My journey “home”, and how it changed the way I work with horses and how horses have changed me
A few months ago, a local writing competition came up on my Facebook page. I had no intention of entering; however, I have a friend who is a very talented writer, and I suggested she enter the competition. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but it became a case of “I will if you do.”
The competition's theme was “Home”. A topic that really got me thinking.
“Home” is a word that can be interpreted in many ways. Some say Home is a place, some say Home is a feeling. For me, coming home has been an emotional rollercoaster of many ups and downs. A journey of finding myself.
For a long time, I have questioned why this world places such importance on meaningless objects and social status. At a young age, we are made to believe that success in life means having a good job, a marriage, and a well-paying career. But how often do you meet someone who asks instead, "Have you found joy and happiness in your life?".
In my early 20’s, I’d lie awake some nights and ponder on why we are here, in this world. Why do so many people spend a lifetime working in jobs they hate every day, and continually tell themselves that “One day things will be different”, “One day they will make enough money and be happy”? At this same time in my life, I found myself in a relationship where I felt more alone than I ever did in solitude. He and I shared a beautiful property and a house, but it was far from the fairytale romance I'd dreamt about. In the 4 years we were together, I had changed so many things about myself. I’d lost friends and clients, and I'd almost given up on my dreams of working with horses many times. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn't miserable, but I definitely wasn't happy. It wasn’t his fault; it was my fault for forgetting who I was and giving up on my dreams.
Not many people knew on the days that I was struggling; I could easily fake a smile. My horses, however, always knew. The inconsistency of my emotions would always be reflected back to me through them- the way they responded to me and their behaviour.
I didn’t understand at the time just how well our animals, and to some extent our reality, are a mirror reflection of ourselves and our own life choices. Our circumstances and the way our animals respond to our presence are outward manifestations of our inner being. What I did know at the time was that I couldn’t keep living the way things were. And so, eventually, I gathered the courage to leave my partner at the time and the place we had called home. It was so hard at that time, the thought of change and uncertainty. They say that your nervous system will always choose familiar chaos over unfamiliar peace until you begin to heal and choose differently.
After taking the leap of faith to leave behind the life I knew, I began to realise that nothing outside of myself was going to give me the peace in which I longed to find. I was on a mission to fill the void inside my heart. I began to concentrate my energy once again on working with my horses. I started digging deeper and learning about things I once had no interest in, things I once wouldn’t even have tried to understand. One of the first “something the old me would never do” things that I tried was attending an animal communication course with my horse, Rocco.
This course opened my eyes to the possibility of energy connecting all living beings to one another. The possibility of unspoken communication- I think we’ve all had those moments in our lives where we just know something to be true, even if we can't explain why. That’s your intuition. This animal communication course challenged me to trust my intuition more. Trusting my own intuition meant blocking out the noise of others' expectations and opinions. When I found the courage to make choices based on how I felt, I made the right decisions more often. Following the animal communication course, I began listening to more podcasts about animal communication, intuition, and telepathy. I attended a Reiki course and a psychic development course, and simultaneously began learning more about Equine Biomechanics and Classical Dressage.
The more I learnt about energy, the more I came to realise that one of the biggest challenges humans face in life is our own ego. My horses responded best to me when I was authentically myself. When I stopped worrying about the expectations I believed I had to meet to be accepted and respected by others, both as a horse trainer and as a person. It meant unbecoming everything I tried to present myself as, to leave behind a more authentic version of who I truly am.
The more I let go of what was beyond my control and focused on how I reacted, the more peace I found. I began to appreciate the little moments of each day and learned to replace my resentment for what I had missed with thankfulness for the opportunities I had already been given.
Over the past ten years, I have learnt a lot about energy, how horses communicate, equine biomechanics, and rehabilitation. All of which have taught me so much. Perhaps the most important thing I have taken away from what I have learnt so far is just how connected everything in this world is.
While horses can teach us a lot about horses, they can also teach us a lot about ourselves and life.
The most challenging yet most fulfilling type of happily ever after is a never-ending journey of healing, learning, and changing each day into a slightly better version of the person you were the day before. Horses are a great catalyst for this.
