Dr Edward: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Whole Energy Body Balance podcast, where we explore all kinds of possibilities in practice that bring greater healing, connection, empowerment and harmony to pets, people and horses, and we inspire. We aim to inspire you and to challenge you. If you want to grow and create positive changes and healing in your life and the lives of the beings you care for, you're definitely in the right place. So I'm Dr Edward, the Healing Vet, your host. I help deeply caring people, pets and horses unfold profound healing and healthy relationships through somatic awareness, loving touch, intuitive perception, kind training and energy healing. I practice as an intuitive vet. Today we have got a very special guest and I'm very excited to speak to a colleague, a holistic colleague, dr Megan Barrett, who is all kinds of awesome. I would like to ask you just to introduce yourself before we get started and tell us who you are and what you do.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 1:09

Yeah, thanks for having me. So I'm Dr Barrett and I live in Hawaii. I'm a veterinarian, I've moved fully into holistic practice for the past several years and I work out of my own practice now, which is called Muse Holistic Veterinary Care, and here we do kind of a similar type of spectrum of modalities and services that you were just listing off. So you know body work and intuitive healing, helping pets and their animals and their people to feel good, and you know connect with each other and overcome illnesses and physical problems through acupuncture, physical therapy, and one of the modalities that I use that I think is a bit more unique is sound therapy. So that's what I think, a bit of the focus that we're doing today.

Dr Edward: 2:11

Yeah, I just had to rescue my kitten because he got tangled up in all the cables.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 2:15

Sorry, I disappeared.

Dr Edward: 2:17

But he was kind of all like I'm stuck, I'm stuck in the cable. Yeah, sound is a big part of my life because I'm also a singer, songwriter, musician, so sound and music is something that is an everyday beauty and thread deep, deep thread in my life. So I'll be very interested to go with that. But before we dig into that, and I just wanted to ask you, you know, why do you do what you do in terms of being one of us lovely, kind of weird type veterinarians, a little bit on the fringes of orthodoxy, shall we say, and what led you into your path as a holistic practitioner?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 3:01

Yeah, that's a great question. So I think I've always been a little bit not like a type A, but not type A person. I was raised by two symphony musicians and so I was a musician from a young age and I thought that's what I was going to do with my life. But my path kind of led me more down the you know, studying sciences and enjoying that aspect of things, and so, you know, just being a free spirited person, I always had two sides of myself where it wasn't just wanting to study science and medicine, I also wanted to pursue music and dance and these creative hobbies as well. So when I was in vet school it was trying to find a balance between those two things. But I was teaching dance, pretty high level, like aerial type contortiony stuff, and I got all sorts of injuries with my neck and back through doing that. So one of my professors, dr Narda Robinson, you may be familiar with her. She had started the integrative medicine department at the university that I was at, the Colorado State.

Dr Edward: 4:18

University. Oh wow, Did you like have an integrative medicine department at your university.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 4:24

That is so cool. Yeah, Colorado State is a pretty innovative vet school, you know. I would say I still wish they had more in their curriculum, but we did have a lecture about acupuncture during our neuro class, and so you know, they're coming along.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 4:40

But anyhow, she started working on me because she was a human practitioner for pain management and acupuncture and then she became a vet as well. So, through having sessions with her and other people to try to deal with these issues I was having, I started doing yoga and I started working with like a shamanic practitioner to heal the energetic problem of my shoulder pain and just really kind of went into this whole nother realm of medical care. That's not conventional at all. You know, my experience too is that the conventional treatment I received was, you know, just referrals for surgery and pain medication, and then the surgeon said I couldn't even have surgery because it wasn't bad enough, even though I was in pain all the time. So you know, it's like when those are the options you're given, you really have no choice but to look elsewhere. And so, through my own experience of that, that's the I wanted to be the kind of doctor that had tools that could go beyond the conventional toolbox, which can be pretty limited sometimes years.

