CREATIVE CORNER AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES
What The World Needs Now Is To Hug A Cow
Long-form interview with Cow Hug Therapy author Ellie Laks
Ellie Laks, author of Cow Hug Therapy, is the founder of The Gentle Barn, animal communicator, energy healer, and all-around phenomenal human.
The Gentle Barn, a rescue sanctuary, mainly for animals headed to slaughter, was founded by Ellie Laks in 1999. Since then, multiple locations have opened. During Ellie’s difficult childhood, she often turned to animals for comfort. Ellie offers a similar experience through the Gentle Barn, where you can cuddle with cows and other farm animals. In her book, Cow Hug Therapy, Ellie highlights many of the animals who she has gained wisdom and insight from during her tenure at The Gentle Barn.
We spoke via Zoom in early February 2025. Hanging behind Ellie’s desk were beautiful animal portraits. I shared with Ellie that I found Cow Hug Therapy and Ellie’s journey very deep.
Cow Hug Therapy is heavy with wisdom and it’s a hard read, too. How Ellie balances her wisdom with despair and struggle is beautiful; not many people can do that. It’s a gift I am thankful to have read.
The Heart of Self-Care
AG: I resonate with your turning to nature, and your having a hard childhood. Your emphasis on self-care and it being quite a journey to accept and understand its importance in your life is relatable. I’m wondering beyond meditation and cow hug therapy, do you have any additional tips for that kind of thing as we are going through this, for me really difficult political landscape, I’m guessing we’re probably the same, I wonder about some more movement-oriented ways of like shaking off the anger and despair that if that’s something that you also go? When I think about it some things that come to my mind like dancing or singing.
I’m curious about any suggestions for somatic healing that you might have?
EL: I think once we cultivate our self-care muscle, it permeates everything we do. At the beginning of my journey, people would say, oh you got to have a work-life balance, you need to have self-care. I was like “Yeah yeah.”
It took a very, very, very long time to not only understand what self-care is but to put it into practice and I’m still working on it. It’s not a perfect muscle yet at all; it’s something that I’m probably going to be practicing to my last breath.
What we eat is in our self-care practice. I honor my body and rest by going to bed on time, getting up early, and meditating each morning. This leaves me time during the day to do the things that bring me joy.
While junk food tastes delicious in the moment, it does not offer a lot of energy, so it will hinder my life and my work. Feeding myself fresh organic vegan fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains gives me the appropriate amount of energy.
The things that I eat are part of self-care, the rest that I allow myself, the days off that I allow myself. Those are the more obvious things but I think that self-care is also identifying the things that bring me joy and trying to at least do those things regularly, either daily, weekly, or monthly, but put them into practice because those of us who are healers and love to be in service give it all away and we just give give give until there’s nothing left and that’s not fair to anybody.
It’s important that I know at least five things that bring me joy and then I get to practice those things. Practicing joy keeps me strong and sane but also in practicing joy, I am bringing myself self-care and honoring myself.
You asked about this crazy political culture climate. I will say that self-care is also in the boundaries that we create for ourselves.
It’s different for every single person but I know for myself if I watch too much news, if I have too many conversations of what’s going on out there, I’m going to go insane. It is not productive for me. It makes me want to curl up in a fetal position in bed and kind of never come out. For me, it’s setting boundaries of there is a time for action, there is a time for conversation, there’s a time for voting, there is a time to empower our voice.
Once the election happens or once the choices have been made, there really is no action. Now we just have to learn to live with it.
Loving ourselves, loving one another, supporting other people, and allowing a safe space for other people to call home and to call sanctuary is really, really important.
I am no longer going to spend hours watching the news or reading the newspaper, or having those political discussions with people because they’re not action-based and it just brings me down to hopelessness. I want to stay hopeful, I want to stay contributing, I want to stay helpful to other people, and I’m really lucky because I get to do that through The Gentle Barn.
The Gentle Barn gets to be a sanctuary for people of every dynamic, every walk of life, every gender, every belief, and they get to come to find sanctuary for themselves. I love being that safe space for people and that makes me feel good.
