Animals as Mirrors, Animals as Healers

by Terri S. Diener, MA

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Abstract

The human-animal bond offers profound healing for people and their animal companions when the people recognize that their animals’ behaviors and illnesses are a reflection of what is going with them. Getting this message across in a way that empowers the people, without it getting distorted into guilt and self-judgment, is a crucial part of this job. In this respect, animal communicators become healing guides, just as therapists, acupuncturists, massage practitioners, etc., are for their clients. 


The healing human-animal bond

The human-animal bond is a well-researched phenomenon of healing. Elderly people gain a renewed sense of purpose when they have a pet to care for. Depressed people turn their attention outward. People with emotional disabilities discover - or re-discover - trust and love. People with physical disabilities become more self sufficient and independent. What, you may ask, is new about this?

As an animal communicator with a background in counseling, coaching and soft skills training, I get to see on a daily basis profound healing for people and their animal companions when the people recognize that their animals’ behaviors and illnesses are reflections of what is going on with them. While this is not always the case, it has proven true most of the time. It can be a reflection of something obvious, or something that is subtle or even unconscious.

Animals have a lot to teach us about living, dying, loving and relating. Often a translator can markedly enhance the communications of animals, enabling their people to broaden and deepen the relationship. Animals communicate in thought forms, pictures and feelings. They receive communication from us first through our feelings, then the pictures of our thoughts and finally the words we use. The communicator’s job is to be as clear a translator as possible for the thoughts and feelings of both the animals and their humans. In fact, most of the communicator’s work is with the people. The messages from the animals usually come clearly and quickly.

The communication process is telepathic (sending thoughts and feelings over distance through extrasensory means). The fact that they are participating in a telepathic process begins to expand people - skeptics and believers alike. I regularly tell my clients that I believe this is a capacity encoded in our DNA. As cave people, before we had the physiological structures for speech, we had to have more ways of communicating with our tribe than a few hand signals and grunts. We could not have survived and evolved as a species if we didn’t share more complicated thinking.*

Here are some stories that illustrate the profound healing potential of animal communication. 


Josie and Ellen: A Matter of Relationship

Josephine, a 5-year-old lab mix, was going blind from retinal atrophy. She told me, “The man is mean to her and makes her sad and cry.” When Ellen, her person, called, Josie had just come out of a 6-hour episode where she was frantically bumping into furniture and walls. Josie said Ellen did not see how destructive her 20-year, on again, off again relationship was. Josie temporarily lost her sight immediately after the man literally kicked her off the bed. Ellen told me he didn’t mean it; and added that he was a master healer. In telling Ellen what Josie had to say, (and reminding her that true healers are not mean), Ellen reluctantly confirmed Josie’s observation.

Josie told me her job was to keep showing Ellen that the relationship was bad for her. And she was determined to keep pointing it out until Ellen got it. Josie was adamant, even though she was suffering physically because of it.

Ellen asked me to tell Josie she got it, and wanted Josie to stop showing it to her. Josie was clear that she had a job to do and would not shirk it.

Pixal is a 2 year-old cockatiel rescued by an animal behaviorist. Pixal’s talents included whistling Dixie (“Somewhere down in the land of cotton…”), as well as imitating the sound of internet dialup.

There was a fundraising meeting going on in the large office where Pixal and his friends lived, according to Michael, the behaviorist. The meeting got increasingly heated as the people attending got more and more frustrated. Voices were loud, energy was intense - and Pixal chimed in with a cacophony of noise that sounded like a frenzied, off-key version of Dixie with a few phone line beeps thrown in. He was also picking at his feathers between squawks. He got louder than the people - until someone in the group pointed it out and the people settled down. Pixal did also.

Michael called to tell me this “amazing thing Pixal did.” What I discovered is that Pixal, by nature, is a very sensitive bird - more so than is typical for his species and breed. He told me he had been upset all the time when he lived in his other home. It was noisy and there were lots of fights. Where he was now was sounding like where he used to live, and he wanted it to stop. He was yelling at them in the only way he knew.

When she was three years old, Mae was adopted from Greyhound rescue by Sandy and her two teenaged sons. Mae was a friendly, happy dog most of the time. The two exceptions were when Sandy’s brother came into her house wearing a leather jacket and cap, and when the boys had friends over. She would whine, bark, pant, growl, and sometimes pace.

Dancer is a 2-year-old filly with a lot of racing talent. But she was very erratic. Sometimes she would follow commands and sometimes she wouldn’t. Sometimes she would let the stable hands near her, and sometimes she wouldn’t. At one point, she even threw her rider. She was being labelled a “head case” and a rogue horse, but her person, Mary Lou, didn’t think this was so. She called me at a critical point in deciding Dancer’s future. Dancer told me her neck and head hurt. In an energy scan of her body, I felt tightness in her neck and a severe headache.

Mary Lou first took Dancer for a nuclear body scan, which showed no physical abnormality. She insisted that Dancer’s handlers stop disciplining her. Mary Lou then called in several energy healers - a craniosacral practitioner, an acupuncturist, and an equine massage therapist. The combination of energy treatments loosened the tightness in her neck, and relieved her headaches and TMJ pains.

