Warming up for Riding- Naturally
By Leigh Shambo, MSW
The beauty of combining our emotional clearing and
intuitive work with an active riding partnership with a horse
was brought home to me this week. It has been a tremendously
difficult week in which I learned that my aging father, who has
a life-threatening illness, has entered an acute phase.
Although I remained at home and monitored the situation from a
distance, continuing my daily work with the horses and clients,
many difficult and intense emotions competed to disrupt my
emotional balance.
....
This
week I have daily been walking the line between healthy and
authentic emotional expression and a mature containment so that
my grief, fear and anger did not disrupt the sessions with
horses and people. At HEAL, students explore the subtle
dynamics of energetic communication and intuitive sensitivity;
it is not possible or productive to hide or rigidly suppress
emotional energies in this environment. This would only skew
the sessions and confuse both clients and horses. And so I do
my best to walk through such emotional life stages with
authenticity and grace. Horses offer us the experience of
being natural with our feelings. We learn to balance times for
expression with times of appropriate containment. We learn how
to understand our own contribution to the emotional ambience
shared by person and horse.
Of course, it is
always the horses who seem to see deeply into me
instantly, they often know me even before I know myself. Each
in their own way, they will show their support, compassion or
will model or reflect something I need to see. My dear buddy
Ameer, an Arabian gelding, helped me find my naturalness with my
feelings this time around. I often call Ameer my brother, for
his clear intellect and sober good judgment (although, we do not
always agree! But he always has reasons for his actions). He
would be an elder brother, the smart one, always courageous and
attentive.
On this particular
afternoon, my father had left a phone message and then I called
him back; I could tell by his voice that it was not good news.
After learning of his worsened condition, when we said good bye
I hung up the phone and sobbed. After the wave of emotion
subsided, I finished up the work at my desk and then went out to
be with the horses. I spent awhile doing chores, interacting a
bit with the horses as I pushed the wheelbarrow through the
pasture and as they entered the barn to see what I was up to.
My body settled into these natural routines, and I sort of
forgot about my sadness, though I was aware of a heaviness that
was more visceral than conscious. Ameer was particularly
attentive and interactive, his way of asking for some play
time. Ameer loves ridden work, and I had put on riding breeches
before coming out to the paddocks. My spirits lifted a little
more, the small current of joy like a breeze against my
heaviness of spirit. Say yes to him, the muse whispered to me.
But once we were in
structured interaction, Ameer’s demeanor seemed to shift. He no
longer tried to engage me, and he did not have the soft and
gentlemanly compliance that usually characterizes our work
together. Instead, he seemed to hold his head stiffly up,
staring away with a fixed gaze. This did not change, even when
I danced with him through a few “connecting” ground exercises
(even with this stiff demeanor he performed the exercises
flawlessly). I felt myself getting a little frustrated. Why
wasn’t my good friend connecting with me?
It is moments like
this that can be pivotal in relationships, and this is when
emotional fitness skills are truly helpful. It would have been
easy to do more, trying harder and harder to make Ameer
connect. Instead, I did less. I took a moment to tune into by
body, and noticed a tightly wound tension. A package tied up
with string also appeared in my mind. Then I studied Ameer.
His body seemed to mirror my brittle tension. When my gaze
arrived at his face, I noticed that his eyes went off into the
distance, but he was not looking at anything as much as
he was looking away from me. His lips were pursed
tightly—most unusual for Ameer—and the lower lip was quivering.
As I took all this in, my own hot tears welled up and spilled
again.
Once the tears came,
Ameer was all softness and deferential attentiveness, wrapping
his neck around me as I cried into it. Even as I wept, I
marveled at this wonderful equine friend who noticed me in such
a deep way, and mirrored me so adeptly until I noticed what he
was reflecting back to me. The depth of my grief was balanced
at the wonder of what sustains and supports us through such
pain-filled times, and I felt the gratitude for a deeper
willingness in horses’ hearts than I ever thought possible, a
willingness that goes far beyond simple obedience to our cues
and commands.
After I was through
crying, connecting exercises were not necessary at all, and I
noticed with irony that if I had taken the route of doing more
to make him soft, I would still be at it. Instead, I was
now being clearly invited to “Mount up- let’s go!” which I
happily did. Our simple dressage exercises that day were
supple, engaged and full of the velvet softness of subtle
communication. Crying into your horse’s neck may not be a
“normal” warm-up exercise, but there are days when it is the
most natural way to clear the path for a more vibrant
connection.
