Should You Ask Your Pet to Reincarnate Back to You?

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
• 3:20 Should I Ask My Pet to Reincarnate?
• 10:06 Understanding the Spirit Vacation Home
• 16:35 Misconceptions About Selfish Requests
• 28:59 Is My Pet Ready to Return?
• 33:44 Timing and Mutual Free Will
• 40:54 Finding Each Other Again

Transcript

Shannon Cutts: 0:00

Welcome back to Let's Talk to Animals. My name is Shannon Cutts. I am an animal sensitive and intuitive, a Reiki master practitioner, an animal communication teacher and mentor with animallovelanguagescom and for our purposes here today, I am your friendly neighborhood hostess for the Let's Talk to Animals podcast. We are now in our sixth season and this season I'm really bringing a special focus to answering frequently asked questions and talking through topics that are perceived as being perhaps particularly woo-woo, even in a field that is pretty woo-woo on its own. So we're taking a look today at one of the big hot button questions that I get asked nearly every week, which is should I ask my pet in spirit to reincarnate to me? And often there's so much emotional charge around this question because you're tackling a lot of woo as well as just a lot of emotion all at once For many of my pet parent clients, especially in the last six months or so in the wake of the runaway smash success of my new favorite podcast, the telepathy tapes. I'm seeing so many pet parents coming to me and they've never had an experience of animal communication before, and that is huge. I am in awe of you If you have stepped out into an experience of something where you've just never had it before. Maybe you haven't told anybody else that you're planning to have this experience. You've said yes to your curiosity. Often what happens is when you are saying yes to something new, like having an animal communication session with your pet, there's something going on with your pet that has you concerned or worried or questioning whether you're questioning the care they're getting, you're questioning yourself and the care you're providing. You're questioning how they're doing, how they're feeling, whether you're meeting their wants and needs. I will never forget the very first time that I scheduled an animal communication session for my animal family and how I felt, and trust me when I say there was nobody in my life at that period in time that I would have told that I was doing anything like this. So I am floored and awed by the courage, especially my newer pet parent clients who are coming in some reference the telepathy tapes or other resources they've come across or they've read a book, or they've maybe seen this podcast or they've read a blog post that I've created and they're saying yes to something that they don't fully understand. And, to be quite honest, I learned something new every single time I talk with a new animal. Every single time that animal teaches me something new. So as I learn new things, I come here to the mic and I pass them along and I share them with you and we discuss them together.

Shannon Cutts: 3:10

And because this particular question comes up so frequently and I'm seeing so much this intersection of my pet parent clients who are having an experience of animal communication for the very first time and they're going through something so deeply challenging like a pet transitioning to spirit, I really wanted to bring this topic to you on the podcast right now. It feels like the right moment to walk through some of the common misconceptions and just questions that come up when you're thinking about I love my animal. They've transitioned to spirit. I don't feel like I can live without them, but I also want what's best for them and I don't know if it's selfish of me to ask them to come back into a body. So there's all of this going on and if you're listening to me talking and you can relate to this, just know that this podcast episode is for you from my heart, the heart of one pet parent to another and even if we've never met, we share that bond of that catastrophic grief and that empathy and that longing and that feeling of I don't know what just happened here and I don't know what's going on and I don't know how I'm going to get through this. So let's take a look at this in as step-by-step order as we can ever create for these deep, intuitive topics. The first question and the biggest question on the table if your pet is in their end of life transition, or they have just transitioned, or if they've been in the spirit space, in the etheric space, for a while, the big question on the table is should I ask my pet to reincarnate? And we'll dive down beneath the surface of that question and take a look at the subtopics that we just walked through in a little bit more detail.

Shannon Cutts: 5:09

But let's start here. My answer to you is yes, because if you have a longing to experience pet reincarnation with somebody that you love, that is its own form of communication. I can't emphasize this strongly enough. I am so honored. I have pet parent clients in 20 plus countries. I get to talk with people from so many different places around the world that come from so many different cultures and faith backgrounds and in so many different walks of life, of all ages and life stages, and each one of these pet parents has a deep bond of love with their personal pet that, no matter how much I study and practice, I will never be able to touch that.

