Peace of Mind for Pet Parents Episode 055: The BrightHaven Way: What the Animals Taught Gail Pope About Healing and Natural Death

Episode Transcript: 

Karen Wylie: Hello and welcome back to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents. I'm Karen Wylie here as always with Gail Pope. This episode is part two of our conversation about Gail's new book, "The BrightHaven Way: Lessons from 700 Animal Teachers". In the previous episode, we talked about how Gail's years of caring for hundreds of animals helped shape the philosophy that eventually became known as The BrightHaven Way.

Today we're continuing that conversation, looking at how some of those experiences began to challenge Gail's early assumptions and gradually changed the way she thought about healing and care. That's where we're going to pick up today.

As I was reading the manuscript and you were being very honest about your adoption of each of the layers of the "Menu for Healing". It was like, "Wow! That's the person I didn't know back then. I know who she is now, and it's just so interesting to see."

One of the chapters of course is about classical homeopathy which you were very honest about as well— the raw feeding and the homeopathy. 

So what did move you from skepticism to openness? Was it trying these things across the board because you certainly allowed yourself to try something with just one animal, you can see that. That would actually probably be my approach most of the time. But you went with everybody which allowed you to then see changes.

Gail Pope: Yes, the homeopathy story, again, which started with me being exceedingly resistant. I'd never even heard of it. I didn't know what it was. It was "voodoo". 

It began with one animal, one animal miracle, and that was a cat called Cindy. It began with one or the second miracle human, if you like, and that was Dr. Christina Chambreau who's very well known. Between Vicki and Dr. Christina, Cindy, who was dying, lived on. It's a long story and I'm sure you don't want me to tell it now.

Karen Wylie: We have talked about it on the podcast. I'll look around and see if we can give everybody the number of the podcast so they could listen to it if they want.

Please note: Cindy’s story is described in more detail  in the very first episode of this podcast, Episode 001: Gail’s Journey to Holistic Animal Care as well as Episode 024: The Other Doctor in the Room. 

Gail Pope: But then Cindy was one animal. She had a miraculous recovery and lived on— courtesy of classical veterinary homeopathy and Dr. Christina. But then I was still nervous, Cindy should have died. She did die eventually but it wasn't to do with that. I wasn't resistant. I was scared in all honesty because it was a huge thing that happened.

But then Christina being Christina was like, "Okay, now I've got you! Now you're going to move forward. Now you have to explore this." She telephoned me a couple of days later and she said, "I've got a list of classical veterinary homeopaths who I know, who I feel sure will volunteer to each take an animal and help you." She said, "I'll send you their names and their phone numbers. You just need to call them and talk to them."

And I refused. I said, " No, I can't do it. I really can't do that. I just feel too embarrassed. I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm scared. No, I'm not doing that."

I thought it was just too pushy. 

So guess what? They all called me. That's how strong Christina is.

Karen Wylie: Dr. Christina, there we go.

Gail Pope: She literally contacted them all. I think eventually when I added up there were 24 and that is an awful lot of holistic veterinarians. They each contacted me and offered to take an animal as a client. I was basically pushed into a corner. "What could I do? Oh, that's awfully sweet of you, but no thank you?"

So I learned an awful lot very quickly, and one of the things that I really learned was that homeopathy isn't something to take lightly. It isn't something to say, "Oh yes, I'll spend a couple of weekends learning it or I'll take a quick course."

I thought that maybe I could do this. I can learn it. In fact, I've still got a lot of books. I bought a whole ton of books and I investigated a training course. I think it was like after the first day or two days of learning more, I realized there's absolutely no way! It's either care for the animals or stop doing what I'm doing and put my life into learning this damn thing because it's immense.

Karen Wylie: It's a whole different worldview.

Gail Pope: I decided then there's no way you can't dabble in homeopathy. You need to learn it for an acute situation. Absolutely, I felt comfortable but balancing a being's body, mind, and spirit— it's difficult. There's some wonderful homeopaths out there. Of course the vets that we used were classical veterinary homeopaths because they'd been trained as veterinarians and as homeopaths, they put it all together and Wow!

Karen Wylie: And you had 24 of those voices.

Gail Pope: Exactly! So there began yet another journey of seeing chronic illness change. To learn that I wasn't suppressing or fixing their illnesses— that this magical medicine seemed to be actually changing everything and they were getting healthier instead of sicker. So it was just a huge wave of learning, a huge wave of acceptance, of letting go, of finding a balance between conventional care and holistic care. Understanding how important both sides, both sides were equally important.

