That’s how we would describe the herd here at Free Rein Australia!

They live as a herd – constantly moving and grazing.  They have to travel for food and water.  The land is hilly, dotted with trees and a small forest.  They have friend preferences, family connections, and the occasional disagreement.

They are domestic in the sense that they share space with humans.  Sometimes they have to take their medicine, and get their feet and teeth tended to.

They are wild in the sense that they still behave in ways similar to their wild ancestors.  They function as a cohesive herd – where everyone has a role and position within the herd.  They are always sensing for danger in their environment – even when many of them are laying down – some are still standing guard.  They will always choose safety of the herd over food, comfort or even water.

Not ridden

The horses at Free Rein Australia are not ridden and do not participate in any equine sport or discipline.   They have rarely experienced humans in a dominant role.  As much as possible, they are given free choice to engage with humans – or not!

We believe horses that work in learning and therapy programs can be more true to their nature when they are not ridden.  Horses that are ridden usually have some, if not all of their free will taken away.  Since a mammal’s brain learns from the past, certain behaviours are formed that promote survival and well being, and this includes thier conditioning.  Through whatever training modality – whether it is pressure / release, punishment or reward, horses become conditioned to behave a certain way.  Like us, our conditioned patterns are stored in the sub cortical region of the brain and become automatic responses to our environment. For most humans, it take a great deal of presence and mindfulness to intercept and change our conditioned responses.  Horses have way less neocortical capacity to do this.

Consequently, horses will automatically respond to clients in a way that includes their conditioning – in other words, they may respond automatically rather than authentically.

Equine learning and therapy can be hard work for horses

Due to their high sensitivity, horses naturally fall into resonance with each other and the environment – which includes humans.  As most humans have a tendency to hold onto heavy emotions, it can be onerous on horses to resonate at this level.  They need plenty of rest and restorative time to maintain their physical and emotional health.  This is another reason why our horses are not ridden.

Today two parents visited us with their two ‘disabled’ children.  One five, and the other three years old.  Both children had difficulty with movement and coordination, and ‘spoke’ in their own babble-language.

I selected six out of our fifteen horses that I thought might be most suitable for working with these children.  Although I knew they would be gentle, I was surprised at their steadfastness as several times they had a child on either side of them, touching their bellies, hind legs and tails with jerky movements, squeals, and babble.

All six horses were at liberty – free to move away, and yet they stood seemingly still, except for the yawns, licking, and head bobbing.  Occasionally they stepped away to eliminate, and then returned to the children.

The parents mindfully followed their children – sometimes running after them as they weaved around and through the horses.  All the while, the horses were steadfast.

The rest of herd was standing at the gate – apparently interested and wanting to join in.  When the children seemed to have enough of being in the arena, we decided to take them into the paddock to visit the rest of the herd.

These horses behaved the same way as the six I selected. One of the children had a very lengthy ‘conversation’ with Opal, (the Welsh Mountain Pony), who seemed to be listening and understanding everything that was said.  She also stepped away to eliminate, and then returned to the children.

As we were making our way to the exit gate, Grace stepped forward and pressed her nose on the three-year-old’s neck.  Angel and Peri also closed in, and they all lowered their heads, and remained very still.

After an hour, the family said their good-byes and left.  There were no cathartic moments, and no apparent miracle healings.

I facilitate multiple day programs, trainings, consecutive half day and full day programs with groups, and individual sessions with trauma clients, and nothing wipes me out like a healing session with horses. They seem to shift into another operating mode – which is mostly undetectable by us humans.  They ‘turn up’ the frequency, and blast energy blocks in our bodies, moving and drawing out discordant energy.  Anything and everything in their collective energy field is affected.

Today they blew my circuits!  I almost feel like I have been nuked!  I hope the parents made it home safely and are able to recover from their high frequency immersion!  I look forward to hearing what changes if any, their children have had.  Bless them.

Our safety is not actually determined by what we think, but rather it is determined by how our nervous system feels.  We might rationalise and think we are safe, but according to Stephen Porges, author of Polyvagal Theory, if there is a low frequency humming for example, such as traffic noise, or air-conditioning noises, our nervous system is not settled – it does not feel safe.

So what, you might think?  In response to a stressful environment or stressful events, our nervous system, can override our thinking brain and we become reactive, defensive, aggressive, angry, or maybe just go blank.

Why is safety so critical?

