It's now day three and this is our last day of coming and seeing the kittens and their Mum.
We also have a new owner coming to pick up the little fluffy tortoise shell so
my work today is going to be very low key. I'm going to just be giving them attention without
getting present to start with because this is really important, we've done all the present work
and now I have to see how good they are if you just come in and handle them.
When I first came in all three were actually under the table. I think mum had already picked up that
something was going to be happening today and it's true one of her daughters is going.
So here you can see yes, I'm being gentle but I'm going straight in and picking them up
and it's lovely to see this little black one. You know, from the work that we did yesterday, what I
love with the Trust Technique is when you teach with a present mind and they learn with a quiet
mind, then the learning is really solid. It's there. A lot of people may have experienced that when
they try and train animals that they have to keep repeating the same thing again and again and again.
Now, this is often because their mind is too busy to take in the information so when you teach
and the mind of the animal is quiet, then they retain the teaching and this is a nice reflection
because that's the longest I've ever picked her up and she's absolutely fine with it and yesterday
was the first day that we showed her about being picked up. Again, Mum's quite in a
different space today. I noticed her straight away so yes, she's gonna need the present moment.
She's going to need some help to to move forward with what's going to be happening later on.
I noticed that by not being present and just stroking the tortoise shell,
her mind wasn't coming down as easily as a little black one
so I started to use the present moment with her just to make sure that she could get used to it
and look, what a lovely result. She started cleaning her sister.
Then Annette and her friend arrived. Now, Annette is the new owner for the tortoise shell and wanted to
take her home today so I had my work cut out. I needed to explain the Trust Technique in a way
that she could take it home with her . Have you named
her yet? I'm thinking of a couple of names but I'd rather like Shakina. Shakina, here we are, okay,
brilliant. Well, what I'll be showing with Shakina is what we've been doing over the last two days,
which is something called the Trust Technique and it's an ability to give
the animal a sense of calm instantly by us calming our own minds and then them picking up on it.
Animals are highly sensitive to how we feel so if we're nervous, if they're nervous when we
look at them and we react by being nervous, then we share that feeling and it all goes out of control.
You know, when I was feeding them my first reaction was oh, hello darling, went up. Yeah and
it freaked them out. Yeah, that's your first kind of isn't it? You just want to-
And well, the first thing was hello darlings and that raises the energy right up. Now,
the first time I raised my voice with these guys, they both went from this mode but they're a little
bit more used to it now. So yes, it is all about being incredibly calm but it's a much faster, it's
a slower way of working but a much faster way of achieving. Because I have four cats already,
am I doing this completely wrong especially when I've been out at work so it's been a little while,
as soon as I go through the door I say, you know, higher voice, I won't do it as it's a high note,
hello darlings, Mummy's home, have you had a nice day? Is that wrong? What you're doing is
you're bringing their energies right up so then they're going to come over to you, probably rub you,
well, your cats are used to that and that's part of you but you know,
do they do that to themselves? They might go meow but do they go right up that high?
Normally, an animal will only make a noise if there's a problem
or they want something desperately like feeding. I'm just so pleased to say hello. And that's
a human emotion, which you will be placing on them but they're used to that and it's a nice feeling.
You know, if it was a scared animal and you brought that level of energy right up, it would scare them
and I would suggest with her that it's going to be stroking, being present, stroking, being present and
this little one yesterday when I was stroking when I stopped, she would look at me because she wanted
more. Your little one's not quite there yet so I would say that when you get present and you do the
stroking, have her relax, go back to the stroking and when she looks more then you've pretty much
got it and then you can do other things with her because she's looking for affection then.
Okay so and you can see now I can really stroke her quite hard now she's relaxed
and my job really is to, if you imagine from zero to ten on thinking levels, when we're working
with them, we really want to keep them below three. So your mind being totally focused is zero
so you're not thinking of anything, you're very calm, that's zero. She at the moment because
her eyes are firmly closed, I would say she's about one, not even that so I can do things with her now
that you would do normally with a cat and my job is maybe if I get her to think a little
bit if I get her up to three, then I can calm her down and I know where I'm working.
