November 13, 2024 • 27 mins
Share your thoughts & ideas! ✨
Every so often, a very special pet may join your family. This pet just seems different somehow. Maybe you feel like they just know you or understand you in a way even other people in your life never have.
And before long, you can't imagine your life without that pet in it.
In this special, long-awaited episode, animal communicator and pet reincarnation specialist Shannon Cutts answers questions like these:
🌟 What makes this connection with your pet feel so different and special?
🌟 What the word "pet" really means to your animal - a direct translation!
🌟 Is there a reason your pet came into your life or is it all just random chance?
🌟 When your special pet passes out of your life, and you feel like you can't go on without them, is there anything you can do about it?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shannon Cutts (00:11):
Hi Shannon here, animal sensitive and intuitive
Reiki master practitioner andanimal communication teacher
with animallovelanguagescom, andI am so excited to welcome you
back to another fresh newepisode.
It is my honor and my joy toserve as your mentor and your
(00:32):
guide, and, of course, your headcheerleader, as you too embark
upon your animal communicationjourney or perhaps you're
meeting me midway, or perhapsyou're even a working
professional animal intuitiveyourself.
There is always more to learnand always more to share about
(00:54):
the wonderful self-development,soul, evolutionary path that is
inner species communication.
That is inter speciescommunication.
It brings us to a point in ourlives where we realize we do
belong here.
Despite all the pop culture andthe movie and fiction
(01:16):
portrayals of aliens invadingour planet, with the not very
well-veiled hints that we are infact the invasive species here
on planet earth, the truth is isthat we do belong here.
Often we just don't reallyremember and we don't act like
(01:36):
it.
And the more our technologyadvances and the more advances
our own species makes, the moreand more we're being called back
home to our hearts to rememberthat with great power comes
great responsibility.
What are we going to do withour leadership role as
(01:58):
quote-unquote, apex, predator,primary, planet modifier.
What are we going to do with it?
Are we going to create a planet, a world where we are really
the only species left who isthriving, or are we going to
create a world that we truly canall share, treasure and enjoy
together?
(02:19):
And for most of us, this journeybegins at home.
Occasionally, there is someonewho is called to take a really
public role, as a wildlifeactivist, a conservationist,
evolutionary biologist.
There are those wonderfulbeings amongst us and we can
learn so much from them, but notall of us are called down those
(02:40):
particular paths.
That doesn't mean we can't makea huge difference, an
incredible difference, aworld-changing difference.
It just means that we need tostart exactly where we are in
our families, in our homes, inour little plots of land, in our
(03:01):
little areas, areas, and withour own inner species, family
members.
In this case yes, you guessedit, I am talking about our pets,
our own companion animals, ouranimal companions, and that is
really what I want to focus onfor this episode is what is the
(03:24):
nature, the fundamental,foundational nature of the human
animal bond?
Of course, for millennia.
We know this now, thanks tothose very same evolutionary
biologists and anthropologistswho have done the heavy lifting,
(03:45):
if you will the hard physical,often manual as well as
intellectual labor of tracingour genealogies, our shared
paths back in time, being ableto identify exactly where key
species like canines and felinesand what are now called homo
(04:10):
sapiens.
Where did we meet up on ourshared journeys?
Where did our species crosspaths?
Where did wild equines andprobably our predecessors come
together and decide this is agood partnership?
When did our paths intersectwith our fellow bovines and all
(04:33):
of the different other farmlandand ranching animals that we
have shared our work, we haveshared our homes with for
generations, for centuries.
There are so many animalspecies on this planet that have
agreed to partner with us Cows,horses, donkeys, sheep, dogs,
(04:59):
cats, birds, even reptilespecies in so many different
ways around the world.
These animals have agreed tosupport our species, to help us
hunt and fish and defend ourfamilies and plant our fields
(05:19):
and cultivate our food andtravel from place to place.
It's really remarkable when youreally allow your mind to wander
around the world and see all ofthe partnerships that are
taking place between humans andnon-human animals, and none is
closer to our heart, moretreasured and precious than our
(05:45):
own pets, our companion animals,the animals whose main job,
really in many cases, whose onlyjob, is to be our emotional
support, our mental support aswell as our physical support.
We see this not just withservice animals who have these
(06:06):
enhanced abilities to recognizewhen we might be going a little
physically, mentally oremotionally off the rails, but
we have these deep soul levelconnections.
