Connecting with Alpacas and Horses: Philosopher J. Dewey believed that humans don’t truly learn from an experience until they spend some time reflecting on it and analyzing how the experience is meaningful to them and relevant to their life. So, our time connecting is not ‘just’ about spending time together, it’s about learning from the animals, healing, and personal growth. It’s a place where we can go to remind ourselves who we are apart from the roles we play every day.

The Session: At the beginning of the session we do a short mindfulness practice and talk a bit about how to connect and yes, ‘communicate’ with the animals. I then introduce you to each animal and you connect with the horse or alpaca that speaks to you the most (all sessions can be done over the fence, with no direct interaction). Before you meet your partner for the session you might want to think about a theme, topic, or specific question you’d like to ask or reflect on.

You can book a Connection Session for yourself, or for two or more people, e.g. with your partner, family, or friends…

A session for 2 people or more: The connection session can also be booked for two or more people. It’s ideal, if you are e.g. a family and would like to find an answer to a question together, or if you are in a (mild) conflict situation, and are looking for clarity about your next steps. It’s also ideal, or if you have a friend or relative and you’d just like to share this experience with each other.

It’s for Everyone: Allowing emotions and learning to be authentic is not only important for women, quite the opposite. Many successful men have lost touch with their roots, lost sight of the meaning of what they are doing, and thus ultimately lost themselves. They strive for success and often have particular problems allowing themselves to relax, come into their center and reconnect with their feelings, intuition, and heart.

Start your Journey: A great first step if you’re interested in a Connection Session is to book your free 20 Minute Discovery Visit. This is where we get to know each other and talk about if this could be something for you. My animals and I are very happy to meet you soon!

Please let me add: I’m not qualified to work with you without the support of a qualified professional on issues like e.g. schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, severe major depression, personality disorders, autism as well as severe phobias, panic disorders, or OCD. The same is true for people who have substance abuse & addiction issues or eating disorders. I’m also not qualified to work with people who experienced severe physical or mental abuse.

But you’re still very welcome because equine and alpaca facilitated wellness sessions can be a wonderful accompanying therapy for you.

Reiki is an energy healing modality and a treatment usually consists of placing hands on or over the part of the body that needs healing. This can be done by placing the hands directly on the body, but depending on the situation and your wishes the hands can also hover a few centimeters above the body without direct contact. Reiki is done fully clothed. During the treatment life energy flows, however, the energy does not come from the practitioner, we are only a channel for the universal life energy. Reiki teaches that life energy always flows to where it’s needed. The hands are placed on the area that is at ‘dis-ease’, but the energy itself will find the place where it’s needed the most. That’s why Reiki doesn’t require a diagnosis, in Reiki, we intuitively assess where there might be an energetic imbalance. When in doubt, I would always recommend seeing a medical professional. We offer Reiki for people and horses, in person as well as distant Reiki.

Reiki with Alpacas will be offered during the summer months between April and September. Sessions will take place in the alpaca enclosure, providing a very natural, grounding, and healing environment.

Sessions take place throughout the year between Monday and Friday, rain or shine. Just contact me for a time that suits you.

Connection Sessions

• Discovery Visit (20 min) – free
• Connection Session (1.5 h) – $140 CAD
• Connection Session for 2+ people  (2 h) – $160 CAD
• Connection and Reiki Session combined (2 h) – $160 CAD

Reiki Treatments

• Reiki Treatment (1 h) – $100 CAD
• Gentle Touch Head Massage (1 h) – $100 CAD
• Reiki or Gentle Touch Package 5 treatments – $450 CAD
• Reiki and Connection Session combined (2 h) – $160 CAD

Course: 4 Steps Towards Self Love

• Sessions, Meditations, and more: This 1:1 course contains 4 sessions (1.5 h), either in person or online, as well as inspirations, workbooks, guided meditations & more. Your investment: $888 CAD

Find the Forms to fill out here

Payments are due at the end of each session and can be made by cash, check or e-transfer to: britta.zeimer@gmail.com (auto-deposit).

Coverage

If you live in BC, Canada our sessions may be covered in full or part by your health insurance or employee benefit plan. Please check with your insurance provider or employer in advance whether counselling services are covered. The following insurance companies and benefit providers in BC have agreed to reimburse my services for plans that include counselling services: SunLife, Pacific Blue Cross, Green Shield, Manulife, and Claim Secure.

