This gorgeous drawing by Catherine Clark Dowden speaks to the most important part of supporting healing in another – it’s listening to our horse – DEEP LISTENING TO OUR HORSE – to pay attention, to notice EVERYthing that’s going on about whatever this health “problem” is that we are observing.
In this seminar we’re doing a deep listening exercise for EVERYone to establish a foundation for healing for your horse.
Please note there’s a wealth of detail below the recording that we didn’t get to talk about with the time limits in the seminar. It covers healing arthritis in horses, Cushings Disease, Equine Metabolic Syndrome, chronic lameness, foot abscesses and diarrhea, just as a few examples of the way powerful healing works.
When I get to the one on one work, you’ll hear me using my Feel for the person and horse that I’m working with – I literally feel a smaller version of what they’re feeling. It’s the same Feel that I teach EVERYone to use with their horses that is the hall mark of all the great riders and horse people – it’s just that I’ve been doing it for about 22 years now and I’m very good at using it with people as well as horses.
AND… this is unedited audio, with all the ums and ahhs and the moments of silence as I create the opportunity for someone to get the ahhaaa moment that changes everything.
Enjoy opening up wonderful new possibilities with your horse!
Click here if you need an alternate recording.
Today we’re going to talk about:
- The ways in which our horse’s body heals itself.
- The kind of things that block that healing from being as powerful as it can be and how we can boost that healing instead.
- We’re going to talk generally and specifically about some health conditions in horses.
- We’re going to do a deep listening exercise to help you understand all the threads around whatever is going on with your horse.
- And I’ll work one on one with as many people as I can within the hour.
The biggest blockage to healing
There’s bad news and good news in this. Let’s do the bad news first. WE are the biggest blockage to healing. And the good news is, that because we’re the biggest blockage to healing, it’s the easiest thing for us to change. Let me explain.
Gosh there’s so many different angles to this, where to start…
- If we interfere with the automatic healing processes of our horse before understanding what the best support is, then we’ve literally slowed down the healing process. So we want to be open to the idea of how can we ADD to their natural healing processes.
- Deep listening to our horse, with a “how can I best understand and support you?” can transform a relationship and release the stress and tensions that our horse was experiencing from previous experiences. It empowers our horse when THEY own their own healing. And crikey that adds power to the healing process.
- Let’s not skate over those previously stressful experiences, that caused tension that caused physical problems, because they were almost always caused by humans. And let’s not blame ourselves for not knowing any better either. Not judging or blaming ourselves or others is just as big a part of adding to our horse’s healing experience, as anything else we can do. And if you struggle with that one, put your hand up for me to lead you through to the truth or not of that. <3
- Our FEEL for others is part of that deep listening – that’s the five ways of Feeling our inner guidance that we talk about here that is the foundation of happiness and healing and excellent horsemanship. We’ll do some of that Feel work today in relation to horse health problems.
- Let’s just take one thing as an example – fear. Fear has a message. If we’re stuck in feeling fear or anxiety or worrying about whatever ails our horse, then we are missing what our inner guidance is trying to tell us about whatever is going on. So if we sit in fear, anxiety or worrying without getting the message, then we’ve missed the opportunity to support this healing in the best way possible. If you’re new to this work, then you’ll see what I mean when I start working with people and when I take you through some deep listening with your own horse.
- Our open-ness and willingness to understand all those threads of what’s going on here is also a part of that deep listening.
- We can observe quantum physics in action in this work – the act of observation changes what we’re observing. My observation / practical experience adds to that – the energy with which we observe something changes what we’re observing. That open-ness and willingness to understand all those threads becomes an attitude / an energy that changes what we’re observing. How to explain in a few words something so simple and yet such a big shift in perspective… The attitude, the feeling of rightness itself is actually healing. We see this happening in a very practical way in clinics and healing sessions all the time.
This recording was uploaded 12th June and is available free for a week.
We’ll talk about the following health issues in horses as I’m working one on one with people, but I’m leaving all this info as extra for you to think about after the seminar too.
Let’s talk about Cushings, EMS and lameness first
Just like us, our horse’s have an internal communication system that is the envy of computer programmers. Automatic information runs up and down their spinal column and through their nerve system – a two way information superhighway, communicating with bones, muscles and organs. Their endocrine system – their hormones and brain chemicals are another vital part of this complex and miraculous superhighway that adjusts our horse’s systems automatically.
We don’t want to turn off our horse’s ability to internally communicate with brain chemicals and hormones even if the hormone imbalance is causing Cushings disease or Equine Metabolic Syndrome. We want to understand EVERYthing that’s going on here behind those Cushings or EMS symptoms first – and in my experience in clinic, once we’ve attended to whatever comes up for this horse in our layers of deep listening, the hormone imbalance of Cushings or EMS, more often than not just fades away.
We don’t want to turn off our horse’s ability to communicate with itself, even if, for example that communication is painful and causing lameness or back problems. We’d want to understand ALL the threads of whatever is going behind this pain before we interfered and turned it off with painkillers and anti-inflammatories. Don’t misunderstand me, I’ll cheerfully use pain killers and anti-inflammatories when I’m sure that they aren’t going to add to the problem. Just one small example, more often than not, the inflammation and swelling is acting like a bandage to support the injury to heal. (Tell them the story about the horse that arrived at our horse hospital with a serious injury, doped up on pain killers.)