Shannon Cutts: 6:03

So if anybody is going to get the message that pet reincarnation is even on the table for you, it's going to be you, not me. It's not like I'm going to call you up in the middle of the night and say, hey, your pet just woke me up from sleep and told me they want to reincarnate to you. No, you're going to call me or email me or DM me or send me a session request. Your pet is going to tell you and the way that they tell you is through this longing that you feel to have them come back. And this is the biggest misconception that my pet parent clients have about the whole process. If I walked you through the whole thing, maybe I should do that. Let me know if you'd like me to do that. Maybe I should walk you through the entire timeline of exactly how pet reincarnation works and break the whole thing down for you.

Shannon Cutts: 6:54

But when we get to this stage and you are longing for your pet to come back, just understand that you have a lot of options when your pet passes to spirit, you could choose not to get another animal. Some people do that their heart is so broken they can't ever imagine a replacement for their animal, or they're just in a situation in their life where they cannot take in a new animal at this time, and so they just choose not to have animal companionship in that way. Maybe they volunteer with animals, but they don't choose to adopt a new animal or add a new animal to their family. Some people choose to clone their pets. Typically, this doesn't work because what we're doing is we're cloning the DNA of the physical body, what we call the spacesuit in pet reincarnation circles physical body, what we call the spacesuit in pet reincarnation circles.

Shannon Cutts: 7:49

It's not possible right now for us to identify and acquire and clone the DNA of the etheric body or the soul, which is the real pet. Right? Our pet isn't the body that they live in, no matter how cute they are. Our pet is the energy that inhabits that body. And when that energy departs the body, if we're at all sensitive, we can tell the difference. You can look at an animal of any species and you can tell whether there's energy in that body or not. And so when we try to clone an animal who's passed. We're cloning the DNA of that body. We can create the new body. There's no guarantees about the soul that will eventually take up residence there, so that's why that tends to be a little bit of a disappointing experience.

Shannon Cutts: 8:30

The pet may look very similar or the same, but they may not act the same or similar and that can be very jarring and frustrating. But that's an option on the table. You can also go out and you can adopt a different animal. There are many, many animals that are available that need loving homes, so it's not like we're facing a shortage. It's very important to understand and this is where I like to start, because it's vital to grasp this before we move further, before we go deeper into the exploration.

Shannon Cutts: 9:02

If your heart is essentially saying no to all those other options and is saying I want this animal, I crave the company of this energy, this energetic signature, this heart thumbprint, this particular being and only they will do then your pet has already said yes. You have already said yes. And because our pets, as they themselves have told me, pet means partner, empathic friend and teacher, because our pets are our teachers, our pets are our partners, our pets are empathic to us to a degree that we can only aspire to emulate. So if the idea of pet reincarnation is even a gleam in your inner eye, guess who probably planted it there. My guess would be your pet. So if you think you came up with the idea of asking your pet to reincarnate to you all on your own, I would encourage you, with all the love in my heart, to think again and to feel into that more deeply. Love in my heart, to think again and to feel into that more deeply.

Shannon Cutts: 10:08

It is always your animal's idea, because that is just the nature of how evolved we are. Our pets vibrate on a higher frequency. They have made friends with their right brain hemisphere, which is sensory and emotion, energy and motion based. We tend to live in our left brain hemisphere, which has no access to intuition. So can you just imagine how hard your pet in spirit has had to work, or even your pet who's going through their end of life transition, and they're managing all that and they're also somehow creating a way to pop the idea of pet reincarnation into your brain. I've given them some props and know that I say this with so much love because I have been there and if you've listened to the podcast episodes on how my soul bird Pearl came back to me as Miss Petal and how my box turtle, bruce came back to me as young Io turtle, then you already know there is so much humility here. I am definitely learning at the feet of the masters, so just understand that the whole issue of should I or shouldn't I tends to evaporate when we trace the seed of that idea back to its source and realize how did I even think that up? Where did that idea even come from? I don't think I thought that up all by myself. That is definitely the brainchild of your beloved animal tucking the idea into your awareness, animal tucking the idea into your awareness.

