Relaxation With Horses - How Do Equine Healing Powers Help Us Live Better

Horses have been known for their special healing powers for centuries. The mind of this prey animal is wired to be completely present and reactive all the time. To spot the predator and escape potential danger.

In these tense situations, their minds remind the mind of a modern, constantly rushing person, often in a state of chronic overstress and overstimulation, restlessness, or burnout. Running, all the time, without a break, on autopilot.

The difference is that horses stop to assess the situation and return to calmness and balance immediately when the danger disappears. High alert transforms at once into gazing, resting, or grazing. Because, besides instant reactions and high alert, Horses are as fast to cool down and go back to retrieve a calm mind as their survival instinct tells them to scatter and run away.

That’s the magic of a completely present, unbiased mind and life in a herd, where everyone has a role to play; hence, the responsibility is, in a way, partly collective, but there’s enough space for individual expression.

Horses’ natural flow and absolute presence in the moment bring a wonderful, higher awareness, making us completely present, without a space for wondering on the past or future. Hence, their healing powers become clearer. And that’s not only on a physical level known and used in hippotherapy and ergotherapy around the prerie or stables.

Equine Assisted Healing and Relaxation Exercise,
Apollo’s Light Herd, Belgium 2025

Their purity in being, high sensitivity, and gentleness not only amplify the energy around, but also facilitate different healing stages on a mental, emotional, and energetic level. It also happens because horses’ energy resonates 5 times stronger than ours, and their heartbeat is slower than humans’. These physical aspects have a direct and immediate impact on lowering stress hormones, blood pressure, increasing endorphins, and bringing intentional awareness and the effect of relaxation and peacefulness. Such effects work on conscious and subconscious levels. Of course, if we’re aware, present, and the healing is intentional, the effects are stronger and last longer.

The equine's high sensitivity to one’s energy and behavior teaches us a lot about our own emotional state. Horses mirror and respond immediately to emotions, both negative as well as positive. This happens through the limbic system - here you can read more about how the limbic connection between horses and humans works from a more scientific point of view. In a nutshell, they bring a non-judgmental presence that transforms emotional thunderstorms into peacefulness and tranquillity, healing what needs to be healed.

As very social animals, horses have relations with each other; they share sympathies, antipathies which are instantly communicated between themselves. Conflicts are addressed immediately, sometimes roughly yet effectively. Such natural behavior prevents building up tension and future explosions or unexpected emotional releases, like it often happens with us, humans, when we cover emotions and block the responses, stress and blocked energy from it builds up, until it cannot be stored anymore and explodes or implodes, provoking physical imbalances, diseases, and even chronic illness.

Horses teach us also about acceptance and leadership. They choose leaders for various activities who present different leadership styles - all effective and unique to their characteristics, some peaceful voices standing aside yet firmly, others with stronger personalities more upfront and mighty.

Finally, on a social and emotional level, Horses build attachment, feelings towards each other and other species. They care for each other, love, follow with curiosity, miss when gone, mourn when death comes, show excitement, joy, and interest in others beyond themselves. They communicate, they have individual characters, they are decisive, supportive, inclusive, sympathetic at times, flexible, and patient. Through these qualities, horses ground us, help us reconnect with ourselves, build self-esteem, and most importantly, process complex experiences and emotions like trauma, grief, or acceptance of reality as it is.

That’s how they are great healers and natural thérapeutes. To align and reconnect the body, mind, and heart's energy into one harmonious being.

Upcoming Event: 7th of February 2026: Relaxation with Horses: Grounding in the Moment with Sensory Exercises - Overijse (11.00 - 12.30), cost 35€, 8 places available. Register via email or SMS.
Click here to read the event description.

Longer healing and mindfulness workshops with horses will be organized throughout the spring and summer.

That’s the inspiration we can take from them. To act when necessary. To relax deeper and more often. To enjoy and support each other. To communicate needs. To stay focused in living life and not just running and surviving. To stay present and aware of everything. To take mindful decisions based on experience and reality, not driven by emotional states. To be aware, without expectations, without specific feelings, thoughts, or judgment. To be exactly as we are. And appreciate it as it is.

Awareness and Relaxation Practice with horses is a method that supports the feeling of belonging, acceptance, and peacefulness through understanding of equine behavior and the messages they pass to us. Together. In a natural way.

Individual Sessions and Workshops in Overijse are available to reserve via Doctena or SMS +32472872001.

Testimonials from participants:

“I feel so much more relaxed after the session, like I haven't felt for a long time.”

“It was incredible. I faced my fear. This workshop was not only relaxing. It was like the horse was inviting me to open up and just join the moment.”

“Meditation with horses opened up a new level of experiencing attention and inner peace.”

“Weronika's work with Apolo's herd has been valuable for me. They helped me understand something simple, yet profound: you can communicate with horses—you can simply ask them. Through her guidance as a healer, I've experienced the interconnectedness of all living beings.”

More about the equine projects and the story of how it all started you can read on the equine.symbiosis page (Equine Symbiosis Educational Programs).

About the guide:

Wera (Weronika Kontykiewicz-Biel) is a Well-being Coach, Holistic Healing Practitioner, and Hayashi Reiki Level IV Master, based in Brussels. She has been connected to the equine world for more than 26 years. Currently, she focuses on designing mindful-healthy, and efficient work environments and supporting people with mental health issues and in a state of burnout. Wera facilitates harmonious living, natural relaxation practices, and human emotional healing journeys through the holistic, traditional Japanese and Tibetan methods. In her work, she explores the equine's natural healing powers through hippotherapy and Equine Assisted Therapeutic Exercises to get a better picture, how do horses help us stay grounded and heal on many levels, in the current fast-paced times, even more than ever before.
Visit the Life Cycle Evolution website to read more about stress-reduction and holistic healing services.

Relaxation with Charlie and Hera, lovely couple owned by Els, Charlie’s Weide in Overijse, 2025

Relaxation and Well-being workshop with Apollo’s Light Herd, 2025 Grasheide, Belgium

Relaxation with horses and meditation practice - The Healing Horse Hippotherapy Organization, Tervuren, Belgium, 2026