Nervous System Co-Regulation for Pets and Their People

Are you struggling to support a pet who is anxious, reactive, timid, or unpredictable? Do you feel like you and your pet go through cycles where one of you is always in meltdown mode? This is the episode that can begin to fix that. Animal communication teacher Shannon Cutts talks you through a deeper understanding of nervous system coherence and co-regulation so you can create a calmer, safer world for both you and your pet to share together.

In this episode you will learn:

• The difference between nervous system coherence and co-regulation
• Why social species have evolved to co-regulate together
• How to help your pet by learning to work with your own nervous system
• How to help your pet find calm and healing within their nervous system
• The hidden dangers of become codependent on your pet for emotional support
• 5 key questions to help yourself navigate emotional overload or overwhelm

Extra free supportive resources:

• Anxious No More (easing pet anxiety) free guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/petanxietyguide
• From Pain to Peace (helping your pet release trauma) free guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/pettraumaguide
• EFT Tapping for Pets (emotional freedom technique) free guide: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/eftpetsoptin

Are you animal communication curious? Have I got something special for you! My new Animal Communication Adventure to Mastery student learning program just launched! This program is designed to be a gentle, yet thorough, serious, yet lighthearted path to interspecies fluency that pairs beautifully with my ongoing live Animal Communication Adventure Practice Circle for developing student practitioners. Visit animallovelanguages.com and click on programs to join us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Nervous System Regulation
• 5:37 Dysregulation: When Systems Go Awry
• 12:50 Understanding Coherence and Co-Regulation
• 21:37 How We Sync With Our Animals
• 32:41 Case Study: The Generator Crisis
• 43:33 When Animals Carry Our Emotional Load
• 52:27 Practical Tools for Better Regulation
• 1:04:03 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome back to let's Talk to Animals, the podcast all species can enjoy together. My name is Shannon Cutts. I am an animal sensitive and intuitive, a Reiki master practitioner and an animal communication teacher with animallovelanguagescom 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. Hi, shannon. Here.

Speaker 1: 1:11

And in today's episode of let's Talk to Animals, we're going to be taking a look at a topic that I have become increasingly fascinated by and focused on over the last several months, which is none other than nervous system regulation. Not only has this become a huge core component of how I teach animal communication inside Animal Communication. Adventure to Mastery, my new student program, adventure to Mastery my new student program. How I guide my students when we are working in practice circle each week. And also how I live my personal life. It's how I keep moving forward in my entrepreneurship, learning and growth journey and building my life around that. It's how I've overcome so many years of anxiety, depression, struggling with an eating disorder, et cetera life lifing and me coping. But it's also becoming a vital area of focus when we're taking a look at pets that are having issues, when life life's with pets, so to speak, and how we as their human parents, guardians, carers, owners whatever term you prefer how we are able, or if we are able, to help them through those struggles. I'll give you a particularly poignant example from my recent private practice as an animal communicator. I've been working on an ongoing basis with a particular client who has a hugely reactive. There is a bite history and there have been some internal family systems issues, relationships ending, new relationships forming changes in work structure and travel plans and not the ideal environment from which to regulate or re-regulate, or even reset, if you will, a dysregulated dog's nervous system, and so it's given me an interesting lens through which to view the interplay that it's easy to sense.

Speaker 1: 3:39

You've probably sensed it yourself, even if not with your pets, then definitely with other humans. Maybe you're taking a look at going to work and hoping your boss won't be in one of his or her moods that day, because you know how it affects you. Or maybe you are guarded within yourself because you don't always feel like you are well able to regulate your own internal state, your own moods. I know this state well from my years battling cyclical anxiety and depression, and so maybe you're in a place where you guard yourself or even feel like you're protecting others from you because you don't know what to expect from yourself. And if you've ever experienced this, this is a wonderful way to take a walk in a dysregulated pet's paws or claws or wings or scales or fins or shells, because that is exactly how it feels for all of us, regardless of species, when our nervous system is dysregulated.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Dysregulation at its core means there's something out of whack. There's something that isn't working as it was specifically designed to work. There is an imbalance in the system, somewhere kind of like trying to take a bike ride when one tire is slightly or a lot flat. You wobble, you don't feel like you can predict what is going to happen the next time you turn the pedals, and I don't know about you, but I often find that my weeks as an animal communicator have themes, and sometimes my months, and this is where I find the inspiration to record these new podcast episodes for you is.

Speaker 1: 5:36

I take a look at what's been going on in my private practice lately and when I see something coming up again and again and again and again, and over the past few weeks the theme has been reactive animals, aggressive animals, animals with bite history, animals with very unpredictable behavior patterns, either very, very timid, very fearful, very withdrawn or very overtly aggressive or overreactive. And I've been seeing so much of this over the last few weeks that this is one of my inner signs that this is something the animals want me to talk about with you here, and so just know that that is why I'm bringing this up and why I'm bringing it up at this particular moment. Call it a hunch, but it just may prove to be the case that this might be something that you are dealing with in your own life, whether it is with your current pets, or perhaps it's even a lingering issue going on between you and you and that's that wonderful mirroring aspect that we so often share with our soul pets, where there is a reason that we are with the specific animal or animals that are in our current interspecies family and there is a reason they are with us. In other words, we have chosen one another, and if you want to learn more about that and some of the specific reasons for that, I highly recommend my podcast episode on eight of the most common types of pet soul agreements that we share with our animals, and you can take a listen to that one as well when you have time and see what kind of insights you can pick up about maybe the particular type of soul agreement or agreements because they can come in many flavors as we learn and grow together over the years. But even post a comment, let me know which one describes you and your pet best. But today we are really going to focus in on the nervous system and specifically on establishing coherence and co-regulation between ourselves and our animal family members.

