How many times have you heard the phrase, “Just live in the moment”? It seems so easy, right? Just temporarily place your mind on autopilot, yet the thoughts continue, and your mind rambles from what you need to pick up at the store to the last remnants of holiday shopping you forgot.
The truth is, unless you live in a tent and practice enormous amounts of yoga, you, like most people, probably struggle with being fully present. So just how do we learn to live in the moment in today’s ever more distracted world? Is it possible that the same animals that spend the majority of their time blissfully grazing in the sun, can teach us something about living in the moment?
As it turns out, there are actually many things horses can teach us about being fully present — and in a much more understandable way. For most people, being told to just “clear their mind” is a bit like telling a person to “just speak Greek.” It isn’t that simple.
When you’ve been used to operating at a very high speed, your brain actually adjusts to this pace. Treating this rapid fire style as if it were normal, your brain produces higher levels of epinephrine, and nor-epinephrine, which give you the “keyed up” feeling. Then, when you try to slow down, your brain is still producing too much of these stimulating neurochemicals, and you can’t seem to stop the racing thoughts. Your muscles probably feel tight, your breathing shallow, and your pulse elevated. Now try to just slow that down.
But interestingly, when you are around a horse, something happens. As you engage with the horse, either grooming or working with him, naturally your focus shifts to the animal. In trying to decipher the hoofed animal’s actions so as to know how to behave yourself, your focus shifts. This happens because it has to.
Thinking about your grocery list while attempting to lead a horse not only isn’t safe, it isn’t effective. Because with horses, the minute your focus shifts to something else, so does their’s, and all of the sudden, the rather large animal you are trying to lead around isn’t listening anymore. So, amazingly, without any words being spoken, even the novice horse-person learns to stay in the moment.
Beyond staying in the moment, however, horses are an amazing physiological barometer. The moment a person’s heart rate starts to rise, the horse — acutely aware of any perceived threats in his environment — registers a response. This happens because, to the horse, a rising heart rate could mean danger — even if the rising heart rate has nothing to do with the horse. And an alarmed horse is a scary thing. So people quickly learn that the only way to keep the horse calm, is to keep themselves calm — on a physiological level. Amazingly, what this usually means is being fully present in the moment with the horse, and through his responses, also uniquely tuned in what is happening within themselves.
It is also at this point that people feel most connected not only to the horse, but to themselves as well.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Shadow Self
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung stressed the importance of becoming aware of the shadow self. According to Jung, the shadow is the unconscious complex characterized by the repressed, denied, or disowned parts of the self. It is, essentially those things that a person does not accept about himself or herself.
Because this uncomfortable part of the self is often denied, it is also often projected onto others, which, according to Jung is why a person should bring the shadow self into the conscious awareness. That is, to avoid projecting it onto others.
This is clearly more easily said than done, as for some people, the existence of a shadow self alone is itself a scary concept. One can only imagine then, the difficulty most therapists face in attempting to help a person accept the unwanted parts of themselves. So just imagine then how this might go in the arena with a 1200 pound animal.
For horses, there is no such thing as a shadow self. There is only the self — as is. There is no such thing as disguised material. Horses simply don’t have the time for this. As the eloquent stress researcher Robert Sapolsky says, “When your insides are hanging out, and the enemy is upon you, it is just not the time to worry about what your friends think of you.”
This may seem a bit elementary, or even primitive to some, but, for a horse, it is daily reality. Survival, even for the domesticated horse is still a foremost concern. That being said, herd communication among a group of equines must reflect this prominent need to survive. And guess what? Evasive communication just doesn’t cut it. So for a horse, neither does ours.
If we were to measure stress hormones like cortisol or nor-epinephrine — the way Sapolsky does — as a way of identifying stress and non-stress states, we couldn’t lie. We may say, “I’m fine, I know what I’m doing with this horse,” but our indicative neurochemical levels would be off the chart.
This is exactly what a horse sees. Being non-verbal, horses have cut their teeth on the physiological barometer of stress, fine tuning their responses in ways to increase their survival chances. We wouldn’t need to hook up any wiring to a horse to see this either. Watch a wild herd for a few minutes, and it is easy to see that the group response to stress happens so uniformly that it actually disguises the lightening speed communication between the members.
In order to see it, a replay needs to be slowed to 25% of normal speed. Then in slow motion, one can decipher the chain of communication that occurs — first one horse, usually the lead or alpha horse lifts his/her head in alarm, then a second horse, then another, and another, until, all are at full attention, and bolting across the field. So horse are experts — and much better than we are — at detecting stress among one another, and us as well.
