✧ The day the animals spoke for me ✧

This is a personal reflection on a symbolic healing experience, where inner imagery revealed emotional truth rather than literal meaning.

It was supposed to be a regular therapy session.

I showed up with one issue on my heart – but as always, something deeper was waiting to come through. That’s how it is with my therapist. She doesn’t work like a traditional psychologist. She’s a parapsychologist. She listens to the soul. She works intuitively, guided by something higher, and what she says always feels like it’s coming straight from your own truth – even when you’re not ready to see it yet.

And even though I consider myself pretty spiritually aware… I still need guidance sometimes. I get caught in the noise of my own thoughts. Lost in the fog of everyday life. I forget the truth that’s always there, underneath.

That day, I came in with a familiar fear: the fear of being seen. Not by strangers, but by the people closest to me – my father, my mother, my brother, my sister.
What if I show myself fully? What if they don’t accept me?
What if I lose them?

At one point, I turned to my therapist and said:
“I feel like you need to do something with me – some kind of hocus pocus, one of your meditations, whatever. I don’t know what. But something needs to shift.”

She paused. Closed her eyes.

Then she opened them and said softly,
“Okay. We’ll do a shamanic exercise.”

She didn’t explain what it meant. Just said, “You’ll see.”
She turned off the light, lit a piece of palo santo, and guided me into a deep meditative state – the theta state, where the surface quiets and the deeper symbols rise.

A symbolic healing experience through inner imagery

I found myself in a field. Green. Bright. Safe.
I was a child again. Alone, but peaceful. Standing near a forest.

She said,
“An animal is about to appear. It comes from your heart. Tell me what you see.”

And there it was – a dinosaur. Massive. Fierce. With a long neck and… oddly, the soft ears of a koala.

“What do you want to say to him?” she asked.
I said, “Let me be me”
And he smiled and replied: “You called me”

She said, “Ask him to step aside”
And he did. Then she said, “Now, another animal will come”

The next one was a butterfly. Orange and pink, with long antennae. Gentle. Joyful.
But it didn’t come all the way out of my heart.

“It’s only halfway out” I said.
“Ask it to come out fully” she replied.

And it did.
And the moment it emerged, it changed – now blue, with delicate white dots.
It fluttered softly and said,
“It feels good to be free”

Then came another. I saw legs first – many legs. Some like a tiger. Some like a fox.

“Ask it to show itself” she said.

And it did.
A strange blend – part tiger, part fox. It looked fierce but also playful.

“What does it say?” she asked.

“I’m releasing stress” it answered.

And then, the final vision.
“One more animal will come” she said. “But not from your heart.”

I looked up.

There, flying high, was a massive bird – a great eagle with light pouring out from behind it.
So much light, I could barely look.

“What does it say?” she asked.
“It says.. it’s coming to me.”

“Ask it to move so you can see the light.”

And when I did… I saw it.

The light. Pure. Expansive.
And my heart flooded with peace. Joy. That kind of joy that makes no sense and every kind of sense at once.

We returned to the others.

“Is the dinosaur still there?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But now… he wants to leave.”
“The butterfly?”
“He’s hiding.”
“And the tiger-fox?”
“He’s happy. Just playing.”

As the session faded, I returned to the room. She looked at me, not with words, but with presence. Gentle. Centered. Knowing.

Then she said:

“Do you know who those animals were?”

I shook my head, quietly.

She smiled gently.

“That dinosaur… that was your father. The butterfly? Your mother. And that tiger-fox? That was both your brother and your sister.”

And then she explained.

“Think back to what each one said. What you said to them. How they acted in the end.”

“You called your father a dinosaur with koala ears. Something big, fierce – but also soft, lovable. That’s how you see him, even if you don’t always say it out loud. You told him: ‘Let me be me.’ And he smiled and said: ‘You called me.’ That’s not just a conversation with an image – that’s your soul talking to the part of you that still wants his permission to be fully yourself. And look how he answered – he’s not against you. He came because you called.”

