Welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a podcast brought
to you by the Hoffman Institute.
My name is Sharon Moore and I'm one
of your hosts. And on this podcast, we
talk to Hoffman graduates about how their courageous
journey inward
impacted their personal lives, but also how it
impacted their community and the world at large.
So tune in and listen in and hear
how our graduates authentic selves, how their love,
how their spirits
are making a positive impact on our world
today.
In other words, get to know their love's
everyday radius.
Alright. So welcome back, everybody.
Today, my guest is Tamar Geller.
Talk about a person who is using her
unique
calling, her unique gift to make our world
a better place.
Let me just start with this.
Oprah Winfrey
named her the life coach for dogs and
their people.
Tamar is the founder of the Love Dog
method, which she developed thirty years ago, and
this was based on her experience as an
intelligence officer in the Israeli special forces
and from time observing wolves. Can't wait to
hear about that people. She has provided insight
and training to millions of dog enthusiasts.
She is the author of the New York
Times bestseller,
The Love Dog, The Playful, Nonaggressive
Way to Teach Your Dog Good Behavior.
Tamar deeply, deeply cares about our world. She's
created the Loved World Foundation and Operations Heroes
and Hounds, where she provides deep transformation for
both injured members of The United States Military
and shelter dogs. I can go on and
on. Let's pause there and welcome Tamar. Tamar,
welcome to the show.
Thank you, Sharon. It's such a pleasure and
an honor being with you.
I'm so excited to have you now. I
am just so,
enamored
by how your gift, your natural gift has
become this vehicle
to make a positive impact in the world.
And I'm curious, how did this connection with
dogs start for you?
So, obviously, we all know about,
the fact that we are spirits who have
a human experience.
And when you
go to Hoffman, you really learn how to
connect with your spirit.
And funny enough,
spirit was guiding me
before I even knew
about
the concept of spirit in your in the
driver's seat. So what happened was
when I was an intelligence officer
with the elite special forces in Israel, we
found out that I have a gift
where I can pay attention
to the non important
things, meaning people would say something, people would
do something. So I was very attuned to
behavior.
And when I finished my service, I went
down to the Israeli Desert
to help with behavior research
of, wild wolves.
I was just doing it in order to
just to kill time because I was gonna
go my plan was to go to university
to become a psychologist,
to continue with behavior,
with people. I wanted to be a researcher.
While I was there in the desert, I
had a dream.
And the dream said in Hebrew,
you need to work with dogs.
And I was a dog liker. I wasn't
a dog lover.
I was not, you know, I was not
in love with every dog. I did not
feel for, you know,
the plight, the dogs. I mean, I was
I just thought they were cute and fun.
That was it.
But one thing led to another,
and doors opened
for me as long as I walked on
that path
of serving dogs.
It's a long story, but,
I found myself in United States after I
was given a ticket.
And I just said, okay, let me volunteer
with a dog trainer here. And I volunteered
and he got a call
from a fancy part of town from a
guy who said, oh, I've already been to
three dog trainers.
My dog is stealing socks.
And he said to me,
you go and work with him. And I
said, but I'm not a dog trainer. I
mean, I understand behavior. I studied wolves, but
I I'm not a dog trainer. And he
goes, you just go. Go. I don't want
I don't have the patience to deal with
him.
So I went there,
and,
the guy who opens the door for me
was, like, long hair, curl curly hair, very
sweet.
And I was looking at this relationship with
the dog, and he was so sweet. But
then very clearly, it became evident
that he's working from home. That was years
ago.
And the only time the dog could get
his attention
was when he was stealing socks.
So I just instead of making the dog
wrong and tried to correct him as dog
trainers have done,
I said, here is the need. The need
is for attention. The need is for true
connection. The need is for your presence.
I said, let me show you the games
that the wolves play with each other
so you can actually feed the need of
the dog and satiate him so he would
not have to steal socks anymore.
And within couple of days, we solved the
problem, and it turns out that the guy
was the amazing musician, Kenny g.
