Many young girls experience severe trauma in their childhood and adolescence. "Chicas y Caballos" is intended to help them overcome this and find their way back to normal life.

Viele junge Mädchen erleben schlimme Traumata in ihrer Kindheit und Jugend. "Chicas y Caballos" soll ihnen dabei helfen, diese zu überwinden und zurück in ein normales Leben zu finden.

Author: Beth Sylver

In May 2020, a dear friend encouraged me to take an online course called "Natural Lifemanship" (NL). NL is an equine-assisted psychotherapy program whose primary focus is on building strong connections and healthy relationships with ourselves and those around us. NL is a team of professionals, both horse professionals and mental health professionals, that teach in the modality of horses healing people and helping them recover from trauma, toxic stress, PTSD, and much more. NL includes horses in their therapy sessions because horses are excellent healers, listeners, and teachers. Horses are also incredibly intuitive and have a much slower heart rate than humans. 

Often, people feel a great sense of calmness in the company of horses, which opens many opportunities for self-learning to heal in a beautiful environment. Recently there has been lots of scientific research gathered about the benefits of horses and therapy to give credibility to what the dedicated team at NL has been teaching for over 20 years. Now I've completed 3 NL pieces of training, and the more I delve deeper into who I am (I thought I knew!), the more I can relate to and empathize with others and what they might be going through. 

Chicas y Caballos

In this Intensive Training, a significant part of the course was self-exploration and genuinely learning about who we are and why. The richness of this educational course has provided me with a fresh lens through which I view the world. I'm not just learning about horsemanship and how to have a better relationship with horses.

I'm learning about lifemanship and how to be a better person for everyone around me and ultimately a better person to myself. 

The dear friend who introduced me to NL is the woman who created and founded the local girls' program Chicas y Caballos (CyC) here in Uvita. I feel very confident about the importance of this program. We plan to start again as soon as possible.

I look forward to incorporating some of the beautiful principles of NL into the CyC program. There is something exceptional about the connection between girls and horses, and I know first-hand just how meaningful those relationships can be. 

Please reach out to me if you have any questions or interest in the practice of being connected to and learning from horses. It is a gift that we can experience and share!