We had a lot of very sick animals that needed some conventional prescribing, as well as homeopathic prescribing to find a good balance for their lives. So there were more lessons, more animals who demonstrated their need for this balance of using both sides of vets— which now is known as Integrative Medicine. Little by little, I think the world is tippy-toeing into this middle path which honors both. So that's really good— a lot of animals teaching me.

Karen Wylie: I was just going to say, a lot of animal teachers are with you along the way. What advice would you give pet parents who are unsure about making this kind of shift and trying something new?

Gail Pope: Baby steps. I think if you feel interested in something but don't really know much about it but are curious, then you're on the edge of trying and take it slowly, learn. I think education as well as experience and you can't get experience until you start to dabble a little bit. So whatever your interest is: again, animal reiki, acupuncture, all different areas. There are so many holistic modalities that offer healing in various ways.

So again, it's just picking up what interests you and taking it slowly. Don't jump in too fast. I was never one that wanted to do that - for sure. That's where I've learned, I say baby steps all the time because to me that's what life is about. It's just taking a slow path forward.

Karen Wylie: Trying one of those methods or modalities and just learning about it and taking it that way. You talk about walking on both feet in the manuscript and where you never rejected conventional medicine. And you really did not. You embrace diagnostics and surgery when needed. Both the conventional and holistic tools. How do people avoid becoming extreme in either direction? Just thinking of our pet parents out there.

Gail Pope: We first have to realize that some people have no idea or wish to learn one or the other. They're embedded in the world of conventional care like me, how I grew up. I wasn't open to learning about holistic medicine, really. It wasn't part of what I did. So I think a lot of people don't and won't open and embrace something new because it's simply they're comfortable in the path they've got. I guess curiosity is one of the factors if when you see an animal, either with an illness or who's very elderly who has a spark that you're not familiar with, that can do it. Now I can hear myself saying - so, "He looks wonderful for his age. You know, how do you care for him? What's his secret?"

We do it with humans. "Oh my goodness, you are 60. Gosh, you only look 40. What's your secret?" That's the kind of thing I think that brings you into this kind of thinking, don't you?

Karen Wylie: I think it certainly can because sometimes you don't see things in yourself that other people do. Sometimes you're so used to seeing your own pet every day that you don't notice the differences that other people or your vet might say. I feed partly fresh food and a little bit of kibble but my dogs are very shiny with their coats. That's something that almost every time I'm in a clinic waiting room, somebody's going to be noticing that as something very unusual. So I think it reinforces the decision.

It reinforces what you're doing because it's, "Oh, okay." It's other people noticing it's making a difference. Any changes we make in how we care for our pets is where we're trying to make a difference. We're usually trying to improve a situation— help them gain weight or help them lose weight. Or eat a little bit more, eat a little bit less.

Gail Pope: We are doing the same for ourselves, right?

Karen Wylie: Yes, absolutely.

Gail Pope: It's all the same. We're all following our own path to hopefully wellness and a good balance for healing.

Karen Wylie: A good balance is right. Now a couple of the turning point stories included in the book. One of course is Cindy and another one is Winston. So without going into too much of the behind the scenes drama, what did those experiences teach you about staying open, even when something challenges your training?

Gail Pope: It's fascinating. We haven't had this kind of conversation before. It's taken me down a different road, but the word that keeps coming up for me is stubbornness. I was so stubborn and stuck in my ways. Then the next part is fear. I think I was fearful of making changes because it was scary and someone might die, and I was doing my best to keep them alive with the path that I was on and in the knowledge that I was doing the right thing. It was very scary to learn about all these other new things coming along.

So I think Mother Nature, the universe, God, I don't know who to blame. 

But I think all of these special animals came along at the right time with the right illness, with the right situation, and taught me. I guess I'm so stubborn that I needed to see a miracle of healing. It's interesting and I think this may be in the book, but when Cindy didn’t die, that was my first experience. I was at work the following day and had a call from the lab saying, "Just wanted to let you know, by the way, that we are not going to be billing you for that cat, Cindy, because it's very clear. Obviously the blood was drawn but she basically died." 

"Oh, okay."

Those kinds of things don't happen to most of us. They really don't. But I guess I really do see it, that I had to be basically hit in the face with all these things so hard that I reeled in shock.

Karen Wylie: Yes. That according to her blood work, she should be dead. They were interpreting it, saying this must have been...

Gail Pope: She couldn't have possibly stayed alive.

Karen Wylie: And there you were with a living cat.