Dr Edward: 6:05

Western medicine helped with some of the spectrum of symptoms early on, and then they kind of said, well, take these antidepressants. And the doctor said it's all in your head. And, um, only time I've ever come close to having a panic attack was in that doctor's surgery. Um, some a few visits after that. So, and and it's really interesting to me too that you have this deep thread of somatic awareness and movement with dance, which I had, not through dance but through competing on horses, oh, yeah, I was doing that too Were you yeah that was my first activity that got me all injured.

Dr Edward: 6:44

Oh God, the horses are very good at helping us break bits of our bodies With music. Are you still musically active?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 6:54

Yeah, I'm actually more musically active than ever because I grew up playing violin and flute and then in high school I was really into jazz and I played bass in a jazz band. So that's what I thought I wanted to move to New York City and be a jazz musician. But, um, things kind of took different turns and I ended up focusing more on school and got, you know, decided to want to go to vet school and, um, I was going to a lot of concerts but not playing a lot of music. And then, since I've been done with school the past several years, I've been more into folk music and so now I play the harp and flutes in the Irish traditional Irish bands, and then I also learned to produce music and do some DJing as well. So you know just a little bit of everything. That's pretty cool.

Dr Edward: 7:52

Yeah, a harp is a beautiful instrument. So let's dig into today, because we've got some interesting juicy topics to talk about and we're going to probably get a little bit woo here. I suspect here or you know, I don't actually think it's woo, I think it is spiritual and healing science that the scientific orthodoxy just gets a real bad headache and wants to go and sulk in a corner when you show them evidence that it works. But that's, that's another story. So we are exploring sound and music therapy for pets today and I think we're also really exploring healing and energy. Is the sense I get from from what you've talked about in your responses.

Dr Edward: 8:31

Yeah, absolutely so then, what are the most important things about bringing sound into animals lives as a profoundly healing modality?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 8:48

Yeah, definitely, so you know, before we talk about bringing it into their lives. One of the things I like to start with is, you know, becoming aware, as a pet guardian or animal guardian, of the sounds that are already happening and the environments that our pets live in in our homes. You know they're there 24 hours a day for the most part, unless they go out with us, and then even then, um, there can be noises that they experience. You go out for a walk and there's a siren going by, and you know traffic and all sorts of things that we could call noise pollution.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 9:30

And so, with animals, you know they're very sensitive and it's scientifically known that they have a broader range of hearing frequencies than we do, and their hearing sensitivity to the volume is much more sensitive than ours as well.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 9:47

So, as their guardians, one of the important things that we need to pay attention to is the types of sounds they're exposed to, either on a regular basis or on those times, like you know, new Year's Eve, when it's super loud and there's fireworks and they're having a meltdown because of how loud it is, and yeah, so I think like a sound inventory is a good starting point for people to do is just spend some time sitting at home and, you know, even write down the sounds that you're hearing. So is there like construction next door or is there? Your appliances are beeping every five minutes and you know the phone notifications and some people you know they'll leave the TV or radio on for their pets and just really like getting into your pet's mind and thinking like would I want to listen to noise of like someone talking in a language I don't understand, you know, for eight hours while my person is gone when I'm just trying to sleep.

Dr Edward: 10:54

What about the sounds that are outside our band of hearing, so infrasonics and subsonics? How do you audit them for your animals?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 11:04

That's a good question and I think you know you may. There may be some devices that you could get to detect, um, those types of frequencies, but I think it's also just watching your pet and paying attention to if they seem disrupted by something that you don't perceive. I've heard that some of those plug-in smart devices actually emit those types of frequencies that we can't hear, and I've heard stories of people who introduce something like that and immediately the pets are acting very agitated and then they remove it and things go back to normal.

