Equine Assisted Learning combined with the application of Craniosacral Therapy
Especially for
Autism Spectrum, Learning Challenges, At Risk Youth
Equine Assisted Self Improvement (EASI) has been developed to offer direct experiential contact with horses. Interaction with horses allows us, both participant and observer, to enhance our non-verbal communication skills, to study body language, and to explore energy bubbles and boundaries.
Our world is full of different kinds of minds, each uniquely different and amazing. All are needed. Dr. Temple Grandin, who has made autism a house-hold name, offers to us that minds like Einstein, Tesla, and Mozart would all be placed on the Spectrum today. Our current education system is tailored to the most common types of minds, the so-called ‘normal’, who are able to learn and grow from a language-based way of being in the world (verbal thinkers).
There are so many other types of minds, whose unique and special gifts may be missed, and thus not have an opportunity to reach full potential with only the reading, writing, & arithmetic form of education.
The Autism continuum includes visual thinkers (thinks in pictures and movies), pattern thinkers (excel in music and math), and most definitely sensory thinkers (thinks via smells, sights, sounds, textures, tastes), among others. Some Autism Spectrum children are entirely non-verbal, and thus need different opportunities to develop and grow, to be recognized and understood, and therefore nurtured and supported.
This is where horses are invaluable. Horses are non-verbal thinkers, language is unnecessary. The horse thinks, lives, acts, and responds in pictures and feelings (thinks in sensory). The ‘normal’ mind ignores details, the autistic mind sees it all, responds to it all, and may therefore be misunderstood by being in the world this way. Horses have a wide view and bilateral vision also, so they notice every detail, too, and respond accordingly; they, too, are often misunderstood and labeled as ‘behaviour issues’.
By watching the interaction between horse & child (participant), we have the potential to become open to new ways of ‘seeing’. When we open our hearts and our minds, we have the potential to gain a deeper, inner understanding. And from this, empathy and intuition can be nurtured and developed, allowing us to step away from what we ‘think’ we ‘should’ be, and embrace ‘what is’. And when people become more horse-like, open-hearted and sensory aware, our actions arise from a place of awareness and intuition. We begin to accept what ‘feels right’, and respond accordingly.
Horses are mirrors for the authentic self; they see through all of the masks that we wear, and see only the true being inside the ‘walls’ and the ‘issues’. They make no judgement, and accept ‘what is’ as exactly that. They are heart-based, body-centered, sentient, emotional beings, and are exceptionally talented at facilitating our own self-discovery and expansion.
When we look at behaviour as a form of communication, new opportunities arise for increased understanding. With the assistance of the horse, patterns of behaviour and body-language expressions may be understood by the parent, teacher, or care-giver, allowing for the potential for connection, acceptance, expansion, happiness & joy to ensue, for both children and adults.
EASI workshops provide an environment for experiential learning, and may be a catalyst for growth & expansion, a pathway for understanding & awareness, and an opportunity for connection & joy. The description of the experience is not the experience; our written and spoken language does not adequately describe the experience. It must be experienced to be appreciated, for the infusion into ‘being’. Consider this an invitation to discover and witness the magic and wisdom of the horse.
