Submit and Obey

The concept of submit and obey comes from my training as a Reiki Master.  The concept is prevalent in many of the eastern spiritual and martial arts teaching traditions.

It doesn't mean that we have to submit our power to someone else.  Instead the concept relates to submitting to a higher force and allowing yourself to be in the universal flow.

It relates to not questioning and being open and awake to the many opportunities for learning that exist outside our own knowledge and ego.

I had a great lesson in submit and obey recently while housesitting.

My charge, a delightful yet very inquisitive little cat, also a well known escape artist, went missing one evening.

It was quite a difficult feat because she was an indoor cat and all the doors were shut!  But in that hard moment of realisation, she was in fact offically missing in action.

Sunniest spot in the house - Sylvie found it and spent most of her time there.

I called and called and checked and I double checked everywhere in the house.  I rattled doors and shook windows wondering where she could have got to.

Considering she was usually in one of four places, asleep on the kitchen window sill, asleep on the bed, asleep on me or ripping around the house like a mad thing, this was most unusual.

She was definitely no where to be found.

This is a horror situation for a house sitter because of course your furry friends are a big responsibility.

Losing one is less than ideal.

Then standing at the kitchen window my blood ran cold.  There was a small gap where the bug screen on the window didn't quite close properly.  Oh dear, had she figured out the one escape route in the house?  The owners had left the window open, so I couldn't figure why they would do that if she could escape.

Plus I really couldn't see how she could have slipped through a gap that small, but now I was going to need to call for support because if she had, she was probably outside now and from past accounts could now be anywhere in the neighbourhood.

So up I went to the office to email the friend around the corner assigned for just this type of disaster.

As I pulled the office chair out from the desk and swung it around to sit down, who did I find on the chair but the cat sound asleep!  In fact she was quite indignant that I'd woken her.

Was she asleep or was she just ignoring me?  Who cares, I'd found her and that was all that was important.

Then something quite unrelated occurred to me.  Several of the windows in the house had little stickers on them that said "don't open - screen broker".  I thought the owners had been very kind in ensuring I wasn't going to get bitten by errant bugs, but what they had been saying was - don't open this window because the cat will be able to get out through the broken screen.

Until this incident that hadn't occurred to me.

Luckily without giving the situation to much thought I had read the signs and submitted and obeyed.  I could just have easily thought, no worries about the bugs, I can handle it and opened them anyway, but I didn't, I obeyed and kept them shut and only opened the windows without signs.  Submit and obey saved my bacon!

The tiny sticker that made all the difference

As a house sitter submit and obey can be our friend on so many levels.  This simple little story is a grand example of how communications can get crossed so easily.

I was just lucky to have such a diligent owner who knew all the tricks of the cat.

As I removed my heart from my mouth, I thanked my now instinctual connection to submit and obey ….. even if I didn't fully understand the full reason for the little sticky note at the time, both the sticky and submit and obey certainly served me well.

The cat just went back to sleep!

What Makes A Good House Sitter?

People are often stunned when you explain the concept of housesitting.

You can see the disbelief on their face as the cold hard facts trickle in.  People are willing to leave, what for most is their most valuable financial asset ...... along with their treasured pets, in the hands of a total stranger.

Often the homes that owners are turning over to house sitters are
prime pieces of real estate - you don't want to leave it with just
anyone - selecting the right person is very important!
Photo taken at Roberts Creek, Sunshine Coast, BC Canada

Indeed it is a big responsibility to hand over to someone you find on the internet and yes, its a big responsibility to take on.

Somewhere in this crazy situation housesitting works.

I believe the successful sits are created ever before the sitter steps over your threshold.

So often I see house sitters promising to treat your home like their own.  Actually that’s the last thing you want.

You want a house sitter to treat your house like YOU want them to treat it.

So what qualities should a house owner be looking for in a potential house sitter?

In the adds people are always asking for “reliable”, “trustworthy”, “helpful”, “quiet” and even the tell all “sober” house sitters.  These are all admirable traits, but I believe the very best trait you can pray the gods of housesitting send you is someone who is a good listener.

A housesitter who has listened intently to your instructions, without thinking “I could do that better” or “I could do that a different way”, will always be able to deliver the things that are important for you.

It seems a little obvious that everyone could listen, but not everyone can.  I’m a coach so I’ve been trained to listen for the non verbal queues.  Those often tell you more than the person is actually saying.

When you are bombarded with an inbox full of replies, the sort of non verbal clue you are looking for is "has this person actually read our proposal right the way through?"

Check they have answered all the points you have made in your listing.

This is a very small detail, but if the prospective sitter haven’t gone to the trouble of writing a response that is tailored to your listing, do you think they are going to care about that precious exotic plant you absolutely adore that must be kept with 2cm of water in the bottom of the container?

The Devil is in the Detail

I put jobs out to virtual contractors who work all over the world and near the end of each brief I ask them to tell me the colour of their eyes.  Its a quick way to rat out the people who don’t bother to read the whole brief.  I am still stunned that around 50% of them don’t tell me their eye colour.  This doesn't bode well for them reading all the instructions I send them for the job.  They have wasted both my time and their own time, simply because they weren’t listening to everything I had mentioned.

So like anything, first appearances tell you a lot.  If your person shows a willingness to listen at the very start of the "housesitting courtship" and do things in the exact way you like them done, then you will be streets ahead of the person who wants to look after YOUR house THEIR way.