Category: Lifestyle Travel
Equine Connection in Costa Rica
Don’t you just love spontaneous adventures? Those unplanned, profound experiences that come at you out of nowhere. Those are my favorite moments!
Last year, I originally began my journey to Costa Rica for healing. I was amped and ready for meditating, yoga, hiking to waterfalls and just finding myself again. I was completely prepared to challenge myself and embrace the Pura Vida lifestyle Costa Rica is so well known for. What I found was so much more than I could have imagined.
I ended up experiencing something truly life changing. I visited Horse & Soul Connections at Finca Sweet Prince, an equine guided learning and guidance counseling center. The facilitators, Marsha and Mark Friedman, are expert psychotherapists and horse professionals, who guided us into a whole new level of connecting mind, body and soul. The knowledge and expertise they have in their profession is remarkable and shines through in their compassion with others and willingness to make a difference in the lives of those whom visit. Their own love and understanding of horses is what creates the inter-species connection. The combination is a life changing experience.
The horses are drawn to be a part of the healing process and the one whom can truly help you heal will choose you. The horses are the teachers and healers.
Learning to let go of control was the first lesson these magnificent creatures taught me. Trust was the second. Learning to trust in them was a very powerful lesson for me, once I truly gave it. These amazing animals were there for me to lean on, to let go and to release. They sensed things instinctively within me both emotionally and physically, forming a connection that nourished, inspired and revived my soul.
It never occurred to me that a spiritual connection with horses was possible. Learning how they simply live an uncomplicated life. Their capacity to harmonize and thrive with each other and live in the moment is a tribute to the pure spirit of the animal.
A truly transcending experience.
Do you have a Pura Vida experience to share? Please tell us about your favorite Costa Rica moment.
What is a Captivated Traveler
I am a Captivated Traveler. Yes, I do love to travel, however it takes more than that to be captivated. What I am truly passionate about, what draws me in, what captivates my soul, is to explore new things, new places, new views, new people and cultures. I love experiences, discovering what makes each place unique and places that are completely unknown or diverse to me.
Not only have I had the chance in my life to travel around many countries (and all of the US) but I’m lucky enough to have held a career that afforded me the extensive travel throughout my life. The majority of that travel has been solo which can be both incredibly exciting and slightly terrifying. Yet, sometime between camping in the Yukon to staying in a rural village in the middle of the Costa Rican rainforest to finding myself standing all alone in the Forbidden Temple in Beijing, I learned a thing or two about myself including why I love to travel and explore.
I love traveling because it displaces you. You experience wonder, discovery, reverence, disquiet. You learn things about yourself, about others and about the world you may never have known existed. It opens you up, ignites new lights for seeing and experiencing the world through a new lens.
Whether it is overseas, driving cross country, daytripping every weekend, visiting local farms and breweries, spelunking local caves or floating a cenote. There is always a new adventure around the corner. Elevated experiences are all around us. All you have to do is reach out and embrace them.
It’s about those wild unimaginable moments that just happen at impromptu and make you question whether or not you are dreaming and leave you captivated.
