Sarah, who lives in Sioux City, bought How to Meditate with Your Dog: An Introduction to Meditation for Dog Lovers last spring.
She immediately started meditating with her lab/retriever mix, Chuck. (The book is a quick read and you can start meditating right away.)
Sarah was really surprised at the results.
She and Chuck were already close, but their bond got even deeper. Chuck also seemed calmer and more alert (he was elderly) during the day.
Meanwhile, Sarah felt calmer and took things “easier” than she used to. She saw an instant difference in their quality of life as human and dog.
Unfortunately, this summer Chuck passed “over the rainbow bridge” and Sarah was left alone.
Of course, her heart broke.
About a week after Chuck passed, Sarah tried to meditate on her own.
She wanted to get back that feeling of peace and ease she had found in meditation. But it didn’t work as well without Chuck.
Sarah had what might seem like a nutty thought: what if she asked Chuck to meditate with her from the “other” side?
She decided to try it.
She sat down in the same place they always meditated, closed her eyes, and imagined his head on her knee and his body breathing under her hands, just as he had before he passed.
It might surprise you (or maybe it won’t) to hear that she felt Chuck join her in meditation.
She sat for their usual ten minutes, feeling the weight of his head on her knee, his fur under her hands.
But even stronger than the physical sensations (which she admits she could have just been imagining) was her experience of having CHUCK there.
(We all know what it’s like to “feel” our dogs presence. I don’t need to see Maui walk into the room to know she has. Her presence is real and felt with an inner sense, not just my outer ones.)
Tears rolled down Sarah’s cheeks, but they were tears of joy.
Chuck was “with Sarah” as much as he had been in the months before he passed when they started meditating and discovered this new way to bond.
Sarah firmly believes that her beautiful dog is still meditating with her every day, bringing his love and peaceful presence to her life.
In her words, which bring tears to my eyes,
“I would never have known that my bond with Chuck is there whether he is physically present or not, without having learned to meditate with him before he passed.”
This eternal connection to love is the true meaning of this time of year.
No matter what holiday you celebrate, this is the time of year when we all set aside time to remember and celebrate love, peace, joy, harmony, and connection.
Hopefully, setting aside time once per year helps us to remember these things all the way through the rest of the year.
(Just like setting aside time to meditate every day reminds us to find peace in the rest of the day.)
Sarah - and thousands of dog lovers like her - has found a way to bring deep peace, joy, and love to her life through dog meditation. Not just now, but every day, for the rest of her life.
Sarah plans on getting another dog when the time is right. But until then, she’ll continue to meditate with Chuck.
Her story inspired the Remembering Love Memory Journal in our new Remember Love Shop (Molly has been coming up with ideas for tshirts and mugs and all sorts of things for months - I finally told her to go ahead and put them up online).
I’m going to start a journal now for Maui - so I don’t forget a single thing. It’s like a baby book. 
