Imagination: A Bridge to Deeper Connection with Your Horse or Dog #117

Would you like to use your imagination to deepen your connection with your horse or dog? In this episode, you’ll hear how your brain doesn't strongly distinguish between vivid imagination and physical experience, making visualization a powerful tool for relationship building.

Mary guides you through a simple yet powerful visualization exercise where you imagine a soft, glowing band of light connecting your heart to your animal's heart, or a beautiful circle of light surrounding both of you. This isn't just a mental exercise—it creates measurable physiological changes in your body. Your posture shifts, muscle tone softens, breathing deepens, and your emotional state becomes more grounded and open.

What makes this practice so effective is that animals are incredibly sensitive to these subtle changes. They pick up on shifts in your breathing, presence, attention, and energy—even when you're not physically touching them. When you hold that soft image of connection in your mind, it changes something your horse or dog can feel.

Mary explains how this practice creates a beautiful feedback loop she calls "the connection loop": you imagine the connection, your physiology shifts, your animal perceives that shift and softens in response, you feel them soften, and you become even more open. This mutual regulation strengthens with practice and represents real connection, even in silence and stillness.

This visualization practice aligns deeply with the Debono Moves and the Feldenkrais Method concepts Mary teaches, enhancing self-awareness and inviting regulation. It brings love back to the center of your interactions, especially important when worry, fear, or expectation might be pushing love aside.

Mary shares how this approach has "turbocharged" her hands-on work with animals, creating a synergistic effect that potentiates her work. She invites you to try this simple one-minute exercise and notice what happens in your own body and how your animal responds to this new quality of connection.

Key Takeaways:

1. Your brain doesn't strongly distinguish between vivid imagination and physical experience—"what you imagine, you embody."
2. Visualizing a connection of light with your animal creates real physiological changes in your body that your animal can detect.
3. Animals constantly read the world through somatic and energetic cues, sensing your tension, intention, and inner state.
4. This practice creates a "connection loop"—a feedback cycle where your shifts cause your animal to respond, deepening the bond.
5. Intentionally sending loving energy increases heart coherence, which science shows can influence those nearby.
6. This approach helps bring love back to the center when worry, fear or expectations might be pushing it aside.
7. The visualization "turbocharges" hands-on work like Debono Moves, creating a synergistic effect.
8. Even just one minute of this practice can reduce your stress and invite new possibilities for both you and your animal.

Resources:

Grab your FREE videos on Connected Breathing and Rhythm Circles to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Get your free videos on Connected Breathing and Rhythm Circles with your horse. 🐎https://tinyurl.com/equine-videos

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost.

Want to sit in a more balanced, secure way? Click here for all the details on our Feldenkrais series:
Effortless, Balanced Sitting: A FeldenkraisⓇ Movement Series   

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and does not constitute medical or veterinary advice or professional training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or your dog are unwell or injured.  Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

Email [email protected]

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. Today I'd like to share with you something that can gently transform your relationship with your horse or your dog without you needing to lift a finger. Yeah, that might sound surprising, right? Like, what can you do? But stay with me. We're going to be talking about the incredible power of your imagination. It shapes your body, it shapes your energy, and it shapes your connection with your animal companion.

So let's start with this. Your brain doesn't strongly distinguish between what's really vividly imagined and what's physically experienced, okay? So I like to say what you imagine, you embody. So think about this. So. So if you're in a place where you can close your eyes, do this. If you're driving or doing something else like that, please don't do this right now. Wait. Wait for later. But close your eyes and imagine, like a soft, glowing band of light that's connecting you to your horse or to your dog.

So maybe you can think of it like this band of light is stretching from your heart to their heart, or maybe gently wrapping the two of you in, like, this beautiful, spacious kind of circle of light. And notice when you think that, when you vividly imagine. So choose whatever feels right to you, whether the band of light or the circle of light, whatever works. But notice how your nervous system responds to that, okay?

