Onyx, A Compassionate Medium, and Some Healing

You don't want to miss this episode!!!  

This is a very special, emotional episode for us.  Hunter, Addison, and I sat down and had a session with Tami Hendrix, a Compassionate Medium and Healer.   We lost our beloved Onyx, a 4-year-old black lab, suddenly and unexpectedly on Labor Day.  We have had tremendous heartbreak these last few months as we have had to immediately navigate life without her and try to make sense of what happened.  

I was referred to Tami by my therapist and I am so grateful that I was.  Since I have been following Tami I have learned a little bit about Onyx that I didn't know from some questions I had written into Tami early on and did a free reading on her bi-monthly classes she does.  I shared this with my family and Addison and Hunter wanted to ask questions as well so we did a session with Tami.

What did this session entail:

1. Great things about Onyx.
2. How she came to use.
3. How she died.
4. How to keep her energy with us by writing her letters, keeping a dream journal, and noticing when she is visiting us.
5. Where she went after she died.
6. Did she know we were with her when she died?
7. Why she didn't like to swim
8. And will she be ok if we get a puppy?

Within all of these topics, we heard from Onyx as she answered many of these questions. This was an incredible session and it really helped us start to move on and accept what happened even though we miss her terribly and our hearts are still broken.

The kinds of things that Onyx shared with us through Tami were incredible. It made us laugh and cry.  

If you are an animal lover we know you will relate and be able to empathize with this episode. We would love to know what you took away, what you learned, or what you thought.   

Drive-A-Logue link at Bark! https://www.bark.us/blog/drive-a-logue/?srsltid=AfmBOop-1zhhdhu3tNfMSZfR5oMYS6BZMtDnWpsAt4hIIiWFaZMrUlUJ

Lauren's Book, My Dad Died From ALS and How I Found Joy 30 Years Later
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2J15M3Z

CONNECT WITH LAUREN AND HER FAMILY

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Transcript

*AI Transcribed*

00:08
Hello and welcome to Navigating Joy Together. My name is Lauren and I'm here with my family. Mark. Addison. Hunter and our dog Onyx. Each episode you will hear about our experiences with navigating joy together in our family, as well as tips you can bring back to your family. Thanks for spending time with us. Now let's get to it.

00:44
everybody about Drive-A-Log. Drive-A-Log is an incredible communication game that was created by Adam Lee Brooks who is a huge advocate for communication, positive communication with teens, with themselves, and with their parents. And he also is an advocate with learning about screen time and appropriate amount of screen time and social media use and so forth.

01:11
There is an episode with him that I've done recently. I really recommend that you take a look and listen to it. It's phenomenal. He's such a phenomenal guest and he is doing amazing things with our teens in this day and age. Anyways, we have Drive-A-Log. It's a great game. There's three different levels depending on the age of your children and it creates awesome positive communication between you and your children while you're driving. Your children do not need to be sitting on their screens while they're driving.

01:41
I really make it very clear to our children that they cannot use their screens when we're driving. If we're going on longer trips, we come up with a time limit, but they definitely don't need to be sitting on their screens for hours. And that's such a great time for us to chat and talk, right? We're not looking at each other face to face. A lot of great conversation can come out of those talks. So take a look at the link in the show notes. You can get 20% off.

02:09
It's such an awesome game. And there's questions in there that are fun and some that you might not even think about asking just to create really fun conversations. And there are some serious questions too, that as parents we should have conversations about with our children. So go to that link, order it, share it with your friends. It's really a great game. Hello, I have Addison and Hunter with me and we are gonna share with you an experience we had yesterday that was...

02:38
Very surreal but incredible, I think. We'll have to see what their experience was as well. Mark was not a part of this as he was not home, but we wanna share with you what we did. We had a appointment, well, let's see. We had an appointment or a scheduled meeting with Tammy Hendrix, and she is a compassionate, medium, and healer, and she specifically...

03:07
works with people and their animals. And as you know, we have lost, or many of you know we lost our love, Onyx Labor Day. She was only four and it was very sudden and unexpected. And so we've been reeling from all of that. And I connected with Tammy through somebody else who referred to me and I started asking her questions and wanted to hear a little info from Onyx and just some support in how to get through this.

