How Learning Animal Communication Can Change Your Life

This episode is for you if you have ever felt the weight of your own mind trying to talk you out of your dreams or bucket list goals.

Maybe you have a recurring thought that you want to learn to talk to animals. But then your mind tells you that you are too old, too young, too busy, too new to the field to make an impact, too whatever to give it a try.

I get it. I have been there too. 

For every reason why not, your creative mind can dream up a reason why. The best reason I've ever uncovered is that learning this interspecies language changes lives.

In this episode, we cover:

🌟 Why the timing is always right but you won't see it until you look back

🌟 How our own pets will invite us to the animal communication party!

🌟 What learning animal communication will teach you about yourself

🌟 The most beautiful gift learning animal communication will give you 

Chapters

• 0:12 Journey to Becoming an Animal Intuitive
• 10:58 Discovering Intuition Through Loss and Learning
• 17:17 Discovering Animal Communication Abilities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome. My name is Shannon Cutts. I'm an animal intuitive and sensitive, a Reiki master practitioner, an animal communication teacher and, most importantly, your friendly neighborhood hostess, and I thought, before we get too much further along, I would answer some frequently asked questions, one of which is how did you become a professional animal intuitive? This is such a good question. It's one of those questions that sounds easier to answer than it actually is, especially if you have achieved a certain number of decades under your belt. Perhaps, like me, I happen to have personally five decades of life under my belt to date. And so, looking back, kind of rewinding my consciousness, my awareness of my conscious life today, looking back to when I was in my 40s, my 30s, my 20s, my teens, as a young child, would I have ever believed it if you had told me that one day I would be a working professional animal communicator? Oh heck, no, no, I would not, which is, of course, part of the magic of coming to this 3d planet and signing up for an incarnation is sure. We've got some major highlights that we want to hit, perhaps some major lessons that we want to tackle, some major opportunities that we want to take advantage of, some important meetings that we have with our fellow souls of all species. But in no way shape or form do I personally believe that it's all set in stone. Remember that it's all meticulously mapped out in advance. In fact, so much of what informs my awareness of kind of how our lives are maybe mapped out or brainstormed before we come here, really is informed by the animals and how they show me that there are lots of what we might call sliding door realities, different paths that we could choose, different ways to achieve major soul evolution and growth. Major soul evolution and growth. And I feel like saying yes to animal communication, saying yes to learning it, saying yes to teaching it, saying yes to hanging out a shingle and offering my services as a working professional was one of several options that could have propelled my soul, my embodied spirit, forward on her journey, and so I do look at it as a true miracle that has unfolded in my life, probably the best of many options that could have moved me forward in my learning and education and conscious unfoldment in my learning and education and conscious unfoldment.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So let me take you back, especially if you are watching this episode and you're looking over your life trajectory to date. Maybe you're looking at your professional resume, like I sometimes do, maybe you're seeing what kind of looks like a train wreck, like how did you get from A to B to P to T to C to R? And now you're here. It's like, well, I couldn't have told you at the time. But looking back now, all of those seemingly unrelated experiences, not only do they make a lot more sense now in terms of some important skills that I have been able to add to my toolkit that I needed for this part of my earthly journey, but in a strange way each of those separate experiences also add up to be more than the sum of their parts.

