Why Can't I See or Sense My Pet After All This Time?

Dear Jack, 
Why is it that can't I see, hear, feel, sense my pet who is at the Rainbow Bridge? She has been gone two years now.  What am I doing wrong?
Mitzi's Dad 

Dear Dad, 

You aren't doing anything wrong. You may just be trying too hard or you could still be overwhelmed with your grief. Keep in mind, humans are used to listening with their ears, but it's important to try to listen with your heart instead. When we speak to you we speak from our heart to yours. Start paying attention to your heart and how it feels so you can recognize when Mitzi speaks to you there.    

It's also possible that you have had signs from Mitzi but you missed them. They don't always come as clouds and jingling tags. Sometimes they come in overheard conversations, songs that play on the radio, commercials on TV, rainbows in the sky.... just keep an open mind. Don't be afraid to ask Mitzi to come to you in a way that you can experience her. There's nothing wrong with having a conversation with her -- she would love to know that you still believe in her!

Hope this helps both of you! 

Love,
Jack

Why Does My Mind Keep Replaying the Trauma?

Dear Jack, 
My cat died somewhat suddenly last night. Everything was fine and then it was 45 unanticipated minutes of struggle and racing to the Emergency Animal Hospital. I am trying so hard not to cry today, to celebrate his life rather than to dwell on last night. Why is it that my mind is on constant replay of the horrific way he struggled and passed?  I so want time to hurry up, to be next week or next month so I do not break down. No matter how many one loses it does not seem to get any easier...
Love,
Sue

Dear Sue, 
Please go easy on yourself. You have lost someone near and dear to you. It is totally natural that you would need to shed tears, cry and weep over your loss. If you restrain your tears, it could make you sick. Your tears need to be released.

Remember there are Five Stages of Grief that we travel through when we lose someone.

The "Replay Phenomenon" that we all tend to go through to one extent or another is our mind's natural way of processing trauma and loss. It is natural to replay in your mind the details and circumstances of any kind of trauma that changes your life. Deep in your heart you know what is true. Your mouth speaks the truth, "My cat has died." but you still don't want to believe it. You go over and over and over it in your mind because you are in the stage of denial. Your heart replays the scene for you, for the express purpose of teaching you to accept what has happened. While your heart tries to "rewire" your mind to accept and understand what has happened, your mind keeps looking for a different answer. It doesn't like the truth. Alas you keep getting the same answer; the scene always ends the same way. Every time you see it replaying, you say to yourself, "No. It cannot be true." Replay. Replay. "No." "No". Every time you argue, "No". Much of this you aren't even conscious of. You just know you feel terrible, tired, lost and confused.

The grief process includes this complex defense mechanism of the body's heart and mind. The trauma is simply too much information to process all at once. Just like when you are learning something that is complicated, you need to read it over and over until you understand it. You need to take the course again. You need to watch the video one more time to grasp the lesson. You finally learn. One day, in a time that is not predesigned, you have to admit that, "Yes" it is true. What happened is true and your loved one is gone. They aren't coming back to this place. Once you comprehend this, you can move forward with acceptance in the deepest part of your mind. 

The difficulty arises when you get stuck in the saying, "No, no, no, no..." and "No" becomes a habit. The head and the heart become disconnected. You get stuck in your head and you forget about your heart and what it knows to be true. You make what your head is saying stronger than what your heart is saying. 

Your head is not necessarily your friend. It does not tell you to forgive yourself. Your head will tend to tell you that you are guilty; that you must have done something wrong. When you are stuck in your head, you cannot access the love in your heart that is forgiveness for all (including you) and belief in the love of everything. The heart is your true strength, but your mind thinks that it is the stronger of the two. When you are stuck, the bridge between your head and your heart needs to be reconstructed.

If you are stuck in the replay groove of pain and need to join your head back with your heart, focus on your heart. Give it some attention. Treat it like a very dear friend whom you have neglected. Stop crying for just a little while. Breathe deeply. Clear your mind. Lay your hands upon your heart and feel its strength. Ask it for forgiveness. Ask it to bring you the peace of truth. Some people are in too much pain to be able to quiet their minds to do this. They may need the help of a professional or hospice counselor to get unstuck from the continual replaying of their grief.  

