The Problem with my Horse... is ME!

"What If... 

 

 

We are our horses worst nightmare!  

 

We are the problem?

 

Executive summary of this post - to help you decide if you want to read on...

1. I don't join clubs or groups and believe their existence results in complacency 

2. I don't follow one 'natural horsemanship method' above any of the others as none of them work on the issues of both the horse and the human/owner/rider/carer

3. Horses and riders reflect each others physical body tension, pain and areas of problem

4. Personal change has to come from within, and always starts with us first.  

5. We're crazy if we think we can change our horses innate qualities, no more than we can change our spouse or boss!

6. Find gurus, teachers, trainers who put YOU at the centre of training with your horse; your mind, spirit and body.

ta da!

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Since 2004 I have studied with the Intelligent Horsemanship team in the UK,  I have learnt the Parelli methods and followed the work of Mark Rashid.

Still, I have no horse rider /trainer heroes and don't swoon to be in the presence of people who might have won Olympic Medals, Badminton, HOYS, or some other trophy or bauble.  I am not a disciple of anyone or any method.

I hope to become a better more informed disciple of THE HORSE and who he/she is.  To do that I believe we have to learn more about who WE ARE in the process!

Who Am I? Who are you?

Groups/Clubs etc:

Last week I encouraged another blog writer - the talented Issy Clarke - see her blog entry -  NOT to worry about NOT being a member of any particular horse Group.  Groups I believe can provide warmth, comfort and the security, the kind of support that hanging out with like-minded thinkers offer when were on the same wave length.  Great for a night in the Pub!

However, they can also become places of mediocrity and complacency.  Places where it is too easy to agree with each other and seek only evidence that further supports our agreed upon 'way'.  This is at the expense of challenging 'group thinking'  in pursuit of finding 'new' perspectives. 

Some people don't fit into normal conventions.  They aren't followers.  They have a spark of relentless curiosity that sets them apart - they are people who might just discover a new way!  They are the "Map Makers", setting out new terrains so others can follow if desired.

These are the people I prefer to hang out with given half a chance!  Are you one of these people? Do you recognise yourself below?

Have you invented, created anything (idea, method, tool, process)?

Have you had a breakthrough discovery at home, work, or with your horse?   

If you had to come up with your own 'way' of being with your horse could you?  

What would you create?  

What direction would you venture off in?

Do others seek you out and want to follow you?

Are you an inventor or Map Maker? 

Do you WANT to be for reasons other than fame or fortune?

"Natural" Religion!

I haven't found a 'system' yet, (natural or otherwise), that works simultaneously on both the horse and the human.  Until I do I doubt I'll become a fanatic of anything.

Logic alone suggests working on only one half of any partnership has only a 50% chance of success - long term.   If you and your spouse needed marriage counselling, you'd both have to go, right!

Sending your horse off to be 'fixed' (using whichever method or trainer grabs you) simply means the horse comes back changed, (hopefully for the better), to return to YOU; who is the same, unchanged - except for raised expectations of your newly fixed horse! 

The horse often returns to the same barn, same lifestyle and diet.  So now the horse is different but you and his environment are not.  Fixing just the horse lacks the basic realisation that successful relationships are based on equality.  One of us (no matter how big shouldered we are) can't do it all!

 "Every behaviour problem expressed by a horse, anywhere, everywhere, originates in an experience with a human" 

- Joe Camp - Author "Born Wild"

Body to Body:

To wet your appetite, when  we run Equilates clinics at Jigsaw Equine, it's a visual reminder how in sync with our horse's bodies, we can be, for better or for worse. 

If the rider has a crookedness, it's likely the horse will too.  If the rider sits lob-sided the horse will struggle with canter leads.  If the rider holds tension, neck, shoulders, arms, the horse won't relax or move productively.  Etc.  

Notice how many people walk leaning forwards and complain of their horse being on the forehand.  Or, the rider who lacks energy and sloths around then complains they have to 'kick and kick' their horse to get him to move!

