Every year during the anticipation of Fall on the cusp of making its appearance I often take this route home after I’ve been out and about running errands.
The leaves are just beginning to show some color. I always look forward to when this route home will be ablaze in brilliant orange, red, and yellow.
And my favorite music this time of year playing in the background…
Hope you enjoy!
XO,
Barbara
I really can’t say enough good about this book I recently finished! I loved it so much that I did a video book review for it which I share below.
But as I wrote for a review on Amazon also, Soul Healing with Our Animal Companions – The Hidden Keys to a Deeper Animal-Human Connection by Tammy Billups, is a beautiful book on how animals sense our energy and emotional wounds and often reflect that back to us – all in an effort to help us heal – and then how it often helps our animal friends heal too.
Because animals don’t speak our language, Tammy identifies through her work and book, five core emotional wounds that our animals can experience – and then how this is often reflected in their behaviors, actions, and physical issues – and to add to this – these are emotional wounds we as humans experience also.
Having recently gone through my own deep emotional healing with my dog Gidget who was the most profound reflection of what I needed to heal, I can attest to so much of what Tammy shares in her book.
I easily identified two core emotional wounds through her book that my dog worked diligently to help me heal, and I’m happy to say I did the inner work to do just that. But what was the most profound proof for me of my healing was that I was able to be witness to a beautiful and calm shift in Gidget as she healed too.
My favorite paragraph in the book is this one:
“A (human) congested energy field can affect all aspects of one’s emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Consequently, this knowledge can significantly influence the choices you make about your animals’ care. Knowing how sensitive they are to your emotions is also motivation for you to do your own energetic housekeeping.”
This, to me, is one of the keys to the book. When I was in my own dark night of the soul and realized I needed support and then began to heal, I wanted to do my work not only for myself but for Gidget too. I wanted her to live out the remaining of her life with more harmony and peace.
While I wish I’d had Tammy’s book when I was going through such a difficult time the last few years, reading her book now is just more validation and confirmation of what I experienced.
After reading Tammy’s book and having had to say goodbye to Gidget in May of 2019 I can say that I believe what Tammy shares in her book needs to be read by everyone who shares their life with a pet.
And I wholeheartedly concur with the last line on the back cover and that our “pets higher purpose is to help people understand themselves.”
Tammy’s book has been such a gift and another layer of confirmation for me and what I experienced in my healing journey which is what I’ll be sharing in my upcoming memoir, I’m Fine Just the Way I Am.
This is the video review and in it, I share more passages from the book that really hit home for me.
XO,
Barbara
This morning during my meditation it started out with me sinking into the corner of the sofa and feeling quite calm. Then I noticed within a few moments that my mind began to wander and off into worryland it went.
I tried to just watch my mind as an observer —trying to stay detached to it — and trying not to get caught up in the drama it was creating. After all, I reminded myself, these were just thoughts I was having. Nothing was actually happening at that moment as all alone was I, sitting on the sofa in my quiet and safe home.
My thoughts first drifted back to the past – thinking about something I’ve learned and how I wanted to identify with that teaching as a ‘mistake’ or wishing I had done better. I found myself in the spiral of self-judgment. Then I felt it physically in my body as my stomach began to feel like it had a knot in it.
Then my mind drifted to the future as I thought about the release of my next memoir in early 2020. What will become of it, I wondered? I then noted this tug and pull going on in my stomach. As if the right side was pulling the left side and vice Versa and back and forth it went. Soon enough I realized my shoulders were just about up under my ears! Very uncomfortable!
I dropped my shoulders, but still felt the tug and pull in my stomach. A moment later the last oracle card I pulled as I did a fall equinox reading for myself last night flashed into my mind.
The card I pulled was, “Here and Now,” and the question I asked was from an oracle spread created by intuitive Jessica Paschke. It was basically asking what I’d bring with me from the past of what I learned into the next season of winter.
The minute I conjured up the image of that card in my mind and saw the words again of here and now, I observed that the tug and pull in my stomach stopped. I was having those feelings again of wanting to control an outcome, be guaranteed security, and know all will be well — a pattern that I know many of us have – and one I realized once again that I can change at any time I choose.
After I was done meditating I pulled the card back out again from the deck to look at it and re-read my journal entry. The line I wrote that jumped out to me is: “In the present moment is where my power is!”
It’s so easy to give our power away, but then when we do we suffer. When I looked at the image again the past and future signposts jumped out at me. I was reminded to take with me what I’ve learned from the past – and that living in the past (my old story) does not serve my well-being. What I can take from it is the new awareness I have of what I’ve learned in order to create a better future – even though I don’t always know precisely what the future holds.
My eye then traveled to the sweet being sitting on the egg. The egg is symbolic of new life and hope. I appreciated also the open window on the egg — as if a window to my inner world and how if I stay open to receiving and in touch with how the universe is always supporting me, I will be just fine.
XO,
Barbara
Card from Wisdom of the Oracle deck my Colette Baron-Reid.