Why would you want to connect with your Power Animal?
Before we get started, What is a Power Animal?
In Shamanism, a Power Animal is a kind of helping spirit who feel compassion for the human condition. We come to this Earth and it is such a profound, often challenging adventure, and they know what is awaiting us, so they know that we need support and they volunteer to support us, almost like guardian angels.
When we meet our power animal, what we are meeting with is the essence of a species. That means that even if your power animal shows up like, let’s say a black cat or a white cat, It is not just that cat or this cat. Instead, it’s the blueprint of all cats that have ever existed and will exist, so that’s why we relate to it like the essence of a species.
How Do We Meet Our Power Animal?
Normally, we’re going to do so by going into Shamanic Journeying. Shamanic Journeying is an ancient process to go into what we call non-ordinary reality, beyond time and space. So we go beyond our physical experience and what we are able to perceive through our physical senses, and we are able to connect with the Spirit world where we can meet our power animal.
What Does Our Power Animal Mean?
Sometimes we say, “Okay, so I connected with a cat, or a dog, or a lion… What does it mean? I want to know what it means…tell me, tell me…” However, that’s not the best way of understanding why that power animal comes into your life. Why? Well, let’s draw an analogy. You might have a friend that, due to your specific connection with them, you experience them as love, or encouragement, or any other experience. They might bring unique characteristics to your relationship because of who they are, who you are, and the combination between the two of you at that specific time in your lives, right? However, that same person might meet somebody else at that same time and their experience and connection might be completely different. The same person that brings love to you might bring tension or stress to another. So it all comes to how you work with each other and what you need at that moment in your life.
Because of this, my recommendation is for you to discover why this power animal is coming into your life through the art of direct revelation, and we do this through Shamanic Journeying.
Developing the Relationship
Once we connect with our power animal, we want to make sure that we keep our relationship. The reason why this is important is because they are like any other relationship in our lives. If you have a friend and you never see them, you never talk to them, then there is no relationship. So with our power animals we want to develop a relationship, especially because there is a kind of adjustment period that occurs until we really, really understand how they communicate with us. It is not like you and I, right now, connecting through English words. For our power animals, the way they express themselves to us is very different because in the world of Spirit is not about languages like English. Instead, many times it is going to be through communication we perceive through the different inner senses that we can tune into.
So for example, some people might perceive the spirit world through their inner sight, such as seeing images or symbols which are information rich and can be “translated” as information. You may see your power animal in a certain way that makes you understand different details of the message they are bringing to you.
Or you might receive the information through body sensations. When you are very sensitive to perceiving the spirit world through your body, that is being clairsentient. So as you go through the journey, you might not even see your power animal and instead, you might just have a sensation. “I know there is a presence there. I cannot see it but I know that it is a tiger.”
So this is the way in which your power animal communicates with you and it takes time to understand. It’s not a clear-cut language, unless you are clairaudient. In that case, you might actually receive messages that are word by word.
A Matter of Perspective
Power animals have a perspective that is beyond the one that we have and, because of that, they can help us see things with greater clarity.
We are living our lives somewhat confined in this physical reality and sometimes may lose track of the big picture. Think back to previous years in your life, a time where you were in the middle of a challenging situation and made a decision that you would not have done if you were able to have more time to reflect. Perhaps your perspective was narrowed back then, however, now that you are not in the situation and your emotions are more settled, you have a different and often more clear perspective and might see a new array of possibilities to resolve the original challenge.
So with our power animals it is similar. They are not so involved in the game of our physical existence and thus, they can see from outside the box and help us access a bigger picture vision.
I remember times in which my power animals were like my best friends.
I remember a time when I felt like my power animals were like my best friends. I felt sad and alone, missing my family and friends in Spain, and getting used to living in the US. I just wanted to cry. Suddenly, I connected with my power animal and for a moment I felt that embrace. Suddenly, all that energy transformed the experience for me and I felt held and supported, and I just felt that everything was gonna be okay.
So power animals might bring guidance that is really practical step by step processes, like “Okay, we can do this, we can do that.” but they can also bring outstanding emotional support.
Having power animals in your life can completely, completely transform your experience, because you don’t feel alone anymore, and that’s beautiful.
Reconnect with the Wild
Power animas reconnect us with a part of us that is wild. Sometimes, when we meet our power animals just for a visit, we might end up running in the wild within non-ordinary reality with them and we might experience things that we don’t experience in this reality. So they help us stay in that connection which, in itself, is life-changing.
How Many Power Animals We Have?
In general, everyone has a couple of power animals but you may have even more, like ten, twenty… it depends. People who work in healing have more helping spirits and power animals because they are part of how they provide that bridge to bring healing, guidance, or whatever their clients need through the veil, from the spirit realm into this reality. Because of this, they sometimes have different power animals that specialize in different things.
Power Loss
In Shamanism, when somebody is in a situation of feeling powerless, feeling like everything goes wrong, lack of fortune, things just not looking up, we call this power loss. This is because their power animal is not with them anymore. Thankfully, there is a powerful healing process called power animal retrieval in which a Shamanic Practitioner brings the power animal back to that person.
Power Animal = Totem Animal?
Another question that I get many times is “Is my power animal my totem animal? Well, it’s not exactly the same. The totem animal is what represents our energy or essence, whereas a power animal is an energy that we need in a certain period in our lives. So it may come into our lives only during a certain period because we might have started a relationship, or a business, or are going to school… and we are not completely having the power or wisdom we need to go through it. The power animal then comes to support us and activate that aspect that we don’t have at the moment within ourselves.
Sometimes, we get the surprise that they are our original “guardian angels” and stay with us for life, but sometimes they are not, so the connection dissipates and we stop working together as we have achieved our own inner power in the regard they came to help us with.
From all the power animals I met and worked with, I never knew who was going to stay but then, over the years, I realized “Oh my goodness! I’m still working with this power animal and it’s being such an amazing journey. It is an amazing friendship!
Expectations
Another thing that is interesting about power animals is that sometimes we have expectations such as “this is a good power animal, this one I don’t want to connect with”.
In one of my classes, one of my students connected with a rat and that was her power animal. “I don’t even want to share about this” – she shared. This is because, in our society, it doesn’t feel like the most fancy animal to connect with. We don’t see rats as valuable and this is because sometimes we just don’t understand the qualities or intelligence that a specific animal might have and how that quality might serve us in our lives. These are precious hidden treasures!
Reflecting upon these judgments can bring a sense of acceptance. We discriminate against certain animals and love others, almost as if we put them in categories. Now imagine, what would happen if extraterrestrials would come to our world and would say “Hmmm, that’s a human, wahhh..disgusting” Ah!!…what about that?
So we can look at the world with new eyes and be open, open-hearted, and might be positively surprised. If a power animal that you don’t resonate comes to you, think about what is the lesson, why that animal is coming at that moment. Rats are very intelligent and they find their way around, so maybe that was something that that student needed at that moment in their life. We never know!
Physical Reality
Something I absolutely love about connecting with Power Animals is that in the beginning we create this relationship in the Shamanic Journey but many times we might find that same animal we find in our physical ordinary experience, our physical reality. You meet a, let’s say… a hawk as your power animal and then you remember, “Oh wow! I have seen this hawk flying above me for the last week.” So that’s amazing because now you have that confirmation of a strong connection. Or the opposite, you meet your power animal and then suddenly you start seeing more and more hawks, or more and more of your power animal. So then, that relationship starts expanding on both sides of the veil that separates the world of spirit and the world of physicality, and that’s such a precious experience!
[This was the transcript of the video Why Would you Want to Meet your Power Animal?]
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