Intuition, Telepathy and How Living in the Flow of Both Will Create a Wonderful Life

I spoke to Laura Thomas on Feb 6, 2023. We had a wonderful discussion about intuition, animals and telepathy as well as how her intuition has shown her what she needs to do or where she will be among other things. She also shares her thoughts on working with people with their own intuition or understanding and how she sees that as she does her work and lives her life. 

Bio
As a child, Laura always brought home injured, ill or stray animals; something she still
does. Being with animals and helping them is a way of life for her. She has always
shared a deep connection, kinship, and understanding with animals, domestic and wild, especially horses.

In 2011, after a successful 25-year career as a professional development trainer and
management consultant, she left the business world to spend more time with animals.
She partnered with a friend to start a pet and farm-sitting business.  Soon after, Reiki
found her through a very special mare and changed her life forever! Because of
another special mare soon after, she began her formal animal communication work.
Not long after completing Reiki Master training with Odilia Forlenza (North Carolina
Reiki Training Institute), Laura completed trained through Reiki/Animal Reiki Teacher
level with Kathleen Prasad, Animal Reiki Source, and now practices and teaches her
Let Animals Lead® method of Animal Reiki.

Laura formally studied animal communication with Anita Curtis and then Thea Strom
and Nancy Windheart. She enjoys helping humans and animals understand each other
better, problem-solve, and enhance their relationships through animal communication.

Currently, Laura is learning everything she can from Dr. Susan Fay, author of Sacred
Spaces – Communion with the Horse through Science & Spirit about building strong energetic connections with horses. Through Dr. Fay’s methods of connecting with horses and truly “listening” to them, all other interactions become almost effortless. Laura has also begun her training in the Masterson Method of Integrated Equine Performance Bodywork®.

Laura believes if we give animals a choice and honor their unique preferences in how
they interact with us, whether it be in a healing session, training environment, or just life

in general, the animals show up for us in ways we could never imagine. Everything
becomes easier and the space is indeed sacred. Laura loves combining her background in training, her deep connection with animals, and her passion for energy work to create life-changing learning experiences for her students. She currently teaches animal communication, Reiki/Animal Reiki Levels I-III, and Energy Healing for Horses.
Three horses, a donkey, a llama, one sheep, three dogs, three goats, eleven cats, and
many chickens - most of whom are rescues, as well as various wild animals let Laura
live on their farm in South Carolina.

Laura is passionate about animals, nature, and energy work.  She loves helping animals
and humans find healing, peace, understanding, harmony, and balance through energy
work and animal communication.

Website: 3cedarsreiki.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Sears Beers, knowers and Doers, a podcast about intuition. Do you know what that is? Intuition to me is that inner sense for knowing that something is true. And yet I have no proof. But there's so many definitions and there's so many ways it can come. I'm looking to bring together and share with you some amazing guests who have some amazing life stories and also some insights into how intuition can come. And I'm looking to gather those crows in the trees. I hope you're one of them. I hope that this podcast inspires you to be more connected to your intuition, and I hope that by doing that we make the world a better place. Thanks for coming on this journey with me.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Before we get started today, I would love to share some tools with you to help with stress and feeling overwhelmed, especially for the energetically sensitive person. Feel free to go to my store on my website@www.healingvitality.ca. Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me.

Speaker 1: 1:11

So I'm super excited today to reconnect with a lady that I met through another podcast guest, Dr. Susan Faye, who is following her passion and doing many things. Name of her company is Three Seaters, Reiki and Animal Communication, and she works with clients remotely and in in person. She's in South Carolina. Thank you so much, Laura Thomas for joining me today. I'm excited to share you with the world.

Speaker 3: 1:41

Thank you, Heather. It's truly an honor and it's so cool the way we all connected and I'm just honored to be here and share what I know or what I've experienced with the world.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Wonderful. So I'm gonna ask that question then. Not everybody likes, but could you tell us about yourself please?

