Rescue animals often have mysterious behavior problems that their people never fully understand. These problems can severely limit an animal’s life, and their family’s life too!

A dog with separation anxiety, a cat who sprays, a horse who cribs, or a pet pig who bites the dog, they always have a story to tell.

Their people look into their animal’s eyes and wonder, “What in the world happened to you to make you behave this way? Why don’t you understand that you are safe now?”

In a communication session, we hear from your animal, listen deeply to whatever s/he has to say. Then I gently but persistently guide the conversation towards the issue their person is calling about. Often the animal will bring up the problem, before I even know the full story of why the person is calling.

“I pee in her husband’s shoes and chew on the sofa when she leaves. I can’t help myself,” one dog told me. And then the deeper reasons came forward: “I was yelled at and beaten by a cruel man, then abandoned on the side of the road. I wandered the streets for weeks before someone picked me up. I am terrified of losing my person who loves me so much now. She is my everything.”

When an animal has a mysterious behavior, it is a coping mechanism for some emotional wound or wrong belief that formed earlier in their lives. 

And beautifully, when animals get to share their story fully and deeply with their person, they change. In about 50% of my client cases, the very problem that the person calls about goes away, just through communicating alone, no additional interventions.

I have so many stories that illustrate this, but probably my favorite story of all time was that of a cat named Genevieve.

Her person, Katy, is a nurse who cares for the elderly. Katy loves cats and always goes to the shelter and chooses the cat that no one else will adopt. Inevitably, it ends up being an older cat with FIV and / or Feline Leukemia. This was Genevieve, with the added complication that she hides a lot and doesn’t like people touching her.

From the time she came home with Katy, Genevieve lived in the spare bathroom. She would not come out for any reason. Ever.

Katy didn’t force the issue; she sensed Genevieve had lived a difficult life in the 11 years before she arrived. Katy just accommodated her friend, bringing food to her, going in for visits and cleaning her litter box.

But the truth of the situation was that Genevieve was in a prison of her own making. And Katy was lonely. Her cat before, Gabby, was very affectionate and followed Katy around the house to see what she was doing much of the day. Here is Gabby perched in her favorite window, watching the birds.

But not Genevieve. Six months of Genevieve’s self-imposed isolation passed, and Katy was at her wits’ end. She wanted to help her friend, and was curious what Genevieve had experienced in her life before that would cause her to be so afraid. Katy saw my YouTube video and decided to reach out to me for help.

Right away Genevieve came forward, ready to communicate. She had a long and intense story, and at one point, Katy and I were both in tears. Here is an audio file of the 60-minute session:

Immediately after Katy hung up the phone, Genevieve came up to her, got close to her face and looked into her eyes very intensely. Katy said Genevieve had never done this before, and that there was this overpowering sense of connection, and it blew her away.

Then Genevieve proceeded to venture out into the hall for the first time, ever.  

In the days that followed, Genevieve gradually, slowly took even more brave steps. Within a couple of weeks, Genevieve had the run of the house.

Below are images of Genevieve finding Gabby’s favorite bird-watching spot, as you can see. In the middle photo she is looking up at the birds in a feeder just outside the window.

Below are photos of Genevieve relaxing in the hallway and watching Katy as they spend their day together.

Each day Genevieve would do something a little more adventuresome. Here she is seen again in the hallway, casually exploring her home. In the other photo Genevieve has found a nice place where she feels protected, but can see and be seen by Katy while she works on the computer.

It is amazing that a lifetime of fear unwound in only a few weeks. This is the power of this work. Genevieve’s truth was heard, received and appreciated. And because of this she was freed from some of the pain from her past.

My client Julie lost her dog Jake in 2014, only a few months after her other dog, Blaze, died suddenly. She was devastated. These dogs were her heart, her connection to joy, and her best friends.

 

After a few months of life without Jake and Blaze, she decided to come to Sedona and take my Basic 1 course in Animal Communication. I was delighted to meet her in person, and honored to teach her. But I knew she was looking for more than the course offered.

She wanted an answer for the anger and sadness that she felt deep inside, a pain that wouldn’t go away.

I think so many of us can relate. Our human lives can be so empty. Then we get a dog or cat or horse or bird or iguana, and there is this brightness in our days that wasn’t there before. What is that? Whatever it is, when they die, life is so hard again. We human beings struggle to feel this brightness on our own.

Julie loved the course, enjoyed meeting me and the other students and spending time with kindred spirits. All through the weekend I was holding a sense of her grief, and hoping something would open up for her, in some way.

On the last day as everyone was preparing to leave, I suggested Julie take my pet rabbit’s photo with her. Bunny was such a wise being, and has helped so many of my students over the years. It was an intuition and I am glad that I listened.

The next day, Julie called before she flew home to say that she had had an amazing experience. She had placed Bunny’s photo on the nightstand by her bed the night before as I suggested, and when she woke up in the morning she decided to use this photo to practice communicating with Bunny.

