WHO I AM WITH HORSES

​I have been feeling the need to write something in regard to who I am with horses. How I walk with them. You will see I, my, and me quite a bit here as this is my journey, no one else’s. I do my best to come to my relationships with all, from the paradigm of living such as that of a herd of horses. I continue to learn in that space, the non-judgment, honesty, authenticity, and clarity that are their daily characteristics. I work on them, yet in no way am I versed in them like a horse. But I am trying.

My journey with them has been, in a word, about surrender.

I stepped off their backs when I turned 50. My last ride was on the beach in Bermuda along the white sand amidst the black rocks in a secluded cove under the warm sun. I couldn’t have asked for a better farewell from that perspective.

Was it an awakening that caused me to change my path? Perhaps. I think it was a need to see the whole world from a different point of view, both internally and externally. Deciding to walk beside instead of having them carry me was not a weakness (I had spent many years thinking it would be). It is something I chose to do as I felt it was something that needed to be done to change my relationship with the horse.

On a personal level, I went from fight to flow.

I see this as a personal course of reflection in how we relate to the horse as a direct echo of how we relate to and treat each other. Do I approach my relationship with the horse as suppression and fear-based? It did me well to really look at that. What words do we use when we speak about our relationship with the horse? Use, work, groom, power, dominance, all with our own goals in mind. In a trauma-filled world, we see these words used again and again to describe human-to-human relationships. These are all words and concepts that requested me to delve deeper into their use and their meaning and actions with horses, humans, and all of nature. From fight to flow. From conflict to calm. From dominance to choice.

A dominant position. Someone sitting on you is like someone standing over you in the non-horse world. Look to the corporate world and we know that standing while others are sitting is a power position. Look to the world of abuse and yet again a powerful position. In our exercises with energy, the difference between talking to someone from a position directly in front to offering to walk beside them creates a completely different feeling and flow.

I know some folks who are tending to their relationship with the horse and riding from a very tender heart-based place and I can only hope, more and more, that we see those ways of being. With flow, calm, and choice. We are the predator and they are the prey. That relates within the human world as well. Leadership is such a buzzword in our society. In fact, my magazine is entitled: Equine Leadership. That relates to them leading us. But I digress. Who teaches relationship? Oh, the horses do. When we enter their world with choice, calm and flow we can interact gently as predator and prey. I think the best use of the word leadership is in the phrase: self leadership.

I have learned to go to the field intenionless (I know, not a word). With no goal in mind but to remain open to the present moment. I enter the field not to train, change, or master anything. I simply ask to enter their environment, listen with all of my heart, and most often, sit in stillness in their presence. From that, well life just flows. I have found more of myself in the field than anywhere else.

I stepped off their backs because I had been nudged by my heart to do so for decades. It took that long to break through my ego armor. I found myself personally evolving when I stepped off their backs and maybe that evolution took exactly the number of years it needed to. I started to see the flow of life in and around me. We all take our own path of personal evolution. And being more like a horse as I get older, I do my best to judge no one for the path they are on. Although, admittedly, sometimes it is not easy to take that vantage point.

For each of us, it comes in our own time and we can write all these things we want and attest to inspire others but we each have to make our own choice of the path we take with the horse, with the animals, and, nature. It is all tied together. It's all a reflection of everything we do with every person, place, and being. And every relationship we have can be mirrored in the relationship we have with the horse and the herd.

If it becomes a fight instead of a flow then I try to step out of that moment and look at it through the eyes of the horse. Do I like what I am doing or not? How does it feel in my body? How would the horses deal with this, or would they even have to in their world? Then I get to decide if I wish to change it. But like the horses demonstrate in their herd communication, it took honesty with myself. And it does every day. What resonates, what doesn’t, what choice will I make?

This is me; this is who I am and why I do what I do? I say this because it wishes to be said from my heart. My space, my time, my life. When I find the best me then I am a more loving member of the collective, of the human herd.

Thank you for reading and thank you for listening.
                                                                          Lynda J Watson

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