Speaker 3: 1:59

Okay. I have always been an animal lover. First and foremost. Felt a really close connection with animals and the horses especially. They are my heart, you know, it was the kid that was always bringing home the ill injured animals or the strays. I found somewhere, you know, when I was wandering around and I can't imagine my life without animals and I guess growing up I felt that connection to them. I always felt like I could talk to the animals and they could understand me and I can understand them. And you know, growing up I was always told, oh, that's just your imagination. So I think like a lot of people, because we all have this ability, I think like a lot of people, I kind of started believing it was my imagination, which was okay cuz I would go with my imagination and still talk to'em and listen. But I wouldn't tell anybody. I grew up with college, you know, got a job and spent 25 years in the business world as a professional development trainer and a curriculum developer in corporate, nonprofit and government sectors. And then one day I just had enough and a friend and friend and I had talked for probably several years about doing this. But I'd had enough one day and I called her on the way home from work and I said, when are we gonna do this? And she said, I have had the worst day. And that day we both decided to turn in our resignations and start a pet and farm sitting business.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Oh

Speaker 3: 3:22

Nice. So I've been doing that for the last 12 years, I guess. Shortly after that, Reiki found me through an off the track throat, red mirror I had who had colic surgery. And I became fascinated with the world of reiki. Um, became a reiki master and an animal reiki teacher. And that is one of my true passions now is helping animals and humans through reiki. But not long after reiki and I got into that practice, another mayor of mine, you see a pattern here,<laugh>, another mayor of mine, led me to the world of animal communication. And so I learned animal communica or learned relearned, I guess I should say. I had to communicate with animals telepathically or intuitively. And through those two practices, I realized that throughout my whole life, intuition had led me and guided me in the right direction. Even though I probably didn't recognize it as such. I just always had this knowing of where I needed to go or what I needed to do next in life. And it was without a lot of thought, it was just a knowing. And people thought a lot of times I was crazier. I was making bad decisions because some of the things I did were not the things that seemed the most rational or reasonable or sensible, but it was right for me. You know, it was that gut feeling that this is what I need to do. So I realized kind of late in life that I'd always had a strong sense of intuition, even if I didn't recognize it or call it as such. But that's what had guided me and led me through most of the big decisions in my life. So now I am an animal communicator. I teach and follow, uh, and practice reiki with animals. Not so much with humans, but mostly with animals. And I still have the pet and farm sitting business, so that's there as well. And also dabble in some other sorts of energy work with animals. So that's it kind of in a nutshell.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Nice. Uh, I find it interesting that you say relearn. Cause if you're doing a pet and farm sitting business, you're constantly interacting with animals that are new to you until you established right. Relationship or repeat clientele. So did you, like you said, when you were a kid you didn't turn it off, you just didn't tell anybody. Right. Was there a difference between what you were doing as a kid and what you quote unquote learned as a animal communicator, facilitator? I don't know if I'm making my question clear. Um,

Speaker 3: 6:02

Yeah, I, I think, um, as a kid it was much easier cause it came naturally as an adult I had all of these things, you know, we're all in our heads all the time. And to be able to communicate intuitively or telepathically for animals, we haven kinda have to get out of our head and be open to receive the message. It's a heart to heart kind of connection, so you have to get rid of all that stuff and not overthink it and just be open to receive the messages and open to sharing the messages with the animals. So I kinda had to relearn how to get outta my head. Okay. And just be open to it again. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:35

So 25 years of corporate government, nonprofit got you in your head.

Speaker 3: 6:41

Yes. As well as, you know, we're talk, we always have to think through things, you know, we have to do things rationally. Think it through all of that. Yeah. So I kind of had to shed all of that a little bit.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Okay. Okay. And so that's before the call you started talking about kind of more the Japanese side of Reiki, cuz we were talking about a course I did. And then you got talking about how it aligned with Japanese Reiki. And so do you wanna get into, was that part of your getting out of your head the actual animal reiki part?

