A Simple 5 Step Process to Make Calmer, Clearer, Better Feeling Pet Care Choices

Pet parenting is just getting harder as we are bombarded with too much information and too many choices. When you find yourself caught in a period of stress, worry, overwhelm or fear, this simple 5-step process is here to help you navigate from a place of calm and clarity.

As you listen, you will learn….

• A big picture perspective of how we move through distress and crisis situations, what works, what doesn’t, and how to create a better-feeling, better-working process for our pets
• How your own nervous system may be sabotaging you and your pet to keep you from making progress through pet challenges
• A simple tool you can start to use right now to synchronize your nervous system with your pet’s nervous system to promote a calmer feeling for you both
• A mental practice to use when you are in the middle of helping your pet through something that can free up energy that you can then use to feel better and help your pet feel better
• A powerful process to use your own brain’s ability to focus to show you more of what can help your pet and less of what isn’t helpful
• Three types of intentions you can set to support you to focus on the highest and best outcome for your pet
• The role of our own energetic setpoint in our pet’s ability to overcome any challenge they are facing in their life.
• Two key questions to ask every time you need to advocate for your pet when making choices about their veterinary care and a process for listening that you can apply to any situation
• The uncomfortable truth about how we as pet parents often show up for ourselves – or don’t – when facing difficult or challenging situations with our pet, and how to shift that.
• The most important tool that nobody ever talks about that can help you the most.
• A powerful way to deal your pet in to their own care choices that will also help lift the pet parenting burden off of your shoulders so it is now shared.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Breathwork for Better Animal Communication: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/breathACoptin

Podcast episodes mentioned in this episode:

Pet Charades: https://letstalktoanimals.buzzsprout.com/2105365/episodes/18752190-pet-charades-decoding-problem-pet...

Transcript

Welcome And Core Belief

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to Let's Talk to Animals, the podcast all species can enjoy together. My name is Shannon Katz. I am an animal-sensitive and intuitive, a Reiki master practitioner, and an animal communication teacher with Animal Love Languages.com. 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.

