Horses help create an environment where grace can be experienced, especially in places where shame exists.
Hello,
Jamila here! Thank you for making it to this page.
This page has three components:
1) Acknowledgement: A simple and gentle acknowledgement of sexual trauma. You are not alone. This gentle acknowledgement is so powerful, especially in a culture where this type of trauma is taboo to speak about. Acknowledgement helps ease our shame. It lets you know when you come to this page that you are a part of a community of others who have experienced this type of suffering, myself included.
2) A Healing Practice: Now that we have acknowledged why we are on this page, we can move into a gentle practice of rest with the horses. Rest offers powerful healing for trauma. The video below does not include any reference to sexual trauma and does not ask you to excavate your pain or return to any memories. It is an invitation access grace through resting in the atmosphere that horses offer.
3) Extended Information + Trainings: This section includes upcoming classes and trainings as well as more information about this type of work. Because our culture does not provide many spaces to learn about sexual trauma, it can be healing to learn more about this type of trauma, why it can feel so overwhelming, and how horses can help us. If you are interested in reading more, you can read on below the video.
Coming soon... date TBA
Healing with Horses: A Self-Care Class.
This class will integrate video footage of practicing bodywork with the horses at the farm - learning how to read their body language as well as witnessing their sensitivity to presence and ability to release tension & stress. In combination with the videos, we will explore self-care and our own ability to relax, release stress, and feel safe and calm by practicing trauma-informed mindfulness and practices from the book Acupressure for Emotional Healing.
I will offer this class online for women only. Please join the Email List to receive updates before the class launches. Date to be announced.
The phenomenon of sexual trauma is immense and overwhelming, to say the least. But if you are here reading this - a part of you has already made the choice to face the challenge of healing.
I want to invite you to consider that there is a pathway forward that is gentle and beautiful. My genuine hope is that through reading about healing with horses you will be educated, transformed, and empowered.
To begin, I want to explain where I am coming from.
Like many, I am a survivor of sexual violence. For years I experienced overwhelming feelings of powerlessness against the shadow of my sexual trauma.
I say shadow because that is exactly what it felt like. Even though there were some moments I was able to consciously acknowledge it, most of the time it felt like a looming shadow, something heavy, painful and scary haunting me that I couldn’t even quite perceive.
The upsetting but truthful thing is: sexual trauma is something that most of us carry in our own bodies and in our bloodlines. There are varying degrees of traumatic experiences and all of them are worthy of healing.
No matter what you have been through, if you are sensing that you are ready to engage in getting more support with relating to your trauma - I commend you and welcome you with my full heart.
The first reason is: it's too much to bear
What happened to us is too big to face at once. It is TOTALLY overwhelming and dysregulating.
The word "trauma" refers to an experience (or series of ongoing experiences) that completely overwhelms the nervous system. And so it makes sense that focusing on it - or even the idea of focusing on it will feel daunting, burdensome, painful, terrifying, and at times so overwhelming that we check out, numb out, dissociate, or become unraveled.
For years, I felt anxiety at the topic of sexual trauma or sexual violence even being brought up. I would get triggered SUPER intensely, experiencing panic, insomnia, overeating and/or losing my appetite. I felt creeped out by very the idea of it.
How was I going to heal it when I could barely think about it, let alone name it or, God forbid, say it out loud?
You may relate. You may have been carrying around a feeling that you need to heal this trauma some day but it feels WAY too hard to begin… impossible even. It may be showing up in your body, your relationships, your life, and your finances. You may think about wanting to take steps toward healing. You may even know that you need to take steps toward healing. But when you think about it, your body becomes hazy, disoriented, numb, checked-out, terrified, lost, or shut down. That is because no matter what is happening in our mind, trauma exists in the body. These disorientation symptoms are a protective measure that your body is taking to shield you from the immense pain and fear that you experienced in the past. This is a protection that makes so much sense and is a gift from our body.
The second reason is: sexual trauma is taboo to talk about
.Sexual violence pervades our culture and the trauma that results from it is taboo to talk about.
Quite often there is no safe space to tell the truth about our experience, and it can be dangerous to voice our feelings. Many folks don't have access to healing spaces or practitioners, experience cultural taboos around therapy, or experience financial realities that make it very difficult to access help. It is important to recognize that there are immense levels of structural, financial, and cultural barriers to accessing help.
While we are becoming more comfortable with talking about trauma in our culture, sexual trauma is still taboo. As survivors of sexual violence, we can have one of two experiences: one is that we don't want to trigger other people and so we suffer in silence. The other is that when we do share, other people don't know how to respond to us, or become triggered by hearing us, and so we get silenced, have our truth suppressed, or even get punished when we attempt to talk about what has happened. Our families, our communities, and our culture are saturated with sexual violence and most people’s nervous systems struggle to stay regulated when this topic comes up.
The difficulties and challenges we experience from other people when we attempt to share what we have gone through can become another trauma in and of itself.
This compounding trauma can send us into profound depths of separation and isolation. And it can be terrifying.
The problem with not being able to talk about our experiences, and receive loving supportive witness and coregulation, is that our bodies require relational connection and safety to heal and we are not able to find it.