Speaker 3: 7:16

Yes, yes. Okay. Um, and just a little bit of background, I'm not, without going into a big history lesson on reiki, um, reiki here in the west, and of course reiki is reiki, it's universal life force energy. And the system of reiki is using that for, um, our own spiritual development and for, you know, healing of ourselves and others in Japan. Initially reiki was a system of spiritual development or personal development. As it evolved and came to the West, it became associated more with the hands-on healing of others. And that's how I was initially trained, um, in a western lineage of reiki. And it works great with people, Western versus traditional one's. Not better than the other. It's just what resonates with, you know, the individual. And I was trained in the western reiki, which focuses on the hands-on practice, the hands-on healing of others. And I knew I always wanted to work with animals, not so much humans. And so I came back from my first reiki training all excited, I was gonna reiki the world, this is gonna be so wonderful for my animals, all of this. And I find out when I get back to my animals, you're kinda like, eh, you know, yeah, we'll let you do this because we love you. But that, you know, it just wasn't working as well as I thought it would. So I started researching and digging around and reading about reiki with animals and ran across Kathleen's website, animal Reiki source. And she teaches a method of animal reiki call Let animals lead, which I now follow and teaches well that the premise is animals are so sensitive to energy mm-hmm.<affirmative>, that the methods that we use with humans with reiki can be a little too much for them. So her method honors animals, as you know, sentient beings with their own preferences and their own sensitivity to energy. And to let animals lead is we let the animal guide the session and she teaches the more tra traditional Japanese Reiki, which is meditation day. So essentially, instead of going to the animal and saying, you know, okay, I'm gonna share reiki with you by putting your hand my hands on you. It's more we create that meditative, we through meditation, we create the reiki space for healing and invite the animal in. If the animal initiates touch, great, we go for it as long as the animal is comfortable with it. But if they prefer the hands on awful approach, you know, reikis just as effective from a distance as it is hands on. So I think through learning to meditate, and I'm not talking about sitting for hours, you know, cross-legged in the dark room meditating, but just having a meditative process or a meditative practice, it also opened my intuition more and allowed me to be able to hear the animals better and be aware of what they needed. And kind of from that float, an awareness of my energy and how it affected animals, I found that the animals are my greatest teachers. Mm-hmm. Especially the horses. Mm-hmm. You know, so Yeah. Did that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 10:27

Yeah, that was really a good explanation because when you said the intensity of working with humans, reiki wise, I, I'm thinking there's just, there are, there's probably a scale to people and a and less of a scale to animals, but there's probably a scale to people as far as how many walls and barriers or how much of a, of a shell or protection, or they're over aware of energy. So it shut down their knowing of it. Like there's probably a little bit more of that in your head space in terms of energy, which makes the transmission have to be either gentler but still have an intensity in order to, to make the request to get through the walls and barriers or have the person lower their walls and barriers or whatever the case may be.

Speaker 3: 11:25

Yeah. And and I think a big difference too is we, and I have to say we as humans cause I have a bad habit of saying humans Me

Speaker 1: 11:33

Too. Humans. We're all humans. Yes. We're not people, we're humans. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:38

Yes. Humans, we as humans tend to think if something is not happening actively then nothing's happening. Mm-hmm. So I think that the humans need the hands-on positions and that sort of thing, whereas animals, if you observe them in, in their natural, you know, state, they're not constantly doing like we are.

Speaker 1: 11:58

No.

Speaker 3: 11:59

They seem to prefer that stillness a little more. And I think that's a difference too.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Yeah. And you can actually witness, I've witnessed this meditative healing that goes on, I'll call it that. Yes. Uh, in between animals and Yes, they'll just even, yes. They'll stand with their nose pointed at a certain place mm-hmm.<affirmative> and the other horse is just standing and they're both in a relaxed head. Yeah. Midline place. They're both standing there like statues you would think you could go tip a cow kind of thing. But there's definitely a space of exchange and honor and Yes. And yeah. It's just, it's really special to stop long enough to Yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:47

And

Speaker 1: 12:47

Witnesses. Yeah. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.

