Episode 195

Introduction:

You're listening to the Transform your Life from the Inside Out podcast. And the title of this episode is What kind of Animal are you. You ever thought about that before, but specifically when it comes to your animal totem and what your lifetime animal totem is, if you don't know what kind of animal you are. Keep listening.

Hi, I'm Jim Fortin, and you're about to start Transforming your Life from the Inside Out with this podcast. I'm widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation. And I've coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here, you're going to find no rah rah motivation, and no hype. Because this podcast is a combination of Brain Science, Transformational Psychology, and Ancient wisdom, all rolled into one to take your life to levels, you've never thought possible. If you're wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life and this podcast is for you. Because you're going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want, then becomes possible for you. I'm glad you're here.

What Kind Of Animal Are You?
—

Okay, so what kind of animal are you? Are you a Turkey? An Otter. I don't know, maybe a Badger or how about a skunk? Or. Or something else? Ponder that, you know, what kind of animal are you? So in all my time of doing this podcast, A couple of days ago I was sitting down and I was talking to students on a Transformational Call recently. And we were talking about animal medicine and animal totems. And I thought to myself, wow. As much as I'm into that and has been a guiding force in my life. Which I'll talk about in just a bit. I can't believe that I had never really talked about animal totems on the podcast. So here we go with that.

You know, the native Americans for, you know, thousands of years. And human beings for tens of thousands of years, all the way back to the beginning of Shamanism. Had a connection with the environment. And that also means animals. Of course, it means everything. It means nature. It means the entire planet. It means everything. But in this episode, I'm talking about animals. And the native Americans taught us that. And they've been around for tens of thousands of years in this continent inorth America. That each animal carries a purpose and a history and the meaning and there are things that I can teach us. Now, let me go back here to 2000 and I believe what 2006, 3, I think maybe 2003. To the, the horrible tsunami that happened off the coast of Indonesia. And that tsunami killed. As what I've read 230,000 people. And it killed people in India and Sri Lanka and Thailand and nine other countries. Now the interesting thing was, is that the initial impact of the tsunami as I understand I wasn't there, but as I understand, that as I read, there were not a lot of dead animals found after the initial impact. And how come why were, or how come 230,000 people were killed. They were, you know, sitting on the beach beach, drinking Mai Thai's when this tsunami had. But where were the animals? Because how come they weren't drowned?

As again, from what I have read. And the initial impact. Well, animals have what's called and you have it also because you are an animal and you're also a spiritual being. You have what's called a sense S E N S E. You can call it a higher, you know, like a sixth sense. You know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are physical and six is nonphysical, but we all have that sense. And this is why, for example, dogs. They don't like people automatically sometimes. Or, you know, and well, even your cat, my cat too, but animals can tell they can sense people. And partly it's through just animal sense. And then partly it's through actually smelling and body language and everything else. But back to what I was saying here, what is speculated? Is that there weren't as many animals killed. As was expected. Because their sense told them. You know what. Something's often the, and you know what with the barometers and the barometric pressure. And rumbling in the earth and vibration or frequency. Something is off. And as I understand, they all went running for the hills.

What actually did kill a lot of animals from what I read was the starvation afterwards in the homelessness. And in particular, like in Thailand, the starvation. Because so much was wiped out. They lost their sources of food. So anyway, you get the point there. But think about your, you know, your dog for a moment. If you have a dog and your dog's sense how it picks up things, I even watched a few years ago and I don't even know where it is anymore. This documentary where. Now again, I didn't watch it. And I don't know how air quote scientific it was, but the connection that we have with our dogs. That they set this video camera up in a house and the dogs could tell when the owner was coming home by, you know, videotaping this and watching it well before the owner even got home. And I mean, like, I don't know, 15, 20, 30 minutes ahead of time. But apparently the animal knew that the owner was on the way home.

And given the fact that we also, as human beings, we can communicate in non-physical ways. As connected as many of us are to our animals, it would not surprise me. So. You know, what's interesting is, is to me, I guess I'm going to use the word interesting. Is that we humans have a massive animal connection. I mean, think about where the planet would be. If we didn't have meat to eat, for example, And, you know, we didn't have animals for different things that we eat them for protein and sustenance. I don't even want to go there with Bates on vegetarianism and all that kind of stuff. I'm just giving you an for example here. But it blows my mind. It blows my mind. You know how as a species. How we treat dogs in certain parts of the world, how we treat, you know, sea life, marine life dolphins in certain part of the world, how we treat animals in general, in certain parts of the world. You know, even here in the U S the cruelty that people show to animals. It just it's mind blowing to me.

