Growing up in the North of England, horses were an important part of my childhood. My grandfather rented out his pastures to a local riding academy and I spent countless hours hanging out with the herd, and every summer I took riding lessons in exchange for help around the stables. But after I left for college, life, career and later a family took over. We moved to New York City and later San Francisco and horses played only a peripheral role. Each summer I treated myself to a week of horse trail riding but it was a poor substitute.
As retirement approached, a former student dropped by to interview me and as our conversation drew to a close she asked me what I planned to do in retirement. I was even taken aback by my immediate response, seemingly out of nowhere, I said without hesitation that I wanted to reconnect with horses! Surprisingly, she responded that she had a friend who volunteered in an Equine Assisted Learning program which happened to be fifteen minutes away from our new home in Sonoma county.
I volunteered and trained as an EAL facilitator and was super happy to be able to spend time around horses again. Horses are definitely my happy place. One day at the barn I watched two other volunteers working on one of the horses. I observed how the horse dropped into a deep meditative state – lowering his head, with soft eyes and breathing deeply. I went over afterwards and commented that I didn’t know what they were doing but it looked like magic and I wanted to learn, too. And so began my introduction to The Masterson Method®. I signed up with Sandy Vreeburg. I had amazing mentors and coaches along the way, but always the horses were my finest teachers. I feel so fortunate to be able to give back to these amazing animals. I spend my days working on friends’ horses and volunteer my services at different barns throughout Sonoma county. I couldn’t be any happier. Horses are my “ikigai”.