Last week I blogged about working with Universal Laws to change how we protect animals. I posed, “When it comes to protecting animals, we need to collectively understand and work the Universal Laws in how we think about and relate to animals. For those of us working and advocating to protect animals everyday, if we go through our days thinking and believing that humans are cruel and/or insensitive to animals, then the Universe will provide us with situations where people are cruel and/or insensitive to animals.” The answer is to change our thoughts and beliefs so that we expand to new ideas and do better. While I am not sure where this will lead, I have had some epiphanies along the way and will be posting them as they occur.

This past week, I delved into more Universal Laws and the Law of Non-Resistance struck a cord with me as it relates to animals. The Law of Non-Resistance tells us that if we go through life not resisting things, we will be open to bringing in what we want (our goal). On the other hand, if we resist, we push away goodness and our goal. People who are non-resistant “respond” to people and situations and move on, whereas people who resist “react” to people and situations, thus bringing more of what they are resisting.

In a lesson on this topic from Bob Proctor and Mary Morrisey, they spoke about this law in relation to fighting against things, arguing or opposing situations, all of which create obstacles, resistance and more of what we don’t want. The Law, instead, asks that we keep our eye on our objective and simply move beyond the person or situation that is the obstacle. We all know that we cannot change other people; we can only change ourselves and how we perceive events. And as we become more non-resistant, we may be tested with more obstacles so that we can practice more non-resistance. When this occurs, look at the obstacle as a stepping stone toward your goal.

Those words resonated with me, particularly as it relates to a situation I learned of this week at a shelter in Georgia where over 70 dogs were euthanized in one day, in spite of several rescue groups offering to help. While the facts of why this happened are still unclear, and my heart breaks for those dogs and the people who tried to help, how can we use non-resistance to help in this situation? In my communications with one particular person who was devastated by the event and wanted to take strong, firm and understandably angry action against the shelter, I advised to instead approach the shelter with an attitude of how can we help in the future to save more animals? What can we do better to help? We’ve all heard “you get more with honey than with vinegar.” This attitude disarms resistance. It is the equivalent of saying to an angry person who is yelling at you, “I’m sorry.” It disarms them. And that is exactly what the Law of Non-Resistance is, and was the advice that I was handing out in the face of a tragedy. Whereas if this shelter is approached with anger, their natural response will be defensive and that may inhibit the animals from being helped in the future.

Since we can only change ourselves and our perception, why not approach difficult situations involving animals with good in our hearts (after all, it is our goodness that has us helping animals in the first place); do not hate or anger, and instead send love to the situation to make it better. If you are new to the teachings of the Universal Laws, you may disagree and disbelieve that we can approach with non-resistance when animals have been harmed. And it can be challenging to change how we think during times of stress. But think of this … When we fight against things, we attract more of what we are fighting about (because we are resisting and we are putting our energy toward it). When you bring out the sword, you perish by the sword. I’m not saying that bad deeds (especially those that break the law) should go unpunished, or that we should allow ourselves (or animals) to be abused or treated badly. As a former prosecutor, law and punishment has its place. But in our overall goal to protect animals, lets stop fighting (even within the ranks of animal protection), stop focusing on the bad or what others are doing wrong, and lets focus on the goal of a more compassionate world and the good that is happening through our work. For every animal that is harmed, one is saved; for every shelter pet that is euthanized; one is adopted. Let’s have laser focus on the goal of helping animals, celebrate the victories, and not put our energy into resisting the obstacles.

I will end this with a powerful quote from Raymond Holliwell, “Remove and dissolve every obstacle by blessing it and being willing to understand it. Mark it no longer a stumbling block, but a stepping stone leading to your highest good.” So when we learn of things happening to animals that upset us, and knowing that we cannot change the people that inflict harm but that we can change how we respond, let’s aim to send out positive energy rather than negative energy filled with anger and vengeance. Because everything and everybody is energy, lets infuse our world with positivity and collectively we will overpower negativity. While we cannot save those animals that are gone, we can use each situation as a stepping stone to get us to the next level to help more animals.

If you are interested in learning more of how the Universal Laws can benefit your life and/or your work with animals, check out my coaching services that are based on Universal Laws and the Law of Attraction.