Madalina’s learning journal for the EAHAE conference – Mars 2018

It’s been an unusually busy project calendar during the 4 weeks before my attendance to the EAHAE conference.

Our team’s decision was to attend the workshop on the Thursday before the conference, so we set out one day earlier than previously planned.  I was looking for a break, a few days when I could breathe in and out without watching the clock and paying attention to others’ needs.

Jackie offered me a full-size gift through the workshop on Thursday.

First, it was the request to contribute with the one word I felt best described my intention for the day. The Romanian words for Thank you popped out of my heart and curiously enough I simply accepted it and said it out loud before I had the chance to ask myself “what am I thankful for?”

I’m a high energy person so during the morning I kind of got impatient with what I perceived as being a slow pace of the activities. Time went by, we did the exercises, we debriefed them and so on.

I deeply admired Jackie for the way she speaks: always from the heart, looking for the good in the people, horses and situations, reflecting the essence in little words. Her presence is so grounded that it is a pleasure simply to be around her.

I noticed David who did a very elegant support role in the facilitation of the activities.

Only now I understand that I got what I had asked for: time to breath, time to observe, time to be.

Thank you, Jackie, David, Gerhard and the horses herd!

Then the conference started. I found Friday a painfully slow day.

Then Saturday started with a high bar set by Sanny and Luis. I taught to myself: Wow! Now we’re starting the real business discussions! Let’s do this! I admired the bold ideas they had in terms of illustrating the Horse Dream – HAE concept. I took note to think hard before illustrating the Marketing campaign for the local business.

David and Agata put a very clear frame on the business essence and asked us, the “young ones in the business” a tough question: What do you need from us, the “oldies”?

We started working on the answers and other questions in the bar-camp set-up and things got better and better and better.

Before the end of the conference, on the very last bar-camp session, I was so overwhelmed by the information, ideas, feeling, conversations, that I stood one out. Just wrote some stuff. Drew a few conclusions.  My mind wanted to do this and that and the other thing, but my heart and body were so full that they said “no”. I felt exhausted in a very different way than how I came into the conference. It was as if I was living both 0 and 1 at the same time.I had rested in a way but worked very hard in another.

Another gift I received in this conference was the friendship of Clementine. I had read about what she had done in France with the EquiManager concept, but I did not pay attention to the name (individual or company). I noted down for myself the task to check if the person who did that is in the conference. On Friday evening, for dinner, she sat right in front of me! For some reason I started talking about the topic and she just confirmed that it was her! Over the conference all our conversations felt like between old friends! Thank you, Clementine, for the courage you so gracefully display in your words and actions!

A confirmation of an older gratitude (that of knowing and working with Sanny) came in Saturday evening when catching up with her. We concluded that Earth is too small for her vision, so she should get started on establishing Horse Dream Mars. Now that I wrote this, I noticed that the autocorrect on my keyboard spelled Mars instead of March in the title of this journal entry. Coincidence?

Agata’s sessions brought order into the complicated marketing decision chain. She also gave me a positive and realistic outlook into the future. Thank you, Agata for having shared with us the knowledge for which you have paid with your time and efforts.

I listened to David talk about the business and the clients and i was trying to get the “sales pitch”. There was none! He was just sharing with us a potential faster track to developing a business based on the Horse Dream foundational concepts, from a place of well-being, desire to contribute and help. Thank you, David, for the accelerator idea.

I had great fun playing sales and marketing tricks with Arnd. I noticed him during the get to know each other exercise at the very beginning of the conference and asked him to join us for a chat. He talked about his sales approach, he accepted me poking him with acid sales questions. He kindly accepted to play all the games I proposed during the conference. We are of the same world and it felt like we got the message the other was trying to get across. We were home, business and horse wise. Thank you for the familiar feeling you created.

Annemieken’s closing exercise along with the book were like icing on the cake. I wanted to rest, and she gave me the opportunity to listen to my body. What a perfect closure to an outstanding journey! Thank you, Annemieken for reminding us to listen to our most trustful companion, our body!

The warmest of thank you-goes to Gerhard! He started this! And then found the energy to continue it …for some 20 years. Thank you, Gerhard, for believing!

They don’t read words, they read actions, so I will thank to the horses, in person, every time I will meet them.

A journey begins! See you along the way!