What It Is Really Like Living With Your Reincarnated Pet

As an animal communicator who specializes in pet reincarnation through joyful reunion, I am on a mission to demystify and de-woo the whole process of pet reincarnation.

One of the most frequent questions I get from grieving pet parents and the pet reincarnation curious alike is, what it is really like to live with your reincarnated pet day to day?

Will your reincarnated pet be exactly the same as they were last time? If your reincarnated pet is different than they were before, what does that mean and how can you know it is really them returned to you in a new body?

In this podcast episode, we tackle these questions and more head-on.

As you listen, you will learn....

• What to expect when your pet reincarnates back to you
• The real reason your reincarnated pet will not be "exactly the same" as they were before (and how this benefits you both!)
• The role your grief plays in navigating your evolving relationship
• The big payoff for being patient with the pet reincarnation process
• And so much more.... 

Special resources to support you as you listen:

Pet Parent Joyful Reunions Pet Reincarnation Guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/petreincarnation

Pet Parent Grief Support Guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/griefsupportguide

A tale of pet reincarnation: how Pearl Became Petal: https://letstalktoanimals.buzzsprout.com/2105365/episodes/14130275-a-tale-of-pet-reincarnation-how-pearl-became-petal

How a lost turtle led to a miraculous love story of pet reincarnation, part 1: https://letstalktoanimals.buzzsprout.com/2105365/episodes/16109884-how-a-lost-turtle-led-to-a-miraculous-love-story-of-pet-reincarnation

How a lost turtle led to a miraculous love story of pet reincarnation, part 2: https://letstalktoanimals.buzzsprout.com/2105365/episodes/16109891-part-two-of-how-a-lost-turtle-led-to-a-miraculous-love-story-of-pet-reincarnation

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Pet Reincarnation
• 5:38 How Reincarnation Really Works
• 9:53 Same Yet Different
• 18:47 Why Differences Matter
• 30:42 Understanding Pet Grief
• 40:30 Evolving Through Loss Together
• 45:29 Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Shannon Cutts: 0:00

Welcome back to :et's Talk to Animals. My name is Shannon Cutts. I'm an animal sensitive and an intuitive, a Reiki master practitioner for pets and their people and an animal communication teacher with animallovelanguages. com. However, for our purposes today, I am serving as your friendly neighborhood hostess and guide for the Let's Talk to Animals podcast, where we unpack, uncover and discover together all that there is to learn about interspecies communication and conversation. What's on the conversational docket today? Well, I decided it's time to talk about what it's really like to live with your reincarnated pet. So let's dive in Now.

Shannon Cutts: 0:47

For those of you who've been a part of let's Talk to Animals for a while, you know that I am living with not one, but two reincarnated pets. I have shared their individual stories in much greater detail in other podcast episodes. You can take a look back through the archives for how Mr Pearl became Petal and the glorious story of my reincarnated soul walk-in box turtle Bruce, who became Io. So you can enjoy those episodes at another time. But I get a lot of questions from my one-to-one pet parent clients and my animal communication students about what is it really like day-to-day living with your reincarnated pet. And isn't that just the question to end all questions right. So that's what I'm tackling for you today, speaking from my personal experiences, as well as my observations and my case files helping you reunite with your reincarnated pets through the joyful reunion. And the first thing that I can share about what it's like to live with your reincarnated pet is it's the same, yet different. So let's unpack that a little bit. After all, when we go through the process of reuniting with our reincarnated pet, we are looking for certain signs, certain hallmarks, we gather a packet of clues. I can help you do that. If you are, in your heart, longing for your reincarnated pet to return to you and you're not sure exactly how to go about it, I have a free resource guide and, of course, we can schedule a session and talk about that. But if you're new to this whole wonderful world of reincarnated pets, you might not be aware that what, in my experience, typically happens is that we set the intention first yes, I want to reunite with my reincarnated pet, I want to be with this animal, I want to share my life with this particular soul and I want them to come back in a new body. That kicks off the joyful reunions process, and what happens, of course, is that you have made a choice and there are many, many choices that you can make.

