3 Lessons in Balance I Learned from Animals

Yesterday, birds helped me get ready for a reading.  

They assisted me so much in clearing my energy and feeling centered, that I started thinking about how we can learn practices from animals to find balance, flow, even a deeper understanding of our life path. All of that from a few birds out my window.  

Here are three lessons the animals have taught me that I use whenever I can to feel better, wiser, and on track:

1.     Return to grazing. Many animals have the ability to shake off a stressful moment and go back to the present moment of calm. Horses demonstrate this when they gently go back to grazing after being spooked by a noise or unexpected event. The grazing is a sign their nervous system has regulated after being on high alert.

I see this all the time with my cats — they’ll engage in a scuffle and then curl up on the couch or rub against my leg. They let it go immediately.

Yesterday, as I meditated before my first animal communication reading of the day, I silently thanked the birds outside my window for their beautiful song. Yes, I live in Brooklyn, but, to my delight, it can often sound like an enchanted forest. Soon, however,  a crushingly loud horn blared through my street, continuing on for way too long. I felt instantly annoyed as it pulled me out of the zone…but just as the booming noise ended, I heard the birdsong start up again. The robins and sparrows and cardinals weren’t fazed. They reminded me that the abrasive moment had passed and there’s no need to hold on to it. One must continue the joy and the bliss.

It’s super important for us human to go back to grazing, to let the stress release and feel a return to center. Take a walk, pet your animal, hug a tree. Horses’ grazing is their way to connect back in with the earth, their body, and safety — the perfect recipe for finding balance.

2.     Connect with spirit animal meanings. Another layer of my birdsong experience would be to connect with what the bird spirit animal represents: rising above, big picture perspective, and resilience. (All of the above helped me move beyond annoyance and rapid heart rate from the blaring horn.)

Several years ago when I was in the Bahamas, I took an excursion to visit a mysterious pond called the Healing Hole. I found myself trudging in my bare feet through marshland, squishing deep into the mud trying to avoid stepping on thousands of gleaming-blue-flower-looking things right below the water’s surface. I couldn’t see where I was stepping, and there had to be crabs and who knows what else lying in wait. I’d never done anything like this before — it felt like a solo unchartered adventure — and I was scared.

Something took over me though, and I continued with blind faith. Despite my adventure leading me to a waist-deep murky canal that emptied into the Healing Hole, part of me reveled in feeling like Indiana Jones. That evening, safely back in town, I spoke about my adventure to a local ship captain who offered with a bit of exasperation, didn’t I know those blue flower things were jellyfish??

Completely freaked out, I looked up what the jellyfish spirit animal means: trust, faith, surrender, and a releasing of what you cannot control. It was a huge life lesson to me that helped me continue on to more adventures and let go of fear. If thousands of jellyfish decided to leave me unscathed, I can face my fears with balance and trust.

There are tons of books on spirit animals to refer to, and it’s pretty easy to google a reputable source online. From ants, to pigeons, to animals encountered in foreign lands, your experiences with them will always be meaningful, I promise, and will always apply wisdom to how you can find your center.

3.     Pay attention to your own animals’ answers. They’re brimming with valuable info and confirmation for us every day of our lives. We just have to listen.

One time I was scratching my cat under the chin, and I heard my phone ding with a text. When I stopped to look at it, my cat placed her paw under my chin and rubbed three times, literally mimicking how I touched her. Message loud and clear -- what’s more important than our one-on-one love fest? Let’s look at my attention span and see how I can heal it to a before-cell-phones-existed state. Taking in your animals’ feedback about how present you are or not can bring you right into balance.

Another time I was visiting a friend, sitting on his couch between him and his dog Yogi, who was staring out the window happily panting. My friend told me that every day Yogi would interrupt his work-from-home time, asking to be let outside. Instead of doing his business and coming back in, Yogi would just roll in the grass or stretch out in the sun. While my friend wanted a quick in-and-out break, Yogi kept extending the downtime. As soon as I said that perhaps Yogi wanted my friend to have more fun in his day, stop working too hard, and let go more often, Yogi immediately turned to look right at us, stopped panting, and became still. His hyper-focus on us in that moment was this crazy locked-in confirmation of his message. And I needed to hear it as much as my friend.

As crazy as the world feels right now, this guidance from animals never disappears. We always have a resource to help us deal in the moment or connect with deeper wisdom…or remind us to scratch under that chin. 💜