This was the view out my window yesterday, Epona and Tumbleweed sleeping together. It epitomizes the idea of “Sacred Spaces.”
It’s that feeling you have when you’re so comfortable with someone else, you have full trust, and all the barriers come down. Your energy meets theirs. Your communication is silent, but stronger than words.
Now that Tumbleweed’s shoes are off and we’re staying home, my focus has shifted to relationship work. What can I do to develop his trust?
A friend posted the wisdom above, and I liked it and remarked that it sounded like what I’m reading about feel in True Horsemanship. Another friend contacted me and told me that Dr Susan Fay (the quote above) wrote a book called Sacred Spaces, and she really enjoyed it.
I ordered it on the spot, it arrived the next day, and I finished it a few days ago.
This is a book about the rider, not about training. It is about what we bring to the relationship in terms of our energy, intention, stories, labels, focus, and expectations. She said she wrote it to help the horse by helping the human.
And she certainly got me thinking about my own stories, energy, intentions, and labels, especially since that was the last great epiphany of my trail riding season. It was that moment when I said, the problem is me. I need to fix me.
Everything shifted at that moment and I realized I’d focused too much on mechanics (which I’m not good at and probably never will be) and not enough on the feel and the communication and support that comes from it.
A horse will do almost anything for you if you get those pieces right.
Unlike True Horsemanship, this book is available to purchase, and I would like to make it my giveaway today. I can’t send you mine, because mine is now as marked up as a personal journal, but I will send you your own new copy.
For this giveaway, I only ask that you comment with a story or label you told yourself that got in the way of your horse journey. I will draw a name a week from today for the winner of the book.
Personally, I can think of all kinds of stories and labels that got in my way. Most recently, the one about Tumbleweed and hill work. I was so focused on what was going wrong, I failed to see how it would look going right. That movie in my head was creating changes in me, and him, that sabotaged our progress.
Seeing Katie ride Tumbleweed showed me a different movie, and a better way that focused on feel for Tumbleweed as a completely unique soul. (Dr. Fay brings up that scenario in the book—sometimes we need to see another rider on our horse.) The new movie influenced me in such a drastic way that our next ride was the glorious one I previously wrote about.
So, how about you? What expectations, labels for your horse, or stories from the past, projected to the future, didn’t serve you and your horse?
There are so many things that have gotten in my way. But the one that was hardest for me was to stop burying my fear. Carmen was very difficult and because she felt unpredictable and her bolts were scary I became fearful. But instead of acknowledging that I would shove it down and tell myself I had to be brave and confident. But it was a lie and she knew it. Once I started acknowledging it to myself, to my coach and to Carmen things got a lot better. It was okay to be scared and make different decisions about what our work was going to be.
ReplyDeleteThe other was letting go of ‘shoulds’. Like ‘she should be listening to me’ or ‘we should be at doing flying changes’ those just get in the way.
Yep, I am 💯 with you on that one. Fear is a 6th sense in a way, and gives us information. I followed your journey with her and you never gave up, just found different ways through.
DeleteIt was similar for Tumbleweed and me with hill work. The self-fulfilling prophecy was grounded in truth, and the fear and anxiety hills were producing in both of us, forced me to take a step back and figure out how I could support him better.
The ‘shoulds’ are my weakness, too. They can be very frustrating. I’m trying really hard to be more present and accept the horse I have today, but that’s not an easy one. In fact, it happened to me yesterday. Tumbleweed came to work loaded for bear. A complete change from his attitude the day before. I had to scrap all my “plans,” and deal with the horse I had, not the one I thought I should have had.
These books clearly resonated so much that it inspired this thoughtful give-away.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking (and getting interrupted) about which situation/s best answer your question. I have endless options, many start and end with fear. I think this post perhaps fits the best: https://equineexpressions.blogspot.com/2015/07/changing-of-guards.html
It changed me forever. Perhaps more so than our accidents, even the one that changed me physically.
Oh wow, Aurora. I hadn’t ever read that story from 2015. Herd bound, instinctive behavior can be the scariest of all, and I’ve seen it with many of my horses at certain times. When we boarded, I saw a lot of it from other people’s horses. And yet, you do still have Koda. How did you overcome that story and continue your relationship with him?
DeleteYes, I found this book fascinating not only about horses, but also the energy we bring into human relationships. Our minds are always telling us stories, and it’s important to control the narrative.
*though not easy to do.
DeleteYour comment brought back a memory. When I first got Cowboy, he was a lot like your story of Koda. In fact, he had been a stud and was walked on a stud chain. I didn’t use one, but he would get very dangerous with me. Once he even tried to break away and kick me. We went through a lot in the first few months together, and one day I was in the barn about to give up on him. I didn’t see any way forward for the two of us. My farrier, who is married to our trainer, came into the barn and saw me crying. He knew what had happened. As we talked, he told me his father had told him, “Never hold a grudge against a horse because every day is a new day for them.” He meant that as bad as it looked, tomorrow would be a clean slate with Cowboy and me, and a chance to get past it. The work it involved wasn’t pretty. It required me to control him, and when he swung around to kick me, kick him in the belly before he could. When Cowboy realized he couldn’t get away with it anymore, he changed. And the rest is history.
*I was Cowboy’s 5th owner in his 7 years of life then. He had that orphan foal mentality—no respect for human boundaries.
Delete*and it only required me kicking him twice. My trainer told me my kicks were nothing compared to other horses, because, of course, I didn’t like the idea of kicking my horse. She said in a dangerous situation like that, you have to use what you have, and all I had was my the foot of my boot.
DeleteI learned long ago most incidents are not the horses fault. I know of people that sell a horse whenever a problem arises, or the horse doesn't fit their unicorn image. You know what comes next. Another horse. Another problem. Many times the same one. Sell and replace. Over and over. Looking for the perfect _____ horse. The problem typically isn't the horse/s, it is the person.
ReplyDeleteKoda will always be part of our family. He is a good horse. There is no other horse I would rather ride/own. I struggle with fear and wasn't the support he needed when energy went off the charts and became too much for him to contain.
To answer your question, I continue working on high energy fear. I forgave Koda, but his reaction will stay with me forever. Mostly as a lesson.
Relationships continue evolving forever. What works best for me with Koda (or any horse) is quality time/frequency. I am not a natural horse person. I have to work at it, and that is something Koda does well. Make you work for it. He has taught me so much, and I love him for it. Even the hard lessons.
p.s. Thank you for sharing your Cowboy story.
Thanks for sharing your story, too. I’m glad you still have Koda, and you are so right about how it is often something in us that we will take with us to the next horse. For me, I had become a shadow of myself at that time. Cowboy was actually challenging me long before the attempted kicks. I ignored it or couldn’t see it. It was a wake up call for me to learn horse communications better, and address things earlier. It was a gift he gave me then because it made me stronger and brought me back to the land of the living.
Delete