Some people assume that The Power Behind Nonviolence is a particularly serious workshop. However, the seminar emphasizes how to quickly move through interpersonal challenges to a place of mutual understanding, peace, and joy. “I realized that certain things I had been dreading didn’t have to involve so much work,” says Erin Menut. “Linda helped me experience that it was possible to 
simultaneously be assertive, stand up for myself, and support others in ways that could be lighter, and even fun.”
In the upcoming five-day intensive version of The Power Behind Nonviolence in November, Linda Kohanov is pleased to offer two partial scholarships.
“While I sometimes offer these scholarships at the last minute when we have extra spaces available in workshops, this generally limits the opportunity to people who live within driving distance,” Linda says. “In the case of The Power Behind Nonviolence, I felt it was important to make this five-day intensive available to some people who live farther away and could use a break in tuition to help cover their travel and lodging for a longer workshop, people who find themselves in situations where some innovative social intelligence, leadership, and compassionate, centered, nonpredatory empowerment skills could make a positive difference in the world.”
If you would like to apply for one of these scholarships (which offer a savings of $900 each), please write a couple of paragraphs about why you would like to attend this workshop and why a reduced tuition would make a difference for you, addressed to Linda Kohanov through info@eponaquest.com . For a two-page color flyer on this event, email Sue Smades at the same address, or see the online workshop description at http://eponaquest.com/workshop/power-behind-nonviolence-horse-sense-challenging-times-5-day-equine-facilitated-intensive-2/. (There are also a few spaces available at the full tuition rate. See http://eponaquest.com/workshop-registration/ to register online.)
“Over the last year, I’ve presented this workshop in various formats in several cities and countries,” Linda says. “When I do two or three day versions, the response invariably is that people want to stay longer and go deeper. I wish I could do the five-day intensive version more often and on the road, but it really is most effective when I work at my own farm with a specially trained group of horses that help clients increase these skills progressively and safely. Because of an intense traveling schedule and the need to finish my fifth book by next fall, however, this upcoming workshop November 14 through 18, 2014 is the only in-depth version I will be able to do until fall 2015 at the earliest.”
At the Power Behind Nonviolence intensive, participants practice a series of innovative techniques with gentler horses, gradually building their skill level to work with Spirit, Indigo Moon, and Orion, sons of Linda’s stallion Midnight Merlin. “Merlin’s sons showed the same proud, highly sensitive, occasionally explosive yet immensely intelligent disposition their father exhibited,” Linda reveals, “traits that don’t respond well to cookie-cutter, dominance- submission techniques. By using an empowered, compassionate, nonviolent approach to working with these horses, my staff and I were able to avert many of the difficulties that would have led this younger generation down the same path of violence and rage that Merlin experienced.”
Those who attended the five-day intensive last spring appreciated this progressive skill-building format. “The information we were given was so profound that I could have used even more time to go deeper with some of the more challenging horses who taught me to understand my relationship to fear,” says Terri Roberson, a clinical psychologist who found the work useful for her clients as well as her own personal development. “The workshop generalized beyond the horses into my life. It helped me to understand myself. I began to understand patterns of behavior with other people, particularly how I would diminish my own accomplishments and what I know, and I was able to explore experientially how I could be OK with myself in my own power, in relationship to others.”
The Power Behind Nonviolence workshop ultimately offers tools for everyone, whether or not you have an official leadership or counseling role in life. Teachers and parents who deal with aggressive, fearful, or highly sensitive children learn how work with these challenges in new ways. Social workers, law enforcement, first responders, and people who work in social activism contexts also benefit from both the verbal and nonverbal techniques that de-escalate conflict and consciously cultivate compassion and peaceful connection.
“These techniques are particularly helpful with men and women who must work or live with naturally dominant people,” Linda reveals, “whether they be coworkers, bosses, spouses, or children. And sooner or later, we all have to work or live with someone who is experiencing crisis. Often times, we simply don’t know what to do, other than perhaps empathize or offer a shoulder to cry on. The skills I originally learned in helping aggressive or fearful horses connect to feelings of peace, support, and joy actually help people learn how to calm and focus other people.
“Most importantly, this approach allows you to you hold people accountable for their unproductive actions while also giving you some skills for helping them access their own inner guidance and centered, nonpredatory power to move through life’s many challenges. The ultimate goal behind this workshop is to help all of us to reach a place where daily feelings of connection and appreciation renew us, even in the midst of ongoing challenges.”
Linda provides group rates to organizations that would like to send teams to this in-depth training. Last year, the Northern California-based J.A.Y.C. Foundation, in cooperation with Transitioning Families, sent a team of key staff members, and subsequently employed several of these tools in national presentations to law enforcement and social service organizations.
For more information, contact info@eponaquest.com or 520-455-5908 (Please leave a voicemail with your name and phone number if we don’t answer immediately. Sometimes we’re out working with horses!)
Artwork by J.C. Delano.