Dr Edward: 11:46

so you know our technology is a big source of some of these frequencies, like you mentioned yeah, um, I know I've got a friend who's an electrical engineer and a lot of the power supplies, particularly for cheaper things, uh have a lot of noise pollution that because humans can't hear it, they don't worry about controlling. Yeah, it's a. It's a real thing definitely yeah that's not. That's not even getting into the emfs and that other kind of right.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 12:19

I just popped into my head too vibrational pollution, which can also profoundly cause yeah, yeah, I mean I think it's just part of being a holistic pet owner is just trying to think outside of the box of, like, how to make this home environment as comfortable as we can for our pets who are living here. So, um, you know, making sure that they have environmental enrichment and you know, I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, but that's one aspect of it is being aware of the soundscape that your pets live in and, um, making sure that it's seems like the things that are happening don't seem bothersome to them look, and we specialize in tangents here on this podcast.

Dr Edward: 13:04

By the way, if anything interesting comes up, we'll be like a I don't know, like a foxhound after a fox going, exploring little sidebars.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 13:13

I like doing that yeah, yeah, there's a lot of those, yeah so sound awareness.

Dr Edward: 13:18

So that's the first key thing is really tuning in to your home and your environment. Um, and some of these sounds that you find you will be able to do something about and some you won't. So what do you do about sounds that are impacting on your pets in a negative way but they're outside your power to control? Do you have any tips or hints for people to deal with that sort of thing?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 13:41

Yeah, and I think, like what you're saying, there's kind of a spectrum of control. So, um, you know, maybe one thing you could control would be trying to take your dog out for walks when there's it's not rush hour and there's not like everyone on the road. You know you may want to take them on a shorter walk so they can use the bathroom and then do your big neighborhood walk when it quiets down. Um, for example, and you know it's going to be hard to control certain things like New Year's and fireworks, but planning ahead for those times, whether using like, a CBD product or going on a little vacation to somewhere else where it might be quieter, and just being aware of the impact that those events have yeah, it can mess the dog's nervous system up for weeks to have.

Dr Edward: 14:31

I know and it can also exacerbate and generalize all sorts of anxieties and things like that. Have you ever had any clients use the pornix sound cancelling headphones for dogs?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 14:44

I haven't had anyone try them, but I've seen them.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 14:48

Yeah, I've suggested them to a few people and I haven't actually had any direct feedback, but that's one possible kind of avenue shell, if you look from the top down, and I've been reaching out to see if they'll ship worldwide yet and I don't think they're at that point. It's still like doing a kickstarter campaign. But you know, that's a cool concept is just to have a place that's semi soundproof so that the dog can be in there during the loud event and you can try to do some almost like a crate training so that they know that's a safe, good place to go, where it's not going to be so loud hey, that's cool.

Dr Edward: 15:35

I hadn't really thought of that so much. But that is um definitely, and there's a few other options out there too. I'm just having a quick google, but there's a few others yeah sound levels. Little, little kind of cubby houses that are sound insulated for your pets yeah, I mean in horses they'll put the um earplugs in.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 15:54

You may have seen that yeah sometimes, like at horse shows, you know they'll and you know I don't know if that's really practical with a dog. Uh, I haven't honestly tried putting earplugs into a dog even if you tried it, yeah, or the headphones, and you know, just trying like doing what you can, because it really does make a big difference.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 16:24

Holding your Sony sound cancelling here for the adult ears that's right, but yeah, you know other types of like noises you can't control. This might be a time where, then, you would bring in some type of music or sound to try to mask outside noises, so even like a air conditioner or a white noise machine or just putting on some calming music, which we can discuss. What would constitute calming music for a dog or cat?

