Soul Journeys with Horses

The Way to the Top

In the gorgeous hills of Stanford, Western Cape, and Bathurst, Eastern Cape, life-changing experiences await you. If a weekend in nature, surrounded by horses, and focused on transformation piques your interest, then Soul Journeys With Horses should be your next escape. Run by Liesl and Kirsten, who you'll hear more about shortly, the weekend's program focuses on your healing, with an exceptional herd of horses helping you along the way. We chatted to Liesl to find out what to expect at Soul Journeys.

ABOUT SOUL JOURNEYS WITH HORSES

Soul Journeys with Horses Transformative Weekends became a collaboration between Kirsten Neke (The Dancing Horse Life Coach) and her herd of seven horses in Stanford, Western Cape and my Equine Facilitated Wellness practice (Mearas Whisper, which means 'horses whisper') and four horses based in Bathurst, Eastern Cape.

Our equine-facilitated wellness activities are not about horsemanship or riding, which is so often the first thing that comes to mind when horses are mentioned. They are about inter-species connections, deep personal discovery, reflecting, and sharing a heart-based friendship with a horse. Any

RETREATS GUIDED BY EMPOWERED HERDS OF HORSES

person who has spent time around horses will understand the meaning behind this sentence. There exists a friendship that seeks to acknowledge and honour horses as sentient, cognitive beings while exploring our own inner workings. During our retreats, there is an in-depth focus on emotional, psychological and mental health.

WHY SOUL JOURNEYS WITH HORSES?

With the world in turmoil, the global demands for mental health care are ever increasing and the challenges of our time call for more and more ingenuity from us. In order to help solve problems and support children, teens, adults, families and communities experiencing more and more extreme life circumstances, we needed to change the recipe. In fact, we need an even greater reserve of compassion, courage and creativity. The value of nature-based therapies and support in this recipe (Ecotherapy, Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy, Counselling and Learning and Equine Facilitated Life Coaching) cannot be underestimated.

Horses hold such wide fascination for millions of people, and their very image sparks feelings and thoughts of freedom and power. Thankfully, interest in the horses' gifts in helping humans access healing has grown exponentially over the last decade.

LIESL'S JOURNEY

Childhood dreams have a way of staying with you throughout your life, and being horse crazy as a kid can become a lifelong passion for being with horses, learning from them and helping others grow and heal through horse wisdom for the heart. That's exactly how the journey went for me.

My childhood dream was to run a 'therapeutic ranch'. A place where humans and horses could reconnect, with themselves, each other and nature. A place of hope, healing, learning and transformation. When you spend time with the horses as a herd, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, and feeling what they feel, you end up discovering parts of yourself that may have been hidden. Parts in need of celebrating, nurturing, growing, healing, forgiving, building and even sometimes letting go. We often forget that these parts of ourselves exist.

The intrinsic value of horses as Anam Cara - soul friend - has transformed my life!

What is interesting to a horse is being able to understand his surroundings, spatial representations, social dynamics, problem-solving situations, or pre-conflict (where one horse interrupts two others that are starting a conflict) and consolatory (consoling) behaviours. – Equus Lost? by De Giorgio & De Giorgio-Schoorl.

LIESL AND KIRSTEN

As a life coach and a social worker, respectively, and both dedicated horsewomen, Kirsten and I recognise the tremendous importance of confidentiality, professional growth and ongoing support to our clients, and in the case of other professionals, the positive impact on their practices and businesses. We balance this with meeting the species-specific needs of our herds of horse partners.

With the need for innovative, solution-focused, and longlasting change in our world to keep growing, we, together with the horses, offer a heart-based space for wellness. Self-care and debriefing for carers and service providers alike is a very necessary and life-enhancing investment in personal development and maintenance of our capacity to care for others.

Our 'office' is based outside, in the veld, surrounded by the tremendous healing power of nature and of the emotionally empowered horses who choose to co-facilitate with us. Each aspect of a session, workshop or retreat is consciously geared toward safety on all levels for all, physically, emotionally and mentally. For the duration of the retreat, we're on equal footing with our equine co-workers, and there is no riding. There is, however, plenty of time spent with the herds of horses, engaging in activities such as hiking and healing. Relationship building always seeks to honour non-judgmental understanding, and our approach is positive-intelligence-based, three-brain (head, heart, gut) focused, trauma-informed and equine-guided. On our Soul Journeys with Horses Transformative Weekends, we spend time walking in the beauty of nature with a horse as a soul friend, while safely guided interactions invite reflection, joy, and a strengthening of your body, mind and spirit.