Enduring Pain, Finding Purpose, and Experiencing Peace

What would the successful processing of grief look like if we could mix radiant colors, sincere emotions, and reflective thoughts all together and bring them to life on a canvas? New Life Trails, Hospice of Northern Oklahoma, and Next 1 Up combined resources, hearts for strong mental health in our youth, and teenagers from 11 to 18 that have experienced a recent loss of a loved one over the past year together in a Horse Therapy Camp to attempt to bring that canvas to life.

New Life Trails provides the location, the horses, the volunteers, and the instruction with the animals. Hospice of Northern Oklahoma provides the vision, the contacts, the support staff, the grief guidance, and the program. While Next 1 Up has came in and wrapped it all up together with the financial support for the one day a week from four to six, five week camp.

There are seven full size horses, and six mini horses that the youth interact with during the camp. Each youth has a volunteer beside them during each step of their journey of learning to groom, saddle, and ride on the three different trails and arena at the New Life Trails facility. While they are grooming, we are able to talk to them about the struggle of learning new techniques and strategies of dealing with each individual horse, as well as situations that will come into their lives in this new chapter of their story. They have to discover who they are without their loved one, and what they want their lives to look like.

As the youth arrive at New Life Trails they are met by the faculty of Northern Oklahoma Hospice, and they gather in Logan's Barn for a care and share time for a few minutes. Then, the youth will go with their volunteer to their horse and begin the grooming process. Our initial grooming concept is the importance of cleaning out their horse's hooves with a pick. If there is a rock pressing against the frog in their horse's hoof, it can make their horse go lame. So before they begin their ride, just like before they start their day, they need to see if there is anything in their heart like bitterness, anger, guilt, resentment, or feelings of abandonment that they need to deal with. Then we talk about the importance of picking those things out of our heart by talking to a friend, counseling, exercise, hobbies, etc. We talk about the danger of trying to start the day by covering those feelings with alcohol, drugs, or violence. It is just like riding their horse with a sharp rock in their horse's foot. Our hearts are to develop a comradery amongst the youth that they are not alone, and help them build a foundation to go forward with healthy hearts and minds.