Bare in mind, this is not a scientific edition. This is a 100% heartfelt edition.
As I’m writing this (overdue, I know) healing message, my day was turned upside down by yet another health incident. I’ve been healing my familiar, my cat, for the past 7 months. Going to the doctors regularly, doing extensive blood work, all the possible check-ups one can think of. But also working with healers in reiki and nutrition. Basically, after 7-8 months of constant turmoil, my cat has now a multi-disciplinary team of healers including vets, nutritionists for animals, reiki healers, and yes my own energetic and spiritual work on her daily. She is still not feeling OK. She has crisis episodes, most of the time we don’t know the exact causes. This drives us mad I need to be honest. And yes, I am exhausted more than ever due to this year’s predicaments.
I knew this was coming. Us astrologers know what the frequencies of a day, week, month or year will be particularly important for each of us. My yearly astrology forecast and numerology confirmed everything I am going through now with my familiar cat. I’ve seen this in my charts and in the chart of my cat.
I just did not think of this intensity, twists and turns.
I’ve always been the protector and most of the time saviour (in some ways) for family | familiar animals. Specifically cats. Sometimes I do think the cat distribution system relies heavily on the fact that no matter how low I am in my life, I could never turn my head to animals suffering, abandoned, in pain, in heat or cold or hungry. I know a lot on their healing powers and how to heal them. And I’ve been doing it at an accelerated pace for the past 8 month. The actual energetic cycle we’re in right now needs us to put emphasise on being more intentional with our familiars, be them in our homes or on the streets or shelters.
What the records of history say
I’ve always noticed and experienced a deep intimacy with my cat. One that goes beyond the surface. It’s no mistake, one of the most spiritual encounters of my life. Because I know that our animal companions are part of our soul family.
Across time and cultures, people have believed exactly that. Ancient civilisations revered the animals by their hearth, and modern science is starting to confirm what spiritual traditions long held: our family animals, our fury friends are connected to us in mysterious, profound ways.
Many ancient cultures wove cats and dogs into their spiritual fabric. In Hindu lore, for example, the goddess Shashthi was said to have feline companions who protected children and families. Norse legend tells of the goddess Freyja riding a sky chariot pulled by giant cats – a symbol of supernatural partnership between human and animal. And in ancient Egypt, cats were so revered that priests treated them as living embodiments of Bastet, the cat-headed goddess of home and protection. People would pray to these divine felines for safety and blessings, believing their cats carried the goddess’s protective energy.
Dogs, too, have walked beside us not just in body but in spirit. Across mythologies, dogs appear as guardians and guides. Greek mythology speaks of Cerberus, the mighty three-headed hound, guarding the boundary between life and death. In ancient India, Yama – god of death – was said to have four-eyed dogs watching over the departed souls. Even Egyptian lore gave dogs a sacred role: the jackal-headed Anubis was entrusted to guide souls safely to the afterlife.
Many Native American tribes similarly viewed their dogs as spiritual guides and family members, including them in healing ceremonies and even burying them alongside humans so they could accompany and protect their owners in the next world. In fact, archeologists have found that ancient Egyptians mummified cats with fine linens and buried them with bowls of milk, while Celtic warriors were laid to rest with their loyal hounds at their side. Our ancestors clearly believed the bond with a beloved animal transcended death.
Ancient people lived much closer to their animals day to day. Cats weren’t only mousers; they were seen as mystical guardians of the home, keeping not just rodents but evil spirits at bay in some traditions. Dogs guarded the village by night and the soul by day. In China, dogs symbolised loyalty (even becoming one of the zodiac animals) and certain breeds like the Pekingese were kept by emperors as almost sacred companions. In Japan, cats were cherished as good luck – the famous Maneki-neko figurine of a cat with a raised paw is believed to beckon prosperity and ward off misfortune. Folklore from around the world, from Celtic to Middle Eastern, often attributed to household animals a sixth sense for unseen energies, a protective intuition that humans lacked.
