Creating an awareness of physiological and muscular reactions within oneself creates an understanding of the impacts of anxiety. By consciously and systematically training your body, through exposure to feared situations, you can effectively desensitize yourself, and your mind, to certain environments and or situations.
This process which can be seen as a type of relaxation training , can be an effective method for dealing with anxiety and or related internalising disorders, or simply just as a way of managing or overcoming fear. Systematic desensitization can be employed in a number of ways, imaginal desensitization for example through the use of visualisation techniques, or in invo desensitization where the actual feared object or situation is employed. Another technique is through an experiential learning session with horses.
Experiential, or in other words observed, pragmatic ,
realistic , down-to-earth , or practical manner is very much my preferred mode of delivery for this type of mind-body training. Coming into contact with grace, power and beauty (all elements displayed by the deeply spiritual animal that is the horse), in an attempt to learn about ones self and the impact of physiology, sounds more like fun than a deeply profound learning journey to me.
Not surprisingly desensitizing and sensitizing horses plays a part in training and communicating with horses. You can desensitize a horse by applying a stimulus, such as your hand or brush, on a certain part of the horses body , or a rope or halter on their face, until a particular response is eliminated, for example accepting the stimulus and not moving away from it. By completing this process in a kind and systematic way you can teach the horse to accept them , i.e have no response. The reverse is also true you can sensitize a horse to a particular aid or cue teaching the horse to move away from that pressure. This approach to communicating with horses creates a very good foundation for learning about our individual methods of communication. Interacting with a horse in will give your immediate feedback about not only your body language/physiology but also speak volumes about your focus and language methods. The horse will see exactly what your feeling or projecting, and react in an way which will help discover your authentic self. Horses are extremely present and live in the moment , and they are masters at helping us do the same.
