Chapter 17 • Living Your Purpose

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The love we share with an animal doesn’t end when their body leaves. It evolves, becoming a lifelong partnership that calls us to rise, create, and live the Greatness they saw in us all along.

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Two Months, Two Days, Forever Changed

In the two months and two days I had the honor of caring for Ellie’s fur body, my life transformed in ways I couldn’t have imagined. And in the year since she’s been riding rainbow shotgun, my Huge Heart, and my capacity to heal, have deepened beyond measure.

Ellie changed me in countless ways. But at the center of her message to me is this:

Share your voice boldly.

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I’ve struggled with that my whole life. Years of coping mechanisms kept me small and quiet. But with Ellie’s Love beside me, I’m learning to release those patterns, one by one, and speak with more courage every day. Writing this book is part of that.

And it all began with something unexpected.

The Growl That Changed Everything

Because of her neurological condition, Ellie sometimes growled when she felt overwhelmed, especially in her final weeks. At first, I didn’t know how to handle it. I’d been taught that a growl was bad behavior, something to correct. And worse than that, I also feared it meant she didn’t love me.

It was Carol Neil, founder of Soul2Soul Dogs, who introduced me to force-free training. She explained that Ellie’s growls weren’t defiance, they were communication. They meant, I need space. I can’t do this right now. That changed everything.

I stopped trying to fix her and started honoring what she was telling me. If she growled, I stepped back. If she paused, I paused. I let her lead. In just a few weeks, we became a seamless team, connected through an invisible language built not on commands, but on trust. Ellie taught me that there’s no such thing as bad behavior. There are only needs and feelings waiting to be understood. When we stop focusing on what our animals should be doing for us, and instead listen to what they’re trying to tell us, it becomes easy to support them, and to come into harmony together.

Because when they feel safe, they give us everything. Not out of obedience, but out of Love.

Allowing My Own Growl, And Finding Greater Freedom

As I learned to listen to Ellie, I began hearing myself more clearly too. I saw how often I silenced my own “growls”, my discomfort, my boundaries, my truth, choosing to be “nice” instead of honest. Ellie lived with courage, tenacity, and full-hearted honesty. She helped me reclaim those qualities in myself, showing me that speaking the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, is an act of Love.

She also transformed my relationship with anger. I began to see it not as something to suppress, but as a signal—often protecting grief or tenderness underneath. When we meet anger with compassion, space opens for the deeper truth to surface. Ellie’s growl reminded me that honesty and boundaries aren’t a threat to Love; they deepen it.

In the weeks following Ellie’s passing, her lessons stayed alive inside me. I found myself being more vocal and honest with the people around me. I asked for what I needed more often. I created boundaries that felt self-honoring and nurturing, so I could take care of myself while walking through so much pain. As I missed her, cried for her, and longed for the sweetness and safety I felt when she was in my arms, an old wound from childhood surfaced for healing. Though I had done years of deep trauma work, Ellie’s essence, her courage and fierce love, unlocked something I hadn’t yet been able to reach.

The first time I was sexually abused, I was six or seven, and I told someone that night. They said we’d talk about it in the morning but we never did. The abuse continued. But it was the silence afterward, the conversations that didn’t happen, that shaped me most. In that silence, painful beliefs took root: I don’t matter. My needs and feelings don’t matter. These beliefs didn’t just live in my mind; they lived in my body.

Unlike Ellie, I had always struggled to growl in life—to be honest, to ask for what I needed, to have feelings that might make someone else uncomfortable. I learned to shrink, to stay quiet, to avoid being a problem… understandably.

But through the process of grievealing with Ellie, I began to feel how big this pain really was, how much it still lived inside me, and how desperately I needed to growl about it.

With Ellie’s loving presence, I was finally able to meet those wounded parts of me with compassion. I could hold my inner child, the little girl who felt unseen, and I saw her. I heard her. And I loved her. I let her express her truth: her needs and feelings do matter. I let her growl. I let her speak. I let her exist.

And something remarkable happened: I began to live more boldly and unapologetically. I started saying no, even when it was inconvenient for others. I asked for what I needed without guilt. I stopped softening my truth just to keep the peace.

