That was such an excellent seminar that we did with Noora back in March. This recorded seminar is a follow on from that, talking about what it is that makes Noora so special and how you can have some – or all of that too.
There is a written version of the seminar at the bottom of the page.
You can have Noora’s kind of feel too – if you want it, but it’s not by copying her – THAT is a recipe for feeling “not good enough”. You are unique like Noora is. Our $47 program 21 Days to a Quiet Mind will day by day lead you to unfold your beautiful uniqueness – and our Fast Track program is the one you’re looking for if you want the whole package of Feel, magnetic riding seat and a happy, willing horse.
WRITTEN VERSION OF THE AUDIO
What is it that makes Noora Enhqvist so special with horses?
Well, first of all, it’s that compassionate ability that she has to look behind whatever the person or horse’s problem or behaviour is. to the real cause behind it.
She and I talked on the live seminar about how we can all develop that too, by applying the same compassionate principles to our whole lives, not just horses – about how blame and judgement gets in the way of this heart feel – and about how simply wanting to notice whatever is REALLY going on when either a horse or a person has a problem or is behaving “badly” and practicing that as often as possible is how we can develop the ability to have that heart feel naturally like she does.
She sees deeply into the spirit of the person and the horse with this heart feel.
However, the heart feel is not the only reason that Noora is so special with horses. There are four other feels – five feels in total. – five ways in which people can feel for their horses.
For those of you who have met Noora, you may have noticed how grounded she is over her feet and how graceful she is without even thinking about it. You may have noticed how she has a deep sense of serenity, how her emotions flow easily and sweetly. You may have noticed how she solves a problem – seen how she stands there, connecting with the horse, having a bit of a feel here and there and allows the problem solving thoughts and ideas to flow. You might have watched how she just flows with the horse so that nothing looks forced or difficult.
I think Noora will laugh when she hears herself described like this and as she told us on the joint seminar, she didn’t start out so well balanced a person either.
If we want to be really good with horses, then we want some of what she’s got, although our best pathway to that is in being ourselves and working confidently with our own natural strengths.
I promise you, too, that you don’t have to be a tall, slim, young thing like Noora to achieve that level of skill and talent with your horse.
I believe that any person of any size or shape or age can achieve what they need for their horse – to become and then live, a picture of strength and grace and beauty – if they want it.
We too can have all five of those feels or whichever ones that appeal to us, by noticing and using our own natural talents, by focussing on our own natural strengths – and then from THAT place of confidence, gradually expand into the other ways of feeling.
Every single one of us, without exception, has one or more of these ways of feeling as a natural talent. Often, if we haven’t been taught to use it, we can struggle with it, like I describe in the explanation of each feel below.
As I talk about each of these different types of feel, notice which feels call to you.
The physical feel
Physical feel is our ability to feel with our body what is happening with our horse’s body – to hold a physical conversation with our horse. Physical feel has us grounded, graceful, effortlessly strong and stable on our horse’s back no matter what is going on.
This ability comes from being in the perfect riding position for us and being able to flow in that perfect riding position with our horse.
When we haven’t learned how to use this physical feel, we also miss out on the opportunity to release tensions and physical restrictions in our bodies and be seriously good riders for our horses. We can feel vulnerable when things happen suddenly, we can be a bit unstable at times and we can push or pull on our horse accidentally.
Those of us who are older, with aches and pains and stiffnesses that make us less flexible, do not despair. J We can have that beautiful riding seat too – but we do need to have a physical awareness of our own body and a technique for releasing our braces and blockages, so that we can develop physical feel in movement.
With my background as a “healer”, I was guided to discovering a way to release tensions and physical restrictions from our bodies in the learning to ride better process – to simply and easily and dramatically speeding up finding and using this physical feel on a horse.
And with the cheap technology that we have these days, I can teach it to you no matter where you are in the world.
The emotional feel
This is our ability to connect emotionally with our horse, which enables us, amongst other things, to help our horse to be and feel safe and to have ourselves be and feel safe – which is absolutely fundamental to having a really good bond with our horse.
