Sageline Equine LLC
Sheridan Wyoming
Equine Assisted Mental Health-An exciting approach to therapy and support for your mental health
Welcome to Sageline Equine!
We are excited to offer affordable and accessible Equine Assisted Mental Health to the Sheridan Community. Our horses and mental health team are here for YOU and your individual and unique needs. Mental Health is a leading priority in our work but whatever the reason you’ve found us, we’re so happy you’re here!
A horse wont judge, tell your secrets, or betray your trust. When you gain a horses trust they can make the decision to be there for you just as you decide to be there for them. A horse can be an equal partner.
¨ When you’re simply around a horse they can make you “feel good”. They regulate your nervous system by being “rhythmical creatures”. A horse, if you notice, will chew, breath, and walk in a pattern of rhythm. By being present with them our bodies will sense these patterns and can regulate to them.
¨Horses teach great relationship building skills because horses are relational creatures. They are a herd animal that want respect, teamwork, and trust. Likewise, they want to have a safe connection with people but if they feel that an interaction may not be safe they’ll go back to their instincts of either fight, flight, or freeze (this can look like going to “la-la land”, “checking out”, having an “internal happy party” even though on the outside the horse may look to be “going through the motions”). Clients many times when working with a horse can relate these instances to things that relate to their life.
Horses can be used as a resource and a team mate to reflect what we need to work on and teach us through it. They can support us through whatever we may be going through. They can be a shoulder to cry on. They can be strong back to support us. They can call us out when we say we’re fine. And they can be an extra set of listening ears as we face the struggles of day to day life and learn ways to refresh and retrain ourselves to come back stronger.
Above all else at Sageline Equine, here where we use them, they’re a team mate with us, a partner, not a tool.
Horses Are All That
Why Horses?
Can Equine Assisted Services really help me?
Equine assisted therapy may have you asking “will working with horses really help me with my mental health”? Simple answer YES! There are multiple reasons to why EAP and EAL is beneficial and proven to be even more effective then traditional office therapy. Equine assisted therapy work is more than just “hanging out with horses”.
· Horses are used as co-therapists in a session (making for the whole concept equine assisted therapy. It’s powerful!
· Equine Assisted Therapy is an experiential therapy where the client can go outside of the office setting, move their body, use their hands, connect with a horse, regulate their nervous system, and overall by utilizing a different approach, meet their needs of therapy possibly faster than that of an office session.
· Using TF-EAP helps clients retrain their brains by using the similarities of horses and their relationships and lifestyles through their trauma and struggles.
·During an equine assisted therapy session we go deeper then the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you hang around a horse. In an equine sessions (although the focus is always on what our client needs) our goal is always that they can walk away from the session learning or feeling something that they can take and use in their everyday life.
Horses also have the natural herd instinct that make them want to have safe relationships. They are capable of creating healthy relationships with humans and teaching people boundaries, relationship skills, and regulating themselves while in a relationship (among lots of other things). If you wouldn’t want a relationship forced on you, a horse doesn’t enjoy it much either. Often times horses are treated more as tools then as an animal that has the ability to choose to connect. But horses are far better at connection then we give them credit for.
Cool Fact…Horses have rhythmical heartbeats that sync together when in their herds. This helps to sense danger approaching from the farther out horses. In the same sense, horses sync heartbeats with the people around them. Its one reason they’re so good at their jobs in therapy and mental health work. If you’re anxious and you’re heart beat reflects that.. the horse is going to know!
“The cool thing about horses. They don’t have prejudice. They don’t care if you’re tall or thin, dark or light, rich or poor. They don’t care about that.
They care about how you make them feel.”
— Buck Brannaman
Contact us at a link below and we’d love to answer any questions you may have and talk more to see which equine program may be a good fit for you. We cant wait to hear from you!