Shannon Cutts: 3:22

When a beloved pet needs to pass out of their physical body for any reason age, a sudden accident, an illness for some reason, their current body has become uninhabitable and they need to leave it. That doesn't mean that they have died. It means that their body has died. Their energy is still sentient, aware and just as alive, in fact, perhaps more alive than it ever was, while it was contained within the physical 3D body. So you have made a decision that you are searching for a particular soul, a particular being, what I call a particular energetic signature, a heart print, someone that you will recognize, someone who will recognize you. This is very different from the process of choosing to adopt a new pet, a different pet, a different energetic signature, a different soul occupying a new body. It's very different from the choice that some bereaved pet parents make to clone their pet using DNA from the previous body. It's very different than the choice some of my pet parent clients have made to not get another animal because of whatever their personal reasons or life circumstances may be. You have many, many choices. You can also volunteer with animals as another fulfilling way to have that interspecies contact. But no, you have not chosen any of these options. You have chosen pet reincarnation. Congratulations, because, guess what, you've just signed up for a soul awakening.

Shannon Cutts: 5:05

You probably didn't realize that when you said, yes, I want the pet reincarnation option, you check that box. You probably didn't realize you were signing up for a soul awakening and evolution from 3D to 5D consciousness and a crash course in the energetics of what Einstein called the law of conservation of energy, which basically states that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but it can be, and it is transmuted and transformed. So what's really going on behind the scenes when you check that box that you want your pet to come back and they also check that box on their side, that they want to come back and come back specifically to you in a new body? What you've signed up for is a crash course in physics Yay, quantum physics, the law of conservation of energy. The energy that was your beloved pet in their last body is now going to be your beloved pet in their new body, and your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to recognize that unique energetic signature, that unique energy that was them in their last body and will be them again in their new body and is them right now in their etheric form. Your challenge is to recognize them.

Shannon Cutts: 6:36

So what happens when I was talking about those little packets of clues is whether you do this on your own. I did this on my own, of course. Clues is whether you do this on your own. I did this on my own, of course. I am a trained animal communicator, so I'm able to send and receive two-way telepathic and intuitive messages with animals, and so I've been able to navigate this process within myself for myself.

Shannon Cutts: 6:58

But often what happens is you'll hire someone like me who can help you make that telepathic and intuitive connection with your pet in their etheric body, in their life, between lives, as Dr Michael Newton so beautifully put it, and as your go-between, as your interspecies language translator, as your interspecies language translator, I can help you gather what I have come to call a little packet of clues. And this little packet of clues is like your intuitive scavenger hunt Gives you little bits and pieces and details, signs, symbols, things that would be meaningful to you, that might not be at all meaningful to me or someone else, but between you and your pet, these little tidbits, these little clues, have meaning. There's always a reason for each clue that is given, although typically we have to hold them carefully in terms of following each one literally and instead recognize them as symbolic breadcrumbs. So it might pan out that, yes, your puppy does end up getting born into a brown body with a white patch on the left side, just behind the ear, or there could be another brown puppy with a white patch behind the ear in your puppy's litter, or that could just be the image of the puppy in the photo that you see. That sends you to the shelter where you meet your reincarnated pet in their actual body, which looks nothing like a brown puppy with a white spot behind the ear. And this is an actual story from my case files. So that's just an example.

Shannon Cutts: 8:48

Of course, we're not here to delve into exactly how the packets of clues work and how to work with them. If that is something you're interested in, I would highly recommend that you schedule a session and we can walk through that for you and your pet. But just understand, you're working with an intention, which is I want to reunite, through a joyful reunion, with my soul pet in their new body. You're gathering a little packet of clues just signs, symbols, information to help put blinders on your intuition a little bit, so you don't have to filter 3 billion bits of data every single day as it flows through you, but rather you can be on the lookout for certain patterns in the chaos. And that's the job of your reticular activating system and it's the foundation of how manifesting works. And manifesting is a huge part of pet reincarnation and I teach that inside animal communication adventure. So if you're interested in that, it's absolutely a passion of mine to teach the mechanics of how all of this comes together.

