To have your questions answered, please e-mail your letters or comments to Asrianna at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Questions become the property of Inner Tapestry and may be edited for content.

Dear Asrianna,

I know you’ve touched on losing an animal in the past, but I’m just so heartbroken. My little toy poodle, Miss Priss, who I’d had since she was a baby was diagnosed with a terminal condition. When we realized that none of the treatments worked, we decided to take her home with us and make her last few days as loving and calming as possible.

Although we had her tucked into her favorite little bed, she wanted to go down beneath the dresser where it was dark and covered so we let her. We checked on her every five minutes but in one of our absences she died. It broke our hearts to think she passed on without one of us there cooing to her and telling her she was safe and loved.

Part of me knows we did the absolute best we could, and friends are very supportive of our loss—even my office seems understanding—but we just feel so much guilt! Is there something we could have done better? Were we neglectful in leaving her alone beneath the dresser for five minutes? Was she afraid? Anything you could offer us would be a help and blessing. We just miss her so much. Thank you.

Signed, Missing Priss

Dear Missing,

When reading the many letters I get regarding the sickness our dearly loved pets experience, and our very real, human sense of loss when they die, I’m struck that regardless of the different details in each letter, a common theme winds through them all. A hint of apology for caring so very deeply for a pet, as though, being animals, they lack the basic human need of love, honor, and faithfulness. This is often combined with and ex-acerbated by a sense of having let our animal friends down in some way.

Your beautiful email reminds us all, yet again, of the profoundly real love and connection we exchange with the precious pets in our lives. How wonderful that you have supportive friends and coworkers around you who can surround you in love and affirm your need to mourn. Be gentle with yourselves during this process. Still send love and healing to your beloved Miss Priss, and to both of you, do the same.

It sounds to me, dear Missing, as though you and your companion did as much for Miss Priss as you could. Although you don’t go into detail, I sense that you went above and beyond the average individual’s ability to offer medical care to your ailing toy poodle. It’s a sad commentary that not everyone can shoulder the veterinarian costs should their precious pet become ill. That could be a story or letter all its own!

I can’t advise you as to what more could have been tried; or, for that matter, if any other treatment would have been well-advised, because I’m not a veterinarian. My sense is that you’d both tried as many areas of healing as possible and that by the time you’d decided to take dear Miss Priss home, it was with the full knowledge that you’d done all you could either to find a cure or comfortably prolong her life.

Animals respond in somewhat predictable—though not always, of course—ways when they are ill or close to death. In the wild they would find a hidden, dark place, curl in the protective cover of deep bushes or tucked beneath a porch or rock alcove. There they would be safe on all sides and could rest and—if it was their time—die in peace and stillness. As the body shuts down, our dear pets become more and more interiorly drawn, readying themselves for their great and mysterious transition to the spirit world. So it’s not surprising that Miss Priss preferred a dark, well-surrounded place in which to curl up to await meeting her spirit companions.

As for her passing in the brief few minutes you were away, that, too, is fairly common both with animals and our human loved ones. So many, many times I’ve had clients weeping over having just missed their mother or father’s last breath, their cries filled with, “I should have been there! I let them down.” And yet the spirit is next to me with a gentle, loving smile saying, “but I didn’t want them to suffer my painful ending! I wanted to somehow make it easier for them so I waited for them to leave!”

Perhaps dear Miss Priss decided that it was easier for her to go in that brief span of time in order to save herself, and you, from those possibly traumatic last moments. Traumatic, by the way, for the living because the dead have always told me that they no more remember those moments as painful or traumatic than we remember the exact seconds of our physical birth into this world in that way. Miss Priss is still very much around you, healthy, happy and filled with love.

Think of her as the vibrant, whole, beautiful young adult she once was and now is again. While she’ll no doubt have other areas of busyness on the other side, she’ll visit you often and you’ll feel her small warmth and presence. Keep that in mind, dear Missing, as you go through the process of grief. My thoughts are with you.

Many blessings, Asrianna

Dear Asrianna,

I’ve been reading about gratitude lists, prayers, and meditations. I understand the concept but I’ve a husband with back problems who hasn’t worked 13 years. I have diabetes. Debts and medical bills are crushing us and most days it’s all I can do to get up and go to work without breaking down.

All I see around me is ill health, neediness, a horrible economy and more predicted to come. I know have things to be grateful for, but it just doesn’t seem to bring me the peace it seems to bring everyone else. Is it me?

Signed, Ungrateful

Dear Friend,

I’m not going to call you ungrateful because to do so would be to add yet another rock onto the pile of heavy hopelessness you feel as you face your challenges.

I’ve heard the books and talks about gratitude and I feel there is great merit in the idea of holding up those blessings we have so we can recognize just how fortunate we are in so very many ways. It can also be a starting point in uncovering the gifts we overlook when we’re mired in problems and overwhelmed by challenges.

However, a dangerous theme frequently running through books and beliefs in gratitude is that if you’ve areas you’re struggling with, problems you certainly aren’t grateful for then somehow you’re negative and deserving of whatever troubles you get. This is the ever growing blame-the-victim-mentality and is both lacking in wisdom and compassion. Moving forward through challenges isn’t about pretending they aren’t there as we turn our eyes only toward the positive. It’s about the ability to hold both gratitude and challenges aloft together.

I guarantee, dear Friend, that you have a creative, intelligent mind and spirit. You also have a job to go to. These are not here so that I can say, “Hey! You’ve got this so quit your worrying!” Not at all. I point them out as a starting reference for the changes you can make in yourself one step at a time. Gratitude can be the lift in the step that gets you over the next very real hurdle rather than a word flung at you in blame.

Find ways to be grateful that affirm your ability to be empowered toward beneficial change. You have diabetes. Can you be grateful that you have the strength to make one little change each day toward health and well-being? Your husband is unable to work and you mention medical bills. Perhaps you’ve already done this but look into disability programs and ways to lower costs as well as physical therapy and vocational therapy programs that might very well help him become productive both for his peace of mind and yours.

I can’t say to you, Friend, that all your problems will go away. Nor do I feel that blind gratitude without a true awareness of one’s challenges will fix every problem. But if you see them as either/or, one or the other, you’re missing a very beneficial tool. My best wishes to you as you uncover more of your skills, gifts, abilities and talents.

Many blessings, Asrianna

Asrianna Dameron is a Psychic, a Spiritual Medium, a Certified Hypnotherapist, and a Certified Past Life Regressionist in private practice. She offers individual and group sessions as well as seminars and speaking engagements on the topics of Psychic Development, Mediumship, Hypnosis and Shamanic healing. Asrianna can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , by visiting her websites at www.shamansheart.com or www.nhshamanandpsychicmedium.com, or by calling 603-892-1268.