According to Jung, a shadow self that is beneath the conscious awareness leads to neurosis, otherwise known as stress. And hide it, project it, or deny it as we may, to a horse, it’s reason for alarm. But more than anything, it’s confusing for a horse, who has no capacity for understanding why things are hidden, that we would disguise a part of ourselves.
We can’t disguise anything to a horse, so our shadow self really comes across as a lie — something we are feeling, yet not acting on. And this, in the world of immediate and seamless communication, will not work. So, when left alone with a disguised person, a horse must address this hidden part of the self, as a way of preserving his own safety. After all, dishonesty about what is felt, clearly impedes communication. And to a horse, when communication breaks down, safety is jeopardized. (Interesting to note that this is not the case with people.)
So as Jung encouraged us to look deeper, exploring the hidden meaning of symbols, animals, and events in our lives, we can perhaps take a lesson from our equine friends — maybe a nudge is not just a nudge.
Because this uncomfortable part of the self is often denied, it is also often projected onto others, which, according to Jung is why a person should bring the shadow self into the conscious awareness. That is, to avoid projecting it onto others.
This is clearly more easily said than done, as for some people, the existence of a shadow self alone is itself a scary concept. One can only imagine then, the difficulty most therapists face in attempting to help a person accept the unwanted parts of themselves. So just imagine then how this might go in the arena with a 1200 pound animal.
For horses, there is no such thing as a shadow self. There is only the self — as is. There is no such thing as disguised material. Horses simply don’t have the time for this. As the eloquent stress researcher Robert Sapolsky says, “When your insides are hanging out, and the enemy is upon you, it is just not the time to worry about what your friends think of you.”
This may seem a bit elementary, or even primitive to some, but, for a horse, it is daily reality. Survival, even for the domesticated horse is still a foremost concern. That being said, herd communication among a group of equines must reflect this prominent need to survive. And guess what? Evasive communication just doesn’t cut it. So for a horse, neither does ours.
If we were to measure stress hormones like cortisol or nor-epinephrine — the way Sapolsky does — as a way of identifying stress and non-stress states, we couldn’t lie. We may say, “I’m fine, I know what I’m doing with this horse,” but our indicative neurochemical levels would be off the chart.
This is exactly what a horse sees. Being non-verbal, horses have cut their teeth on the physiological barometer of stress, fine tuning their responses in ways to increase their survival chances. We wouldn’t need to hook up any wiring to a horse to see this either. Watch a wild herd for a few minutes, and it is easy to see that the group response to stress happens so uniformly that it actually disguises the lightening speed communication between the members.
In order to see it, a replay needs to be slowed to 25% of normal speed. Then in slow motion, one can decipher the chain of communication that occurs — first one horse, usually the lead or alpha horse lifts his/her head in alarm, then a second horse, then another, and another, until, all are at full attention, and bolting across the field. So horse are experts — and much better than we are — at detecting stress among one another, and us as well.
According to Jung, a shadow self that is beneath the conscious awareness leads to neurosis, otherwise known as stress. And hide it, project it, or deny it as we may, to a horse, it’s reason for alarm. But more than anything, it’s confusing for a horse, who has no capacity for understanding why things are hidden, that we would disguise a part of ourselves.
We can’t disguise anything to a horse, so our shadow self really comes across as a lie — something we are feeling, yet not acting on. And this, in the world of immediate and seamless communication, will not work. So, when left alone with a disguised person, a horse must address this hidden part of the self, as a way of preserving his own safety. After all, dishonesty about what is felt, clearly impedes communication. And to a horse, when communication breaks down, safety is jeopardized. (Interesting to note that this is not the case with people.)
So as Jung encouraged us to look deeper, exploring the hidden meaning of symbols, animals, and events in our lives, we can perhaps take a lesson from our equine friends — maybe a nudge is not just a nudge.
Theoretical Approaches in Equine Therapy
While separate and distinct theoretical approaches have been well recognized in traditional therapy settings for many years, equine therapy has been categorized as experiential from the beginning. Especially for those who are not familiar to the unique modality of healing horses can offer, it has been all too easy to simply place this form of therapy into the same category as rope courses, art therapy, and wilderness courses.
Yet, in classifying equine therapy in this way, not only has the feeling and understanding of the work been stilted, but also the fact that in incorporating horses into the therapeutic dimension, separate theories have evolved, just as with traditional therapy, has been missed.
