Training & Professional Background
The experience I bring to this work.
Long before Braver Ground, my professional life was built in a very different world.
I spent more than twenty years working in construction, administration, project management, health and safety, and leadership roles.
That experience taught me how to observe carefully, communicate clearly, assess risk, solve problems, remain grounded under pressure, and work with people from many different backgrounds. Those skills continue to shape the way I facilitate experiences at Braver Ground today.
I am a Certified Equine Assisted Learning Facilitator through Equine Connection.
Equine Connection’s certification framework is governed by The EAL Network, with professional standards focused on ethics, safety, scope of practice, and horse welfare.
Equine Connection is also partnered with Equine Guelph — The Horse Owner’s Centre at the University of Guelph, supporting continued education and evidence-informed horse care and welfare.
My education also includes additional equine-focused training through Equus Empowered / Equus Attuned, along with human and equine first aid.
I continue to expand my education in horse behaviour, communication, welfare, safety, and ethical equine-assisted work.
Braver Ground provides Equine Assisted Learning, not psychotherapy or clinical mental-health treatment. All experiences are ground-based, and the horses are treated as partners in the process — never as tools.
But the credentials are only part of the story.
Braver Ground did not begin with a certificate, a business plan, or even an intention to work with horses.
It began much earlier — with a life spent learning how to survive.
Chapter 01
Surviving
I grew up surrounded by addiction and chaos. Safety wasn’t something I experienced often as a child—it was something I longed for. I learned early how to take care of other people. By the time I was a teenager, I was helping raise my siblings. Before I was old enough to understand the weight of responsibility, I was already carrying it.
Chapter 02
Choosing Recovery
When I became pregnant with my first child, I made the most important decision of my life.
I chose recovery.
It wasn’t easy. Recovery is difficult under the best circumstances. Recovery while surrounded by addiction is something else entirely. But I knew I couldn’t allow my children to grow up watching the same cycle continue.
That decision changed everything.
Over the next twenty-five years, I built a life.
I raised four incredible children. I worked hard. I built a career. I carried responsibilities. I showed up for everyone who needed me.
And like many women, I became very good at taking care of everyone else.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking what I needed.
Chapter 03
The Day the Horses Came
Then, in 2023, life brought me somewhere I never expected to be.
I was standing on a farm, in a relationship that was only a few weeks old, looking out across a creek at a herd of horses grazing in the distance.
At that point, horses were simply horses.
Beautiful, yes.
But I had no idea they were about to change my life.
One by one, they lifted their heads.
Then they started moving.
A walk became a trot.
The trot became a run.
More than thirty horses came thundering across the field toward me.
The sound of their hooves shook the earth beneath my feet. I can still feel it when I think about it. It sent a shiver through my entire body.
As they crossed the creek and surrounded me, something happened that I still struggle to put into words.
It wasn’t fear.
It wasn’t excitement.
It was knowing.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t fighting to survive. I was simply standing still.
Chapter 04
Remembering Myself
I wasn’t carrying everyone else’s burdens.
I wasn’t focused on what needed fixing, solving, or managing next.
And standing there, surrounded by that herd, I knew something had to change.
Not because my life was bad.
Not because I was unhappy.
But because I suddenly realized I was meant for more than surviving.
For twenty-five years, I had been building a life.
That day, I discovered my purpose.
The horses weren’t rescuing me.
They weren’t healing me.
They were inviting me to pay attention.
To slow down.
To reconnect with myself.
To remember who I was beneath all the roles and responsibilities I had carried for so long.
Chapter 05
Why Braver Ground Exists
Looking back now, I believe that was the day Braver Ground began.
Not as a business.
Not as a program.
But as a calling.
Today, Braver Ground is a place for people who have spent years carrying everything for everyone else.
A place for people navigating burnout, grief, recovery, transition, stress, or simply the weight of everyday life.
A place where nothing needs to be proven.
A place where people can slow down long enough to hear themselves again.
The horses are not here to fix anyone.
They are partners.
They have an extraordinary ability to meet us exactly where we are and reflect back what we may have forgotten about ourselves.
My hope is that when you come to Braver Ground, you experience what I experienced that day in the field.
A moment to breathe.
A moment to reconnect.
A moment to remember that you don’t have to carry everything alone.
The herd crossed a creek that day.
And without realizing it, so did I.
— Sunshine