What Really Happens, What to Expect & How to Prepare for Your Animal Communication Session

What really happens during an animal communication session with your pet? How can you prepare to have the most positive and successful experience? In this episode, animal intuitive and animal communication teacher Shannon Cutts unpacks the anatomy of a typical animal communication session to demystify the process and help you prepare for your pet's session.

As you listen you will learn:

• The basic parts of an animal communication session
• Why choose to have an animal communication session for your pet
• What animal communication can and cannot help with
• How the process of translation occurs when I talk with your pet
• Your essential role in the animal communication conversation
• How to prepare for the most successful pet conversation
• And so much more....

Are you animal communication curious? Have I got something special for you! My new Animal Communication Adventure to Mastery student learning program just launched! This program is designed to be a gentle, yet thorough, serious, yet lighthearted path to interspecies fluency that pairs beautifully with my ongoing live Animal Communication Adventure Practice Circle for developing student practitioners. Visit animallovelanguages.com and click on programs to join us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Big Question
• 1:37 Translator, Not Mind Reader
• 7:46 How Nonverbal Language Works
• 13:29 Ethics, Neutrality, Confidentiality
• 16:55 Team Sport: Avoiding Mistranslation
• 24:07 Skepticism, Trust, And Openness
• 32:10 Not A Vet Visit: Medical Boundaries
• 36:28 Nervous System Sync & Sensing Bodies
• 44:31 Session Flow: The Say Anything Period
• 54:01 Unpacking Questions For Clarity
• 1:03:19 Context, Limits, And Depth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Welcome back to Let's Talk to Animals, the podcast all species can enjoy together. My name is Shannon Cutz. I am an animal sensitive and intuitive, a Reiki master practitioner, and an animal communication teacher with Animal Love Languages.com. And for our purposes here today, I am also your friendly neighborhood hostess and guide through the wild, wise, and wonderful world of interspecies communication. Call me crazy, but I truly believe that animal communication has the power to save, heal, and restore our planet for all species to enjoy and share. When we learn to communicate with one another, we begin to realize we are so much more alike than different. We care about each other. We become friends. On this podcast, we talk about what the animals have to say and share and why our pets truly are our partners, empathic friends, and teachers. I am so glad you have joined us here for this fresh new episode of Let's Talk to Animals. So let's dive in. Hi, Shannon here. Welcome back to Let's Talk to Animals, the podcast that all species can enjoy together. And this week for our fresh new episode, I'm almost embarrassed that it's taken me this long to record this episode for you. It's got to be the most frequently asked question that I get. Oh, you're an animal communicator. What happens during an animal communication session? If you are a fellow communicator or a student communicator who is listening, you are probably familiar with these kinds of questions. And if you are a listener who is animal communication curious and you have yet to have your own personal firsthand experience of working with an animal communicator such as myself, I hope that this podcast episode will shed some light on how one communicator approaches the art as well as the science of communicating across species boundaries. Now I am going to be presenting the information from my first hand perspective. So if you are listening today and perhaps you've had experiences working with other animal communicators, then they might approach the discipline a little bit differently. They might structure their sessions a little bit differently. We all find our way as communicators, and it's as unique as our thumbprints. Those of you who have been with the Let's Talk to Animals community for some time, you probably know my story that before I hung out a shingle and went pro and became an animal intuitive for real, I spent years hiring animal communicators. I didn't come into this field with all guns blazing, believing that I could do it. I came into this field wobbly and curious because an animal communicator I had hired told me, you know, Shannon, you can do this too. And that was such a revelation for me. And I had never had anybody say anything like that to me before. So I've been on both sides of that conversation for many, many years now. And my way is also infused by all of the wonderful teachers, coaches, and mentors who have guided me both within the direct field of animal communication and in related fields like intuitive development and even mediumship. So that is where I'm headed and what I mean by we each find our own way. So, especially for those of you who are listening who may be practitioners yourself, or you may be student practitioners and you're working through your process of finding your way, I encourage you to listen from the perspective of genuine openness, wondering, getting curious, noticing. These are the hallmarks, these are the foundations I teach all of my students within Animal Communication Adventure to Mastery, which is my signature student learning program. And that is what we practice inside Animal Communication Adventure practice circle every single week. So take what resonates or at least what sparks your curiosity and maybe take it one step further and leave the rest. It's all simply food for thought. And for pet parent listeners, as you listen, just consider that if reaching out to me personally versus a different communicator to schedule your experience of animal communication with your pet here or in spirit, just take this as some pre-preparatory food for thought, contemplation, how you might begin to prepare for the experience, some things that you might want to think through as you're crafting any questions that you might have for your personal pet here or in spirit. And also just the behind-the-scenes philosophy of how I approach the service that I offer as an animal communicator or animal intuitive, how I view it and what I have experienced, it is extremely useful for, as well as what I have experienced, it perhaps is not ideally suited for. So just take that all into consideration as you listen today. So let's dive in and start with what is animal communication itself? When you say, I want an animal communication session for my pet or with my animal, and again, this can be for an animal who is embodied, who is alive here on this earth plane in this 3D dimension right now. This can be for a pet who has passed or crossed over or transitioned out of their physical body into the etheric or the light or the soul realm, however you prefer to think of it. Then what is