S1 Ep 12: Animals Speak To Her / Bernadette Gavin

Can our pets still communicate with us after they're gone? Bernadette Gavin believes they can.

A professional animal communicator from New Zealand, Bernadette says she receives detailed messages from animals—both living and deceased. In this fascinating conversation, she explains what communication with animals actually feels like, how they share information, and why our relationships with them may not end when they die.

Along the way, Bernadette recounts the extraordinary experiences that convinced her this ability was real, including a visit from her own beloved cat after its passing. We also explore whether all animals possess consciousness, what they want us to understand, and why the bonds we form with them may be far deeper than most of us imagine.

Whether you're a skeptic, an animal lover, or someone still grieving the loss of a cherished companion, this episode offers a thought-provoking look at one of the most mysterious frontiers of consciousness.

If you've ever wondered what your dog, cat, horse—or any beloved animal—might say if they could speak, you won't want to miss this conversation.

Bernadette Gavin

https://www.bernadettegavin.com/

Anna Breytenbach and Spirit the Black Leopard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL--zc1KIxk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

I jumped up, stripped off my clothing, and ran into the water and just went, Oh my gosh! And it came right up to me. Oh my god. My partner and daughter came in and it was right there, and it was just letting us be right in the water. I remember holding my daughter, and the dolphin is just doing laps around my waist.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Oh my god, you will be my friend. We talk to our pets every day, tell them our problems, share our deepest secrets, and just blab to them like we would our closest friends. But what if they've been talking back all along? What if beneath all those tail wags and purrs and quiet stares? What if there are thoughts, feelings, even messages we've never fully understood? Bernadette Gavin is an animal communicator. She has a unique ability to open a channel with our pets and allow them to tell us everything they want us to know. In this episode, we'll be exploring Bernadette's fascinating personal journey to discovering her remarkable gifts. According to Bernadette, our pets are constantly communicating with us. Isn't it time we found out what exactly it is they're telling us? Welcome everyone to another episode of Realization Lab. I'm Jay Sherrick. Right there is David Ron. David Ron in the Flesh. How are you doing today, David? I'm a delight today. Yes, David got some good news. His son got into college, so he's he's in a good mood. I'm in a great space. Bernadette, he's normally really cranky and very difficult to be with.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So I got him on a good day.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Yeah, you you lucked out. So that is our guest who just responded with joy at the fact that you're in a good mood. Yeah. Her name is Bernadette Gavin. Well, tell us where where are you right now?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I'm in a small seaside town called Raglan on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Yeah, and you I actually was gonna send you like some earphones or a microphone or something, and you said for for it to get, even if you order it on Amazon, for it to get to her, it would take four days to get there, but then it would still be a two-hour drive to get there. Is that more or less right?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

But it would probably even maybe take more than four days. It's remote.

SPEAKER_05 2:55

That is remote.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

And I love that it's a surfing town. It's a surfing town. You know how people say, live your best life? Yeah. I think Bernadette is living my best life. Yeah. I think you've stolen my life, Bernadette.

SPEAKER_05 3:07

Where's the nearest hospital? That's what David's making.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

It is an hour away.

SPEAKER_05 3:11

Oh, see, I'm out. You're out. An hour's not that bad. An hour's not that bad unless you're having a heart attack.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

An hour can be a little bit tight. Bernadette, you're an absolutely fascinating person. You have many skills. How do you describe yourself? If someone says, Who are you? What do you do? What do you what's your response?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

I wear a few different hats.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

None at the moment.

unknown 3:33

Not at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

So I work as a professional animal communicator. So I work with people and their animals. I also work with just people as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

And I met you, Bernadette. You weren't there for this episode. I was not. My son Oliver's girlfriend had lost a cat. And so, Bernadette, you you did a session with Maddie that we have as one of our episodes. You were able to connect with Ivy's spirit on the other side. Is Ivy the cat? Ivy is the cat. Okay. Yes. And um tell Maddie what basically what Ivy had communicated to you, which was very reassuring for Maddie. I in fact it completely changed the trajectory of her grief.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, that was a beautiful session to do for Maddie. They have quite a unique relationship, her cat and herself. And so it was a very powerful session to to read for.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

So when you work with people, are you using the same basic technique?

