In this edition of the Eponaquest News, learn how founder Linda Kohanov is bringing horse wisdom to social service agencies supporting the homeless, the elderly, and people in crisis.

“Over the past four years, I’ve had the honor of developing in-depth programs teaching leadership, emotional/social intelligence and nervous system regulation skills to people doing important work in men’s and women’s shelters, nursing homes, and other places that serve people in challenging situations,” Linda says. “The innovative format we use would not be possible without the online trainings I created with support from Nelda and Karl Buckman. We worked for two years to develop evocative and informative, self-paced courses that bring unique tools and equine-inspired insights to people, many of whom never expressed interest in horses. One agency has been able to arrange monthly trips to the ranch, and that is certainly optimal. But two of the larger agencies have had remarkable success with the online courses, bi-weekly Zoom sessions, and on-site trainings that do not involve direct equine-facilitated sessions. I’m pleased that the tools I learned from horses can be taken directly to the human world and make a significant impact beyond the barn.”

Individuals can also enroll in the online courses at https://lindakohanov.com. A special new year’s discount of 30 percent off is available until January 15 by entering the coupon code “30newyear” at check out. Tuition also includes monthly group Zoom calls with Linda Kohanov where students can ask questions, share anecdotes and explore how to take the tools deeper in their personal and professional lives, with or without horses.

Agency Support

Highland Rivers Behavioral Health in Atlanta has incorporated all three of the online courses in their leadership academy, with the goal of bringing these skills to 800 staff members over time. In fall 2024, a new program through the University of Alberta, supported by a grant from the Canadian government, employs the online courses with Zoom coaching sessions and two in-person trainings with Linda Kohanov to support nearly 100 nursing home managers over a two-year period. And earlier this summer, Tucson’s Primavera Foundation began a program for managers who oversee various services to address homelessness and poverty in Southern Arizona.

“It’s amazing how the horse element really enlivens and inspires people to explore new ways of dealing with challenges related to interpersonal conflict, compassion fatigue, trust building, mutual support and empowerment,” Linda marvels. “Even when they can’t work directly with the animals themselves, the stories and videos of horses really engage people. I’m pleasantly surprised and truly inspired myself. Along the way, I’ve gained such respect for the dedicated people who are working with abuse and human trafficking survivors, individuals in long-term elderly care, and people who are struggling with poverty. Some run homeless shelters; others actually go into homeless camps to build trust and provide services to people in need. Part of doing this kind of work involves developing emotional heroism to function in situations where hope can be in short supply and burn out is a constant concern.”

An Overview of the Canadian Program

Carole Estabrooks, PhD, and her University of Alberta research team collaborated closely with Linda to create a custom program for managers working in LTC homes (nursing homes).  As Carole summarizes:

“This workforce resilience project is a multi-component training that incorporates coherent breathing, advanced nonverbal communication skills and practical leadership skills, as well as advanced skill development in managing improvement and change strategies in care homes. At its core are principles of trust, self-care, and strong peer support. Foundational materials supporting this project include Linda Kohanov’s online courses – Connections 101 and Five Roles of a Master Herder. These high-quality courses and selected readings from Kohanov’s Power of the Herd, form the basis for regular online coaching sessions that culminate twice with in-person workshops. The schedule laid out over about 2.5 years will take two groups of 50 managers each, from all Alberta health zones, through the entire program. The program has been designed to enable three often missing components of personal or professional development:

• time to reflect and digest,
• opportunity to go into each of the 5 roles (and other key concepts) in great depth with monthly coaching sessions
• opportunity to meet in-person and explore self-assessment and to consolidate the peer support group

“Participants watch the online courses, read selected chapters, practice coherent breathing regularly, keep research diaries and personal journals and complete regular assessments for the purposes of evaluation and modifying the program as it evolves.”

A Collaboration with the Primavera Foundation

For an even more in-depth look at the Primavera Foundation project, check out the organization’s year-end report on the program below, with quotes from the participants themselves:

The Primavera Foundation launched an exciting professional development program in partnership with Eponaquest, an experiential leadership program, focused on strengthening social and emotional intelligence and leadership skills. Both the approach and the setting are unique with group learning woven together with interaction with horses as guides at the Eponaquest ranch in Amado, Arizona. This six-month program started in July 2024 with a cohort of eight staff in leadership positions. This program was made possible by a generous donation from Nelda and Karl Buckman.