But that's just me. The whole point of this episode is that we have a deep and profound. Long, long, long connection to animals. And here in North America, the native Americans knew that and they taught that. And they believed that animals could bring and they had air quote medicine. End of air quote. And I've learned that many years ago and I've lived that. And I want to share with you some stories from my life. About the ways that I have used the animal totems animal medicine for guidance in my own life.

Let's go back to 1997. And that was my first year working with my brother-in-law Don Xavier, the Shaman,sorcerer, Nagual,Babalau. By the way, if you're new to the podcast, go all the way back to the first episode and start from there. Of course, listen to this one and you can keep on going, but I promise you many times we think we will just dig into this you know, into something and start where we dig in. No, go all the way back to the beginning. You'll see why later. Okay, so 1996. My first full year with him. And at New Year, he brought her, someone brought a couple of decks of animal totem cards. And what we did is we all sat in a circle and Don Xavier had the cards. He opened them and he shuffled them. And I watched him shuffle the cards and then what he did. And I'll explain how I shuffle the cards this day and age. But what he did is he actually passed them around the room. And it was in a circle and it was literally in the order that we were sitting in the circle. And what we would do is pull a card from the deck and you could pull any cards you wanted. You know, top of the deck, bottom of the deck, middle of the deck, that was entirely up to you. But every card had an animal totem on it. And I believe the deck that I use, which I'll talk about in a minute has like 55 or 60 animals in the entire deck. So what would happen? He would pass the deck around the room.

And then whatever totem you would get, that would be your totem for the year. Meaning, whatever lesson that pulling that card, because nothing happens by accident. So you pull the card and that is your animal totem for the year. So you pull the card and that's what you work on. That's your life lesson for that year. And then we did that every year and the next year and the next year and et cetera. And we've done that for decades now. Okay. After that I don't know if it was a week later, a month. I don't remember. But anyway, I knew that you could also, we also had lifetime totems. We had a totem that was our lifetime guiding animal, our animal medicine. Are, you know, just I guess I'll say that our guidance. So, what I did is I bought my own deck of these cards and I pulled mine, which I'll tell you how I did it only tell you now. So what I did is I took the cards. Uh, you know, took them out of the box, put all of them on my altar, which I have an altar working with the Shaman. I have an altar and I left them there for one week, actually seven days. And then what I did is I sat down and I actually set my intent. I mean, I knew why I was sitting down with that deck of cards. My intent was to discover my lifetime animal totem. Then, what I did is I literally cut the deck. I shuffled it and then I cut it nine times. And the reason why is Tesla said once you understand three, six, and nine, you'll understand the keys to the universe.

So I cut the deck nine times and actually most things that I do are well, not most, but a lot of things that I do they are spiritually oriented are nine times. I mean, when I say nine times, I'm not compulsive, where I checked the door nine times and grab it on the block nine times. No. But I mean anything spiritual and stuff like this, it's in sequences of nine. So I sat down. Now in the deck, there are all kinds of cool cards. There are like Panthers and black Panthers and lions and cheetahs and dolphins and whales, and you know, all these really cool animals. Well, at least I think they're cool. And I was like, I hope I get the black Panther or something like that. And now also the deck, there's like a mouse and there's like a grouse and you know, all kind of animals are like, well, I don't want to be that animal. So anyway, I'm sitting down. And I mean, I'm in peace and I shuffle my deck. And I pull my lifetime totem. And when I flip it over. I'm like. Oh, hell no are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? No, that's not my lifetime totem. Well, what I pulled was the Turkey. And oh my gosh. I'm like, oh, who the hell wants a Turkey as your lifetime totem. I'm a freaking Turkey. And I didn't, it didn't hit me in that moment. I'm just laughing at myself. It didn't hit me in that moment, but I am, I am a lifetime Turkey.

Because here in the United States. And I don't know when you're listening to this podcast. But this is Thanksgiving wee and Turkey. Turkey medicine is all about service. And that's how I live my life from service. I've always been generous. I've always been a giver. But in the last decade or so. I really, and especially the last several years, you. 5 7, 8, 10 years. I've really immersed myself into how much of a giver can I be? I mean, this podcast is a great example. You know, simple, you know, kind of segue thought, even this podcast. I've had a lot of people because of the amount of downloads I have on my podcast. A lot of people have said, Hey, Jim, I want to advertise on your podcast. I could make over a hundred thousand bucks a year, if not more. I know because I've been advertised. I mean, I've been offered that much more on just putting ads. On these episodes. And I've always said no. Because I've said, I want to keep my podcast as clean and pure as I can for how I understand those words and what I want to bring through me. And to people listening. And that's service to you guys because I could plaster ads all over these episodes, I don't do it. And I could make over six figures a year doing nothing, just doing that, but I don't do it because I have the whole gamut of humanity listening all over the world. And I don't think the ads would serve every single person listening or as best possible serve 80% of my audiences. That's why I don't do it in service to you.