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yes, it's really interesting, Jay. It works in the same way. When we leave our physical body, but it can feel so final for those of us who are left behind. You know, we rely so much on our sense of sight and our sense of touch to prove that things are what they are. But I now know that this field it still exists even without a body because it's not the body at all that contains the essence of us.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

So if when someone passes a human or an animal, you tap into what you're calling this field and you're able to communicate with this field, even though in some cases it's disembodied.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yes, and so what I do intentionally when I connect with, let's say, an animal, whether they are alive or deceased, when it comes to animals, I use a photo. And when I have connected like that, using the photo, and I I I have them on the line, it's like I'm stepping into the river of that animal. And then while I'm there, I listen with my whole body. So I am sensing information that is flowing down the river, information, water, energy. Um, and so I'm just uh very speedily jotting things down as quickly as I can.

SPEAKER_05 5:50

I'm just curious, like when when that information is coming to you, it's not coming to you in words, right? I mean it's it's is it is it symbols, is it's right images, is it feelings? What what is it?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

I say it's a little bit like playing spiritual charades where there's just a whole plethora of ways that information can come in. So I need to be completely open to the odd word or phrase or often there are emotions or feelings, and it really is dependent on a how I best communicate, so I'm a feeler, and also B, who it is that I'm connecting with, how they best communicate. In the case of an animal, they may have been a real chatty, really outgoing, lively animal, and so that's um, you know, they bring a lot of information through. Whereas if an animal was very timid and shy, then there's a very different way that I relate to them and very different way that they relate to me and give me information.

SPEAKER_05 6:49

And is it the same with live animals?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

It is completely the same way. I do find that when animals pass into spirit, there is a certain quality about the connection that is slightly different. It's less sort of day-to-day stuff, it's less mundane stuff, less about food, and um, you know, it's kind of more from a higher perspective, and it's a little bit more poetic sometimes or um profound, even I would say.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

I love what you said that the animal, the cat or the dog or whatever is talking about the food. Like what kind of information have you been able to give pet owners that have been helpful to the pet owners?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah, so in the case of food, let's use that as an example. Um, some living animals might bring the message through that they are just sick and tired of the food that they are getting, and that is why they have lost their appetite. And you know, that can be it seems obvious, but it isn't obvious sometimes. You know, the the the human may be worried about oh my goodness, they're not eating, what is wrong? Is there something really wrong with them? And yeah, sometimes it is just could you stop please with that?

SPEAKER_05 7:56

Right, with the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, and in the case of a deceased animal, I just had a session yesterday where the animal was bringing through such profound information, I kind of just wanted something trivia to bring their person. Right. Um, something day-to-day that they would know, ah yes, that's my animal.

SPEAKER_06 8:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

And this animal said, I really enjoyed being hand fed these small round objects. Um could you tell them? I really enjoyed that. It was really meaningful. It wasn't so much the food, but it was the togetherness that we had. And she said, Oh my goodness, right towards the end of their life, we were hand feeding them, and this was a very um profound and tender moment for us. And so this is an example.

SPEAKER_05 8:43

Oh, that's amazing. And do you ever work with like, you know, unusual animals, like elephants or camels?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

So um the animals that I have tended to work for are birds, horses, cats, dogs, um, a hamster. Um my ultimate dream is to work with elephants and primates and big cats.

SPEAKER_05 9:06

Aaron Ross Powell When people say like if you could do anything in the world, what would you want to do? I was like, I would like to take care of baby elephants. That's what I would like to do. Yeah. Yeah. You and me. Obviously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Okay. So if you're working with a hamster, is the information that a hamster is sharing, is it more simplistic than the soul of a horse or a dog or a more sophisticated animal?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. Not really, but there is some differences. So for example, with the with the guinea pig or the hamster, there is sort of a a particular speed in which they're moving fast.

