Sandy Rakowitz, from One Heart Healing Center is an award winning animal wellness, life and business coach. She chats with us and reveals more about the amazing work she performs. She is a leader in Animal – Human Potential Alchemy around the world.
Sandy, please tell us a little about your journey and how you came to be the person you are today.
Interestingly enough, I did not grow up with animals at home as my parents didn’t allow animals inside. I craved connection with animals from when I was very little and was only able to do this with animals that belonged to friends. I started horse riding when I was eight years old and it seemed like an eternity of waiting before getting to this point.
All I wanted was this connection with animals and nature. I often felt on the fringe. My connection with animals – physical, emotional, psychological and with the unseen realms – was of huge importance to me.
At times, I would feel total absorption or resonance with animals and this allowed me to connect into my heart, and called me to connect with the unseen realms. This is really what saved me and in some ways, continues to do so.
For example, as humans, we all get disconnected when we go into a negative place or fall into some kind of judgement. Animals constantly help us find our way back and they show us the deep capacity we have to love. Many animal people do not always feel the same way about people as they do with animals, but animals show us our true potential and the best of our capacity.
I started training horses when I was a teenager. I was extremely intuitive and was able to connect with horses in a way that went beyond their problem behaviors into the essence of who they truly were.
Even as a teenager, I always ended up with the challenging horses because I was able to understand them and work with them from some unspoken deep place in us both.
When I was in my late twenties I found Ibis, a thoroughbred off the racing track. I was going to use him for riding lessons for beginners. However, he disliked teaching beginner lessons but turned out to be an incredible teacher nevertheless. This horse kept calling me into deeper ranges of growth.
He was an off the race track thoroughbred, and had been racing for three years. He had numerous problems because of his past and although I knew that there was a wonderful horse underneath his challenging traits, I just couldn’t reach him – he was shut down (and he said the same about me). At this time I had been training horses for fifteen years and I was pretty good at what I did. This is how and why I started animal communication.
Prior to animal communication, I had become a Centered Riding Instructor, and Tellington TTouch Practitioner. I began using both with my horse, with wonderful results, and then I started introducing this with my clients. This was just the beginning of my journey with my horse. Whatever I learned I used on my animals, and would start using these practices on other people’s horses too.
I attended The Barbara Brennan School (BBSH) which is a global healing institute dedicated to the evolution of the human spirit. This four year professional training program is a specialized form of holistic support and is a hands-on system that works with an individual’s energy field, chakras, and consciousness system to support and enhance physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness and balance.
My quest to connect with my horse led me to do all of these training programmes, which opened up the spiritual realm to me in many different ways and finally propelled me in the direction of working with humans, which up until then I had gone out of my way to avoid. Everything I learned at this school, I would practice on Ibis.
I soon realized that using my newly acquired skills resulted in phenomenal outcomes, with Ibis, with other people’s horses and all kinds of other animals. This opened my work with animal communication and understanding what communication actually was from the animal’s perspective.
Ibis and I came up with a program called The Awaken Animal Communication Method which I continue to teach. He is a master teacher who I had the blessing of sharing thirty-two years with.
What came first for you – animal communication or human healing?
The phrase Animal Communication didn’t exist when I was a teenager. It was known as Interspecies Telepathic Communication that a handful of women taught. I would say that what came to me first was the connection with animals, which led me into connection with myself, and then people, and then healing.
What Is animal communication; an energy field, a frequency, intuition, imagery, telepathy…?
For me, it is comprised of all of the above. We all have a sensory system, a normal range of the five senses, to whatever degree depending on the individual – we see with our eyes, we hear, we feel emotions, we have kinesthetic touch…I believe that animal communication is the expansion of all these senses beyond our normal range of sensing.
Our sensory systems work together so we may therefore see images, or have a very powerful emotion and we are given the opportunity to tune into any of the realms, spiritual and other, to be one with that connectedness.
Would you describe people who disregard or disrespect animals to be lacking in something fundamental?
When we are in disregard or disrespect, when we are feeling judgmental or not feeling compassionate, we are not in connection with our heart of hearts, our soul, or with a larger sense of unity.
People who are in disrespect or disregard, are in a certain aspect in a sense of separation and therefore are in a place of disconnect. When there is disconnect – there is a void, and often don’t have kind regard for another.
What are the powers of TTouch and can this be advantageous/healing for both animals and humans?
Tellington TTouch is an amazing body of work which was developed by Linda Tellington-Jones over 40 years ago. Ibis brought me into this in 1988, so I have had the pleasure of working with Linda for a very long time. TTouch is so powerful because it works on different levels. Young children can learn the practice and there is no need to understand the science behind it. The circular movements that are performed seem so simple that one wonders how this can affect behavior or influence health and wellbeing.
Yet, it really does. The deeper you go into the techniques, the more in depth the quality and range of the effects.
Intention applied to each TTouch assists in connecting into the light found in the nucleus of each and every cell. We know through Quantum Physics that this light in each cell is the connection with the Divine. This is the microcosm of ALL that is. One of the basic TTouches is the one and a quarter circular movements. This is this direct connection – the spiral or circular movement – with these cells and can have a major impact on behavior, health and well-being. There are now over twenty different touches and they work equally powerfully with both animals and humans.
Do you believe that feeling compassion, and having a deeper understanding of animals can result in a more fulfilling and rewarding life, spiritually, emotionally and physically?
Absolutely! Animals enrich your life. This is what my work is all about – celebrating the human-animal bond and how it really brings out the best in us.
How do you proceed with your clients?
I always ask about a person or animal’s background, and what they are needing.
We look at what the current issues are, what the person or animal is struggling with and what they would like to see happen, whether it be for the animal or human. I draw from all the tools that I have depending on what is needed and asked for.
I will start to tune in and will bridge the gap between the animal and the human, by helping that animal have a voice, and by helping the animal understand the human’s perspective. Through questioning and insights, asking the animal to talk me through things – I am playing detective both energetically, emotionally and psychically and then relaying information, and healing energies, insights and perspectives back and forth between them.
With traumatic experiences, whether it be for a human or animal, I assist in releasing how trauma is held in the mind and body. The way trauma is held in memory, in the body, emotions can all shift and heal.
Sometimes, one session can be enough and other times, many sessions are required. It also depends on how much the person wants to learn.
Do you believe that animal communication is accessible to everyone?
Yes, Everyone has a sensory system and therefore the capacity to use these senses and to learn, grow and understand more deeply. We all have the capacity to learn. Some are more shut down or shut off than others. When I work with people, we start where they are, and assist them in tuning into themselves more fully, releasing blocks and opening and expanding more fully. I help people recognize what they do naturally and inherently but that they might not necessarily be conscious of and this begins to build their understanding, confidence and skills.
I LOVE working with people to help them learn to do this more deeply for themselves and with their own animals. It is a process and involves many different elements. People need to learn how to connect their way, so as to be authentic to themselves.
I have spent over thirty years focusing on this deeply, profoundly and intensely. Thirty years of training, exploring, and experience professionally is a very long time. While the volume of work and experience I have done is accessible to all, not everybody is going to go to this level of expertise. In training people to learn animal communication through my classes and programs, I walk them step-by-step into in-depth experiences for understanding their own animals, and for those who desire to apply animal communication and healing professionally.
For more information and to work with Sandy Rakowitz go to: www.OneHeartHealingCenter.com and www.OneHeartUniversity.com