I'm seeing this more and morein my animal communication
practice where pet parents'clients come to me and they tell
me about an animal, a precioussoul animal, who has this
(06:29):
connection passed on, has lefttheir body, and they say to me
something like I've lovedanimals all my life but I have
never had a connection with ananimal, with a dog or a cat or a
bird or a turtle or a horse orsome other species like the
connection I have with thisparticular animal.
(06:50):
And often they come to me intremendous grief, in a feeling
of despair or even hopelessness,saying I don't know how I'm
going to go on without thisparticular animal in my life.
And we will talk more aboutthis in future episodes.
In fact, this episode is kindof laying the foundation for
(07:13):
that.
In fact this episode is kind oflaying the foundation for that.
(07:39):
And just a cat, thankfully, Ifeel like large numbers of our
species are starting to phasethat kind of language, as well
as that kind of worldview andmindset, completely out of our
frame of reference.
However, far too many animalcarers, animal family members,
animal guardians, pet parents,far too many still feel like
(08:02):
they really don't have anyoneclose in their inner circle who
truly understands the kind ofbond they're talking about, what
they have just lost when thisanimal has had to leave their
physical body.
And the more I see this and themore interest there is in my
client base with my pet parentclient in talking about animal
(08:24):
reincarnation, will thisrelationship, this soul level
relationship.
And so one day I was ponderingthis, I was meditating on this,
(08:46):
I was really thinking about thisand I decided I was going to go
on Google and I was going toresearch the origins of the word
pet.
What does the word pet mean?
Where did the word come from?
What was the Latin or Arabic orGreek root of the word pet?
(09:07):
Why do we use this word todescribe animals whose primary
job is to keep us company?
And what does it mean?
And I'll be curious to know ifyou've done anything similar,
maybe what you've discovered,but what I discovered when I
researched, the word pet, atleast in that moment in time,
was nothing short of uninspiring.
(09:28):
I discovered that the word petarose a few hundred years ago.
Word pet arose a few hundredyears ago right around the time
when we human animals had gottenaccustomed to keeping company
with small dogs and kind oftucking them into our shirt
sleeves or carrying them aroundlike they were little
accessories, and it basicallymeant a possession of little
(09:52):
consequence.
And I thought to myself thatdoesn't resonate with me at all,
that makes zero impact on me.
That absolutely does notdescribe the nature of the
connection that I have sharedall my life with my soul pets.
It's just not good enough forme.
It doesn't even begin todescribe the impact and the
(10:14):
connection that I feel that mypet parent clients and my animal
communication students tell methey feel with their animals.
So I decided I would do what anycard-carrying animal intuitive
would obviously do in thatsituation.
I decided I was going to askthe animals directly why do we
use this word, why do we use theword pet?
(10:35):
You know what the animals toldme and it was like instantaneous
, it was like I didn't even haveto take a breath.
And they said, pet meanspartner, empathic, friend and
teacher.
Now this resonated, I said tomyself this definition I can get
behind, this definition I canshare with confidence, and it
came with so much love andempathy and compassion for our
(10:59):
species, as well as sinceregratitude from the animals.
Thank you for asking, thank youfor noticing, thank you for
acknowledging that the commondictionary definition does not,
even by a long stretch of theimagination, do us any justice,
and so, of course, I worked withthis definition for a little
(11:23):
while, and then I got curiousabout why we call ourselves many
of us, anyway, not all of us,but many of us call ourselves
pet parents, because, of course,there are all kinds of schools
of thought about what it meansto be a parent, who can be a
parent, what, or who qualifiesto be a parent, and so this is a
(11:48):
controversial term, this is aterm that people that don't have
soul-animal bonds tend tooverreact to, and this is a term
that human parents sometimesmisunderstand.
And the truth is is that thehuman infant, the human animal,
(12:10):
when we are born, we are themost helpless of all newborn
animal species, and so, justfundamentally, the nature of the
amount of care and shepherdingthat we need.
It outdoes really what almostany other animal species
requires as we grow up.
We just have a longer path tomaturity.
(12:32):
We also have a set of legalstatutes that is far more
encompassing and strict when itcomes to the parenting and the
mentoring and the launching of asuccessful adult human.
I think the law is starting toget inspired to catch up when it
comes to non-human animals, butwe've got a long, long, long,
(12:53):
long, long way to go, and thatis a completely different
conversation.