Dr Edward: 16:52

well, I suppose that kind of segues us into what's the good things, what are the good sounds? What are sounds that make positive, beneficial, healing, calming impacts for our animals?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 17:05

Yeah, the way I see it is, pets are kind of like infants, like babies, where music that would be, where they like a lullaby, where you could actually fall asleep to it, or the types of things that, yeah, actually put you to sleep, which is not the type of music that a lot of people enjoy listening to for fun, because it might be a little considered boring.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 17:29

But that's the whole point is that if it's boring, then it won't be stimulating your nervous system to pay attention and listen. You know a lot of the music genres that are popular. They have a lot of different frequencies going on, a lot of percussion elements, and they're very busy. You know there's a lot of elements to the sound and they're very busy. You know there's a lot of elements to the sound, which is amazing as a human, where we can interpret what that noise means, but it's not doesn't seem that, um, animals can understand music the way that we can in terms of maybe, um, you know, like knowing, oh, this is rock and roll, like this is awesome, like I love this. To them it may be more of like types of collections of frequencies or sounds.

Dr Edward: 18:18

Yeah, or it's stimulating or calming would be kind of the spectrum of where they fall so I did see a thing on facebook the other day where there's this um farm that had kind of punk punk concerts and stuff and there was one goat that came to every concert and was right at the front. It loved it. That's great. Yeah, I mean it's the.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 18:39

That's the cool thing about life and animals is like there's always anomalies and that's one of the fun things you get to learn to know your pet and I've had a client where they said they swear that their dog loves jazz music. They put it on and he just seems like he's in a great mood and so, yeah, it's good to have fun and experiment and not assume.

Dr Edward: 19:03

But what it seems to be.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 19:04

The general thing is almost like a lullaby type of quiet, calm, slow music might be the one that would help to be calming kind of lower frequencies, slower tempos, simpler kind of melodies, that sort of thing.

Dr Edward: 19:20

But just, I had a beautiful cat called pavadi who unfortunately escaped from our house not long after moved here and got run over on the road. But she loved me whistling. She would come running and purring and wrap herself around my legs. Every time I whistled it was. I've never had another animal that showed that kind of response. So yeah, animals have individual kind of tastes and predilections.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 19:44

Yeah, sounds yeah yeah, and I'm sure you know people who have birds might like certain types of music, like flute music or something like that. So it's good to just experiment with your pet and like put on different music and see what they seem to fall asleep. To what do they seem wagging their tail or purring?

Dr Edward: 20:07

you might find out something very unexpected, like how you did with the whistling do you, do you, what are your thoughts about sound as a as healing vibration and actually affecting the, the energy systems and consciousness, not just through hearing and kind of the, the relaxing lullaby type thing, but as a about, you know, as a real healing modality that shifts energy and frequency?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 21:39

yeah, I think that's a whole nother awesome topic to explore, because I think they there's a quote that's like in the beginning there was sound and so sound is one of the most fundamental things in the universe I'm just gonna pause for a second and see if I can ask this builder with a machine outside to stop being loud for a bit.

Dr Edward: 22:03

okay, everybody, we're just back here after a little break for sound pollution and having to manage sound pollution and ask some builders to turn off their loud digger machines, and my little kitten just jumped up and ran away with all of that too. So this is really interesting and like oh, here we are, but we were talking about sound and vibration in affecting energy systems and healing at deeper levels. I'd love to hear what you think about that and anything you might be able to share with our listeners.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 22:38

Yeah, so sound is one of the fundamental elements of our universe and it's something that anything with a nervous system that's. One of the first things that has evolved is the ability to perceive vibrations, maybe not having an auditory system to hear, but if you can feel vibrations then you can detect something, things around you. You know, if you're like an earthworm with a very simple nervous system, they can probably feel vibrations, so that they can, you know, orient themselves to get closer to things they want to and move away from things that seem threatening. And so you know, from a very primitive standpoint, the detection of sound and through vibration and that sensory experience is going to be very primitive and primal type of thing. And so I think, given that it's not just that you hear music and sound, you also feel it in your body.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 23:45

And so you know, and that's like on many levels. So it's not just a feeling, sensory level, it's also can be on emotional levels, on spiritual levels and I think, on a cellular level, where the actual movement of the wave of vibration can have an effect on the water that's within each cell and also on, you know, these mechanisms that we don't even understand, how the intelligence and the innate. You know quantum workings of cells, like how does every cell know what its job is within the body?