It’s as if humanity collectively understood that these creatures by our side were special bridges between the physical and the spiritual realms of life.
Fast forward to today and how I think about soul companions
Spiritual thinkers often say there are no coincidences. Perhaps it’s no accident that the perfect animal came into your life at the perfect time. Many mystical traditions and New Age philosophies talk about “soul contracts” between humans and their animal companions. At first, the term might sound strange, but it speaks to that instant recognition you feel when you lock eyes with a cat or dog, who then becomes your family. You might even feel, “I’ve met you before, haven’t I?”
Our family animals are by no mistake here. My experience, knowledge and guidance is that they are the soul contracts that are here to:
- fulfil a contract we already decided upon when we were still in spirit and not matter
- mirror us in all our good or bad
- open our heart chakra and heart field, so that we are capable or more healing and openness with the world around us. Unconditional love is the main reason why they are here, and in your life. And from that bond of total trust and commitment, one can go out in the world and maybe…trust it more.
- remind us of family bonds we lost along the way (some of them reincarnate with souls of members of our family)
- and yes, heal our energetic field from all impurities and diseases. Cats in particular are doing it more efficient, as their own magnetic field can transmute the bad energy into nothingness. Dogs don’t usually have the same process of transmutation and they can easily get sick if you are living imbalanced. I believe, just like many others, that our fury friends often take on aspects of our pain as a way to help us.
My cat came to me on a January evening, 10 years ago, exactly 1 month after my dad passed away. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. The shock of loosing both friends in a horrific incident in October and my father 1 month and a half later was something I was denying into over working. Until it caught up with me one January evening. I abruptly decided to search on a Cat Adoption Facebook Group where I found the most sensitive ad: she, a 2.5 year old tortie, always admired, never adopted. I HAD TO KNOW HER. This is how our story started. 10 years later…she’s seen it all. My laughter, my success, my tears, my diseases, my everything. Everyone came and left. She stayed for the long run. As a spiritual professional, having a familiar is part of the job. I have no doubts she found me and I found her in the most painful, transformative moment of my life with a meaning, a purpose that goes way beyond the confines of a regular, simple life.
Our familiars, our home and family animals are a window to our souls and a doorway to our spiritual evolution and destiny. If we let them into our life and allow them to teach us unconditional, pure love, maybe we, as humanity will still stand a chance.
Beyond the spiritual and anecdotal, a fascinating thing is happening: science is catching up with what pet lovers and mystics have felt all along. Researchers in recent years have been studying the pet-owner relationship with new eyes – and they’re finding evidence that your pet really does mirror you, emotionally and even physically. It’s both eerie and affirming to see it confirmed in data.
For instance, one groundbreaking study in Sweden measured stress hormone levels in dog owners and their dogs over many months. The result? They were synchronised. Owners with consistently high cortisol (the stress hormone) had dogs with high cortisol; calmer owners had dogs with low levels. The scientists concluded that dogs truly mirror their owner’s long-term stress, and notably, it’s the dogs taking on the owner’s emotions, not usually the other way around. In a similar vein, a 2024 study found that if an owner’s heart rate jumps (say from stress or anxiety), their dog’s heart rate soon changes to match that pattern. The researchers described this as emotional contagion: the dog is literally catching your mood and reacting in kind. Cats, those famously independent creatures, are not immune to our influence either. Research published in 2019 looked at over 3,000 cats and their owners, examining personalities, behaviors, and health. The findings were eye-opening: owners and cats mirrored each other’s wellbeing and behavior to a remarkable degree. An anxious, neurotic owner was far more likely to have a cat that was overweight, anxious, or dealing with stress-related illnesses and even behavioural problems like aggression. In contrast, more relaxed, extroverted owners tended to have sociable, healthier cats. The lead author of the study noted that our personality and emotional management trickle down to our pets: “Cats may not always find living as our pets easy, and it’s important that we are aware of how our behaviour may be impacting them”.
