Tag animal Reiki

How a Let Animals Lead® session works

Nancy Crowe 1 Comment

If you are considering Let Animals Lead® to support a beloved animal’s well-being, it may help to know more about what happens during a typical session. Let Animals Lead® is a meditation-based form of Reiki, a stress relief modality that also promotes healing.

Getting there

For in-person appointments in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area, which last about an hour, I come to your home, barn, or clinic. When I arrive, we can get acquainted and talk about whatever concerns you may have. Then I’ll find a comfortable place to sit or stand near the animal. After I say a silent prayer and gain the animal’s permission to share energy, I will enter a peaceful, meditative state. The animal is free to lie still, stand, move around, eat, get a drink of water, go out for a pit stop, etc. The energy, which means the force that animates all living things, will go to work wherever it is needed.

Why it works

It works for two reasons. First, the energy comes not from me but from a higher power: God, the Universe, All That Is. There are many names. I’m the conduit, not the source. Reiki is not affiliated with any particular religious tradition, but at the same time, it is based on the notion that the energy comes from a safe, loving place where all living beings are connected.

Second, I am sharing the energy with the animals rather than doing something to them. During a session, cats or dogs will often come closer, curl up next to me, or settle in my lap, but they sometimes prefer to be a few feet away or even leave the room. That’s OK; I won’t chase after them. However they want to participate in a Let Animals Lead® session, or not, is up to them. It’s really not the same model of the Reiki client lying on the table and the practitioner moving around him or her using the hand positions.

That’s why it works. More often than not, we don’t know how, and that can be hard to get our heads around. I’m a skeptical journalist who never expected to be doing anything like this, and I wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t see the benefits.

Peaceful presence

A Let Animals Lead® session is not about fixing the animal or getting rid of what’s wrong. It’s about creating and sharing a peaceful space that promotes whatever healing needs to happen. The animals usually have a better sense of that than we do, which is all the more reason to let them lead.

You and any other humans or animals present are welcome to participate and may also benefit from the session, but I generally keep conversation to a minimum during the meditation. After about 30 minutes, I will gently bring the meditation to a close and we can talk about any feelings, questions, or impressions that arose. Most animals (and humans) feel relaxed and rejuvenated after a Reiki session.

We can then discuss and/or make an appointment for further sessions. The benefits are cumulative and it helps the animal to get to know me over multiple visits, so I generally recommend a series of three sessions over 10 days to three weeks, depending on the animal’s circumstances and needs. Then I’ll be on my way, and you are encouraged to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Let Animals Lead® and animal communication

I sometimes send distant Reiki energy as part of an animal communication session. However, a Reiki session is a time of meditation and quiet healing, and an animal communication session is about gathering information and insight. So, while there is some overlap between the two, the objectives are different enough that I handle them separately. Please see my animal communication page for more information.

Ready to adopt again?

Nancy Crowe

In my experience, there’s no right or wrong amount of time to wait before adopting again after you’ve lost a beloved animal. The challenge is to respect yourself and your grief while being willing to be surprised. 

Years ago I lost my much-loved Idgie, the sweet diva of a tiger cat who inspired my journey into animal communication and healing. The pain was, in fact, like the proverbial gut punch. 

A few weeks afterward, I read about a horrific local animal cruelty case in which fireworks were tied to a kitten’s tail. That kitten received treatment, foster care and a loving home, but something opened up within me. I realized how much I wanted to give another kitty a home. And Idgie had trained me so well.

At the city shelter, Kathy and I met several kittens, but none seemed especially interested in us. Maybe now wasn’t the time after all, I thought. Then the volunteer brought out one who was about to go to a satellite adoption center. The four-month-old black tortoiseshell kitten prowled around the adoption counselor’s office, trying to figure out where she was and why. Then she came and sniffed both of us, accepting the pets we offered.

When I sensed the kitten was open to it, I picked her up. I commented on the gold streak between her eyes that seemed to stop and resume on top of her head.

“Doesn’t it look like God came along with a paintbrush?” the volunteer said.

I held the kitten so that we were eye to eye. She reached out with one tiny black paw and patted my face. We’d been chosen.

Did the joy of welcoming Lucy erase the hurt of losing Idgie? No. Lucy succeeded Idgie, but did not replace her. One being cannot truly replace another, and there’s no sidestepping grief if we are to love fully. While I continued to grieve for Idgie, my heart filled with gratitude for the love she had given me. That love enabled me to recognize the connection with Lucy, who needed a home as Idgie had.

A few takeaways, as long as you’ve read this far:

• Pay attention to your intuition. A lightness or sense of joy generally indicates a yes; a heavy, sad sensation a no or a not yet.

• Stay with your grief long enough, however long that is, for your heart to open to a new and unique animal companion. 

• Remember the animal chooses, too; pay attention to the way a prospective new companion responds to you and how you feel. 

Whenever you and your next animal companion find each other, you are both signing on for a beautiful, painful, and totally worthwhile adventure.

 

 

What makes Let Animals Lead® different from ‘people’ Reiki

Nancy Crowe 1 Comment
Woman on massage table in Reiki session
Rescued horse after Reiki session

Relaxation helps the two-legged and four-legged alike feel and function better. That’s what Reiki, a Japanese stress relief modality, is all about. However, the method I practice, Let Animals Lead®, is different from what you’ll experience in human clinics and hospitals.

The hand positions I learned in my “people” Reiki classes don’t apply, and not because of different anatomies. It’s because animals are much more sensitive to physical space and presence. Touch is unnecessary, even invasive, for them. A person can feel energy from the practitioner’s hands, but a horse can feel energy from a person standing across a pasture. 

When I began studying Reiki years ago, I used the hand positions with my dog Ellie. If she had a hot spot on her foot, I lightly held her foot or placed my hand near it. More often than not, she’d get up and leave. I now understand that was too much for her. 

But when I sat quietly and meditated, and ditched any expectation about the “problem” or fixing it, Ellie was more likely to lie down nearby. (She was also more likely to quit licking that hot spot.) 

My teacher, Kathleen Prasad, had a similar experience with her dog. That’s how she developed the Let Animals Lead® method. The animal is free to get up and move around, fall asleep, or decline to participate.

Animals understand energy better than we do. A horse senses the presence of a predator in the distance. A cat curls up next to someone who is sick. The kids’ new puppy stays away from Mom because he’s the only one in the house who knows how angry she is. 

Just don’t ask that puppy to stay still for the practitioner. He doesn’t have to … and Mom is welcome to join in.