I can then build her confidence with what I'm doing.
So yeah, you can see I can rub her a lot firmer than two minutes ago.
How do you think Mum will react? She was
already aware of it this morning when we came in there, she was hiding underneath
everything though she was noticeably different and when I got present with her
she completely went, she was absolutely gone so she's letting go of a lot of stuff
and just because an animal is friendly, doesn't mean it's not still hurting inside
so you know this present moment I think it's a good timing
for you to take her, we can get present afterwards and really help that process.
I didn't have long to teach Annette how to get present so she will need to practice
this. It takes time to really know and be familiar with the present moment.
So come closer, lovely and I'd just like you to get present first so really engage in your spot,
find a spot to look at. Now, when you're working with her, you can't look at her but you need to
have an awareness of her so if you look just to the side so that in your peripherals you
can see her eyes but you're really focused on the spot. Lovely, now listen and feel the touch
of air coming in and out of your nose, listen to a sound, watch the spot and you're going to
hold that space until you feel that her eyes go down, which you'll see in your peripherals.
When I was helping Annette get into the present moment, I could tell that she was still thinking
so I was going to have to coach her a little bit more because any thought will affect this.
You're doing really well. If you do have any thoughts, just go oh, I was just thinking
about that and then focus on the spot again. I'm just thinking her eyes aren't closing.
Yeah so you think oh her eyes aren't closing so look at the spot and listen to the sound and touch.
There you go. So that one thought of her eyes not closing was what was stopping them.
Can you see how sensitive this is now? Yes. So anything that you think about,
you must acknowledge it and then go back to being present. Lovely, that's really nice.
Much nicer.
Okay, well done, now I think you've done well. Does it all make sense? This
is a real crash course. It's absolutely, as I say, everything, I've been doing everything the
opposite sort of thing. But does it and don't feel, you know, but does this make sense?
This makes so much sense. Brilliant. This is, you know, because I do tend to sometimes go quite a
high pitch, you know, you know Mummy's here, you know, and now I realise and it's, and to actually see
when I was thinking oh, her eyes are open and then as you
told me, you know, just to see the difference, it's incredible.
Now it was time to put Shakina into the carry case so that she could go back
to her new loving home so I'm very glad we did all the picking up yesterday because it made the whole
experience very gentle and it kept everything on a calm level. Can I just say thank you to her?
Yeah, of course she can. So the best thing to do here is you're
going to come close and you're just going to get present. That's the best way of saying thank you.
So really focus next to her. By getting present next to Mum at this particular time,
we were literally saying to her you can be peaceful with this process.
So those thoughts that you're thinking now, acknowledge them and then get present. That's it, well done.
Well done, that's really good. You had to overcome your own emotional thinking then
but look what happened. You know, if that emotion comes up, she will wake up and see what's
happening so get present again. We'll do one more because that's a real thank you to her.
She's purring. Can I stroke her? Of course you can.
Can you hear her? Oh yes.
Thank you and I promise I will take the best care of your little baby, okay, I promise.
How lovely is that? Does it make you feel better? Yes. Oh look at that, it was okay,
that was okay wasn't it? Yeah, I mean that was really lovely.
I felt I had her approval. Look at her. She's just done so
well. You know, she's just so different now. Yeah. She's completely gone. I don't
think it will be long before she's really looking for affection. Well, I'll be working
on her three days out of next week for half an hour. That's just so fantastic and well done.
After Annette and Shakina left, Mum's thoughts went with them so my job was to stay present
so that I could help Mum to find peace of mind for saying goodbye.
Of course animals think and have feelings and this is an important time for her. With the Trust
Technique, we really get to feel and experience animals on this level because our minds are
quiet enough to notice them so I stayed here until she was peaceful enough for us all to go.
It's hard for anyone in that moment. Well, hey little one, hey, wakey, wakey.
Want to say goodbye to you! Wake up. I really enjoyed visiting the kittens and their Mum.
When we're in a peaceful mindset, we get to see the truth.
I hope you've enjoyed seeing the usually unnoticed intimate life of our fellow beings.