It is not all about achievements!

I suspect many of us humans muse away many hours each week, and many weeks each year and then many years of our lives thinking, hoping, worrying about what we will become!

What's wrong with this?  Plenty!

It takes us away from a focus on how we want to live! We get so caught up in what we will do, achieve and "be" that we don't live now, today, here and in the present. This is so different in approach from our horses' way of life, one lacking in any need to plan or aspire - just  live!

We can all get caught up in the rat race of achieving, especially when we take on a sport such as riding. I hear people talk about my horses in the context of what they could achieve or should have achieved!

As an example,  Solar Sue has spent her life playing polo.  She was a high goal playing pony ie. damned good and with the softest of mouths!  When I retired her and began a little local dressage competing, I would hear people say 'she has lovely movement what a waste she spent her career in polo'.  What a judgement!

Solar Sue's Dressage outings in the New Forest

Then there is Grace - a stunning, 17.1 hh (ish) warmblood, bred by the Dutch Vet to the Dutch Dressage team, specifically for a dressage career.  Then I rocked up, met her, bought her and her promising dressage career, with BD points already in the bag by 6 years of age, came to a grinding halt!

Grace grazing, living out 24 x 7

Has Solar 'wasted' her life? Has Grace failed to reach her potential? 

I have wrestled many times with these thoughts.  Then a little voice in my head reminds me that "they are horses - do you really think they have career plans, career goals and career aspirations?"  Put like that it does sound somewhat crazy to humanise our own 'achievement obsession' onto our horses!

In the case of Grace and Solar, I believe from my own observations that they live for today, in the moment, very much focused on now.  This shows up in the way they express their individual needs for food, space, to be scratched, NOT to be ridden, in no mood for change etc.

Grace enjoying space even from her best field buddy

Spiritual gurus say that enlightenment is not an achievement, it's more like a 'homecoming'.  

I have come to think that one of the big attractions for humans withhorses is in being around this very purity that they offer by being in the "now" and being true to their nature, and needs.  Such purity is comforting.  It is honest and welcoming.  It may seem to some like a form of enlightenment.  

Can we humans achieve enlightenment?  How would  this sense of  "homecoming" feel to us?

It must be similar to being "comfortable in your skin".  It must be based in knowing yourself and being accepting of yourself and your situation, moment by moment, such that there is no need to strive for anything else or betyer - beyond the current moment. 

When we think of striving and achieving I look at a horse and I see their main achievement staring us right in our face!  They stand with their heads down.  They walk and graze and sleep with their heads down. They are 'downward looking' beings.   In contrast we 'busy bee' humans tend to look up; we are 'heavenward looking'.  We walk aggressively, we de-value our planet  - after all heaven isn't here it is up there and up there is where we aspire to end our days!

Striving ruins our ability to see what we have today!

I may be stretching things a little here but I fundamentally believe that we have so much to learn about how to be our fullest self, from watching our horses and their nature.

The spirit of the horse is without agenda, ego, aspiration or grudges.  Only in the hands of humans do we see a horse's spirit and fullest self shut down, become aggressive, or fearful.  Equally, it is under our influence that we see them adorned with rosettes and bling and glitz of success!  Bottom line however is that if left to their own devices the horse remains true to his spirit and instinct regardless of achievements which no doubt wouldn't feature in their 'daily to do list'!

Solar Sue and her filly foal in 2002

What if we too could be left to our own devices?  Free to find our true spirit and instinct?  We would be free from gender, culture and age related expectations and obligations.  Could our role as working, married, child raising adults be filled with joy and simplicity instead of strife and complexity?  One thing is for sure -  currently we get so lost in looking upwards, so caught up in thinking about our future that many of us miss out on today! Our horses do not!

Horses remain focused on today - I don't care how talented they are, or what discipline they are trained to perform in.  The nature of the horse is not by instinct - achievement bound.  That is our domain. 

Fortunately we can change.  I am changing.  Slowly.  Our horses change and adapt to oblige us with our whims and goals, so it is foolish and rude, to think we don't need to do a little adapting along the way too.

For me, the biggest change in myself in the last 2 years has been the sudden loss of Goals and ambition.  Maybe it is age or energy related?  I don't think so.  Career and life goals simply feel less relevant and a bit silly! Oops ...  now I am wondering if that's how we make our horses feel?

Another topic for another day!

It Takes 2 to Tangle!

Horses and Humans are reaction machines!  

 

Recently my young horse Grace and I have been getting our knickers into a proverbial knot when working on the lunge and doing our parelli game of the 8 shape around obstacles.  This got me wondering what I need to do differently.  How and why have we been getting into this predictable pattern of speed and adrenalin and how can we get out of it? 

The most natural thing to do when confronted with a difficult horse or difficult situation is to react - to act without thinking.  This goes something like this...

Option No. 1: Meet Fire with Fire!

When Grace decides to do cartwheels on the lunge line or gallop round me doing her 'wall of death' impression - it's tempting to 'give her a taste of her own medicine' and say 'go on then if you want to run - let's see you move', and chase after her.   The only problem is that I don't want her injured, I can't hold onto 689 kilos of horse and neither of us learn anything of value in the process. 

Grace has taught me that escalation is rarely a helpful strategy! 

Option No. 2: Give in!

Deploy the opposite strategy and give in!  However, this feels like being held to ransom in a negotiation as the bad guy who won't say 'yes' to the deal on the table!  Giving in usually results in an unsatisfactory feeling in your gut the next day.  Worse it can reward and reinforce your horse's unwanted behaviour and cement you as being a "push over".

Giving in 'just this once' rarely works long term.  If every interaction with our horse is a training session - the question becomes who is training whom?  Grace is teaching me how NOT to be an appeaser,  to not give up now and HOPE it'll all be better tomorrow!'