It's. It's as if that connection is really happening, okay? Because in a very real sense, it is. You know, your posture shifts, your muscle tone softens, your breathing deepens, and your emotional state becomes more grounded, more open, more connected. So there are physical changes that take place in you when you imagine, right? So you're using your imagination to create or facilitate this. This shift in yourself, okay? And then your horse or your dog will respond to your shift, okay?

So this is really, really important because, you know, animals are incredibly sensitive. They feel things that we kind of overlook, right? So they pick up on subtle changes in your breathing, just your presence, like where you're directing your attention, your energy, all of those things. So even when you're not physically touching them, right? They're noticing things about you, right? They're noticing your physical and emotional state. So, you know, they're constantly.

Animals are constantly reading the world through, like, somatic and energetic cues, right? So your tension, your intention, your inner quiet, or your lack of it, all of those are felt by your horse or your dog. And so when you hold that soft image in your mind, right? The one with warmth and light and love, right, that changes you and that changes something, that your horse or your dog can feel, right.

They'll detect that. So, and now if you think about this from a De Bono moves or a Feldenkrais perspective, we know that mindful awareness of ourselves is really powerful. So you're also enhancing your own self awareness, right? You're, you're getting to know yourself a little bit better. You're connecting with yourself more when you imagine like that, right? Because you're now being more open, your nervous system is calmer and you can sense more.

So it's something that's helpful, of course, for your animal, for your relationship with your animal, but also your relationship with yourself. Okay? So when you bring that gentle, loving attention to your own body, right, you're not trying to fix anything. You're just, you're inviting regulation, you're helping yourself regulate your nervous system and you're inviting new possibilities into your life. And, and this is the beautiful thing, that invitation, right?

That invitation of new possibilities that ripples outward, which is so cool. I have found this to be incredibly effective in helping my work with animals. So in other words, it's sort of, I call it like turbocharges. You know, I do, many of you know, I do something called De Bono moves with animals, with horses and dogs. I do the Feldenkrais method with humans. And you know, that, that all involves utilizing these very, you know, like kind of, these different strategies of different things I do with my hands.

But that is empowered, if you will, by the use of my imagination, by having this sense of openness and loving energy which creates like a synergistic effect with the hands on work. And it just seems to, to potentiate it, right, to have it become even more effective. Okay. So, you know, and, and getting back to, we're talking about how you're inviting new possibilities when you do this. You're inviting love into the equation because so much of the time, yeah, we love our horses, we love our dogs, we love our kitties, you know, all the animals, right?

We love them. But sometimes when we're doing something else, like whether it's a training thing we're doing or you know, a hands on thing, maybe we're, we're worried about our animal, there's something not quite right, or we have a certain expectation of how we want them to be, love kind of takes a backseat. Like it's not as present, even though we're coming from a place of love. Like that worry is because we love them.

But the fear or the anxiety sometimes pushes love out of the way. So that becomes the, the dominant emotion and we don't want that, right? We don't want that. That's not going to be so helpful. Your animal will feel that, your nervous system feels that. And you won't be in a position to help them as effectively either. So when you, when you connect with your animal in this way where you're really imagining, you know, this warm, soft, lovely light that's connecting you and your animal, again, you're inviting love, you, you embrace that state of gratitude.

It's like you just become more open, right? And that again is going to help you whether that's what you do. Like that's it, like that's fine. Like you just take a few moments to connect on that level. That is wonderful. And you can combine it with the hands on work, the dibono moves that I teach. And that will, will be incredibly effective at helping your animal have greater mobility, more body awareness, regulate their nervous system in different ways, all that kind of good stuff.

So let's get back to like intentionally sending loving energy. Okay. When you do that, you know, something profound really happens because your heart rate becomes more coherent. So your, your, you can think of your heartbeat or your heart rate being like smoother or more harmonious, right? And there's, there's science showing that our heart's electromagnetic field influences those nearby us. Okay? So this is all happening on a level that we may not be conscious of, right?

But it's happening. So by taking care of your own heart, by helping smooth out your heart coherence, right, that is also going to affect your horse or your dog. So what's really happening is like this beautiful feedback loop. So think of it this way. You imagine the connection. Your physiology shifts, Your animal perceives that shift, right? They feel that and then they soften because of that, you feel them soften, right?

