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Michel realizes the power of healing
Doug Flanagan/reporter@qvpr.com
Linzi Michel moved to the United States from her native Africa when she was 17 years old.
Several years ago, when Linzi Michel was living in Florida, she decided to combine her passion for animals with the knowledge she had accumulated during years of work in the mental healthcare field to offer assistance to those with special needs.
Michel began offering horse lessons to people with physical or emotional disabilities. The work was tremendously rewarding, so when she moved to Quincy five years ago, she decided to continue it in a similar capacity, utilizing a custom-built arena at her residence at Block 283 called Hay Daze.
She’s currently not offering the service because she lost one thoroughbred last year, and another suffered a leg injury. But she’d eventually like to start up again.
“If I have the horses ready, I’d consider doing in again, but time is a factor,” she said. “When I was working in mental healthcare, I saw the benefits that animals can have on those individuals. There was a lot of research involved into the benefits of animal therapy. When I started, I was working primarily with people with schizophrenia, but I also worked with people with autism, people who had lost their sight. One gal I worked with had lost a leg.”
Michel said the lessons depended on each individual’s needs.
“With a physical therapy individual, we’d identify core strength,” she said. “With mental health individuals, we’d work on trust factors. They’re at a place where they feel responsible for something. We’d identify the fear and work through it. All of a sudden they’re controlling a huge beast, and many things in their life they don’t have control over due to their disability. Somebody with a special need can find freedom by riding a horse. It was rewarding for me to see the connection made between the horse and the rider. It was a wonderful thing.”
Michel found her love for animals when she was growing up in Zimbabwe, a small country in southern Africa. Growing up there, she said, wasn’t all that different from living in Quincy, in some respects.
“We lived outside of a town in a desert area, and agriculture was just being introduced to the Africans,” Michel said. “Landscape-wise, it was pretty much the same, but it was socially different. We were pretty much the only white folks around. We lived in the bush, and we lived simply. My parents were missionaries, and my father built schools and planned irrigation for the Africans to develop farms and improve education. I got sent to boarding school a lot when there wasn’t schools around.
“As a kid, playing meant watching a zebra roam around for a drink, scouting out elephants or catching snakes. That was the entertainment. I guess that’s why I don’t have a lot of fear.”
Michel came to the United States when she was 17 years old with her father, in search of a new life. She lived in Florida for several years and came to Quincy from Rochester, N.Y., when she married her husband, Terry, a local farmer.
She currently works as a bookkeeper for Tobin Electric.
“I like the small town country feel,” she said. “I like going somewhere where you know the people and get a true sense of community and neighbors helping neighbors.”
Michel certainly likes to keep busy; she’s a board member at The Cambridge Assisted Living Facility, the local Habitat for Humanity branch and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
“I was so busy during my career in mental health, and now that I’m no longer as busy with a career, I still like to keep busy,” she said. “I enjoy being able to contribute in the volunteer capacity. I’m busier in my volunteer jobs than my paying job.”
