INNER JOURNEY’S
Email: Sue Peters
PRACTICE SOFT EYES
Taken from: Animal Communications: Paws and
Claws Newsletter
by Gina Palmer
& Sherry Jones
“Soft eyes is
a method animals use to communicate. When an animal offers you their soft eyes,
they are talking to you. You can talk back to them using your own soft eyes.
Offering an animal your soft eyes, is a way of communicating your intention to
honor them with mutual respect. Mutual respect builds trust, and establishing
trust is one of the first steps in creating common ground with your animal.
For
instance:
1.
Imagine
your dog laying out in the grass in your back yard.
2.
Before
approaching your dog to communicate, spend some time first observing her/him
just laying there gazing around, relaxing, enjoying herself just being in the
outdoors.
3.
Soft eyes
in this case generally means; I am here and I am at peace.
4.
One of the
best ways to be respectful of someone else's peace and serenity is to not
interrupt it; instead, set the intention prior to approaching your animal of
merging with their peace/serenity. Then, approach the animal.”
BENEFITS
OF USING SOFT EYES:
1.
If you are
a professional dog or horse trainer, dog groomer, vet or other animal
professional, using soft eyes before touching or approaching an animal can
literally transform the animal's experience of being in your care.
2.
It
minimizes or eliminates any fears or anxieties the animal may be experiencing.
3.
If you are
visiting a friend who has animals in their house, practicing soft eyes before
petting the animal is a way of communicating your acknowledgment of them, prior
to petting them.
4.
When
working with birds or wild animals, practicing soft eyes is one of the most
reverent gestures you can offer to the animal, vs.. plowing ahead into an
interaction immediately with the animal.
When you
choose to use soft eyes, you are choosing a technique that does not involve direct
eye contact; but rather an indirect gazing in the direction of the being with
whom you wish to communicate. In many human cultures, as well as animal
cultures, looking directly into the eyes of another is sometimes perceived by
the other as disrespectful, or in the case with certain animals, a threatening
gesture.”
______________________________
Hard Eyes = Narrow intense focus on a person or
object. It can be intrusive and
threatening not only to an animal, but humans find it offensive and threatening
as well.
Soft Eyes = Looking from a broader perspective…
Taking in the whole environment and looking from Heart Energy. An animal will be more receptive to your
advances when you use the soft eye approach.
Cat using HARD EYES
SOFT EYES
_______________________________________________________
HAKALUA
Information taken from the website: Huna.com
This meditation
teaches you to move into an altered state of awareness. You learn how to
develop your peripheral vision and to work from heart energy. It is impossible to be in a negative state
while doing the Hakalua.
One meaning of Hakalau is, “To stare at as in meditation
and to allow to spread out.”
1.
Ho’ohaka: Just pick a spot on
the wall to look at, preferably above eye level, so that your field of vision
seems to bump up against your eyebrows, but the eyes are not so high so as to
cut off the field of vision.
2.
Kuu: “To let go.” As you
stare at this spot, just let your mind go loose, and focus all of your
attention on the spot
3.
Lau: “To spread out.”
Notice that within a matter of moments, your vision begins to spread out, and
you see more in the peripheral than you do in the central part of your vision.
4.
Hakalau: Now, pay attention to
the peripheral. In fact, pay more attention to the peripheral than to the
central part of your vision.
________________________________
MORE INFORMATION ON ANIMAL LANGUAGE
Before approaching an
animal, it helps to learn about his body language…what is he really saying…?
Observe, Listen, Feel… Let “YOUR” sensing system play a part in the communication
process.
CALMING SIGNALS—HOW TO
INTERPRET AND USE DOG LANGUAGE
“Whenever
I’m scolding him, my dog knows he’s been bad
because
he hangs his head and looks guilty.”
Guilty
conscience? No. Good social skills.
“My
friend’s dog always greets us with his tail up, and is
bouncy
and alert. My dog always has his tail between his legs, and
his
ears are down. I wish he were braver.”
Timid
dog? No. Good social skills.
“When
I am in a hurry, my dog never comes when I call. He
just
circles around the back yard, watching and running away.”
Defiant dog? No. Good social skills.
_____________________________
DOG SPEAK, THE LANGUAGE OF DOGS…
Taken
from: Crazy for Dogs Website
~ for more information on dog language, click on website.
“Dogs can understand our moods, facial
expressions and body language. If we can't do the same for them, they might
wonder what is wrong because the communication link that they would establish
with another dog is not made with us. When we don't understand our dog's
communications, we miss out not only on vital information about our dog's state
of mind, but also on a chance to establish a deeper bond with our canine family
member.”
_______________________________________________
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF A CAT
Animal Planet *
Cat Guide – a website that has tons of information on cats – their language,
behavior, etc.
“A cat's posture, tail, ears, eyes and hair all speak volumes. But frequently,
because we fail to understand and interpret the signals correctly, we blame the
cat — unjustly. Understanding the body language of felines can be difficult,
even counterintuitive, since it is meant to convey messages primarily to other
cats. Signs of fearfulness or irritation can be easily misread as
playful excitement because a cat's associated behaviors appear to be similar.
