ABOUT Sunrise Summit and Sacred Landscapes

Sunrise Summit is an online conference, Oct 13-14, 2023. ALL sessions will be recorded and available for viewing through February 10, 2024. Please note that CE Credits are available only for those sessions that are attended LIVE during the conference. In addition to having access to all of the Sunrise Summit recordings through February 10, 2024, attendees will also gain access to the three keynote recordings from the in-person Sacred Landscapes conference, which will be held Nov 8-11th, 2023 at the NL Headquarters in Brenham, TX (view full Sacred Landscapes schedule here). Sacred Landscapes registration INCLUDES Sunrise Summit! Sunrise Summit registration may also be purchased separately for those who are unable to attend Sacred Landscapes in person.

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Sunrise Summit Schedule

FRIDAY, OCT 13, 2023

9:30 – 10:00 AM –  Opening Ceremony:  Gather, Arrive and Connect.

Bettina Shultz-Jobe will usher us to more deeply arrive into our spaces and our bodies, and guide us as we begin the practice of embodied online learning. 

We’ll also share time together with special musical guests the Darling Daughters.

10:00 -10:30 AM – Break

10:30 AM – 12:00 PM – ReWilding the Psyche: The Transformative Power of Earth’s Landscapes – Keynote presentation with Mary Reynolds Thompson

“Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.” -Ortega y Gasset

The mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote that more than meaning, “what we are seeking is an experience of being alive.”

And yet the modern world is structured to keep us tamped down and tame. It teaches us we are separate from the natural world, cut off from the great wildness that sings from mountaintops and calls to us in the river’s flow.

During this experiential talk, Mary will guide us through five Earth archetypal landscapes—deserts, forests, oceans and rivers, mountains, and grasslands––that hold essential aspects of our own wild psyches. As each of us finds our own particular way into the metaphors of the landscapes we start to see how these places are braided into the core of our being.

The vast emptiness and aridity of deserts; the mystery and darkness of forests; the flow and depth of oceans and rivers; the granite and grandeur of the highest mountain peaks; the sense of belonging we seek in the grasslands—all bring us closer to the core of who we are.

Enticing us, challenging us, illuminating us, Earth’s archetypes engage our deepest imaginations. In both their wounded states – as in mountaintop removal, clear-cutting, pollution – and in their pristine ones – pure streams, virgin forests, native grasses – they make clear that what we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves.

12:00 – 1:00 PM – Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 PM – Breakout Sessions

A Welcoming Practice: Creating a Space and Place for Clients, Equines, and Providers to Thrive – with Beverly Walsh

Whether you are new to Equine Assisted Services (EAS) or a “seasoned” professional, join us to share in practices that create a sense of welcome and safety for the clients, providers and equines in order to thrive and offer their highest good.

We enter into the field of Equine Assisted Services to do good. Yet in order to do good, a practice must be sustainable; financially, physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually. Daily practices that support the business of doing business will be presented.

In this workshop you will:

1. Be presented with ideas regarding the practice of creating a welcoming space and environment that allows for the sense of safety and wellness necessary to get to our highest good.
2. Learn how to be in a practice that creates an invitation so that clients, equines and providers can stay in a sense of flow that allows all to be effective, connected, and regulated in good and challenging circumstances.

Research on the Benefits of Horses Satisfying Attachment Deficits and Depression – with Dana Kasper, PhD, LPCC

Brain development in infants is dependent on having a predictable, consistent, warm caregiver in a safe environment within close proximity for establishing a secure attachment.

Secure care creates the infant’s internal working model that determines a human’s self-concept and their view of others and the world. These internal mental structures, or schemas are constructed in response to how they were cared for and determines their ability to regulate emotions when upset.

Intermittent care, harshness, or neglect may result in psychopathology, which often includes depression. An absence of innovative treatment approaches aiming at attachment deficits and depression exists (Bowlby, 1969; Maroney, 2003; NIMH, n.d.; Nuccini et al., 2015; Read et al., 2014; Sanders & Hall, 2018).

Examining the centrality of attachment and attunement within the context of safety is presented from the neurobiological perspectives of attachment and social engagement theories.

Research on factors salient to Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) and related to attachment deficits and depressive symptomatology will be reviewed.

Outcomes will be presented from research that includes but is not limited to the psychobiological elements reported to increase the bond between humans and horses. For example, concepts of safety, sensitivity, and attunement are found to be germane aspects of EAP in the treatment of mental health disorders.

Practical applications of these findings will be presented for working with others when providing EAP.

2:30 – 3:00 PM – Break

3:00 – 4:30 PM – Breakout Sessions

Home on the Ranch, 23 Years Lessons Learned in an EAS Practice – with Cynthia Rank-Ballas 

Cynthia Rank Ballas will share her 23 year experience of owning her own equine psychotherapy practice and working at home. In this experiential presentation she will share the glory and the hardships of managing contracts and how to hone in on the ideal match for your talents and experience to help others heal.

There is a tremendous need for our work, but be careful what we wish for, it may come true!

We will ponder how to embrace the responsibilities involved, how to create long term successful relationships with co-facilitators and staff. How to protect our private space and open our ranch to the healing for clients, creating healthy boundaries for both.

We will discuss the importance of minimizing risk, and how to feel safe and protected.

Group members will participate in somatic exercises both for the staff and the clients. We will create an opening for celebration and how to focus on what is working and create a pathway for personal and professional success.

We will discuss how to avoid burnout. We will share the magic of Touched by a Horse medicine cards to provide additional support and wisdom, adding tools for creating insight and celebration on our journey.

Cynthia began her journey in 1998 with Adventures in awareness, was a member and certified by EAGALA in the early years, now holding her professional certification with the Association for Interactive Equine Professionals. Her interest in Neuroscience and connection has led her to join up with Natural Lifemanship, and continue a life of learning. She has presented at conferences, most recently for the Spirituality Conference at Southwestern College.

