Empowering Struggling Youth

Horses are Advanced Technology

I listened to Poppy Crum, a neuroscientist and technologist, on a TED talk called Technology that Knows what You’re Feeling. She talked about creating a new technology that could make us better, feel more, and connect more. She said a computer now can detect our slightest facial micro expressions and be able to tell the difference between a real smile and a fake one. She talked about how empathetic technology can read physical signals like body temperature and the chemical composition of our breath to inform on our emotional state.

As I listened to her and watched her examples, I realized that Hannah’s Struggling Youth program using horses is really an extremely advanced technology. Horses understand and react to the humans that are trying to get them to do certain activities. They mirror back the emotions. How do they do this?

The horse can tell how much carbon dioxide is being exhaled and they react accordingly to the participants being apprehensive, tense, frightened, suspenseful or calm and confident. The very chemical composition of breath gives away the feelings.

“There’s a dynamic mixture of acetone, isoprene and carbon dioxide that changes when our heart speeds up, when our muscles tense, and all without any obvious change in our behaviors.”

The horse picks up on this and mirrors back feelings and emotions and realities that suddenly become apparent for the first time.

Horses can tell by the linguistic changes in our voice what emotions are happening and they give invaluable insight back. Even as some spiders tune their webs like violins to resonate with certain sounds, the horse’s respond in a way that the participant doing the exercises get to see and know what’s happening within their own situations.

Our bodies radiate our stories from changes in the temperature of our physiology. Our thermal response gives away our changes in stress, how hard our brain is working, whether we’re paying attention and engaged in the activity. To the horse, the slightest variation triggers a response.

We broadcast a chemical signature of our emotions that the horse responds to in amazing ways to bring insight and clarity and revelation of truths to the participants.

The human eye responds to how hard the brain is working. The pupil doesn’t lie. The horse doesn’t lie either. When the brain has to work harder, the autonomic nervous system drives the pupil to dilate. When it’s not, it contracts. The horse sees into the eyes and knows the real person underneath.

When we say the horse seems to understand it is because the horse does understand. They have loved comforted, protected and carried humankind for millennia. Now they have a key role to play in helping struggling youth learn about themselves and their upside down shockingly cruel world in a way they can cope with, change and face their struggles with courage and aplomb.

– Gloria Loyer