Show ‘Em What You Got

Human beings seem pre-programmed to focus on problems and issues.  As winter fades away and spring gains a tentative foothold in Virginia, many of the riders I work with are shifting their focus to the coming show season.  I have noticed a trend when it comes to their preparation.  A lot of attention gets focused on what’s wrong with them and their horses at the expense of what is good and right.   I am not against periodic assessments of oneself and one’s horse, in fact, I encourage this as an important step in setting realistic goals.  However, when the assessment focuses primarily on problems and short-comings, we may end up creating more problems than we solve.

When you study the world of human success, one resounding theme that echoes through every expert’s message is that  belief in oneself and belief in our ability to succeed is essential.  It seems simple enough and eminently sensible.  The problem, in this case, lies in how we get this great idea to work for us in practical and meaningful ways.  Standing in front of the mirror repeating “I believe in myself.” or “I can do it.” doesn’t seem to work.  In fact, these types of general or global affirmations seldom result in meaningful change.  So, what is one to do?

The answer is equally simple and sensible.  Regularly focus your attention on what you can do and notice what you do well.  I often say that confidence is grounded in achievement.  But, people are generally horrible at tracking and appreciating our own achievements.   Focusing on our capability and resourcefulness is a skill that has to be practiced and nurtured.

Commit to the following experiment for one week.  At the beginning of each day take five minutes and reflect on five things that you do, or have done, well.  These may be skills or personal attributes or achievements, and they may or may not be related to riding.  Challenge yourself not to repeat them over the course of the week, so that each day you are reflecting on five new positives.

Next, take a few moments after each time you ride or interact with your horse and reflect on what you have done well or what is getting better.

Then, at the end of the week, sit down with your trainer or instructor for a planning and preparation session for the coming show season.  Make a realistic assessment of your current level of performance.  This should include an assessment of yourself as a rider, your horse and the two of you as a team.  Challenge yourself to use descriptive rather than critical language.  Next make a realistic list of your strengths, skills and capabilities.  Again, include yourself, your horse, and the two of you as a team.  Finally, make a list of your goals for the season, the steps you will take to achieve your goals, and the challenges you expect to face along the way.

When all of this is completed, take each challenge you expect to meet along the way and answer the following questions.  What opportunity is there for me in facing this challenge?  Which of my strengths, resources and abilities will be valuable in working through this challenge?

Focusing in a realistic and balanced way on the challenges you face as well as the skills, abilities, personal qualities, and other resources you bring to your riding will propel you forward in powerful and positive ways.  Then the next time you step into the ring you won’t be as worried about what you can’t do and you will be ready to… Show ‘Em What You Got.

Knowing What You Need… And Where To Get It

Have you ever heard of the “Law of the instrument”?  It is popularly phrased as “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” and refers to an over-reliance on familiar tools.  I have been acutely aware recently how sport psychology seems to suffer from a variation of this phenomenon.  I am not suggesting that sport psychology is applied as a solution to every problem, far from it.  But, what I have noticed is that many people have a very limited view of what sport psychology is and what it has to offer.  They see it as a collection of relatively simple techniques like visualization or goal setting.  Once they have learned a technique they tend to indiscriminately apply the same technique to a multitude of problems.

Obviously, there will be occasions where this works out just fine.  There are after all a few nails in world.  Other times it may work well enough.  With a little effort you can pound in a screw or use your proverbial hammer to knock things into place.  But, there will be times when you need something other than a hammer.

When faced with a performance challenge, it will help to ask a few basic questions which will serve to clarify what you need.  Once you know what you need, you can go about the business of getting it.  So here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

Is your goal to improve your performance to a level you have yet to achieve?

Has your level of performance declined and are you trying to get back to a previously achieved level?

Has anything changed in your riding or your life recently that might impact your performance?

Are you facing any personal challenges that might be impacting your performance?

