We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carissa Ramsdell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carissa below.
Alright, Carissa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?
At Freedom Reigns Ranch we use horses to help mentor kids and young adults who have been through trauma and other life-challenges. In order to understand how a horse can help, you need to understand how they think.
Horses are strong.
They’re powerful.
Beautiful, majestic……. prey animals.
The way they survive is by their ability to read their environment and the intentions of everything and everyone in it. They are fear animals. They run first and ask questions later… if at all. What they remember are things they love, and things they fear or cause them pain- people included.
It’s no wonder, then, that God would give us the horse as a companion. Who else is strong and powerful, but so inclined to fear? US!
Who else needs the confidence of a trustworthy Leader (Jesus!) whom they can willingly follow to truly thrive in all they were destined to? US!
One activity with horses that we like to use to illustrate this is called a “join up”. It’s a liberty exercise allowing the horse to have complete and total free-will to choose to follow a person, rather than the force, gentle as it is in our hands, of a halter and lead.
I’ve done this exercise dozens upon dozens of times because it’s so powerful with participants. The number of walls that crumble beneath hoof prints in a dusty arena mixed with tears are countless. but I never expected God to flip the script and use it to teach me a powerful lesson that I thought I already knew… the decision to trust.
It was a cool afternoon in the fall after we had finished sessions for the evening.
Freedom, our first rescue horse that we got in 2016 from an abandonment case where his owners left him after having been addicted to drugs. He had come so far in learning to trust people and was our top choice for session horses whom we did liberty work with for participants. I was in the process of training him to become a riding horse in hopes to eventually integrate him into our riding herd for sessions. With just enough light left in the day, I went and got him from the pasture for a short round-pen session.
We went through our usual round-pen paces for warm up and he didn’t miss a beat. After running around a bit and expressing his excitement by hopping about and throwing his head with a buck or two- “getting some sillies out” as we like to call it- I exhaled softly and lowered my head in a horse’s invitation to choose to join me in the middle of the pen. His precision in going from playful sillies to soft and quiet and standing right next to me communicated we were perfectly joined up. Ready to ride.
I reached down, picked up his bridle, and went to put the reins over his head. In the loudest “NO!!!” a horse could express, Freedom threw his head in the air, snorted, and ran away proceeding to gallop around the pen. Sand flew every direction, as his feet dug into the earth attempting to escape whatever scene just flashed through his mind.
Though his flying mane and impressive strength looked beautiful in the setting sun but what was underneath was fear of the worst kind for a horse. His reaction clearly conveyed that this was more than an “I don’t want to”. I exhaled deeply asking him to be willing to trust me by rejoining me inn the center of the pen after I unknowingly triggered a trauma response and what brought me to tears was his willingness to do so immediately. He knew I didn’t mean it and put our relationship over his fear.
I rewarded him with scratching his favorite itchy spots. Deep exhales from both of us resulted in him relaxing his head to a lowered position in submission and calming as evidence by the soft expression in his eyes returning. This time, I reengaged slowly by rubbing the bridle and reins all over his body and approaching his face. He was totally relaxed. But it wasn’t that simple… I reproached the trigger area he had expressed earlier and with the same exclamation he took off flying around the arena.
What ensued was 30 more minutes of incredibly loud but silent conversation. Repeating the same approach and run away behavior a half a dozen times. Eventually, approaching exhaustion and with dusk now bridged, I uttered out loud ‘Freedom, I’m sorry for the trauma you experienced but you HAVE to trust me!”
Time suddenly stood still…. It wasn’t about Freedom anymore, it was about me and Jesus. And in that moment I understood exactly why Freedom was afraid, why he wanted to trust but felt like he couldn’t, why he was afraid of the pain that might be on the other side of choosing to trust.
The next approach, he finally, though his eyes expressed some fear, willingly allowed me to put the reins over his head. I gently stroked his neck, and told him he was a good boy, and thanked him for trusting me instead of his fear.
As we then walked around the pen step-in-step, now under a fresh blanket of stars, my mind was filled with a different perspective: a deeper understanding of God’s call to trust Him above our fear. I thanked Him for speaking to me in a way I could understand, while at the same time breaking through a training barrier that allowed our session horse to overcome his fear.
‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus
Just to take Him at His Word
Just to rest upon His promise
Just to know, “Thus saith the Lord”
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus
Oh, for grace to trust Him more
I’m so glad I learned to trust Him
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend
And I know that He is with me
Will be with me to the end
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Freedom Reigns Ranch is a faith-based ministry that uses horses to help mentor kids and young adults who have been through trauma and other life-challenges. All programming is provided free-of-charge. The session program’s primary focus is using the Ranch environment, horses and the way God created them as relational animals whose sole desire to engage is based on trust in their leader, to ignite hope in the hearts of participants who come to Freedom Reigns.
Equine-assisted mentorship is done with the purpose of inspiring hope and growth in our participants. Working with horses has many physical and emotional benefits. Often when people have experienced trauma at the hands of another person, a horse can be used to rebuild that bridge of trust. Many of our session horses have overcome a past of abuse and neglect prior to arriving at the ranch which allows participants to relate to the horses’ struggles and see how they have overcome their past in a powerful way. Once the bond with a horse is built it can transfer to healing and learning to trust other people. Other natural results of horsemanship in addition to building trust include learning to place and maintain personal boundaries, growing in patience, learning responsibility, and developing confidence in their abilities.
One of the most rewarding things we see is when a participant expresses the desire to give back by becoming a volunteer. We have seen now to the second generation a participant, who became a mentor, mentor a participant, who is now a mentor.
Volunteers are the heart of our ministry as we have a small staff of four who help coordinate over 70 volunteers to the work they do. All aspects of horse care, equine rescue work and training, farm maintenance, session leading, and fundraisers are carried out by volunteers!
None of the work would be possible without the gifts of generous donors (every day people, just like you!) who believe God can heal through His creation and that there is value in mentoring the next generation! We are a 501c3 organization, so all donations are tax-deductible. It takes nearly a half-million dollars annually to carry out our work. Most of that is made up of individuals who give less than $500 per year.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start?
Freedom Reigns Ranch didn’t start out as a Ranch. It was simply using a passion God had given me to serve people in the same way I experienced hope and healing. I let a couple kids come and spend time with my horse, a few friends started offering to come and help (those were the first “volunteers”) and eventually people started asking if they could help support financially in some way. Because of that offer, officially organizing into a nonprofit was done. God has provided in incredible ways- sometimes extravagantly so, and sometimes in the nic-of-time that has us holding our breath wondering if we can afford an essential bill. The willingness to take the next step and operate under wisdom is the key in trusting that provision.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
Resilience. Working with horses is hard.
Working with people can be challenging.
And when you combine both, there are a lot of emotions, opinions, and needs.
Sometimes the decision you have to make isn’t the most popular one. Knowing exactly what your are called to do and having a team of people around you who are supportive (in work, and in your personal life) will keep you grounded when people are critical of your decisions and express that in ways that can be hurtful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.freedomreignsranch.com
- Instagram: @freedomreignsranch
- Facebook: Facebook.com/freedomreignsranch
Image Credits
(First image ONLY): Credit to: Caroline Elizabeth Photography (@carolineelizabeth_photo).