FEARING THE EMOTIONS OF THE HORSE

Fearing the Emotions of the Horse…

Look at this photo of this horse...

In this moment the horse is alert, powerful and driven on high emotions.

It looks magnificent. We love looking at these images.

But close up, attached to the end of the lead rope or worse, in the saddle, people fear this. They feel intensely threatened by it.

People seek the solutions to "turn off" and control the emotions of the horse.

Horses that seem to be easy triggered to express emotions are labelled "sensitive" as if there is something wrong or undesirable with them.

People like to identify themselves as "empathetic" to the horse, in reality it can actually be a complete intolerance to the emotions of horses and they do anything they can to avoid triggering any in the horse because of how THEY feel as a result.

When their horse does get emotional, they get frustrated by it. Label it a problem and want them to "stop it". Kind of like like that person that gets frustrated or angry at you when you are worried, sad or scared of something.

Ever had that happen to you? Ever had someone get angry at your for crying? Was that person "empathetic"?

A big part of my work is teaching people how to how to eliminate conflict, confusion and reduce the risk of the horse feeling threatened.

Ironically, its is the fear in people and what they do to suppress the emotions of horses that causes conflict, confusion and perception of threat...and makes horses emotional!

Remember the saying - "fear is the mother of the event"!

You actually NEED to see the emotions of the horse to HEAR how they feel…how well you are communicating…how confident they are feeling! Emotions is how a horse gives you feedback!

To be truly empathetic to horses and to work well them - you have to accept the inherent nature of horses...not believe there is some kind of magic spell you can do that will make them emotionless, non-reactive and deadened to the world.

That is not a horse, that is a machine.