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 =)