Why Horses
The healing presence of horses help people tap into their deepest truths
The healing presence of horses and their intuitive responses help people connect to their deepest truths through a supportive and nonjudgmental experience.
In the presence of horses, people learn to recognize and listen to the somatic wisdom of their own bodies, rewire previously unchallenged beliefs and behavioral patterns, and establish a more positive and aware framework for the future. Working with horses allows people to connect to themselves and those around them in new and profound ways.
Working with horses has also been shown to impart many physiological and emotional benefits, including lowered blood pressure and heart rate, increased levels of beta-endorphins (i.e., neurotransmitters that serve as pain suppressors); decreased stress levels; reduced feelings of anger, hostility, tension and anxiety; improved social functioning; and increased feelings of empowerment, trust, patience, and self-efficacy.
The Science
Did you know?
The human heart’s electromagnetic field extends up to eight to 10 feet from the body.
A horse’s heart projects an electromagnetic field five times larger than the human one.
The horse’s electromagnetic field can directly influence a person’s heart rhythm, increasing coherence.
A coherent heart pattern correlates with positive emotional states such as calm and joy.
What horses teach us
Why horses
Life stories begin unfolding symbolically in a safe and supportive setting.
Trust / connection
Horses unconditional acceptance helps clients who might have been abused and isolated build trust and feel a sense of connection with themselves and others. Horses will only react to the clients behavior and emotions with no threat of bias or judgement.
Confidence & self-esteem
Horses are large animals and their strength can bring up unmet needs, fears, and feelings of inadequacy or lack of control. Working alongside a horse in spite of those fears empowers people and creates confidence to address other intimidating and challenging situations in life.
Emotional Awareness
Horses are gifted mirrors of client behavior and emotions and begin to act in ways that feel familiar to other relationships or dynamics in our lives. This gives us a chance to gain emotional awareness and work through those relationships and issues.
Healthier boundaries
Without any words at all, horses make clear when someone has crossed their boundaries. Lessons may be as simple as how much physical space the horse needs to feel comfortable. Trying to control or dominate will not work with a horse. Likewise, a detached or passive approach can make it difficult to lead a horse.
Interpersonal skills
As a sophisticated herd animal, horses immediately begin building relationships with people as members of their herd. Through working with horses, people recognize their patterns of interacting with others and although they may have difficulty relating to other people they establish close bonds with horses. In addition, learning to understand horse behavior can help people learn the way their behavior impacts others.
Exercises as simple as haltering, leading and grooming teach people how to approach others with respect and awareness.
Managing stress / trauma
Horses can open the door to revisioning past traumatic events by offering a reference point. If something feels too painful to speak of, it can feel a bit easier for clients to externalize the content by processing using the horse’s experience in the moment.
Horses can open the door to re-visioning past traumatic experiences
We believe that clients of all ages and needs truly have their own best solutions. As the horses play out scenarios, clients gain insights and begin to see and feel shifts in themselves as well.