Equine Coaching
Words only carry some of our meaning. Much of successful communication is in the felt form of authenticity and integrity. Staying centered and connected to what’s true for us, though, can be challenging. Sometimes we’re stuck emotionally or with a decision or choice we don’t know how to make.
This is where time spent with horses, in a structured facilitation, can be very valuable.
Horses give you feedback without filters that will:
- give you insight into your strengths and barriers as a communicator
- show you leadership issues where change is needed
- teach you to hold strong boundaries and authority in a new, authentic way
- connect you to your experience of your emotions (whether grief, anger, anxiety or any other emotion)
- show you how you’re showing up as a leader, with your clients or in your relationships
You don’t have to be comfortable, knowledgeable or familiar with horses, in order to experience these benefits.
That’s the task of your human facilitators – to support you, work with you to increase your safety, and to contribute to the deepening in your experience of the session.
I work with a gifted and experienced facilitator, Cheri Davidson, and her herd at Horse Discovery in Millbrook, Ontario (about an hour east of Toronto, Ontario).
I’ve designed two programs – the first is Be Heard: Leadership Influence and Presence and Emotions as Messengers.
Two Equine Programs
I’ve designed two programs – the first is Be Heard: Leadership Influence and Presence and Emotions as Messengers.
Be Well
Take charge of your wellness
What’s included:
- Preliminary conversation (by phone or zoom) about your current experience and hopes for an equine session
- Scheduled date for your time with the horses
- A written brief summary of the key insights from your session
One of the important things you learn from horses is that when they are grazing, they’re content and at peace. It’s a state that they return to, time and time again. There is a lot we can learn from horses about having a home base where we can be at peace.
This offering is about learning how to be well, even if you’re sick. Wellness is a mindset, and we can change our relationship to the diseases we experience, like cancer, and in doing so, we can chart our way towards peace.
The challenge with cancer, or any disease, is that it comes with a whole lot of expectations. That you need to be brave. You need to “fight” it. That you must be positive. All of which are not true, and often make the experience of being ill, even harder.
I want to offer you the opportunity to create a relationship to your disease that you have chosen. One that arises from a deep commitment to your own wellness as a person. And one that will help you process all of the emotions that come with being ill.
The horses are great teachers, and will affirm you in what is deeply true for you at this moment in your journey, with whatever disease is in your life. They can help you chart your own path towards a wellness mindset. Please join us.
Want to know more?
Please Note: Each session is a minimum of 1.5 to 2 hours depending on the horses.
Emotions as Messengers
Self discovery through the wisdom of the horse
This program has been designed to help you:
- recognize and work with the messages in your emotions
- shift any stuck patterns in relationship
- learn how to channel emotions, and not feel as overwhelmed by them
- understand the invitation to taking action on what your emotions are showing you
Meet the team to support your learning:
- Marion Langford, M.Ed, a Dynamic Emotional Integration Consultant™
(extensive study on the human experience of emotions and empathy) - Cheri Davidson, FEEL Facilitator (Facilitated Equine Experiential Learning)
Horse Discovery - The herd at Horse Discovery – gentle equine teachers who will allow you to see yourself and your emotions in new ways. Horses are deeply sensitive beings that offer support without judgement. Often, profound learnings are realized with very few words.
What’s included:
- You will receive a pre-workshop Emotions Inventory to complete. This helps to highlight patterns and pinpoint the areas you want to focus on.
- An individual session (in advance sometimes) to review the Emotions Inventory, and an orientation to working with your emotions as messengers.
- A session with the horses at Horse Discovery
Want to know more?
Stories of Working with Horses
I chose to step into the paddock with all five horses. Cheri and Marion lent me their verbal support and encouragement, their presence and their attention to safety as I stood amidst these big warm animals.
It’s not easy to put the experience into words- because there are no words used. …I felt warm and grounded and secure. … I was held in a gentle communion of these two horses, warm and silent, and completely safe. I felt still and accepted, protected in a newly discovered sense of animal community. And all I had to do was be open, and accept what was being given.
That’s an easy sentence to type- but as any only child will tell you, it’s not always easy to do. As any busy woman might tell you- letting go, and standing still: easier said than done. And as a divorcee finding new relationships in the world, feeling safe and accepted was new and immeasurably moving.
To be able to do this, and then make sense of it in words later, with Marion and Cheri as witnesses to the whole dance, was a gift I will never forget.
Even though I’m an experienced equine coach, you introduced me to a way of working that was new for me. As the experience unfolded, I went deeply into old memories, stories, and emotions. I was able to process them in a way I could never have done by myself. With you and your gentle horse guiding the way, I unraveled old patterns and rewrote old stories about my father and my self I used to tell myself.
The change inside of me was immediate and profound and life-changing.
Over the last two years I’ve been untangling some deeply engrained emotional patterns.
After discussing what it was that I was looking to achieve, Marion and Cheri curated a session to allow me to experience deeper authenticity.
Partway through the session I experienced an intense pain in my throat that led me to ask for more support. Doing so was a huge break through for me. At the end when I decided to lay on my back in the middle of the pasture, Kola my equine partner, came over and gave me just the right amount of space and attention that validated what I was feeling in my body: safety, courage, peace, and satisfaction.
Since the session I’ve been able to find the courage to try things in the complete opposite way of what I have done in my life. I’m developing confidence that carries with it a horse like ease and grace.
Whatever it is you are looking to discover or work through, I cannot recommend this experience highly enough. Five Stars. Above and beyond what I expected. Marion’s experience with emotions and Cheri’s experience with horse facilitated learning, well, I don’t think there is anything more deeply and profoundly magical.