All of a sudden, I would start getting
calls from his friends. So
Goldie Hawn called me and Whoopi
Goldberg and
one actress named,
Nicole Sheridan,
who years later
introduced me
to Oprah
when Oprah came to be a guest on
a show called Desperate Housewife
that Nicolette was on. At the time, I
was already the resident dog expert for the
Today Show.
And when Oprah saw Nicolette
and her three months old golden retriever, Oliver,
who was
so in tune with Nicolette on the set,
so connected, so devoted, so
she wanted to meet, and I was very
blessed that she invited me into her home
and
into to be a part of her life
and the dog's life and to go and
be on her show
a few times. So
it's completely spirit guided.
And then when I wrote my book, she
launched it for me. I mean, she has
been my angel,
but it's truly
spirit
guided. I could not have
done it in my own
will
that well. I mean, spirit is truly incredible
when we have the courage, I feel,
to change
our plans, to be more in a place
of,
here is my plan, but what do you
want me to do? Yeah. Surrender.
So but but so you say this
from hindsight. In hindsight, you say, hey, spirit
was in the driver's seat, but I didn't
even know that. How did you at what
point did you realize, oh, I need to
start paying attention and surrendering to spirit or
letting spirit take the driver's seat? I still
do every day.
It's still every day I have the fight
between,
you know, it's a combination of my intellect
to thinks knows better and my dark side
who is pumping me with fears.
So it's still a tight rope act of
choosing spirit and choosing not to know and
choosing
service.
Above all, serving
dogs and serving through the dog, serving people.
So it's every day. You see, one thing
I'm very blessed with it is that I
have no doubt what my purpose in this
life is and that my life is about
service.
I know that my life is not about
acquiring
things.
You know, it's I'm not getting excited about
a new purse or a new pair of
shoes. It just doesn't excite me.
What excite me is to see transformation.
Transformation
of dogs,
to see dogs who were traumatized
in the name of training.
Like I have here right now with me
a dog
that was sent for six weeks to a
trainer in Southern California.
And her mom, who actually is a Hoffman
graduate as well, her mom called me and
she said, can you please come and show
us what to do? They're in Southern they
are like in much south of here. We
cannot meet with them. And when I heard
the training that was called positive training, but
it was as far away from positive as
it can be,
I said, I I really cannot help you
because I cannot teach you how to reinforce
what they've done. That's not my method. And
she said, please,
house, and
I was there and I was crying. I
was just I started to cry. I'm doing
it for over thirty years, and I still
cry. You know? And
because you're so scared dog. You see a
puppy. She was about three and a half
months old. And you see somebody
did a number on her spirit, on her
you know, you see a traumatized dog. And
she knew it, and she felt horrible.
And we had to keep I would not
take her to be with me.
Sometimes I take dogs for we call it
training vacation when they become my dog for
a period of time.
And I said, I can't. She's too traumatized.
Love on her. Love on her no matter
what. Let her make all the mistakes in
the world. Even if she is peeing on
the pillow that you sleep in, do not
correct. We now have to
help her sympathetic nervous system
to come back to center. It her her
nervous system is like somebody who's,
you know, was abused severely.
And then after a week of that, she
came to me and I start building that
little puppy up.
So
you see when I'm here in a place
of service,
I ask a dog in a way I'm
doing a quadrinity check with them.
What it is,
little doggy, that you need?
What does your intellect need?
What does your your emotions need?
What is your body need?
And can you please help your spirit to
guide me so I can guide you?
You know? So I'm here to serve. So
whenever I meet a dog or a person,
I'm immediately looking if how can I serve?
Because, Sharon, when you think about it,
there are so many dogs out in the
world.
And from all the dogs in the world,
we all choose that one dog, and that
one dog is becoming
a teacher.
You know? And for me, learning from a
dog, it's kinda like, you know, in half
when we learn, we have the right path,
we have the left path. Right?
There are many ways we can get, you
know, the lessons that we came here to
to learn.