And misinterpretation of cats often arises out of confusion with the body
language of dogs, which is sometimes opposite in meaning.”
CAT WHISKERS
Each whisker is an intricate receptor designed to
allow a cat to sense the smallest changes in the environment such as tiny
movements, air currents, or changes in air pressure, temperature or wind
direction. Whiskers help a cat to navigate at night and to determine whether he
can fit through narrow spaces. Cats can even change the position of their
whiskers when hunting in order to collect information about their prey.
When a cat’s whiskers are sprayed outwards (like in this
picture) you are looking at a happy, contented kitty.
SENSE OF
SMELL….
Smell is vital to recognition. Most of us witness this phenomenon
when we take one of our cats to the vet. Upon returning home, the cat is
growled and hissed at and occasionally attacked by the cats that stayed home.
They don't recognize their buddy returning home because he smells different.
It's as if a new and strange cat has walked right into their home! A mother cat
will even kill her own kittens if they should suddenly smell foreign.
Cats have scent glands along the tail, on each side of their
forehead, on their lips, chin and on the underside of their front paws. They use these
glands to scent mark their territory. Every time your cat passes by the
refrigerator or the sofa and rubs up against it, he is saying, "This is
mine. This belongs here. I belong with these things." When your cat
scratches your furniture or his scratching post, he is also leaving his scent
there from the glands in his paws.
Your cat will rub up against you and other companion pets for a
scent exchange. While depositing his scent on you, he is also picking up your
scent, which he will carefully lick and taste off his fur. (And we thought he
was just grooming himself!)
Cats are territorial by nature and they identify their territory
by scent. Keep this in mind when moving with your cat, boarding him, taking
him to the vet or groomer, bringing home new furniture, or bringing home a new
friend.
Try to make your cat feel as non-threatened as possible by using
familiar scents. For example, before bringing in a new piece of furniture, rub
it down with some of your cat's bedding or even your own bedding.
The cat’s
nose, which is pink or black depending on the shade of its skin, is humid and
cold. The sense of smell is fourteen times more sensitive than ours. They register
every scent around them: food, people and even preys. But they use it for
communicating, not for hunting. Cats have two hundred million cells for
smelling, while humans just have got five million. Their brain zone for this
sense occupies more space than in our brains.
ADDED
INFORMATION ON CATS:
Taken from: The best
Parachutist and it’s five senses
- Do you know that a cat
cannot recognize itself in a mirror? The reason is that the mirror image
doesn’t have smell.
- Each cat is unique. Each one does
have a different purr and a particular mewing. No two cats are equal. The
purr and the mewing are as the fingerprint or the iris to human beings.
3. Is your cat Siamese? Then, you should
know that the temperatures in the colorful parts of its body are lower than in
the white zones. These shades often are in the tail, mouth, nose, ears and
paws.
4. Both the cat’s hearing and eyesight are
more developed than humans’. For instance, a cat perceives the ticking of a
clock four times louder than we can. In this way, its ear distinguishes male or
female voices and the different tones of our voices. Besides, a cat is able to
listen to hundreds of sounds contemporarily.
- The little pillows
of their feet register every vibration, it is a complex of touch sense –
so, a cat has a built in alarm system in its tiny feet!
______________________________________
BIRD BODY
LANGUAGE
Taken from: The Body language of Birds Website
“Pet birds have been described by some as moody:
playful and loving one minute, demanding and aloof the next. Sometimes very
obvious and sometimes very subtle, a bird's body language can give you insight
into what your bird needs and wants. Although different bird species display
different body languages, certain common behaviors are observed in most pet
birds, some more often than others and some more prominently than others.
Observing your bird's eyes, vocalizations, wings, tail, beak, and overall
posture can be very telling.”
Please click on the website “The
Body Language of Birds” to learn about a bird’s body language.
__________________________________________
HAMSTER
~ BODY LANGUAGE
Taken from: “Welcome to HammyLand!”
Website.
Please click on Website for further information on Hamster
Communication.
“It's
part of good maintenance for you to learn to understand the body and vocal
language of your hamster and allow it to communicate with you. For instance,
you'll be able to tell when it is relaxed, nervous, submissive, or dominant toward
another hamster. After some observations, you will be able to interpret its
moods and respond to them properly. In addition to the language of scents (see how
hamsters communicate), your hamster also expresses itself through
body language and sounds.”
______________________________________
ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO LEARN ABOUT
ANIMALS,
IS TO LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF…
1.
Pay
attention to your own sensing system (smell, hearing, touch, taste, heart
feelings, sight, inner-sight, ...
- Learn how to be still and to
listen to all the sounds that are around you.
- Pick a week of sight and
explore all that you see and record it in a “psychic journal”
- Pick a week of taste and record
your discoveries
- Pick a week of touch, a week
of sound, of smells, of heart feeling sensations and record all that you
discover and feel…
- Play attention to your own
body language (and of other humans), what are you really saying?
- Go out into Nature as often
as you can. Observe, Listen, Feel, Smell, Touch and just be in the moment
of Now.
8.
Re-discover
who you are and start enjoying the discoveries.
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