After a short dialog about Bunny’s life with me and more, she asked my rabbit, “How am I ever going to heal all this grief?”  Bunny answered with her characteristic compassion and directness, “Love again.”

This changed Julie. She felt lighter. It didn’t make her miss Jake and Blaze any less, but it gave her the courage to keep going, and open her heart to another rescue Border Collie (actually 2 :-).

Bunny’s answer was a beautiful surprise for Julie.

I can feel now how Bunny was showing Julie a truth about Love, and Life: they are both in constant flow. And loss and grief are a natural part of this flow; it is as if grief actually is another form of love, love from a different perspective.

I admire Julie’s strength, her willingness to honestly face her pain and open to it. Turning towards pain is so difficult for us human animals! We distract ourselves from our sadness and anger and fear, all day long, any way we can.

Jake and Blaze were special; they touched a depth in Julie that no other beings can access in the same way.

Even so, Rio and Bogey are beautiful in their own unique ways, and bring their gifts to Julie’s life. And they helped Julie’s heart soften, and open again to the flow of Love and Life.

Every day I walk into my office I am astounded by all there is to discover when we communicate with animals. Beautiful and unexpected truths come forward as we empathically open up to hear our animals’ experience of life in this world. Again and again. It is such an incredible learning journey!

People sometimes ask me, “Do animals know that you can do this, and do they come up to you out of the blue wanting to talk?”

Yes, they know. They recognize an openness to them, and a receptivity.

Whether it is a black lab passing me on a hiking trail with his person trailing behind, a horse at a barn, or a koala bear at a zoo, they often give me a knowing look, or feel comfortable coming closer to me for a friendly hello.

They sense a light in my heart, an availability to care and understand what they are experiencing, and receive what they are consciously, purposefully telling me.

But they generally don’t approach me with requests to translate for them and their person. Or come up to me and start pouring out their hearts to me.

This said, there have been a few exceptions.

One of these exceptions happened when I was on a road trip a few years ago, passing through the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. I came upon a very sad, upset horse. Or I guess she came upon me.

I was driving from Northern California back home to Arizona, on my way back from a meditation retreat. I always find a way to drive down Highway 395. Mono Lake and the Inyo National Forest are special territory to me. I feel so alive weaving my way through mountain passes with the windows down, the road curving along the edge of post-card-picturesque rocky streams, and then into stretches of open, arid, hilly land. And then back again into the tall pine forests. So beautiful.

But it’s a total food desert. There are no decent places to eat along the way, only gas stations and sometimes-open diners in tiny, empty-feeling towns.

So I pack a lunch from a grocery store in Reno, Nevada, and plan to pull over on the side of the road somewhere interesting and sit there in my pickup truck and eat.

On one of these trips, I chose to have my lunch along a lovely stretch of highway where there were gorgeous mountains on one side, and fields with cows and a few horses on both sides of the road.

As I was sitting in the driver’s seat, taking the first bites of my vegetarian sushi, I felt that eerie feeling we all know. Someone was staring at me.

It was a horse, from way over there! Across the two-lane highway and across a huge field. She was a tiny dot in my line of sight from where I was in my truck on the side of the road.

I turned my attention back to my sushi. I thought, “This can’t be right. Maybe I am just imagining this.”

But within one or two minutes, she was up at the edge of the fence, her gaze fixed on me.

Obviously she wanted to talk.

“Really?” I wondered.

A few seconds later I thought to myself, “I can’t ignore this horse. She clearly has something to say.”

So I set my sushi on the passenger seat and got out of my truck, walked across the highway, fumbled through the tall-weed-covered ditch on the opposite side of the road, and walked up to the fence where she was still waiting. Still staring.

I touched her nose, gently petting her. She let me.

By this time, all kinds of cows were gathering around, and another horse, a gelding who had a sweet disposition but was not quite as sharp as this mare, came closer as well.

My mind was still surprised, and I didn’t know what to expect. But in my heart, I could feel this horse had a story she needed to tell.

So I opened my heart and listened, made myself available to receive her experience.

Right away, she showed me an image of a dark black steer lying on the ground on his side. Obviously sick.

“He takes care of things here. He was my friend. He was a leader and the others looked up to him.”

She showed me an image of a gun, and a man using it to kill the suffering cow.

“I don’t understand this. My cow friend could have gotten better. The man did not understand. He could have gotten better. He was my friend and we all depended on him, he was the smartest and wisest and most noble of the cows.

“I am so mad at our person, he doesn’t appreciate his cows, what they do for him. He thinks they don’t understand anything but they do. They know what they provide for him. They give to him. I want him to respect the cows. Appreciate them for what they give him. They know why they are here.

“And I want my friend back. We were friends, looking out for the herd together. He was sick but he could have healed. Our person did not understand this, and he didn’t give him time to heal. Now he is gone and I am sick with grief.”

