Horses and Leadership
Horses have had a huge impact on my leadership and the way that I hold space for children and adults. Horses live totally in their bodies, fully aware and present.
– They’ve mastered the messages of their emotions so that they can move through them in the moment and can take action when needed.
Lynda Kahanov talks about horses not as a prey species but as non-predatory and in a world where the patriarchy and predators have ruled, Embodying the Herd is the way we change systems.
Personal Journey
Let me take you back six years…
– I was learning how to live in and feel safe in my body through moving and dancing.
– It was through my body that I first noticed the peace and flow that the herd gifted me.
– They gave me a deep sense of belonging and inspired my curiosity in how much I could sense, how much I could feel from my body and how I could carry this peace into the classroom.
This clashed with my experience in the education system, where my sensitive nature picked up on everything: loud voices, adults being triggered and reacting towards the children, management strategies that were filled with shame.
– It set a tremor through my nervous system and made me feel like I was on fire, continually having to dampen it down.
This was not what I wanted for the children in my care and for the adults who worked with me.
– It was burning me out and sucking the life out of my passion that was guiding children into beautiful human beings.
As educators, we are continually learning; it makes us great teachers.
– I was always the first to sign up for more, in the hope that it would change me.
– However, often professional development is centered around learning more skills and knowledge.
– I was adding more information into my overwhelmed body and mind, which reduced my capacity to show up as a present, connected educator.
I would leave workshops inspired, carrying another strategy, another framework, another thing to remember.
The Teacher I Aspire to Be
On top of this, there is the teacher that I desire to be, my aspirational self, the creative educator that I am when I’m in my creative flow:
– The children are engaged, they’re happy, and ideas and creative solutions are flowing.
– This is the invisible energetics of our internal state that creates the environment of our classroom, and we never got taught any of those skills.
We do the best that we can with the tools that we have.
Action Step: This is the path to burn out, leaning into someone else’s knowledge instead of tapping into the wisdom and inner knowing that is already there.
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Change in Education
If we as educators want change, it’s time to start doing things differently.
– Through Embodying the Herd, we have this amazing blueprint of connected, congruent leadership.
I use it as a way to communicate how we can be in relationships.
– It takes the invisible, energetics and makes it visible.
– It is the foundation of all that I do because when we are able to cultivate a horse-level sense of awareness, a horse-level ability to energize and respond, and then move fluidly through these emotional states, then we can show up as the people: as teachers, as parents, as the human beings that we desire to be.
Becoming Horse-like in Your Leadership
1. Use your senses to ground yourself
– Feel your Scan around using your eyes, see what you can notice that helps you feel calmer.
– Repeat this using the rest of your senses – hearing, touch, taste, smell, and imagination.
– Notice how you feel after and which sense helped you feel calmer.
2. Body wisdom
– Check in with your body, ask her what she’d like to share with you before you move (dance/run/weight train, etc.).
– Check in once you’ve finished.
– Notice how you feel and if anything has changed.
3. Boundaries
– Imagine you’re surrounded by a bubble, use your imagination to see the colour of your bubble.
– Notice how close or far it feels from you, are there any tears or holes in it?
– Test your bubble with another; see how far away you can sense them as they move into your space.
4. Emotional Mastery
– Ground yourself, find your safety and then sense what the emotion feels like in your body.
– Ask yourself what is underneath this, and keep asking until you feel like you’ve reached the end.
– Action Step: Journaling is great for this, especially in the beginning.
5. Move your body
– Find a style of movement that feels good and take 5-10 minutes to experience it.
– It could be dancing to a couple of your favorite songs, swimming in the ocean, walking/running, or even lifting weights.
I dance every day; sometimes just for one song is enough.
– Remembering we are shifting our bodies’ perspective from exercise to movement that feels good.
Name: Denise Graham
Professional Title: Educator
Bio: Denise is a teacher, horsewoman, energy healer, and founder of Embody the Herd. Having risen from teacher burnout, she now helps educators reconnect with their inner wisdom, embody courageous leadership, and become powerful changemakers creating education systems that nourish both children and those who teach them.