Before we can fully express our unique gifts, and experience a sense of belonging, connection and contribution, we must feel safe – not at the rational, thinking level, but at the visceral, sensing level within our bodies.

When we feel safe, we experience heart coherence – an ordered and rhythmic variation that influences other bio systems such as brain waves and respiration (www.heartmath.org).  In this state of heart coherence, we can think more clearly and creatively.

When our biological systems operating more efficiently, there is less stress on them, we have more vitality and a greater sense of well-being, and we are more resilient.  We have greater capacity to sense and respond to changes in our environment. We can embrace the totality of life and express ourselves without inhibition.  We can do and become what we are meant to do and be.

Our ability to feel safe directly affects all our relationships

When we feel safe, other people’s nervous systems register that we are safe to be around.  We are in effect, regulating their very sensitive nervous systems.  When they feel safe, they also have access to greater intellectual capacity, creativity, and experience well-being.

In leadership

Quite literally as leaders, if we do not feel safe, we are not safe to be around.  No amount of coaching, mentoring, team building, performance management and support, or training is going to be effective if we do not feel safe.

When we do not feel safe, our lower brain is in control

The reptilian brain, our lower brain – which is the control center for our nervous systems that scans our environment for threats, does not know the difference between a fearful thought or emotion, and a sabre tooth tiger.  This has nothing to do with the higher, rational, thinking brain.

In fact, if the reptilian brain determines that the threat is significant (which can be decided by one single event, or chronic repetitive events – such as worrying, stressful thinking, workplace bullying), it can suppress the rational thinking brain (Hanson, R., Hardwiring Happiness.) Furthermore, it may decide that digesting food and maintaining a healthy immune system are not critical functions (in the moment) so it suppresses them and redirects resources to the heart, and often the limbs – readying us for fight or flight (Levine, P. Waking the Tiger).  Prolonged exposure to stress-inducing situations (including stressful thinking) can result in illness and disease (California State University, Northridge).

Since others’ nervous systems are tuned into ours, their behaviour will correspond to our own level of safety.  A workforce whose thinking brains and physical health are biologically compromised cannot perform at their optimum despite their best intentions.

As a parent

More is at stake as a parent.  We are developing a template for our children’s future.  If they don’t know safety with us, then they learn that the world is a fearful place.  All their systems are compromised – including their mental and creative development, health, and potentially all their relationships.

On a community, global scale

Safety begets safety.  As we resonate safety, others are comforted.  In this state, we all have greater capacity to be responsive instead of reactive.  The power of resonating safety is second only to resonating love.  In fact, one could argue that it is one of the tones of love.

Inside each one of us is a timid, wild animal

Our autonomic nervous system (ANS) and lower, reptilian brain operates exactly like a timid wild animal.  It frightens easily, it is reactive, and primed for the worst-case scenarios – always looking for ‘the negative’/threat/danger.  (Hanson, R., Hardwiring Happiness.)   The key to feeling safe is to make friends with our internal timid wild animal (ITWA).

Consider how you would befriend an animal in the wild?  Probably not with quick, overt gestures, loud noise, unpredictable reactions, hidden agendas, lack of compassion, criticism and impatience!   And yet most of us frequently do that to ourselves and others!

Starting with our own ITWA we must soothe it with gentle thoughts, movements, and sounds.

How safe do you feel right now, and how do you know?

Your rational thinking brain may determine that you are safe, however it’s your ITWA that really makes this call.  Your body communicates its level of safety in the language of felt sensations, so tune into your body and notice (without judgment or resistance):

• Your breathing – is it deep or shallow, fast or slow.  Are you barely breathing?
• Your heartbeat – is it fast or slow, even, uneven, loud, soft…?
• Your posture – are you sitting upright, or slumped over; are your shoulders drawn back or caved in/forward … take a snapshot of your posture in your mind and looking at the ‘picture’ what does your posture communicate about how you are in this moment.