Speaker 1: 8:02

You know I still think about the very first time I heard the words nervous system regulation, and it wasn't that long ago and those of you who have been a part of the let's Talk to Animals listing community for a while. You know that I'm in my mid-50s and so I've been around long enough to have noticed if this was a topic that was being broadly talked about, I probably would have noticed before now, because this has been a lifelong interest of mine is learning to regulate whatever it is that's going on within me, and I was actually. I even remember where I was. I was at an entrepreneurship conference, and it would be almost three years ago now I first heard someone say out loud the specific words nervous system regulation and everything in me lit up. I remember who it was. I remember exactly where I was in the room. We were seated on chairs. I was talking with a fellow conference participant and she said nervous system regulation in context with her work, and I said that is it.

Speaker 1: 9:14

That is the thing, that is what's been missing from my life, that is what I need. That is what I've been working on for years and didn't have a formal name or term for, and more and more over the last few years, of course, we have this groovy little reticular activating system. That kind of acts as a gatekeeper for the types of information that we become consciously aware of, and ever since I heard those words, I've been hearing them more and more and I actually can't tell if that is because it's just now rising to the surface or it's because now I am aware of it. I was just in the right place at the right time to recognize that thing that I have been searching for. And ever since I feel like I have been obsessed with nervous system regulation, and not just for myself but, as I mentioned as we started today, with my animals and with the animals that I work with and they're humans there's something kind of internal recognition going on that you and your pet share, some kind of a state in common.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Often it's some kind of a dysregulated state and for me, as a communicator trained in the psychic arts, I have learned I have my own inner what I call lexicon of tells, and this is something that I teach inside Animal Communication Adventures to Mastery. We each have an inner lexicon or vocabulary that is unique to us, that says when I see or hear, or smell or taste or sense or just know this particular thing. It always means that, and for me, nervous system regulation has always come through in the form of what I call a feedback loop and I see this kind of infinity symbol that is going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and it refers to we're trading something back and forth. Now that can be something good, something beneficial, something that feels great and works well, but more often than not, when I am involved in the pet and human mix, it refers to something that is not necessarily beneficial or desired or desirable. That's going on, for instance, looking at, perhaps, an anxious human and either a reactive aggressively or reactive, timidly or shyly pet. So maybe we would see, for instance, an anxious human and a pet that is highly reactive in some way, either through aggression or through retreating the cat that hides under the bed and never comes out unless it's just the human and them alone in the house, or the dog that can't tolerate having anyone in the house. That often is kind of like the tip of the iceberg, letting us know that there's a deeper issue that needs to be worked out underneath. And so there are two things going on.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Whenever I see this kind of a feedback loop and I see it a lot and I've been seeing it more and more lately in my pet parent clients and their animals there is often either a lack of internal what we call coherence, and there is always a lack of co-regulation between that pet parent and their animal. So let's talk first about nervous system coherence. Coherence as a word refers to a creation of a unified whole or a state of internal balance, an ideal set point. If we had to put it into layman's terms, layperson's terms, we would say it's an ideal relationship between you and you on a physical, emotional and a mental level, and even a social level. Of course. Physical, emotional and mental all lead towards social as well. And even at the soul level. How well are you carrying out and pursuing and unfolding your soul path? But it can be coherent. A lack of internal coherence, so the unified whole here is you with you, me with me. It can be at the physical level. So maybe your gut microbiome is disturbed in some way, maybe you have something going on with your heart, maybe you have allergies, maybe there are a couple of organs fighting with one another within you. It can be all kinds of different things. Maybe there needs to be an adjustment in your eating habits, in your hydration, and all of this.

Speaker 1: 14:12

We can look at our animals and it's the same. We all have the same basic working parts and we are, at our core, so much more alike than different, and so when you notice a lack of internal coherence within you, it can be smart to take a look around and see how that might be mirrored back to you and or affecting those around you. It can be wise to take a look around and notice. It can be wise to take a look around and notice. Is this being mirrored back to you in any way through? Maybe issues that your pet is going through and you can take a look as well to see is your lack of internal coherence or balance or unity within affecting your animal in some way? Now it can also be emotional. That example of the anxious human and the reactive animal is a good example of a way in which a lack of internal coherence on our part might be affecting or altering our pet's behavior without us even realizing it. And the same thing at the mental level, and there's something really interesting to note about coherence at the mental level, which is for us as humans and I've talked a lot about this here on.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Let's Talk to Animals we have a tendency to go up into our heads. We start there, and this is something else very interesting that I teach inside my animal communication program is that we default to our left brain mind, to this very intensely analytical, logical, rational and highly individualistic. So very much me against the world, me as an island and everyone else around me as an island too. And so we default to that. Thinking, words, thoughts that then generate emotions, that then tend to make us sit up and notice, oh my tummy, maybe it's a physical thing, maybe it's an emotional thing that happens next we were like, oh, my tummy hurts, or oh, I'm feeling heart palpitations. Hemisphere to live from, and so their tendency is to overfeel. That can then generate thoughts and typically just goes straight to behavior either a physical dysregulation or an emotional dysregulation.

