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Unbridled Spirit, Inc.

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Walhalla, SC
Unbridled Spirit, Inc.

An Equine Ministry located in Walhalla, SC. Letting go of fears allows the horse to trust and accept the human as their alpha, or protector.

When the horse accepts a human as one of their herd, the human learns to work with the horse to work out their anxieties. Even in short amounts of time, the peace and contentment of moments with a horse is comforting. There are no judgements with a horse; they do not care who you are or where you come from or what you have done. They do not care what guilt you carry or how you look or if your brai

n is “right.” A child lacking confidence can take great pride in being able to lead around a 1,200-pound animal. A person suffering with PTSD can feel relate to hyper-vigilant and hyper-specific ways horses view the environment. They can learn to release the emotions triggered by traumatic events, just as a horse does. With horses, herd dynamics are very important. The herd is their protection and comfort. They play with each other and they look out for each other. If a horse does something that endangers the herd, there is correction from the alpha. They also communicate messages of acceptance within the herd. If the alpha horse determines something to be safe, they will tell the rest of the herd this. Human interactions are similar. With both human relationships and horse relationships, there must be communication and trust. If a horse does not feel safe, he will not do what a human asks him. He will try to fight or flee. If a human does not trust a horse, they will feel nervous and have reservations about interaction. The horse will pick up on the human’s feelings and mirror them, which increases fears and nervousness on both sides. We use the horse’s reaction to the client as an opportunity to guide our clients to mindfulness. Depression, anxiety, stress, awareness, and regulating emotions all can be helped by mindfulness. Transferring focus from what is internal to what is external helps a person to be aware of the world around them. This is helpful especially when a person struggles with negative emotions, self-talk, and reactions. Herd observation can be helpful in these areas as well. Taking note of how horses interact and communicate and how relaxed they are in the present moment, with no future planning or analyzing is key to contentment and satisfaction. It is important to balance both the internal and external and to recognize signs that emotions are escalating. This enables a person to slow down and look at the big picture. It also helps them to accomplish everyday tasks without anxiety or feeling overwhelmed. Practicing exercises with a horse can be more effective with some people who find traditional talk therapy ineffective or even threatening. It can be as simple as the realization that, “If the horse thinks I’m okay, I must be okay,” and then retraining the brain to a more positive path of thought. The more often the brain’s thoughts are rerouted, the more thoughts take the new pathway. What I love about working with horses is that using the horse as a focal point often helps the client to not feel judged or defensive. Looking at the horse can help them to see things they would not admit on their own. Knowing a horse is incapable of lying reveals hard truths they might otherwise be able to deny. Horses help people realize that even if nothing else about life seems okay, there is an unexplainable feeling of validation when a horse literally cries tears that reflect human pain. We use horses to reveal truths to people about themselves they were not previously able to understand and allow them to heal emotions and fears.

09/05/2024

09/03/2024

People are disappointing. And we’re probably all a disappointment in someone else’s life. We have the arrows in our heart, and we’re the arrow in someone else’s heart.

A horse can be your true friend, if you accept it. A horse can show you try, and trust, and geniuine caring. A horse can show you fear, and worry, and resistance. A horse is truth- people are opinion.

I believe horses are here to shape us. Slowly, over centuries of conquering and breaking and categorizing- slowly, maybe we can be taught. Taught to listen, and taught to love without condition or label or self congratulation.

We live in a warped world, and we warp it continually with our stories. A horse is reality- they are the rock of feeling without being swept into the river of emotion. They are sensitivity without self pity. They are awareness without ego, knowledge apart from information.

A horse can teach us quite a bit about living well, and much more about friendship. Few of us have true friends, fewer of us know how to be true friends.
If we listen, a horse can show us- friendship is not a condition, love is not an emotion, but a permanent state to Wade in, like the river of time, always moving, always available, buoyant like a web shining in the sun to catch our eye, if the sun hits just right.

08/15/2024

Ohmygawsh, yes. Unforced, natural connection and contact! For horses AND people!!!

“I’m teaching my horse to accept contact”

If I had a dollar for every time I heard this! Typically it is accompanied by a horse throwing their head up, diving behind the vertical, gaping at the mouth- essentially attempting to be anywhere BUT the contact.

Here is something I often say to people in my clinics.