Polyvagal Syncing And Stress Loops

Begin With The End In Mind

Climbing Emotions One Step At Time

Parasympathetic Breathing How To

Curiosity As A Safety Anchor

Intentions And Your Brain’s Filter

Advocacy And Better Questions

Give Yourself Time And Kindness

Let Your Pet Guide Their Care

Five Steps Recap And Invitations

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Hi, Shannon here. Welcome back to Let's Talk to Animals, the podcast all species can enjoy together. And today I want to touch on an often overlooked and essential tool that all pet parents need to have in your pet parenting toolkit. And that is the ability to become what I call the calm in your pet's door. Now, what do RM like? Our pets go through stuff in life, right? Life is hard for all of us, regardless of whether we're wearing skin or scales or a shell or feathers or fur. Stuff comes up, we have to do things. We have to take action. Sometimes we have to go to what in our family we call the dreaded VET. Even though our veterinary care team is very kind and caring, it is still a stressful experience. And when we're going through these stressors as an inner species family, it is vitally important to recognize that every time your pet goes through something, you are also jolling through something. So my petal is actually going through a health challenge right now. So I'm right in the thick of it as I record this for you. And so I am living this out as I speak these words. As she is going through her health challenge, I am going through it to why is this? We human animals, we are a social species. Most of our companion animals also hail from social species. And social species are wired to be naturally empathic in a very particular kind of way. Where not only are we pairing pet parents and the animals who choose us and bond to us as our pets, our partners, empathic friends, and teachers, we are naturally sharing a resonance anyway through the soul agreements that we share together. We are also empathic service. We care about one another and we take action on that. That is what prompts us to add an animal companion to our family in the first place. And it's what prompts the animals in our lives to say yes to us, to agree, to share their lives, to spend their lives with us. But there's also a deeper neurological reason why we are literally sharing any experience that one of us goes through, the other one of us goes through. And that is called polyvagal theory. That is a fancy term that describes how our nervous systems have evolved across millennia, both within our own social species and between social species, to do what is called syncing. Yes, just like our electronic devices sync with one another, to share data, to share updates, to make sure everybody's on the same page. Our nervous system, our biology evolved to do the same exact thing. So when your pet is stressed, you are stressed. You are stressed, your pet is stressed. Now imagine that both of you are stressed. You're imagining going to the vet and how your pet might be feeling, and how your pet is feeling because you're sinking your nervous systems back and forth. Meanwhile, your pet is getting distress messages from your nervous system that something's wrong because you're in a stress state. So what that creates is what I have come to call a feedback, where you are literally sharing anxiety or stress or anger or frustration or overwhelm or grief or sadness or confusion or whatever. You are sharing it back and forth. And it's almost like playing a game of catch. Hey, who has the stress ball right now? Oh, you have it, you don't want it, you're gonna throw it back to me. And so we have to recognize that when we're feeling for two, we're both feeling for two, then that also doubles the impact, the emotional impact, the mental overwhelm, and the physical shutdown can occur. It's not uncommon for me. Maybe you can relate to this too when one of my animals is going through something, let's say a digestive upset, that I also get a tummy ache. When our docs and Flash Gordon developed an infection above his eye, my eyes started to hurt before I realized that he had infection brewing. That's a very primitive neurological form of body sinking, which is something I teach inside my Animal Communication Adventure to Fluency program. And you can learn to do it on purpose in a proactive format, but it happens quite naturally for many of us in a reactive format because we're wired for this. There is nothing in our biology that says that isn't normal or natural to share potentially life-saving information, information about danger or safety and opportunity back and forth between members of a flock or a herd or a parent or a tribe. So we have to recognize going into any kind of a storm situation, anything that our pet is going through, we have to recognize that our how we show up, how you and I show up as pet parents, and the personal power that we have to take personal responsibility for how we're handling it is definitely, absolutely and undeniably going to impact how our pet handles it. It will also impact the kinds of messages that we're sending our pets emotionally in terms of the possible outcome. What is the worst case versus the best case prognosis for today's dreaded VET activity? We're going to the bed. How's mom? How's dad feeling about it? Well, that translates as an emotional message to your pet about how this is likely to go. And fortunately or unfortunately, our bread is buttered on the side of forecasting the worst case scenario. If we plan for disaster, we have a better chance of surviving it. So our neurology, our sympathetic nervous system, it's always over there tapping its little foot, going, is there something I need to get worried about? Is there something I need to get nervous about? Is there to react to? What can I do? Is there anything I can do? Like the overgiver on steroids, like, how can I help you survive? I really, really, really, really, really want to help you. And that translates to our pet as there's something really, really, really, really dangerous that is unfolding here. And it appears to concern me. So we have to start right at the beginning doing something I call beginning with the end in mind. And I'm going to walk you through the process that I was developing for myself. I've had several pets in my family recently who have been going through health challenges and not just those little light challenges where it's over in a day or few, but things that take a look down the timeline into months or years, possibly lifetime management. I know many of you, as listeners, as pet parents, you are facing similar situations. I talk with your pets every week and I hear about situations that you're facing where maybe even the ultimate prognosis is unavoidable. Death comes for all of us at some point in time. And I know that some of you right now, as you're listening, are looking down the timeline with your pet and recognizing that we're dealing with comfort care, we're dealing with palliative care. Maybe you're working in an active hospice or setting or you're working with a death jeweler and you're