What’s happening right now in the back of your body?
More than likely you’re going to say, “Huh?”

I’ve noticed that more often than not as humans we default to being overly focused/aware of what’s going on in our hands and in our line of sight/in our minds. We completely lose awareness of the rest of our entire body, especially the back of our body.

I got this question from a reader recently: Does my dog or cat know if I am feeling one way, say sad, but acting happy?

The quick answer is YES!

Our pets can absolutely feel when we have multiple layers of feelings going on. From their perspective it doesn’t feel good when we are trying to outwardly show happiness, but inwardly we are feeling not so great.

None of the skills in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey are radical in any way, but they are all combined together in one flow that form a helpful progression for self leadership and empowerment.

This quote stood out to me: “Begin with the end in mind.”

This is one of the biggest missing pieces I see in people’s relationships with their pets. So often they have training goals, relationship goals, or simply things they want to have happen differently. But they get stuck. And then they are caught in a loop of behavior that doesn’t feel good to them, or to their pets.

Like it or not, our pets are going to assume a role in our life. If we’re not intentional about it, then things can go a bit haywire. That feels as bad to our pet as it does to us!

This was the case with my horse, Storm. If you’re not familiar with him yet, he’s a big gray draft-cross, and I have struggled with fear issues with him for most of our relationship. He has a way of triggering the points in someone just by his sheer presence and size (he does weigh over 2000 pounds, and his head is the height of my torso alone).
One day I was exasperated that I was yet again feeling anxious about working with him, and he was (again) nervous an antsy as a result. We were trapped in a cycle that had no end. Unless I could do something different.

I wish you’d just ________!”

How often have those words been uttered? If I’m being honest, they’re almost always followed by “so I can ________!”

“I wish you’d just _______, so I can ________.”

Generally that second fill-in-the-blank is filled with “feel something else,” i.e. feel something different than what I’m feeling right now.

Don’t waste your pennies on treats for your pet this year.

I know, I know, they get crazy when you reach for THAT cabinet or drawer. I get it, they do love them.

But after connecting with hundreds of pets over the years I have learned something. They don’t really want things. They want YOU. Your connection, your time, your love, your attention and focus are the things they want MOST. Treats are nice, but not really necessary at all. So save your money for things that mean a lot more, and give them these things instead

Do you really know your own power?

Do you believe how powerful you are all the time? At every moment, and every breath?

Or do you forget?

Do you only associate power with times when you feel a certain way - strong, present, grounded?

Or do you think that power is something that you’re not - charismatic, tall, rich?

Lesson 4: Breathe

How is something so essential so easy to forget to do??

Really, why do you think it’s so easy to forget to breathe? I don’t know how many times I have asked my riding instructor this over the years. Somehow, something that is a requirement for remaining alive is easy to NOT do effectively.

Lesson 3: Be Present

As humans we have a tendency to think about how things were, or how things are going to be. We’re either in the past, or the future. Unless we concentrate, we rarely find ourselves right here.


When I take stock of my thoughts, I can easily find myself busy thinking about the conversation I had yesterday. Ruminating how I wish that it had gone differently. Maybe I’m thinking about the meeting I have next week and how many ways it might go wrong. Or the fact that there are 3 million things on my to do list that have yet to be done.

Lesson 2: Play, Lots!


This seems like such a simple thing, but as adults we get sucked into adulting so hard that we forget to play. Our pets offer us continual reminders that play is important, and should be prioritized!


My dogs were 15 years old when they finally crossed the rainbow bridge, but despite being unable to see or hear for the most part they were still silly and goofy and loved to play in whatever way their aging bodies would allow.

Animals are not here to be teachers, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from them. They naturally are the way we should be. I hesitate to use the word ‘should’, but in this case I believe it’s important. In many ways I believe that what they offer us is the chance to reconnect to the way we used to be. We are human BEings after all, and we know these things, we’ve just forgotten them.

I recently saw a quote from someone that said that empaths always connect with animals, and animals always heal empaths.
While I respect everyone’s ability to connect with animals through whatever means works for them, I believe this statement does a massive disservice to the animals in our lives. It puts unfair responsibility on an animal’s shoulders for “fixing” people who identify as empathic.

We know our “shit soup” affects our animal friends. How do we change our energy, or help our pets to understand what’s happening when they don’t speak our native language?

Just talk to them about it!

Talking to your pet is one of the biggest ways to mitigate the stress for your pet. Keeping them in the loop on changes, plans, struggles, worries, fears, and everything else going on in your life will help them feel like a valued member of the family. If you’re not comfortable speaking out loud, then journal it, dedicate it to your pet(s), and they’ll get the message. Just as long as you are speaking or writing from the heart, they’ll understand. Getting into the habit of doing this as a practice daily, or a few times a week, allows the energy to keep moving in the household so that it doesn’t get stuck or stagnant. It is only a problem when it gets stuck.

As a recap from last week’s blog post, we discussed the fact that everything is energy, including ourselves, too. And because everything is energy, everything is energetically connected, including us and our pets. This explains why the dog chews our shoes at the very moment when everything else is already falling apart. Or the cat starts peeing outside the litter box.
Our animals have to sit in the 💩 "sh*t soup" right there with us. They don't get a choice when our life is falling apart - whatever we're going through they're stuck with too. Whether it's a challenging break up, a move, death of a loved one, financial stress, deadlines, or a health crisis, they're right there next to us.

When we distill down any part of anything what you are left with is pure energy. Energy is the building block of the universe. We are all, essentially, made of the same stuff. It’s just the intricate patterns that energy gets combined into that create a tree versus a cat.
When we operate from this understanding we are intimately aware that this means that everything is connected. If everything is energy, then everything is connected energetically. This knowledge gives us so much more power than we realize that we have.

“You shoulda kept riding,” he said, looking down at me.

“What do you mean by that?” I shot back, as I tried to crawl up the still-collapsing bank. “I was riding! It ain’t my fault she decided to buck met off!”

“She didn’t buck you off.” His voice had a hint of bluntness to it. “You fell off ‘cuz you quit riding.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, obviously upset. “I was riding.”

“No,” he corrected me, “You weren’t riding. You were sitting. You quit riding over an hour ago.”

Horsemanship Through Life, Mark Rashid

Specter and Mercury were found in a friend’s barn and were very sick. They spent the first six months of their lives quarantined in the bathroom. They’ve come a long way since then!
Trauma isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when we think about rescue. We think about happy endings, and giving a pet a loving home, where they always know the next meal is coming. But we forget that their life prior to arriving at our homes may have been fraught with stress, and that the actual rescue process itself might not be all roses as we like to think.

We fall so deeply in love with the bundle of fluff that arrives to us, tiny, wobbly, and generally mewing or whining often. That baby love gets us through the toddler stage when everything is a toy and/or should be eaten. Somehow their antics keep us smiling and laughing through the frustration of the whirl wind of destruction and mayhem that is often left in their wake.

Now that you've gained more awareness of the formerly hidden places of fear, it's time to start playing with them and exploring what is possible.
When they're unconscious then it is impossible to release the tension or underlying fear for good. It will always creep back in, sometimes immediately, which can be frustrating (and adds a whole 'nother layer of tension!). So what do we do instead?

Fear is not a topic we like to discuss, nor something we like to admit that we experience. But if we get really honest, I think we can all admit that it plays a bigger part in our lives than we'd like.
Fear shows up in so many ways: that low level anxiety and worry about the bills, our performance at our job, our relationship, are we raising our kids right, the list goes on and on. Often these fears are related to old stories that we have that we don't even consciously make the connection.