The Gentle Barn gets to be a sanctuary for people of every dynamic, every walk of life, every gender, every belief, and they get to come to find sanctuary for themselves. I love being that safe space for people and that makes me feel good.
AG: That’s unusual, I think, being able to foster a safe place for such a diverse group of people — I hadn’t thought about it that way. Of course, you’re going to see people with all different kinds of viewpoints.
EL: And not only that but welcome them with open arms. You are safe here. We are coming together under the common love of animals, and we’re going to find healing together. So that’s something that brings me comfort.
You don’t have to own a sanctuary to be able to do that. I think it involves just giving love to the people that need it the most, letting others know what we believe, and where we stand so that they know they’re safe with us. I mean every one of us as individuals can do that.
Junk food is a real struggle. Who doesn’t want to sit down with a huge bag of potato chips or a big thing of french fries and pig out? What I’m trying to work on especially now is in the short term yes that could feel like comfort food but in the long term I am harming myself when I do that, I am making myself feel bad afterward, and I’m robbing myself of my energy. I’m going to feel bloated, I’m going to feel that sugar headache; instead I want to nurture myself from the inside out.
Nurturing is putting healthy things in my mouth so that I’m honoring my body just like I would if I were taking care of an infant. I wouldn’t feed them junk food, I would feed them really healthy food because I love them. I want to do the same for myself.
Veganism and Its Impact on Animal Agriculture
AG: I’ve experienced animal communication also, but only sporadically in my life. It’s not something I feel I can just do. What is your advice for how people might be able to better listen to our pets or wildlife around us?
EL: I think the bigger answer is that there are a lot of things we do in the world that drown out our intuition and block us. There are three big things that I want to talk about to strengthen our intuition to open up those connections.
Number one is to go vegan because when we’re eating the energy of violence, fear, and suffering that’s not going to allow us to connect, but when we’re ingesting good, living energy it allows us to be much more intuitive and much more connected.
I have watched that transformation with many, many, many people, including my journey. You could notice an enormous difference.
AG: I was debating whether or not to go here…I am not vegan. I was a vegetarian in high school with a very soft heart. I have some practical questions about that. If everyone decided to be vegan, how would that affect the ecosystem and why is it that some animals eat other animals?
EL: I love that question and first of all let me say we are all evolving at our own pace but any empath and animal lover is a vegan waiting to happen.
Let me paint you the picture. The destruction of the environment, the rainforest, the waters, the groundwater, the fields, our ability to grow food, and the fertilization of the soil are all meeting their demise because of animal agriculture.
It’s not natural to have farms with 20, 30, 40,000 cows in one spot. Dirty water is going to the groundwater and destroying it. That methane is going into the ozone and destroying it. It’s just not natural.
So, forget about the ethical reasons and the suffering that eating animals creates environmentally. They are literally chopping down the rainforest to create more room for more cows to graze so that they can kill more cows and make more money. The rainforests are disappearing, the water is being poisoned, and the plains across America are being used for cattle.
They are just huge dead zones across America that we can no longer use to grow things because they’re used for cows. Also, the beef industry wants that area for their cows, and so they’re killing off the wolves, the bears, the smaller animals, and the wild horses.
They’re trying to obliterate everyone that is competing for those grazing lands. It’s a very selfish and destructive way to live. It’s not for the health of Americans. It’s literally for their profit. Environmentally we are destroying this planet because of animal agriculture.
When we go vegan, we save 1100 gallons of water a day and we save an acre of trees every single year which empowers us to combat deforestation. One singular person who adopts a plant-based diet saves 200 animals every single year, saves an acre of trees every single year to combat deforestation, saves 1100 gallons of water a day to end this drought, and reduces our own risk of every Western Disease by 90%.
Many people look at these huge problems and go, “Oh, who cares what I do? I mean look the problem is so big, little ole me, who cares?”
The truth is the power in the hands of each of us as individuals is enormous, and the choices that we make are either adding to the demise of this planet or are being part of the solution.