Speaker 1: 4:26

So if you're in a season of your life perhaps where you're looking at what you're doing or where you are in life and you're thinking it just doesn't make sense to me, hang on, it will, hang on, it will. There is a reason. This is where we start to kind of build a firmer foundation for soul level self-trust, to be able to make choices as they present themselves and say, no matter what, whether this works out in the short term to be the quote unquote right choice, quote unquote wrong choice, maybe we need to do a little course correct. I trust that ultimately, my soul path will be revealed, because my goal, my intention this is something that I'm so passionate about, especially when I teach animal communication and definitely in every session that I facilitate is to look back to our fundamental intention. My intention is good, my intention is positive, my intention is of the light, my intention is to grow, as my late best friend, marcy, who is a Reiki master and a beautiful soul. She used to always remind me. We're here to grow in wisdom and learn to love better, which I believe is a quote from Tara Brock, whom she loved, is a quote from Tara Brock, whom she loved. But I think about that often as I look back on the windy road that led me here and I think, ultimately I have achieved and continue to achieve that fundamental guiding intention to grow in wisdom, to learn to love better and in fact, that fundamental guiding intention not only has gotten me through some really hard challenges in life and some really big oops course correct decisions that I've needed to make, but has also opened up the door and given me the courage to say yes when the opportunity to embark on learning animal communication really honestly kind of dropped in my lap. So let me just rewind you. Let's go back to. Well, I'll start you at the beginning.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Even as a young child, I was always kind of animal obsessed, especially birds and turtles. I feel like I came here with a special heart for the less visible of our planet. Mates, the ones that either are perceived as not having a voice, either because they're silent or largely silent, for instance turtles and tortoises. They don't make a lot of sound, so they have to find other ways to catch our attention when they need help. Birds, which, when I was growing up, the term bird brain was considered an insult. Now we know, thanks to Dr Irene Pepperberg and her beautiful bird Alex. We know that that's actually quite a compliment. So I was really always transfixed by those particular animal species. But we have lots of pictures in our family albums of me stalking frogs and patting horses and following roadrunners, just being fascinated by the non-human animals we share our planet with.

Speaker 1: 7:59

However, I grew up in a musical family and so while I was on the stage a lot when I was young and when I was growing, and I was a singer and a songwriter if you look for Shannon Cutts, you'll find a whole list of original songs that I've written and recorded and published to share, and then I just had a really windy road. I was a college recruiter for a while. I founded and ran a charity for a decade called Mentor Connect that provided mentors to people recovering from eating disorders. It was a free support charity service and was a freelance writer for a decade. So lots of different winding, curving roads, but throughout one of the connect the dots kind of themes is that I always had an interspecies family and frequently when I would run into insecurities or challenges or questions, I would hire animal communicators.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Now my path really intersected with animal communication and maybe what might sound like a little bit of an unorthodox way when I started, I came across and started reading the books of Dr Temple Grandin, who is most well-known and famous worldwide for two things, one of which is being an extremely high functioning PhD who's also happens to be autistic, and two for her groundbreaking work in commercial livestock welfare. She is the one that goes boldly into commercial farming and ranching and meat production facilities and works with the management to redesign the living conditions to provide humane options for everything these animals need, from getting their food and water to having their senescence and their medical checkups and even to the point where they end their earthly lives, and it's a tough topic for me to talk about. But there you have it. And she is such a pioneer and I look up to her so much. There was so much about what she shared in her introductory book, where she talked about thinking in pictures and how, because of her autism, because of her autistic brain, she was able to naturally understand the animal's point of view, how they saw the world, how they see the world, how they perceive moments of opportunity or things that are fearful in their daily environment. And that is what has given her such a gift and an ability to work with these managers and help the animals navigate their situations with less fear and with more of a healthy daily life.

Speaker 1: 10:58

And so I started reading her books and then I began to encounter a whole world of animal-themed books. I've always been an avid, voracious reader and it was natural. I spent years reading books about different species, learning everything I could about tigers and giraffes and elephants and cockatiels and the turtles and tortoises of the world, and learning about people who work with animals. And then one day and I was just on the cusp of my fifth decade of life at that point I was meditating and I've had a meditation practice since I was 19. So this is nothing that's unusual for me, nothing that felt foreign or anything I wouldn't be inclined to trust.

Speaker 1: 11:50

If I received a message in meditation, I would be more likely than not to take it in and incorporate it right away into my daily life. And the message that I received that morning was delivered by the same small still voice that I have heard from. Every so often, at critical junctures in my life when I really needed a little bit of an extra nudge or a push, or maybe even a shove, this little voice appears. And in that particular meditation, that particular morning, I was kind of in a little bit of a delicate or a sensitive emotional state. I had just split off from my partner of many, many years. The relationship was just at its end, let's just put it that way. But it was a huge relationship, a huge teaching relationship in my life, and I was definitely feeling very wobbly without it.

Speaker 1: 12:44

And so I was meditating and all of a sudden, right out of nowhere which is the wonderful way that our soul voices often reach us I heard the words you are an animal, sensitive and intuitive Right, and it captured my attention fully and I thought to myself that's fascinating, sounds important. I have no idea what it means. And right around that time I this information became kind of an anchor point for me, kind of a glimpse at the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. And one of the things that happened right after that is my dearest best friend passed unexpectedly, the one that had often talked about growing in wisdom and learning to love better, my dear heart friend Marcy. Growing in wisdom and learning to love better, my dear heart friend Marcy. And another thing that was just unfolding right in that same period of time was my father entered his final transition very suddenly, very unexpectedly, and so, right in the middle of just these catastrophic losses or at least they felt that way to me the most important people of my life, one by one, seemed to be peeling away.