I stood there with her, just listening. There was nothing I could do to solve her problem. I couldn’t make her friend come back alive. I couldn’t go and talk to her person. And she wasn’t asking me to talk to her person.

And I can’t imagine that scenario anyway. Not only would it be unethical and incredibly rude, but they might think I am a lunatic and have me arrested for trespassing.

Even communicating with his horse without his permission was questionable in the ethics department, in my opinion.

But there was a higher good needing to happen here. This intelligent and compassionate mare was very upset, and needed someone to listen.

So I listened.

In the next minutes there, standing in the grass up next to the fence, my new horse friend didn’t say much more that was different. I could feel the same feelings and thoughts rumbling around inside her heart and mind.  I continued to listen and receive.

Around that time, I started to notice the hearts of the other beings who had gathered, the cows and the other horse, together with hers and mine.

They created a little gathering of warmth and curiosity. I could feel each of them having their own experience of the situation.

“Why is this human caring about us?”

“How did our smart horse friend know that this lady could talk to us?”

“What will this lady do? We are sad and we miss our friend.”

I continued to be present with the horse from across the fence. Feeling her grief with her. Just being there. Occasionally petting her nose.

After a few more minutes of this, it was clear I had done all I could do. And by this time the chestnut mare seemed a bit relieved. Someone understood. A human being understood.

Then I sent the following feeling-thoughts to her: “Thank you for sharing your story with me, Beautiful Mare. I am sorry this happened. You are a very compassionate being.” And I told her it was time for me to leave, showing her an image of me getting back in my little truck.

I turned around and slowly walked back across the ditch and street. As I got back in my vehicle, I sat there for a minute, just taking it all in.

I turned on the ignition and headed on down Highway 395. I could see the cows and two horses watching me leave, and then each one slowly started to wander back out into the field.

My grandmother had a saying, “A problem shared is a problem halved.”

We humans think we have to fix everything for another being when they are in pain. It is great if we can, but sometimes deeply-present listening is a precious gift all on its own. It is a kind of grace.

Telepathy, “feeling across a distance,” is really a form of compassion, “feeling with or suffering with another being.”

Telepathy is compassion that is exercised, cultivated, refined, sharpened, made specific.  

In telepathic communication you start by using your heart, your body, your mind, your whole being, to be deeply present to another being’s experience.  

When an animal feels you connecting with them compassionately, they open up to you.  In this open flow of connection between two beings, you can then each consciously send and receive images, feelings, thoughts, and sensory perceptions back and forth to each other.

And by the way it works with humans as well, as we are animals too :-).

This process is nothing short of magic, and profoundly healing.

This is because telepathic connection with another being is a way into the experience of Universal Love—a force that is woven into the very fabric of Life itself.

 

Universal Love Unites Us All

I feel this thread of Universal Love in all the work I do with people and animals, but it is especially strong with my international clients. 

In the first minutes on Skype with an international client, I can right away get a sense of the cultural layer in each of us.

Recently with a client in Japan, and her interpreter, I noticed the polite and reserved qualities of the Japanese way of being, and then in contrast I noticed my more animated and enthusiastic way, that is so very American.

But as soon as the interpreter began translating on behalf of my lovely client’s two dogs, the animals’ voices, and the experience of their love was the biggest presence in the space.  

And the cultural differences dropped away.

The dogs each shared about their unique personalities (very different) and favorite activities around the house.

With openness, innocence, devotion, and sincerity, they each shared how they love their people and their lives with them.

As I translated for these dogs, I remember feeling very connected to my client and to the interpreter, in contrast to the sense of separateness from cultural differences at the beginning of the call.  There were no divisions there; we were all basking in the individual cuteness and unique beauty of each dog’s presence.

 

Reawakening Our Telepathic Ability is a Global Phenomenon

I now have clients on all 7 continents (yes, even Antarctica! Once a client called me while she was working on a research boat docked there).

All over the world, the sense of separateness among different beings is falling away, and people are acknowledging the depth and beauty of their friendships with beings of other species. 

And, by doing this, they are opening more and more to this greater principle of Universal Love, a principle that unites all living things.

While animals are not enlightened beings (they have pain too, and are subject to jealousy and cruelty just like human animals), the relative clarity of their minds and purity of their hearts make it easier for them to shine their light, and in this way, shine these principles of Universal Love and the Inherent Beauty of All Life.

We humans can do this too, we have just forgotten! These essential truths are so clear in us when we are children, but they get buried under complicated belief systems and emotional complexities as we age.

Now more than ever, we humans need to connect back to this pure light inside ourselves—the part of us that knows how to open our hearts to love and appreciates the simple and profound joy of being alive.  

Isn’t it so surprising, we can find access to our deepest, truest selves through the presence reflected in the eyes of creatures of other species.