Welcome to Around the Barn!
It is no secret and clear to everyone who knows me and my work, that my two passions are mental health and horses. In early 2020 on the heels of COVID-19, our lives changed rapidly. The world as we know it came crashing down, and we emerged overnight to a world of zoom, Skype, masks, social distancing, staying at home, and media sensationalism.
One of the unintended consequences of this pandemic occurred and nurses grabbed the public and the media’s interest. Nurses were already caring for patients on the front lines of health care, but now, nurses were caring for patients diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus. Once nurses came to the forefront of everyone’s mind an interesting phenomena took place. Nurses stepped up like they usually do, but now the public and everyone else began shifted the concern for nurses physical health and ask the question, “How is the nurses mental health and well-being?”
Thankfully, this interest in nurses well-being translated into an outpouring of public and business support for weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic surge, and continued well in 2020.
Although most changes during the pandemic were forced upon nurses, nurses got to choose to adapt quickly and effortlessly, and innovation was seen as a talent rather than a quirk. As I began to adapt and adopt my work life to working remotely, I decided to take bold steps toward my passions in life and forge ahead with my new career path: Equine Assisted Professional (EAP) and training for show competitions.
Leaping out in faith, I started to compete on weekends in United States Dressage Federation (USDF) and United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) recognized horse shows! My training in Natural Lifemanship (NL) soon followed and in 2020 I completed my initial step towards certification in Equine Assisted Professional through Natural Lifemanship (NL).
NL uses experiential learning principles, brain development process, and apply these principles and relationship building skills together with the horse as a partner. In my practice with the behavioral health provider and horse partner, my goal is to create a place of safety for our team and client to experience building healthy relationships using muscle building and re-training of the brain, moving from trauma-focused, stress-filled, and unsafe thinking to a higher level of thinking and acting while transforming relationships at the same time. Equine behaviors are a way for the horse to communicate.
This Trauma-Focused Equine Assisted Professional learns and translates subtle equine behaviors, and together with the client and licensed professional, can steer the psychotherapy session to a safe conclusion.
Natural Lifemanship provides the foundation for my equine mental health professional practice. NL together with my decades of nursing practice and research, emerges and together with my certification as an Equine Assisted Professional, and with Kellie Schriver, LCDC, AAC, BCPCC, CEMP, CES, offer an Equine Assisted Psychotherapy Program in McKinney, Texas.