Exploring the Framework of Healing Stories: How to Gently Guide Unfolding Stories Toward Positive Change – with Bill Woodburn

Join us in exploring the concepts and structures behind what makes a story healing and how to gently guide unfolding stories toward positive change. We will challenge seeing stories as just distractions and explore practical counseling skills to transform repetitive, closed stories, into healing moments.

Are you attending the Sacred Landscapes Conference in November? If so, the session with Bill will provide important foundational concepts that will guide your experiential learning on site with him. We encourage you to attend live or watch the recording of this session before attending Sacred Landscapes.

4:30 – 5:00 PM Break

5:00 – 6:30 PM Breakouts

Building the Business of Your Dreams with Your Heart, Your Soul and Your Mind – with Shannon Knapp 

All of us in EAS are passionate about making this amazing healing work available in our community, AND we also need to think about HOW to make it work for all of us: the community, the horses & people, and also the bank account!

I know when I started, I loved horses and wanted to help people, but knew NOTHING about running a business. Since then I’ve learned many, many lessons, good and bad, culminating in our celebrating 20 years of helping horses and humans!

Join me for a look at the biggest missed step in opening your EAP/L business, as well as the top three choices I’d change if I could go back to opening Horse Sense of the Carolinas 20 years ago.

We’ll also have ample time for Q & A, so bring your questions! 

Our Internal Tribe: The Internal Voices Formed Through our Identity Development and Family Messages – with Carol Joy Hollis-White

Within each of us is a tribe of voices that have been formulated through our identity development and family messages. Presentation offers a visual and o formative representation of the tribe that makes up our “identity pie” As the song by Sarah Bareilles says, “mixed up and baked into a beautiful pie”.

Objectives:

1. Understand identity development
2. Understand and identify internal tribe
3. Understand and identify messages that are carried by each voice in the internal tribe.
4. Learn which voices need to be strengthened and which voices need to be given less power in order to create balance.

 

SATURDAY, OCT 14, 2023

9:30 – 10:00 AM – Gather and Connect: Our community will gather, connect and prepare for the day, together! Bettina Shultz-Jobe will usher us to more deeply arrive into our spaces and our bodies, and guide us as we begin the practice of embodied online learning. 

10:00 – 10:30 AM – Break

10:30 AM – 12:00 PM – The Origins of Movement and Repatterning of Motor Skills to Support Transformation and Healing – Keynote presentation with Mark Taylor

In this presentation, Mark Taylor will outline the Basic Neurological Patterns: the embryological, fetal, and infantile processes through which mammals and humans develop the ability to move in space and interact with their environment.

We all have strong movement patterns and underdeveloped ones, the combination of which produces our unique styles of thought, perception, behavior, and expression.

When the movement patterns are balanced, we call it the Satisfaction Cycle: the capacity to yield, push, reach, grasp, and pull—the fundamentals of our movement vocabulary. 

By understanding the cycle and the patterns, we can invite in the process of repatterning—the reorganization of motor skills that support transformation and healing.

Are you attending the Sacred Landscapes Conference in November? If so, Mark’s session provides important foundational concepts that will guide your experiential learning on site with him. We encourage you to attend live or watch the recording of this session before attending Sacred Landscapes.

12:00 – 1:00 PM – Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 PM – Breakout Sessions

Processing Traumatic Memories: A Principle-Based Introduction to an Embodied and Multi-Modal Approach – with Bettina Shultz-Jobe, Kathleen Choe, and Kate Naylor

What is it that really helps a person process a traumatic memory?

With a variety of modalities in the field of trauma it can be difficult to know which to choose – however, underlying all of these modalities are a shared set of principles that guide the work.

In this presentation, led by our Co-Founder and CEO, Bettina Shultz-Jobe, along with NL trainers and leaders Kathleen Choe and Kate Naylor, we will explore common trauma processing principles; not just techniques, but the principles that fuel their effectiveness. 

Drawing from approaches like SE, EMDR, IFS, TIR, Somatic Movement and Psychodrama – the presenters will offer an introductory look at NL’s revolutionary and embodied multi-modal approach to the healing of trauma.

This presentation will teach concepts, principles, and techniques that we will then demonstrate and practice experientially at Sacred Landscapes.

Are you attending the Sacred Landscapes Conference in November? If so, the session with Bettina, Kathleen, and Kate will provide important foundational concepts that will guide your experiential learning on site. We encourage you to attend live or watch the recording of this session before attending Sacred Landscapes.

Integrating the Internal Landscape for External Connection: Utilizing Rhythm, the 8 Beat Cycles, Interoception, and Energy to Create a Safe and Sacred Space for Healing – with Fritzi Glover-Strowmatt

The relationship between interoception and energy is key to connection with self and other living beings. Awareness is key to keeping the rhythm of the session connected and congruent for progress.

Exploring the internal landscape of regulation and how it affects the external connections with the environment is essential for creating a safe and sacred space.

Exploring the neuroscience of rhythm and how to utilize a beat to create regulation and interoception for optimal awareness. The how is in eight beat cycles integrating the right and left hemispheres.

2:30 – 3:00 PM – Break

3:00 – 4:30 PM – Breakout Sessions

Neither Here Nor There: Supporting Immigrants through EAS as They Find a Sense of Place in a New Land – with Kathleen Choe

Immigrants often struggle with having a sense of place. They may have lived away from their country of origin long enough to not feel they belong there any longer, but may never feel that they belong in the country they’ve chosen (or been forced to) to live in either.

This workshop outlines the experiences involved in adapting to new places and the challenges of creating safe spaces both internally and externally to create a sense of belonging: a place to call home.

