Compassion and the Mindful Horse
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Imagine that you had a deep and truly supportive soul-friend – what the Celts defined as anam-cara. A friend decent and honest enough to observe both our strengths and our flaws without judgement or bias.
The Horse offers herself as an honest and compassionate correspondent who reads and responds to our complete communication, the real “who” behind the words. We often confuse language with communication, losing ourselves within the recumbent pathways of a maze of thought and word. The horse sees through this, she sees us complete.
The author and Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard writes “Einstein said: “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest …... This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Workshops create very strong meditative spaces that the horses very often choose to share. Our stillness draws them in. At a recent workshop we were following a meditation to quiet our energies. The horses came to graze freely alongside us. As we concluded the meditation, the group started to re-connect. Before anyone moved or opened their eyes, all four horses as one, bolted and took off across the field. There was no other sound or activity around the space. No more than the subtle shift in our collective energy was enough to invoke flight.
The stillness created was itself a communication, a shared and equally understood energy. Its shift created a reaction more profound than mere language might express, communication beyond our language, kinship beyond species.
Give and take
On this path I do not set out to provide therapy – I create a place where people find a way to rediscover and perhaps re-establish themselves. I endeavour to provide a clean and open space, where we might start with offering compassion and loving kindness to the horse. In that act of giving we open ourselves. Together we stand in stillness, a silent space from which we observe, acknowledge and share.
Compassion is what one might call a karmic emotion, what we give is returned to us. Bless and be blessed if you like. Horses carry such benevolence and a will to heal and forgive in their hearts, that when they return the compassion shared and for, the human, it can be enlightening and intoxicating.
I was teaching a lady to meditate with her horse. She knew he was troubled and this troubled her. The horse was considered dangerous by many.
We spent some quiet time with him and he opened-up to show us what troubled him. His reactions to our quiet movements were enough to expose his stressors. We let ourselves open to his communication and started to work on revised behaviours so that we could work with him without causing him anxiety. And in his release, came her release, she was able to face and let-go of her own confusions and self-criticism which had hung over her since they had been together.
Mind and body together
Our minds and bodies are incredible learning machines, whatever we do they are busy creating habits and patterns, integrating everything to mind and body and building routines which play back as the behavioural landscape around our words. Embodied expressions extending beyond the limitation of language.
We have lost that intuitive literacy of our body-speak. But, the horses still read all. The somatic you. They understand the need for congruency between mind and body, thought and action. To quote the 13th century mystic and mentor of Dante, Brunetto Latini, “We are a book, and if we learn to read that book, we can read everything.”
I was working with a physical therapist and together we were working on creating a shared quiet space alongside my own horse, Ernie. The client began to meditate but my horse’s energy did not drop. I asked what was going on. Together we explored the situation, and we realised that he was not “letting go”. As we worked together Ernie’s energy finally dropped and his head lowered. Not only did the client get to feel a real let-go, but he realised he had to do so similarly, with his colleagues.
As somatic guides they shine a light on unconscious memories locked in our behaviours and actions. They hold the space where we might explore with safety. They also shine that light on those things we hide or push away. There one client found a child: “I found the need to listen to my inner child and let them show me my comfort limits”. Whether she found a child or a metaphor, who is to say? She continues: “I am hiding behind my mother’s clothing with my thumb in my mouth, whilst those around me vociferously demanded I remove it. They made me feel such guilt. I saw myself succumbing to that demand and in so doing losing my compassion for myself. And now as an adult I stare into a void, when I connect with my compassion I connect with that guilt.”
Coming Home
The Zen monk and writer Osho says “Drop the idea of becoming someone, you are already a masterpiece”. We rarely honour ourselves or our experiences. We are not projects; we do not have to become perfect. Yet we treat ourselves as though we are projects. After a couple of sessions one client remarked: “I realised that it was ok to find time for myself. I thought that it would be selfish. What I found was that I ended up with both more time and understanding for others in my life.”
Compassion needs to be targeted inwards too. We rarely treat ourselves so. Our internal dialogue can speak with a brutality that we might never accept from others. Neuroscience confirms that this critical voice is no less a stressor than external existential challenges.
Goleman and Davidson (2017) talk of humans being “Primed for Love”. Meditating on loving kindness can shift our consciousness after as little as eight hours. Double that to sixteen and subjects have been noted to overcome otherwise intractable positions and behaviours, such as unconscious bias. What better way to project loving kindness and compassion than to stand before a horse and silently offer from the heart. That act of offering to another can be the catalyst that we need.
“I felt drawn to the older horse that was lying down. I could feel that to her, the act of standing was stress that she did not wish to place on her joints,” explained one client as she mindfully sat amongst the herd. Her eyes watered slightly as she then talked of her aging mother, and her own feelings of guilt with her mother’s arthritic suffering.
As we see, the act of sharing compassion is one means of drawing us away from our tendency to judge and dispute, and so back to the moment. In fact, the regular act of compassionate meditation goes further. It is a path to meaningful happiness. Matthieu Ricard, cited at the beginning of this piece, has been declared by neuroscience to be “the world’s happiest man” after more than 10,000 hours of MRI scans by cognitive scientists at the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience in Wisconsin.
There stands the guide, our mindful friend, the compassionate healer and our true anam cara.
The author and Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard writes “Einstein said: “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest …... This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Workshops create very strong meditative spaces that the horses very often choose to share. Our stillness draws them in. At a recent workshop we were following a meditation to quiet our energies. The horses came to graze freely alongside us. As we concluded the meditation, the group started to re-connect. Before anyone moved or opened their eyes, all four horses as one, bolted and took off across the field. There was no other sound or activity around the space. No more than the subtle shift in our collective energy was enough to invoke flight.
