BOOK REVIEW by Leanne Williams

It’s not about the Horse – It is about Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt.

By Wyatt Webb

Just over 8 years ago I was searching for something, what that something was, I’m not sure but what I do recall was that Avoca Park as a business was developing, the Team at Avoca Park was growing and as a Leader I had to grow too.

This book was my first taste of looking inside for that growth, there had certainly been growth in my world, I carried the highest teaching qualifications we had in Australia, I was a successful Competition Dressage rider and I continued to be driven by my development in the understanding of our wonderful Equine friends via their bio-mechanics and natural thought processes and responses. But there was still a reason I was searching.

I came across this little book, it initially intrigued me because it had the word “horse” in the title but the truth be known, it was not written to learn about horses it was written to learn about ourselves (the people).

Wyatt Webb runs his facility in Tucsan, Arizona in America where he works with humans and horses in what is called “The Equine Experience” it is a form of therapy where he blends the horse’s responses to human responses.

He brings groups of people from many different backgrounds such as and not limited to marriages on the rocks, parent-child relationships gone bad, and much worse concerns including rape and abandonment and then also delving into the corporate world. Initially he will say “how you relate to this animal will give us all some insight into what you have learnt off the course of your lifetime concerning how you relate to all living things”, “Let’s start with picking up a hoof” and remember one thing “It’s not about the horse”

From Wyatt’s experiences as a pschotherapist he has discovered that – every human suffers from 2 things in varying degrees of intensity – self-doubt and fear.

To quote Wyatt…

“There’s the fear of physical harm and of emotional harm. There’s the fear of not being good enough. There’s the constant fear of being discovered. Anyone who really wants to grow, expand and know who they are has to travel uncharted territories all the time. So that kind of person has
to live in a world of I don’t know, which is scary, but it’s the only place where you learn anything. What you always find on the opposite side of fear and self-doubt is joy. Joy is our birthright– we’re born with it. But it gets taken away from us and we have to go back and reclaim it.”

“Anytime we’re in a relationship with any living thing and I have the need to win, the possibility for connection and closeness is over.

Our culture is set up in a way that we’ve got to win, which means we’re going to lose. It means that we cannot even hope to connect with each other.”

For Wyatt, it’s all about connection, and the first step to healing is connecting with a horse.

Wyatt initially worked as an entertainer in the music industry and made a decision to get out before his drug and alcohol addiction killed him. He made a decision to become a therapist and now 20 years later his facility The Equine Experience at Miraval Life in Balance is one of the top therapy resorts in America.

And it is definitely on my bucket list to go….

This book is a “must read” for those wanting to understand more about themselves.

“If you’re to achieve the peace, joy, and spiritual fulfillment that you want so badly, it depends upon one thing and one thing only–your willingness to simply do something different.”