• April 30, 2017
• Kyra Oser
• Psychic Predictions

Alternative Pet Therapy: EFT Tapping & Feng Shui for Pets. Plus: Meditation for Pet Owners

EFT Tapping for Pets

Psychic Medium, Astrologer & Hypnotherapist Kyra Oser

If you think the animal you’ve adopted might be suffering from anxiety or may have been mistreated by previous owners, you might want to think about taking out nationwide cat insurance to make sure they are covered for any injury or illness that could occur to them. EFT Tapping is a pet therapy technique you can use to help your new family member recover from trauma. If you happen to be grieving the loss of a beloved animal, EFT Tapping can help you, too. You can also check out my interview on KKNW’s “Love Has Many Faces”, hosted by Marilyn Milano, to find out more details about how to use EFT tapping and feng shui as pet therapy.*

EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT is a form of acupressure based on energy meridians used in acupuncture (but you won’t be using needles!). EFT was developed by NLP Master Practitioner Gary Craig, and was influenced by NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) and TFT therapies. TFT (Thought Freedom Technique) is an earlier version of EFT and was conceived of by Dr. Roger Callahan to help one of his patients overcome her fear of water.

The first time I learned about TFT and EFT Tapping was at the taping of a pilot. I was paid to show up because at the time I was a professional laugher (and yes, my audition consisted of laughing). But that day there was no work for laughers (sad day in Hollywood) so I was given an address by my laugher manager and told to go fill a seat at a small sound stage. I didn’t know what the show was and it didn’t matter to me as long as there was lunch. But I was fortunate that day because Hypnotist Paul McKenna was taping a pilot where he would be demonstrating how to use EFT Tapping for people suffering from grief. McKenna studied TFT with founder Dr. Callahan and NLP with NLP co-creator Richard Bandler. It was impressive to see one of McKenna’s subjects sobbing after just having lost her mother several weeks before, then after just a few minutes of tapping and humming, appearing calm and detached. You may be asking yourself-was McKenna’s subject paid to be in the audience, too? I have no idea. Even if she was, like me, she probably didn’t know what she was showing up for that day, either. I do know that after he performed hypnosis on the audience to get us to hate cupcakes then handed out cupcakes to test if it worked, I quickly handed the cake to my friend because I was so disgusted by the sight of it. That was one of the moments when I decided I’d like to spend more time learning hypnosis and less time laughing for a living. Anyone who can make me hate cupcakes, even temporarily, has a gift.

Just as I’ve experienced the firsthand effectiveness of hypnosis for reducing sugar cravings, I’ve also seen EFT Tapping work for people who are in emotional pain. Often used for grief and trauma, EFT Tapping can aid in releasing guilt, fears, resentments, emotional attachment to exes, and other feelings you wish to diminish. EFT Tapping for pets can be a useful tool for increasing calmness and fostering mutual trust between you and your pet.

While you are tapping on your pet’s acupressure points, you can sing or hum a simple song (i.e. Happy Birthday”). It can be especially effective to add the name of your pet into the song (i.e. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” can be sung as “Princess Had a Little Lamb” if your puppy’s name is “Princess”).

The basic technique for using EFT Tapping on a pet is that you will gently and lightly tap each point a few times while humming the same tune over and over. After a few rounds, you can stop and check in. If your pet seems to be comfortable, you can try a few more rounds. It’s up to you to decide how much tapping you want to do, but it doesn’t need to be for more than a few minutes at a time. It’s possible that you will only be interested in using EFT Tapping when your pet seems frightened or distressed as it can help him or her feel more grounded and reassured.

If you find your pet moving away when you tap certain points, avoid those points for a while. If your dog, cat, horse, or bird has been particularly traumatised or is highly sensitive to touch, try starting with just one tapping point. A point you can try first is near the top of the forehead, above the third eye, or whichever point you find from a chart that seems most calming for your friend. Any tapping at all can be helpful, so even one point could potentially make a difference in helping someone cope with anxiety or trauma. Your pet’s movements and sound signals will give you clues as to what’s comfortable.

If your pet has been so traumatised by past events that he or she can hardly handle any touch, you can tap in his or her energy field, within about an inch or so of the fur or skin. Your dear friend will still intuitively feel the energy and positive intention, and will gradually learn that you are safe and can be trusted.