Shannon Cutts: 9:53

But back to our topic today, which is what it's really like to live with your reincarnated pet. You have basically said yes to a scavenger hunt, an intuitive scavenger hunt, and at the end of that scavenger hunt you have the joyful reunion with your soul pet. And so, yes, there will be some things that will be very familiar, the same. Recently I talked with one of my pet parent clients who just met her sole pet in their newly reincarnated body and she said one of the ways that I knew is because the only dog I've ever had that nipped at my heels right from puppyhood was my reincarnated dog, and in her last body she did this and in her new body. She does this so it's not always the traits that you remember with the most fondness that they will use to let you know. Yes, it's really me, mom or dad or guardian. There will be little things and sometimes big things that are just the same.

Shannon Cutts: 10:57

Another one of my recent joyful reunions my pet parent client actually brought a toy that had belonged to her reincarnated pet in his last body. She brought the toy and when she rolled it towards the puppy she thought was her reincarnated pet. He jumped on it and wouldn't let it go and would not share it with anyone else. And so you can see, they might play with the same favorite toy, they might curl up in the same way when they go to bed they might nip at your heels. They might have so many different characteristics that you recall from your last incarnation together.

Shannon Cutts: 11:38

But there will also be differences. This is so key In fact. If I had to sum up what it's really like to live with your reincarnated pet really like day-to-day brass tacks, plain speak here I would say it's the same yet different, and there's grief to factor in. So there will be differences and there will be grief, and we're going to tackle those in that order. The first thing to understand and I've experienced this both with my petal, who is the reincarnation of my soul bird of 24 years, pearl, and also with Io, my soul walk-in reincarnation of my beloved box turtle Bruce. He's back as box turtle Io. I've experienced this with both of these. There are differences that I truly feel and believe are set up to maintain the soul awakening and the evolution and the unfolding of my intuitive awareness.

Shannon Cutts: 12:41

Because what happens with us is, if we just get exactly what we want, exactly when we want it, over and over and over again, how much do you think we actually grow? How motivated do you think we are to grow? Not very right, I know I'm not. If I'm comfortable and happy and they're serving my favorite food and I'm well entertained and I'm healthy and things are vibing along, no need to change anything here. I'm good. But if there's wavering, if there's doubt, if there's confusion, if there's indecision, I have to do something to break through that, to get back to the happy, joyful, trusting, peaceful inner space that I prefer.

Shannon Cutts: 13:29

So when you're saying yes to pet reincarnation, when you're saying yes to the joyful reunion, just understand that there will be things that will be the same, yet there will be things that will be different, and there's two reasons for this. One is what I just talked about, that we don't grow if we're not asked to stretch outside of our comfort zone. So you might be so sure, or 95% sure, even 89% sure, when you say yes to your reincarnated pet in their new body, and maybe they come home with you and maybe they're very similar, maybe they're sort of similar, maybe they're really exactly identical one day, and then not so much the next. And what happens is your inner trust in your own intuition as your guide will waver accordingly and you will have to dig deeper. You will have to go further inside yourself, all the way back to your core, at the soul level, where you can, without a shadow of a doubt, regardless of surface exterior differences of behavior, of appearance, of preferences, whatever it may be, you recognize the energetic signature of the one that you love. This is the challenge, and while it's a little easier for some of us than others and I'm not exactly sure why that is I think it's because of the ways and maybe the areas in which we most need to grow and crave growth, because, with my box turtle, bruce and his soul walk and reincarnation as Io. It's been very easy.

Shannon Cutts: 15:10

I recognized him instantly and he's almost exactly the same. He looks a little different, he's a little smaller, he's younger, but in all other ways he's pretty much the same my soul bird, pearl, of 24 years, coming back as Miss Petal. They're almost completely different. There are so many differences In fact I unpacked that in the episode on our joyful reunion. There are so many differences and it has really challenged me to go deep, deep, deep within, again and again, day by day by day, and anchor back to what I know to be true, which is inside that body that looks nothing like my Pearl, even a different gender, different voice, different.