Okay. So I'm a Turkey. And. You know, Thanksgiving, Turkey, it's about the Turkey sacrificing its life to feed people in gratitude. And that's how I live. So I'm glad to be a Turkey. But the question I have is what are you? Are you a Turkey, a pamet. Uh, Pamet what kind of animal is that a salmon, you know, or, you know, what kind of. What kind of animal are you. Speaking of salmon. That's where I got Turkey and pamet and Turkey and salmon. Is I don't know, maybe. Eight nine. I don't know how many years ago I sat down and I said, I had my animal totem deck. And I said, okay, what is my lifetime animaltotem. What is the what's the card that represents. And the totem that represents my lifetime. And I, you know, went through my ritual. I shuffled the deck and I flipped the card. And it was salmon. Now salmon, actually the overall meaning of salmon. Is it salmons have to journey and then they have to, they have to swim and then they swim back upstream stream. I believe either to mate or to lay their eggs. I'm not, I don't remember which one.

But the question that I asked was I'm like animals, animal totems, animal medicine. Which totem. Is my totem that will best assist me in growing my business. And salmon popped up and salmon is finish what you start. That's the whole lesson behind salmon. Finish what you start and I notoriously was a person who would start a project, not finished. Start a project, get bored, not finished start another project. Get bored, not finished have another project get bored, not finish and I wasn't finishing things and see, you know, seeing them to fruition. And in that moment, I recognized I have to be consistent. Okay. Now, the old phrase of I'm lying. I'm dying. So I said, I'm going to try this again. And there's only one of each card meaning only one salmon in the entire deck. Only want to beat cards. So I said, I'm going to try this again. I shuffled the cards again. I cut them nine times. I flipped my card. And it was salmon again, And I'm like, well, if that's not a message, then there's never, I've never had a message if I can't get that. I mean, that's as clear as day. Now I'm not a mathematician, so I don't even know how to figure this number out and I don't think it need to be a mathematician. But what are the odds numerically of me pulling salmon twice after shuffling the decks.

Nine times each time. Okay. Now, mystery at this point, I'm always wanting to prove things to myself. I'm always wanting to experiment and explore and question and et cetera.

And so I decided to shuffle the deck one more time. And as I was shuffling the deck. Uh, card. I kid you not a card flopped out like it literally, I'm not exaggerating like it jumped out of the deck. Well, what's the resemblance of that. The salmon. And it landed on the floor face down. I reach I can't believe this. I reached down flipped it over. And it was that damn salmon card again. I'm like, are you kidding me? And I shouldn't say damn salmon card because thank you salmon, because that was a massive, massive, massive gargantuan lifetime lesson. That I learned from salmon. And then what I did is I took the card and I pasted it on my office wall because I knew to grow my business. The answer was salmon medicine.

You know, one time, a simple way that I've used the cards before. Is, I was asking something related to fear many years ago, fear in business somehow related. I don't remember the question that I asked. But I pulled the card antelope and in the antelope scripture, it said antelope medicine is about knowing what to do and doing it. And so I applied that to the question that I asked where in my business do I know what to do, and I must be doing that because I know what to do and when I do with the fear that I'm getting into will no longer be valid. One time I was, you know, how can I hyphen my awareness? How can I open my heart more? I sat down with the cards, did the same ritual again, and the card that popped up. Was was Otter. Otter which is feminine energy. And it's playfulness it's slowing down and having a good time in life. And that's been very appropriate in my life. And even this day and age, I don't want to freak some people out, but I also have. Uh, very rare. I want to say rare, because of the color. It's a large adult ethically trapped. Of course he was skinned, but animal but Otter pelt.

