When you think about wanting a deeper connection with someone who pops into your head?
Maybe it’s your partner who you feel you’ve rarely had one on one time with recently. Perhaps it’s your teenager who you struggle to relate to at this stage in their life. Or it could be a close friend who you’ve not been able to get together with very much during the last year or so. It probably won’t surprise you that a lot of my clients tell me that they want a deeper connection with their horse. In fact, someone recently shared with me that although they have a good relationship with their horse, they still feel like “something is missing” and that’s what they wanted to gain from working with me. Can you relate to this with anyone in your life?
Now, what if I asked you about your connection with yourself? Would you be able to say that you love and accept yourself and your feelings completely?
Quite often, when we feel like “something is missing” in our connection with the ones we love, whether human or animal, that something is actually the connection to ourselves.
Connection to ourselves means being able to honour and accept our feelings as they are and use the emotions that they present as information to make any changes necessary. In last month’s blog, I talked about boundaries and that when we don’t set clear boundaries we can feel angry, resentful or stressed – a clear indication that a change is needed! However, so often we ignore the information that our body gives us because over years, usually starting in childhood, we are conditioned to suppress any feelings that are considered “negative”. As a child many of us were told things like “big girls/boys don’t cry” or “it’s not that bad, just get on with it”. So, as adults we do just that, we “just get on with it” and suppress any feelings that we have been shamed for in the past.
The sad thing is, we are not born this way. A young baby will cry when it is unhappy or feeling discomfort in any way and will laugh when they feel true joy. They communicate how they are feeling at all times and are connected with that because a) it is a survival instinct and, b) they haven’t yet been taught that some feelings are ok to show, and some must be hidden. Over time, as a way of stopping ourselves feeling what we actually feel, we create conditioned patterns of belief and learn to live in our heads rather than in our bodies.
It’s only when we allow ourselves to truly feel our feelings and accept them without the need to deny them, that we can begin to love ourselves for exactly who we are. And it’s from here that you can start forming true and real connections with those around you.
The good news is that getting to this point, where you feel you can truly love yourself, doesn’t need to involve climbing a mountain or a fancy yoga retreat (although if that’s what you truly want to do, go ahead and enjoy ????). In reality, most of us just need a safe space and time to find our way back to ourselves, and this is often the hard part when we’re caught up in the day to day.
So how do horses help us with this?
When you are spending time with a horse, where neither of you needs anything in particular from the other, you can just be. You don’t have to put on a brave face or perform in any way, the horse isn’t expecting this from you. So, what horses do is provide us with an environment where we can just be ourselves.
In the work that I do with my clients, either in person or online, I facilitate this need for space and time, so that you can connect with how you truly feel and with the information your body is trying to give you.
I know what it’s like to feel disconnected from my true feelings, I’ve been there and still am sometimes, but I’m now more able to catch myself. With years of practicing to “walk my talk” I am able to sit with my own uncomfortable emotions. This enables me to hold space for other people to connect with how they are feeling, rather than be distracted from it.
The fundamental principle of my work is to create the safe environment for people to connect with their bodies and honour their feelings so they can start to gain clarity on what needs to change in order to live a more fulfilling life, and form those soul connections that they desire.
“For me, Rosie is the ideal guide for deep personal transformation work. Firstly, she has walked the walk – so many coaches have the theory but not the authentic experience that makes Rosie’s deep capacity for compassion and support possible. She creates and sustains a very safe and non-judgemental space for real personal discovery to occur and makes it possible to sit with sometimes uncomfortable feelings while gently (but firmly when necessary) helping you to make sense of them.”
If you would like to learn more about my workshops please do get in touch.
