If you’re feeling disconnected, lost, exhausted or confused in your life and have a desire to reconnect with and rejuvenate yourself, the Equine Connection Retreats are a great place to start.
They are designed to reconnect you with yourself in a supportive and loving environment with trained facilitators and a herd of beautiful horses. The retreats for women explore and deepen many aspects of your relationship with yourself, allowing you to shift your life, your relationships and therefore your world.
The retreat runs June 9 to 12 at the sacred space created at The Equine Connection property 10 minutes from Vernon. The retreat is facilitated by the Equine Connection team, including Wendy Elrick, Cara Nunn, Kjara Brecknell, Zabrina Barteaux, Kate Tooke, Josie Kerr and Claudette Bouchard. During this retreat, you will stay at our peaceful, rural setting, with all accommodations and meals provided throughout the weekend.
Our summer retreat is focused on loving and honouring your body and discovering your body wisdom. You will spend your mornings with our horses and the afternoons enjoying bodywork and creative expression. In the evenings relax around the fire, nurtured by storytelling, drumming, great food and wonderful company.
“It was awesome to absorb myself in three solid days,” said Tanya Fisher, a past retreat participant. “It was just the right amount of activity whereby I felt stimulated, but not overwhelmed.
“It was a great tool for self-development and learning more about myself.”
Equine-assisted learning is an experiential therapeutic form where horses participate as teachers and wise healers. The model applied at The Equine Connection uses a combination of the concepts of body-centred learning, story-telling, reflective opportunities and problem-solving exercises.
Picture yourself with a horse professional, and a counsellor/coach in an arena setting. The counsellor/coach will pick an exercise based on the topics you have come to the session with. You will be asked to focus on your body language, and that of the horse as the two of you interact. Once the exercise starts, the counsellor/coach will stop the process at certain points to ask you what is happening within yourself – what images, words, colours, feelings are speaking to you internally. While interacting with the horse, the focus is continually to ask oneself what the horse’s body language is saying to you. What is the horse symbolically playing out for you?
To register for the retreat, visit http://wendyelrick.com/equine-assisted-team-building/retreats or call 778-475-6077. Each retreat offers space for a maximum of eight women. The early bird rate of $1,050 plus GST has been extended to June 6.