- So when people are missing their pets,
there's something that happens with some of these people,
and I was one of them,
where they don't actually move through their grief.
Today I'm gonna talk about my personal technique
that I used myself, and that now I teach,
to help people move through the grief
they feel over losing a pet.
(gentle music)
My name's Danielle MacKinnon, I am an animal communicator.
That means I psychically connect with animals.
And they can be alive, they can be crossed over.
So I have a lot to say about this,
and the animals that have had a chance
to teach me a lot about when they cross over,
and what that's all about.
And so today I'm gonna share a particular
aspect of that with you.
All right, so in addition to helping you with your grief,
the technique that I'm gonna teach in a little bit
has another, like, immensely cool benefit.
But you gotta stay tuned, 'cause I'm not gonna tell you
'til the very end, okay.
This was like 20 years ago, one of my dogs,
we had to put her down.
And it was really a, like, a completely devastating
experience for me and for my husband.
I just felt terrible.
But because the grief was so big,
every time I thought about this dog, I cried,
and that went on for one month, two months, three months,
one year,
two years,
three.
And it kept, what was happening with me
was that the grief was not getting easier.
My feelings around it, my guilt around it, my upset,
my missing her, none of it was abating, meaning
if I were to talk to somebody about this dog
who'd crossed over, and it's three years later,
my grief was as big as it was two weeks after she passed.
Now, if you're somebody who when you talk about the animal
that crossed over, you still feel that immense grief,
what I'm gonna teach you is gonna help.
And it helped me a lot,
and I know it's helped a lot of my clients as well,
and a lot of my students.
But I need to explain, I think, why this happens.
So why do so many of us still so deeply grieve
for the animals that have crossed over?
Where often a family member,
a human family member that's crossed over,
the grief, we move through the grief a little bit better.
I know this sounds crazy what I'm saying,
but if you're one of these people who's having
this experience where it's two years, three years,
five years, 10 years later, and it still feels
like the pain and the grief is still
as big as it was in the beginning,
then you know what I'm talking about.
Now, one of the reasons that I think that so many of us
who love animals end up in this kind of like
frozen state of grief is because people don't understand.
So often they understand my father died, my sister died,
my grandparent died, my friend died,
and people give allowance for that.
People understand other people dying,
but when it's an animal, so many people don't understand
that grieving process.
So many people don't understand that we can hurt
when an animal, a beloved animal dies,
just as much as if it were a human.
So when my dog crossed over,
my grief was really, really huge.
I was learning animal communication,
I actually had an animal communication business,
but my grief around this dog passing
remained for several years.
Finally, I decided, (giggles)
why it took me so long, I don't know.
I decided I was gonna ask her about this.
Why does it still hurt so much?
It was three years in.
And why do I still miss her?
Why do I still feel so bad?
What's going on?
And what she told me
was that she'd been concerned
about her passing for me, for my well-being.
Not she was concerned about her passing for her.
She wasn't gonna miss, it wasn't like,
"I'm scared to cross over."
it wasn't like, "I don't want to."
What she said was she was concerned
about how I was gonna handle it,
and what I needed to do with it,
and how I needed to kind of assimilate
and work with her passing.
So here's what she did.
She told me that she was actually with me all the time.
And by with me, you know I had to get clarification on that.
What does with me mean?
'Cause, you know, you hear about animals have crossed over,
they come and visit, they know what you're doing,
they can give messages, that kinda thing.
This is not what she meant.
What she was talking about was that she
had actually suction-cupped to me.
She had energetically, and this is kinda cool,
because she was a lap dog, she had energetically,
her energy, you can't see but,
her energy was right here, kind of in my lap,
in my abdomen area,
that's where she had settled.
And she has settled there because she wanted to make
her crossing over' easier
for me to handle.
Now, let me explain what this means.
When somebody, when an animal crosses over,
they cross over, they go through the veil,
they go and they go off and they do spirit school,
animal spirit school, I don't know what it's called,
they go and do that stuff, and then,
you know, within a week or two they kind of are back,
and they can visit, an they can, you know,
they're like a spirit, they can give messages,
you know, this is the kind of the thing
that everybody loves and wants.
What this dog did, is instead of going to spirit school,
she said she crossed over, went through the veil,
you know, but instead of going to school,
she came and she was with me,
she brought her energy to be with me,
so she was basically suction-cupped to me.
And her thought in doing this was,
"I'm gonna stay with Danielle,
because it will be easier for her to adjust
to all the changes that are coming about
with me being crossed over."
Now, this is great and there's lots of animals that do this,
but because of the situation that I was in,
because of my guilt that I had around her passing,
because of my own personal circumstances,
I never came to a natural place,
where she and I separated energetically,
so she could go off to spirit school,
and then become kind of a normal, regular
animal on the other side.
It was her
kindness that put us in this situation,
but then it was my emotions and my reaction to it
that held her in that situation.
Which is why, when I connect with someone
whose animal has done this for them,
it will feel like that animals is totally present
and the grief remains kind of in the beginning
stages of grief.
Unless that person kind of moves through this.
And I hadn't moved through this.
So I wanna show you and teach you how to deal with this,
if you're experiencing this.
This is not the end of the world,
this is not a horrible thing, it's a wonderful thing
that the animals are doing
when they choose to do this.
We, as humans, grieving and loving animals,
have a responsibility though to rebalance the relationship,
so that
it can be a healthy, energetic relationship
with the animal on the other side.
So this is all you have to do.
So what I did is I imagined her here,
so wherever, if you're one of these people
who's experiencing this,
and maybe, let's say you had a dog
that was always at your side, the dog's probably there.
A rabbit that you always carried here,
the rabbit's probably here.
Whatever it is.
Figure out where you think the animal's energy
is hanging out being with you,
and then the goal is to create separation
between these two energies, physical separation,
so that
you can actually have balance and healthy boundaries
back in this relationship.
So what I did is I asked her,
"Well, what do I do?"
And she said, "Why don't you,"
And she taught me how to do this,
and then I taught a whole bunch of...
I teach it all the time.
She said, just ask my energy,
thank, send me gratitude, and then ask my energy,
to separate from yours about a half an inch.
So I closed my eyes and I did that,
and I imagined, I'm doing it up here so you can see,
but I imagined the two energies
just separating just a little bit,
and it was actually really not easy,
because I was worried and I felt like I was rejecting her,
and I wasn't being grateful for her,
and I was gonna lose her.
I'm an animal communicator, I know I'm not,
but my fear or my worry was.
So she said, "Just continue going until
there's two feet of space between us."
And when there was two feet of space between us,
she was free.
And it doesn't mean she left me,
what it meant is that she could come and go,
and she could visit.
She was just more free to do all the stuff
that an animal on the other side needs to do,
instead of focusing all of that on me.
This is not a technique that you use
to get through normal grief.
We have to grieve, this is a normal part of being alive.
But this is a technique to use when you're in a place
of extreme grief and it's not moving,
and it's been a long time.
You can try out, do I think maybe the animal's right here?
Or somewhere with me?
Would this animal have done that for me?
And then, you can try moving half inch, by inch, by inch.
Now, the first few inches are a little more challenging,
because it feels scary, you're shifting the relationship,
but when you get to about three, four, five inches,
six inches, somewhere in there,
it starts to get a little bit easier,
and the coolest thing about this,
I can't believe I took 'til now to say it,
the coolest thing about this is that
when the animal is not suction-cupped to you,
like this, the animal is free to send you
messages from the other side.
So yay!
So it opens up the grief and allows you to move
through the grief, but it also opens up messages,
and opens up the relationship,
and sets things up so you can do things in a new way.
(gentle music)