One of the clearest reflections of this shift was finally going fully vegan. I had been vegetarian for years, but after learning the truth about the dairy and egg industries, I wanted to be vegan. Still, I stayed quiet—afraid to be inconvenient, to make Thanksgiving awkward, to be the “difficult one” at dinner. And yes, I still wanted my ice cream and chocolate. But the real barrier wasn’t food. It was fear. Fear of making others uncomfortable.

After that deep period of grievealing, the decision became effortless. It wasn’t about restriction—it was about integrity. I was no longer willing to silence myself to keep others at ease.

Through grievealing, I began choosing what was true for me over what kept others comfortable. I showed up more honestly, even when it scared me. I expressed my needs and feelings openly. And this is something I see again and again with clients: when we allow our grief—and the old hurts beneath it—to be seen, heard, and loved, we begin to stand taller. Our self-worth grows. Our confidence deepens. Our courage returns.

When we feel loved and supported from within, we stop hiding. We stop shrinking. We stop putting everyone else first just to feel safe. We start standing in who we really are—whole, worthy, and free.

From Feeling and Healing to Revealing

I am who I am today because of Ellie’s support. She helped me find my voice, my courage, my truth. She came into my life, with her sassy little growl, to help me learn how to growl, too. Or maybe, how to roar. How to stand tall, take up space and roar. Walking this journey with both her fur body and now her Rainbow One has informed and inspired me in all the ways I was needing most. It’s left me in awe of how divinely designed our animals are as messengers and teachers, both in physical form and after they transcend.

Feeling connects us to our humanity. It helps us return to our authentic, original, essential nature, the part of us that feels deeply, cares deeply, and loves without condition. Healing then transforms the pain and sorrow of our humanity into a clearer, greater experience of the Love we share. It reveals our connection with our Soul, our Spirit—our gifts and our greatness. And from this connection, we can more intuitively see why we are here, what we’re here to do, and how we’re here to enjoy, serve, and lift the world around us.

So allow yourself to feel and to miss them. Nothing awakens those muscles of radical, life-changing Love quite like grief. And maybe nothing opens the heart wider, to both heaven and earth, than grievealing a beloved animal… an ArchAnimal.

Receiving Your ArchAnimal

As you keep showing up for this journey, you may begin to sense a new kind of connection—one that goes beyond memory, beyond grief, and even beyond words.

You might call them a spiritual guide, an ArchAnimal, or simply your Rainbow One. The name doesn’t matter. What matters is the truth of what you’re feeling: a profound spiritual bond that continues to grow.

Once you’ve moved through the waves of grief in Phases 1 and 2 and begun to feel more grounded in Phases 3 and 4, your relationship with your Rainbow One often deepens into something extraordinary. It becomes a living portal, to your intuition, to greater spiritual support, to the higher wisdom of your own Soul.

I can’t offer you scientific proof for this. What I can offer is my lived experience, and the privilege of witnessing this same truth unfold in so many others I’ve supported through their own journeys of grievealing.

My mum has become a compass in my life. When I tune into her presence and feel the unconditional love we share, it brings me clarity, peace, and the wisdom I need to take my next steps. And Ellie, the magnitude of her energy and the love that moves through me when I connect with her is beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s vast, gentle, and wise, like being held by pure Spirit itself.

Animals are no “mistake.” They are not “less than.” They are sacred beings with a divine purpose: to usher us into a greater, living reality of Unconditional Loving. Your Rainbow One, your ArchAnimal, is both guide and guardian, teacher and healer. A companion for the days you feel blue, gray, or lost.

But perhaps their greatest purpose is to guide you into days that are bright, beautiful, and boldly you. I would go through every moment of pain and cry every tear missing Ellie’s perfect, precious fur body, again and again, to now have the joy and fierce bravery I feel in being who I truly am, and in sharing that with the world, with her forever in my heart.

Trust your connection. Trust who you really are, not your mind, but your Huge Heart. That is where your Rainbow One lives now, and from here, they will keep guiding you toward the love and purpose you were always meant to live.

Great Job! That’s Week 17 Reading Complete 🏆 🎉 😁 🙌

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