Speaker 1: 17:04

Thought, in the form in which we relate to it, it's very, very secondary within our animals and that is very important. We're going to get to that in a minute, but I want to that now. Move on and just define co-regulation, which basically we can take a look at it, meaning at it. We can take a look at it as meaning the influence we have on each other. So where, with coherence we're looking for an internal unity or optimal balance, with co-regulation we're looking for the happy, healthy family. We are having a positive influence on others. They are having a positive influence on others. They are having a positive influence on us.

Speaker 1: 17:46

And what I find so interesting, as I work with pet parents and their animals day in and day out, is how often I see that over time we tend to kind of find what I call a set point. We get into our groove or, in some cases, our rut. And when we get into that groove or that rut, typically it points back to at some point we just kind of learn to tolerate dysregulation at some level within ourselves and with the dynamic between ourselves and our animals and the dynamic between our animals and the greater world. An example of this would be well, my dog doesn't like men and is scared of bicycles, and so I just don't take her out anymore. That's a rut or a set point or just kind of a groove that we get into, and that too comes from a recent pet parent client I was working with and her animal. And so we can just kind of get into this state where we just tolerate something that doesn't work optimally it doesn't work as well as we were hoping it would or want it to because we don't know what to do about it, and so that is really what this podcast episode today is about.

Speaker 1: 19:09

So what's so interesting is that all of this coherence and co-regulation it actually stems from how we evolved as social species, and this blew my mind when I learned this. There's a researcher, there's a psychologist and a researcher named Dr Steven. There is a psychologist and a researcher named Dr Steven Porges, and he came up with something called polyvagal theory. Now PS. It's still quite controversial, but something about it lands so strongly with me and I have learned to trust my gut about these things and not get too involved in the pros and the cons.

Speaker 1: 19:56

His working theory is that, as a social species, we have evolved over millennia to use our shared nervous system to automatically sync and share messages back and forth, and in the beginning these were simple messages of there's a threat or all clear, it's safe. And we can still see this in so many social wild species populations today, like the adorable little prairie voles and the meerkats that stand up and look around and they're always on alert, or the doves in my backyard that send out the alarm whenever the blue jays or the crows come in, and the elk at the watering hole, or the flamingos that notice that the cougars are coming to drink and everybody starts moving their heads or twitching their cute little tails and they're sharing messages back and forth between their nervous systems. Why? Because we all have the same basic nervous system. Whether we happen to be avian or feline or reptilian or canine or equine or some other species, our basic wiring is pretty much the same. Sure, some models have gotten a little or a lot of upgrades, a little bit fancier systems along the way, but at their core they work basically the same way and they certainly all share the ability to tell safety apart from danger. And so polyvagal theory basically says we have evolved as social species to trade these messages of all clear or run for your life back and forth autonomically not just automatically, but autonomically with one another. Ie it's the same part of our nervous system that keeps our heart beating, keeps our breath flowing. So we literally cannot adjust this setting. So it's so important to get this to recognize. There is nothing we can do to turn off what I'm calling this sinking. And it's interesting because as humans, as a creative species that's naturally curious and always seeking to evolve and try out new ideas and see if we can make this or make that work.

Speaker 1: 23:32

We have created these smart devices, and what do they do with each other? Once they're set up properly, they sync back and forth with one another. I often look around the room. If you're anything like me, you probably look around sometimes and realize that your printer and your modem and your phone and your laptop and your tablet and all your Bluetooth devices, and probably your television and your home security system and even your refrigerator, they're all talking to one another all the time and they're syncing. They're sharing messages back and forth. Even the most brilliant human inventors still take their inspiration from nature and from biology and how we are wired to work together to survive and, ideally, thrive.

Speaker 1: 24:21

And so what is important for us as pet parents to understand is that when we are going about our day in our interspecies family let's say at home, you have a dog and you have a cat and you have a bird and you have a turtle and you have a horse guess what's happening all day long between everyone in your interspecies family? You're sinking, you're sending messages back and forth, all clear. It's safe, danger, danger, cower run, fight, freeze, whatever, and we can't turn it off. And they can't turn it off. It is part of what I call your intuitive operating system. It's just as your deep core, survival-based wiring. Now there is some good news. Well, there's two bits of good news. The first bit of good news is that we absolutely can influence the type of messages that we send out. We can change the default setting from sending out constant danger, danger warning, warning alerts to sending out quite a bit more. All clear, all as well, it's safe messages.

Speaker 1: 25:32

But to do that we need a different part of our nervous system, called the somatic nervous system. The somatic is the voluntary you can think of it anyway like the voluntary portion of the nervous system. It's, in other words, the part we can control, and the somatic nervous system that's. If I want to move my hand right now, that's not autonomic, that doesn't happen all the time. I don't just sit here all day long doing this and I can't turn it off. This is the somatic. This is the part where I decide and a whole bunch of really complex, interesting things happen to make it happen. I want to move my arm. In the same way, if we want to move our mental state or we want to move our emotional state, we use the somatic nervous system to do that.