animal communication? What are we really doing here? What are you registering for or signing up for? What is it? So I'm going to share my perspective. And this is what I tell each pet parent client that I personally work with in one-to-one sessions, and is what I share with my animal communication students when they ask me about my perspective, approaching the art, the science, and the discipline of interspecies communication. And what I share is that I view my service, the service I'm providing to you and your animals, as that of an interspecies translator. And you might also have the follow-up question, okay then, what language are you translating? Because typically, when we think about a translator, a language translator, we think of a translation from one verbal language to another verbal language. For instance, when I traveled to Ecuador and then Galapagos last year, and I did not speak any Spanish. And despite a full year of trying to learn and never really being able to fit it in, I needed a lot of help. And I would have to either use apps when I was able to get internet service or find a willing human who was bilingual to help me communicate. So essentially, at its foundation, at the core, this is how I approach my work, my service in this world as an animal communicator. We take it one step further, if you will, when we look at the type of language being translated. This is where it just gets so fascinating to me. Because we are essentially translating your animals' language. This is actually the universal language that all species have access to, ourselves included. And it is how humans too can learn to communicate with non-humans, with pets, with wild animals, with animals here and in spirit, with Miss Paddle here. If you're watching the video version and you see a very, very, very cute cocktail. But essentially, your pet's language is nonverbal, which adds an extra wrinkle of excitement to the whole picture. So I am translating emotions, energy and motion. That's emotion. I'm translating sensations that can be tactile sensations. It can be physical or emotional or mental sensations. I am translating pictures, images that I see with my inner eye, audio messages, they can be sounds, they can be words or phrases sometimes that I'm hearing with my intuitive or inner facing ears. I am translating deep gut knowing. That's that clear cognizance. That's how we suddenly know something. If you've ever had a hunch or a vibe, or you've just known something without knowing how or why you know it, and nothing that your mind says to you can talk you out of what you now know. So that's another example. Essentially, these are all nonverbal forms of communication. If you've ever had a speech class and you've listened to a professor or a coach talk with you about how a certain percentage of human communication is verbal and the rest of it is nonverbal, I'm talking about the nonverbal part. So I am taking all of that data that's flowing from the animal through me and I am turning it into words that then become shareable with you. So if I just wanted to talk with animals in the safety and comfort of my bedroom and I never planned to share our conversations with another human, I would not need to translate them into words. But if I want to share your animal's side of the conversation with you, I need to be able to translate what your pet is saying to me using this shared language of nonverbal, intuitive, interspecies communication into words so I can share with you what your pet wants you to know. So that is how I view the service that I am providing. I am showing up to the absolute utmost of my ability to be the intermediary to support you and your pet to communicate directly. As such, I personally, for my own ethics, need to bring a degree of impartiality and objectiveness to the conversation. Obviously, 100% confidentiality to the conversation to create a safe space where no matter what's on the table for conversation that day, this is a place where we can have those conversations in total privacy and confidentiality. I also need to bring to the table an awareness of what a conversation between two beings who are closely bonded can and cannot potentially accomplish. And that's where we have the fun of the disclaimers that I use. I only use two primary disclaimers for the majority of my session, because that is what seems to be the most relevant for our purposes together and the most informative and instructive for you as the pet parent. So we keep expectations reasonable. So my first disclaimer, if you will, which is really more like an invitation, is that in my world, interspecies translation is a team sport. And what do I mean by that? I mean that I am showing up with a skill I can translate your animal's nonverbal language into your verbal language back and forth so you can communicate with one another. And yet I don't have the context, the bigger picture of your time together, your day-to-day life together, the inside jokes, the special quirks that only the two of you are privy to. And as a translator, if you've ever used a translation app or you've taken a class to learn another language, or you've worked with another human who has served as a translator, maybe a tour guide for you, well, mistranslation, it happens. It is a career hazard. And so when we combine together the fact that I will not have the context, I can gather some of that as I'm speaking with pets over a period of time. Many of my clients are returning to me to continue the conversation. And so I can build a relationship and a rapport with both you and your animal over time, and that'll give me a little bit more context, but I'm never going to be there day to day to have the full experience. And so if there is something that I translate that your pet wants to share and it doesn't make sense to you, it doesn't land, you're like, huh, I don't understand what they're trying to say, or no, that doesn't sound like my animal, or no, I don't remember him or her ever doing that. Well, that's when it becomes a team sport and you have to let me know. And often pet parents are very reluctant to say anything. And there's a few different reasons for that. One, it's nerve-wracking, especially when we're having these deep conversations and you may be feeling a little vulnerable. Often my pet parent clients will reach out during times that feel emotionally tender when their pet is in some kind of health or emotional crisis, or they're working through past trauma, or they're recovering from something, or they're approaching the end of life, or they've transitioned to spirit. And so you can feel a little bit raw. And it can be hard to just be willing to step up to the plate and say, no, that doesn't make sense. There's another little part of us that, well, we want to believe that the investment is worth it that we're making. We want to trust that it is truly our pet talking with us. And so there can be a part of us that wants to gloss over