The Hero's Journey, Pet Edition - How to Empower Your Pet to Step Into Their Best Life With You

When you love an animal with all your heart, you feel like you would move mountains to help them stay safe, heal and thrive. But what if this is the very mentality that is keeping your pet stuck in trauma, fear, unwellness, or just a past version of themselves? 

In this episode, we tackle the energetics of how we as pet parents relate to our pet's story of life. This is something that rarely (if ever!) gets talked about when it comes to helping anxious, traumatized, sensitive, reactive, timid or aggressive pets heal. If you are living with a rescued pet or any pet who has come to you with "stuff" they need to work through, this episode was created specifically with you in mind. 

As you listen, you will learn….

• A powerful reframe of Joseph Campbell’s traditional Hero’s Journey story that awakens a new perspective of our pet’s life challenges and opportunities.
• A perilous pitfall we pet parents fall right into that may unintentionally be keeping our pets stuck and unable to heal and grow.
• The soul level reason behind why you may be sharing life with a pet whose story seems strangely similar to your own.
• How mirroring and modeling can point you towards the soul level reasons why your pet entered your life at a point where they needed to heal from or recover from something.
• The difference it can make in your pet’s ability to recover, heal and thrive when you shift your own relationship with their story.
• How to jumpstart that process by identifying who your pet is beyond their circumstances, their past or their struggles in life.
• A single profound question to ask about your pet that might just radically transform their ability to heal from anything life has handed them.
• Nine key questions to ask your pet that will absolutely transform how you see them and how you experience your life together.
• The number one most empowering gift you can give to your pet and why it is so freeing to a pet recovering from life’s harsh challenges.
• The two most powerful ways to give your pet their voice back after trauma.

Additional episodes mentioned in this episode:

• Pet Charades: https://letstalktoanimals.buzzsprout.com/2105365/episodes/18752190-pet-charades-decoding-problem-pet...

Additional resources mentioned in this episode:

• Weekly Love Letter sign-up with $25 off coupon: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/loveletter
• Pet Anxiety Guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/petanxietyguide
• Highly Sensitive Pet Help Guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/HSPetoptin
• Pet Trauma Guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/pettraumaguide
• EFT Tapping Guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/eftpetsoptin

Transcript

Welcome To Interspecies Communication

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.

Personal Power For Pets

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Shannon here. Welcome back to Let's Talk to Animals, the podcast all species can enjoy together. And today I want to talk about a topic that has increasingly been coming up in the one-to-one sessions that I do with your pets. And this is the topic of personal power, specifically our pets' personal power, specifically a perspective where we empower our pets, no matter what they have come into our lives with in terms of their past experiences, in terms of perhaps past illnesses, past trauma, or even current unfolding issues like rehoming or relinquishment or grief or physical or emotional or mental or even relational health challenges. And they come into our lives whether they're very young, whether they're in their adult years, whether they're in their senior years, and they come with a whole life in progress. And they arrive in our life, in our world, in our hearts, and instantly, without even stopping to contemplate it, already our set point is I want you to have the perfect life with me. I want you to be so healthy. I want you to be so happy. I want to do everything right. We come into our life with our pets and we want to be the perfect pet parent for them. And so often what happens when we come in with this set point, which is well intentioned, it is well meant, it is unconditional, it is all about giving of self to uplift others, to give them everything, to make sure that they know how much we love them and care for them. And yet when we come in from this perspective, what often happens is we get a little grabby and we start taking responsibility for things that aren't ours. And we start taking on the responsibility for someone else's life, for their well-being, for their quality of life, for their soul's journey and for the challenges that they have chosen to tackle in their life. And we start taking ownership of those within ourselves, and they're not ours to claim. So that's what we're going to be talking about in