Learning to be a better human with horses

Linda Kohanov, founder of Eponaquest, developed this groundbreaking curriculum that incorporates the wisdom she learned from horses into a practical, applicable framework for advancing human development. She is internationally recognized as a trainer, educator, and author of five books. Linda describes her methodology this way:

“The exercises and techniques will help you develop emotional and social intelligence, and strengthen your leadership abilities. You’ll learn to recognize and manage your emotions, express yourself more clearly and authentically, and build stronger, more productive relationships with others. You’ll also learn how to set more effective boundaries, be assertive without becoming aggressive, and help other people and animals move through fear and aggression, build trust, and enjoy life more fully.”

The learning is delivered in three formats: bi-weekly two-hour coaching sessions, a beautifully produced on-line course curriculum that builds from her books, and monthly, day-long experiential visits to the Eponaquest ranch in Amado to work directly with horses. Participants don’t need any prior experience or interest with horses. The horses are never ridden, but rather interact with participants on the ground. The experience is dynamic, challenging, and immediately applicable.

Much of the work starts with self-awareness to understand and take ownership of one’s emotional state in order to manage emotions more effectively. Breathing exercises help to identify a person’s current state and reset the nervous system, if needed. Linda describes the human body as a “tuner, receiver, amplifier” for nonverbal communication and other sources of information. This is important when dealing with staff and clients, and particularly important when entering a round pen with a 1,000 pound equine teacher responding to you.

Setting healthy boundaries as a way to respect self and others is another area of work. One participant reflected on the importance of this when working with shelter clients, many of whom have had significant trauma in their background.  “The more people who know this, the better,” she said.  She wants her staff to understand this rule: when you are approaching a client, they get to set the boundaries. When they are approaching you, you get to set the boundaries.”

Applying it at Primavera (and in life)

The Five Roles of a Master Herder, Linda’s latest book, forms the basis of much of the curriculum. It describes of learning how to employ five roles of leadership and social influence. Linda explains, “The goal is to help each individual become a compassionate, empowered ‘master herder,’ one capable of employing the strengths of all five roles fluidly, as needed. In this sense, the word master refers to self-mastery of one’s emotions and behavior, as well as mastering all five roles. Most people tend to overspecialize in one or two roles and abdicate the others.” Participants learn that to be balanced in life and work, we need to incorporate mature forms of all five roles and understand how to move between them.  A participant shared, “I’ve identified places where I’ve been working out of an immature aspect of a role and now I can start practicing the mature side of it. For example, sometimes I wait too long to address a problem and I can see that this usually makes things worse. I have tools now to positively intervene early on, escalating the conversations and coaching if I need to.”  She later shared it was even helping her with her parenting skills and seeing the difference in her children’s behavior.

As supervisors, participants are thinking of how to use this approach with staff to improve performance, strengthen a sense of community, and show appreciation, as well as how to handle difficult conversations and address team conflict. One supervisor shared, “I’m learning how to improve communication with my staff and help them to feel a part of the team. I’m sharing language and concepts with the goal of improving in our roles to ultimately better serve our clients.”

Another participant reflected: “This is giving me a language that feels powerful. I can now better understand and respond to a situation – and have a better outcome for everyone.” A supervisor shared that she surveyed the staff to get feedback and is now looking for ways to recognize and appreciate good work, like encouraging notes or wellness bags. She’s also has a suggestion box so staff can keep participating in making improvements.

Evaluating the program

Primavera developed an assessment of the program incorporating five validated scales. Since the development of social and emotional intelligence is a core component of the curriculum measurement tools were selected that can offer insights into how individuals are regulating and acknowledging their emotions. Those scales are:

• The Trait Emotional Intelligence (Trait Meta Mood Scale) to assess individuals’ tendency to attend to their moods and emotions, discriminate clearly among them, and regulate them.
• The Social Intelligence Scale is a tool for studying and measuring social intelligence, which scores across three dimensions: manipulation, empathy, and social irritability.
• The Brief Resilience Scale measures one’s ability to ‘bounce back’ or recover from high stress situations. This scale was chosen over other resilience measures because it includes scores for recovery, resistance, adaptation, and thriving rather than just promoting resilience.
• Insomnia Severity Index measures insomnia, a critical element because other studies have linked stress to difficulty sleeping and insomnia related symptoms. It is used to identify the overall level of distress in individuals created by sleeping issues.
• And lastly, the PHQ-4 is a brief screening tool for evaluating an individuals’ anxiety and depression.