So there's all thesemisconceptions and just
confusion and disagreementsabout what it means to be a pet
parent.
So I decided I was going to goand, of course, I never learned
right.
I was going to Google thedefinition of parent and what I
(13:13):
discovered was pretty muchexactly what I've been sharing
Someone who biologicallycombines an egg with a sperm,
produces offspring, raises themup and hopefully launches them
into society as a successful,self-sustaining adult.
However, there are deepermeanings for the word parent,
(13:36):
and when I asked the animalswhat does it mean to be a pet
parent?
What they told me was that itmeans holding space for someone
to be all that they can be,without getting confused or
misdirected by outsideappearances.
(13:58):
And let me break this down foryou.
Basically, it means that when Ilook at my parrot Pearl, for
instance, or my tortoise Malti,or my box turtle Io, or my dog
Flash Gordon, I don't just seetheir outer costume the
definition I read in thedictionary what other people see
when they look at them, or thelimiting roles that they are
(14:22):
able to play in our lives,perhaps even more so whole and
complete, intelligent, loving,empathic, sensitive as any human
animal I have ever met.
It reminds me of that line inthe movie, the original movie,
(14:44):
avatar, where the village peopleif you've seen the movie,
probably even if you haven't, atthis point it's become so much
a point of conversation in popculture that you're probably,
maybe at least passingly,familiar with it.
When the village people meetone another, they say I see you.
And it doesn't just mean yep,gotcha, understand, you're at
(15:06):
north, northeast, with thecoordinates xyz or whatever it
is, or I, I gotcha, I understandwhat you said, I see you, I see
inside of you, I see thefullness of you, not in a creepy
way but in a very deeply,profoundly respectful way.
And what the animals told me is, especially for companion
(15:28):
animals and especially in thistime period right now, where
we're even, in some areas,experimenting with giving
artificial intelligence androbots human rights.
A parent is somebody who seesthe animal in front of them as
different, yet equal, more alikethan different and equal.
(15:52):
In the case of a human animalwho is helping an animal who's
been traumatized, abused,rehomed, relinquished, has had
physical, mental, emotionaldifficulties, it means that that
that human doesn't getconstrained in their vision for
(16:14):
all of who that animal can be bythose challenges or those outer
circumstances.
It also means that that humandoesn't look at that animal and
say, oh, you're not a homosapiens.
Therefore you automaticallyhave limits to how intelligent
you are, how sensitive you are,whether or not you grieve you're
(16:35):
dead or celebrate when yourchildren are born.
It doesn't in any way take awayyour capacity to be fully alive
.
And that is my definition forwhat it means to be a pet parent
.
In fact, it is so much so asacred trust, precisely because
(16:57):
there isn't any of those othermotivations such as, in most
areas anyway, legal protections,any kind of outer constriction,
outer pressure, if you will, todo the right thing by an animal
under our care.
So it is all internally guided.
It's really about we humananimals taking it upon ourselves
(17:20):
, based on the internal soullevel, honor system, free this
animal like the pristine,perfect, unrepeatable, sentient,
soulful, conscious being thatthey are.
It means seeing all of thepotential, more so even than
what the animal might be willingor able to see for themselves.
(17:43):
And this can be particularlytrue when we're dealing with an
animal that's gone throughtrauma that hasn't been resolved
, when they're fearful oraggressive or shy, or they don't
behave the way that we want orhope or expect them to behave,
that we don't let that limit us.
We don't let that stop us atthe door and say, oh, this is
(18:06):
the full potential of thisanimal.
It's like, no, that's just atemporary circumstance.
This really goes all the wayback to the days when, in my 20s
, I was suffering from an eatingdisorder anorexia, bulimia and
my very first mentor said to meI really don't know all that
much about eating disorders, butI do know what it means to
(18:30):
struggle and I do know thatstruggles can be overcome.
And she said I want you to knowthat I see you in there, I see
you beyond the temporarystruggle you're going through,
and I know that together we canhelp you get through this.
And you know what she was right.
And I discovered, and havecontinued to discover and
(18:53):
discover every day, that I am somuch more than the sum total of
my past experiences, my currentcircumstances or my struggles
or even my own sense oflimitation.
I am so much more than that.
I might get through this wholelifetime and never know how much
I am.