Energetics Over Quick Fixes

SPEAKER_00 3:47

this episode. Just a little setup for you. This can get a little bit deep. We are talking about energetics here. We're not just talking about the brass tacks of your physical day-to-day life, your pet, where they sleep, what they eat, how much water they drink, how much exercise they're getting, how many friends they have, how well socialized they are. We're going deeper and specifically looking at pet issues, pet problems, what I like to call pet opportunities, through the lens of the partner, empathic friend and teacher. This is what the animals have told me the word pet really means. And I talk about it a lot here because it is everything when we are exploring the true meaning, the deepest reason why we come together with the specific animals who are in our interspecies families. There's no accident that you're keeping company with certain animals, and there are other animals that you will never meet who are keeping company with other humans or who are out in the wild and want nothing to do with our species. So we're specifically looking at the role of your pet as your partner, empathic friend, teacher. And we're looking at everything that your pet goes through in your life together. We're also looking at it through the lens of what you are going through in your life with them. So often when I'm talking with your animals, this is what we see. We see this feedback loop of shared experiences, of strange synchronicities, of oh, my pet's struggling with this particular issue. Well, coincidentally, I just happen to be struggling with something very similar in my own life, separate and apart from my pet. Maybe this is something that you even carried into your relationship with your pet, something you were already working towards, resolving or easing or transforming before you ever met your pet body to body here in this 3D earth school. So we're looking at the energetics, looking at the energetics of the physical, the energetics of the mental, the energetics of the emotional, the energetics of the relational, the energetics at the soul level, your soul agreement together, why you're even in each other's lives in the first place. And so this is where I want to start us off today is this recognition that no matter how very logical and analytical and above-board everything may seem, and how easy it can be to default to, well, I'll just change their protein. I'll just get them a pet friend. I'll just schedule a day a week at doggy daycare for a little extra socialization. I'll just get them some bodywork, even. It goes deeper than that. And it points us back to the bond that we have with them, the bond they have with us, and our own relationship with ourselves and their own relationship with themselves within themselves. So this is the energetics of helping and supporting your pet to transition from this feeling of a victim. Life has happened to them. Life has happened in spite of them. Unfair things have happened, unacceptable things have happened, traumatic things have happened. And for those of you who are listening to this episode and you're caring for very young pets, pets who came to you as puppies or kittens or foals or chicks. And you're thinking, well, my pet couldn't possibly have an underlying trauma for why they are the way that they are, or the things that they're dealing with right now, or the struggles that they're facing.

Trauma Can Start Before Birth

SPEAKER_00 7:32

I just want to share a perspective that we can come into this world and calm bearing trauma. In fact, it's almost unavoidable because it's in our DNA. If mom or dad, dog or cat or horse or bird or turtle experience trauma, there's every likelihood that that influenced their genes through what we call epigenetics. So it's nature plus nurture. It is very likely that the energetics of those experiences have been passed down the line to their offspring, to the puppy or the kitten or the fool or the chick or the turtle or fish or whomever is in your pet family at the moment. It is also possible, and I'm living with this right now. Our Dachshund had birth trauma and weaning trauma. So often this is trauma that we know nothing about. They come into our lives already carrying it, and we see behavior, we see evidence of it, but we don't see the source because we weren't physically present for it. So this is where the work that I do as an animal communicator is key. This is the foundation of shifting our focus away from my pet is a victim of their circumstances, my pet is a victim of their life, my pet is a victim of their DNA, of their gene pool, my pet is a victim of the health issues that they're going through. My pet is a victim of what others did to them that was beyond their control. And I can understand that perspective. I have shared that perspective here and there along the lines, but it is not an empowering perspective and it is not a transformative perspective. And

Soul Agreements To Learn And Teach

SPEAKER_00 9:18

here again, we have to go back to the soul level. Your pet, just like you, came here to earth school willingly, having signed all of the disclosures, understanding that they have signed up for a trip here to earth school for a period of time with certain inherent risks and opportunities attached. And they have signed up to experience certain things, to learn certain lessons, and to be able to teach certain lessons. So, again and again, when I talk with your pets, the thing that gets emphasized is nobody, regardless of species, comes here to Earth School without two main goals. Number one, they have something they want to learn. So we have something we want to learn. And as you're listening to this, even though we're looking at this through the frame of your pet, consider what you came here to learn as well. What lessons might have motivated you to sign up for a round trip to planet Earth, to Earth school, to inhabit one of these physical bodies, to have experiences to learn and to grow. So we come here, regardless of species, we come into these bodies with something that we want to learn, something to better ourselves. It's not always about new soul versus old soul. It's about personal empowerment. It's about shedding the illusions that we're limited, that we're vulnerable and unsafe, that we're victims of life, that we're isolated and separate from one another and from ourselves. So that's where the motivation to learn lessons can come from. We look at our pets and we see this perfect being. We see this beautiful, unconditionally loving being, and we view them as avatars, as empaths, and that they are. However, they are also evolving souls with very important mission to uplift us, to make the world a better place, to support one another, both here and in the energetic or the soul or the spirit space, however, you like to think about that. And so learning lessons is beneficial. Their bread is buttered on that side. And so that's goal number one when we come here into these bodies to earth school to learn lessons, to grow in wisdom, to learn to love better and to tackle challenges, because that's how lessons come to us. They come in the form of the hero's journey of challenges, of opportunities. They also come here with something to teach. Often that teaching takes the form of relationships, which is another reason why we can meet five animals and only feel a very strong energetic resonance with one. Those of you who have worked with me with pet reincarnation, and you have gone through the process of having to identify your reincarnated soul pet out of a litter or a flock or a herd. You have had to search within your heart and soul for the energetic resonance that feels familiar to you, what I call the energetic signature of your love who's come back into a new body. This is what I'm talking about. So we have energetic resonances with the pets who are destined to share our lives together. And we recognize them. And this is why we might even go in, let's say you go to a shelter, you go to a rescue facility, and you're thinking you're going to meet one pet, but another pet completely captures your attention and then your heart. That's that energetic resonance. And so that's where when we form that bond, when we have that relationship with one another, that's where that activation comes into play, where our pets are able to teach us because we're open to learning from them, because we've given them our heart. When we give someone our heart, we open up, we become vulnerable in their presence and we become willing to learn and to