things that aren't fully understood. So what I like to share with my pet parent clients is we're not trying to poke holes in every communication that your pet shares, but it is important if we're talking about a topic of some significance and the pet's message, your pet's message to you isn't landing or you're just not understanding, it's impossible for me to know. So the expectation that I will somehow just know that doesn't typically work out very well. So it is important to be willing to speak up and say, could you ask my pet for a little more clarity? I'm just not really understanding what they're sharing yet. Or no, I don't remember my animal doing that. Or no, I don't remember a toy like that. I'll give you an example. This is a great example from one of my very recent pet parent sessions where I was talking with a dog who was getting ready to transition. And I tuned in and asked her what her favorite toy was because I was just getting to know her a little bit. I wanted to know how she played. I wanted to know what her personality was like outside of the transition that we were there to talk about. I wanted to know who she is as a being. And so sometimes I'll ask questions like, what was your favorite toy, or what did you like to eat, or who's your best friend? Getting to know you questions. And she showed me this oval, kind of large oval flat thing. And I just took one look at that, and automatically the closest thing that my mind could match up with from my personal experience was that must be a slipper, like the house shoes that you wear. And so I said to Dad, I think your dog is telling me that they really loved your slipper and they would carry your slipper around with them. No, it wasn't a slipper. Thankfully, dad was on board. I had delivered the disclaimer, and dad was on board to let me know. No, I don't, I don't remember anything. And I said, All right, my bad. Do you know of anything that might have been a toy or something comforting that your dog really liked to carry around that was white or off-white and it was oval and it was slipper sized? And he thought for a minute and he said, Yes. And I found that in our garage just a few weeks ago. That used to be her favorite toy, and I had forgotten all about it. Well, it turns out that this dog wanted to be buried with that favorite toy. And if dad hadn't let me know that slipper wasn't the most precise translation, that really wasn't what his dog was trying to communicate to me, we would have missed that. So that's what I'm talking about when I share that animal communication is a team sport. I'll share another example with you. This was from my student days, and all of my animal communication students know this story. One of my teachers was in class talking with a dog as part of their group practice. And when she asked this dog, what is your favorite toy? The translation, as best as she could match up what she was seeing and how she was feeling, was your dog says her favorite toy is a yellow bird. Well, mom was horrified. She said, No, I do not give my dog yellow birds to play with. But my teacher being expert, she said, Well, why don't you just sit with it? Because they tried to workshop it, like the slipper example I just gave you, and nothing was really coming up. And then a few weeks went by, and mom was out one day with her dog throwing the yellow tennis ball. That was this dog's favorite toy. And she took a look at it and she remembered back to that practice session, and she saw the yellow tennis ball whizzing by overhead, and she contacted my teacher and said, I know what the yellow bird is. It's the yellow tennis ball. So when we're translating, the goal is to take any images, any sounds, whether they're words or other types of sounds, sensations, emotions, and even deep gut knowings, and match those up with memories, experiences, associations, ideas from our own lexicon of life experiences. And that doesn't always result in a direct translation. If you've ever had an experience of living or traveling through a different country that speaks a different language and learning a word in that language that has no direct translation in your native language, coming home and trying to share the experience you've had in this other country, and finding yourself saying something like, ah, in French or German or Bulgarian or whatever it is, Spanish in my case, when I was in Ecuador, there's a word for this, but there's no direct translation. So you're finding yourself pulling a few words from your own native language together to try to give the person you're talking with a better sense of what you're referring to. So it can be like that. Any type of language-to-language translation can be like that. And animal communication is no exception. So going in looking for 100% precision accuracy, it happens. And some animals are better at communicating than others, just like some human animals are better at communicating than others. And if I'm talking with an animal that is experiencing, let's say, residual trauma, or is coming out of a heavily medicated state, or is experiencing a loss or grief, or is preparing for their end-of-life transition, is all of their focus necessarily going to be on me and even their pet parent and the conversation at hand? Maybe not. And in addition, when I teach animal communication, one of the most fun modules that we cover is animal conversational styles. So what's so interesting, and I think one of the things that I love the most about being an animal communicator and getting to do this each and every day. Of course, there are easier days, there are more challenging days, but no two days are alike because no two animals are alike. And I don't ever know when I wake up in the morning who I'm gonna meet that day and what they're gonna teach me and how I might have to stretch and grow to meet them where they are. They might be more advanced communicator than I am. Of course, I'm speaking with beings who are for them, interspecies communication is their native language and English is my native language. So I'm always going to be learning from them. Every communication I have, I learn. And that's something else I share up front. Your animal is teaching me right now, right here. And I'm always going to be the student. The animals are the master communicators. But within that umbrella context of recognizing that for them, animal communication is their native language. We still have a number of different animal communication styles. And some are what I could only describe as chatty cappy, while others are more stoic. And there's a need to adapt to the pace and the openness and the life stage and all kinds of variables that crop up when you're initiating a conversation with somebody new. And I even see the conversational willingness and fluency vary in animals that I'm very familiar with based on what they might be going through, how open they are, how willing they are to talk, and how willing their human is