In the meantime, go easy on yourself. Give yourself permission to replay it a few times and then allow yourself to move ahead towards true healing. When you move ahead, you are one step closer to the Rainbow Bridge and one step closer to the one you love who resides there.   

Do Not Read This if You Aren't Serious About Healing

This post contains the key to all healing. Are you ready to accept it? Can you bear to read the truth when it is looking right at you? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you can't. Perhaps you will close this up with a grumpy "Huff!" and continue to do things the way you've always done them. What you do with this post is totally up to you.  If you are grieving you will understand a lot of it. If you have faith in something greater than you, will understand all of it. 

Over and over again I hear about it. The guilt. The shame. The feeling like you didn't do enough. Or maybe you even think you did too much!

Over and over I hear how you thought I was the only one. I was the only one who would comfort you and listen to you and watch you and stay with you and not judge you. You thought I was the only one who really truly unconditionally loved you. You didn't think anyone else could accept, and perhaps even love, your quirks the way I did. And now you feel you are alone with no one. Now that I am gone, you feel there is no one who loves you more than anything else on earth. No one who can watch you without judging you. No one who can listen to you without interrupting you.  No one who is there for you to comfort you and stay with you.

When you receive your first pet, no matter how old you are, you are being entrusted with a gift from God.  He is the one who arranges the gifts of life and love and He arranges this opportunity for you to live and learn to love and be loved. He sends you the greatest gift he has to give; the love of another being who loves you more than anything else in the world. This is the closest He will ever get to being in the physical realm with you.

When it's time for that pet to leave, it usually doesn't take too long to get another because when you learn to live with that kind of love, you come to believe that you cannot live without it. So you often dive in and get another pet and once more you learn to love and be loved unconditionally...in a different package with different lessons this time. But the bottom line is that the ultimate lesson is love. Life is the school, love is the lesson. The bottom line is always love.

When you find yourselves alone after your pet has gone you often are surrounded by people who don't understand what you have lost. There are many people who have not experienced love like this with a pet, or with anyone else, for that matter. These people are not capable of understanding. Sometimes they are even afraid of it! Meanwhile you are devastated. You have had love. You have loved beyond love. Now you are alone and you think the light of love is gone from your life because your beloved pet has crossed the Rainbow Bridge. You are desperate for comfort. You long for that love.

Love is not gone at all.  The love you gave and received remains inside your heart for all time.  You know the love you felt for your best friend? Feel it now. Can you feel it?  You are probably crying now because your friend is gone and you think your love is gone too.  How can your love be gone?  It is YOUR LOVE you feel!  YOURS!  You can never lose that. EVER. It's yours.  What you are missing is the love you received in return.

No doubt you remember quite clearly the love your best friend gave to you.  Feel it now.  Can you feel their love?  Once again you are crying because your friend is gone from your sight and you think they took the love with them when they left.  They did not take the love with them. Their love remains inside your heart.

You've heard this all before no doubt.  But have you thought about this?  Do you believe in God?  Do you have faith in a higher power?  A universal life force?  God is the absolute force of love.  God is behind everything.  God sent you a pet to teach you how to love and be loved.  That pet was God Manifest in your life. God lives and breathes through everyone who loves you and through even those who don't love you because even they can teach you what love is and what love isn't.

You think when you lost your pet, you lost the love? You did not lose the love.  God gave you your pet to know what love is so that you would again seek love when love seemed to go away.  He is happy when you seek another loving pet to love.  He is particularly interested however, in the times when you have no pet at all, when you feel lost and lonely; abandoned and alone.  It is these times that are designed to remind you that He is there. He is there when no one else is there; when no one else understands. God is there in the lost and lonely moments and He offers you everything and more.

It saddens your pets and it saddens Him when you cry and wail and dwell on your loss and feel unloved because in reality YOU ARE NOT ALONE AT ALL.  He takes you to the bottom so that you are forced to look up. He allows you to drag yourself through the shadows of your tears so that you get so tired of crying that you will try to find the light again. It's totally up to you how long you stay in the shadows avoiding the light that is meant to be yours.

LOVE IS HERE. LOVE IS YOURS. God's unconditional love surrounded you before you ever came to this place and it will surround you when you leave and return to Him.  God's love is with you every step of the way and He designs your life so that you are reminded of this each and every day.  But some of you don't even think about Him. You don't remember Him. Some of you don't even believe in Him. You don't thank Him for anything. You gripe and grumble and cry and complain about what you have lost rather than looking at what you've been given. While you are seeking love when your best friend leaves you, He is waiting for you to seek Him and His love.