These questions are designed to help tease apart some of the different needs that people might have when pursuing their ultimate ride.  The first two questions focus on performance and help us to understand if we are dealing with performance enhancement in its purest form, or if we are dealing with what might be described as the alleviation of performance dysfunction.  Performance dysfunction refers to times when factors, either personal or situational, interfere with our performing to a level of which we are capable.

The second two questions seek to clarify the potential causes of a performance deficit.  When our performance declines as a result of factors other than our own knowledge, skill and training, it is crucial to correctly identify the contributing factors.  Are the causes situational factors that are external to us and out of our control?  Are the causes related to our personal reactions to a context in which we find ourselves (i.e., factors that are personal/internal and we have a good deal of control over)?  Are the causes related to personal difficulties or illness such as post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression or addictions for which we have responsibility but little control.

So much of what is popularly known about sport psychology focuses primarily on tools and techniques solely designed to enhance performance without reference to context.   Relying on standard performance enhancement techniques to address performance issues that are caused either situational or personal factors are bound to fall short.  Clarifying some of the potential underlying causes of our performance deficits goes a long way in helping us discern what we need and assists us in selecting the appropriate tools from the broad range of sport psychology interventions.

New Power of Positive Thinking

Last week marked the second installment of my 3-part seminar series on the psychology of equestrian sport.  We took a fresh look at positive thought processes and how positive thought processes can impact our riding performance.  New this year was a look at recent work in the area of positive psychology interventions that have been developed and studied at the at the UCSF Center for Excellence in Women’s Health by Dr. Margaret Chesney.  In a clear and insightful video presentation Dr. Chesney reviews her work and talks about the potential impact that generating positive thought and emotion would have on our health and well-being.

One of the big “take aways” for me this year as I prepared for the seminar was how important our overall state of mind is in our riding.  We are so often drawn to the fixing problems and changing or tuning up specific things here and there.  We forget that our overall attitude and frame of mind may ultimately determine whether or not we are able to move forward, grow, learn and advance in our sport.

Just take a moment to consider the impact that negative thought and emotion has been discovered to have on our experience.  It impacts our nervous system (fight, flight, freeze response), our musculoskeletal system (tension, rigidity, and pain), our endocrine system (adrenaline, epinephrine, BDNF and other hormones), and our respiratory system (breathing, hyperventilation, and oxygenation).  Anybody notice anything that relates to our riding?

Take a closer look at Dr. Chesney’s work and try out her suggestions for increasing positivity in your life and riding.  I think you will be glad that you did.

 

Breakfast of Champions

I remember an advertising campaign when I was growing up that focused on spreading the message that we needed to feed our children a nutritious breakfast before sending them off to school.  The basic idea was that hungry children weren’t as available for learning as children who were well fed.  This certainly made  a lot of sense then and still makes sense today.  We could invest in our schools, hire the best teachers, implement the finest curricula but without students that were mentally, emotionally and physically ready to learn it would all be for naught.

The same is true for equestrians.  We can have the finest facilities, the best instructors and trainers, highly trained experienced athletic horses (and the most talented of sport psychology consultants of course) but unless you are mentally, emotionally, and physically ready to make use of all these resources you are not likely to make significant strides.

Last Tuesday at the Five Pillars of Success Seminar we took a closer look at a metaphorical “Breakfast of Champions”.  We talked about the essential elements in preparing ourselves for participation in equestrian sport.  We talked about motivation, goals, resources, risk assessment, and the fundamental importance of relationships.  More than talking about how each of these foundational aspects were important in our equestrian lives, we talked about how they need to be balanced with each other.  We explored how motivations and goals need to be suitable for one another, how our resources needed to be sufficient and appropriate if we were to realistically reach our goals, and how our assessment of risk changes over our lifetime as well as how failing to take these changes into account undermines our efforts.

