Susan Murrell Castañeda, M.S., NBCT, Board Certified Coach
Susan is the Founder & CEO of Equine Alchemy Southwest, LLC. Equine Alchemy Southwest delivers experiential learning that explores Personal Leadership and Transformation Through the Way of the Horse. Susan developed the company in partnership with her sister, Lisa Murrell and Equine Alchemy/MetaSystem Consulting Group of New York, as an expansion of this transformational work into the West and Southwest USA. Equine Alchemy and Equine Alchemy Southwest now offer Coaching Skills Through Horse Wisdom, and ICF approved coach training program, in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe, New Mexico area. CSTHW is the only equine assisted coach training program that has been accredited and approved through the International Coach Federation and the Center for Credentialing and Education. Susan and Lisa partner with Kathleen Ingram, co-founder of the Epona Approach, in delivering cutting edge training to individuals seeking to integrate horses and coaching.
Holding a Master’s degree in Special Education/Psychology, Susan taught Gifted and Special Needs children and youth for most of her 32 years in Education. She has met the rigorous standards of the National Board for Professional Teaching, and is currently a Nationally Board Certified Educator, as well as a Board Certified Coach. Susan brings to her work an understanding of teaching and learning, and supports our clients in the “work” of transformation. Susan assists clients in understanding what they have learned and interpreting and integrating that information in a non-judgmental, compassionate manner into their “heart’s desire” for genuine change. As a former district level Administrator, Susan brings leadership training and experience to the Horse Medicine Personal Leadership Series from UNM and University of Virginia; Darden-Curry Educational Leadership.
Living with Multiple Sclerosis led Susan to an exploration of traditional healing methods and storytelling. Equine Alchemy Southwest brings these ancient arts to the The Horse Medicine Personal Healing Series. Based upon her personal experience living with a life altering condition, Susan offers an exploration of how the relationship between mind, body, soul and spirit plays an integral part in transformation.
Always a teacher… and lover of horses, Susan brings to her work the concept of intersubjectivity as experienced through the horse/human relationship.
“Intersubjectivity, the sharing of subjective states by two or more sentient beings, allows us to integrate the deep insights revealed to us in an equine partnership. Such an integration offers us a perspective of embodied knowingness and deep connection with our personal power.”
Lisa Murrell, Professional Certified Coach (ICF), Board Certified Coach, Epona Advanced Instructor
www.equinealchemy.com
www.metacg.com
Lisa is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation (ICF), and an Epona Advanced Approved Instructor in the Epona ApproachTM to human development. She brings her 13 years of extensive experience with global executives, entrepreneurs and small businesses to this process. She is also an avid horsewoman born and raised on a farm in New Mexico.
Lisa is the founding partner of Stone Ridge, NY-based MetaSystem Consulting Group, a consulting firm that began in Paris over 25 years ago, has spent the last 12 years working globally to help clients achieve breakthrough results in the areas of organization development and executive coaching.
Lisa, with her husband and MetaSystem Consulting Group partner Paul Kwiecinski, utilizes a holistic approach which recognizes that issues identified in one area of a company, department, or individual’s performance will likely also impact all other areas of the system in which they exist. Based on this model, she integrates her knowledge of systems theory with extensive experience designing structures and facilitating processes for organizations to help her clients achieve outstanding results. Her multi-dimensional approach has helped clients improve customer satisfaction by 90%; she has guided them to re-envision their companies to create as much as 500% sales growth, and has coached them through process re-design that resulted in a 400% increase in profitability.
Lisa and her partners utilize several different modalities to help her clients identify and address issues that impact performance. These include the music-based activities of Face the Music, a unique organizational intervention (developed and implemented by Kwiecinski) that uses the creation and performance of blues songs as a transformational tool, as well as What’s Your Lie golf workshops, which apply lessons learned on the golf course to hone leadership skills. The most recent addition to the experiential work that Lisa offers her clients, Leadership and Human Development through the Way of the Horse; equine facilitated experiential learning, is her biggest passion. This work takes place at Bushwood Farm, just near her home in upstate NY.
Lisa graduated cum laude from New York University with a BA in Psychology, and completed the Advanced Program in Organization Development and Human Resources at Teachers College, Columbia University. She studied OD in France with Alain Cardon, founder of the worldwide Metasysteme/Transformation network of consultants.