doing your utmost to co-create your pet's end of life, the most important conversations we can have with our pets. It's a conversation I have every week. I call it the last wishes conversation where we talk with your pet about what they want their death experience to be like. So I'm not painting a Pollyanna toxic positivity type of picture here when I say begin with the end in mind. We're not talking about ask for a miracle in every situation, although that possibility is always there and we never want to rule it out. But what we're looking at is beginning with the end in mind in terms of how do I want to be there for my pet through this storm that we're going through together, whether it's just a tiny little afternoon thunderstorm or it is a giant hurricane, like the kind we get down here in Texas sometimes. How do I want to show up? And what can I do right here, right now, to feel just a little bit better than how I'm feeling right here, right now, so that my pet can feel a little bit calmer, a little bit more easeful, so that we can continue to wash through this process together and not look back and see a string of nightmarish memories, but see an evolution of a closer connection of trust, an increased level of calm and harmony, and a beautiful journey of showing up to support one another from the best possible feeling space. Now, this is an old act that I learned from the reading Esther Hicks book back in the day, before we had all these groovy YouTube videos about the same. And in the particular book I was reading, and I'm flanking on the name of the book right now, but it was talking about how difficult it is to get from A to Z emotionally speaking. It's really, really hard to start at overwhelm or panic or grief and go to joy and unconditional love and contentment. So the strategy needs needs to get chunked down. And we need to look at, well, I'm in absolute panic right now. So the chances of me jumping all the way to contentment in one single leap, I just checked, I'm not wearing a cape. It's probably pretty, pretty small, but I might be able to get from blind panic to anxiety. So how might I go about that? And then from anxiety, I might be able to go to maybe mild anxiety. And then from mild anxiety, I might be able to go to a soft level of overwhelm. And from a soft level of overwhelm, I might be able to go to a little bit of energy and inspiration. And in this way, we slowly recalibrate ourselves emotionally into a better feeling space. And that in turn frees up a little bit of energy, like soft overwhelm, not the same as blind panic. So we're already releasing a little bit of energy back into our system. And from there, we might be able to get to a little bit of inspiration and a little bit of guidance and curiosity about how might I work with this. Why? Because energy is getting freed up in our system. Our whole neurological system is not completely consumed with this blind panic response adding. So the tasks that I'm going to walk you through is going to highlight basically how you can house yourself so that you can be there for your pet no matter what they're going. So where we want to start, we have to recognize, and this is something that, you know, I've sat through all the biology classes too, but I don't remember any of that because it wasn't practical for me. It's I wasn't, I didn't understand why or how I was going to be able to use any of the information. And if your brain works anything like mine, if I'm not actually doing something with the information right away, I'm probably not going to retain it, at least not beyond test taking day. So it took me a long time. I'm in my 50s now and I'm just starting to really learn about how my own nervous system works. And this is a huge part of what I teach my animal communication fluency students, because we need to know this. And our pets already know it because they're living it. So the first thing you need to know is that your sympathetic nervous system, your fight, flight, freeze, tend, or befriend aspect of your nervous system, the system, the part of your nervous system that is designed to keep you safe and evolving. So this aspect of your nervous system evolved to detect, to send and receive two types of messages messages of danger and messages of safety and opportunity. And for that reason, it is wired to respond to what we might call acute threats or opportunities. And acute threats or opportunities are threats or opportunities with a specific start time and a specific stop time. And this works really well when there's a saber-toothed tiger chasing us. We know that within however many yards, as far as we can go before the saber-toothed tiger overtakes us, we know that there is going to be a time-sensitive outcome and end game to this. We're either going to survive the experience or we're not. Either way, our nervous system is going to power down. It's going to stand down. It's going to stop pumping out adrenaline and cortisol, which, if you're not familiar, cortisol is called the silent killer for a reason. It is deadly in toxic quantities, which is what happens when our sympathetic nervous systems don't get the all-clear signal. What kinds of situations might trigger a sympathetic nervous system not getting an all-clear signal? Well, ongoing health issues, ongoing behavioral issues, ongoing interspecies conflict issues, ongoing family change issues, such as a moon or business trips, or a partner leaving, or a new partner coming into the family, or a new baby. These kinds of situations don't have a clear end date. They don't have a resolution that our nervous system can latch on to and go, oh, it's time for my break. I don't, I'm not needed right now. Threat is done, opportunity is realized, we're on to the next thing. So we get stuck in overwhelm or panic or anxiety or depression or frustration or confusion or anger or grief or whatever it is. It is. And because we're stuck in it, our sympathetic nervous system continues to pump out the adrenaline and the cortisol and it continues broadcasting the stress signals, the distress signals, the danger, danger warning, warning. We are not safe signals. And if your pet is perfectly healthy, they are often in a place to actually help you turn off your sympathetic nervous system. They're going to come, they're going to cuddle with you, they're going to fly and sit on your head, they're going to jump in your lap, they're going to put their paws on your knees and look at you with such love. But when your pet is not lost, whether it's mentally, emotionally, or physically, or even relationally, if there's conflict within your interspecies family, then they don't have the capacity to comfort you. And your lack of comfort, your discomfort, your distress, your dis-ease is further reducing their capacity. So that's kind of the big setup for this process that I am about to teach you, which is a whole lot simpler than what I just talked about. So that's the biology and the neurology part of it. Understanding what is going on within you neurologically when your pet is compromised in some way, or when you're compromised in some way, or when