The nuances of language, especially in understanding the vocabulary of emotions in a new culture, and the baffling and often confusing decoding of customs and mannerisms across cultures will be addressed in depth.

Changing the World One Relationship at a Time: Advocacy & Systemic Change Thru A Relational Lens – with Sara Sherman

In our rapidly evolving world, where systems and structures are continually adapting, it becomes increasingly evident that a transformational force is needed to navigate these changes successfully.

It’s a force grounded in the very essence of our humanity – our capacity for connection, empathy, and understanding. This force is harnessed through relationships.

Relationships ARE the vehicle for change.

It is this guiding principle that lies at the heart of this presentation. To truly effect change on a systemic level, we must commit to embracing the principles of secure attachment in every facet of our lives. It requires us to venture beyond our comfort zones and adopt these principles as a way of being, understanding that connection and perfection cannot coexist.

Our relationships, with ourselves, with others, and with the world around us, are the vehicles through which we can catalyze profound and lasting transformation.

Join Sara Sherman as she shares her personal journey of embodying these principles in all aspects of her life. She will shine a light on the highs and lows, the successes and challenges, and the transformation that has occurred through this practice. Transformation within herself and her personal relationships, her organization and team, collaboration with outside organizations and with the community at large.

Sara’s journey is not just an individual story; it is an invitation for all of us to join in this embodied movement toward systemic change. It’s a call to action to infuse these principles into our professional work, our organizational structures, and our communities. Through her experiences, we will gain insight into how these principles can be a catalyst for positive change on a broader scale.

4:30 – 5:00 PM – Break

5:00 – 6:30 PM – As Little As Necessary, As Much As Needed:  A Discussion of Intentional, Principle Based Equine Care – Keynote presentation with Kate Naylor in conversation with Tim Jobe and Tanner Jobe

The basics of equine care varies quite a bit from farm to farm, from place to place – often, we are bound by logistical constraints and the status quo of convention. But, what might it look like when we can build a herd, and a farm, from the ground up…and with the principles of Natural Lifemanship as a guide? Could we build something that allowed our equines to grow into their fullest, most authentic selves? Could our relationships with them support this, rather than hinder it?

And even if we can’t build from scratch, how can we approach herd management with intention and purpose each day? Living Natural Lifemanship principles doesn’t just change how we are in the round pen – it influences each moment, and each choice we make.

Join Kate Naylor as she speaks with NL’s Co-Founder, Tim Jobe, and NL’s Director of Equine Professionals, Tanner Jobe. Learn how they operate from the principles of Natural Lifemanship each day – from the strategic planning of spaces and places for their equines to gather, to the often rote task of feeding each morning, and everything in between.

6:40 – 7:00 PM – Closing Ceremony with the Darling Daughters

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Remember – all sessions will be recorded and shared with ticket holders, so even though you can only attend one live, you’ll have access to both presentations in each time slot until February 10th, 2024.  CE’s are only available for live attendance.

 

Curious what our Sacred Landscapes conference workshops, keynotes, and other activities are about? We’ve included the entire conference schedule below with descriptions of each session! Please note that times are subject to change.

Please also view the schedule and session descriptions for the Sunrise Summit Online Conference, which takes place Oct 13-14, 2023, and is included with Sacred Landscapes registration! Sunrise Summit may also be purchased separately.

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WEDNESDAY, NOV 8, 2023 [For ROOTS Pass Holders]

12:30 PM – 2:00 PM – Check-in for Roots Pass Holders

2:00 – 4:00 PM – My Relationship to Pressure: Exploring a key principle to better understand the Natural Lifemanship process – with Bettina Shultz-Jobe, Tim Jobe,  Kate Naylor, and Tanner Jobe

We all have a reaction to the word “pressure” – many of us have a complicated, sometimes even negative relationship with the word.  So why does The Natural Lifemanship Institute insist on using it? 

Whether you are brand new to the NL approach, or a seasoned veteran, this presentation serves as an important exploratory introduction to the principles of Natural Lifemanship for those just getting to know NL, as well as a deepening into the concept of pressure, for those already familiar. 

Join Founders Tim Jobe and Bettina Shultz-Jobe, as well as trainers Tanner Jobe and Kate Naylor as we guide you in an exploration of your own personal relationship with pressure through interactive exercises – and how that relationship impacts your world both in and out of the round pen.

5:00 – 7:00 PM – Property Blessing for Roots Pass Holders and Speakers – with Bettina Shultz-Jobe, Tim Jobe, and Tanner Jobe

The brand new Natural Lifemanship Headquarters is the landscape that inspired our first in-person conference in years. Our dream is that this land, already sacred, will support the NL community in growing even more connected.

Please join us as we walk the new property and invite several community members to bless the land in their own cultural traditions. Your participation is valued, as this sacred landscape is meant for each and every one of you.

7:00 – 8:30 PM – NL Family Dinner and Live Music for Roots Pass Holders and Speakers

Roots Pass Holders and Invited guests will enjoy a family-style meal with the Natural Lifemanship Staff and Volunteers for the Sacred Landscapes Conference. 

Live Music provided by the Darling Daughters!

THURSDAY, NOV 9, 2023

7:30 – 8:30 AM – Check-In for Community Pass Holders

8:30 – 8:50 AM – Welcome Opening Community Circle

Gather in the arena pasture, surrounded by tall trees and the open sky, as Bettina and Mary officially open the conference through rhythm, music, and movement – setting the tone for the rest of the weekend.

9:00 – 10:30 AM  – Healing Relationships with Space and Place: Engaging with the environment to foster transformation – Keynote presentation with Kate Naylor

Our interdependence with the natural world around us is evident. Remembering this, from our head to our toes, is deeply healing. When we consciously explore both space and place in our work, we remind our clients, and ourselves, of the connection being offered in everything we do.

