Equine Informed Awareness (EIA) works because clients work in the healing, regulating energetic field of horses which magnifies somatic practices to increase their capacity for empowerment, emotional resilience, and nervous system regulation. EIA is a somatic based modality.  This means the approach taken in sessions is less about talking and accessing the rational brain and more about focusing on the body to inform insights. This approach allows self-awareness and new meanings to arise organically through working with the body’s responses to thoughts, emotions, and experiences.  

Research indicates that the body has more capacity to influence the brain than the brain influences the body (Van der Kolk, The Body Keeps Score, p207).  This research informs somatic modalities because it identifies the rational, analytical part of the brain (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) has no connection with the emotional brain (the amygdala).  However, the part of the brain which is the centre of self-awareness (the medial prefrontal cortex) does have a connection to the emotional brain (the amygdala). Stress, trauma, and PTSD are located in the emotional brain which expresses itself in physical reactions/sensations. The rational brain expresses itself in thoughts (and words).

Understanding how these parts of the brain work help us understand how we can heal and grow.  Simply speaking, when we experience challenges such as stress, fear or anxiety our emotional responses are stronger than the rational brain (we often have arguments in such states that we know are not logical and often regret!). This occurs because when we have a strong emotional response our bodies release cortisol and adrenaline which prepare the body for fight or flight and these two hormones suppress the rational brain and compromise its ability to function. Unless we regulate our central nervous system (calming down just not intellectually but bodily) we hold discordant energy caused by stress, fear, anxiety, unresolved experiences and emotions, pain, false beliefs and specific traumatic events.  This impairs our rational brain, cognitive functioning, and physical health.  We may find ourselves repeating behaviours we know don’t work but can’t seem to change.  This because change simply cannot occur if we do not seek to connect with our body as well as our minds.  As Dr Peter Levine states “It is the balanced attention to sensation, feeling, cognition and life energy which is become the emergent future for transforming the whole person” (In an Unspoken Voice).

I know that this might sound really scientific and dull, but it isn’t.  If you would like to learn more about why EIA works you might like to read my personal story as told in Horses, Heartache and Healing.  Please contact me to request a free preview of the first chapter.