Speaker 3: 12:50

Yes. And I will say that I've never been in a reiki session or a healing session with animals where I didn't feel like I received as much healing, if not more than they did. Oh, yeah. You know, the healing is truly mutual Yeah. In those situations.

Speaker 1: 13:06

Yeah, for sure. And if there's more than one animal around at the time, they'll all contribute. Like it's, that is not a Oh

Speaker 3: 13:15

Yes.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Yeah. It's not a Oh, it's your turn, I'm gonna be over here and not contribute.<laugh>. Like they all why.

Speaker 3: 13:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:22

Yeah. It's, yeah,

Speaker 3: 13:24

It's, I had an instant Ruth instance recently where I had a cat that was in hospice care, so to speak, and I would share reiki with him quite often. And, but I noticed that not only when I did that, but at other times my other animals would gather around the dog's, cats would all gather around and I could just feel that they were sharing healing energy with him. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know

Speaker 1: 13:50

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. I've witnessed a horse actually heal a cat. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:56

I have

Speaker 1: 13:57

It. Well, yeah, it's fascinating. If you just are like, okay, just get outta the way. Uh, what are we humans doing anyways? They don't need us. Like, it's all right. Heaven. Yeah. It's very delightful that they allow us to participate<laugh>.

Speaker 3: 14:13

Yes, it is. Yes it is.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Oh, so cool. All right, well, yeah, you've talked about a couple of instances and used a few words and you've thrown the telepathy around and I'm not sure that people actually have an idea specifically what telepathy is. I think we think of telepathy as far as what the movies show us. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. But I think more people have telepathy than they realize that it's that. Yes. And it is also to me, a form of, of intuition that we just haven't discussed in the 160 some odd podcast. So would you mind sharing kind of your experience or your insights about telepathy? What it is, how it works for you? It wouldn't necessarily work this way for everybody, but how, what your experience with that word and what you're de actually describing or or sensing or feeling or seeing or whatever the case may be.

Speaker 3: 15:13

Yeah. And it's one of those things that I think it's really hard to describe mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Cause it's intangible.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 15:19