New this year was the focus on relationships.  We reflected on the importance and power of relationships. We talked about how relationships are essential in providing us with the fundamental confidence and security we need to learn, explore and challenge ourselves.  We also had an opportunity to grow in our understanding of what we bring to our relationships in our riding lives; who we are as partners to our horse, as students to our teachers, as teachers to our students, as members of our family, and as friends to our peers.  Self-awareness is a powerful tool in getting us truly prepared to learn and progress in our riding.

As I drove home that night I was reflecting on the evening and I was transported back to my childhood complete with visions of Bruce Jenner on the Wheaties box and the nutritious breakfast ad campaign.  All dated references aside, I left that seminar more convinced than ever of the importance of a sound psychological foundation, not only for our riding, but for our continued personal growth.  In order for us to make use of the wide arrange of skills and knowledge that sport psychology has to offer, and to be open and available to the lessons that our mentors have to teach us, we must first take the responsibility to “eat a nutritious breakfast” so that we are mentally, emotionally, and physically available to learn and to grow.  I will certainly be trying to do that for myself.

Looking forward to seeing everyone next month at the New Power of Positive Thinking seminar.

It’s Not About Us…It’s About The Horses

I enjoyed reading Lauren Sprieser’s article “No Success in a Vacuum” in the Chronicle last week.  She did a nice job highlighting the importance of our relationships in our horsemanship journey.  I was particularly struck by one line toward the end of her article.

“There’s this funny little tick in Americans about wanting to be pioneers, to reach great heights by ourselves, but that’s just not how it works.”

It got me thinking how many people that I have met in my practice who wanted to be more than just successful.  Many did feel both the need to be, in Sprieser’s words, a pioneer and the need to do it all on their own.  I also got to thinking about how this “funny little tick” is not just an individual issue.  It seems more like a cultural value which applies not only to individuals but to businesses, groups and organizations as well.

There is a relatively new e-publication in the equine assisted psychotherapy world called eapReport.  There are many things that I like about this publication.  Foremost is their tagline, “It is not about the model it is about the horse.”  When ever I read that line I am reminded of the countless squabbles I have witnessed between proponents of the various models of equine assisted psychotherapy/learning.  I am also reminded of similar, and sometimes vitriolic, squabbles between disciples of various equestrian disciplines and schools of horsemanship.

This phenomenon is not unique to the horse world.  Similar battles rage in the field of psychology between proponents of different theoretical perspectives.  There are frequent turf wars.  Some of these wars are fought over prestige, some over status, some over academic “principles”, and some over money.  Add the end of the day, one thing is for certain, the “person” is lost in the fray in the same way that the horse is lost in so many of the battles in the equestrian world.

I was taught early on in my graduate study of group psychology that group boundaries were important.  They provided members of the group a kind of security that is necessary in order for people to learn, take risks and explore.  I was also taught that there was value in dedicating oneself to the in-depth study of one psychological theory and school of therapy.  It is important for us to belong to group and to commit ourselves to mastery of a discipline.  Focusing our energies in this way helps us to excel and to be creative in the process.  However, the value of group membership does not need to be accompanied by the disparagement of others and the dismissal of ideas that are different from our own.

Early in my career I was quick to judge and criticize other psychological perspectives often without even really understanding their ideas or principles or how they applied their knowledge.  I am convinced now that I did this out of my own insecurity and need for personal legitimacy.  Now, whenever I explore a new psychological perspective, I make it my responsibility to dig deeply and develop an in-depth knowledge before I set to judging or critiquing.

I truly have to credit my horses for this shift in attitude.   I had the good fortune of owning a horse, Ride On Blue, who completely stymied me and all that I had learned in my then 30 years of riding.  This caused me to look outside of my own world of horsemanship to places I had never thought to look before.  I remember having huge reservations about this, but I made a commitment to myself and my future horses that I would not judge until I had committed the time to developing an in-depth understanding of what each brand of horsemanship or clinician had to offer.  My horses are glad that I did.

