In this interview for Mohanji Youth Club (MYC) we have a very special guest, an animal whisperer, Anna Breytenbach, from South Africa.
Anna is a professional animal communicator. She received advanced training through the Assisi Animal Institute in California. And she has been practicing for 18 years in America, Europe and South Africa with domestic and wild animals. Today we will talk about what it is that animal whispers actually do, how she does it, what the experiences of the animals are.
Your work is mind-blowing for us and it’s beyond the understanding of the regular human mind. I would like you to share with us what it is that you actually do?
Anna: Animal whispering or telepathic animal communication happens in the nonverbal space, it happens at the energetic level, which is all very explainable by quantum physics. One way to better understand is to say what it’s not, and it is not being an animal behaviorist, it’s not watching physical behavior, or facial expressions and then interpreting with our human minds and projections, what that might mean or having to understand or study dog psychology or horse behavior. It’s what happens at the energetic level behind the behavior. And quantum physics explains very easily how telepathy works. In fact, since the 1880s, in both the US and the UK, the universities have been doing experiments on telepathy between humans, meaning the energetic, or mind to mind transfer of information or data across great distances even. As it turns out, this is possible not just between humans, but between human animals and non-human animals as well. So what it is; is a non-physical sending and receiving of information. It’s like a 2-way radio almost. I can just silently in my mind ask a question and the animal will receive the nature of my inquiry and can show what the responses are, what their thoughts or feelings are about a matter. In turn, I will receive their answer as an energetic parcel inside myself and I will have the feeling that they’re having. If I’m communicating with a cat with a very itchy skin that they’re scratching a lot, I might suddenly start to feel like I want to scratch the corresponding part of my body. Or if an animal is very sad or anxious about something, I will feel a mild dose of their sadness or the anxiety inside myself during the time of connection, so it all happens at the unconscious or the intuitive level. It’s called animal whispering because it’s silent, it’s quiet. It’s the feeling of the word whispering that is also quite a gentle one. This communication truly only happens in a space of compassion, care, and real respect for the other as a sentient being, as a conscious being. It’s a beautiful space to enter into with another being.
So it requires a level of subtlety for this work?
Anna: It absolutely does. Sometimes happens spontaneously in life and that is usually because it’s very, very important or critical, or certainly dangerous. That’s when our intuition breaks through our ordinary everyday busy mind stuff, but this requires us to turn our attention intentionally to our own, more subtle state of being, our own essence.
Would you say this is an inborn talent for you or is it something that anybody can learn?
Anna: Hmm, I think it’s sort of somewhere in between those 2, it’s really inborn for everybody. It literally is how our brains and our beings are designed, it is the blueprint of our being. It’s not so long ago, only about 4000 years or so ago that our human ancestors used to be much more in this way every day, the hunters and the gatherers, the nomadic peoples. To them, this was another language, a silent language interchanged with the plants, with the soils, with the elements. What is a rain dance, if not an embodied prayer to the water element and the prayers a form of communication. They were speaking with the animals, with the elements, they would know where to start digging in the sand of the Kalahari Desert to find the water bearing bowls of underground grass in the desert, where there’s no water on the surface at all. That’s not because they were digging under every bush, it’s because they were in direct communication, with reverence and with respect, explaining their human needs, and asking if that species would be willing to give some of its plant life for their sustenance and so when humans still lived in a way that was acknowledging other species. It’s just being part of the circle of life, before we set ourselves above everything else and created this hierarchy and now suffer this big superiority complex. Before that, this was a very ordinary way of interacting and being, even between humans across great distance. Now, not much at all has changed in the anatomy of ourselves in these more modern times, it is literally still how we are designed. It’s not something that one has to learn, but it is something one has to remember. Only because modern life doesn’t value this, we don’t pay attention to it. The education systems educate us out of our intuition, that it’s something we can easily get back to again.
Basically, we all carry it within, we just need to recall this so called talent. We all care. That’s wonderful. And when you speak about the animals and the way we communicated thousands of years ago and when we see the human insensitivity, or as you also say, the superiority complex that we as humans have somehow built into our system. Do you have an insight how the animals feel about it?
Anna: They are very aware. That’s the cause of most of their problems and the poisoning of the environments. The destruction of their habitats is because of humans. That’s very obvious to them and I am continually amazed how much compassion they have for us. The animals, the large ones are the ones with big teeth, who could have so easily risen up against their captors, or the transgressors or those who have burned down or clear cut their forest, but they don’t, they don’t… And this is in keeping with how they feel in general, which is a lot of compassion and concern for how we have lost our way, beyond any selfishness on their part. It’s not just about them desiring things to be better, more pleasant and easy for them. It’s also a sense of care for how lost we have become. They don’t judge us for having lost our way or for how we treat them. They know about it, and they really wish it to be different, but amazingly, they don’t judge us for it.
That’s a really great example of unconditionality and selflessness and compassion. Sometimes we forget how much we can learn from animals. Thank you for being here with us to remind us about that. Can you explain to us a little bit how your work is reflected in their behavior? How can you see the difference in their behavior?
