What Do You Want To Be?
Originally published August 9, 2013
As a child, I had no idea when I grew up I would be an animal communicator. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure communicators and other intuitives didn’t exist back then – for sure they didn’t exist for my family.
When I Grow Up…
I wanted to be a Giraffe when I grew up. I very distinctly remember telling the adults around me I would be very glad to be a Giraffe so my neck wouldn’t hurt all the time because I was looking up at all of the tall people.
The adults told me it was all in my head. I couldn’t be a Giraffe when I grew up.
Maybe. Maybe not.
As a very young child I tuned into the animals all the time. I would lay on my stomach for hours watching the intricacies of the ants in our backyard; every squirrel was my friend; to me, the neighborhood birds were every bit as conversant and helpful as were Cinderella’s birds.
And then the day came when, with the best of intentions, my parents told me to quit connecting with the animals. After all, what would the neighbors think?
Not only did my parents squelch an essential part of my essence and many valuable years of practice for my future livelihood, they denied and severed my relationship with other beyond-human species. Thankfully it wasn’t life long.
As an adult those animal voices began stealthily slipping back into my conscious mind. Not only did I hear the animals talking, I could see pictures they sent me, I could feel feelings, both emotional and physical. I realized the thoughts that crowded into my mind we not always my own. It was a beautiful, new, kaleidoscopic world that opened to me when I realized the animals were connecting with me.
It was not until I was an adult in my 40s that I realized my childhood experiences were not abnormal and I could learn to welcome back and reintegrate that part of myself that had been absent for so long.
How About You?
What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want to be a cat, or a dog or a horse, maybe a bird, a salamander or an elephant?
Were you were more connected with the animals as a child? If so, what was it like to begin to connect with the animals as an adult?
What if, as you are learning to disconnect from societal expectations of how we should treat animals you are beginning to connect with your own being and experiences in an embodied way?
It’s time to leave behind the traditional and restrictive way of looking at our relationship with animals and discover respectful and honorable ways to be with them so that we are honoring their agency and ours. To find out more, sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of the page, listen to the True Kinship With Animals Podcast or contact me with questions.
