One to One Equine Assisted Learning
Our vision: to enable the individual to find themselves, their self esteem, their self worth; to liberate themselves; to help families to become more balanced, partnerships more harmonious, and bring parent child relationships to a more stable loving footing - all through Equine Assisted Learning.
There is no pressure to have to perform – in Equine Assisted Learing there is no right or wrong– simply an action invoking a reaction from the equine partners. When it comes to helping people think for themselves, sometimes ‘doing’ means ‘not doing.’ EAL does exactly this – the facilitators keep ‘out of the way’ and let the interaction between horse and client provide the opportunity to think for themselves. Whilst achieving tasks is the individuals learning process, we recognise that the human mind thinks more rigorously and creatively in context of concrete, genuine praise. Sometimes it is appropriate to do individual sessions, sometimes as a group depending on the issue/s they need to address. Young people need to understand that being better than someone else is not necessarily to be good.
We intend to allow sufficient emotional release which in turn enables the client to think more clearly. It has been said that fear constricts everything especially thinking, crying can making you smarter, after laughing thinking improves.
We encourage our clients to remove assumptions that limit ideas which might enable them to fulfil the tasks we set during our programmes.
We want each individual to be motivated by what their needs and desires are, not by what everyone else wants them to be.
Isn’t it curious how people are and feel defined by their job – “I’m a Mangaging Director”, “I’m in IT”, “ I’m a tea-lady”, "I'm a mum" and in between all this…we are all the same. The only thing that matters is that we are true to ourselves. Do we love and respect ourselves? If we don’t, then why not and why should others love us? The bottom line for most people is that they want to be loved, respected and heard. But do we even love, respect and listen to ourselves?
The horses enable us to look at ourselves. So often, when the client watches the horse walk away from them, we hear, “the horse doesn’t like me- it hates me”. We ask the client to think about why they believe this and what would they change to make the horse ‘like them.’
Another extraordinary opportunity is offered by the horses in overcoming the ‘trip wires’ which are called psychological reversals. These are reasons why we hang onto ‘stuff’ It is extraordinary to learn that people hang onto their ‘stuff’ because they believe they don’t deserve to get over the problem or they believe it is not safe for them or other people in their life to get over the problem or they do not think that they have the resources to make life work without the problem. They may feel deprived without the problem, perhaps their identity may be tied up in it or they may even have that hopeless feeling that they will never get over the problem.
Horses challenge our feeling of safety. Being large and powerful creatures, they can appear intimidating and create a natural opportunity for people to overcome fear and develop confidence. Accomplishing a task involving a horse, in spite of those fears, creates confidence and provides wonderful metaphors when dealing with other intimidating and challenging situations in life.
As facilitators, we remind the client that it is not appropriate to beat themselves up but that as long as we work at the task and enjoy it, we can be amazing. When we change the way we think, let alone act, everything starts to become easier.