About

OVERVIEW

Michelle Skafer founded Stable Hearts in 2012. Everything she had done in her life has lead her to setting up Stable Hearts and following her passion.

Michelle offers practical knowledge, education qualifications and experience. Perhaps more profound is life experience, the highs and the lows. Michelle believes the delivery of equine assisted growth and learning in an ethical, caring and empathetic way is her calling.

Michelle holds a Bachelor of Social Science majoring in Psychotherapy, with other qualifications in nursing, special needs and aged person support.

Philosophy - Mounted and Unmounted

Horses can teach us a lot about ourselves. They are masters of Mindfulness because they are fully in the present moment, have no judgment, and don’t hold on to the past or project into the future. What they show on the outside matches what they feel on the inside.  They don’t deny or mask their feelings and our masks/personas do not fool them.

Horses invite us to be congruent, and this is where the deepest and most effective connection, relationship building and work (healing) transpires. Horses intuit our emotional states and respond accordingly, and therefore we learn the most valuable of lessons.

This makes time with horses a powerful healing and learning experience. Our modality can be applied to a cross section of community mental health and wellness programmes. We specialise in developing clinics that support healing grief and loss, depression, anxiety, C-PTSD and PTSD and anger management. We also specialise in working with ‘At Risk’ youth and provide leadership clinics for corporate organisations. Our work is not limited.