Or the rider who races around on 'warp speed' and wonders why every horse they sit on ends up a fizz bomb!

We are mirrors of one another in our energy, physicality and emotionally.  (More on this another day).

Change from within:

"It's my responsibility to change"

Here's what I believe about 'change'...

It's very much an 'Inside out approach'.  Business and self help gurus alike will more often or not espouse the importance of changing from within, before trying to change what's around you.  Think Gandhi when he said

"Be the change" 

The truth about making personal change (however big or small) is that it will be picked up on by others.  Whether or not people see the change for what it is, or understand what's behind it, or even accurately describe it, there is one guarantee ... others will change in response to our change.

As an example, if you and your spouse have a habit of bickering over small domestic chores not being done in equal measure (fair share etc), then over time this bickering becomes habit.  It then becomes an expectation and works like a 'script' with both actors routinely delivering their lines right on cue.

In return for the wife nagging at her spouse he learns to expect the nag and lives on constant alert ready to defend himself, or attack back at her.  She keeps looking for reasons to goad him, finds them, and so on!

So it goes on until one of them decides to break the circuit and stop!  Once one of us changes what WE DO, how WE react, ....guess what happens?  Suddenly our partner changes too!

Now we can't be sure in what way our partner will change.  We can't preempt that.  The change could be for the better as he starts to voluntarily be more responsible around the house and 'do stuff' unrequested or prompted.  This happens because a 'space' has been created.  A space in which the adult inside that spouse can surface free from nagging behaviours that keep them acting like a spoilt child or petulant teenager, by his wife's seen as 'motherly' behaviour.  (No man appreciates living with his mother in adult life)!

Alternatively the spouse's behaviour could deteriorate - becoming more lazy, asleep, apathetic etc relishing this new 'nag free zone' and taking it as his cue to be less responsible than before!  For some people there is escape in denial. 

So, as a result of our change we could either get a willing partner at home, or a partner who shows more of their true nature giving us further clarity about if this is a good relationship to remain in.

Even though it might mean we don't like the consequences, better to know now than in another 10 years time.  Let's be honest - for many of us a life spent being a perpetual nag isn't a lot of laughs for us either! Never mind the example we are setting for any children in the house.

I can't change my boss, my husband or anyone else, it has to be both of us trying:

To date, I haven't come across anyone yet who could 'make' me change unless I wanted to! I struggle to make myself change my ways, never mind someone else getting me to do it!

Nor have I found anyone who has successfully managed to 're-train' or change their husband or wife, sibling or friend.
 

Do we have the right to change others, or even to try?   Isn't it rather arrogant to assume we have the right to try to change another, or the superior insight in the first place to think we know what's in their best interest?  How would you feel if someone approached you with that attitude? I'd want to 'biff them'

How much responsibility do you want anyway?  It's a massive (and in my view undesirable) responsibility to take on 'the improvement' of someone else.

There is good reason behind why the emphasis in business life, and in self help books, is on the principle of  "SELF DEVELOPMENT and SELF IMPROVEMENT".  Again, if we are willing to be really honest, most of us struggle to fix 'ourselves' never mind others, no matter how tempting the challenge!

Should we,  can we 'change' the nature of our horse? 

Force: Can any of us really 'make' a horse do things they don't wish, or are unable to do, without applying force and threat? Force as a strategy, rarely works well long-term (at home, in work or with our horse).  It certainly won't achieve harmony and trust in our relationships where we need equality and love.  

Changing the Horse: I admit horses can be retrained - from the perspective of how they behave, how they move, their responsiveness to our requests.  We can achieve this at home - a good argument, or a few threats of divorce and often the misbehaving spouse manages to clean up their act, and tidy up after themselves, do their fair share around the house - for a short while at least!

Slowly however, at home,  true natures begin to re-appear as old habits return. Often we see the same with our horse.

I believe that when we force (think draw reins on horses or emotional blackmail with humans), all we do is re-connect with the survival instinct inside horse or human.  'Going for that quiet life' or the path of least resistance is NOT equality.  Nor is it about living and happiness, from a horse or a human. It is a coping strategy based on compliance (for the moment), and often it's short lived.