Differences Between EFT Tapping for Pets and People

There are a couple of limitations to using EFT Tapping on pets. An obvious obstacle is that animals can’t use EFT Tapping on themselves. EFT Tapping can be used on human friends and clients, but unlike with animals, physical contact isn’t necessary.***

For instance, if I am working on EFT Tapping for a client who wants to reduce feelings of resentment and regret about her previous relationship, I would ask her before the tapping begins, “How resentful do you feel toward your ex right now, on a scale of 1-10?” Perhaps she is feeling an 8 when it comes to this resentment. Then she would do a few rounds of tapping while we hum a calming tune such as “Happy Birthday” together. After tapping, I will ask, “Now how resentful do you feel toward your ex right now, on a scale of 1-10?” After tapping, the answer has always reduced to a lower number in my experience. It may be that a client can get to a 2 or 3 that day when it comes to how much resentment or regret she feels, which would be an excellent improvement. I can then ask her, “Are you comfortable with that number?”, and if she is, we can leave it at that and come back to more tapping another day if she wants to. Sometimes we aren’t ready to let go of a feeling all at once. People and animals may hold onto emotions because they give us a benefit. Traumatised pets may carry fear, but that fear or even anger provides them with boundaries that allow them to protect themselves until they can learn who to trust. A more human example of a benefit would be continuing to feel resentment toward someone you broke up with years ago in order to feel like you still have a relationship with that person. Sometimes letting go too soon would be too painful, and our brain protects us from feeling more pain than we can handle by holding onto a feeling that keeps us connected to the person we lost. If we’re still feeling resentment or regret, we continue to relive that relationship in our heads until we feel safe enough to let go or at least transform those feelings.

One benefit of EFT Tapping for animals is that it can increase psychic, nonverbal communication between pets and owners, which can be particularly helpful if one of your goals is building trust when you think your loved one may have been abused, abandoned, or traumatised by previous owners.

Meditations for People with Pets

When a parent is calm, children often pick up on that. The same can be true for adoptive owners of pets. If you’ve rescued an animal and want to help them trust you more, calming techniques for yourself can have a domino effect on cats, dogs, and other pets. Serenity can make you more approachable. You could also consider giving your pet something to help calm them down quicker, or if your pet is in pain then you could look at using CBD oils to help soothe their worries alongside tapping. If this is something that interests you then you could take a look at something like Pet CBD Deals to give you a better idea of what you could get for your beloved pet.

If you try tapping for yourself before you tap for your pet, you’ll more likely transfer those calming energies to your animal. If you’re already in a relaxed mood or if you’re generally a calm person, you might not need the EFT Tapping for yourself. However, you can still try a meditation or even set a quick intention before starting the tapping for your pet.

In your meditation, you can picture or imagine a rising sun at the start of the day replacing any feelings of fear, resentment, anger, or injustice with peace, acceptance, hope, and love. Let the positive feelings permeate the pores of your skin like the warmth of the sun. (Artist: Kyra Oser, 2016)

An easy meditation you can try before doing EFT Tapping for your pet involves getting in touch with your feelings in the present moment.

1. Close your eyes and ask yourself: “If I could describe what I’m feeling right now in one word, what would it be?”. Let your breathing slow down.
2. When you come up with that feeling, ask yourself where in your body you feel it.
3. Then picture the feeling as a colour (if you are not visual, that’s okay. Just ask yourself what colour you feel, or perhaps you will hear the colour as a word).
4. Picture the feeling as a shape if you can. If no shape shows up, no need to worry. A shape is not necessary, just an extra visual for meditators who prefer more details. Some people want more details and instructions for a meditation, and others respond better to a more simple approach. There is no right or wrong way.
5. Ask yourself if you like the feeling you have tapped into today. If the answer is “yes”, skip to #7 below. If the answer is “no”, go to #6.
6. If you’re not comfortable with the feeling or image you’re getting in touch with, you can save it and address it later. For now, picture or imagine rain or snow washing or melting it away, or steam from boiling water rising up and evaporating the feeling until you feel or see it reducing to almost nothing. Then sense or feel the increasing temperature of the sun rising in the morning. Let the warmth replace your previous feeling with rays of sunshine that expand throughout your whole body, relaxing you and releasing unwanted energies, feelings, and thoughts. This exercise doesn’t mean the old feeling goes away forever, just that you can come back to it and work through it once you’ve finished tapping for your pet.
7. If you do like the feeling you’ve tapped into, imagine or sense it expanding into all parts of your body. If, for instance, the feeling you noticed today was “joy”, let yourself feel what joy means to you as it moves throughout your body, from head to toe and all the way to the edges of your fingers and feet. Set the intention of sharing this positive feeling with your pets and with anyone you encounter in the near future, or for however long you feel that feeling for.
8. Open your eyes and begin the EFT for your pet when you are ready and when he or she seems open to it.

