We were lucky to catch up with Shannon Cutts recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Shannon, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
My journey to becoming a professional animal intuitive and animal communication teacher began the same way all of my best “big ideas” have started – as a prompt in meditation. At the time, I was transitioning away from a full-time job as a professional freelance writer and founder/executive director of an online nonprofit. I was feeling pretty burned out and unsure how to shift things. One day I was sitting for my normal daily meditation and all of a sudden a voice within me said the most startling thing. “You are an animal sensitive and intuitive.”
I was genuinely intrigued but had no concept of myself as someone who could communicate with animals. Yet this wasn’t entirely out of left field, as I had actually been hiring animal communicators for years to talk with my pet family. I just thought it was a special gift you had to be born with, so I never even asked the question about whether I could also learn to do it.
Around this same time I turned 50. As a 50th birthday gift to myself, I scheduled a session with my intuitive coach. When I told her what the inner voice had said, she stated, “Oh – you’re an animal communicator! That is a brilliant career choice for you!” With her support and encouragement, I found a teacher who could teach me the basics of the craft. Once I had that foundational information in hand, I just started offering free sessions to anyone who would let me talk with their pet. I ended up doing 100 free sessions in 100 days to get experience and testimonials and then I launched my business, Animal Love Languages.
Looking back now, it is easy to see how everything in my life was lining up to propel me into this line of work, which is a perfect fit with my skills, interests and energy. Of course, at the time it was all unfolding, it didn’t feel so seamless! At every turn, I have needed to balance growth in myself, growth in my craft and growth in my entrepreneurship skills. So at times it has felt like going back to college with a triple major. Luckily, I am absolutely fascinated by the work I do and the whole process of self-evolution, especially how when I take a step forward in any one area, it always seems to unlock a step forward in the other areas as well.
Today I realize that attaining fluency in the intuitive language of animals has been the hands-down best self-development program I have ever found (and I have tried many!). The process of manifesting – bringing an energetic dream into 3-D reality – is always going to be an inside-out job, but most humans don’t understand the biological origins of intuition, how it can help us survive and thrive, why it is always trustworthy once we learn to use it and how it can help us get from vision to reality much more rapidly and joyfully.
Having said that, I am not convinced I could have taken any truly useful shortcuts from where I started 5 years ago to where I am today. It takes time to integrate new insights, growth, skills and mindsets into our neurology. Trying to rush the process can actually slow us down, so patience and persistence are twin essentials for building anything lasting.
Shannon, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I have always been entrepreneurial at heart, but I didn’t grow up understanding that entrepreneurship is a thing and that people drawn to create and run their own business tend to be wired a little differently in terms of motivations, needs and rewards. So I tried my very best to be a good employee and just floundered at every turn.
I started to find my feet when I founded a little online nonprofit that grew into an international organization with more than 100 volunteers and a presence in 43 countries. Eventually we even generated enough interest that a for-profit business in the industry approached me to inquire about purchasing us. But at the time I didn’t have the business acumen or skills to navigate what the nonprofit required of me and we closed our doors from lack of funding in 2016. After that I was incredibly burned out and survived on odd jobs while I built a freelance writing business in the pet niche.
Long story short, by the time I received that life-altering meditative message on the eve of my 50th birthday, a series of crippling personal losses – my longtime relationship ended, my best friend passed away, then my dad passed away, one of my beloved pets escaped and then my freelance writing work dried up – had me questioning whether I had anything of value left to contribute.
Today I recognize what was really going on – I was on a Hero’s Journey of self-discovery and deep inner soul work, which led me right into apprenticing myself to an intuitive mentor who could help me sort it all out. Studying with her gave me the gift of deep inner self-trust in my own courage, resilience, creativity and heart to serve. Even more vitally, it gave me insight into the deeper soul meaning of the relationships we share with our pets.
The one and only constant in my life at that time was my relationship with my pets, who seemed completely capable of loving me unconditionally no matter how I was feeling about myself, my work, or the state of the world on any given day. In their eyes, I was always the best human, the one they wanted to be with the most, the one they trusted completely. One day, early in my formal animal communication learning journey, I thought to ask the animals, “What does the word ‘pet’ mean and why do we humans use it to describe your role in our life?” The animals quickly answered, “That’s easy – you call us your PET because we are your Partner, Empathic friend and Teacher in life.”
