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MIRACLE OF HEALING
THROUGH OUR EQUINE ASSISTED THERAPY |
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VETERANS MULTI-PURPOSE CENTER
OFFERING THE MIRACLE OF HEALING THROUGH OUR
EQUINE ASSISTED THERAPY PROGRAMS FOR DISABLED
VETERANS
Horses open your heart. And, when you look and
listen through the lens of your heart, you open
the doorway to the language and world of
feeling. In this land of feeling comes all our
emotions, our intuition, our bodily sensations,
our sensory information, and our soul's voice;
each uniquely rich with their own valuable
wisdom.
How life works for horses in a herd is by
knowing the consciousness of each member within
the herd and their environment in order to
survive. Where is the lead mare standing? Where
is the water and food? Where is the safe ground?
What are the weather patterns? Knowing where
there might be a predator lurking? Who are their
friends? What is the order of leadership? Is it
time for play or rest?
Sounds like a graced life, no? And, this cannot
be effectively managed within the herd if its
members are disconnected from their feelings /
sensory awareness or connection with each other
and surroundings. They prefer to depend on each
other.
We humans have been taught by example and verbal
direction to not be open with most of our
emotions. This has caused a cultural crisis in
being cut off emotionally for hundreds of years.
This has had a cumulative effect of a lot of
unexpressed and repressed emotion. We sit on a
cultural emotional volcano. And, don't we know
it well with more and more people expressing
their unfounded judgments, rage and hostility at
a moments notice.
In the human community we rarely grow-up in an
environment of knowing what our other family
members are really thinking or Feeling. Much of
this is assumed, hidden, or denied. There is a
lot of guessing, making things up, projecting,
and judging that comes from the fallout of poor
relationships with our emotional nature. We
learn it is wrong to ask questions. We often
don't get the opportunity to practice effective
relationship and communication skills.
We end up leaving our family systems (herds) not
knowing how to deal with our emotional
information successfully or responsibly, because
it has not been effectively modeled. This has
left a significant deficit in our human
consciousness.
We cannot change this impact on our human
culture over night that would be spiritual
blackmail. But we can begin to learn from our
horse mentors how to unravel this condition one
feeling at a time.
In working with horses we have the opportunity
to see reflected in their behavior just how we
are being and feeling. Exploring feelings within
the FEEL™ Reflective Circle, one begins to see
if, what they say and what they FEEL™, are
aligned. The horses communicate with maybe a
swish of a tail, pinned ears, or maybe with
licking and chewing, sighing and lowering their
head. We can trust their honest and
instantaneous communication style.
When you stand near a horse you are
automatically a part of their herd. They do not
just distinguish between horses and ignore the
humans present. Horses may listen to the other
horses first before the humans. Here is where
the fun of FEEL™ exploration comes in, by
learning their language and how to listen to the
subtleties of that language. See, if our
feeling, speaking and being are not aligned,
then we are not dependable and that is a threat
to a horse. In this state we appear ungrounded,
distracted and untrustworthy.
And horses will be horses uniquely when
perceiving a threat. They may want to flee, or
challenge, or resist what we are asking them to
do. And horse owners sometimes wonder why horses
won't perform. This is what is meant when so
many of the natural horsemanship instructors
say, "It's not a horse problem, it's a people
problem." Horses have been trying to get our
attention for a long time. Finally, we know how
to listen.
What this means for horse owners and non-horse
owners, is we can begin to learn the practices
of emotional responsibility horses naturally
embody. Our choices and decisions can be
governed by more loving, affirming expressions.
We can learn to let go of the over tendency of
the undisciplined mind that quickly assesses a
situation or person without full knowledge. When
we look at life through the heart we have the
eyes of compassion, trust and patience;
qualities that a quickly judging mind cancels
out.
Horses have this innate ability to not judge.
They merely view feeling-behavior and
bodily-behavior as useful information. If your
breathing increases, to them there is someone
feeling fear or stress. It is important to tend
to that stressor, not override it. We humans
have become all too accustomed to including
stress as a "normal" part of living. So many of
our stresses are of an emotional cause, the
unfinished business of too many
miscommunications and misunderstandings that
have collected in our hearts over the years. A
lot of these stresses are not normal or healthy
ways to be living.
Every expert in medicine, allopathic or
holistic, will say stress related behaviors and
patterns are not healthy. Yet, we just accept
this mal-adaptation without question. Why is
that? We often feel powerless to change. We
think there's no time to change. The truth is,
often we don't know how to change. Without
healthy modeling we are left "tool-less in
America" when it comes to our emotional
well-being.
This process of becoming one of the herd, has us
slow down, become more present, because their
cues happen within seconds. When humans slow
down and calm their breathing, feel from the
heart and trust in their bodies communication
system, they become at one with themselves and
their environment. You begin to feel connected
to that energy of, All That Is.
Because horses depend on knowing the emotional
state of every member of their herd and because
they do not judge any emotion as good or bad,
the herd is free to tell the truth and deal with
their emotions as they arise authentically,
responsibly, and completely. There's no stuffing
or backlogging emotionally. Horses stay clear
and clean, which brings them emotional freedom.
And yes, horses feel. Anyone who states
differently has not been with horses intimately.
Let us put an end to the human arrogance that we
are the only species who feels. They absolutely
have a full range of emotions. They feel pain,
loss, loneliness, abandonment, separation,
anger, fear, anxiety, and even depression. They
feel the higher emotions of love, caring,
loyalty, compassion, and forgiveness. They
suffer as we do when being abused. They get
scared when they are not understood. They feel
loss when a friend dies or moves from one barn
to another. They feel the slightest lighting of
a fly on their skin. They live in community and
enjoy all the pleasures of relationship.
We now have an opportunity to lay down the
patterns of stress, discontent, and unhealthy
ways we contend with or try to override. Horses
can bring us to that emotional freedom we all
hunger for and often cannot access.
With a skilled FEEL™ Facilitator who can assist
with the interpretation of equine language and
human feeling states, the client can be brought
to a state of greater congruency in a quicker
time than many other modalities of self healing
and awareness provides, because you receive
instant feedback that you can trust more readily
from the horses. They also provide something
unexpected within their compassionate reflection
- they bring us the living experience of
unconditional love.
We have a long way to go to be living powerfully
connected to all that we are, and using all of
our abilities in synergistic balance. And, now
we can begin creating the safety to be our fully
Feeling selves.
Some of the fall-out of not feeling:
» A life
driven by fear
»
Disconnected from the natural world
» Overriding
truth
» Blocking
intuitive information
» Sabotaging
experiences causing delays in growth or creation
» Stuck in
the wounds of the past
» Unwilling
to responsibly process emotions
» Less joy
and happiness
» Out of
balance spiritually, emotionally, physically,
and mentally
» Dominating
others with anger and upset
» Physical
pain
» A chronic
condition of separation, isolation and
loneliness
» Avoiding
taking responsible actions
» Being
powerless to create and realize your dreams
» Missing
out on telepathic communication, and magical
living
Some of the joys of feeling:
» Free to
tell the truth
» You can
access and trust your intuition
» Less
reactive to what others say
» Connected
to the Natural world
» Living in
the present
» Realizing
dreams
» You become
more emotionally creative
» Your body
communicates through sensations and you listen
» You feel a
part of the human family
» You feel
connected to a higher power that sources you
internally
» You know
your heart
» You can
honor and know your soul
"The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched - they must be
felt with the heart."
Helen Keller |
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