Setting an Intention for Pet Therapy

An example of setting an intention before using pet therapy might be something like: “May I transfer healing energies of the earth to this soul in whatever way and quantity he or she may need it now.” Or go with your own feelings. Come up with a genuine intention that reflects your purpose in helping to comfort someone dear to you.**

Feng Shui for Pets

If you’re not ready for EFT Tapping, or if your pet doesn’t respond very much to it yet, you can start with feng shui, which can make the environment particularly welcoming for a rescue animal.

A few tips on feng shui for pets that I’ll go over in this post include using colours, music, welcoming signs, and images of the outdoors. A welcoming sign that sends your pet the message that they own some of the space in your home might be a bowl at the front or back door with his or her name on it. You can even tape on a picture of your pet to the bowl, or frame a picture of him or her and place it alongside framed photos of other family members on a fireplace mantle, piano, or other table in a room used for social gatherings such as a family room, parlour, or den.

Experiment with playing various types of music when your pet is crying or seems otherwise distressed. If one type of music doesn’t work, try another. Try to avoid anything high-pitched, like coloratura soprano opera solos. As a baby and young child, I grew up with a couple of wolves (they were half wolf, half Siberian Husky). As a teenager, we had a Labrador retriever named Colby Midnight Thunderous Puppy Paws (I did not name him that!) and he cried a lot when he first moved in. Probably because of his name. I tried playing him my favourite type of music at the time, which happened to be Ukrainian polka. Didn’t help. Tried yodeling. Made it worse. He didn’t respond well at all to classical music. Although I was trying to play it on my violin, which might explain why he was howling even louder. One day I happened to be playing Celtic music on a tape, and Colby went completely silent. So I moved the tape player closer to the bar where he slept (don’t ask me why he slept in the bar). For several years to come and until the day I moved out, whenever I heard him whimpering I would go back to the Thunderous Puppy Paws’ bar and turn on that same Celtic tape, then watch him slip into an almost instantaneous trance. Who knows why that particular music spoke to him? Was he just relieved that I stopped playing the violin? Who knows why certain music or art or places in nature resonates with any of us?

Speaking of nature, you can also try playing sounds of nature from a sound machine. But what if you have a cat who is more visual or tactile than she is auditory? Or a bird with a hearing problem? In that case, you can also experiment with colours and textures. Try placing different colours and fabrics in rooms where she spends most of her time and notice her reaction or any changes in mood. Do certain colours, patterns, or fabrics seem to make her more peaceful or energetic?

It’s important for all of us to feel empowered, animals included. Images of the outdoors can reinforce feelings of freedom. Having a view of the window for your pet to look at when you’re not at home can be helpful in opening the space, but it’s not always possible. If you already know that your pet connects to certain climates or areas of nature such as the ocean, forests, mountains, or alongside streams, consider having pictures of similar places in frames on the walls of the rooms he prefers. There are even some trompe l’oeil decals or nature posters you can add to your wall or ceiling to give the illusion of bringing nature inside. Some pets may like realistic images of nature and others may feel scared, so proceed with caution when using optical illusions! To do this, you could have a look into some home security camera for pets so you’re able to communicate with them while you’re away from home, allowing them to be calm 24/7. Finding feng shui that works for your pets can take some time, especially if you are adopting more than one animal and creating an environment that works for all their different tastes and preferences. Even though there are some general guidelines for feng shui, keep in mind that all animals are unique…which is a wonderful thing, because that also means every soul has something different, and therefore important, to contribute to our lives and to the world.

Listen Live to more psychic predictions on KKNW 1150 am Seattle’s America’s Love Channel, hosted by Psychic Medium, Astrologer & Certified Hypnotherapist Kyra Oser, Global Psychic Correspondents, & “Everybody’s Soulmate”, Jordan Musen! Fridays @ 1 pm PST/4 pm EST in Seattle, Vancouver, and online worldwide. Call us for predictions about the future of your love life!

*EFT Tapping and Feng Shui are not a substitute for therapy.

**Please consult with your physician regarding all medical concerns. I am not a licensed health professional.

***If you are interested in practising EFT as a professional, you might want to look into certification programmes or contact an organisation such as HMI for further information.