SPEAKER_05 9:40

Yeah. It's almost in which their heart is beating.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

It's kind of true. There was sort of a a a tempo that was very different to, say, working with the horse. So there are subtle differences. Well, right.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Wha why did the person come to you with the horse? Like what was the issue going on with the horse?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Um there I have m had many horses. One that springs to mind is there was a beautiful young horse who uh it was this woman was wanting to ride the horse.

SPEAKER_06 10:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

But this horse had issues. It was quite young and it had been she didn't really know what its background was. Right. But in connecting with the horse, I was able to really identify it had been bred to be a racing horse and raced very early on and very raced very hard and had a very firm hand.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Someone had mistreated the horse a little bit, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah. And then there was a piece of the puzzle that fell in where this horse was separated from its mother.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Too soon.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Too soon, and very abruptly.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

It's upsetting. It's really upsetting. And when you connected with the horse, could you feel the emotion of being of being t pulled away from your mother too soon?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah, that is how the information comes through. And so this woman was trying too hard basically and too f going too fast. But actually what was needing to happen was to bring this horse right back to basics and to start again at the very basics. It was very specific information on how to deal with the anxiety that the horse was experiencing at this moment due to the past that it had had.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

That's incredible. That's incredible. So you're you're a person with these unique skills. Did you always know you had them? I mean, did they did they present themselves in childhood?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yes. I was always um wanting to be around animals. I had actually always, always, always wanted to to somehow use the skills that I believed that I had. I didn't understand them. I didn't know what they were, but I kind of felt like there was something that that was different about me. Um and I wanted to somehow discover what that was and harness it and use it for for helping people.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

And helping animals, I imagine.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And helping animals. I adore animals. I always knew that I wanted to to do something with animals.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

How would it manifest in in your life as a child? I mean, would would you be able to get messages from animals, or you just felt very close to animals and sort of sensitive to what they might be going through?

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah. We had a lot of animals growing up. We lived on a 15-acre farm, so we had all sorts of all sorts of animals, you name it just about. And um I can remember having a pet rabbit and I became really distraught. It had a hutch outside, you know, a fairly large hutch outside, but I became really distraught because I could sense that it wasn't happy. And so I asked my parents if I could let it go. We you know, we lived in a country. Um I remember my dad actually got a photo of me, um, unbeknownst to me, and I was standing at the hutch door and I had opened it, and this little beautiful little rabbit was going to head off to freedom.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

It was just really important for me to free this rabbit.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

Because the rabbit was sending you the message that it it didn't like being in a cage.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

It just didn't want to be there, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it being, you know, in a cage. And another experience that I had was we had peacocks, believe it or not. And we had this really massive um male peacock with a beautiful tail. And these peacocks would come and sit on our veranda. And I can remember I got so close over time and it became very trusting of me. And I got to the point where I could feed the peanuts in my hand to this peacock, but then I decided that I would put one between my teeth.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

And just very, very gently get closer and closer and closer until the peacock would pluck it from my teeth and eat it. Oh wow. That was our thing. We would just hang out together and I would feed it. You and the peacock from my teeth.

SPEAKER_05 14:02

I thought that was gonna go south. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And we were talking to each other. We were I was making little sounds and it was making sounds back.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Are peacocks known to be very kind of skittish and don't let humans get close to them?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know anyone else who's been that silly.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

Whose mouth fed the peacock? As fun as that story is, it doesn't really speak to your to your gifts necessarily, because I think if if David had to, he could put I could maybe feed a peacock.

SPEAKER_05 14:32

Maybe you feed a peacock with your mouth. I'm certainly not going to communicate with one. I talk to animals as though I can communicate with them.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

I think we all do.

SPEAKER_05 14:40

Does everyone do that?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Absolutely. But but you will be. You will be.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

You are communicating with them.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah, because you're speaking the words, but actually what's happening first is you're feeling the feel.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

And the animals picking up on some words, but more so the feeling that you are omitting.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

All right, so you're connecting with animals on a very deep level as a child. But how does how does it become extraordinary? Because what you said was amazing and wonderful, but what you do these days is extraordinary. Like where did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Yes. So um I continued to have these experiences with animals where I was feeling like I was gaining their trust and also many marine mammals as well.