This insight has become the calling card of my business, Animal Love Languages, and the foundation of my personal brand. Our pets are our Master Teachers in animal communication and in life. Just like with our human-to-human relationships, we share soul agreements with the particular animals we feel called to include in our family. We are drawn to them – and they to us – because we have something to learn that they are uniquely well equipped to teach us. Our pets are capable of guiding us, mentoring us, teaching us and continuing to love us unconditionally through it all, a feat that very humans can pull off. Time and time again I have seen pet parent clients and animal communication students of mine become willing to try new things, step way outside their comfort zone, invest deeply on every level to help their beloved pet in ways they would never even consider doing for any other reason or being, including themselves! Our pets are powerful motivators for us to grow in wisdom and learn to love better – love them, love ourselves, love one another, love life, love this planet.
As well, the animals have repeatedly taught me that no soul enters a 3-D body without two twin goals: something to teach and something to learn. So the pets who choose us also know we have something to offer them that they will truly need and greatly benefit from in their life as our companion animal.
How do people find me and why do they choose me? Many pet parents and animal communication students initially find me through my popular animal communication podcast, Let’s Talk to Animals, which is now in its seventh season and regularly explores topics such as pet behavior, interspecies family harmony, pet last wishes, pet reincarnation, pet anxiety and pet high sensitivity, pet soul agreements and pet energy healing. Others find me through the wealth of free tools and resources I provide on my website, https://www.animallovelanguages.com.
My pet parent clients seek me out for a wide variety of reasons, including pet anxiety, pet high sensitivity, interspecies family conflicts, pet behavior issues, pet end of life and pet death consultations and – most surprisingly and delightfully – the joyful reunion of pet reincarnation. Pet reincarnation has become one of my specializations in the greater field, in part because of two rather dramatic personal experiences I have had of soul pets reincarnating back to me. The more I learn from the animals about how pet reincarnation works, the more they teach me and the more I then have to teach and share with grieving pet parents who are seeking to reunite with their reincarnated pet.
My animal communication students seek me out for an equally intriguing variety of reasons. Some come to me because they truly long to communicate with their pet but are having trouble believing it is possible for them. I’ve had that experience, so I am uniquely well equipped to guide them through it.
Other students seek me out because they have studied with other animal communication teachers in the past but have plateaued in their development and can’t seem to break through to the deeper soul conversations they crave. I have had that exact experience in my own studies with animal communication teachers, which prompted me to move outside of training in that field to study with diverse masters from fields such as mediumship, meditation, intuition, mindset and even entrepreneurship. So I can bring all of those aspects back into the animal communication training and coaching I provide to help my students break through blocks and keep growing as communicators.
Still other students seek me out because they want to push themselves to evolve as conscious, intuitive humans. There is a deep soul development track to learning animal communication, because if we want to become excellent at communicating with others (of any species) we first need to become excellent at communicating with ourselves! This is often overlooked in formal animal communication training, and it was a major hurdle I had to overcome on my own and sometimes in the face of real opposition from my own animal communication teachers along the way. I do not teach “the way” to do animal communication. I teach my students how to find their own unique way and give them the tools to navigate stumbling blocks and opportunities that come up that may be equally unique to their life journey and lessons.
Another reason students seek me out is because my program offers a “choose your own adventure” experience that is unlike most programs in the field today. There is a formal learning component, which is set up as an online self-paced course with options for different learning styles, including video lessons, audio (featuring a full podcast version of the entire program) and kinetic/sensory tools. There is a live practice component for students who want that extra hands-on coaching and guidance. There are quarterly live workshops and monthly live office hours for questions and exploring special topics. This keeps the program investment both affordable and exciting and helps students all around the world find options that work for their schedule, time zone and needs.
Most importantly, however, I feel like it is the way I approach the work I do as an interspecies translator that is most attracting to my pet parent clients and animal communication students. I connect best with soulful, open-hearted, humble, curious and genuinely caring humans who view this work as a true service to animals and the planet. Often my clients and students tell me that it is their pet who chose me and I believe them wholeheartedly. So my clients and students are already open to the idea of interspecies equality and how our pets model the potential we all have to love and be loved unconditionally. In my world, animal communication isn’t a great new career path – it is a service and requires dedication, perseverance, trust, self-care and true humility to be of service and be a lifelong learner.