Dr Edward: 24:23

you know, we don't really fully understand that yet yeah, and it's this kind of instantaneous communication throughout the body that is faster than way, faster than nervous transmission, that science doesn't have a handle on um, the whole biophotonic field and charge of living beings.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 24:41

There's all this more subtle stuff that's really cool, yeah yeah, I mean being like if anyone who's had a sound bath, where there's those types of instruments like a sound bowl or a gong and you're just bathing in the frequencies of these sacred instruments that it like washes not just over you but also through you, can feel it and experience that and you end up feeling kind of like a reset of your nervous system lot of the times, and you know it can lead to an experience where you can drop into like a meditative state and have more of a, you know, different awareness, different state of mind and brain waves, which is really cool.

Dr Edward: 25:30

It sure is. So do you do sound baths for animals?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 25:33

Yeah, I do that's. One of the really fun things that we do for some of our patient client groups is that, you know, the owner can have a lay down and get the sound bath while their pets are experiencing it with them. They can cuddle together and experience that, and it's very cool to see the shifts that people experience.

Dr Edward: 26:01

What sort of instruments and things are you using for these sound baths for people and animals?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 26:06

So the ones that I like to use are the sound bowls and my harp, and sometimes I'll use different types of flutes. Flutes are cool. What? What kind of flutes do you play? So the one I use mostly for sound therapy is a Native American style flute, so it has a really nice woody, earthy sound, not so much the metallic concert flute that just has a different tone.

Dr Edward: 26:39

Do you play shakuhachis or any of those enblon type flutes? No, not that particular type yeah, they're pretty cool too, okay, uh, do you have recorded stuff for pets? Have you recorded? Yeah, any kind of music? Awesome. We better tell everyone where that is, so they can go and start it's yeah, my youtube channel.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 27:00

I have some videos. There's one that's like a nine hour long, um, you know sound therapy type of thing, where that's the type of thing I encourage people to put on and leave on if you go to work or you know there's some chaos happening um, maybe big, you know group of friends coming over and you have a pet that's not super, uh, liking strangers.

Dr Edward: 27:26

Then you could put them in another part of the house with calming music like that type playing, just to encourage them to relax and have some other noises doing a little note here to put this in the show notes so that people can find it if they're listening or watching, because we also pop this up on youtube. It will make sure that the link through to your youtube channel is there and people can go and, um, you know, start beaming some positive healing sounds into the animals lives yeah, these days, you know it's.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 28:03

It's great because they're with youtube and the internet, I think it's becoming more popular and known that you there's all sorts of like videos that are calming music for people or pets, or studying. It's just. It's great that it's becoming more popular to have ambient music playing.

Dr Edward: 28:25

Absolutely. Now you know, like any kind of medicine, any kind of good medicine, the more you integrate it into being a part of life, a consistent, beautiful part of life, the better and stronger the effect. So how do you support people in making positive, healing sounds and music? You know part of the fabric of their everyday life and their pets.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 28:56

Yeah Well, whenever I have my appointments, my practice is basically kind of set up like a spa and so it's as quiet as I can get it to be. You know, obviously there's street noise coming in once in a while, but I have tried to keep it quiet in here and have some calming music playing during, and it's pretty remarkable to see how pets can relax when they're in this type of environment. I know we'll do some aromatherapy as well, but it's just like the people can see the shift and really the biggest thing is that there's such a huge difference between when they come here and when they go to a normal vet hospital, and that's honestly a huge.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 29:41

Reason why I started my own practice was because trying to do acupuncture and massage on pets in a hospital is almost a waste of time because they're so fearful and it's so chaotic and there's noise, pollution and smells and so much going on that like they're, they're pretty much trembling the whole time, like 80 of the pets, even if you're doing what you can in that environment to have it be nice for them. Whereas here, when it quiet, we have calming music and lavender and stuff and you know we're doing our like tea, touch and the calming modalities to bring them down even before we start, because we have time for that with longer appointments. Then the pets are like asleep during the treatments and it's and it's remarkable to see the difference that it makes. So, with all that said, I think people will see that difference and then I'll explain to them how you can take these experience and bring that into your home and explore online and find some ambient music that you like and maybe just have it on sometimes at home.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 31:00