Gail Pope: Who carried on living too, and, again, with Mariah. The thought of an animal dying naturally and not being euthanized— Had it occurred to me that humans do it? No. But it was what was accepted in my life at that time, and so the thought of Mariah dying naturally was abhorrent. It filled me with fear and I just couldn't allow it. I had no choice and boy, you can't get a bigger lesson than something like that happening. All of these things…. I've been dragged, kicking, and screaming into this world by some very special people and again, some very special animals— Cindy, Mariah, Winston. There's a whole stream at the beginning of all of this that were larger than life as it were. So I don't believe there were any coincidences back then. In fact, I firmly believe Vicki was a witch...

Karen Wylie: Or an angel. 

Either way, someone to help you on your path, taking the natural approach to end of life and dying. Your understanding of end of life care certainly evolved over time like we've talked about. 

What do you hope pet parents understand about the difference between prolonging a pet's life and supporting quality of life?

Gail Pope: The first thing that comes to my mind is that we tend to want to fix things as humans. We want to prolong the life, we want to fix it, and we're scared of death. I think those are the main things but in actual fact, I think animals particularly teach us that it's not about the length of life— it's about the quality of the life. I suppose as I stepped forward in the learning process, it all started to fit together. I wasn't focused eventually on the length of the life, I was focused on how my animals were doing, how they were feeling.

It didn't occur to me that they were going to live long lives. Then we get Frazier, the cat who lived to 34 and Ollie the dog in that lovely picture at 24— it just grew. 

It's all important but the length of the life is the one thing that isn't as important, because I think it really is more about living in the moment and achieving happiness, and balance. If animals had the same lifespan as humans, I don't think we'd be so fixated on it. We don't want them to die so much sooner than we do. So we are fixated on keeping them alive with us as long as possible and that's probably not the best thing for us to be doing.

Karen Wylie: No, it tends to shift our focus to avoiding death as opposed to asking, what can I do with them now so that they're enjoying their now.

Gail Pope: And that we are with them.

Karen Wylie: Yes, that's so important. 700 animals is a lot of experience.

Gail Pope: You've seen the color of my hair?

Karen Wylie: Which happened at a very young age.

Gail Pope: I wonder why?

Karen Wylie: I wonder why? I think they certainly taught you a lot about paying attention, because you were watching them and learning from them. 

They taught you a lot about adaptability. Certainly, if we watch our own animals they teach us a lot about being resilient because they're generally better at that than we are. Certainly with what you're describing for us today you did not assume "you already knew everything". There was that part of you that was feeling like, "Hey, I've researched this. I've got the very best food. Everything's fine." 

But you still were open to the idea of possibly making things even better.

Gail Pope: But in truth, I wasn't at the beginning. Quite a little, I started to realize and I started to get hungry— What more could I learn? That was tricky too.

Karen Wylie: You certainly then were exploring a lot of different methods to pull into the BrightHaven Way for so many different animals. Since we're releasing the book this week...

Gail Pope: Wow.

Karen Wylie: I know. 

What do you hope readers will take from it? You're still digesting it. I can see that. The look on your face.

Gail Pope: Yes, I don't know. I really don't know. Because yes, I'm still in shock that you actually thought of putting this together for other people. What I would like people to get most is the enjoyment of learning about the animals because it was all about the animals. 

It was all about - and is all about - helping animals. Another point that is not a menu but I find it fascinating that my journey has been learning how to help animals, and then that has gradually morphed into learning how to help people to help their animals.

Because as the sanctuary finally closed back in 2018 or whenever it was, I felt like my life had ended. 

It was not an easy time and if that hadn't happened, it wouldn't have pushed me forward into my newly developed passion to actually help people - leading to eventually meeting you and starting the BrightHaven Caregiver Academy. We have all those beautiful animals who taught us the lessons that it's now our mission to share those with others.

Karen Wylie: Absolutely! That's what was so visible and apparent in the manuscript when I found it, because I remember that just coming through email. I didn't know what was coming, what I was going to find in my inbox that day. Then I read the title, the working title you had for it at the time and started looking at how you were approaching things. I just remembered I wrote you back and I said, "I've just been looking at this PDF…

Why didn't you publish it?"

Gail Pope: I don't even remember that.

Karen Wylie: It had the year of 2019 as the last time you worked on it.

Gail Pope: I was probably still dabbling towards the end. I remember actually reaching a point where I felt, I don't know, I need to take a break. I've come to the end of this chapter of the life of BrightHaven. I don't know, maybe life got in the way and I totally had forgotten about it. It was only when you'd asked me or actually we'd been talking about the future of BrightHaven and me, of course, and what I wanted for my future. You'd said to me at that time, "I'm interested in the history and any documents that you might have had, because we need to save them."