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM [Choose one of the following 6 workshops]

Exploring a Relationship to Self, Country, and Other – with Jane Faulkner

How can we strengthen our capacity for cultivating healthy relationships with ourselves, the land we call home, and fellow beings? Our minds constantly seek stability and connection in a rapidly evolving world, yet it is our bodies that possess innate abilities for true connection and healing.

In this experiential workshop, we will immerse ourselves in the world of somatic practices to explore diverse avenues for forging connections with our inner selves, the natural environment that surrounds us, and the intricate web of life that binds us together.

Throughout our journey, we will uncover the unique role of horses in supporting and enhancing this transformative process.

Exploring the Inner Landscape with Embodied Practices: Discernment and the Enneagram  (Part 1 of 2) – with Kathleen Choe and Laura McFarland

Discernment comes in layers. It is a search for our innermost truth when we find ourselves in new territory, both familiar and unfamiliar. After all, we bring our familiar inner landscape to every new encounter and so navigating the new requires awareness of the familiar.

Without this awareness, we are limited by the defenses and fears of our personality structures and we perceive and act within the new landscape in the same ways we’ve perceived and acted within the old. Thus change becomes impossible and truth remains hidden.

Using the Enneagram as a tool for mapping out our personal roadblocks (limiting beliefs, defenses, fundamental fears) together with embodied practices* with and without horses, we will each explore and construct our unique paths of discernment.

Part 1 of this two-part workshop will entail teaching and discussion, while Part 2 will be mostly experiential. You may choose to attend Part 1 only, or Part 1 and Part 2 (but not Part 2 without Part 1).

Birds Eye View and Wise Mind: Where Ecotherapy, Animal Assisted Therapy, and Mindfulness Intersect – with Dr. Christine Strayer

This presentation is designed to teach clinicians how to combine Ecotherapy, Animal Assisted Therapy and Mindfulness to benefit clients with a variety of diagnosis. Natural Lifemanship principles are interwoven throughout the presentation to demonstrate how they are the guide for Ecotherapy and AAT.

Objectives:

1. Identify the hypothesis linking AAT and Ecotherapy.
2. Recognize how nature and animals can be mediums in therapy.
3. Utilize Natural Lifemanship Principles within AAT and Ecotherapy with a variety of clients.
4. Understand how to practice and teach metacognition (Birds Eye View) for perspective taking, interdependence and more.

Connected Nutrition: The Gut is our “Second Brain” – with Gabby Remole

The goal of this presentation is to give an overview of our brain-gut connection, the gut as our “second brain”, and how nutrition can affect our mental health (for better or worse).

Food can be such a wonderful connector.

This presentation will explore how food can help improve mood and can assist in addressing depression and anxiety. Food samples will be provided as well as some take home recipes. The presentation will also touch on assisting those who have limited access to healthy produce and foods (a more macro approach).

The idea is nutrition connected with self, others (family and clients) and community.

We Hold it All: Sacred Root (Part 1 of 2) – with Jessica Benton

The root of our spine – our pelvis is a sacred world of emotion’s, history, belief system and important function. Typically, we give it little thought unless dysfunction takes over.

No matter which end of this spectrum we are on, this space deserves time, mindful connection and healing. From tension to atrophy, we will explore the relationship that our lives have on this powerhouse of stability and regulation.

Working thoroughly with our pelvis and posture blends beautifully on or off of a horse as our belief of self meets the physical world and holds no place for denying that – that we are sacred, we take up space and we hold a truth.

Creating a Holistic Wellness Program for your Horses: Incorporating Energy and Body Work (Part 1 of 2) – with Michelle Holling-Brooks

Recent breakthroughs in science are confirming what the ancient healing arts have always known: Our health is influenced by more than just the physical world and our body has an innate ability to heal and restore itself to balance if we can look at health on more than just one plane. 

We now know that our mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies also play a HUGE part in our overall health and wellbeing. The concept of approaching health with a holistic wellness program is not just for humans, but for all beings, including our horses. 

During this breakout session you will explore looking beyond the basic nutritional and traditional training needs of our horses.The session will dive into what are the different components of a truly holistic approach to working with and caring for our equine partners’ body, mind, and soul.

You will also have the opportunity to learn and practice balancing your own energies as well, often the missing but key component.

12:30 – 2:00 PM – LUNCH

2:00 – 3:30 PM [Choose one of the following 6 workshops]

How to Stop Hating Detachment – with Tim Jobe and Tanner Jobe

Do you cringe at the thought of asking for, what NL calls, detachment? (distance, space, boundaries. . .)

Does it, at times, seem mean, pointless, and arbitrary?

Detachment doesn’t necessarily mean disconnection, but try telling that to the feeling in your body. 

Tanner Jobe and Tim Jobe will talk about and demonstrate how to harness the power of connected detachment to enhance relational development and reveal fun and exciting pathways for growth and even greater intimacy.

Expanding our Internal Landscape through Relational Consciousness with IFS Equine Engaged Psychotherapy  (Part 1 of 2) – with Jenn Pagone and Jenn McPeak

Relational consciousness converges connection with Self and another in a deeply embodied way when applying the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model to equine engaged psychotherapy.

This presentation will provide participants with a foundational understanding of IFS and specific steps to deepen trauma-focused processing.

Equine professionals will be offered a distinct lens for recognizing parts and attachment patterns in equine partners during sessions. Natural Lifemanship principles will be highlighted as an important standard of practice of constant consent and permission both internally and externally.

The team approach will be explored as an important component of relational consciousness and emphasize the Self-to-part relationship.

Upon conclusion of presentation, participants will have gained a foundational understanding of IFS and practice skills to safely use with their clients.

