How To Meditate WIth Your Spirit Animal

Another spirit animal how-to! Enjoy!

Hey guys!  Dolly here, and I have something you guys probably haven’t seen in a while.  One of my infamous spirit animal writings!  I haven’t had a lot of time, energy, or inspiration to draw for a while, so I decided to make up for that with writing.  In this document, I’m going to explain meditation with your spirit animal.  I had a friend come to me stressed to the point of crying, and I told her these simple steps, and once she did it, she felt better.  SO I decided to share with the rest of you who are curious!  If not, you know where the back space button is.

First of all, what is meditation?  In its simplest definition, meditation is “to think or focus deeply for long periods of time for spiritual or religious purposes, or for the purpose of relaxation”.  When most people think of meditation, they think of mental discipline.  That DOES tie in to it, but in this case, it’s for relaxation purposes.  What I’m fixing to show you how to do does, yes, require mental discipline, so make sure you have good control of your mind, and know how to tell it to shut up when needed.  Spirit animal meditation, done successfully, also requires a lot of practice.  You may not get it on the first try, but don’t worry, you will eventually.  It took me forever.  Your spirit animal is there as a spiritual companion, a mirror image of yourself as an animal, and a support system that makes up an entire family.  The overwhelming love and support they have for you as their human companion will drive them to want to spend time with you, and help you if you’re stressed or upset in some way.  So let’s read how to use them as stress relief in meditation, shall we?

First of all, LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.  I cannot stress how important this is.  Don’t try to pull this off on your 15 minute break at work where every place you set foot is stressful and loud.  That’s a bad idea waiting to happen.  Get somewhere where you are not only physically comfortable, but mentally and such as well.  Most people prefer their bedroom, or outdoors, but it can be wherever you like.  For me, personally, it’s my bed in my bedroom, or laying out in the horse pasture in the winter time.  Next, clothing and room choice.  Make sure the room has colors you like, or are comfortable with.  If you’re angry and the room is red, I don’t recommend that.  As for your clothes, wear something comfortable.  If you’re just laying in your bed, wear a pair of loose pants and a shirt, or whatever you want.  Anything you’re comfortable with.  If you’re on a couch, on a hammock/swing, or wherever, and you want a pillow or blanket, feel free to do so.  As humans, it’s natural for us to want to enclose ourselves in something warm or comfortable when we’re upset, be it a car, a room, or a blanket.  It makes us feel protected and secure, so that desire is perfectly natural.  You want to make yourself as comfortable as you can when you do this.

Second, atmosphere.  I don’t recommend going out in the woods in the middle of the night for meditation, so if you want to go outside while it’s dark, play it safe guys.  Light plays a big factor in this.  Do you want it totally dark?  Bright and warm?  Or something more subtle?  It’s your choice.  Your eyes will ultimately be closed, so choose whatever you like.  If you choose a candle, be sure to put it somewhere where nothing will catch on fire, and make it a scent you like.  There’s a WIDE variety at Wal-Mart, I assure you.  Make sure there’s no noise around you.  If you live with your family and your special spot is in the house, try to ask anyone else in the room to respectfully leave, or be extremely quiet and not disturb you.  Another thing is to make sure you’re in a position where you’re comfortable.  When you think of meditation, you think of people in that broke-back straight as a board position with their legs crossed.  I DO NOT recommend this for relaxation unless you just want to.  Get nice and warm, and quiet and comfortable.

Third, music.  Yes, music is involved in this, or should I rather say ambience.  Every animal has a call of some kind, or at least most of them do, anyway.  Go to Youtube, and look up meditation music with your animal, and make sure it’s nothing negative.  You don’t want to listen to the sound of a snarling, angry wolf while you’re trying to relax, do you?  Look up wolves howling instead, if that’s your animal.  I recommend using a cell phone or some kind of iPod/MP3 player, but a laptop can work too, just make sure it’s out of the way.  Next, find a good pair of headphones.  I recommend actual head phones instead of earbuds, but if you do use earbuds, use the ones with the thin rubber domes on them for sound blockage, because you’ll need it.  When listening to the music, don’t turn it up too loud or it can give you a headache, or hurt your ears.  DO keep it loud enough where you can’t hear anything else, but don’t hurt yourself.  The purpose here is to relax.

