What are Power Animals?

Power animals are spirit guides in animal form that bring their unique attributes and strengths to help you when you are navigating through life or a specific challenge. Some power animals stay with you for a long time, or even your entire lifetime, while others may join forces with you at certain times in your life to give you additional energy to travel through that time.

Each power animal is equally valuable – from the tiny industrious ant to the wise owl to the playful otter to the powerful elephant– and each has life lessons that they want to share with you. Often, during a shamanic healing session, a power animal asks to make itself knows to the person I am working on, so I will bring that power animal “back” to my client. We then talk about the significance of the power animal and the gifts it may provide. In a number of cases, the animal is one that has had some meaning to the client.

Here are some recent examples:

• One client was undergoing some significant changes in her personal life and relationships. In addition, she was considering launching a new business. When I did a shamanic journey on her behalf, Tiger wanted to come back to work with her. Among other things, Tiger brings passion and adventure to life – exactly what my client needed to work through all the changes and rebuild her life. My client was thrilled – she had loved tigers since she was a small child and had paintings of them in her home.
• Another client was suffering from cerebral palsy, lung problems and anxiety. He was very nervous about the shamanic session, and we agreed that I would focus on gentle strengthening and calming, rather than healing. As I was working on him, Owl asked to work with my client to help him realize the inner wisdom that he has at his disposal at any time. When I told my client that Owl wanted to work with him, he was very excited.   Owl had shown up to him in a physical form several times recently, during some very trying times, and the gentle wisdom and peace he had felt from Owl at those times had been very helpful.
• A third client had been doing a lot of spiritual work but wanted help healing that aspect of herself that prevented her from having strong, lasting relationships with others. Bear asked to come and work with her during this time. Bear brings energy that helps us go deep within to get answers so that we can awaken our unconscious and our personal power – exactly what this client needed to do. As she worked with Bear energy, she realized some hidden truths about herself that helped her move forward with her relationships.
• As a last example, another client had just been diagnosed with a health issue that was going to take some time to heal and would require some life changes. He was feeling depressed about everything that was going on. As I performed some shamanic work on him, Bat asked to come back. Bat brings energy to help with transition, rebirth and initiation, and as my client worked with Bat, he was able to breakthrough his depression to feel more positive about his life and the changes he needed to make.

Once you know your power animal, it’s important that you not only spend time with your power animal but also honor and thank it. Honoring and gratitude can be done in any number of ways:

• Learning about your power animal in physical form
• Visiting your power animal at the zoo, nature preserve, or in your back yard
• Putting photos of your power animal in your home or on your altar
• Making a donation to a non-profit group that works with your power animal
• Preparing a feast that features foods that your power animal eats (either the actual food or a symbolic representation of it)
• Saying thank you

Want to meet your power animal is? Let me know and we can set up a shamanic session to discover your power animal. Visit www.SpiritEvolution.co to schedule your session or let me know in the comments below.