Even veterinarians are taking note. Some have begun to wonder if certain baffling chronic illnesses in pets might be linked to the emotional environment at home. While pets obviously share our physical environment (hence why they can get the same diseases we do, like obesity, diabetes, even cancers, often due to shared lifestyle and pollutants), there’s also an emotional environment we create. A happy household can literally produce a healthier pet. A chronically stressful home, full of shouting or anxiety, might manifest in a dog’s nervous behaviour or a cat’s inappropriate urination or over-grooming (common stress responses in felines). Long-term studies show that dogs and owners even share synchronised changes in heart rhythms and stress responses during challenging situations.
What I can advise you in relation to your familiar
- Start being more intentional about your own energy. Your dog or cat should not carry your entire field of negative waste for you. Do your own cleaning. Your energy matters, and your friend animals are absorbing it constantly. The next time you notice your pet acting “off,” it’s worth asking could they be reflecting something in me? Our animals are so attuned to us that they often show us what we cannot see in ourselves.
- And it goes both ways. When you take care of your mental health, manage your stress, heal your traumas, find your joy, you’re not the only one who thrives. Your cat or dog will likely sleep easier, play more, and possibly even live longer, because they’re deeply connected to your emotional state. It’s a beautiful form of biofeedback: they push us to heal ourselves not out of obligation to self, but out of love for them. After all, you’d do anything to keep your beloved pet happy and healthy. If that means finally addressing your work anxiety or learning to meditate so the household is calmer, so be it.
- Sometimes when our cat or dog gets sick, it might be a wake-up call for us to change something important in our life. Unfortunately I see a lot of owners totally blind to this fact. And they wake up too late, when less things can be done to alleviate the faith of the little one. And they loose him or her. If there is one thing I am most desperate or upset about it that most of us don’t consider healing protocols and maintenance for our cats and dogs. We only wait until it’s out of the doctor’s hands. Give yourself permission to bring your familiar to an energy worker, at least once in a while. I hope you understand they need more than shelter, food, water or toys. They need energy maintenance, just like you need the same.
- Try to work with various doctors, read, explore various protocols and nutrition systems. Unfortunately not all doctors understand healing and are mainly operating on legalised protocols. Your familiar might be, just like mine, more sensitive or more attuned to your soul. This means you need to balance this with being more informed, getting the right doctors on board and having regular check-ups to elevate the energy of your companion. Remember, your cat or dog may be a free spirit in many ways, but in the human world they depend on you like a child. Part of your role as their guardian is learning to listen with more than your ears. Pay attention to subtle changes: your cat’s slight withdrawal could signal she’s feeling your stress; your dog’s sudden clinginess might mean he senses your sadness. Become an observer of their baseline behaviour and energy, so you can spot when something is off in either of you.
- Practice energy check-ins, bu yourself or with a guide or healer. Set aside quiet time to just be present with your pet. Notice their body language and mood. Are they tense, restless, moody? Take a breath and notice your own state in that moment. Very often, you’ll find you are feeling much the same. In those moments, a calming ritual (soft music, gentle petting, or even some Reiki if you’re inclined) can help both of you release negativity. You are a two-way conduit of energy; be mindful of what flows between you. You can also use other spiritual protocols if you like, mantras, working with a priest, it is important for you to be a practitioner in that field and to believe in it.
- Consult an astrologer if you know the dates of birth for your familiar. The astrologer might give you a perspective on what is the soul mission of the cat or dog and how it relates to your own.
- As much as possible, try to donate, assist other animals, as you will gain more spiritual gold which will be distributed to the energy of your own at-home-fury-friend.
This is no individual healing journey. Once you are the protector and soul contract of a cat or dog, you are requested to be more intentional with your life. Because it is a healing journey you walk on together. Your life paths, however different outwardly, are intertwined for a purpose.
Until next time, love your cat or dog with all your heart!