If you have a horse that is fearful – or the flipside: aggressive or bullying – often the behaviour is coming from a past experience of scarcity. Not enough food, competition for resources, inadequate care or love. EFT Tapping for your horse can help heal the roots of this pain and trauma.
EFT Tapping is a mind/body healing tool that uses the acupuncture points along the body’s meridian lines. But instead of sticking needles into these points – to activate the chi or energy flow of the body – we tap on the points instead.
The great thing about EFT Tapping is, because it is an energetic therapy, you can do it surrogately for someone else. You could tap for a friend, a child, or an animal. Once you have done the energetic link-up (which I will show you), the effects are the same as if you were tapping on the other person’s body, instead of your own.
My Belgian mare, Audelina, asked for this session. I’ll tell you the story and then you can join us and tap along for your horse (or dog, cat, etc.) if they have a similar pain or trauma…
As I mentioned in the video, if you have a recurring theme or situation that keeps coming up with your horse(s), tell me about it in the Comments section below and I’ll see if it’s something I can create another tap-along video for.
Is one session enough?
You may be wondering whether you only need to do this tapping session (in the video) once, or if you should do it again, or repeatedly. There are no rules here. You need to follow the lead of your horse. So if you feel (or suspect) your horse would benefit, then do the session again.
As you do it the second, or third time, you may feel like changing the words here and there – go for it! Trust your connection to your horse and if s/he needs you to tap for others things, thoughts or images will pop into your mind, so feel free to go ahead.
The other thing you can do – which is a shorter way of repeating the session – is to tap on the Gamut Point while saying, 3 times, “This remaining fear and scarcity, this remaining fear and scarcity, this remaining fear and scarcity.”
Go ahead and tap on the Gamut Point and repeat this reminder phrase as often as it comes to mind. Sometimes it will come up repeatedly throughout the day, or for several days – just follow your inner prompting.
Keep an eye on your horse and see what happens over the next week or two – it can take a while for the healing to filter down and shift the various layers of the Self.
You may also notice some changes in yourself. Since you are the one doing the tapping, you will automatically “borrow the benefits” of the session.
More EFT for animals…
If you love this healing method, check out the recorded sessions for animals here that you can tap along to, or book a private session with Gwyneth Moss – who is a very good EFT Practitioner.
After the session
Two weeks after I did this tapping session for Audelina and the herd, I noticed a few things had shifted.
Aude released the extra weight she was carrying around. Here’s what she looks like 2 weeks later:
Zorra (Andalusian) has also slimmed down a bit, and Zorra and Audelina’s relationship has improved. Aude is still the boss, but she’s not frequently driving Zorra off the food. I’ve even seen them eating together, which previously would not happen.
Occasionally, I’ll throw them each a flake of loose alfalfa out in the field for a treat. Aude has twice left the alfalfa to come be with me for scratches or meditation!
She has also become… how do I say this… less overtly affectionate. She has not become less loving. But before, it’s like she could not get enough love, like she wanted to climb inside me. There was also something a bit desperate about her affection. As though, if she loved me enough, she could bind me to her and she would be safe. No wonder she chose the flower essence Infinite Love!
So she’s giving less kisses now – more like a normal amount of kisses for an affectionate, yet balanced, secure horse. It feels like a more peaceful, secure way of sharing love with me; secure in her self-worth and secure in my love for her.
And if you’d like to try flower essences – for either yourself or your horse – Lotus Wei has given us a special discount code. Just enter: HAPPYHORSE and you’ll receive 15% off your order – thanks Katie!
A word about chubby horses
However, a week later, Aude put a bunch of weight back on as we had a few days of rain and the spring grasses shot up. She’s a Belgian draft horse and gains weight easily. This doesn’t mean she has a metabolism issue. It’s just her natural physiology.
A few days later, she had slimmed down again as they’d eaten all the new grass and were eating only low-sugar timothy hay. I’ve also noticed she can look 70 pounds heavier or thinner depending on how relaxed, or energized she is.
I think we can get overly concerned with whether our horses chub-up in the Spring or Summer. But it’s important to remember that this is natural. Let’s not assume our horses are headed for founder or laminitis – here’s an awesome article to prod your thinking on this topic.
Jini Patel Thompson is a natural health writer and Lazer Tapping instructor. She began riding at age 2 in Kenya, and got her first horse at age 8 in Alberta, and so continues a life-long journey and love affair with these amazing creatures.
Just did this for my pony who really suffers emotionally from his lack of food when he was a foal. It made me really emotional when I was doing it. I felt that his pain coming out. I really hope it helps. What you say about aggressive, bullying and stressed behaviour is so true for him. He gets so anxious and doesn’t let my love in.His very being is about food and to deprive him of it has damaged him so badly. He is never hungry now but he can feel it like it was yesterday. I can feel his pain. Is this tapping something I will need to do regularly to keep helping him release until it is all gone or will one session start the process for him? Bless him, he so needs to release. I can feel that he wants to but the way he is is all he has ever known and it is so scary to change. Thank you for this video. It has given me hope.
You’re welcome Clare! You may need to only do it once, or you may need to do it 2 or 3 times – every horse/person is different. Also, when you do it again, you may feel him prompting you to change some of the words – just trust that and follow it. It can also take a week or two to filter through the layers of his being. So just follow his lead.
I added this instruction, along with a shortcut to repeating the whole session to the blog post above – see the bit about tapping on the Gamut Point.