And then you become more open. So it's this beautiful loop, I call it like the connection loop, that you get into this feedback loop because it keeps going on and on, right? So the more you do this, the more, the deeper and stronger it gets. And that is mutual regulation and that is real connection. And so even when it's silent, even when it's still, you know, you might be just sitting on the couch next to your dog or standing in the pasture with your horse across the pasture and all this can happen.

It really depends on the quality of your attention to it, you know, and that's why we, we talk about like vividly imagining it, right? If you sort of kind of a little bit imagine it, but you're Thinking about something else, right? That's not going to be as effective. It's like you want to really feel it. So it's like you. You're imagining, you're picturing, if that works for you, like the visual you're.

You're picturing sending out this loving energy in the form of light. Like. Like a colored light could be whatever color you want, or, you know, silvery, barely, you know, white, or something like that could be whatever you want. And again, you choose what works for you. If you want, like a band of light from your heart to your animal's heart, or you want to include your hands in that, like even just that, that image of your heart and your hands sending out this light, or you want to do, like the whole bubble.

You know, I've done. I've done all kinds of variations of this, right? And what I found really helpful is if my. Like, if I'm working with a horse and the horse is away from me, I will often think of, like, this big bubble of energy around me and around the horse and then being connected, right? And what's it really interesting is very often that seems to, like, draw the horse to me.

And again, there's an explanation for this. If you think about how imagining that changes one's physiology, the horse responds to that, you continue to then respond to their response, and it just goes on like that in this beautiful connection loop. So, and again, with your dog, same thing. Your dog could be right next to you. You could be touching your dog, or your dog could be maybe on the other side of the house or something, or out in the yard.

So there's. There's all kinds of ways to do this. So what I'd encourage you is to not underestimate your inner experience and how that affects your animal. Okay? It's. You don't always need to do more. A lot of times it's just imagining, like, vividly, gently, and. And with real feeling. That's enough to shift everything. And because, you know, think of it this way, your imagination is like a bridge, right?

It helps you embody connection. And your horse, your dog, anyone around you, they're going to feel that. So it's not just like in your head, right? It's actually in your breath, it's in your body, it's in the energy you project, right? It's in your relationship. So, you know, it's so deeply aligned with the. With the concepts that I teach in De Bono moves. That's why this isn't an integral part of it.

And some of you may have heard the story. I go into detail about the story in my book grow young with your dog, but I've talked about it in my horse programs as well. I had an incredible experience with a dog named Rocky many, many years ago and that shifted everything for me. And it was this whole idea of having that deep connection. And it started by me sending loving energy to Rocky and what I felt in return was really, really profound.

So, and it, it made me realize that this is an important part of this work. That yes, all the very specific, you know, hands on work is hugely important and it's much more effective if you lay the foundation first, that you create this loving connection first and then you can build on that. Okay, so super really, you know, really powerful stuff and it makes you realize that even like small mindset shifts in yourself can really unlock powerful changes in your animals and in your relationship with your animals.

So, so if this resonates with you, I really encourage you to try it. So take a moment today, I mean, maybe one minute, do this, maybe for one minute, imagine that soft band of light between you and your horse or your dog. And as you do it, notice what happens in your own body. Okay, that's important. Notice what happens yourself. You might notice that you start to breathe a little slower, maybe a little deeper, that your, your muscles soften and be you let go of habitual tension that you often carry.

You know, this is, this is a win win because if help reduce your stress and help invite possibilities for both of you, both you and your animal. So, you know, you might be surprised at how it feels like how good it feels and how your horse or your dog responds to you. So, you know, let it be like a little experiment, just a beautiful loving experiment that you do with your animal.

And, and if you try it, I'd love to hear you know, what your experience is like with it and if you have any questions about it, so feel free to email me mar [email protected] and until next time, thank you so much for listening, subscribing and reviewing the podcast. I really appreciate it and I can't wait to talk to you again. Bye for now.