you and your pet are compromised together. So the very first thing that you need to do, that we need to do as pet parents, is we need to tell your sympathetic nervous system that there is no breath. It can stand the heck down. How do we do that? With the breath. It is so simple. This is going to blow your mind. There is a particular breathing pattern that I have been teaching for years. I have been using for years. I am using a what right now. I use it every night. When I go to bed, I wake up every morning and I use it. If I wake up the night, I use it. When I'm going to the vet with petal or any of our pets, I use it. Anytime I have a stressful moment, I'm training my nervous system. I'm continuing to train it to go there first. This is my go-to resource for any type of a stress response, any type of emotion that I'm not keen to feel more of. I call it a parasympathetic breathing. And there's several different ways that you can do this. There are some really cool breath techniques that I have packaged up for you in a free tool called Breath Works for Better Animal Communication. I'll link that tool up in the show notes for this episode. There's Dr. Andrew Wiles' 478 breathing, which is done in my toolkit for years. There's boss breathing. There is breath of fire. There's lion's breath. There's all kinds of different breath practices. And the end game for these breath practices is basically the same. But the breath practice that I teach, parasympathetic breathing, is the simplest of all of these. You do not have to remember any numbers or any sequences. You don't need any special instructions to do it. You just need to remember one thing: extend your exhalation past the length of your inhalation. Now, I'm gonna give you the whole practice, the way that I do it. For those of you who are in a quiet, calm space with your pet right now and you want to start practicing this breath technique perfectly. This next set of instructions will be for you. But if you're in a distressed state with your pet right now, all you need to remember is when you take a deep in breath, you want to extend your exhale beyond the length of your inhale. And there's a very specific reason for this, because no one ever in the history of history of history has ever stopped to extend their exhalation when they are running away from a saber-toothed tiger. Ever. So the moment you extend your exhalation, you send your sympathetic nervous system a message. You are safe. There is no urgent threat. There is none. It will never happen. Can you imagine and you picture yourself, you're in the woods, you see a saber-toothed tiger and bearing down on you, and you think, I'm gonna stop and extend my exhale. No, you are not, and no animal on this planet would either. So if you want to do this practice imperfectly because you need it right in this moment in time, just take it and run with it. You want to do it perfectly, then this is what I like to do. First, exhale. Exhale everything out of your lungs. Why? Because studies show that most of us use about four percent of our lung capacity at any given time, which means up to 60% of the biomass inside of our lungs is not oxygen, it's not fresh, it's not replenishing, it's stale, it's toxic, it's old stuff that we don't need. Given that our lungs are the power print to provide oxygen to all of the billions of cells at the farthest reaches of our physical organism. This means that if we're only using 40% of our lung capacity, then only 40% of the cells in our body are getting oxygen. That means 60% are in fight-flight freeze. They are sending tiny little distress signals back up through the peripheral nervous system through to your central nervous system, saying, help, help, I'm suffocating, I'm dying. And we wonder why we live in a low grade state of systemic stress without even being able to pinpoint what the heck is even wrong? Why am I even feeling stress? It's because your cells are suffering. So, first, we need to free up lung capacity. We need to exhale and get all of that steel-stuck stuff out of our lungs. Next step: breathe in fully. Breathe like you're breathing up from the center of Mother Earth through the soles of your feet, up your calves, which are the second heart. Did you know that the calves are known as the second heart because of how vitally important they are for your circulation? Breathe up through your calves, up through your thighs, up through your abdomen, up into your lungs, and all the way up out the crown of your head. Breathe like this is the best breath you've ever taken and the last breath you're ever going to get to take in your life. Breathe fully and pause for just a beat or two. One, two, three, four. You can count if you like. And then extend that exhalation and breathe out like every house plant in your house and in the entire neighborhood is counting on you to provide them with carbon dioxide. Breathe until your lungs are so empty and so clean that it's like walking into a brand new room that's never been occupied, that's never been breathe out, breathe out, breathe out. A lot of times when I'm through stress, I find that it helps to purse my lips and pretend that I'm breathing out through a straw. And that really disciplines me to get every little last morsel of stale toxic stuff out of my lungs and to keep that extended exhale going. And when you're done with that, do it two more times. You don't have to exhale first this time. You just did it. So just take another deep in breath and really invite your body to move. Feel your rib cage move, your mind your diaphragm of what its job description is and breathe fully. Do it, you know, quickly enough so that you have some space to play with to extend your exhalation. And extend that exhalation until you feel that peace where there's literally nothing left within you. And then do it again and breathe in and breathe in fully. Pause for a moment at the top and then extend your exhale. And if you've been doing it with me, you're probably noticing, like I am as I've been doing it with you. I'm already feeling calmer. Even though little petal is giving her stress alerts, and I'm aware of those. As I mentioned, we're walking through it right now. I have noticed as I was breathing, she got a little bit calmer. And if you've been listening along, you probably noticed that too. So it can be really interesting to do this with our pets. It's a great tool to have all kinds of situations. If your pet just gets triggered by something, maybe they're working through something. You're helping them through something like separation anxiety or chronic anxiety. Pet nervous systems can get stuck in a chronic anxiety set point. And it can be hard to shake them loose. And that feedback loop I described earlier doesn't help any. So by taking some time to reset your nervous system, you're giving them a fresh perspective on a possible way to feel that might feel just a loop. Now, this is step one. So we spent quite a bit of time on step one because I have found that most of us don't understand how our nervous systems work and we don't understand how to help ourselves when we get stressed