The word “connection” is used a lot in the horse world and seems to mean different things to different people. What does “connection” really mean? How does it come to life as more than just a word or a belief, and affect the relationship we are seeking with our horses?
It’s true that in many ways we have never been as thoroughly connected via the internet and social media yet we are losing touch with each other in real life. We are less connected to life and the world around us and this includes our horses.
From this view, it would make sense that the horse is often seen as ‘not enough’.
For years I searched to have a connection or create a connection with the horses I worked with. I went to clinics, read books, worked with and observed trainers who I thought ‘had it’ and watched A LOT of YouTube videos! I was a dedicated seeker of better things and one of the things was connection. I think horses appreciated my efforts but for the most part, it often felt somewhat ‘close, but no cigar’.
I saw all these people appearing to be doing “connected” things with horses. They had courses to sign up for, articles to read, and clinics to go to. All manner of things to keep me busy seeking that elusive “connection” and I worked hard at it but somehow it often all seemed to fall short of the outcome I was ultimately hoping for.
Until one day something curious happened…
I can’t say exactly what facilitated it, but there was a sudden realisation that it was never going to happen. I suddenly saw that connection was never something I was going to be able to ‘get’, ‘have’, ‘create’ or even imitate. As this realisation dawned in the moment of what felt like defeated clarity, you’d imagine I might have felt downhearted, but instead, something else happened.
I felt a huge sense of freedom and relief. I was off the hook.
What a curious experience to be left with nothing except a blank space where all the ‘me trying’ had been. I can’t say it was particularly comfortable at first but I noticed that it seemed to oscillate between slight discomfort and a larger sense of peace and relief that I simply couldn’t ignore because that part, just under the vague feeling of fear that I might have lost something, I felt wonderfully free! The feeling in the space changed and the horse I was with at the time instantly relaxed. I just let it all go…
It’s in the giving up of our ‘knowing’ just for a moment that the horse can finally reveal his true nature to us.
Our quest for self-improvement can cause us to miss the perfection of all that we already are.
I recognise that in training, if I am not to train resistance, then I am sometimes dwelling around the edges of the comfort zone of both beings, so how do I know where that line is in the moment? Well, I don’t pretend I do but over time I have begun to develop a familiarity with a voice and an intimacy with a feeling that makes it easier for me to discern when I am approaching a place of potential change which may for instance contain a little disruption, without going beyond it.
This is not a skill I learned from someone else but rather I came to recognise that it is always present within me in a stiller quieter place which simply allows a deeper listening. A place I now know is always available to me in any moment.
I’ve heard it said that you can’t teach ‘feel’. I think that’s true but this leaves us feeling as if “feel” is something that one person has and another doesn’t and you either got lucky when they were handing it out or you didn’t, and this simply couldn’t be further from the truth.
Closer to the truth is that individual feel arises from our natural design and innate inbuilt capacity to learn and respond in real-time by being present in the moment, and everyone has this capacity bar none! Some may need a little more pointing at it than others, but it is exclusive to no one.
Connection comes in many forms, physical, visual, auditory, emotional. At some level, it’s impossible not to be in a relationship and connected with everything around us via our senses. What I began to see was that in my continuous and natural identification with, and orientation towards, thought, sensation, feeling and emotion I had been missing the place where the horse and I already existed together prior to those experiences. A space in which we were already connected, and I was missing it simply because it had no physicality, sensation or emotion, it was just still, quiet and empty. Not much to look at or get excited about.
Yet in this place, I began to see that we are always and already connected by default and it seemed to contain everything I’d been searching for. What if the question became, not ‘How do I create a better connection with my horse?’ but instead, ‘What is hiding, veiling or preventing my sense of connection at this moment?
Mathematically, you could then express connection like this:
Connection = Presence – Interference.
I began to see that perhaps the process of seeking connection became one of subtraction rather than addition.
Interference then is simply any internal spoken word. Thought. All the wonderful human mind additives, like paint on a blank canvas. All the mind activities of knowing, measuring, analysing, calculating, thinking, projecting, emoting and more… That’s it.
So when we approach our horses wanting so much to relate with them, how much are we taking with us into that space? How much interference are we bringing with us? How many well-meaning hopes, judgements, ideas, projections, gathered information, about ourselves and them?
The good news is that it doesn’t really matter because rather than adding to the already noisy content of our thoughts by thinking about it, instead, we might simply ask ourselves how much noise is there at all. And could there be less?
In other words, connection, intimacy and understanding are what’s already there when there is nothing else in the way.
If we can allow ourselves to be fully present in the silence of this moment, what might we discover there? Because there are no mistakes in presence and all questions are answered from this deep place of wisdom in us.
Horses abide in full presence because they have no concept of the interference part of the equation. In other words, the data they receive from the world through their senses is pure and uncontaminated by internal dialogue.
Horses are always offering us the potential of connection from this place, so what if, if we were to go searching for the “how” of anything, it was this… How could I remain quiet and connected to my own inner presence to discover the gifts that live there?
The truth is that we don’t really need a course or a workshop or another person to show us how to get a better connection because we are already connected and already exist in connection with all other things and beings and this includes our horses. It’s happening in the background whether we are noticing it right then or not. That’s not to say we can’t or shouldn’t learn from others. Of course, we can and we should, but from a starting place of remembering who and what we and our horses already are.
If we can approach our horses from this quiet mind, they are always to be found waiting right there for us. Ready to show us what our hearts desire and what it is they need from us in order for them to do what we ask of them. Some of them tell us ‘No thanks’ and that sometimes needs to be heard and respected, but mostly they are simply waiting to be in a relationship with us and often it’s simply our own internal noise, both well-meaning or otherwise that appears as a block to connection.
“All we are is peace, love, and wisdom, and the power to create the illusion that we are not.” ~Jack Pransky~
Maxine Kemp is a classical riding trainer and transformative life coach based in East Suffolk UK who is dedicated to simplifying and demystifying the journey to greater peace well-being and empowerment for humans and their horses.
"It’s not supposed to be that difficult."
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