One thing I do know is that oneof the fastest ways to figure it
(19:16):
out is unconditional love,because the mirror that
unconditional love holds up tous is the mirror of soul level
completeness.
We are whole and complete.
We are beautiful and perfect.
We are irreplaceable andutterly unique, and to me so is
(19:39):
each other being we come across,and the challenge is always to
see that.
So the foundation for the workthat I do, especially as an
animal communication teacher,begins here.
An animal communication teacherbegins here with understanding
(19:59):
that the reason our companionanimals agree, sign up, even
volunteer for the job the pet,the companion animal, the dog,
the cat, the horse, the goat,the pig, the bird, the turtle,
the iguana, the bearded dragon,whomever your non-human animal
love may be they volunteered forthat job and they do see it as
(20:24):
a job and as a sacred trust andas a responsibility.
And in that way, just as weparent them by giving them all
the bells and whistles, all ofthe perks, anything and
everything they could ever needto actualize their full soul
level selves in our company, sotoo do they do the same for us,
(20:47):
because in most cases we humananimals have great agency to
meet all of our basic needs, ourlowest rung Maslow's hierarchy
of needs for food, water, safety, shelter, even moving up the
triangle a little bit toself-esteem and belonging and
(21:07):
relationships and partnerships.
But there's often stillsomething missing.
Either it's because we areguarding our hearts, we're not
allowing anyone in, perhapsbecause of unresolved past
trauma, difficulties andchallenges that we've been
through Often we don't even knowthat we're doing it or perhaps
(21:28):
we simply haven't met any otherhuman animals yet on our journey
who have the capacity to trulysee us and mirror for us our
full potential and the value,the inestimable value, that we
bring to this world just bybeing here not by doing anything
(21:49):
, but just by being here.
But our animals, our companionanimals, our pets, with their
partnership, their empathy andthe natural teaching abilities
that they bring into theirphysical bodies from the soul
level, from the spirit dimension, they do this naturally for us,
it's effortless.
(22:09):
We just look in their eyes, wefeel their heartbeat.
We sit and gaze at them inwonder and, quite naturally, our
closed, hurting, fearful,avoidant hearts just open up.
They just open up all on theirown.
Most often we don't evenrealize it's happening.
(22:31):
We just know we feel reallygood and really joyful in their
company and so often it is theirend of life transition where we
really start to wake up to justhow special and not optional
this type of relationship is inour lives and we realize I
(22:53):
literally cannot live withoutthis, because my life doesn't
feel worth living without this.
This is why I'm here, as mybeautiful late best friend,
marcy, used to love to remind meand I share this quite often,
so forgive me if you heard itbefore, but she often used to
remind me when I was inchallenges, especially stuff I
really, really, really didn'twant to go through.
(23:14):
She would say, shannon, we'rehere to grow in wisdom and learn
to love better, which I believeis a Tara Brock quote.
She loved Tara Brock and shewould remind me of this and in
the wake of her passing a fewyears ago, it has become more
and more a guiding light in mylife.
I was talking with a pet parentclient the other day and she had
(23:36):
read something from anotheranimal communication book about
why we incarnate in human bodiesand why her soul animal might
have been willing to come backto her through pet reincarnation
.
She said it all sounds justvery dry and dull and I don't
know if I want to even ask myanimal to sign up for this,
because she said in the book itjust talked about we only come
(24:00):
here for lessons, to learnlessons.
It's all about lessons read farenough to receive is just a
little bit of a PS on that.
A little bit of extrainformation that's very
necessary to know is that therereally is only one lesson and
(24:20):
that one lesson is to grow inwisdom and learn to love better.
Really, the only lesson isunconditional love, expressed
through empathy, expressedthrough partnership, expressed
through teaching, which isreally just sharing what we've
brought here to offer and thenbeing willing to receive what
others have brought here tooffer.
We do need each other becausewe cannot learn this lesson
(24:45):
without one another.
To show the way In that I oftenthink about the Ram Dass quote.
At least, I think it was RamDass who said we are really all
just walking one another homeand yet with our beautiful
companion animals, often becauseof their life expectancy, their
lifespan for their species,they have to go home first.
(25:06):
What is so important tounderstand is that that soul
bond is so deep that we can callthem back to us.
We can call our partners, ourempathic friends and our
teachers back to us, and I willbe unpacking that a lot more in
future episodes of ExploringAnimal Communication, so please
do stay tuned.