She is an active member of the Organization Development Network as well as the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association. She is a Professional Certified Coach, PCC, from the International Coach Federation. She is also an Advanced instructor for the Epona ApproachTM to Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning, is a member of KCC-Spirit in the Workplace, and Spirit at Work.
Kathleen Barry Ingram, M.A., Board Certified Coach
Kathleen is a Tucson, Arizona based life coach, consultant, lecturer and educator specializing in assisting individuals in personal/professional growth and Equine-Facilitated Learning. Kathleen is dedicated to helping individuals and groups move beyond limiting patterns of thought and behavior, assisting them in the discovery of possibilities to resolve conflict, develop competency and find peace.
Kathleen brings over 30 years of experience in the counseling field and marketing and communications in the health care industry for non-profit and for profit corporations to her work as a coach and consultant to individuals, families and businesses. She is past executive director of San Juan United Way, corporate director of marketing and intake at Sierra Tucson Treatment Center and has been a board member of several non-profit health care agencies. She did her internship for her Masters in Counseling with Lesley University based in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Four Corners Mental Health Clinic in New Mexico where she worked with a wide range of cultures. The diversity and variety of populations Kathleen has mentored and facilitated, including the Native Americans, gives her the experience and knowledge to work with people and groups both personally and professionally.
She had a private practice in Albuquerque in the early 1980s before moving to Tucson to work at Sierra Tucson, a leader in addiction treatment programs. She began her private counseling practice in 1992 in Tucson where she specialized in addiction counseling with an emphasis on eating disorders; grief and loss recovery; conflict resolution; and family interventions for addictive behaviors. She also completed 50 hours of post-graduate study in 1995 with the Pathfinder Foundation and Paul Rosenberg, MD and is certified in the psychodynamic fundamentals of effective short term psychotherapy.
Kathleen was introduced to Equine Facilitated Learning when Barbara Rector brought horses to work with the adolescents at Sierra Tucson in the early 1990s. Barbara hired Kathleen as a consultant to work with her colleagues, equine and human, in her program, “Adventures in Awareness”. Through her partnership with Barbara and Anne Alden (past president of the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association), Kathleen met Linda Kohanov. Kathleen and Linda began working together by creating workshops and individual intensives in 1998 where they incorporated their talents and expertise to develop an innovative and creative healing modality employing the horses as equal partners which they named The Epona Approach™ In 2003, the first Epona Equestrian Services apprenticeship class graduated. Kathleen and Linda co-created and developed The Epona Approach™ and the Epona Apprenticeship Instructor Program.
Kathleen describes how the horses, as equal partners, assist the facilitator by modeling congruent messages and behavior, co-creative and consensual leadership, appropriate boundaries, experiencing the messages behind emotion as information, and teaching and educating their human students to live consciously in the present moment. The horses have been among her greatest teachers, and even when she is not working with them directly, she carries them in her heart. These amazing beings constantly guide and teach her and she feels blessed to count them as her friends and companions. Kathleen has followed what Robert Johnson in his book, “Balancing Heaven and Earth”, calls the slender threads. He describes how he has followed the slender threads and used this intuitive knowing and direction to guide his life. He opens us to the possibility of living from the heart, not the ego. Kathleen believes we must integrate and align the heart’s “knowing” with knowledge and intention before proceeding consciously with action. Only then can we have personal mastery and authentic leadership.
INSTRUCTIONAL TEAM:
Donna Stark, Certified Equine Facilitated Coach, Builder-Realtor-Networker Extraordinaire
Donna completed the Horse Medicine Personal Healing Series, the Horse Medicine Personal Leadership Series, and the Coaching Skills Through Horse Wisdom course and brings the gifts of her native heritage to our instructional team. Donna began her career in real estate as an unlikely result of her Comanche heritage. “My great grandmother showed me how to work hard and not take no for an answer. She got an education back when women – particularly Native-Americans – didn’t do that. And she was an entrepreneur. When I was 22, I received a $3,000 settlement from the government in restitution for land taken from the Comanches. My Dad pushed me to do something lasting with the money, so I bought a little house that needed a lot of work. Although I was still in school and also had a full-time job, I worked long hours on the house to turn it into a real home. To this day, I go back and visit old friends in the neighborhood. The rest is, as they say, history. Since then I’ve bought and sold many houses, including renovating fixer-uppers for resale.”
