I’ve spent a lot of time flying massive warmblood horses like kites.
Working at equestrian facilities for much of my life, I got used to having to handle very spirited horses that leapt about on the end of a lead rope, as I tried to turn out 50 horses before 7 a.m. Now that I have my very own fiery warmblood mare, I was prepared to put the time and effort into soothing the dangerous acrobatics.
At one point, she leapt so high in the air I had to reach my hand gripping the lead rope above my head, and she managed to give me a light kick on the heel of my palm. It felt like the opposite of a high five.
Now it isn't official, but I feel like you instantly get 5,000 demerit points on your horsemanship when your horse executes a round house kick to your hand.
I had many opinions on the cornucopia of training tools and rather firm disciplinary actions I should be inflicting on my fire mare that I was unwilling to consider.
I was also given some wonderful and kind techniques that worked beautifully on my other horses. The fire mare was unmoved by such techniques, to say the least.
I took her to many veterinarians, chiropractors, and body workers, and they all suspected something wasn't quite right, but none of them could agree on what it was. Pain was a potential factor and halted any attempts at training.
Having gone through the lion's share of an extremely painful healing process after breaking two vertebra and herniating a disc myself, I empathized with her moods and behaviors. Chronic pain feels like a curse.
During my days of rehabilitating horses, I understood they often hide their pain and can exbibit some violent behaviors when that pain is triggered. Often the lameness was elusive and very difficult to treat, especially when the horse insisted on being in a different stratosphere than you.
As much of my rehabilitation time overlapped with the fire mare’s, I had ample time to cannon ball down equine health rabbit holes and started to investigate the link between the horse's emotional state and physical state.
I found a horsemanship clinician named Josh Nichol, whose theories on relational horsemanship were entangled with the idea of releasing emotional tension within the horse’s muscles in order to create healthy movement.
From both my own, and having been a part of many horses' rehabilitations, I believe these light touch, energetic, and holistic healing modalities to be extremely effective. Alas, my fire mare had tried them all, and though they helped, she still wasn’t thriving.
I took her to a Josh Nichol clinic, and after creating some ground rules about flying round house kicks to the hand, we spent time getting her into what Josh calls a receiving state.
We worked through her whole body, releasing areas of tension, and getting to a place where she was responding to my body language, intent, and energy - like we were dance partners, and I was leading. Her mind was with me, and she relaxed.
The fire mare's transformation was astounding. I had learned how to make her mind and body feel good, rather than just being a source of irritating pressure. She learned to receive that good energy.
A body worker was at the clinic and offered sessions for horses. I booked a session for the fire mare, and as the body worker came into her paddock, the fire mare walked up to her outstretched hand and pushed her forehead into it. It was poetic.
The session that followed was one of the most successful for the fire mare, and the body worker said it was one of the wildest sessions she had ever done with massive energy shifts and releases.
Josh was not at all surprised. He feels the receiving state is a vital part of healing. When the body and mind are receptive to the practitioner, magic can happen.
Horses are exquisite mirrors into our own primal experience. They are raw emotion without the social conditioning that we have, and I believe we can learn a lot from observing how they function.
I began to think of the implications the receiving state could have on the human body.
I share this experience about the receiving state as an invitation to others who are on a healing journey, to consider the emotions and tensions that they bring to their healers. Are our nervous systems in the right state to receive healing? Does a particular practitioner make us feel safe, calm, and seen? What are we ready to receive?