The Victim Lens Versus Hero

SPEAKER_00 13:02

grow. And this is where things get a little wonky with us as pet parents. We feel that responsibility so keenly. We understand our pet is living in our world. Your pet is living in your world by your rules, in your environment. They have willingly, this is the part that blows my mind every time. Our pets have willingly given up 99% of their personal power. They have given it up willingly to share our lives, what they eat, when they eat, how much they eat, where they sleep, how they sleep, what they sleep on, and what part of the house they sleep in, their friends, when they get to go out, when they have to stay inside, where they poop and pee. Nearly everything about their lives is dictated by our choices. And that can give us a false sense of personal power that isn't ours. Because your pet is still the captain of their own ship. They are still at the helm of their own life. They chose this life with you. They chose to come here into these 3D bodies that they inhabit with us, these cute, furry, feathery, shelled, scaly bodies that we love so much. They chose this right from the start. They have never given their personal power away. They have never signed up for a life as a victim. They have never signed up for a mentality of I am a victim. They have never signed up for a perspective of life is happening to me and there's nothing I can do about it. Every step of the way, your pets have made choices, empowered choices. Just pet parents, often we don't see this. And what happens is because of our unconditionally loving hearts towards them, because we want to give them the best, because we feel the responsibility and the weight of shaping their lives in a world that is alien to them, in a world where they don't get a lot of say over most everything about their daily life with us. We take it too personally when it seems like they're failing to thrive with us. And that's when we take off the glasses of we're two empowered souls who've chosen through soul agreement to share a life together. And we put on the glasses of you're a victim and it's my job to fix you. And that is where things can get really dicey because how we see the world shapes how we experience the world, shapes the experiences and the relationships we have in the world. If you've ever heard that phrase about when the way you see yourself changes, somehow people start treating you differently. That's not magic. That's empowerment, that's personal power. And so taking the perspective of yes, tough things may have happened to your pet. Maybe they came to you with a history of trauma or abuse or undiagnosed high sensitivity that can masquerade as anxiety or aggression or timidity or a host of other things, health challenges. Maybe they've come into your world and they are actively working through a health challenge at some level. They have chosen that. We have to give them their personal power back. We must give them agency back over their own lives and recognize you are a brave soul who's tackled a difficult challenge. That's a completely different lens to look at someone through than, oh, you poor thing, everyone hurts you. You've gone through such a hard time. I'm gonna make sure nothing bad ever happens to you again. You're safe with me. It's a completely different energy. And believe you me, our pets can feel that. They will respond accordingly. When I work with your animals in one-to-one conversations and as I'm guiding students, this is our number one shift that we must make if we want to actually see the transformation that we're hoping for in our companion animals. First and foremost, we have to see them as the hero of their own journey. Maybe that happened to you. Maybe you had trauma, maybe you had abuse, maybe you had relinquishment, maybe you had loss, maybe you had health challenges, maybe you have all of that going on right now, but that does not define you. That is not who you are. And I want to pause here and tell you a little very personal story.

