Depth coaching is all about the psyche. Equus coaching is all about the body. And for those of us in midlife who’ve spent decades ignoring that body and walking around as brains on stilts, (raises hand), it’s time to remember our wild selves. That wild self is the one who’s been missing. Who has all the courage and the “I don’t give a F**k” to get us to the life that’s been calling. Or shouting. Or causing mayhem.
Of course we ignored our bodies. They can be painful, irritable, inflamed, bleeding piles of exhaustion. And we had work to do, snotty noses to wipe, people to lift up on their way to success. Hell, in the eighties, we didn’t even know what to wear when we were climbing the corporate ladder. Well, maybe you did, but I tried to look like the rest of upper management as a 110lb woman wearing khakis, a blazer with shoulder pads, and loafers. I looked like a sad linebacker, slapping on the Mac cosmetics and putting bandaids over my tattoo so I wouldn’t offend anyone. And somewhere along the way our primal sensing nature—the part of us that actually knows things—got buried somewhere under the to-do list and the Snackables.
The horse knows right where she’s buried and doesn’t give one flying fig about our credentials, or our shoulder pads, or how we’ve white-knuckled through to get where we are. They meet our body, our heart, and our energy and if those things aren’t telling the same story our words are, the horse will let us know.
And we’ll stand in that round pen shocked over the lies we’ve been telling ourselves and how cut off we are from that living, breathing being who’s gotten us where we are today.
The Work Itself
A three-hour session at Dry Creek Ranch & Sanctuary begins with intention. You bring whatever you’re carrying be it a relationship issue, a creative block, a boundary you can’t seem to hold, a life that’s asking something of you that you haven’t been able to answer yet. Nothing is too small. Nothing is too large.
We work with one of the horses in the round pen, then move to the arena where you’ll navigate obstacles together. This is where things get interesting. The stories that arise when a 1,200 pound animal is or isn’t doing what you want them to do will tell you everything you need to know about how you’re moving through your life.
You’ll journal. We go deeper. And the session ends with a writing exercise that has stopped more than one woman in the dirt.