For now, I wanted you to havethis foundational awareness of
(25:31):
what it means when we call oursoul companion animals pets and
what it means for us, we lucky,lucky, fortunate human animals,
to be their pet parents.
Okay, I send you all my love.
Bye for now, and please doreturn here soon for a fresh new
(25:51):
episode.
Hi Shannon here, animal sensitive and intuitive
Reiki master practitioner andanimal communication teacher
with animallovelanguagescom, andI am so excited to welcome you
back to another fresh newepisode.
It is my honor and my joy toserve as your mentor and your
(00:32):
guide, and, of course, your headcheerleader, as you too embark
upon your animal communicationjourney or perhaps you're
meeting me midway, or perhapsyou're even a working
professional animal intuitiveyourself.
There is always more to learnand always more to share about
(00:54):
the wonderful self-development,soul, evolutionary path that is
inner species communication.
That is inter speciescommunication.
It brings us to a point in ourlives where we realize we do
belong here.
Despite all the pop culture andthe movie and fiction
(01:16):
portrayals of aliens invadingour planet, with the not very
well-veiled hints that we are infact the invasive species here
on planet earth, the truth is isthat we do belong here.
Often we just don't reallyremember and we don't act like
(01:36):
it.
And the more our technologyadvances and the more advances
our own species makes, the moreand more we're being called back
home to our hearts to rememberthat with great power comes
great responsibility.
What are we going to do withour leadership role as
(01:58):
quote-unquote, apex, predator,primary, planet modifier.
What are we going to do with it?
Are we going to create a planet, a world where we are really
the only species left who isthriving, or are we going to
create a world that we truly canall share, treasure and enjoy
together?
(02:19):
And for most of us, this journeybegins at home.
Occasionally, there is someonewho is called to take a really
public role, as a wildlifeactivist, a conservationist,
evolutionary biologist.
There are those wonderfulbeings amongst us and we can
learn so much from them, but notall of us are called down those
(02:40):
particular paths.
That doesn't mean we can't makea huge difference, an
incredible difference, aworld-changing difference.
It just means that we need tostart exactly where we are in
our families, in our homes, inour little plots of land, in our
(03:01):
little areas, areas, and withour own inner species, family
members.
In this case yes, you guessedit, I am talking about our pets,
our own companion animals, ouranimal companions, and that is
really what I want to focus onfor this episode is what is the
(03:24):
nature, the fundamental,foundational nature of the human
animal bond?
Of course, for millennia.
We know this now, thanks tothose very same evolutionary
biologists and anthropologistswho have done the heavy lifting,
(03:45):
if you will the hard physical,often manual as well as
intellectual labor of tracingour genealogies, our shared
paths back in time, being ableto identify exactly where key
species like canines and felinesand what are now called homo
(04:10):
sapiens.
Where did we meet up on ourshared journeys?
Where did our species crosspaths?
Where did wild equines andprobably our predecessors come
together and decide this is agood partnership?
When did our paths intersectwith our fellow bovines and all
(04:33):
of the different other farmlandand ranching animals that we
have shared our work, we haveshared our homes with for
generations, for centuries.
There are so many animalspecies on this planet that have
agreed to partner with us Cows,horses, donkeys, sheep, dogs,
(04:59):
cats, birds, even reptilespecies in so many different
ways around the world.
These animals have agreed tosupport our species, to help us
hunt and fish and defend ourfamilies and plant our fields
(05:19):
and cultivate our food andtravel from place to place.
It's really remarkable when youreally allow your mind to wander
around the world and see all ofthe partnerships that are
taking place between humans andnon-human animals, and none is
closer to our heart, moretreasured and precious than our
(05:45):
own pets, our companion animals,the animals whose main job,
really in many cases, whose onlyjob, is to be our emotional
support, our mental support aswell as our physical support.
We see this not just withservice animals who have these
(06:06):
enhanced abilities to recognizewhen we might be going a little
physically, mentally oremotionally off the rails, but
we have these deep soul levelconnections.
I'm seeing this more and morein my animal communication
practice where pet parents'clients come to me and they tell
me about an animal, a precioussoul animal, who has this
(06:29):
connection passed on, has lefttheir body, and they say to me
something like I've lovedanimals all my life but I have
never had a connection with ananimal, with a dog or a cat or a
bird or a turtle or a horse orsome other species like the
connection I have with thisparticular animal.