Shannon Cutts: 11:45

And for some of us it can get a lot more complicated. Number one, because our left brain mind gets a hold of it and, as I just mentioned and this is a topic for a whole other episode but our left brain mind is not intuitive and so it will go zero to 60 with an idea like that over. But how and the mechanics? And it's like that's not really our job. That's not how manifesting works. And anything we desire, anything we dream of, anything that we crave, we manifest and there's a process behind that and that is part of what I teach, not only inside of my animal communication adventure student program, but when I work with my pet parent clients one-to-one, to call their pets back to them through the joyful reunion of pet reincarnation. There is a process. We work with both hemispheres of your brain, because you can't do it through the left brain channel alone. You need your right brain.

Shannon Cutts: 12:44

But where this gets challenging and this is pretty universal is where we start to run into our own belief systems or our assumptions, because, in lieu of lived experience, what we end up with is belief, which is a shallow substitute. Belief is well, I believe in pet reincarnation, but I haven't had any direct experiences of it yet that I'm aware of. Or I don't believe in pet reincarnation because I haven't had any lived experiences of it yet that I'm aware of. And even if we feel a calling towards the belief side, the yes side, the I at least want to see side, often what happens is we have others in our life, other people who don't believe. We may be surrounded with family, with a faith community, with colleagues or friends or peers, or a whole culture, a society that does not believe, and it's been codified into belief equals fact. Well, that's not actually true, not empirically speaking. Belief is actually a really interesting hypothesis and we can choose what we want to do with that. Scientists, they, often like to pursue that hypothesis and try to turn it into at least a theory, if not hard and fast facts. Then we do that through experiments, through science, through research. Some people, they codify it into a religious dogma. Whether we've experienced or not, whether we have any data or not, this is what we've decided. Everybody that follows our way is going to believe. So there's all kinds of different ways that we can interact with experiences that we haven't personally tangibly had yet.

Shannon Cutts: 14:30

For me, I look at belief as a precursor to lived experience, which translates for me again as personal truth. So once I've had the experience of pet reincarnation, for instance, it's no longer an issue of belief or lack of belief. It's no longer an issue of I believe it, but I'm going to keep it to myself because I know others don't believe it and they'll try to talk me out of it and that will bother me because I haven't had an experience of it yet. So I actually don't know if it's true for me or not, and so I'm just left in this limbo of being buffeted around by the winds of my opinions, other people's opinions. That's not a very firm foundation to stand on. Once I've had the experience of something in this case pet reincarnation, which I've had five times to date in my life, it becomes a personal lived truth for me, and two wonderful things happen when that occurs. Number one I no longer need anyone else's permission to seek out that experience. I am no longer worried that I'm going to get myself into some kind of hot water, either through suddenly being an outcast, not belonging, jeopardizing some other aspect of my life or a relationship that is important to me through being an outlier. Number two it no longer bothers me when other people don't believe. I don't need to convince anyone else. I don't need to mention it to anyone else. I'm probably not going to mention it to anyone else if I sense they have a lack of belief, because I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable and I recognize they simply haven't had any kind of experience yet. That's given them a different perspective. To try on for size For me, as I share in the podcast on how I recognized my Pearl, who was the reincarnation of my Jacob and is now the reincarnation as Miss Petal, when I recognized my Pearl, I did not want another bird.

Shannon Cutts: 16:26

I was still grieving. I was angry at my mom for calling me and telling me to meet her at PetSmart. I saw not want another bird. I was still grieving. I was angry at my mom for calling me and telling me to meet her at PetSmart. I saw the baby birds and was preparing to turn around and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw pearl and my hand, on its own, reached out as the rest of me was trying to back up. My hand reached out, he jumped on, crawled all the way up my arm with his baby claws and clung to the strands of hair by my neck and would not leave.