Anna: When I communicate with an animal around something that’s troubling them, certainly one thing that always happens is that they are very grateful that someone is taking the time and the interest to find out what is really motivating their behavior, because behind any behavior, there’s always a motivation, some need or desire that is looking to be filled. And even if someone is having trouble with a horse, throwing off the rider the whole time, it would be wrong to say, ‘Oh, my horse is behaving aggressively.’ That’s incorrect. That’s an assumption. The horse might be in pain, metaphysical back pain, the horse might have teeth trouble, so this is a pain condition. It’s not aggression. It’s always important to not describe the behavior. Rather ask the animal, ‘What makes you do that or what you are trying to achieve?’ So there’s often quite a softening on the part of the animal because they relax into knowing that they cared for, there’s an invitation for something to be transformed. Whether or not their actual behavior on the issue changes though, depends on what solutions have been put on the table. It depends on if their desire can be met. Perhaps there’s 1 dog in a household of 10 dogs that really wants to be an only pet and wants all the other nine dogs just gone, so people are not going to do that. Then that dog is not necessarily going to change his mind or behavior. Behavior change is not always guaranteed. Don’t forget that this is a sentient conversation between two beings, and sometimes could look a little bit like a negotiation. So once we explain the alternatives and the consequences, no matter what they want, it’s the whole sort of consultation sometimes with the people involved as well and if all parties agree on something, then they would change their behavior. It has to be a sort of agreed or negotiated settlement. They won’t change behavior just because we’re communicating with them telling them to. It has to be more meaningful and more caring than that.
From your experience, what is the most common issue that animals face?
Anna: There’s many ways in which their discomfort plays out, but I think if there’s one common thread, it’s that they face huge amounts of projections being placed upon them. They’re just always receiving projections of their behavior, of their mood and of their actions, even of their facial expressions. They have human projections placed upon them so often. A lot of pets in the world are basically surrogate human children and believe me, an adult cat or an adult dog does not want to be called my baby. We are not their mothers and their fathers and that can keep them in a very belittled; we making them less empowered and less adult. We’re always talking down to them, even in a loving way. So they face a lot of projections and being misunderstood because we humans will approach animals, even those who live close with us, from our mindset. They really wish for us to just stop a moment and feel into what is their truth, both at a species level, where their realities might be different, their priorities are different. You might find an individual dog or horse who’s an independent learner and doesn’t want to be with others or you might find a cat who wants nothing more than to live with a whole herd of cats. It really does come down to acknowledging them as their own beings, rather than bothering to try to interpret them through the automatic human lens we have.We need to go into a form of inner silence where we can drop, that or at least just let it be in the background and rather perceive what is true for them.
Can you share with us a little bit about our relationships with pets, how you experience they feel about their owners and is there anything you advise that we as humans should change towards our pets?
Anna: They will have different views of the people who are providing for them. Sometimes they will literally see the human as a provider and appreciate that. Sometimes they’ll see us as a friend and an equal, sometimes as the master. Sometimes they’ll see a human as someone to manipulate. Sometimes they’ll see a humanist as someone to take care of and to do their best to try to help. Pets have many different roles in our lives as well. They also have their own roles in their life. They are here to exude a certain quality or to learn something or to integrate something in this lifetime. In addition, they might have some roles relative to us, but what they really genuinely feel is that we humans lately have become very unpleasant. We might live under the same roof as them and share time when we are home, which is usually I suppose, for most people only at the end of the day after studying or being at school or working, but with all our device usage these days; bingeing on movies or whatever, we’re not really present with them. We are very busy as humans with those who are not there, through our devices, through social media and with animals you’re not engaging, you’re not connecting, you’re elsewhere, in a distracted manner petting your dog who’s next to you on the couch and it’s pretty obvious what we can change in the way they are threated, we could just spend some quality time with them, acknowledge them. That’s what they wish for.
Can you share 1 piece of advice with all of us? What we can do more of, or what should we do less of?
Anna: There’s a term that was described by Andrew Harvey called ‘sacred activism’. It’s like a version of prayer or long distance intention. 1 thing we can all do is to literally envision a positive or more pleasant outcome for the animal; it doesn’t even need to be specific. If there’s something really hurtful and distressing going on, somewhere in the world, we can have our feelings and our judgments, but can we energetically turn that into an inner blessing for those animals and just pray, ‘We ask for their highest good, for their wellbeing.’ On the quantum physics level, we are literally contributing that helpful energy and vibration into the field that becomes part of reality. So that’s what we can all do, hold the positive vibrations and hold them in this, like the loving blanket.
For those who might be very skeptical about telepathy between species on my YouTube channel, which is the animal spirits channel, there are very light short videos on how to be helpful in ordinary everyday ways, how to live kindly with the nonhumans around us.
Find out more about Anna at www.animalspirit.org
Interview by Barbara Dizdarevic, Global President of Mohanji Youth Club: www.mohanjiyouth.org/
OMG I love Anna Breytenbach!