When we lose someone that is important in our life, it is a time of sadness, anxiety, anger, fear and the desperate feeling of being alone.  Not lonely, there are often scores of people offering support to the bereaved…but alone.  One is trapped with the real sense that no one else can possibly know how they feel or what they are going through.  And of course they would be correct…grief is unique to every person…but to all a dark and difficult journey. 

Despite this accepted notion of unique and individual grief; bereavement therapy offerings and interventions are often cookie cutter outlines intended to guide you through the stages of grief.  In my own experience with my child, every grief therapy attended was exact replicas of the other.  In most, children were required to progress through the stages of grief as identified by Worden et al in the Harvard Child Bereavement Study; (1) accepting the reality of loss; (2) experiencing the pain or emotional aspects of loss; (3) adjusting to an environment in which the deceased is missing; and (4) relocating the person within one’s life and finding ways to memorialize the person.  The “therapy” would require a child to identify who they lost, talk about how sad they felt, come up with ideas for how they can go back to their life “as normal” and then make a memory box or story…etc.

It seemed to me that at the conclusion of the therapy, children were expected to have completed the tasks of mourning.  Lets be REAL here, life will NEVER be the same, they need to define a NEW NORMAL. 

My child threatened to never speak to me again if they had to build “one more memory box.”  The idea may have helped the first time, but offered no comfort to kids who were still suffering as time progressed and the pain was still raw. She refused to go back. This is where our life changed forever. She went to a barn. She went to a horse that didn't judge, didn't know her history, didn't tell her what to feel or do BUT responded to how she felt and acted! A horse that never told her what she was feeling was wrong, a horse that never told her deepest darkest secrets and feelings. Things began to change. A new normal was emerging. We were able to work through regulation of emotions with her horse, he responded to the smallest changes in voice, mood and body language but was always there regardless. He was a mirror to her soul. 

Equine Assisted Grief work can help you process your loss, regulate your emotions, find a vent for all those things you need to say but are afraid to, and help you identify your new normal. 

Contact us for an appointment to see what we are all about!