When Dogs Changed My Life

The first time I talked to a dog, I didn't realize how much my life would change. How much they would have to teach me about myself and the world.

I followed whatever everyone else was doing with dogs. What Cesar Milan teaches us: I have to be the leader, the alpha. I need to be dominant and secure. They have to follow me, eat after me, and not sleep with me in the bed.

The problem was, that wasn't me, and it actually doesn't have to be that way.

Right before I became an Animal Communicator this past spring I wondered, how animals could not talk to us? It couldn't have meant to be this way. And after my training, I learned we all had the ability to communicate with animals but some of us said it was just our imagination and to ignore it. Like our intuition, we cut off this vital compass because we were told it wasn't real. We couldn't see it, touch it, or hold it in our hands because the only things that could possibly be real is if humans can hear it, see it, and touch it, right?

I can only imagine that this idea comes from fear. Fear of that which we cannot explain in some 8th grade science class. That, we as human beings are not, in fact, the center of the universe.

In ancient times, we communicated with the earth, the plants, the trees, and animals. How else would we have survived? We didn't have screens, TV, or advertisements screaming at us and filling every silent moment helping us to live in "comfort" distracted from our worries and judgements and self-loathing. Because, the truth is, you can only communicate with animals through grounded, centered presence.

And that is tough to do these days.

My teacher, Penelope Smith, says animals ignore us as much as we do them. They see tornados of thoughts above our heads, completely disconnected and wrapped up in illusions, no longer living in the present, but in the past and future.

The popularity of the Power of Now, classes dedicated to mindfulness, meditation, says a lot about our culture. We have forgotten how to live like this. Like Eckhart Tolle, one of my favorite philosophers and gurus, says "we all live in this illusion and think we're not sick because we are all suffering from the affliction."

Like that's the way its supposed to be.

Talking to animals requires you to leave all that behind. To stop thinking. To communicate through silence. Not through your mind but through your heart and deep in your soul. It's a different form of communication. Like a message transmitted through the ether, an energentic current, with no effort.

In that space, animals have thoughts and feelings just like us. Likes and dislikes, but they suspend judgement, and don't harbor hate. They understand humanity on a deeper level. A dog is a man's best friend, because a dog naturally forgives. You can do no wrong by a dog because they don't hold grudges or carry resentments.

Dogs also carry our emotional current to help us heal ourselves. Most of us would do just about anything for our dogs so when aches and pains show up we drive miles for help, spend endless amounts of money, and move heaven and earth to help them heal. When in fact, it was always about ourselves.

My anxiety, my fears, my PTSD all shows up in my youngest girl, Fay. She barks and lashes out. She's startled at the slightest knock at the door. She carries my fear. She acts it out for me so I can see where I need to heal.

Sure, she has her own trauma but is exacerbated by my own sh*t. And so she shows me where I am not free. What work I have left to do. How I can heal to heal her. And that's when I knew that dogs changed my life.