Episode #8: Navigating Mental Health for Pet Parents with Jess Adam
Jess Adam is a licensed therapist who runs Handlers & Humans, a coaching program that helps dog owners manage their emotions — especially with complex, sensitive, or reactive dogs.
If you or someone you know is overwhelmed by their pet’s challenging behavior, tune in to learn more about:
- Dog dreams vs. dog realities
- Examining expectations for yourself and your dog
- How dogs can amplify our emotions
- Creating sustainable mindsets vs. overwhelm
- How to support others with challenging dogs
- The Complex Canine Community
Tune in for an episode reminding us how to appreciate our pets and ourselves. Then join the Juniper Community to meet more pet parents like you!
Stream The Podcast Here:
Highlights from the episode:
- 3:06 — Self care — I realized I was doing all the things I possibly could for him and I was doing nothing for me, really. I was doing nothing to focus on my own ability to regulate. I was doing nothing to focus on my own ability to cope with what we were dealing with. I was not paying attention to the story.
- 6:21 — Acceptance — Once I was able to kind of learn to shift and appreciate him for who he was, it really taught me about appreciating myself for who I am and meeting myself where I was at and meeting him where he was at.
- 16:49 — What our dogs show us in ourselves — So it's the expectation stuff, and then it's whatever it is that your dog's pointing at for you and putting a spotlight on on your behalf to invite you to heal that piece, to invite you to look more closely at that and giving you an opportunity to work through it because they typically don't let you ignore it. That's what I found.
- 18:56 — Connecting with others — Connecting with anyone who has a similar emotional experience still lights me up in a ton of ways. I'm so grateful when I do get the DMs that are like, ‘This post made me feel seen.’ And I'm like, great. Because I wrote it about myself. So typically, you'll see on my Instagram, most of my stuff is me just talking to me at some point in our journey, whether it's me talking to 25-year-old me a year in with Dio struggling or me now
- 24:29 — Building resilience — I was able to build a toolkit where I was able to say whatever it is, I've got it. I can get through it. I can bounce back from it. I can create resilience. And I really feel like that's what Dio helped me figure out how to create was resilience. And that is what I try to support people in figuring out and getting to so that they can maybe even get to the point of joy with their dogs over the next decade instead of anxiety and overwhelm all the time.
Thanks to our sponsor: Optimeal
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