The connection between horses and humans is as ancient as it is sacred. It’s truly a unique relationship from a prey and predator perspective that continues to evolve to this day. Connection is a shared interest among horses as much as it is among humans and the relationship between horses and humans was likely created because making that connection with each other has been, and continues to be, beneficial for both.
Liz* came to us for some life coaching. She’d been struggling with a “passion project” that she had started and was feeling stuck and uninspired. Liz wasn’t ready to give up on it, but she was starting to feel more weighed down and stressed out about it than passionate!
After entering the arena and introducing herself to all of the equines, Liz chose to connect with our “Big Guy”, Lu. Without skipping a beat, she immediately grabbed a lead rope from the rail and approached Lu to join up. This was not Liz’s first session with us, but it was the first time that she had been given the opportunity to work with Lu.
As Liz went to connect the rope to his halter, Lu tried to nip at her hand. She persisted, but he kept moving his head around, preventing her from attaching the lead rope. Determined, Liz reached out to pet him and again he went to nip at her. She reached her hand towards him one more time and he held his head high clearly saying “absolutely not” and we stepped in.
I asked Liz to pause a moment and take stock of what she was noticing about Lu. Was there anything he was trying to say?
“That he doesn’t want to go with me” Liz replied.
“Anything else?” we asked.
“He doesn’t seem so happy with me either.”
“What does that feel like?”
“Like he doesn’t trust me because I clearly don’t know what I’m doing!” she laughed.
“Well, how much time did you spend getting to know him?” we asked her.
“Not much.” Liz recognized.
“Do you remember your first moments with him? ……… Were you thinking about anything specific when you were trying to connect with him?”
“Just that he is so big and a little scary! And I was feeling a little insecure about myself and thinking about the times that I have walked the other horses around before and how much smaller they all were, and that if I could get this big horse to go anywhere with me it would be a miracle! But it would also be a really awesome thing to do and I really wanted to just do it so I could tell everybody about what an accomplishment I made at my session today!”
“Okay, and what about Lu? Did you notice anything about how he was when you were first trying to connect up with him?”
Liz was silent a moment then replied “You know, I don’t really remember what he was doing. I guess I wasn’t really paying attention to him that much.”
After this debrief, I encouraged Liz to try again and take some time to actually connect with Lu before trying to physically join up with him. Instead of focusing on her agenda of accomplishing the great goal of tackling the “Big Guy”, I suggested that she do a little check in with herself to get more congruent and grounded in the present moment, while she just shared some space with him.
Liz began to practice some present moment awareness that we had worked on in previous sessions and connected with what her heart was telling her in that moment. When she felt ready, Liz approached Lu and reintroduced herself – this time taking a breath and saying out loud to him: “Hey there buddy, I am Liz and I’m a little scared about doing all of this, but I’d like to give it a try if it’s ok with you?” Lu dropped his head, let out a deep horse sigh, and started licking and chewing (a sign of release and relaxation in horses). Liz took notice of this and smiled at Lu. “Ok, it looks like you might be ready now? Shall we give it a try?” She spoke to him, waited for any objection and when there was none, she connected the lead rope to his halter, just like that.
Liz and Lu made it around the arena a few times, all the while Liz making sure to stay connected and grounded to her present experience with Lu, instead of getting lost in her head and distracted by her ambitions and what they mean to her outside of the arena.
At the end of the session we talked a bit more about the differences between her first approach with Lu and the experience they had together after she let go of the end result. And then Liz had a lightbulb moment, she realized that this energy that she had first approached Lu with was the same energy that she was bringing to her passion project! She was so focused on whether she was going to succeed or fail and what that meant to her ego that she had completely lost connection with her passion! She had forgotten why she had chosen to do the project in the first place – because it was something that she loved DOING. Liz resolved to put this approach towards her project and to really connect with the moment in the doing of it. Even the idea of this made her feel more passionate and inspired about it!
It’s important to be excited about a goal or a “passion project” —the inspiration alone connects us to something inside of ourselves that wants to come alive, to take action “come hell or high water” as they say. But if we start focusing only on the end result without taking the time to understand what we’re connecting to and why, we can easily loose the process, get caught up in self-doubt and find ourselves struggling rather than enjoying the process. Remember, sometimes it’s the process itself and being connected to the experience we’re having that gets us moving.
*All names and identifying information have been changed.
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