Imagine you’re on a date. Your date grabs your hand and doesn’t let go. You squirm to get away, but he holds tighter. He says, some day you will have to hold my hand so you need to get used to it. I won’t release until you accept this contact. Maybe he’s brought up in the school of thought that your display of evasion should be countered with a strap of some kind to prevent you from moving away- a flash nose band of sorts for you.

It doesn’t matter how light or heavy he touches- it is contact that isn’t right for the moment. It’s greedy, and inappropriate.

Now imagine you’re on a date and the conversation has lead you to realize you really enjoy his company. Your relationship is developing, he brushes your hand, you reach out and hold it.

Those are two very different feelings, and they come from two very different places.

When the conditions are there, the contact is taken by the horse. Not the other way around.

Contact has meaning. It is not meaningless pressure on the horses mouth, it is a holding of hands while you dance- it is a connection between your body and the horse’s hind legs. It is the display of everything you believe and who you are- manifested through your hand and into the horse- and the horse’s response is a direct representation of their preparation and feelings about your body and hands.

07/28/2024

❤️❤️❤️

06/18/2024

The biggest focus of what we do here is build relationships between people and horses. Our horses are our family. We are in their herd. We work really hard to maintain that and we expect everyone who comes here to do the same. When we focus on taking care of the horse, trust is built, and the relationship changes us both. Believe me or not, but I was just standing up here at the barn typing and thinking about them, and Bo came running from all the way across the field to hang.

Every day I come over here and take care of these babies and it grounds me. It’s my quiet time. Nothing but peace and love here. Well, some days I get disciplined if I’m not listening or understanding well. They actually call me out quite a lot. There is no judgement or and we don’t hold grudges, though. The world goes right back to being all right all right and we go back to loving and caring for each other.

06/17/2024

This. 👏🏻 Right. 👏🏻 Here. 👏🏻

Herdbound horses -

Herdbound horses are a common complaint- all over the country, horses are attached to a buddy or buddies, often to a level that can make them dangerous to take out alone, or sometimes even five feet away.
There are many opinions on different “fixes,” everything from running them ragged near their friend in frantic circles and resting them away from their friend, to a carrot on a stick or Hansel and Greek trail of treats on the path away from the friend. But the reality is, a herd structure is central to a horses survival, and companionship of other horses is part of their feeling of safety- no training can override the horses desire to be a horse witbout shutting them down

AND

The Herdbound horse is one who is not doing well!

In almost every clinic I’ve taught, the most Herdbound horse in the group is the one in roughest shape- tight back, sucked up flank, pain face, tight groin - the works. Horses that are in physical crisis are much more likely to feel vulnerable, stressed, and feel a strong pull toward comfort- which is another horse.

A horse who is not feeling well in their body, who is not feeling confident in their handler who is fighting against their body (it’s a hard truth because that usually isn’t the desire of the handler, but that is what’s happening), who is in a new and unsafe environment is going to seek out safety, and that pull is as strong as the tide.

What’s the fix for Herdbound issues?
Lifestyle fixes
Horses need a herd, they can’t live happily alone, I don’t care who has a horse that tolerates it, solitary confinement is not a way of life for a horse. They need a group, or at least one other friend at the bare minimum. But they are likely to be less secure with just one friend, and far more worried about leaving

Body fixes
Don’t just write off their body because you get routine Bodywork. Get their back moving, help their groin function without being spastic, create a functional body with a moving back and healthy gut so they can think and not be stuck in survival mode

Rider fixes
Make it so whenever you’re around, they feel safe and they feel secure. That means calm your own energy, learn how to guide, be aware of your environment, don’t nitpick, and make your body make their body feel stable and wonderful. Good riding is moving Bodywork- make it so when you sit on their back they are in better shape than out in the pasture - that is a tall order but I believe it’s entirely possible, and I see it happen all the time.

A Herdbound horse is a stressed out horse - the fix is in your hands entirely.

06/04/2024

Apart from the horses back, the horses face is one of the most frequently disrespected spaces in a horses body. Crowded, tickled, slapped, ruffled, pulled on and pushed on, haltered and bridled rudely and carelessly, and generally treated without sensitivity.

A horses face is typically the first place we interact with to start our work- this is where we approach, halter and lead from. From the first interactions here, we can either create looseness, straightness and calm, or we can brace the whole body and create evasion and distrust.

