Why Your Connection With Your Soul Pet Feels So Different and Special

Every so often, a very special pet may join your family. This pet just seems different somehow. Maybe you feel like they just know you or understand you in a way even other people in your life never have.

And before long, you can't imagine your life without that pet in it.

In this special, long-awaited episode, animal communicator and pet reincarnation specialist Shannon Cutts answers questions like these:

🌟 What makes this connection with your pet feel so different and special?
🌟 What the word "pet" really means to your animal - a direct translation!
🌟 Is there a reason your pet came into your life or is it all just random chance?
🌟 When your special pet passes out of your life, and you feel like you can't go on without them, is there anything you can do about it?

Chapters

• 0:11 Exploring the Human-Animal Bond
• 9:28 The Role of a Pet Parent

Transcript

Shannon Cutts: 0:11

Hi Shannon here, animal sensitive and intuitive Reiki master practitioner and animal communication teacher with animallovelanguagescom, and I am so excited to welcome you back to another fresh new episode. It is my honor and my joy to serve as your mentor and your guide, and, of course, your head cheerleader, as you too embark upon your animal communication journey or perhaps you're meeting me midway, or perhaps you're even a working professional animal intuitive yourself. There is always more to learn and always more to share about the wonderful self-development, soul, evolutionary path that is inner species communication. That is inter species communication. It brings us to a point in our lives where we realize we do belong here. Despite all the pop culture and the movie and fiction portrayals of aliens invading our planet, with the not very well-veiled hints that we are in fact the invasive species here on planet earth, the truth is is that we do belong here. Often we just don't really remember and we don't act like it. And the more our technology advances and the more advances our own species makes, the more and more we're being called back home to our hearts to remember that with great power comes great responsibility. What are we going to do with our leadership role as quote-unquote, apex, predator, primary, planet modifier. What are we going to do with it? Are we going to create a planet, a world where we are really the only species left who is thriving, or are we going to create a world that we truly can all share, treasure and enjoy together?

Shannon Cutts: 2:19

And for most of us, this journey begins at home. Occasionally, there is someone who is called to take a really public role, as a wildlife activist, a conservationist, evolutionary biologist. There are those wonderful beings amongst us and we can learn so much from them, but not all of us are called down those particular paths. That doesn't mean we can't make a huge difference, an incredible difference, a world-changing difference. It just means that we need to start exactly where we are in our families, in our homes, in our little plots of land, in our little areas, areas, and with our own inner species, family members. In this case yes, you guessed it, I am talking about our pets, our own companion animals, our animal companions, and that is really what I want to focus on for this episode is what is the nature, the fundamental, foundational nature of the human animal bond? Of course, for millennia. We know this now, thanks to those very same evolutionary biologists and anthropologists who have done the heavy lifting, if you will the hard physical, often manual as well as intellectual labor of tracing our genealogies, our shared paths back in time, being able to identify exactly where key species like canines and felines and what are now called homo sapiens.

Shannon Cutts: 4:10

Where did we meet up on our shared journeys? Where did our species cross paths? Where did wild equines and probably our predecessors come together and decide this is a good partnership? When did our paths intersect with our fellow bovines and all of the different other farmland and ranching animals that we have shared our work, we have shared our homes with for generations, for centuries. There are so many animal species on this planet that have agreed to partner with us Cows, horses, donkeys, sheep, dogs, cats, birds, even reptile species in so many different ways around the world. These animals have agreed to support our species, to help us hunt and fish and defend our families and plant our fields and cultivate our food and travel from place to place.

