Having doubts about our abilities to learn and master a skill is a normal part of any learning process. As you are remembering, opening up to and practicing your telepathic abilities to communicate with animals, don’t give up when doubts creep in! Acknowledge any doubts you may have as a natural and even expected part of the process. Doubts are not a sign that you cannot learn to communication with animals! They are a sign that you are practicing versus never even trying. When doubts appear, release any judgements you may have about your ability to learn this skill—as you would a child learning to ride a bike who may sometimes be wobbly or even takes some falls. Just as you would patiently and lovingly help them get back on and keep trying, give yourself the same kind, nonjudgemental support.
Practice some of specific things below which can help you build your confidence and skill:
• Deliberately spend regular time listening intuitively in all areas of your life. We must learn what intuitively derived information feels like compared to logical information, and to learn to trust it. To build and deepen your trust in your intuition, you must learn what it feels like in all areas of your life, not just animal communication.
Listen for the small and big intuitive messages inside of you, ones that may or may not jive with what is logical, but you know they are right for you:
No, these are not the right shoes to buy.
This is the house for us—I just know it.
Somehow I just don’t really trust this person.
Wow I feel good about this person and want to get to know him better.
It seems like it’s time to save money rather than make this purchase right now.
I think I am really meant to read this book; it seems just right for me.
I don’t think this doctor is right for me.
Notice and become more acutely aware of what your “inner knowings” feel like inside: Yes this is OK, no this is not OK or I am not sure. If we don’t listen to our intuition in other areas of our lives, if we don’t learn what intuitively derived information feels like and the sense we get when we know and trust that it’s real, it is much harder to trust telepathic information from animals.
To learn more about this and for lots and lots of practice exercises, you may want to read Sonja Choquette’s book Trust Your Vibes.
• Spend time in inner stillness, alone. There is no right or perfect way to be in stillness, to meditate or to pray. Some people listen to guided meditations, some do a walking meditation in nature, others sit in silent meditation, chant, listen to meditation music and light a candle, journal, or any number other things. There are many paths to inner stillness. However we go there, taking time to regularly tune out the outside world and go a place of stillness within definitely increases our familiarity with what it feels like to allow clear, intuitive messages to come to naturally come to us. Stillness is a place that opens a door to hearing messages from the soul—the place where intuitively derived information comes from. The more time we spend there, the more familiar we become with this space, the easier it is to receive and trust messages from the animals. Experiment with spending time in inner stillness each day, even for just five minutes (it does NOT need to be two hours a day). This will make space for and stretch your intuitive muscles. This in turn greater enables you to communicate telepathically, and will also likely bring you a sense of peace.
• Spend time with animals in stillness. This is best done when you are not feeding, walking, training, riding or otherwise engaged in some physical activity or task with them. Even though we can, of course, feel intimacy with animals during physical activities, to build a sense of what the deepest, still quiet intimacy feels like (or to strengthen it), practice this with no physical activities involved. Spend time simply being in the same room or space with them, perhaps with your eyes closed touching them, or open eyes looking at them, just perhaps saying silently from your heart, “I love you, and I so appreciate you.” Just be with them, vs. doing something with them. Do this without any pressure or agenda to converse back and forth or solve a problem. Just be close, without any distraction of tasks, movement or behavior. Being with animals in stillness fosters our connection with their spirit, rather than only their bodies, their behavior, or the emotions we believe they may be showing through behavior. Try doing this for just five minutes. You will be amazed at the depth of connection you may feel (and what the animal will also likely feel). It is this depth of connection which cultivates telepathic communication. This does not mean you must take a prolonged time in stillness before every conversation. However, if you have these moments of stillness together regularly, and separately from your conversations, your readiness to receive and trust telepathic information will be stronger with any animal. Try it for three to five minutes a day and see what happens. When I do this with my cat, he begins to purr within a few moments, and I feel calmly and deeply connected with him.
• Practice in situations where you can get feedback/confirmation from the animal’s person. Offer to practice with friends’ animals, or connect with people from workshops you’ve attended and exchange practice sessions by email, phone or in person, or, attend practice groups held by a professional animal communicator. Every single time you receive validation that the information or impressions you received from an animal are correct, consciously allow these successes to build your confidence.
When you get feedback that you may have been off base, remember—you are practicing—and mistakes are part of practicing! Take some time to reflect on how strong and clear each part of what you received felt to you, what it felt like to you in the unfolding of your communication process. Consider reviewing and discussing it with a professional anima communicator who can mentor and coach you through it and help get you back on track.
The great majority of times when we talk with animals there is no opportunity for confirmation/physical world verification. Let the times you DO receive validation to build your confidence to carry you through the messages you receive for which there is no validation one way or the other.
