It has been a long winter, but aren’t all our Alaskan winters long? It’s this time of year that I’m just about half mad because I don’t get much saddle time, it’s either too icy, too cold or too something and if I do get to see my horses in the daylight it takes intense concentration to see that there’s an actual horse under all the fuzz and blankets. The days are finally getting longer, the light is shining brighter and before you know it we will all be covered in shed horse hair and back in the saddle.

What might come to some of us during this long winter is a feeling of detachment, or at least it has for me. I’ve been cooped up at home with my trips to the barn being limited to barely shuffle along due to the weight of boots, and additional layers. Once I arrive at the barn I fix blankets, thaw hands, fix this, thaw hands, fix that, thaw hands, fix horse feed, and thaw hands. All of this takes place in pitch black with a headlamp that pinches my forehead; I am reinforced to continue these contortions on account of how happy my horses appear to be living out in the pasture in the elements. Fortunately for me there are some welcoming facilities that allow me to teach in their indoor arenas, where the bitter cold and dark of the outdoors has a barrier and I am permitted brief periods of sanity. Nonetheless I miss my horses (in the daylight), horse friends; I miss weekend trail ride adventures, and most of all I miss all of my clients who are also my friends.

Taken from the book Tuesday’s With Morrie, the elderly man says, “Discover who you are, and embrace it.” The road to becoming a horseperson is long, its’ fraught with ego battles, moving into emotions, releasing regrets, facing down your fears and plain ol’sweat and hard work. There is no replacement for the hours of hard work in the saddle training your body and that of your horse. It’s those long hours of training that your journey heals you and in the end you find your true self, not you’re false self right there atop your horse in your saddle.

I never feel like an actual teacher, trainer or instructor, more of a motivational speaker who wears chaps and talks really loud while people cavort around on their horses. Kathleen Ingram has a term called “Holding the Sacred Space of Possibility” which is a fully engaged form of patience, open, non judgmental, and respectful of the pairs (meaning in this instance the horse and rider) and their wisdom together. I like to use this quote in my ramblings as a teacher; as I’ve been called stoic or stone faced by many people, more times than I can count, it’s been a lifelong goal of mine not to bring this face into the arena when I teach. In truth I am not this way, really the reason for that stoic face is years of practice holding back the emotional tides that threaten to drown me, and my horses. Even though horses are the one thing that taught me to remain present with an emotion, rather than drown it in another thought or action. If a problem arises, either in life or training, it will continue to rear (no pun intended) its head until you face it head on, and apply yourself to a solution.

As riders, and trainers it’s struggle to remain reflective; it’s a constant test to find a balance of the two where intuition is objective with training and rational thought. Horses demand you remain present in order to be affective, and as people we should be demanding it in all facets of our lives in order to get the most from our experience while we are here. I've seen too many people lose control around a horse or a horse lose control around them, and the person will decide they "can’t stand" that horse, or that horse is “bad tempered” and has “bad habits”, more times than not it's the individuals own disassociation with their emotions that scares them - not the thousand pound animal. That animal just happened to demonstrate how far out of your own reality you might have been at that time. Others are only a mirror of you, you cannot love or hate something, horse, human or otherwise unless it reflects something within you.

A quick down and dirty breakdown of how we feel an emotion is that the human brain reacts to an experience by releasing a cocktail of proteins if you will; these proteins are called neuropeptide proteins. These neuropeptide proteins are released into the bloodstream and receptors on cells attract these proteins, and fit in almost like a key to a lock. Each cell has several of these receptors; some more have more receptors than others to attract more of one protein than another. These receptors are located all over your body, thus leading science to speculate that our whole body can think and experience an emotion. Cells as we know duplicate to imitate each other, so with that said you can actually train your entire body to feel more of one emotion than another. Isn’t that a thought that makes you wonder?

An empath is defined as someone who is extremely sensitive to the feelings of those around them. The word "empathy" derives from the Greek words "empatheia" meaning "passion" and "pathein" meaning "to experience, to suffer". Our equine friends show an incredible capacity as natural empaths. There are hordes of books written on how to become an empath, but I have found the very best I’ve come into contact with and also to use as willing mentors, are of the four legged sort. Being an empath can often mean you have difficulty distancing yourself from the emotions of others, or find yourself easily influenced by the emotions or feelings of another. Being empathethetic can be somewhat painful at times, and many people who are powerful empaths, train this ability out of themselves by the time they are in the workforce in order to function in public. It’s almost as if we have lost the missing link to our emotion when this occurs and our equine friends are constantly trying to bring us back to what we used to be.

Where am I going with this? Part of being a good horseperson is being able to stay present in the moment to work through issues that you are either projecting upon your horse or you and your horse are transferring to one another. You can learn so much about being an empath, resistance and release by being a horseperson, there is no other sport that you can so easily demonstrate your own personal resistance to that of working with a horse, and the horse is a completely non-judgmental reviewer with whom you can feel safe developing this part of your personality with. I witness horses demonstrate the same patterns of behavior as my clients time and time again, remember a problem will continue to present itself until you find a solution. And yes my horses demonstrate my resistances too – there are times when I leave the barn both relieved and aggravated at myself. I’ve even gone so far as to discover that my horses learn the same way I do, they have offered up to mirror my own behaviors, in order to help me operate a bit better as a person and instructor.

Riding simply broken down is pressure and timing. You teach your horse to “give” to pressure by seeking a release; once they find release you use your timing. How the horse learns to get to that point is often demonstrating resistance, there is nothing like watching a flight animal try to flee pressure, it can be rather scary at times having a thousand pounds either run at a fence to get away or attempt to take a person down with them under their feet. Our jobs, as a horse people is timing our release to be immediate to when the horse makes and effort to try to seek a release so that it is instant with an action.

So perhaps, developing both your intuitive side, and allowing yourself to be an empath can assist you on your way to a more solidified connection with your horse. Perhaps we must try to not to resist our emotions and attempt to reclaim the right of empath. Instead of resisting and dreading our chosen work, we move into it with fluidity, alive, filled with new emotions, open to new experiences, and curious to see what might happen next. There is no difference on the connection of learning that a horse makes through an exercise than the one you make when you release a situation from your psyche.

A heartfelt thank you to my equine friends for teaching me this lesson, through their ability to “Hold the Sacred Space of Possibility” I’ve learned to move through my own life in a more fluid, positive way, and leave that stoic face at the entrance of the arena. Imagine if you will, retraining your body to be more liberated, more confidant, and more like our empathetic equine friends who have already learned seek release over resistance, perhaps if we do this our capacity as horse people will flourish, and so will the rest of our lives. Until next time, break out the Slick and Easy blocks; start shedding layers, because our saddle time is right around the corner. Ride Arete!