Speaker 1: 26:21

But I am getting ahead of myself here because back in the day I don't know 16,000 years, 20,000 years, 200,000 years ago never been good at keeping history and dates straight when we were evolving. And then, when we began partnering with other species horses, dogs or wolves, at the time canines and then felines and our working farm animals and we began sinking back and forth, the messages were genuinely about danger or safety. That's what we were dealing with. We weren't dealing with this culture of first world problems today, where our central vagus nerve, which is the main network of nerves that connects all of our major organs. It connects our three brains the brain in our gut, the brain in our heart and the brain in our head and it's constantly passing messages back and forth and it's connected both to the autonomic and the somatic nervous system, so it's got all the weight of the world on its shoulders.

Speaker 1: 27:27

The buck really does stop with the vagus nerve nerve and the vagus nerve cannot tell the difference. It has not yet evolved to be able to tell the difference between your grumpy boss, your anxious dog, your tummy ache and a genuine saber-toothed tiger attack. Your dog's vagus nerve has not learned yet to tell the difference between grumpy you, the anxious cat next door, a stiff and hurting hip and a saber-toothed tiger attack. So our entire nervous system operating system is still kind of stuck in the early iteration of us. And this is really really important to know, because all of what I am calling and it doesn't mean they're not big problems, but they are not saber-toothed tiger attacks and that is why I call them first world problems, like our generator dying in the middle of a power outage a few days ago.

Speaker 1: 28:25

That was super stressful, that made it feel unsafe to live in this house, with it being a 100 degrees outside but nobody was trying to eat me for dinner. That's kind of where I'm getting at. So I don't want you listening to this and thinking she's saying that my problems are not important or worth getting emotional over. That is not what I am saying. I am right there with you and always having to monitor my nervous system responses and always having to monitor my nervous system responses, but knowing what we talked about earlier, which is how humans typically default to interfacing with our worlds through what we're thinking oh God, it's a hundred degrees out, we're gonna roast in here. How long is the power gonna be out. Last time it was out for four days. That's why we got the generator. Why didn't the generator work? They're trying to rip us off Before I know it.

Speaker 1: 29:13

I am a hot mess emotionally. Well, when I sync with our family dog, he's not going to get all the benefit of those thoughts, he's just going to get danger, danger, warning, warning. And he's probably going to get a bellyache, because that tends to be the way that he manifests and deals with and gets stress out of his body. So when we understand how the SH blank, blank, rolls downhill in our world and then rolls out into the world around us and affects others what we're calling a lack of internal coherence that then becomes shared co-dysregulation, if you will, and we'll get to that more in a minute. When we take a look at that, we realize we can roll back the camera, roll back the footage, rewind the video and we go. Wait a minute. That all started up in my left brain, which is not intuitive. It does not have a bigger picture, it is highly individualistic. It is me against the world. I am an I. Everything happening to me, not for me. There is no help coming.

Speaker 1: 30:13

Then we realized that we have so much power here to change this entire dynamic and how it plays out. I want to give you an example of that, because the generator thing actually did happen several days ago. We had spent a huge amount of money on this high-level generator because we are survivors of Hurricane Harvey and the giant whiteout that we had for a week and then the giant brownout, and we finally invested in a generator and we had a power outage the other night and the generator went out during the power outage. In fact it's still not fixed and this was very hair-raising for us because the impact is 101 or 105 on any given day right now in summer in Houston, texas, in the deep South. But when it happened this last time, I was able to stay calm and be the one to make the phone calls and be kind to the customer service and of course it happened on a weekend and it happened after hours, et cetera, et cetera, because I am learning about the control I do have over my internal state and I promise you we're going to get back around to pets here in a minute.

Speaker 1: 31:26

But I just want to share this one story with you, kind of as a little mini case study of the power of what I'm talking about here, dealing with this inner coherence or this inner unity or this inner optimal balance, I was able to remember. Oh, that's right, depending on where I allow my thoughts to go. Part of the somatic nervous system. Our thoughts are part of the somatic nervous system. The primitive sensing of danger versus safety to go part of the somatic nervous system. Our thoughts are part of the somatic nervous system. The primitive sensing of danger versus safety, that is part of the autonomic nervous system. But that's the sympathetic nervous system side. But the parasympathetic is part of the autonomic nervous system side. Oh, excuse me, the parasympathetic is part of the somatic nervous system side. And so what I did this is going to be really fun.

Speaker 1: 32:13

What I did is I remembered, first and foremost, I have two brain hemispheres, not just one, so I can move into my right brain hemisphere and remember that over the course of 54 years to date, so far. Sure, there have been times when it's been a little hot in here, a little uncomfortable, but I have never yet died from heat exhaustion, no matter what happened, even surviving hurricanes, living in this house watching the water come up the front lawn. I haven't died yet. So I kind of got a bigger picture. And then I realized this is what life has handed me today. This is life-lifing today. How do I want to feel as I move through it? And that shifted my thoughts I forgot. I remembered that I am not an island. I have numbers that I can pick up the phone and call. I have a cell phone that works. There are things that are working in my life, even if the generator's not. And it shifted my whole train of thought so that I was able to stay eerily calm through something that would have really deregulated me just a handful of months prior. This is something that not only works, but it works really, really fast. And I also noticed that our dog didn't get a tummy ache and vomit. She often does when my mom or I get dysregulated.

