Trauma Sensitive Equine Assisted Mindfulness (TS-EAM) combines concepts from mindfulness and meditation practices with equine assisted experiential learning. It is nature-based and movement oriented, and a trauma sensitive and informed way of working.
All our services in MiMer are built on teamwork and welfare for everyone involved, both humans and horses.
What is mindfulness and how can it help you?
Mindfulness is as much a practice, an experience, a mindset/approach to life and a state of mind. To be mindful is to actively choose to be consciously present and compassionate with yourself and others. It means that you shift your focus away from the things you cannot influence to what you can influence, that is – yourself. Being mindful is a way to redirect your energy, consciously choosing where you want to put it. This is the practice.
By influencing yourself – you have the pathway to influence your environment, including other beings. By being more and more fully yourself, you become more accessible for others as well, you become easier to understand. By learning to influence yourself, you experience what mindfulness can do for you and how your practice of mindfulness can help you in your relationships (with yourself and others) and in life. This is the experience.
When you practice and experience mindfulness – you will longer and longer be able to stay in a mindful state. It becomes a way of being. It becomes your mindset and how you approach life.
Mindfulness is in this way a philosophical, ethical, and even a political choice. It is taking responsibility for how you are and how you show up in the world.
You cannot change everything with the world that you think needs to change, especially not alone. Yet, you can choose how you want to relate to what is happening to you and around you. By making these active choices, you do have an impact on the world. How big that world is for you – only you know and decide.
Living in mindfulness can be remarkably simple, and extremely difficult at the same time.
It requires that you pay attention to and stay aware of yourself and your environment – in a relaxed, focused, engaged, accepting, non-judgmental, compassionate, and regulated way.
As everything else we want to be good at, we need to understand the practice, learn the skills, train, and reflect on what we do and how we are (giving feedback to ourselves).
Equine Assisted Mindfulness (EAM)
Equine Assisted Mindfulness means we combine mindfulness activities (sessions, practice, trainings, workshops, retreats etc.) with equine assisted learning (EAL). The EAL is there to support your growth as a mindfulness practitioner (or facilitator), to find your own way of doing mindfulness (and perhaps facilitating mindfulness for others). To enhance the learning of mindfulness we use our other building blocks, all of them, or some of them, depending on the facility and the individual(s) we work with.
We offer Equine Assisted Mindfulness (EAM) to individuals, groups, and organizations. Previous horse experience is not needed. EAM includes mindfulness practices done in the presence of and in interaction with horses. Horses can enhance the experience by being themselves, living in the "here and now" to a greater extent than we humans do while being perceived as non-judgmental in their nature. Horses are excellent at sensing and reacting or responding to humans and their emotions, whether the humans are present in the moment and congruent with themselves, or not. This means horses provide immediate and constant feedback which can be helpful when practicing mindfulness and present moment awareness.
Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness (TSM)
All our services are facilitated in a trauma sensitive/informed way.
The prevalence of trauma globally, is high. Mindfulness can be a helpful tool in trauma recovery. But, it can also uncover or intensify symptoms of trauma, or worsen any kind of stress. To make sure we do not harm more than we help, we always work in trauma sensitive and informed ways. In TS-EAM, we strive to assure the physical and emotional safety of our clients. This is why all MiMer facilitators use a trauma sensitive approach. This is how we make mindfulness and meditation practices accessible also to those how carry trauma.
We offer TS-EAM to individuals and groups. We facilitate our standard TS-EAM programs, but we also offer TS-EAM workshops tailored to your needs and wishes. We offer shorter 1-2-hour sessions, longer workshops or retreats, and weekly programs.
Research
MiMer Centre is involved in creating and developing new TS-EAM programs, some of them are part of a research project we currently are working on.
Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for inquiries about our mindfulness services and educations.