Healing with Animals

I’m back. I missed talking to you gals and interacting. It’s interesting how isolating having major surgery can be and how intrusive it is to your daily life.

The pain, physical trauma, and pain killers can really cause havoc on your brain. I think your body changes all its focus on healing and dealing with the physical trauma and “thinking” goes out the window. At least it did for me. It was hard to think, read, or even have much of a conversation.

I am so thankful for my dear friend and business partner Mark. He has been a blessing in my life and has become part of my extended family. As he explained in last week’s blog, we have known each other for quite some time and I’m sure he and Elke will be forever friends.

Even though he was a little pushed to write a few blogs for me since I was out of commission, I really enjoy hearing his point of view and his insights. I love when he does a blog.

I keep trying to get him to write more, maybe a monthly blog or even a quarterly blog to voice his opinions. And thank you to everyone who wrote back and told him how much you enjoyed hearing from him again. He’s a good writer.

As he hinted, we do have a new creation beginning that will include both of us, Mark and myself, and more of a community so all of us like-minded, good hearted, horse enthusiasts can really talk things out and create a safe place to find solutions and support. So stay tuned for more information soon. Co-creation is the key.

Now to this week’s blog – Healing with Animals.

Just a little about my surgery…I had a large lipoma in my abdomen that had become a problem and had to be removed. Turns out it was larger than they thought and they had to do a lot more surgery (cutting and sewing) than first expected. It was a 5-hour surgery. But everything turned out and it went well.

It went from a 2–4 week recovery to now being an 8 week recovery. So I’ve had to push back lessons, clinics, trips, etc. But it’s only an extra month or so. I’m happy with the results and my recovery. Being flexible in life and with horses has been an important lesson to me.

During this healing process I’ve also been reminded how healing animals can be in recovery. Because of the positive vibes and the love they give though cuddles and purring. I wish my horse was closer and that I could have been able to see him daily to help my recovery. But thankfully I have my three cats and a dog that were amazing.

Each one of my cats took turns sitting on my lap (on a pillow) and cuddling very gently with me. They all were extra careful and thoughtful about where they put their paws. They would look at me and purr and then curl up and go to sleep as if they were protecting me.

And they didn’t want to sit on any other part of my body, just my abdomen. They knew it was hurt and they only wanted to be on top of that part to help the healing process. I could feel the heat and warmth as they curled up.

There is actually a science behind the healing powers of a cat’s purr.

• The sound frequency of a cat’s purr has been shown to help the healing process of humans. It helps heal bones, help respiratory ailments, resolve migraines, and even repair joint and tissue damage.
• Purring releases endorphins in humans which lowers blood pressure, lowers stress, and increases the body’s ability to cope with an injury.
• A cat’s purr has also been shown to increase the speed of healing in humans.

Animals always know how we are feeling, even more than we do sometimes. They know when we are hurting or sick and they even know where we are hurting. They also seem to know when something bad is coming our way. This happened during my first week of recovery with my dog Arlo.

Arlo has been a great therapy dog for me during my recovery. He stays close, walks with me as if watching over me, is extra gentle, cuddling just with his head, and laying down outside my bathroom door when I shut him out. That’s one place I didn’t want my animals to follow me.

He even nosed me and rubbed against my legs on day two when there was a complication of lower extremity swelling. He seemed to know just where the issue was and was actively trying to help me.

One morning after I shut Arlo out of the bathroom, my husband tried to get him to go outside. But Arlo wasn’t going. He refused to go and fought my husband to stay in the house and right outside my door. Arlo had never done this before. It was very abnormal for him and my husband couldn’t figure out why. But he finally just let him stay inside.

Arlo knew before I did how badly that morning would go for me and how much pain I would be in. Within minutes of my husband allowing Arlo to stay on guard at my door, I was screaming in pain. He wanted to get inside to help me and be by my side, but it was something I had to go through alone.

But the second I was out of pain and could go back to my recliner, Arlo was by my side and had his head as close as he could. You could tell how badly he wanted to help and protect me. Just being close to him and having him touch me was very comforting and healing.

I have to say that that morning was the worst day of all!

But most of all, I missed my horse Merlin. Even though my brain felt fried and discombobulated, my emotions were high and I was very sensitive. Because of that, I was able to communicate with Merlin telepathically.

So even though I couldn’t be with Merlin, it was very comforting to me to still be able to talk with him. I could feel him sending me healing energy, just as my cats and dog were who were close to me. He was comforted as well to hear from me and know what was going on since he hadn’t seen me in a bit.

The healing power of animals is amazing and something I had seen many times. But I was reminded about it again while going through my own recovery. The importance of heart-to-heart communication with your horse and being able to talk to him/her while you’re away was also reinforced for me during this time. It was very comforting.

I hope you know how much your animals love you and want to care for and protect you when you are ill, hurt, or down. And I hope you let them in and let them help you recover when needed.

Even more so, I hope you can communicate heart-to-heart with your horse. If you are interested in this type of telepathy, you can learn how to do this in my latest book called “Heart-to-Heart Communication”. I’ve placed a link below so you can check it out.

https://go.teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com/heart-to-heart-book

There is also a Video Course that goes along with this book for more personalized coaching. You can find more about this on my Learn page.

Thank you for your emails of support, concern, and good wishes as I was going through my recovery. It really helped.