I think it is wonderful that we have so many different equestrian disciplines and so many schools of horsemanship.  I also think it is healthy that there are well defined differences or boundaries between these groups.  That way, students of each discipline can feel a degree of security and safety, and explore their world of horses in ways that bring about innovation and greater understanding of our horses and our partnership with them.  I also think that it is healthy to learn from one another and gain benefit from different perspectives.  Sure there will be times that we will have legitimate concerns about the teachings and practices of others, but let’s make sure in those moments that our protestations are not grounded in our own insecurity or need to protect our status and/or legitimacy.  After all its not about us, its about the horses.

Gratitude for Another Year of Life’s Lessons

One of the greatest joys of preparing for my annual seminar series is taking the time to reflect on the work of the last year and pull together the lessons I have learned from the people with whom I have worked.  I am always humbled when I realize how much I have gained through the bravery and efforts of others as I assist them in tackling their riding challenges.  Each year I have grown in insight and understanding.  Each year I have grown in my awareness of the uniqueness of each individual’s challenges.  I hope that I have grown in my ability to respond to each person’s situation with knowledge and skill.  I also hope that I have grown in my ability to respond with sensitivity, insight and “feel”.

As I sit down to prepare myself for this year’s seminar series, I am acutely aware that this year was as rich as any other in what I have learned.  What strikes me as different this year is that the challenges I have faced as a sport psychologist have helped me return to my professional roots as a clinical psychologist.  I have spent much of the last twelve years seeking to increase my knowledge and skill specifically in sport psychology.  I have explored many of the traditional arenas of sport psychology; emotional regulation, goal setting, imagery, and self-talk to name a few.  I have also mastered intervention techniques such as hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming,  and mindfulness meditation.  What I have realized this year is that knowledge and technical skill, no matter how complete, is not enough.

The challenge is not in articulating what could be (or what some might feel should be) attained in terms of mental and emotional states during competition.  The challenge is in engaging ourselves in the process of change.  How many articles have you read or seminars have you attended that have outlined the essential mental skills of successful athletes?  How many books have you read about sport psychology techniques for improving performance, managing anxiety, or tackling fear?  The reality is that there is a lot of very good information out there.  Yet, I meet person after person who has had great difficulty applying this excellent knowledge base in a way that leads to meaningful changes in their own riding.

So what do you do when the solutions seem clear and simple, but difficult to attain?  How do you set the stage so that you are open and available for growth and change in our riding?  For the last year I have been looking to my roots as a clinical psychologist to shed some light on potential answers to these questions.  I have used this blog as a place to talk about some of the human psychology which underlies the challenges we face, and more importantly, the challenges we face in changing.  This year in the seminar series my goal is to take another step toward helping each rider make positive changes by offering them more than just a template for success.  I hope to offer them greater understanding of themselves and what they need on a basic psychological level to engage their curiosity and creativity.  The same curiosity and creativity which makes change not only possible, but powerfully rewarding.

I’ll Get To It Later…

Procrastination.  After anxiety and fear, procrastination is perhaps the next most commonly presented problem in my work with equestrians.  This is really not surprising since procrastination is a profoundly human problem.  A simple search on amazon.com for books addressing procrastination will yield somewhere on the order of 843 results.  A search on Google Scholar yields over 46,000 results.  Yes, 46,000!  It is humbling when you think about it. Just imagine how much time and energy has gone into studying and trying to solve this problem of procrastination.

On one hand it might feel demoralizing.  If that many minds have struggled to come up with solutions and have yet to land on a definitive answer to the problem, what hope have I. But, I find myself taking a different tact.  I actually find comfort in the company, knowing that these difficult experiences and feelings I have struggled with from time to time, as I attempt to complete important tasks, are part of being human.  It also helps me to be more compassionate with myself and has given me the freedom to explore my own creative solutions to the challenge of procrastination.  Perhaps my optimism is born out of my experience of years helping people find creative solutions to problems where the solutions are best described as “simple but not easy.”

