on Sam’s shoulder while Sam massaged her neck. An hour later, Sam did bring the halter over. But instead of putting it on Mocha she rubbed her with it as if it was another brush. When she put it gently around Mocha’s neck, Mocha actually dropped her nose into the halter herself. Sam then spent some more quiet time with Mocha and then simply took the halter back off; the opposite of what Mocha expected. And while we were grooming and hugging the horses Sam shared examples of some of the human relationships where she feels pushed, manipulated and coerced into doing


things she does not want to do. She started to see that her reactions of pushing back, running away, hurting herself and others which have gotten her labelled with a whole host of disorders (including reactive attach- ment disorder and oppositional defiance disorder) are not much different from what Mocha does.


CCC, Healing Hooves Equine Facilitated Well- ness, http://www.healinghooves.ca/, Director-at-large.


Crossing Oceans to New Worlds: Teens in Transition


By Adrian Juric


“The beginning of the adventure of finding yourself is to lose your way.” Joseph Camp- bell


10


Genuine discoveries have always demanded a journey into the unknown. Leif Ericsson sailed for - and discovered - the New World five hundred years before Columbus, with little more than rumors to guide him.


nand Magellan, the first explorer to circum- navigate the world, sailed with maps made largely of conjecture.


Ferdi-


The transition from adolescence into young adulthood is a similar journey into the un- known. Exciting new lands beckon youth from over the horizon. New forms of free- dom and adventure are promised, along with the power to shape life according to one’s will.


But while the journey promises exciting change, it also promises chaos. Youth quick- ly realize that for the journey to begin, lines to old roles, relationships, and ways of being in the world must first be cast off. The com- fort of sheltered harbors must be left be- hind, and deeper waters must be sought out. Old horizons must sink beneath the waves if new ones are ever to appear.


VOL. 45 NO. 1 | WINTER 2013


This liminal, in-between time is often a time of deep anxiety for youth in transi- tion. Afraid of risking themselves on rough open seas, they may refuse the necessary crossing to a larger, richer form of identity in the world. This refusal may take the form of deliberately sabotaging academic per- formance. It may take the form of refusing to apply for a job or training program. But whatever form it takes, it comes at great cost to personal development. Because a life not risked is a life not lived. And it is, as poet John O’Donohue points out, only through the door of risk that growth can enter.


This is the precise moment where we, their adult mentors, need to intervene.


We need to tell youth the true story of our own crossing. They need to hear that we, too, were reluctant to leave the comfort of safe harbors. They need to hear that we too were buffeted by storms of indecision and self-doubt; that we too sometimes regretted the headings we chose for our lives, spend- ing months – sometimes years -- frantically scanning the horizon for a new sense of direction. Hearing these stories lets young people know that their fears are a normal part of transition that everyone experiences. We need to explain how we chose our life


The above is an excerpt from “It Takes the Time it Takes” written by Sue McIntosh, MA,


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