PARTNERS

A conference room filled with fourteen adult educators, new participants in the Gerstacker Fellowship program. They curiously look through the large windows into the indoor arena, where Stacie and I are releasing our herd.  First Tigger, our beautiful flea-flicked, 18-hand draft mare.  Next, Diva, a stunning black former show quarter horse.  They trot around appreciating the freshly dragged arena footing.  Athletic “D” adding a few bucks for good measure.  Next, we bring out our miniature hinney (donkey mom and horse dad) named C-Red, who joins Diva in the dirt kicking with excitement.  The next four-legged facilitators we drop into the mix are the two newest members of the herd, Poncho and Cisco.  These two miniature horses have shared large open pastures with our other horses, though not in this closed in of a space.  The newbies decide it’s best to be at one end of the arena, while the other three clump at the opposite end. By using a portion of roundpen, we’ve created a space that separates the horses from the full arena (66 x 144 arena), allowing participants the option of participating without having physical contact with the horses.  Last in are our two miniature horses, Mickey and Minnie.  Mick & Minn are part of the original herd with Tiggs, D, and C. Red.  They’ve been together in this space countless times helping humans.  With the addition of Mickey and Minnie, a new sorting starts taking place and turns ugly.  The horses’ excitement turns to something darker as the herd begins biting, intentional kicking, and their frenzied running stirs up not only dirt. 

A quick glance by Stacie and I to the conference room windows finds our educators wide-eyed and with mouths gaping.  This is their first introduction to equine-assisted learning. You can feel their fear of being invited into this dangerous and chaotic space.  Stace and I watch intently for several minutes and realize something has to change.  My first thought, and I find out later it was the same of all the educators, is to remove Mickey and Minnie.  Things didn’t get crazy until we added them.  They are the ones being the most aggressive, especially towards C. Red.  Stacie in her role as Equine Specialist recognizes that would be the wrong choice, the right decision is to remove Poncho and Cisco because we know the other five have an established order.  We carefully go into the space and catch and halter our newest herd members and almost immediately everyone settles down.  You can almost hear a collective sigh of relief from the conference room and five horses are now just standing there patiently waiting to meet their human companions.  As we do with whatever shows up that has meaning, we debrief what just happened.  EAL Magic, that’s what.  Our educators were delighted with the lesson, as they face similar challenges in their classrooms daily.   

Partner with people who know their stuff. And Trust them.  Oh, and know your stuff too!

HERDS

His cowboy hat tilted forward to block the rain, soaked oilskin jacket dripping with water, a taught lead rope with a very unhappy donkey at the end begrudgingly following.  This image of Paul Smith leading Hercules back to his pasture on a stormy night as we peered from the doorway of the bunkhouse embodies the critical importance of having a support system. Paul was part of Herc’s support team.  He took care of this stubborn donkey, literally dragging him back to a secure area where he would be free from bears, coyotes, and other predators.  Support teams can not only keep you physically safe (I’ve been grateful for this kind of help a time or two), they are also there for your emotional, spiritual, and psychological support. 

I’m forever grateful to the various “herds” who have shared themselves with me over the years and accepted me for “being” me.  I Imagine the various groups of humans as if they were all ropes, or threads, or other pieces of twine twisted together creating a lifeline.  Some are longer than others.  Some are thick, with many life experiences, and strong because of the shared time and overcoming of conflict.  Others have gaps, where they have come and gone.  In each case, the ties that bind have helped me gain perspective, held me accountable, and supported me in reframing experiences that no longer serve. 

Surround yourself with people that you trust, that invite your authentic self into the space with them, and who you can share your vulnerability.  You don’t have to always agree with people in your support system, in fact, sometimes it is better if you don’t.  As Michael Broom teaches “Difference is the only ways you learn.”

OBSTACLES

Looking through the lens of a Kaleidoscope, one can change the image in front of you and what it means to you with a simple twist and turn.  Life offers us the same opportunity, the ability to shift our perspective and choose to look at a situation, person, or ourselves from a new vantage point.  Intentionally reframing our perspective or paradigm to better serve our desired future state takes practice.  The following story captures a few lessons where our horses helped me figure some of this out. and where “making a mistake” that led to some wonderful insights for our clients and ourselves.  

We, Stacie my Co-facilitator and Equine Specialist and I, were working with a group of women who were employed by a care agency whose team included management, marketing, nurses, administrative, and social workers.  They hired us to help them improve their communication and become a team.  After lunch, we invited them to do an EAGALA classic,: obstacles.  It’s an activity where you ask participants, using horse-safe objects, to build a path for them to move horses through, in, over, or however they define the course. Except, when we described the activity, we forgot to specify the “path” part and only spoke about building an obstacle. 