For Audelina, I am feeling into whether she needs me to do a follow-up session on metabolism. Because when a horse has been starved or even just fed unnaturally, their metabolism is just like ours and goes into “starvation mode”. For many horses this will automatically self-correct when low-sugar hay is made available 24/7 in slow feeders or hay nets. For others, the body’s decision to “not trust” may go deeper.
Currently, she is significantly fatter than her herdmates, so I’m seeing whether she starts to release the weight (protection, armoring) over the next couple of weeks (now that we’ve done the tapping), or whether she holds it.
Keep me posted on your pony and let me know how it goes over the next week or two.
My two ponies are both overweight despite my best efforts to give a low sugar diet. They transitioned to ad lib hay last year and although I am soaking as much as I can it is not a job I can sustain forever. They have a small amount of grass but the bulk of their intake is hay and self select herbs and foraging on herbs when I take them out. They do self regulate but not enough to lose the weight. I hope that mine start to release the weight too.
This is a beautiful and practical piece, Jini. Thank you for doing it. I tried it on three horses who are presently out of my reach and two cats with whom I live. One of the cats sat next to me while I did it. She yawned about nine times during the procedure. Now, she’s sitting next to her bowl.
Oh very cool Pat – please let us know how it goes with the 5 of them over the next week or two!
Jini – a lovely and powerful meditation; I am so glad to have been introduced to this technique. I did it on our pony, who previously experienced lack of care and probably lack of food at times. As we followed your lead and progressed through the exercise, I did feel him (or at least I think I felt him!) opening to a recognition that now, in the present time, his needs for food, care and love are indeed fulfilled,; all is well. And it seemed that in coming to that full recognition, the past is let go.
When I see him tomorrow, I will try and connect with him and see what he may have to convey about this…
thank you!
Oh how wonderful Mary! And yes, please let us know of any further communication, impressions, etc.
Hi Jini,
Read this article with interest while searching for holistic help for my COPD pony. I do tapping myself a lot but never have used surrogate tapping and not thought about using it for my animals. I am a qualified Quantum Touch practitioner (not practicing at the moment) and have done animal communication successfully but my own life got in the way for a while and it got pushed to the background. This article inspired me again and I wonder if I could use EFT and my knowledge of energy and communication to help her breath easier. I use EFT to take away back pain very successfully so I gather it can be used for physical problems in horses too? I use Nick Ortners tapping system and see you are using 2 extra tapping points e.i. on the ribs and the wrists, which I will use when I try this. I am really interested if you could advise on a script for this. I find it difficult to get my head around words not knowing which emotional trigger is behind her breathing difficulties, as they are not always present and its not clear what causes it. Regards, Astrid
Hi Astrid, glad you’re inspired to get your mojo back! And absolutely EFT can be used for ALL problems. For all earthlings. Especially since all physical problems have an emotional/spiritual component:
http://blog.listentoyourgut.com/i-get-the-message-and-the-symptom-disappears/
You can use Nick Ortner’s method as is, if you wish, it will work just fine.
When you don’t know what’s underneath the symptom/problem, it’s best to start global – which loosens things up and gets the energy flowing. So you could do 2 rounds of tapping through all the points while saying, “This COPD, this breathing problem, this problem in my lungs” repeat as you go through the points.
Then, “I don’t know why it’s here. I wonder what triggered it. I have no idea. I wish I knew. I wish I could remember. I just don’t know why it’s here. This COPD, this breathing problem, this problem in my lungs.”
If you begin to get some ideas, just proceed ahead with them. If you do all the above and there is still no inkling or idea, or vague suggestion, then do a round or two of: “Maybe I don’t need to know what started this. Maybe it’s not important. Maybe it doesn’t matter WHY I developed COPD. Maybe I can begin to heal without knowing the cause or reason why.”
And so on. Maybe then move into some tapping on “When I think about my breathing problems I feel ________”
And just focus on any feelings or difficulties or frustrations that are coming up now.
When you’ve gone through everything that might come up. Then offer a re-frame (a way of looking at the situation that is more positive, or opens to possibilities, or re-positions it in a different, more expansive way). “So even though I’m feeling all these things, and having all these difficulties, I wonder if _________”
Hope that helps and let me know how it goes!
That’s fantastic, thanks Jini. I will give that a try later on today and let you know the results!
Hi All, well it’s been two weeks since I did this tapping session for Audelina and my herd, so I’ve added our results to the end of the blog post above. Looks like metabolism issues are automatically addressed when we remove the fear, pain, need to armor, etc. I also wonder if the Infinite Love flower essence helped with this too. It’s all good!
I am really interested in this. Both my boys are a bit overweight despite a low sugar ad lib hay diet and out 24/7. Champ still has some deep rooted fears of being ridden which I am helping him with. I concentrated on nemo with the tapping but am going to tap for champ as well. Am thinking he is protecting himself with his fat and if he lets go his metabolism may come right. Nemo is doing really well. Thanks
I started with tapping for all my 3 horses and I reminded myself that for a few months some years ago they were in a place where they hadn’t been fed well, at the end they looked like rescued horses… Gush, I didn’t think it could have so strong an impact on them still! Now they are in the best place possible, having 24h grass, hay and space. I think I will do the tapping again but for every horse separately, I wonder what will show up. How often can I do it? Keep few days / week between sessions or it doesn’t matter? I know we have a lot to tap with them!
Thank you Jini! 🙂
There are no rules for frequency of tapping, or for repeating the session. All is energy so you just follow your own intuition and what you feel coming from the horse(s). And feel free to change the words at any point, just wrap up your new section (when you’re finished with the new words/ideas which have come) with: “And nonetheless, I deeply and completely love and accept myself anyway.” Let us know how it goes!