It is for that reason that I offer a Mastery program open to all. Animal Communication Adventure to Mastery isn’t about going pro, although some of my students do aspire to or already do work professionally in the field. Mastery is about having the ability, experience and supportive tools to have the deepest conversations with the pets we love, whether we want to ever charge a fee for our animal communication services or not. Many of my students enroll to improve their pets’ lives. Some use their skills to help shelter and rescue animals find the best forever homes. Some want to learn animal communication so they can talk to the wild animals and co-created harmonious shared living spaces. There are all kinds of reasons, and in my experience, the depth of my students’ love for animals requires Mastery-level skills. A weekend crash course or a few do-it-yourself books just won’t cut it when you want to have soulful, potentially life-transforming conversations across species boundaries.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My overarching mission through Animal Love Languages is to equip pet parents with the understanding, education and resources to partner with their pets to co-create the interspecies family life of their dreams. Sometimes that means I serve as an interspecies translator to help pets and their people talk through issues and build bonds of trust. Sometimes that means I teach pet parents how to do what I do – learn the universal language of animal communication so they can have those interspecies conversations directly.
A related huge passion project of mine is equipping pet parents with the building blocks of animal communication – what I call pet parent intuition – so they can start to receive timely and important pet messages. Intuition training formed the foundation of my own journey into working professionally as an animal intuitive, and it is hands-down the most useful skill a pet parent can add to their pet parenting toolkit. I even call it the modern pet parent’s superpower because it is so invaluable! Once a pet parent learns how their intuition – what I call their iOS (intuitive operating system) – works to get their attention and alert them to danger or opportunity – they gain a basic ability to communicate with their pet about all kinds of really practical things from food and treats, toys and training, new friends and even veterinary care. So I regularly offer free workshops on intuitive development for pet parents to teach pet parents and animal loveres this invaluable pet care skill.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A big lesson I have had to unlearn is the mistaken belief that I can be all things to all people and pets. I can’t. I will be the perfect fit for some and not for others. Acceptance of this is key to identify my unique niche, expertise, calling and ability to serve. This especially drives the work I do as an animal communication teacher and coach for my students. Every single student who comes to me has something unique to contribute. They are called to learn animal communication for a reason, even if they don’t know exactly what that reason is yet, just like I didn’t know where my experiences in life were leading me when I was going through so many years of confusion and heartbreak and questioning everything about my life path, career choices and relationships. Because I have been there too, I can be patient and persistent as an encouraging voice in their life at the precise moments when they may be struggling the most to do that for themselves.
This is also why I don’t worry anymore about the so-called “competition” in my field. No matter how many pet parents I translate for or how many animal communication students I train, there will always be more animals waiting to talk than human ears who know how to listen. Every single communicator is needed and called for a reason and there is a place for every single human animal who has the heart to do this work. So here again, my job is to encourage my students with the exact type of encouragement I also most needed and benefitted from when I was working out the basics of my path to becoming a professional animal communicator.
In the same way, because of my own wildly circuitous journey to where I am today, I teach my students that no life experience, however random it seems at the time, is ever wasted. In fact, the aspects of their story or journey to date that they might question the most might just turn out to be what makes them so especially gifted and empathic as interspecies communicators.
The backstory on all of this is the sheer volume of personal healing, development and evolution I have needed to walk through to effectively offer this type of delicate and deep heart work at a professional level. I am working with people and the animals whom they love with their whole heart. Engaging with people at this soulful level can bring stuff up that is buried so deep nothing else can touch it! What that means is, if I truly want to be effective and make a difference in animal lives (and the lives of the humans who love them) I can’t bring my personal attachment and ego and unhealed places into this space and then need or expect validation or acceptance or affirmation from my clients and students that I am doing it right or well enough. It isn’t about me – it is about that human and the animal they love. I now understand that I needed every single lesson, setback, disappointment, redirect, loss and challenge in my life to equip me to support others from a place of detachment, objectivity, wisdom and – most importantly – unconditionally loving encouragement and support. I also now understand that I will always and forever be a student of this work, and there will always be more to learn. Acceptance of this keeps me curious, humble and keen to apprentice myself to the true master teachers, the animals themselves.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.animallovelanguages.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loveandfeathersandshells
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/animallovelanguages
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/smcutts
- Other: https://letstalktoanimals.buzzsprout.com