• Your throat – is it tight or relaxed, is swallowing easy, or does your throat feel blocked, does it feel dry?
• Your chest – does it feel contracted or expansive; does it feel open or collapsed and closed?
• Your solar plexus (the area just under your rib cage) – do they feel pressure, or tight, or butterflies, or relaxed and supple?
• Other areas of your body – look for tension patterns and other uncomfortable sensations

Making ‘safe’ your default operating mode takes time

Your ITWA needs time and consistency to develop trust and feel safe.  While you cannot engage directly with your ANS, the following actions influence your nervous system (and those around you):

• Reduce your mental chatter through mindfulness and meditation practices
• Choose peaceful thoughts and avoid judgment of yourself and others
• Spend time in nature – since we literally are animals, the sounds of nature are soothing and natural to us
• Avoid environments that over-stimulate the senses – such as shopping malls
• Avoid drama – disconnect from the drama of others, the news, or violent movies
• Spend time in silence (mental silence as well as external silence)
• Listen to music that is soothing
• Connect with animals – animals (especially horses) soothe and regulate our delicate nervous systems, which leads to a feeling of well-being – as you pat them, tell them, “you are safe”
• Get relaxation massages regularly (for nurturing human touch)
• Hug a loved one for at least 20 seconds a day
• Eat healthy food
• Get plenty of rest
• When you notice that you feel safe, tell yourself, “I am safe”
• With persistence, you will notice yourself feeling more peaceful – a sign that your iTWA feels safe.

Helping others feel safe
Recognise that others’ behaviour is almost always a result of not feeling safe, and it is futile to try and negotiate with their rational, thinking brains because their reptilian brains (ITWA) are on alert, and maybe even in charge.  Here are some ways you can help them feel safe around you:

• Accept them – do not judge or try and change them; this does not mean you have to agree with them, but accept them for ‘where they are in their life’s journey.’

• Focus on your breathing – breathe in for a count of six and out for the same duration, for several minutes.  This directly regulates your heartbeat and calms your own nervous system (Soosala, G., Oka M., mBraining – using your multiple brains to do cool stuff).

• Treat them as you would treat a timid wild animal – be quiet, still, consistent, compassionate, respectful, gentle, transparent (i.e. no hidden agenda)

Make safety the new paradigm

Keeping safety in the forefront of your mind, may be the only way to experience your full vitality, and enable others to shine.  When we all feel safe, we can fully access the intelligence and creativity of our minds, bodies, and spirit.

• As you go about your day, ask yourself often:
• Am I feeling safe?
• What can I do to feel safer?
• How can I help others – in this moment – feel safe around me?

When safety becomes our new paradigm, our lives, and the lives of countless others will be transformed.

According to neuropsychologist, Rick Hanson we can actually ‘build happiness into our brains’ in as little as 30 seconds.

Our brains have a bias towards negativity

Neurologist Paul MacLean[1] explains that our skulls holds not one, but three brains, each representing a distinct evolutionary layer that has formed, one on top of the other.  While the three brains are connected by nerves to each other, they can each operate as a discreet brain system with distinct priorities and capacities.

The first brain to form is known as the reptilian brain.  According to MacLean it is rigid, obsessive, compulsive, ritualistic and paranoid, it is “filled with ancestral memories.”  It keeps repeating the same behaviours over and over again, never learning from past mistakes.  This brain controls muscles, balance and autonomic functions, such as breathing and heartbeat.  This part of the brain is active, even in deep sleep.

This brain is all about survival.  It doesn’t want us to relax, get too complacent, and enjoy ourselves.  It wants us to be vigilant and suspicious.  This is what kept our ancestors alive – always being on guard and wary.  Like any habit, the longer it is practiced, the stronger it becomes.  Since the reptilian brain is the oldest of the three brains, it can at times, dominate and override the other two brains.

The second, and next ‘oldest’ brain, known as the limbic brain, is concerned with emotions and instincts.  As MacLean observes, everything in this emotional system is either “agreeable or disagreeable.”  This brain tends to be the seat of our value judgments, instead of the more advanced neocortex – the third brain.  It decides whether our higher brain has a “good” idea or not.

The best way to compensate for the negativity bias is to regularly ‘take in the positive’

In his book, Hardwiring Happiness, Dr.Hanson shows how to turn our everyday experiences into the neural pathways we need for our well-being.  He explains by combining neuroscience with contemplative techniques, we can take charge of our brains.[2]

Mental states become neural traits

Hanson offers a 4-step process to ‘hardwire happiness.’ Here are the first three steps (the 4^th step is optional):

Have a positive experience – notice the positive in any given experience, or reflect on a past happy experience.  (Positive is that which leads to happiness and benefit for oneself and others.)

Enrich it – expand your awareness of the experience to include not only your feelings, but other sensory input.

Absorb it  - Through the power of intention you can intensify the experience, and sense it sinking in and becoming part of you.