In the beginning, equine therapy was born from the traditional handicapped riding programs that were the forerunners of what is now known as the North American Handicapped Riding Assoication, or NARHA (www.narha.org). Using this step like approach developed by NARHA, practitioners of equine therapy soon found themselves with a very behavioral model.
Clients were given “exercises” to perform with the horses, while therapists would comment on their behavior with horses, and help them draw parallels to their behavior in the outside world. Then, using the horse as a modicum of practice, clients were encouraged to try different behaviors in order to assess their efficacy.
If the client could get the horse to respond differently, this was considered successful by the therapeutic team. As this behavioral model became popular, the organization known as Equine Growth and Learning Association, or EAGALA (www.eagala.org), was formed to oversee certification of practicing therapists, and horse professionals, as EAGALA called for the uses of both a certified therapist and a horse professional, also certified to conduct equine therapy.
However, soon after EAGALA’s behavioral model emerged from the foundation of NARHA, a woman named Linda Kohanov wrote a best selling book, “The Tao of Equus,” in which she described developing a relationships with horses through becoming more congruent, and thus honest to the horse.
According to Kohanov, her horses could sense when she was incongruent and move away. Yet when horses return to people, Kohanov purported, it is because they are congruent. As this approach gained a healthy following, Kohanov soon formed her organization, EPONA, (www.taoofequus.com) in order to certify and train professionals much in the same way EAGALA does.
The difference, however, lay in the fact that the EPONA model did not include any exercises to be performed with the horse, or behaviors to be assessed. Instead, Kohanov’s methods found their home in a much more experiential model, where clients were encouraged to pay attention to their thoughts, and feelings while utilizing the horse’s responses as a barometer for their own inner workings.
Today, both behavioral and experiential theories of equine therapy exist, although the work lends itself to many different orientations. For example, horses respond almost entirely to what is physiological in both other horses, and humans. It is in fact, through these physiological responses that they manage their communication system. As unconscious motives, drives and feelings have physiological traces within humans, equine therapy could even be performed from a psychodynamic orientation.
So while the theories employed by equine therapy practitioners may vary, and the including horses in the therapeutic a treatment program opens doors to many different orientations, one fact remains — horses can offer a promising new treatment modality.
Yet, in classifying equine therapy in this way, not only has the feeling and understanding of the work been stilted, but also the fact that in incorporating horses into the therapeutic dimension, separate theories have evolved, just as with traditional therapy, has been missed.
In the beginning, equine therapy was born from the traditional handicapped riding programs that were the forerunners of what is now known as the North American Handicapped Riding Assoication, or NARHA (www.narha.org). Using this step like approach developed by NARHA, practitioners of equine therapy soon found themselves with a very behavioral model.
Clients were given “exercises” to perform with the horses, while therapists would comment on their behavior with horses, and help them draw parallels to their behavior in the outside world. Then, using the horse as a modicum of practice, clients were encouraged to try different behaviors in order to assess their efficacy.
If the client could get the horse to respond differently, this was considered successful by the therapeutic team. As this behavioral model became popular, the organization known as Equine Growth and Learning Association, or EAGALA (www.eagala.org), was formed to oversee certification of practicing therapists, and horse professionals, as EAGALA called for the uses of both a certified therapist and a horse professional, also certified to conduct equine therapy.
However, soon after EAGALA’s behavioral model emerged from the foundation of NARHA, a woman named Linda Kohanov wrote a best selling book, “The Tao of Equus,” in which she described developing a relationships with horses through becoming more congruent, and thus honest to the horse.
According to Kohanov, her horses could sense when she was incongruent and move away. Yet when horses return to people, Kohanov purported, it is because they are congruent. As this approach gained a healthy following, Kohanov soon formed her organization, EPONA, (www.taoofequus.com) in order to certify and train professionals much in the same way EAGALA does.
The difference, however, lay in the fact that the EPONA model did not include any exercises to be performed with the horse, or behaviors to be assessed. Instead, Kohanov’s methods found their home in a much more experiential model, where clients were encouraged to pay attention to their thoughts, and feelings while utilizing the horse’s responses as a barometer for their own inner workings.
Today, both behavioral and experiential theories of equine therapy exist, although the work lends itself to many different orientations. For example, horses respond almost entirely to what is physiological in both other horses, and humans. It is in fact, through these physiological responses that they manage their communication system. As unconscious motives, drives and feelings have physiological traces within humans, equine therapy could even be performed from a psychodynamic orientation.