The stillness created was itself a communication, a shared and equally understood energy. Its shift created a reaction more profound than mere language might express, communication beyond our language, kinship beyond species.
Give and take
On this path I do not set out to provide therapy – I create a place where people find a way to rediscover and perhaps re-establish themselves. I endeavour to provide a clean and open space, where we might start with offering compassion and loving kindness to the horse. In that act of giving we open ourselves. Together we stand in stillness, a silent space from which we observe, acknowledge and share.
Compassion is what one might call a karmic emotion, what we give is returned to us. Bless and be blessed if you like. Horses carry such benevolence and a will to heal and forgive in their hearts, that when they return the compassion shared and for, the human, it can be enlightening and intoxicating.
I was teaching a lady to meditate with her horse. She knew he was troubled and this troubled her. The horse was considered dangerous by many.
We spent some quiet time with him and he opened-up to show us what troubled him. His reactions to our quiet movements were enough to expose his stressors. We let ourselves open to his communication and started to work on revised behaviours so that we could work with him without causing him anxiety. And in his release, came her release, she was able to face and let-go of her own confusions and self-criticism which had hung over her since they had been together.
Mind and body together
Our minds and bodies are incredible learning machines, whatever we do they are busy creating habits and patterns, integrating everything to mind and body and building routines which play back as the behavioural landscape around our words. Embodied expressions extending beyond the limitation of language.
We have lost that intuitive literacy of our body-speak. But, the horses still read all. The somatic you. They understand the need for congruency between mind and body, thought and action. To quote the 13th century mystic and mentor of Dante, Brunetto Latini, “We are a book, and if we learn to read that book, we can read everything.”
I was working with a physical therapist and together we were working on creating a shared quiet space alongside my own horse, Ernie. The client began to meditate but my horse’s energy did not drop. I asked what was going on. Together we explored the situation, and we realised that he was not “letting go”. As we worked together Ernie’s energy finally dropped and his head lowered. Not only did the client get to feel a real let-go, but he realised he had to do so similarly, with his colleagues.
As somatic guides they shine a light on unconscious memories locked in our behaviours and actions. They hold the space where we might explore with safety. They also shine that light on those things we hide or push away. There one client found a child: “I found the need to listen to my inner child and let them show me my comfort limits”. Whether she found a child or a metaphor, who is to say? She continues: “I am hiding behind my mother’s clothing with my thumb in my mouth, whilst those around me vociferously demanded I remove it. They made me feel such guilt. I saw myself succumbing to that demand and in so doing losing my compassion for myself. And now as an adult I stare into a void, when I connect with my compassion I connect with that guilt.”
Coming Home
The Zen monk and writer Osho says “Drop the idea of becoming someone, you are already a masterpiece”. We rarely honour ourselves or our experiences. We are not projects; we do not have to become perfect. Yet we treat ourselves as though we are projects. After a couple of sessions one client remarked: “I realised that it was ok to find time for myself. I thought that it would be selfish. What I found was that I ended up with both more time and understanding for others in my life.”
Compassion needs to be targeted inwards too. We rarely treat ourselves so. Our internal dialogue can speak with a brutality that we might never accept from others. Neuroscience confirms that this critical voice is no less a stressor than external existential challenges.
Goleman and Davidson (2017) talk of humans being “Primed for Love”. Meditating on loving kindness can shift our consciousness after as little as eight hours. Double that to sixteen and subjects have been noted to overcome otherwise intractable positions and behaviours, such as unconscious bias. What better way to project loving kindness and compassion than to stand before a horse and silently offer from the heart. That act of offering to another can be the catalyst that we need.
“I felt drawn to the older horse that was lying down. I could feel that to her, the act of standing was stress that she did not wish to place on her joints,” explained one client as she mindfully sat amongst the herd. Her eyes watered slightly as she then talked of her aging mother, and her own feelings of guilt with her mother’s arthritic suffering.
As we see, the act of sharing compassion is one means of drawing us away from our tendency to judge and dispute, and so back to the moment. In fact, the regular act of compassionate meditation goes further. It is a path to meaningful happiness. Matthieu Ricard, cited at the beginning of this piece, has been declared by neuroscience to be “the world’s happiest man” after more than 10,000 hours of MRI scans by cognitive scientists at the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience in Wisconsin.
There stands the guide, our mindful friend, the compassionate healer and our true anam cara.
“The horses know the answers. They see us complete. If we can recognise this then our comprehension expands. They are waiting in the moment. Their presence facilitates an opportunity to share compassion. We might start with them, but in doing so we might find ourselves there too.”
Graeme Green
Graeme Green
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Graeme Green Bio Graeme is firmly committed to the benefits that meditation brings to people, he runs mindfulness programmes for a UK based mental health charity, as well as supporting its development in the workplace and for those around animals. Graeme is very pleased to be part of the team at Athena Herd CIC – based in the South-East England – where he works with them to support the facilitation of their Equine Facilitated practitioner training. (www.athenaherd.co.uk) Graeme has a broad collection of skills, he is Reiki drum master, an animal/human reiki practitioner and a qualified equine energy healer. He also works as a Business coach and trainer and an NLP practitioner. He is a director of Equilibrium for Life CIC which supports therapeutic interventions for vulnerable groups in the North Kent area. To find out more about Graeme’s work visit his websites www.mindfulmindset.co.uk and www.the.mindfulhorse.org. Photo credit: Linda Broomfield @ The Holistic Farm |