EQUINE ASSISTED THERAPY AND COACHING
Equine assisted therapy and coaching is tailored to support deep feelers & deep thinkers in slowing down to process stress, grief and life transitions.
Sessions are facilitated by equine guided clinician Caitlin Spencer LCSW-C of Wild Hearts LLC.The first step is to schedule a free consultation, followed by an online introductory session.
During this initial session we will explore your goals, go over how the program can be customized to your needs, review expectations and safety measures, and make sure that we are good fit for one another.
This is for you if…
If you are a horse person who is seeking a better relationship with your horse, or are working through a traumatic incident that effects your presence with your horse, please contact me about customizable options to work together.
We also welcome those without horse experience who are looking for support or healing in their lives.
For more information visit my website:
https://wildheartsllc.org
What might you gain as a result of this program?
Mind
Learning to develop your Self-Leadership: the ability to lead ourselves both internally and externally with awareness, self-responsibility, self mastery and intention
Discernment between our False self and Authentic self
Identifying our Core Values and intentionally choosing to align our behavior with them
Understanding overthinking as an adaptive response to succeeding in modern society, and observing how this adaptation has severed us from our intuitive wisdom, and our creative and expressive states
Peeling back layers of conditioning that led us to over-rely on our thinking selves, and examining our anxious and competitive states of doing, and achieving
Learning to view our inner critic as a means of survival, and moving towards making peace with it as you step into your Self and embody leadership from a new place
Body
An introduction to body based or somatic techniques for processing emotions
Opportunities to practice regulating your emotions in a space with horses, as you get real time feedback from them on the state of your nervous system
Connection and co-regulation with horses and nature
Experiencing presence, attunement, and practicing BEING rather than DOING
Learning to trust your body again as you develop a felt sense of moving through emotions in real time
Practicing embodiment as you use energy to set and hold boundaries
Expand your nervous system’s capacity to feel the good stuff too- joy, calm, peace, connection
Practicing mindfulness and slowing down to feel into the sensory delights all around as you connect to nature
Spirit
Feeling rooted and grounded in a greater purpose
Reconnection to your natural, true and authentic self
A remembering of your intuitive senses, and embracing of your inner wisdom to guide you forward
Embracing life with new vitality and a more expansive perspective
Connection back to the Earth, connection with others we share the planet with
Exploring ritual and connection to rhythms of nature
Balancing your yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) energy to feel more harmonious within your self and the way you show up in life
Exploring community and relationships as ways of supporting your purpose and sharing your unique gifts to others
What to expect
In our work, I will help you ease into your nervous system and return home to your body and it’s natural wisdom, so that you can begin to feel good again.
At a pace that works for you, we will step-by-step and bit-by-bit explore how to intentionally feel your feelings. Over time you will see that your body’s natural ability to process stress and big emotions can also lead to expansion into the good stuff- joy, love, calm, flow.
In these sessions, you will begin to remember the wisdom of your body, and walk away with the felt sense of being more whole; more empowered knowing you are capable of moving through what comes up.
You can begin to let go of your hyper-vigilant guardian who protects you from feeling the big stuff, that guardian can take a break! Hell, maybe it can even pull up a lounge chair and sip a big fruity drink with an umbrella in it- it deserves some rest after all this time!
After all, you are your greatest healer. You are your own heroine. You are capable of more than you know.
In Person
For in person sessions, we will meet at the farm where there are fields of well cared for horses, a stream running through the property, and a tree line to wander around and connect with nature.
In this setting, you may find yourself practicing any of a variety of skills I will coach you through, including mindfulness practices and somatic interventions (this is the part where you learn to feel your feelings as you notice them in your body).
As you learn about your own body and how to help regulate your emotions, we may turn our attention to understanding the horse and how they move through their emotions. I will share with you information around horse body language, how they communicate and how we can practice safety when interacting with them.
Sessions will begin with a fence between us and the horses until comfort and safety are established, and then we may find ourselves venturing in with the herd to experience their wisdom and notice what shifts in our bodies as we step into trust with the horses.
From here there are many ways our work unfolds! I leave room for what wants to come. We can set an intention, and leave the agenda. Allowing for trust, and intuition in the unfolding so that you can walk away from our time together knowing you got what you needed.
Virtual
In virtual sessions we will have space to practice learning some of the somatic based interventions so that you have an understanding how to practice them once we get to the farm.
I’ll also spend time getting to know you, and what themes in your life are relevant to the growth and transformation you desire. In these calls we spend time tying together what you learn at the farm and put it into application in your actual day to day experience.
For this purpose, each of my packages includes integration calls where we can deepen your application and refine skills to help with moving your wisdom into practice resulting in real change!