Meet Liese Foust of Nature Heals in Longmont and Boulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Liese Foust.

Liese, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Nature Heals was started by myself and my two sisters almost four years ago. But that wasn’t the start of our dreams. When we were growing up, we were surrounded by nature and animals. We played amongst creeks, woods, and horses using our imagination and our environment to pass away our weekends and summer days. We pretended that one day we would have a “horse empire” one where we raised and bred horses and taught children the love we had for animals both big and small.

As we grew, we found ourselves going to the horses or our dogs when we were sad, upset, frustrated, or feeling like we didn’t belong. It was in those moments that we felt at peace and connected to the world around us.

After college and master degrees were achieved, we found ourselves once again living in the same city and working together running a horse property. We started a business, Body n Soul Equestrian, that took care of the horses, taught horseback riding lessons, and retrained clients horses. It was only after my sister Brittany finished her second master and started her private practice specializing in Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP) that we learned that many people could not afford the service that we were lucky enough to have growing up.

Finding out that EFP was out of the budget for many, I decided to establish a nonprofit that would be a fundraising entity to pay for and support those in need of EFP and other nature-based therapies. We grew up with our hands in the dirt, our feet in the mud, and our noses full of the smells of both flowers and horses. To us, there is no better a way to give back than to do so in a manner that saved our own lives. EFP and Nature therapies provide a container for mental health and personal growth all at the same time.

Has it been a smooth road?
We all hope for the smooth roads, but it’s not often that they are paved with well-placed concrete. Since we were founded in 2016, we have had struggles both big and small but have always had support from our close friends, family, and our barn community.

We had experienced heartache and grief when we lost the most lovable horse, who held the nonprofit for the first few months. Acacia was both a goofball and a love bug. He was known for making people laugh by playing with and even throwing brushes around to challenging people to hold good boundaries when leading and riding him. Our hearts broke one summer day when we arrived to find that he died in a lightning strike. That day we had 12 campers showing up and spent the day working with the children about grief and death of a horse they were just playing with and riding the day before. The following day we made him a memory flower patch where each child got to paint a flower pot and plant flowers of their choosing in it. With the loss of him, we felt the loss of a family member who was the heart of the nonprofit for many people.

Our most recent struggle has been filling our fully funded programs well in advance. We have been fortunate to be able to raise funds for fully-funded group programs, private therapy scholarships, and scholarships for individuals to participate in groups. But since we are a young nonprofit, we have been working on expanding our impact and trying to reach those in the most need of our services. We have traveled via word of mouth and that has sustained us for the first few years and now we are in the process of pushing ourselves to greater heights in regards to the number of people we serve.

We’d love to hear more about your organization.
Nature Heals is a service organization that provides nature-based therapies in order to improve the mental and emotional well-being of children and/or adults who would not usually be able to afford these therapies. We specialize in Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP). We believe horses are authentic, congruent, sentient beings that act as partners helping us to identify old patterns of behavior, which were once intelligent survival mechanisms, but which now need to be transformed in order for us to become more fully conscious functional human beings.

This relationship dynamic provides for an immediate experience, revealing consequences of our behavior. They demonstrate that as we change internally, so does our external world. Furthermore, since horses are social beings that live naturally in groups, they allow for children and adults to learn how to authentically and safely connect with animals first and then be able transfer those experiences to others in their own lives, helping in turn to generate compassion and healthy partnership.

I am most proud of the work that each child that has participated in our programs have given their all. They have tried and have worked through some tough emotional and mental blocks both either with a therapist or with our equine partners. I believe that what sets us apart from others is our high regard for the horses as co-facilitators in the therapy process. We not only use the horse as a mirror for individuals but a teacher. They can help teach boundaries, communication skills such as the ability to read body language and how to communicate feelings and thoughts clearly and effectively.

Our hands-on experience, between the three of the main employees of Nature Heals, have over a combined 50 years of horse experience. Each one of us knows how to read horses quickly and this ability allows us to establish and maintain a safe space for children and adults around these large prey animals.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Denver and the Boulder area is a great place for our nonprofit mainly because the individuals in the area see the benefits of alternative therapeutic methods. Not only do the individuals believe in the benefits of psychotherapy, there are also a wide range of individuals who don’t have the funds to dedicate to their own or their children’s mental and emotional welfare. Nonprofits like Nature Heals are here to help offset the costs of therapy so that we don’t have to turn people away because of their finances.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nature-heals.org
• Email: liese@nature-heals.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturehealsorg/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/naturehealsorg/

Image Credit:
Megan Beyer at Altitude Equine Photography– Horse and Quote and the Event Photo with clients

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