to hear them. That's the other side of the coin. Non-human animals, pets, wild animals, are very emotionally sensitive. They're very sensitive to frequency and vibration. And I have had the odd client, the odd pet parent client who comes in very distrustful, very disbelieving, but wanting to believe and planning to test me to see if animal communication itself is legitimate. Is this real? And when that happens, not only can I feel that vibration of okay, I can tell even by the types of questions that are being asked, as well as the frequency or emotion attached to those questions, but even worse than that, the animal I'm trying to talk with can pick up on that. And while they might not understand that this human, this pet parent, doesn't really believe in this stuff or actively disbelieves but wants to believe, and has decided to test me as a communicator to see if I can prove to them that this stuff works. Sometimes I can, but often what happens is that the pet that I'm there to talk with is picking up on the distrust that their parent has for the whole process. And they may not know that it's distrust for animal communication. They just know that their human doesn't trust me. There's something untrustworthy and thus unsafe about this conversation. And guess what tends to happen? Pet tends to clam up, and then I'm stuck trying to navigate between two people who aren't really there transparently to have an open and honest conversation with one another, but are there to work through some level of doubt or disbelief or distrust that that human has towards the work that I do. And unfortunately, that doesn't tend to produce the desired outcome. I've been surprised at times, but I find that when I am pleasantly surprised, it's because there isn't a huge level of distrust. There's just a healthy degree of skepticism. And I welcome skepticism. I was a skeptic myself. And the only reason I kept hiring animal communicators is because the process kept working. But I think where I was fortunate going in is that I was pretty open-minded. I didn't have any previous negative experiences. And sometimes I find that some of my pet parent clients come in and they maybe have had a really bad experience. And maybe not with an animal communicator, maybe it was with a medium or with a psychic for humans or a mentor or a coach or a counselor. And so that's just closed them up a little bit. And we can work with that. I love what the telepathy tapes podcast creator Kai Dickens says about skepticism. She says, remember, to be a true skeptic requires an open mind. And so I really don't mind that because my job is to be the translator. So it's not my job to prove or disprove. And I've got no skin in the game as far as whether others believe that it's real or not. I have trust that I've seen positive benefits to my pet family over many, many years, decades now. And that's why I keep showing up to learn and grow. But that's my own learned experience. So I've got no vested interest in proving or disproving, but it does make my job easier when the human in the mix, the pet parent that I am translating for, at least is able to come with that truly skeptical mind, being open. Let's just see, having that spirit of noticing, wondering, getting curious, learning something new, giving themselves permission to have an experience, good, bad, or indifferent, but not necessarily stacking the deck for or against either outcome. Because just as not every pet is right for every person, not every communicator is right for every pet parent. My way is very different than that of many other communicators out there. We all have our own way, and we are all given the opportunity to find our own unique way. So how I ask questions, how I translate, how I deliver information can be very different. And I've had enough feedback over the years from my pet parent clients and my animal communication students who may have worked with or studied with other professional animal communicators, and they have shared with me that I am different than other communicators they have worked with. And that's not to say that one of us is better or worse than the other, but we are different. And sometimes it's just an energetic mismatch. And so it's important to be aware of that. And that's why I always share, especially with pet parent clients who hire me after having a bad experience with someone else, I always share with them how brave they are to give it another chance, to give it another try, because it might just be that there was an energetic mismatch. And here's an example of that. One of my clients last week, whom I have worked with several times. I've spoken with several of her animals, and she had hired a different communicator to get essentially a second opinion, which I have no problem with. But she had come back and said that the delivery method that the other communicator used just felt harsh to her, felt blunt to her. And we can't possibly ever know why that might be happening. We communicators, first and foremost, we're human, we're human beings, we're human animals. We have days that are better and we have days that are not better, not so good. I love what Don Miguel Ruiz says in The Four Agreements, the Toll Tech Wisdom book. He talks about always do your best. Your best will change from day to day. So maybe we'll never know if that other communicator was just having an off day, or maybe it was an energetic mismatch between herself and my client. But having an off experience or an experience that doesn't resonate with a particular communicator doesn't mean that the field itself is broken. It means that you just had an off day or a bad vibe or whatever it is. And so choosing to go forward and give it another try is to your pet's benefit, because I've certainly over the years facilitated enough sessions, both my private practice clients and group sessions with my students, where we're bringing in pet parents with their animals to have experienced over and over and over again that the translation itself works. And the underlying reason for that, which I go into fully in my Animal Communication Adventure to Mastery program, is because we too can speak this language. We just aren't taught. It's not emphasized, it's not considered a valuable life skill. Whereas once upon a time, when we were out in the greater food chain of life, out in the forest or the grasslands or the desert with everyone else trying to carve out a living eat and not be eaten, we needed this language just as much as everyone else. And if you haven't attended one of my free intuitive development for pet parent webinars, I go into the basics of that in that webinar. And that might be something really fascinating for you to attend. And if you'd like to be notified the next time I do a webinar, what you'll want to do is go over to Animal Lovelanguages.com and look for the little pink bar up at the top and click on that and join my weekly love letters email list. And that is where I