I know what it’s like to have nerves in the saddle. I know what it’s like to not feel “good enough” around the boarding stable. I know what it’s like to be afraid to get on. I also know what it’s like to be the little girl (or maybe not so little anymore) who just loves ponies, just loves the smell of leather, just wants to hang out in the barn all day, and would rather clean a stall than her room.

By the time I was 30 I was seeing a therapist for a variety of reasons--not the least of which was PTSD from the working student job I had when I was 18. I’m still not sure if that therapist was incompetent or just didn’t understand the whole horse thing, but she definitely didn’t understand ME. She downplayed the panic attacks I had before and after every lesson. She didn’t understand that my self image was inextricably tied up with being a rider. She didn’t understand that my self worth really depended on whether or not I saw that distance to the jump. If she had understood this, maybe she could have helped me. ...Or maybe she was just a bad therapist.

Eventually I decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree in therapy and become my own therapist, since I really couldn’t find one who could help me. I had quit riding again, mostly due to finances, but also because of my PTSD around horses. During grad school, I serendipitously found Gloria Beduhn who needed help keeping her horses ridden. (For free!) It was a long drive to her place, but she actually helped me start recovering from all of my negative experiences with horse people and horses and such, and began teaching me dressage. All of this while I was going to school and learning tools to become a therapist for others, but more importantly, myself. For the next six years I enjoyed a journey of healing and recovery through means of self-led traditional therapy and Gloria-led dressage learning that changed my life.

I am now an accomplished therapist with a background in depression, anxiety, and trauma. Interestingly, the tools that pull you out of depression, anxiety, and trauma are the same tools that continue to take you onward and upward toward growing and succeeding in competitive riding. The only difference is the shift in focus from laying the foundation of “accepting the bit” to building on that foundation, and “building collection,” and to eventually building up to “piaffe.” It’s exciting to be able to use the therapy skills that I’ve used on myself and hundreds of clients to help you--regardless of your riding discipline. I have had the privilege of working with eventers, hunters, jumpers, dressage riders, barrel racers, reiners, and cutters in their journey toward emotional health, self fulfillment, and goal attainment.