Shannon Cutts: 16:54

When we have the experience, we know and everything else becomes a non-issue. I don't need to go around and crusade for everyone to believe in pet reincarnation. It's enough that I've had the reunion with my love I hope that makes some sense where I see many of my pet parent clients struggle. And if this is you, please know that you are in very good company and this is part of the evolution of our consciousness from 3D to 5D or whatever D we're heading towards now. This is how we do it. It's messy, it's awkward. Not everybody goes at the same pace, that's okay, it's perfectly all right. You go at your pace and allow somebody else to go at their pace, and we'll get there eventually.

Shannon Cutts: 17:38

But there's this collective desire to survey everyone else. Would you think that's a good idea? What do you think about this? And often we find out that not everybody thinks it's a good idea, and then we either decide to pursue it under wraps and we have this whole extra layer of kind of silence and secrecy, or we decide not to pursue it and our heart just stays broken because we know that there's a really good chance that a joyful reunion is possible for us, and we've actually said no in prioritizing other people's beliefs or opinions really is what they are above our inner, knowing that this is an experience we're being called to have.

Shannon Cutts: 18:16

And so I just feel like we really need to set that stage first, so that you understand that this is between you and your pet. Nobody else gets to weigh in on this, at least in theory, of course, if you've got a new baby in the house or you're about to move or something else. Those are things that we factor in, and I see those issues crop up all the time in my sessions with my human clients and there are ways to work through them. So if you are facing something like that, please get in touch with me. We can set up a session and we can learn as we go along how to navigate that part of the process. But just understand, at its fundamental core, this is a choice, a decision that you and your pet make together, and nobody else has earned the right to get in on that decision or to influence your decision, because nobody else has the lived experience of the bond that you and your pet share together.

Shannon Cutts: 19:09

So if you're even pondering the idea of pet reincarnation, which is really very practical, it's really not woo at all. It's really quite simple. It all goes back to the law of conservation of energy by none other than Albert Einstein. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be transmuted and transformed, and that is exactly what's happening. As we move in and out of these 3D physical spacesuits that we call bodies, we're just recalibrating our frequency back and forth, and that energy is always alive and sentient and conscious, whether it's in a body or not. So just understand if your pet is giving you the idea, the creative idea, of pet reincarnation. They're alive. They're as alive, probably more alive, than they could ever be in a body. They're so alive right now and your relationship continues and when the time is right, it may be possible to revisit the idea of pet reincarnation.

Shannon Cutts: 21:13

But that is also bringing up one of the concerns you expressed to me when you scheduled your session. Well, isn't my pet in a better place now? Isn't it selfish of me to want them to come back when they're in the etheric space? They're in the spirit of the soul space now, and there's no pain, there's no suffering, there's no grief. Well, that is true. And the animals have told me and showed me and shared with me time and time and time again that when they transition out of their 3D physical spacesuits and they recalibrate to the etheric dimension, there is no pain and it is a wonderful vacation home. And I think it's very interesting that they use the term vacation home. So a vacation home is a place that you go to visit. It is not a place where most of us live permanently. It is a place that is well-known to them, it's beloved, it is a wonderful escape. It's a refresher and a recharger.

Shannon Cutts: 22:17

I have heard through my pet parent clients about communicators who say, well, only 30 to 40% of the pets reincarnate, or only a few pets reincarnate, or I've never had any pet tell me they want to reincarnate. Well, that's again, that's not my lived experience. Talking with hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of animals in all life stages and all dimensions, I can only speak from my own personal lived experience, and what I'm receiving from the animals is that we need them more than ever right now because our planet is dying, our species is facing some interesting times, and they lead through unconditional love, which is the most powerful power source in this dimension, in any dimension. So of course, we need them more than ever to lead us through some of the challenges that we're facing individually and collectively and as a planet, and so of course they're going to come back to us. They're going to help us.