And learning through dogs,
I find it to be one of the
sweetest way. So that woman had to learn
to trust her own gut
because she
knew. Yeah. And this is where my head
went. As you said, you know, I'm I'm
here for service, which I it rings so
true for me. And then you said, I'm
here for service for transformation of dogs. And
I was wondering,
how does that connect to the transformation of
their parents, of their humans?
You said to her, love on her. But
what if that human has her own patterns
that are getting in the way of her
being able to love on her dog?
Which luckily that wasn't the issue. We all
have patterns, obviously.
So,
in that case, that was not the pattern.
The pattern that I saw is self doubt.
The pattern that I saw is standing up
and saying
to somebody who called themselves professional
to say, nah,
I'm not gonna let you do that.
And and I think
we all have to learn to do it.
You know, one of the beautiful things that
I've learned in the Hoffman process
is when one of the teacher told me,
Tamar,
what if you are not the crazy one?
And I was like, what?
But I'm the screwed up one. I mean,
that's why I'm here. I know that I'm
the I'm I am the one with the
issue.
And it's not that I don't have patterns
and issues and whatnot,
but what if I'm not
the most screwed up one the way my
family wanted to
make me
feel?
What if it's not the truth?
So in a way that was kinda like
there where
you are right,
And sometimes it is right to stand up
to authority, to the professional, to question them,
even if you're gonna be disliked.
Yeah.
So here are, you know, to take this
example, but I imagine this is applicable for
many people you serve.
Not only do they get a dog who
is, like you say, devoted to them and
behaving beautifully,
but they have had a chance to have
their own transformation.
In this woman's situation, it was, oh, I
overcame self doubt, or, oh, I overcame my
belief that if you are a professional, you're
right and I'm not, or I ignore my
own boundaries because you're the quote, unquote professional.
So she got to overcome that, Plus get
a dog who is now well behaved and
devoted to her. Now a dog who is
the best version of herself. And that's the
other thing. I think that half in half,
when, when we all come to do the
process,
you are not trying to make us all
one size fits all, right? You're not trying
to make us all behave the same way.
What the Hafun process is profoundly
effective
is helping each one of us
to become the best version of ourselves.
Right?
And that is what I'm doing with dogs.
I am helping each dog become the best
version of themselves,
not one size fits all.
And I'm really
my goal, and that's what my service in
this world is
for people to start looking at dogs and
understanding them
the way we
should understand each other. And the reason why
is is because not only scientifically
we know
that dog pros dogs process process information
cognitively and emotionally the way people or the
way toddlers do.
So they're really more like us than, than
we realize and that's scientifically.
But it's also,
you know, we all live in a society
where everybody have, we, I call it the
normal paradox. We all think that our way
of beliefs, this is the normal, this is
the normal way. This is the right way.
And everybody who is different is the other.
And I feel that it's much easier to
forgive dogs for behavior or beliefs
than to forgive another person. And therefore, I
look at dogs
as our training wheels. Meaning,
dogs come from a different culture. In their
culture,
when you meet somebody, you jump on them.
Right?
In our society,
we do not believe the dog should jump
on us.
So
here is a dog come from one culture.
Should we make them wrong from coming from
that culture? Or should we kindly,
compassionately
teach them
how does it work in our culture?
You know, I'm from Israel, obviously. I'm a
foreigner here. And when I first came here
and I start making started making friends,
I remember the first shopping spree that I
went with bunch of new girlfriends.
And we went to the store and everybody
was trying clothes on. And one of the
girlfriends came out and
asked everybody, does this outfit make me look
fat?
And everybody said, no. No. No. And when
she came to me, I said, yes.
Because it made her look fat.
And everybody agreed it made her look fat,
but everybody said, no. No. No. And everybody
start giggling because they're all uncomfortable.
And I realized that I made a faux
pas.
But, again, in my culture in Israel,
we are known for our directness.
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Don't I know that? Right?
I happen to know that as well. Yeah.
Right? So this is our culture.
So I'm coming to an American culture where
being direct is a no no. So now
what do I do? And I was experiencing
a lot of stress at that moment.
