Equine Assisted Life Coaching

The reason that the horse makes such a wonderful Life Coach is that he inspires in us the excellence we need to succeed in our own personal lives...and the ENERGY to make it happen.

Preparing horse and rider for a career in Life Coaching
Once horse and rider have reached a certain level and feel comfortable in their relationship they may want to explore the idea of helping others also "feel" the benefits of the horse. Unlike traditional horse/human relationships this new modality requires that the human learns to open their intuitive channels so that they are operating on the same highly sensitive "wave length" as their horse.

The Holistequine Life Coaching technique sees the horse as the intuitive "teacher" for the client, with the human interpreting and facilitating this process. For this to happen a facilitator must have their own channels clear to access this information. In other words as Practitioners we must eliminate the "blocks" in our own energy fields so that we are communicating at the level of "Spirit to Spirit." The horse has a finely tuned "psychic radar" which he uses in conjunction with his other 5 senses as a way of "perceiving" everything around him, in doing this he often knows more about us that we know about ourselves. Other qualities of the horse is that he is strong, determined and has a defined sense of self-worth.

All gifts we can use in Life Coaching
The horse has a balance of logic and instinct and unlike humans he does not have a complicated emotional component. Conversely humans have a highly developed left logical brain, with their E.Q. or right intuitive brain not being so well developed. The importance of healthy Emotional Intelligence is now becoming widely accepted as being equally as important to our mental health. Put simply, if we do not have a balanced E.Q. and I.Q. we will not have rational thinking and good self esteem. Our E.Q. is determined by how we overcome our "emotional baggage" such as guilt, lack of confidence, anger, etc.. These negative emotions sit in our energy field and hold us back, and ultimately keep us from maximising our potential. The qualities of pure determination and a powerful belief in one’s self are not always present in humans but are second nature to the Holistequine horses who have been given the time and space to develop their own potential before they help us with ours.

The Holistequine Mentor horses (and other horses trained in this system) offer a connection to Spirit as a means of strengthening personal drive or “will to do”. Working at this level of "Spirit" we connect to the horse’s powerful energy field and he instils in us the Spirit to create our own reality. Our energy field picks up impressions, feelings and emotions from others, often quite unconsciously.

There are people we meet who “push our buttons” and people that drain us emotionally, conversely there are other people who can lift our spirits people who make us feel good just by being in their presence. Why does this happen and what can we do to improve our own emotional intelligence? The answer lies in understanding what happens when our energy field becomes depleted, how it affects others and how we can turn this around, change our Solar Plexus or core energy thereby raising our level of self esteem.

There are many areas in the Personal Growth and wellness industry where the horse can play an important role in healing. For example, horses can be of huge benefit in helping children develop healthy self esteem. We are in the process of documenting our work in Behavioural Kinesiology; children with problems caused by left brain /right brain imbalance (we are seeing that these "labels" can include AD/HD, emotional problems, learning difficulties just to mention a few).

Holistequine as Personal Life Coaching evolved after my own experiences with horses and the benefits they had on me not only mentally and emotionally but also Spiritually. In other words, the changes I was required to make to work successfully with my herd of horses I was then able to take to other areas of my life. It was through these years of research into horse/human behaviour together with my knowledge as a Naturopathic Practitioner, Counsellor and Metaphysician that Equine Assisted Personal Life Coaching was developed. During that embryonic time as we started to attract clients and students it became clear that something very powerful was at work here. People would arrive with headaches, sinus problems and an array of minor ailments, problems that would disappear after being around our horses. People would cry and release old programming while working with a horse of their choice.

What we were seeing was that our family of horses (the elders, the mature ones and the youngsters) acted as archetypes in people’s lives, and that issues created years ago by those absent family members could be cleared by the horses. The unconditional love (or service) that the horse represented was reaching areas that no human practitioner could access.

Horses helping in the Corporate world
What role does emotional intelligence (E.I.) play when evaluating an employee? A job applicant will successfully fill a position based on their qualifications to do the specified task; however it is now being widely accepted that this is only 50% of the equation. It is all well and good to be highly qualified in an area of expertise but what about the ability for the successful applicant to fit in with others, to handle authority wisely, to not be affected by the office bully or to deal non-emotionally with customers? Many employers are now finding that problems caused by low E.I. are creating dysfunction in the work environment and loss of production.

The Equine Life Coach is trained (in this "energy work"), to plug the holes in a clients emotional/mental aura so that they are not vulnerable to the negative influences from others. Because of this fundamental application of interactive exercises the Whole Body Intelligence System can now be incorporated into a wide range of social and health issues.

One of the main benefits of this type of approach to wellbeing is that because the client intuitively "arrives at" the solution themselves(through the horse) it becomes non -personal and more readily accepted as truth. It then becomes a privilege and an honour to be the facilitator.

For those wishing to pursue a career in this line of work I would first suggest reading through the E-book which gives a basic understanding of the principals, preliminary exercises and also prepares the reader for what is involved for the personal growth side of Equine Assisted Life Coaching. They could then consider the Holistic Horsemanship course which builds the personal relationship with their horse to facilitate in this specialized field of Life Coaching.