I’m a pet lover and I know that the loss of a pet is a heart issue, not a head issue.
As a supporter of my partner’s dog Rescue and an errand runner at times, I was in our vet office on an assignment. While I was waiting a young woman came in carrying a large dog that looked to be a lab and pit bull mix. The dog was shrouded with a blanket and noticing the clouded eyes and grayed face and having been in the same seat, I intuitively knew why she brought the dog in. She was trying so hard but to no avail, to hold back tears while she was asked to sign a paper. There was no other exchange of words. The receptionist obviously knew the situation. The dog was loved and I was thankful that the vet we use has that kind of compassion. My heart was heavy for the woman and I would have liked to have told her what I do. Of course that wasn’t the time to introduce myself.
As a hypnotherapist, helping with the grief process by way of hypnosis is rewarding. Hypnotherapy helps you to move forward. It allows for tapping into joy, letting go of any guilt if there is any, and find ways to remember the pet that was lost and to still feel that they are a part of you and part of your life.
There is a process we go through with loss of any kind and the loss of a dog, cat, or any animal that is the family pet, can have a depth of suffering many people find hard to understand. For an increasing amount of people, pets are a huge part of life and losing the pet can be deeply distressing. Making it worse is little sympathy or support quite often. “But he was only a cat”; “Why don’t you just get another dog?”. This increases the pain and a lack of understanding perhaps even causes the inability to talk meaningfully about it. Unlike the death of a person, it is unlikely that many people share our memories of an animal – his or her habits or funny quirky ways – again making it hard to talk about it. The love we feel for our animals is usually uncomplicated – we are not let down or abandoned by our pets; they don’t judge us, shout at us, lose their tempers (usually) or refuse to speak to us. The heartache we feel with the loss of that relationship is very real.
Hypnotherapy is a support for those who have lost their pal when those around have difficulty understanding why it is that we are so upset. When we lose a pet, society has us trained us that it’s silly to grieve because it was “just an animal”. Yet there is loss of sleep, can’t eat, and sometimes it’s hard to function because it feels like we’ve lost our best friend. Well, we probably have. Our heart hurts and it feels just like it did when we suffered our last loss. Whether a human loved one has died or any loss we’ve experienced, it feels the same. The pain feels the same.
Hypnotherapy is freeing. There is relief in the experience of letting go without the pain and having sweet memories instead. Plan ahead to schedule hypnosis when that time comes. In fact, prepare in advance by having hypnosis before that day arrives.
