Meet Meg Vanderbilt | Equine Assisted Therapy Professional/ Non Profit Executive Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Meg Vanderbilt and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Meg, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
As a school teacher, I was aware of the pain and trauma that many of my students dealt daily. Learning science was the last thing that they were interested in, as their family life was in chaos. I also trained horses and taught lessons on the side and found myself enjoying rehabbing broken horses. Often, these horses were misunderstood and needed a different approach to learning and not just a stronger hand. As my journey of learning to listen to horses unfolded, I found that those same lessons applied to my students. The idea was birthed about using rescued horses to help rescue the human heart. After 17 years, I am still amazed at how much horses can influence the growth and healing of a wounded soul.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I fell in love with horses around the age of 7. Throughout my teenage years, I cleaned stalls and worked at various barns to earn money for riding lessons. Eventually, I was asked to work with the “trouble horses” because I was able to break down the barriers that were creating negative behaviors. I eventually started teaching my own riding lessons, participated in showing and fell in love with learning more about natural horsemanship training.

Outside of the barn, I also worked for a chiropractor that opened the doors to learning other healing modalities. When I brought these same modalities into the barn, the horses responded quickly. I discovered how much emotions, stress and trauma affects the entire mind, body and spirit. The horses were always my best teachers because they were honest and unbiased.

When I started Bit of Hope Ranch in 2007, our mission was to reach, rescue and restore hurting children, families and horses using equine assisted therapies. This was definitely an “outside of the box” approach to healing. I spent more than a decade just educating our community on the benefits of these programs with the horses. Clients that had tried talk therapy would find themselves at our gate, desperately needing something more. I had the privilege to see how the horses interacted with clients that carried in broken hearts, dreams and relationships. The herd brought in new insights for people and the clients allowed the horses to go into parts of themselves that had been closed off to humans.

Each person is on their own journey. God has never left them, but some have forgotten Him or have never seen Him working in their lives. Journey’s have twists and turns as well as ups and downs. Journeys have different seasons to teach us different things about our self and our purpose. It is a blessing to experience when a person comes at their lowest point to the Ranch and we witness how a horse can nudge them to take their next step towards healing.

God has gifted the horse with an incredible sense of evaluating a person’s motives and intentions. As prey animals, they have to evaluate their environment daily to ensure safety. They rely on the herd (relationships) to keep them safe and provide fulfillment. When we allow a horse to look inside of us, they will show us things about ourselves or our relationships that need growth and change.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Crowders Mountain and Kings Mountain State parks are beautiful places to connect with nature. There are challenging hikes as well as easy trails to follow. Belmont and McAdenville have some quaint shops for gifts and food that are away from the mainstream flow.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The Natural Horsemanship movement has been life changing for the horses and for the humans working with them. These men and women took the time to listen to the horse and to create a template so that everyone could learn these new methods. They went against the mainstream training and it often cost them a blue ribbon in the short term. In the long run, these horse masters new that the relationship built on trust and respect would long outlive the ribbon. They had a different path to success, one that sometimes took longer. They allowed the horse to have a say in the outcomes and found that the horse would offer more than they could imagine.

I wanted the rest of my life with horses to mirror these same principles. How I treat my horses is how I treat my friends and family. It also helped me deepen my relationship with God. I don’t have to change to become someone different whether I am at the barn on in my home. I can be confident in who God made me and can be open to following God’s purpose in my life.

Website: www.bitofhoperanch.org

Instagram: bitofhoperanch_nc

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bit-of-hope-ranch/?viewAsMember=true

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bitofhoperanchnc

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pJO-e-Ab1fOIUgQapTJwQ