Healing and Personal Growth Series

Animals as Master Teachers in Unconditional Love, Self-Love and -Worth

How our animals help us understanding and applying self-love, unconditional love, and self-worth

Today’s article is the first of a series on the powerful connection that exists between animals and humans regarding healing and personal growth. It has been one of my main lines of work for the past four years, and it’s a topic I’m clearly passionate about. Even though, several specialists and experts in the field of animal communication and energy healing mention similar ideas in their work, I feel that we are still oblivious of the depth of what it means and its incredible potential regarding physical and mental health as well as our spiritual development.

Animals, especially domestic ones, like dogs, cats and horses have long been trained to work in specific therapeutic fields. For instance, it is now largely admitted that “service” or “assistance animals”  are doing a  fantastic job with people suffering from different mental disorders and disabilities; it is not rare nowadays to see trained animals in schools, hospitals,  retirement home or even airports as the many benefits of their presence are widely recognised. More domestic dogs are trained as “alert dogs” and can detect upcoming epilepsy episodes or a sudden change in glycaemia levels in people suffering from Type I diabetes.

Yet, I believed that the healing power of animals goes well beyond that. It isn’t limited to specific disorders or disabilities. Any animal present in your life is there for a reason and bringing you clarity and healing in an aspect of your life that needs it. They play an important part in our healing process on the physical, mental, and spiritual levels. And the reciprocity is true: our presence is just as important in their life, and we too allow them to heal where they need it.

I wanted to start this series with three important concepts where animals do bring healing. These same three concepts, or rather the lack of them, are probably at the core of many serious mental and physical diseases, health, and societal issues:

The three concepts are:

Self-Love. Self-Worth. Unconditional Love

And their absence can show as

Lack of self-love. Feeling unworthy and not being enough

Master teachers of Unconditional love, Self-Worth and -Love.

If you’re reading this, you probably are an animal lover and have either animal friends yourself or have/have had some meaningful connections with animals in your life.

Animals, especially our domestic friends have this talent to make us feel special and, important. We feel good around them. We love them to bits!

They count on us and trust that we will be there for them. They are always genuinely happy to see us when we come back after a certain time away from them, never holding any grudge. They love us as we are, just for who we are.

Master teachers of Unconditional Love

In the dog world, it is common to hear people say: “oh you know, he/she is a dog person”, implying that he/she is uncomfortable around people, kind of antisocial and difficult to get on with. What I actually believe is :

Animals are much kinder than humans towards human. They don’t judge, don’t criticise, don’t make comparisons. They accept us as we are and love us the way we are. An animal that chose you, from whatever species they are, had a reason to do so. I don’t believe that chance has anything to do with the arrival of an animal in our lives. Whether you found an abandoned kitten in a farm, rescued a bird of prey, or bought a puppy or a horse, it was meant to happened. You were meant to meet this specific animal at a time when it would bring or teach you something in your life, challenge, or comfort you somehow on your journey. And the reciprocity is true as well.

People who feel unworthy, not loved, or appreciated, who feel that they don’t belong, or are not enough, and feel judged or critised by fellow humans, won’t feel comfortable around other people and will actually develop self-preservation behaviours and other emotional coping mechanism to protect themselves. 

But around dogs, or any other animal to be fair, there is no need to protect yourself emotionally. Animals love unconditionally. They don’t judge us for not being enough or unworthy. They don’t see us as unworthy, unlovable, or not enough. They won’t use vulnerability and triggers against someone intentionally. They simply don’t have the intent to cause emotional harm and suffering. With them, there is no need to hide behind a mask. We can be our authentic self in the presence of our animals. We can just be who we are, as we are, with our flaws and qualities. Animals make humans feel safe emotionally. It is safe to open up, to love fully, completely, unapologetically. And they make us feel loved, important, that we matter.

They show us, teach us, and make us experience what Unconditional Love is. How good it feels. How safe it is. If only we would become more aware of what they are showing us and would apply it in our own life and circumstances, humanity would already be in a much better place.

Self-Love & Self-Worth

An animal never feels unworthy or not good enough. Wild animals never doubt that they cannot hunt for food because they are too small, too ugly, too poor, or too fat, or that it might they will deprive others or caused them to be rejected. Domestic animals never doubt that they will be provided for. They know it is their birthright and do not question it. They don’t feel not enough. They don’t feel like they are too much either! They don’t feel that they are lacking.

Of course, in the awful cases of animal abuse, the poor creatures completely lose trust in the humans, and feel completely miserable, insecure and in danger around them. They simply don’t understand this kind of behaviour as it is so far away from their nature. In the wild, an animal would never torture another one just for the sake of it. It might take years until they trust humans again... but even though, they never questioned their right to be provided for, by Mother Nature, in a way or another. They do not question their worthiness, that they are enough. Pure SELF-LOVE   

One can argue that this is pure instinct and nothing else. That instinct is what drive an animal to hunt for food, know how to get shelter, reproduce, and raise their little ones. And this is true. Instinct guides them. I like to call it Nature Wisdom. If we look beyond, though, they teach us what real, deep TRUST is. Trust in the perfection of the world, of Mother Nature and that it is the birthright of any creatures on this planet, to be provided for, to be loved and taken care of by the very planet we were all born onto. Animals have this innate power to TRUST and ability to RECEIVE, two concepts that we humans struggle so much with. They do not try to control everything to make sure their basic needs will be met. They are wise beings, and we should be more inspired by their Wisdom.

Our feeling of unworthiness, of not being enough, of not being lovable and not belonging are not innate. We picked them up on the way, due to our life experiences. A baby is born knowing that they will be provided for and taken care of. They never think that they are too fat, chubby, bold, or small for their needs to be met. They know and trust that they are in good hands. Along the way, as they grow up, and are confronted to different experiences, actions, comments, or other life events, they start doubting their innate state of trust and pure love. It is when children start experiencing what is called “separation”, and that they will question their birth right for abundance and love, their perfection, their wholeness. They will start doubting that they are deserving of love and abundance, preparing the perfect ground for the emergence of feelings such as unworthiness and not being enough.

At an early age, children do not have the capacity to understand the wrong doings or mishaps of adults. They can only consider themselves as the reason, the cause for any bad events, actions, or comments to happen. They will put the fault on themselves, and as a result, will stop loving themselves. The ground is now fertile for mental issues and disabilities to emerge: ADHD, depression, addictions, and many more.

Animals cannot have this type of consideration. They live only and completely in the Present Moment And therefore, will never doubt the innate nature and birthright to abundance. They teach us that we, just as any other creatures, are worthy, loved, and lovable, just because we are.

We definitely have so much to learn for our pets and the animal kingdom, by observing them and being around them. Our domestic friends have so much wisdom that they are willing to share with us, if only we are ready to observe and learn.

Natural disasters, diseases, or climate changes are all phenomena that cause wildlife serious issues when it comes to resources. I won’t go further into this now as it isn’t the topic of today. However sad and dramatic it is, none of these terrible factors and changes will ever shake-up their inner truth.  And in that, they definitely are our Master Teachers.  

In future articles, I will go deeper on how animals and humans can help each other when it comes to healing, as well as how an animal behaviour can tell us a lot about their person’s health and/or mental state.

With love and light

The Outdoor Witch