Appearance

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,” writes Marianne Williamson in her book Return to Love. 'Our deepest fear is that deep down we have a lot of power. It is our strong Light, not our Shadow, that frightens us most.

As children, we are already burdened with excessive responsibility to do the "right" thing and suppress our "sensitive" sides. We learn that certain behavior results in negative consequences and that making vulnerability invisible was often a safe option. We learn to sacrifice our soul and sensitivity to avoid conflict and gain approval.

Making yourself small does not bring relief, only aggravation of life. It also makes other people feel 'bothered' around you. It doesn't happen intentionally and it's part of an attitude we've developed in response to certain life experiences: somewhere along the way we became demoralized.

It is a bit like riding with too tight reins where the horse is also pulling a very heavy cart. And a truckload full of expectations from the environment. And what does the horse do under the influence of the whip? Indeed, just keep plodding along.

But here too we can learn from horses because they are not only our mirrors (they sense that 'burden' intimately and provide immediate feedback), they can also heal us. Horses do not understand what we say but read our body language and the energy we radiate. When we are burdened with such a heavy unconscious burden and stuck in old limiting thought patterns, our appearance fades and we send out incongruent signals. Body and mind say different things. Because just like the horse does, our body communicates about the heavy load we are pulling, our toil and our confusion, long before the head notices it.

How do horses help us during coaching: A horse (that has eaten and is at rest) seeks contact with someone who listens to its body, who is “centered”, who is itself… and walks away from who is completely in its head. So the point is not that we have to pay attention to our appearance, but that we learn to look within. Really look. In this way we resolve internal blockages, our energy can flow again, we gain our strength and our head and body come into alignment. 

Horses help us through such a process. They have a subtle intuitive knowing, an energetic reading eye that we humans can only dream of. Horses are our teachers and healers. Or as some say: they have a spiritual wisdom that is so deep that it cannot be expressed in words.

horselovers @ Hof van 't Rommersum