send out news when I've got new freebies, new offerings, new podcast episodes, new workshops, etc. So get on that list and I can notify you the next time I am offering one of those free workshops. But continuing forward, the other disclaimer that I always use when I am about to launch into an interspecies conversation with a pet and their person is I say this is not meant as a replacement or a substitute for veterinary or medical input, guidance, exams, diagnosis, animal communication is not a vet visit. And it's so important to recognize this. I know communicators who do not work with disclaimers, they do not believe in disclaimers. I know communicators that they protect themselves with maybe even too many disclaimers. For me, it's pretty simple. I explain that I'm essentially serving as a translator, what we've just talked about. And then I explain that I am the first person to say, run, don't walk to your veterinarian, fellow pet parent here. If you have any questions of a medical nature, now I do seem to have a medical intuitive bent. So I went and got medical intuition training. And that is an adjunct service that comes in handy sometimes when an animal I'm talking with wants to share how they're feeling in their body or something that maybe is going on in their body, or even what caused them to feel like they needed to leave their body and transition to the soul or the light space. And so I can do something that really harkens back to Dr. Stephen Porges and Polly Vagel theory. And if you're not familiar, that theory basically summing it up says that social animal species, such as Homo sapiens and many of the pet species we accompany with today, have evolved over millennia to have very similar nervous system structure and to be able to sync nervous systems to share vital information to specific kinds of messages, messages of danger and messages that we might consider either safety or opportunity. And so we have this ability to sync our nervous systems. So as a communicator, I have learned how to fine-tune my awareness as I invite the animal I'm speaking with to sync their nervous system with mine so that they can more easily transmit information that they might want their human to know about their body, about what's going on in their body, about how they feel living in their body, and sometimes why they felt like their body was no longer a safe home and they had to leave it. Because of the nature of translation, sometimes when I'm trying to translate those sensory nonverbal messages into words, what comes out might sound kind of veterinary or medical. And I might end up talking about pain or discomfort or other kinds of physical or even emotional sensations that might make it sound like I am diagnosing, might make it sound like I have a medical degree or a veterinary background, which I do not. I faint at the sight of all blood, including my own. So that is why I use that disclaimer. And so anybody who comes to me and wants that particular aspect of animal communication, and often I can tell by the nature of the questions that are being asked. What caused my pet to leave so quickly? Or I feel like something's wrong with my pet, and yet the vet tells me everything is fine. And we cover that again in developing your pet parent intuition. That's a pretty common request that I get where a pet parent, they're ding ding-ding, their spidey sense, their gut is just telling them something's off, but it's so subtle where there is no test for it yet that traditional vets just can't find it. And so that's when that tool can come in handy, but we still want to follow up and take a look under the hood and see if perhaps there is some way to detect the accuracy of what the pet is sharing with me. So it all boils down to what is the impact of the information that comes through? Is it usable? Is it useful? Does it contribute to peace of mind, to better quality of life, to continued learning and growth, to perhaps pursuing new avenues of care when what we've already tried hasn't worked? And there are all kinds of other disciplines that I can wrap in: applied kinesiology, muscle testing, Reikian, energy work, chakra balancing. And those modalities are a different type of session. So I'm very clear. We're gonna have a conversation, and then we might choose to schedule something as a follow-up, like an energy session, and just making sure that I'm very clear with each pet parent I work with and with you. If you decide you want to have a session with me, I'm very clear about which hat I'm wearing. Am I wearing my interspecies translator hat? Am I wearing my Reiki Master hat? Am I wearing my energy worker or my chakra balancing hat? Am I wearing my here? Let me dip into my Rolodex and refer you to a specialist in XYZ area hat. And that's part of the service that I provide as well. So just understanding when you're registering for a pet parent session, what are you registering for? What is it designed to be used for? And what might be pushing past the boundaries of what animal communication as a language translation service is designed to do and is best suited for. So at this point, you might wonder, well, when I do register for a session, what happens? What do you do? What's gonna happen? And again, I'm gonna preface this by saying, This is my way. If you schedule a session with me, this is most likely what is going to happen. Of course, my way continues to evolve. So at time of recording this episode, this is what is likely to happen when you schedule your session with me as a communicator. The first thing that I do is I will spend about 15 to 20 minutes with your pet, just tuning in with their energy and allowing them to get to know my energy. And this happens before I start the formal communication, whether you have chosen my remote sessions where I send you an audio file of my real-time two-way conversation with your pet, or we're jumping on the phone or Zoom to connect in real time. And I call this initial period the say anything period. So as I'm just connecting in with your pet's energy and introducing myself and letting them attune to my energy and decide if they want to talk with me. And if yes, is now a good time. It's always good to check in advance before I'm jumping on the phone or Zoom with a pet parent and explaining why I'm reaching out. If you think of it like an intuitive phone call, why are you calling me? So I'm explaining. And typically my explanation is along the lines of well, your human, your mom, your dad, your carer, your guardian. They have asked me to reach out to you because they want to have a conversation. And they have some questions about XYZ. Are you willing to talk about that? And definitely recruiting the pets permission and willingness. That 15 to 20 minute period can be and typically is the most information-rich time I spend with your pet, which is why I always keep a little notepad nearby and I jot down anything that comes through. And the reason I call this the say