Walking through the park one morning, a dog I encounter often was barking off in the distance and I recognized the sound. This is a peculiar and delightful dog, as she barks for the sheer delight of vocalizing. She also has a habit of racing up to people full speed, barking wildly all the while. Given that I used to be chased home from school by a neighborhood dog, it took some getting used to for my body not to have a momentary experience of tension whenever this fur-face came racing toward me. The other day, I noticed that as soon as I heard her bark, my body relaxed into a feeling of pleasure at knowing I would soon see her coming toward me full tilt. She did, as usual, and I enjoyed her enthusiasm for her enthusiastic experience of the morning and for her delight in everyone she encountered.

As she moved on, her bark receding in the distance, I realized that she had become a teacher for me and my body. She had helped me unlearn some of the unconscious, spontaneous anxiety I had come to experience in the presence of barking dogs. Her way of being has introduced a “competing experience” for my body’s initial response of tension. Now, I have in my repertoire the spontaneous experience of delight and relaxation in the presence of a barking dog.

The next day as I walked through the park, I noticed that this lovely, furry teacher has allowed me to shift my overall experience of dogs barking. No longer do I feel an unconscious flash of fear when a dog near me begins barking. Instead, I have a rather warm feeling – a welcoming rather than a fending off – when I hear that sound, which is all over Central Park in the morning. I felt such gratitude for my furry teacher when I realized that my body was completely relaxed around all the barking dogs, and I marveled at how she had transmitted a powerful healing and learning without my realizing it.

This experience got me to thinking about all the teachers life brings to us, in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of circumstances. Some are benevolent teachers, like my dog friend, and some are more arduous, as the co-worker who pushes our buttons and forces us to dig deeper into our skill base in order to maintain self-control. And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to become aware of the unexpected teachers you encounter as you move through the week. Allow yourself to pay attention to those people, situations, and critters whose presence and interactions with you require you to stretch into new, more “skillful” behaviors and responses. Even when you initially experience them as pains in the neck, notice what you learn in your encounter with them.

Also, notice what happens when you allow yourself to experience gratitude for the teacher’s presence in your life, and for the lessons brought by your encounter with this source of learning. Rather than feeling victimized by the need to stretch into new responses, or by the journey of developing a new capacity or point of view, play with what it’s like to engage the learning as a gift that will strengthen you in some way that becomes a gift. It’s all too easy to feel victimized and irritated with people, situations, and critters that take us out of our comfort zone but, whenever we can stretch into a new skill, new response, or new behavior, we have benefited from the experience. We have something available that we didn’t have before.

As with all the experiments, allow curiosity to be your companion along the way, and allow yourself to notice that even the smallest moment and the smallest experience can teach you something you may not have realized you need to know or develop.