If we all went vegan, animals would live alongside us and not by the billions in some abnormal factory farm way. We would hug cows, and the horses would roam wild and free, and we’d wave to them as they gallop by. The forest would stand tall and strong and provide us with shade and oxygen to breathe. And because the forests returned, the soil would become rich and fertile. We would be able to grow fruits and vegetables across the country.
A large majority of the grain that this planet produces goes to feed animals that are going to be slaughtered for people to eat. If there were no more consumption of animals, we would have plenty of room, rich soil, and fertile lands to grow grain and nutrients, and it would end world hunger. There would be no hungry people. We would be able to feed everybody.
The waters would be clean and good to drink. The forests would return. There would be oxygen. Some studies show that the depletion of the forests equals more desert, which is raising the temperature of our country, which is adding to more destruction because our planet is becoming so hot that the ice caps are melting, and species are going extinct.
Things are not growing anymore, and the rain isn’t falling, and now fires are burning us down. It’s all related. And people like to treat it like a separate topic, but it’s not. It’s all related to this cycle of demise that is happening with animal agriculture.
The minute we all go vegan, the forests return, the temperature goes down, and the soil becomes fertile. Things grow, there are no more fires, there’s more water, the ice caps return, the creatures are protected and sustained, and then the disease disappears from our culture.
Right now there are billions and billions and billions of dollars being spent feeding us poisonous food creating illness in our bodies that then they are making billions and trillions of dollars treating with a medication that causes side effects, so now we need more medication and it’s on and on and on and on. It’s this vicious circle of creating money for the point one percent but when we all go vegan we are creating health for all of us.
Then we don’t have to spend our resources, time, and energy combatting these diseases, mourning one another, and being sick. We can now celebrate life, live life to the fullest, and be healthy in our bodies. We can celebrate life and honor life alongside our animals who now get to share this planet as well, and reverse this cycle of destruction to heal our planet and ensure that we all have this home to live on for many, many more generations.
Baby Steps to Veganism
AG: That’s a very lofty and beautiful dream. Do you have any baby steps that you advise people to take to get there?
EL: Yes, I have the perfect baby step. If you’re even interested or considering going vegan, what I would suggest is to calendar a time when you might have two or three hours to spare. Go to the market and spend time simply going down the aisles, reading ingredients, looking at the products, and familiarizing yourself with what’s vegan. There are a lot of vegan things that you don’t even realize are vegan. First of all, realize, wow!, a lot of what I eat is already vegan.
You’ll see I can no longer have this, I can’t have this. That’s fine. Then spend some time looking at the plant milks, plant cheeses, vegan meats, ice creams, and cream cheeses.
AG: I know they’ve come a long way.
EL: They’ve come a long way. And let me reassure you, we eat well. What you do is if you look at a plant milk you’ve never tried or a vegan meat that you’ve never known about, take it home and try it.
If you don’t like it because not all products are great, never get it again. But, if you like it, put it on your shopping list and keep doing that every time you go grocery shopping. Try new things and what you like, put on your shopping list. Very soon you will realize that you have an entire shopping list full of delicious, nutritious vegan foods. And there you go, now you’re vegan.
AG: From a personal standpoint, I work with a dietician and I know that it’s hard for me to come up with the protein I need, especially as an older person, through plants. Because you have so much more experience with that, I bet that you know how to do it. I’m curious what do you eat for protein?
EL: I went vegetarian when I was 11 years old and met a chicken and realized that was chicken and rice. I was done eating animals, but I had no idea about the dairy, egg, and honey industry so I wasn’t vegan yet. Then 25, almost 26 years ago, someone explained to me what happens in the dairy, egg, and honey industries. I went vegan on the spot. That was for my own ethical reasons. But then, later when I started having children, I said, okay, now I need to know what I’m doing. I can’t just impose this on my kids.
I did a lot of research, years of research. I found out exactly how to get the iron, calcium, and protein so that my kids would grow up strong. They were never sick. They were healthy. They never got acne. They got their periods really late instead of at 9 years old. They stayed lean and healthy.
First of all, this mantra that we have in our society that we need a lot of protein is built by the meat industry. It is a misnomer and it’s not true. There are many more people in our society who are suffering from too much protein rather than too little.
