What are elephants doing in the horse industry, you ask? Taking up a lot of space where they don’t belong. As my guest for episode #5, Kathryn Hofstetter points out, they may seem rather innocent to the good intentioned, but they indeed can pose a rather grave risk.

No, we aren’t talking about actual elephants. But rather, those “elephant in the room” topics that many of us are either used to moving over and sharing space with, or overwhelmed by and don’t know where to begin tackling them. It was a joy and actual breath of fresh air to speak to Kathryn in episode #5 Addressing Elephants and Finding Grace. I’m grateful for her ability to unabashedly acknowledging those seemingly larger-than-life and at times, intimidating aspects of pursuing healing in the horse world, while simultaneously bringing an immense amount of grace through her intentionality, vulnerability, and thoughtfulness.

I connected with Kathryn initially through responding to her Instagram story about mustangs (of course!). As we got to talking, I quickly realized there was A LOT for us to talk about. My interview with her was nothing less than inspiring as she has a true way with words (I think especially when compared to how most gifted horse people I come across tend to have horsemanship come naturally, but words… less so). She possesses a wisdom far beyond her years thanks to her unique interactions with horses, and her health journey which she details in the episode, that is/was anything but easy.

Read on or listen here to learn Kathryn’s thoughts about self-accountability and how horses aren’t simply “cosmic therapists we’ve been blessed with” but highly emotional intelligent beings that reflect our nature, the ethics of our scope of practice as horsemanship facilitators at the intersections of healing, and the importance of saying “I don’t know” and “show me” to horses and the humans we engage with.

So you run a lot of really great programs through Open Heart Horsemanship, including a youth horsemanship program. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Yeah, you know, it really surprised me because I was somebody who, my journey with working with kids was really, really different. You know, when I started teaching when I was a kid, I started teaching professionally, for adults when I was 12. And so I never really wanted to work with kids because for the longest time I was one and I didn't really wanna teach peers. And I, the nature of the work that I do, outside of the Youth Horsemanship program tends to be really intense around the ways that our daily lives affect our horsemanship and usually, you know, the ways that somebody's personal life was kind of bleeding into their horsemanship and maybe, you know, causing some problems or causing some discomfort, and disconnects in the relationship. And that's not as much of a concept when it comes to working with children.

That's just not really the avenue cause they haven't really lived enough life. And the ones that have, you know, that's just not how they process trauma at that age in that kind of container. And so I always sort of went, well that's not my work. And you know, I don't run like a writing school or a lesson program, like the traditional kind of thing that we think about when we think of horse trainers and riding lessons and all of that. It's much more about sort of using horses as a vehicle to teach empathy and discernment and problem solving and critical thinking. But empathy's the biggest one. And so I do things like somatic body practices to work with children when they're fearful about horses.

You know, some of my favorite things to do or work with children who really, really love horses but are terrified of them. And that's something that I see a lot. And so I do a lot of bilateral stimulation techniques and things like that that I teach them in the moment with horses, but very strongly with the influence of, this is something you can do if you're sitting in circle time at class and feeling overwhelmed. Or if you're having a difficult conversation with somebody and you don't know what to do or if you're in any situation where you're struggling. And we talk about things like what does it mean to be overstimulated and how can we empathize with the horse when they're feeling overstimulated and then use that to check in with ourselves and see where we are at. So it's really, you know, a vehicle to teach these kinds of concepts. And then the sort of bring your elbows in, put your heels down, you know, look forward part is sort of auxiliary to all of that.

And like my other programs that I have for adults, I have some students who don't wanna ride the horse, they don't wanna get on them, they don't wanna do that. They may not even wanna really touch the horse. They might just wanna sit in the stall with the horse and talk about the horse and that's awesome. And then I have some that, you know, can do things with my horses that, you know, some of the adults that I've worked with who, you know, have been riding for years still haven't achieved technically. And so there's a really broad spectrum of who I'm working with in terms of like who they are as a soul and what they want with horses and why they're there. And so it's really sort of just the child's version of what I do with adults and I really fell in love with working with these kids.

And there's something that is so unique to, you know, it is, it is incredible to hold space for an adult coming to a profound realization about something going on in their life. But to have a child suddenly tap into something like you know, concepts about empathy or treating others the way that we wanna be treated or all of those different things, and watching the little sort of wheels in their head turn as they work with horses and then seeing them light up with these bits of information that I would have never consciously thought that a child was really capable of understanding. And just to see them express these deep, you know, truths about how we connect with each other, whether it's a horse and a person or two people or whatever it is, you know, what it means to be in connection with another person and what it means to be on your own too.

And so getting to facilitate that for children has completely changed everything about my program. It's changed how I work with adults. So I've been really, really fortunate to get to work with some incredible children and, some of them even, you know, that I haven't worked with for years because they've moved away that I still get regular emails from and who will, you know, send Christmas cards and send pictures of the horses they're riding where they live now, and go, “this one looks like your horse” or “this one doesn't look like your horse, but look at it,” you know, and all kinds of cool things like that. So it's been really wonderful, to get to kind of step into that mentorship role. Particularly given the relationship that I had with my mentor growing up and some of my incredible teachers who, you know, really gave me the foundations that I have today. To get to be that for somebody else is is just incredible. So I'm really, really honored that, you know, people want to bring their children to me and let me be a part of their lives in that way.

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Learn more about Kathryn

Follow Kathryn’s journey, and learn more about her story, mission, and programs at Open Heart Horsemanship, and be sure to follow her on Instagram @openhearthorsemanship.