Story & Lesson Highlights with Anton du Preez

We recently had the chance to connect with Anton du Preez and have shared our conversation below.

Anton, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
Typically I’ll wake up around 5:30, just before our canine companions start asking for breakfast. Didgie (full name Didgeridoo) is a 12 year old black Labrador. He’s the most calm boy you’ll ever meet, and a retired therapy dog. CocoaBean is our five going on six year old chocolate Labrador, and she’s still a very sweet tornado. After getting their breakfast, I go through my morning yoga and meditation routine, sometimes with maintenance therapy for my chronic left shoulder pain. If my husband is awake by then, we’ll take the pups on their morning walk together. If not, I’ll take them anyway, followed by a 30-40 minute workout. I vary my days with strength, endurance, and stability. By now, the sun is usually up, and we share a quick breakfast together while catching up on emails and preparing for our respective work days.
If it’s the weekend, we’ll sometimes sleep in. The routine remains somewhat the same, albeit delayed.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Greetings! I’m Anton or Dr. du Preez depending on the environment. I’m a songwriter, composer, studio singer, and educator. I’m also a Neurologic Doctor of Physical Therapy, a registered therapy dog team, and a Navy veteran.

Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Woah! An insightful question. I’ve broached this topic a few times with friends and family over the years, and it’s important for everyone to reflect upon the many nuances here. Every individual has their quiet hopes and desires, their voiced plans and dreams, and their immediate environment. Our interactions and experiences inform our decisions, and inevitably, as more responsibilities either load our shoulders or find safety under our wings, we must adapt and shift focus to meet those needs. Everyone’s journey varies, of course, and each of our own chapters may be vastly different.

Before shouldering various responsibilities throughout my life, I was a starry-eyed, hopeful optimistic, inherently bashful yet an effusive dreamer. My daily mission was to enjoy music, animals, and making people laugh. I was sensitive, compassionate, and needed to find value in caring for others.

I thankfully still carry some of those qualities with me, but they’re often covered by a harder exterior, a protective shell (if you will) that I think most of us develop as we navigate our sometimes fickle and stressful world.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
Don’t lose sight of what makes you happy, and although the world can be rough at times, there is still a lot of beauty and hope. Keep your light shining brightly. Even if you can’t chase away all of the darkness, you can still illuminate your way and the paths of those around you.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What truths are so foundational in your life that you rarely articulate them?
Kindness and compassion. It seems to me that the only way to progress through life as a healthy individual and a member of your community (however large or small it may be) is to act with kindness, understanding, and compassion. For our own mental health, and the power of thought and behavior, we are fully in charge of training our brains through neuroplasticity. If we’re kind and positive, our thought processes will naturally calibrate to express positivity and kindness. One doesn’t have to be the living embodiment of altruism, because we’re all human and it’s okay to have moments of selfish desires…IF those moments do no harm to others (including animals and the natural world around us).

Without going too much into the ongoing state of politics and world affairs, it’s baffling to me that persons on their own, as individuals, are often inherently good people, but when put in positions of power can act in such egregious ways. I’ll never understand why there is so much hate and fear, leading to aggressive acts. I suppose that’s an unfortunate part of the human condition, as we, as a collective, seem to keep repeating the same cycle.

Anyway, I still feel that most people are hardwired for kindness and compassion. If we’re all able to remember and live those attributes daily, then there is still hope for us all.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
It feels a bit conceited to think that I understand something deeply that most don’t. But perhaps rephrasing it to “some don’t.” I hesitate to discount anyone’s thought process or beliefs. I’m eternally curious about each individual’s life experience, even if group dynamics can complicate things. My rambling answer, I suppose, is that I understand that each interaction carries weight, even if it doesn’t define who we are. While I admit to struggling with it daily, I try to remember that whoever I’m interacting with at any moment is also experiencing just that snapshot in time with me. Unless we’re together 24/7, and fully connected in thoughts and neurotransmitters (impossible), neither of us can fully understand the other’s timeline before or after the current interaction. So, I try to give the benefit of the doubt, to us all, that we’re doing the best we can in any given moment, informed and influenced by whatever experiences have occured or are known in the near future. Hopefully something in that made sense. Apparently, I don’t understand it deeply either.

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Image Credits
All photos by Dennis Swinford

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