One of the things I really like is to have it be quiet and maybe put some nice music on when pets are eating, because that's a time when I think it's important for your nervous system to be regulated so that the digestion occurs in a calm way without so many stress hormones going on. But sometimes when I'm preparing their food, you know I'm like banging around the kitchen making my own food and making all this noise, when, if I just put their food down and step away and put some music on and go do something else, I feel like it's just nice for them. You know, it's like going out to dinner and you have this nice atmosphere, it's quiet, nice music playing, instead of like being in a fast food restaurant where it's just like you're just shoving food in your face and there's noise and it's not as relaxing or pleasant of an experience.

Dr Edward: 31:53

So I got another just thing that's popped into my head to ask you um, so you can tune your instruments to what we call concert pitch, and there's what's the other yeah so concert pitch is 440 hertz yeah and then the one that's often used for sound healing is 432.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 32:17

Which?

Dr Edward: 32:17

one do you use?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 32:19

It depends. So sometimes I have some videos that are tuned at 432. I also have some that are at 440. So it's a pretty subtle difference, but it can supposedly make a difference in the way that the nervous system responds to the music so I can, I can actually switch out the little blocks on it to change that frequency yeah, but you know it's a bit of pain.

Dr Edward: 32:48

I'd have to have two different guitars for two different things and I have I have played around in the past, but also makes it hard then to go and collaborate sometimes because you gotta yeah there's a small number of people doing the 432, but I believe that there is a qualitative, qualitative difference in in how the vibration affects the body with the two different kind of pitches you tune your instrument to.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 33:14

For sure, yeah, it's a fun thing to play around with as a musician. But uh, yeah, I ran into some technical issues when we were creating a sound bath, like a longer sound bath, and so all the had some digital synths added into it. But we had to go into the like the back end of the synth and change up the tuning and it was kind of challenging. So if they're not all matched up, then it's probably not worth doing it. Like you said, so do you?

Dr Edward: 33:49

you you do a therapeutic touch is part of your practice. Do you do energy healing as well?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 33:57

Yeah, I do some energy healing like chakra balancing and meditations with like people and their pets so they can enhance their bond together, and maybe do some like meditative journeying to you know, get on that level of like why this animal came into your life as a kind of a totem for you or like a teacher, what kind of lessons they have for you, because I think they all come into our lives for different reasons and it can be pretty profound when you explore that yeah, that's something that I've been writing a bit about the last few weeks on on my socials is about the, you know, soul contracts and telepathic communication between humans and animals, which you know is not necessarily just thoughts, it's feelings and all kinds of experience of consciousness, and I've also been um getting into a bit.

Dr Edward: 34:56

There's a thing called the telepathy tapes which if you haven't heard that podcast, you will will want to everyone who's listening. You will all want to go and listen to this because this is nonverbal kids who are showing demonstrably highly telepathic communication with their parents and with network.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 35:14

I just heard about this, like last night, for the first time.

Dr Edward: 35:18

I'm getting tingles all over me here Synchronicity yeah. And in one of the later ones there is a whole podcast on telepathic um with animals with animal communication and stuff like that. It is cool and you know, I suppose I I sort of think of a lot of this is that all of our communication is vibration and it's all music in a way.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 35:42

It's just that sometimes we're talking with our voices but sometimes, when I put my hands on an animal and then I suddenly get massively uncomfortable feelings of trauma or sadness or whatever, that's music too right, it's just music that needs to be tuned up into something more harmonious yeah, that's a really nice way to think of it and I think one of the best things that you can do for your pets emotionally is just self-care and taking good care of yourself because, like they're, they're reflecting all the things that we feel and I think they try to take it on and process it because they're just compassionate, pure beings.

