5 Ways to Connect With Your Power Animal
In shamanic traditions across the world, the power animal is understood as a guardian spirit a presence from the natural world that lends you its qualities, walks beside you, and offers protection and guidance in times of difficulty or transition. This is not mythology. It is a living practice, and one that people find surprisingly accessible once they know how to listen.
As a shamanic practitioner based in Leicestershire with nearly two decades of practice, I've guided many people into relationship with their power animals and witnessed how transformative that connection can be. Here are five ways to begin.
1. Shamanic journeying
The traditional way. Using rhythmic drumming, typically at around 4 to 7 beats per second you enter a light trance state and journey into what shamanic traditions call the lower world, a realm of nature and instinct where power animals tend to dwell. You move through an opening in the earth, a tree root, a cave, a body of water and allow what comes to you. You don't choose you receive whatever animal appears repeatedly or with particular presence is worth paying attention to.
2. Dreams and recurring imagery
Your power animal may already be reaching toward you. Notice the animals that appear in your dreams, especially those that feel charged with meaning or return more than once. Notice which animals catch your attention in waking life in ways that feel like more than coincidence. The natural world has been communicating with us far longer than we've had language to describe it.
3. Meditation and visualisation
If formal shamanic journeying feels like a step too far, begin with simple guided visualisation. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and imagine yourself in a natural landscape — forest, mountain, shore. Let yourself settle into it fully. Then ask openly, without attachment to the answer for a guide to come. Notice what arrives. Don't dismiss it if it surprises you. Power animals are rarely what we expect.
4. Study the animal that keeps finding you
Sometimes the connection is already there and we've simply not named it. Is there an animal you've always felt drawn to? One that appears on things you own, that you stop to look at, that fills you with a feeling you can't quite explain? Research its qualities in shamanic traditions often you'll find it mirrors something you're being asked to develop or reclaim in yourself.
5. Work with a shamanic practitioner
A power animal retrieval where the practitioner journeys on your behalf to locate and return your power animal — is one of the oldest and most fundamental shamanic healing practices. It is particularly helpful when someone is feeling depleted, disconnected, or lost. If you're based in Leicestershire or working online, this is something I offer as part of my shamanic practice, held within a safe, grounded, and psychologically informed container.
To explore shamanic work with me in Leicester or online, visit alexiaelliott.co.uk