I’ll follow that up to say beans and rice are a complete protein. There’s protein in broccoli and peas. All fruits and vegetables contain protein. If you’re just eating a balanced diet with lots of different fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains you are going to get enough protein. You are not going to have to worry about it at all. I think that if you’re eating potato chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, then you’re going to suffer from a lack of iron and B12 and you’re not going to feel good because we’re not designed to eat those things. If you’re eating peas and lentils and rice and beans and tofu and nuts and broccoli and Brussels sprouts and dark leafy greens, you are not going to have a problem.
Eating a balanced diet is not just about the protein. You need iron: beets, lentils, dark leafy greens, red grapes, and red apples all have a lot of iron. I eat those things regularly. You also need B12. The animal gets the B12 from the greens they’re eating and then people get the B12 and other nutrients from eating the animal, but we could bypass the middle-man, which is the animal, and just go straight to the garden to get our B12.
One of the ways that I get B12 is from Sun Chlorella. It’s a wonderful company. You can go to sunchlorellausa.com. They have Sun Chlorella for animals and humans and it’s extremely high in B12 so it gives you energy and it enhances your memory. It helps your hair and nails and your skin and your bones. You’ll feel fantastic.
I take Sun Chlorella and so do all our animals every single day.
How to Put Meditation Into Practice
AG: I think you had some additional points to the answer of how to listen to our pets and wildlife?
EL: One way is to go vegan because it’ll open up that intuition. The other is to have a daily meditation practice.
AG: I am resistant to that daily meditation practice. Do you have any advice on how to meditate daily?
EL: When I first learned about meditation and it was a direction I wanted to go on, it was like torture. I didn’t want to do it. I would make any excuse in the world not to do it.
When I finally sat down and even set my alarm for 5 minutes, the entire time, my brain was like is it over, is it over, is it over? I can’t just sit here. This is torture. It was terrible. It was like literally torture.
But you know what? So is going to the gym for the first time. Any muscle we’re trying to exercise and develop is going to feel like torture in the beginning but when we keep going back and back and back we develop that muscle and it becomes easy.
At the beginning of my meditation journey, I didn’t want to do it, just like you. It was torture but I kept returning to it again and again and again and now I’ve exercised that muscle so completely that I refuse to leave my room until I meditate every single day.
I look forward to it and I can’t wait to do it. Some days, I’m going, “Oh I don’t want to finish meditating now. I want more time, I’ll do five more minutes.”
Number one is practice makes perfect. Number two is finding the meditation that works well for you because some people sit well in the silence and focus on their own breath but some people need music to take them through or other people can find a guided meditation and hear somebody’s voice taking them through. There are lots of different ways to meditate and find the way that’s going to most inspire you to want to do it.
AG: I’m thinking about Cow Hug Therapy and towards the beginning, you write about meditating with the cows. Being with animals, outside in my backyard has been the easiest way for me to get into that meditation space, and I think that’s good and fine, but I find myself even getting distracted out there now. That’s why I asked for some tips about more traditional, indoor meditation.
EL: You hear these meditation gurus and they’re like “I meditate for 5 hours a day.” I can’t do that and I don’t want to do that, at least at this stage in my journey. There’s no competition, like if I don’t do it for a certain amount of time, it’s not real. Set your alarm for 5 minutes. And make that comfortable and daily before going to 10 minutes. There’s no shame in how to do it. There’s a walking meditation, you can meditate while doing the dishes, and you can meditate just staring at a flame on a candle; there are many different ways to do it. Don’t set yourself up for failure by thinking you have to do it for 30 minutes. Do it for 5 minutes until that becomes comfortable and you start looking forward to doing that. Then and only then you can increase it if you want to or not.
I think it’s more important to show up every day even if it’s for 2 minutes versus showing up for 30 minutes and then never doing it again because that’s not sustainable. You and I are talking about how to train our beings to listen more. How are we going to be able to be open, intuitive, and connected to listen to someone else when we can’t even show up for ourselves for 5 minutes and sit in our silence?
AG: Our world is so noisy.