I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I experienced
fear because I was like,
boy, what do I do? So if I
won't have friends, that means I have to
become a liar? I cannot be a liar.
So does it mean I'm gonna have to
be lonely with no friends?
You know, maybe I have to not stay
in United States, but I love my work
with the dogs. What you understand? It's like
you go into,
you know, a whole vicious cycle. Well, actually,
where I went in that, it's funny. You
you you went into yourself, oh my goodness.
I got stressed. I got ashamed. I got
fearful,
which I completely understand. But where I went
was
that the other people, the friends,
if only they had had dogs
as their training wheels, right, they would have
known not to make you wrong. They would
have known, oh, that's a different culture or
that's a different way of being. It's not
wrong. It's just different. Like you said, through
our work with dogs, we get to work
on this compassionate,
understanding, apathetic, open mindedness.
Right. You've kind of rocked my world with
that because I don't use, you know, I'm,
I'm very people oriented, but to imagine, and
then I think of my relationship with my
dog and sometimes I get so mad. And
if I was to actually look what happened
there, it is a total power struggle. It's
that, well, he's not listening to me. And
this baby, this child of mine comes out,
like, why aren't you listening to me? I
feel so invisible.
That's on me.
That is well, that is so beautiful what
you just said and what the dog is
trying to communicate to you
is, can you please do a quadrini check
on me? Because I'm trying to communicate with
you where I can't.
Can you please try to understand
what I need right now?
Do I need you to touch me more,
or do I need you not to touch
me? Do I need you to comfort me?
Do I need you you you understand? So
it's kinda like you really gonna do a
quadrinity check intellectually, emotionally, physically with them,
and and to see what is the need
and and try to find a way to
teach them how to meet that need, that
ask
in a way that fits in a human
culture,
which is a different way of meeting that
need or that ask in a doggy culture.
And I feel that as a world,
if we can learn how not to blame
the dog, the most common way people blame
the dog, which they learn is I'm again,
I'm not blaming people because they have learned
it by watching TV
and hearing it for decades
is they call the dog stubborn,
stupid,
or dominant.
I call it the SSD
disease
that people
have been hypnotized
into believing
about
the precious
angels,
their dogs,
which is wrong.
And it's wrong to think that your dog
wanna dominate you, that the dog wants to
you need to be the master, they need
to be submissive, they need to be obedient.
No.
The purpose of dogs in our life from
my point of view
is to help us
become the best version of ourselves
by us helping them
become the best version of themselves.
It's, very difficult for me not to apply
this to people in general because,
even what you just said, not to blame
dogs. Well,
I mean, how often do we blame others
in general instead of look at ourselves,
instead of look at the opportunity, instead of
look and like you to use your term,
this is my training wheel. Something's up for
me here. I need to learn about it.
That's exactly right.
And instead of looking,
you are blah blah. You are dominant. You're
stubborn. You're stupid to say, wait a minute.
First of all, let me calm myself down.
Let me breathe and let me smile.
Even if it's the most fake smile, as
you know, it calm the nervous system down.
So the first thing, if the dog is
triggered,
if the child is triggered and the parent
is triggered,
it's just not gonna go anywhere.
So we as the paw rents
to the dog,
p a w, rents. I was just gonna
spell paw, p a w, paw rinse. Paw
rinse to the dog.
We first have to calm ourself down
because we are both, us and the dog,
have a trigger nervous system.
So one of the thing that I'm doing
in my method, that is the first thing
that I teach every dog and every parent
is how to manage ourselves when we are
triggered
and how to physically how to literally
take steps to calm the nervous system down.
So I just walked with a celebrity client
and her dog,
and she cannot afford her dog to be
aggressive because she's very famous. People know her.
And the dog is very aggressive when he's
on a walk.
And
I showed her how I literally
sing to the dog. I taught him before.
I teach a behavior
where I teach a dog how to manage
the impulse control,
and I use words that I sing it
to them.
So she and I went for a walk,
and we saw not one, but six dogs
being walked at the same time by one
person.
