One day animals will teach us to fly

When we work with animals for long enough, we may be lucky enough to see our projections.  A projection is a belief system that we hold about ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, that we use to label those around us.  When we have this level of awareness, we are able to see the animals before us for the perfect mirrors that they are.

We had  a good laugh this week.  Five of us have worked together for sometime and have the honour of having special relationships with a group of five female dolphins.  We were brainstorming a solution for a training plan and began to describe the features we saw in each dolphin.  Adjectives like strong-willed, creative, happy-go-lucky, exuberant and eager-to-please were among the descriptions we were using to characterise our favourite friends.  Some of the predicaments we were describing were ‘likes to be in charge’, ‘stuck in the middle’, ‘on her own mission’, ‘wants to achieve’ and ‘looking for attention’.  It was with a sudden spark of brilliance that we looked around the room and realised that each of us had a dolphin we were more drawn to in the group, and we were actually describing ourselves when we were talking about that particular dolphin. 

This lesson is so much bigger than just this fun realisation.  Because when we truly see the adjectives as something that we are using to colour our experience of the beautiful beings in front of us, we are able to put the adjectives down.  When we do that, our experiences of them become a whole lot less limited.  All of a sudden we can see them in their truest light.  And even more exciting, we can laugh off our own  personal limitations that we use as excuses not to experience life more fully.

One day animals will teach us to fly