How to find your Animal Spirit Guide?
Wow – that is a question that has so many different answers and it all depends on what you mean by “Animal Spirit Guide“.
Lets start with some basic definitions and possibilities to see if we can narrow down what you are looking for:
Power Animals:
One view of Power Animals:- “When we are feeling weak, needing courage, feeling powerless, and in need of a boost of bravery to make or move through really difficult life transitions, a Power Animal is your Animal Guide who can provide this support. A Power Animal is someone in Spirit who can give you the power and strength you need to move forward.”
I hate this point of view with a vengeance. Power Animals have NOTHING to do with power in the traditional sense. They have the POWER to bring us guidance when we need it. They have the STRENGTH to make us stronger when we feel we cannot cope but they are way way more than that. It is not always power or strength that we need, in fact more often than not it is something else entirely. They come when we need advice and knowledge and this has very little to do with being strong or brave, and EVERYTHING to do with understanding, tolerance, waiting for the right moment.
To push people into to thinking they need a strong reaction when a power animal visits them is quite wrong. Often it simply prompts them to look at something from a different perspective.
The Dolphin is a good example, calm and gentle. The tiger, whilst still considered a power animal, is not such a good example if it encourages us to over-react.
Spirit Animals:
Along with the concept of power animals, the phrase Spirit Animals refers to animals and archetypal energies that come to guide us when their traits and energies can help us in a given situation or at a certain point in our spiritual progress, or sometimes simply when we need support or something is stopping us from moving on.
Unlike Power Animals, they are greater in number and can include pretty much any animal. That said, the concept of power animals is very much of our own making. The only reason a Tiger is a power animal and an Ant is not is down to tradition, and nowadays also to the power of the internet. It would be quite possible for a certain period of time, that an ant could be of more help than a tiger but that is not a popular concept. Let’s face it, most of us would rather say ‘My power animal at the moment is a tiger‘ than own up to it being an ant!
Animal Spirits:
This is a phrase often used interchangeably with Spirits Animals and although some people differentiate, or even argue the rights and wrongs since I guess you are reading a lot online then just assume they mean exactly the same thing. You could argue that any animal that has died is an animal spirit and there has the potential to be a guide.
At it’s simplest, just believe that your favorite pet, dog, cat etc. may well come back to visit you, to offer guidance or comfort, but it’s highly unlikely they will become your main spirit guide. And perhaps now is the time to talk about archetypes, whether that’s a spirit guide and animal spirit guide or even a tarot card.
Archetypes are a universal energy that has collective meaning or symbolism. Your dog or cat may well present itself with this archetypal energy when it’s traits and characteristics are meaningful to the current situation.
Animal Spirit Guides:
Can we have an animal spirit guide? Well first we must look at whether you believe we have one spirit guide or we have many. We do IN FACT have many, that come to guide us as needed, although we may not always be aware of them, especially if we become focused on the idea of one lifetime spirit guide. Don’t get me wrong, you may indeed have a lifetime time guide; It can be your granny or great aunt Fanny, a native American Indian or it COULD be an animal spirit. That takes a leap of faith to make that connection though. Almost certainly your first tentative connection to spirit will not be with the expectation of it being an animal.
Then we have the thorny subject of whether your animal spirit guide can talk and whether you can cope with that concept. I personally believe in a universal energies and consciousness and guides who present themselves and communicate with us in whatever way we can accept at that moment.
So yes, you may have an animal spirit guide as your main guide but more likely you will come across them as guides who come when you have specific issues to address or points they want to highlight in your progres or things that are holding you back.