WHAT ARE OUR CREDENTIALS?
Equine Parternships for Authenticity Learning & Awareness offers a variety of programming because of our diversity of experience, skill and credentials. Our facilitation team has come together to promote their belief that horses are powerful teachers and healers who aren't prejudiced by any one particular individual or group. We believe horses offer themselves whole-heartedly to whomever seeks their teaching. We believe that horses make themselves available as friend, teacher and healer for the benefit of human and horse.

Juli Lynch, Ph.D
Juli can't remember a time when horses were not a part of her life. Her mother had horses as a young woman and instilled in Juli a love of them at a young age. She began showing at an early age. Before she even got to college Juli had ridden and shown American Saddlebreds, barrel raced Quarterhorses and show jumped Thoroughbreds. In college Juli became a riding instructor/trainer and took up the equine sport of Eventing. After college Juli focused on the hunter/jumpers show circuit. She rode and showed the horse of her dreams, Zhivago a Warmblood gelding. The two of them graced the hunter circuit winning many equitation divisions. Zhivago is the horse that speaks to Juli in her dreams and speaks in her stories."

Juli's reputation as an accomplished ultra distance multisport athlete gave Juli the opportunity to join a team of U.S. Navy SEALS to do an epic race across Patagonia, Argentina. A section of the race required 3 days riding across the country. Juli decided it was time to learn about endurance riding. Ironically - Bonnie Mielke - one of the most experienced endurance riders in America lived down the road from Juli. The first time Juli showed up at Bonnie's to learn about endurance riding, Bonnie threw her on one of her Arab endurance horses and took off down the trail. Juli held on for dear life through the twists and turns and galloping speeds. Juli didn't fall off and Bonnie invited her back. This turned into a decade long opportunity to ride and race Bonnie's horses.

In 2005 Juli went to study a unique blend of natural horsemanship offered by Linda Kohanov author of The Tao of Equus and founder of the Epona Approach (www.theeponaapproach.com). Juli spent 2 years studying with Linda and her staff to become an Epona facilitator - eventually teaching the Epona approach herself to apprentices to earn the distinction as an Advanced Approved Epona Approach instructor.

Linda gave Juli a gift no other riding instructor or trainer ever had - the gift to understand horses at a soul level - energetically and spiritually. During that time a Trekenar mare named Lizzy and a Quarterhorse named Finnegan - both trained in dressage - became Juli's newest horse teachers. Today Juli is an Advanced Approved Epona instructor and both Lizzy and Finn work as partners with Juli.

In addition to being an Advanced Approved Epona instructor Juli has worked with Peggy Cummings and her Connected Riding® protocol as well as Sally Swift's Centered Riding® and the TellingtonMethod®.

Juli has a Ph.D. in organizational and human development. Her company Turning Pointe Consulting and Coaching™ provides executive coaching, management leadership training, and personal development life coaching. As the lead facilitator of Epala™, Juli combines her work as a personal life coach and professional executive coach along with her training as a riding instructor and qualification as an Advanced Epona instructor to bring equine assisted personal and professional development to her clients.

Tamilyn White
Tamilyn White is a Wisconsin Licensed Professional Counselor and a Nationally Certified Counselor. She has worked extensively with traumatized youth and their families. She coordinated Washburn County Wisconsin's domestic violence task force for six years, then worked as an Indian Child Welfare Case Manager for the St. Croix Chippewa of Wisconsin. After completing graduate studies, Tamilyn spent several years as the lead therapist for Impact Counseling Services in Hayward, Wisconsin, where she worked with oppositional, defiant, traumatized, and abused children, adolescents and their families.

As a mental health professional, Tamilyn has training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in addition to many other forms of cognitive behavior therapies. She also incorporates elements of play therapy, art therapy, music therapy, and movement therapy into her work with clients of all ages. While these approaches are useful in fostering changes, Tamilyn expresses amazement at how quickly and effectively Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) cuts directly to the relationship development and sustenance issues that challenge most people at some time in their lives.

Tamilyn and her partner are currently raising four children. Tamilyn herself has lived with dogs and cats most of her life. She has also been care provider to ferrets, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, and chickens. Although she spent as much time as she could with horses and horse people during her formative years, Tamilyn did not have the opportunity to tend to horses of her own until her adulthood. When she opened her life to a young spunky, sassy appaloosa gelding, she knew little about working with horses. Tamilyn did understand animal psychology and the principles of behaviorism, however, and this took her far into developing a relationship with this young horse. When her appaloosa's horse-anality developed beyond her general understanding, Tamilyn was drawn to the approaches of Pat and Linda Parelli, John Lyons, and Clinton Anderson for developing a mutually respectful relationship with her horse.

It did not take long before Tamilyn recognized that she could gain valuable insight into her own emotions and behaviors by paying attention to her horse's reactions to the way she presented herself during their time grooming, feeding, riding, and hanging out together. "He could tell immediately when I was centered and at peace, when I was irritable, or when I was struggling, and he reacted differently to me in accordance with what was happening for me internally," she explains. Tamilyn saw strong connections between what she was learning about being with her horses and the challenges many of her clients were facing as they maneuvered themselves through complex social relationships.

Although she could not bring her clients to her horses or her horses to her clients, Tamilyn began to apply the lessons she learned about her presentation with her horses to her therapy practice and noticed an almost immediate shift in her relationships with clients. This triggered Tamilyn's interest in Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) and the innate power of horses to bring about healing changes in humans. It also led to her contact with Juli Lynch, with whom she is thrilled to be working in this very exciting approach to psychotherapy.