The Emotional Body is a "Thing"

Modern life has many sources of stress — something that got amplified during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of what I view as a traumatic event, many of us have had some difficulty going back to "normal" and reconnecting with feelings of joy and optimism for the future. As a result, individuals from all walks of life are dealing with chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and negative emotions such as fear and anger.

But the good news is that there is much more evidence-based research out there on the neurobiology of emotions and chronic stress.

Hence the term "gut feeling" — which many people no longer view as an "intelligent" messaging system that "knows best" and can help guide our decisions. Professor Damasio has also found that the brain organizes information coming in from the external environment and from the internal environment (via the emotional body) at the same time.

Because many of us are disconnected from our internal world and mostly focused on the external world, we have become less efficient at dealing with the internal environment.

"We can reestablish the connection between our intellectual and emotional bodies — it is possible to heal the disconnect."

How Embodiment & Equine-Assisted Learning Can Help

Embodiment practices and equine-assisted learning offer a path toward healing the disconnect. Here is how:

1. 1

   Connect with our bodies and identify where our emotions are lodged.

2. 2

   Develop a language to help identify the landscape of emotions — for example, what is the difference between fear and vulnerability, or anger and frustration? When is fear appropriate and when is anger a healthy response?

3. 3

   Develop a method to establish a conversation with our emotions and extract the valuable messages that they have for us. Emotions are not good or bad — they are just information.

4. 4

   Develop time-proven mindfulness practices for self-care and emotional regulation.

Why Horses?

Horses have been in the evolutionary chain for millions of years. The horse's prey mechanism is very refined and allows it to read emotional states in humans with amazing accuracy. They mirror those emotions back to us and, in a facilitated setting, help awaken the process of self-awareness and healing.

Horses are non-judgmental — they do not care about our gender, social and financial status, level of education, or our past. They give us feedback in a non-verbal way, without the need for language or complex psychological concepts.

They offer us their highly attuned sensing mechanism and their noble character to help us explore our humanity — and those experiences are transformational.