03:36
And then we decided to do a session with her. And she spent an hour and a half with us yesterday, talking to Onyx, talking to us, sharing some things Onyx was saying and just some things that were very, very healing, I think for all of us, I hope. So we're gonna share a little bit about that experience. Before we met with Tammy, I had told you guys I had talked with an animal medium and somebody who talks to animals. And then we were gonna...

04:05
have this session with her and I want to know what your thoughts were and before we did that like were you kind of like this is gonna be weird I don't think I believe in this that's what I would like to know um yeah I first thought this is going to be interesting I was wondering if I really believed it I would like to know if I believed it and I didn't know if I thought it was real I kind of was not on edge I was just

04:36
if I can like use this as my source to like get answers at first. Oh, very interesting. I love how you said that. Hunter, what did you think? Um, at first I didn't know if it, like I was gonna believe it, like, but like, throughout it. Well don't talk about that yet. I just want to know what you thought you were thinking of first. You just didn't think you were gonna believe it? Yeah.

05:02
Totally weird, right? It's kind of weird to think that people can do that and some people believe that that's not possible, right? That's something I definitely believe in, but I understand with you guys, not having experience with that might be something that you might not believe in. So we got online with her on Saturday morning and she started out by seeing if you guys wanted to ask some of your questions and you didn't really remember the questions initially.

05:28
And then she asked, why don't you tell me about Onyx? We started telling her about Onyx, just who Onyx was, what she did, those kinds of things. And what kinds of things stuck out to you guys? I'm not gonna recap the entire conversation right now, but I just would love to know what were your thoughts, what did you like that she said, what were some things that you were surprised at, or kind of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe she said that type of stuff. So one of the things that...

05:56
really stuck out to me was how we were explaining to her and like wanting to ask Onyx what like because Onyx this past year she recently learned how to swim and she did not like it or the water that much uh before and we were asking her if like why she didn't like to swim and she was like and what Tammy told us was how Onyx said that she

06:25
Mom, can you tell if you wrote it down? Yeah. So she said that I took a lot of notes. She said that I had no interest. So she's basically telling us what Onyx was saying. I had no interest. All Labradors are supposed to swim. And I didn't really care for it. I knew how to swim. I just didn't want to swim until now. And then she said, I am a gymnast, which? Which before, we didn't even like.

06:52
Mentioned that at all. We didn't say anything about onyx loving to jump and run We just mentioned how she wasn't the biggest fan of swimming and once team you was like told us that onyx said that she loved Me doing this I automatically like wow That's crazy now like that really made me like realize that I believe that that was true after that I was so shocked. I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening Well, and the reason why we connected with that is because onyx was actually a beautiful jumper, right?

07:19
she could jump over things and she had beautiful form and we had talked about when she was younger doing parkour classes, which we never ended up doing. But we always would have her jump over things and she just did these beautiful jumps and she literally was in the most perfect form with her body. And so we were pretty blown away. What else? She also said how like she was a dancer more too. Like, what did she say again, mom? So we were talking about...

07:49
how when Onyx would see us or when we'd come home from a day of school or work, or anytime we'd come home and we'd go outside, she would do her shoulder roll. She dips her shoulder really low as she's running, and then rolls down the hill, and she gets on her back. And Onyx said, I'm a dancer, and I've got really good moves. And we just chuckled because I've never seen a dog do this kind of.

08:15
back roll slash shoulder rolls, what we called it, that Onyx did. And so it really solidified the kind of work that Tammy does with animals. Can you think of anything else that she said that was impactful or maybe helped also?

08:33
One other thing that she said was really helpful was how she mentioned that, like, this, we were like, where is Onyx now? That was a question we asked, like, where is she? Like, we didn't know if Tammy could answer that. But then she said that she never left. Like she's still here in the house. It's just her body that left. She was like saying how her soul is still here. And like the physical form of her isn't, but. We're like.

