How can spending time with horses help you grow personally?

Simply by being with the horses in their envirment can help you grow personally. The work is an experiential and innovative approach.where the horses are the assistants, co-facilitators and teachers. They can assist you with many things including:

Establishing and building on trust
Implementing boundaries
Identifying feelings, triggers, patterns and

automatic behaviours

Increasing the ability to make appropriate choices
Improving self-confidence and self-esteem
Embodying respect
Developing strategies and tools for self-regulation

Benefits:

An increase in Self-awareness
An increased ability to stay grounded in the ‘here and now
Increased levels of trust
A reduction in anxiety
Fewer feelings of depression and isolation
Increased self-esteem, self-acceptance, and social skills
Improved impulse control
Increased problem-solving skills
Improved communication skills, including non-verbal
Improved emotional health and an increased sense of well-being.

This work we call Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) it is non-confrontational where the horses lead the way. The work is carried out in an outdoor arena with the horses at liberty, so they get to choose if they’d like to participate and how they will do so. Horses are very emotional creatures and connect emotionally with people. Unlike people, however, they demand very little from others, asking only that you are authentic and ‘present’.

Horses have no expectations and are incapable of judgment.. The emphasis is on assisting you to consciously embody as much of your experience as you can. The feedback from the horses is immediate and authentic, instantaneously communicating a true reflection of the moment. It is a powerful catalyst for change.

Why Horses?

Horses are beautiful, powerful, intelligent, strong animals. Many people are attracted to their size, their beauty and to their symbolic representation of freedom. Horses have no capacity to judge, they don’t care who you are, where you’re from or what you’ve done. They are forgiving creatures and don’t hold grudges. Being with healthy horses in a safe environment can evoke strong feelings and unconscious needs.

Many people report having feelings they haven’t had in many years. Others say they experience specific feelings or emotions for the first time. The size and power of the horse can be overwhelming for many, presenting a natural opportunity to notice fear/panic, intimidation/powerlessness, sadness/loss or anger/rage or, on the flip side, gentleness/tenderness, kindness/caring, affection/closeness, safety/trust.

The horse is just being a horse and as such is always grounded, self-aware, acutely connected to others in its environment. Horses are highly sensitive to body language and energy in motion = e-motion. Their evolution as a prey animal perfectly equips them to be present in the here and now and able to immediately reflect what is happening for others.

Their survival has depended on these skills, and these same skills can assist those who choose to let horses lead them towards greater personal autonomy, increased self-awareness and self-regulation, a deeper understanding of their thoughts, feelings, urges and behaviors and a desire for closeness, affection, connection and belonging. There are so many ways these wonderful animals can assist us on our human journey. These are just a few of the reasons why we ‘let horses lead’.

What does an EAL session look like?

Upon booking your EAL session, you are asked to provide some basic information about why you are coming along. Based on the information you give, an EAL session can play out in several ways.

Some of the things we will do will include: observing the horses in their natural environment; meeting and greeting the horses in their natural environment; grooming the horses; working with the herd or an individual in the arena; task-oriented work; leading the horses; working one-on-one with a horse in the training yard.

The session always leaves time to integrate the work we’ve done via feedback/Q&A and then we complete the session by showing gratitude to the horses in whatever way feels right for the client.