THE GIFT OF HORSES
Horses’ Intuitive Feedback Provides a Reflection of Your Inner State
The Benefit Of Horses
Horses gift us with their ability to provide in-the-moment feedback, about our own internal state, often reading this better than we can ourselves when caught up in our thoughts and problems.
What Horses Bring to Therapy
Equines are highly sensitive animals, who are not predatory animals, but instead have survived throughout the centuries, by being highly attuned to their environment and those around them, thereby keeping themselves, and their herd members safe. They gift us with their ability to provide in- the-moment feedback, about our own internal state, often reading this better than we can ourselves when caught up in our thoughts and problems. They have an innate ability to attune to nervous systems around them, and provide feedback on the true state of those they interact with. Horses also live entirely in the present moment and use their whole of body/senses helping us to learn energetic presence and awareness skills.
Happy, healthy, horses also have a very effective ability to self-regulate (deal effectively with stress) and they can support us to learn the same skills. By interacting with them, they can help us to “see” and understand ourselves. Insights can be profound and sudden, and having a trusted soul to disclose inner feelings to, without words, can feel far safer to many clients than verbal disclosure of past trauma. They offer a safe way to experiment with changes in behaviour such as setting clearer boundaries, practicing deep listening skills or noticing the impact of shifting our emotional state. Clients can thereby grow and reach their own goals, with the support of a qualified, trauma informed, mental health practitioner.
“Horses help us achieve Attunement”.
Attunement is the reactiveness we have to another person. It is the process by which we form relationships. “When we attune with others, we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. This resonance is at the heart of the important sense of “feeling felt” that emerges in close relationships. Children need attunement to feel secure and to develop well, and throughout our lives we all need attunement to feel close and connected.” Dr. Dan Siegel, Author of Mindsight.