Speaker 1: 33:29

So it was very interesting to notice how the whole family was able to sync to a more positive series of broadcasts emergency broadcasts. It wasn't like we're all about to die. It was like there's been a disruption in the system. Nothing to worry about, it's okay, just chill, we'll get through it. We're on it, don't worry, got the memo. You see how that's a very, very different dynamic than, oh my God, we're all going to roast to death in a matter of minutes and it's so easy for our minds to go there. So this is our part.

Speaker 1: 34:04

We are kind of the master controller, not because we want to be, but because we're so thought dominant in our inner species, families, that we just kind of take over the emotional landscape and our pets really carry the heavy load. The buck stops with them trying to work us out of this dysregulated state by being cute, by giving us kisses, by snuggling, by playing, by chirping, by seeking out our company. Whatever they do that lifts our mood and makes us crave their company. They're constantly kind of playing defense, defending themselves against our inner dysregulation and defending themselves against being overly influenced by the same, and so this is often why we get so dependent on our animals for comfort, for companionship, for empathy, for friendship, for tolerating us.

Speaker 1: 35:05

There have been times in my life when I couldn't barely tolerate myself and I would literally sit there and think I don't understand. At that time it was just me and my tortoise, malti and my soul bird Pearl, and I would actually sit there on the couch and think I don't know how Pearl and Malti still love me and still tolerate me because I don't even like myself, I can't even talk about love. I don't even like myself and they still love me. Well, that was causing a lot of dysregulation for them to stay strong emotionally and try to regulate our family life together. So now I want to talk a little bit more closely about co-regulation, because what typically happens not always, but what typically happens when someone schedules an animal communication session with me, or when someone comes and wants to learn animal communication because they've got an animal who really needs a lot of support and assistance and is too fragile to take on that heavy lifting that I just described then what we're aiming for is a positive co-regulation between ourselves and our animals.

Speaker 1: 36:13

So we're both internally monitoring our own state, checking our internal coherence what is the state of our thoughts, our emotions, our physical health or lack thereof, and what can we do to course, correct and adjust as needed to maintain that optimal and the most positive and the best feeling, the most pleasant internal coherence or internal state. And we are also maintaining the same level of awareness of how our internal state, how our vibe, if you will, our vibration, what we're putting out there through our auric field, how is it affecting those around us? And maybe we don't care so much when the beings around us are strangers or people we don't like, et cetera, et cetera. But when it's our family and it's our pets whom we love so unconditionally, we care and it can feel like being truly powerless. When you're me sitting on the couch going, I'm depressed and anxious again and I don't know how my pets stand this and I can't do anything about it. So this is where we realize, yes, we can, we can, you can, I can do something about this.

Speaker 1: 37:28

And for many of my pet parent clients they come to me because they've rescued an animal and that animal is frayed around the edges. That animal has past trauma, often trauma that we don't even know what happened. We have to have a conversation and see if the animal's even willing to share it with us. Or they've got physical health issues. Animals even willing to share it with us. Or they've got physical health issues. They've got age-related decline, possible cognitive issues. They have high sensitivity for dogs and cats and horses and birds and turtles, who are highly sensitive, where everything is already at a volume 10 and then we try to turn it up again.

Speaker 1: 38:08

Or we have animals that have been bred with such specific traits in mind that they become situationally problematic, like dogs that have a high prey drive, or racehorses that have been bred to racehorses, or racing dogs who have come from this high intensity, high stress, high rehoming type of lifestyle. They just can't relax. Well, that's a recipe for disaster if we ask to help us manage our internal coherence by being the dominant or the master co-regular in our family, because they don't have it in them, they can't do it. So in those cases we get what I'm seeing with this pet parent client that I was sharing with you about earlier, where we have got a bite history on our hand and we have a high degree of anxiety around certain people, certain situations, and we have a highly anxious human who's going through a lot herself. We have two individuals in the family that both need to pull their own weight, because neither one has enough inner reserves to take on the heavy lifting of being the master co-regulator for that family unit. And so this is where you might be wondering at this point oh my gosh, this is a lot. Well, the nervous system is a big deal. So, yes, it is a lot. Well, the nervous system is a big deal. So, yes, it is a lot.

Speaker 1: 39:31

Learning about our nervous system is something that should be like 101. And I don't know why it isn't the first course that we get in school, as soon as we're old enough, as soon as we have enough existing neural connections in our brain to understand this stuff. This is the kind of stuff that should be taught first, like where's the owner's manual for this and how all of this is supposed to work. What does it do? How do I work with it? If something is buggy or not doing what I was hoping or wanted it to do or what I told it's supposed to do, well, how do I troubleshoot? Where do I go? Who do I call? What can I do to fix it? That's what we need to know first, not waiting until we're in our fifth decade of life before we hear the words nervous system regulation.

Speaker 1: 40:20

So we work with our internal coherence and the co-regulation role that we're playing within our family unit, by tapping into the power of our thinking and the voluntary nature of our somatic nervous system, which gives us a lot of choices, everything from who we're spending time with and what we're talking about, what we're eating, how much water we're drinking and how much sleep we're getting, whether we like the work that we do, or our human partner, how we spend our free time, how we talk to ourselves. There are so many ways that we can use our somatic nervous system to shift our internal coherence to a higher, lighter vibrational frequency so that the dominant or the master controller for the family co-regulation is emitting a joyful, loving, positive, healing vibration for everyone else. It doesn't mean that we're not still going to have an off day Of course we are and so the stronger that we each get individually, the stronger those around us will be able to get and the more we will be able to share the load of keeping our family unit co-regulated. Keeping a cohesive, positive, loving, healthy family unit ticking along, thriving, growing, evolving healing from the past, embracing new opportunities that's what co-regulation is for.

