My name is Michele Sandifer, and I am your Equine Assisted Learning Facilitator at FAITH Horsemanship. In 1998 I volunteered for a friend of mine's Hippotherapy program and decided that I wanted to have my own horses one day to help people with. I had plans to go to college and obtain a degree in Psychology but I became a young single mother and figured that getting a degree in Education would be a better route, so that's what I did. After teaching in the classroom for several years, I learned that being stuck inside a building day after day just wasn’t for me but that I did love teaching.
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About me
In 2008, I read the book, Horses Don’t Lie, written by a Canadian trainer named Chris Irwin, and in it he talked about programs that work with horses in helping people. I literally threw the book down with the revelation again of what I was supposed to be doing with my life, for I knew then, and still know now, how much the horses have helped me overcome life challenges in so many ways.
They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and in my case that couldn't ring more true. When I was 15 I suffered a traumatic brain injury coming off of a horse and could have lost my life if it weren't for the helmet on my hard head. I struggled for many many years with things stemming from that injury but between the horses and my faith in God, I was able to overcome. Because of my struggles, my desire to help others through theirs became even stronger.
But as life often goes- which is often not as planned- I hindered myself from being in the position to go after my dreams full speed ahead by dabbling in things not meant for me and I wasted a lot of time in the process. I taught several different grades in several different schools and also at a youth prison, taught horseback riding lessons, worked in a chemical plant, got licensed in insurance and real estate, got a life coaching certification, taught swim lessons, and cleaned many stalls and way too many toilets. After 8 years of running a fairly successful cleaning business, I decided I had had enough of dealing with employees and folding other peoples underwear and answering my true calling was way overdue. Although I had attempted to get this all going in 2017 after getting certified as an Equine Specialist through EAGALA, it still apparently wasn’t in God’s timing and I would have had to work with another professional to practice under that organization and I’m used to riding solo. So I then got certified through the Equine Connection as an Equine Assisted Learning Facilitator and that is who I am and what I do now.
I raised my now 23 year old son as a single mom for 18 years- he is becoming as autonomous as I am. I bought a home and 15 acres in the middle of nowhere Mississippi all by my lonesome in one of the most impoverished counties in that state and somehow ended up with a LOT of animals to keep me company. I started doing my Equine Assisted Learning programs there under the name of BETAS Sanctum, but I got to missing my son an awful lot and after years of not being able to make a decent living, I sold my place, packed up my now 11 dogs, 10 horses and 2 donkeys, and moved to Stephenville, Texas. I’ve learned a lot, A LOT, from my animals-they have been my saving grace and I thank God every day for entrusting me with their care. Where therapists couldn’t help me (the last one I sat with fell asleep on me- true story!), my animals did-especially my horses. And here I am now, at 44 years of age finally answering my true calling by helping others learn too just how much the horses can help them.
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