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trauma recovery / equine facilitated learning
LET'S FIND IT, TOGETHER.
There is More to Life
RE-CONNECT WITH YOURSELF
FIND YOUR
VOICE
JOURNEY TO
WHOLENESS
It takes a lot of processing to get to the
heart of what’s causing you pain.
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When traditional therapies and practices don’t seem to really uncover what’s going on, you can easily feel lost. Whether you’re frustrated with life, not sure what’s missing, or you’re yearning for a way to finally live authentically, Somatic Experiencing can help. Add a horse to the equation and you have a unique and powerful way to help you reconnect to yourself.
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What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies and nervous systems. Trauma, from an SE lens, is focused on how it shows up in the nervous system and how that dysregulation impacts life. When we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze, SE helps us release, recover, and become more resilient. . .
The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming patterns that get stuck and impact people’s daily lives. It can be used to support the resolution of PTSD and developmental attachment trauma. . .
The Science
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Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can impair, sometimes seriously, a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, epigenetics, systems, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict.
How it Works
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The Somatic Experiencing approach facilitates the completion of self- protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions and working to complete defensive responses previously thwarted from bringing resolution to the nervous system and, therefore, to the individual.
Excerpted from Somatic Experiencing International website:
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But Barb, horses...really?
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Yes! The brain of a horse is built to experience emotion without evaluation because, unlike humans, they don’t have a prefrontal cortex that overthinks things.
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Imagine an emotional but non-judgmental being who can mirror all your human feelings, providing you with the insight, clarity and freedom you crave.
Horses have an incredible sensitivity to the energy around them. They are always present and aware, not only of themselves, but of others. It’s the ultimate relationship skill, this ability to pay attention to both oneself and another being at the same time.
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FINALLY A SAFE SPACE TO EXPLORE & UNDERSTAND ALL YOUR FEELINGS
Working with a skilled Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and, at times, a sensitive and fully present horse will help you:
Tune into your Natural Rhythms
Deepen Your Assertiveness
Build Better Boundaries
Activate Your Intuition
Renegotiate Past Traumas
Reclaim Your Authenticity
I'M BARB GANSKE, SOMATIC EXPERIENCING PRACTITIONER and EPONAQUEST INSTRUCTOR
B.Sc. (Pharm.), B.A., M.T.S. (Spirituality)
I spent over 20 years as a pharmacist and watched too many people 'coping' with personal struggles or unresolved trauma by filling prescription after prescription. It was clear western medicine wasn't working and I became intrigued with understanding how people cope. I knew I needed a change and so started my own journey to learn as much as I could about how people heal.
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The first step in my quest to discover how we grow and heal was completing a Master of Theological Studies in Spirituality. This yearning to understand and help people heal and grow has now become my life’s passion.
Meanwhile, I was working alongside my husband in our commercial plumbing construction business. As we grew our company, I saw the need to develop leadership skills in our employees. In the leadership books I read, the themes were the same – great leadership is at its utmost a journey of self-discovery.
I had read the book The Tao of Equus over 20 years ago by renowned equine expert Linda Kohanov. I remember thinking when I first read it that it would be the greatest job in the world to help people heal with horses. However, I had two small children then and this was not even a dream I could imagine. But, in 2017, something urged me to re-read that book, and I was again moved by the human-horse connection. I decided I needed to take a course with Linda. From that came the opportunity to study with her.
Since becoming an Eponaquest Instructor, I have continued my learning, studying Internal Family Systems and then finishing training as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. I continue to learn and take courses in trauma recovery and am especially interested in perinatal and birth trauma, as well as the relationship between trauma recovery and spirituality. I expect that I will always be driven to learn and expand my understanding of how trauma impacts humans!
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Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner
Eponaquest Instructor, Certified in:
Power of the Herd® | Master Herder® | Sentient Communication® | Connection Focused Therapy®
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Informed Practitioner (IFSCA)
Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath® Practitioner
3.
Reach out and get connected. We'll jump on a quick discovery call to ensure we're a good fit and you can ask me all your questions.
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We'll coordinate a time for you to come out to the farm. I'll introduce you to the horses we'll be working with. Our frequency will depend on your goals.
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Finally feel seen and accepted for who you are so you'll understand where to go. Accessing your own inner guidance, your confidence will soar and you'll be able to move through life with renewed energy.
WHETHER YOU ARE LOOKING TO GROW AS A LEADER, DEEPEN YOUR RESILIENCE, OR HEAL UNSPOKEN TRAUMA, THIS IS OUR 3 STEP APPROACH:
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“I would call Barb a somatic, sense-making sorceress! Her work is very skilled as she combines a number of different approaches in a way that is always body-based but welcomes the psyche and spirituality in a holistic and integrative way. She listens to human bodies and human beings and guides the client to discover how to make sense of what has happened to them and what needs to happen for resolution and repair."
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