One thing is for sure.  “Just do it!” is not an answer for most people and there are sound psychological reasons for that.  Procrastination involves the experience of a negative feeling (usually anxiety) as we approach a task we perceive to be high-priority.  In response to our discomfort we distract ourselves by automatically shifting our efforts and attention to lower priority tasks, thus relieving the anxiety.  Avoidance strategies are highly reinforcing.  Think about how easy it is to “train”” a horse to pull back or escape.  The release of pressure at just the wrong moment a few times and “Voila!”  Horses quickly learn to avoid or escape things that cause them great discomfort.  We are no different in this regard.  Procrastination behavior is, in and of itself, reinforcing.

The fact that procrastination involves the experience off a negative emotion such as anxiety.  Also gives us clues as to why the “Cowboy Up!” or “Just Do It!” approaches don’t work well for most.  It is very similar to what I speak about when helping riders deal with performance anxiety or fear.  It’s the “don’t think of pink elephants” effect where the more you try not to feel something the more you actually focus your attention on it and practice feeling it. This inevitably makes the feeling stronger.  When procrastination is mild and infrequent it is a lot easier to suck it up and  push our way through it.  The more intense and frequent it becomes, the more this strategy will backfire and serve to intensify your discomfort and ultimately your procrastination.

What then is one to do? Interestingly enough the most effective approaches involve doing a lot less.  Imagine if we were to strengthen our ability to tolerate  feeling or experiencing our emotions with out acting on them.  A few really good things might come of this.   First, we might realize that we are “just having a feeling” as we approach an important task.  We might also realize that the only power these feelings have to drive our behavior is the power that we actually give them in the moment.  I am frequently heard telling my clients that there are only two things I know to be true: no feeling in and of itself ever killed anyone and, if you don’t like what you are feeling wait, it will change.  If we commit ourselves to being more aware of what we are feeling as we approach important tasks and we commit ourselves to practicing the art of being aware of our feelings and tolerating them without reacting, we will quickly find that we have a choice.  We can choose to engage in the high priority task or we can choose to “procrastinate.”  The only problem now is that choosing to “procrastinate” is not really procrastination.  Is it? Hmmmm.

Now… if I could only get myself to work on the flyers for my upcoming seminar series.

When You Need New Glasses…

Sometimes you need new lenses and sometimes you just need new frames.

I have always been seduced by the idea that if I can just analyze a problem sufficiently, I will be able to solve it.  I am a problem solver by nature and was raised in a family where knowledge and understanding were highly valued.  Especially, if that knowledge and understanding came from a careful, methodical and thorough analysis.  I have thought about this as the”lens” through which I look at a problem.  If I could just bring the problem into focus then I felt that I had a good shot at solving it.

One of my earliest challenges as a psychologist was my impatience in the process of change.  I worked diligently with my clients to help them explore their lives.  I helped them understand behavioral and emotional patterns, their temperament, their neurology and physiology, their relationships, and how their life of learning led them to where they are at the present moment.  And yet, more often than not, this highly focused and clear understanding of their problems did not spontaneously lead to change. Frustrating, right?

Over time I began to notice that the clients that did make changes were the one’s that, after understanding their problem, naturally shifted their focus to solutions.  In that way, they knew where they were going.  They had analyzed the problems in their life and, using that analysis as a basis, they had identified one or more solutions.  In essence, they had shifted their focus and attention from what I call a “problem frame” to a “solution frame”.  This may seem like an obvious and simple idea, but it is so often lost both in life and in learning.

Take a moment the next time you ride to listen to the voice inside your head.  How often do you identify a problem in your riding?  How often do you search for a cause?  And, how often when you identify a cause, do you admonish yourself to stop doing the offending behavior? Many riders are very critical of themselves.  They constantly tell themselves “don’t do this” or “don’t do that.”  The problem with this approach is simply that no amount of telling ourselves what not to do will help us do the right thing.