Try to get your Heart and your Head on the same page and everything will be Okay.  

Please think about this as you move forward. Listen to how you talk about your pet. Everything you are saying and feeling is what God wants you to be saying about and feeling for Him. The God-Dog reversal is no mistake.  It is all God's Grand Design to teach you how to love. He brings the gift of love into your life so that you will want to seek it again. You are not alone. You are never forsaken. You are loved unconditionally and without judgment.  He wants to give you everything! All He asks is for you to believe in Him, to notice Him, to make Him important to you too. Bring Him into your world and let Him love you and it will make no matter what happens on this earth... you will know you are loved and this knowledge will bring you the strength and faith to get you through anything and everything.

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe and God is love. When you feel love, you are feeling God. When you see the love pour out of the eyes of a person or pet that you love, that is God's love pouring forth.  He comes to you in your pet so that you will know how much HE loves you. HE.  He is the ultimate Lover!  He loves you. He wants you to notice him. He wants to rescue you. He wants you to adopt Him into your life. He wants your attention, your love, your care, your loyalty, your compassion. He will heal your heart and He will continue to bring you what you need if you can only keep your heart in the right place with faith that everything will be OK. Like a pet, He only wants your love.

This post is a response to those who grieve who keep dwelling and dwelling and dwelling on their "guilt" and their "shame".  Some of it comes from past life experiences that victimized them (then) and makes them believe that they are not worthy (now). If you learn what life is supposed to teach you, sometimes you find out that you not only learn, but you learn that you need to UNLEARN some of the things you learned the hard way. 

I have said it before and I will say again. I will keep saying it and saying and saying it until maybe you will believe it:

Dear Jack: I'm so Sad, My Other Pet is Grieving Too...

Dear Jack I need your help. 
Since Oscar has traveled to the Rainbow Bridge, my sweet girl Devin Rose will not leave the side of the litter box except to come and eat and then go right back to this spot.  My sweet girl. What can I do for her? 
Jolie

Dear Jolie,

Miss Devin Rose is probably depressed and grieves with you. There are many sensitive animal lovers out there who don't realize that their pets have similar emotions and feelings when they have lost a loved one. While the humans get caught up in their grief, they often don't see that their remaining pets need special attention too. I am so glad you were able to recognize this and that you were paying attention to your little girl's needs amidst your own grief. 

This is what I recommend. Go to her. Ask her for permission to lift her out of that space.  Pick her up lovingly and take her to a calm, comfortable, nurturing place. Put her in your lap and pet her with all the love you can summon to your hands. Cry with her. Talk to her like you would talk to a very dear friend.  Tell her you are sad and that you know that she is sad too, having lost her friend, Oscar. Explain to her that you are learning about healing and that things will get better for both of you.  

Tell her whatever is on your mind and in your heart and then ask her to share how she is feeling. Allow quiet time and space for her to "talk" to you. You might even "hear" her if you listen with your heart. It may sound crazy but if this is what she needs (and you may need it too), it should help. 

Love,
Jack

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Jack, 
Our talk worked!  
Look who finally came out! Cuddling with big brother Oliver  ♡

Letting Go Doesn't Come Naturally

All human beings struggle with letting go. You come into this world clinging to nothing and then all of sudden, Daddy's index finger hovers in front of you and you find it and curl your fingers around his. He shakes it to find that you won't let go. It is human nature that makes you do this and, look, already you are human! You learn clinging in your first moments in this brand new world. It is one of the first things you learn -- to find your mother's breast and to cling to Daddy's finger.

You gather childhood things and you turn into an adult who seeks out adult things and experiences. Time passes. Your beloved pets come and go. Your children leave an empty nest. You watch your marathon time get slower as you move into the Master's Division. Over time maybe your eyes, your ears, your taste buds go. One by one the people you love get older and leave. Each one teaches you another lesson in letting go. 

Do you see that your perennial life is designed to shift like the seasons; for everything to come and go? You are supposed to grow through the comings; through the goings. This is one of the reasons us dogs don't live as long as you do. We are gifts for you not only because we love you but because every time you say goodbye, you grow. 

