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Breaking the chains of your Eating Disorder through the way of the
horse!
Karin Schenkel
Eating disorders have
reached epidemic proportions in our country. Statistics show 10-15 % of
all Americans, adults as well as children, suffer from some type of
serious eating disorder.
An Eating Disorder can affect anyone
regardless of social class, age, race or gender. One of them was Tania.
“So many times it happens we live our
life in chains……
Tania’s story
reveals the power of Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy in allowing a
person to have an “in the moment” experience of the chains they have
been carrying. People with eating disorders have abandoned being in
their bodies and have moved into living in their minds. They have
forgotten their authentic selves and are trapped in the beliefs of their
false selves. The voices of the mind come from the monster whose goal is
to keep them chained to their eating disorder without them even noticing
they no longer have free will. Horses have the ability to make us take
notice of who we are being and what we are doing in the moment. They
have no patience for all the “shoulds”, “shouldn’ts” and criticisms of
the false self. They demand immediate authenticity and only reward us
when we come into our authentic selves in the moment. The insights made
in the round pen, both physically and emotionally, are the
stepping-stones in Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy to work through
issues from the past that are still running us.
Tania has been struggling with
Anorexia for over 10 years and basically floated from one relapse to the
other and from one therapist to the other. She went from hitting rock
bottom to normal weight just to go back down as soon as she got into an
overwhelming and stressful situation. Tania started dieting in 4th
grade after somebody at school called her fat and stupid. Her self
esteem was tremendously hurt and she started comparing herself to her
classmates who seemed to have everything that she didn’t – a perfectly
thin body, which, of course, was the only prerequisite to happiness and
being loved by others. But she was ugly, fat, stupid, lazy and poor.
Tania’s self-labeling was so destructive that she wished she could just
disappear and in order to achieve this goal she lost about 25 % of her
bodyweight within 6 months. Tania didn’t realize that she had handed
over her free will to a monster called Anorexia that would control every
single minute of her life from now on. The only thing on her mind was
how to keep up with a rigid daily schedule, which included hours of
cardiovascular exercising, planning and controlling a fixed daily eating
routine and thinking about how to lose more weight. She withdrew from
friends and social activities with her family and was most happy and
calm when she was left alone with her new friend, the monster.
Tania’s new life style and body image
found support among her classmates and friends who complimented her on
her looks. Every day her belief that only thin people deserve to live
was nurtured by an uncountable number of TV commercials about how to
lose weight and the perfect diet to pursue happiness and a fulfilling
life.
Tania didn’t realize that she was out
of touch with her feelings. She has learned that it is best to ignore or
suppress them in order to be liked by others. Her own feelings were not
welcome and therefore had to be disregarded. Hiding feelings behind an
appearance which signals “everything is just fine” became daily routine.
But not being able to acknowledge and express what she felt made her
spiral down into a deep hole. On her way down, her insecurity grew while
her self-esteem and self worth crumbled. A so-called “false self” took
over and ruled her life. Tania had lost her identity and didn’t know who
she was anymore. The desire to be perfect and please others made her a
perfect victim for boundary violations by others. The helplessness she
felt in such moments further diminished her coping strategies and made
her sink deeper and deeper into the darkness of hopelessness. She was
caught in the web of Anorexia and the chains around her soul were
tightened every day by the growing phantom within her.
Tania didn’t
really believe that horses would be the key to finally unlock the chains
when she signed up for an Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy program.
Horses are members of a highly social
herd structure, and as an animal of prey, they have developed a
heightened state of awareness which allows them to sense changes in the
intent and the emotional state of predators and other horses at a
distance.
They tune in on
every emotional reaction we have, no matter how large or small, as this
is essential for their survival.
People, on the other hand, judge
others and sometimes themselves as being good or bad, stupid or smart
based on a few isolated experiences of their often-unconscious
prejudices and the opinions of peers. Once this impression is formed,
they become increasingly blind to what’s happening in the moment. They
perceive themselves according to that judgment and live a life within
the boundaries shaped and outlined by others. The false self is in
charge and we are saying one thing but in fact feeling quite different
on the inside. Horses are specialists in detecting this incongruity. By
simply reflecting back what they see in the person’s behavior, they act
like a mirror to us and are like a biofeedback agent offering us
constant feedback for our actions. But sometimes their size alone has a
tremendous learning effect and inspires a heightened state of awareness.
Just learning how to connect, direct or set boundaries with a 1000-pound
animal through mental focus and clarity of intent can have an enormous
boost in confidence and self esteem.