If your an instructor or coach, pay attention to the language that you use when working with your clients.  Notice how often you are critical or point out something your client is doing wrong.  If you find yourself doing this on occasion, try an experiment.  The next time your teaching a lesson and notice a behavior that you would like your client to change, take the time to enter a into “problem frame” with your student.  Clearly and thoroughly describe your client’s riding behavior and why it fails to bring about the desired results.  Then consciously and deliberately shift the focus from problems to solutions and enter into a “solution frame.” Talk with them clearly and specifically about what they need to do in order to progress. Finally, when you see the undesired behavior again, help your client stay in a “solution frame” by reminding them about what they need to do rather than pointing out their mistake.

There is no doubt that seeing things clearly is of great value in our equestrian lives, and that looking at our experience through the correct lens will help us greatly in our quest to accomplish our riding goals.  It is equally important to remember that no amount of focus or clarity will serve to help us overcome the challenges in our equestrian journey, if we are seeing things clearly through an unhelpful frame.

“Sport Psychology Just Doesn’t Work For Me…”

Recently at a holiday party, one of the people with whom I was talking found out that I was a sport psychologist.  They quickly commented that they had read all the sport psychology books and tried the techniques.  They then emphatically stated that sport psychology didn’t work for them.  I had two immediate reactions to their comment which I reserved for this post.

The first is my amazement at how consistently people believe that reading a book or listening to a lecture on sport psychology is enough to legitimately give it a try and make a determination as to whether or not  it “works for them.”  Imagine for a moment a conversation with a friend who, after finding out that you rode and competed in dressage,  stated definitively that they had read several books about dressage, tried it for a week or two with their horse and concluded that it “didn’t work for them.”

To change or shape a person’s state of mind while riding or competing is no different than mastering a riding discipline or learning any other skill or ability.  It takes a positive attitude, knowledge, skill, practice and coaching.  It is also best learned over time and integrated in your development as a rider.

The fact is… each person is unique.  We come to our riding with our own mix of psychological strengths and weaknesses.  Moreover, the mental and emotional challenges that we face in our riding will change with each new experience. The challenges we face can also change dramatically over time as we age and mature.  It baffles me how we so easily and automatically seek out trainers, instructors and coaches to help us on our riding journey while, at the same time, believing that we should face the mental, emotional and perhaps spiritual struggles on our own.

My second reaction to the comments of my fellow holiday party-goer is that there are a surprisingly large number of subtle and not-so-subtle psychological dynamics to explain why one’s attempts to use a variety of sport psychology techniques might fail.

As I write, I am transported back to the countless times, at the behest of my instructor,  I made a very subtle change in my position or application of the aides which resulted in a miraculous change in my horse.  If you had asked me prior to making the change, I would have been convinced that my position was correct and the aides were applied correctly.  Why would I intentionally ride otherwise?  The question really revolves around whether or not I was best suited to evaluate the situation.

Exploring our inner psychological life and the many way it may impact our riding and our relationship with our horse can leave many of us feeling vulnerable.  It is because of this vulnerability that it is a popular choice for people shy away from the journey of self discovery.  They may seek safety and comfort by attempting to deal with their psychological challenges on their own.  Yet, it is exactly because personal growth and exploration makes us feel vulnerable that it is often difficult to see ourselves clearly.

If you read a sport psychology book and successfully apply some of what you learn to your riding… great!  If you find yourself hungry for more… wonderful! Read more, attend seminars  or clinics,  and seek out consultation with a sport psychology professional because there is more to be had.  If you find some challenge in getting it working for you… don’t dismiss sport psychology out-of-hand.  Exploring the road blocks to improving your mental game might take time, working closely with an expert with whom you can develop a trusting relationship. But, as with so many things in life, that in which we invest time, energy, and effort often yields the greatest rewards.  At the very least you deserve to invest as much in yourself and your own personal growth as you do in your horse.

Casting Call – The Roles Our Horses Play

Last week I had the chance to catch up with an old friend Jane Nordstrom and meet a new friend Kristen Auerbach.  We were meeting to talk about a dream of mine; a place where riders and their horses can go to heal themselves in mind, body and spirit.  Kristen was talking about her work with yoga for equestrians and described the powerful emotions that her work often brought out in her clients.  The conversation drifted to explore why horses brought out such intense feelings in people and it got me thinking about the psychology of people and how they relate to horses.

