Think Like A Horse!

​​As warm weather begins to creep in at last, many of us are trying to spend a little more time outside. This is a great chance to practice thinking like a horse… Otherwise known as living mindfully. Horses are prey animals, and as a result they’re extremely observant regarding their surroundings. Danger might approach from any direction, and because their primary defense is flight, they’re always ready to depart at high speed. As a result, they have a very high degree of what’s called situational awareness - at least, as it pertains to equines. Situational awareness varies depending on what you’re doing, of course. The situational awareness required by a pilot, or a soldier, is rather different from that required by a horse in a pasture. But the basis - being aware of what’s happening around you - is the same, and horses have been employing it for millions of years as a means of survival.

Belle, pondering her situational awareness.

Meet CeCe! She's very pregnant, and will be staying at the farm until her kittens are six to eight weeks old, when she and they will return to Homeward Bound for spaying, neutering, and adoption.

​While you probably don’t have to maintain this level of situational awareness to stay alive, taking time to be present in your world, or adopting “mindfulness,” can also be very useful as a means of refocusing your mind, restoring energy, and even relaxing. So next time you’re outside - maybe in a garden, maybe just sitting in a park - take a moment to practice mindfulness, which is all about paying attention to what’s happening where you are right now. If you want to try a small mindfulness exercise, do this: when you’re outside, find a comfortable spot and sit quietly. Take three or four deep, slow breaths, and imagine roots reaching from your body all the way down to the center of the earth, connecting you to all that surrounds you. Now try expanding your awareness to encompass those surroundings: notice the scent of the soil, the shadings of difference in the smells and colors of everything growing around you. Feel the sun on your shoulders, the breeze moving through your hair. Listen for small sounds: do you hear birds? Water? Voices? What can you see? Again, look for the small things: can you see ants going about their lives? What are your neighborhood birds doing? What are the shapes and colors in the plants around you? Try to spend at least three or four minutes simply being and noticing. When you’re done, take a minute to recall all you observed through your five senses, and respect the horse, because all that you’ve just noticed is probably only a quarter of what a horse takes in.
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​This great ability for observation is one of the things that makes horses so useful in therapy of various sorts. The EAGALA model of equine-assisted therapy makes use of the horse’s ability to spot incongruities in human behavior and react to it. For instance, if you’re uncomfortable but trying to act like you aren’t, you may fool other humans, but you won’t fool a horse. The horse may not know precisely what you’re doing, but it will be aware that the inside doesn’t match the outside, and it will react to that incongruity in some way. That reaction can help both therapist and client better understand the true nature of an issue. 

Practising mindfulness will both help horses understand you, and help you understand horses.The more you learn to see the world as a horse does, the more you’ll understand about the ways in which other creatures interact and cope with the world. And as you practice mindfulness, you'll find that your ability to relax and jettison unnecessary worrying will deepen - and almost all of us can use that! 

(If you want to know more about the EAGALA model and how it works, check out “Transforming Therapy Through Horses,” by LynnThomas and Mark Lytle. If you want to learn more about the practice of mindfulness, try ”The Miracle of Mindfulness,” by Thich Nhat Hanh.)