EL: And we’re so noisy. Our thoughts tend to run us. Meditation is our chance to sit, notice our thoughts, let them go, and show up for ourselves. Talk about self-care. Meditation is a huge part of self-care.
Following Our Intuition
Then there’s a third step. So, it’s going vegan, a daily meditation practice, and then the third thing is kind of tied in with self-care. The third thing is really taking ourselves seriously. Because a lot of us think a thought and then go, no that’s dumb, or say something and go, okay, you’re probably right — I didn’t mean it. We don’t take ourselves seriously.
When our animals talk to us they communicate through videos, pictures, and words, so they’re going to show us mental pictures or we’re going to hear their voice, but the information comes through like it’s our own thought. It doesn’t come through separately. An animal can say something and my brain is going to receive it like it’s a thought. So we have to learn to take our thoughts, our voice, our feelings, and ourselves seriously because when we can really listen to ourselves, then we can absolutely hear someone else.
AG: The word intuition keeps coming to me. When we can listen to our intuition.
EL: We are not trained to do that in our culture. We are trained to shut up and listen to someone else. God-given intuition is to realize that we have the answers, that when we’re depressed it’s our compass saying we are off track. When our minds are busy, how do we help ourselves ground? When we feel like someone is not safe or not authentic we need to listen to that. When we feel like, oh don’t go down that alley, listen to it. Our bodies are a living compass and they are guiding us all the time to who is safe, to where is safe, what we should do, and if we’re on course with our life or not. And, if we don’t listen we end up in real trouble but when we do listen it will never let us down and it’ll always guide us. In turn, it will cultivate that intuitive muscle that will allow us to listen to others.
How to Help The Gentle Barn
AG: Since we are in this current world with horrible agricultural practices, I was wondering if you have any action steps for people who are interested in helping animals be treated more humanely beyond veganism?
EL: Donating to places like The Gentle Barn when we’re on the front lines trying to rescue animals from slaughter, from the meat, egg, and dairy industries, volunteering, donating, and contributing enables us to do that. It’s hard to answer that question beyond veganism because that’s where it lives. The way you save these animals is by going vegan. Going vegan saves 200 animals per year. By going vegan, you’re saving more animals than starting a sanctuary.
AG: Have you created a handbook or something like that for people interested in starting their own animal sanctuary? I know you’re trying to figure out how to keep this going when you’re gone and pass it on.
EL: People come all the time and say they want to start a sanctuary, it’s their dream. Jay (Ellie’s husband) and I teach a course on helping people start their own sanctuaries and it’s all the logistical things that you would imagine. It’s about raising money and fences and barns and zoning and what do the animals eat and how you keep them safe.
It’s also helping their vision come fully through them so that we can help design their dream because there’s no one way that a sanctuary looks. There are a million ways that Sanctuary looks, so helping that person give birth to the dream that’s coming through them specifically is step one. Once we hash out that dream in very vivid bold colors and details, then we help them implement learning the logistical issues, but we also tackle things like compassion fatigue because you can start the most wonderful sanctuary in the world and then things will happen and compassion fatigue will hit and if you’re not armed with how to move through that you will shut your doors and you will have accomplished nothing.
You have to be prepared and armed with how to deal with compassion fatigue.
Then we talk about how to work because death is just as much a part of sanctuary as birth and rescuing animals.
About Death and Grief
AG: Cow Hug Therapy allowed me to cry and grieve deeply with you. And that is a gift, a personal one for me. I lost my dad about a year and a few months ago. I’m very intentional about grieving and I resonate with your emphasis on walking home animals as they die. I love your phrase “Welcome Home” said to animals as they cross or have died.
Several years ago I started a similar practice when I saw roadkill and now say “rest in peace” to them.
As I read Cow Hug Therapy, themes that emerged were grief and death being balanced with surrender and gratitude. As I read the last two chapters I found myself almost highlighting everything. There’s so much wisdom deeply packed there.
EL: Thank you so much. I’m sorry about your pain over your dad here so hard.
AG: He was an energy healer. He practiced reconnective therapy. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that?