(Note to self: an appeaser is someone who keeps throwing a tiger a steak, believing the tiger will eventually become a vegetarian)!

Option No. 3: Cool off!

A third reaction is to break off relations, walk away, have a mutual 'cool down' period.  The more I try to find that elusive space called the 'present' the more I am able to chose this option before deploying either of the other two, above!

I have found that 'coming back another day' is an appropriate strategy some days especially if other horses also seem to be wound up with something clearly 'in the air' adding to their distraction.

It is also useful if I need to assess what I had asked of Grace and was it reasonable?  Cool off may not mean back to the stable we go, but it can mean 'do something else' before returning to the original task in hand.

On the few occasions where I have cooled off by putting Grace literally back in her stable (usually accompanied by feelings of anger or deflation),  I've regretted it.  Leaving things without giving it a chance hasn't worked for me.   All it guarantees is that I haven't taken the time to work out her behaviour or its cause, and 'starting back over again' next time out, is mentally exhausting.  Not having enough physical time to be with our horse (working to an agenda or tight time line) can reinforce this as an unhelpful reaction.

So where does this leave us? 

According to Newton's Law 'for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction' - but this applies to objects not minds.  Minds can chose how we react!

To find the mental space needed for our minds to chose a reaction between cause and effect; stimulus and response I recommend we look to the opera!

In my work as a sports coach I help people find ways to step back, collect their wits, and see the situation objectively.  So, as soon as it all starts to go wrong with your horse, imagine that you are on a stage.  Then imagine yourself climbing onto a balcony overlooking the stage.  (The "balcony" acting a metaphor for rising above the situation).  From the balcony you can calmly evaluate whats going on, think deliberately and identify possible next steps and solutions.  It allows us to move away from our natural impulses and emotions of reaction.  It keeps us present and mindful.

Watching a new trainer work with Grace last week was a great reinforcement of three important MUST DO's for me to follow BEFORE I react to anything she throws my way. Three things that will help us break out of our current pattern of high speed triple salchows!

MUST Do No. 1) Be Black and White! 

How I ask something is just as important as what I ask.   Ask or don't ask!  When I get a try - stop asking or it sounds like I'm nagging.  If I don't get what I asked for then ask again.  I have to communicate using my whole body, as tone, facial expressions and body language are more important than words.

MUST Do No. 2) Say 'YES' as often as I can!

Yes is a magic word in untangling!  It means acknowledgement. It gives validation and recognition for what is going on for my horse, in that moment.   "Yes that was a nice try" "Yes you can run but do you want to..." "Yes I do mean it".  "Yes, that's the trot I wanted, thank you" etc.  Bottom line SAY YES AS OFTEN AS I CAN!

MUST Do No. 3) Follow the bible Dictum:

 "be quick to hear what the horse is showing you, be slow to speak and slow to act"

Give it time.  Our new trainer has a 12 minute rule.  After which if things aren't going to plan its time to re-think!   Grace didn't need the 12 minute rule to come into play and I was both relieved and surprised.  With me, she tends to stone wall me!  Meaning she tests constantly what I'm asking of her, checking if I'm for real!  Now I can see that by convincing her in as short a period of time as possible she stops challenging me about "if I mean what I'm saying"!

Being aware of progress, watching what she was offering us, judging nothing, and taking the time to stay with it - all proved to work for both Grace and her fan club - me and her new trainer!

It seems easy to find ourselves in a tangle with our horse.  It isn't always easy to untangle.  Find your 'go to the balcony' (or equivalent) and pay close attention to what your current habits are, in order to de-mystify the cycle of reaction you find yourself in, to break free, and to find another way.

Related Blogs:

How to Be Present

Do Horses Understand Us?

How To BE Present!

I still struggle with 'how to be present'.  Then yesterday while working with Grace I had an important lesson in some of the basic ingredients. 

Here are some tips and 'take aways' from our attempts to lunge amidst an overdose of chaos breaking out around us...


Being present means...

1.    Having command of my mind

2.    Courage to think

3.    Not rushing or hurrying

4.    Being deliberate in my thinking

5.    Doing simple acts with deliberation

6.    Taking one step at a time

7.    Paying attention to the little details

8.    Following the movement of my body (mindfulness)

9.    Taking the time to choose what to do versus reacting automatically

It's not easy to change old habits over night but it can be easy to learn new ones!  If we begin by doing more of the everyday acts of life,  like picking up things off the floor, getting dressed, or eating our food, with more deliberate thought AND without hurry, we'll have 2 core ingredients in the bag!

"Essys wishes" has at the core, the need for us 'horsey' humans to raise our levels of awareness and be more alert in order that we can be more in tune with our horses and their needs.

Or put another way (in ways that I can relate to) his message is about encouraging us to "have our wits about us" which might be an easier concept to identify with.  It's an especially useful habit to have in times of stress.  I'm not saying that riding and working with horses is stressful, but when it is our minds tend to stop operating so well. Suddenly there's 6 degrees of separation between us and our horse and if this happens when we are in the saddle - we can quickly find ourselves on the floor wondering what happened!

As I'm planning on being back in the saddle soon, its on my mind to practice the art of being present  before getting on.  That means, on days like yesterday, being able to quickly change my 'plan' and NOT take 20 minutes of being disconnected from my horse before waking up and THEN making a change to what I'm actually doing!

(I am reminding myself of the definition of insanity: 

'continuing to do the things I've always done expecting a different result!)

Twenty minutes can be a long time waiting for our brain to catch up with life - precious time where we risk losing our horses' trust and willingness in the wait for us to wake up and play another tune!

So, it makes sense to be present and if we aren't - then where are we? With such beautiful creatures in front of us why would we chose to be anywhere except right here alongside them, savoring every moment?