Shannon Cutts: 23:20

Nobody and again, all of this comes from the animals. Please do not think I am holed up somewhere cooking up wisdom for you. I'm not. I'm talking with animals and they are teaching me. So if you want to learn lessons like these, the best place to do it is in my animal communication classes, because the animals are magical teachers and the animals have told me that nobody of any species comes into a body without two goals, two intentions One, they have something to teach, which we just talked about, and two, they have something to learn.

Shannon Cutts: 23:53

So when an animal chooses to come back to us, chooses to come into a new, fresh 3D spacesuit, a physical body, they are coming because their bread is buttered on that side, because they want to, because it is advantageous, because they are empathic. And when we are empathic, when we are essentially perfect in our soul form, our original soul form, then that empathy naturally moves us to serve. That's the nature of an empath, it's the nature of an evolved being. Us to serve, that's the nature of an empath, it's the nature of an evolved being. We have empathy and that empathy, which is to feel as if or just suffer with, translates into compassion, which is to act with passion on behalf of and what better way to act with passion on behalf of others who are suffering than to come back to be with us again? So it is in everyone's best interests when a pet says yes to pet reincarnation. Only good is going to come from the union between your unconditional love for them and their unconditional love for you. That is a powerful force for good in a place, a planet earth, that really needs more powerful forces for good.

Shannon Cutts: 25:09

So that number one concern that you tell me you have, which is isn't it selfish of me to ask them to come back? Well, just know that they don't see it that way. They've been to the vacation home, they had a great time, they rode the rides, they got the souvenirs, they had all the adventures and they're refreshed, they're re the adventures and they're refreshed, they're rejuvenated and they're ready to come back. And because our linear time, our concept of linear time, does not apply equally in the etheric realm, they can get a lot done in a very short amount of time. So where we're saying, oh, it's been three days and already they're headed back, well, just understand that my pearl died in the morning on January 8th and about three hours later he downloaded all of his return plans to me. When I followed those clues, I discovered his little bird body had already been laid and was already growing before he died. His body was laid on December 22nd, he died on January 8th, so that looks like a quick turnaround in our linear earth time. We won't remember how time really works, or if time even exists, until we return to that etheric space ourselves. So there is a mystery involved here and that is what requires the intuitive activation and the soul evolution on our part.

Shannon Cutts: 26:32

A very wise mentor once said to me tell the universe what you want and why. Don't tell it how you cannot go there. Do not go mess with that. Do not push the red button, don't cut the blue wire. You've got to stay in your lane and we must learn how to work with the co-creative universal forces for good. I teach all of this inside of Animal Communication, adventure and how manifesting really works and the role of the different parts of your brain, including one called the reticular activating system, that is essential for manifesting the joyful reunion of pet reincarnation. So just know, I'm an intuitive engineer and I have researched the crap out of everything that all of the animals have shared with me, so I can explain it to you in terms your left brain mind will comprehend. It's definitely a labor of love, it's so helpful to me too and I enjoy it so much. But the bottom line is it's great in the spirit space and it's great with us too, and through pet reincarnation. They can have the experience of both.

Shannon Cutts: 27:48

If you were faced with the choice between choosing option A, that you loved, or option B, that you also loved, or option C both A and B, both of which you love what would you choose? Me, I'm going for C every time. The next question that I often receive is is my animal ready? Often, the question is phrased in this way is my animal ready yet, as in do they need more time? Are they ready right now? Is it too soon? Has it been too long? This is so interesting, right? I'm 54 as of the recording of this podcast and I hired animal communicators for many years before I ever got a clue that I was hearing the animals directly and could do this work directly myself. So while I'm dating myself a little bit, which I never mind I also can recognize through that experience that we are waking up. And if you wake up one morning and suddenly the idea occurs to you oh, I loved my dog that I had in my twenties, or my cat, or my horse, or my parrot or my turtle, I so wish we could be together again. And it's 30 years later and you're in your fifties, like me, that's not off the table Again.