SPEAKER_04 15:25

Oh, so like whales and dolphins and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

So whales and dolphins.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Wait, so hold on. So everyone's fantasy is to go out and talk to some dolphins and swim with the dolphins and stuff like that. Could you actually do that?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

Really? You could swim with dolphins? Wild dolphins?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

So I continue to have experiences with animals that kind of made me think that maybe something else was going on.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

At this point, Bernadette talks to us about the experiences she had in her twenties when she met a young man in France who had a small boat, and she decided she would sail around the world with him.

SPEAKER_05 16:03

Aaron Powell It was the same instinct that led you to feed a peanut to a peacock with your just a couple decades later.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 16:11

How long did that take? How long were you on the boat?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

So I was on the boat for four years.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

How long how big is the boat in give us in feet? That's not a huge boat. That's not a boat.

SPEAKER_05 16:24

And there's no hospital within five minutes either.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

And there's some serious storms, I see. I read about it.

SPEAKER_05 16:31

Were there a lot of storms? Yeah, there are times where she should have died. Yeah. Oh, that's so terrifying. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

There's a lot of everything. You name it, there was there was it a lot of storms, a lot of boredom as well.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Tell us about the animal experiences you had while you were on the boat.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

So we were situated in the Caribbean, and I actually had some work on a Inter Island ferry, and every second day this ferry would leave from St. Martin and go to Sabre Island. And at one point over the course of f five weeks, there was a dolphin that, a wild dolphin, that just happened to to pass by the island and stay for a while. So often the school kids would go down there and they would see this this dolphin. Um and of course every time we went there we would see this dolphin. It would just really interact with people, of the people. And so basically every day for every second day for five weeks um when we went to this island, I would um jump in the water just with a with a weight belt on to keep me sit down and mask and snorkle. And I had some jewelry, some bracelets on my wrist, and I would jingle my bracelets in the water, and sure enough the dolphin would come around and we'd just hang out together and swim. And it was just such an incredibly beautiful experience. And I can remember just being so joyful and laughing and just diving under and holding my breath for as long as I could, and then coming up for air, and the dolphin would leap up and over my head and and back into the water, and it was just such a beautiful experience to to feel close to this wild creature. And at one point we came to the island and the dolphin wasn't there, and we asked, Where's you know, where's the dolphin? And it had another part of dolphins had come close to the island and it had been seen joining this pod of dolphins.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Was anybody else um swimming and playing with this dolphin?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Well, I know that some school kids would get in the water and splash about and it would sort of come in and in around them. I had heard that that often happened. Yeah. But um when we came and I was in the water, there was nobody around. It was really a special moment.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

That sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

When you spend four years on the ocean, you get to see a lot of creatures. I spent an hour swimming with a beautiful giant manta ray in Tobago, and we just, you know, really interacted with one another and swam circles around each other, and it was just the most beautiful experience. And then there's turtles and galapagos and sharks in the Pacific.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

Wait a second, you're sorry. Are you connecting with the sharks? You were swimming around with the sharks?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

In the water with them.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

No swimming around with the ray though, that's incredible. I don't think I've ever heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

No, it was such a beautiful thing. I was on the boat alone one evening. It was a beautiful dusk, pink sky, pink water, crystal clear, beautiful smooth surface. I had just come from a surf, just a paddle's distance away. And I look out at the sea, and there are two creatures that I did wasn't sure what they were at first, and they were sort of trawling, you know, they were fishing and they were just moving around. Um, and I realized, oh, they have these big mouths that are big giant manta rays.

SPEAKER_06 20:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

And so I decided to just quietly slip into the water with a mask and snorkel on and just really gently paddle over just to s get a better look at them.

SPEAKER_06 20:15

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

And one of them just peeled away from the other one and just really started to engage with me.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

When you're doing that, are you talking to the ray like in your mind?

