
Residents at the Central California Women’s Facility gathered for an interactive therapy session with three specially-trained “experts” in compassion and acceptance; horses. CCWF Public Information Officer Lt. Monique Williams and Rebels Farm Founder Rachel Brodsky Paez, an equine behaviorist and organizer, hosted the herd of three with a small camera crew in the grassy yard of the visiting area. In order to participate, residents enrolled in the mental health program and showed commitment to self-care.
“Horses… can carry the weight of broken hearts, broken homes, and broken bodies,” wrote Sage Sapergia, a quote provided in the program’s handout. “Countless tears sometimes comb their tangled manes. Moments when parents and friends cannot be there to help and hold a person, horses embrace and empower. They carry physical, mental, and emotional handicaps.”
One full-sized male horse and two female mini horses provided empathy and acceptance in the purely honest way that animals naturally can. Rebels Farm kept the horses’ names and personal histories unknown until the very end. This way, the group had a blank slate with no preconceptions for their interactions.

Participant Liz Lozano also felt the positive impact. “It was the most majestic moment I’ve had in 30 years. I felt the healing the horses gave me, their energy; I enjoyed their playfulness! That soul talk was beautiful.” Group member Krysten Webber noted how the horses pickup on the energy of the person handling them in that moment and that a person’s background doesn’t matter.
“Through the interactions with the horses there was a coming back to self, a validation of who you really are. People judge you for what you’ve done in the past; the horse cares only about what you’re doing right now, how your energy is,” she said.
Paez has been a competitive equestrian since age five. She has worked for an eating disorder center, has given talks on harm reduction, and is a trauma-informed restorative yoga instructor. She shared her experience with the group of how horses carried her through grief after the loss of a loved one.
Paez is a certified equine-assisted healing facilitator who said she persisted for five years to bring her healing program to CCWF. She founded Rebels Farm in 2018 and introduced their equine therapy session to California men’s prisons in 2023. The horses are based out of Ramona, CA, so the crew trekked a few hundred miles to make this event happen at CCWF.
According to Paez, horses also have the instinct to heard and protect their own, and are “gifted reflectors of our true selves because their very survival depends on reading their surroundings appropriately.”
The three-hour session took residents through both verbal and nonverbal interactions with the “therapists.” Paez led moments of debriefing and discussion in-between. Exercises incorporated boundaries, selfcare and compassion, communication and resilience.
After furry and human participants were familiarized with each other, the human herd members had some unstructured time to commune with the animals.
“Being with horses reminds you that you can release all the hurt and anger and choose to see now as an opportunity, a fresh start. Imagine the potential of the world if we could all experience that,” she said.
Rebels Farm is scheduled to return to CCW in October 2024 to share the magic of equine healing. The benefit to people who’ve experienced trauma is evident.
“(Horses) will carry you to success when all you have felt is failure… life is hard, life is heavy. But a horse will make you feel weightless under it all,” wrote Sapergia.