09:00
I don't know if mental, sorry, we're like mental, but like inside. Like her soul. Yeah, like her soul. The energy of her soul. Yeah, the energy, yeah, is like still here. And like that's an intimate conversation about how like, where are there places in the house that we feel her? Like what and where are times that we like feel her near us? Yeah, and so that was kind of hard to decipher initially, right? But then when we came up with some examples, Tammy was saying, well, that's her, she was there. She was there visiting you.

09:29
She asked about if we dreamed about her, and the answer was yes, but nobody could really remember the dreams until Tammy was starting to ask us questions, right? And then she just gave us some ideas of how to keep our energy open to keep Onyx with us, right? To continue to be present with us all the time. Yeah, yeah. Hunter, come up and tell us.

09:52
what was impactful for you and maybe what was helpful for you talking with Tammy. Probably also what Adson said about like how that she didn't she never she didn't actually all right like leave she just um like her like her body left but her soul didn't. I guess that was just really helpful.

10:19
So what did she tell you about dreams and she gave you some advice about dreams and when you dream about her and what did she say? The dream book? Yeah. She said to write in a journal every time you have a dream about her so you can remember all the stuff that you can remember as most of the stuff that you dreamed about with her. And I don't remember what she said that would help.

10:50
Well, the point of that was is to continue to, if we continue to do those kinds of things, like recognize the dreams we have and recognize the energy and be open to it, it'll keep her present here with us. And so anytime you have a dream, she said to write that down in a dream journal, right? Just so you can continue to have that constant memory of onyx and you're still...

11:19
Providing that energy to onyx that you still want her to stay here with us. Does that make sense? Yeah, was there anything that was kind of fascinating to you or like unbelievable? Probably why me and all I didn't really believe about but also like Addison was saying When she was talking about like how? She onyx had good news and stuff. We hadn't told her about that yet, and I think that was really cool

11:49
to know that proved, I feel like, that she was talking about Onyx. Mm-hmm, some of those things, right? Wasn't there one where you did that about, like that really made us believe her? Yeah, we'll come back to that in a minute. I know what it is, I think. But the other kinds of things that she shared with us is to keep Onyx with us and make sure she's still in.

12:18
our world and present in our world is to write a letter to her, right? We talked about writing a letter and making sure we're honoring her. So we all write our own letter or we can write a family letter and then we share it with everybody or we just read out loud so she can hear it. Um, we talked about photos. Remember how Onyx said she was quite photogenic because I think about all those photos we've gotten of her and like with her tongue out, oh my gosh, the best, some other things she said is maybe do like a

12:48
Oh, like a celebrity card or a superstar card. And she mentioned doing it around Christmas, which is really interesting because Addison loves Christmas. Right. I always look like crazy with this on. I thought I'd always decorate my room and I always make sure she was there. And I would always get PJs and I'd always put them on her, even though she like hated the PJ. Yes. But she said to do this during Christmas. Right. And so I think that's that connection there.

13:16
Here's the other thing that I thought was really fascinating is okay, so we haven't really shared this yet with anybody But probably by the time this comes out people will know but we picked up a puppy on Friday night five month old black lab her name is Pearl Athena and I told the kids at the beginning of The session before we start with Tammy not to tell her about the puppy because I just kind of wanted to see how naturally It came so we didn't say anything now the very first thing she said

13:46
in the session was, are there a lot of dogs around? Do you guys remember that? When she said that and I said, oh yeah, well we're taking care of our friend's dog, Ember, and she used to be here a lot when Onyx was alive, and so we've been watching her, and Tammy said, are there any other dogs? And we said, well, my mom has a dog that we watch, but he's not here. She goes, well, I'm being told by Onyx that there's a lot of dogs coming in and out, and so we still didn't say anything about the puppy, and then...

14:16
One of the last questions that was asked by Addison, she said, would Onyx be okay if we got a puppy? And what was Tammy's response? She was like, well, Onyx's response, I guess, through Tammy was like, of course! And she's gonna send you the right dog your way and she's gonna find it and it's gonna come naturally and so forth and then we were talking and I don't know what came up, but I said, well, we ended up getting a puppy last night. And she said, I totally felt.