Shannon Cutts: 5:24

It's really remarkable when you really allow your mind to wander around the world and see all of the partnerships that are taking place between humans and non-human animals, and none is closer to our heart, more treasured and precious than our own pets, our companion animals, the animals whose main job, really in many cases, whose only job, is to be our emotional support, our mental support as well as our physical support. We see this not just with service animals who have these enhanced abilities to recognize when we might be going a little physically, mentally or emotionally off the rails, but we have these deep soul level connections. I'm seeing this more and more in my animal communication practice where pet parents' clients come to me and they tell me about an animal, a precious soul animal, who has this connection passed on, has left their body, and they say to me something like I've loved animals all my life but I have never had a connection with an animal, with a dog or a cat or a bird or a turtle or a horse or some other species like the connection I have with this particular animal. And often they come to me in tremendous grief, in a feeling of despair or even hopelessness, saying I don't know how I'm going to go on without this particular animal in my life. And we will talk more about this in future episodes. In fact, this episode is kind of laying the foundation for that. In fact this episode is kind of laying the foundation for that. And just a cat, thankfully, I feel like large numbers of our species are starting to phase that kind of language, as well as that kind of worldview and mindset, completely out of our frame of reference. However, far too many animal carers, animal family members, animal guardians, pet parents, far too many still feel like they really don't have anyone close in their inner circle who truly understands the kind of bond they're talking about, what they have just lost when this animal has had to leave their physical body. And the more I see this and the more interest there is in my client base with my pet parent client in talking about animal reincarnation, will this relationship, this soul level relationship.

Shannon Cutts: 8:40

And so one day I was pondering this, I was meditating on this, I was really thinking about this and I decided I was going to go on Google and I was going to research the origins of the word pet. What does the word pet mean? Where did the word come from? What was the Latin or Arabic or Greek root of the word pet? Why do we use this word to describe animals whose primary job is to keep us company? And what does it mean? And I'll be curious to know if you've done anything similar, maybe what you've discovered, but what I discovered when I researched, the word pet, at least in that moment in time, was nothing short of uninspiring.

Shannon Cutts: 9:28

I discovered that the word pet arose a few hundred years ago. Word pet arose a few hundred years ago right around the time when we human animals had gotten accustomed to keeping company with small dogs and kind of tucking them into our shirt sleeves or carrying them around like they were little accessories, and it basically meant a possession of little consequence. And I thought to myself that doesn't resonate with me at all, that makes zero impact on me. That absolutely does not describe the nature of the connection that I have shared all my life with my soul pets. It's just not good enough for me. It doesn't even begin to describe the impact and the connection that I feel that my pet parent clients and my animal communication students tell me they feel with their animals.

Shannon Cutts: 10:23

So I decided I would do what any card-carrying animal intuitive would obviously do in that situation. I decided I was going to ask the animals directly why do we use this word, why do we use the word pet? You know what the animals told me and it was like instantaneous, it was like I didn't even have to take a breath. And they said, pet means partner, empathic, friend and teacher. Now this resonated, I said to myself this definition I can get behind, this definition I can share with confidence, and it came with so much love and empathy and compassion for our species, as well as sincere gratitude from the animals. Thank you for asking, thank you for noticing, thank you for acknowledging that the common dictionary definition does not, even by a long stretch of the imagination, do us any justice, and so, of course, I worked with this definition for a little while, and then I got curious about why we call ourselves many of us, anyway, not all of us, but many of us call ourselves pet parents, because, of course, there are all kinds of schools of thought about what it means to be a parent, who can be a parent, what, or who qualifies to be a parent, and so this is a controversial term, this is a term that people that don't have soul-animal bonds tend to overreact to, and this is a term that human parents sometimes misunderstand.

Shannon Cutts: 12:05

And the truth is is that the human infant, the human animal, when we are born, we are the most helpless of all newborn animal species, and so, just fundamentally, the nature of the amount of care and shepherding that we need. It outdoes really what almost any other animal species requires as we grow up. We just have a longer path to maturity. We also have a set of legal statutes that is far more encompassing and strict when it comes to the parenting and the mentoring and the launching of a successful adult human. I think the law is starting to get inspired to catch up when it comes to non-human animals, but we've got a long, long, long, long, long way to go, and that is a completely different conversation.

