Soul Connection With Horses

Working with horses as equal partners in the equine-assisted space while respecting their intuitive wisdom leads to life-changing psycho-spiritual understandings, learning and healing. Soul Connection with Horses: Healing the Mind and Awakening the Spirit through Equine Assisted Practice introduces concepts of awakening and spaciousness as understood in many spiritual traditions and demonstrates that horses effectively model awakening for humans. Through this approach horses help re-establish natural bonds and intuitive ways of knowing that have become obscured by conditioned thought and ineffective individual narratives. Horses show us that we can trust our intuition and learn how to live from the soul while making meaningful connection with ourselves, other people, animals and the natural environment. By considering how horses experience the world through their senses, how they process emotion and how they express their needs, we see that they live through the same social, psychological and spiritual paradigms as humans. Following equine assisted therapy and learning practices through to their logical conclusions, horses naturally lead us to questions of “who am I?” and “what is life?” They help us transcend non-functioning personal stories as we step out of ineffective ways of thinking and being and discover connection and wholeness. This book invites equestrians, equine assisted practitioners and seekers of spiritual connection, to walk in the hooves of the horse, to experience the horses' worldview and to access your own soulful wisdom.

On a trip to Scotland, the psychotherapist family team of Adele, Deborah, and Thomas McCormick — pioneers in the psychotherapeutic use of horses — discovered that early Celtic mysticism held important insights into an equestrian-partnered spirituality. The McCormicks show how to integrate this spirituality with psychology, forming a new, powerful form of healing. Horses and the Mystical Path recounts their memorable journey and the lessons they learned from their amazing equine guides.

What does loneliness tell us? "Be it chronic or acute, slight or significant, loneliness is proof of our relational design. At the core of our being is this truth—we are designed for and defined by our relationships," former pastors Plass and Cofield write. "We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others. Fundamentally, we are relational souls." Our ability to make deep and emotionally satisfying connections rests on the capacity to trust, and we all know trust can be difficult. Early-life relational "programming" and patterns of attachment can serve as blueprints for relationships later in life, whether good or bad. But no matter our conditioning, God is out to reclaim and restructure the deepest terrain of the human soul by helping us shed our reactive "False Self" and put on our receptive "True Self." Through spiritual disciplines and a conscious participation in the love of the Father, Son and Spirit, we transform our self-awareness and our connection with other people. Authored by counselor Dr. Richard Plass and spiritual director James Cofield, The Relational Soul brings together concepts from psychology and spiritual formation. Each chapter includes introductory stories and practical "If this is true, what about you?" questions to help readers engage in relationships in more life-giving ways. When the presence of Christ and community connects with a soul that is open, we witness the miracle of transformation.

This marvelous book, borne of a unique collaboration between Dr. Allen Schoen—a world-renowned veterinarian and author—and trainer and competitor of many years Susan Gordon, introduces the 25 Principles of Compassionate Equitation. These Principles, conceived by Dr. Schoen and Gordon, are a set of developmental guidelines, encouraging a level of personal awareness that may be enacted not only through the reader's engagement with horses, but can be extended to all humans and sentient beings he or she encounters. The 25 Principles share stories and outline current, peer-reviewed studies that identify and support methods of training, handling, and caring for horses that constitute a safe, healthy, non-stressful, and pain-free environment. Through their Compassionate Equestrian program, the authors encourage all involved in the horse industry to approach training and handling with compassion and a willingness to alleviate suffering. By developing deeper compassion for their own horses, and subsequently, all equines, equestrians transcend their differences in breed preferences, riding disciplines, and training methodologies. This leads to the ability to empathize and connect more closely with the “global collective” of horses and horse people. In doing so, a worldwide community of compassionate equine practitioners and horse owners will emerge, which will not only benefit the horses: People involved with horses are found in many influential segments of society and have the potential to affect wide circles of friends, acquaintances, and co-workers from every walk of life. These are simple changes any horse person can make that can have a vast impact on the horse industry and society as a whole.

1. Horses 2. Human-animal relationship.

An intensely moving memoir of a young man who left heartbreak in Maine to seek healing Out West in the company of horses. Growing up in a small Maine town, Chris Lombard had never ridden a horse—never even touched one. But on one fateful night, as what he’d thought was a happy twenty-something life full of love and possibility fell suddenly apart, he met two horses and looked into their eyes. What he saw inspired him to leave everything he had, and everything he didn’t have, behind, and go in search of what was missing. With the little he needed packed in his ten-year-old Pontiac Grand Prix, and little more to go on than a belief that someone would give him a chance, Chris headed west to find work on a horse ranch. His journey took him first to the mountains of Colorado, then the Hollywood Hills of California, and finally, the wild borderlands of Southern Arizona. The settings changed but the same lessons came in quiet moments, movingly captured in these pages: watching horses, reaching out to them, swinging upon their backs. Chris learned new meanings for words—presence, connection, softness, and balance—the elements of good horsemanship feeding a deep hunger he didn’t know he had. But learning to ride a horse, learning to communicate with him, to teach him things, these required qualities Chris was only beginning to cultivate. Human nature plans; it pushes and it rushes. And it would take a terrible accident to awaken a whole new awareness for time and space, and Chris's place within it, beside a horse. In the austere beauty of the Sonora Desert, Chris met a cowboy whose intense love for life on the back of a horse held a deep sadness at bay, but only for so long. Their brief time together, working land and livestock, would bring Chris to the realization that the richly fulfilling new life he’d found held all the answers he sought, but only if he could ultimately leave it behind. Evocatively written, interweaving the author’s growing understanding of horses and how we connect with them with his deeply personal experiences, Land of the Horses brings to life a young man’s transformation alongside the horses, people, and dramatic landscapes of the American West. Healing heartbreak, falling and getting back on, searching for something true—this is a story that is in all of us. And it shows we are all capable of creating the life we truly want to live.

Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul is filled with inspiring stories of rescue and rehabilitation, heartbreaking losses, dedication and commitment, and positive messages of responsibility and unconditional love.

A heartwarming story of a couple and their horse exploring what caring for a horse can teach us about companionship—whether it’s with a four-legged friend or a fellow human. A surprise birthday gift plunged Joe and his wife, Kathleen, into the world of horses as complete neophytes without a clue as to what a horse needed or wanted. They searched for logic and sense in the rule books of traditional horse care. What they found was not what they had expected. Written for everyone who has ever loved a horse or ever loved the idea of loving a horse, this memoir leads us on a voyage of discovery as Joe and Kathleen navigate uncharted territory on their way to achieving a true relationship with their horses. Joe Camp’s inspiring book unlocks the mystery of a majestic creature who has survived on earth, without assistance, for fifty-five million years and teaches us that the lessons he learned apply not only to horses but also to our relationships with people.