How our pets help us cope and the way they heal our souls during anxiety-filled times

Our Difficult World

There are times when everything seems to come to a still-stand, we can’t see the end of the tunnel anymore and we silently scream for help. But who is there to help us when we are either alone or feel left alone in a partnership? Let’s turn to our beloved pets who provide us with unconditional love, no matter how sad and unhappy we feel. But apart from their never-ending love, what else can our pets do to help us cope and heal our souls during anxiety-filled times?

Although global crises such as the current Covid-19 pandemic often have a devastating impact on our mental health, the vast majority of cat owners experience the positive impact of their cats on their well-being and cope with everyday life much better due to their feline companions. Due to an aging population and decreasing family bonds in many countries worldwide, loneliness has become a major issue in our modern world often leading to depression and reduced physical health. This is where our pets let the light shine for us! Almost all pet owners say that their pet has helped them feel less lonely. People with the closest bonds with their pets see the highest positive impact on their feelings of loneliness. So, the best pill against loneliness is our pet to let us feel loved and happy again.

The Amazing Help Of Our Pets

But our pets are not just there in good times, they also help us during troubled times, grief, and distress. Major life changes such as loss of our job, moving to another city or divorce often have a negative impact on our lives and social needs and prevent us from living a happy life. This is where our pets come right in as our saviors. Do you feel that that your pet comforts you when you are sad? Then you are right. Pets do indeed comfort humans. A companion animal feels our sorrow and cuddles up to us to console us and to give us a feeling of love, belonging, and profound comfort. There is no better feeling than a wet dog’s nose in our hand, a cat’s purr, or a horse’s soft blow in our face to give us a feeling of love, belonging, and profound comfort. This shows that owning a pet is one way towards living a happy life. The social needs of pet owners are fulfilled to a greater extent through their dogs than through their human relations. Therefore, more than even our human relations, our pets can be the pillar of constancy, strength, and support that we so desperately crave.

Benefits Of Pets

Our pets light up our lives for us. How can you be in a bad mood when your dog smiles at you with all his teeth, wags his tail, and welcomes you as if he hasn’t seen you for a year, even though it’s been mere hours? Spending time with our pets is known to raise our mood levels tremendously. But we don’t talk only about having better mood or feeling better. The changes our pets can do for us on an even deeper level are amazing. It is stunning that pets can even increase our hormone levels. The “well-being” hormone endorphin, “happy hormone” dopamine and “love” hormone oxytocin are increased after just three to five minutes of interacting with a pet such as cuddling it. Improved happiness and well-being lead to less stress, reduce anxiety and emotional pain as well as improve our immune system. So, our pets are the perfect well-being retreat to makes us happy and feel great!

Let's Learn From Our Pets

What is better for our minds and souls than to enjoy each moment of our lives, deeply and unreserved? Our pets are the perfect teachers for us. We can learn from them how to experience joy and do what we want right now without delaying it to another day that might never come. We become whole again when we live in the present and stop worrying about tomorrow or regretting yesterday. Our cats and dogs can open our eyes to see again the beauty of a butterfly or feel the joy of soaking up the sun. Trivial things, you might think, but they have a hugely positive impact on our minds and souls.

Horses And Our Hearts

But it’s not only dogs and cats that help us cope and connect us with our souls and nature again. Horses can feel our own feelings so deeply with a hugely beneficial impact on our inner balance and wisdom due to their unique ability of hypervigilant sense. Nowadays so many people are out of balance and not connected with nature anymore. Horses, when in a relaxed and safe state, radiate an energy field that can help people become grounded. They inspire people to find their inner freedom and to let their energy float through their bodies. In other words, being in a horse’s presence can help us raise our self-awareness, listen to our bodies, and relieve our unconscious tension and stress. Interaction with a horse helps to heal us in a profound way and to balance our mind and body —even when we don’t realize that we need to be healed. This helps us to access our own inner awareness, true power, and inner wisdom to find the answers and solutions to our problems and questions deep within ourselves as one pillar for healing our souls.

Let's Go Back To Nature

Let’s go back to nature and our origins. Let’s learn to trust our senses, our inner feelings, and our wisdom; our bodies will not mislead us. Embrace your Sixth Sense, gut feeling, universal energy or whatever you wish to call it—and follow the path destined for you. Animals do this naturally and never doubt themselves. Let’s embrace how our pets can help us cope, create enriching, profound and long-lasting joy, happiness and relationships and heal our minds and souls that change our lives to the best!