Question: Is this therapy with horses?
Answer:
This is a question people ask me when I share what I’m exploring through my offerings with Inner Freedom. While many people, myself included, find Equine Guided Empowerment® therapeutic, I am not a mental health practitioner or therapist, so no, this is not therapy.
Out of curiosity, I googled “what is therapy?” I’m sure there are many definitions yet Google tells me that the definition from Oxford Languages is “treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder” or “the treatment of mental conditions by verbal communication and interaction.”
It’s amazing how available and accessible mental health support is today – so many people are receiving needed and appreciated therapy. What a blessing, reflecting tremendous progress in our culture. And there are several models incorporating horses into working with a client and therapist. However, that’s not what Inner Freedom offers. I’m sharing a few elements of our approach here to support an understanding of what we’re exploring and how it likely differs from traditional therapy.
- Already whole
Foundational to Inner Freedom’s approach is the understanding that each of us is already whole. Diagnoses and disorders may be true on one level. And yet, with the horses we are invited into an awareness that is beyond any construct or label. This modality is all about REMEMBERING our innate wholeness. We have been conditioned to work to “fix” and “find” solutions to reach perfection. There’s nothing wrong with this. Yet here with the horses we are relaxing into what is, and opening to a new paradigm. We are creating spaciousness within/around our bodies and with our presence to allow our natural creativity, responsiveness, and heart to lead the way.
- Body
This is not a mental modality. Rather, we are invited to connect our mind with our body and be aware of the many layers of our human experience, including our thinking, our feelings and sensations. We are not trying to analyze, label, or even explain our experience. There has been incredible research in the last few decades about how trauma lives in the body (e.g., The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.), and my personal experience with this work is that the body does indeed show us where energy is blocked. We have been conditioned to disconnect from our bodies and live in our heads. With Equine Guided Empowerment® and Somatic Reprogramming® we go to the root, our bodies, and remember our birthright to be at home in our bodies. Reclaiming our bodies is inherent in embodying our nature. The horses are continuously showing us this in each moment.
- Relationship
Here the horses are the guides. I am a facilitator and as such I am holding space and supporting clients in this experience, yet I too am looking to the horses for guidance. As a facilitator I am not here to diagnose anything, give advice, or solve problems. I am learning just as much from a client and the insights they share as a client might from me, and we are all learning from the wisdom of the herd and the horses.
- Free roaming
One key difference between many of the modalities sharing horse medicine is that here at Inner Freedom the horses are always free roaming in our pasture. The horses have liberty to interact with people or not, just as we have liberty to interact with them or not. There is no forcing, and also there is no riding. We are on the same ground as the horses, partnering with them to embody our true nature and get a glimpse of our true self through their eyes.
If you have any questions about what to expect in a session, I am always available to connect by email or phone. We’d love to hear from you, and share the wisdom of horses with you!