Shannon Cutts: 29:06

Linear time only applies here on planet earth. We really don't remember how it works and we won't until we go back to our vacation home ourselves, and that is the nature of maximizing our gift of these human and non-human animal adventures that we have in these 3D spacesuits. So the only way to know if it's time yet or if your animal needs more time or wants more time, or it serves the greater purpose for all concerned that they take more time in the spirit space, is to ask them. This is not a cookie cutter answer. There's only one way to find out the perfect, optimal, ideal timing for you and your personal soul pet to reunite through time, the joyful reunion of pet reincarnation, and that is to have a conversation. And of course that is what I do and we can find out for one pet it might be. I'm already coming back, like my Pearl when he was transitioning back to Bemis Petal For my box turtle, bruce.

Shannon Cutts: 30:14

If you listen to that wonderful two-parter episode that I didn't know was going to be a two-parter when I started recording it, you know that Bruce went missing during a time when I literally was caring for my mother who had fallen. My father had just died. It was total chaos in my life. I didn't have time to look for him the way that I would have ordinarily and he rewilded himself and I never found out what happened to him. And it took a few years. And every so often somebody would say oh, I think I saw your turtle because he was an internet celebrity, if you know what I mean. On Instagram and Facebook. He was pretty well known and every so often I'd get a tip and they never panned out and I lived with that grief. There was no way for me to know where to even start looking for him.

Shannon Cutts: 31:02

And then three years went by. In the meantime I had adopted a young box turtle named Io, and Io didn't have any detectable personality, which is normal when they're hatchlings. But two years into our connection I still didn't feel a bond. And then I went on a trip, came back, got very ill this is the too long didn't listen version and while I was extremely ill, in a feverish state, I reached out to Bruce. I don't know why. So this goes back to what we started the conversation with in this episode, which is that guess who plants the idea of reincarnation into our minds. It's not our own brainchild that we cook up on our own. So I'm in a feverish state. I'm reaching out to Bruce. He tells me he's transitioned and that he's okay and he lived a wonderful life and all these great things that I share in the podcast episode. And the next morning I wake up and I'm inexplicably better, like so much better, and I go out to deliver a little Io, her food. I thought Io was a girl and Io has transformed overnight and is literally acting like Bruce, like a carbon copy of Bruce, and I share the rest of that story in that doubleheader podcast episode. But, just to let you know, it took more than three years in that case and I had given up.

Shannon Cutts: 32:22

So if you are still missing somebody, an animal that you shared life with and it's been a while, even a long while it's never off the table, if the idea comes to you, it's worth exploring that, taking that next step. Another question that comes up sometimes, and often this won't surface right away, but there can be a need to ask yourself am I ready? There's a couple different flavors of this. Often, where I see this crop up is we're already in the middle of the conversation with their pet and spirit. Maybe we're talking with your animal who's transitioned and we're starting to unpack some clues and gather some information about their reincarnation plans.

Shannon Cutts: 33:08

And then I will hear something like well, we're just getting ready to travel for the summer, or we're getting ready to move houses, or I'm pregnant, or my husband or wife or partner just got a job change, or my child is about to go to college. I mean, there are just so many different ways that it can come up, but the flavor of it is always it's a little chaotic right now and everything's a little bit up in the air and I don't know if it's the right time for me, for us to welcome the soul pet back. And that's a really important question and that's not something that I can help with. I could certainly be an objective listening ear for you and your interspecies family, hold space for you to work through that, but that's between you and you and just to understand, there's a deeper fear often underneath this and the fear is I will miss them and we're going to get to that here in a moment. But often the fear is it's now or never.