(06:50):
And often they come to me intremendous grief, in a feeling
of despair or even hopelessness,saying I don't know how I'm
going to go on without thisparticular animal in my life.
And we will talk more aboutthis in future episodes.
In fact, this episode is kindof laying the foundation for
(07:13):
that.
In fact this episode is kind oflaying the foundation for that.
(07:39):
And just a cat, thankfully, Ifeel like large numbers of our
species are starting to phasethat kind of language, as well
as that kind of worldview andmindset, completely out of our
frame of reference.
However, far too many animalcarers, animal family members,
animal guardians, pet parents,far too many still feel like
(08:02):
they really don't have anyoneclose in their inner circle who
truly understands the kind ofbond they're talking about, what
they have just lost when thisanimal has had to leave their
physical body.
And the more I see this and themore interest there is in my
client base with my pet parentclient in talking about animal
(08:24):
reincarnation, will thisrelationship, this soul level
relationship.
And so one day I was ponderingthis, I was meditating on this,
(08:46):
I was really thinking about thisand I decided I was going to go
on Google and I was going toresearch the origins of the word
pet.
What does the word pet mean?
Where did the word come from?
What was the Latin or Arabic orGreek root of the word pet?
(09:07):
Why do we use this word todescribe animals whose primary
job is to keep us company?
And what does it mean?
And I'll be curious to know ifyou've done anything similar,
maybe what you've discovered,but what I discovered when I
researched, the word pet, atleast in that moment in time,
was nothing short of uninspiring.
(09:28):
I discovered that the word petarose a few hundred years ago.
Word pet arose a few hundredyears ago right around the time
when we human animals had gottenaccustomed to keeping company
with small dogs and kind oftucking them into our shirt
sleeves or carrying them aroundlike they were little
accessories, and it basicallymeant a possession of little
(09:52):
consequence.
And I thought to myself thatdoesn't resonate with me at all,
that makes zero impact on me.
That absolutely does notdescribe the nature of the
connection that I have sharedall my life with my soul pets.
It's just not good enough forme.
It doesn't even begin todescribe the impact and the
(10:14):
connection that I feel that mypet parent clients and my animal
communication students tell methey feel with their animals.
So I decided I would do what anycard-carrying animal intuitive
would obviously do in thatsituation.
I decided I was going to askthe animals directly why do we
use this word, why do we use theword pet?
(10:35):
You know what the animals toldme and it was like instantaneous
, it was like I didn't even haveto take a breath.
And they said, pet meanspartner, empathic, friend and
teacher.
Now this resonated, I said tomyself this definition I can get
behind, this definition I canshare with confidence, and it
came with so much love andempathy and compassion for our
(10:59):
species, as well as sinceregratitude from the animals.
Thank you for asking, thank youfor noticing, thank you for
acknowledging that the commondictionary definition does not,
even by a long stretch of theimagination, do us any justice,
and so, of course, I worked withthis definition for a little
(11:23):
while, and then I got curiousabout why we call ourselves many
of us, anyway, not all of us,but many of us call ourselves
pet parents, because, of course,there are all kinds of schools
of thought about what it meansto be a parent, who can be a
parent, what, or who qualifiesto be a parent, and so this is a
(11:48):
controversial term, this is aterm that people that don't have
soul-animal bonds tend tooverreact to, and this is a term
that human parents sometimesmisunderstand.
And the truth is is that thehuman infant, the human animal,
(12:10):
when we are born, we are themost helpless of all newborn
animal species, and so, justfundamentally, the nature of the
amount of care and shepherdingthat we need.
It outdoes really what almostany other animal species
requires as we grow up.
We just have a longer path tomaturity.
(12:32):
We also have a set of legalstatutes that is far more
encompassing and strict when itcomes to the parenting and the
mentoring and the launching of asuccessful adult human.
I think the law is starting toget inspired to catch up when it
comes to non-human animals, butwe've got a long, long, long,
(12:53):
long, long way to go, and thatis a completely different
conversation.
So there's all thesemisconceptions and just
confusion and disagreementsabout what it means to be a pet
parent.
So I decided I was going to goand, of course, I never learned
right.
I was going to Google thedefinition of parent and what I
(13:13):
discovered was pretty muchexactly what I've been sharing
Someone who biologicallycombines an egg with a sperm,
produces offspring, raises themup and hopefully launches them
into society as a successful,self-sustaining adult.
