Animal Communicators are Healing People and Pets
Marcia McCollum Hebrank first discovered she had what she considered special healing abilities when her mother grew terminally ill.
When caring for her mother, bathing and dressing her, Hebrank’s hands would get warm — and, almost like magic, her mother would start to feel better. So, after her mother passed away, Hebrank decided to get to the bottom of it, learning as much as she could about spiritual intuition and holistic healing.
But Hebrank, a certified animal communicator and animal Reiki practitioner, has always had a special connection with animals. No matter where she is, animals approach her.
“I’m a little bit like Dr. Doolittle, I guess,” Hebrank says with a laugh.
Hebrank, who previously worked as a clinical social worker for more than 20 years, has been a spiritual healer and intuitive in North Carolina since 2003. She owns a private practice, One Light Center, in Durham, N.C.
Though often referred to colloquially as “pet psychics,” animal communicators can’t read minds — they only know as much as an animal tells them.
Animal communication most closely resembles telepathy — the ability to send and receive thoughts, images and feelings over a distance. In many ways, animal communicators can serve as a translator between people and their pets, helping to establish a line of communication when problems arise.
Animal Communication At Work
Animals with a history of abuse. Animals who are sick or injured, or on their way to the Rainbow Bridge. Animals who won’t eat.
The goal of animal communication is simple: to create a dialogue between the communicator and animal. Animal communicators listen to what the animal has to say, then pass the information on to the animal’s human companion — thereby clarifying behaviors that may be confusing or unknown.
Animals express themselves through feelings and visualizations, which the animal communicator can pick up on and interpret.
“Sometimes, I’ll be working with an animal, and I’ll feel anxiety,” Hebrank says. “And it’s not mine.”
Whether it’s cats, dogs or birds (parrots especially), animal communicators say they can connect with nearly any member of the animal kingdom.
“They’ll tell you their story,” Hebrank says. “Once you learn how to connect and communicate with pets, they’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
For Lindsay Blotzer, a holistic healer who owns EarthWise Wellness in Pittsboro, N.C., working with animals is newer. 2020 has given her a chance to slow down and revisit her love of animals.
When communicating with animals, Blotzer often finds animals don’t want to talk about themselves. Instead, they want to talk about their caregiver.
“We think we’re here to take care of them,” Blotzer says, “but really, they’re the ones taking care of us.”
What About Animal Reiki?
Animal communication is just one tool that’s used to help pets. Many animal communicators also specialize in energy healing techniques, such as animal Reiki and shamanic healing.
Reiki is a form of alternative medicine that emphasizes physical and emotional healing. The name is derived from two Japanese words: rei, meaning spirit, and ki, meaning life energy. Reiki, which can be shared with humans as well as animals, has grown in popularity, even becoming commonplace in some of America’s most respected hospitals.
Whether it’s aiding in pain management for animals who are ill or promoting relaxation for animals with anxiety or stress, practitioners say Reiki might be just what your pet needs to feel like itself again.
However, animal reiki healing is generally not considered a replacement for medical care. Rather, it serves as a complement, creating a peaceful, soothing space for people and pets to heal.
Hebrank started out doing animal Reiki with rescue cats at stores like PetSmart and Petco. Once a week, she’d take the cats out of their cages, play with them and, if they were willing, she’d offer them Reiki.
“They can really soak up a lot of healing, and the rescue animals, they need it,” Hebrank says. “They’ve been through an awful lot.”
Healing In A COVID-19 World
As the coronavirus pandemic surges on, animal communicators and healers say their work is more important than ever.
“I can sense and feel a lot of the stress and anxiety this year,” Sarah Granahan, who owns Color My Spirit Wellness in Raleigh, says. “All the ups and downs that everybody on every level has been experiencing.”
In fact, when the pandemic began, the animals noticed. Granahan could sense it.
“Even the birds were more quiet,” Granahan says. “I could hear them wondering, ‘What’s going on? Where is everybody?’”
Granahan says her dog was confused why her family was suddenly around all the time, thrown off by the lack of peace and quiet.
Does It Really Work?
While animal communication and energy healing continue to grow in popularity, not everyone believes it works. But most animal communicators don’t claim to be psychics. Instead, they consider themselves intuitive empaths — highly observant and able to interpret changes in behavior.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, Reiki has not clearly been shown to be effective for any health-related purpose — but it hasn’t been shown to have any harmful effects, either.
