Spending time with animals is one of the most rewarding pastimes we can experience, with pets scientifically proven to reduce our stress levels and bring us a sense of balance. However, our pets may not always be in a good place emotionally which can lead us as their guardians to worry.
This is where animal communication comes in, and Elle, an animal communication and reiki practitioner based in Cork, can step in to bring harmony and peace. Reiki is a complementary therapy used on animals and humans to promote relaxation, reduce stress, and support the body’s natural healing process.
Elle says that her work, which can be on any animal but she works most often with horses, dogs and cats, allows her to be the connection between humans and their animal companions, and act as a translator. We humans rely on our ability to verbalise to be understood, while animals speak a completely different language to us.
“My role as an animal communicator is offering a space for your animals to be truly heard in their needs, easing stress, offering healing through reiki and supporting you both through life transitions, illness and emotional challenges,” she explains.
She says that dogs, thanks to their ability for unconditional love, “will take on the stresses and burdens of their guardian, as well as their own living struggle.” Horses, on the other hand, don’t necessarily take on these burdens but are very sensing beings with a strong bond to humans. “They naturally bridge the gap between the physical and the spiritual,” she explains. Meanwhile cats “see everything.” She has also worked with wild animals.
Elle has five very important core values that inform her work – consent, compassion, curiosity, intention, and integrity, which have come from a lifetime of connection with animals, training in a number of practices and modalities, and her own journey in personal growth. She has always held a deep passion for animals and says they were her “safe place” after growing up around “addiction and co-dependency and the unhealthy behaviours that would have gone with that.”
“I thought everyone would talk to animals. I just thought, that’s what you do. And I had a sense of spirit, of guides, and of angels and I didn’t have a language for them until I came into my twenties. I have this desire to bring animals and humans together for something, but I didn’t know as a child or as a teenager what that was. So then fast forward, I finished school, I trained as a chef, which I’m really glad I did now for hosting workshops and retreats, and in my early 20s I started training in holistic therapies.”
This is where she discovered the practices of reiki healing and animal communication, and integrated them into her own unique practice. She now has over two decades of experience in holistic therapies and works on “supporting people in seeing their own power and their behaviours” alongside her work with animals.
She has her own horses who she works with to provide therapy for people, but her work with other people’s animals can be completely remote. “I will rarely go to a call out unless the animal asks me. It is remote, because if I go into their space, we have the distraction of ‘there’s a stranger into the home.’ Or if they are all about being petted, or they’re food-oriented, or they are guarding their home space, they are all distractions from the communication. It is remotely primarily that I work, but I also do work in-person. And that’s where the work comes here with the horses, of bringing people onto the land here with them.”
Reiki can be performed inside the property, outdoors surrounded by the horses, or through distance healing. “I have clients in Germany, in Spain, in Australia, time and space doesn’t matter. We are connecting into that channel, into that frequency and they will experience it as strongly if not more than even the in-person sessions because there is no distraction of the physical. It’s known as distance healing, remote healing. It’s done all over the world. It’s been done for centuries. It’s age old. I’m holding that really clear, respectful, compassionate space for me and the animal, or the animal and the person, or the person that I am working with.”
Some common issues that she helps humans and their animals work through are end of life moments, a loss in the family, changes in behavior, anxiety, codependency and more. “They are all sensing beings. They sense their emotions, they hear all their thoughts whether they are audible or not. I work as a triangle with the dog and the human. I am essentially a translator, so after the human reaches out, I will connect with the animal and introduce myself telepathically and based on their consent I will then work with them. So what that looks like is remote communication and feeding back to the guardian,” she explained, highlighting the sensitivity of animals and how in tune they are with us.
“Co-dependent behaviours is the big recurring theme of my work. People who struggle with boundaries, struggle with trust, they’re outsourcing. It’s a big thing. They come in and they realise they’re outsourcing their work, their self-esteem, their anxiety, their validation, their responsibility. And that can then move into their animal’s life. They are unintentionally projecting anxiety, stress onto their dog,” she said, adding that most people who do this are deeply caring and that her work can help restore a balanced partnership with their animal.
Elle has a “fascination” with human psychology and behaviour, and her practice stands apart for its combination of modalities – holistic reiki healing, animal communication, codependency recovery with horses and more. “If you put all those together it’s very hard to find a place that is creating a safe place for people to come either one-on-one, or for workshops and training in those modalities, or retreats where they can come to learn and experience it all. You’ll find co-dependency support out there, you’ll find reiki, you’ll find animal communication, and you’ll find horses, but actually bringing them together is where I’m going with it.”
Her practice brings her immense joy, as she reflects on how people walk away from her holistic therapies with a realisation that “they’re responsible then for their own life. And to know that they carry that back into their own lives and that animals in their lives will be supported and helped and seen. And that these people will bring the ripple effects out into their own lives.”
She understands that she cannot reach everyone and that her work simply is not for everyone and that there is scepticism: “What I would love people to understand is that energy flows through us, and we are just tuning the dial on what already flows through us. People are filling up a well of peace inside of themselves, that they can fill up easily for the rest of their lives no matter what they are going through. They have this technique, the skills, the tools to tap into this and that it’s safe. It doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s just a simple tool for peace that they can access themselves.”
Elle’s practice is located near Ballydehob, West Cork, and updates on her work can be found via Facebook at Animal Communication and Reiki.
https://www.unbridlingthesoul.com
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