Joanna Schmidt

Joanna Schmidt is an intuitive animal communicator based in Bellingham, Washington, on the shores of the Salish Sea. She works with sensitive, animal-loving people to help them understand what their pets are feeling and wanting, and to return to their own intuitive center when they feel disconnected from it. She sees good intuitive work as a way to calm the nerves, listen with the heart, and move forward with love.

Her path began at age 12 with classes in Reiki, channeling, automatic writing and animal communication. In 1996 she opened a healing practice focused on helping people with trauma histories feel safe in their bodies, using intuitive massage therapy alongside shamanic practices and energy work such as bone unwinding, Polarity and Chakra Balancing. In 2008, after decades of study and years of apprenticeships, she turned to animal communication and intuitive mentoring. She has since retired from massage therapy, but says what it taught her about embodiment and space-holding runs through everything she does.

In her sessions, she describes animal communication as a real-time, two-way conversation. She tunes in with a pet from a photo, shares what she hears and senses, and relays the animal's answers to the questions its person brings. She offers support for rescued dogs, senior pets and households with several animals. She also guides people through journeys to the heart, which she calls Reclaiming Center, and shares meditations that draw on animism, animal communication, energetic boundaries and embodiment.

Her values are ethical integrity, working only with consent and transparency, and a team approach among herself, her clients and their pets, without power-over dynamics. She treats what looks like problem behavior as a form of communication, and aims for understanding rather than asking an animal to ignore its feelings.

Joanna describes herself as an animist who believes in the intelligence of nature. She shares her home with dogs, including a Rottweiler named Raspberry, and has been married to her husband, Steve, for over 30 years. She works with clients across the U.S. and internationally over Zoom.