Speaker 1: 42:01

Too often we either see we're stuck in that rut or we've kind of just gotten into a groove. It's not awful, but it's not perfect and we're just kind of tolerating it where there's so much more here for us. And what? When we really see that come to a head is when we bring a new animal in the family or one of our existing animals goes through something. A change of life, an accident, an illness, an injury, a health challenge gets into some kind of a behavioral spat, gets lost and then comes home to us and they're like oh, what happened? Well, we have to step up.

Speaker 1: 42:37

At that point we need to be able to take on the job of co-regulating the family unit, sending out the most positive it's safe, it's safe, it's safe signals for our animal to sync with. So this isn't necessarily going to solve underlying trauma. There are lots of protocols that we can use. For that I have a whole toolkit, from Reiki and emotional freedom technique to non-mechanical scalar wave and chakra balancing and color therapy, crystal therapy. There are so many different modalities and I work with a whole complement of holistic health practitioners and varying disciplines who can offer all kinds of body work and supplements and all kinds of wonderful things that the tools that we can use. But if the animal that we're working with is chronically syncing with our own dysregulated internal nervous system state, so we're internal coherence, where is it Then? All of that work is like trying to carry a boulder uphill. It's really really hard to do it. It's a lot harder than it needs to be and it really wears very quickly on that animal who's just trying to heal. And if so, if we learn, if we start to learn which is really.

Speaker 1: 43:59

I guess this podcast is a little bit more person focused than I realized when I started out. I never know for sure exactly where I'm headed. I have an outline when I start or an idea in my head when I start recording, and I never know exactly where I'm headed. I have an outline when I start or an idea in my head when I start recording and I never know exactly where I'm going to wind up. But what's so interesting about this is that where I end up being in the unique position of meeting incredible, caring, incredible caring, kind, loving, empathetic, compassionate pet parents week in and week out.

Speaker 1: 44:36

And if you've worked with me, yes, I'm talking to you these are humans who you're the good ones. You want to help your pet. You want to help your dog or your cat or your horse or your turtle or your bird live their best life. If they're struggling through something, you want to know what it is and to help them through it and to help them heal and thrive. And often, so often, the missing link winds up being how well are we doing that for ourselves? And this tends to be the message that no one is expecting.

Speaker 1: 45:12

I know I spent years and years and years on the pet parent client side before I learned that I could talk to animals too and pursued my studies and did my practicum and hung out a shingle and went pro and look at me now. And so many times it wasn't mentioned to me by the communicators I worked with that I was a big part of what my animals were going through. Occasionally it would come up, but it comes up a lot in my pet parent client sessions where we're talking about their animal and there is this feedback loop that comes up. And so what often ends up happening is we uncover a soul agreement where, of course and I just want to back up for a moment before I say this so that it will make sense the animals have taught me that nobody comes into a physical incarnation, into a physical body, no soul willingly enters a physical body for a stretch of time here in earth school without having two reasons one, something to teach and two, something to learn.

Speaker 1: 46:18

And that goes for our animals as well as for ourselves. They're here to learn and grow too Sure they're. They vibrate naturally at a lighter, higher frequency. They're always going to be dominant in the unconditionally loving department. They just default to that. Their wiring is a little different. That way it actually makes it easier for them as well. But they're still here to learn and grow and so often when we take a look in my private pet parent client sessions and we take a look at the soul agreement, we find there is a feedback loop because they're shared learning. We've signed up for a shared learning experience, so there's all kinds of great wonderful benefits to this. It's not as lonely. Even the bad stuff is more fun when it's shared. We have somebody really cute to enjoy our days with. We have unconditional love. It's not a bad thing. But we just have to recognize our animals are here to learn and grow too and they go through stuff, often at our hands, and then we need to help them through that.

Speaker 1: 47:19

And so I often find myself in the intriguing position of prescribing I shouldn't use the word prescribing of recommending certain activities, mindset shifts, holistic modalities, shared enrichment activities, and so I often find myself in the unique position of recommending certain things based on what the animal has told me that they need or that they want to help them feel better. And then I end up recommending to their person to do the same basic thing, and I call this massage for you, massage for me, crystal for you, crystal for me, essential oil for you, essential oil for me. So we're basically doing the same thing More playdates for you, more playdates for me, because so often the nature of our shared soul contract is that we do need to get better at self-care so that we can offer a higher, lighter vibration frequency for our pets to sync to. That will then help them heal, help them resolve any internal lack of coherence, any dysregulation that they've picked up along the way. This can be especially vital for pets that are rescued with a history of past traumas. They come into our world, into our life, into our family and right off the bat they need our help and they need a lot of it.