This type of feel was my own natural strength, but because nobody ever taught me how to use it – I spent most of my life struggling and resisting my emotions instead of listening to them. I had a crappy time being overwhelmed by anxiety and frustration – and lack of confidence doesn’t even begin to describe my experience when I didn’t understand how to use my fear to be and feel safe.
We talked about this feel in those free lessons on my website called The Six Keys to Happiness with Your Horse – I think most of you have those already. My on line program Fast Track to Brilliant Riding is a whole journey to a well balanced emotional feel too.
The energetic feel
Picture those beautiful images of fish, all swimming effortlessly together, smoothly moving at exactly the same time. Even when that movement is sudden, they are still completely together. A horse and rider can move together in the same beautiful, smooth, effortless awareness of each other with energetic feel.
And holy snappin turtles if energetic feel is your natural strength and you haven’t discovered how to use it yet, you can really feel blocked up, misunderstood and very out of sorts.
I smile when I think of how easy it is for me now, to teach that inner awareness that you need in order to learn how to use your energetic feel, because this was definitely not one of my own natural strengths. I teach inner awareness as part of developing a really good riding seat, because we want that beautiful fish togetherness thing, that lovely glued to our saddle feeling, happening even when there is a sudden movement from our horse.
As well as feeling the circuit of energy that the great riding masters talk of, (I just thought I would drop that bombshell in there) this inner awareness also gives you the ability to feel even the subtle blockages that are in the way, that are coming from either you or your horse’s body or both – and then clean them up.
The mental feel
The mental feel is about being able to problem solve effectively. It’s the ability to quieten the mind and pay attention to the thoughts and ideas, feelings and intuitions that cross your mind while you are working with your horse.
And THAT folks, is the key to mental feel – being able to quieten the mind.
When mental feel is our natural strength, being able to find a quiet mind is what makes it possible to figure out the pot of gold at the bottom of all those negative thoughts and worries that can otherwise keep your mind so busy that you can hardly shut it up to go to sleep.
I lucked into relieving the pressure of those thoughts when I started to write my first book. Since then I have come across and teach, many deliberate and simple ways for people to quieten their minds in order to first notice – and then act on those thoughts and ideas for problem solving between horse and rider and you guessed it, we teach that on Fast Track too.
We already talked about the heart feel extensively on that joint seminar with Noora, so we won’t do it again here.
So what is the practical result of being able to work with all five ways of feeling for your horse?
Well you’ve got the problem solving ability of the mental feel – that’s worth its weight in gold in terms of confidence in our own knowledge and ability.
Then with the energetic feel you have the ability to flow with your horse and just as importantly, having your horse flow easily with you.
You’ve got the compassion, the ability to cut through the surface crap and notice what is REALLY going on with your horse of the heart feel.
With the emotional feel, amongst other things, you have the ability to help you and your horse be and feel safe, you get the peacefulness and serenity that comes from understanding that emotions are messages and the confidence that flows for both of you when you systematically take action on those feelings.
And with the physical feel, you’ve got the stability in your riding seat that makes it possible to hold a delicate and sensitive physical conversation with your horse.
The simple formula for becoming this paragon of mental, emotional and physical balance for your horse is to notice and work with whatever “feel” is your natural talent – then gently work on and expand into the other feels. Until, no matter what size or age or shape you are, you and your horse are together as one, riding with strength and power and grace and beauty.
Ahhh what a thing to aim for…
You can chase around all over the place developing these skills – you can do martial arts and yoga and meditation, Alexander posture work, Feldenkrais reorganization to use your body more effectively and heal tensions, you can go to the chiropractor and get your muscles and bones straightened out, you can get counseling to learn how to deal with emotional crap, you can go to the psychologist to release old frights and trauma, you can have riding lesson after riding lesson after riding lesson, year after year after year, looking for that way too often elusive safe and secure riding seat and learning to be a really good rider for your horse.
Or you can be guided to all that by your horse themselves on our on line program Fast Track to Brilliant Riding.
I hope you enjoyed this seminar about the five feels and I look forward to working with Noora again sometime soon.