Today’s session with the farrier was a reminder of the importance of being there for our animals (and our selves and our friends) in a place of acceptance and without judgment.
My mare Mariah was having a hard day. She can be a handful when she is feeling out of sorts…or if she feels my inner out-of-sortness. Today, she was sure that getting her hooves trimmed was not a good idea. Fortunately, her farrier Hannah accepts Mariah where she is in any given moment. She doesn’t need to make Mariah be any different than she is, she doesn’t need to judge how she is, and she doesn’t need to fix Mariah. She just quietly and patiently allows Mariah the time and space to open up to having her feet trimmed. It always works. Mariah always cooperates when approached this way.
Really it isn’t surprising. All of us (four legged and two legged) want to be accepted for who we are. We don’t want to feel that we need fixing or that how we are is anything other than perfect. We want to be seen and heard, not fixed.
When I work on animals doing healing work I remind myself that I am there to facilitate the healing that the animal chooses to accept. I’m not fixing, I’m present for the animal, and I SEE them. (The movie Avatar displayed this act of seeing beautifully.)
So what does this really mean? It means that I don’t come to the horse seeing the imbalance or dysfunction. I see the horse in a place of perfection. I open my heart and acknowledge the Soul that is in front of me. When I do this, I allow them to be heard and it has nothing to do with being an animal communicator. In my being, I trust that where they are right now is perfect and that the healing that takes place is what is meant to be. I also try to remember to show up this way with my animals, with an open heart and an acknowledgment of them as another perfect Soul.
Did I always trust this? No. Many a time I wanted to fix and heal them so that I would know that I had served in this way. My ego could feel I had accomplished something. Eventually I came to understand that just being present and acknowledging the animal was huge for them because they told me repeatedly that this “being seen” is where the healing takes place. They feel heard when we show up in the present moment, open our hearts and see the perfection in their being.
Somewhere I read that when Christ would facilitate miraculous healings (like the blind seeing, the lepers back to complete health) it was because he did not see them as sick. He only saw them as perfect beings…and that his vision of their perfection was so strong that it became their reality as well. While I am pretty certain I will never attain that level of non-judgment, I keep it in the back of my awareness and remember to SEE everyone and know that they are exactly where they are meant to be.
Sometimes (okay maybe more often than that) I slip up and judge. But I am human and that is what we humans do. And until the day I am not human, I will need to remind myself and maintain the awareness that I am exactly as I need to be in this moment, that my animals are exactly as they need to be and all of us are exactly as we need to be right now. We are all perfectly imperfect. I SEE YOU.
Beautifully said. Thank you.