EL: Yes, I’m very familiar with that. My first book is called My Gentle Barn and it’s about giving birth to the Gentle Barn. My intention with Cow Hug Therapy was to tell the animals’ stories.
I do that in the first book, but my first book is also woven with my own story, my journey, why I did this, how I did this, and how we did this.
My journey is woven into Cow Hug Therapy, too, but I really wanted to talk about the animals. It would have been an 8 million-page book if I talked about every animal I’ve ever owned. I had to choose the animals I was going to include in the book. I gave a lot of thought to what are the biggest influences in my life? What are the animals that have influenced my life the most and have taught me the biggest lessons? I started writing them down and then I started writing their chapters.
I remember being in the studio to record Cow Hug Therapy myself. As I was doing audio of the book and reading it out loud, I noticed chapter after chapter after chapter was about death. At one point I looked at the engineer and said, “Oh my God, I didn’t realize! If this is so much about death I’m sure you just want to catapult yourself out the window. Is this too much?
AG: I think our culture needs more wisdom around death. I think there’s a major need for this type of book.
EL: Agreed. We don’t talk about it enough. We don’t support one another enough. We don’t go through it gracefully enough. And, especially as animal lovers, typically they’re going to have a shorter lifespan so it’s really important that we talk about this and that we have somewhere to turn.
It was interesting because someone like you reading this book, you’re going to get it. The typical people that come to the Gentle Barn and would read this book, they get it.
But reading it out loud in front of the engineer was different. He had a dog but it’s not like he’s hugging cows every day. He’s definitely not vegan. He’s just a regular, normal guy.
I was very painfully aware of what the book sounded like to a normal, regular guy and I became very self-conscious. I remember asking him, “Oh my God, there’s so much death. Is it too much? Is it too overwhelming? Do you want to jump out the window?”
He said, “It is hard sometimes to listen but it’s really important.” and then we finished the audio and said farewell.
About a week later he called me up and said, “My dog just passed away.” It was sudden, unexpected, and traumatic. I don’t know what I would have done had I not done this process with you and not listened to your book. In that moment I thought about your book, I thought about your words, and I knew exactly what to do, and I can’t thank you enough.”
Here I was being self-conscious, but in the end, these are conversations that we need to have. People, and people who love animals, need this kind of support. We need to have these conversations.
I think when a family member passes away, not in every case but mostly, that person will have a circle of friends or be supported to take days off of work, or be supported in their temple or church or whatever. In these circumstances, other people are going to acknowledge, yes you’re in pain.
But when we lose animals, I don’t think that awareness is mainstream culture yet. I think when a lot of us say, you know my beloved soul mate dog or cat just passed away, there are going to be bosses who say, “Are you kidding me?” There are going to be friends who listen to you maybe the first, second, or third time, but then they’re going to get frustrated and suggest you get another dog or cat.
That grief can feel extremely lonely. I wrote this book in honor of my greatest teachers and their messages and their lessons but I also wrote it in honor of the millions of people out there who love animals. Because they have shorter life spans they’re going to lose them and I want them to know that their grief is real, that I see them, and that I am holding space for them.
AG: That just brought Sky to my mind (Ellie’s dog who passed away). It’s really beautiful.
Energetic Healing — For Animals and Humans
Last year, I was diagnosed with multiple invisible chronic illnesses, some that I’ve been living with since childhood. The decades-long discomfort and 5+ year search for answers was pretty brutal. I’m wondering if you’ve had anyone like me at the Gentle Barn — I bet you have. What kinds of lessons or wisdom do you have around that specific situation?
EL: I want to start by saying how painful and how lonely and how frustrating that must be. I went through something similar when I was in my 20s.
I want to say a few ideas, but only if they’re helpful. I’m hoping that they’re helpful and I by no means mean to be saying something that sounds ridiculous or insulting. I’m trying so hard to be helpful. Leave it if it’s not helpful and take it if it’s helpful.
I’m going back to my 20s when I also suffered from something very similar Eating healthier, meditating, practicing self-care, making sure we’re getting enough sleep. All of those things are important. That’s obvious.