on our pets' behalf. We know that we're stressed, we know that it doesn't help them. We know that we want to calm down, but we don't actually have the practical tools to actually do it. So this is the practical tool to actually do it. And there's all kinds of other tools that you can try. Another favorite is just noticing that gravity is holding me down on this earth somehow. I don't know how. It's the biggest mystery. And it's such a mystery when I start to think about how is gravity holding me down? How does gravity work? Gravity is so mysterious. Wow, I can feel it. What might it be like to not feel it? What if I were an astronaut? What if I was in space? It takes your mind out of the worry spot and places it into one of the most important foundational places for any kind of animal communication conversation, which is noticing, wondering, and getting curious. So it doesn't have to be wondering about gravity. It could be wondering about the houseplant in the corner of the veterinary reading room and how long it's been there and whether it needs water and what species, what variety it is, and how old it is. So just giving yourself something to wonder about. This is not checking out. It kind of sounds like that, but it's not actually checking out of the emotional experience that you're having. It's giving your nervous system a little breather. Pair this with the parasympathetic breathing that I just taught you to reset, giving you something to focus on that feels safe. Something completely non-threatening, completely neutral, interesting. You can even wrap your pet into this and notice that gravity is holding them down too. And somehow you're both anchored on this little spot here on Mother Earth together. And isn't that remarkable? Just giving yourself wrapping your pet into if you're contemplating the houseplant and just looking at it and just thinking, I wonder what my pet thinks when he or she looks at that. I wonder, does she want to eat it? What does she smell? I wonder if this houseplant has a smell that only he or she can detect. And just giving yourself a little break from shared stress over whatever your pet is going through into shared curiosity, having a different kind of experience together while you're in the waiting room, while you're in the exam room, while you're in the training class, while you are preparing to leave and you're worried that your pet is going to erupt into separation anxiety to take your awareness into a different space and then to share it with them. This is a very, very primitive form of animal communication, believe it or not. And you can take them into a space. Have you ever been having a crappy day? And then you got on the phone with someone or you just bumped into somebody who was so cheerful and having such a great day. And talking with them, you just felt a little better. So it's the same basic principle. So these are just some easy, low stress ways to get yourself unstuck, to send your nervous system a standout, all clear message to give yourself a breather, a little bit of extra energy freed up to do what we're gonna do next, which is to set your intention. And I realize setting intentions, that is kind of a cliche these days. It's something that it feels like everybody is coming out of the woodwork telling us we need to set intentions for everything. And yet there's a reason for that because when we set our intention, we tell our attention where to go. And there is a specific part of your brain called the reticular activating system. It's buddies with your limbic system, which is the part of the brain that deals with emotion processing. And the reticular activating system's job is to show you only what you tell it you're interested in. So it's like a little bot in your brain. Most of us have no idea that it's there. We don't realize we can train it to show us more of what we want to see, what's beneficial, and less of what we don't want to see that is detrimental to us. And when you set an intention, you're basically training your little bot, your RAS bot, to give you more of what you tell it you want to see and less of what you tell it you don't want to see. So setting intention, it's focusing your attention. And by focusing your attention, you're making a decision. And the root word of decision basically translates to mean to cut off all other options. So when you set an intention to focus your attention in a certain direction by making a decision about something, you're telling your reticular activating system this is high priority. This is really important. I want more of this and I want it. And setting intention doesn't have to look like toxic positivity. It doesn't have to look like whitewashing what's really going on here. In fact, it's not really about that at all. It's about how do I want to feel moving through this experience. I'll share the intention I set for my pedal as we're walking through this health challenge that we're going through together. Happy, healthy, slim, trim. That gives you a little hints about part of what we're going through. Calm and content pedal. That is my working intention. Happy, healthy, slim and trim. Falm and content. And the intention that I set for myself is that I am going to be her champion, her advocate, the con and her storm. So you can set an intention for the experience itself. You can set an intention for how you want your pet to feel. The goal, if you know how to communicate with your pet, you can ask them what their intention is. I'm lucky, I know how to communicate. I'm a professional animal communicator. So I was able to dialogue with Petal. Ask her, how do you want to feel, sweetheart? I want to feel happy and healthy. The slim and trim part, I will admit, came from me and the vet, but that is very beneficial towards and very much fueling the happy and healthy, given that she's in a kind of a hormone firestorm that's been exacerbated by some underlying health issues. And that calm and contentment, we both want that. So you can take a look at setting an intention for yourself. So I want to be her champion, I want to be her advocate, I want to be the calm in my pedal storm, pedal. So after communicating with her, I want to be happy, healthy, slim and trim, which fuels that. That gives me kind of my marching orders and where I need to focus my advocacy and my championship of her health needs and calm and content. And when we bring that together, you can see that we are not saying my intention is for all of this to just go away. My intention is for my pet to make a miraculous recovery. My intention is for the separation anxiety, the high sensitivity, the cancer, the kidney disease to magically disappear. Sure, that would be great. But if you do want to set an intention like that, then what I would encourage you to do is using the examples that I gave you, don't focus on the goal itself. Again, focus on how you feel when you achieve it. So let's say you do want to say, I set the intention that my pet makes a full and complete recovery from cancer. That is a powerful intention. And if you're not sure, we can always have a communication session and