Life lessons from the pup

A new arrival reminds Natalie Garrett how to learn much about a life of simplicity and joy.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

Life coaching can be tiring.

So finally, we caved. We bought the puppy. We had been strong and resolute in our parenting decision to say no in the face of almost daily requests over a period of probably three years. But when we moved out of London recently, we relented and got a puppy.

We have had him for nearly a month now. He’s 98 per cent fluff and utterly glorious. He is taking us back to the early days of having our own human puppies – you mustn’t let him out of your sight for a second or he’ll a) be literally under your feet so you tread on him, b) be eating something disgusting you didn’t know was hiding under the sofa or c) well, you can guess what c) is.

But what I hadn’t reckoned on, when I collected this beautiful ball of snuffliness from his breeder, was that he would turn into my life coach. I have learnt so much about life – and specifically how to live it well – in the last couple of weeks, just by watching the way he lives his life.

For our puppy, everything is an adventure.

“Someone’s opening a door! What excitement awaits on the other side?”

“Oh you’ve leant down to talk to me – maybe if I lie on my back, you will give my tummy a rub?”

And so on.

Occasionally, he expresses sadness because everyone’s left the room and he can’t follow us upstairs. But otherwise, his glass (or bowl) isn’t just half full, it’s brimming over. As long as he’s been fed, he’s warm, he’s been let out to do what a dog’s got to do and (most importantly) he’s been shown love and affection, he’s happy and trusting. And then falls asleep, paws akimbo.

Somewhere, I read that in the Bible there are 365 statements variously translated as “do not worry”, “do not be afraid”, “do not be anxious”. 365. One for every day of the year. And even if that rather neat number isn’t actually accurate (although how amazing if it were true), clearly the Bible has a recurring theme around worry, fear and anxiety. Perhaps this most human of conditions is not such a new phenomenon as we think. God has been addressing issues of mental health for hundreds and thousands of years.

Jesus talked about it a lot. He addressed it head on in one of his most famous teaching sessions:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?’

In my puppy, I see (mercifully not a bird flying around) a creature who trusts that he’s going to be looked after. He trusts that he will have food and love so he is free to enjoy chasing a ball or chewing a stick. He models to me the very wisdom of Jesus. He doesn’t overcomplicate his life, he just lives it. As people, we seem to experience life as endlessly complicated. And, of course, sometimes it really is. Some of us carry all sorts of responsibilities that are very complicated indeed. Some of us don’t have our most basic needs met and that’s awful. I pray we can find and help those around us in that situation. But for most of us, most of the time, life really isn’t that complicated. If we have enough food, clothes on our back, somewhere warm to shelter and someone to share love with, that’s a good life right there. If we are privileged to have our basic needs provided for then maybe we can worry less and enjoy more. But for some reason, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Like countless others, I have carried with me the shadow of depression for many years. Through CBT and other therapies, I have had to learn new ways of thinking to keep the light on, as it were, and the darkness at bay. In this battle, Jesus’ words provide powerful ballast against the tidal waves of the depressive storm. He encourages us to choose, by an act of will, to fill our minds with truth and with the evidence of good things: the promise of his faithful provision, thus forcing out the lies of the darkness. As we choose to fill our minds with the knowledge and love of God, there is less room for worry and anxiety and we find rest for our minds. This choice brings freedom and the space for joy to grow. And, as we have come to realise in recent years, this battle is real for all of us, in different ways and to different extents.

Wonderfully, my puppy seems to have excellent mental health. When Winston Churchill spoke of his own “black dog”, I don’t think he was talking about a bouncing ball of fur begging for a tummy rub. But as I fill my mind with thoughts of Jesus and my puppy, I will continue to learn much about a life of simplicity and joy. And I am grateful to my children, wise beyond their years, who were instrumental in bringing this puppy/life coach into our family.

Article

Change

Fashion

10 December 2023

5 min read

Benefiting from the many facets of beauty

A jewellery start-up is challenging empowerment and agency.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

Three women stand, two lean into each other sharing a joke, while the other laughs too.

Members of Zena's Launch Pad team, Kamuli, Uganda.

Zena.

I have a conundrum. I’ve started and re-started this article four times now. And I’m surprised that I’ve settled on this opening. But alas, I have a deadline to adhere to and a cold coffee to warm back up. So, this will have to do. I’m struggling with this opening paragraph because when it comes to writing about Zena - the female-led, non-profit, environmentally friendly jewellery and accessory brand - I simply do not know where to begin.

There are too many facets of Zena that deserve to sit front and centre in this article; too many details to revel in, too many stories to tell, too much success to pick at and analyse.

