Horses Can Help Heal People’s Pained Bodies and Wounded Souls (Videos)

(N.Morgan) Horses have graced our history as long as man has been wondering the Earth. They’ve played a vital role in the development and advancement of human societies. Once domesticated, the horse was poised for greatness because of its anatomy, physiology, and sociability. As a herd animal with a pecking order in the wild, it learned sub-ordinance allowing man to become its boss and teacher.

The uses for the horse in man’s life go on and on. The horse was used for food, herding, warfare, transportation, communication, agriculture, trade, commerce, pleasure, sport, religion, symbol, status, gift, industry, competition, and recreation. This is to say nothing about its significant role in the transfer of language, culture, and technology that resulted with the increased mobility the horse offered to man.

Now these majestic creatures are playing another pivotal role in our society- therapy. These gentle souls are once again helping their human counterparts, this time to help heal broken hearts, aiding exercising impaired bodies, and teaching the speechless to open up and communicate. 

Whether or not you are a skeptic about holistic medicine or alternative methods, there’s one thing many of us will agree upon: there is just something magical about the relationship humans have with animals that is deeply profound. When that relationship is used to help a human feel better, miracles can happen. You can witness the results with your own eyes.

“Of all the animals the horse is the best friend of the Indian, for without it he could not go on long journeys. A horse is the Indian’s most valuable piece of property. If an Indian wishes to gain something, he promises that if the horse will help him, he will paint it with native dye, that all may see that help has come to him through the aid of his horse.” ~ Brave Buffalo (late 19th century) Teton Sioux medicine man

A horse gallops with his lungs, Perserveres with his heart, And wins with his character. The Horse. Here is nobility without conceit, Friendship without envy, Beauty without vanity. A willing servant, yet no slave. A horse is a thing of such beauty. . .none will tire of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendor. ~Xenophon

In the first video below, we see how horses are used in the treatment of Post Tramatic Stress Disorder. Many of our veterans are coming home, haunted by the horrors they witnessed while away at war.Horses are like emotional antennas, picking up our every mood and sensing our feelings. As a a lie detector would..

Brian Mancini is an Army veteran who battles post-traumatic stress disorder after having served in Baghdad.

To help with his emotional recovery, he’s turned to equine therapy—a practice that uses specially trained horses to help improve a person’s physical and emotional states.

Watch what happens when Brian enters the ring with two horses.

How Horses Help an Army Veteran Heal from PTSD

It is amazing how the horse gave Brian a visual of how his feelings were projecting out to others and why he was getting the responses he was from those around him. The horses taught him to use patience, rather than frustration and when Brian found his patience, the horses came to him. now Brian can apply this knowledge in his every day life to improve his relationships and interactions with the world.

One program geared towards helping veterans with cope with PTSD is Operation We Are Here and you can visist their website Here

The next video is a trailer for One With The Herd, which is about Equinisity Retreats where the focus is on spiritual healing, using horses to guide the participants through healing process.

From the website: Equinisity Retreats are transformational journeys hosted by Liz Mitten Ryan, Author, Artist and Animal Communicator and her herd of equine higher beings. These spiritual, healing and personal growth with horses and nature retreats offer re-connection, re-vitalisation and healing, dispelling illusion, shifting consciousness and tuning and raising personal and universal vibration.

We offer life changing, healing inspirational, spiritual and personal development retreats including a unique model of Horse Therapy offered by the Herd at liberty and certification in Equinistic Healing. The retreats are individually tailored to each participant depending on your interests in fusion and alignment with the consciousness and spirit of Equinisity.

One With The Herd

Another equine therapy is called Hippotherapy. The definition of Hippotherapy is the physical, occupational or speech and language therapy treatment strategy that utilizes equine movement. Hippotherapy literally means “treatment with the help of the horse” from the Greek word, “hippos” meaning horse.

Horse Therapy Help Autistic Children

These magnificent animals seem to evolve as time goes by- finding more ways to be useful to mankind. They see into our hearts and know our hurts, our ills, our sorrows and work their magic to heal us and make us whole again.  

This final video is Elvis and Riley have fun free-playing with their Equi-Spirit ball. Imagine an 18.5 hand horse horsing around and Riley, his side-kick who is hilarious. 

The story of how the Equi-Spirit Ball came to be: Equi-Spirit Toys & Tools came to be all because of a 2 week old orphan foal we saved from auction in 2000.  After nursing him back to healthy, Riley showed the highest play drive we had ever seen in a horse.  However, he literally would destroy every toy, often within 10 minutes.  Add Elvis, a rescue Percheron/Paint colt in 2001 and we really were spending a lot of money to keep our horses amused. 

Being educators for a Natural horse Care approach, we believe strongly in the importance of play in a horse’s emotional and physical well-being. Realizing there were not any durable horse play balls on the market, we found reliable manufacturers and created Equi-Spirit. Although we sell our horse play toys all over the world, we still run all operations ourselves out of our ranch in Prescott, Arizona.  We focus on great customer service and quality horse play products.

Horses, Elvis & Riley Play with Equi-Spirit Ball

References:

http://www.littlethings.com/happy-healing-horses-helping-humans-health/?utm_source=sptst&utm_medium=Facebook

http://www.spanishvisionfarm.com/About/about_us_horse_quotes.html

http://www.equi-spirit-toys.com/whoisequispirit.html

http://video.beforeitsnews.com/horses-elvis-riley-play-with-equi-spirit-ball_7c7b2fcab.html

http://video.beforeitsnews.com/one-with-the-herd_8ed1ab93a.html

http://video.beforeitsnews.com/how-horses-help-an-army-veteran-heal-from-ptsd_cb19630f5.html

http://video.beforeitsnews.com/horse-therapy-help-autistic-children_d8b6d1819.html

WTHI-TV

Kenny Williams

OWN 

Liz Mitten Ryan

http://www.equinisity.com/

http://cbsdreamteam.com/the-henry-fords-innovation-nation/episodes/horse-play/

http://www.operationwearehere.com/EquineTherapy.html

http://www.childrenstheraplay.org/hippotherapy

http://www.equineheritageinstitute.org/shaping-civilizations-the-role-of-the-horse-in-human-societies/

https://www.autismspeaks.org/news/news-item/10-years-progress-what-we039ve-learned-about-autism

See all stories by N. Morgan