So while the theories employed by equine therapy practitioners may vary, and the including horses in the therapeutic a treatment program opens doors to many different orientations, one fact remains — horses can offer a promising new treatment modality.
The Nature of the Horse as Healer
Horses have always had to escape predators. As prey animals, their survival has forever depended on their ability to run. While horses are fast creatures by nature, they are not the fastest. However, they can typically run for longer periods of time than most of their predators.
In order to remain alive, then, they had to become better at detecting potential predators than the predators were at remaining undetected. They had to sense that they were being stalked before a predator was able to get too close, and therefore able to overcome them before they could outrun him. So the horses’ task of surviving then, becomes directly related to their ability to perceive any potential threat that enters their environment, and to react quickly to this threat.
For this reason, horses are constantly watching everything in the environment. People often describe this as “flighty” or “nervous,” as the horse can react very quickly, often without warning. Yet this is the horse’s only way of ensuring his safety. What this means as a healer is that the horse has an innate ability to detect subtle psychological shifts within a person that render him unsafe.
How is it that a horse is so finely tuned to “read,” people, and thereby offer healing, even when the answers are not obvious? Well, when a horse scans the environment, a heightening of the sensations that provide feedback for the events in the environment occurs. These sensations consist of a sight, sound, touch, taste, kinetic sense, and a variety of physiological responses including heart rate, breath rate, temperature, muscle tension, and nerve impulses.
For the horse, some of these sensations may be more acutely developed, providing more accurate, or rapid, feedback, as to changes in the environment. However, together, they all comprise a part of the horse’s survival mechanism. And the extent to which these sensations are heightened depends on the amount of vigilance the horse has to his environment.
The more vigilance to the environment, the more heightened the horse’s responses will be. What this means when working with people, the horse, as a healer, registers with his physiological response to the person, the amount and direction of psychological vulnerability in the person. For example, if the horse reacts very strongly to a person, demonstrating obvious alarm, it is clear that the emotional intensity within the person is very strong. Then by disseminating the meaning of the horse’s response — interpreting his response as a herd animal — the direction of the person’s emotion can be ascertained. For example, if the horse demonstrates what would be classified in herd behavior as protective, toward the person, he is responding to a vulnerability — that needs protection — within the person.
Due to their innate nature, horses are tremendously adept healers. And in understanding their nature, and the meaning of it, humans, armed with horses, become incredible healers as well.
In order to remain alive, then, they had to become better at detecting potential predators than the predators were at remaining undetected. They had to sense that they were being stalked before a predator was able to get too close, and therefore able to overcome them before they could outrun him. So the horses’ task of surviving then, becomes directly related to their ability to perceive any potential threat that enters their environment, and to react quickly to this threat.
For this reason, horses are constantly watching everything in the environment. People often describe this as “flighty” or “nervous,” as the horse can react very quickly, often without warning. Yet this is the horse’s only way of ensuring his safety. What this means as a healer is that the horse has an innate ability to detect subtle psychological shifts within a person that render him unsafe.
How is it that a horse is so finely tuned to “read,” people, and thereby offer healing, even when the answers are not obvious? Well, when a horse scans the environment, a heightening of the sensations that provide feedback for the events in the environment occurs. These sensations consist of a sight, sound, touch, taste, kinetic sense, and a variety of physiological responses including heart rate, breath rate, temperature, muscle tension, and nerve impulses.
For the horse, some of these sensations may be more acutely developed, providing more accurate, or rapid, feedback, as to changes in the environment. However, together, they all comprise a part of the horse’s survival mechanism. And the extent to which these sensations are heightened depends on the amount of vigilance the horse has to his environment.
The more vigilance to the environment, the more heightened the horse’s responses will be. What this means when working with people, the horse, as a healer, registers with his physiological response to the person, the amount and direction of psychological vulnerability in the person. For example, if the horse reacts very strongly to a person, demonstrating obvious alarm, it is clear that the emotional intensity within the person is very strong. Then by disseminating the meaning of the horse’s response — interpreting his response as a herd animal — the direction of the person’s emotion can be ascertained. For example, if the horse demonstrates what would be classified in herd behavior as protective, toward the person, he is responding to a vulnerability — that needs protection — within the person.
Due to their innate nature, horses are tremendously adept healers. And in understanding their nature, and the meaning of it, humans, armed with horses, become incredible healers as well.
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