Shannon Cutts: 16:55

Everything is the soul of my love and I understand his reasons for coming back as a she and for coming back in the form that she came back in. And one of the reasons is because Pearl, my soul bird Pearl, was the animal who brought me to animal communication. He is the only Reiki trained cockatiel master level, mind you that my Reiki teachers ever had and the only one I've ever heard of, and he was by my side throughout every single step in my growth and evolution as an intuitive and as a communicator and as a Reiki master. So of course he's going to up the ante for me. He's going to make it more challenging for me to dive down beneath all of those layers of surficial doubt, superficial judgment-based doubt, into the heart of the matter, the core of the matter, which is I know you. I know you and I love you so much that, if you want to come back, as someone that I barely would recognize otherwise, be my guest. I just want you back. And here's the other facet of that. I said there's two facets to this. One is to challenge you to grow, and two is because all of the memories that you have made with your soul pet in their old body happened in your past. And guess what? You were different too then. You were a different, you Sure, when you look in the mirror you see someone that you recognize.

Shannon Cutts: 18:27

You had the same basic flavor of you. Maybe you've evolved a little bit over the years. Maybe you've changed a little bit in your appearance or your preferences or your passions or interests or hobbies or activities. Maybe your relationships with other beings look a little different now than they did then. But basically, when you walk to the mirror every morning or when you wake up in your body in your bed, you still go. Yep, it's same old me, but you're not. You're different.

Shannon Cutts: 18:56

I look back 24, now 27 years ago, when Pearl and I first met. When I actually take myself all the way back along that timeline, I realize that that version of myself is somebody I don't even hardly recognize. She is so different than who I am today. Her energetic signature is the same. Yes, she's still me, but she is such an earlier version of me that if we passed on the street today, I don't know other than our shared love of animals, if we'd have anything in common. That's how different she is to me now. And if I have grown that much in the last 27 years, 24 years, when Petal came back to me, if I have grown that much in a quarter of a century, of course I'm going to need a fresh set of challenges to continue growing along that trajectory.

Shannon Cutts: 19:57

So if your beloved soul pet was with you for six months, two years, five years, 12 years, 24 years, consider is it realistic, is it even wise, is it beneficial for me to expect or to even desire that my pet come back as who I remember them to be, when the person they're coming back to is so very different. So, pearl, when I met him, he was a five-week-old chick. He was flightless, he had permanent wing damage, he would never be able to fly. He was tiny, he was terrified, he was a runt, he was scrawny. He grew up into a powerhouse. So of course he's going to come back as Miss Petal, who is the largest fully flighted cockatiel I've ever seen. She is right out of the egg, loud, boisterous, sure of herself, totally confident, totally teaching me, totally owning it, like the boss that she is.

Shannon Cutts: 21:05

So if you can take a look at the differences that you observe in the reincarnated body of your soul pet, they might make a lot more sense to you. If you can put them into perspective of your shared timeline throughout life and now throughout lives, and now throughout lives, you are different. Of course, they are different too, and this is not something that everyone in my field agrees on, and there are communicators out there and I know some of them, and they are in practice and they are taking new clients. If you are just looking for someone who says your soul pet will come back and they will be exactly the same and they will go and they will curl up in the same spot where they used to love to take a nap, and they will sleep in the same way and everything will be exactly the same and their body will even look the same. They're out there.

Shannon Cutts: 22:01

So just know, as a PS, as I share what I'm about to say, that not everyone in my field agrees. And as you listen to me, please do not take my perspective as your own. Try it on for size, see what resonates for you. I am offering you my insights from the hundreds upon hundreds of conversations I've had with animals in all stages of life and between lives and reincarnated life, and I'm sharing what I have experienced, what I have learned from my teachers, these beautiful animals who've been willing to talk with me. So what I say may or may not land, and I just encourage you to try it on for size and use it as inspiration to find your own truth. But what I have experienced is that nobody, and I mean nobody of any species, chooses to come here to Earth, which is a school that includes polarities, from extreme darkness all the way to extreme light and every spot in between.