And those those six dogs went crazy when
they saw us with our one dog.
It was a chaos over there. And instead
of me telling the dog, no. Down.
You know, which the dogs already was triggered,
our dog.
I immediately start singing to him.
Ignore it. Ignore
it. Ignore
it.
And the dog, she was
blown away to see how the dog was
able to connect
to what that song meant,
which was, oh,
I can ignore what's triggering me and connect
with you instead,
which is kinda like what you teach us
in Hoffman.
Do you know how when the dark side
trying to run the show, how to connect
to spirit? Right?
We are
that spirit to our dogs.
And spirit does not come and chastise us.
Spirit comforts us.
So that is what I'm doing for the
dog, and and she was blown away to
see that now. Does it take a lot
of discipline
to get ourself in a place where we
are not reacting?
And would I suggest to go
for the first time where you might run
into six dogs? No.
Could also do it in stages. When I
teach dogs, I teach them. I give the
example, like learning how to drive a car.
If somebody gonna pee to you on the
freeway in your first lesson, you're gonna freak
out.
But if I'm gonna put you in an
empty parking lot, then you're gonna be able
to learn to hone
those skills.
And then little by little, you move you
up
to a quiet street, busy street, all the
way to the freeway.
So that was the equivalent of the freeway
with the dog. And, unfortunately,
for dogs and their parents and their people,
they're not being taught life skills. They're taught
obedience.
You see? And I feel in the world,
we as humans taught obedience. And when we
come to Hoffman, we are taught life skills.
So many amazing parallels. I would have never
thought I would make these parallels with dogs.
I'm I, I have to say, I'm I'm,
I'm so just, I have a big smile
on my face to imagine that I'm making
these parallels with dogs when I work with
humans so much. But,
I'm also struck by the symbiotic nature of
this. You keep saying things like dogs are
here to teach us. Dogs are here as
messengers. Dogs are our training wheels. You know,
I you know, we often say in the
process, never pass up a good pattern. That's
a learning moment.
And,
so not only are we here to bring
out the best version of the dog, the
dog is here to bring out the best
version of us. We get to grow as
humans
in partnership with this dog.
That's amazing. A 100%. I mean, I absolutely
god. I feel that everybody needs to do
the Hafun process as the first thing on
their personal growth. I always equate the Hafun
process as like the soil
that if you do not have a fertile
soil, it doesn't matter what you put into
it because it's just not gonna grow to
its full potential.
And I look at the Hafun process as
a fertile soil. And
so one of the, again, from the many,
many things that I got from the Hafun
process
is I I believe you call it the
transference
where, you know, when we tell to somebody,
I had a negative reaction to you
and and and you said the person's name
at that time and to say I experienced
you as, you know, whatever. So I'm telling
people,
so can you do it where
you tell your dog, I experienced
you, Oliver. That's my dog's name, my golden
retriever.
I experienced you, Oliver,
as,
as distant,
as,
you know, not caring
when he doesn't come to me when I'm
calling him, which with my dog, it doesn't
happen. But I'm just giving an example. You're
in the dog park and you call your
dog and your dog stops stops playing, looking
at you
and, like,
push the ignore button. I'm not call I'm
not answering that call. Yes. Most people lose
their mind. Most people become angry.
Now if you got why they're angry, they're
not angry because they didn't come to them.
All these myriad of emotions coming in, which
is you don't respect me, you don't care
about me, all of that. And that is
the pattern that is the opportunity to take
a look at. Right?
Yes. People, this is amazing. I don't know
how many listeners have dogs and how many
listeners are graduates. But for those of you
who have both dogs and are graduates,
what she's telling us here is that our
dogs are these,
wells of learning moments of, woah, there's a
pattern. Write that pattern down and work on
it. They get to reflect back to us
how we can become better people by identifying
our patterns.
I love that you literally brought in transference
into your relationship with the dog. That is
incredible because what do you get out of
the transference? You get more patterns. You get
more awareness as the human, as the par
parent.
