The Amazing Ways LAL® Meditation Practice Can Deepen Our Connection to Animals

Your meditation practice is transformative—and there’s more than one type you can use to connect with animals on an even deeper level.

“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet.

It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there -

buried under the 50,000 thoughts

the average person thinks every day”

― Deepak Chopra

I love this quote by Deepak Chopra because it reminds us of something profound: peace isn’t something we create—it’s something we remember. It’s always been within us, like the sky behind the clouds.

The Let Animals Lead® method of meditation gently clears away the mental noise, emotional baggage, and distractions that cloud our hearts. Through this practice, we don’t just find calm—we uncover our true essence.

And from this still, authentic place, we can begin to connect with animals in a more genuine, heart-centered way.

Why a Meditation Practice?

“The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh

The benefits of meditation on our health and wellness are many, and it is indeed, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, a “beautiful path.” Science shows that meditation can help us increase our self-awareness and decrease stress. Meditation can also help people manage many chronic diseases such as anxiety, depression and chronic pain.

Researchers have shown that meditation actually changes the brain. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the interesting scientific studies on meditation that have been done.

I always find articles and discussions about various types of meditation and their unique benefits very interesting from an Animal Reiki perspective. Basically, in the Let Animals Lead® method of Animal Reiki, we are learning to meditate with our animals, which deepens meditation into a true spiritual practice and is a way of sharing all these wonderful benefits with the animals we love and want to support.

Thanks to Reiki’s founder, Mikao Usui, who must have been an amazing teacher (based on the foundation he created that all modern Reiki practice is built upon), Reiki practice incorporates multiple types of meditation practices into one system. In my Reiki journey, I have found that all of these meditations are greatly enhanced by sharing our practice with animals.

Let’s explore different types of Animal Reiki meditation and how they deepen our connection to animals.

6 Types of Animal Reiki Meditation

1) Visualization Meditation

“To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert

Meditations such as focusing on the Reiki symbols and practicing the Healing Space Meditation instruct us in how to “become” the light through specific visualizations. For example, the Healing Space Meditation is a very peaceful and grounding practice. Although in the beginning we visualize the light as coming from the outside in and then spreading out, through repeated practice we awaken to the reality that we already are the light.

In reality, there is no difference between the light inside of us and the light all around us. And in shining our light in this way, we just may find ourselves smiling with contentment. In a world that can often make us feel alone, it is such a comforting truth to realize our inherent connectedness.

This practice also gives us the opportunity to experience the healing benefits of focusing on the positive, especially in difficult moments. When we let go of what is wrong and remember that All is Well, animals will come forward and want to connect with us and share the peacefulness of the moment.

Anyone who has loved an animal knows how much they mirror our inner states of being, but there have even been some scientific studies to prove it. One study even shows that dogs’ and humans’ hearts sync together during interactions. In another groundbreaking study, it was shown that when humans experienced chronic stress, their dogs synchronized to this same stress level.

Even cats sync up and adapt to their people more than you might realize. These studies point to the reality of emotional “contagion” — in other words, our animals are so sensitive to our inner states that they literally “catch” them and carry them along with us.

The good news is that they can also “catch” our positive emotions and energy, including the peace and calm that our visualization meditations provide. By meditating with our animals, we can deepen the positive benefits for all!

2) Mindfulness Meditation

“The Way to do is to be.”

― Lao Tzu

Although human Reiki practices such as hands-on healing may seem all about the healing benefits of touch at first, if we take a step back and watch or experience a session ourselves, we can see the mindfulness space of “being” that is created as well!

Touch is a simple action that can help bring awareness to this present moment without judgment or expectation. By simply being present in this moment, we learn to become listeners and observers so that we can more easily hold space for others.

But, as Let Animals Lead® practitioners, in order to honor animal choice, we always let animals be the ones to initiate touch (if they want to). We begin sessions at a distance from the animal, hands in our lap or at our sides. By letting go of our hands, we simply focus on being mindfully present with the animal in whatever way makes them comfortable.

By tuning into what makes an animal feel comfortable or not and adjusting ourselves to create more comfort (letting the animals lead us), we can create a deeper bond of trust than we ever thought possible.

Seeing an animal once terrified of human contact choose to come forward and connect physically during an Animal Reiki session is a transformative experience. For example, here is an inspiring story of how this kind of gentle mindfulness meditation helps traumatized horses.

3) Mantra Meditation

“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters.”