A Therapist Who Saw My Soul

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Back in the day, when I was just a child, I developed an eating disorder. And I was 11 when I started getting sick. I'm 55 and a half now. So that gives you a timeline perspective. And I got sick and then I got sicker, and then I got sicker, and then I got sicker and then I got sicker. And in college, I got very, very sick, so sick that I had to drop out. And something wonderful happened when that occurred. I found a physical therapist who was trying to help me with some of my issues related to the severe eating disorder that I had. My mom helped me find this physical therapist and she turned into my actual therapist. Because one day I arrived for my physical therapy as usual, and she said, Today we will not work. Today we will talk because I can see you in there. If you don't talk to somebody, if you don't open up to somebody and tell somebody what's really going on in there, you're going to explode. And when I told her, this was such a revelation to me. I had actually never had anybody sit me down and say, I see that you're really struggling and I want to hear about it with the energy of I'm here to support you, not to judge you, not to fix you, not to blame or shame you, not to rehab you, but to listen to you and to hold space for you and be with you in this. And even though it was very scary for me, that gave me the courage to open up and share what was really going on and what my life was really like and what my life really felt like. And when I shared with her that I was struggling with anorexia and bulimia, what she said to me next changed my whole life, changed the entire trajectory of my life, informs everything about how I work with your animals today. She said, I don't know a lot about eating disorders. I've never experienced that exact flavor of challenge in my life. But I do know what it's like to go through hard things. And I have experienced severe challenges in my own life, different looking on the outside, but feeling very much similar to what you described on the inside. And she said, What I want you to know is that I can see you in there. I can see that you beyond your struggle, and I can see the difference between who you are and what you're struggling with. And I know that I can help you with this because I see your soul. And I know that you have everything that it takes to deal with this challenge, to learn from this challenge, to work through this challenge and to overcome and transcend this challenge. And she said, I see you in there and I am on board. If you want the support and the relationship, the connection to support you through this, I know you can do this, and I am willing and I am going to support you through this. And that's exactly what she did. She started to support me, even though neither one of us really knew going in how an individual recovers from an eating disorder. Her belief, her vision, her intention for me, based on her own experiences of surviving different but the same deep challenges in life, shifted how I viewed myself, shifted how I viewed what's possible in my own life, shifted my awareness of how I was using my energy. Up until that point, I had been using all of my focus and energy to stay stuck, to get very good at being stuck, to get very good at being a victim of my own life in my own life. Through the vision that she shared with me, from sharing her own story, creating a trusted connection with me, and sharing her vision for who I truly am and my soul, a vision I had never heard from another living soul, and certainly not from myself. She empowered me to take all of that energy I was using to stay stuck, to see myself as a victim, to play the victim to the hilt and repurpose that energy towards healing, towards fighting and learning from the challenge I was facing and using it as the life tool that it was to get me through it into a way of life where I could be healthy. I could be the hero in my own life. And when I talk with your animals, this is a part of the conversations I have when they come into our conversations, bearing the gift of trauma or of health challenges, or of other aspects in life that maybe have left them feeling victimized, left them feeling like they are at effect. Their own life that they don't have any say, that they are not valued, that they are in danger, that no one can be trusted. And it is a simple shift. It's not an easy shift because we have to become aware of it before we can help somebody accomplish it. So I share this story, not to go down a rabbit hole of my personal experiences, but to encourage you to try this very same story that I just shared with you on for size for your pet. Where has your pet perhaps been viewed as a victim of their circumstances, of their DNA, of their past, of their health, of their limitations? Very real though those may be, they do not define who your pet is in their soul. So this is that energy we're talking about. This is subtler work, it's deeper work, it's less clear-cut. But this is where we need to start to build a firm foundation for your pet so that everything else that you are doing to support them through whatever challenge life has handed to them, a challenge they have willingly accepted, have signed up for in advance, in fact. And as a part of that, have signed up in advance to share with you. And we haven't gotten to that yet, but we shift their focus and energy into a remembrance of who they really are. Oh, that's right. I'm stronger than my struggles. Oh, that's right. And here's a big one. I got myself here. So often we get stuck in trauma response mode with our pets, especially for those of you who are rescuing animals. You're rescuing animals who might come from hoarding, who might come from abuse, who might come from just being unwanted, just being neglected, just being abandoned, who might come from, as our Dachshund did, being rejected by the breeder because he didn't have the right confirmation and the right appearance. So that cuts deep, especially when we're young, when we're little, when we're so vulnerable, that cuts deep to feel like I'm the one that's not wanted. So when they come into our world and they come bearing these gifts, we can get stuck in that with them. We can get stuck in their history, we can get stuck in their story to date. And we can go into trauma response mode with them, just wanting to put buffers around them, wanting to protect them from everything, wanting to reassure them they're safe now. And that is a triage approach. It's very effective and very understandable and very necessary in those first early days when there's an acute situation that we're working through. But then we move into what I call the chronic phase. And that's where we can get stuck with our pets in this view of them, who their story suggests them to be. We humans, we're social beings. We love a good story. We can get really stuck in there. We can really tell our pets story again and again and again. This is what happened to them, this is how it affected them. This is what they can never, ever, ever do again because of it. And that's not necessarily the case. So it's about stepping forward into that space where you become the believing eyes.