I want to qualify what I am about to say by acknowledging that horses have a power, energy and spirit all their own.  My reflections on human psychology and its impact on our relationships with horses is not meant in any way to diminish the contribution of the horse in our relationships with them.  Instead I am temporarily shining a light on the human half of that relationship so that we might grow in our awareness of ourselves and hopefully understand better what we bring to the table.

I also want to acknowledge that there are as many perspectives on human experience and psychology as there are people.  I don’t pretend to have ” the Truth” but rather “a truth”, a perspective that many of my clients have found helpful in understanding their experience and ultimately making better choices for themselves.

There are two ideas I would like to share with you today.  The first is the powerful impact of our human experience and learning over our life span on our relationship with horses.  The second is our own powerful ability to gain “control” over our experience by projecting our thoughts and ideas onto others.

The importance of our lived experience in understanding how we react to our current reality seems obvious, yet it is easy for us to ignore.  This life of learning I am referring to is far more than the sum total of our intellectual knowledge and our developed skills.  It is the very fabric of our character and personality.  Each of us (with our unique physiology, neurology and temperament) is born into this world into a context, a web of relationships.  The nature of these relationships, especially early in our lives, molds and shapes so many of our essential qualities, including our emotional and psychological balance/resilience as well as our needs and expectations in relationships.

Who I am as a person is profoundly important in my journey as a horseman.  Am I assertive or timid?  Am I intellectual or emotional?  What are my personal thresholds for tolerating emotion?  What are my preferred emotional states when dealing with challenge or conflict?  Am I optimistic or pessimistic? Am I vigilant or a daydreamer?  How do I respond to different situations? Answers to these questions and the myriad of others that may have occurred to you as you read this provide important information in helping you to understand your experience with horses.  They will also help you to understand what you come to think and believe about your horse, which brings us to my second point: projection.

Let’s face it.  A horse is a horse.  Anything that we think about a horse (our thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and understandings) is a product of our mind.  We take our lived experience and formulate that experience in our minds in human language.  We create a story about our horse and our experience with him and then project that onto the horse.  This is a natural and healthy process for humans.  We do it all the time with almost every aspect of our lives.  This includes projections in our relationships with people as well as animals and even inanimate objects.  It only becomes a problem when our projections diverge so far from reality that they cause conflicts for ourselves or others.

Consider for a moment the last time you ascribed a human emotion or characteristic to your horse.  Perhaps you thought of him as happy, content, or loving his job.  Perhaps you thought of him as manipulative, lazy, or as holding a grudge.  I am a firm believer that horses experience what we call emotion, but I am also a firm believer that horses don’t think and conceptualize their emotions and the world in the same way we do.  The stories we tell about our horses may in fact work for us.  Perhaps they help us to feel in control of our world and help guide our actions or responses to our horses in functional ways.  But it is important to be aware that they are only tools to help us navigate the unknown and are not “true”  in the same way that Alfred Korzybski reminded us, “The a map is not the territory.”

So, why do people react so strongly and emotionally to their horse?  Certainly one piece is that horses are physically and energetically powerful and sensitive creatures.  More importantly horses are also wonderful projective objects,  screens on which we have projected our own powerfully emotional story.  A story colored by our own life experience, needs, expectations, dreams, etc.  In that way we write them into the script of the drama that is our life, assigning them an important role and interacting with them accordingly.

The horseman or horsewoman who is aware of of how their life experience has influenced their perceptions, thinking, reactions and emotions and who understand that the stories they make up about their horses are limited abstractions and are not the whole truth,  open the door to to both their own personal growth and the opportunity to experience the true power of the horse.  They get to build genuine relationships with their horses rather than just casting them into a pre-existing role in the ongoing drama of their life.