Taking off the
Blinders: A Q & A
with Dr. Barbara
Walton, MCC
With a full slate of clients,
including individuals,
couples and teams, ICF
Global Past President and
Master Certified Coach
Dr. Barbara Walton
sometimes needs to enlist
the assistance of some
trusted colleagues. Weighing
in at approximately 1,000
pounds, with a taste
for carrots, apples and
peppermint candies, the
coaching pros Barbara
partners with aren’t likely
to make an appearance at
the next ICF event. However,
as the “workhorses” of
KTD Coaching’s Equineassisted Coaching services,
they play an important
role in enhancing clients’
capacity for self-awareness,
communication and
teamwork.
We asked Barbara to join us for
a conversation about Equineassisted Coaching and the unique
capacity of horses to help clients
take their own blinders off and
see themselves more clearly.
Coaching World: What is Equineassisted Coaching? What does
it entail?
Barbara Walton: We take folks
through a series of exercises, from
simply approaching the horse to
getting the horse to go through
an obstacle course, and the
horse becomes a coach as well.
Horses can give feedback about
the participants that might not
otherwise surface or be revealed.
Horses are very sensitive, and they
will pick up thoughts that aren’t
even being spoken yet, taking the
coaching to a whole new level. The
exercises allow a different level of
awareness and conversation about
who the client is being, who the
client intends to be and who the
client hopes to be, versus how he
or she is showing up.
CW: How did your interest in
Equine-assisted Coaching begin?
BW: I had my own horse when
I was young, and I remember it
brought out such joy and such
freedom just to be with horses.
As an adult, I’ve found that being
around horses brings out the
best in me as a leader and as a
human being, and the overall
emotional experience of being
in the presence of a horse can
do that in just about any client
I work with. I’ve never worked
with anyone who didn’t want to
be around the horse, who didn’t
want to approach the horse.
Clients don’t come to me
expecting to work with horses.
The clients who end up taking
it to the next level and working
with the horses are more or less
at the VIP level: It’s not their first
encounter with my coaching. It
really represents the next level
of coming into my life, as well as
them opening their lives to me. It’s
been a natural evolution to bring
these clients into my environment
and incorporate the horse into the
coaching relationship.
CW: How does Equineassisted Coaching enhance
clients’ learning?
BW: Horses do not have a
separation between what they
think and what they present as
humans do. We have a way of
presenting a persona or a mask
of what’s going on inside us,
and horses don’t. They actually
experience what’s behind the
mask, and what’s not being said.
Horses will pick up on things
in the client that I may never
pick up on or the client may
never reveal. The level of fear
is one thing that gets revealed
very quickly. Most people can
cover their fears very well in
their communication, unless
they’re really anxious, but this
is the more subtle fear, the
more subtle nuances that an
individual may have learned to
navigate in their interpersonal
interactions. Any significant
emotional experience opens us
up to learning, and I find that
horses do that for most adults. It
gives the opportunity to open up,
whether it’s the heart opening
or the mind opening. Clients are
able to learn something new
from the experience of being
in the presence of the horse,
and they are learning about
themselves and I’m learning
about them and learning from
the horse in a way that the
client may never, ever divulge. It
ends up taking the conversation
in a whole new direction.
CW: How do you use equines in
Team Coaching engagements?
BW: Team-building generally
starts in the same way, with
exercises where the individuals
begin to tune into and receive
feedback on who they are and
how they’re communicating
with the equine. We often have
subgroups of the team working
together to accomplish a task,
such as grooming, moving the
horse around the round pen
or moving the horse around
the obstacle course. It elicits a
different kind of collaboration and
communication, and the ability
to align with one another in order
to accomplish a task. You see that
when the participants are doing
these exercises, they’re having a
lot of fun. Some of the learning
doesn’t happen until they’re done
with the exercises and they’re
reflecting on the experience. Even
three to six weeks later, they’re
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