Become Your Pet’s Believing Eyes

SPEAKER_00 25:30

This is what I teach my animal communication students. We have to create our own community of believing eyes, individuals in our life who see beyond our struggles to who they are in our soul, in our heart at that deepest level. So this is your opportunity to become your pet's believing eyes, to say, I see you in there. I see who you are, I see the difference between who you are and what you're struggling with, and I see your personal power to overcome it, starting with whatever happened to you in the past. Number one, you survived it. You wouldn't be here now if you didn't. And number two, you got yourself to me. See, we tend as pet parents to undervalue ourselves. We tend to look at ourselves and we carry a lot of shame and we carry a lot of self-blame and a lot of self-doubt too. And so often it's because we also resonate with being viewed as victims of our own lives, even viewing ourselves as victims of our own lives. The way in which we see ourselves is oh, you can't ever do this. You're too sensitive for that. You were hurt over there before. People aren't safe. People will hurt you. Life is happening to you. I have gone through it too. Please know when I share these episodes, I am not sharing it from the perspective of the teacher behind the podium. I am sharing it down there in the trenches with you. So I too have gone through this and I'm still working through this in many areas of my life. So we have to acknowledge that there's a part of ourselves that resonates with that victimhood view of the world. And it's all too easy to put those glasses on and to see our pets and to see ourselves through that. And then to even create this insular little world. There are pet parents that I've worked with who they just don't go out with their animals. They stay inside where they're both safe. And that's a very understandable perspective when we both come into our bond together with prior experience that the world isn't a safe place, that others aren't safe to be around. But this is the dynamic that needs to shift if we're going to actually embrace the lessons that we're here in earth school to learn and the opportunity to teach others, because that's number two. I share that animals, they share that we have two main goals to come into this earth school experience with. One is to learn something and the other is to teach. So we're all students, we're all teachers. And the way in which we learn and then teach is through experiences and through relationships. And this is the primary teaching tool to shift how we view ourselves and one another. So when you start to look at your pet and you realize before we ever even met, you somehow did something to get yourself out of whatever experience you were having that was not working, that was not safe, that was not healthy, that was not beneficial, that was not loving. And somehow you got yourself out of that into me. If that isn't a hero's journey, I don't know what is. So recognizing your pet, somehow you found me. You found this beautiful life that we now have together, you found safety, you found health, you found security, you found nourishment, you found relationship, you found connection, you found love. Even when all the odds seemed to be stacked against you, even when it probably felt hopeless. We can extrapolate that from our own experiences. Even when there were moments when you probably were afraid for your life or you doubted that life would ever look up for you, you didn't give up on yourself and you somehow got yourself here. This is the point where you give personal power, personal agency back to your pet and you say, You did that. If you can do that, if you can get yourself out of whatever happened to you and find yourself in a better feeling, supportive place, you got yourself here with me. You can absolutely overcome this other challenge that we're working through together. You can do anything in your own life. And if I'm being fully, transparently, vulnerably honest, the same message holds true for you and me. You may want to try this perspective on for size here again in your own life and recognize, yeah, life has happened to you too. Maybe you've had some really tough experiences. Maybe they have left you feeling fragile or vulnerable or untrusting of other humans. This is one I hear often in the pet parents that I work with in my animal communication students is I only want to spend my time around animals. I don't want to spend time with other humans. I don't trust other humans. I've never really felt close to other humans. I only feel safe and comfortable with animals. So we come into this experience with our pets where we're helping them through something, and sometimes we fail to recognize, oh, I can really relate to my pet's story. So ask yourself, can you really relate to your pet's story? Can you really relate to a perspective where you too want a cocoon? You want to stay safe, you want to retreat from, you want to pull back from, you are still in survival mode where you're always kind of scanning your perimeter looking for potential threats, potential unsafe situations or dangerous characters. So this is what I call that feedback loop where we are literally trading that stressed survival, sympathetic nervous system energy back and

