The first few years I practiced my animal communication skills, I expected that I was essentially an animal whisperer and all animals would sense it. They would feel safe in my presence. They would want to be around me as someone who understands them. They would always allow me to pet them or if they were wild – they wouldn’t run away.
I wanted to be immediately perfect at it (as is true for all things in my life). If this was truly a gift I had, then I expected that’s the way it would happen. Spoiler alert – it didn’t happen that way. As a matter of fact, the exact opposite happened. Dogs growled at me, horses turned away from me, wild animals wouldn’t reveal themselves or if they did, they ran fast as soon as they sensed me nearby. I felt embarrassed and ashamed, especially if someone else was around to witness it. I mean, what kind of an animal communicator was I if no animal wanted to be around me? I was devastated, certain that I was on the wrong path. Certain that I was wrong about my gift. I was ready to give up.
But, there was still so much I couldn’t explain. The way my dog Tater Tot had become my teacher, the way I understood nature patterns and lessons when no one else seemed to, the way my heart lit up when I took my Healing Touch for Animals classes and listened to other people’s very similar stories of connecting deeply with animals on a level that was more than with our five senses. Instead of giving up, I got curious (an animal trait by the way).
I began noticing how I was feeling and what I was thinking when I was around animals I didn’t know. I recognized that I got anxious and the thought that popped into mind first was, “I need you to connect with me. I have to prove to others I have this ability.” I was subconsciously placing demands on all of the animals I met. Of course they didn’t want to connect with me – I wouldn’t want to connect with someone who demanded me to behave a certain way when I met them either!
Once I had that awareness, I could practice letting go of expectations. I allowed the animals to approach me or not. To connect with me or not. It wasn’t easy. I still felt like a fool as I showed up to client’s houses for a session and their animal that I was there to see growled at me instead. I had to practice not getting caught up in the story of how I may be perceived in that moment and remember that it wasn’t about me. As a very proud Leo, this is not always easy for me to accept.
What I came to discover is that those animals were communicating with me all along. They were showing me that I was not connected with myself and my Truth. They were showing me that I had split energy because I was believing the stories I was telling myself rather than believing my Truth. Once I began setting aside the stories and expectations of how things should be and started paying attention to the animals again, I let them guide me back to my Truth. The Truth was that I was born an animal communicator – we all are. My energy split as a child when other people told me that I was making it up and accused me of having a very active imagination.
When I tapped back into my innate ability of animal communication, the stories of what I was told as a child remained. I heard those stories often enough that they had become a belief that I stopped questioning – after all a belief is simply a thought you think over and over again. The animals that were turning away from me were reflecting the stories I was told as a child and it was their way of shining a light on this belief that no longer served me. They were saying to me – “That is not who you are. You know who you are.” They didn’t understand who I was wrapped in the beliefs I had committed to as a child in order to fit in.
I still want to fit in. That’s a part of our path as humans, as social beings. But, I now want to fit in to a world where animal communication is a part of daily life. I want to fit in to a world where we all have access to our innate ability. A world where the belief that animal communication is simply a figment of our imagination is no longer believed. Sometimes, we have to do the very brave thing of going beyond our stories to return to the core of who we are. It is only from that place can we change. And, ultimately, that’s the greatest lesson all animals have to teach us. They are always guiding us back to who we are.
And, who we are is love.