Shannon Cutts: 12:57

So there's all these misconceptions and just confusion and disagreements about what it means to be a pet parent. So I decided I was going to go and, of course, I never learned right. I was going to Google the definition of parent and what I discovered was pretty much exactly what I've been sharing Someone who biologically combines an egg with a sperm, produces offspring, raises them up and hopefully launches them into society as a successful, self-sustaining adult. However, there are deeper meanings for the word parent, and when I asked the animals what does it mean to be a pet parent? What they told me was that it means holding space for someone to be all that they can be, without getting confused or misdirected by outside appearances. And let me break this down for you. Basically, it means that when I look at my parrot Pearl, for instance, or my tortoise Malti, or my box turtle Io, or my dog Flash Gordon, I don't just see their outer costume the definition I read in the dictionary what other people see when they look at them, or the limiting roles that they are able to play in our lives, perhaps even more so whole and complete, intelligent, loving, empathic, sensitive as any human animal I have ever met.

Shannon Cutts: 14:40

It reminds me of that line in the movie, the original movie, avatar, where the village people if you've seen the movie, probably even if you haven't, at this point it's become so much a point of conversation in pop culture that you're probably, maybe at least passingly, familiar with it. When the village people meet one another, they say I see you. And it doesn't just mean yep, gotcha, understand, you're at north, northeast, with the coordinates xyz or whatever it is, or I, I gotcha, I understand what you said, I see you, I see inside of you, I see the fullness of you, not in a creepy way but in a very deeply, profoundly respectful way. And what the animals told me is, especially for companion animals and especially in this time period right now, where we're even, in some areas, experimenting with giving artificial intelligence and robots human rights. A parent is somebody who sees the animal in front of them as different, yet equal, more alike than different and equal.

Shannon Cutts: 16:51

In the case of a human animal who is helping an animal who's been traumatized, abused, rehomed, relinquished, has had physical, mental, emotional difficulties, it means that that that human doesn't get constrained in their vision for all of who that animal can be by those challenges or those outer circumstances. It also means that that human doesn't look at that animal and say, oh, you're not a homo sapiens. Therefore you automatically have limits to how intelligent you are, how sensitive you are, whether or not you grieve you're dead or celebrate when your children are born. It doesn't in any way take away your capacity to be fully alive. And that is my definition for what it means to be a pet parent. In fact, it is so much so a sacred trust, precisely because there isn't any of those other motivations such as, in most areas anyway, legal protections, any kind of outer constriction, outer pressure, if you will, to do the right thing by an animal under our care. So it is all internally guided.

Shannon Cutts: 18:15

It's really about we human animals taking it upon ourselves, based on the internal soul level, honor system, free this animal like the pristine, perfect, unrepeatable, sentient, soulful, conscious being that they are. It means seeing all of the potential, more so even than what the animal might be willing or able to see for themselves. And this can be particularly true when we're dealing with an animal that's gone through trauma that hasn't been resolved, when they're fearful or aggressive or shy, or they don't behave the way that we want or hope or expect them to behave, that we don't let that limit us. We don't let that stop us at the door and say, oh, this is the full potential of this animal. It's like, no, that's just a temporary circumstance.

Shannon Cutts: 19:11

This really goes all the way back to the days when, in my 20s, I was suffering from an eating disorder anorexia, bulimia and my very first mentor said to me I really don't know all that much about eating disorders, but I do know what it means to struggle and I do know that struggles can be overcome. And she said I want you to know that I see you in there, I see you beyond the temporary struggle you're going through, and I know that together we can help you get through this. And you know what she was right. And I discovered, and have continued to discover and discover every day, that I am so much more than the sum total of my past experiences, my current circumstances or my struggles or even my own sense of limitation. I am so much more than that. I might get through this whole lifetime and never know how much I am.

Shannon Cutts: 20:12

One thing I do know is that one of the fastest ways to figure it out is unconditional love, because the mirror that unconditional love holds up to us is the mirror of soul level completeness. We are whole and complete. We are beautiful and perfect. We are irreplaceable and utterly unique, and to me so is each other being we come across, and the challenge is always to see that. So the foundation for the work that I do, especially as an animal communication teacher, begins here.