Exploring Inner Landscape with Embodied Practices: Discernment and the Enneagram (Part 2 of 2) – with Kathleen Choe and Laura McFarland

See full description in morning workshop block. 

During Part 2 of this two-part workshop, participants will be invited to explore embodied enneagram-informed discernment practices with a horse. You must have attended Part 1 to attend Part 2.

The SEEN Keystones: How a Facilitator Mindset can Enhance You and Your Sessions – with Lynn Thomas and Amanda Graham

How can we continue increasing psychological safety and deepening the work we do as facilitators?

This presentation will provide a facilitation mindset, incorporating story, that can inform, impact, and guide how you engage with your clients and horses, and provide a thought process in choosing your interventions.

The SEEN Keystones; Sense of Self, Empowering Mindset, Externalizing Story, and Natural Flow, provide a set of questions facilitators can ask themselves that will have a positive impact on your sessions while honoring your authentic self and style of practice.

The workshop will share the SEEN Keystone questions, theoretical foundations and the effect on psychological safety, and demonstrate application during a session incorporating horses. There will be discussion on how a facilitator mindset and the SEEN Keystones can be applied with and benefit your approach and interventions.

We Hold it All: Sacred Root (Part 2 of 2) – with Jessica Benton

The root of our spine – our pelvis is a sacred world of emotion’s, history, belief system and important function. Typically, we give it little thought unless dysfunction takes over.

No matter which end of this spectrum we are on, this space deserves time, mindful connection and healing. From tension to atrophy, we will explore the relationship that our lives have on this powerhouse of stability and regulation.

Working thoroughly with our pelvis and posture blends beautifully on or off of a horse as our belief of self meets the physical world and holds no place for denying that – that we are sacred, we take up space and we hold a truth.

Creating a Holistic Wellness Program for your Horses: Incorporating Energy and Body Work (Part 2 of 2) – with Michelle Holling-Brooks

Recent breakthroughs in science are confirming what the ancient healing arts have always known: Our health is influenced by more than just the physical world and our body has an innate ability to heal and restore itself to balance if we can look at health on more than just one plane. 

We now know that our mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies also play a HUGE part in our overall health and wellbeing. The concept of approaching health with a holistic wellness program is not just for humans, but for all beings, including our horses. 

During this breakout session you will explore looking beyond the basic nutritional and traditional training needs of our horses.The session will dive into what are the different components of a truly holistic approach to working with and caring for our equine partners’ body, mind, and soul.

You will also have the opportunity to learn and practice balancing your own energies as well, often the missing but key component.

4:00 – 4:15 PM Closing Community Circle

At the end of each day, we will gather together again in our circle, to process the day through embodied practices.

4:30 – 6:00 PM – Food Trucks and Enjoy the Space! Treasure Hunt, Decorate Walking Sticks

Raging Bull Tacos and an Ice Cream/Dessert Truck will be available from 4:30-7:30p to anyone who would like to enjoy dinner on the property and stay on-site for evening activities!

“Surround yourself with tacos, not negativity” 

6:00 – 7:30 PM [Choose one of the 4 evening activities]

Drum Circle – with Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver will be leading a drum circle to celebrate our collective rhythm – which is a testament to the heartbeat of our community. Come join the circle with us!

Horse Centered Meditation and Prayer Circle – with Rebecca Boger

This workshop will cultivate conversation and connection with the Sacred Wild for those who love horses and being in nature and are curious about their own spirituality!

This un-mounted, contemplative, nature-based experience will allow participants to explore a horse-centered way to communicate with all of creation by becoming more present and attuned.

Becky has been offering this monthly 90 minute program to the public since 2017. She weaves meditation and mindfulness, somatic awareness, the expressive arts and self reflection practices into the circle time to help participants come into the present moment and become more aware and integrated in their bodies, minds and spirits.

Healing Stories – with Bill Woodburn

Using psychodramatic techniques, we will enact our own stories in a safe and supportive space to directly experience how they interact with our calling as healers.

By doing this, we bring our own powerful, healing stories home and live them fully as we go forward. This is a great way to learn the techniques of psychodrama by experiencing them firsthand.

Participants will be offered space to share and enact the stories which support or limit their journey as healers.

Cowboy Poetry – with the Jobes and NL Team

Cowboy Poetry is not just about words — it’s a journey through time, a celebration of our heritage, and a reminder of the timeless bond we share with nature, our equine partners and one another.

Gather round for Cowboy Poetry under a canopy of stars. Listen to the fire crackle and hear the messages unfold.

Tim, Tanner and Reccia Jobe, recite poetry they’ve written as well as some from other cowboy poets – including members of our NL community. Even Cooper and Mabel Jobe will join in the fun, as well as our very own Jenn Pagone and Rebecca Hubbard.

Grab a chair and join us around the campfire for an unforgettable night.

FRIDAY, NOV 10, 2023

8:30 – 8:50 AM – Welcome Opening Community Circle

Mark Taylor will guide us to “embody the ocean” as we prepare our minds and bodies for his keynote address.  Join us in circle today to wake up our bodies and prepare for a fulfilling day of learning, experiencing, and connecting.

9:00  – 10:30 AM – Moving Through Space: What We Can Learn from Observing Movement in Session – Keynote presentation with Mark Taylor and Bettina Shultz-Jobe

Mark will introduce the sixteen land-based patterns that allow us to move on land: variations on spinal, symmetrical, asymmetrical, and contralateral organization.

Each participant will then be invited to experience those patterns within themselves before observing him facilitate Bettina in a session with a horse, utilizing the movement patterns to support both functional and relational dynamics.

Participants will be invited to train their eyes to begin to see the patterns in play.