Sliding Scale

I have a limited number of sliding scale spots available for those who would not otherwise be able to attend therapy. Please speak to me directly if you face financial barriers to therapy and we can discuss how it might be made more accessible to you.

Cancellation

If you don’t show up for your appointment without prior cancelation, you’ll be expected to pay the full fee for your session. When you provide less than 3 hours’ notice, we kindly ask you to pay 50% of the fee.

Location

We’re located on Mayne Island, so when you live in (or visit) Vancouver or Vancouver Island BC, Canada, and you’re willing to travel to the Gulf Islands, which are about an hour’s ferry ride away from either Vancouver or Victoria then we would be very happy to welcome you here. We’re already looking forward to meeting you.

We are fully insured for all activities with our horses and alpacas.

Are you unsure, if you’d just like to continue with your life as is now, or if you think it could help to connect with horses, alpacas and me?

Ok, then here are five reasons why it may be very beneficial to visit us:

1. To get emotional support: Talking about things can help us finding validation, understanding, empathy and a sense of belonging.

2. To make sense of what’s happening: It helps to process experiences and emotions and make sense of it. 

3. It helps us to realize we are more than our negative experiences: We are not defined by things that happened or are still happening to us. They don’t take away any of our value. And they made us who we are. We’re strong when we face it and go through it, rather than avoiding.

4. It’s a reality check: Negative experiences can make our understanding of the world upside down. Talking about it can debunk mistaken beliefs. Yes, what we experienced was abuse, gaslighting, guilt tripping, shaming, projection, feigned ignorance and more. And it was not ok.

5. To create purpose: Often, negative experiences sharpen our sense of purpose, remind us to focus on our family or community, or set us on a mission to give back, appreciate life, or realize our own strength and resilience. (Modified from a Psychology Today article 5 Reasons to Talk About Trauma | Psychology Today Australia).

Horses are Guides

Horses are prey animals and as such very observant and intuitive and openly communicate what they sense – to everyone who’s willing to listen. With that, they give us honest feedback and/or messages, which is very valuable information for our own healing journey.

Horses can read our Emotions

But is it really true, that horses can read us? Yes! Horses are masters of perception. In seconds, they recognize who we are and what’s going on with us. With other people, we often hide behind the persona, we created to protect ourselves, but this is just not possible with horses. Their survival depends on correctly assessing our intention and energy. One very interesting way they read us is, that horses have the ability to ‘smell’ our emotions, even if we don’t feel that emotion consciously, e.g. when we suppress it, like we often do with for example anger. But how do they ‘smell it’? In all mammals the sensory neurons of the vomeronasal organ (Jacobson’s organ) in the nose detects chemical cues. Notably, some scents act as chemical-communication signals (pheromones). A pheromone is a chemical that a mammal produces which changes the behavior of another mammal. Additional scientific evidence suggests that horses, like primates, have mirror neurons, who play an important role in our communication. A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both, when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Also, and most importantly horses can feel our energy field, our intentions, emotions we’re unconsciously carrying with us and of course, they can read our body language. That means horses smell, mirror, and sense on many different levels our worries, conflicts, and stresses. What they reflect back to us is usually the one theme that is most prevalent for us in that given moment we meet and when the behaviour of the horse occurs.

Consent

Everything we do with our horses and alpacas at liberty is based on consent. That means, we don’t do things to or with them that they don’t enjoy, as long, of course, as they respect our space. If we go out for a walk on the lead rope, however, there are certain rules they (and we) must follow to keep us safe and our communication peaceful.

My own Background with Horses.

I was about 10 when I started riding (classical dressage) in Germany and then I paused for quite a while, as I didn’t like how the lesson horses were treated. Almost two decades later I started being with horses again. Then I moved to Canada and have since then explored many different training styles incl. Natural Horsemanship (Jonathan Field), Ribbleton Attunement (Paulette Clark), Horsefulness Training (Karine Vandenborre), Academic Art of Riding (Bent Branderup), Clicker Training (various trainers), Trust Technique, and Animal Communication (James French), and Chi Horsing (Sandra König).

If you volunteer or rescue Animals

If you’re actively involved in animal welfare or you volunteer in an animal rescue or something similar, I absolutely encourage you to come and visit us for a session, if you feel that you’re traumatized through what you experienced as an animal rescuer. I so understand you! Let’s make sense of it together. And btw. if that’s your reason for coming, I’ll donate 50% of the fee for our session to farm animals in need.