At the Center for Equus Coaching, we often write and talk about community. Last month in our newsletter, I wrote about our team of instructors and how important they are to me. Over the years, the horses have taught us that, just as they need each other, we need each other. We need community.

Our own community of Equus Coaches is going to gather for the first time this October. We run a cohort-based training, which has so many benefits. People become bonded in their cohorts as they embark on a transformational journey together, both to learn about horses and Equus Coaching, but also to learn about themselves and themselves in community with others. The difference in these communities versus the ones we were raised in, went to school in, worked in, etc., is that everyone in this community of Equus-Coaches-in-training is here because they want to learn, they want to grow, and they want to do the internal work that learning and growing require. As instructors, we know that and so in addition to teaching the skill of coaching, we aim to create a space for everyone to learn and grow and to witness each other doing it.

People who come together in this way have a chance to heal. When so many others witness their struggles and their strengths and don’t try to change them and let them find their own answers and their own way, healing happens.

And now, for the first time, we are gathering together in a larger cohort that includes all of those people who have trained as Equus Coaches in a hope that we can expand and create an even larger space of witnessing and being witnessed, learning and growing together, and finding new healing in community.

Where are your communities that value learning and growth? Where are your spaces where you can be witnessed and witness? I hope you find that kind of space for yourself, not as just a nice to have, but as a human necessity.