Every interaction matters. Treat your horses face and head with the respect it deserves, remembering that their head connects into their neck and all the way into their back. If we want to ride a swinging back, we can’t forget to treat the head with respect.

04/19/2024

The day Blackie & Freya went to school. 🩶

Victoria Kelley Brock Raab

03/12/2024

When is the last time you felt completely safe in someone’s presence?

I think people think of safety as the absence of threat, but making someone feel safe is not just harming them. It is a perpetual act:

Observing, responding, preparing. It’s getting to know who you’re the steward of and stepping into their world. It’s shedding your own agenda for the needs of the other. It’s communicating in a way they can understand, and working proactively : working to set things up for success and preventing problems before having to correct them.

The steward’s awareness allows you to feel safe- you feel no need to take over or wander mentally, anxieties are melted away and you can focus.

Within this comfort of safety, you can be pushed and grow without fear. You know what is being asked of you won’t harm you through repeated experiences, and so you can trust and make the leap. You know if you fumble you’ll have support.

So many of us think of a good relationship with horses as loving: but love is an act, and it requires we step up to the plate. Loving someone means loving them in the way THEY need, not what we want. And for a human to step into the horse’s world, we have to change our perspective, and shift our habits. This is what is required to make a horse feel safe.

Photo by Jasmine Cope

03/03/2024

Working in hand, the human has the same responsibility to balance as they do under saddle. The horse is learning always to respond to our ability to balance from our center, and is directed around it.

If we are unstable, moving too busily, erratically, mindlessly, or task focused, we will inevitably put the horse out of balance. Many corrections to the horses positioning could be avoided by not creating them in the first place. Awareness of our own steps, our breathing, and balance from the center is key in all things with horses. You can’t lead a dance gracefully if you don’t know how to dance yourself - you must first learn control over your own self.

02/15/2024

29.9K likes, 275 comments. “It actually makes me very sad that they can’t seen green. A beautiful summer field is just gray to them and you know, in that case, ignorance is bliss”

01/29/2024

A horse is it’s own being. We can find similarities as of course we have, but they are their own. Their mind, their emotions, their experiences- we can say whatever we like about them to make ourselves comfortable, but they live their own experience, and we will never truly know what it’s like.

In not treating them like a human or a dog, or something comfortable and familiar to us, many folks feel worried they’ll lose empathy for the horse- that the horse will be treated like a machine or a tool or without respect.

But I wonder, is it so impossible to respect or empathize something that is different from you? Why must a horse be more like a human to be loved, respected, and understood?

The sheer beauty of a horse in its fullness is what makes them amazing- why diminish that by blurring them into something more human, something less than nature made them? Why reduce their full power and brilliance to the messy world of human thinking?

01/24/2024

🔮🐴✨

01/23/2024

Sometimes this is all a heart needs to reset. ❤️

Check out Kristi Heather's video.

01/19/2024

‎Show HORSES IN THE MORNING, Ep Mountain Trail and Overcoming Fears at Equine Affaire for January 18th, 2024 - Jan 17, 2024

08/08/2022

Hahaha that's true 😂
credits: Naylors

07/20/2022

If you watch closely, wonderful things always happen with horses.

Sometimes it’s the adrenaline and joy of riding by yourself for the first time. It might be the confidence in getting a horse to pick up its feet. Definitely it’s the warm acceptance when the biggest horse in the pasture comes to you and lays his big head on your shoulder and stands quietly with you. I’ve seen whole herds circle up to give support to someone who feels alone. I’ve seen tears dripping out of a horses’s big eyes, mirroring the sadness of the human beside them.

If you wanna know what’s “wrong” with you, just ask a horse. They don’t speak in words but they can show you a lot.

05/24/2022

If you take the time to earn your horse’s trust, if you take the time to help them build their confidence in you, you’ll get a lot stronger connection down the road.

Applies to people, too. ✌🏻 ☮️

Address

Dusty Lane
Walhalla, SC
29691

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Videos

Some of the babies - Bo, Blackie, Doc, Spirit, and Freya at feeding time. Sunsets out here are breathtaking. It’s my favorite moment of every day. **I DO NOT OWN RIGHTS TO THIS MUSIC.