About

Get To Know Me

“What a privilege and honor it is to share this growing space with you. My WHY?…

I know women need other women to walk life with and sometimes that can get messy, so I wanted to create a safe harbor for the woman who desperately wants to come up for air and learn how to float the waves happening in her life with greater ease.

My career shift from classroom education to EFL was birthed from a really tough season of realizing how vile and destructive women can be to other women sometimes (personally and/or professionally), and how badly we need an alternative for the sake of sharing meaningful connections with others and within ourselves.

Something I craved and couldn’t find while going through some of those challenging “desert moments” was somewhere/someone/something that I could turn to that was not family, friends, therapy, etc. where I could safely “unplug” and simply have someone take me by the hand and help me make sense of my life with a means to actually navigate it differently and BE BETTER. I didn’t want people telling me what to do; rather, I was looking for someone to hold space for me so that I could make sense of things within myself and gain clarity and better capacity to face my struggles. AND…I refused to waste my time, money, and energy on anything that was a watered-down, flowery-feel-good, fake, or “judgy” self-help option.

I craved substance and authenticity.

What eventually happened is that I froze when my fight/flight instincts failed me, and then I broke. I needed something to help me bend before a break but there really isn’t much out there for that.

Finding EFL and NBSR changed my life as a participant several years ago, so much so that I dedicated my focus to becoming a practitioner and combining my behavioral science and education background with this amazing work with horses.

What I discovered was a space where I could experience radical change within myself by surrendering to meaningful moments where few words were necessary.

I know how impactful this work can be – I’ve experienced the fruits myself. I will never be your judge and jury on this journey, but I will also never let you accept set-backs as defeat or challenges as impossible. My goal is to meet you where you are while encouraging you to go one step further – whatever your next step is.

I hope this safe harbor exists as a space for women to find their bending point – so they never reach their breaking point.”

– Ashley Faulk, practitioner

Personal

Ashley is a wife to husband Kip and mother of four daughters, residing in her hometown of Scott, Louisiana. Grounded in her Catholic faith, she seeks to live out Gospel truths in quiet ways, with great love. She’s happily addicted to sunshine, coffee, and lazy Sundays!

History

For over 125 years, Ashley’s family has remained true to their Cajun roots carried on proudly for more than six generations. Acadian culture is valued at her core and she incorporates it as much as it applies throughout her practice, especially focusing on a unique simplicity of life.

Purpose

With a personal history of past trauma, Ashley shares an intimate knowledge from first-hand experiences of how EFL and NBSR aid healing and promote sustained wellness. “It takes one to know one.” This old saying is true in the fabric of this practice.

Academia

Ashley is an alumni of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she graduated Cum Laud in 2005 with a Bachelor’s of Science in the field of Child and Family Studies. As a behavioral science professional, Ashley has worked in various facets of family life and educational organizations and institutions collectively for over 20 years. She is best recognized and remembered for the directorship positions she upheld in Catholic parish faith formation programs, as a Catholic school educator, and as creator and owner of a former local K-12 micro-school.

Professionalism

Ashley acquired her professional national certification from the National Council on Family Relations in 2018 and has since successfully achieved annual professional development goals to maintain this credential. She took her passion and dedication to helping families one step further by obtaining her national certification in 2022 as an Equine Facilitated Learning practitioner from the HERD Institute. Check out these organizations to learn more about the expertise and methodology that has gone into her training .

www.ncfr.org www.herdinstitute.com

Building capacity to face whatever stressors come, means a better me for my health, relationships and “joie de vivre”…

“Horses are healing. Connection isn’t something that can be explained in words. They teach us to slow down, become aware, connect, and dig deep within ourselves for things we never knew we were capable of. This engagement, this relationship…it leaves no room for pride; rather, it satisfies our craving for meaning and belonging and breaks through barriers when words fall short.”

– Ashley Faulk, owner and practitioner