What happened to me?
You become the one who watches, manages and holds steady, and somewhere in the years of it you catch yourself wondering, what happened to me? Self Reunion is for the people holding everything together who have asked that question.
What she does the rest of the week
Sidney owns ModHR, an employee-relations consulting firm based in Utah that works with companies across the country. For more than a decade she has done the hard parts of human resources: workplace investigations, conflict between people who still have to work together, the conversations nobody wants to have, and coaching for leaders and teams. She holds the SHRM-CP credential and sits on the board of the Utah SHRM chapter. The value she runs her firm on is a relentless commitment to understanding humans.
That work taught her two things she brings to the barn. People show you how they handle pressure long before they tell you. And honesty needs room, not instructions. You can make space for someone to be straight with themselves without telling them who they should be.
None of that makes her a therapist, and she will not act like one. Self Reunion is not therapy, not equine-assisted therapy and not a support group. Sidney is a facilitator and a horsewoman. The horses do the rest.
Why horses
When Sidney needed her own attention back, part of what worked was time in an arena. A horse responds to what you are doing right now. It reads your breathing, your pace, where your eyes are. It does not know your history and cannot be talked into anything. Earn its attention for an afternoon and your own tends to come back with it. She made plans that were hers alone. She started paying attention to what she needed. Self Reunion is that afternoon, built so other people can have it without owning a horse or knowing how to halter one.
Where the patterns come from
Barrels, poles and keyhole are riding-club patterns. Clubs across Utah run them at their own arenas, at county fairs and at each other's playdays, and Sidney is an active member of hers, The Wild Ones. At Self Reunion you run the same three patterns on foot, leading your horse, against a clock. It is the club's game with the saddle taken out, so a first-timer can play it in an afternoon. More on barrels, poles and keyhole.
How she runs a day
Sidney teaches the ground work herself: safe approach, grooming, haltering, leading, pressure and release. Then she teaches the patterns and runs the clock. Fun comes first. Nobody is asked to share, and nobody has to say the word addiction out loud. If you want to talk while you are brushing a horse, she will listen. That is her trade. If you would rather just run barrels, that is the whole point. What the four hours look like.