The Shared Energy Feedback Loop

SPEAKER_00 30:52

forth. And the more you see yourself as a victim, the more that colors how you see everyone else in your world. So often we have to go down to that deepest level, which is where we see this partner, empathic, friend, and teacher aspect of our life with our pets. And we have to recognize in order for you, my beloved animal, to achieve the deepest healing, it would be beneficial for me to also work towards the same. And this is where we start seeing our soul agreements really activating. We have to start acknowledging that we are always teaching our pets through our example. They are always teaching us through their example. We are always learning and growing together. And how you tackle your life, how you view yourself will absolutely energetically inform your pets' vision for their own life, how they see and view themselves, and how brave they are to move through the challenges in their life. So the resonance that we share, this is the morphic field, as Dr. Rupert Sheldrick calls it, that we share. If you've ever come through my intuitive development for pet parents workshops, or if you've ever actually just even got into a room and you've stood next to somebody who is in a very anxious or very grumpy state, you already know how much. Even a random stranger that we only hang out with for five or 10 minutes, it can change our energy. It can change our state. If you ever stood in line for coffee and when you got to the front, even though the barista was busy, they were so cheerful that they brought you out of this anxious, impatient state into gratitude and appreciation and enjoyment of this delicious coffee or tea they just gave you. That is the power of us shifting our energetic set point so that our pets have more agency, more ease to shift their energetic set point. So we're shifting from a perspective of life is happening to me to life is happening for me and for you. This is where we're learning the lessons together, we're healing together, we're uncovering and releasing layers of trauma together, whether genetic or epigenetic and nature or nurture. And we're also teaching one another. We're shifting the energetic state of our community because when how we show up in our own lives, for our own lives, for ourselves, and for one another changes, the ripple effect cannot help but be felt and experienced. Just like if you're standing next to that grumpy person versus next to that cheerful person, the impact is palpable and fairly immediate. So