Though Reiki has been studied for a variety of conditions — including pain, anxiety and depression — most of the research has not been of high quality, and the results have been inconsistent. There’s also no scientific evidence supporting the existence of the energy field thought to play a role in Reiki.
Blotzer, who has a background in the physical sciences, understands these doubts. Not everyone will be convinced, she says, and that’s OK — but keeping an open mind is essential.
“We can’t see love, but we can feel it,” Blotzer says. “In fact, there’s a lot we already believe in that we can’t physically see or touch.”
Those seeking the help of an animal communicator should be on the lookout for cold readers — practitioners who encourage the person receiving the reading to provide all the details. A cold reader might use vague language, ask lots of questions or make statements that are obviously true.
Animal communicators probably can’t tell you everything your animal is thinking, and animal Reiki can’t cure the incurable. But they might help explain why your pet is acting strange, or ease the pain and anxiety your pet is feeling.
At their core, practitioners say, these modalities are rooted in one thing: love.
“It’s not just about the animals,” Blotzer says. “It’s about all of us, and how we can all love more.”
Being Fully Present With Your Pet
As an animal communicator, one of the topics I hear from my clients is “What I can do to make my animal companion happy?” What we often learn is our animal friends simply would like to spend time with us – time uninterrupted, without distractions and with us fully present. When you spend time with your animal family, are you watching TV while you pat your dog on her head; texting while you take a walk around the block; brushing your cat but thinking about work? I think you see where I’m going with this. When we’re not fully present with our animal companions, we are missing out and so are they. (more…)
How to Care For Your Pet’s Emotional Needs
The Importance of Tending to the Emotional Wellness of Our Pet Family Members
Pets come bounding into our lives, wagging their tails, purring, or chirping with delight. They bring us joy, companionship, and unconditional love. However, have you ever stopped to consider the emotional well-being and emotional needs of our beloved pet family members? (more…)
How to Communicate With Your Pet to Keep Them Calm This Fourth of July
By Shannon Cutts, Animal Love Languages
From Europe to Asia to North America, all over the world pet parents share one universal problem in common. NOISE. Fireworks. Thunderstorms. Cars backfiring. Ambulances. Alarm systems. Loud music. Dogs, cats, parrots, horses, and even reptiles go into fight–or–flight mode with all the bells and whistles – barking, hissing, cowering, lunging, eliminating anywhere and everywhere. Unfortunately, with many pets, even repeated noise exposure often doesn’t eradicate these core fear symptoms. If you are left desperately wondering if there is anything else you could try, the answer is yes! Animal communicator Shannon Cutts tackles the true elephant in the room and gives you immediate practical tips you can use to keep your animals safe and calm when the volume spikes.
Guess what instigates more missing pet cases every year than anything else?
If you guessed “fireworks” give yourself a gold star and give your pet whatever treat you always give them to try to keep them safe and calm during the inevitable noise event yet to come.
The pet remedies for noise are well–known: CBD, valerian, melatonin, prescription anti–anxiety meds to calm their nerves. Physical counteractions such as daytime vigorous play to zonk them out or playing competing loud noises to drown out the snap, crackle, zap and pop. You can find everything from equine stress vests to noise–canceling pup–phones (headphones for dogs, yup!) out there in the great anti–noise pet parent marketplace.
There is just one tiny problem. At their very best, these options still function only at the level of band–aids – masking or reducing the most obvious surface symptoms of a deeper core problem no drug or distraction can touch.
1. What’s Better than Just a Band-Aid?
As an animal intuitive and sensitive – an animal communicator – , my perspective on the best approach to keeping noise–averse pets calm comes straight from the animals themselves. Here is what my pet clients are telling me they need when noise levels rise.
They need YOU to calm down.
Here, I should probably back up and explain a little more about how your pet spends all day, every day of their life, with you.
While you are busy checking items off your to–do list, working, studying, cleaning, Zooming, napping, or doing whatever you do, your dog, cat, bird, horse or other pet species is watching what I call YouTV. By this, I mean they are watching the mental pictures in your head, the emotions attached to those mental pictures, and the thoughts that are generated by each image–emotion combination.
This is not unlike how we check in with our favorite weather or traffic app to help us plan and prepare for our day. Only your pet is watching YouTV 24/7. They are always monitoring your broadcasts and will react very quickly when your channel indicates there may be cause for alarm or action.