SPEAKER_01 20:27

At this point, I'm still not aware that animal communication is an actual thing. All I know is that I'm having these incredible experiences with animals and able to get close. And so I'm not intentionally speaking, but I am definitely projecting feelings of joy and of trust and of awe, and I can tell that these animals seem to be responding to that.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Sometimes I'll go surfing and some dolphins will come and I'll get so excited and I'll be projecting feelings of trust and joy and awe, and I'll paddle out to them and they just they just take off. So uh it's not it's not that easy.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

There's also often, you know, if there were a lot of other people around, it's not excuses for me. It's not just you.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

It could just be him.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

It could just be him.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

You you don't know me very well, Bernadette. It's quite quite likely me. Then a couple of years after her boat trip, Bernadette has an extraordinary experience that helps her begin to realize what she was capable of.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

2007, when I was actually in the States, and there was a whale that was stuck up the Sacramento River, and it had been up the river for a couple of weeks now. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

It had accidentally like wandered up the river.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

Without a paddle.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

There's there was tumor.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

It was starting to, you know, get quite anxious, and it was stu because it's fresh water at that point, it was starting to get a little bit unwell as well. And there were people People with on boats every day, they were clanging pots and pans, and there was this thought that there was um there was a bridge that it needed to go underneath, and there was some kind of electricity um output on this bridge that they thought maybe it was emitting a a signal that m maybe was interfering with the whale heading out that way.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

So the the whale had gone up past this bridge and now needed to turn around and come back past the bridge but wouldn't pass the bridge.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, that's right. So um I happened to be there and could see this going on. I didn't know anything about animal communication being a thing at this point. Right. I just knew I had an uh uh affinity with animals.

SPEAKER_06 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

And I remember just sitting in the car and thinking, I can do something.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

This is a great story. I love this. The whale's in trouble. She's sitting in the car, she has an inspiration, I can do something. God, this is so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

There's a part of me that is going, Oh, what are you talking about? And but I just knew I said to my partner, Phil, I I think I can help. I don't I don't know what is gonna happen, but I just feel like I I can help. So he helped me find a little quiet space, and I remember just instinctively and intuitively just closing my eyes, imagining myself being with the whale, uh-huh, and imagining the whale facing the bridge, imagining the impulse, the electricity, whatever was going on there, but imagining that if the whale just shot through that space and just was brave and just shot through there, that this expanse just widened up and the sense of liberation. I gave I tried to project this feeling to the whale of this freedom.

SPEAKER_06 23:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

And I did this and thought, okay, well, I guess that's what I was meant to do. And you know, I just criss crossed my fingers and and we left. And as we left, there was a bit of kerfuffle in the water and in the river, and I remember thinking, Oh my goodness, what is going on? So we got to where we needed to get to, and it was at a friend's place at this point, and I remember looking on the computer to see the status of this whale, and it precisely this sounds crazy, I know, but at precisely the time that we left, it had made a turn for the bridge and bolted and gone.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Oh, that's it. That's amazing. But I I love how you think that's crazy compared to what you did with Maddie's cat. Um it's such a great story. I love that. Bernada saves the whale. That should be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

You know, I I am so reluctant. There are very few people I have told that story to.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

Oh, well, you shouldn't have said it here because I know.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

So I began to wonder, you know, is there such a thing as, you know, connecting deeply with an animal and actually being able to um project information and perhaps receive information? I started to question what was going on. And there was another incident um where there was a it was the following year, there was a beautiful dolphin um in New Zealand, in a part of New Zealand. Um and it was just being so friendly, it was hanging out with kids. There were a lot of people that were arriving to this beach to to see this dolphin, it had a name, Mokko. It was just this beautiful kind of addition to the usual life in this in this town. And I remember hearing about this dolphin and thinking, we need to go. It's like an eight-hour drive away from us, and packed our daughter in the car, and my partner and I set off on this mission that I needed to go and be with this or be near this dolphin.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Did you feel a calling because you thought there might be something wrong with the dolphin, or you just wanted to witness this phenomenon that was happening?

