SOMATIC EXPERIENCING® with HORSES:
Equine-supported trauma recovery with heart, spirit, body and mind
David Abram
Connecting in an embodied way with horses opens us to discovering our authentic selves and learning new ways of settling and grounding body and mind. Horses can help us become more comfortable in our own skin, more trustworthy to ourselves and others. With their help, we can find a more reliable sense of physical and emotional balance, resilience and ease. Horses, as vigilant prey animals, read not only our movement behaviors but their underlying emotional tone. Often our movement behavior and emotional expression unconsciously reflect an unsettled or distracted state of mind. As we bring greater mindfulness to how we move and the effect of our movement and emotions on the horse, their responses can help us feel when we are dis-regulated, anxious or unaware or finding a more regulated and easeful state of being. CO-REGULATION & CONNECTION
When we meet others - including other species - our systems begin to synchronize. This is sometimes called bio-synchrony. We begin to mirror each other's rhythms, movement, respiration, heart rate and emotional tone. This is a bodily, emotional sensing of another being - an empathetic, echolocating, embodied experience of reciprocal resonance. This co-regulating, co-embodying experience of connection helps to nurture an intuitive, improvisational, feeling response to what is arising in the moment rather than being caught in habitual or automatic ways of responding. With horses, this means finding a shared settled state with the horse, where we are listening more than telling, and creating opportunities for responsiveness and resonance rather than tension and reactivity. All of this happens through our bodies: breath, the movement of fluids, skin, muscle, bones and organs - the anatomy of our common bodies. MOVEMENT & TOUCH
Conscious Movement and Touch support ease and balance in the bodies of both horse and human, helping us become more aware of what we are signaling with our bodies and minds. Moving consciously with horses means bringing an improvisational and exploratory quality to our relationships with horses, using the shared language of movement and touch. As we are more able to feel what our own bodies are feeling and expressing, we become more attuned to the responses and expression of the horse. Moving with a horse, touching a horse helps us orient to ourselves, to the horse, and what surrounds us. PRIVATE SESSIONS, WORKSHOPS & CLINICS:
I am available to teach at your facility, and enjoy working closely with you to develop a program that best suits your clientele and students. I see clients privately both in my movement studio in Kent, CT, or at the barn in upstate New York with my horse partners Blue and Izarra.