anything period is because if your pet has anything they want to talk about, to share with you, to get off their chest, whatever it is, messages of wisdom, anything, want to capture that first. Of course, as humans, we always have our agenda. I remember spending hours, sometimes days, coming up with my short list of 20 questions that I had for each animal in my family that I hope to cover in 15 minutes with the communicator and revising them and reworking them and just really having absolutely no idea what was going on behind the scenes of my inquisitive mind and my worry and concern as a pet parent and wanting to just know everything about everything in my pet's life. And one thing I have learned as a communicator since then is that if my conversation partner has something that they want to talk about, they're probably not going to be all that interested in or invested in talking about what you want to talk about until they've had a chance to talk about what they want to talk about. And considering that our pets are giving up almost total autonomy, authority, and control over their own lives to live in our worlds by our rules, governed by our language, that they're constantly struggling to understand and decipher for themselves. If somebody walks up to your pet and gives them a free opportunity, free forum to share, heck yeah, they want to take it. And I find that once I've given your pet this time to share freely, rest of the conversation and addressing your questions comes pretty naturally. And what's so cool about this, and this gets into quantum entanglement and goes way beyond the constraints of what we're talking about in today's episode. And I talk about all of this inside my student program, but what's really cool is often I find that just by giving your pet this open-ended time period to share freely, often your questions are answered quite naturally before I ever have to ask them. It is the coolest darn thing ever. And it happens again and again and again. And it happens even in our group practices with students. So often when we bring a pet parent and their animal in and we just get to know the animal, just total free form, let the animal share whatever they want to talk about. They already know what you want to ask and quite naturally will answer it as a part of this open period of sharing. So that is something I have incorporated into every single session that I do. And it just works. And my philosophy is if I try something new and it works, I keep it until proven otherwise. So I'm spending, if you sign up for a half hour session with me, you're getting an hour essentially. If you sign up for an hour session with me, you're getting an hour and a half because I do my own preparations for the first 10 minutes or so. And then I spend about 20 minutes, 15 or 20 minutes with your pet in this open-ended communication, pre-form communication period. And then I connect in with you, whether that's pressing record on my audio app or it's jumping on the phone or Zoom with you for the formal conversation. And I can share this as well as a pet parent who was once upon a time brand new to hiring communicators and to having sessions as a pet parent, eager and worried and nervous and expectant about what my pets had to say and share with me. I did not see anything beyond the questions that I had for them. So I had no idea that part of a pet communication session was getting to know that animal, finding out who they are in the world, what they're like, how they like to be with others, whether it's other animals or other people, how they react and respond to different events in life, how they're feeling in their body, even why they chose that species body. That's one of the topics inside the world of animal communication that I am perpetually the most fascinated about. Why did you choose to be a dog or a horse or a skunk or a cockatiel? And how does that serve? So there's this period of just getting to know the animal, which gives so much context that might otherwise be lost or would be a perpetual struggle to understand the flavor of the animal's side of the conversation because I don't have any idea who they are in the world. What is their temperament and personality like? And there are so many tools that I've learned and that I teach my own students for how to do this. When I've had pet parents who are new to registering for an animal communication session, and they say, Well, why can I only ask three questions in a half hour session? And my response is, well, you can ask more, but then we'd have to skip these other parts. And that, in my experience, tends to produce less rich conversation because we lack context. So why can I only ask six questions in an hour-long session? Same reason. And so many other reasons. So we want to get to know the animal if they're in their body or there's any question about why they left their body. We want to do a body syncing, which I talked about earlier. And questions themselves often require unpacking before they're asked. Now, what do I mean by that? Here's a very common example. And you might have even worked with an animal communicator yourself, or even worked with me on this very question for your pet. Why are you so nervous? So, on the surface, that seems like a pretty normal question. Unfortunately, the nuance that's missed that animal communication requires that we address is what are you calling nervous? I need to know what you, as the pet parent, are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, sensing, or knowing that you are labeling as nervous. Now, why is this so important? Because yes, we might find out after I gather that information, what we call context for the question from you. We might find out that yes, in fact, your pet is actually very nervous. Or we might find out that what you're calling nervousness is really high sensitivity or past trauma rearing its head, or it's just a naturally high prey drive, or it's got some other reason that we would never have dreamed of, like another animal in the family is bullying them, or that they can see a wild animal outside the window that's driving them nuts, or fill in the blanks. The reasons are as numerous as the animals in this world, but we're only going to get to them if I am able to ask a question that captures what you're actually seeing that you're labeling as nervous. So let's say, just as an example, that you've come to me and you've said, My animal is very nervous. Can you please ask them, why are you so nervous? And I say, I trust you implicitly. If your Spidey Sense is telling me that they're nervous, we may very well discover that that is the case. But can you, just to make sure that I'm asking the most accurate question, especially since I'm translating your question into nonverbal language, pictures, sounds, sensations, emotions, can you describe what you're seeing? And you might say to me, Well, he paces and he does it at a specific time of day and he howls. And I