…. and we don’t even know that we
have the key! ~ The Eagles
Tania was
standing in the middle of a round pen, a dressage whip in her hand and a
gigantic, but very gentle, 3 year old stallion next to her. The woman
had chosen to work with this horse because of his strength and beauty.
She admired his athletic posture and said that he looked like a prince
who could take her away from all the suffering. The tiny and fragile
body of the woman looked even smaller next to the horse. The exercise of
today’s session was for Tania to set boundaries and through strong
intent and clear focus to ask the horse to circle around her. The
stallion was standing almost on top of Tania and her body language
clearly signaled how uncomfortable and scared she felt but she didn’t do
anything to change her situation. Then the facilitator asked her how she
felt and Tania was able to express her fear, which was located in her
chest and throat and almost made her suffocate. But she was also in
touch with a feeling she knew from the past. It was sitting in her
stomach and felt like a big rock. She recognized it as her shame and
anger. It was her shame of being insulted and called fat and stupid. It
was her anger of being ignored and stepped on over and over again. The
fear was a clear feeling of danger, coming from the enormous animal next
to her and the message was clear: “send the horse out of your space or
move away from the danger.” The feelings in her stomach were evoked by
the boundary violation of the horse and pointed to several incidents of
the past that needed further exploration. The facilitator picked up the
feeling of fear and Tania knew that she had to protect her boundaries
and make the horse move out of her space. She made a shy attempt to do
this by raising her hand and asking the horse to move. Instead of moving
away, the stallion started pushing into the woman, shoving her around.
It took about 30 seconds before the posture and body language of the
woman started changing. Her inward shoulders straightened, her voice
became firmer and more determined and she literally grew above herself.
She picked up the whip and used it effectively. After some tail swishing
and snorting the stallion turned around, walked out to the rail and fell
into a slow trot circling around the woman.
…..Feedback
from the horse
At the beginning
of the round pen session, the horse reacted to the woman’s body language
and state of mind which signaled him that there was no reason to follow
her instructions as she was afraid to defend her space, felt weak and
thought she had nothing to say in this relationship. She didn’t believe
in herself and was intimidated by the size and strong personality of the
stallion. She was convinced that others wouldn’t like her anymore if she
stood up for herself, defended her space and expressed her feelings.
Through the guidance from the facilitator, the woman was able to develop
strategies to communicate effectively with the horse. The immediate
reactions from the horse to her changes made her gain more
self-confidence, which showed in her body posture and voice. Again the
stallion rewarded the subtlest changes in behavior and finally did what
the woman was asking him to do. At the end of the session, the horse
stood next to her, his head gently on her shoulders and she knew that
she had just found a new friend.
The mind’s first step to
self-awareness must be through the body. ~ George Sheehan
Tania realized
that what had just happened in the round pen had happened to her at
school, in her family and at work. She was able to relate her experience
to different situations in her life when people treated her
disrespectfully, pushed her around, shamed her and verbally abused her.
She was afraid of being rejected by her parents, losing her friends and
being even more ridiculed by teachers or employers. Therefore, she
suppressed her feelings and let others constantly violate her space.
She directed the shame and anger towards herself by handing her control
over to “the monster”. When she talked about the child within her there
was only contempt and disgust she was able to express. But during the
round pen session, when she was feeling the “rock in her stomach” she
could finally access these buried emotions, work through them and create
a new story of identity for herself. By the end of her treatment the
rock had crumbled and Tania had been able to stand up to the monster and
finally find the key to open the chains that had kept her from living
her life fully.
Karin Schenkel
is a clinical Psychologist and an Epona approved instructor. Before
discovering the healing power of horses, she worked in several different
Psychiatric Hospitals and had a private practice, where she treated
predominantly depression, eating disorders, difficult life events and
transitions, and chronically ill patients. She now
runs “Chiron Counseling and
Consulting”, an Equine Experiential Learning organization which is
focused on Leadership, Personal Growth and Identity, Difficult Life
Events and Transitions, and Eating Disorders.
Karin can be reached at
Karin_schenkel@msn.com
2-Day-Epona Workshop:
“Breaking the Chains of your
Eating Disorder
through the Way of the Horse”
with
Karin Schenkel, lic. Phil., Clinical Psychologist
and
Regina Hausler,
PhD, Clinical Psychologist
May
6-7, 2006
10
am – 5 pm
Price: $ 400, Lunch included
Location: 17605 244th.
Ave. SE,
Maple Valley,
WA
98038
For more information,
please contact Karin at
Karin_schenkel@msn.com
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