That you think about the fact that we're all connected energetically. We're all made of energy, we're all connected energetically in some, you know, some way. Everything on earth is connected. Intuition is just, and I go back to Dr. Faye's term, the internet of intuition. We're all connected. We can all receive the information, send the information if we're open to it. And intuition, I use intuition and telepathy interchangeably. I'm not sure that when it comes to the dictionary definition that's appropriate, but in my mind they're kind of the same. It's communicating energetically. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> or connecting energetically. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> with another being, or the universe or source spirit, all of those things. And it comes to me just as a knowing, a really strong knowing most of the time. A strong gut feeling or just knowing without a doubt that this is the message or this is the course of action or the reality of the situation. There's really no thought or no conscious thought to it. It's just I know, you know, it's not something I forwarded out in my mind. I just know. Um, I also receive images. I'll see pictures of, um, the way something is supposed to be or what's going on in a situation, those sorts of things. Or see myself doing something. There's no real active thought around it. It just comes in from wherever. And it's there with my animal communication, the intuition is, once again, it can be a source of knowing or a sense of knowing, but it's also images, words, conversation, like with the animal feelings. And sometimes it comes as a feeling. I can feel what the animal is feeling, whether it be emotional or physical occasionally, but not as often a sense of smell or taste. Uh, I find that have an awareness of spirits through a lot of times smell. Yes. Um, I will, for instance, I'll know my great-grandmother is around, cause suddenly there'll be a strong sense smell of clothes. Nice. And she always used to have the cloth and her teeth. So it comes in a lot of different ways. It's different for every one of us. We all have access to all of those ways. But typically one or two ways will show up. And there, you know, there are names for all of these. Clear audience, cla essence, all of those things come in different ways for each of us. Usually one or two ways is stronger for each person, but you can work on bringing things in the other ways as well. I think that was the first part of your question. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The second part was how has it shown up in my life? Yeah. In so many ways. I think, and as I said earlier, I think I spent a good part of my life following my intuition without actually recognizing that's what it was. And the thing that comes to mind first is when I was in, I guess junior high and high school, I had a horse that would just out of the blue kind of colic. And I always knew when it was happening. And most of the time it was when I was at school. So, ooh. I was like, I would be, oh my gosh, I have to get home to him. And back then, you know, we didn't have cell phones and all those things, so I would have to go to the office to the school secretary, and most of the time fib a little bit that I wasn't feeling well. So that, you know, she would call my mother to come get me. And then I would've to explain to my mother, well, it's not me, but Ralph was his name, it's Ralph. And she goes, oh gosh. Well, after a while, you know, several times of this being true, she just knew when she got the call she needed to come get me and take me to my horse<laugh>. Um, so that's one of the things that I remember early on at showing up. And I would just have this sense of, this sense of knowing where my life was going, where my next job would be, where I was going to live, that sort of thing. And it would just kind of happen. I remember one time I was in a job that it was a, I was a, um, was a state government and I was a professional development trainer, but doing mostly management training. And I remember driving by this building one day and just having this, I'm gonna work there one day. Mm. I wasn't looking for a job, you know, had no intentions of leaving my current job. And it was, I'm gonna work in that building one day. And it was, I didn't even really know what they did in that building. Oh wow. But I, and sure enough, who know, four or five years later, I was working in that building for the company that was there and just things like that throughout my whole life. I remember in high school some relatives moved the house, um, from a neighboring town and put it on some family property and started to restore it. And it was like, I'm gonna live in that house one day. Oh wow. I now live in that house,<laugh>, um, fun. Um, and you know, with the animals, it shows up all the time. I don't walk around open to, you know, animal communication, but with my own animals, it shows up all the time when something's off with them or going on or, you know, somebody needs something, intuition pops in. And then I think the whole practice of animal communication is, you know, intuition, telepathy, that sort of thing. So yeah. Anymore it's, and it just a way of life. I just follow my intuition wherever it leads me.

Speaker 1: 20:46

Beautiful. There's a thing that happens and has happened with me and I'm, I want your take on it if I could, Laura. Yeah. Having an intuition that something's not right with an animal, having someone else go, no, no. That's just them being an animal. Why they're fine. Going into one of two things, either still hearing the animal going, I'm not right. And then getting into, into worry cuz I don't have control over the outcome anymore because<laugh>, I don't own the, the animal.

Speaker 3: 21:22

Right.

Speaker 1: 21:23

And the horse ends up being fine. So have you experienced ever a situation where everything does turn out fine, that the other person's intuition is also right, because

Speaker 3: 21:35

Yeah. Cause we're talking about something that's in clear as mud.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Yeah.<laugh>. Yeah. People can have different kinds of views and different experiences and different intuitions about the exact same situation. And one is yes, one is in the moment and one is long term that both can be right at the same time. But I'm kind of looking what your experience has been with that because you've worked with more owners who know they're hoked or they're animal. So have you had those types of experiences or anything along those lines? Yes.

Speaker 3: 22:06

And I think a lot of times it's, I just have to back up and say, you know what, we're both probably right. And also I think animals are on a journey with their humans, or the humans are on their journey with their animals for a reason. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And I have to respect that even if I strongly feel that my intuition is right and what they're thinking or you know, going with is not, I have to respect that it's between the animal and their person. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And I've found in situations that I may not know the whole story and that plays into it as well. But yeah. I think, you know, depending on animals live in the present and so what I may I get at one moment may be different from some what somebody else gets. And it's not necessarily that either is wrong, it just is. Yeah. Um, but the one thing that I have learned is I have to back up and realize that my role is not to change anyone's mind.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Yes.

