ARE YOU ATTUNING OR ACCIDENTALLY BEING CONFUSING?
What troubles you in the horse world?
Each week I have started a theme of answering questions or holding discussions about what troubles people about their horses, advice they hear or certain practices etc.
This week I want to talk about one of the things that troubles me!
This week I want to talk about the overlaying of human relationship theories or ideas over horse-human relationships. There are plenty of them going around but this week the buzzword on the social media street is “attunement” and the notion that we must attune with our horse.
Attunement has a few definitions out there with a simple meaning being the act of creating harmony. A more complex meaning describes it as the emotional sensing of others to create a feeling of connectedness. Sounds meaningful and lovely doesn’t it….but what does this practically look like?
Well on the street it is observing potential discomfort in horses and demonstrating empathy by backing off, pausing, waiting for the horse to present to you etc. Don’t get me wrong I am all in for having empathy for the horse and backing off, pausing, waiting etc are all things I will do at different times but believing you are demonstrating “attunement” when you spot a possible sign of discomfort in a horse and doing one of these actions can be problematic for two reasons:
Backing off, pausing, waiting for the horse to come to you etc. - can communicate many different meanings to a horse because it depends what they perceive from the encounter. What they perceive depends on so many things! This is evident in my increase in messages from people who have been inspired by the idea of “attunement…and as a result of repeated backing off, pausing, waiting for the horse to come to them….now have a horse that is expressing more discomfort and escalating to threatening behaviour and biting!
In relationship literature attunement is often connected with building trust and that it is practiced in communication and conversation. Self awareness and Understanding each other is just as important as having empathy for attunement to be practiced. If you examine relationship expert and researcher, Dr John Gottman’s ideas on the role of attunement, he describes understanding each other, awareness of self, tolerance, openness to influence by each other, being non-defensive and conflict resolution skills as essential qualities in the members of a relationships for the successful practice of attunement. it is not just one member having empathy and backing down, shutting up, changing the subject, not speaking up etc. because the other person looked uncomfortable. Therefore, just being aware of how a horse might feel and backing off, pausing, waiting for the horse to come to you, are empty things if the horse doesnt understand you, you dont really understand the horse, the horse perceives you and what you are doing negatively or is being defensive and resistant!
Attunement is a cool word that has a beautiful meaning but for anything to resemble its meaning in a horse-human relationships it needs to be on a foundation of clear communication, acceptance and self awareness. Practices such as backing off, pausing, waiting for the horse to come to you etc. all potentially confuse horses as they make communication murky because of the subjective meaning communicated to the horse!
Therefore, it deeply troubles me when well meaning ideas and practices forget the fact that horses are horses - they are not human. They come into our care with no choice. We then have dreams of connecting to them and forming a relationship. The way they interpret meaning in the world, and what they possibly perceive and experience from their horse perspective, needs to be respected. We need to help them navigate our world and our choices we have made for them and that starts with clear communication, not things that make it potentially murky....but sound cool and feel good to US.