Shannon Cutts: 23:11

No one chooses to suit up and come here if they don't have two things two goals, two intentions. One, they have something to learn, something new, some new way to grow, and entering and inhabiting a physical body is the best way to serve that intention, to bring that intention to life. And two, they have something to teach, and again meaning that entering into a physical incarnation, inside a 3D body, is the best method to accomplish this intention, to see this intention realized. So, if you are wearing a body, if you are walking around in one of these groovy, cool, fully loaded space suits that we call bodies, you are here to learn something and you are here to teach something, and I don't care what species you are.

Shannon Cutts: 24:03

That is my truth, that is my reality, based on what the animals have taught me, and that includes especially reincarnation, because when we have that soul bond at that deep level where we don't want anyone else, we want one another, then we always have some new way in which we can grow and evolve and recognize that sometimes it's even in our own growing, our own learning, our own evolution that we effortlessly teach. That quote from Marianne Williamson about who are you to play small. When you shine your light brightly, it gives permission to others to do the same. If that isn't teaching, learning and teaching, I don't know what is so the animal who comes back to enjoy a new set of adventures with you through pet reincarnation in their fresh new body, whether it's very early in life, whether it's a soul walking into an adult body or even later in life. Those mechanics aside, they are coming to learn and grow and they're coming to teach and share.

Shannon Cutts: 25:12

That is what I have experienced, and so, even though there are perspectives that say well, animals are perfect, why would they ever come here and choose lives of loss or loneliness, or fear or abuse or suffering? And I recorded an entire podcast episode on that very question that you can take a listen to it's earlier this season. You can search that out. But the reason is because the payoff is learning and growing and teaching and sharing. And, at the soul level, because of your bond, your mutual bond of unconditional love that you share so deeply with one another. It is your goal of learning and growing and teaching and sharing, your shared goal Learning something new, teaching something new is best served if you are together, because, underneath all of that learning and growing and teaching and sharing, it can get lonely and there is no better motivator to keep going, especially when life gets a little challenging or a lot challenging than knowing that at the end of the day and at all moments in between, you have the support of someone who loves you unconditionally. So that is pet reincarnation, day-to-day in a nutshell Understanding that those differences are there for a very practical reason which we just unpacked.

Shannon Cutts: 26:34

They will be there, whether it is the way that their appearance shows up. They might have been all brown with a white patch in the last life, in their last body, and now they're all white with a brown patch. They might come back as a different species. They might come back as a different gender. They might come back in a different stage of life. They might come back like my Bruce and Io, with very similar personalities and temperaments. They might come back as my Pearl and Petal, with very different personalities and temperaments. And there's no better or worse or harder or easier.

Shannon Cutts: 27:10

I don't actually know why some pet parent, pet reincarnation reunions. There are more differences or fewer differences. I know within myself it has to do with certain lessons that I'm working on, things that I've set out on my life lesson, my bucket list curriculum that I want to learn about and also things I want to teach about. So it also very much serves me to have very deeply personal examples and experiences with either extreme, so that I can share and help guide other pet parents who are at any point in between that spectrum of extremes. And so just know that if your reincarnated pet comes back and they are so very similar, almost identical, it doesn't mean that you haven't chosen a difficult lesson. It doesn't mean anything really. It certainly doesn't mean that that is the only way that pet reincarnation can happen, or that you can know for sure.

Shannon Cutts: 28:14

Because, as we just talked about, those surficial doubts that you have are reminders Keep learning, keep growing, keep trusting your gut, keep developing your intuition. Our planet's frequency is changing and 3D is not a fun place to live, and so, if you want to go where we're going, you need to learn how to live from the inside out, from your heart, not your head from your gut, not your cognitive, analytical left brain. And every single day, right in your own home, right in your own household, you have plenty of opportunities to learn that lesson, to confront, tackle and move through doubt back to home. Oh, that's right. But I know you Be as different as you like, doesn't bother me a bit. I know who you are and you know who I am. And, once again, we have chosen one another in the same way.

