May the horse be with you
Evelyn McKelvie believes it really helps people
The horse turns his backside to me, swishing his tail.
“He’s dissing you,” says Evelyn McKelvie gently.
McKelvie is an executive coach who uses horses in her sessions. We are standing in the paddock of Shannon stables in Southlands and Rocky is challenging me. McKelvie urges me to take control. I am to call Rocky on his behaviour. Without using my voice or any physical command, I must communicate my wishes, turn him around and make him walk a wide circle around the paddock.
Rocky has decided to reveal my shortcomings in the leadership department by showing me what can only be described as a horse’s ass.
McKelvie directs me to line up my centre with the soft spot behind Rocky’s ribs, to relax, breathe and send energy from my belly to his. After a moment of reluctance, Rocky begins to walk in a slow circle, taking direction from me.
McKelvie, author of The Executive Horse: 21st Century Leadership Lessons from Horses (equinecoach. ca), has been using horses to coach executives, creatives and even teens by combining two of her abiding life interests, horses and coaching. Working with horses can lead people to become more grounded, intuitive, more aware of how others perceive us and how we affect others, says McKelvie. This in turn can also help people and organizations reduce conflict and aggression and learn to “build bridges that span cultural divides.”
Equine coaching is no t therapy, and there is no riding involved. So how exactly does a horse help humans sort out their own personal and organizational issues?
McKelvie believes that working with horses is powerfully transformative — and requires the same kind of lateral thinking that is required to succeed in a world that is changing at whip-like speed.