SPEAKER_01 26:07

I wanted to witness this phenomenon that was happening. And we arrived, you know, you know, eight hours later at this um beach and it was stormy and bitterly cold. There was nobody around and no dolphin.

SPEAKER_06 26:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

And I remember thinking, oh, this is sad, the dolphin's not here. And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe I can just let it know, let it know that we are here. You know, maybe that's maybe that's what needs to happen. So I sat on the beach and I closed my eyes and I just called. Moko. I just, you know, in my mind, I'm not that crazy. In my mind, silently, I just thought, you know, we're just we're here, we're a little family. We want to stay home.

SPEAKER_03 26:54

We drove eight hours.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

And no kidding, I opened my eyes and I see this fin coming around the bay.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

And I just jumped up, stripped off my clothing, and ran into the water and just went, oh my gosh, and it came right up to me. Oh my god. Got to be in this freezing cold water. My partner and daughter came in and it was right there, and it was just letting us be right in the water. I remember holding my daughter, and Mockle the dolphin is just doing laps around my waist.

SPEAKER_05 27:32

Oh my god. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

It is amazing. Yeah, it was just fascinating. And my daughter still talks about how more fascinated she was at watching me and my enthusiasm than she was at watching the dolphin at one point because I was just completely, yeah, completely overwhelmed by it.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Well, this is the proof of your dream, like you're oh my god, this dream that I have that I can connect with animals and that can be who I am as a person is coming true right in front of your eyes.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

That's right. At that point, I just thought, you know, at some point I had to get out of the water, it was freezing, and I just said, you know, in my mind, oh my gosh, you just you're just I love you so much to this dolphin and thank you so much, and you know, and it and it wandered off. But I was just left with this feeling of there's something going on here. There is definitely something going on here.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

How does that translate then into becoming into realizing that there's actually a practice here, something that you can do and can help people?

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Okay, so in 2013 a s a friend of mine sent me a link um to a little YouTube video that ended up going viral that you may remember. It was a woman called Anna Breitenbach, and she um is a professional animal communicator, and she she had an amazing interaction with the the black leopard thing. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

I did see that, yeah. That is amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

It's amazing. And so my friend sent me this link, and I watched it and just had this profound reaction, and I just started crying and just like, you know, like tears and everything.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

My and it's an incredible video. I mean, she's she's literally talking to this leopard who can't adjust, can't like uh is just so angry and violent, and and she just comes in and we'll put the link on the on the episode here so people can find it. It's just absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

It's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

So you're crying and crying.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Yeah, and the thing that impacts me the most is that someone else is doing this, and this is a thing. And she does she does this to help animals and to help humans and their animals. And so it felt really profound, like a piece of me had really landed, and I wasn't just imagining things all this time, and all of these experiences that I had had, it just validated them for me. And so I have felt a real shift, and I knew that I wanted to to look into this more and become a professional at this work so that I could really make an impact for animals. And then in 2019, it was a big year, we sold our business, I published my book, my daughter left for university, and my cat of 17 years died. Oh, and I was distraught.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

What was your cat's name?

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Tuna.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Tuna cute.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

I don't know why that's funny, but it's very funny.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

It is funny.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

Don't laugh. The woman is distraught. Tuna after 17 years. David. Tuna cat.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Tuna cat. Exactly. That was her nickname. Her nickname was longer than her actual name. So so tuna, the cat of 17 years who we rescued as a tiny little kitten, a feral kitten. So she passed away and I was so distraught, I just didn't know what to do with myself. And a podcast came up, and it was an interview with Karen Anderson, the animal communicator. So I basically had a call with her and signed up to to learn how to become a professional animal communicator. And it was around that same day or a day later that I was the um I was actually visited by my cat in spirit, and it really, really made a huge impact on me.

SPEAKER_05 31:39

What did Tuna say? I'm guessing meow. No. No.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Well, actually. So um I remember being in in deep sleep and I heard her in my ear, like really close, louder than any of my my dream time was, and it woke me. Like I woke from deep sleep to she she meowed David in my ear.