Where do I possibly start?

How about with the delightful fact that the brand is named after a beloved pet goat who makes appearances on their TikTok? You know, kick things off on an endearing note. Or perhaps the fact that there are playlists curated for all occasions, dance challenges, and even a recipe for tequila lollipops on their website? That would certainly alert people to how seriously this team takes the art of having fun. Or maybe I should open with the fact that they’ve both challenged and refined how I perceive empowerment and agency. I could explain how they have alerted me to the importance of investing in female entrepreneurs as a means of tackling extreme poverty and profound gender inequality.

Yes. I think that’s it. Let’s start there and work our way backwards, shall we?

These women are not beneficiaries, they are benefactors – and that’s an important, not to mention beautiful, distinction.

In which case, here’s the heartbeat of Zena, here’s what you need to know in order to understand everything else about them: women living in rural poverty are currently facing two major barriers when it comes to business opportunity and entrepreneurship, and Zena are tackling both head on.

Firstly, female entrepreneurs in these settings have little to no capital with which to launch their business ventures. To combat this, every single product offered by Zena, whose HQ is in Kamuli (Uganda), is hand-crafted by women who were previously living below the poverty line. Through the Zena apprenticeships, these women are able to support themselves and their families while also earning/saving the capital they need to launch their own businesses once the short-term apprenticeship comes to an end. These women are not beneficiaries, they are benefactors – and that’s an important, not to mention beautiful, distinction.

Secondly, as well as a lack of capital, these women are battling a lack of education. And so, through a multi-phase entrepreneurship programme (The Zena Launch Pad), Zena are giving their apprentices both the theoretical and practical tools that they need to launch and sustain their own businesses. Women are graduating from this programme with literacy and numeracy skills, a viable business plan, industry-specific knowledge and skills, as well as leadership and development.

Because here’s the bottom-line, the foundation upon which Zena stands, the deep conviction of both Caragh and Loren, the co-founders and CEOs; agency matters. Widening one’s understanding of success to encompass these women’s agency, for better or for worse, matters. Empowering these women to earn their own capital, to see the unfolding of their own ideas, to know that their decisions matter, it makes all the difference. No dependence, no hand-outs, and no debt. Just the kind of empowerment that is laced with agency.

It’s bold. But it’s working.

There was utter delight in her eyes when she explained how good generates more good and creation generates more creation.

So far, time-stamped at this moment in time, Zena’s hybrid and holistic approach has led to 67 female entrepreneurs, over 150 children in school, and nearly 500 lives lived above the poverty line. Women are hiring other women, businesses are birthing more businesses, education is generating more education.

Pretty special, isn’t it? Pretty Jesus-like too.

I had the immense joy of chatting to Caragh, one of the co-founders and CEOs of Zena; she reminded me that multiplication is one of Jesus’ most classic moves. Just as the people sitting around Jesus with wide eyes and numb backsides witnessed one humble lunch feed tens-of-thousands of mouths, so are Caragh and her team witnessing jaw-dropping multiplication happen before their very eyes. There was utter delight in her eyes when she explained how good generates more good and creation generates more creation. Compassion is contagious and innovation spreads. Although Zena is by no means an enterprise that squeezes itself into a religious box (empowering women of all faiths and none), it is easy to see how Caragh and Loren’s faith in a God who wrote generative goodness into the fabric of reality, informs their mission to write it into their business model.

Something else that is woven into the DNA of Zena, much to my delight, is an unabashed celebration of the female consumer. 2023 may well be remembered as the year when an economic earthquake was caused by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Barbie. According to Forbes, it is likely to be regarded as the year where people began to take seriously and analyse the power of 'the female dollar'. And Zena, with their penchant for all things pink and glittery, have been sitting ahead of the curve for a little while. Their products, as seen in Vogue, Marie Claire, and Harvey Nicholls (as well as embellishing the looks of numerous celebrities), seem to have been made with this cultural moment in sight. Their aesthetic perfectly encapsulates the resurgence of female playfulness and the reclaiming of ‘girliness’ as something to embrace and revel in. As I have already referenced, joy is something that this team take incredibly seriously.

The celebration of women infiltrates every layer of Zena’s existence, that much is clear. While their products delight the female gaze, their profits sow into female entrepreneurship. Both of which display how working toward gender equality, particularly in contexts such as Kamuli, is a means by which we can wage a war on extreme poverty.

Women serving women, who are serving women, who are serving women. And on it goes – so beautifully circular. So intriguingly God-inspired.