Shannon Cutts: 29:09

If your reincarnated pet comes back and they are extremely different in almost every way, it does not mean anything other than that is the configuration that best serves you both. And this is the other thing that we don't often think about really stop to feel into and sit with as we're on that journey, that learning and growth journey that we call the joyful reunion of pet reincarnation, which is there's two of us here. So your pet is also learning to recognize you. They are navigating their continued bond with you, both when you doubt who they really are, as well as when you know with every fiber of your being who they really are. And they have come back with their particular body, their particular gender, their particular species, their particular personality and temperament, because it best serves them to learn and grow in turn. So they have their own reasons for the body they've chosen, the gender they've chosen, the temperament personality they've chosen, the species or breed they've chosen. That best serves their objectives as well.

Shannon Cutts: 30:26

And that's always an interesting conversation when I get the opportunity to talk with the pet in their newly reincarnated body, checking in with them How's it going so far? What do you guys need to talk about? That is always a good time to just check in and see where everybody's at and see what doubts are coming up. How can we work through those? What do you have to say about that? Why did you come back this way or that way, or what's going on here? So there are many, many, many, many fresh opportunities to continue the conversation, to continue the learning journey. Many of my pet parent clients choose to come and study animal communication with me so that they can continue these conversations on their own.

Shannon Cutts: 31:13

This is not something super, super, duper, extra special woo, woo, like I used to think it was, that only special people who are born with it can do this. We can all do this. We all have the innate birthright ability, and that's a topic for a whole different podcast episode. But before we wrap this podcast episode up, I do want to touch on the second big facet of what it's really like living with your reincarnated pet day to day. And this holds true whether your reincarnated pet rushes back into their new body or maybe takes a more leisurely journey back to their new body, is that grief happens. Grief is going to be a player at the table. Grief is going to factor into this mix.

Shannon Cutts: 32:03

There are many different reasons for why this occurs, and it's the reason why I created my free pet parent guide to grief, so that you can understand more deeply what's happening within you, to you at the physical level, at the mental level, at the emotional level, at the soul level. Grief doesn't happen in five linear steps. Boy, I used to think that was it for me. I was like I'm going to complete those steps and we're going to get done with this awful feeling and I'm going to move on with my life. Well, unfortunately, it doesn't really work like that. You've probably already discovered this as well, this as well, and so what grief really is at the baseline level is a biochemical reaction happening within your body system, and it has to do with why we have emotions in the first place. And we only have emotions for two reasons One, because they keep us safe by triggering certain actions, or they help us thrive by triggering certain different action.

Shannon Cutts: 33:15

When we have a feeling or an emotion which you can think of from here forward, if you're going to stick with me here on, let's Talk to Animals. And when I say emotion, what I mean is energy in motion. That emotion is pushing us to do something, to take an action, and the emotion of grief is pushing us to protect ourselves because it hurts. We have lost some essence, some level of the relationship we crave and enjoy. And what we've lost it's not the soul connection, but it's the physical connection, it's the kinetic, somatic, tangible connection with our soul pet, with our love. Their body is not here anymore. We cannot see it, we cannot touch it, we cannot feel it, we cannot hear it. We cannot feel it. We cannot hear it or sense it or smell it. And to our left brain mind, which is not the intuitive part of ourselves, just spoiler alert, here we dive into this in animal communication adventure. But for our purposes here you just need to know left brain not intuitive, not in the slightest, no intuitive abilities whatsoever.

Shannon Cutts: 34:28

The left brain mind takes one look at that scenario and says body's gone, the pet's gone, you're in danger, lock it down, shut down. And that's the grief response. Your body pumps out mega loads of adrenaline and cortisol. So suddenly you are flooded. And because our biology has not caught up to our technology yet, when that happens in the body, everything in your fight or flight says there's a saber-toothed tiger behind me and it's hungry and it's going to eat me for lunch. It doesn't just happen until you either outrun the tiger or it outruns you. It keeps happening and happening and happening because your pet's body is gone. It's gone today, it's gone tomorrow, it's gone the next day, it's gone next week, it's gone next year.

