My Journey at The Listening Herd…

I started my journey at The Listening Herd, suffering from grief, anxiety and immense PTSD.   Before I came to the Listening Herd, the grief and PTSD was consuming each day.

Maggie and the herd, worked on all of those issues and kept me anchored throughout each session.  The horses are incredible, they understood my emotions in a way that I never could. Literally, they have brought back the light in my life again.

Below are some of the key outcomes from my sessions with Maggie and the Herd:-

* Grooming the horses, resolved my anxiety and insomnia and brought me a lot of inner peace

* Walking with the horses, helped to challenge my fears and has created direction in my life again

* Working with Maggie and the Herd helped me to establish healthy boundaries. A concept I never understood before this process

Overall, I have found my authentic self again. Every part of my identity that got lost, is now reignited. This form of support is extremely powerful and on reflection has made a profound difference in a very short space of time.

I am forever grateful and I really hope everyone gets the chance to access support from The Listening Herd, it is a very special place.

I just wanted to say thank you again for the wonderful few hours we had with you today. As you may have noticed, H is a boy of few words and as soon as we got back into the car he said “I really enjoyed that, I felt so welcome”

I think that says it all really. Having autism, it’s not always easy for him to open up and express his feelings so to see him chatting away eating a pancake when I got back from the loo was everything! What lovely boys F and S were too 😊

It truly is a special place you and Maggie are creating and you can feel the love and ease there instantly. Your mum and sister in law are also amazing and so thank you to them too for their warmth and welcome!

Look forward to seeing you and the beautiful herd again in the future 🐴 ❤️

With love

I would like to give feedback back regarding this wonderful group at the listening herd.

My son is diagnosed with ADHD and Autism and really struggles with social situation and gets extremely anxious in new environments, and with new people. He struggles daily in the school environment and finds it difficult to manage the day and all the rules he has to follow.

I came across this group as my son absolutely loves animals and its local so thought we would try it. The ladies here have been fantastic, there is no pressure and no judgment and I can see this reflects in the way my son enjoys his visits. There are no excessive expectations and everything is tailored to the child’s needs.

My son is currently working on his own and I’m looking forward to him joining a few more children through the school holiday programmes and the new projects going forward. I can honestly say we come away happy and it’s reassuring to know my child has been included with no bias.

We love this place.

“It is rare to attend a training event that is so profoundly transformative. It was an excellent opportunity to observe and reflect on so many aspects of our life. I walked away with a renewed sense of direction and clear tools to help me support children with additional needs. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to understand the importance of connection, not just for animals but human connections.

Whatever your reasons, you will come away from the course having gained something very special, an experience you will take with you for the rest of your life!”

“My time at the listening herd helped me to reflect on my practice with the children I work with.  There was a good mix of practical activities and information to really help understand how our connections to the children are crucial to their development and growth.  ‘It is not the nail’ resonated with me – stepping back and really listening to what the children need – not assuming I know. I learnt a lot about myself and how to support my own mental health whilst working with what can sometimes be very challenging situations.  Time to talk with my colleagues and discussing ways we can help each other was also a huge benefit.”

“I am struggling to find one word to describe The Listening Herd so I have narrowed it down to a few…. wholesome, amazing, heartfelt and wonderful. 

I learnt many things about myself the day I went to see The Listening Herd, one being about my self-confidence. We were given the task of choosing a horse to walk up to, pause if you thought the horse was unsure (they would flick their ears or tail etc,) and then you would hold your hand out in a fist for the horse to touch it with its muzzle when you were confident you had made the connection with the horse. I was confident I’d made this connection and was disappointed when the horse hadn’t as she didn’t touch my fist. But this was a lesson learnt as I needed to read the horse more before making assumptions! It taught us all how to appreciate where you are in that moment.

We were taught to bodyscan and this made me aware of myself and my thoughts and that it’s not always down to me if something goes wrong.

Coming away I felt enlightened and more at peace with myself. I now understand that I can’t change everything and others, things that happen aren’t my fault and that I can overcome them positively. It has reinstalled to me what a fabulous team I work with at school and am now more self-aware of others and their well-being. The Goose Story and the “She Let Go” poem by Safire Rose that Helene read to us will stay with me forever and I will refer to it to others. If I had the chance to go again, I would in an instant!”

“We told them about our lives in school and some of our challenges, they were so supportive and gave us strategies that might help with our little ones – it’s actually us that needed to change to really help!

So back at school my little one had done something inappropriate, but I remembered the confidence that those horses gave me and I didn’t back down.  I shared the love.”