• Create and maintain a validation file or journal. Write down those confirmation moments and stories! Re-read them occasionally to remind yourself of your successful communications. It’s so easy to forget or minimize past success. Keeping an informal journal/file/record of your confirmation stories can encourage you to remember that you’ve already done it well and will do it well again. At times, we all need the encouragement of remembering past success to build our confidence. Let your past competence build your confidence for future competence.
• Don’t expect every single conversation to be a “goose bump” moment. Not every telepathic exchange will be soul deep or dramatic! Sometimes messages are just about mundane, everyday things (yet still important!). Remember that the range of spiritual, intellectual and emotional depth varies from animal to animal, and from day to day—just like with people! I have had a few incredibly soulful and life changing conversations with a few birds in my garden, and yet others have simply said, “Hey, the feeder’s empty!!”
• Trust what you get. Do not sensor what you receive. In talking with animals, invite and allow confirmation to occur naturally. Let the conversation flow. Trust what you hear and sense. Just receive it. Allow organic confirmation versus demanding proof. Stay unselfconscious. Talking with an animal is NOT a performance. It is a sharing of information, feeling or energy between two souls. Dance like nobody’s watching. Confirmation will come organically and sometimes even a period of time after a conversation. Forcing or demanding proof that non-physical reality exists is not conducive to open, clear telepathic communication and open sharing. Allow confirmation to flow in its own way and time. Let go of any need to demand that the animal, or you, need to prove anything.
• Consider using support from the plant and mineral kingdoms to enhance your telepathic abilities and confidence. The animal, human, mineral and plant kingdoms exist on earth in an inter-related web, each present to help the other. Listed below are numerous flower essences and gems you might consider to help you. For a more complete list see the flower essence section at animalsinourhearts.com
Larimar: (a gem essence from www.alaskanessences.com)
A powerful throat chakra stone—the energy center associated with both giving and receiving telepathic messages. Larimar opens and supports this energy center, helping us communicate clearly from the heart.
Larch: (www.fesessences.com)
Helps increase confidence, especially when there is a tendency to doubt one’s abilities. Particularly heals the throat/communication chakra needed for telepathy.
Queen of the Night Cactus: (www.desert-alchemy.com)
Helps us to become deeply intuitive, to trust our intuition and our connection with all of creation through sensing and feeling.
Queen Anne’s Lace: (www.fesflowers.com)
In any psychic communication, distortion, filtering and/or projection can unconsciously get in the way of receiving clear and accurate images and messages. Sometimes our own emotions can inadvertently get in the way. This essence helps us be emotionally clear and objective with the insight and images we perceive telepathically.
Sangre de Drago: (www.desert-alchemy.com)
Helps heal wounds or doubts about opening into our telepathic abilities by harmonizing any fear we may have about it. Helps us understand this natural part of us without fearing or repressing it, and trusting our own natural intuitive sense.
• Ask for divine support. Inter-species communication is a sacred experience. Ask for help and guidance from whomever you pray to and are connected to in the spiritual world. I ask for the presence of the spirit guides of the animal and person I am talking with, as well as my own guides to hep keep me on track. I sometimes ask for the help of St. Francis to guide and bless the session. Not only is Divine help available (so why do it alone?!), but knowing it’s there for us also helps us remain humble, keeping animal communication in the realm of the sacred, not the ego.
• Some signs that what you are receiving (part of or the entirety of a telepathic conversation) is probably accurate:
When information you receive and the impressions you feel are absolutely clear as a bell. Even when the content doesn’t make sense to you, and/or is not at all what you would have expected an animal would say–still, the clarity is unmistakable to you.
When feelings you are perceiving from the animal are very clear, deep, and seem unmistakably real to you, trust it. The feelings animals share with us, just like with people, will vary in intensity and clarity with each individual and each situation. However, whatever the intensity of an emotion, when the feeling(s) shared with you is crystal clear, trust that what you are perceiving is real.
When you get very different things from different animals (one animal will be quiet and thoughtful, another chatty, another silly, another serious, another sassy, etc.), that is a good sign that you are not filtering. If you perceive the same personality type or very similar information from every animal you connect with, you may very likely be filtering (i.e. every message from a whale is about how they are saving the earth, every message from dolphins is about joy, or every message from companion animals is about their purpose in life).
It’s when we perceive different personalities and messages from each animal that we know we are likely on track and not filtering the information through our values, beliefs or expectations.
Practice away! May your confidence outgrow any persistent doubts!
Photo is of my dear friend and client Judy Ruta with her beloved cat Aubrey Rose ~