FEEL® (Facilitated Equine Experiential Learning) is a leading edge evolution of the horse-human relationship where the horse leads as teacher and healer through heart-centered connection.
Through specially designed FEEL® Activities, horses become your partners in discovery, reflecting your energy, emotions, and inner self back to you.
Experience the horse as mirror, guide, and partner with the support of an Advanced FEEL® Facilitator to awaken your inner wisdom through a connection that’s both profound and joyful.
The Science Behind FEEL®
People tend to feel better and more at ease around horses. Horses’ hearts are several times larger than human hearts, and have significantly slower heart rates, which has a naturally regulating effect on the human nervous system.
Studies show human heart rate and heart–rate variability can become more coherent and aligned with a horse’s rhythm when in close presence, leading to calmness and reduced anxiety.
People interacting with horses have shown lower stress hormones (like cortisol) and higher patterns of calm nervous-system functioning.
Positive changes associated with interacting with horses include:
↑ Oxytocin (“bonding hormone”) – increases with positive interaction and touch.
↑ Dopamine and serotonin – associated with pleasure, mood regulation, and reward.
↓ Cortisol – the main stress hormone decreases with calm interaction.
These changes are documented in equine therapy research and help explain why people feel calmer, safer, and more emotionally present during and after time with horses.
Horses produce strong biophysical signals that the human nervous system picks up:
A large heart generates a substantial electromagnetic field, which some research suggests can influence nearby human physiology. PTSD Association of Canada
In real time, humans and horses can synchronize aspects of heart rate variability, which correlates with calm parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous-system activation
Why Horses?
Being a prey animal, survival is dependent upon the horse’s highly sensitive observational skills and compelling intuitive responses to their environment.
Horses have much larger, sensitive hearts and guts than humans, and so are hugely empathic, thus able to read and tune into our emotions, energies, and levels of consciousness to a far deeper level than we can.
Research on human-horse interactions shows:
Horses are highly attuned to emotional signals, acting like a mirror that provides feedback in the moment.
Horses live fully in the present, which naturally pulls humans into mindfulness and embodiment.
Equine-assisted therapeutic work has measurable benefits for anxiety, PTSD, social functioning, self-efficacy, and emotional regulation.
By attuning to our energy and paying attention to our emotional states and body language, horses hold us in an extremely deep and profound level of awareness, creating a sense of feeling deeply seen, felt and known, that is loving and non-judgmental. Horses have a gentle way of bringing unconscious feelings to the surface and create a safe place for you to process them.
The FEEL® method is extremely flexible and can benefit everyone.
FEEL® work is done through specially designed activities on the ground with horses, meaning there is no riding. It can be complex, self-reflective, and leave you walking away with huge breakthroughs and insights, or it can be soft, simple, spacious, nourishing, and grounding.
Sessions and workshops can be tailored to support different intentions. From simply being in the presence of horses, standing near them, grooming them, and talking to them to navigating complex corporate team dynamics and honing advanced leadership skills.
Sessions can be one-on-one or groups up to 3 people with one FEEL® Facilitator. Workshops can be for a private group of your choice, publicly offered through our EEC Program at LongRun, or custom-designed for your corporate team, organization or charity.
