Back when I took my first intro to animal communication workshop, our teacher asked us to connect to an animal named Clark. Without knowing what kind of animal he was, we were to invite his energy in and ask him how he moves his body. Immediately, I felt an urge to move the top of my body forward repeatedly, head first. I didn’t know what this meant, so I asked Clark, “What about your hind legs?” The answer I received was “Does not compute.”
Well, that was it. Going into this workshop, I had my doubts as to whether I could really talk intuitively with animals, and now here was proof—Clark didn’t understand me and there was definitely a failure in communication.
Then our teacher told us Clark was a goldfish, and I felt a rush of joy. It made sense he was showing me moving head first and that he didn’t know what hind legs were. In that moment I went from “I suck” to “I can do this.”
When we adopted our rescue kitty Calla last December, I knew she had physically recovered from injuries to all four feet. I wasn’t sure, though, if she’d be emotionally scarred from that—perhaps fearful and untrusting. I worried about her adapting and feeling safe. But from the start, to my delight, she purred, played, and showed no fear. It was kind of the last thing I expected and had braced for.
The other day this quote jumped out at me from the Nature Spirit Oracle Cards by Denise Linn: “We often are reacting to situations because of preconditioned responses based on our self-generating definition of self.”
From the human world trying to survive and protect ourselves for ages, often the messages we take on are to hustle and work hard, to feel guilty about time off. Or to doubt ourselves and others, to fear those different from us, in appearance or beliefs. But the past few months have shown us the impact of slowing down and taking care of ourselves. Of embracing everyone with compassion and understanding.
I see it as the power of unlearning what no longer aligns with our souls, our lives, our world. There was a time I truly believed only a certain few could do intuitive readings and that I wasn’t one of them. Now I do it for a living and talking to a rabbit four states away is my typical Tuesday.
When I sat down to meditate this morning, my boyfriend said, “See you on the other side!” as he walked out of the room to give me my space. The other side of meditation is the release of self-doubt, worst-case scenarios, and fears. The world may feel like it’s unraveling, but I see it as the great unlearning. ❤️