The other thing that I did way back when is I sat down in meditation several times because the first time didn’t do it. I had to ask the question many, many times over, but I found myself asking the question, “Okay I see you, I hear you. This disease, this illness is showing up for me. It’s been with me since childhood. It’s rearing its ugly head. Nobody knows who you are. But, I’m seeing you. I’m acknowledging you. What are you here to tell me? What are you here to teach me?
AG: Yes, I feel like my disability is here to teach me. I’ve gone through a lot of anger and come to that.
EL: Yes, so what is it? Is it a past trauma that we’re not dealing with? Is it just we need to treat our bodies better? Are we in a career that is killing us and we need to change course? Is there a dream inside of us that is yet to be fulfilled?
Many times these illnesses will come to wake us up. They’ll go “Hello, you’re not on track, you’re not doing that dream you’re supposed to do, you’re not dealing with something that you need to deal with.”
AG: At this point, our dog, Nugget made an appearance and Ellie complimented him profusely. I thanked her and went on to say:
We also have a dog, Juno, who is elderly and starting to decline. Because of this, it really spoke to me to read about ways that you walk animals home.
Juno passed away on February 17, 2025. I was by her side and grateful to be with her, in communication, to walk and welcome her home.
EL: Using animal communication is helpful for that.
AG: I am trying I’m trying to do that. Ellie mentioned she offers animal communication. You can contact her for more info.
I have a chronic pain. One modality I use to manage that is CranioSacral. I think that you mentioned using that for your animals in Cow Hug Therapy?
EL: Yes, that is one thing we do for the animals, and also acupuncture, which is great for the animals.
Western medicine has a place. There’s medications, there’s antibiotics, there’s stitches, there’s broken bones, there’s physical therapy. There’s a lot that Western medicine accomplishes for our bodies. And, it’s not the end all, be all.
Sometimes when we’re looking for real healing, going to a doctor and getting a pill is not going to heal the situation. Sometimes we need real healing like CranioSacral, Acupuncture, Chiropractic, nutritionists, and a better diet. I do energy healing.
AG: Do you practice RCT (Reconnective Therapy)?
EL: I do lots of different modalities. The one that I do the most is Scalar Wave Energy Healing for my clients. There is a school for Reconnective Energy Healing that comes out to the Gentle Barn regularly. Before the pandemic, they would come once or twice a year and we would have 60 people doing that on our animals. It was amazing!
AG: Is that what they were doing when they healed the animal who couldn’t be touched?
EL: Yes! Delilah.
AG: That is so cool. I don’t know a lot about Scalar Wave healing. Is it a hands-on or hands-off practice?
EL: It could be hands-on but it’s also something I do remotely. It’s going through the chakras and putting life and light back into the chakras, realigning the body, putting energy back into the body, and also going into different parts. When you’re going through the body and going through the organs and going through the chakras, you’re going to be called to stagnation. You’re going to be called to where energy is stuck, so then you can put healing into those areas to make the energy flow around the body.
There are different modalities and different ways to do energy healing, but it’s really just the same thing with different ways of getting there.
On Practicing Asking For Forgiveness and Giving Forgiveness Through Meditation
AG: Have you thought about or already recorded a guided meditation that has to do with the Forgiveness practice you write about in Cow Hug Therapy?
EL: I haven’t yet but that’s a really good idea. I’m going to do that.
AG: I would love to hear that. The Forgiveness practice spoke to me. I’ve been in therapy since I was four off and on, and I’m still in it. It has been for different kinds of things throughout my life. At 4, was for my parents getting divorced, and my mom was cognizant that therapy might help me through a hard time.
I realize to experience deeply true forgiveness, that’s a deep-down muscle. I am not quite there with that forgiveness muscle, so having that practice of repeatedly asking for forgiveness and giving forgiveness resonated.
I am curious about the asking for forgiveness part, which feels like a level-up from forgiving others. I thought about self-forgiveness, too. The forgiveness practice really got me thinking.
EL: It’s very freeing. When I first started doing it, it was very, very uncomfortable. When you’re thinking about a possible perpetrator or someone who caused you harm and now you’re asking them for forgiveness?! Are you kidding me?
