Follow along with the transcript below for episode: What Animals Can Tell Us with Joan Ranquet
[INTRO]
[0:00:08] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed with your host, Brittany Derrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. Many of us wish we could talk to our animals, but today’s guest says we can. And even better, she’s going to tell us how. Joan Ranquet is an accomplished animal communicator, TEDx speaker, educator, and animal guardian. Today, she explains how we all have the ability to talk to animals if we’ll just take the time to tune in to what they’re saying. She and Brittany also talked about using the Emotional Freedom Technique or tapping to help pets release anxiety and find a more harmonious place in the world. Let’s have a listen.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:47] BD: Hi, Joan.
[0:00:48] JR: Hi, how are you?
[0:00:50] BD: I’m great. How are you?
[0:00:52] JR: I’m great.
[0:00:54] BD: So you’re one of those people I want to sit down with and just say, “Tell me everything about you.” If I could choose like any superpower in the world, it would be your gifts. Your main title is animal communicator, yes?
[0:01:10] JR: Yes.
[0:01:10] BD: Yes. What other hats do you wear?
[0:01:13] JR: Well, I’m a school. I’m the founder of Communication with All Life University. We have programs for people to learn animal communication, energy healing, and to get certified in each or both of those subjects. Then, I take people on wildlife trips and I’m an author.
[0:01:34] BD: When do you feel like you stepped into your gifts as an animal communicator? Do you feel like it was always present?
[0:01:39] JR: No. I want to back up because I think everybody’s an animal communicator. I feel like my gift is that I chose to stick with it, and that I’m tenacious, but I think it’s a skill. It was there all along, but I didn’t necessarily know it. Like you hear some people that say, “Oh, I was always talking to animals.” And then I turned it off in high school, because it wasn’t cool. I’m the opposite, there was always a connection, but I wouldn’t have termed it or – you know what I mean? There wasn’t the awareness around it that I’m talking to animals. It’s just, I was very connected. I was that kid that the neighbors trusted to give the horse a shot, or I was always out riding my horse in the woods by myself, things like that.
[0:02:26] BD: Yes. So you tuned in, you dialed in.
[0:02:28] JR: Yes.
[0:02:29] BD: Yes. I feel like there’s an element of fear there, right? Do you think that’s what kind of keeps people from really tapping into that, and tuning in, and the way that you’re describing.
[0:02:37] JR: A fear of being weird or a fear of – yeah. I think, thankfully, I’ve just let my freak flag fly. But sure, I think so. When I really tuned into it, and studied it, and really took it seriously in the early nineties. I was learning a lot of stuff in the late eighties and the early nineties. I went just all in, because it just thrilled me like nothing else did. I personally didn’t back away from it. I backed away from energy healing at different times, because I struggled with the idea of having – feeling like somebody’s life was in my hands.
I had to really kind of deal with that. I watched my students struggle with leaving their corporate job, and not quite embracing this. But I’m really lucky that I had kind of followed this path all along. I mean, once it was laid out for me, I didn’t necessarily step into it right away. But I almost had no choice. I feel like it was in the way was paved and chosen for me. Then I just finally stepped into it.
[0:03:46] BD: Yes, predetermined.
[0:03:48] JR: Yes.
[0:03:49] BD: You say that animals are first responders to our energy, and that really stuck with me. Can you expand on that?
[0:03:57] JR: Yes, I would love to. I think that a lot of people will say that animals are mirroring us or reflecting us. While some of that goes on, I’ll never forget this friend of mine was like, “My cat is pooping in the garage, and I can’t find the mirror.” I said, “Yes. So far, I’ve never heard you say that you’re going to go poop in the garage.” So, I love to say that they’re not always mirroring us. They’re not always reflecting us while they make. What they are is aware of our energy, and so they respond to our energy. If we’re super calm, they’re going to be calm. If we are hyped up – no, if you’ve created a resonance of calmness, and you’re hyped up in that moment, you can be in that state without it shifting the whole household. But if you’re staying in that state, if stress is like a full-time job for somebody, then the response might be some naughty behavior, some anxiety, some kind of ways of getting away from it.
[0:05:06] BD: I’m curious. Do different animals communicate in different ways? This is the biggest question I wanted to ask you. Does a horse communicate differently than a chicken or my bulldog would?
