Mental Health Week is coming up quickly, and this year we’re opening up the Sanctuary for a day spent with the herd while participating in meditation and breathwork workshops.
Hoofbeats Sanctuary is opening up the gates on Sunday, October 6th in order to celebrate Queensland’s Mental Health Week, a week of awareness that aims to shine a spotlight on our mental health and wellbeing, as well as those around us. To celebrate this occasion, we’ve got a fun-filled day planned at the Sanctuary. And best of all, it’s totally free to attend!
Come on down for some guided meditation, beginner Yin yoga stretches, and functional breathwork. All events are suitable for beginners, so there’s absolutely no prior experience required. Although if you are experienced, we’d still love to see you on the day! Over lunch we’ll be holding a creative arts activity too for all ages and skill levels to take part in.
There’s never been a more important time to take care of your mental health, as well as looking out for your family and friends. The skills you’ll learn on the day will help ground yourself when the stress begins to rise. Taking care of your mental health can mean you are 8 times less likely to develop a mental illness, and if you are already diagnosed then it can result in a 7x more effective and likely recovery.
We’ll also be raffling off a set of our Hoofbeats-branded merchandise, including a t-shirt, cap, tote bag, affirmation cards and other goodies, valued at well over $100. Tickets will be starting at just $2, and we’ll have them on sale all day, with the drawing of the raffle closing out the event.
This event wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of the Queensland Mental Health Commission, whose funding has allowed this event to take place free of charge. One of our core values is making sure we can provide equitable access to mental health support, so we love holding events like this when funding permits.
The Schedule
We’ll open the gates at around 9:30 in the morning, with the first session starting at 10am with a guided group meditation. Over the half-hour you’ll ground yourself and clear your mind, ready for the rest of the day.
We’ll move into Yin Yoga next. These will all be gentle, beginner moves, suitable for all ages. Yin Yoga is much more passive and gentler than other forms of Yoga practice, and it does this through longer held poses and gentle pressure, which helps to target deeper areas like joints and bones. Slowing Yoga down like this, to be still and notice sensations of the body, helps us to become more connected with ourselves.
Our third activity for the day is guided breathwork, where you’ll learn how to self-regulate through controlling your breath. Explore a range of simple breathing exercises to restore functional breathing, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve physical and mental resilience.
We’ll break for lunch after this – there will be refreshments on site, otherwise there’s a cafe right over the road – and hold our creative arts activity. We’ll announce more details closer to the date, so make sure to keep up with our Facebook page or come back to our website for specifics.
After our lunch event, the days loops over with another round of guided meditation at 1pm. The complete schedule is below.
10:00 am: Guided Meditation
10:30 am: Beginner Yin Yoga Stretches
11:30 am: Functional Breathwork
12:15 pm: Creative Arts Activity (suitable for all ages)
1:00 pm: Guided Meditation
1:45 pm: Beginner Yin Yoga Stretches
2:30 pm: Functional Breathwork
There’s no pressure or expectation to stay the whole day – just stay for as long or as little as you’d like! Again, all activities (apart from our special lunch arts event) will be held twice over the day, so if you can’t make the morning session you’ll get another chance in the afternoon.
We rarely open up the Sanctuary to the public, so this is a pretty special opportunity to come on down to spend time with our herd and enjoy our lovely space. Because we provide one-on-one therapy programs, it’s usually vital that we maintain the peace and tranquility of the Sanctuary. But we’re bending the rules a bit to raise awareness during Mental Health Week.
As an aside (and it would be remiss of us not to mention this) – we also open up the Sanctuary every few months for our private Gratitude Days, where we gather around with all our donors and supporters to thank them for their generosity. Everyone who has recently donated to the Sanctuary, no matter how small or infrequently, gets an invitation, so if this sounds like something you want to take part in please make sure to check out our donation options. We call them Gratitude Days for a reason, and that’s because we genuinely are so grateful for you support, no matter how big or small.
We hope to see you on Sunday, October 6th!
