Resisting the Urge to ‘fix’: Lessons from an Octopus

Image of an Octopus curled into a pot. Image credit: Janayara Machado

As humans the concept of “right” and “wrong” is so ingrained in us that we can’t help but apply it to just about everything. And when it comes to our pets, it’s easy to fall into that trap of believing that when they are not feeling well that something is wrong and therefore we must fix it.

The universe doesn’t function in those terms. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong, there is only what is in the present moment.

I finally got around to watching My Octopus Teacher on Netflix (what can I say, I live under a rock most of the time, kinda like an Octopus). I was fascinated to watch as Craig Foster cultivated a trusting relationship with an Octopus in the South African ocean. At one point he watches in horror as she is attacked by a shark. It grabs one of her arms and brutally rips it completely off. Not going to lie, I think I held my breath for longer than he was underwater at that point, as I felt my own fear for her life.

He struggled with the desire to intervene, but not wanting to interfere with nature, he watched helplessly as she struggled to get back to her den to safety. Her color was gone, she was weak, and barely moving. Every day he would rush to the ocean to go check on her.

And each day he found her barely alive, deep in her den. He cracked some clams to offer her something to eat, thinking she needed food in order to regain her strength, but he found them untouched, or stolen by other wildlife. He watched as it seemed that the life was slowly draining out of her.

After many days, to his surprise, she appeared a little bit better, with a little more color. She began to move again, and incredibly her arm was regrowing.

While our pets, and us people, don’t have the ability to regrow limbs, what this showed me was that sometimes the real key is simply allowing something to be. The Octopus knew what she needed to do in order to heal - and that was actually doing nothing, or what appeared to be nothing to Craig. So often when we bump up against our pets, or wildlife (and ourselves, too) with something that seems wrong we rush in to fix it right away. We are in such a hurry to make it better, to make it “right” again, that we start offering modalities, treatments, medication, and whatever else we think might fix the situation.

Underneath this, I think if we are really honest, is the desire to help ourselves feel better. When our pets, or loved ones, are in a situation where something is wrong, we empathetically feel pain, and we want them to feel better so we can feel better.

Who are we to think we know better than the universal intelligence that is available to us? Our minds want to rush in, thinking they know better, but when we do that we can’t access that intelligence.

But sometimes things just aren’t going to be the way they “normally” are (after all, what is normal in a universe where the only constant is change?), and that’s totally ok.

Sometimes, the best solution is simply to be with whatever is different and allow it space and wait to see what happens. Our own internal intelligence is going to know what is needed, but if we’re rushing around trying to find the “solution,” we can’t hear that intelligence, for our pets, or ourselves.

After all, if an Octopus can regrow her arm, what might be possible for our pets, and for us?