What a fantastic weekend down in Illinois at Prairie Island Farm. I am so blessed I get to teach what I love to a group of like-minded ladies and their horses.
Yes, this was a liberty clinic, but it’s not just about liberty. It’s about everything as you cannot just have liberty or even interaction with your horse without understanding where your horse is coming from.…the emotional side. Everything we do has an emotion behind it, driving the action. People who say horses aren’t emotional really haven’t taken the time to be around them then as they are creatures driven by emotion and instinct. Do they feel safe? Are they comfortable?
We also chatted about how a connection is just really one big word made up of many different words: partnership, friendship, relying on each other, understanding and so many more. And how we need to view our relationship with our horses as not just one big picture but diving deeper into understanding and exploring all the small pieces that make up the whole puzzle.
We saw some amazing changes in both humans and horses but the change came from the human changing their mindset.
We saw a horse and handler team go from nervous, chaotic, and rushed to slower, softer, beginning to read the horse’s face and react accordingly and have more confidence in her horse and herself in return.
We saw a gelding take the first step in his journey of healing his separation anxiety.
A mare begin to be willing to heal and open up to her young owner and show her true self and be vulnerable.
An owner realize that you must do it the horse’s way in order to connect with him and in turn we watched her session go from rushed and panicked to flowing, softness and being present with him and in turn he willingly chose to be with her over his buddies.
A young gelding that was willing to show us how scared he really was and that he needed the barrier of the lead rope to help him while he is navigating and overcoming his fear of the whips from previous life experiences. And these are just a few of the amazing moments from this past weekend.
It is amazing to see how our horses are really a mirror of ourselves in many ways. It is also interesting to see how most of the issues stem from the human as we make it more complex when it really is quite simple but we are the ones unwilling to make the change but when we do, beautiful things happen and then we are free to begin a dialogue with our horses and in turn they say “well why didn’t you say so.”
There is so much more and it will take me awhile to absorb everything as I learn from these clinics just as much as the participants.
Thank you ladies for dealing with me loosing my voice this weekend but we still go through it.
And thank you Megan for being such an amazing hostess and for wanting to think outside the box and be willing to change from the status quo to help your horses live better lives.
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