By Jennifer Shannon, MFT with Doug Shannon

On the Sunday evening before the wildfires struck my husband and I were returning later than planned from a weekend in Tahoe with friends, so I called the kennel that was boarding him and arranged for Mojo, our beloved eleven-year-old Jack Russell mix, to stay another night. When we made our escape at 2am the following morning, Mojo wasn’t on our minds. He was safe with the dog boarder, or so we thought.

At 4am my cell phone rang. It was the dog boarders. Their area was called to evacuate also, and someone in the neighborhood, thinking the dogs were in danger, broke in and turned all the dogs loose—dozens of them— before the boarders could evacuate them. They were out rounding them up, but so far, Mojo could not be found.

If you are a dog owner you know how I felt. Mojo was more than a part of our family. When our three children left home, little ten-pound Mojo somehow filled our empty nest. Part lap dog, part yapping mail truck chaser, Mojo was exactly what his name stands for, a magic charm, a talisman, a hairy little bag of spirit that in a real sense, hung around our necks over our hearts. It was another shock on top of our shock. Doug was catching a little sleep—one of his superpowers, even in a crisis. What should I do? I thought. What can I do?

Every day in my private practice I help people learn to deal with the uncertainty of life. When the monkey mind sounds the alarm that something is wrong, our natural response is to do something to fix it. It’s our first response to fear and anxiety. Do something, do anything to gain control and make the feeling go away. When it’s not a false alarm, and what we hold dear is in real danger, the urge to act is overwhelming. But when the situation is beyond our direct control, the question I ask my clients is, which is the better skill to practice right now— trying to control what is uncontrollable, or trying to stay in the moment tolerating uncertainty and negative emotions?

I knew the answer to this question. The situation was beyond my direct control. I couldn’t drive into an evacuated zone in the dark and cruise the streets looking for my dog. I was helpless. The only thing I could do was practice what I preach, tolerating uncertainty. I knew I may never see Mojo again. But if that turned out to be the case, I’d have a chance to practice flexibility and resilience.

Things got worse. After the fire swept our condo complex it roared down the hill, jumped highway 101, and attacked Coffey Park, a dense suburban area where the dog boarders were located. As the news trickled in, it became obvious just how much human life was threatened. Uncertainty was the new normal for everyone. On Tuesday morning my daughter Rose went to work posting photos of Mojo on Facebook and calling all the animal shelters, but considering the destruction we feared the worst.

Then, 36 hours after the call from the dog boarder, I received another call. “Hello, is this Jennifer Shannon? I found your dog.” Oh joy! A young man and his girlfriend—dog owners/lovers themselves—spotted Mojo wandering the street and tried to pick him up. But Mojo was so traumatized he was running away from everyone and everything. This wonderful man chased Mojo for blocks, finally fishing him out of a swimming pool, getting bit for his troubles in the process. When I peered into the back seat of their car, little Mo looked back with wide, vacant eyes. He didn’t even recognize me.

There’s more to this story, of course. The vet who bandaged his bloody paws and didn’t charge for it. The folks who volunteered to foster Mojo until we found a place where we could keep him. There is so much love in the world in times of crisis. That’s one thing I can be certain about, even when I’m uncertain about everything else.

As a therapist and author who specializes in stress and anxiety, and has lost my home in the Santa Rosa fire, I am writing this blog to remind myself of the powerful tools I use in my practice with my clients. If It helps others to deal with their own challenges, nothing would please me more.

By Jennifer Shannon, LMFT with Doug Shannon

Riding the Wave 

2 am Monday morning. I am awakened by the sound of my husband’s cell phone ringing. He doesn’t answer it and I reach for the light. The electricity is off. My throat feels raw and the air is thick with smoke. I leap out of bed shouting for Doug to wake up and my cell is ringing now. I answer it with one hand as I pull on pants with the other. Our friend Steve shouts in my ear, “Get out of there, right away!” “We are!” I answer.

Using cell phones as flashlights, Doug and I race through the dark house grabbing our laptops and photo albums. In the street outside a bullhorn voice bares, “Evacuate Now!” We throw what we’ve grabbed into the trunk of the car and as Doug pushes the garage door open, we see our neighbors loading into their cars, shadows in the white fog of headlights. The air is hot as a summer’s day and through the trees I see a glowing crimson. As I maneuver the car through the street, I grip the steering wheel tight, holding on to something solid as behind me, so much of what I love slips away.

Twenty minutes later I turn the key in the lock of my mother’s studio apartment in Sebastopol, 15 miles away from Santa Rosa CA. We wake her gently and flip on the TV in her bedroom. At 85 years-old, my mother is mildly cognitively impaired, but she is calm as we watch the news, trying to understand what happened. I feel like I’m dreaming yet I’m hyper alert and awake. We are alive, I think. It was a full-blown fight-freeze-flight situation and I responded. Thank you, monkey mind!

For the rest of the night and all morning my mind races, reliving our escape over and over. Monday afternoon, almost 24 hours exactly after the call that woke us, I receive a call from a trusted neighbor confirming that our home is burnt to the ground. It was as I expected. I felt numb. That night I collapse into a long deep sleep.

The next morning some friends call about a possible rental space and my husband and I go to see it. It is so rough with just a wood stove for heat. It would need much work, and it could never be home to me. That’s when the impact of what had happened hits. I am by nature a homebody and I loved my home. I need a place where I can recharge and regenerate. The simple comfort of my soft sheets to crawl into, my husband and dog to cuddle up with, is one of the greatest pleasures I have. My kitchen, where I love to cook and listen to music.  My desk overlooking the Santa Rosa valley. It’s all gone! Our friends are talking to me about the place and about the fire but I can’t track what they are saying. I quietly tell Doug, “I need to go.”

In my work I teach my clients to welcome anxiety and other negative emotions, that they are natural expressions of the limbic brain that is devoted to our safety and survival, what I like to call the monkey mind. Now, here was the sorrow of loss, square in my path.

Back at my mother’s studio I sat on the couch next to her as she knitted. My body began to shake and I curled into her lap. My heart ached in the most literal sense of the word. “Put your hand on the back of my heart,” I said. I felt the warmth of her hand and let in penetrate.  “I don’t have a home, I love my home,” I sobbed.

I cried for half an hour in my mother’s arms. I cried until I was dry and exhausted. I felt calm. My mind was empty. I was floating in the quiet trough until the next wave hit.

As a therapist and author who specializes in stress and anxiety, and has lost my home in the Santa Rosa fire, I am writing this blog to remind myself of the powerful tools I use in my practice with my clients. If It helps others to deal with their own challenges, nothing would please me more.