Shannon Cutts: 34:10

And what I want to debunk for you here, based on, again, what the pets have shared with me, is that it is not now or never, it is when the time is right. That it is not now or never, it is when the time is right. This whole process exists well beyond and above, at a much higher frequency than the level of the extremes that exist here in earth. School on planet earth, that, black or white, yes or no, we're dealing in gray here, we're dealing in all the in-between, and so just understand, if it's not now and there is a true heartfelt desire on both of your parts, then it will be later and that's okay. So patience is required in these cases and, first and foremost, unconditional honesty, just acknowledging wait a minute, I'm dealing with. It's now or never. That's black or white thinking, that's left brain mind, that's non-intuitive thinking.

Shannon Cutts: 35:04

I'm in the wrong brain hemisphere to even start this conversation and that's where someone like me can come in and assist and support you to have a really truly productive family planning communication session and talk through. Well, where are we getting stuck? Where are we just needing a little bit of an unfolding understanding, or maybe some patience, because that anxiety, our left brain mind, isn't out to get us, it's out to protect us and keep us safe. And so that's that fight Now. Now I must make it fit or flee. It's never going to happen. Oh, now I must make it fit or flee. It's never going to happen. Oh, I'm screwed or freeze, which is to stay stuck in limbo, arguing within ourselves, within our own head, forever? And we don't want to stay there. We understand. Oh, my left brain mind is just trying to protect me. My sympathetic nervous system is just trying to protect me from getting hurt. That's a beautiful gift, thank you.

Shannon Cutts: 35:58

Now let's go talk with your animal and get unstuck and move forward and create a workable family plan for that joyful reunion, now or later. Either one is great, right? If you had to choose between now, later or never, what would you choose? I'd either want now or later, if it was me talking. So there's that other fear Underneath, that is, if it was me talking. So there's that other fear Underneath that is. Well. If it's not now and they're coming back now, then I'm going to miss them.

Shannon Cutts: 36:26

And here again, this is what one of my mentors, don Miguel Ruiz, who wrote the four agreements, in the fifth agreement. He calls this the process of domestication. Domestication is when we're told how it works and we look at our relationships as judgment day rather than conscious, continuing collaboration. So it's my way, or the highway is domestication. This is my timeline, this is what works for me Get on board or get out. A lot of us can look back. I know I certainly can, in my education, in my workplace training, and I can see those fingerprints are all over the place.

Shannon Cutts: 37:05

Pet reincarnation is different. It is a conscious, continuous collaboration between two beings who love one another unconditionally. You will not miss them unless you insist on it, and that's a big enough topic to unpack in a whole different episode. So again, let me know if you would like me to take this topic and run with it and walk you through the entire timeline. I'm happy to do that. I just want to know that that is what you would like to hear about. So drop me a DM over on Instagram at loveandfeathersandshells, or you can always email me through my website or leave a comment wherever you're listening and let me know that way.

Shannon Cutts: 37:47

But as long as you are willing to adopt a spirit of patience and curiosity and continue to engage in the conversation as it unfolds, know that there is mutual free will involved here. You are not making your pet come back because you love them so much. You cannot live without them, and I mean that with every bit of honesty within me. I've had pet parent clients tell me that they have checked themselves into the ER. They have gone to the hospital because when their pet died they had such severe physical symptoms that it was mimicking heart attacks. They thought they were dying. Heartbreak syndrome is a very real situation and it is triggered by catastrophe, extreme trauma, like grief. So just understand that this is not how pet reincarnation works. It's not about well, you have to come back because I can't live without you and I'm going to die. Well, okay, that's pretty timely and the timeline for pet reincarnation doesn't typically adjust very well to crisis. So just understand that's not typically how that process is designed to work. And since we're dealing with mutual free will in other words, I said yes of my own free will, with zero coercion and you say yes of your own free will with zero coercion there's no issue of now or later and missing, because this is about learning to pay attention.

