Reflecting on feelings

In my previous entry I tried to provoke thoughts on the powers of mind and thought. Undoubtedly every one of us can affect how we regard things we face by rationalizing them. I actually don’t even know how relevant this is when working with horses, since horses will react based on their feelings anyway, and only by allowing ourselves to be reflected we can have even the tiniest of chances to reach a level where we might be able to understand how the horse feels. Even a little.

If we compare the horse’s emotional scale to our own, even with a less serious attitude, we can see that a large part of the most primitive feelings that humans have are taboo to some extent nowadays. If a human feels uncertainty or fear, something needs to be done about it. Not to mention hatred, jealousy, bitterness etc.

Since humans are intellectually so far above everything else, they have the need to rationalize and control themselves. This happens on each and every level of our society. The other extreme could be the horror scenario where the results of permissive upbringing lead into the laws of the jungle taking over.

As the horse, in all its perfection, is still more straightforward when compared to humans, it’s fairly certain that it can spot the emotions and the exact behavior in us that are familiar to it. How about if, instead of constantly evaluating the horse based on its behavior, we looked at the horse’s reaction in the light that it’s our own emotional state that makes the horse react. In addition to how it has been taught to behave, of course.

Openness like this is still fairly new to our culture, and accepting it won’t get easier by comparing two extremes. In the other end there’s nothing but mechanical, consistent training that disregards the horse’s feelings, while the other end is supernatural nonsense.

Handling and training a horse to become mechanical is extremely easy. It’s practically enough that the human has a method which is logically based on applying pressure in a certain way. It takes a lot more to use the tools available in a way that not only acknowledges their danger, but also the situations where applying them definitely helps.

The thing that has been the biggest resource and source of strength on my career has been the love for horses. And I truly mean towards every horse. I don’t think that being callous or shutting yourself off from the interaction of emotions with the horse will produce the end result that most people want. A relationship with the horse, that is.

Years ago I was talking with a friend who met seriously ill and dying people every day in her work. I asked her how she can face the families of seriously ill people. Do you have to harden some part of yourself so that facing all the human fates doesn’t break you? She answered: “The day that a child’s serious illness or death does not touch me is the day I cannot do this job anymore.”

Although it’s a heavy parallel, I agree with the thought that if you can’t find place for your feelings, from happiness and joy through disappointment to frustration and anger, you are not a whole person.

So love your horses, and most of all the ones who are near to you!!!!

The power of thought

Nonsense, will be someone’s initial reaction!!! For no reason, because I mean the power of thought that comes from within ourselves and affects everything around us.

Earlier, I have written about guilt and understanding, and they offer a segue to this next topic.

As we all know, a negative person creates negativity around them and a positive person creates positivity. In practice, though, it’s quite hard to notice when we have unwittingly given power to negative thoughts.

There are days when everything goes like a breeze, and at those moments nothing can ruin your day or wipe the smile off your face. Sometimes it’s the other way around, and when that happens, even the brightest sunshine or the neigh of your beloved horse cannot bring a smile to your face.

For my part, I’ve tried to find a positive attitude and thoughts from within myself for a long time. Sometimes it’s easy to do, sometimes not. In the end it doesn’t matter, because the most important thing is that I learn to notice the points and aspects in myself which cause a negative thought pattern and subsequently unpleasant feelings when “poked”, even accidentally. When I recognize that moment, it allows me to observe these things objectively.

Since you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with horses? The thing it specifically has to do with working with horses is that horses are superb at sensing the emotional state of humans, and as result they can also sense the work related thoughts which the human mind is mulling over, as well as stress in general. Everyone who works with horses has probably had a moment where you’ve thought afterwards that it would’ve been better leave the horse in the paddock or pasture than to go riding with negative thoughts and feelings.

On the other hand, some days riding in the snow on a frosty day or brushing a snowy horse can wipe away the black clouds from the sky and the worry wrinkles from your forehead.

My newest realization has to do with accepting your own humanity and the fact that when you dare to ease your life by being merciful on yourself, it frees us from the burden of guilt.