Dr Edward: 36:25

But, um, you know, if we're not taking good care of ourselves and having good energy hygiene, it can kind of affect them too yeah, um, I think some animals do actively take stuff on, but I'm I also think a lot of people get really guilty when they think about that. Um, so I sort of more say, well, if, if you're in a relationship with anyone, you affect each other and there's no way around it.

Dr Edward: 36:49

It doesn't matter. And the closer and the deeper the relationship, the more intimately you affect each other, and I think our relationships with animals are often the closest, deepest relationships that we have in our lives for a lot of people out there, Very much, yeah, especially nowadays, Most people their pets.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 37:08

They call them their soul animal. You know, it's like I think the connections are deeper now than they ever were in general for a lot of people.

Dr Edward: 37:18

Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, so what do you think is humanity's biggest blind spot when it comes to your work in helping and healing animals and humans and our ongoing journey of hopefully evolving into a planet full of beings that can actually be kind to each other and care for the planet and stop being so destructive?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 37:52

stop being so destructive. Well, I think that the blind spot comes with just how busy we are and how the awareness that we sometimes of being aware of how our human soundscapes and our human routines can affect them. You know it's, they're really, I think, experiencing the same environments, that we are in a much different level with how sensitive they are. And you know they're. Although they're hearing, their nervous systems are similar because they're mammals. They're also. You know it's different, and so you know all the behavior issues and stress that can manifest as health problems. I think comes a lot from this chronic sympathetic overdrive that can be a result of overstimulation. That's happening, you know, all day, for all of us and especially for them. You know all the noises they were. They were designed to be living out in nature where it's pretty much quiet, besides the occasional noise which they have, that orienting response that they're always like what was that? What was that? That's part of how they were wired.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 39:17

And so when there's constant noise and all of these, things that are like especially living in an urban environment or suburbs constant noise, and all of these things that are like especially living in an urban environment or suburbs where there's pretty much noise constantly. It can really lead to like an underlying chronic stress that we don't even pick up on. So I think that's a big blind spot.

Dr Edward: 39:41

And that would be affecting all of us too, right. Absolutely blind spot, and that would be affecting all of us too. Right, absolutely humans.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 39:47

So the more we clean up the soundscape for animals, that probably the happier and healthier our nervous systems are going to be as well yeah, I mean, it makes a big difference if I start my day by like waking up and putting on some music and like sitting down and petting my cats for a few minutes Um, even if I don't do like a whole meditation or anything and just like have that be the beginning. Instead of oh, you pick up your phone and like you start making coffee and banging around. It's just like instant chaos. I think it's like we all need to take better care of ourselves and our households with just like you have to actively foster a peaceful environment. Otherwise, with the inundation of technology and devices and stuff, it's like it's not the norm to have a peaceful environment anymore. Unless you live out in the country, it's not the norm to have a peaceful environment anymore, unless you live out in the country.

Dr Edward: 40:48

And when it comes to self-care, I'd imagine you have a pretty comprehensive, regular, intensive self-care kind of practice. What could you say to people that might inspire them to love themselves enough to do that? And it is hard work to do real self-care. It is ongoing hard work and often you don't feel like doing it and you have to do it, no matter how you feel what. What would you say to people?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 41:12

because you know, one of my big things is your self-care is your pet self-care, so you better get on with it yeah, I think some people like what you just said, they're more motivated to do it if it's for someone that they love, especially like a pet. It's like, do it for them, you know, take good care of yourself so that, like, you'll be there for them and you can be the the pet parent that they need. Um, but, yeah, I mean, I think having support systems is really helpful. So, so, trying to, if you have goals like have an accountability partner, that you're doing things, with.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 41:51

And you know, I think one of the big things is just sleep and exercise. If people could focus on those two things um sleep and exercise, and just then from there you know, eating healthy, those three things really could make the biggest difference in my opinion, for most people's well-being.