ask your pet what their part of your working intention is. But the important piece, the activating piece in this, the piece that your reticular activating system and your brain is looking for to give it guidance about what information to give you and what information to withhold from you to move out of your direct line of sight is the energy and motion behind it, the emotion, the feel. So let's say you are dealing with a cancer diagnosis for your pet. Imagine you're sitting in the vet clinic right now, right here and now you are sitting in the vet clinic, the vet walks in, hands you a paper, says, We just got your pet's test results back, and the cancer is gone. How do you feel? Lock that in. That is what you want to focus on because we're not just setting this intention and we're getting it. We are going to work with this intention every single day. And until such time as either the situation resolves or it evolves into something where maybe a different intention would be a little bit better suited to the circumstances. So let's take another example. Maybe you are preparing to leave and you are worried about your pet because your pet has separation anxiety. And what we tend to do in these situations, we humans, is we tend to forecast more of what we're already used to seeing. So that might look like you come back and the couch cushions are ripped up again, or the paint is stripped off the wall, or the furniture has been moved across the room, or your pet has feet and fooped in their crate and gotten it all over everything, or they've done themselves a harm trying to get out of their enclosure yet again. And so we're already forecasting the information our reticular activating system has gathered for us from past experiences. If we don't train it to do something different, to look for something different, to literally co-create something different, it's going to continue to give us more of this. And we're going to continue getting what we've always gotten, which is exactly what we don't want. So by feeling into this moment when you're voiced across the threshold, you're about to leave. And instead of forecasting the same gym glimmer disaster that you're accustomed to seeing when you get back home, you work with your intention and you think my intention is to be the calm in my pet's storm so that he or she feels connected to me, whether we are physically together or not, and knows that they are safe, that they are cared for, that they are in their forever home, and that they are loved and they can whether I am here with them physically or not. Again, the key is not the words, it's the emotions that we feel. Imagine with me for a moment. If you've got a pet who has any kind of anxiety issue around you being there or you being absent, imagine you are walking back through the door. You have come home from your errand or your work day or you're outing with your friend or dropping off your kids or whatever you were doing, and you walk in and all is peaceful and calm in your home. The furniture is exactly where you left it. The couch cushions look exactly the way that they looked when you left. Your pet is calm in their enclosure or in their area. There's no mess, there's no smell. Everyone is chill and happy. How do you feel in this moment? The key is to do it as if it's happening right here, right now. Energetically, it is. Every time you feel the feeling, it's actually happening. And so your mission, if you will, when working with these intentions, is to hold that energy throughout your time away and bring it back in with you. Now, will this be the one and only thing that transforms your pet's ability to withstand separation from you in terms of physical proximity? It may be, it may not be. I often see that a combination approach is needed. However, this does tend to be the secret weapon because above and beyond anything and everything else we try, behavioral retraining, new social skills, getting our pet a pet, getting them our friend, doing medication or homeopathy or holistic therapies or body work or animal communication to find out what your pet wants and needs. This tends to be the area that we don't look at. And over and above anything else that you offer, your pet's looking to you to determine whether it's safe or not. And if you're broadcasting messages that you're expecting more of the same behavior and your emotions are a match, that dread, that doom and gloom, that disappointment, that frustration, that hopelessness, that overwhelm, that depression, those thoughts of rehoming. Yes, what message your pet is picking up from you? So shifting your energy is often that one thing that we can do that kind of puts us over the top. It's the one missing piece in the puzzle that completes the picture that we have been so patiently and diligently and persistently painting for our pets with our pet. So that's the second piece is to set your intention and to work with it. Now, the third piece in this particular puzzle is about stepping into your personal power. And this is what I teach when I teach the intuitive development for pet parents workshop, the free training that I do every other month or so. I teach personal pet parent empowerment through intuition. And it really is about becoming your pet's champion, becoming your pet's advocates through a specific kind of listening that listens beyond the guidance given or the take-home instructions or the medication prescriptions or whatever it is to the next steps or the big picture outcome. So here's a good example. I was at the vet with my pedal a couple weeks ago, and one of the veterinarians there, and this is a world-class avian and exotics vet. So I deeply respect the staff there. I have visited them for years with various members of my pet family. But this particular vet, young, new, and he casually says, I think we might need to do a CT scan. Pedal is like, she's like 100 grams. Like I was really CT scan. That's very interesting. And I was feeling pretty desperate. But instead of saying yes to a very for a bird, very invasive, very expensive test, I asked a critical question because I've trained myself to do this. First of all, what information could that give us about pedal's condition that might point us in a different direction or look under a rock we haven't looked under before? And two, based on whatever information we can get from it, what will we be able to do with it? And just by staying calm and centered and present enough to listen to what is really being said and to listen objectively, openly, with curiosity, noticing, wondering, getting curious. Those tools never go out of fashion. Also with an eye towards what's the end game here? So this is where we do kind of want to go to the end game. Rather than, well, here's the diagnosis, here's the medication. Well, how will that medication help? And what are the signs that I can look for to know whether it's working or not? And what are the risk factors? And most importantly, especially if you're having even the slightest twinges of doubt, what are the alternatives? Is there anything else that we can also try? So when you're calm enough to