What is Equine Assisted Learning / Equine Facilitated Wellness?

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In Equine Facilitated Wellness / Equine Assisted Learning sessions (EFW/EAL), horses are the teachers, and a certified Coach/Facilitator provides support. At Equine Arts, adaptable session lengths and an open-air, forest-farm environment set a beautiful stage for meaningful learning experiences.

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EAL/EFW offers opportunities for personal growth in three core areas:

 

Emotional insights:  Explore a deeper and broader understanding of emotional topics like regulation/dysregulation, engagement/withdrawal, feelings, body language, empathy, and connection. 

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Skills mastery:  Grow confidence by creating, exploring, refining, and playing with concepts of leadership and problem-solving through interactive challenges.

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Relationship development:  Forge trust-based relationships with people and equines -enhancing empathy and communication skills.

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Communicating with horses is powerful.  They are nonjudgmental, authentic, and present-minded. A unique horse-human bond can serve to help people develop patience, trust, interpersonal skills, respect, empathy, acceptance, confidence, assertiveness, and responsibility.  Best still, all of this learning feels like horseplay!  As prey animals, horses provide nearly immediate feedback to participants through nonverbal cues, guiding discoveries and future goal-setting.

 

In EFW/EAL the horses are not ridden.  The horses and humans are both grounded on Mother Earth throughout their experiences with one another.