Resurrection After Rape Community Group
Discussion, question-and-answer, general social support, and journal processing for progress-oriented rape survivors. No crisis, no damaging or triggering conflicts--this is for individuals who want to contribute to collective, cooperative action toward the goal of making actual PROGRESS through rape trauma. Much of this work is based on the book "Resurrection After...
Do any of you have experience with using horse care and horseback riding as a form of therapy?
It's a non-profit, which means it wont bust all of our budgets if we did want to do this. They're faith-based, but very agreeable to our boundaries about religious content, especially out of respect for participants who are not of the same faith as the volunteers who run the program.
The horses are retired show horses, and are superbly trained. They offer a half-day program with basic horse training followed by team-building activities such as obstacle courses. They have a pasture for horses and riders, too. And they welcome service dogs.
We'd be able to have a day program with lunch, or an afternoon program with nighttime hot dog cookout over a fire by a stream. They prefer groups of no larger than 10-12 so we need to decide if we want to do this, and if we want to make it a first-come approach or two two day's worth so two groups can join in.
Last thing to be determined is cost. They're going to call me back, but it shouldn't add too much to our expenses. I'm laying it out in advance that people who want to do this would probably be asked to pay a little more to cover the cost, but we're not talking mega-bucks, probably $60-75. We'd also need to start planning how we'd transport people there from the retreat.
This year groups were off doing different things and we only seemed to really be together at meal times. The weekend went incredibly fast and there were people to the retreat I didn't connect with at all because there wasnt time. The bits I remember and treasure most are about human connection - for example from this year, bonding at the course and the feeling of safety with these women, the campfire and staying up late chatting, in the sweatlodge feeling so safe to be vulnerable.
I really enjoy being part of the group and don't get me wrong, horses sounds amazing and affordable it just forces us to split off again and cuts into group bonding that happens organically over the weekend. I want to participate in horse walk and I like the evening cook off it sounds idllyic :)
My thoughts are really that if we're going to start introducing all these activities we probably need to discuss the possibility that the weekend needs to be longer so that we don't lose what makes it so special.
Feel free to disagree :) just sharing my experiences and thoughts