Stableminded equine-assisted coaching, therapy, and learning programs offer a unique opportunity for cultivating emotional resiliency, improving relationships, and developing leadership skills.
Mental Health Program
ages 5 and up
Carefully designed to support individuals navigating anxiety, depression, or grief with a skills-based approach. Three 50-minute sessions are booked weekly or bi-weekly. For children age 5 through 10, a caregiver is required to participate.
Relationships Program
parents or married couples
Customized for parents or married couples seeking to develop their parenting or relationship skills with an emphasis on communication and boundaries. Three 50-minute sessions are booked weekly or bi-weekly.
Leadership Program
teens and adults
Serving teens and adults seeking to boost their personal and professional leadership skills, especially focusing on confidence and communication style. Two 50-minute sessions are booked weekly or bi-weekly.
Book a Consultation Session
To discuss your needs and the best program for you, please book a Consultation Session. If you book a package, the $15 fee will be credited to your package.
Horsemanship Meets Lifemanship
StableMinded programs are designed to create a safe, skills-based, and enjoyable learning experiences that support the growth process for youth through adults as well as families and groups.
Built upon simplified neuropyschology principles that explain the brain-body-relationship dynamic, participants will gain an understanding of their patterns of responses to stress, fear, conflict, frustration, anxiety, worry, insecurity, and relating to others.
Our equine-assisted learning programs are not like counseling sessions nor a traditional learning environment. The sessions are fluid yet structured and collaborative, designed to identify growth goals while offering opportunities for skills development. Participants are encourage to be present and active, physically and emotionally engage in the moment with our horse partner.
Horse experience is not necessary.
You can show up knowing nothing about horses and we'll teach you everything you need to know . . . and more. Actually, the less knowledge you have (and even a bit of fear) can make this a truly life-growth experience!
No matter your age and stage, you will learn how to regulate your heart rate, properly breathe (you'd be surprised how many of us are not actually doing this and are struggling with health issues as a result), and navigate emotions into actions that prove helpful and not harmful. Plus you'll gain confidence along with communication skills that will translate to life outside of the round pen!
If you are on a healing journey, we partner with mental health professionals to support that process, especially for those recovering from trauma or in treatment for anxiety. But you don't have to have a diagnosis or be struggling to benefit from equine-assisted coaching and learning sessions.
The A.R.I.S.E. Method, devised by Lisa Pulliam, is utilized as a way to guide clients not only in a session with a horse but also to seamlessly support life outside of the round pen.
Why horses?
What is it about partnering with horses in a coaching, learning, or therapy session so powerful?
Horses seek connection.
As herd animals, horses experience secure and insecure attachments as well as social dynamics as they learn to survive and thrive with each other as well as in relationships with us.Â
Horses respond to heart rate.
Because of this sensitivity, we can observe and learn how our behavior impacts them and vice versus, growing in co-regulation ability and empathy.Â
Horses respond to the environment.
Horses have a fully active brain and nervous system enabling them to respond to the environment and other living creatures for the sake of survival. They are not mirroring us. They are responding to us, providing us with valuable information to explore our patterns of interacting with others. When we discover these patterns, we can begin the growth process and develop new habits of being in this world.Â
Equine-Assisted Coaching Helps:
- Reduce Anxiety
- Increase Ability to Relax
- Uncover Core Fears
- Identify Frustration Tolerance
- Reveal Relationship Habits
- Expose Limiting Beliefs
- Tap in Courage and Confidence
- Find Your Voice
- Create Space for Healing
- Repair Broken Relationships
- Learn How to Make a Healthy Request
- Discover How to Connect with Others
- Develop the Skills to Work Well as a Family, Team, or Organization
Meet Lisa Pulliam
Lisa Pulliam, the founder of Stableminded.us, is passionate about helping youth, adults, and groups arise, stabilize, and thrive. Lisa's goal is to equip clients and workshop participants with practical skills to navigate through anxiety, fear, insecurity, hurt, shame, mental blocks, leadership challenges, and relational conflict as she simplifies the brain-body-relationship connection that shapes mindset and habits.
Lisa is a certified Natural Lifemanship Trauma-Informed Equine-Assisted Specialist and Coach, Life Breakthrough Coach, Highlands Ability Battery Consultant, and holds a Master's in Clinical Counseling with a trauma concentration at Eastern University and is also EMDR trained.
She has been riding horses since she was a little girl and discovered that competing at the college level was not as much fun as simply hanging out with the horses and her barn friends. She returned to riding as an adult and is learning dressage as well as how to jump again, with a balanced seat, under the excellent training of Kaitlyn McGarvey at Concordia Stables.
In July 2022, she took a leap of faith and adopted Kodiak Jack, a 2010 Off-the-Track Thoroughbred from Omega Horse Rescue. Together, they are learning the art of connection and the beauty of redemption as they grow their relationship one experience at a time.
When she’s not at the stables, she savors the time with her husband of 28 years, nearly all-grown-up children, and being entertained by her beloved Golden Retriever, Beckley.
FAQs
Equine-Assisted Coaching and Learning provides a unique way to explore growth because horses are willing to engage in connection and also resist it if they don't feel safe. They are created with a brain and body response system that works for their survival. As herd animals, they rely on their senses and one another for protection and also the provision of needs. By entering into an experience with a horse, we can explore what we bring into a relationship as well as what we can get out of it. As a result, we learn about ourselves and the needs of others in a fresh new way.
Natural Lifemanship principles utilized in equine-assisted coaching and learning sessions are built upon the concepts of healthy attachment and building attuned, connected relationships. The principles applied between the horse-and-human relationship equally apply to our human-to-human relationships.
Neuroscience research demonstrates that our brains can change through new and healthy experiences. In our sessions, we explore the cultivation of new thinking patterns (neuropathways) to move toward healing, growth, and transformation.
The way to change old patterns that no longer serve us is to practice something new. The learning is accomplished in our sessions, utilizing principles we put into practice in all of our relationships. The goal is to learn how to have connected and attuned relationships, which leads to healthy development, contributes to healing at any age and enhances well-being.
Although most people believe that trauma needs to be a big life event, anything that causes you to experience fear of harm can result in a traumatic experience and hinder the way you see yourself, others, God (if faith is part of your life), and your place in this world. For example, all these events can be categorized as trauma:
- intrauterine and birth trauma
- abuse and neglect
- domestic violence
- grief and loss
- car accident
- flooding and fires
- natural disaster
- divorce
- family separation
- combat
- detainment/deportation
- incarceration/imprisonment
- homelessness
- poverty
- community violence and civil unrest
- sudden changes in relationships
- sudden and unexpected moves
- individuals eager to gain self-awareness and heal
- mothers ready to discover a new way to relate to their children
- families seeking to cultivate new ways of connecting and communicating
- couples longing for a deeper understanding of each other
- young adults looking for the courage to embrace their college and career endeavors
- leaders and teams ready to find unity in their vision and discover how to work together more effectively
You don't need any horse experience at all. Actually, the less you know about horses, the more remarkable your experience can be because you'll show up teachable and without any preconceived notions about what to do. This is all unmounted work. If you would like riding lessons, we can put you in touch with a fabulous instructor at the farm.
You'll want to wear closed-toe shoes and comfortable clothing that you don't mind getting muddy.
Program fees are determined based on the number of sessions required to meet the growth goals. Typically, a package is booked with 3 sessions at the rate of $130 per session.Â
Ready to get started?
Connect with Lisa to begin the kind of growth process that will result in lasting change and impact.