Three Steps To Give Agency Back

SPEAKER_00 33:19

I want to walk you through a three-step process that you can use to start shifting your dynamic with your pet to help them start shifting out of a state where maybe you both have been viewing them as a victim of their past, of their circumstances, of their health, of whatever life limitations they may be bearing out of a sense of life happened to you. This is unfair. Why did this happen to you? People suck, whatever you've been saying, into a state of your pet chose this. They went and took a look at all the available trips to Earth School and the humans that they could keep company with. And they chose this trajectory, they chose this life experience and they chose you. And ask yourself, in fact, just go and sit with your pet. Just find a moment and just sit with your pet and just be in their energy and be with them and ask the question within yourself: who are you really? Who are you? And identify qualities in your animal, not from the perspective of what happened to them, but how they have moved through what happened to them to get to you. Shifting your perspective from my pet is a victim, life happened to them, it was so unfair. Why did this happen to this beautiful animal, etc.? Those are just some prompts, whatever set point where you've found yourself viewing your pet as somebody who is vulnerable, helpless, defenseless, underserved in some way. View them as the hero on their own journey and shift how you view them and then assign qualities to that. Brave, honest, visionary, strong, supported. This is a subtle one, but your pet chose to get out of that circumstance or is choosing to move through and fight through a health challenge or a situation where they were attacked or they were relinquished or they have been diagnosed with something. And they're so strong and brave that they've attracted support in so many different ways, whether it's through the veterinarian, whether it's through the behaviorist, whether it's through the energy healer, whether it's through the animal communicator, whether it's through you, they've attracted your support and your partnership in their life. So if you're someone who enjoys journaling or keeping voice apps, this is a good time to do it and write down these qualities. Who is your pet really? Yes, they are your partner, empathic friend, and teacher, but who are they in their soul? Who is this brave being you are sharing your life with? Who has total agency over their life, who has total personal power just like you do? Who is doing this thing called life, this messy, imperfect, challenging, sometimes scary, and even outright dangerous thing that we call life. Also, this wonderful, connecting, inspiring, empowering thing that we call life. Who are they really? So you know the struggle, or at least you know aspects of the struggle. And if you're still not clear about the aspects of the struggle, this is also where we wrap in animal communication. Animal communication is the number one most empowering act that you can do in your pet's life. The number one most empowering gift that you can give your animal in your life, recognizing your animal has their reasons, your animal has their history, your animal has their story, your animal has their explanation, your animal has their needs, and your animal has the ability to share those, given the right opportunity. For different populations, we have to use different tools. If you're a fan of the telepathy tapes podcast, like I am, you know that for many nonverbal autistic individuals, there are a couple of key tools. One is telepathy with a primary care provider or a parent or a sibling. Another is a letterboard where they can spell out what they can't verbally speak. So for your pets, there's the language of energetics. There's what we call pet charades, which is a previous episode that I did that I'll link up for you here in the show notes as well. And there's animal communication, which is where through me, as your interspecies translator, I've learned the nonverbal, sensory, and intuitive universal language that all species can share to speak with one another together. And I can serve as your translator so that your pet can speak directly to you. So you can think of me like either your friendly neighborhood telepath or your friendly neighborhood letterboard. And your pet can speak through me and share what happened and what they need in order to move through it with you. So this is the number one act after acknowledging who they are. The act is to give them their voice back. And you can do that in a number of ways. The two that I highlighted that are the most profound at the energetic level and have the deepest ripple effect for you both are animal communication and energy work. And if this is a conversation you prefer to have directly rather than using a translator such as myself, I teach you how to speak this language yourself. So you can come and you can learn and you can become fluent in animal communication and you can have these conversations with your pet directly. And the ripple effect, again, is profound. Before we close out today's episode, I want to just recap. I'm going to recap what we covered today. I want to recap this process for helping your pet reclaim their personal power, even as they live in your human-centric world by necessity, by choice, and by design, because it's a supportive experience for both of you. So we have to deal ourselves back into our pet's hero's journey, to our pet's story. They chose to share their life with us. Your pet has chosen to include you in their story and in their life. And you can bank on the fact that there is mutual benefit for you both in that choice that they've made as your bonded partner, empathic friend, and teacher in this phase of your life together. So where we started today is recognizing your pet is not a victim of their life, of their circumstances, of their physical body and the DNA that it carries, of the epigenetics of their parents, the breeder, the rescue center, their prior home, whatever story they've come into your life that is already in progress. They are not a victim of that. They are the agent of it. So giving them all of their personal power back, seeing the struggle or the challenge, what I like to call the opportunity, and the lesson, and then seeing who they are at the soul level. Two different lenses in your glasses. Number two, recognizing the qualities in your pet at that soul level. So using the example that I shared with my own mentor, who must they be in order to have moved through whatever struggle that they have gone through or are still going through and have gotten themselves to you? What kind of being do you need to be to make that kind of shift in your circumstances? Who must you be to show up in your own life at that level? It may seem like their life and getting to you happened to them the same way that their life before you happened to them, but that is not the case. They are at the helm of their own life. So what qualities can you see in them? What aspects of them have you not met yet that they want to share with you? And just taking a moment to sit quietly and just ask that question: who are you really? Who are you in your soul and be inspired by that? Number three, you want to have a conversation. You want to give them their voice back, whether you want to do that through energy as a Reiki master and an energy worker. Often we have these conversations more subtly through energy and through chakra rebalancing and through Reiki sessions and 21-day attunements and emotional freedom technique, tapping to release stuck energy and somatic release work and breath work. We can use these subtle energy tools to have those conversations and then through animal communication to have that direct conversation where you have a bridge between your animal's nonverbal, intuitive, and sensory language and your own default to verbal language. And you're able to hear from your pet directly. Why did they choose this life? Why did they choose this set of experiences? What qualities did they draw on the most to get through what happened in their previous life and to get to you? What is your soul agreement together? What lessons are they in your life to learn together? What are they in your life to teach you? What is the unique flavor of their role in your life as partner, empathic friend, and teacher? Who are they at the soul level and hearing from them directly? Also learning what they need. Because so often we come in with our toolkit, our handy tool belt, and all of our tools. And we're like, okay, I can give you this, I can give you that. What if there's something that they need that is right underneath your nose that it's hiding right out in plain sight? And here's the most perfect example of this that whatever it is that you're trying so hard to help them transcend isn't really about them at all, but it's about their relationship with you and it's about your relationship with you. So what we talked about, where so often we see what we call mirroring or modeling. And mirroring is an aspect of pet charades where your pet is acting out right in front of you how you're being and don't realize it. And this is why they're doing it because they're trying to get you to guess the charade and attach it to yourself and go, oh, oh, oh, okay, then there's also modeling where your animal is literally acting out right in front of you a better way, a better feeling way, a way that will work better to move through your life. And again, is hoping you're gonna get the message. Oh, I could try that instead of this. Hmm, okay. And trying it on for size. And there are other aspects as well.