Shannon Cutts: 39:23

I love what the great artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci was so fond of assigning to his new students and I teach. This is actually one of the very first lessons that I teach inside Animal Communication Adventure, which is that when a new student would come to the great maestro and ask for instruction, the first thing he would do is he would send them out into some random place a field, a town square, a garden, somebody's backyard and tell them to just sit there all day and notice things. So if you like people watching, you'd probably love this. Go to the mall and just spend all day sitting somewhere noticing things. And he would say to them notice, wonder, get curious, follow your curiosity. I tell my students try to notice one new thing a day, one new thing an hour. We don't want to micromanage ourselves, but every day take five minutes with your animal, with your pet or with a wild animal in your backyard or with a plant, and just notice one new thing about that being something you never noticed before. And the more you practice with this, the more insight and inspiration you will receive and the more your intuition will come online. And so intuition is its own education, it's its own curriculum and it can take some time. And as long as you're still in for that, you've signed up for that curriculum. You don't want to drop the course. You're still in. There's no issue of missing.

Shannon Cutts: 40:52

This question is so nuanced I could spend a whole podcast episode just on it. There's concerns about well, what if somebody else adopts my animal before I get to them? And I understand where that fear is coming from, because I used to feel that way myself. But the truth is is that this kind of thinking is, again it's very top-down judgment day the hammer and the nail my way or the highway, and we forget that our pet has free will. Just as badly as we want to find them, they want to find us. So if somebody comes along and they're not us, that pet has full free will to make themselves unappealing. And it's funny when I talk with the pets and I ask well, how do you do that? How do you make yourself unappealing? How do you convince somebody who really wants to adopt you that they don't want you? Like I'll pee on their foot or I'll try to bite them or I'll have tummy trouble. That day I'll be off my feet, I'll have just pulled a flight feather out and I'm grumpy and in a bad mood, antisocial. They have their ways. So just understand as badly as you want to find your reincarnated pet, they also want to find you and they are motivated to make sure that you, and only you, adopts them. And that is where I'm going to close out for today's episode.

Shannon Cutts: 42:10

In any episode like this, I recognize that often we listen and leave with even more questions than when we came, and you can see how this is such a deep and such a rich area for exploration and for the brave, for creating new hypotheses, interesting questions. We do that by noticing new things, getting curious, wondering about them, experimenting. I feel so blessed and so lucky that I get to take a deep dive every single day into these exact kinds of questions as I talk with animals and they teach me. Your animals are teaching me about everything that I then get to turn around and share with you. So again, if you come to me and you share your questions, if you post a comment or you DM me or you email me or you find me over on your favorite streaming service and leave a review and you pop your question in there, I don't just cook up the answers to those questions. That's not how I look at it. I go to your animals and I ask the collective consciousness and I learn from them, and then I come back and I share what they have taught me with you. So thank you for sticking with me through this episode.

Shannon Cutts: 43:31

I deeply hope I aspire to have offered you some hopefully food for thought, maybe some reassurance, some guidance, perhaps some curious ideas to continue to explore. Maybe drop them into your subconscious. They may percolate and unfold in dream time. I always love to hear about any insights you've had as you listen, or maybe ideas that bubble up or questions that bubble up after you've let the information sink in and absorb. As always, I endeavor to drop a fresh new episode every two weeks. I don't always hit that mark, considering that the podcast recording, editing and IT team consists of me, me and me, with Miss Petal as a sidekick, and her only responsibility is to provide the soundtrack and some cuteness. So just know that is always my intention.

Shannon Cutts: 44:31

If you're not in my weekly love letters community, head over to animallovelanguagescom and you should see a little bar at the top. You can sign up. You'll get $25 off your first session with me and you'll get notified every time a new episode drops. So just know how appreciative I am to be here with you every two weeks or so here on let's Talk to Animals podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do share it with a friend who's maybe going through a tough end of life transition or they're grieving their animal in spirit. Share it with me. I always love to hear from you, and hearing from you inspires me to keep creating fresh new episodes for you, and please do make plans to return and subscribe to the podcast. Follow along with us and I look forward to continuing to explore all of these wonderful woo yet not woo topics with you as season six continues. So for now, just know that I'm sending you and your inner species family all my love. Okay, bye for now.