Then she moved on.

“The butterfly – you described her as delicate, bright, joyful. She didn’t want to come out at first. Only halfway. That’s your mother. Always holding something in. Always asking silently: is it safe to be soft? But when she finally came out, she changed color. She said: ‘It feels good to be free.’ And that’s not just about her. That’s your inner feminine, too. Finally allowed to breathe.”

“And the tiger-fox? It said: ‘I’m releasing stress.’ A mix of strength and trickster. That’s the energy of your siblings – the playfulness, the pressure, the wild loyalty. All the chaos you still carry when you think about ‘family.’”

She paused.

“And then came the eagle. The light. Something higher. Something pure. It didn’t come from your heart – it came from above. That’s your divine connection. A reminder of who you are beyond all these roles. Beyond daughter, sister.”

Then she asked:
“Do you remember what happened after that light came?”

I nodded.

I had looked back at each of them.

The dinosaur – my father – was still there. He wanted to leave, but something held him back.
The butterfly – my mother – was hiding.
The tiger-fox – my siblings – were playing, unwinding, just being.

And that was when she helped me see what I couldn’t name on my own.

“These animals weren’t random, ” she said softly.
“They came straight from your soul. Not your mind. That’s why they felt so alive”

Then she paused for a moment, letting the stillness settle before continuing.

“What you saw were not just animals. You saw your fears. The parts of your family that still live inside you. The ones you love most… and fear disappointing”

And as she spoke, something in me clicked.

I had been so afraid – of being seen, truly seen – by my father, my mother, my brother, my sister.
Not just seen, but known. Known for the parts of me I usually keep hidden.
Would they still love me if they saw all of who I am? Would they understand the path I’ve chosen, the power I carry, the truth I speak?

Somewhere deep inside, I was still the little girl who believed that shining too brightly might hurt the ones I love.
That if I step into the light, it might cast a shadow on them.
So I stayed small. Quiet. Careful.

But during that session, something shifted.
Because these fears didn’t live outside of me, they were in me. In my own heart.
And that day, I met them.

The dinosaur, representing my father, wanted to leave. He didn’t resist. He didn’t threaten.
He just lingered, unsure. One of my deepest fears made visible: that my father might not walk with me once I showed the world who I am.
But maybe… that fear is ready to move.
Maybe I no longer have to hold it.

The butterfly, my mother, tried to stay hidden. She came out slowly, gently, wanting to be free, but not sure if she had permission.
Just like me.

The tiger-fox – my siblings – held the pressure, the messiness, the push-pull of family bonds.
And even that part… started to shift.

And then came the eagle. The light.
That was the moment I remembered:

I am not here to live in fear.
I am not here to hold back my light in case it blinds someone else.
I am here to be the light.
To stand in it. To remember it is who I am.

And yes, some fears may still live in me.
But they no longer get to lead.
Because now I’ve seen them.
I’ve named them.
I’ve released them.

So maybe this wasn’t just a strange meditation.
Maybe it was my soul’s way of handing me a key.

And all I had to do… was turn the lock.

And something shifted in me that day.

After that session, I did the thing I had been too afraid to do.

I launched my Substack.
I spoke. I wrote. I stood up and let myself be visible.
Not just the polished version – me.

And somehow, I didn’t feel like a little girl waiting for permission anymore.

What this experience taught me is that sometimes, healing doesn’t come in words – it comes in symbols.

That exercise wasn’t about logic. It wasn’t even about memories.

It was about energy.

It was like a constellation – except all the roles were living inside me.
My mother. My father. My siblings. My soul.
And when I let them speak in their own language – through the butterfly, the dinosaur, the tiger-fox, the eagle – something inside me remembered what I had been too afraid to feel.

The fear of being seen.
The longing to be free.
The joy that comes when you finally realize… you were never meant to stay hidden.

Perhaps this symbolic healing experience was never about the animals themselves, but about finally seeing the parts of me that had been asking to be acknowledged.