Working with a horse to help you through life’s challenges

Have you ever thought about working with a horse to help you through life’s challenges?

At Intuitive Horse we work with both adults and children, helping them explore their different emotional and behavioural states through experiential learning with a horse.

Here’s an example of one of our sessions with an 11 year old girl. She came to get some help as she was struggling to communicate with her father about how she was feeling regarding her relationship with him. Her parents are separated, and she hadn’t seen her father often and felt he was quite dismissive of her. She was also feeling slightly pressured to be a certain way within her peer group, so that she fitted in.

We discussed what she would like to explore in her session with the horse, and she said she wanted to find a way to express how she was feeling. She entered the arena with the horse loose in it. With her intent in mind I asked her to see if she could find a way to relate to and express herself around the horse. She wandered around the arena, whilst the horse kept to the opposite side and kept glancing at her though didn’t make any attempt to go over. After some time she came back to me and we discussed how she was feeling. She was feeling awkward and couldn’t find a way to express herself to the horse, which made her feel self-conscious and insecure – the same feeling she had when she was around her Dad. I suggested she go back into the arena and see if she could express herself through using her body rather than trying to think of a way. Tentatively she went back over to the horse and tried.

They both stood by each other for a while, the girl became aware of her breath and her feet on the ground she then turned to the horse and looked straight up it’s nose which was towering above her head. After a while she started to move around the arena focusing on her body and her senses; she began to feel connected. The horse started to follow and happily walked along next to her whilst she skipped and moved around the arena in an easy fashion. Wherever the girl walked the horse followed and when she stopped the horse stopped. She stopped once again, and this time bent down and started to draw a pattern in the sand. The horse stood behind her waiting then very deliberately took a side step closer to her so it stood with its tummy half over the girl, similar to how a mare would stand over her foal whilst it rested.

After the session the girl was so happy and buoyant in herself – she said she felt lighter and free, like she could just be herself. This session really highlighted the transition in life she was going through. Although she had been struggling to express herself around her father since she was young, she was becoming more aware of this because of her situation with her peers. It became apparent how she’d been feeling that she had to act differently around different people. This is a stage many young people go through and they often lose their own identity in the process of trying to fit in and ‘be ‘normal’. They then spend many years of their life, if not all of it, trying to get back to who they really are.

The horses are fantastic at helping people reconnect with themselves whether they are a child or adult. The horse mirrors back your internal state, your behaviours and highlights your in-congruencies. They give you an honest reflection of where you are at in yourself, and help to peel back the masks you have laid over yourself over the years, helping you find the real you – the you at your core.

If you would like to find out more then please visit our website www.intuitivehorse.co.uk or call Emma direct on 07825 036301