Speaker 1: 15:10

In the middle of all of that, I had started studying with my intuitive teacher, sonia Shilkat, and I was taking a number of her online courses. I was participating in her community, I was a member of a live group program and was participating in a small group offshoot of that program, and so, luckily, I had somebody in my world. I had kind of this new group that I was beginning to connect with and I had a little bit of resource, the ability to go to someone and say what does this mean? Animal, sensitive and intuitive? And for context, maybe it might help if I share that I really, truly I grew up in a community, in a family, just in a time period where nobody ever talked about being able to develop intuitive skills. In fact, I don't ever remember hearing the word intuitive or psychic. I had no idea what those words meant. Of course I was hiring animal communicators to talk with my inner species family, because I didn't think it was something that you could develop. I thought you had to be born with it, kind of like a voice capable of winning the voice, or American Idol or whatever reality show is popular right now, and so I just didn't have any idea that I could possibly be able to unfold those gifts in me. And so, again, if you're listening to this or you're watching this and you're thinking, I wonder if I might be intuitive, or I wonder if I might have psychic gifts, or I wonder if I might have soul level gifts that I'm not really tapped into yet. Just the fact that you're wondering that, just the fact that you're watching this particular episode right now. If I was a betting gal which I'm really not, but if I was a betting gal, my bet would be on yes, you do. Yes, you are betting gal. My bet would be on yes, you do, yes, you are, and so I encourage you to keep following that For me, luckily, I have very sweet parents who loved giving birthday gifts, and I was turning 50 and my mom and dad asked me what would you like for your birthday?

Speaker 1: 17:18

And I said I really want a session with my intuitive teacher, sonia Choquette. It was a bit of an investment session with my intuitive teacher, sonia Choquette. It was a bit of an investment. And they said absolutely. So I ran it by her and I said you know, I've been meditating since I was a teenager and I had this really interesting meditation the other day and I heard the words you are an animal sensitive and intuitive. And Sonia, if you're familiar, she is just delightful. Sonia, if you're familiar, she is just delightful. She loves the joyful expansion that occurs when we begin to tune in with our intuitive selves. And she said oh, that's a lovely way to put it. Those are even prettier words than I would have chosen. She said you're an animal communicator and I mean it felt like I had just won the lottery.

Speaker 1: 18:06

But it was also really hard to digest at first because I just didn't really have a frame of reference for me in that field. It came out of just believing that everybody that did that work just came out of the womb and probably lived on a beautiful farm in some rural place and all the insects and the birds and the animals just spoke to them and it was very natural. I didn't realize that those things could be repressed or suppressed or simply just ignored if we're not born into an environment that's richly nourishing and encouraging of those right from the get-go. So looking back now again, as I shared at the beginning of this episode, the pieces start to put themselves together. Random experiences start to make more sense. I start to look back and see the thread that was there all along but just wasn't being emphasized.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Nobody was really pointing to it and I just hadn't cultivated a community of like-hearted souls who were boldly headed into the subtle realms, into the intuitive pathways, into the kinds of experiences where we switch from using the outer GPS that we find on our phone to the inner GPS that comes pre-installed in our human animal operating system, and this is one of the things I absolutely love to talk about when I am teaching a new class of animal communication students communication students. It's about getting the manual to us. I don't know about you, but I have so often, I have so many memories of feeling like everybody else got some kind of secret manual for how to navigate life and they must've run out when I got to the head of the line because I just don't get it and it was because nobody had bothered to explain to me, maybe because nobody around me realized it either. But there's a whole intuitive anatomy that's also pre-installed, along with our outer facing conscious senses our eyes, our ears, our nose, our mouth, our skin, our fight or flight or sympathetic, and our calm and restore our parasympathetic nervous system. Along with all of those outer facing senses, we also have our inner facing senses through which we can receive information through different channels. And the easiest example of this that I love to share, when somebody says I I don't understand interfacing senses, I don't understand intuitive senses.