[0:05:19] JR: No. But, their reality may be different. A horse and a bulldog may be more aware of a schedule or have human activities than a chicken that you only interact with every day. But more and more people have amazing relationships with chickens and the chickens are in their house. They know that it’s Thursday, and you’re going to take an energy class or whatever it is. They can adapt to that. But if I were to communicate with a dolphin out in the water – but I always say that, if I go into a barn, and I talk to a horse that’s going – maybe it’s a show horse, and I say, just get a sense of what’s going on for this horse. The horse may tell me, I have four horse shows this summer, and we’re leaving on Thursday. It knows everything because the person is very clear. The trainer’s clear. They’ve got this clear path before them.
The horse can share that information. I’m sure your dog would have a lot of information to share in that way. But if I slipped into the sea and started swimming with dolphins, and asked them what they were going to do on Thursday, they’d probably say, “What’s Thursday?” It’s a different reality.
[0:06:40] BD: Right. Is it more of a sensory experience when they communicate to you? It’s not like you’re hearing a voice? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong. Is it images? Is it, like in your mind’s eye? Can you explain that to the –
[0:06:54] JR: It’s all of the above, yes. Animal communication is telepathy, which is the trend of pictures, words, and feelings. Sometimes, it might come in the form of a concept, or a feeling, or a little movie. When I start to communicate with animals, let’s say, someone calls me and says, “My dog is leash aggressive.” What I like to do is, get a sense from the dog that moment before it goes on the end of the leash, and is in that – mode. What are all the feelings that happen there?
I’ll get a little movie from the animal, and then be able to relay that to the person, and then they’re able to say, “Wow, I didn’t set this dog up well for safety. So now, I’m going to make different choices when I see this thing that sort of starts way before it starts.” You know what I mean? I can use it this in a way to get information to help relationships, behavior, but it does all come down to pictures, words, and feelings.
Sometimes it does almost sound like a voice. I mean, I’ll never forget this orphan colt. This is before I was really – I was on the fence about this, I still loved my life in Hollywood. I was an actress, and a writer, and I loved my life. It had been my life forever. I flipped onto my horse’s back, bareback, and I’d never ridden him before. He was like three and a half. I heard as clear as you and I are communicating with each other this minute. I heard, “I’ve been waiting for this.” And yes, it just took my breath away. Every now and then, it does feel like it is another voice. But for the most part, it’s like words, or feelings, or pictures.
[0:09:01] BD: It sounds so comforting, like the idea, and the notion that if we are open to it, and we could lean in, and tap in, and dial in, that we could have these moments of like profound intimacy and connection with animals that surround us.
[0:09:17] JR: Absolutely. It also helps with things like, I have a 36-year-old Arabian, and that’s old as heck in animal years, in horse years. About two years ago, I walked down to feed breakfast, and I hadn’t had coffee. I’m like just in my blurry state. I heard, “Help me.” I looked at her and she looked perfectly fine. But I went ahead and acknowledge that I’d heard that. I walked around and felt her body and I wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t said this. I wouldn’t have seen it for days. But she must have like been scratching her butt. If this is her butt, there was like a little flap, and it was pretty deep, where she had sliced it. I was able to get stitches, and get the vet out right away. It could have gotten infected if I hadn’t seen it, because the flap of the skin laid perfectly back down. If she hadn’t said help me, I wouldn’t have looked for that.
[0:10:24] BD: Wow. What is one of the biggest revelations that you found in doing this work?
[0:10:29] JR: For me, the biggest revelation is that they are individuals, and they deserve agency, have their own soul, their own soul contracts, our own soul wounding, soul healing, purpose, mission, vision. They’re their own beings. That’s why, to me, it’s very egocentric to say, “Oh, they’re a reflection or mirror of us.” It’s important to value who they are, and be able to support them living their best lives. It isn’t always exactly what we want. But it is, you know, it’s not up to us. We’re here to support them getting to be their best selves.
[0:11:16] BD: You bring up this term, soul contract. This is actually something that I wanted to talk to you about, because your TED talk really has informed the way in which I show up for my clients for pet loss. It’s such a beautiful conversation. You mentioned soul contracts in this talk. Can you explain to the listeners what that means?
