About

MISSION

The Embodied Leadership Project makes it affordable and accessible for women with sexual trauma to work therapeutically with horses by providing online Equine-Assisted Learning (EAL) which does not require participants to own a horse or to be in the physical presence of horses.

VISION

To collaborate with horses to offer hope, acknowledgement, and a feeling of wholeness to as many women survivors as possible.

Hi, I'm jamila

I am the founder of the Embodied Leadership Project. 

I am a trauma-informed yoga teacher, dancer, Equine-Assisted Learning facilitator, and an IFS-inspired Coach. Horses are a central component of my teaching. 

I work specifically to support conversations about trauma-informed embodied and community practice, spiritual development, coming back into contact with nature, ancestral work, negotiating with power and privilege, and initiating a sacred and non-predatory relationship to power.


Rooted in ancient ancestral and yogic spiritual lineages, I collaborate with the horses to offer a contemporary approach that makes a sense of belonging tangible, possible to understand, and accessible in a safe and transformative way.  My vision for the world is that we are successfully able to work with trauma, and with power, and also that we are lovingly connected to nature. 


WHAT IS EQUINE-Assisted Learning (EAL)?


The way I approach Equine-Assisted Learning (EAL) at the Embodied Leadership Project exists within a field of equine practice that is aimed less at what we can teach the horse and more on what we can learn from the horse as a leader and wisdom keeper in their own right.

"Rather than their ability to be ridden or their athleticism being the focus, [we instead focus on] horses’ ways of being, seeing, and processing, and engaging with the world" - Diedre West

This way of working with horses is referred to by several different names depending on who the equine specialist is and where they trained such as: Equine Assisted Practice/Learning (EAP/L), Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL), or Equine Assisted Growth and Development (EAGD).

PROGRAMMING


The Embodied Leadership Project’s (ELP)  Equine-Assisted Learning curriculum provides women the opportunity to experience the demonstrated therapeutic effect of relating to horses. (All women, trans, cis and gender nonconforming women are welcome in my programming)

ELP’s programming is created in collaboration with the horses I actively work with in person and is designed to be offered to participants online (not in the physical presence of the horses). 

In addition to being all about horses, it integrates the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model and trauma-informed yoga to support the process of meditative states, embodiment and psychological integration. Using stories about the horses, videos of the horses, imagery and guided meditations, I invite participants to connect and journey with these horses through their inner world: somatic experience, emotions, intellect, and imagination. 


Approach 


Through the Embodied Leadership Project, I work to bring awareness to the process of healing with horses, a lesser-known field within the arena of personal growth and healing. 


Horses are incredibly therapeutic and spiritual beings who are known for their power, their grace, and their healing presence. Horses help us to become present in our bodies and develop leadership in the way we relate to our own minds. They support us to feel and release emotions and sensations connected to trauma and grief and they open pathways for us to align more deeply to our purpose and aliveness. 


While many people feel a draw toward horses, there are some very real barriers to finding and sustaining a long-term empowered relationship with these animals. Not only is there a lack of awareness that healing and personal growth with horses is an actual field of practice (and that it can be beneficial to most people), there are the additional challenges of getting access to a horse, finding the right facilitator, and of course, cost! 


I believe that engaging in healing and personal growth with horses should be accessible to any woman who feels called. I am passionate about bringing awareness to the benefits of this work and creating free and low-cost ways for women across racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds to work with me and the horses.  


The incredible thing about my method is that it can be used in a potent and powerful way at a distance. This means I can offer it online and participants do not need to have a horse or be in the physical presence of a horse. I bring the horses - invoking their energy through video, story, breath-work, and guided meditations - and I bring the personal growth and healing frameworks that allow you to create a deep and lasting connection with horses and your own Self.  This framework invokes an expanded relationship with one’s own psyche that is strengthened by the healing consciousness of the horse and herd.

I recognize racial, economic, ecological and other social injustices to be rooted in the trauma that naturally results when the sacredness of our relationships to our bodies, to one other and to the earth is disrupted due to the misuse of power, colonialism and domination-based paradigms. My leadership approach is about cultivating a sacred relationship to love through developing embodied, empowered and trauma-informed communication by learning directly from horses, Black women, and nature. 

More about Equine-Assisted LEarning (EAL) and Internal Family Systems (IFS) 


Diedre West, owner of Healing with Horse Collective, speaks beautifully about working with horses as a pathway of healing and growth

“There is a distinction to be made here: equine specialists working in the realms of EAP/L see horses as the guides or sources of wisdom rather than as the learners in client interactions. Rather than their ability to be ridden or their athleticism being the focus, horses’ ways of being, seeing, and processing, and engaging with the world opens sources of wisdom and enlightenment about our inner selves, our relational dynamics, and all those forces that make us yearn, change, transform, and do things we would not otherwise do (whether creative, destructive, or genius) if we were truly logical, exclusively conscious beings.

That focus on horse as a sentient being full of wisdoms we do not have, distinguishes the goals for working with horses in this field from most every other equine field out there, including natural horsemanship and most liberty training. This is a profound shift about which practitioners find there is an onion-peeling sort of learning to get to the heart of, not just for our clients but for ourselves and our practice/facilitation.”

 - Diedre West, Owner of Healing with Horse Collective, from her article, "And So We Begin: Our Role as Practitioner & Facilitator" (http://www.healingwithhorse.org/and-so-we-begin/)


Developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a model and a method of working with the psyche and soma that views each person’s body and mind being a system of many parts. This principle of multiplicity allows us to develop our Self - our central core & inner compassionate witness, and from this place, develop relationships with the tender parts of us that hold trauma and pain, as well as the parts of us that shield us from this pain and manage our lives to keep the entire system safe. 


Internal Family Systems honors and respects each aspect of who we are and invites the wholeness of ourselves to be seen, heard and understood. IFS and Equine-Assisted Learning partner together incredibly well because the model of a system of many parts organized around a witnessing presence mirrors the way horses exist in herds and rest in witnessing awareness. Horses are incredibly therapeutic and help us to not only develop our Self-energy, but model a way of welcoming all aspects of ourselves into the herd where they can be truly heard.


You can learn more about IFS here: https://ifs-institute.com/

I believe in the possibility of diverse communities 

where all being’s voices are heard and valued. The Embodied Leadership Project is doing the work of undoing oppressive and divisive culture which marginalizes women and our experiences, silences our voices, and makes our stories invisible. It is when we have meaningful and connected relationships to others that we think most clearly and creatively and act with innovation, empathy, care and understanding.

Angus, my Primary equine-Collaborator

Angus

 Primary Equine Collaborator 

The Embodied Leadership Project received funding from the Kaleidoscope Institute Semester of Justice Grant to deepen our ability to bring the healing and trauma-sensitive wisdom of horses to the community. Through the grant, I was able to buy Angus and launch our Equine- Assisted Learning (EAL) Program