Intense, repeated mental / neural activity – especially if it is conscious – will leave an enduring imprint in the neural structure. According to Hanson, it takes less than 30 seconds to establish a neuropathway.  If we can make a point of practicing this process throughout the day, we begin to weave an underlying sense of resilience and well-being into ourselves, where happiness becomes our new baseline.

Take charge of your brain!

If you don’t consciously make use of this power yourself, other forces will shape your brain for you – including pressures at work and home, technology and media, the lingering effects of painful past experiences …

Most of us spend a lot of time in our heads – thinking, reasoning, analysing, making assumptions, developing beliefs, and forming judgments and opinions.  Did you know that these activities – that engage the prefrontal cortex of the brain, use more energy than other parts of the body?  And after all that, sometimes we are not any clearer, and might even be more confused!

This is because we are not working with all the information available.  We exist in a sea of frequencies – vibratory waves of information, that go through us as well as around us.  In addition to the TV and radio waves, mobile phone frequencies, electromagnetic waves of appliances and computers, solar, lunar, and other cosmic waves, are emotional frequencies of others, thought waves, and the waves of collective consciousness.  And every single vibration carries information.  For example, when two people pick up on each others’ thoughts – they have actually tuned into the thought frequency of the other.

Since we could not function if we were aware of all the frequencies within the vibratory field we live in, we have very effective filters that protect us from a potential overload.  Nevertheless, our bodies are constantly monitoring and responding to this vibratory field we live in.

Your body perceives what is not known by the senses

Our bodies are sensing aspects of our environment beyond the range of our other senses, and beyond what we know with our cognitive mind.  Remember, just because we cannot see, measure, taste, smell, hear, or feel something does not mean it does not exist.  Even our technology has limitations to detect certain frequencies of information.

Your body is a sophisticated tuning fork

Your body responds to the energy within your environment, and you experience the sensations that correspond to what your body perceives.  For example, when someone is not being truthful, you may not know it at a cognitive level.  In fact, your mind might be telling you to trust this person.  However, the person is transmitting discordant energy and not only does your body perceive this energy/information, you experience the affect of this energy.  Your body responds much the same as it would to a message of ‘unsafe,’ however the sensations are usually way more subtle.  For example, you might feel a slight sense of discomfort as if ‘something is not right.’  If you are not tuned into your body, you are likely to miss these sensations altogether.

Truth resonates

When you hear a Truth (not a factual truth, such as “the train arrived 11 minutes later than scheduled,” but rather one that speaks to your heart and soul), your body literally resonates.  You may feel a tingling as you expand your ‘field’ in response to a Truth.  Some people experience alignment, as if ‘all the parts’ have clicked into place, and they feel energy surging through their bodies.  Some experience greater clarity and feel empowered.  An overall sense of well being is experienced when a Truth is spoken.  To experience this resonance you might like to listen to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.  It’s no wonder that speech stirred the hearts of millions, and still does today.

Judgments lead to self-fulfilling prophesies

When we judge others – even in an attempt to understand them, our minds are busy using up energy making meaning, formulating opinions, and creating beliefs.  What’s worse is – thanks to what we now know about neuroplasticity – that we literally shape our brains to continue to experience what we are judging.  AND thanks to what we know from modern physics – when we focus on a certain aspect or outcome, not only is this what we bring into existence, we eliminate all other possibilities to occur.   We can easily get caught up in the cycle of ‘self-fulfilling prophesies.’

Honour your body – it is more accurate than your mind

As we know, the mind can get overwhelmed, confused, and can often be easily influenced or manipulated.  The body responds to the unseen energy behind others’ words and intentions and cannot lie.

It pays to listen to your body first

We can experience more peace and harmony, and make better choices when we listen to our bodies first and feel into the energetic information we are receiving.  Our bodies will faithfully and accurately tell us “yes, keep going,” or “no, this is not a good thing.”  We can keep our mental chatter to a minimum and avoid over analyzing and making judgments of ourselves and others. Noticing what we are experiencing in our bodies keeps us in the present moment.  We are literally engaging with the energetic information that is happening in the very moment.

A peaceful mind leads to greater harmony – on the outside as well as the inside.  We can put our minds to better use when we let our bodies guide our choices and actions.

We are living in a time where information of all kinds is increasing.  Not all this information is helpful, truthful, or complete.  It behooves us to develop the skill to peacefully navigate this sea of information, and listening to our bodies is at the core of this skill.

To learn and experience more about this, come to one of our programs or book a session with the horses.