It's all by Design. You will leave this planet too. By the time you do, you hopefully have learned what you need to learn. Your load is light and you are ready to fly. That final trip over the Rainbow, into Heaven or Paradise (however you define the afterlife) is what it's all about. 

Life is the school; love is the lesson.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Choosing Pain Over Pills

There seems to be a lot of guilt over the issues of pain pills and end of life treatments. People feel guilty if they didn't give them. People feel guilty if they did. People just feel guilty, it seems to me, no matter what they do or did. 

Every four hours she waited to give me my pain pills. I fought with her every time. She would cry as she forced them into my mouth. In our whole life together she had never had to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.

I just didn’t want those pills. I was in pain, yes, but she didn’t know how awful those pills were for me! She kept trying to hide them in things – like cheese or bacon or yogurt or peanut butter. She thought I might not know they were in there. I didn’t even want to eat my favorite things at that point … and I sure didn’t want to eat those pills!

The last one she gave me was wrapped in a peanut butter cube. I remember how she watched the clock until 10 p.m. when she could give me the next dose. I took it. At 1 a.m. I sat up and looked her right in the eyes. I was very weak and going back and forth in consciousness. It was the first time I had sat up in many hours. She was spellbound, looking back at me, looking deep into my eyes. 

"What Jack. What is it?  Do you need something?" she asked me. I surprised her by spitting the entire peanut butter pill cube out on the floor between us. She knew then that I was serious about not wanting those pills! I lay my head back down and I crossed the Rainbow Bridge two hours later, clear thinking and unaffected by pills in my system.

I watched her after my spirit left my body. It was fascinating how she cleaned up the place! She washed all the dishes, the blankets, the floor. She had a little bowl where she had mixed the pills into yogurt. I watched her take the tip of her finger as she took a teeny tiny taste of the mixture. She recoiled. “Blech!” It was the most disgusting thing she had ever tasted. God knows I had tried to tell her.

I will be letting this memory go as soon as I finish this message to you. Like all dogs, cats and other animals, we leave such memories far behind. We are not like humans who torment themselves by dwelling on things long after the moment is gone. How is it that people can feel guilty about so many things? They deprive themselves of the sweetness of memories by embittering themselves with the guilt over a few painful moments.

To you, it all is Black and White. You are guilty or you're not. YOU'RE NOT! You're not guilty!!

Us animals, we only remember the good things. It’s the only way to be happy. In fact, when we arrive at the Rainbow we are required to shed every memory that was anything but happy. We cannot carry that kind of baggage with us. We are supposed to stay free and lightweight so we can fly like the angels we now are. The old baggage weighs us down and we must be rid of it before we come here. 

From here we often observe the ones we love, and we can only hope and pray that they will shed those memories too. They only harm and weigh heavily as they block the love that connects us. As long as guilt and shame and sadness are in the way, we cannot come together. We must be at the same level of peaceful vibration to be able to access one another. 

Please do what you can to stop thinking of the sad things and focus on the many many many amazing memories that took place in our beautiful life together. If you can do this, when the time comes, you will be able to cross over the Rainbow easily too. Please try!  In the meantime, I love you!

Getting Back on Track Is Ultimately Up To You

I know it doesn't seem this way, but pain and suffering are the choices you make. You often tend to feel victimized and paralyzed by your loss. You can feel out of control. When you finally begin to heal, you have a little more energy and clarity to choose a better thought. You know what it is like to watch your best friend suffer? Your best friend does not want to watch you suffer either. You have the power to turn it around, you really do.

Guilt. Shame. Loss. Bereavement. Loneliness. Depression.  

When you start feeling sick enough long enough about it, you will change. Loss of someone we love will make us take a good hard look at our behavior. Everything in life is preparing us for our future life Over the Rainbow too. Guilt does not exist there and none of our pets are hung up on it (or anything else for that matter), so it's about growing and learning to live our lives in love. We've been focused for so long on someone else, and it takes us awhile to learn that It's about learning to love and accept OURSELVES too.

Louise Hay 2015 Day At A Time Calendar

If you have been struggling for awhile and cannot see the way out of the dark, contact someone to help you. Surround yourself with positive people. Seek help from a counselor, therapist, minister or community agency. Most communities have a hospice program and most hospice programs offer free bereavement support to people in the community. Don't be afraid to reach out and get the help you need.