CHENNAI: Sanjuktha M has helped cats with depression and dogs with cancer. All she needs is a photograph and some background on your pet, and this city-based Reiki healer is good to go.
If you’re wondering how to get your pet to sit still with a stranger, it’s not quite needed, she clarifies, “Most of my sessions are done using distance healing, which means I don’t need to be in the same room with the animal at all. In fact, your pet could be anywhere in the world while I do it,” she flashes us a smile.
Ironically, this 35-year-old did not decide to expand her patient base from human beings to their pets. It was always going to be all for the animals, “The only reason I took up Reiki was because my husband and I heard of animal healing abroad, and it got us curious,” she reveals.
Ever since she got her certification in Level 2 Reiki early last year, her list of takers has quickly grown from her own five dogs and 17 cats at home to pets owned by people around the city, all via word of mouth. And it wasn’t until a few months ago that she set up a Facebook page called ‘Gaia Mitra’, to make it official.
So how do animals respond to energy healing? “A whole lot better than human beings,” Sanjuktha admits with a laugh, adding, “I guess it’s because if you have a tail, you can’t be a skeptic.” From dull dogs perking up and hoping to play to anxious pets settling down for a peaceful snooze, this healer tells us that the human companions of her patients have come back with some great feedback.
These days though, she has been getting more requests for her ‘telepathic’ abilities with animals. Word spread faster than you can say meow when she pin-pointed the location of a friend’s lost cat that went missing at midnight recently. “They only managed to get through to me at 5 am the next morning though. The way this works is that you can see what the animal sees when you make contact. So I described it to the owners and fortunately it turned out to be an abandoned building close by.” The cat was found two hours later by her incredulous owners.
“Being an animal communicator is a vast field though, so I am going to focus on learning a lot more before I offer it professionally as a service,” Sanjuktha says seriously, hearing our high expectations almost telepathically.