Speaker 3: 23:10

Um, you know, I try with all of my work to be in the highest service to the animal or the animals that I'm working with, but sometimes to do that I have to kind of stay in my lane. Yes, I can do everything I can, but at the end of the day, it is between the animal and their person. Does that help? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:28

Yeah. Yeah. I just, I think that there's probably, there's probably experiences for people, not necessarily even with animals, but with other people in their life where they have an intuition, they think that it's right, the other person doesn't agree. Yeah. They're having a different intuition and it's just to give people insight into it's both can be. Right. And the outcomes can be, you can have both outcomes even occur.

Speaker 3: 23:56

Um, yeah. I've had situations where I've done an animal communication consultation and the person is adamant about, no, no, no, no, no, that's not right. And then at some point in the future, whether it be a couple days or a week, I will get a message from them and say, you know, you were right. I just didn't want to see it, or I was thinking about it in a different way. So sometimes it's just a matter of we're thinking about things differently or if it's something that involves the human, they may not be willing to see that at first or admit to it. And not that they're doing anything wrong. No. You know, we're all doing the best we can with what we have and what we know, but then when people think about it, it's like, okay, maybe we were both right or maybe what she said was right. I just wasn't wanting to hear it. And you know, with intuition, or I should say with the animal communication, when we're using intuition, there's always a possibility in miscommunication. I mean, you know, good grief, it happens with us talking face to face. There can be miscommunication. So when you're talking about communicating telepathically or energetically, you know, there's always room for that miscommunication. And I think we have to be open to that and realize that when it happens, it doesn't mean we are a failure, it's just part of it. And we have to be willing to admit that, yeah, maybe we were wrong in that situation or we were wrong.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Well, and there's that opportunity to jump to conclusions. Yeah. A plus B, we'll, C Yeah. When we just have A, and we just have B and they, it doesn't necessarily mean C, it's just we have A and B. Right. Yeah.<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that just comes with time and and trusting the process and trusting yourself. Right. And yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:44

Cool. Well thank you so much. I always like to bring it back to, um, how these things can also relate to our human to human relationships. Cause animals to me are huge teachers and, um, yeah. We've got, we've, we've got the ability to have that telepathy with our people. I mean mm-hmm.<affirmative>, just knowing to pick up the phone and say, do we need milk<laugh>? That's telepathy. Right.<laugh>. Right,

Speaker 3: 26:12

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:13

Those simple little moments of magic when it's like, oh, I was just thinking about you and you called, oh, thanks. You know?

Speaker 3: 26:21

Yes. Or call or calling someone just because you haven't checked in in a while and then being, I'm so glad you called.

Speaker 1: 26:27

Yes.

Speaker 3: 26:28

Or finding out they've got something going on and you can offer support. But yeah, it's all the little things, knowing who's calling before you pick up the phone or you know, like you said, thinking about somebody and all of a sudden they call.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Yeah. Um, it's so like, we're just sticking up our antennas to gather the information from all beings. It could be a tree, it could also be, you know, your neighbor who's in distress, who knows.

Speaker 3: 26:56

Yeah. I think we just have to readjust our antennas a little bit so that we pick up all those messages.

Speaker 1: 27:01

It can be very helpful. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Laura, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 27:07

Yes, thank you. I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 1: 27:11

Yeah. I hope that we can do it again. There's more awareness that can be had about words like to telepathy. It is not something that is only in the movies<laugh>. It's actually That's right. Something we all have. Yeah. So, cool. Well, thank you so much and I look forward to doing this again.

Speaker 3: 27:32

Thank you. And I look forward to it as well, Heather.

Speaker 1: 27:36

All right. Until next time.

Speaker 3: 27:38

Until next time.

Speaker 1: 27:43

Thank you so much for giving us your time today. We truly appreciate our guests for sharing their stories and insights about how intuition has impacted their lives. And I'm so grateful for Peter Trainor for his time in giving me this original music. It's now your turn. It's your turn to listen and act on your own intuition and help make the world a better place. Until next time, keep seeing, being, knowing, and doing. If you like this podcast, please share it. If you want to find others like it, go to www.healingvitality.ca or wherever you would find your podcasts. We would love to have you join us on this journey. Come be a crow sitting in the tree. Be part of our community.