I think I searched and found several documents. I didn't read them and I just looked at the titles of the documents?

Karen Wylie: Oh God. I should have looked it up because it was a long title.

Gail Pope: I have no idea. I just kept it as a Word document and I would just add little bits.

Karen Wylie: Yes and it was about all stages of life and everything. I think it's what intrigued me because it didn't sound like it was the Menu for Healing.

Gail Pope: My story is what it was. It wasn't about the Menu for Healing but I guess to me it was more about my memories of the animals and the people who I'd met that had so beautifully changed my life. It was more about that, than it was the creation of a Menu for Healing.

Karen Wylie: I was just amazed by it because the foundation was there, it was just a matter of finishing it up and making it available to people. Besides that, you're a birthday girl this month.

Gail Pope: Oh God.

Karen Wylie: Which was also a part of the motivation to celebrate your 80th birthday with something that reflects who you are and who you became - helped by just a few animals along the way.

Gail Pope: You sure it's not my 21st?

Karen Wylie: Because you feel you want to do it all over again?

Gail Pope: And I think that's a lesson that I've learned. I think it's there for all of us in one way or another. Sometimes we honor it, sometimes we push it away. But if we have a passion for something, we should follow our heart. I didn't until I was 40 and finally I did. I realized that the previous 40 years I'd been following the initial part. 

I don't know if I've told this one before but when I was five years old, I told my parents that when I grew up, I was going to be an animal doctor and an airline hostess. I did both! I didn't fly, I worked on the ground in special services for several airlines. That part of my life looking back was about learning to help people because that's what my job was— to help people, to help them be comfortable and assured of safety, and to be there for them.

Because when people are traveling through an airport, they are generally like, "Where do I go? What do I do?" You are on edge. So that was my job and I absolutely loved it. 

When I came to America, it went away and I was brokenhearted. I loved my job and I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life. So it's interesting that at the age of 40 years I stepped into the world of animals, and here I am 40 years later. Ooh, that made me goosey.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but yes, it's like the first 40 was about people. The second 40 was totally about animals. Now they're all meshed up together in this beautiful circle— the circle of life.

Karen Wylie: The relationship we have with them. We're releasing the book on a Pay-what-you-Wish basis which feels very aligned with the spirit of BrightHaven. So we're going to make it accessible to everyone while allowing people to support the book and support BrightHaven at whatever level feels right. So if the book speaks to you, we hope you will support it in a way that feels comfortable.

Gail, I guess what I want to say at the end is what really struck me about the book, as I said when I first read it, was how honest you are. Now, I knew you as an honest person, as you are in so many of the podcast episodes that we talk about where you share your feelings and your thoughts about very difficult concepts. 

In your book you shared all your doubts about things you were trying, your own resistances to change, your own learning curve.

I think that makes the philosophy of the BrightHaven Way even stronger because it wasn't created overnight. It was created through experience, through mistakes, but mostly through paying attention to what the animals were teaching you. And that is something every pet parent can relate to. 

Because we're all learning, we're all evolving as we learn with our pets, and we're all doing the very best we can with what we know, while always hopefully finding something new to learn to support our animals and ourselves. 

I want to end by saying I'm really glad that we're bringing the BrightHaven Way into the world in this form.

Gail Pope: Oh, thank you. I'm excited, scared. You name it. It just feels scary in so many ways and yet exciting. It means the world! It just means the world to know that the animals and the people who taught me have done such a wonderful job to create an organization such as BrightHaven that had all these amazing experiences and gained so much knowledge and passion to help others.

Karen Wylie: I really do feel that the way you've shared your own evolution as a pet owner, as a caregiver in the BrightHaven sanctuary, it's really going to help a lot of pet parents out there.

Gail Pope: I hope so. I don't see it as being about me. I don't see it as being about me. It's about them. It's about wise people and wise animals who have guided this path that has helped so many people already.

Karen Wylie: I think we've got the right name.

Gail Pope: I think so too.

Karen Wylie: "The BrightHaven Way: Lessons from 700 Animal Teachers". There were just a few teachers.

Gail Pope: Yes.

Karen Wylie: With that, we'll call an end to this conversation. We talked about many things we haven't talked about before, which is why I think the book will be of interest to people who have followed BrightHaven for a long time. You're talking about so many things in very different ways.

So we thank you for being with us today and hope you'll be back with us next week. Bye-bye now.

Gail Pope: Goodbye.