14:46
all this puppy energy at the very beginning of the session, right? And she kept asking us like, are there any other dogs in the house? And we kept saying no, like we just said it was Ember, right? Yeah. And she said, I kept getting all this puppy vibration and I could see the energy, the energy I was feeling was really strong about this. Tell me about the puppy. And so I told her about the puppy and I just said, everything worked out so smoothly and it was really easy. And she's like, well, if it was really easy, then that puppy was meant for you. And that is part of Onyx is doing.

15:15
And then I said, well, when we got home, when I got home with the puppy, Addison was holding her and she, Pearl looked up at Addison straight up at her face and kind of gave her a little kiss. And we, I took a picture and I told Tammy about that picture and I sent it to the owner and I said, we're home and everything's good. And the owner came back and said,

15:43
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that puppy is with you. She's my favorite of the litter and it was just how it was supposed to be. But the thing about the picture, and I had mentioned this to Tammy, I said, that picture was that exact pose was the last picture I took of Onyx and Addison was on the first day of school. We were outside taking first day of school photos and Addison was kneeling down. Onyx was sitting next to her and she did the exact same thing. And I snapped a picture.

16:12
And I thought this was so interesting. Tammy said that there was soul blending. So there's, it's very common for new dogs and old dogs that have passed in a family to a soul blend. And so we are going to see some common things that are going to be reminding us onyx, which we could, I think, attribute to that that's onyx, right? Yeah, today she's done a couple of things that like reminded me so much of onyx. One was like.

16:39
I was laying with her and she was like in the middle of kissing me and some some like loud noise looked at like we were downstairs in my room and she heard someone come through the front door and I look next to her and I just see the tip of her tongue pointing out and Onyx had like a lot of tongue pictures she always had her tongue out and then also Hunter has experienced.

17:00
Our puppy laying all straight out with all legs. How am I explaining it? Like her back legs are like straight out, kind of like Superman. Like it's a funny, it's kind of a funny position, right? And Onyx used to lay like that. Onyx used to do that. She always went on her back and like played with toys and that's what the puppy does too. So we're definitely seeing some commonalities and after having that session with Tammy, we could actually be saying, oh my God, there's some soul blending going on there.

17:27
So that was our experience with Tammy, and we wanted to share it because to me, it was super incredible, I think very helpful in many ways to help us heal. It just was an incredible experience. Did you guys wanna share what your overall experience was and how you felt about it before we sign off? I felt really good at the end of it. I felt like I got most of the answers that I needed that I've been wondering.

17:57
Um, and I feel like Tammy and Onyx really helped me get an understanding about why and what happened. Definitely. And we didn't really get the whys, but it just helped us understand. And I think we forward a little bit, right? Even though we'll still have tears and we had tears during that session and people always have tears for a dear Onyx. Hunter, how about you? I think, I mean, like, like I'm not saying this is not a bad way.

18:26
Like over the last, I don't know, month, it has been getting better because it's been over time. But after the call, I feel like it just means like everything better than over a month has been, I don't know if that makes sense. So you're saying having that discussion with her and talking to Onyx has helped it become easier more than it has after the last month has come, yeah.

18:56
That's fair. Well thank you guys for sharing. I appreciate it. I hope you thought this was as fascinating as we did. I'm gonna have all of Tammy Hendricks's contact information in the show notes. She is phenomenal. I know there's a lot of pet lovers out there and you would love to talk to your pets, whether they've passed or when they're still alive. She does that with them as well when they're alive. If there's any issues going on or you have questions, she is incredible.

19:25
So I really encourage you just to take a look at her stuff, her website. She does bi-monthly classes where she does a learning or she does a teaching, and then some people will write questions in and she'll feature some of those questions and answer them for you. And that's exactly how I initially started this process. So thanks for listening. I would love to hear what your thoughts are, even if you don't believe it, I don't, that's okay. I would just love to hear your thoughts. So.

19:54
please email me lauren at dailyjoy.us. You can also find me on Instagram, lauren'sdailyjoy or Facebook, neveryanyjoytogether. And we really appreciate you listening. So we are out of here. Did you enjoy your time with us today? If you did, please give us a review on Apple Podcast.

20:22
Your review will make navigating joy together much more fun and we would be truly grateful if you would share this with others who you know would gain value from our podcast. Thank you again and we look forward to sharing our next episode with you in two weeks.