SPEAKER_05 32:04

David was right. Every once in a while it happens.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:07

I'm an animal communicator too.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah, you are. See, you can do this.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

Yeah, I can do this.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

So what did what did let's forget about David? What did Tuna say?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

So um so basically she woke me from a deep sleep, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, she is somehow still here. This is not in my head, this is not in my dream. I wasn't uh this is not part of a sleep thing. This is this is like somebody tapping you on the shoulder while you're asleep and you wake up.

SPEAKER_06 32:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

And from that moment onwards, honestly, my my grieving for her stopped. It was like someone turned the tap off.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

Was it because you sort of sensed that, oh, she's still here on some level?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

It was the knowing. I knew I wasn't just thinking, I wasn't just imagining or believing that it might be so. I knew for a fact that she had just woken me, so she was still around.

SPEAKER_05 33:01

Do you ever communicate uh with her afterwards?

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Yeah, I mean I guess I do it I do it all the time. This is a really good question, David, because it's really different when we are communicating with our own animals because it's so easy to feel like, oh yeah, I remember that time with them, or oh, I'm just imagining what it was like when I was with them. You know, we can just we tend to put a lot of this down to just feeling like we are imagining or remembering them. Because no new information is really coming in. So we feel a connection, yes. We feel this love, yes, but we aren't able to prove that there is something else going on.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

There's no new information.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Do you feel like Tuna woke you up to sort of say, hey, I'm here, stop grieving, stop worrying so much?

SPEAKER_01 33:56

I really do feel like that. And it it's strange to say this, but I also feel like I was on the right path as well. Like I had just signed up to do this animal communication course, and really my my mission was to help bring a sense of peace to to people who had also lost their animals.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Like Maddie.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Like Maddie, and also to help people with their living animals that might need some assistance, you know. I feel like I am an ambassador for the animals. I'm the bridge between the human world and the animal world, and I like to bring us closer to kind of enhance our understanding of each other and create this deeper and and better, frankly, relationship.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

It's kind of so perfect, the choreography of this cat, Tuna, that you loved so much. Its passing was the catalyst that moved you forward. I mean, it's almost like its entire life was meant to lead up to this moment where the grief caused you to find your way, your destiny, and then it wakes you up from sleep and says, it's okay, it's okay, you're on you're on the right path.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

That's right. And it's interesting because a lot of sessions that I do for people, the animal, their animal, will come through with a particular message that is very similar, um, that will help their human get on with their life. An affirmation of something that they were thinking about doing but haven't yet.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

That's amazing. That's amazing. Bernadette, it uh your stories have been so incredible and it's it's so wonderful to talk about animals because when you talk about them, just that that unconditional love that they bring just sort of like enters enters the room. And I really feel that. David, do you feel the unconditional love?

SPEAKER_05 35:52

I I'm surrounded by unconditional love always. Yeah, so that's a constant. I am Mr. Unconditional Love.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

I can feel that.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

I also want to say, I know you've had great mentors, but I don't know the mentors. I've seen the video, the one video, but I can't imagine there is anyone better in the world at doing what you do because you're just so powerful and wise and such a wonderful vehicle channel for for this connection between people and their pets. And uh I just want I just want to say that because you've been talking a little bit about your mentors and uh I want to acknowledge you.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Oh, thank you so much, Jay. I think that um if there's one thing I would want to tell people, it would be that all living beings feel and deserve respect.

SPEAKER_06 36:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Even the smallest ones. And this understanding, this alone can invoke a sense of deep connection, which I believe is really needed in the world today. What?

SPEAKER_03 37:01

No.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

The world's doing great.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Don't mess up the world, Bernard.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

No, it's just perfect. I mean, just a little bit. You know, just a little bit more.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

Bernadette Gavin, thank you so much for sharing all this information and wisdom and love with us. Uh, it's been such a treat to have you here on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Thank you so much to you both for having me. It's been a real pleasure to speak with you.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

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