Summer 2022 - Community Spotlight
Dancing Spirit
Equine Facilitated Learning & Coaching
Dancing Spirit Equine Facilitated Learning & Coaching is a gem of a service in our community! Jackie Hibbard, MDiv, the Owner and Coach of Dancing Spirit, partners with horses to offer individual and group coaching sessions, workshops and retreats.
Recently, Cindy Kaufman, our President and Co-Founder, had the opportunity to experience a “Healing with Horses” Grief Support Workshop at Dancing Spirit. Her experience was deeply informative and helped her to express her grief, become more in touch with her emotions, and understand her grief experience in a unique way. Following that experience, Cindy spoke with Jackie to get the story behind Dancing Spirit.
In 2005, Jackie, an Ordained Minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC) was doing her Clinical Pastoral Education as a way to help her discern a path forward with her ministry work. As part of that learning, Jackie took a unit that included Equine Facilitated Learning and says she, “got hooked!” She ended up doing four units of training with the horses and found that, “over and over again, the horses taught me something about myself that I couldn’t necessarily see, and they helped me uncover some of my own wisdom that I had somehow been blocking.” She knew that someday, she would be doing this work helping others through equine facilitated learning.
Along the way, she acquired a couple of horses to become a better horse person, and in 2015, she did a certification program for Equine Coaching. She started Dancing Spirit in 2016. Jackie says that she, “loves helping people on their personal journey and on their spiritual journey.”
Q: Can you define Equine Coaching?
A: I create space for people to have an experience with the horse by asking curious questions, such as: What might you be learning? What is the horse trying to tell you? What is the horse showing you today? We create experiences with the horses, whether with individuals or in groups, so that people can look within themselves, access what they already know within themselves, their own truths…which can lead to healing.
Q: Can you explain how this works in grief support?
A: In the grief groups, they are set up with an intention, mainly, how do we learn from each other and from the horses about our grief so that we can do some of our own healing? We then take our learning and do with it what we will. Some people like to journal things out right there during the experience, and some people like to go home and contemplate on it and perhaps journal about it after the experience.
Q: Does it look different when you work with groups of kids versus adults?
A: We break it down differently. For the adults, we do a full day of 3 or 4 activities that day. With the kids, they come for two-hour sessions for four weeks in a row, breaking it into smaller chunks that are better for kids. We also integrate talking and doing. We do art to get them talking and we build from there. We have different themes for each session, such as, “What is grief? What does it look like? What does it look like for you?” With that, we do an activity with the horses and some art. We talk about coping with grief, and we talk about emotions and feelings, including anger. To wrap it up, we do more art and they talk with their horse about their grief journey, what it’s been like, and what they miss about their loved one.
“I know that horses can help us see ourselves in a whole different way. They have this beautiful way of being in the world that we can learn from, emulate, I love bringing that to people to see how it can help with healing and with growth. That’s what I do and I love it.” ~Jackie Hibbard, MDiv
Q: Can you talk about the activity you do with the group where you are painting the horses with the watercolor paints?
A: Yes, it is about how do you partner with your horse, how do you get in touch with what’s happening within your own emotions/feelings, and express that through your artistic side rather than your thinking brain. We get stuck in our thoughts, whereas with art, we can express a whole lot more about what’s happening within our heart, with our emotions, and let that be expressed. It’s not about being an artist. It’s not about what you are painting, it is about the connection and being in the moment.
Q: What would you like people to know about healing with horses for a person considering whether or not a grief support experiences with horses would be a good fit for them?
A: Horses have so much to offer us as a human species about how to live. They help us become more present in the moment, as opposed to thinking about what is going to happen in the future, or thinking about the what happened in the past. They are really present-moment species, so they invite us to slow down, to look inward, to access the wisdom from within, or access the wisdom from Spirit or God, however you define that for yourself. They are a prey animal, so they are really finely attuned to what’s happening around them and within themselves. They use that information to respond, to live or die, to thrive or not. All of that wisdom from the horse…and that’s just a tiny bit…really helps us to live and thrive as a human species. This is in opposition to the myth, “you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” No, we don’t. We never have as a human species. We don’t have to get through grief alone. Being around horses teaches us that each member of the herd has a place and a gift. How do we take that into the world and learn from that? How do we become more present so that we know ourselves, so that we know how to respond and not get trapped in the stuff we get trapped in? There are so many ways the horses can help us be better humans, grow as individuals and as a society, culture and world.
For more information:
To join Jackie’s mailing list, head to the website www.dancingspirithorse.com and sign up to be informed of upcoming activities. You can also email Jackie directly at dancingspirithorse@outlook.com if you have any questions or would like more information.