Speaker 1: 48:50

And when we're in a place where our bucket is empty, we haven't been caring well for ourself or at all. We have been burning our candle at both ends, we've been saying mean things to ourselves, we've been working ourselves into a state where we are frayed around all the edges Well, we need to fill back up. Then we help and we offer out of that inner coherence, that inner fullness, we offer the kind of loving, healing environment that our animals can truly thrive in. That is a truly, truly safe place. You can imagine if you've got trauma and then you are sharing 24 seven with someone else who's also either externally traumatized or they're internally traumatizing themselves through the way that they live and the thoughts that they think and the way they talk to themselves. You're not going to get better at all, and certainly not very fast, in that kind of environment. So if we want to see real growth and real healing in our pets, we need to commit to real healing and real growth within ourselves. And at this point you might be wondering well, how can I tell if I'm contributing to my animal's problems? And so I'd like to share a couple of stories from my pet client practice, from my animal communication practice, that are just I just think they're such great examples of how to tell if your lack of internal coherence is dysregulating your relationship with your dog and causing a lack of internal coherence within your dog or your pet.

Speaker 1: 50:30

This is so a couple of years ago. So a couple of years ago I was working with a pet parent who had an adorable weenie dog, a senior dog named Ori, and Ori had been diagnosed with diabetes and he needed insulin shots twice a day. Unfortunately, mom worked out of the home at that time but luckily her sister lived down the street and they had a pet sitter that came in. So the daytime shot, usually the sister was administering it or the pet sitter was administering it, and Ori being this cute, wiggly little weenie dog who loved people, he would hold perfectly still when mom's sister or the pet sitter would give him his insulin. He didn't move a muscle. And when mom would take Ori to the vet for checkups he would stand stock still on the table. He would let them give him the shots, do all the things. He would not move. But when mom would give the shots this typically would happen in the evening Ori would start wriggling and wiggling and moving and he would not hold still. And this was driving mom insane and she was starting to wonder if euthanasia was a better choice because it was so dangerous for Ori and she was never sure that she really got the insulin into him.

Speaker 1: 51:51

So she booked a session with me and when I talked to Ori it took five seconds I'm not kidding you, five seconds to clear up the issue. He said well, mom is so upset and so anxious that I'm trying to make it fun for her. I try to turn it into the shots. I try to turn it into a game. Make it fun for her. I tried to turn it into the shots. I tried to turn it into a game. Adorable, right, if only we had talked to him weeks earlier. So I guided mom to learn how to turn up her internal coherence, turn down the volume of her anxiety and her upset, worried that she was going to hurt Ori, worried she was going to miss, worried he wasn't going to get his full injection. And once she was able to approach him calmly, he held perfectly.

Speaker 1: 52:35

Still, if there is a clearer example of how our own internal coherence can dysregulate our animals, which often, as we talked about earlier, comes out in the form of emotional responses and behavior, I have never found a clearer example than this one. So here's just an overall guide. If you notice that your pet's emotional dysregulation or behavior issues change when you're not there, then this is a huge it's like a blare, blare, warning, light, fireworks, red flag that your internal state is part of the dysregulated dynamic and, of course, in order to explore that on a more individual level. So I'm not trying to apply a cookie cutter to all animals. It's just to give you a little bit of initial guidance or maybe give you kind of a heads up about where to look next, to find some insights, some answers, some next steps. Of course we would want to talk with your animal and find out their why and what's going on and what they need.

Speaker 1: 53:51

But typically I find that when I'm working with a pet and their person, we need to approach behavior or problem solving or whatever's going on on two levels. We help you to learn how to better manage your own internal coherence, so kind of re-regulate your autonomic message generating system, your inner coherence, to emit messages of safety more frequently and more reliably. And then we need to work to establish this optimal, positive, high vibration co-regulation or nervous system syncing between you and your animal. And so that's where I'm often saying massage for you, massage for your dog, aromatherapy for you, aromatherapy for your horse, playdates for your bird, playdate for you, whatever it is, so that you have not only a synchronicity in your daily shared routine, hopefully more fun in both of your lives, but I'm also adding tools, we're adding tools to both of your personal self-regulation toolkits and it helps you grow and evolve by becoming more aware of the impact you're having on those around you and those you care about the most, and the happy side effect of that is when you realize you're having an unwanted impact, an impact you don't want to have on others. This gives you additional tools to change that and you start to feel happier. You detox from the excess cortisol, you feel filled up from the inside out and then you become the master co-regulator in your dynamic with your pet and you become uniquely fine-tuned to pick up early warning signs that your pet might need a little help from you to regulate through a stressful situation, through a trigger that reminds them of past trauma, through a new experience they don't have the social skills to handle yet, whatever it is. So hopefully this podcast episode today has been helpful for you.

Speaker 1: 56:07

It is so important to highlight that this is a process. There was a time in my life just speaking honestly which I always strive to do here on let's Talk to Animals, and I mentioned it earlier where I was sitting on the couch, depressed and anxious again, thinking I don't even know how my animals tolerate me, let alone love me, and the truth is is I was very, very codependent on my animals at the time. I relied on them to be my rock all the time, and so when anything happened to them their health, their behavior, anything I was destroyed, because my whole world was built on my relationship with them. And it's wonderful for us to have that deep level of bond with our animal companions because they are, at their core, unconditional love, and they come here to be our pets, our partners, empathic friends and teachers. But life happens to them too, as we started out saying when I opened this episode, and they can go through fragile moments too.