[0:11:43] JR: We know in human terms, a soul contract would be like this whole thing of, I personally really want to stay in the Hollywood world. But my soul was meant to do this work, and it took some convincing to get direction. Then, it was like, “Oh, yeah. I’m all in. Of course, I’m all in. I don’t know why I was so asleep before.” So for an animal, it’s the same sort of thing where, for example, I just looked up at pictures of animals I’ve seen out in the wild for my wildlife trips. Last year, my eye caught this rhino, who lives at a place called Ol Pejeta, where the last two northern black rhinos live. But there’s also this blind rhino that is – it’s like, if you look at why would he be blind and kept there. But then, if you think about his contract is so that – I mean, we all – I got to do a bladder sweep on him, which is a move in acupressure. I mean, I got to feed him, I got to be with him.
A rhino would be very scary in the wild, but here’s the soulful guy that people get to meet, and touch, and get to know a rhino. So, in many ways, his contract, this lifetime is all about service. He gets a lot from it too, he’s so adored. He’s not just giving, he’s receiving, he is loved in a huge way.
[0:13:18] BD: Do you think that animals are our real gurus in life?
[0:13:24] JR: I think they are, but I’m hesitant to put anybody on a pedestal. Because when you put it on the pedestal, they fall off. I think that in many ways, most of the animals in my house are the gurus, but there are also entertainers here. They’re full spectrum, if you will. They’ve got lots of other duties or ways. The teaching doesn’t have to come in some home setting, right? It can come in like, “Oh my God, I just learned something so profound about behavior. Because how you’re responding to me. So, yes, I think that – I mean, of course, all of them are, but they’re also 50 million other things.
[0:14:08] BD: Right. I just believe the animals, when, again, when we’re open to it, have this deep source of wisdom that we can learn from, that bring such a beautiful element into our lives.
[0:14:22] JR: Well, I would say yes to that, and I would invite the idea that you prefaced it with when you are open to it. When you are open to it, you’re also in tune with your own wisdom. It puts us in a position to have more engagement from our own source, our own – so it’s – when we’re open to it, anything is possible. It’s the animals, it could be the trees, it could be the hills, it can be your own heart that’s locked away a ton of stuff.
[0:14:57] BD: Right. Going back to your TED talk for a second. In the lessons that we learn from animals, you say that animals offer us an opportunity to understand family in a way we wish we could understand our own families. That also has always stuck with me. Can you go into detail about that?
[0:15:18] JR: Yes. I mean, when I wake up, I have a few cats on me, and a few dogs. I have to make my way down to feed horses, but it’s always so delicious there with the animals. It’s almost like, maybe one of my cats, Queen Latifah doesn’t always get along with Buster Keaton. But when we’re there in bed, in the morning, we’re all blissed out, and we were all in such peace. So that if later on in the day, Buster Keaton took Queen Latifah’s place, she might be crabby, but it’s going to get dropped when we all go to bed. They don’t hang on to things in the same way that my sister does. And they don’t need to have a giant – you know how one person can remember something one way, and another person can remember something completely different way. Almost as if you’ve been raised in two different households, yet it was the same parents.
Our animals don’t hang on to that. Yes, my one dog has a totally different experience, because she’s way more confident about getting in the car, so she gets to go hiking. And the other dog doesn’t, but they’re not resenting that. All of those, I guess, all the nuanced emotions that don’t have us aren’t there, like regret, or jealousy. You know what I mean? Like a lot of the things. They have the opportunity to really show us how to be in harmony.
[0:16:56] BD: Yes. Like Queen Latifah is not going to bring it up passive aggressively at coffee the next morning.
[0:17:02] JR: No, not at all. “You took my spot.” Right? No.
[0:17:05] BD: Yes. It’s this gift of uncomplicated love.
[0:17:11] JR: It is the gift of uncomplicated love. That’s almost such a better way of saying it than – thank you – than unconditional because they are conditional. I mean, they are unconditional on the one hand, but I watch animals in the wild, and leopards don’t hang on to their children. It’s very conditional later on it. One is in the other territory. I think that I love the uncomplicated, that’s a better way of, I think, just yes, a great way of saying it.
