We had all shared things that we would loathe to tell our families, let alone complete strangers, and the horses had dealt with those painful admissions. Charlotte however had not adequately shared, according to Petal anyway. Pushed this way and that, you could tell that Charlotte wasn’t thrilled by Petal’s behaviour. Throughout the session we had been encouraged to see the horses as representing people in our lives. She eventually admitted that the nippy, pushy Petal represented Helen Wingstedt herself! That secured for me the genuine authenticity of what Wingstedt and her horses do for people. After all, it was hardly a scene you’d want to stage for the press.

 

It’s a credit to Wingstedt that she takes everything in her stride and admitted that she is a perfectionist and that can make her pushy sometimes. Little did I suspect that I was about to get the full ‘Pushy Helen’ experience for myself. We went back into the training room and Wingstedt and I worked on the issues that the horses had brought up. This is an interesting part of the course or session as psychological analysis is applied to the process, causing many cringe-worthy moments to occur when you say, “I’m not like that, am I?” Trust me, if Wingstedt tells you are, you probably are.

 

During the course of our discussion, I revealed whom I thought the big horse Jack represented in my life and why I thought he was alternating between pushing me and ignoring me. Jack had initially been very friendly toward me. We spoke about this and I said of the man in question, “he can be rather cold and callous sometimes. I expect I like the fact that he’s a little less cold and callous toward me, it’s good for my ego.” “Who’s cold and callous?” asked Wingstedt.

 

all photographs by Nathan Murell (with healer horse Helen)

I didn’t get what she was saying for a minute and then remembered all those spiritual treatises that say that you project your own stuff onto others. “Oh, I see, I’m cold and callous.” “No, you’re not cold and callous at all but you think you are. Why?” She then went over to the whiteboard and asked what would happen if it turned out that I was wrong about being cold and callous. “I’d be wrong.” “Do you like being wrong?” “Hell, no.” She listed all the things I told her I associated with being right and all the things I associated with being wrong. I found the ‘right’ list easy to do with words like ‘competent’, ‘trustworthy’ and ‘good’ there. The ‘wrong’ list I found much harder and realised it was because I didn’t ever like to think of myself as being wrong and so I had no words for how it felt to be so. “If you’re always right, what are other people?” asked Wingstedt. “Wrong.” “Yes, so it’s in your interests to be right about things because all these nasty words here, why would you want to be them?” 
 

It was fascinating and so simple when walked through in that way. The session continued in this way until we had worked out that I have trust issues. Hurrah! Whenever I attempted to sidestep the issue or brush it under the carpet, Wingstedt would tenaciously bring me back to it. I discovered why I felt that people who emoted all over the place were ‘wrong’ and why rational, logical behaviour made me feel more comfortable. The long and short of it was that I received a mantra or affirmation, call it what you will, to help me with trusting people and fostering loving feelings. I choose to be loving and trusting.

 

In the last two weeks, whenever I’ve wanted to smack someone in the face I’ve said my mantra. I say it in the morning and about a hundred times throughout the day and before I go to bed. It has manifested some pretty amazing results as far as other people go although I don’t feel any different on the inside. Such transformations are a daily occurrence for Wingstedt who has been working with the horses for many years in different capacities. While she is a practicing Spiritualist medium who often receives information that is helpful to the healing process, she also runs Corporate Horses, a very ‘normal’ company dealing with leadership training for company executives. The range of different people the horses work with is typical of the work that Wingstedt has pioneered. The horses are as non-judgemental as their ‘owner’ or rather carer and co-healer.

 

“They treat everybody differently,” explains Wingstedt. “They just know who you are, it’s like they have a window to your soul. They know what’s real and authentic and what’s pretend and they’re looking at getting you into being centred because that’s what works.”

 

How horses heal

The idea of being ‘centred’ is key to the work of Wholly Horses. Wingstedt says that the horses see emotional or physical distress as ‘broken’ energy lines in the body. They are most comfortable with vibrations from unified, centred people and so they attempt to get people back there. The most centred people are those who do things according to what feels most ‘right’ to them. So if you are deeply unhappy in a relationship or a job, you will find that your energy is disrupted and you don’t have a nice, balanced, centred energy connecting you to your higher self or cosmic energy.

 

The way the horses heal you energetically is through behaving in a way that puts you in mind of the issues you have. You are then forced to acknowledge that issue by verbalising it and then the horses will energetically ‘repair’ the pain that that admission causes. The horses then work through that disturbed energy and release negative energy in a variety of ways, including through working the mouth, relieving themselves and, it has to be said, breaking wind. This may sound amusing but you’d be surprised how badly you need to go to the loo after many very effective healing treatments!

 

Wholly horses are certainly one of the most remarkable healing companies I have come across and the horses really have to be experienced to be believed. They can make the most horse-shy person turn into an enthusiast. We were even treated to the sight of the horses joining others in the meadows at a most glorious canter. An experience not to be missed (although watch out for the smiley people who’ll want to beam at your super-dooper new energetically centred self afterwards!).

 

Horse Dreamer

Petal is the most recent horse to join Helen Wingstedt’s troupe of hooved healers and in the sort of story we love at Prediction, she came to Wingstedt in a dream prior to arriving in her life. “I dreamt of this gorgeous chestnut horse who asked to come and join me and I had said yes in the dream.” A short while afterwards Wingstedt went window-shopping to a horse show, knowing full well that she could not afford another horse at that time but there she was, the chestnut horse from her dream.

 

Wingstedt’s psychic abilities enabled here to confirm that it was the same horse and she felt she simply couldn’t pass her by. She bought the horse with money she didn’t have and returned rather apprehensively home. In the strangest of twists, within a week the exact amount of money that she had put toward buying Petal came to her in the shape of workshop bookings!

 

Helen Wingstedt found that when she had three horses, right before Petal was about to join her, she would have a ‘slip of the tongue’ and say she had four horses if asked. When I asked her how many she had, she felt like she should say ‘five’ so it sounds as if the pitter-patter of unshod hooves is about to be heard once again in Wingstedt’s life!

 

Further Information

Introductory sessions with the horses start from £60. Call Wholly Horses for a complete quote on what sort of session you require. Visit www.wholly.co.uk or call 02920 734081 / 0870 005 3104 for more information.

 

For more information on Tania, please visit www.taniaahsan.com, and www.predictionmagazine.co.uk.

 

To receive the online edition of Prediction, click here