bonding lessons #3 (aka a lesson in building your support network)
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Never in a million years would I have thought that learning how to bond two bunnies would teach me so much about life. And never in a million years would I have thought that I would be writing a series of posts about bunny bonding and sharing with you the life lessons I was receiving.
If nothing else, it proves that no matter what we’re doing, no matter how big or small, how important or trivial the task, life has always something to teach us… if we’re open to see and receive that invaluable lesson.
Today’s bunny bonding lesson didn’t so much come from my observations of the bunnies and how they were (and are) reacting with each other, it has come from something I put in place (and then tweaked slightly) before we (re)started the bunny bonding process.
When it comes to bunny bonding, and everything in life really, thanks to today’s modern and technology-driven society, we have a ton of information at our fingertips. Before we begin anything new, before we try to hone any new skill or experience, we can gather a ton of information upfront by simply typing our need into good old Google.
However, whilst you will find a vast amount of information that way, how do you know what information to listen to and apply and what information to ignore?
Especially if you’re about to embark on something you’ve never done before, like bunny bonding for me, how was I able to decipher the good information from the bad?
Well, the answer, I found, was to not do it alone.
You need to build yourself a support network. Not only with people who know what they’re talking about and have walked the talk before you, but also people who are there to cheer you on, encourage you to move past the blocks and find a way round the obstacles, to lift your spirits when things are challenging.
Now. When we first tried to start bonding our two bunnies, I hadn’t found and built that support network.
When we first tried, I simply relied on my research, on my google searches. And I picked what I thought was right. It really was the luck of the draw.
And do you know what happened?
Epic fail!
We put the two bunnies together and within seconds we had to separate them because they were fighting and we just weren’t properly prepared (… thankfully neither bunny was hurt).
That could have been the end of our bunny bonding experience. However, we chose to hit pause, do more research (or whatever else we needed) and then try again because bunnies are a social animal and for them to be truly happy, they need a bunny friend and partner in their life. So we couldn’t give up on them and us after just one failed attempt.
So off I went to do more research. And because the YouTube videos and guidance I watched about bunny bonding didn’t seem to work in practice for us, I chose to look for guidance elsewhere.
And that’s when I discovered a few bunny bonding Facebook groups (honestly, there are Facebook groups for absolutely everything!)
I joined the groups and posted a couple of basic questions in each one to see what guidance I would receive and how it would differ from what we had already tried.
One of the groups I found seemed to be impossibly and frustratingly impossible to post into because certain words would trigger posts to be automatically rejected. I couldn’t see to get passed that first step. So, I stopped even trying to post there.
In one of the other groups, I received similar guidance to what we had already tried that simply didn’t work.
And in the third group I was advised to join a group I had already joined – the group I simply could not get my posts approved.
Long story short… the group where it felt you had to jump through hoops to get guidance is the group I have since turned to and relied upon completely.
I now understand why posts can get automatically rejected. I now understand why posts need approval by the admins. In short, those who give guidance in that group are usually the admins themselves - people with a ton of knowledge and experience when it comes to bunny bonding.
Thanks to their guidance, when we began our second attempt at bunny bonding, I knew what kind of bonding pen to set up and where, and I was ready for how the bunnies would, most likely, initially respond to each other, and, most importantly, I knew what to do and how to deal with it.
Even though those initial bonding sessions challenged me in so many ways, even though I felt sick before, during and after each initial session, my husband and I did it and the bunnies coped amazingly well. And, most importantly, thanks to the Facebook group that initially seemed impossible to ask question in, I had people supporting me, helping me through the challenges, reassuring me, encouraging me and cheering me on, and celebrating every small positive step the bunnies took.
And that has been my life-saver, my sanity-saver.
I have been very fortunate that everything I have needed to make it through this bunny bonding process is available in that one group (I no longer turn to any of the other bunny bonding groups as I simply don’t need them). That one group has become my support network.
But that’s not always the case. In fact, it’s probably quite unusual to find everyone and everything you need under one roof. When it comes to building your support network, the people who make up that network may come from all different directions. But that’s okay too.
What’s important is that you create (and maintain) your support network and that it is filled with people who can support you on all different levels and from all different angles.
The right support networks keep us sane when things become truly challenging, they have and openly share their expertise and advice, they support us and cheer us on so we keep going and make it through the difficult times, and they celebrate our wins.
Would you like to know how to build your own support network and what it takes to do so? Then you’ll want to tune into the guidance I received, below, from the angels through my oracle cards.
Viv xx