Learning from horses: connecting with compassion

I hadn’t noticed when I had closed my eyes, or when I had dropped to one knee. Although I felt the warmth of the sun and the light breeze on my face, my attention was held by an overwhelming sensation of acceptance from the bay horse beside me.  I was not prepared for the graceful power within the upwelling of warmth and lightness that accompanied my connection with Brujo, or how it rendered everything else superfluous in that moment.  As I walked slowly back to the small group standing by the fence, I felt something had changed in me.  We'd had horses in the family since I was a teenager and I reasoned that connections of the same intensity must have been offered to me over the preceding years. Now the question that dogged me was, so, why had I not noticed them? The answer came so quickly, I had not been open to them.

It was 2012 and I was attending a two-day introduction to facilitating horse-led learning at Equest’s home, Suddene Park Farm.  I had met Pam through the University of Exeter Business School, where I had been lucky enough to participate in a session in which she introduced her compelling horse-led approach to developing individuals and teams. Both intrigued and puzzled, I was unsure as to how the experiences she spoke about might translate into behavioural changes in the people who shared them.  Thinking my sister, a passionate natural horsewoman, might be interested in this work, I had signed us both up for the introduction Pam had invited me to.

Although I can barely recollect any of the practical elements of those two days, I can recall every emotion I experienced and every insight I received. I had seen the value of experiential learning for years, both in and out of my military service, and was always looking beyond the traditional leadership models to support my work.  I was now sure of two things: creating human moments lay at the heart of successful leadership and one had to be open to the connections offered with them.  Such moments were found through quality of attendance and a focus on relationship, not an agenda. I felt that my experience in the field with Brujo was an amplified version of such a moment and this realisation felt both joyous and exhilarating. 

I now knew that it was not only possible to develop relationship awareness in a practical setting but that horses were able to give immediate and wholly genuine feedback about how people related to others, without a word being spoken. The intimacy of the process felt thrilling, honest and challenging, as it came with an acceptance that there could be no script or pre-determined outcomes.

The timing could not have been better. The year before, I had spent weeks living among Cabecar people in the Costa Rican rainforest to learn about their culture and approaches to leadership. These expeditions had culminated in my initiation into the Jameikari clan and this formed the basis of my thesis for my leadership Masters, which I had only submitted in the previous January. I had found that Cabecar leadership was shared, inclusive, loving and founded on the quality of attendance by the cacique (chief) with their community. I was greatly moved by how I had been accepted and mentored without judgement and with the greatest kindness. This tone was set by Donia Silvia, the cacique of the Jameikari, and Urbano who guided me through the initiation process; central to which was building a felt connection with the rainforest, the Cabecar’s past and their future and the individuals who made up its communities. In this spirit, there was no defined timescale for initiation, as these fundamental connections would take the time they take, to echo a phrase I would come to hear so often from Pam.

I found it very striking that I should directly experience this same understanding in a Wiltshire paddock, so many thousands of kilometres from the Cabecar, and it felt like coming home.

There was one principal hurdle to be overcome and that was how to become involved in this work. Although my family had owned horses since I was a teenager, I was neither an experienced horseman, nor had I ever facilitated in such an environment. This problem was short-lived, as not long after those two days, Pam invited me to join the facilitation team for one of her programmes, looking past my obvious lack of experience to the potential she saw in me. This is an invitation I will be forever grateful for. In the intervening years, I have had the privilege to share time at Equest with many clients from very diverse backgrounds. While each programme is unique, all share one central theme, learning from horses provides a deeply personal experience that can change an individual's relationships with others and themselves, both in work and across their lives.

Last September, nearly twelve years later, I felt the soft muzzle of Woody come over my shoulder as I watched a participant’s interaction with another horse. The warm, gentle breath that whispered against my face was accompanied by the powerful but now familiar connection that I noticed for the first time over a decade before.  In this moment, I was overcome with a sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the leadership understanding that working with horses has given me and gratitude for how working with Equest has allowed me to share this understanding with others. With this herd, we explore the place of clarity of intent, compassionate attendance and self-kindness in leadership and find permission to lead as ourselves. For me, this last lesson is the most meaningful of all and I cannot think of anywhere else where this permission is more keenly felt than it is at Equest, the home of embodied leadership.

To find out more about Equest, follow this link: http://equestlimited.co.uk