With winter coming on fast now, don’t forget some basic tips for general wellbeing.

1. Eat healthily, there is lots of lovely nutritious food out there and don’t forget your fluids
2. Meet up with friends and have fun! Do things that you really enjoy
3. Bring some colour and beautiful things into your everyday life to cheer up your surroundings
4. Rest and good quality sleep is important too
5. Manage a busy schedule carefully. Planning, making notes and using post-its or a visual board in the kitchen can help put things into perspective
6. Be around people that treat you with respect
7. Know who to turn to for support if you feel down or stuck with a difficulty
8. Heap on the Self-Compassion, be kind to yourself

Autumn has brought seasonal changes, and we too will become quieter as the Autumn  brings cooler weather, the landscape colour changes and leaves are falling. Last weekend we had a really lovely day, blessed with fine weather for the last of this years Wellbeing Workshops. There was much to be grateful for.

Themes of ‘Wellbeing’ were explored and participants had a chance to contemplate on their own individual areas of understanding and growth. All the horses/ponies and Darwin the donkey were amazing and helped hold the space for this day of nurture and healing. The Shepherd’s hut fire was soon lit and keeping us toasty warm for the quiet reflective time and those creative moments when paper and coloured pens come out to help with the processing. The firepit blazed outside for the late morning gathering of ‘letting go of old ways’, with some carefully chosen music holding the space too. After a lunch of soup and rolls and making sure the biscuit tin was crammed full with all the treats you could wish for, we moved into the afternoon of acknowledging new skills and themes for personal development. Over the whole day we had 3 good sessions outside with the ponies and lots of variety with the interaction. Participants were involved with choosing how to make this an unique experiential time for themselves, in a way that gave them authentic experience and insight.

Individual sessions will carry on through the winter so please get in touch if you would like a chat about this.

Learning new skills is a process. It’s not often like a flick of a switch, and everything’s changed or improved immediately. The experience of learning is really valuable and helps us to make sense, to connect with, what is working and what isn’t. Try to see the positives in the small steps and appreciate the time it takes for a more positive outcome to fall into place.

We are delighted to say our very own ‘Bridge’ is now in situ, and it’s already proving popular with Darwin and Sydney! I think they are using it as a playground, each morning there are fresh hoofprints on it.

This workshop is available to small groups of 3 people and is running until the end of September. Email me claireryallcounselling@hotmail.com to book a day, 10am/4pm. Or phone 07805 548 306 for a chat.

Have a look on my facebook page or read the article below, to read all about this wonderful day.

Sometimes we forget that we have many years of life experience and wisdom to draw upon during times of struggles.

Take some time to sit quietly and reflect on the times when you have managed things well. Sitting on the ground, feeling the earth under your feet and slowing down your breathing can help you to become more relaxed, think more calmly and make sense of things in a more helpful way.

Equine assisted Therapy may really help you to get back on track and feel much better about managing struggles. 1 hour or 1 and a half hour sessions. A minimum of 6 sessions are recommended.

Equine assisted Wellbeing sessions can be taken as individual experiences. 1 hour or 1 and a half hour sessions.

Equine assisted Wellbeing workshop days are when we have a small group of people exploring different  themes to improve and encourage a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Times may be based around 11am – 4pm.

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 Well-being Workshop Day

Running  until 3oth September 2017    10am – 4pm

Have you got a few friends or work colleagues that would like to do this? ( Alternatively themes can be chosen for CPD and professional development days).

We would love to welcome you to an experiential day with the ponies. We will work outside, taking in the benefits of ‘nurture in nature, with equine assisted well-being’, and inside our cosy and warm Shepherd’s Hut for when the weather is cold or raining.

Small group of 3 people, exploring life skills, making changes, letting go of habits that are unhelpful, discovering new skills, experiential day with the ponies, accompanying you for your journey ‘over the bridge’, moving forward with your new awareness. There will be some mindfulness, short meditation and drumming to the ‘journey over the bridge’. Using some of the ways of North American and other cultures, we will use symbols to represent emotions and life experiences of the past and for hope for the future. Working with horses can be a catalyst for change. Horse are able to attune to people and reflect the emotions they sense, in their own behaviours, creating an authentic experience. This means that everyone’s wellbeing workshop day is unique to them, and importantly, we hope you enjoy this experience too.
£40 per person, light lunch/refreshments provided.

Email claireryallcounselling@hotmail.com or phone 07805 548 306

Claire Ryall          Nr Sherborne/Yeovil   BA22 8AD

1. ‘Exploring the Self, journey through the Archway’.  These archways represent the overall theme of the day. The Healing Herd will have an archway for you to lead a chosen pony through for your own authentic experience.