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM [Choose one of the following 6 workshops]

The Human-Equine Relational Landscape: How Practitioner Treatment and Interactions with Equines Impact the Healing Landscape (Part 1 of 2) – with Rebecca Hubbard and Reccia Jobe

The equine-human relationship is a foundational concept in equine assisted services. How equines are treated inside and outside of sessions forms the bedrock of clients’ experiences in equine assisted services whether you provide psychotherapy, coaching, physical therapy or occupational therapy.

Relational strengths and weaknesses between equines and service providers inevitably appear in sessions and can impact the client experience in any number of ways from harmful to supportive, degrading to empowering, and more.

In this workshop we will explore how our inner and outer experiences with our equine partners impact the healing landscape.

Moving in Three Dimensions: A Simple Framework for Using Your Body to Establish, Maintain, and Nurture Connection While Working with Clients and Horses (Part 1 of 2) – with Kathy Taylor

Relationship is the core of therapeutic work with both clients and with horses.

In this workshop, we will explore an embodied approach to the skill of healthy relating. This framework offers a top-down/bottom-up way to work with clients and horses.

Beginning with an experiential overview of the framework, I’ll demonstrate how working with dimensions supports our inner experience and self-agency, and how we can cultivate connection with others, and, ultimately, create a meaningful collaboration. We will also explore how this dimensional framework presents in horses.

Next, I’ll demonstrate how sharing this framework with clients can provide them with increased awareness of their own embodiment and better access to their felt senses. The dimension framework offers the client and therapist a common language to talk about their experiences.

I’ll share practical examples and case studies and will demonstrate live, with a horse, how to use the framework to create and build a healthy relationship. This will include principles for practitioners for maintaining attunement in sessions with horses and their clients using this new lens.

While the presentation will focus on working therapeutically with horses, this approach can be applied and practiced in many different contexts and relationships.

Expanding our Internal Landscape through Relational Consciousness with IFS Equine Engaged Psychotherapy (Part 2 of 2) – with Jenn Pagone and Jenn McPeak

Relational consciousness converges connection with Self and another in a deeply embodied way when applying the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model to equine engaged psychotherapy.

This presentation will provide participants with a foundational understanding of IFS and specific steps to deepen trauma-focused processing.

Equine professionals will be offered a distinct lens for recognizing parts and attachment patterns in equine partners during sessions. Natural Lifemanship principles will be highlighted as an important standard of practice of constant consent and permission both internally and externally.

The team approach will be explored as an important component of relational consciousness and emphasize the Self-to-part relationship.

Upon conclusion of presentation, participants will have gained a foundational understanding of IFS and practice skills to safely use with their clients.

Processing Traumatic Memories: A Principle-Based Introduction to an Embodied and Multi-Modal Approach (Part 1 of 2) – with Bettina Shultz-Jobe, Kathleen Choe, and Kate Naylor

What is it that really helps a person process a traumatic memory? With a variety of modalities in the field of trauma it can be difficult to know which to choose – however, underlying all of these modalities are a shared set of principles that guide the work.

In this presentation, led by our Co-Founder and CEO, Bettina Shultz-Jobe, along with NL trainers and leaders Kathleen Choe and Kate Naylor, we will explore common trauma processing principles; not just techniques, but the principles that fuel their effectiveness. 

Drawing from approaches like SE, EMDR, IFS, TIR, Somatic Movement and Psychodrama – the presenters will offer an introductory look at NL’s revolutionary and embodied multi-modal approach to the healing of trauma.

Learning will be didactic and experiential. 

Come prepared to learn both personally and professionally!

Psychodrama – Healing Stories in Action (Part 1 of 2) – with Bill Woodburn

Join us in exploring the concepts and structures behind what makes a story healing and how to gently guide unfolding stories toward positive change.

We will challenge seeing stories as just distractions and explore practical counseling skills to transform repetitive, closed stories, into healing moments.

Developing the First Stages of Building a Secure Attachment for All (Including Horses) – Trust, Respect, and Willingness (Part 1 of 2) – with Michelle Holling-Brooks

The benefits of helping our clients develop a healthy secure attachment style are numerous. Learning how to cultivate a secure attachment style allows us the ability to step into resonance with our amazing, beautiful, and empowered authentic self!

Having healthy connections, to ourselves and others, also unlocks the ability for us to heal and grow.

However, the “how-to” part of changing or healing our attachment style can be difficult to maneuver.

Dr. Lisa Firestone states, “One of the proven ways to change our attachment style is by forming an attachment with someone who had a more secure attachment style than what we’ve experienced. We can also talk to a therapist, as the therapeutic relationship can help create a more secure attachment. We can continue to get to know ourselves through understanding our past experiences, allowing ourselves to make sense and feel the full pain of our stories, then moving forward as separate, differentiated adults. In doing this, we move through the world with an internal sense of security that helps us better withstand the natural hurts that life can bring.”

For us the therapeutic or coaching relationship also includes an additional relationship – the horses. This breakout workshop will focus on exploring the different “skills” and components that set-up the first foundation skills needed to support our clients and horses in how to actually start building a healthy connection.

Michelle Holling-Brooks will introduce the participants to the first three pillars of what she calls the “Bridge of Connection” – building trust, respect, and willingness for ALL beings; horses and humans.

Participants will have an opportunity to explore, practice, and ask questions about the very same concepts and activities that she utilizes in her practice to help start every horse and human off on the track of learning the essential skills for developing an earned secure attachment for all.

12:30 – 2:00 PM – LUNCH

2:00 – 3:30 PM [Choose one of the following 6 workshops]

The Human-Equine Relational Landscape: How Practitioner Treatment and Interactions with Equines Impact the Healing Landscape (Part 2 of 2) – with Rebecca Hubbard and Reccia Jobe

The equine-human relationship is a foundational concept in equine assisted services.

