Over the last few days, I have reflected on how many people have attended programs at my ranch. The richness of learning that has taken place with my horses is humbling. It is an extraordinary experience to have provided a sacred space for so many to heal, connect, and open through horse encounters.
In addition, when I look at my “book” page on the website, I am humbled to have written so many books about the power of horses to help heal humans. Today I wanted to share this excerpt as I feel it is essential at this time when we are all feeling so much and sometimes not sure what to do with those emotions.
I hope you enjoy . . .
Taken directly from the book Hope…from the Heart of Horses:
The gifts that horses offer are gifts that come from the horse, by the horse simply being a horse. They offer their natural state of being to enrich human awareness of self and others. One major area of awareness that we can tune into through learning with horses is emotion – energy in motion. Horses read emotions as energy and communication. For them, the feeling each member has in the herd travels through the herd like sound waves. Think of a time you listened to musicians perform at a virtuoso level. Often their notes bring an emotional response to the body as sadness, aliveness, tension or a complete joyful moment. Emotions travel in much the same manner as musical notes or other sound waves.
The difference between horses and humans is that humans become hung up about feeling their emotions or allowing others to observe any sort of emotion. The human’s ego, the fear of being vulnerable, shuts down one of the most powerful assets a person has: the ability to feel one’s emotions rising, to understand why they are rising and to be fully present and centered in the experience. Such a person allows emotion to move with grace, never going cathartic or losing her presence, but delving into her inner wisdom, being real, genuine, authentic and vulnerable. The ego stays in check, not reacting or becoming defensive or taking over. Instead, the emotion rises as the person, centered and aware, observes the self and makes conscious choices.
That is power.
To have emotional awareness and agility means to allow the rising of emotions and sensations that accompany them. It means to be centered in the physical body and containing the rising energy. It means to stay in one’s own core hub and gather the information that is being expressed through the rising emotion and to take action, from a fully conscious, body-centered, emotionally integrated, rational mind-oriented state of being. This level of centeredness, when combined with an open heart, supports the expression of one’s personal power.
To avoid one’s emotion is to decrease one’s power because of the amount of energy expended to continually pack those emotions down, trying to prevent anyone, including one’s self, from knowing that they exist. The amount of fear and energy needed to keep the lid on the emotions becomes more taxing than if the person were to simply engage with and listen to the emotion, paying particular attention to the logic or message behind it. Moreover, the alienation from one’s inner compass of life (emotions) and the lack of integration of the wisdom behind the emotions leads to a person making important life decisions from her head or ego, loving her alignment, connection to self and source and her heart.
Horses, on the other hand, allow emotion and energy to be part of their experience. They process the information and decide what they need to do with it. The energy of emotion is a form of communication; the tuned-in nature of their being utilizes all of the information in their environment so they can not only remain safe, but also thrive. Once horses process the energy of emotion as information, they return to the healthy state of grazing, resisting nothing and being fully present and in the flow.
When my clients come to work with horses, I remind them that they are becoming part of the herd. They learn to understand the nature of horses to better relate to them and create a connection with them. As they become fully aware of the emotional energy they were carrying simultaneously with their thoughts, a part of them that they were ignoring comes to the surface to be released. And as their emotional well-being becomes strengthened, the horse, in turn, relaxes in appreciation of the emotional congruence and honesty. Through these experiences, we receive the gift of becoming emotionally agile and energetically aware.
Questions for Reflection:
What emotions do you avoid feeling and expressing?
What emotions do you view as bad or negative? What might be possible if you embraced them as information and possible guidance?
How are your thoughts creating unproductive emotions?
When are you not authentic and honest with others and how does that create distance?
Workshops with Horses: Soul Emergence:
Find Your True Self in the Herd
Are you done playing small and are ready for your True Self to emerge?
Are you ready for a horse to help your Soul Emerge?
How do you merge back into life after living for so long with so many limitations and restrictions? Honoring and maintaining what is important to you in the current state of society may be difficult. Or, you may be ready for a completely new part of yourself to emerge into the world. This moment is an opportunity for rebirth, to remove all masks that hide your true self.
There is no better teacher for living authentically and true to one’s self than a horse.
Horses are naturally authentic, expressive, and open to all that is in their environment. Horses are fully present and connected to Mother Earth, with all four hooves on the land. Their large hearts and natural way of being in harmony invites you to emerge into deeper levels of authentic expression. Horses invite you to listen to the calling in your heart.
Soul Emergence: Find Your True Self in the Herd is an invitation from “HORSE” to move from merely functioning to becoming connected to all aspects of self and to all of life.
Soul Emergence: Find Your True Self in the Herd workshop is for you if you are ready to:
- Connect deeply to the heart and wisdom of Horse, so you can expand into your soul’s calling and emerge into the world as your authentic self.
- Partner with a horse to bravely claim the creativity that resides within you so that you can own your voice, unique expression, your true essence, and finally, stop living for everyone else.
- Ride the waves of the collective energy and power of the herd and tap deeply into your intuition and guidance system, never allowing another to guide or steer you where you do not wish to go.
- Have a horse show you the conditioned self or programs you may have picked up through your life that now need to be put down, removing your struggles and doubts.
- Experience deep communion with powerful, gentle, and wise horses while releasing stress, raising your vibration, and opening to new perspectives and opportunities in your life.
- Find your voice through a creative process that will open your entire being to a new way to be in the world.
Read More about this program by Clicking Here.
Workshops Dates: May 20 through 22, 2022, 10:00 – 5:00 each day
Hope to see you soon . . .
Warmly,
Kathy and the Herd
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