― Amit Ray

Did you know the word “mantra” comes from Sanskrit and translates as “mind tool” or “mind protect.” By using a mantra, we are focusing our mind and this focus keeps out negative and distracted thoughts.

Research shows that mantra meditation has many benefits such as reducing stress and anxiety and even increasing immunity. In Levels 2 and 3 of Let Animals Lead meditations, we chant specific mantras corresponding to the 4 traditional Reiki mantras.

This is a wonderful way to focus the mind and also gives us the opportunity to experience the healing benefits of sound. These sound vibrations flow strongly through our mind and through every cell of our bodies.

Animals are very sensitive to the power of chanting, so it’s important to make sure we are chanting in a way (volume, tone, speed, etc) that makes them feel comfortable. Chanting the Reiki mantras is a powerful way to uplift the energy of the space.

Animals respond in amazing and positive ways to mantra meditations, and chanting with them (sometimes literally, I have chanted together with a goose honking at each tone LOL) helps us deepen our bond with one another.

Sometimes we can also use the mantra silently in our minds. When chanting silently, the power of the mantra comes not from the sound, but rather from the repetition, helping our minds to quiet down and eventually, if we are lucky, become an open space of peace.

For animals, who are so used to the busy and chaotic energy that most humans radiate all the time, they will so appreciate the stillness that radiates from you from silent chanting. Mantra practice helps us connect with our inner peace and deepens our awareness of our interconnectedness with our animals.

4) Movement Meditation

“When you walk, arrive with every step. That is walking meditation. There’s nothing else to it.”

― Thich Nhat Hạnh

Scientific research has revealed that walking meditations bring a myriad of benefits. In Japan, they see it as a kind of Japanese medicine and call it Shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” If you’re interested, you can learn more about forest bathing in the blog post I wrote about it.

Especially when we work with animals, we are often closer to nature, and in order to be able to meet them in their natural environments, we must learn how to adapt our meditation practice to include more movement than just a traditional sitting meditation, such as standing and walking meditations.

Have trouble sitting still when you practice Animal Reiki meditation? No worries, meditate while you walk in nature, or with your dog, or while you stand in the pasture with your horse. After all, as animals often remind us in real-world ways, meditation is a state of mind (and heart), not a physical position. It’s possible (and wonderful) to meditate with animals wherever we may find them!

I love when I’m doing a walking meditation with my dog and neighboring hummingbirds will come by and hover right next to us as if to say, “I feel you!”

5) Compassion Meditation:

“Meditation without love is like drinking tea from an empty cup.”

― Raz Mihal

Scientific studies show that cultivating compassion in our meditations actually changes our brains and makes us more empathetic to others.

At the heart of Let Animals Lead® practice is an aspiration to live a kinder life and to help others. The virtue of service is central to Reiki because Usui embodied it himself and all practices come back to this ideal. Reiki practices such as the 5 Precepts and the 3rd and 4th symbol and mantra remind us that we are all connected and all One.

“All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.” ― Swami Vivekananda

I love this quote because it reminds us that animals are the same as us, only different in degree, but not in kind. When we look at them with Reiki eyes, we can see ourselves in so many ways. At the center of our compassionate practice is the attitude of honoring, and animals help us stay humble!

Read this special article about how to transform pity to compassion in difficult situations, such as when sharing Animal Reiki with shelter animals.

6) Spiritual Meditation:

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” ― Ram Dass

Research indicates that meditating deepens our spiritual practice. Not every meditation practice out there engages the spiritual self, but our Let Animals Lead® meditations definitely do.

The word Reiki refers to the energy of Source, or “soul power,” and so from its very name Reiki challenges us to look deeper within ourselves to rediscover the essence of our inner being. I often tell students that practicing Animal Reiki is like coming home, in the sense that home is where the heart is.

Animal Reiki is a spiritual practice of peace, love and compassion that embraces and radiates from the heart. Animals gravitate to our energy when we are in alignment with our core and essence, and this is why LAL® practice results in a deepened bond with the animals we love.

Find Your True Self In Your Meditation Practice

Your Let Animals Lead® meditation practice is truly about practicing remembrance. No matter what type of Animal Reiki meditation we choose, we’re peeling back the layers of self-doubt, control, and fear, and returning to who we truly are: beings of peace, presence, and compassion.

Animals recognize this version of us—they respond to it, trust it, and connect with it. And when we meet them in that space of stillness and mutual respect, we experience something sacred: a connection beyond words, built not on doing, but on simply being.