How equines are treated inside and outside of sessions forms the bedrock of clients’ experiences in equine assisted services whether you provide psychotherapy, coaching, physical therapy or occupational therapy. 

Relational strengths and weaknesses between equines and service providers inevitably appear in sessions and can impact the client experience in any number of ways from harmful to supportive, degrading to empowering and more.

In this workshop we will explore how our inner and outer experiences with our equine partners impact the healing landscape.

Mindfulness with Horses: Not Just for Calming Down! – with Jennifer Harper

Many people hear the word mindfulness and think about calming down. Slowing the breath, slowing the body, and finding stillness in the mind. While these can be powerful aspects of a mindfulness practice, they are only a small part of the story.

Mindfulness supports our capacity to be present and embodied at ANY energy level. It offers us practices to stay regulated while accessing our power.

Stay curious while increasing body energy. Stay grounded during big movement. It’s wonderful to have the tools to calm our body and nervous system when we need them. But it’s also important that we can power up without losing our capacity to attune to ourselves and others. 

Join Jennifer Harper, founder of Mindfulness with Horses, for this interactive workshop exploring ways to increase your energy without escalating emotion, supporting your ability to communicate clearly and powerfully with both horses and humans.

Moving in Three Dimensions: A Simple Framework for Using Your Body to Establish, Maintain, and Nurture Connection While Working with Clients and Horses (Part 2 of 2) – with Kathy Taylor

Relationship is the core of therapeutic work with both clients and with horses.

In this workshop, we will explore an embodied approach to the skill of healthy relating. This framework offers a top-down/bottom-up way to work with clients and horses.

Beginning with an experiential overview of the framework, I’ll demonstrate how working with dimensions supports our inner experience and self-agency, and how we can cultivate connection with others, and, ultimately, create a meaningful collaboration. We will also explore how this dimensional framework presents in horses.

Next, I’ll demonstrate how sharing this framework with clients can provide them with increased awareness of their own embodiment and better access to their felt senses. The dimension framework offers the client and therapist a common language to talk about their experiences.

I’ll share practical examples and case studies and will demonstrate live, with a horse, how to use the framework to create and build a healthy relationship. This will include principles for practitioners for maintaining attunement in sessions with horses and their clients using this new lens.

While the presentation will focus on working therapeutically with horses, this approach can be applied and practiced in many different contexts and relationships.

Processing Traumatic Memories: A Principle-Based Introduction to an Embodied and Multi-Modal Approach (Part 2 of 2) – with Bettina Shultz-Jobe, Kathleen Choe, and Kate Naylor

What is it that really helps a person process a traumatic memory? With a variety of modalities in the field of trauma it can be difficult to know which to choose – however, underlying all of these modalities are a shared set of principles that guide the work.

In this presentation, led by our Co-Founder and CEO, Bettina Shultz-Jobe, along with NL trainers and leaders Kathleen Choe and Kate Naylor, we will explore common trauma processing principles; not just techniques, but the principles that fuel their effectiveness. 

Drawing from approaches like SE, EMDR, IFS, TIR, Somatic Movement and Psychodrama – the presenters will offer an introductory look at NL’s revolutionary and embodied multi-modal approach to the healing of trauma.

Learning will be didactic and experiential. 

Come prepared to learn both personally and professionally!

Psychodrama – Healing Stories in Action (Part 2 of 2) – with Bill Woodburn

Join us in exploring the concepts and structures behind what makes a story healing and how to gently guide unfolding stories toward positive change.

We will challenge seeing stories as just distractions and explore practical counseling skills to transform repetitive, closed stories, into healing moments.

Developing the First Stages of Building a Secure Attachment for All (Including Horses) – Trust, Respect, and Willingness (Part 2 of 2) – with Michelle Holling-Brooks

The benefits of helping our clients develop a healthy secure attachment style are numerous. Learning how to cultivate a secure attachment style allows us the ability to step into resonance with our amazing, beautiful, and empowered authentic self!

Having healthy connections, to ourselves and others, also unlocks the ability for us to heal and grow.

However, the “how-to” part of changing or healing our attachment style can be difficult to maneuver.

Dr. Lisa Firestone states, “One of the proven ways to change our attachment style is by forming an attachment with someone who had a more secure attachment style than what we’ve experienced. We can also talk to a therapist, as the therapeutic relationship can help create a more secure attachment. We can continue to get to know ourselves through understanding our past experiences, allowing ourselves to make sense and feel the full pain of our stories, then moving forward as separate, differentiated adults. In doing this, we move through the world with an internal sense of security that helps us better withstand the natural hurts that life can bring.”

For us the therapeutic or coaching relationship also includes an additional relationship; the horses. This breakout workshop will focus on exploring the different “skills” and components that set-up the first foundation skills needed to support our clients and horses in how to actually start building a healthy connection.

Michelle Holling-Brooks will introduce the participants to the first three pillars of what she calls the “Bridge of Connection” – building trust, respect, and willingness for ALL beings; horses and humans.

Participants will have an opportunity to explore, practice, and ask questions about the very same concepts and activities that she utilizes in her practice to help start every horse and human off on the track of learning the essential skills for developing an earned secure attachment for all.

4:00 – 4:15 PM Closing Community Circle

To close Day 2, Mary Oliver offers the circle an experience of rhythm to regulate our bodies and ready our minds to move into the evening.

4:30 – 6:00 PM – Food Trucks and Enjoy the Space! Treasure Hunt, Decorate Walking Sticks

Raging Bull Tacos and an Ice Cream/Dessert truck will be available from 4:30-7:30 PM to anyone who would like to enjoy dinner on the property and stay on-site for evening activities!

“Surround yourself with tacos, not negativity” 

6:00 – 7:30 PM [Choose one of 3 evening activities]

Sound Healing – with Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver will be leading a sound healing session to help balance our energies and give us rest.