You get some more clarity on what you
need to work on. What a gift. And
then you go into your relationship with humans
with a little bit more healing that already
took place.
You know? Because I think with people, people
play games. We don't really we don't always
know the true intention of people. Right?
But with dogs, dogs don't play games.
Dog don't play games. So if they are
not doing something that you want them to
do or if they're doing something that you
would like them to stop, first need to
do a quadrini to check-in a way to
find out what is the ask and then
to see what am I not giving to
the relationship. So you really have to do
as the grown up
to show up. And particularly this time more
than ever in in in in our history,
our current history,
we really need to build connection
and community.
And the first place to build connection and
community is with our beloved dogs.
Yeah.
Wow. Okay.
Tamar, this is this is so powerful.
So many good things. We're coming to the
end of our time together. But from the
beginning,
with you
talking about the spirit led life and how
it was already happening and when it happened,
so many doors opened. It sounded like it
was this buttery experience for you where it's
like door after door after door was opening
because you surrendered.
And then to hear about your commitment that
every single day
you do the work to surrender to spirit.
That's important for us to know also. This
isn't like you arrive and then you just
sit back. You arrive and you maintain.
No. Life every day is still you know,
it's not easy.
It's not easy. I'm definitely
not experiencing easy life, but I'm feeling a
purpose filled life. Yes.
And then you've inspired us to think about
our relationships with our animals, with our loved
ones, and include dogs in,
the equation as we continue to grow as
humans. It's that's an incredibly
that's such a new concept for me. I
I love it. And I'm a dog owner.
So so You're not a dog owner? Oh,
I'm getting called out. This is good. I
am a dog partner. I am Porrent. Pawrent.
Of course. I am a dog. Parenting the
dog. You're raising the dog. You do not
own.
I know. How who where did that come
from? You're absolutely right. I take it back.
I am a dog
parent. Those who are dog owners,
I do not think that they are part
of the way we view the world. You
know? Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. And
I I have to admit, I have not
used
my relationship with my dog
as, an awareness tool for what patterns I
need to work on. And you just invited
me to do that, and I'm giving you
my word. I'm going to do that. Yeah.
I feel very inspired. What kind of dog
do you have? We all wanna know. Chiuini,
I think. It was, we we we saved
him from the fire. He's seven pounds. He's
really cute. And I have to admit, I
was not raised with animals. I you said
I wasn't a dog lover. I was a
dog liker.
I don't even know I was a dog
liker. I'm a people lover. I love people.
You are.
And,
so to think that the dog is a
ticket
to, to, to is a, is a avenue
to deeper relationship with myself and with people
and that they are here to serve in
that way. And I'm here to serve them.
What, what a beautiful way to, what a
beautiful way to strengthen a relationship with a
dog. We need to think spirit for that.
Right? Yes. Absolutely.
This dog was certainly brought to me. It
was spirit led. That's for sure. Wow. Anyway,
so
I I just wanna say thank you. You're
so passionate. And so
that's exactly the words I would have used
to is I'm in the presence of somebody
who is living out their purpose
a 100%.
It is palpable. It is inspirational.
Thank you for sharing it with us. Thank
you for giving us this time. Thank you
for impacting so many people by honoring your
spirit and honoring your work in the world.
Well, thank you for having me on. I
mean, to be on the Hoffman podcast is
such an honor for me.
That is very nourishing to my soul. So
thank you, and thank you for the opportunity
to share,
you know,
my life, my heart, my soul with other
people. That is
the greatest gift, the greatest honor. Thank you,
Sharon.
Beautiful.
Thank you, Tamar. And,
obviously, we'll have contact information and
tune in and and, listen into other inspirational
people in the upcoming
episodes. Tamar, thank you so much for being
here today. Thank you, honey.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
president of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
And I'm Razi Ingrassi,
Hoffman teacher and founder of the Hoffman Institute
Foundation.
Our mission is to provide people greater access
to the wisdom and power of love. In
themselves, in each other, and in the world.
To find out more, please go to hanppaninstitute.org.