Holistic Animal Wellness
Victoria Benda, Animal Communicator,
Reiki Master Teacher
Holistic animal wellness is a total program which is not just about improving the diet or utilizing herbs. It is a total program of natural animal care which includes environment, nutrition, botanicals, exercise, energy work, and wellness care, love understanding and acceptance. Holistic care is beyond and above and promotes healing for us and for our animal friends. The body is designed to heal itself and stay healthy with the proper support.
A holistic program for your animal companion is going beyond the human mind to explore avenues where we may have to consider the consequences of our own actions and assess the impact that our bad habits and personal behavior may have on our animals. Our feelings, thoughts and emotions can and do impact our animal friends.
A Key Factor - Education
One of the key factors to remember is that education is one of the most important factors in a holistic program. Learn for yourself the holistic and complementary modalities that are available for your animal companions.
Animals, plants and nature are intertwined to work in harmony with one another. Much of our modern medicine originates through observation of wild animals and their instinctive uses of plants.
As humans we are beginning to understand that we have brought ourselves into a type of synthetic world, with artificial ingredients in our foods and warning labels on everything.
Balance
Ancient cultures knew that living by and through the earth and the abundance and healing properties within the plants brought balance to the mind, body and spirit.
Each being on this planet shares an interconnection with the earth. Natural health care is about honoring and supporting a system of the interconnectedness we share.
Most humans believe that animals and plants are here for the purpose of serving us, as unconscious beasts and objects without rights, or purpose on this earth. Exploitation and disregard for the rights of other beings has separated humans from nature. Humans are so disconnected from nature, we have lost touch with the very essence that supports our being.
Animals and plants are seen as insignificant by virtue of their “silence” and are expendable, without consciousness or emotional pain and offer no resistance when exploited.
top of pageWe can set forth an example of this insignificance when we see how humans place their animals as a secondary concern. We buy our pet food at a grocery store, even though our animal friend may have a weakened immune system, which can erupt into many physical ailments. Instead of realizing the cause, which is the quality of food they are receiving, we remain focused on ourselves, the cost and convenience of buying grocery store food, instead of what our animal truly needs to live a healthy life.
When we provide our animal companions with consideration for health and healing to meet their needs and not our own, we are in effect healing ourselves.
In the history of our species we have chosen a relationship of consumption and control rather than coexistence, and we are paying a heavy price for our inability to live in harmony with all of life. Animals and plants are an integral part of the continuous circle of life, and they serve this planet as stewards to pass their intuitive wisdom to us.
top of pageThe Key to Change
The key to change as to come to an understanding and be willing to accept and see nature as nature is.
Begin to understand healing on a different level, a level that reaches far beyond science. Holistic wellness is not a process that begins or ends with medicine, but with our connection to nature. Learn to honor and to know your animal friend’s innate system of health maintenance. You have taken a part of nature into your home, and from this bond you will learn innocence, compassion, respect and unconditional love. And despite centuries of our abuses, animals and plants quietly remain waiting for us to reconnect with the ways of nature.
top of pageIn return for these special gifts, and to assure that the circle remains unbroken by our human presence, we must give something back to our beloved animal teachers, guides and friends, we must learn to listen to them and help to serve their needs by providing the natural foods and medicines that have sustained their kind for millions of years.
We Owe it to our Animal Companions to look at the World through their Eyes!!!!
Excerpt: All You Ever Wanted to Know About Herbs for Pets
Authors: Mary L. Wulff-Tilford and Gregory Tilford
It is part of human nature to impose our ideals of acceptable behavior upon our beloved animals. Unfortunately, many of us find it difficult to separate these ideals from what makes each animal special, unique and happy. Thousands of animals are euthanized each year because they were “untrainable” or “uncontrollable”, “barked too much” or were simply “too much to bear”. Many of these animals were put to death not because there was something untreatably wrong with them, but because their identities clashed with their caregivers.
One of the greatest gifts offered to us by our animal friends comes when we learn to look beyond our own needs to their happiness. Our eight year old Shepard/husky dog Willow, still barks incessantly, whines obnoxiously on road trips to the river, and jumps up on house guests despite our continuing efforts to direct her toward our needs. Sometimes we want to pull out our own hair and tie her snout shut with it, but instead we have developed patience and respect for her personal nature. Willow is simply doing what she must do to be complete and happy. And while we are working on the guest-mauling issue, we have learned to accept her just the way she is. By reaching this level of acceptance, we have been rewarded with the joy she brings to us and we rejoice with her in her rapturous journey through life. Granted, there is a social stigma attached to certain types of animal behavior. But before we step in and choose what is best for us, we owe it to our animal companions to look at the world through their eyes-perhaps before we even bring one of them home.
Many humans have lost contact with this very simple truth, animals have the right to live their lives as they are, as humans we need to remember that they need to be accepted for the beauty of their nature and their very special qualities. These are the very reasons we are drawn to our animal companions. As you deepen your understanding of the role your animal companion’s purpose in your life, you begin a healing process for each other on the soul journey of life.