Dancer has raced three times now. In her first race, she came in third. She ran well and began learning how to partner with her rider. She said she felt fine and loved to run fast. In her second race, she narrowly escaped serious injury when she was pressed against the fence by another horse. In her third race, she came in fourth, but seemed to have lost her edge. Dancer said she didn’t know if she wanted to be a racehorse. She wanted to race two more times and then decide. She said her neck and head still felt fine.

Judy and her 9-year-old son lived with Yofey, an adorable, lovable, if somewhat neurotic mixed breed dog. When Yofey was 10, Tiger joined the household. Tiger was an 8-week-old kitten. Yofey loved Tiger and acted as his mom in the first couple of months. She liked it a lot. Judy, her person, commented that Yofey and she now really shared a life experience.

About 6 months later, Yofey started peeing on Judy’s down comforter. Judy invited me to communicate with her dog. Yofey’s story was that Tiger was being mean to her and no one was stopping him. Indeed, Tiger said he enjoyed jumping out of bushes and bouncing off of Yofey’s back when she went for a walk.

My own cat, Mayan, is a very sensitive being. His curiosity has gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion. Three times over an 8-month period he put his head through the handles of a plastic bag to explore what was inside. When he was done rummaging and wanted to go on to the next thing, the bag got stuck on his collar as he withdrew his head. He couldn’t get away from it. He’d panic, run all over the house, poop behind a sofa, and on one occasion even bit me when I tried to get the bag off.

Rocky, a 6-year-old Maltese, was in severe pain. He would wince and cry whenever he walked. He couldn’t go up or down steps, or jump. He was losing his balance, acting lethargic, and tiring easily. Four vets checked him over and found nothing. They saw an active, alert dog in their office. They gave him high doses of steroids and pain medication, and started talking about an MRI and exploratory surgery because his person, Arlene, insisted something was wrong with him. Feeling that conventional medicine was failing him, Arlene, a nurse, began exploring alternative approaches.

Tuning in to Rocky, I found a sad, confused and anxious dog. He insisted he wasn’t doing his job, which was to make his two people, Arlene and her husband, Don, better. Don had renal cancer and was dying. He survived a series of medical crises through experimental procedures, but was getting weaker and wobblier with each treatment.

Rocky also told me that Don was talking to him about dying and how afraid he was, and that Arlene was sad and nervous. Rocky was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do to make it better.

I suggested to Arlene to explain to Rocky that she was sad and nervous because “Daddy” was dying. She was handling it, and it was not necessary for Rocky to take on Don’s dizziness and fatigue, plus her anxiety.

She also carefully told Don that Rocky was trying to save him. and it was crucial for Rocky’s well-being that Don tell him what a great companion he was, and that that was an important job in and of itself. His job did not include taking on Don’s pain.

Using flower essences, coupled with several conversations, Rocky came to understand that his job was to be Don’s companion and buddy. It was not necessary to take on his symptoms. In fact, taking on Don’s symptoms was making things much worse, because his beloved humans were then afraid he was really sick.

According to Arlene, Rocky “miraculously” perked up, started playing with his toys, and insisted on long walks. Arlene’s anxiety and stress was much more manageable once she only had one invalid to care for.

Conclusions - and a personal note: 

These stories are typical of the work I’ve done over the past seven years. My focus is healing - both the animals and their people. In that context, weaving the thread of reflection can be tricky. It must be relayed with great care, so the impetus for the person to change doesn’t get distorted into guilt and self-judgment. That is why so much of my work is with the people.

My journey with this work has been profound. I have learned that animals want what we want: to be respected; to be deeply seen and heard; to be celebrated for who they are; to have their life purposes recognized; and to have their wishes considered when their future is at stake. To be able to facilitate that, and to witness the growth on the part of the humans, is very satisfying work.

I have learned so many things about animals and about myself. I am more able to shift out of preconceived ideas and judgments into a mindset of curiosity and wondering what needs attention. Because animals respond most intensely to our feelings, I have become more congruent with my thoughts and feelings, and, as a result, more clear about who I am. I have learned to strip though complex rationalizations and overlays to get to the simple truths of what is important to whomever I am engaging. My creative problem-solving skills are much sharper as I come up with effective strategies for resolving issues between people and their animal companions. I have learned gracious ways to say “no,” and compassionate ways to deliver sensitive and highly charged messages.

I have spent most of my adult life finding my voice and learning how to communicate from my heart. Animals, too, are silent. We hear them through our hearts, not our heads. They need interpreters and advocates to give them their voice.

As I see my reflection in their mirror, I realize just how much animals have to teach us about living, healing, relating, adapting, and even dying.

*Modern science is demonstrating the reality of telepathic communication. The Schumann resonance describes the electromagnetic waves in the space between the earth’s surface and the ionosphere 55 miles up. These electromagnetic waves have been documented to occur at frequencies between 6 and 50 cycles per second (cps). They have been specifically recorded at frequencies of 7.8, 14, 20, 26, 33, 39, and 45 cps. (http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q768.html) (www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/schumann.html)

Terri works closely with vete4rinarians and trainers as well as with animals and their human companions.


Terri Diener
(410) 358-3954.
terri@petspeak.com 

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