However, there are deepermeanings for the word parent,
(13:36):
and when I asked the animalswhat does it mean to be a pet
parent?
What they told me was that itmeans holding space for someone
to be all that they can be,without getting confused or
misdirected by outsideappearances.
(13:58):
And let me break this down foryou.
Basically, it means that when Ilook at my parrot Pearl, for
instance, or my tortoise Malti,or my box turtle Io, or my dog
Flash Gordon, I don't just seetheir outer costume the
definition I read in thedictionary what other people see
when they look at them, or thelimiting roles that they are
(14:22):
able to play in our lives,perhaps even more so whole and
complete, intelligent, loving,empathic, sensitive as any human
animal I have ever met.
It reminds me of that line inthe movie, the original movie,
(14:44):
avatar, where the village peopleif you've seen the movie,
probably even if you haven't, atthis point it's become so much
a point of conversation in popculture that you're probably,
maybe at least passingly,familiar with it.
When the village people meetone another, they say I see you.
And it doesn't just mean yep,gotcha, understand, you're at
(15:06):
north, northeast, with thecoordinates xyz or whatever it
is, or I, I gotcha, I understandwhat you said, I see you, I see
inside of you, I see thefullness of you, not in a creepy
way but in a very deeply,profoundly respectful way.
And what the animals told me is, especially for companion
(15:28):
animals and especially in thistime period right now, where
we're even, in some areas,experimenting with giving
artificial intelligence androbots human rights.
A parent is somebody who seesthe animal in front of them as
different, yet equal, more alikethan different and equal.
(15:52):
In the case of a human animalwho is helping an animal who's
been traumatized, abused,rehomed, relinquished, has had
physical, mental, emotionaldifficulties, it means that that
that human doesn't getconstrained in their vision for
(16:14):
all of who that animal can be bythose challenges or those outer
circumstances.
It also means that that humandoesn't look at that animal and
say, oh, you're not a homosapiens.
Therefore you automaticallyhave limits to how intelligent
you are, how sensitive you are,whether or not you grieve you're
(16:35):
dead or celebrate when yourchildren are born.
It doesn't in any way take awayyour capacity to be fully alive
.
And that is my definition forwhat it means to be a pet parent
.
In fact, it is so much so asacred trust, precisely because
(16:57):
there isn't any of those othermotivations such as, in most
areas anyway, legal protections,any kind of outer constriction,
outer pressure, if you will, todo the right thing by an animal
under our care.
So it is all internally guided.
It's really about we humananimals taking it upon ourselves
(17:20):
, based on the internal soullevel, honor system, free this
animal like the pristine,perfect, unrepeatable, sentient,
soulful, conscious being thatthey are.
It means seeing all of thepotential, more so even than
what the animal might be willingor able to see for themselves.
(17:43):
And this can be particularlytrue when we're dealing with an
animal that's gone throughtrauma that hasn't been resolved
, when they're fearful oraggressive or shy, or they don't
behave the way that we want orhope or expect them to behave,
that we don't let that limit us.
We don't let that stop us atthe door and say, oh, this is
(18:06):
the full potential of thisanimal.
It's like, no, that's just atemporary circumstance.
This really goes all the wayback to the days when, in my 20s
, I was suffering from an eatingdisorder anorexia, bulimia and
my very first mentor said to meI really don't know all that
much about eating disorders, butI do know what it means to
(18:30):
struggle and I do know thatstruggles can be overcome.
And she said I want you to knowthat I see you in there, I see
you beyond the temporarystruggle you're going through,
and I know that together we canhelp you get through this.
And you know what she was right.
And I discovered, and havecontinued to discover and
(18:53):
discover every day, that I am somuch more than the sum total of
my past experiences, my currentcircumstances or my struggles
or even my own sense oflimitation.
I am so much more than that.
I might get through this wholelifetime and never know how much
I am.
One thing I do know is that oneof the fastest ways to figure it
(19:16):
out is unconditional love,because the mirror that
unconditional love holds up tous is the mirror of soul level
completeness.
We are whole and complete.
We are beautiful and perfect.
We are irreplaceable andutterly unique, and to me so is
(19:39):
each other being we come across,and the challenge is always to
see that.