I’ll give you an interesting example. I do past life work and in one of my past lives, I was an Egyptian Queen. My parents had died so I became the Queen at a very young age. The kingdom was kind of ruling everything on my behalf. I was just kind of a figurehead. They kept things from me. They didn’t really show me what was happening in the kingdom. There was this servant boy that was a friend of mine and he went around and he would bring me back intelligence of what was happening.
One day he came to me and said, “You’re going to have to see what’s going on in the dungeon. You’re going to be very upset.”
We snuck down to the dungeon. If anyone had caught us, we would have been in big trouble.
There were animals and humans who were enslaved, chained to the wall, being beaten and whipped to carry rocks or whatever they were doing. It was terrible.
I marched up to the guy in charge and said, I demand that you set them free immediately. I demand that this ends right now.”
He kind of laughed and all his henchmen were around and they laughed too. “Haha, you’re so cute. This is not your concern. You don’t need to worry about this.”
I said, “I do need to worry about this. I’m the Queen. This is my kingdom and I want a kingdom of peace. This is not going to happen. I order you to set them free.”
He said, “You know what? You’re right. I will I beg your pardon. I will.”
I said, “Good,” and I stormed off, and he threw a spear into my heart, and killed me.
As I lifted up and out of my body I said, I’m going to keep coming back to this planet over and over and over again until the injustices of this world are done.
Recently I was doing some energy healing around some stuff that was showing up in my life now. The person asked is this something that you have to deal with now or does it have to do with past lives? I immediately thought of that life and that guy. And, I wanted to do forgiveness work for that energy, for that lifetime, for that man. And, I ended up apologizing to him, which you would think, that’s absurd. Why would you apologize to someone who murdered you?
Because, you know what? I did humiliate him in front of his staff. I did order him to do something without a quiet conversation. I didn’t pull him to the side. I didn’t talk to him quietly. I didn’t plan it. So, I apologized for my part.
I am not suggesting that people who have had horrible trauma done to them played a part.
There’s something about saying if I did anything to hurt you, to humiliate you, to dishonor you, to withhold my love from you, or whatever it is, I’m going to ask for forgiveness first and then I’m going to offer my forgiveness that I set you free and release you.
There are people in my life that I needed to forgive that I went into that forgiveness meditation 20, 30, 40 times until I felt free of them. I don’t want to make it sound easy. Sometimes it’s one and done, but sometimes it takes 50 times to feel that release and relaxation in your own body.
AG: Some experiences go so far back and so deep that it makes sense it would take more than one session, and possibly tons or several to find that release.
EL: I’m sure you know this, but we’re not making what they did okay. We are releasing their energy and their hold on us so that we’re not carrying them around.
Soul-Searching Questions to Request Guidance From the Universe
AG: I love reincarnation and it overwhelms me. I spent a lot of my 20s and younger teenage years being terrified of having to come back to this sometimes-horrible experience. Do you have any wisdom around that? How do I just let this go and trust that the next life will be okay?
EL: I have three things to say about that. First of all, I hear a lot of people say “oh to be young, if I could go back in time to be young again,” and I say, “Hell, no. Hell, no!” I finally got here! I would never go back.
Second of all, I’ve been suicidal in my life a couple times and the reason why I’m grateful that it didn’t go through is because I have this vision of going right back to the beginning and whatever I’m here to learn, whatever I’m here to overcome, whatever I’m here to do, let’s just do it because I’m not coming back.
The third, that’s why I ask the questions in meditation regularly, “What am I here to learn? Who am I here to be? What am I here to do? Give it to me, show me the way, give me the instructions.”
I want to be in my full power. I want to be in my full authority. I want to be as effective as I possibly can because I want to do it right. Let’s just get it right.
In closing our conversation, Ellie invited me to come out and hug a cow if that ever would ever work out. After Juno passed away, I dreamt an orange cow held me close . It was very comforting. Let’s all go to The Gentle Barn when we have the chance .
In the meantime, read Cow Hug Therapy. I think you’ll love it.