With force, let's be honest, we aren't connecting with the whole person/horse. How could we be? We aren't really even trying we're just focused on control and getting our own way! 

The right to change our horse:  Unravelling the true nature of the horse, answering WHO IS HE/SHE is something many of us don't discover or even try.  I only recently began to think of it after meeting with Margrit Coates last year.

It's not that we are one way with our horse, and another with our human relations.  I believe we go through life blinkered in both areas.  It is really hard to know WHO WE ARE, never mind figure out who someone else is.  Then try figuring out another species, if we even stop to consider that it is relevant?

We can pay lip service of course, but do we really know the people we live with? Do they really know us?  Typically we see what we want to see, what we are used to seeing, or what we believe we need to see to justify our own behaviour.

With our horses the simple truth is that we might be able to change or modify certain behaviours and movements, but we will never be able to change the basic nature of the horse, never stop them from being a flight animal.  Nor should we want to. 

Responsibility:  A lot of us feel angst under the weight of responsibility of looking after our horses - the worry, the decision making, and the living with the consequences of sometimes not getting it right and rebuking ourselves in the process (Read another of Issy's posts on her blog).

When we learn to get out of the horse's way, and set him/ her up for health and happiness, we learn the incredible self healing capability the horse has.  The horse has managed to survive for over 5 million years, very well so far.  Do they really need us, and all our so called 'help'?

When you consider that often it is our interference that inhibits the horse's health.  As a simple example, 'box rest' is the default solution for so many horse ailments.  Yet bed rest for us humans (even when we prolapse a back disc) is rarely in our best interest and we aren't designed to roam up to 20 kilometres a day!  Why would something that isn't good for us be good for a roaming half ton of animal?

Immobility, stiffness, depression, bed sores, etc are all side effects in us that become an additional problem to deal with.  We see the same pattern with our horses: stiffness, loss of appetite, colic, stress behaviours - all from box rest meant to cure!

I'm not advocating we abandon our responsibilities of due care towards our horses, far from it, I believe a horse is for life, like a husband, children or family dog. Yet applying 'human' sanctions on a horse, be that bed rest, lack of holidays or second rate food doesn't work well for us, so why do we think it will help our horses?

The problem with my horse is ME:

Whether we like it or not, realise it yet or not, believe it yet or not, it is at least possible that if we want something different from our horse, that change must start with us - as 50 % partners in the process!

How do you find a trainer/ guru/ mentor who can really help YOU to change, grow and become more of who you are?

....Keep looking!  Keep searching:

• Notice who suddenly appears in your periphery and wonder why?  
• Don't look for help from Horse trainers - think more broadly than that as most of those are operating from the dark ages.  
• Find people who inspire you (and not for their riding or medals), but for what they've coped well with in life.  
• Reflect, and think about what you do and why with your horse, and in other parts of your life.
• Notice how well you respond to change and be honest about what that feels like when its your initiation and not
• Bring together key people from different parts of your life (horsey or otherwise), let their observations by a route to self discovery
• Be honest!  With yourself about what's holding you back? What are you avoiding?  What do you fear?
• Listen to speakers and notice who you find yoyourself in agreement with (not always a good sign) and who 'rustles your feathers' making you feel uncomfortable (might be a good sign)!

There are plenty of life coaches, sports coaches out in the world, operating near you, contactable by phone, email, skype, seminars etc. Search you tube for popular videos that inspire and challenge you.

In a video by Ben Hart  he talks about how our beliefs about horses and their true nature (flight animals) impacts our ethics and morals and behaviour towards them.   He reminds us of the simplicity of the horse's nature.  I would advocate we will learn more about ourselves and our horses if we strip away the complexity of gadgets, human made conveniences and return to the basics of horse management.

Horses aren't killers (see earlier blog: confessions of a conscious coward) and they have survived for 5 million years without us. It's time to show them some respect and equality!