Natural Wisdom Counseling

08/27/2025

08/27/2025

Izíta (registered as Lil Kissa Slew) has been one of our therapy horses since the end of 2019. As of last week, she officially transitioned to retirement pasture on our family land to give her the freedom and comfort of just being a horse.
🐴 She has been a wonderful companion, teacher, and support for many, and her impact on our community is impossible to measure.
🐎 Izíta was diagnosed with DSLD last winter and recently has been struggling to maintain consistent comfort despite ongoing bodywork and pain medication. She was becoming less confident in her role as lead mare in her group as her pain increased and retiring her was our way of honoring her and thanking her for all of her work. She is happily integrated with one other horse on many acres and can be seen resting with him in the last photo. 🥰
So much gratitude 🙏🏼 for this beautiful soul.

08/26/2025

Join us on October 14th and 15th in Dodgeville for a Crisis Intervention Partner (CIP) training. This free training is designed for those interested in better understanding and improving interactions with people living with a mental illness.

Registration closes on September 26th and space is limited. Hope to see you there!

08/26/2025

Take a break. Do something little for yourself. Then try again.
-love notes from a therapist

08/26/2025

September 7, 10am PT

08/25/2025

❤️‍🩹

Êkwa nîtisânak — come close, sit near, for this story is not about far-off places, but about the heart of every child.

There was once a little one, we will call her Mîkwan, which means Feather. She was light in spirit, gentle in her ways, like the feather that drifts upon the breath of the wind.

One day, another child, carrying storms inside, struck Mîkwan without reason. Like a branch snapping in the wind, she fell, her knees kissed by the stones, her eyes wet with sorrow. She did not understand. Why should my soft feather be torn by another’s storm?

Mîkwan walked to the forest, where the birch trees whispered and the river stones glistened. She sat beside a great stone, one that had sat since the beginning of the world. The old ones said such stones know how to listen.

She laid her hand upon it and spoke softly:
“My heart has been hurt. My body is scraped, but it is my spirit that is bleeding. Tell me, Grandfather Stone, how do I carry this pain?”

The stone answered not with words, but with stillness. Its silence was deep as the sky at night. And in that silence, Mîkwan remembered the teachings:
• The Bear who roots himself in the earth teaches us strength.
• The Wolf, who walks with his pack yet stands brave alone, teaches us courage.
• The Eagle, who rides the high winds, teaches us to lift our prayers above the weight of this world.

Mîkwan breathed with the stone. She felt her tears soak into the earth, and the earth received them without judgment. Slowly, her spirit grew steady again. She saw the truth: the one who had struck her carried a heavy stone of their own — sharp, jagged, hurting them from the inside. That was not her stone to carry.

The next day, Mîkwan rose like dawn and returned to her people. She saw the child who had hurt her. She did not lift her hand in anger, nor did she bow her head in shame. She stood like the pine, rooted and tall, and said:

“You tried to place your heavy stone in my bundle. But I will not carry it. I choose to carry only my own spirit, light as a feather.”

The other child had no answer. Their eyes lowered, for they felt the weight of their own stone more clearly.

And so, my grandchildren, Mîkwan learned what our old ones always knew: when others act with harm, we need not take their darkness into our lodge. We breathe, we call upon the Bear, the Wolf, and the Eagle, and we walk in kindness, carrying only what is truly ours.

—Kanipawit Maskwa
ᑲᓂᐸᐏᐟ ᒪᐢᑿ
John Gonzalez

08/23/2025

Check in on your “strong” friends.
Make space for your “capable” and “competent” and “easy” kids.

08/23/2025

Practice humility.
Practice making space for misunderstanding, miscuing, and simply being wrong…

Your mind is good at tricking you. It does a good job of thinking what it thinks, and it’s usually sure about its perceptions, even if they have nothing to do with reality.

Reality-based thinking doesn’t just happen — it takes intention. Question your assumptions. Fact-check your fears. And remind yourself: just because you think it, doesn’t make it true.

08/21/2025

.health.with.emma