Emotional Intelligence

How you have learned to deal with emotions as a human, does not work with horses.

Growing up, I watched what it was like when someone exploded emotionally. Not wanting to go down that road, I unconsciously chose to suppress my emotions and feelings. This worked quite well until I started working with horses.

It turned out that suppressing emotions did not work, as horses noticed this immediately, because suppressing an emotion has the same effect on us as holding a ball under water. However, it not only increases your own heart rate and blood pressure, but also that of the people interacting with you.

One of my horses doesn't come to me when I pretend to be fine on the outside while I'm still angry on the inside about an unresolved situation. He picks up the electromagnetic field that emanates from each of us and contains our emotions and feelings. If I acknowledge the emotion, it is already a first step, so the horse does not have to mirror the emotion to me, which he can do quite well. It's not always easy to look in the mirror, but I'm still grateful because this feedback also helps me.

The most important thing I've learned about the horse is that I acknowledge my emotions when they show up. In some cases, when I felt angry, I wondered what boundary had been crossed - was someone late for a meeting, had someone said/done something inappropriate, etc.? When I took action in response to these questions and the situation was resolved, the anger would disappear on its own. Other times, I simply observed my emotional reaction, like a cloud passing in the sky, and let it go without creating a story/drama around the situation.

There are many ways to learn emotional intelligence in everyday life. The main thing is to stop suppressing them and to understand the message they have for us. Emotions are an important part of what makes us human, and expressing them constructively has a very positive impact on our life quality and health.