I don’t believe that a person who regards themselves with excessively big self criticism, discipline and strictness is able to be understanding and forgiving in their heart towards other people, not to mention towards horses.

There is an atmosphere of getting along and managing on your own in our horse culture. It’s shameful to admit that you’re wrong or that you need help. It’s as if all human feelings and thoughts were forbidden from horse people. Not to mention a situation where a horse owner fails, for example. He might fall from horseback, or just be unable to cope with feelings of bad conscience or maybe frustration week after week. There might still be people cheering on who could help win the situation, but the people who sincerely dare to say aloud that you don’t always have to manage, want or be able to cope. They are a rare breed.

After all this pondering, with Christmas drawing near, I’d like to wish that people could ease off a bit and smile, even when things don’t go quite as intended. Life really isn’t all that serious =)

The Guru is always right… right?

We Finns seem to have problems with our self-esteem in many things, but it is especially apparent with horse and dog people. Namely, everyone has their own school of thought and its teachings, which are the only correct ones. A guru or a master is also needed. And his or her word is never questioned. Ever.

In his books, including ‘Inhimillinen eläin, eläimellinen ihminen’ (The human animal, the animal human), PhD Jussi Viitala describes the behavior of different animal species, illustrates their differences and the uniqueness and necessity of their senses in everyday life.

As a species humans are fascinating, with all their strengths and richness, but as a creature the modern man has unfortunately become lazy, to the extent that free will and independent thought are becoming rare. While theoretic knowledge increases, the risk is that it becomes difficult to justify, and even harder to accept knowledge that is based on experience or intuition.

It kind of becomes easier to believe the guru and what he says than to question in a healthy way. Questioning in itself is never a bad thing. When things are observed objectively from many angles, it might be possible to unlock whole new viewpoints which then make the decision easier.

Since the topic of my blog is horses, I’ll take a fairly well-known topic.

Different round pen techniques have been a topic of conversation (at least in my circle of friends) for many years. Not specifically because everything that happens in a round pen would be fundamentally right or wrong, but because all tools can be used either well or badly. And that’s why I won’t use the terms right or wrong, since defining absolute truth is too difficult because the horse a. doesn’t express its feelings verbally, which means evaluating it is mainly based on gut feelings and b. the horse is such a fast learner that after a few repeats the original trigger of the stress reaction might subside and in the long run the consequences might only be seen in the horse’s slower learning or something similar.

But, on a practical level, if we look at what you want to achieve with different techniques in the round pen, they’re practically all based on giving the horse two options, guess right or escape. With time, this is logically constructed so that it becomes easier for the horse to guess, and the need to escape decreases.

What this causes in the horse, in addition to becoming obedient with a very high certainty, is that it causes fear, stress and excessive cautiousness. The latter, in turn, causes mechanical behavior (which in turn looks like obedience).

When talking about desensitizing, we similarly face the possibility that the desensitizing process is outside of the horse’s comfort zone to begin with, so it learns to guess right through stress, and possibly even fear. Or then the human starts from a low enough level, either knowingly or out of cautiousness, and the horse’s learning process goes without problems.

The problem I see in these is visible in the horse. At least if the human looks at the horse as a horse. Not like the guru claims to see it.

In the presence of humans the horse only does what it already knows. Similarly, its reactions are based on its earlier experiences. We humans, gurus included, have the will to succeed, sometimes at the expense of the horses….

Years ago, the movie Horse Whisperer came into theaters. It depicted the mutual journey of Pilgrim, traumatized in an accident, and its owner Grace, and their recovery with aid of the horse whisperer. Successful in its narration, the movie still showed the darker side that few want to see and acknowledge….

When the horse whisperer Tom Booker worked with Pilgrim in the round pen, and the horse ran skittishly around the pen while its owner cried outside, the trainer continued until the horse gave up and submitted. Later, the owner was successfully convinced that all of this was necessary, and look, it works!!!!!

So the end justifies the means????