Shannon Cutts: 20:57

An animal communication teacher begins here with understanding that the reason our companion animals agree, sign up, even volunteer for the job the pet, the companion animal, the dog, the cat, the horse, the goat, the pig, the bird, the turtle, the iguana, the bearded dragon, whomever your non-human animal love may be they volunteered for that job and they do see it as a job and as a sacred trust and as a responsibility. And in that way, just as we parent them by giving them all the bells and whistles, all of the perks, anything and everything they could ever need to actualize their full soul level selves in our company, so too do they do the same for us, because in most cases we human animals have great agency to meet all of our basic needs, our lowest rung Maslow's hierarchy of needs for food, water, safety, shelter, even moving up the triangle a little bit to self-esteem and belonging and relationships and partnerships. But there's often still something missing. Either it's because we are guarding our hearts, we're not allowing anyone in, perhaps because of unresolved past trauma, difficulties and challenges that we've been through Often we don't even know that we're doing it or perhaps we simply haven't met any other human animals yet on our journey who have the capacity to truly see us and mirror for us our full potential and the value, the inestimable value, that we bring to this world just by being here not by doing anything, but just by being here.

Shannon Cutts: 22:51

But our animals, our companion animals, our pets, with their partnership, their empathy and the natural teaching abilities that they bring into their physical bodies from the soul level, from the spirit dimension, they do this naturally for us, it's effortless. We just look in their eyes, we feel their heartbeat. We sit and gaze at them in wonder and, quite naturally, our closed, hurting, fearful, avoidant hearts just open up. They just open up all on their own. Most often we don't even realize it's happening. We just know we feel really good and really joyful in their company and so often it is their end of life transition where we really start to wake up to just how special and not optional this type of relationship is in our lives and we realize I literally cannot live without this, because my life doesn't feel worth living without this. This is why I'm here, as my beautiful late best friend, marcy, used to love to remind me and I share this quite often, so forgive me if you heard it before, but she often used to remind me when I was in challenges, especially stuff I really, really, really didn't want to go through. She would say, shannon, we're here to grow in wisdom and learn to love better, which I believe is a Tara Brock quote. She loved Tara Brock and she would remind me of this and in the wake of her passing a few years ago, it has become more and more a guiding light in my life.

Shannon Cutts: 24:32

I was talking with a pet parent client the other day and she had read something from another animal communication book about why we incarnate in human bodies and why her soul animal might have been willing to come back to her through pet reincarnation. She said it all sounds just very dry and dull and I don't know if I want to even ask my animal to sign up for this, because she said in the book it just talked about we only come here for lessons, to learn lessons. It's all about lessons read far enough to receive is just a little bit of a PS on that. A little bit of extra information that's very necessary to know is that there really is only one lesson and that one lesson is to grow in wisdom and learn to love better. Really, the only lesson is unconditional love, expressed through empathy, expressed through partnership, expressed through teaching, which is really just sharing what we've brought here to offer and then being willing to receive what others have brought here to offer. We do need each other because we cannot learn this lesson without one another. To show the way In that I often think about the Ram Dass quote.

Shannon Cutts: 25:51

At least, I think it was Ram Dass who said we are really all just walking one another home and yet with our beautiful companion animals, often because of their life expectancy, their lifespan for their species, they have to go home first. What is so important to understand is that that soul bond is so deep that we can call them back to us. We can call our partners, our empathic friends and our teachers back to us, and I will be unpacking that a lot more in future episodes of Exploring Animal Communication, so please do stay tuned. For now, I wanted you to have this foundational awareness of what it means when we call our soul companion animals pets and what it means for us, we lucky, lucky, fortunate human animals, to be their pet parents. Okay, I send you all my love. Bye for now, and please do return here soon for a fresh new episode.