You may even already have some proof of this. Has your dog ever started barking when you’ve been in the middle of a stressful phone conversation? Does your cat hide when the neighbor you don’t really like rings your doorbell? Is your parrot prone to screaming when you are unconsciously ruminating about a snarky comment you overheard your boss make about you to a co–worker? Our animals know. They are frequently more tuned into our mental pictures, emotions and thoughts than we are, AND they are quicker to react to them.
2. Why is YouTV Important?
With this information now in hand, let’s pretend it is the morning of July 4th. You are looking forward to the evening’s festivities, which includes the usual colorful fireworks show. You are also hyper–aware that you need to make some plans for your noise–averse pets so they don’t completely lose it when the show begins.
As you consider what to do first and next, your mind starts forming mental pictures. If you are like most pet parents, these mental pictures revolve around past moments that proved your pets hate noise. Maybe you start mentally replaying that night your dog chewed up the crown molding and your cat peed on the carpet. Perhaps you suddenly have several such memories all queued up in a line to mentally review and replay. The emotions you feel as each mental “movie clip” flashes across your mind–screen aren’t soothing either. Fear. Frustration. Irritation. Anger. Impatience. Terror. Then your thoughts start spouting out warning messages even as your left brain cranks out one idea and then another for how to keep Marlin from tearing up the couch cushions and prevent Sophie from vomiting on your sheets.
Meanwhile, your pets are watching YouTV. They are glued to it – YouTV is their favorite channel and the drama is really ramping up this morning. They are watching your mental movies of them in distress, reacting in fearful and anxious ways with behaviors that indicate they are terrorized by something that is about to happen in the very near future. They are feeling and absorbing your own heightened emotions of fear, stress, anxiety.
With all of this buildup, is it any wonder even the strongest anti–anxiety pet meds or supplements or the most vigorous round of pre–fireworks “fetch” are rarely completely effective for calming your pet?
What is truly needed here is a shift in your own mind and heart. When you consciously choose to change your YouTV channel to a station that is playing a calm, peaceful film, this will result in your animals being relaxed – no matter what the weather is like or what festivities may be going on. By changing the channel, your pets will benefit right to their core.
3. How to Change the Channels…
loud events.
What I am saying is that ultimately, your pets are looking to you for direction about how to respond to any noise event. If you are unwittingly broadcasting gloom and doom, threat and stress, fear and terror, you can absolutely expect your pets to exist in a perpetual state of fight or flight with all the expected symptoms of distress. Especially until your own mental pictures, emotions and thoughts shift in a more peaceful direction.
So here is what I would like to propose for this year’s noisy holidays as well as for any upcoming noise events in your family’s life. Still do all the usual things you do that you have seen some positive results from. Definitely ask your pet’s veterinarian for help if your pet has any kind of extreme noise phobia or reaction. Be sure your animal is microchipped and your contact information is updated in the database.
However, also play with changing your YouTV programming on the night of fireworks. Broadcasting quiet, calm mental pictures of happy pets playing or snuggling or snoozing, paired with happy and loving emotions and proud thoughts of how well they are doing, is going to shift the energy of the whole day in such a beneficial direction for your animals.
If you are not used to working with your own mind and emotions in this way, it can help to start practicing right away. Let’s say your mind keeps replaying a particularly traumatic memory of when your noise–averse pup injured himself trying to get out of his kennel during last year’s fireworks. So take that YouTV clip and shift it. Instead, envision your dog napping calmly and cozily in his kennel all through the fireworks show.
Or maybe you keep visualizing your bird screaming and repetitively feather–plucking during a recent wild thunderstorm. Shift that YouTV clip into a scene where your parrot tucks into a tasty dinner and doesn’t seem to even notice the thunder and lightning going on while she eats.
You get the general idea. You can do the same thing with repetitive thoughts that are keeping you anxious and worried about how your pet is going to react to some near–future noise event. Let’s say your mind keeps saying to you, “Tucker is just so sensitive to noise and I sure hope he doesn’t develop new hot spots again from all the stress”. Take that repetitive thought and shift it to “Tucker is so brave and mature and he has everything he needs to stay calm and healthy even when it gets noisy outside.” Make sense?
VIDEO: Is Your Pet Scared of Fireworks? https://youtu.be/FAMSFh_5fsg
About the Author
practitioner with Animal Love Languages. Shannon works through the universal love language of all species to connect with her pet clients – deep listening. Deep listening activates empathy, allowing Shannon to literally feel what an animal is feeling, listen in to their thoughts, experience what they are experiencing and then relay all of that information to the pet parent.
Click here to book a consultation with Shannon