How a horse taught me to love a part of myself.
(Horses are awesome.)
My fascination with horses.
In case I haven’t shared this before, I’m in love with horses. It’s a path of fascination for me. Fascination is one of the path’s to your purpose.
I have followed my fascination with horses, in many ways, to many places. This past Sunday, I followed it to an Equine-Assisted Therapy workshop hosted by Pam Hunter at Unbridled Life Coaching. Pam is a Master Coach in many senses of the word. She has a herd of horses that are teachers in her Equus Coaching work. One of those horses is Gracie, and I got to work with Gracie on Sunday.
In an outdoor arena on a beautiful New Jersey Spring day, I (and three others) partnered with a horse to do some equine-assisted exercises.
(Note: The purpose of this post is to share the incredible work horses do when it comes to getting a handle on yourself. Supplementing current work you’re doing on yourself with horse work or doing it stand-alone can provide incredible insights in a short amount of time. I don’t offer equine-therapy or equine-coaching, but I have benefited immensely from it. I highly recommend it! I relay an experience I had, instead of trying to explain it. )
Horses are incredibly sensitive.
As we stood with our horses, the facilitator, Tim Hayes, the author of Riding Home, discussed an exercise with Lisa, a workshop auditor. As an auditor, Lisa experienced the workshop through observation, rather than direct interaction with a horse. In that capacity, she told a story about her abusive boss, expressing frustration with his behavior towards her, as tears of anger flowed.
As I listened to Lisa’s story, I noticed Gracie pawing the ground beside me. Pawing can be a sign of frustration in a horse. She then started moving around, noticeably agitated.
At first, I thought she had been standing still too long and felt impatient. But then, I remembered my training with Ginger Krantz at Earth Horse healing – horses are always communicating.
Horses are always communicating, if we care to listen.
Through that lens, I got curious about Gracie and her restlessness. I noticed that it coincided with Lisa’s story about her boss. I also noticed that Gracie’s frustration calmed down when Tim provided a healing perspective on the situation and Lisa experienced an ah-ha moment.
Horses' sensitivity make them magnificent mirrors for us.
From across an arena, largely unnoticed, a horse mirrored the feeling of frustration in Lisa, expressed it physically, and then released it.
My observation about Gracie was that she must be pretty sensitive to feel someone else’s pain so deeply. I stood back to admire her, thinking that this sensitivity might be her super power, as the other horses didn’t seem affected by the event. I felt so lucky to be standing beside this incredible being.
Sensitivity as a super power.
As I reveled in her majesty, I had my own ah-ha moment – why is it that I see sensitivity as a superpower in Gracie, but I don’t value it in me (to put it mildly)?
Sensitivity as a source of shame.
My sensitivity has been a source of shame for me. I’m more anxious than most, cry more easily than others, feel deeply hurt at small things. All my life, I felt it trip me up, so I’ve tried so hard to eradicate it, or at least hide it. I have hated it, truth be told.
I saw this all, in a flash, as I stood beside Gracie. I then wondered if it might be possible for me to admire my own sensitivity as much as I admired Gracie’s. I wondered if, after all these years, I could accept it in me.
From shame to acceptance to love? Is that possible?
Later, after I sat down and had time to consider the experience, I realized that perhaps acceptance was a low bar. I decided on a more exalted goal – How about loving my sensitivity? I almost laughed out loud at the seeming impossibility of this.
Later in the week, with my own coach, we discussed this, refining a seemingly esoteric goal, and mapping a journey to get there.
Slowing down and noticing this, then taking a moment to mine it has made me feel a surge of happiness. It’s not like we all have to love everything about ourselves.
If you get a chance, try equine-assisted learning. In fact, if it calls to you, try anything with horses.
Horses are wonderful teachers. There are many reasons for this, but I feel like the main one is that they have huge hearts – both physically and metaphorically.
They can work their magic in many ways. I volunteer at a horse rescue (that’s me in the photo above, taken by my friend Terri, who started volunteering with horses and now has her own mini therapy horse that she, pre-covid, brought to nursing homes – she’s looking forward to resuming that work), you can do equine-assisted therapy, equine-assisted learning, equine-assisted coaching. You can learn to ride at any age.
While I love, love, love a good equine-assisted learning session, I have discovered energy healing for horses along my path of fascination. Alongside guiding women to find purpose and work they love, my other calling is to help horses through energy healing. And, I’m learning to love myself along the way.
Follow your fascination. You never know where it will lead you.