Mirroring, Modeling, And Relationship Patterns

SPEAKER_00 43:53

I just worked with an example of a dog who was really aggressive. I was having a pet session a few days ago. Come to find out there's a lot of aggressive. Aggression between the couple, between the human couple. And while that wasn't the sole driver for this dog's aggression, it was an aspect. And the recognition of that alone, just having the awareness alone is powerful enough to start shifting the dynamic because the motivation to change is so pure. We want our pets to get better. In this case, mom wanted her rescued dog with the trauma and abuse history to be able to feel safe enough to welcome visitors to the home. So that is a huge, powerful, unconditionally loving motivator to take a look at tackling some other not so smooth areas of life where maybe it would have been otherwise tempting to kind of sweep it under the rug or just keep ignoring it or just keep tolerating it or just keep putting up with it. Now it's out in the open and we realize, oh my goodness, it's affecting my beautiful animal. And that's affecting me as well as the disharmony in my relationship is affecting me. So now I have even more of a motivation to step into that hero role in my own hero's journey and my own life journey and take proactive action and shift what isn't working or isn't working well enough. So that's what we've talked about today. This is the underlying energetics beyond anything else, any other more practical, immediate helps that you might put in place, anything from calming supplements to body work to a change in diet to Western veterinary medications or remedies to holistic helps, to new hobbies, to new friends, to new experiences, all of the other things that we want to add into our pets' life to try to address where they have imbalances or where they've come into our life with imbalances that they need our help with. Sure, they need our help, absolutely. But beyond those more surface level help, which they really address different aspects of what is needed to fully and completely shift the energy out of victim life is happening to me into empowered life is happening for me. This deepest level is what's often missing, which is you, your ability to be your pet's believing eyes, to see them so clearly and completely as separate and apart from the struggle, the opportunity that they're going through, so that you can hold the vision for them of what they're working towards in their own life by their own choice and by their own design. I see you in there. If you remember nothing else from this episode, I see you in there. I see who you truly are, I see you who you are in your heart and soul. You are pure and perfect, you are powerful, you are empowered, you have gotten yourself here, you have found me. Together, we can do anything. Together, we can transform our life, our lives as individuals, and our life together. So I hope that this episode today has been a source of encouragement, inspiration, empowerment, and support to you and to the beautiful animals that you love so much and share your life

Recap, Resources, And Next Steps

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with. If I can support you through animal communication, whether you want to have a session with me, I'll serve as your translator to give your pet back their voice so they can speak to you in their own language about what they truly want and need, what they're here to learn, what they're here to teach in your soul agreement together. If you want to learn the universal language of animal communication and have those conversations directly, I can teach you how to do that. I will also link up the other episodes that I mentioned and the resources that we talked through in this episode for your additional support. Please do let me know how this episode landed for you, what aha moments that you had, what insights that you had, what other questions that you have. I value your input and always endeavor to shape these episodes to meet your needs and to satisfy your curiosity about the energetics of the bonds that you share with the pets that you so love. If this episode has been supportive for you today, please take a moment and leave a review. Share it with a friend. Maybe you have a pet parent friend who's going through something that they're animal right now. And this is just the kind of information that maybe has been missing in their awareness in shaping their pet's journey to health, to healing. And please do pop a comment and let me know what your big takeaway is. I love to hear from you. It's so encouraging to me as I continue to make these episodes. And just know that I endeavor to drop these episodes every two weeks. So I will be back with you in two weeks. If you would like to join my free weekly newsletter, the weekly love letter, you will be the first to be notified of new, fresh episodes. And I will send you a $25 off coupon that you can use on your first session with your pet. So just know that for now, I'm here to support and encourage you in any way that I can. I am your believing eyes that you and your pet can transcend any challenge, any struggle that you're facing together and transform it into an opportunity for you both to activate your soul agreement to learn and grow together. And I'm sending you all my love. Bye for now.

Reviews, Newsletter, Farewell

SPEAKER_00 49:36

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 Love Languages.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.