So the foundation for the workthat I do, especially as an
animal communication teacher,begins here.
An animal communication teacherbegins here with understanding
(19:59):
that the reason our companionanimals agree, sign up, even
volunteer for the job the pet,the companion animal, the dog,
the cat, the horse, the goat,the pig, the bird, the turtle,
the iguana, the bearded dragon,whomever your non-human animal
love may be they volunteered forthat job and they do see it as
(20:24):
a job and as a sacred trust andas a responsibility.
And in that way, just as weparent them by giving them all
the bells and whistles, all ofthe perks, anything and
everything they could ever needto actualize their full soul
level selves in our company, sotoo do they do the same for us,
(20:47):
because in most cases we humananimals have great agency to
meet all of our basic needs, ourlowest rung Maslow's hierarchy
of needs for food, water, safety, shelter, even moving up the
triangle a little bit toself-esteem and belonging and
(21:07):
relationships and partnerships.
But there's often stillsomething missing.
Either it's because we areguarding our hearts, we're not
allowing anyone in, perhapsbecause of unresolved past
trauma, difficulties andchallenges that we've been
through Often we don't even knowthat we're doing it or perhaps
(21:28):
we simply haven't met any otherhuman animals yet on our journey
who have the capacity to trulysee us and mirror for us our
full potential and the value,the inestimable value, that we
bring to this world just bybeing here not by doing anything
(21:49):
, but just by being here.
But our animals, our companionanimals, our pets, with their
partnership, their empathy andthe natural teaching abilities
that they bring into theirphysical bodies from the soul
level, from the spirit dimension, they do this naturally for us,
it's effortless.
(22:09):
We just look in their eyes, wefeel their heartbeat.
We sit and gaze at them inwonder and, quite naturally, our
closed, hurting, fearful,avoidant hearts just open up.
They just open up all on theirown.
Most often we don't evenrealize it's happening.
(22:31):
We just know we feel reallygood and really joyful in their
company and so often it is theirend of life transition where we
really start to wake up to justhow special and not optional
this type of relationship is inour lives and we realize I
(22:53):
literally cannot live withoutthis, because my life doesn't
feel worth living without this.
This is why I'm here, as mybeautiful late best friend,
marcy, used to love to remind meand I share this quite often,
so forgive me if you heard itbefore, but she often used to
remind me when I was inchallenges, especially stuff I
really, really, really didn'twant to go through.
(23:14):
She would say, shannon, we'rehere to grow in wisdom and learn
to love better, which I believeis a Tara Brock quote.
She loved Tara Brock and shewould remind me of this and in
the wake of her passing a fewyears ago, it has become more
and more a guiding light in mylife.
I was talking with a pet parentclient the other day and she had
(23:36):
read something from anotheranimal communication book about
why we incarnate in human bodiesand why her soul animal might
have been willing to come backto her through pet reincarnation
.
She said it all sounds justvery dry and dull and I don't
know if I want to even ask myanimal to sign up for this,
because she said in the book itjust talked about we only come
(24:00):
here for lessons, to learnlessons.
It's all about lessons read farenough to receive is just a
little bit of a PS on that.
A little bit of extrainformation that's very
necessary to know is that therereally is only one lesson and
(24:20):
that one lesson is to grow inwisdom and learn to love better.
Really, the only lesson isunconditional love, expressed
through empathy, expressedthrough partnership, expressed
through teaching, which isreally just sharing what we've
brought here to offer and thenbeing willing to receive what
others have brought here tooffer.
We do need each other becausewe cannot learn this lesson
(24:45):
without one another.
To show the way In that I oftenthink about the Ram Dass quote.
At least, I think it was RamDass who said we are really all
just walking one another homeand yet with our beautiful
companion animals, often becauseof their life expectancy, their
lifespan for their species,they have to go home first.
(25:06):
What is so important tounderstand is that that soul
bond is so deep that we can callthem back to us.
We can call our partners, ourempathic friends and our
teachers back to us, and I willbe unpacking that a lot more in
future episodes of ExploringAnimal Communication, so please
do stay tuned.
For now, I wanted you to havethis foundational awareness of
(25:31):
what it means when we call oursoul companion animals pets and
what it means for us, we lucky,lucky, fortunate human animals,
to be their pet parents.
Okay, I send you all my love.
Bye for now, and please doreturn here soon for a fresh new
(25:51):
episode.
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