Krishna is a beautiful, soulful cat who I have worked with and cat-sat for over the past couple of years or so. He is generally very fearful of everyone other than his human caretakers, Rebecca and Tim, but Krishna has come to trust me more and more every time I see him.
I had not seen Krishna for some months, and went to work with him yesterday. Krishna is extremely sensitive, so I need to enter with an extremely quiet energy, even more so than I usually do with most cats. On the way to the appointment on the subway, I began to center and calm myself, and to send him Reiki energy.
He always seems to recognize me, and that was the case yesterday as well. When I entered, he was resting in his bed, which was about halfway across the living room. I lowered my body posture into a less-threatening kneeling position, and quietly said hello to him. He responded by walking right up to me, sniffing me, and then sitting a couple of feet away from me. When he came to sniff me, I stayed perfectly still - not rigid, but breathing and still. If he tried to stare right at my eyes, I looked down a bit or away a bit, so as not to scare him.
In the last few appointments with him, a soft paintbrush like a makeup brush, tied to a thin dowel with string, has been a great tool to work with him. This time, I used a longer dowel than I had in the past, since I felt that sometimes I wanted to give him more space, as he can get suddenly startled sometimes when he gets close.
Generally, I have found that TTouch circles and strokes are what work with him best, but because of where his body was positioned yesterday, which was sideways to me, just a couple of feet away, with his head further away, I tried doing some TTouch circles with the tool going down the side of his body. I did the circles very slow, with a "snail's tail" at the end, which means doing the usual circle and a quarter, followed by a pause, and then reversing the circular path for a quarter circle. This can provide an extra release.
It is very important, especially with a fearful cat, to come towards them in a sort of diagonal path, rather than directly towards their face or head. Even when I am going to do TTouches on the head with the tool, I come from a diagonal direction and first touch him on top of his head, but coming from the side, not straight on.
He started to look more and more relaxed, with his eyes getting more sleepy, but still his tail was twitching back and forth, so I was careful to pause every so often, to give him a break.
It was very interesting that yesterday, in the pauses, he would generally shift his body posture in a manner and direction that was coming closer to me, rather than further away.
Below you can see the tool I was using. At one point, I did have to tuck the string in!
The TTouch circular touches and strokes were helping him to increasingly relax, and intermittently he would do a somersault, stretch and get a bit closer to me. A couple of times during the session, he did go to his "mom" Rebecca for a few pets, but then he came back to me. So he really was making a choice about where he wanted to be.
At the same time as this was going on, and for the whole session, I was also sending him Reiki energy. I felt quite a lot of energy coming out of my hands. And, as I have recently been learning about color therapy, I decided to visualize a turquoise blue color surrounding him. Turquoise, as it is a mixture of green and blue, which are both very calming, healing colors, can be a very calming and healing color, and just felt right for Krishna at this moment.
After the TTouches on the body, I decided to go back to what has usually been more his comfort zone, which is the forehead, in between the ears, and at the base of the ears. Sometimes I would work in a few TTouches on the body, then go back to the head. Below you can see that he was quite relaxed, with his hind leg sticking out. And at this point the tail was quieting down too.
And, I had started quietly working my hand down the tool. As you can see, my hand is much closer to his body than the photo above. As I did this, I made sure to check in on my breathing, as I could feel myself start to get a little bit nervous as I got closer to him.
What was interesting, too, that had happened during this process was that Krishna had pivoted his body around so that he was not only closer to me but had his head facing directly towards me.
I kept doing the circular TTouches and strokes, pausing every so often to give him space.
And..... when it seemed the right moment, I carefully took hold of the dowel with my fingers, and did a few TTouches and strokes on his forehead with my thumb. And then after a few TTouches like that, I went back to touching him with the brush. At a couple of points, he seemed a little surprised, but not terribly, and then he would go back to being relaxed. This was certainly a far cry from the sudden panic that can happen, usually followed by a yell or a swat. And each time I went from my thumb (or sometimes I used a finger) back to the brush, he seemed to get more comfortable, getting his body in a more and more comfortable position.
He is extremely attached to Rebecca, and at various points during the session, he looked over at her, as if to ask if it was ok that he was getting so close. Rebecca said, and I agree, that it felt as though he wanted to really get even closer to me, but was still a bit hesitant to do that.
Each time he got closer to me, it was as though I could feel our hearts more closely connected, like a band of love and energy was traveling back and forth between my heart and his.
The session had flowed very natural, and seemed to have its own natural ending place. I quietly thanked him, and he walked to a cozy spot to rest.
Thank you Krishna! It is such an honor to work with you, connect with you and learn from you. I look forward to seeing you soon!!
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