Shannon Cutts: 35:10

Grief is a self-perpetuating cycle because our original biochemistry that's supposed to protect us in times of discomfort, of which grief is an extreme form, has basically malfunctioned because it doesn't know what to do with death and loss. That's not the same as a saber-toothed tiger, but the tiger's as close as it can come to a match, and so it just keeps pumping out more adrenaline and more cortisol. That just keeps you stuck in fight, flight or freeze. And in my experience it usually takes three to four weeks not hours, not days, but weeks, sometimes a little bit longer for your biochemistry to get the message that there is no tiger, nobody's coming to eat you. You didn't die yesterday, you didn't die last hour, you didn't die a minute ago, you're not going to die now. And suddenly your body is able to start processing out all that excess adrenaline, cortisol, all the lingering toxicity that those hormones have created, as they've built up in your body, the dehydration, the sleeplessness, the overwhelm of the grief experience and you finally start to come to after three to four weeks. Sometimes it can take a few months before this happens and it has everything to do with the particular type of experience that you had with your pet at their end of life transition and the things that led up to that and your temperament and other things that are going on in your life. So it's not to say that if you're not done in four weeks there's something wrong, but just understand that that grief process takes time.

Shannon Cutts: 36:45

My petal came back to me in two months, almost on the dot, and so I had just lost my soul. Bird of 24 years, 24 years together joined at the beak. I raised him, syringe, fed him from a five-week-old chick and two months later he's back. As Petal Was, I still grieving More than I can even express. The day Petal came home, I went out in the backyard and sat by Pearl's grave and I cried. It's very, very hard. So it's not always optimal to rush into pet reincarnation. We need to give ourselves a little time to get through the grief firestorm.

Shannon Cutts: 37:22

Now I want to be clear. This does not mean that you need to wait three or four weeks or until your grief is a gleam in the eye before you can talk with your pet. They are ready right away. This is another area of somewhat controversial disagreement in the intuitive field. But in my experience the animal's soul is immediately available and their first priority is to check on their love, you, to reconnect. My pearl broke through my grief that very afternoon and it was very sudden, very unexpected, very chaotic. He broke through that very afternoon, gave me very clear instructions for exactly what his plans were to come back and I again share that story in a different episode on my story of how Pearl became Petal. So you can look that up. But the animals are always available. So it doesn't mean that you have to wait that long to talk with them.

Shannon Cutts: 38:15

But it can be helpful to add in a little lead time for that grief firestorm to ease, so that you can hear yourself again, you can breathe again. You've got enough detoxification, you've gotten that cortisol out of your body. So you are rehydrating, you are reoxygenating, you are returning to a baseline, healthy level of functioning. Nobody's coming today to eat you for lunch. That's a pretty good feeling. So we've got that grief going on and it can last for some time. And one of the primary reasons it can last for some time is because we don't recover from grief Another unpopular opinion.

Shannon Cutts: 38:56

We don't recover from grief. We don't even heal from grief. We evolve through grief. Grief in removing that primary relationship, or at least the body thereof, in removing our tangible access to the body, the physical presence of the one we love it changes us forever. We will never be the same as we were a moment ago, whether it was a peaceful, even joyful passing, whether it was even wished for because our pet was suffering and we wanted that to end. We're forever changed. Something has happened that can never unhappen and it has changed us profoundly. And so there's not just a grief for your pet, but there's a grief for you, because you've got to get to know yourself all over again. You've got to meet yourself as you are now, and as you re-meet yourself you will discover somebody stronger, braver, wiser even than you suspected was there.

Shannon Cutts: 39:58

But this takes time Going through the grief process itself and not dying from it. There is such a thing as heartbreak syndrome. I've had more than one of my pet parent clients tell me that they had to go to the hospital, to the emergency room, because they thought they were dying. Heartbreak syndrome happens when the hormonal dysregulation triggers heart attack-like symptoms. But it is emotional, it's about that energy and motion through the body and you don't know that you're not having a heart attack. And even the doctors don't know until they take a look after the fact what happened. So be mindful of the challenge that you have taken on by signing up for an incarnation with someone you love so deeply, who is absolutely going to pass before you do.