I have had many experiences of trying to tell my truth to someone who I thought was safe - but the sense of safe connection between us would begin to dissolve as they became uncomfortable with what I was expressing. Things would start to feel very awkward - at times terrifying.
That part of me who was being so brave, trying to find a sense of connection and acknowledgment would then go back into feeling incredibly separate - but now with more shame and greater levels of fear.
I used, and still use, so much energy to keep a part of myself hidden while presenting an acceptable self to the world and my relationships.
I wonder if you can relate? I feel like this is an experience so many of the people I connect with also have had.
You deserve a safe person who is able acknowledge your experience, name it, and not be afraid of it.
The third reason is: Disconnection with land and nature
Through histories (and present experiences) of violence, our relationships have been systematically violated.
It is through this mass trauma that much of the violence we are trying to heal from was/is initiated on our bloodlines. While at first, this may feel even more depressing, this truth is actually a gateway to recalling the fullness of ourselves and our relationship with all of life because we can remember that while human relationships may be filled with violence, we are also in relationship with and a part of nature.
This is important to acknowledge because:
even if we do have access to the most safe and loving person to share our story with, something as vulnerable as our sexual trauma may, at first, feel just flat out too sensitive to ever want to share with another person.
THIS IS WHERE THE HORSES COME IN
Healing with horses is a pathway of receiving witnessing, reflection and connection when our experience with humans is marred by shame. Horses live in families called herds. Their natural way of relating to one another and the environment is rooted in witnessing.
Horses have also gone through the violence of human conquest and warfare. Their experiences of abuse, violation, and captivity often mirror our own. They can help the parts of us who cannot speak, still feel heard, seen and witnessed. The grace of the herd can help each part of us truly feel heard.
The only reason I got to the point where I was able to speak words to another SAFE human, was because of the work I had done with horses.
Horses offered me a place to begin to explore the parts of me who could not speak. They connected through movement, stillness, and through feeling. They were a safe place of connection that WANTED to be close to me no matter how terribly I felt. Horses brought a grace into my life that showed me a path forward through what previously was impossible. And I devoted my life to making the grace they open portals to experience, accessible to others.
I remember standing with a horse at liberty (meaning he was not tied to anything and free to leave) and realizing I was feeling something under the surface. There was grass for him to go eat - there were other things that he was doing. But when I started to feel my feelings he CHOSE to pause and stand with me.
As I stayed with my feelings, they began to unfold. I felt irritation and overwhelm, then it unfolded into pain, then sadness. Every time the feeling became more clear - he stepped closer to me with gentle eyes. He let out a gentle sigh.
Eventually, he was so close that his soft eye was about 1 inch from my eye. We were both so still.
He wanted to listen and be with me as I felt my truth beginning to unfold within me.
The CONNECTION that horses gave me allowed me to begin to express what I could not speak. Horses were tender enough to listen to the places within me that were too vulnerable to share yet with another human.
In a safe connection, there is enough stability for the nervous system to release the energy, fear, and pain that has been stuck from the trauma.
What happened to us as survivors was so intense and vulnerable that to focus on it too brightly will be too much - at times even just the attention of another loving person may be too intense for those parts of us.
Horses have a way of witnessing us that is profoundly gentle. The horse's soft gaze and tender heart can look at us with a light that is soft enough for the most devastated and violated parts of us.
We can begin to come back into connection. And the most brilliant and beautiful thing? We can engage with horses through the imagination, video, and meditation. We don't have to be with them in person to experience their healing capacities.
EQUINE-ASSISTED LEARNING MAKES HEALING WITH HORSES POSSIBLE ONLINE
One of the many ways that I work with horses through video is the video above of Angus and Izzy in the snow. This is a meditation that allows us to be strengthened by Izzy's powerful level of presence and Angus' trust..
I had practiced a meditation like this several times but I was not quite aware of the incredible power of this meditation until one day something triggered my PTSD.
Immediately after the event that triggered me, I felt a familiar level of panic begin to arise within me. Usually, when this happens, I feel COMPLETELY devoured by the panic and I either have to take panic medication or wait many many days (even weeks) for my nervous system to regulate.
However, on this particular day, I spontaneously felt Izzy deep within my heart joining me in witnessing my emotions and sensations. Her presence was so palpable that I was able to stay present with the part of myself that was terrified.
As Izzy and I continued to witness this part of myself, I was able to dialogue with it and be curious about its experience. The immensity of terror dissolved. I felt more regulated, and I felt grounded and able to continue to take steps to take care of myself.
The meditations and practices I offer provide a way for people to access the living & healing presence of horses without having to be in their presence.
Horses are incredibly healing and therapeutic and they can offer us support when we are struggling mentally and emotionally. They teach us about peace, belonging, self reflection, and truthfulness.
Through the grace of the herd we can create a BEAUTIFUL, RELIEVING, SLOW, SAFE, and CONNECTED environment where the truth is welcomed IF and WHEN it wants to show up.
Our trauma is at the root of so much of our distress - trouble sleeping, anxiety, economic hardship, depression, physical pain, immense stress, fear of intimacy, struggles in our relationship, etc.
Instead of numbing out, feeling overwhelmed, terrified, stuck, blocked, isolated, and your only option being hiding from this wound alone - I invite you to join me in community with the horses. I welcome you with all of my heart!