Just as a child’s body grows when she is physically resting, we grow – and heal – emotionally when we are emotionally at rest. Our animals have much to teach us about the value of practicing both these forms of rest.
We are all so busy striving and achieving nowadays that we seem to have forgotten that what we need most to heal and to grow is REST. For emotional healing and growth this means emotional rest, and this can be best found within a safe and secure relationship. A relationship within which we don’t need to work or perform to know that we are loved, where we are loved for who we are, right now; where we can rest in the knowledge we can make mistakes, not be the best, share those icky feelings – and that relationship will still be there. Animals seem to ‘get’ this better than we do. Fortunately they willingly share this rest with us – and it may be that it is through our relationships and time ‘at rest’ with animals that we are able to claim this rest back throughout all aspects of our life.