I categorize two types of pain in a typical lameness or injury – the sort that is alleviated by standing still or limping and the sort that is so pervasive and so distressing that the horse is suffering. In the first pain, personally I’m more likely to say they can limp and protect the injury. In the second, I’m more likely to do something to alleviate the pain – after deep listening.
Deep listening – being open to notice ALL the threads of what’s going on with our horse’s “problem” is a foundation for effective healing. That deep listening enables us to know when to leave something alone, when to do something and very often the the right course of action in these individual circumstances will come to us. Even for those who don’t possess any particular knowledge or skills, with deep listening will feel the rightness or not of a course of action.
Let’s talk about foot abscesses and diarrhea
We have a drainage system to get rid of crap (no pun intended) that we’re either finished with, don’t need or don’t want in our bodies. Starting with the tiny cells in our body, supported by various organs and the lymph pathways, our body has the ability to expel things like a splinter in your finger for example and to drain out unwanted residual stuff from food and anything else our body wants to get rid of. And all this happens on auto pilot, with our bodies making constant fine adjustments all by itself.
We don’t want to turn off our horse’s ability to eliminate the things that would cause harm otherwise – even if they have a foot abscess or diarrhea. Let’s start with diarrhea. Their body is getting rid of something that it doesn’t want or need, literally getting rid of shit. Why would we want to stop that? How will our horse’s body get rid of whatever that problem is, if we stop the diarrhea? Yes it’s different if the diarrhea has become chronic, but still, deep listening is the first thing to do, before deciding a further course of action.
Ditto with foot abcesses. Their body is trying to expel something. So when we cut open the abscess before it’s ripe (ready) and give antibiotics, then that thing is still stuck in there, trying to work its way out another way. This is the most common cause of recurring foot abscesses – it’s the same thing that their body is trying to expel over and over again.
So deep listening – being open to notice ALL the threads of what’s going on with our horse’s “problem” is a foundation for effective healing. That deep listening enables us to know when to leave something alone, when to do something and the right course of action in these individual circumstances. Even for those who don’t possess any particular knowledge or skills will feel the rightness or not of a course of action that’s been recommended by others. Yeah I know I said that before, but there’s nothing like repeating the important stuff! <3
Let’s talk about arthritis in our horses
Just like us, our horse’s have an automatic system that creates new cells. How brilliant is that? When they have a great big hole in their flesh, the cells reach across the chasm, creating a bridge to the other side and voila! the wound is healed, the bone is mended. AND that wondrous joining tissue – the scars – are stronger than the original and that’s just one example of the way our horse’s body systems create and use new cells.
Think about it… Arthritis IS that wonderful automatic healing system creating a bony growth in an attempt to protect that joint. So rather than wanting to turn off our body’s ability to create new cells, our deep listening with our horse will help us to understand WHY our horse’s body was trying to protect that joint and how to change the jarring movement of their joints that caused the body to need to lay in that extra bone in the first place.
Arthritis is a great example, because the results of what I’m talking about can be visible so quickly. So many things like arthritis are considered incurable because the typical medical approach pays no attention to the horse’s stress, their muscular tension caused by that stress and and the jarring movement that is caused by that muscular tension. Here in our work, we reverse that stress, release that tension and bring back their lovely movement wherein their bodies can heal the way they were designed to heal. The healing uses these wonderful three body systems that I’ve been talking about – that can lay new bone there to protect a joint that’s been damaged, dissolve bony growths that are no longer needed to protect that joint and bring confidence, inner peace and happiness to your horse and yourself while you’re at it.
So what causes those three fabulous body systems to break down in the first place?
The main cause? Purely and simply stress. Sometimes it’s an accident or toxin contamination, but even those factors are adversely affected by stress. Emotional stress causes muscular tension that when it’s bad enough causes muscle spasms. Layers of stress and tension pulls the joints out of their optimal alignment and changes the way that our horse moves, which weakens the muscular support of the spine until eventually the spine itself is out of it’s optimal alignment. Every spinal bone has a direct impact on the healthy or not function of an organ. (Tell them the Milly’s story of chronic life threatening colic being caused by pressure on the spine and how it was all reversed by reversing her stress.)
Where to from here?
In our Fast Track program there’s over 100 self paced lessons where you learn how to systematically release your horse’s stress, even old stress from way back when they were babies. You watch them let go of that emotional stress and muscular tension and then your horse begins to move with all their joints sliding the way they were designed. And mannn… it’s joyful to be a part of.
So many things like arthritis, Cushing’s disease, Equine Metabolic Disorder and back problems are considered incurable because the typical medical approach pays no attention to the horse’s stress, their muscular tension caused by that stress and and the jarring movement that is caused by that muscular tension. In Fast Track we reverse that stress, release that tension and bring back their lovely movement wherein their bodies can heal in the way that those 3 lovely body systems were designed.
The Fast Track to Brilliant Riding
Register to get notified of all our gift seminars
The dummy spit Anti-Struggling Revolution
Check out Catherine Clark Dowden’s lovely artwork on Facebook here.