Come ready to sink deep and be nurtured by the music.

Labyrinth – with Shannon Knapp

A labyrinth is not just a path, but a sacred journey that guides us to our center, and back out into the world.

Shannon Knapp will invite us to step into the labyrinth and allow the winding path to clear our minds and enhance our focus. It’s a journey within, to find stillness amidst the chaos, clarity amidst the confusion, and answers amidst the questions.

Come walk with us.

Cowboy Poetry with the Jobes and NL Team

Cowboy Poetry is not just about words — it’s a journey through time, a celebration of our heritage, and a reminder of the timeless bond we share with nature, our equine partners and one another.

Gather round for Cowboy Poetry under a canopy of stars. Listen to the fire crackle and hear the messages unfold.

Tim, Tanner and Reccia Jobe, recite poetry they’ve written as well as some from other cowboy poets – including members of our NL community. Even Cooper and Mabel Jobe will join in the fun, as well as our very own Jenn Pagone and Rebecca Hubbard.

Grab a chair and join us around the campfire for an unforgettable night.

SATURDAY, NOV 11, 2023

8:30 – 8:50 AM – Final Opening Community Circle

Opening our final day, we will come to the circle to ready our minds and bodies for another exciting and engaging day of learning.  We will also begin the process of saying good-bye.

9:00 – 10:30 AM – Thin Places and Relationships in a Thick World: Cultivating Places and Relationships that Transcend – Keynote presentation with Tim Jobe and Bettina Shultz-Jobe

Have you ever heard someone talk about a “thin place?” A thin place is a place in which the perceived distance between our day-to-day and the Sacred is exceptionally narrow; a place where our encounter with something other-wordly pierces our soul and captures our heart.

Tim and Bettina Jobe will be exploring how we can create and nurture not only places, but moments and relationships that transcend, transform and heal – sacred pauses in everyday life. (And, of course, the NL horse herd will help Tim and Bettina present.)

11:00 – 12:30 PM [Choose one of the following 5 workshops]

Nature Connected Play Therapy: The Implementation of Play while Honoring the Power of Natural Setting with Animal Connections – with Emily Schmidt

Both research and experience has shown those in the helping fields that nature enhances the well-being of children.

From regulation to expression, engagement in the natural world provides tangible benefits. Equally proven is the power of play.

Those who bravely work with the youngest of clients have for decades leaned on clinically proven modalities that comprise what is commonly called “play therapy”.

What can lead to a challenge, however, is the effective implementation of play while honoring the power of a natural setting. How does one successfully allow the benefits of both nature and play to enhance rather than distract from each other? 

In my presentation I hope to offer connected and experiential insights into the blending of play therapy into settings such as outdoors, with horses and other natural places.

Topics include the inclusion of unplanned connections (frogs, the barn cat, insects etc.), planned connections (horses, ponies etc.), non-directed play and directed play activities.

I also hope to help equip professionals to gain confidence in working with parents, documentation, case conceptualization and treatment planning. This includes an overview of the use of play, how to use principles of non-directed play in nature/with horses, directed play activities that help with specific therapy goals and ways to include the whole family into the process.

My hope is that participants will gain an increased awareness of ways to use the power of natural surroundings to enhance the healing process of play.

Mindfulness with Horses: Not Just for Calming Down! – with Jennifer Harper

Many people hear the word mindfulness and think about calming down. Slowing the breath, slowing the body, and finding stillness in the mind.

While these can be powerful aspects of a mindfulness practice, they are only a small part of the story. Mindfulness supports our capacity to be present and embodied at ANY energy level. It offers us practices to stay regulated while accessing our power.

Stay curious while increasing body energy. Stay grounded during big movement.

It’s wonderful to have the tools to calm our body and nervous system when we need them. But it’s also important that we can power up without losing our capacity to attune to ourselves and others.

Join Jennifer Harper, founder of Mindfulness with Horses, for this interactive workshop exploring ways to increase your energy without escalating emotion, supporting your ability to communicate clearly and powerfully with both horses and humans.

Getting Along: Facilitating Healthy Relationships within your (Horse) Herd – with Tim Jobe and Tanner Jobe

We talk a lot about the relationship between horses and humans. But it doesn’t end there.

At Natural Lifemanship, we believe in nurturing the bonds within the herd itself.

Don’t miss this important conversation (and demonstration within the herd of course!) with Tim and Tanner Jobe about the important relational development within your horse herd.

Chiropractic Demonstration: How to Assess your Horse’s Physical Discomfort to Help Them Thrive – with Dr. Amanda Massey

How does stress impact our equine partners?

Dr. Amanda Massey is an AVCA certified animal chiropractor specializing in treating sports injuries with fascial distortion model. She will be giving demonstrations and sharing her experiences as an equine chiropractor to tell if your equine partner is experiencing discomfort from past traumas and how to improve their adaptation to environmental stressors with bodywork and chiropractic care.

Deepening the Satisfaction Cycle – with Mark Taylor

This will be an opportunity for participants to increase their sensory awareness of movement; to embody the Basic Neurological Patterns; and to explore their personal relationship to the elements of the Satisfaction Cycle (yield, push, reach, grasp, pull).

This will be an all-abilities movement workshop, and loose and comfortable clothing is recommended.

12:30 – 2:00 PM – LUNCH

2:00 – 4:00 PM – Closing Ceremony – with Bettina Shultz-Jobe and Mary Oliver

Join Bettina and Mary one last time, to wrap up the day, to wrap up the conference, and say farewell to the circle.

The community circle of Natural Lifemanship is not just the one we see when we are together, but also the one we carry in each of our hearts – say goodbye to the conference circle, and take the connection of NL with you.