Is Reiki healing for riders any different from Reiki healing for any other person? Perhaps not, but the effects when riders have a Reiki treatment and then interact with their horses are definitely beneficial.

By Hanne Brunn and Heather Studdy

When a person receives healing (and the healer is a good one) they become very relaxed and their brainwaves slow down. This enables them to focus more, and in a relaxed state the muscles relax and pain disappears, which is what most people will experience. Their breathing slows and deepens and as you can imagine, this is a huge advantage when you are dealing with an animal as sensitive as a horse. Animals usually become very relaxed in a healing as well, which is why it is often unnecessary to hold them while the healing is performed. They simply lie down or stand still and accept the energies coming from the healer.

As a healing can heal muscular pain and the client relaxes more, it would be especially beneficial for riders to receive Reiki healing because riders very often have muscular pains in different parts of their bodies. Many riders tense their shoulder and neck muscles and this tension works its way to other parts of the body. And it affects how the rider sits on the horse and from there to how the horse responds to the rider. A rider can easily transmit tension from himself or herself to the horse. Very often a horse and its rider have the same tensions, it is seen many times. So for nothing else than for the horse’s sake, relaxing is good! As many riders (and other people too!) also breathe superficially and thus adding to the tension it is easy to see how healing will benefit them since it slows and deepens the breathing as well as removes tension and pain. The ideal thing here would be getting a healing treatment for both rider and horse as the therapist can see how they work together and go from there, but if that is not possible a treatment for the rider will do.

If you are a timid rider or have had an experience that have made you become so, healing will be good for you as it can go in and work on the fear and what causes it. This can re-build your confidence level, which of course affects your riding and how you communicate with your horse. However, working with these kinds of fear demands a lot from the healer and you will have to make sure that he or she is healing on a level where they can professionally deal with this. And remember that if you go see a therapist and you don’t feel comfortable with how the person is, you should find another one. Trusting your instinct is always worthwhile when it comes to something as personal as a treatment, be it healing, massage, acupuncture or whatever you may do. You need to trust the therapist to get the full benefit of the treatment. And if you ask how you will know – well, you just know when you see the person. There will always be some persons whom you like and trust more than others.

Reiki for Horses

As people are realising the sensitivities of animals and different training techniques are becoming better known, the riders of horses are realising another toolbox exist for healing.  Complementary medicines are one of the fastest growing industries worldwide and even though they will never replace Veterinary care, it certainly opens up the knowledge base from which to draw information. 

Reiki is a modality which is non invasive and can be used by everyone and not cause harm.  Reiki has been known to bring calmness during a veterinary visit and treatment, owners are finding it calms animals that are responding in Flight or Fight mode, assist with factitious horses and can be beneficial to decreasing muscle stiffness.  One thing animals are good at is not judging, they have no understanding of healing just that when certain people lay their hands on it makes them feel better.  Animals have been known to greet a healer with much whickering, pawing or snuffling which they may not do with the owner, they fully accept the healing they are given and are happy to get on with healing themselves, as they usually have no secondary gains from being sick.  Unlike humans they do not have an ego that will block the energy.

Using Reiki on your horse is also a wonderful way to further strengthen the bond between the two of you. It is a way to communicate with them at another level.  The healing energy is like our bodies electrical current, when it is flowing in a correct healthy manner we feel vitialised and so it is with horses.  Trauma (emotional, physical or mental), injury and stress can create blocks with in your horses electrical system and manifest on a physical level, escpecailly when you or your horse are placed in a high pressure situation.

Horses are unable to verbalise their communication so most of your interaction with the horse is done via non verbal (body movement and placement, ears, eyes, intutition and facial expression).  Even with humans communication is 97% non verbal.  As stated in Introducing NLP (J O’Connor & John Seymour) If you thought of communication in percentage terms, research indicates that 7% of communication is compromised of the words you choose to use, 38% of communication is vocal tonality, and 55% of communication is body language.  If this is accurate then seven percent of communication is concious and ninety percent of communication is unconcious.  Thus mis use of body movement or intent can lead to many differeing interpretations depending on the handler and their knowledge to draw upon for this communication.  Unfortunately this can lead to miscommunication and a handler thinking their horse is lazy, dangerous, stubborn or just complete misunderstanding of the horses intentions.  Reiki allows you another method of communication which will help relax the horse and allow you as a rider to take some time just being with your horse.

During a treatment a horse could move into the healers hands, drop their head, yawn and on some occasions graze and then physically lie down.  All healing shoudl be a relaxing experience for all involved.  Healing is something that anyone can do and all that is needed is the intent to help, the focus and the unconditional LOVE for your horse.

• Written By Hanne Brunn email Hanna

• and Heather Studdy Visit Site

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