Equine Therapy and Relationships

Equine Therapy and Relationships

By: Rachel Gardner, LCSW

As the mission statement of Windstone Counseling highlights, an important aspect of treatment involves the nurturing and healing of relationships – both with oneself and others.

How does one heal the relationship with others?  First, we need to better understand ourselves.  We are essentially a sum of all of our parts.  What does that even mean?  It means we take a personal inventory of our life within the aspects of the roles we play, our personality traits, experiences, behavior, and physical characteristics.  What do we like about ourselves?  Why?  What do we want to change?  What are we hoping to accomplish through this transformation?  What makes us unique?  How do we interact or relate to others?

Once we assess ourselves, we can then create a plan to improve and evolve.  But what about the things we can not change about ourselves?  That is when we learn how to accept, embrace and love ourselves.  As Tara Brash said in Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha (2003), “radical acceptance is a concept of embracing ourselves with all of our pain, fear and anxieties, and to step lightly yet firmly on the path of understanding and compassion.”  Sessions become centered on balancing the dialectics of change versus the acceptance of ourselves.

So how do horses fit into all of this?  Horses accept us just as we are – they do not judge our abilities, our appearance or our past.  Horses stay in the present moment.  They offer us immediate feedback based upon what we communicate through our body language and behavior.  As we begin to see ourselves as good enough and worthy of love, just as they do, we somewhat seamlessly begin working on building a relationship with others.

Horses are constantly assessing whether they can trust us, if we are safe, and if we can meet their need for food, love, and protection.  The arena becomes an opportunity to establish a healthy trusting relationship with another being built on acceptance and love despite all of our flaws.  In turn, we learn to embrace ourselves where we were, where we are, and where we want to be.

Ultimately, the elements of trust, safety, acceptance, healing, and embracing ourselves within the dynamic of the arena evolves into the necessary components needed in life to nurture the relationship with ourselves and others outside of the arena.

Written by Rachel Gardner on Thursday, September 7th, 2017