[0:17:46] BD: It’s like, when you think about it, that is one of the biggest tools to help, and support people while they’re grieving the loss of their pet, is to understand the nuance in that, and why it is so painful. It’s so much deeper than the way society often portrays that we should handle pet loss.
[0:18:06] JR: Yes. I mean, I’m speaking to the choir right now, so don’t get me started on that. It’s just a dog, or it’s just a bird. You can get another gecko. But it’s like, well no, this was this one, and this is the one I’m going to miss. I feel like I teach a class on animals in transition, death, dying, and beyond. For me, what happens with people, I mean, even – I loved my mom so much, and it’s still just one of the most giant losses. But we had periods where we weren’t speaking, or it didn’t go well, or I was a terrible teenager. She not only didn’t like me, but the whole neighborhood didn’t like me. You know what I mean? It was not easy some years.
Then, we became great friends. I mean, we were, and then we weren’t, and then we were again. But you don’t have that with a dog. I mean, you can say, “Wow, that one was really hard to potty train.” But that doesn’t – you’re not calling your friends, and freaking out, and getting a therapist, and even going to jail over potty training. But you could over something with a parent or a kid. It just isn’t. There’s the stages and you wish some of them would stay forever. Then, there’s the loss that brings up all the other very, very innocent, uncomplicated losses.
[0:19:36] BD: What does it mean to you being in service in this way to animals and their humans?
[0:19:43] JR: First of all, if you put it that way, I feel like I’m the luckiest person alive, because I get to do this work. Then, it gets to teach others so that it’s just going to get replicated exponentially out there. The work of really hearing them gets carried through. I mean, I always joked that at some point we’re going to look back and say, “Wow, can you believe people didn’t think they could talk to animals, pot was illegal, and there wasn’t gay marriage.” We’re going to look back at a time when – we’re going to look back and say, “This is crazy. We didn’t think we could talk to animals. This is crazy. We didn’t listen to animals.” We’re not there yet, but we’re going to get there.
[0:20:29] BD: I think so too. That’s what we’re hoping in having these conversations on the podcast, is inviting people to have a broader understanding of our relationships with animals. And not just what they can do for us, but what we can do for them, and the magic that is involved in our relationships with animals.
[0:20:54] JR: It’s totally magical. I mean, it is magical. On the wildlife trips, again, I take people on – there’s a place called the Sheldrick Trust, where they have these orphaned elephants. And that is the thing, we adopted, as a group I had 14 people with me, we each adopted a different elephant. Some of them were there at the orphanage. And then there was a place we went to down south in Kenya, called Ithumba Camp in East Tsavo. That’s where the teenage orphans are. They get to hopefully migrate and become part of the wild herds. I hadn’t looked at my email, I hadn’t paid any attention to it. But – because there was a group leader, right? But then, the company that organized all this sent me an email too saying, “You have adopted Ambo.” I was like, “Oh, I’m going to meet Ambo.” So I sat, and I sent Ambo messages. I was like, “Ambo, Ambo, Ambo, I’m coming to meet you. I’m coming to meet you” in the jeep when we’re on our way there, right?
Well, he was the first one in, and was the last one to leave. We were there for three days, so we had morning, lunch, and evening interactions with him. I mean, everybody got to stand with him for pictures, and he’s big. He would let me scratch his butt. I mean, he was like, he – every day I just announced from the Jeep ambo we’re coming, we’re coming, and he was so available to us. The keeper said he’s not usually like that. I mean, that’s magic. I have my own elephant friend now. You feel like a kid again, and that’s where – it’s magical. Is there anything better than that? No.
[0:22:42] BD: Not just magic, like majestic magic.
[0:22:46] JR: Yes. Yes. Big Magic, yes.
[0:22:50] BD: So you have a technique that you use, and I sometimes use it with my human clients. That is called Emotional Freedom Technique. This is something that you use with animals. Can you explain to the listeners what EFT is? Explain to the listeners about how you created a whole book and guide on how humans can do this with their animals.
[0:23:15] JR: Okay. EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, tapping is lightly tapping with two fingers on acupressure points. And each of those acupressure points are specifically chosen because they are calming. Acupressure or acupuncture can tonify, cleanse, intensify, calm. These specific points are common points. Each of the points are connected to meridians, which are connected to organ systems. It is believed that each organ in Chinese medicine is connected to an emotion. These emotions, these points are all calming points connected to things like the stomach. Think about how much the stomach is involved with anxiety, the heart. Each of them are really like chilling thing.
