Equine Partnered Approaches: Coaching, Healing, and Training
What If Horses Were Our Best Teachers? Life/Business Coach, Kate Neligan, discusses how partnering with equines can inspire personal and spiritual growth.
"Most people don't expect transformative life advice from a goat," Kate Neligan tells Anna Louise, grinning. "But then again, most people haven't experienced what happens when you drop the agenda and let animals become your teachers."
In our latest episode, Kate Neligan challenges everything you thought you knew about equine-assisted therapy. Drawing from her master's in spiritual psychology and years of corporate experience, she reveals why horses are ten times more effective than traditional coaching at creating breakthrough moments.
Ever wonder why you feel instantly calmer around horses? Kate explains the science behind their five-times-larger hearts and their remarkable ability to shift our nervous systems from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.
From addressing the rising epidemic of rider anxiety to exploring why so many of us struggle with authentic connection (hint: it's not just you), this conversation dives deep into how horses and, surprisingly, goats can help us rediscover our confidence, curiosity, and joy. Whether you're questioning traditional training methods or simply curious about the growing field of equine-partnered coaching, this episode offers practical insights for anyone seeking a deeper connection with their equine partners.
The moment that changed everything for Kate came through a simple observation at her local ranch. Watching horses work with addiction recovery patients, she witnessed transformations that defied conventional therapy timelines. "I have to do this," she realized, and that clarity of purpose struck a chord with me. How many of us have felt that same pull toward something more meaningful, even if we couldn't quite name it yet?
During editing, I found myself repeatedly drawn to Kate's deliberate choice of words - specifically, her emphasis on partnership over utility. "I partner with them," she insisted during her conversation with Anna Louise, deliberately moving away from the common phrase "using horses" for therapy.
The conversation between Kate and Anna Louise sparked when they discovered they'd both learned crucial life lessons from grey Arabian mares. Kate's mare taught her to slow down and step away from her performance-driven mindset, while Anna's helped her develop a more nuanced approach to communication. Their shared experiences cut through the common stereotypes about "difficult" mares, revealing instead how these horses excel at teaching humans to drop their agendas and embrace genuine partnership.
What particularly caught my attention was Kate's discussion of the "friendship recession" – our collective struggle with genuine connection in our increasingly digital world. As someone who spends their days in an office and evenings editing podcasts, I felt this deeply. Her solution? Let the animals, particularly her goats, break down those barriers and bring people back to a place of wonder before the deeper work begins.
For those of us who've long suspected that horses have more to teach us than we've traditionally acknowledged, Kate's work provides a framework for reimagining these relationships. She challenges the stereotypes around mares versus geldings and pushes us to consider horses as wisdom teachers rather than just recreational partners.
Perhaps what resonates most from this episode is the permission it gives us to change direction when something doesn't feel right. Kate's journey from corporate success to ranch life mirrors the smaller leaps of faith many of us take every day – whether that's questioning traditional training methods or starting a horse-focused podcast on the side of a corporate career.
This conversation left me with questions I'm still pondering as I juggle my own parallel lives: What might our horses be trying to teach us about presence and authenticity? How can we better honor them as partners in our journey? Kate Neligan's work suggests these answers might transform not just our relationships with horses, but our understanding of ourselves.
For those inspired by Kate's approach, you can find her at kateneligan.com, where she offers both in-person and virtual coaching sessions. Her story illuminates a simple truth: our earliest passions often point the way to our most meaningful work.
Have you experienced a special connection with a particular horse that changed your perspective? Share your story with us – you might just inspire someone else to listen to their own inner wisdom.
Coming Up In Future Episodes:
15th January - Ami Cullen Wrangler and Author: Running Free
22nd January -
The Thinking Horse Breeder29th January - Lucy Butt, Equine Behaviourist
Hello Theresa and Anna - I believe horses are always communicating like all animals, in their own silent and sometimes not so silent language. The wonderful thing about learning the hard way about animals, is that you do not blame them. You just say to yourself, "well that didn't work." So what do I do now?
The best thing about the introduction of computers was that you could only blame yourself, if you pressed the wrong key, or had an outcome you didn't expect. You didn't bash the computer (as much as you might have felt like doing so,) simply because you knew it wouldn't get you anywhere, and was counter productive.
You had to continue to work out how to communicate with the computer in such a way as to learn from the experience, or give up altogether.
Now horses are not computers, but their feedback is much the same. They simply tell us to look at ourselves to find out how to communicate with them. There is no use flogging a dead horse (pun in tended) to try get a result. I wish more people would understand this point.
Communication is something awesome when you achieve it, and very subtle in most instances, when the bond is there with a particular animal.
Looking forward to 22 Jan too.