Horse Therapy...It works!

My time staying At a horse farm in Alabama

My whole life I’ve been connected to horses.

In Brazil we lived next to multiple horse farms and would go riding all the time. I grew up around them, cheered when the babies born and cried for days when others died in floods and landslides. We rode them in the mountains, by lakes, rivers, and on beaches. I named the horses I grew close to and kept snippets of their hair with me.

As I got older and the responsibilities of adulthood took over, I grew separate from them. I lived in cities, replacing horse riding with college, coffee shops and wine bars. Still though, the yearning feeling of wanting to ride a horse on the beach again, feeling free with the wind in my hair and sensation of flying lingered in my mind.

Now, on this trip throughout the USA, I was able to start my journey at a beautiful horse ranch in Alabama. I watched them run through the fields every day, took work breaks to walk around the grounds and sit in the grass with them, and rode them in the afternoons.

This experience made me realize that I am still deeply connected to these magnificent animals. Horses make me calm, make me cry, help me through emotional ups and downs in my life and teach me things I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. They are one of my power animals and my guides. I will forever love and be in constant awe of them.

I’m so grateful for this time I get to spend at a horse ranch in Alabama, just me, the horses and nature. There's a reason horses are used as therapy and for healing deep wounds. This year I’ve battled some of my darkest demons and also experienced some of my highest highs. But I would not have been able to do any of it if it weren’t for these animals around me.

When secrets take over your life

Keeping secrets gives them power. Here’s why I stopped.

The whole reason I started a healing journey was because I was tired of lying about my life. I didn’t want to keep making up stories, then bursting into tears whenever I talked about my past.

I was tired of running from the truth, denying my past experiences & feeling jealous of all my friends with “normal” lives. I just wanted to be ok with myself and my life.

Last year when I went to the Texas Book Festival I watched an interview with Adrienne Brodeur and she said the following words which I furiously wrote in my notebook and have stuck with me ever since.

“When you deny and oppress secrets, that gives them more power. When you shine a light on it, you’re able to get over the fear and surpass it.”

I realized that by running from the truth in my life, hiding my past and keeping secrets, I gave them power. That meant anyone who “found out” about my life growing up in The Children of God cult could immediately use that information against me somehow, and people did.

I became convinced that somehow I did something wrong, I should be ashamed, I should hide my life and my past, and everyone was so much better than me.

Turns out that by hiding my past I gave that past power over me. And when others found out my “secret”, that gave THEM power over me. Not anymore. I was over it.

I no longer wanted to give away my power. I wanted to face it head on. Sure, it would be hard. Sure it’ll be uncomfortable, and sure, I’ll make a ton of mistakes along the way. But getting over my fear of talking about my past was worth it.

When you keep deep secrets, things will continually happen to get the attention of that secret. Your life will not be yours until you address the thing you fear the most.

It’s only been a little over a year since I first started openly talking about my life, and wow, what a relief it’s been. I’ve made deeper connections with others & myself. Slowly but surely I made order out of chaos and meaning out of pain. Sure, it felt vulnerable and exposing at first, but it was totally worth it.

If there’s a secret you’ve been keeping, and things continuously keep happening that force you to keep looking at that secret, consider facing it head on. Accept all possibilities of what could happen when you face it, and know that the outcome will most likely be nothing that you expect.

When you speak from the heart, when you tell a deeply personal story and share your journey, no matter how fearful you are or how scary it is, it will resonate with someone, and people will respect you for it.

I know because it happened to me.