Speaker 1: 20:49

Often what I'll say is well, have you ever just had the phone ring and you knew who was calling you before you went to look at your caller ID. Have you ever just been thinking about somebody and then either they reached out to you or you got some news about them? Have you ever been in a room with a bunch of people and suddenly you felt like someone was staring at you and you turned around and sure enough they were. Have you ever just gotten a good vibe about somebody new that you've met, or a new opportunity, or a bad vibe about somebody you've just met, or a new opportunity? Have you ever followed those vibes? Have you ever ignored those vibes? These are your intuitive, inner-facing senses.

Speaker 1: 21:51

At work and coming from the background. I came from as truly a wildly intuitive, deeply psychic individual who was totally unaware of both of those facts, individual who was totally unaware of both of those facts. I had not realized how much I was actually relying on that intuitive anatomy because the outer, conscious 3D ways of the world just didn't add up for me. So often they didn't add up. But have you ever had an experience where you're talking with someone and they're saying all the right things and their facial expressions are very welcoming and open, and yet you're just not vibing with them? You're like there seems to be a subtext here, but I'm not hearing anything consciously, verbally or overtly that would suggest to me that everything isn't in alignment Right, and so what I was always tuning into, without realizing I was doing it, was that subtext, and that was why that outer conscious rhythm of daily life wasn't making a lot of sense to me, and often I felt socially awkward or isolated or different than, and I often felt closer to, the animals around me and to my fellow human animals because there was no subtext. What you felt was what you were getting, and for any of you who may be watching, who also have a very strong felt or what I call a subtext component to you, you may be able to identify with just feeling a little bit different than, or struggling to find your people, or not understanding why the way that you are doesn't seem to work as well for you as you would like, or just wondering why you are the way that you are. I certainly spent years, decades, wondering that myself.

Speaker 1: 23:48

So all of this sparked a path forward for me where, thanks to one human being who was really affirming my teacher, sonia, she said you are an animal communicator, you need to get yourself into a class, you need to start talking with animals. The animals are waiting to talk with you. And I said to her well, brenda and I from your small group course have been talking about maybe signing up for a class, and she said you need talking about it, thinking about it, you need to do it already. Get yourself in a class. And I said well, who should I study with? And she said it doesn't matter, the animals are your teachers, just get yourself into a class. And I said well, who should I study with? And she said it doesn't matter, the animals are your teachers. Just get yourself into a class. You can get some basic structure and get a kind of a sense of how this new field works and some basic things that you need to think through. And don't worry about the rest, because the animals will teach you every step of the way. And she was right.

Speaker 1: 24:51

And it was such a beautiful new opportunity to look forward to in a time when everything about the life that I built for myself, the life that I knew at that time, 90% of the most important people in my life were falling away and there was nothing I could do about it. And the other huge gift that I was given during this time is that because I was studying the intuitive arts, because I was learning not just to connect with pets, who are still embodied in their physical, greedy bodies, but animals who are in the spirit realm, I was able to maintain an inner connection with my loves, who are transitioning In very short order. I lost my significant relationship, my beautiful rescued box turtle whom I loved, who indirectly brought me to animal communication. That's a whole other story, a wonderful story for another episode. But I lost them. And then my dearest best friend, marcy, my precious dad and then my soul, bird Pearl, who'd been with me for 24 years, all left their bodies and because of this beautiful new path of animal communication, I've been able to stay in touch with each of my loves.

Speaker 1: 26:24

Because this is something that we so often forget.

Speaker 1: 26:28

We say animal communication and we automatically, because of our left brain education, because of our training, because of the taxonomies and the classification charts, we forget that being an embodied human soul also means that we're a human animal. So animal communication is a pathway through which we can maintain and cultivate and deepen the inner connection with all of life, with all sentient life animals, plants, bodies of water, areas of land and with each other areas of land and with each other and, most importantly, we can deepen our connection with our soul self. So that is the very, very, very short version of how one embodied human, who happens to be named Shannon me, became a professional working animal communicator. If you have questions, if you want to hear the long version, if you are animal communication interested or curious yourself, I would love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what questions you have. Maybe they will show up in a future episode. For now, I send you my dear fellow spirit and your inner species family all my love. See you soon. Bye for now.