Lesson #1 – Put your plans in writing.  There’s tons of research supporting the power of the written word, from journaling to goal setting. Each. Word. Matters.

Back to our client.  We invited them to create an obstacle.  So that’s what they did.  Literally.  They piled everything we gave them, PVC pipes, noodles, cones, buckets all in a big heap and created an obstacle, then all 12 of them stood in a circle looking at it.  Stacie and I stared at each other with a questioning look of “what the bleep do we do now?”  The group was not engaging with the horses, just standing there staring at a pile.  This outcome was NOT what we imagined would happen at all!  One big problem was we didn’t know when to decide the activity was over because they all just stood there while the horses milled around wondering what was going on.  So, we sort of shrugged our shoulders “trusting the process” and approached the group.   We asked them about their creation, and they said they did what we told them, which was build an obstacle.  Which they did.  Then we asked them what the obstacle represented, and they said things they couldn’t get over.  Okay, we said, that makes sense.  Our next question hit paydirt; we asked how they defined their success?   Several shared their definitions for success, and they varied widely.  At this point, our equine partners responded to the increased energy and started trotting around the arena.  All the while, our human clients were still just standing looking at the pile they created.  You see, both success and barriers to it, or obstacles, were different for each person because most of them worked independently, even though they all work for the same organization.  This recognition led to rich dialogue about their interdependence. How the social worker’s definitions of success, as well as their obstacles, influenced the marketer’s definition and the administrators’, as well as the leaders’ definitions of both obstacles and success.

Lesson #2 –  Trust the Process.  When you stay focused on leveraging whatever is in front of you, or the situation at hand, you can find that whatever is happening is just exactly what will serve you best. Be open to outcomes and stay curious – they are your best weapons for success.       

Lesson #3 – In the situation described above, I shared that this group hired us to help them become a team.  They were under the assumption that we would do that, make them a team, in a one-day workshop.  They shared their disappointment on their evaluations; because, while they learned a lot, they did not feel they had become a team.  From this experience forward, I became VERY clear about expectations, deliverables, etc.  I incorporated a question in my pre-assessment asking what outcomes they expected to achieve and shared the results of that question with the whole group at the beginning of the day.  This (in the words of my friend, Paul Smith) “created the container”.  It also establishes a clear contract with you and the client for the desired outcomes, allowing for dialogue should other issues emerge.  For those who are unaware, building a team is a long-term, ongoing, and evolving process.  A one-day workshop is just a start…

When you reframe your obstacles and learning opportunities, your new perspective offers insight and inspiration, not defeat and shame. Choose to learn and learn from your choices!

FORWARD

Forward is “my word” for 2021.  I’ve discovered that contemplating, reflecting, and choosing a word for the year helps guide and support me and my work.  This simple practice of picking a word offers an anchor that grounds my intention.  Interestingly, once I select a word, I find it appearing over and over again.  Have you ever been shopping for something like a new car and magically you start noticing “your” car everywhere?  Or maybe it’s time for new gutters for the house and now nearly every house has gutters the same color and style you are considering?  Our intention draws attention.

Forward represents movement to me. In positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, research on happiness, wisdom traditions, and neuroscience worlds (plus other theories and practices), we learn that what you feed grows.  For those of us in the equine world, even the slightest lean (physical shift) into a scary wash rack or horse-eating trailer is a positive result when you are asking a frightened horse to move.  A lean is progress towards the goal from my horse partner, so I reward them in hopes that they will move more in the direction I desire the next time we try.  Horses offer many lessons about reinforcing the behaviors we want in order to get more of it.  My draft mare and soul horse, Tigger, trained me very well to give her scratches before she left her stall each morning.  She’d drop her huge head and wait – 1,800 pounds of huggable, immovable, furry, horse. Most days this action brought me pure joy and a moment of being in the present. Then there were the times when I was running late and “had” to get horses out NOW.  My tardiness did not matter one iota to this gentle giant.  To get her forward movement, I would be required to take the time to let her know I loved her – even briefly – before those dinnerplate-sized feet were going to cross the doorway out of her stall.  What a gift she gave me – a required time to pause, even if I didn’t want to or didn’t think it was the priority at the time. 