Shannon Cutts: 40:51

And we set all this up during our life, between lives, including whether there might be multiple incarnations. Of course, we always have free will. Nothing is set in stone. It's not like we've got a bullet point list. It's more like a if this happens then that kind of a flow chart sort of a thing, with major benchmarks and, hopefully, milestones along the way. But it's always been by design to help you fully embody the wealth within you, the vast storehouse of amazement that only grief will uncover. It's like you survive, that you can survive anything and, more importantly, you can learn to thrive.

Shannon Cutts: 41:30

One of my earliest mentors in life once said everybody talks about their sadness and, yes, it takes a lot of strength to hold sadness about their sadness. And yes, it takes a lot of strength to hold sadness, but nobody ever talks about how much strength it takes to hold joy. So in the grief journey and the grief experience there is implicit for those of us who are awake and aware and listening and keen to do the work of evolving through it, because the only other option isn't pleasant, it's just staying stuck, and I've seen that too. So the invitation is if I'm strong enough to survive, I am definitely strong enough to thrive. So let's pick that, why don't we? And that's the moment when it's the right time to begin pondering pet reincarnation, and I will talk about that in a different episode, because this one has gone long enough and I do like to keep my episodes to a reasonable timeframe.

Shannon Cutts: 42:27

So just understand life with your reincarnated pet is going to be the same, yet different, plus grief. So you have to allow for the grief journey to continue, to unfold. Understanding you're grieving the loss of the memory of all of the years or months, or even days that you had with your beloved before they passed. You're grieving the old you and the old them who is no more. You're grieving this stranger who's suddenly walking around wearing your space suit. You don't recognize him or her right now because you're just becoming acquainted with how strong you are and how you're still here and there's still so much potential. But right now you're just gridlocked in this biochemical firestorm that you're not sure how to navigate.

Shannon Cutts: 43:18

And you're grieving yourself because, for most of us, our brains do a pretty good job over time of filtering out the bad and remembering the good. So most of us, at the end of our life, we will default to remembering the good stuff. That's protective. It's why it is said that time is the great healer. But it takes time to get there. And this is the process that we go through to get there, which is the grieving and the letting go, and then the choosing joy, the choosing to hold onto the good stuff and release all the rest.

Shannon Cutts: 43:54

So you're going through all of this, even while you're getting to know your reincarnated pet in their new body, and they are getting to know you as you are now post their loss in your same body. There is a lot going on. Even if your reincarnated pet came back and they were to the I's and the T's the same, that alone would still change them because you are changed. You are not the same. You have grieved, you have lost and you have lived through it and hopefully you are now evolving through it. And you've gone through this tremendous learning and growth journey of evolution, through this soul awakening that we call pet reincarnation. So you're stronger, you're more intuitive, you're more tuned in with yourself than you ever were in the past. So you have changed. Is it any wonder that you will then experience, even if your pet is, to the letter, exactly the same? You will still experience that they have changed because you have changed. So that's the fly on the wall perspective a day in the life of living with your reincarnated pet. So there's the joyful reunion and then there's the continued evolution.

Shannon Cutts: 45:15

Let me know what questions you have after giving this episode a listen or two. Perhaps Let me know what else you'd like me to talk about on pet reincarnation, on grief, on other topics. Let me know how you've liked today's episode. It's always a joy for me to hear that a podcast episode has landed with you, or perhaps that it's generated additional questions.

Shannon Cutts: 45:40

If you're new to let's Talk to Animals, I endeavor to release a new episode every two weeks on Wednesday mornings. It doesn't always happen with the team of me and me and our packed schedule, but just know that is always the intention. We're in our sixth season now, so I've been doing pretty well along that timeline and I always look forward to sharing this journey with you. So if that sounds good to you, please do bookmark. Let's Talk to Animals. Give us a like, a subscribe, a follow. If you're interested in learning animal communication, head over to animallovelanguagescom. You can also schedule a session with me. Let's talk to your pet, let's find out their reincarnation plans. And until next time, I send you all my love. Okay, bye for now.