Dr Edward: 42:13

I'd have to say that doing five mornings a week of resistance exercise and Qigong is probably one of the key things in my recovery from chronic fatigue. And you know, six or seven years into that, I'm still gaining benefits steadily from doing that too.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 42:32

Yeah, that's amazing. When I wrote my book a couple years ago, it was really crazy because I stopped doing almost all my activities. It was like in the middle of COVID and I was just sitting and typing and just I would wake up early and sit in tight for hours and I started having hip pain and I was going to the doctors. They couldn't figure out what was wrong. Like nothing seemed to be wrong, but it hurt all the time and at the end of the day it turned out that it was just from being inactive. So I think it's like inactivity can be one of the biggest uh sources of pain, just because we're not, we're not doing enough and if your muscles aren't strong, then they're going to hurt oh, absolutely, movement and alignment.

Dr Edward: 43:24

You know, a big part of my practices is, is somatic awareness. And you know, am I, have I slumped? Have I slumped? Have I slumped 50 times a day, have I? Well, I've, nearly always I've slumped, at least a little bit every time I turn into my body. And just relaxing and straightening up changes your day and changes your health. But, yeah, activity. Humans are not made to sit on their backsides and do nothing.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 43:51

No, way, yeah, and and our pets can be one of the most biggest motivators to get us out. Like, especially if you have a dog, every dog should be going out on walks, you know, multiple times a day if can, and so, and even if you have an indoor cat, like they need playtime and interaction. So just remembering that they need exercise as much as we do and using that as like a positive motivators so that you know you want to get them out so that they can be strong and healthy, and that will help to get you out too, and it's just like it's beneficial for everyone.

Dr Edward: 44:27

It sure is. So we're coming to the end of this. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for your time and energy today. I really appreciate it. So we finish off with a really beautiful question what is the change that you want to be and inspire others to be in this world that we share?

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 44:49

I think that I would want, after all this uh, to just inspire people to be more active with their listening, and not just to music, but also to the world around them. Listening to their pets, paying attention to the signals that they're giving us you know, the nonverbal signals and, in that way, trying to foster that awareness for yourself, really helps people to nurture their pets in a way that will honor their sacred nature and respecting how sensitive they are to these things that we talked about, like sounds and noise, pollution and vibration, and this can really help to create a better environment for everyone well, I can jump on board with that.

Dr Edward: 45:38

I think deep listening is something that humanity. The more they've moved away from the Indigenous hunter-gatherer type lifestyle, the more we have lost that capacity for deep body listening. You know listening and feeling and sensing and knowing the world and other beings and all the living energies inside ourselves. But I think the good news is that if you're willing to put in time and effort in an intelligent way, it's absolutely possible to reopen these, what I think are really beautifully divine human capacities.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 46:19

Yeah, we don't want our nervous systems getting numbed out by all the overstimulation, so it's like it takes work to regulate that.

Dr Edward: 46:27

It does.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 46:28

To stay sensitive in a way that's not harmful.

Dr Edward: 46:33

Stay sensitive, stay regulated, be willing to embrace, endure and increase your capacity for healthy discomfort all these things that we need to do in this, I don't know extraordinarily challenging and beautiful world that we share at this time in humans' evolution.

Dr. Meghan Barrett: 46:51

Yeah, it's an interesting time, for sure.

Dr Edward: 46:54

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Everyone check out Megan's YouTube channel. I know I will be. I know I'll be getting in there and maybe some of my morning meditations will be for the animals rather than for me. I listen to a lot of mantra, mantra, kirtan type stuff in the mornings which my animals do seem to enjoy. But thank you so much, um and thanks for having me For all of you out there.

Dr Edward: 47:26

If you enjoyed the podcast, let us know. We'd love to hear from you, and if there's any topics that you'd like to hear from or any other guests you'd like to recommend, please let me know. And for now we'll say goodbye, and from Megan and from me, please give your pets a lovely pat from us.