When discovering totems you must first understand if the totem is a Life Totem, A Journey Totem, Shadow Totem, or a Message Totem. All totems are powerful but the meaning that the totem brings will vary on your action depending on what type of totem has come to you.

Your Life Long Animal Totem works with you throughout your entire life or until such time that you no longer need that animal totem. It is always there when you need its powers. Always reminding you of your power and connectivity. You may have only one or a few Life totems. They may become your Life totem at any time. But the primary Life Totem will be our focus at this time.  The messages that your Life Totem brings are a hard reminder from Mother Earth. Your Life Totem is always there for you and generally reflects your inner spiritual nature. Many call your Life Long animal totem your Spirit totem.  For example if your Life Totem was a Penguin you would be a person who should be very spiritual since Penguin moves better in water (the symbol of the astral plane - which is were we go when we dream) than it does on land. Being able to leap out of the water (up to six feet) represents the ability of out of body experiences. It is also important to understand which type of Penguin your animal totem is since some have additional characteristics that are important to consider, like most Penguins live in tropical conditions not arctic ones.

A Journey Animal Totem reflects a period of time. Not just a day but weeks, months, or maybe years.  The time it takes you to walk the path that the Animal Totem is reminding or guiding you on. During this journey you will find that this animal is always showing up in your life or that several animal totems will appear in your life all to guide you on the path. When you find one, two or three animals all of a sudden making an appearance and their nature all has the same basis then you have found the basis of your path. The difference between the Journey Animal Totem and the Message Animal Totem is a period of time. A Message animal Totem will bring itself to you quickly and impartially where a Journey Animal Totem will slip in and out of your life over the course of a period. Looking into the cycle of the animal also can give insight to the length of the journey.

A Message Animal Totem usually is bringing you a self-growth, spiritual message, or a cautionary warning. It is often a wake up call or slap in the face. It will usually be a very unusual experience making it very powerful at that time and very impartial. A Message Totem is a brief period of time, a day, a week, and occasionally as much as a couple of months but can be immediate for just a few hours.   Sometimes a Message totem is not bringing you a message but causing a delay in your life. This delay, such as when you are trying to leave to go somewhere, is often in assistance for you; to be sure you are not in a place at a certain time so that you avoid an accident or can catch a phone call or meet someone you are supposed to run into.

A Shadow Animal Totem tests us. They have great power for us but will put us through tests before they will let their power work with and for us, instead of against us. In all of nature there is prey and predator. In the spiritual or Shadow World there is the same. A Shadow Animal Totem is one that initially you fear. The Shadow Totem often represents inner fears that you must overcome. You may have even been attracted by this animal in a very vivid test to see if you are ready to accept the power of this animal totem. Until you face the fears of the Shadow Animal Totem it's powers will work against you, not letting you soar high. When you overcome the fear of the Shadow Animal Totem you bring it into the Light World as a Spirit Animal Totem and they become one of your most powerful Animal Totems. Your goal with a Shadow Totem is to learn the lessons and incorporate that animal into your life. If you are scared by something over and over then you still have not accepted the lesson that animal has for you.