look out the window and I don't see anything. Well, I am not going to ask your pet, why are you so nervous? I am going to ask him, why are you pacing and howling? I am going to ask, is there some connection with the window and something that you're seeing or sensing outside? So do you see how asking three questions? If it's just as simple as, why are you so nervous? Why don't you like your food? Would you like a pet friend? Then yeah, sure, it sounds like it's going to take five minutes. But we have to unpack the question so that I can send the full translation of your question to your pet to make sure they understand what you're really asking about. Because if all I said was, why are you so nervous? and just sent through the emotion of nervousness, we might get an answer, but your pet might not have any idea that what you really want to know about is the pacing and the howling. They could be in pain. You could be anxious. Sometimes I find what I call a feedback loop where your pet is mirroring, which is showing you how you're acting by acting it out like charades right in front of you. Sometimes your pet is modeling. You might be the soul of calm in a situation where it would serve you to get a little ramped up and take some action and make some changes. And they're modeling to you. So only by understanding what you are calling nervous or antisocial or shy or fill in the blanks and asking that question, am I able to be of service to you and having a really deep and open conversation about what's actually happening in your home between the two of you to help you openly and honestly talk through it and identify productive solutions that will serve you both. So that's why for me, when I do sessions, I do have a question limit based on the amount of time that you register for, because we can only do so much in a certain period of time. And again, not all communicators work the way that I do. Some just offer here's your session. If it's half an hour, if it's four hours, it's the same price. There are as many different flavors of how sessions are structured as there are communicators in the world. And so it's important to be aware of that. It's also important to ask if you have a question about, well, why is this constraint in place? Just trust, at least if you're hiring me, that it's because I have enough experience to have worked through what seems to work best and allow me to provide the deepest type of service and the most supportive environment for an open and honest conversation as possible. And again, everything I just described is relevant as of the time I'm recording this for you. Things are always subject to change as I continue to learn and grow. But that is basically what happens behind the scene. And that say anything, period. Often special messages for you will come through. Sometimes your pets will tell me things that they know about what you are going through just to let you know that they're with you and they're for you and they're encouraging you. Sometimes pets will share requests. Sometimes pets have questions of their own. For instance, I was talking with one reincarnated cat, and this cat had rejoined the family and then proceeded to go through a number of medical issues. And mom hired me to talk with her cat, her reincarnated cat, who she had spent months looking for and had joyfully reunited with, only to discover there were some medical issues that needed to be attended to. And this had sent mom into kind of a tailspin of anxiety and overwhelm, which is extremely normal. But when I talked with her cat, the first question that this cat asked me was, why is mom so anxious? Doesn't she want me? I thought she wanted me. So it turns out this cat just didn't understand what was driving mom's anxiety, that mom was just worried about finding the right type of veterinary care and identifying the best solution and financing it and all the rest that goes along with being a pet carer or pet parent. And so this cat had misunderstood it as she doesn't want me anymore. I make her anxious. So often I'll get questions from your pets and we can sort things out and clear the air so we can continue to deepen that bond. And then there's typically a period of time at the end where if we need to unpack any next steps, I spend my days and often my evenings doing this work, and I'm immersed in this world. I'm always taking classes and furthering my own knowledge. I've got plenty of coaches and mentors who help me to learn and grow. And a rolodex of trusted referrals that I dip into every week to support pet parents who come through a conversation with their animal where we've identified some issues and they say, Well, what do I do now? Okay, we know that we need some guidance on diet and nutrition, or we know that there is some physical discomfort in the body, or we know we have some needs for new social skills or whatever it may be, or calming protocols or managing genetic high sensitivity. Now what? And so we need to allow for a little bit of time to put a plan together. And so that's what happens behind the scenes from start to finish in one of my animal communication sessions. And it comprises the fundamentals of the structure I teach as well. Although it is taught as with everything I do, with the flavor of try it on for size. At worst case scenario, you can use it as a complimentary form of opposition to feel into, well, this doesn't quite fit for me, but I can now rule that out and move forward and try something different. Best case scenario, you'll find it will work really well for you too, and you can add it to your toolkit. Either way, it's time well spent. And so I'm always encouraging, yes, expose yourself to different perspectives, different ways of doing things. Try on different things for size, remain curious and open-minded. We don't ever want to fall into that. I've become the expert mentality where we start to shut ourselves down and cut ourselves off from learning anything new and from growing and recognizing that every conversation that we have as communicators with animals, we are in the presence of the master teacher. And they can teach us right in that moment if we simply remain open to learning, to bring that humility to the conversation and that empty cup ready to be filled up with insight and guidance and wisdom and encouragement. So you might be wondering at this point, outside of sitting with your short list of 20 questions, like I used to do, how can you prepare for an animal communication session of your own with your pet, embodied here or in spirit? And my best guidance to you outside of trying to cut your list of 20 questions down to between three and six, depending on how much time you want to schedule for and what the nature or the flavor of your questions actually is, is to arrive in that calm, well-hydrated, oxygenated, quiet listening state. As we talked about earlier, your pet, in most cases, will only open up to me as the translator in the mix to the