step into your pet storm, I was working with a pet parent client two weeks ago, and she was talking with a very well-known celebrity dog trainer who wanted to take her little puppy and send her away for a month to training camp. And this pet parent booked a session because she was just feeling very conflicted about it. And when we got to the root of it, we discovered that her intuition was screaming at her that this is not the right move for all kinds of reasons, including that it wouldn't help the relationship between this new puppy and her older dog, which was a key part of why she wanted the training in the first place. So when we're able to be calm enough, stay present to monitor our feeling state, the energy and motion that is us, our emotions, our emotional state, our feeling state, then we can show up to listen objectively, critically, with curiosity, noticing, wondering, getting curious, taking a look at the bigger picture, not just, well, the vet wearing the official white coat with the credentials behind their name is telling me, or the trainer with all kinds of certifications and testimonials from celebrities is telling me to listen for our personal pet and to listen for our emotional reaction to what's being presented, and to listen for what do I need to shift into a better feeling emotional state about what's being offered to my pet, then we can serve as the champion and advocate that we can be, that we're being asked to be, that our pet is counting on us to be. So listening, really listening, not just to the advice being given, like it's a teacher giving us the topics on next week's quiz that we just need to memorize and regurgitate, but listening from the perspective of what we're discussing right now has the potential to transform my pet's life. The question is, what kind of transformation are we looking at? And is it the kind of transformation that we are aiming for? So the next piece of this process is to give yourself time. That might be a little uncomfortable. And that is also why this process that I'm giving you is not for triage situations. If your pet is in distress, that is a whole different situation. Last month I rushed pedal to the emergency room twice in one day. I was doing the parasympathetic breathing, but I really didn't have time or emotional bandwidth or energy to do any of the rest of it. We just needed to get her seen and get her seen right away. She went into oxygen therapy for a little bit. She cleared her system and she was able to come home and she got better after that. But so this process, it's a it can be it take a little bit longer. It takes less time once you've practiced it, but it can take a little bit longer at the outset. So it's good to start practicing it now with small issues, small tweaks and course corrects, so that it gets into your neural wiring, so that your reticular activating system gets used to it. So it starts perceiving your life and the greater data field that it's constantly sifting through on your behalf from the lens of your calm inner state, the emotional set point that is most desirable for you, which stems from your intention and how you want to feel and feeling as if in each moment stepping through this process. And then you naturally realize I have time. So it might look like telling the vet, can I let you know? I want to sit with this. And I like to think about it. And you don't have to say, I've got a bad vibe, I've got a good vibe, you don't have to give a timeline. You can just say, This is so much information. This is so valuable to me. Thank you so much for your professional insight and your guidance. And I'm going to take it home and sit with it. And you might discover as you're sitting with it that that little emotional thread that you were a little too overwhelmed by the interaction with the vet or the trainer or at the dog park or at the boarding or the kennel or at home. You might just need to take a step back and say, I just need to sit with this for a minute and figure out is there anything about this picture that doesn't land, that doesn't feel hundred percent like an authentic fit for my pet? We don't give ourselves time. We don't give ourselves space. We don't give ourselves any kindness. We crush ourselves. If you're anything like me, I tend to get kind of mad at myself when my pet is going through something and I tend to kind of turn on myself and say to myself, you missed something. What did you do wrong? Why are they suffering? You may not do that. You may project that outward. You may have a different way of working with yourself. Maybe you're really kind to yourself, in which case, just keep doing that. That's probably going to work better than anything else. But if you have any tendency at all to lapse into guilt, into shame, into overwhelm, into self-criticism, into running around asking everybody else what you should be doing or feeling or thinking or how you should be proceeding through whatever this situation is, then this is the tool you need the most. Permission to not act, to spend some time with it. And to work with an intention to ask for clarity and to notice how calm and wonderful you feel when that clarity arrives and to do your best to stay in that state. This is what I'm seeking. I'm seeking calm and clarity. I'm seeking calm and clarity. I'm seeking calm and clarity. Then whatever will bring you calm and clarity will naturally attract itself to you. And you might just stumble into a feed on social media or run across somebody you haven't seen in a while and get to chatting and something pops out and you realize, oh my goodness, I didn't know there was a holistic practitioner that was right down the street from me. I didn't know that there was this other alternative to this medication. I didn't know that there was this new trainer who just came to turn on, who is really doing a great job with new puppies. So when we stay in that congruence emotionally with how we want to be feeling and feel as if right now, by giving ourselves the space and time to be in that not knowing, then often the solutions present themselves because they are already being magnetized through us to the power of the energy in motion within us. And this is where we have to look back at our biology again and recognize your heart is a giant magnet and your brain is an electrical processing plant. So you are a giant ball of electromagnetic energy. And when you work with that, you have all the electric power you need and all of the magnetizing properties that you need to draw to you the experience that you want to have parenting your pet, caring for your pet, co-creating life with your pet. So giving yourself space and time, recognizing that an I don't know is a valid race to spend more time noticing, wondering, and getting curious. It is not a sign that you need to go run around and ask somebody else. It is not a sign that you're an incompetent pet parent. This is something I've struggled with in the past. It is not a sign that your intuition is broken and you will never find the solution for your pet, and you just need to do whatever somebody else tells you to do. It