Speaker 1: 57:07

And so this understanding that we're talking about today, and this understanding that we're talking about today, and these tools that we're talking about today to help you and I, start to do a better job, a more conscious job of regulating ourselves and becoming responsible for the co-regulation messages that we're sending out for our animals to sync to. This also dissolves that codependence that can feel a lot like love, until we realize that we're so empty that when our animals need us most, we don't have enough to give. And so that's from my heart, why I'm sharing this episode today, and it's also, from my heart, something that I have had to work through at a very, very, very deep level. So, before we close today, I thought I would just leave you with a few questions that you can work through. When you start to notice that you're feeling heavy, you're feeling dense, you're feeling stressed, you're feeling anxious and that kind of snowball rolling downhill effect is starting to happen. And then suddenly you remember this episode and it occurs to you that your pet is going to sync with you and pick up on that and you forget that you know what to do to change that. I want you to either just take a few notes or you can speak it into a voice recorder on your phone. However, you'd like to take notes about things to remember.

Speaker 1: 58:33

But here's an easy, easy way to help you reestablish internal coherence. Just a set of five questions. Number one ask yourself what are the dominant thoughts that I'm thinking? You could just jot that down, just write down. What are the dominant thoughts that I'm thinking? You could just jot that down, Just write down. What are the dominant thoughts. Chances are good. Once you get them down on paper, you're going to be like well, no wonder I feel so crappy. Anybody thinking those thoughts would feel crappy.

Speaker 1: 58:58

Then next, once you've got the thoughts, ask yourself okay, crappy, what specific feelings are these thoughts producing within me. How do these thoughts make me feel? Okay, crappy thoughts producing within me. How do these thoughts make me feel, okay, crappy, anxious, angry, nervous, sad, whatever it is. Then you ask yourself the elephant in the room question are you enjoying those feelings? Probably not. So okay, if you're enjoying them, great, keep going.

Speaker 1: 59:32

But if you're not enjoying them, you ask yourself what can I do right now to change my thoughts, so I can upgrade my feelings, so I can begin emitting messages of safety for my animals to sync to, for instance? If you're thinking nothing ever works out for me and that's making you feel anxious and you're not enjoying yourself, and you've just realized that you can think to yourself well, that's not true. Things do work out for me. Well, just yesterday I was in line at Starbucks and the person in front of me paid for my coffee. What a beautiful gift. So you can just look for something to be grateful for right now. And just that little tiny chink in the armor of that rut of unwelcome thought patterns leading to undesirable feelings. You just get that little tiny chink in the armor and then you can go on and find another one. Well, they had a tsunami in XYZ country. It seems like they're happening everywhere lately and we're perfectly safe here. Wow, I am so lucky I'm in a temperature-controlled house.

Speaker 1: 1:00:26

I mean, it doesn't have to be anything nature, just something that gives your feelings, changes your thoughts. It gives your feelings a little upgrade. So that's the first tool I want to leave you with. The second tool is take a look at the company you keep and yes, I do mean with other humans, and I recognize that not all company feels optional. But if you can do anything at all to shift into a routine or you can do anything to and I recognize that not, and I recognize that not all company is optional you know we have to go to work. Maybe our office is next to that grumpy coworker, okay, but we can still choose to be cheerful, we can still choose to be positive, we can still choose to find something to compliment them about. And when we have free agency over who to hang out with, just strive to surround yourself with people that inspire you and with nature.

Speaker 1: 1:01:25

Nature is the great healer with the earth's energy. I go out every day, usually before and after. I do an animal communication session or I lead practice circle or I'm teaching online. I will go out and I will take a barefoot walk on our lawn and I ground on the earth's magnetic frequency, the Schumann resonance, and I'm also standing on a grounding mat right now as I talk to you. So I'm grounding on the earth even as I speak to you right now. So, just putting yourself in positive relationships and positive environments, think of people who inspire you. I have a whole circle of mentors, many of whom I've never met, some of whom are not in bodies right now, and they're still Einstein. He's so inspirational to me, his story lifts me up every time I think of it, and he's not even in a body right now, at least as far as I know.

Speaker 1: 1:02:13

So the more you can course correct to put yourself in the path of other humans who are internally coherent and doing their part to co-regulate our whole, our society, our shared life together, well, you bring that home to your animal as well, and it helps them in every way, even the ways that I cannot articulate. So if your pets are carrying any kind of trauma or dis-ease, or they're healing from something, they're recovering for something, they're going through their end of life process, they're coping with unavoidable change in some way, then you're creating the safest and most beneficial possible space for them to work through that. And if your pets are already healthy, well, science is all about expecting a longer, healthier lifespan when we live in a positive environment surrounded by positive, uplifting relationships and, as far as I can tell, either way it's a clear win-win for you both. So, my dear friend, I hope this. So, my dear one, I hope so. I hope this has been helpful, supportive for you.

Speaker 1: 1:03:25

This is actually the first time I've tried to record a whole podcast on nervous system coherence and co-regulation, so I hope it made sense to you. Obviously, there's a lot more to talk about. If you have questions or requests for follow-up episodes, please do post those when you leave a review. It really helps me and guides me in terms of what I'm focusing on in each new episode, and it also gives me a chance to connect with you, which I deeply appreciate. So I know, every time I step in front of the mic here in my little office studio, even though it feels like I'm alone, I know that I'm not alone because I know that you are listening along with me and that you are walking this path with me, and that fills my heart with enthusiasm to continue and with gratitude for our connection. So thank you again for listening and I look forward to welcoming you back very soon for a fresh new episode of let's Talk to Animals. Okay, all my love. Bye for now.

Speaker 1: 1:04:34

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 animallovelanguagescom 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 animallovelanguagescom. 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.