All participants completed the assessment before interacting with the course content. Participants will also complete the full assessment once at the mid-point and once at the conclusion of the course. 

Additionally, through qualitative interviews and discussions, these following elements have been consistently identified as particularly important. The first is the use of the “body scan” to help identify emotions and body sensations that carry important information. Because emotions are contagious in groups, this technique also helps people tell the difference between what they’re feeling and what others are feeling. Working in tandem with the body scan, staff are employing the use of coherent breathing for re-centering themselves and for managing stress in a variety of work and personal situations. These techniques are based on the idea that emotions are not only information, but are also contagious and can be positively managed for the benefit of the individual and the group.

Another element that participants highly valued is being able to have accurate language to describe different scenarios they find themselves in. This includes the analytical framework of the five roles of a master herder.  The in-depth explanation along with the opportunity to deepen their understanding and application with the horses, are helping staff to better understand themselves, their strengths, and areas where they need to develop.  This particularly transfers to their supervision and leadership roles.

As we progress through the course, Primavera is considering ways that we could increase staff engagement to integrate these core lessons throughout the organization, while reducing the amount of staff time required. Primavera leadership will be discussing options for creating a streamlined version of this training that would still confer the benefits that other participants have identified.

Comments from staff:

Paula: Overall, this has helped me put “words” to things that I do professionally and personally. I have been able to use specifically the coherent breathing and body scans in group meetings and trainings I’m facilitating or just being in a meeting and seeing that someone seems to be struggling or appears unsure – the coherent breathing often works to help that person.

Learning the five roles more in depth has also helped me when interacting with others and identifying when to “switch” roles to meet the objective of a conversation or situation. 

Karen: I am really enjoying the Eponaquest training. My biggest takeaways so far have been doing the body scan and coherent breathing before or during tense situations, and learning about the five roles of the master herder.  While we each have a role we naturally identify with most, it is so important to also use the other roles when needed. In order for our teams to function optimally, we need a diverse group that includes people that are strong in each role, and each person needs to be able to move within different roles as needed. The more we as leaders can develop these skills, the better able we will be to support our staff and in turn, better serve our participants.

Danell: It has been beneficial to have new language to attach to the many behaviors I see at home and in the work place. Learning the five roles of a master herder has also helped me more clearly identify my own strengths and opportunities for growth.

Reyna:  I know you just needed a reflection or two, but I’ve learned and incorporated more than I thought. As I mentioned during the class yesterday, I’ve been able to incorporate some of training at work and personal life.

I try to incorporate the body scanning before going into meetings or having a big conversation with someone by really listening to my body, listening to my mind, my heart, identifying certain pain points that need to be addressed immediately compared to certain areas that can wait. It’s helped me process how to stay alert, but at the same time not react too quickly.

Coherent breathing and the messages behind emotions have been applied by helping me practice patience more often, helping me slow down, and self-regulate my emotions as needed. I’ve done a lot of self-reflection and processing with my emotions as I’ve had an emotional year and a half.

The master herder roles have helped me identify my leadership abilities, what I continue to work on, and how I address certain situations. I’ve also incorporated this in the following ways:

• I’ve identified the importance of following through with delegating tasks
• Trusting my staff and allowing them to complete tasks as it works best for them
• Providing necessary feedback when appropriate, and “offering observations,” not just feedback
• Not rushing with answers and
• Checking in with staff to build trust and truly connect with staff
• Address unproductive behavior right away
• Create structure and value in people’s roles
• Soften my language to not be perceived as too assertive or direct (in my opinion)

This training overall has inspired me to dive into micro learning (10-15 min audio books) about meditation, healing, coaching, decluttering my mind, forming healthy habits, and effective leadership language.

For more information on Eponaquest workshops for individuals and small groups, www.eponaquest.com. To inquire about how to bring Linda’s multi-media training program to your organization, contact us at info@eponaquest.com.