So, and I keep that in my healing room and I often will put it on my shoulders when I'm working on this in my life. Okay. So when I got out of the hospital a year ago, first, one of the first things I did after the stroke, having heart failure prior. And I'm like, you know what? I better get very serious because there are some things happening and I don't know what's going on, but you know what, some things are happening and I better pay attention. And I set off with my deck of cards, went through the ritual. And Badger was my card for healing. You know, what is my animal healing totem guidance Badger. Well guess what Badger means? And what it's for. Radical healing. Go figure. Another way that I use the cards. Is I was coming back from the grand canyon one day I went to the grand canyon. I live a couple of hours from it. And to me, it's it's pure bliss. It is serenity. It's divinity to to just sit at quiet spots. Viewing the grand canyon. And as I was driving back to Sedona, it was at night. But here in Sedona, we have a lot of wildlife, you know, we have, uh, tons of wildlife, everything from deer and we don't have antelope. But, you know, we, we have deer, we have skunks, we don't have badgers, but we have, you know, what do we have? We have deer and we have spiders, which is nothing. We have a lot to have at Lena. We got rabbits, we got Thunderbirds. Uh, less goes on of things that we have. I mean, we're pretty much kind of in the west where I am Western us. We also have scorpions. Okay. So as I driving back from the grand canyon, I, I feel bad saying this, but it's just what happened. I hit. At night running across the road and I wasn't driving fast. I hit a skunk. And it wasn't the big skunk, but I felt as I felt bad about it. I mean, I just, I love animals. Love them. And I injured that skunk. And I'm like, there's no way I can get out to help that guy. Because number one, his going to spray me. And then how long is it going to take for me to get that off my body?

Secondly, is there any damaging effect to that? If it gets in your eyes, which I don't know. And then third, it's a wild animal. Will he bite me? And does it have rabies? So I had to leave the guy. But when I got home, I grabbed my animal cards and I looked up skunk medicine. Because what I did is I in that moment had an encounter with skunk. And not only did I have an encounter with skunk. I actually. I want someone to talk about in a minute. Is that I clipped him I heard him and that I looked at. Okay. What does skunk mean? Now the context is I also hurt that skunk. And probably sentenced him to death. What does it mean. Here in Sedona. We have spiders. We have black widows and brown recluse. And there was one in our front. And I was filling up my water fountain on the front porch of a very large one, like a five foot water fountain. And I saw this, not maybe more than a foot away from me, a black widow and a spider web. And I started filling the water fountain, which the noise and vibration probably ran the spider off. But here's the thing. I looked over and the spider was gone. Out of the web. And I'm like, Uh, okay. Where did that spider go? And I looked around and I couldn't see it anywhere. And I'm like, this is ridiculous, but I'm like, I hope it didn't run up my pants legs. And so on the front porch and I lived there, there's no one that lives where I live.

Uh, I live the top of a mountain in Sedona. I mean, I took off my pants on the front porch thinking, is there a spider in the lower part of my pants, legs? I mean, I'm going to take off my pants to find out. And I'm standing on my front porch without pants, just making sure there's not a black widow spider in my pants. So you can use these cards for a lot of things. And there's even what's called the blank shield. And the blank shield is pure possibility. Meaning you can imprint on that blank shield and call upon any animal that you want relative to, you know what I've picked the blank shield. Let me call on a particular animal that I want support from animal totem.

Now possibility.

I want to segue here for a second. I want to talk about money, even though it's not related to this episode. And the reason why is I've got a free training coming up at the end of December. But, you know, what applies to you? Do you have money challenges over and over and over again?

Do you never get out of money challenges, and they're really bad? Do you go up, do you go down money in money, out paycheck to paycheck? Never enough. If any of that pertains to you and money then obviously you're not actually operating from pure possibility and potential when it comes to money. And plain and simple, you're negating it.

So with 2022, rolling around, about we change that? How about we change your money stories? How about we leave your old money stories behind in 2021 and help you create new money stories in 2022. How to do that.

Is Nicki who manages my team called me a while back and said, Hey, you know, I know that you use a lot of ancient practices and your money with your money and spirituality and stuff like that. What practices do you use for at the beginning of every new year? So she goes, why don't we put together a training on that? So what I have is a new program I put together.

With some of the processes that I use, that I've learned from a shaman that are ancient processes to let go, and to literally burn your money stories, burn them to the ground and get rid of those old stories that keep you between, or keep you from the prosperity and abundance that you want. In life.

