you don't need to feel this way while working with animals
🐾
you don't need to feel this way while working with animals 🐾
You will feel the difference after one experience.
As an Animal Welfare Wellness Consultant, my sessions and workshops are designed specifically for animal shelter staff and volunteers, veterinary teams, and rescue groups. I customize and tailor breathwork, grief coaching, writing and creative practices to support animal caretakers because I understand the specific challenges of the heart-centric work we do. I teach practical tips and tools that your animal people can use and count on when they feel overwhelmed during a shift or afterwards, when the day is done. My goal will always be to respond to their particular needs and feelings. I know how much the animals need them.
YOU’RE PROBABLY THINKING, “I’M TOO BUSY.” OR, “WHY DOES WELLNESS SUPPORT EVEN MATTER?” OR, “IT WON’T CHANGE ANYTHING ANYWAY.” I THOUGHT THAT WAY ONCE TOO, I GET IT! BUT HERE'S HOW YOU AND YOUR TEAM WILL FEEL AFTER WORKING WITH ME…
✓ FEEL ENERGIZED
Consistent self-care results in less compassion fatigue, reduced rate of burn out, and higher retention among animal lovers. By having a safe space in which to feel seen and learning wellness tools to tend to themselves, my strategies will help your staff and volunteers boost their energy, realize and regulate their emotions, and be able to better handle difficult situations and intense pressure. Mental, physical, and emotional health improves when we choose to pay attention to our inner landscape.
✓ FEEL HAPPIER
Through becoming aware of their breathing, through dedicated time for grieving, and through reflective journaling and playful creativity with me there to witness and guide them, your team can deal with the constant demands that come up in animal care. They will feel met, heard, and held, leading to more peace both inside and outside of work.
✓ FEEL IMPORTANT
Having an outlet where feelings are acknowledged and ideas are welcomed generates a sense of fullness. Tapping into one’s inherent worth reduces tendencies towards overconsumption of food, substance abuse, getting stuck in negative thought loops, constantly crying about the animals, high blood pressure, sleep troubles, needing to be needed, taking too much sh*t from people, living without boundaries, and being addicted to stress. Unhealthy coping patterns often cause more problems than the one they’re trying to alleviate, and we don’t want that. Our wellness is a gift we can give ourselves. Then, once we have it, we can gift it to the animals we spend time with.
✓ FEEL CONNECTED
Animals don’t rely on words. They rely on energy. By consistently tuning, uplifting, and aligning our own energy, how much more can we be there for animals? How much more can we bring to them if we are filled up? How might this help their stay while at the shelter or clinic? How might this facilitate their adoption or treatment? How much can we elevate the culture of our animal shelter or veterinary office because we feel whole within ourselves? To truly value animals, we must value ourselves.
✓ FEEL GOOD
People who work with animals also deserve to feel positively, to allow themselves carved out moments for delight and nourishment, just like they provide to the animals they care for. Recalibrating our nervous system (the thing that can make us feel calm and safe) so that bliss and balance feels safe and normal requires intention, mindfulness, practice, and support.
HOW TO GET STARTED:
01
Browse my Services
It’s difficult and brave of you to even consider focusing on yourself so you can feel better and help more animals. Learning 5-minute techniques for your daily routine can make a difference.
02
Let’s make sure it’s a GOOD fit
Book a FREE 15-min call and let’s figure out what’s best for you . I’d love to learn what your current challenges are.
03
Time to Make It Real
Let’s set up a safe, private space for sharing and processing so you and your fellow animal lovers can do the meaningful work you do with more joy, harmony, and wellness.
WHat exactly is grief coaching?
Reflective, creative, and supportive
Navigating the reality of animal euthanasia, dealing with the loss of pets we’ve loved, the mystery around adoptions, the letting go of foster pets… there is so much grief in working with animals. We don’t talk about it enough, or recognize it, or give grief the room it demands to be processed and integrated. When grief doesn’t get held in empathy, it can stay stuck in the body. There are many different ways to grieve and many reasons to grieve - it’s not about right or wrong, and there is no timeline when it comes to mourning. Pet loss, unprocessed trauma, as well as the pain that comes with working with animals, all of this can lead to a sense of loss that is not validated by society, but still affects us.
How it works…
During grief support, you talk, and I listen. I’ll ask questions, and you can share what you feel comfortable sharing. We also don’t have to talk. We can make art, do crafts, or write. When we’re creative, we expand our minds, free ourselves up, and are able to make new meanings around loss and love. However you want sessions to go, it is totally up to you. Our sessions will always be a judgement-free zone where everything stays private between us. You are invited to explore, observe, and discover the best path forward as you travel through your grief, not alone.
What exactly is breathwork?
A self-care tool that’s always with you
I know the term “self-care” can feel ick but TRUST ME! Breathwork is a practice of intentional breathing that is magical when practiced correctly. I think of it as active meditation, for when our minds are like German Shepherds who just need a job to do in order to chill! And then we can let the body lead us in feeling and healing.
What it looks like…
Breathwork sessions vary from paying attention to your natural breath to focusing on continuous breathing patterns that, when sustained, can reinvigorate us or relax us. Through your breath, you can release, recharge, or access something you desire.
Altering the way we usually breathe shifts the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the body (nerdy but important!), which means our system will feel different than we’re used to it feeling, which opens the door for new experiences, sensations, ideas and insights. This can get you out of your head, detach you from anxiety and fear, and re-focus your attention on what you DO WANT. Breathwork helps clear energy and acknowledge emotions with gentle honesty.
After breathing together, you’ll have the skills to feel less stressed out and more grounded, both at work and at home.
You can change your energy, your mood, and thus your life.
Your animal shelter, rescue group, or veterinary staff and volunteers can expect to feel better as soon as they start consistently practicing wellness tools. It doesn’t take very long for teams to experience a shift. By having somebody who gets it to talk to and learn self-care tips from, animal lovers can acknowledge, process, express feelings and thoughts, work through grief, get in touch with themselves, and cultivate more enjoyment and serenity. Over time, this constant care for themselves will move them into who they want to be and how they want to live, bringing that with them to the shelter or office and to the animals.
My support of your team will lead to greater awareness and clearer communication among them, increased productivity and solid teamwork, as well as an all-around elevated work environment. We can become the higher vibe we wish to be part of, and it will benefit the animals along with us by creating an atmosphere that attracts more adopters and members of the community. It’s not either take care of the animals or ourselves - it’s got to be both. Our wellbeing is interconnected.
this is scary to share, but it’s true…
You probably know this, but current data suggest that animal welfare workers suffer from higher rates of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety, all risk factors that lower the quality of one’s mental health. Substance abuse is a common amongst staff and volunteers.
The rate of psychological distress among veterinarians has been steadily on the rise since 2019. Their veterinary team members suffer too. A CDC study shows vets as 2 to 4 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. This is a serious problem that needs addressing.
It’s like being on a plane. Just as we’re told in the case of an emergency, put your own mask on first before you help someone else, the same thing applies here. You and your team must make sure you’re able to function before you can help others. We cannot give what we don’t have.
“I felt relaxed and realized that my intention or what I needed was time to just be me in my space, check in with myself or take stock of my body. I absolutely got that, the time to center myself and focus on me.”
- Alexis, from Austin Pets Alive!.
GET YOUR FREE COPY!
3 MINUTES TO GO FROM OVERWHELM TO CALM
Download this exercise and find some relief in your day to day animal care life. If you struggle to feel present, energized, or relaxed, this tool will give you the guidance you need.