Whole Heart: #4 ~ Boundries

I just love how this chapter begins.....'thwaka, thwaka, thwaka, thwaka" as mark goes on to describe a revelation he had at the grocery store.....about horsemanship.  He just has way observing things, about human nature and horse nature, and then being able to tell a story, so that you can get the observation too.  So this chapter is all about boundaries....which for all intents and purposes....is self explanatory.....or one would think it is.  He talks about how we often do not create boundries with our horses, and then wonder why they are always on top of us.  He emplains that horses push on things to see if they move.  If they do, they keep pushing, if they don't, they stop pushing.  Humans are no different.  They push on us to see if they can make us move.  He explains it is not about dominating, disrespect or even herd behavior.  It can be those things, but the root of it is, that is what horses do....they push on things.  My favorite line is...."somtimes a push is just a push" and if we move, we will continue to be pushed.  It is easier to fix it, when it is a thought, and harder to fix once it has become ingrained behavior.  So that is what the first half of the chapter is about.....keeping the horse at arms distance.

The second half is a story about a woman who couldn't catch her horse, when everyone else on the planet could.  OMG....tear jerker!  Her husband had died a year earlier, and it was her sadness inside, being so closed off to the world, that was pushing her horse away.  He tells the whole story of the session, and the heartfelt ending to it had me bawling.  Not because it was particularly said or endearing....but yet again....because he is talking to me.  I think back to the two years after the accident, and the incedents that dominoed in my life.  I was mose assuredly beaten down and angry.  I had no control of the horrible things going on around me, least of all the behavior of my L4 horse Rose.  I put so much pressure on her it was insane.  Not that I felt it at the time.....there was no abuse or anything like that.  I was actually putting the preassure to perfom on myself.  But I sure was a dictatorbitch.  I felt like a failure to begin with, and the fact that the one thing I held most dear my soul, was the relationship I had with my horse.  Losing it, along with everything else that was gone in my life, was like losing myself.  The harder I tried, the worse it got, to the point of her attacking me. I was in a downward spiral, and there seemed to be no end in sight.  No matter where I turned, I could not find the answer to my woes.  Luckily, Cha'cote came along.  There were no expectations, he needed to be healed.  I was his savior.  But really, he saved me from myself.  I still had not found the answer with Rose though.  It wasn't until I started reading this book and the 'tao of equus', months ago, that it occured to me, that it was me.  I mean I knew it was me, that I was the one doing things wrong.  But that is just it, I thought it was the 'things' I was doing.....not just plain old me.  She could feel my deepest darkest fears, anxiety, sadness and pain.  And she was acting them out, for me to see them.  Problem is, I was blind to them.  The 'things' I was doing, didn't help either.  I was getting more 'leadership' by being more 'just' with my phase 4.  Told that she didn't believe me that I would go there.  So I went there.  Since I read the first chapter, that gave me a complete emotional release, and began this new journey , our relationship has taken a 180* change for the better, though I still do not play with her.  She genuinely seems happy to see me, and looks at me with eagerness in her eyes.  I will only be doing the Water Hole Rituals and stuff from Klaus Hempfling with her, until I feel that we have healed our relationship enough that we both trust me to do the right thing.

So I am just going to quote the last paragraph in the book, as it really sums it all up.

"Most of the time when we talk about establishing boundries, we are reffering to making sure the horse is comfortable enough with himself that he doesn't feel like he has to be right on top of us all the time.  However, sometimes boundries are also about opening ourselves up enough to let the horse know being close isn't all that bad either."

Savvy On
Michelle

Book: Whole Heart, Whole Horse by Mark Rashid