is a sign that there's more to be revealed. So spend some time here. Don't run away from it as something scary or something that means that there's some kind of a lack in you or an incompetency in you, but it is actually a signal to go deeper, to ask yourself with great kindness, what do I need here? What would shift my feeling state and how can I go about getting? And last but not least, and this is the most important part from my perspective as an animal intuitive, it's don't carry the burden of your pet's care all by yourself. Give your pet a say, give your pet a voice in their own care. If you were going through something and you weren't able to talk in human words to tell people what you wanted, does that mean that your preferences, that your opinions, that your perspectives, your needs, and your wants go away? Absolutely not. So that's you in your pet skin. Your pet knows. They may not know in the thought-based way that we humans know when something is not right in their world, whether it's health, behavioral, mental, emotional, whatever it is, but they know. And given the opportunity, they will share what they want and often what they need. The times when I have been talking with a parent, I have heard a very specific word. Sometimes it's a part of the body, sometimes it's a certain essential oil, sometimes it is an image of something that when I describe it, I discover the pet parrot knows exactly what it is. I wouldn't have had any idea. Sometimes I will get information. I will never forget talking with this one dog who gave me this feeling on my gums of something really weird and kind of squishy. And to me, it felt kind of like eating jello a little bit. And I was just at a loss for how to describe this to his mouth. And I finally said, Okay, look, I don't know how to say this, but somehow your dog has some kind of weird jelly-like sensation on their upper gums, and he really likes it. And I have no idea why he wants to tell you this or what it's all about. She says, I know exactly what that is. It was a holistic remedy she was giving him. And apparently it was tasty and he loved it. And she squirted it on his upper gums. And that was a gold star for mom. He was telling her, keep doing that. It's working. I like it. I feel better. So we can dialogue with your pet in all kinds of ways to find out is it working? Is it helping? Is it not helping? What do you need? What do you need more of? What do you need less of? What have I not thought of yet that we could try together? Sometimes I find out that it's you that they really want to focus on. Sometimes the issues that you're dealing with with your pets are what I call pet charades. And I did a whole podcast episode about that. So I'll link that up in the show notes for you as well. But sometimes it's really not an inner health or behavioral issue with them at all. It is an attempt to communicate with you. So actually communicating with them can go a long way to clearing up the confusion and resolving the issue. So that's number five. So again, your simple five-step process. You start with that sympathetic breath to calm yourself the heck down, to open out a window of calm to your pet, a window of clear communication to your pet, sending them the message. It's okay, we can be calm. It's all right, we're gonna get through this. Number two, if you can, if it's not a triage situation, set your intention before you step into the situation. If you're in the situation right now, set it down. And then notice the emotional state that that intention puts you in and do your very best to visit every single day, to visit multiple times a day, to immerse yourself in that feeling state as often as you can. That will start your electric power plant in your brain. You like this, we want more of this, we'll do this more often. That will start magnetizing. Your heart energy will start drawing to you congruent experiences. Then, number three, bring your listening ears. If you're calm, you can be present. If you're present, you can listen critically, objectively, and with an eye towards the bigger picture of what information will this give us? What can we do with it? What are the options? What's the timeline? What sign should I look for? All of those great questions that signal you are being your pet's champion and advocate. Number four, don't rush yourself. Don't rush into anything. Don't push yourself. Befriend yourself. Give yourself time. If something doesn't feel quite right, take that as the sign that it is, not a sign that you're doing something wrong or that you're not cut out for this. And number five, give your pet a voice in their care. Don't try to do it alone. They have insights you will never have about how they are doing and feeling in their own life. And the only way to gain access to those insights is to ask them whether you decide to do that through booking a pet session with me, and I will support you by serving as your interspecies translator, or you decide to come and join the fluency program and you learn how to have these conversations for yourself. Either way, both paths lead to home. They lead to co-creating a happy, healthy, calm, content life with your beloved pet, whom you would do anything for, you would give anything for. And this is a simple five-step process to help people get there together. So I hope you have enjoyed today's podcast episode. If that is a yes, then please let me know. Leave a review, leave a comment, let me know what else you'd like to hear about. Let me know what else you're curious about around this topic, around the topic of pet traits, around breath work, and other ways that you can support yourself so you can better support your pet. I always love to hear from you and I enjoy your feedback and your great ideas and suggestions for what would best serve you. And please check out the rest of the show. We've got a wonderful seven seasons worth of beautiful episodes, some featuring special guests, some featuring me, talking about various topics that are feeling highly relevant to this deep intuitive pet parenting bond that we empathic souls endeavor to build with our pets. And I'd love to hear from you which episodes are your favorite and the most nourishing and supportive for you. So please do enjoy these episodes. They are all here for you free anytime that you want to listen. If you're enjoying today's episode, please give us a like, a subscribe, please follow the show, and let me know how you and your pet enjoy this five-step process. And I'll be back with you hopefully in the next two weeks. It's just me here and my little podcaster sphere recording these episodes for you. So I do try my very best to get them out every couple of weeks and look forward to doing so and being with you as often as I can here on Let's Talk to Animals. So I'm sending you and your animal family all my love and bye.

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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 Animal Love Languages.com 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 Animal Lovelanguages.com. 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.