Meeting Minds - Healing Through Horses

21/10/2025

🌿 At Meeting Minds, we offer a gentle and holistic approach to mental health support.

Here, I work alongside my horses — and the natural world — as partners in the healing process.

Together, we create space for curiosity, reflection, and connection.

Clients of all ages are invited to slow down, notice, and explore the world around them — and in doing so, discover the wisdom and answers that already live within.

This is a place to reconnect with yourself — your intuition, your inner knowing, and the calm that nature so effortlessly offers.

Meeting Minds is based at The Blue Moon Healing Centre, a peaceful farm surrounded by nurturing trees, vibrant gardens, and the gentle presence of sheep, birds, and other wildlife.

Here, in our sensory garden, you’re invited to relax, review, and rewire — finding balance and clarity in the rhythm of the natural world. 🌸🐴

17/10/2025

16/10/2025

14/10/2025

A day trip for the ponies to MIT again for the second half of the year. They always enjoy their outing to meet the students and eat their campus grass!!

14/10/2025

Here at Meeting Minds Equine Assisted Therapy & Learning, we work alongside our incredible horses to help people find their way back to confidence, calm, and connection. 🐴💫

Through equine-assisted sessions, we support those navigating challenges such as eating disorders, social anxiety, low self-esteem, and many other life struggles. The horses have a beautiful way of helping people open up, reflect, and heal — often bringing about real change in a shorter time than traditional therapy alone.

We’ve seen lives transform here — one quiet moment, one breakthrough, one horse at a time. ❤️

🌿 Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to learn more, see what we do, and stay connected with our journey.

06/10/2025

They just know!!💗🥰

Send a message to learn more

06/09/2025

Loving all of the pink spring colour!!🌺

01/09/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15pZYHVSWD/?mibextid=wwXIfr

💛 When she flinches, I remember.

A hand reaches for her mouth.
She tilts her head away —
but the bit is slid in anyway.
Her body is no longer hers.

I know that feeling.
The air shifts.
The body remembers before the mind can speak.

They call her willing when she obeys.
Difficult when she resists.
I have worn those words too.

They speak over her as though she isn’t there —
as though her breath doesn’t matter,
as though the tension in her body is just “resistance to be broken.”

“She just needs to learn who’s boss.”
“She has to respect you.”
I’ve heard those words,
with different nouns, in different rooms.

She has been taught that safety lies in compliance.
So have I.

When she freezes under a touch she cannot escape,
I feel the tightness in my own chest.
When she tests the rope and finds no slack,
I feel the limits I’ve been told not to push.

Her story and mine are not the same —
but the echoes are familiar.

And when I fight for her right to move without fear,
to speak without punishment,
I am also fighting for my own.

30/08/2025

Horses live as if they are safe until they are not.

They react and then go back to grazing .

29/08/2025

FAQs About What is the Eagala Model

Q: What is the Eagala Model, and how is it different from other equine-assisted programs?

A: The Eagala Model is a ground-based, team-facilitated approach to equine-assisted psychotherapy. It involves no riding, no interpretation, and no use of horses as tools. Sessions are experiential and client-led, supported by a licensed mental health professional, an equine specialist, and your four-legged partners.

28/08/2025

Deanna Lawson

Equine-Assisted Facilitator - Equine Specialist (EAGALA Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association| Founder of The Blue Moon Retreat Centre and the Meeting Minds Herd in Ararimu, South Auckland
🌿 Respite • Rewire • Renew

I’m Deanna, a passionate equine-assisted facilitator based in rural New Zealand. At The Blue Moon Healing Centre, I guide individuals on a journey of emotional healing and personal growth—through powerful, ground-based interactions with my trusted herd, the Meeting Minds horses.

I work with people of all walks of life, including clients referred through ACC, to explore challenges like anxiety, trauma, identity, and self-worth—without the pressure of traditional talk therapy. My farm offers a calm, non-judgemental space where clients can reconnect with themselves, build resilience, and experience transformation alongside nature and animals.

Every session is intentional and fully client-led, drawing on both EAGALA and Equine Assisted Learning practices to ensure a safe, supportive, and deeply moving experience.

Learn more or get in touch via my website:

Meeting Minds specialise in eating disorders, personal empowerment and self-exploration. EAGALA Equine Assisted Therapy involves creating a sacred, supportive space where horses offer a unique approach to healing and growth. This process helps you to learn to release the constraints and thought patt...