What happens is, if we have a story in us, or that has a trapped emotion with it. So let’s say, it can trigger us. Let’s say, I’m still really sad about my cat dying. So anytime I hear about somebody else with a cat, with allergies, it brings up a fear in me that they’re going to end up with a tumor, right? If I tap on myself, and this is really good for people that get a diagnosis with an animal if they had an animal and a similar situation. This is good for a million things, but just in human terms. Let’s say, it will start to help – it will relieve. I won’t forget that my cat died with this tumor that started with allergies. But I’m not going to be triggered by it, I’m not going to think everybody’s got to look out if they’ve got allergies. I’m not going to be all – I’m bringing the emotional aspects down, and I’m able to calmly tell you that my cat died last March from a tumor that seemed to start with allergies. With animals, it’s a very similar situation.
Let’s say, a dog that is afraid to go through the hallway because something had crashed in on him at some point. So you could tap on my fear, would become a dog, so to speak. I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I’m afraid to go in the hallway. I’m afraid to go in the hallway. I’m afraid to go in the hallway. But, eventually, you get to like, but you know, my person is leading me through. I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe. We keep it again, uncomplicated story, right, and stick strictly to the emotions.
Suddenly, the animal is like, hoof, okay. I can walk through the hallway. It’s very profound with animals, because they don’t doubt whether it works or not. It might take a few times if it’s an extreme situation that’s been pretty embedded through years of behaving that way. But it also can sometimes go away overnight. A lot of times, the person might have feelings about the situation as well. So the person who has a dog that won’t walk down the hallway, might be frustrated, might be like, “Oh my God, get over it.” Or might be like, “I’m so sad. I can’t get the dog to the hallway. I’m supposed to be this great dog person.” We have all our feelings too.
I’ve been teaching this for 10 years, maybe a little longer. Anyway, I’ve been teaching for long. It’s part of the school that I have for animal communicators and energy healers. What I did with the book is I helped people look at like breaking down the behavior or breaking down the feelings. And then, getting kind of a way to simply tell the story, and not hang on to the story through a series of kind of investigative questions that then become your script, or the words that you use to tap with on yourself and on the animal.
[0:27:28] BD: Yes. Joan’s book is titled, Emotional Freedom Techniques for Animals and Their Humans: Creating A Harmonious Relationship Through Tapping. I’ve seen it work with humans, and I love the idea of doing this with my own animals. This book gave me permission and literally taught me how to do it. I encourage all the listeners to get a copy of this, and try it out with their animals. I also think it’s something beautiful that you can do together, you and your pet. Tap on yourself and your animal.
[0:28:00] JR: Yes. I have all the charts of the specific points. There’s charts in there for you, and charts in there of the animals where the points are. That’s just it. I’ve tapped so much on my animals, and they’re used to it, because I’m that person that wrote a book about it, and teach it all the time, and going to speak about it, what have you. But it is so calming for both you and the animal because some things feel so out of control for both you and the animal. Here’s just one thing we can do that we just quiet down, we power down. We’re getting quiet together, and we’re helping each other.
[0:28:45] BD: Your work is such a gift.
[0:28:48] JR: Thank you. I would say yours is too.
[0:28:52] BD: I’m so glad that you came on the podcast. Before we say goodbye, I always ask our guests to share a story. I like to share stories of animals doing magic, and healing those around them, and often, unassuming ways. Is there a special animal in your life over the years that comes to mind?
[0:29:13] JR: Well, just because I brought it up, the cat that I lost in March. She was so mysterious, and she gave birth to kittens on my farm, my old farm. She was in the background, and then suddenly, she stepped into the foreground. She’s very missed around here right now. But one of the things that she did, and I believe she still does in her afterlife, when she’s not busy doing something else is she – people would bring foster animals that were so traumatized for me to tap on them, and they might have come from a long ways away, and so they slept in the guest room. One in particular was a dog that had been lost, had gotten hit by a car. Her leg had to be amputated, she was so shut down. That rescue sent the dog to me from San Diego.