Donna’s experience as a builder and realtor allows her to facilitate the design, construction, financing and purchase of equine facilities. She coaches clients to brainstorm “outside the box” in ways that open possibilities for clients in manifesting their equine facilitated learning business in a challenging economy. Donna’s experience as an entrepreneur/solopreneur allows her to share the “selling secrets” that help attract the perfect client and the value of networking.
Donna is of native Comanche descent and brings the healing wisdom of multiple generations.
Linda Jones, M.A. Storyteller & Creative Media Design
Linda is a former adjunct Technology Instructor for the University of New Mexico, served as an Instructor for pre-service teachers within the College of Education, and has seventeen years experience as an educator. She holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from the University of New Mexico in Elementary Education with an emphasis in Educational Technology. Linda also holds an Administration and Supervision Certificate from Johns Hopkins University in cooperation with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).
Linda enjoys helping children and adults tell their life story through digital storytelling – where music, images, voice and narrative are woven together to create powerful stories. Through the Horse Medicine Healing Series and Personal Leadership Series, Linda facilitates the unfoldment of participant creativity. As participants acknowledge the stories they bring to the workshop, a shift occurs and inherent gifts unfold….stories change. Relationships blossom and become a sacred, divine journey; a powerful spiritual journey taken both within yourself, and with those around you.
In partnership with equine coaches, participants are able to interpret these experiences through the magic of images, voice and narrative. Linda’s work allows the client to understand how wisdom is held within–deeply embedded. Rewriting one’s story takes one to where that deepest widsom is evidenced in our thoughts and actions.
Dulce M. Garcia MBA, Epona Advanced Instructor
Dulce is a graduate of Linda Kohanov’s program in Equine Assisted Experiential Learning, the Epona Approach™ . Linda is the author of The Tao of Equus and Riding Between the Worlds, and founder of Epona, an educational organization dedicated to expanding the human potential through the Way of the Horse.
Dulce holds an MBA degree from the prestigious Thunderbird School of Int’l Business and is completing her PhD in Transformative Studies at the California Institute for Integral Studies. She is conducting research on the transformative nature of the horse-human relationship.
Dulce is the founder of Quest Tours, dedicated to providing exclusive travel options to exotic destinations in China, Tibet and Latin America. For more information on Quest Tours, see http://www.questours.com
Jan Wakefield, M.A.
Jan’s creativity is expressed through her passion for the healing arts and through her gift of teaching. Jan has been a teacher, healer, and visionary for over fifteen years. She works with clients of all ages. As an educator, parent, and leader, Jan understands ways people learn and interact with one another. She is a graduate of the Light Body School at The Four Winds Society and learned many of her healing techniques from Dr. Alberto Villoldo. She creates a healing environment that is sacred, powerful, and delightful.
Jan is the owner of Gateway Healing Center in Prescott, Arizona. Founded in 2005, Gateway Healing Center offers Shamanic Healing Workshops and Private Healing Sessions for individuals, couples, families, and groups. Currently a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, Jan’s research is focused on how Shamanic Healing practices from around the world can enhance the Potentiating Arts of parenting, teaching, and leadership.
Tracy Cannon-Saavedra, CEMT, CEAT, NARHA Certified Riding Instructor Level I, Reiki Master/Teacher, Reconnection Practitioner
Tracy integrates her personal philosophy into that of our work , “the horses were/are my teachers; so helping them and their humans completes the circle of moving from Medicine horse to Horse medicine”.
She brings 10 yrs. as a Practitioner of Equi Therapy, 30 yrs. experience with equines in companionship, racing, showing, ranching, breeding, roping, training, driving,trail with various breeds of equines: Quarter, Thoroughbred, Paints, Appaloosas, Mules, Miniatures, Drafts, and wild Mustangs. Tracy has done extensive work with veterinarians in the research of blending East and West medicines to assist healing in horses with physical problems from injury, work overload, stress and strain. Tracy uses various treatment techniques such as: Myoskeletal Alignment, Acupressure, Cranial/Sacral, and Myofascial in her healing work.
Tracy’s passion is helping people help their horses through hands-on instruction. NARHA therapeutic riding and membership of EFMHA is one of the many ways Tracy uses her gifts of healing to assist special needs children and adults connect with horses in a way that is specific to the three levels of a human being based on physical contact.
In addition to working with Equine Alchemy Southwest, Tracy is available to provide instruction in clinical or workshop settings at stables, homes or horse events with individual or groups.