life to avoid looking at our own lives and taking responsibility for the choices we have made, past and present.
Gorgeous and deeply touching to feel how through your choice to be honest, to heal and let go of your hurts and develop your connection to your Love within, you were the able to bring your presence to making loving decisions, in order to offer the deepest love and care to support and honor your best friend through his time of passing.
What a beautiful story Maggie, thank you for taking the time to write and share your’ and Henry’s story. It was so honest and real and how’s what happens we are attached and needy and how that can rule our lives. But you took the time and space to look at that neediness and realised it was wreaking havoc in your life and chose differently. And your relationship with Henry sounded amazing.
This wisdom can be applied to so many areas of our lives, ….” and as I worked on continuing to make more loving choices for myself, I relaxed, feeling freer to make the call out of love, rather than fear of loss.”
This is such a testament of how in every connection we have, every relationship we share, every constellation that is presented, there is a magic to explore be it to learn how to deepen our connection to Love or/and to confirm how powerful we are when we are united in Love. A wise reminder that everything does happen for a reason, for the purpose for us to evolve.
Setting ourselves free from emotional entanglements, how key that is to having a true and honouring relationships.
Yes, there is much more room for love when emotions are less or absent.
I wholeheartedly agree Christoph.
Victoria I agree and would add that the emotional entanglements that we need to free ourselves from are those that we have in our relationship with ourselves. It is as if we are standing in a huge ball of trip wire. Once we step out of the tangle then we step out of the tangle with everyone else.
It is such a gift when we embrace honesty as it leads us to deepen our relationship with truth, through which we develop a greater awareness to the Love we are, we all are and the Love that is always waiting to be lived. Thank you Maggie showing how healing and empowering embracing honesty is for one and all.
It was very touching to read your story Maggie. The honesty, love and awareness you brought to your relationship with your self and Henry is beautiful to feel.
This is a beautiful sharing and honoring of your relationship with Henry. There is so much we can learn about the simplicity of Love through our relationship with dogs, as I too have learnt from mine. That when we remove emotion from our relationships the quality of our connection deepens with Love, honor and truth, far surpassing any emotional interaction that leaves us needing to seek more ‘love’ and having expectations and conditions of how it needs to be for us to feel a ‘false’ sense of satisfaction.
Wow Maggie what a story. In the first part what struck me was the grief you felt at the passing of Benson and the anticipation of grief you felt for the idea of losing Henry. I often feel that the real grief and tension most of us have or are aware of to differing degrees is the grief of having separated from our true selves. Then when we lose another or even something inanimate, it triggers that grief. In your story you show how the more you came back to and reconnected with yourself, the less you were consumed by grief.
The other thing is that we also miss our connection to everyone else – again demonstrated in your story. I find the more I connect to myself, the more I feel connected to God and everyone else – as in essence we are all one. This kind of connection is not dependent on the other or even on physical bodies.
Maggie thank you for sharing such a beautiful appreciation of the depth of love you are willing to invite into your life. The re-connecting to your own love and how this evolved your love with Henry is very special. An understanding of loving appreciation for ourselves and how this supports all our relationships can be felt and is very inspiring and incredibly relatable whatever our relationship with someone.
Wow Maggie, thank you so much for sharing this. Henry, and your relationship with him, represents people or relationships in all of our lives and is incredibly relatable. The tenderness and vulnerability you share offers such an opportunity for healing as we read.
Maggie this is really lovely and shows how your preparedness to go for it and look at your own emotional reactions allowed Henry to completely surrender and pass. How beautiful that all of our relationships have the potential to evolve when we work on our hurts, even those with a furry covering.
What a beautiful sharing Maggie and how inspiring to see your relationship to your dog changing into a true loving one.
You were able to accompany your friend to his death and I feel how you were learning so much through him and the intense relationship with him. To let go such an intimate friend like him is enormous and shows that you had built confidence and love with yourself.
Maggie, this is truly beautiful to read, setting each other free from emotional entanglement and then sharing a true connection which gives space to be ourselves. What a blessing for your dog and for yourself to experience love in the end of a long relationship.
You got me crying in celebration with these words Maggie ” We had set each other free from our emotional entanglement.”. That is the one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and each other, how awesome you were able to do that.
Wow Maggie – this really does show how emotions can absolutely rule us – how if we give our power away to the drama, we loose ourself. What a great blog to inspire others to choose to not get caught up but rather bring it back to how we are and the support we can offer – emotion free.
Hello Maggie and thank you for being so brave to share your stories like this. The bond or connection you are speaking of is plain to see through your blog. The deep care and respect you have written about also can be felt, thank you again.
Maggie, I appreciate how enriching your journey with Henry has been. Like most pet owners I can relate to many of the things you have shared. We can over attach ourselves to many things in order to not connect truly to ourselves but this takes nothing away from the beautiful and loving connection you have had with Henry.
Letting who is about to die go is a very freeing moment for both.
‘We had both matured in our love and found an innate security and comfort within. Our neediness had faded – we had realised that our lives were our own journeys and not intertwined’. These words are beautiful Maggie and encapsulate the freedom we find as we let go of our neediness and begin to realise that there is a power and purpose to life when we live from true love rather than need. There is great joy when we allow others their freedom to build their own lives and experience, which offers a way to expand and explore a sense of being-ness.
As I read this I got a deeper understanding of how some people can feel about their pets, it was not something I had considered before, the different ways in which people can attempt to cope with life and the support they need to re-engage with others.
Dogs are a mans best friend is very true – they love unconditionally and without emotion – we could learn a lot about love from them, and yet as you have shared we often get very attached and emotional about our dogs, sometimes making choices that are better for us than them. We can learn with a dog how to love unconditionally and without attachment.