She spent the night, the woman spent the night with the dog in the guest room. Every night, my cat would sleep just plastered against the little box if the dog was in, and purred into the crate for the dog. I mean, she just did stuff like that to everyone, to everyone. That’s really missed around here on the one hand, but gives everybody else an opportunity to be who they are also, because that became so big and so center. But I don’t doubt for a minute that that healing energy is still here from her.
[0:30:52] BD: Absolutely. What’s her name?
[0:30:54] JR: Francesca.
[0:30:54] BD: Francesca. Thank you for sharing that story. Thank you, Joan, for bringing your beautiful grounding energy onto the show. It’s been so wonderful getting to know you.
[0:31:06] JR: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:31:09] PF: That was Brittany talking with author, teacher, animal communicator, Joan Ranquet. Brittany, what an incredible conversation you had. I know that’s one that you were really looking forward to. I think y’all hit on some really meaningful points during that.
[0:31:27] BD: I feel so honored to have shared space with Joan, and been able to ask her questions. I have so many more that I want to ask her. She’s just such a wealth of knowledge, and she’s so confident, and just so easygoing, and so tuned in to animals. I think it’s just important for people to hear that, and understand that on the really heart-centered level that she spoke on.
[0:31:53] PF: Yes. I think that animal communication is becoming less woo woo, and people are starting to understand that, yes, our pets. Like she said, they may not understand what Thursday is, but they know. They know words, they know emotions, they know certain cues that we give them. That changes how they walk in the world. One of our dogs, Rocco is, as you know, he’s very active, he loves staying active. Even though we have an acre that’s fenced in, that he can run around in, that’s not enough. We’ll take him, we’ve got a very large garden that’s also fenced in. If I say, “Do you want to go to the garden?” He goes berserk, and he runs, he goes and sits by the back door, because he knows he has to put his leash on before we can go to the garden. It brings me joy just to watch him respond that way. I think that’s just on a very small scale, an indication of how tuned in they are to what we’re saying to them.
[0:32:49] BD: Right. The word weird came up pretty early on. And, you know, I’m all about the weird, wild, and woo. I think that is something that is shifting, it’s shifting in such a profound way. I think, in the way that we understand, and have more of an openness, to having a connection with things outside of our subconscious minds. Right?
[0:33:16] PF: Right. Right. What I was really interested in, I’m so glad you brought this up with her is the idea of tapping. Because just like a month or so ago, we did a show on tapping for people. Honestly, I had not really thought about it. I know that you had used it, but I had – I really hadn’t gotten there for pets. I thought that was super interesting, especially since many of our pets do have – rescue animals come with baggage, and anxieties, and traumas that we can’t fix in other ways. I thought that was so interesting, that this is a tool that we can also use on our pets.
[0:33:52] BD: Yes. Just the scientific stuff behind it too, that I find really interesting is that, it is different from EMDR. EMDR has to be in a clinical setting. This is something that anyone can do in their own home now with their pets, and it is kind of an empowerment tool, because it’s like sealing in these affirmations, and mantras. I love how she was talking about the you are safe. Picking that affirmation mantra for your pet and really working on you are safe.
[0:34:27] PF: That’s so important, because especially, rescue animals don’t feel safe oftentimes. I think that’s great. That’s great. What was the biggest thing you took away? I know there were – man, there’s like a bunch of takeaways on this one. What was the biggest thing you walked away with?
[0:34:40] BD: I think the biggest thing that I walked away with is our conversation on unconditional love, and talking about how that is kind of different from uncomplicated love.
[0:34:55] PG: Well, great job. That was a really insightful, enjoyable interview. Thanks for sitting down with her and having that talk.
[0:35:03] BD: Yes, absolutely.
[0:35:06] PF: That was Brittany Derrenbacher talking with Joan Ranquet. If you’d like to learn more about Joan, check out some of the work she’s done, check out her book, follow her on social media. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast app. While you’re there, be sure to check out some of the work Brittany’s done. There’s also some links for the work she’s doing, and we’re happy to have you follow her on social media. That is all we have time for this time around, and we will meet you back here next month for a brand-new episode of Happiness Unleashed. Until then, for everyone at Live Happy and Happiness Unleashed, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one.