So anyway go to the show notes Jimfortin.com/letgo Jimfortin.com/letgo and get registered for that training, which will be at the end of December, 2021. And in that training, I'll be sharing the processes. As I said that I use that I've learned from Don Javier to let go of money concerns and do actually attract more money into my life

Okay. Back to animal totems. So in my neighborhood, I was living my house a couple of days ago. When I, I drive pretty slow. I've not drive a porsche. There's nowhere to gofast and Sedona. But I was living in neighborhood and. In the road. Was a large eight point buck. And in that moment, I thought, wow. Okay a deer. Deer medicine has presented itself to me today. I need to explore. Why deer medicine and as actually masculine. Deer medicine presented itself to me. So when this happens, whether it be the, you know, a tarantula, which we have trarantula's here, or deer, or javelina or whatever it is, birds, whatever it is I coyotes tons of coyotes. I asked myself. What is their message to me? What are they presenting to me. And how does this message apply to me right now? And then what I I look at for me is okay. Let's say when I ran around the corner, not ran, but drove around the corner. And there's this buck in the middle of the road. It was on the next street over, but I kind of make a U-turn in my neighborhood to go there. So I went around the corner, making a U-turn a U-turn. And there's the buck right there.

And so what I do is I ask myself, anytime that I have an encounter is I asked myself. What exactly. Not kind of what exactly was I thinking? What was on my mind when I encountered that buck. And then what I do is I look for the correlation between what was on my mind when I encounter that buck and then there's maybe two messages.

As one, what was I thinking? And the encounter with the buck. But then I look for what are similarities, what are threads? What is something that ties them them together? Because there's a deeper message for me. And that's how I actually live with the cards. On a daily basis and my life is what are my encounters.

You know, what things do I experience? I experience a spider in the house or this or that, or, you know, whatever. And then I just told you the whole process. I'm like, you don't have encountered this animal totem. What is the medicine for me right now in this moment? Okay. Back to what I was saying a little bit earlier. Is when I, when I want to know an answer to something and I want the guidance and you know, what blows my mind. I mean, it's just shocking to me is how often the car that I pull. I'd say at least for me, 80% of the time. The card that I pull, if not even 90% of the time is like, oh man. Oh, well, Oh man. That's, that's the exact, that's the answer that I needed. I mean, how did this, how does this happen? I mean, come on this card out of a deck of all that, that's the exact answer that I needed. And so what I do. Is I sit down in my healing room. I get comfortable. I get quiet. And I set my intention for animal totems. Animal medicine. I'm looking for guidance. I'm asking for guidance on X, Y, Z thing in my life. And then I shuffle the deck. Or I cut the deck. Nine times. I sit with it for, I don't know, maybe 30 seconds before I do anything. Quiet. And then I pull a card. And then whatever card that I pull, I take it as that card is my animal totem guidance for the answers that I'm looking for and this particular situation.

When I started, I, this is not part of the formal program, but it's mentioned in my transformational coaching program, which I, I do twice a year and the spring and the fall. And a lot of people come into the program I say well, not, not a lot. I'd probably say 30%. Really, I never heard of stuff like this and the ancient ways. And there, there, I often observe. They are shocked at how much applies to them in life. They don't even think about, or don't even see, or have never been taught. So when I mentioned animal totems to people, some people can scoff that, you know, they can scoff at it and that's entirely up to you. Scoff all you want. Like they say, we mock what we don't understand. That's fine too. But what I'm telling you is this can be powerful guidance for you. If you set your intention, open your heart, have reverence and have respect for animals. And then open that to the guidance that comes. So your takeaway this episode. Is let the animals be your guidance. And your medicine inlife. Remember visit jimfortin.com/letgo and also below in the show notes, you will see a link to the cards that I use in my own life. You can click the link, get them on Amazon. I do want to point out also it is an affiliate link. So I get paid. I don't know. I've never used the link in the past, but I'm going to start using links, but anyway, just click the link. I'll take you to the cards and anyway, I make a few bucks on it. Okay, so thanks for listening. And I'll catch you over on another episode. Take care and make it a great day to day. Bye-bye.

If you're serious about transforming your life from the inside out, I have a free training that you're going to want to listen to. And it's helped 10's of 1000's of people all around the globe. The thing is, all of my students start here because when you learn to change your thinking, you'll change your life. Because as you already know, life happens from the inside out. The training is called Discover How to Eliminate Fear and Negativity In an Instant. So, go to jimfortin.com/eliminatefear and start learning how to transform your life at a deeper level from the inside out.

Thank you for listening to this entire podcast. If you're the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. You know, if you found value, they will too, so please share via your social media channels. Also, if you have questions, I'm here to assist. You can email me questions to support@jimfortin.com. And I may even use your question for a future podcast episode. Also, if you want transformational content like this daily, connect with me on Instagram, my instagram name is @iamjimfortin. Finally I do have a personal request. I believe that we're all here to help others and to grow and evolve ourselves. Together, you and I, let's help more people. If you would, please leave a review on iTunes and a good one by the way. I'd be grateful and through your assistance together, we can transform more lives. Thanks for listening.