The fourth step is to relax, and get yourself in a trance.  It IS possible to induce a trance on yourself, but it takes a LOT of self discipline, so be sure you have that before you try this.  Focus on the sounds you’re hearing in your animal’s calls and noises.  Listen to the different pitches, and try to pick out emotions in the calls.  Is it triumph?  A joyful call to its other pack mates?  Or something more sorrowful?  Once you get seriously focussed on this, you’ll find your mind will be in a state of being ALMOST asleep, but just barely conscious enough to think for itself.  Once you have yourself in this state, you’re ready for the fifth step.

The final step is visitation.  Inside all of us, our spirit animals live in a place I like to call  the “animal’s den”.  It’s an imaginary place you create in your head, and it’s where your animal lives.  It can be ANYWHERE.  It can be a castle, a garden, the woods, under the ocean, in a volcano, the desert, the sky, your house, under your teacher’s desk, wherever you decide.  For me, it’s an underwater orchid with mid-height trees, a dark, starry, clear, starry sky, mid-height trees, and the leaves on the trees glow in the dark.  The floor to the bed of water is made of soft grass.  Imagine yourself in your animal’s den.  Most people watch them interact with their animal from a 3rd person point of view, and others imagine it from a 1st person standpoint.  Whichever is easier on your mind.  Imagine yourself interacting with your animal, playing with it, talking, whatever.  Again, this is very hard to do unless you have some serious mental discipline and a good imagination, so practice is key.  You aren’t promised to get it every time.  

Also, if you fall asleep, that’s alright.  When your mind is that deep in a relaxed state, it is highly possible you’ll fall asleep.  Usually when you are stressed, your mind and body’s first reaction is to attempt to sleep in some way.  Sleep gives you an escape from reality, and helps yourself rejuvenate.  So it’s okay to fall asleep; if your mind or body is slipping away from you to sleep, find a place in your animal’s den to lay down and rest, and let yourself sleep, because your body is probably indirectly saying you need to sleep.

To awaken from the trance, do so slowly.  Don’t jerk out of it abruptly unless it’s an emergency, because suddenly turning your brain from being off to on can agitate you or make you feel dizzy and tired, thus undoing everything you just attempted to do.  Find an exit point in your animal’s den, and go through it.  Slowly start to focus on just the noise of the music/calls you’re hearing again.  Basically, reverse meditate.  When you were going into the trance, you focused on relaxing, then the music, then seeing your animal with you in its den.  When coming out, focus on the music, then yourself.  Slowly move your legs a little, then your arms.  Don’t automatically try to roll over or sit up, just slowly let your body wake up.  As you wake up more, turn the music down and then off, and come out of it slowly.

Meditation like this has multiple benefits, the main one being relaxation and stress relief.  Another thing it’s good for is getting to know your spirit animal better.  Your animal, and the way it interacts with you, won’t be interactions you control in the den.  Your mind will be so out of it in a trance, what happens will seem subconscious if you’re in deep enough, but awake to experience it.  The way your animal interacts with you in the den can possibly communicate a message to you.  You can’t always meditate to relieve stress, so they may try to give you advice in how to relief what’s stressing you if it’s the same thing over and over.

One thing my spirit animal does (my spirit animal is a Bottlenose Dolphin) is makes me hold on to its dorsal fin, and it just pulls me along in the orchid.  This indicates that I need to go with the flow, and stop trying to fight it, because it causes stress.  I can go wherever the current is taking me, and if I don’t like it, I can tune it out, but still go that way for the sake of not arguing.  Or it can indicate I need to let someone help me, or take the reigns, instead of doing everything by myself, which I’m known for.  Another is playing with me.  This can indicate I need to have more fun with what I’m doing and lighten up, and I won’t be as irritable.  Different animals will tell you different messages, so be sure to watch out for those, and use them in real life to see what works for you.

Experiment with what to do and such, because everyone’s way of doing this is different.  Also, it takes practice, so be sure to practice to get good at it, because it’s a useful tool to have in your arsenal, not to mention it’s fun.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to voice them, and I’ll be happy to answer in any way I can.  As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!  Until next time!

With Love,
~Dolfury