Healing with Horses: Taking ride can be path to wellness
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Through our featured newspaper column in the Dunkirk OBSERVER and Westfield Republican, along with support from a grant from the Westfield Fund, we have an opportunity to offer our community greater education and hands-on experiences centered around horseback riding, equine-assisted activities and nature-based programs.
The horse is not a cure-all. But horses have a remarkable way of helping us return to the basics.
We live in an age of extraordinary medical and technological advancement. Yet at the same time, many people are searching for ways to become more active participants in their own health and wellness, or to find some solution to a problem that current medical practice hasn't yet found.
There is growing interest in approaches that emphasize sleep, movement, nutrition, time outdoors, meaningful relationships, stress management and other foundations of well-being. Some people are even returning to aspects of the self-sufficient, back-to-the-land philosophy of previous generations, not necessarily rejecting modern medicine, but recognizing that there are fundamental elements of health that begin with how we live every day.
One of those elements is our relationship with stress. Chronic stress can affect sleep, mood, cardiovascular health, immune function and the body’s ability to recover. When the nervous system remains on high alert, the body has fewer opportunities to settle into the restorative state associated with rest and recovery. Some people are not even aware that they have chronic stress. Today, it is the standard for most. What does it even feel like not to be stressed?
This is where horses and nature offer something particularly powerful- what it does feel like not to be stressed. Spend a few quiet minutes with a horse and something begins to change. At the barn, everything else disappears from your conscious mind while you engage in the present experience with the horse.
Horses are extraordinarily sensitive to body language and environmental cues. Working with them requires us to become aware of our own bodies and behavior. That awareness can become a doorway to relaxation, confidence and connection. It becomes an opportunity to reconnect with natural beauty, unadulterated by the complicated demands of daily life.
The science is still developing, and horses should never be presented as a substitute for appropriate medical care. But the emerging research, combined with what practitioners and participants experience firsthand, gives us good reason to keep asking an important question: What happens when we create the conditions that allow the body and mind to rest, reconnect and participate in their own recovery?
The Westfield Fund grant is making it possible for Centaur Stride to offer three free educational and hands-on clinics designed to explore that question.
Participants will learn about the relationship between movement, nature, nervous-system regulation and overall wellness--and then have the opportunity to experience some of those principles with the horses for themselves. The goal isn’t simply to talk about wellness. It’s to feel it.
The three clinics will address different aspects of healthy living, including aging, managing discomfort and creating a stronger foundation for people experiencing chronic fatigue and exercise intolerance.
Three Free Community Clinics include:
-- Friday, from 2:30 to 4 p.m., seniors 55 and over -- How Can Horses and Nature Enrich Your Life and Promote Wellness? This session will explore how connection with horses, movement and the outdoors can support an active and engaged life as we age, even when walking is painful and limited.
-- Saturday, Sept. 19, 12:30 to 2 p.m., adults -- How Can Horses Help Relieve Pain? This clinic will examine the potential role of movement, posture, balance, connection and equine activities in supporting people who live with everyday aches and discomfort.
-- Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2:30 to 4 p.m., adults -- Setting the Foundation for Self-Healing and Living with Chronic Fatigue and Exercise Intolerance. This session will explore the relationship between stress, rest, movement, the nervous system and the body’s capacity for recovery, while introducing nature- and horse-based activities that encourage awareness and gentle engagement.
Each clinic is limited to 12 participants. To reserve your place, call (716) 326-4318.
Perhaps the most important lesson horses teach us is a simple one: healing and wellness do not always begin with doing more. Sometimes they begin with slowing down, breathing deeply, moving our bodies, spending time outside, and reconnecting with another living being.
Despite all the complexity of modern life, some of the most fundamental ingredients of well-being have been with us all along, just forgotten.
To learn more about Centaur Stride, visit linktr.ee/centaurstride. Donations to support our programs are appreciated and can be sent to: Centaur Stride, PO Box 174, Westfield, NY, 14787. We always need volunteers. Thank you for your support.
Claudia Monroe is president and founder of Centaur Stride.