Have you ever felt at a loss to know how to help your child overcome anxiety, and the barriers that they face in just living their life? Parenting can be confusing and challenging at the best of times but if your child has special needs or mental health issues the problems can often seem fraught and insurmountable. In these cases, a different way of looking at the situation can be incredibly helpful. At CEGR we recognise the power that parents have to support their children through the toughest times, but we also know that it can feel incredibly challenging to do that.
One reason for this is that, as parents, we are up close and often full of overwhelming love, concern and other conflicting feelings for our children. It is normal that helping them to tackle situations is mixed up with our own powerful feelings. But we can be unaware of this complicated mixture of feelings, and when this is the case, it is easy to lose sight of the way forward. We can get bogged down by our own anxiety for them and things can spiral into a negative cycle that starts to undermine our capacity to effectively communicate, listen and respond.
This is partly because much of what happens between children and their parents is unconscious. We can be very unaware of the thoughts and feelings that we bring into a situation and how these impact on how and what we communicate to our children. Even with the very best of intentions and a loving heart we can remain unaware and lost when it comes to supporting our children when they are in crisis.
So where do horses come in? I would say, hand-on-heart, that despite years of ongoing study, professional development and therapeutic support, the best teachers of how to support my children have been my team of horses. As prey animals they have a near miraculous ability to notice what I am thinking, feeling and doing. They can spot everything that I bring into my interactions with them. They know when I am present and listening and they know when I am bogged down with my own preoccupations, and they will find gentle ways to tell me. When I’m not able to notice because I am too distracted with my own list of jobs to do or problems to solve, they will find bigger ways to convey the message. When I try to communicate with them, they never fail to help me understand myself better and how I can be more present, intentional, clear, confident and compassionate.
Our children also need us to be like this when they are in crisis, but they often lack the capacity to feed this back clearly and concisely. In the most non-judgmental and direct way, the horses have helped me understand that sometimes I need to take a step back and find my own peace, before I can care for and communicate with them. Being able to practice this everyday has helped me to know myself better and to find greater peace. This in turn has helped me to respond in more conscious and insightful ways to my children.
Relationships with horses are like relationships with people but their feedback is straightforward and non-critical, which can make it easier to see, accept and use. They provide an embodied opportunity to think about and practice ways of being that serve our children well and conversely, those ways that are so well intentioned but are actually, unhelpful. The gentle patience of horses creates infinite chances for reflection and self-learning and also allows us to practice different ways of being, until we can achieve a more self-aware, intentional and effective outcome. They naturally offer insights and clarity, that might otherwise be forever locked in our unconscious, to be taken home and used to navigate more fraught situations with those we love.
Very few people remain unmoved by the experience of being with horses. They are natural teachers about ourselves, relationships, wellbeing and life. They have an uncanny ability to help us understand that no issues are insurmountable, we always have options, often that we cannot see, but the horses can shed light on even the most challenging situations.
Many people find that they feel more alive and optimistic when they’re out in nature. This is because it is easier to engage the parts of our brains that deal with connection, creativity, intuition and wellbeing when we feel safe, relaxed and connected to the natural world. Insights that otherwise remain hidden within the pressure of daily living are more available to us when we take time out in a natural environment. Stress and anxiety is part of most people’s daily experience as we are constantly under pressure to respond to the demands of our lives. These ongoing demands are easier to put to one side when you move into a contrasting environment. Our site is set in beautiful countryside, with Birmingham in the far distance. This provides a good metaphor and starting point for gaining a different perspective and receiving alternative thoughts and insights about pressing issues.