2.   ‘Moving from the past, into the future –  over the Bridge’.  Crossing a bridge can be a simplistic notion, but when we work on themes like ‘what is  Self Esteem?’, or ‘where are my boundaries, personally and professionally?’ then the whole bridge crossing experience, whilst leading a pony or donkey,  can be an amazing, enriching and empowering adventure. These are illustrations, but we will have a bridge of our very own to cross.

Details to follow – please email me if these days interest you. If you have a small group of friends or colleagues we can plan a date to suit you. 3 people max 10am/4pm – £40 each lunch and refreshments provided

email: claireryallcounselling@hotmail.com   Mob: 07805 548306

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Last Saturday I went walkabout, to the other end of Somerset, quite near the Sea, as the crow flies! I loaded the car with ‘bits & pieces’ and co-facilitated a taster day of equine assisted therapy/learning, kindly hosted by friend and LEAP colleague Livvy Adams, of Paintedhorse, with her beautiful mixed herd of horses and ponies at Meare, Nr. Glastonbury.

A really lovely group of counsellors and psychotherapists came from 10am until 4pm and luckily the weather was kind and we managed to provide lots of experiential time outside in the fields, a proper hands on taster day of what clients can experience.

Thank you to Counsellors Collective Southwest for arranging this for us, and bringing a delicious ploughmans lunch! I might have to reconsider my ‘Soup & Rolls’ menu for my Rimpton workshops! 🙂

I am a member of the collective, do have a look at their website of therapists with different skills and specialisms all over the Southwest.

http://www.counsellorscollective.co.uk

http://www.paintedhorse.org.uk

Some people struggle with change, they don’t find it easy when things change, especially if there is a sense of being out of control of that situation. Factors that may influence how a person copes with change: a person’s history; on their general character and the environment around them.

‘Mindfulness is a practice that individuals and groups can do on a day-to-day basis. It can enable people to change the way they think and feel about their experiences, especially stressful experiences. As a mind-body approach, it can increase our ability to manage difficult situations and make wise choices.’ BeMindful

Learning mindfulness is really useful at helping us to be more in the moment, and can bring a calmer way of being. It is demonstrated by sitting or standing in a comfortable position and slowing down the breathe. Then focusing on just one thing that is current in that moment. It may be a sound, a smell, or a visual image like a tree. I sometimes think it is like having a rest, in a peaceful moment, just being aware of the thing that you have your attention on.

It can be really good for regulating anxiety, whether based on fear, dread or panicky feelings. If we learn mindfulness when we are actually feeling relaxed, and it becomes a good habit for relaxation, then it is easier to engage with when we are feeling anxious.

When we become anxious we can produce adrenalin or cortisol, but by regulating our breathing and the oxygen that goes around our system, these raised chemical levels can be lowered and then we are more likely to be able to think clearer, more rationally and have those ‘sensible’, more useful, thoughts.

Come and learn some mindfulness skills with The Healing Herd.

Intention is described in the dictionary as, ‘An intention is an idea that you plan (or intend) to carry out. If you mean something, it’s an intention.’

The word intention has come across my path several times lately, and I have been pondering over why that might be. I see it as such a useful awareness, something that can bring powerful positive change. I have been working with more focus on intention with the horses, in a way that is asking for their cooperation with kindness and respect, ensuring that I’m not demanding it physically or with mixed unconscious messages and confusing them. This can be observed when people work with horses in equine assisted therapy and monitoring how the horses are behaving and checking out how the client is feeling. Horses and animals can pick up on intention that we may or may not be aware of ourselves. This can influence how much they trust us. Whilst that may sound to have a contradiction, our unconscious awareness is very much alive and a part of us.

I realised that it is really important to be able to engage in the conscious awareness for many reasons. Intention can carry emotion and actions.

So how can an awareness of intention help us? People who have compulsive actions can learn to take a different sort of control back with ‘intention’. With conscious intention and mindfulness of the new action, there is less compulsion to repeat it because the action is remembered in a new way. The mindfulness helps lower the anxiety levels. When our anxiety is less, we can think through the whole situation in a more rational way and challenge negative beliefs. With forgetfulness we can use intention in a really useful way too. How many times have I gone back to check that gate ‘ just to check I put the bolt across?’ I know that this depends on how my energy levels are and if I am quite tired, then I may do this, and I listen to this message, and make sure that some relaxation and rest is right around the corner. But if I do it in a mindful way with conscious intention, then I feel I ‘know’ I have bolted the gate, in a sort of ‘that task is completed’ way.

If we convey kindness in our intention, it is more likely to be ‘felt’ by others because the energy of the offering is richer. If we are mindful of the emotion behind our intention, the ‘exchange’ becomes more alive, and if offering love, and compassion,  can be nurturing and has a more healing energy.

Self-compassion is really important for a balanced healthy lifestyle. So think about the emotion you are offering yourself, and with gentle, kind intention and watch out for a bit about self-compassion too!