PROFILE DR. SUE C. DILLON
Well…
Growing up, I was infatuated with horses well before I had the opportunity to be around them. Like a lot of kids, I read stories about them, loved looking at photos and drawing pictures of them, and collected toy horses of every color that I kept on a shelf near my bed so that I could see them. The likelihood of actually meeting one seemed impossible to me, until…
Finally, in the sixth grade I attended a very small private school in Jackson, Mississippi where I grew up, that had several horses students could ride on Friday afternoons, if we had done well in assignments that week. This was my first experience being near horses,- and, where I met my first horse love, Shannon, a tall brown and white appaloosa.
There was no formal instruction and we weren’t given rules to follow… just get on, and ride. I loved the sweet smell of their coat, the smell of hay, worn leather, sweat and even horse poop. I’ve had so much instruction since then that I can barely conjure that raw feeling of pure joy that I remember feeling as this huge, beautiful creature allowed me to climb up in the saddle, sit on her back and carried me wherever I wanted to go… sometimes, if I asked…really fast… I recall the first time I felt that smooth powerful forward movement… there was nothing like it… then, or now.
I felt more at home in the barn than I did in my house. I could just be myself around the horses and they accepted me without judgement, which had not been my experience with humans to that point. The traumas of my childhood had left me fearful and guarded. The horses seemed to know where the gaps in my little soul were, and they selflessly filled them in with their willingness to be present without judgement, allowing me to discover how to trust, to feel worthy and capable.
Life after that year was such that horses became seemingly a distant luxury that could not be a regular part of my life. I looked for opportunities to visit other people’s horses or rent one for a trail ride, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t until after college, a series of odd jobs, two failed marriages, medical school, residency, ten years of medical practice, disaster response, the stark revelations of working on federal health care projects and losing partnership in the practice of my dreams -that I was stopped dead in my tracks…
In a mode of self-preservation, I had morphed over time from the pressure of life events, medical training and practice to the point that I had lost my ‘self’ along the way… I was in pain. I needed to heal… and, knew that I could with horses, somehow…
So, 10 years ago, I made certain that horses became a regular part of my life. Whether volunteering at a therapeutic riding center as a sidewalker and horse leader, practicing equine massage therapy , taking lessons in natural horsemanship, visiting ranches to work with cattle, riding my horse or with friends, or partnering with a horse to guide others in their journey to ‘self’… Horses will always be a part of my life… for truth, authenticity and presence …
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