It’s amazing to hear how you deepened your relationship with yourself towards the end of Henry’s life. The unconditional love of a dog is a very wonderful thing.
Maggie, I have lost many pets and not once have I allowed myself to surrender to my love like you did with Henry. I am inspired, and have a deeper understanding of love from your article.
I have had many pets too, mainly dogs and cats; and Henry is the ONLY one with whom we shared our surrendering. I hope to be able to enjoy this with more pets in the future and to reflect my love back to them. Thank you Leigh <3
Its amazing to note just how much we can put on others to fill the love we aren’t being for ourselves. Everyone has so many avenues and ways they try to fill this gap… Thank you for sharing about one, and the bond between you and Henry.
Thank you Emily. For many years I regarded Henry as my ‘safe’ partner: I involved him in everythhing and never stopped talking to him; asking his opinion on this or that. As a result he ‘busied’ himself in my life, but as I learned to step back and concentrate more on myself I realised that he would start to do ‘his thing’ more, but it was amazing how we both co-operated when he needed assistance to get onto the sofa or onto my bed. It was very beautiful to co-create with him!
Our doggie companions can show us a lot. They are amazing company to have.
“Our doggy companions”, are our best friends and they are truly incredible when we open our awareness up to clock what they are communicating to us.
If we are willing to clock and be honest about what they are communicating, we are able to learn so much about ourselves.
A Beautiful sharing Maggie and as I read through the article I could feel the maturing of a love that began with the smallest of seeds. Finding the love that you truly are through the reflection offered in your relationship with Henry was amazing to observe.
I feel that I was privileged to only have Henry in my life then as he was a dog and therefore he had no human baggage in the form of beliefs and ideals and no emotions; and so when I tried out my first loving steps for me no explanation or justification was required. Once I had chosen I was much freer than others in human relationships to be more self-loving, more self-interested. Henry just allowed me my space and he took advantage of the space thereby that I had gifted him.
“Finding the love that you truly are”, is the key and dogs can help us to this as this story shows us. We underestimate the power of a dogs unconditional love for their owners.
Thank you Maggie. This is a beautiful testament to the power of bringing truth to relationships and letting go of neediness. Your relationship with Henry is truly inspiring.
Thank you Leonne, he was a most beautiful dog; and I am now looking forward to sharing my life with another in the future.
Maggie,
A truly beautiful unfoldment from needing Henry to living knowing and feeling all the love you are. The strength felt in the allowing of another to pass when it is their time, with no emotional baggage is the power of true love.
Yes, it was a beautiful few moments Leigh as Henry lay with his head on my knee, feeling his body soften as I stroked him; and then feeling his final surrender.
I arrived home to find an email from Serge saying, “if you truly love him why would you not be joyful to see him prepare for a better than ever next life? Thanks to you this is what he is going to have.”
Until then I hadn’t realised the enormity of what we had achieved together.
I am really fascinated by the relationships we form with animals and how so many of them, dogs in particular, take on our stuff. I am also inspired by the constant reflection that dogs can offer of loyalty and love and this is something we can all learn from; their consistency I feel is as of yet unparalleled by humans and something we definitely need to observe and be inspired by!
Indeed Michelle! I feel that many, many people feel ‘safer and happier’ with their dogs than they do with humans; and I feel that this is definitely due to a dog’s unconditional love and trust. They are very, very special and are great teachers.
“I realised that my own emptiness came from depending on another to provide me with the love I was otherwise not giving to myself.” This is such a revelatory awareness to have come to. I can’t quite remember when exactly I felt this for myself, but I know that when I did it was the first real stepping stone to healing and becoming empowered!
Once we re-connect back to the innate stillness and harmony within, we evolve and grow in our return to love and are then able to live FROM love, rather than imposing neediness on others – the same applies to all relationships, whether our dogs, any animal or person we interact with.
“We had both matured in our love and found an innate security and comfort within. Our neediness had faded – we had realised that our lives were our own journeys and not intertwined”.
There are some beautiful revelations in this blog Maggie. Emotional love is only a necessity when we don’t want to feel the lack of connection within ourselves. How honouring to both you and Henry, that you were able to seek support to address this and, thus make different choices to return to love, through re-connection with your body.
Great point raised Stephanie and timely discovered by the author.
Beautiful and very apt ending to this story: “deep within is all the love in the world – just waiting for me!” Thank you for sharing your insights and the immense learning you have had with your dog.
Hi Maggie, I had a slight lump in my throat when coming to the bottom of your blog, you let us into a precious bond you had with Henry and it was heartwarming to read, especially what the vet said to you about how Henry’s eyes never left you. As humans we have a responsibility to treat all animals with love, care and respect, many of which unfortunately do not currently do. However your relationship would have sent energetic ripples out to the world giving many the opportunity to be this love and care. It was really gorgeous to also see how you changed within yourself no longer being emotional or needy but instead the glorious and steady love you are. Thank you for sharing ✨?
I had never realised just how close the bond is for many with their dogs, it is a great example of how to be in that relationship while not allow it to be all consuming. I guess this is a good reflection of how we can be in all our relationships, not needing but enjoying the companionship and support of other people.
I always thought that a ‘real’ relationship was two individuals coming together and allowing each to be their ‘own’ while both enjoying the synergy between them. I never realised that I actually needed to be in my life back then!
If my relationship had been with anyone other than Henry, our relationship would have bred toxicity. I fully appreciate how fortunate I was to be sharing my life with somebody offering me unconditional love, who didn’t judge me; and who allowed me to find me! ?