In a COVID world, and looking ahead to a post-pandemic reality, movement can represent a lot of different things.  No doubt this strange time has shifted perspectives and things that were previously deemed “normal” have changed in some way. This time of reduced freedoms may have opened your eyes to something or someone that you now realize is not worth your energy.  The opposite may also be true; you now recognize new places, new opportunities, and dreams where you want to focus and grow.  One thing is for certain, each of us has had our regular patterns of behavior interrupted.  Awareness is an invitation for change.

Author and marketing Guru, Seth Godin, recently released his new book, The Practice:  Shipping Creative Work.  This little masterpiece is filled with gems that encourage forward movement.  He eloquently provides insights into human limitations and the stories we tell ourselves which can create barriers to living into our whole self – our possibilities.  His wisdom reveals and sheds light on what many of us already know to be true, that we can be our own worst enemy AND we can make the choice to be our own best champion – through practice and shipping the work.

I’ll let you in on a little secret…even writing this blog was a practice in shipping the work and moving forward.  I wrote it as a guest blogger for First Nature Ranch (FNR). FNR Founder, Kerul’s first email inviting me to be blogging family came months ago.  I genuinely loved and appreciated the offer.  What stopped me from jumping into this task right away? The same “brain rats” that can get in the way of other healing and healthy practices.  Pick something, my friends, and lean forward or take a small step into the dark, scary, and horse-eating trailer.  You’ll be glad you did because the next time you move forward, the path forward will be a tad easier and feel just a little bit more familiar.   

Asking for Help

The First Step is Awareness

Can you tell by this picture that the young lady on the end of the leadrope is asking Mickey to move forward? Her “ask” isn’t getting the results she wanted, so she made another request, which was to ask her classmate (the young lady near Mick) to help. This is example of how partnering with horses helps humans better understand themselves. During this simple activity there are many choices and decisions being made. Some of the inner dialogue might sound like this:

*The Leader - How important is it that I move this horse? What does the horse represent in my life? If I ask for help, is that a sign of weakness and self-doubt?

*The Helper: I care and want to contribute, yet do I know how to help? If I help, am I under-mining the Leader’s ability to problem-solve?

* Mickey: Does the human know what she wants? I’m confused and getting mixed signals… I’d rather just eat this yummy grass.

Recognizing and listening to your inner dialogue is one of the pieces of increasing your self-awareness. Awareness as a continuous practice becomes a guiding light, a torch, which helps us to overcome the barrage of outside messaging and influences that undermine our confidence and willingness to try.

There’s a “right balance” between persistence (aka grit or stick-to-it-tiveness) and asking for help. Sometimes this sweet spot is not an easy problem to solve and the good news is we have the capacity and ability to get better and stronger through practice and paying attention.

Asking for help has a reputation as being weak, and to the contrary, researcher and author Brene’ Brown has discovered that asking for help, aka being vulnerable, is a sign of strength. Check out all of Brene’s amazing offerings by visiting https://brenebrown.com/

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UNSTUCK

Move Freely into Unconditional Love

This image spoke to my friend, Maureen; she recently pointed out that we can’t, or shouldn’t, or should at least think twice, before hugging people during the pandemic.  Such a simple gesture, yet one that speaks volumes about who you are, how you are wired, and the significance of “hugs”. 

One of my daughters and one of my best friends’ are not “huggers”.  I forget that they aren’t until I wrap my arms snuggly around them and their bodies go tight, trying to pull away.  Their physical response is not wrong, it’s just different, than mine.  I have to remind myself of this, because on an emotional level their resistance can be easily misinterpreted as rejection - a personal hurt instead of their discomfort of physical touch.

When horses are allowed to act naturally and are not dominated by expectations, like us, they react authentically with a visual physical response. A horse walking away from the invitation by a human to connect, can be a felt and experienced throughout your entire body, what is called a somatic experience. When a person walks away, humans often stay “safely” in their heads, creating a cognitive story response about they exchange. Our four-legged facilitators naturally invite curiosity, instead of justification and defense. This opportunity for genuine feedback is one of the primary reasons most equine-assisted facilitators, educators, and therapists partner with horses.

I long for the day when we can again hug more safely. In part, because that will designate a shift from our current dark situation with daily increased COVID-19 cases. “Hugs” come in many forms - from leaving a generous tip to servers, to randomly sending a gift or card, to buying locally, as a way of saying ‘thank you’ to those businesses who have supported your community and now are desperate for your help.

The joy of giving when so much has been taken away, not only brighten someone else’s day, it feeds your soul, the larger collective that we share, and helps us get ‘unstuck’ moving more freely in unconditional Love.

Next Week …