Healing old, unhelpful beliefs and stories we’ve learnt to believe about ourselves over the years is not a linear process, it’s multi-layered.  Just when we think we’ve let go of an old story or pattern and are happily trotting along our new, flower-lined path, hey presto, it pops up out of the bushes and shoves us off our path into the nettles!

I’ve been triggered into an old story again recently of feeling like I’m not doing a very good job as a single parent.

Unhelpful thought patterns have been creeping in that “I can’t do it all by myself” or “it’s too much for one person”.  Unhelpful thoughts that lead to me feeling heavy and flat, lower my vibration and negatively impact my perception of my life and myself.

And then I find myself in “The Drama Triangle” (see previous blog); a model I find myself using so much in my coaching work as it underpins so much of where we “go” when we avoid our own personal responsibility of listening to and meeting our own needs.  A healthy and assertive “Adult-to-Adult” relationship with ourselves and others where we are fully expressing our needs and wants and empathising with others.   A relationship where we are not passively suppressing emotion so it gets stuck in our body and potentially manifests as dis-ease, or aggressively projecting our “stuff” onto others.

So recently I found myself back in a Drama Triangle “Victim” state, feeling a bit sorry for myself and a bit flat as a result of my unhelpful thoughts.  And because I know “The Drama Triangle” so well, I notice it straight away and immediately start questioning what I’m avoiding.  Why was I back in this place I didn’t like being and feeling emotions I didn’t like feeling?  How did I get triggered into this place without noticing, despite all the healing I’d done and the awareness I had?

And low and behold I’m then noticing that I’m moving out of a “Victim” state and into a “Persecutor” state!  I’m then persecuting myself for being in a “Victim” state and my thoughts are saying “you should know better”, “why don’t you know how you got here” and “why can’t you pull yourself out of this”.

I couldn’t seem to find the answers!  Why couldn’t I find the answers and why was I back here again?

Cue…reaching out for help.  Cue….calling a special friend and talking it through.  When I say talking it through I mean spluttering some occasional words inbetween some big, ugly crying!

After the ugly crying had subsided and I was back into a place of being able to actually hear some sound advice, said special friend reminded me that I’m trying to fight evolution!  Of course I can’t find the answers as I’m in a fight, flight or freeze (survival) response.  I needed to allow myself to release the emotion and let it flow through me and I needed to trust that when my nervous system had restored my body and mind to a place of equilibrium and I was back in the present moment, I’d be able to hear the answers from my intuition.

And the timing of that message from my intuition was perfect, of course.  An amazing Equine Facilitated Learning session with a fellow practitioner the following day gave me all the information I needed.

We were working with 3 loose horses in a paddock.  Observing the horses and what they metaphorically represented for me,  I immediately knew that the beautiful, 17 hand, grey represented my heart and soul; a powerful, grounded presence which I know is me when I’m in flow in the present moment.

The other two horses were bucking and racing around the paddock which I immediately knew represented life’s challenges; unhelpful thinking patterns pulling me out from the calm and quiet eye of the ‘storm’ and into the chaotic storm itself, triggering me into a fight, flight or freeze survival response.

The other two horses were galloping around the paddock and I could feel my anxiety rising as they got close to me.  I could feel my default flight (survival) response kicking in and my body shifting backwards as it prepared to run away from this threat.

My Coach asked me where my boundary needed to be around me in order for me to feel safe, and she marked it on the ground.  I watched as she calmly stood on my boundary line and gently but firmly swung a small rope around in circular motions in the air, as the horses approached us.  And I watched as their galloping hooves veered away from her as she set that boundary for them to move out of our space.

She then invited me to stand on that boundary line and do the same; to feel into holding that boundary with my body language and energy.  I felt a bit calmer and more confident having a “tool” at my disposal to hold the boundary but I knew I still wasn’t completely confident in my ability to keep myself safe just by holding a rope, as the horses continued to race towards me.  And my lack of surety was compounded as one of them snuck up on my right side without me even noticing, thankfully at a slower pace.  A perfect little reminder that while I was in my head working really hard to hold my boundaries, and thereby doubting my abilities to hold them, he’d quietly stepped over my boundary so I wasn’t “safe”.

A perfect representation of challenges coming into my life without me noticing my boundaries aren’t solid and I’m not present and grounded.

My Coach then put some treats in a food bowl to represent all the things I needed and wanted to protect with my boundaries.  Standing in a herd of horses with a food bowl was obviously going to “invite” our 4-legged partners to step over my boundaries!

She marked out on the ground where I needed my boundaries to be around me and then invited me to step forward, with my body and my outstretched arm, to push the horses away energetically, rather than being too tense or too flappy with my arms and thereby working too hard.

At first it felt very unfamiliar.  My familiar pattern in life was to work hard to hold my boundaries, which inevitably eventually sent me into my head and into negative thought patterns that things were too hard.

But on repeating this exercise a few times I started to notice that pushing their energy away was starting to feel different.  It was feeling assertive and grounded and was creating the space for me to expand into my own energy; a space where I felt calm and connected to my own power and a space where I felt connected to my heart and soul.

And as I looked up not only did I see the horse I’d pushed out of my energy space calmly standing outside of my boundary line, with his head dropped and his eyes softening but I noticed the other two horses also calmly standing to my left and behind me, outside of my boundary lines; all connected and listening to me and all respecting my boundaries.

What are you allowing into your energy space that is triggering you into a fight, flight or freeze response?  What do you need to push out of your energy field so you can expand into your space and stay grounded, present and able to listen to your intuition?

Contact me to learn more about how Equine Facilitated Coaching can support your healing and connection with your whole self; your mental, emotional, physical and energetic self.

With love Sarah xx