degree in which you are open to the experience itself and the process itself. And so one of the preparation tips I like to offer is to be aware of any sensitivity that you might have. For instance, I for a long time didn't want to hire animal communicators. And when I finally got brave enough to hire animal communicators, I would be so nervous the night before I could barely sleep because I was so afraid that they were going to tell the communicator that they hated me. They didn't like anything about their food, their environment, their daily life with me. They wanted to go to somebody else. And that pointed to fear and uh vulnerability within me. I was worried they didn't love me the way that I loved them. And I was shy to admit that to another human, in this case, the communicator who I was trusting to help me have a conversation with my beloved pet. So that's an example of an area where you might feel like you feel a little guarded, you feel a little sensitive, and just know that animal communication as a translation service, done well, at least from my perspective, provides a very safe container of confidential space to explore things like this. If you are afraid of what your animal is going to say, and they're done that, and I am prepared to hold space for you and your animal to walk through that together. Something else I have learned over the years, talking with hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of animals in all ages, species, life stages in spirit as well as in body, is that even the toughest messages, they have a knack. Our animals have a knack for delivering them wrapped in a package of unconditional love that makes us able to receive even constructive guidance in a way that we might not be able to receive it from our fellow human animals, for what comfort, if any, that may be worth. But the number one most important guidance that I might be able to offer you to prepare is simply to take those deep breaths and do what I call parasympathetic breathing, which is extending your exhale past the length of your inhale. So I like to start my sessions when I jump on the phone with you. We always start with a round of parasympathetic breathing and setting a big picture intention. And that is just how I start my sessions with everyone. And so what I guide you to do is to exhale all the air out of your lungs, take a deep, deep, deep, full-in breath that requires your body to move, pause at the top, take a deep exhale and try to extend that exhale longer than the time you spent inhaling. Pause at the bottom, do two more rounds of that, and then breathe naturally. And by extending your exhale past the length of your inhale, you are telling your nervous system that all is safe. So you are basically switching from sympathetic nervous system mode, fight, flight, freeze, tender, befriend, over to parasympathetic nervous system, which is rest, digest, reconnect. When you're in parasympathetic nervous system mode, your animal will end train to that vibration. They will sense that and they will be more willing to open up to me. And you will be more likely to receive the depth and the type of information that you're hoping will come through the communication service that I provide. So whatever you can do to arrive oxygenated and hydrated, we don't drink enough water, most of us. Most of us only use about 40% of our lung capacity, and most of us do not drink enough water. So if you can arrive rested, nourished, hydrated, and oxygenated and open and trusting, set an intention of your own. Set an intention for what you hope the session experience will provide for you. My big picture intention that I typically set with each pet parent client and pet that I work with is to get your questions answered, to provide a space where your pet can share anything with you through me to help you deepen your bond. And if needed, chart a course forward for happy, healthy interspecies family. And that is typically the intention that we set going into every single communication session. And you can take that as a template, customize it, and use your own words. You don't have to share it with me, although you're welcome to when we meet, but it will help you focus your attention. Intention stems from a decision, making a decision about the way that you. want things to go and the word decision essentially translates to mean to cut off all other options. So setting an intention to direct your attention in a specific direction is a very powerful practice that your pet can then train to and focus on. And I have found over time that it just tends to produce deeper conversations with more mutually satisfying outcomes. So that is what I have to share with you today. I truly hope from my heart that this has been useful for you. If you have questions for me about anything that I've talked about today, if you are unclear about any part of the process and would like a follow-up episode on that, you can pop a note in the comment section. You are welcome to reach out to me via animallovelanguages.com, my website, go find me over on Instagram at Love and Feathers and Shells. And I have a backup account at Animal Love Languages. It has been my honor and delight to share this podcast episode with you. This is my passion in life and my life's work. Obviously I can talk and talk and talk about it. But as with all episodes, the topics are always shaped by you what you're interested in, what you're curious about, what you want to hear more about, your needs, your questions. So don't be shy. Reach out to me, let me know what you'd like to hear about next. And I will get it on the docket and look forward to unpacking and exploring that with you in a future episode of Let's Talk to Animals. So I send you and your interspecies family here and in spirit all my love. Bye for now. I have so enjoyed sharing this episode with you. If you're new to the Let's Talk to Animals community and you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave us a review on your favorite streaming service or drop a comment wherever you'd like to listen. I love to hear from you and your feedback truly helps me shape future episodes based on your interests and needs. If you're not already in my weekly love letters community, head over to Animal Love Languages.com to opt in. Your welcome email will include$25 off your first pet session with me and you'll be the first to know when a new podcast episode drops. If you're interested in learning more about the work I do communicating with animals, offering pet Reiki and teaching animal communication, please visit me at Animal LoveLanguages.com. Click on Schedule for Pet Sessions and Programs for all the information about my new animal communication adventure to mastery student program and the live animal communication practice circle I run for student practitioners. And I look forward to welcoming you back here very soon for a fresh new episode of Let's Talk to Animals. Okay, all my love. Bye for now