News from HEAL - More Investing in Yourself

What are the greatest resources that we have to invest, especially during challenging times? And why is it that horses, perhaps more than any other animal, help us access these resources? I am talking about internal resources, invisible qualities we can refer to in natural terms: feeling heartened, having faith, standing firm, being authentic and staying with our most positive intentions. Wow, that may seem like a tall order. But put a human with a horse, and this is exactly what happens, often in dramatically life changing ways. The person's ability to "be" these qualities seems to literally draw the strongest, most positive response from the horse. What we invest is our belief, including belief in Self, and we invest our efforts to consistently practice our own highest and best traits. When we do this we engage the horse, and earn true interest.

In contrast to dogs and cats, horses are prey animals, hardwired to approach anything new or strange with caution. To put it another way, horses live by the power of awareness. Predator species, like dogs and cats, live by the power of focus. This gives horses a distinctly ambivalent nature: even when they are very interested in us, they will not approach unless they feel safe. Still, the social connection of the herd is most critical to their safety sense, so horses are also hardwired to connect through their finely tuned emotional awareness to each other.

Good Reading

In her new book on animal welfare, Animals Make Us Human, authors Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson emphasize the neural networks of emotions that all mammals have in common. Grandin notes that responding to animals as emotional beings, is one of the most powerful ways to ensure not just their survival and health, but their well-being and desire to cooperate with humans. This requires something from us: we ourselves have to feel, and cultivate the qualities of compassion, awareness and understanding that put horses at ease. Grandin also points out that in the wild, horse bands occupy overlapping ranges, requiring flexibility and adaptability in new social encounters, an evolutionary trait that endows them with an innate capacity for establishing new relationships.

In addition to being an animals scientist, Grandin feels that her experience as a person with autism gives her a unique ability to understand animal minds. "What 35 years of experience working with animals has taught me," Grandin concludes, is that "emotions come first."

To learn more about how broad and deep the human-horse connection can be, check out Connecting with Horses, a new book by Magrit Coates. Illustrated with case histories taken from her practice as an animal communicator and healer, this book is a poetic journey into the spiritual, emotional and energetic healings that occur between people and horses. This inspiring read offers innovative approaches for working with horses, using the power of our innate empathic connection. Coates explores a richness of interspecies communication that is expressed through the totality of our being (physical touch, intention, emotional vibrations and expressions) and mental communication through a variety of images, colors and thought patterns.

In EFP/L, we specialize in helping people learn, not just how to guide the horse (though some horsemanship is learned along the way), but how to allow the horse to guide them in the skills of empathy, emotional self-regulation, and energetic sensitivity. For adults and children who engage in EFP/L activities, the focus is on naturalness itself, the flow of feeling tones that convey "invisible" but highly effective qualities: having fortitude, persistence, empathy for the other, respect for self and other, and positive, creative thinking. Is it any wonder that horses have served as a resilience factor, a lifeline really, for so many lonely or neglected young people? Is it any wonder that horses can help any person move from surviving to truly thriving?

What are the rewards of allowing horses to mentor us in the art of faithfully investing our hearts, our innate sensitivity, our capacity for understanding emotional and spiritual truths? In my own life and in hundreds of lives touched through my practice in EFP/L, I have witnessed the most remarkable changes. The horses naturally respond and gravitate toward us when we consistently practice the invisible but influential qualities that spring from our deepest and highest wisdom. In a similar way, our adherence to these principles calls forth a similar response in other people and even in the circumstances of our lives. You are invited to HEAL to find out why so many participants call our programs "life changing!"