Ok lets be honest - horses can be extremely irritating
A headstrong gelding, a moody mare, a pugnacious pony - you know the one, I bet you can name them right now. Horses each have their own unique personalities which means they have the potential to rub us against ours.
There are nice, easy matches that grow our confidence and then there are those that teach us a lesson. Oh yay, a lesson.
If we take a moment to look closer at that sensation of irritation, we gain a better understanding of what's really at play and choose a more empowering storyline for ourselves and our horses. I believe we have a choice in these moments and when we are equipped with the tools to become aware and dissolve sensation like this, we can make progress and bring so much more enjoyment to our lives.
Topics covered in this article
- Common ways horses irritate us
- What is irritation really?
- Emotions - looking into the burning bush
- The choice between two doorways
- The perception paradox
- Horses are our guides
- Tools to help you pause
- Conclusion
Common reasons horses irritate us
De-railed plans
Bad behaviour
Lack of knowledge/understanding
Heightened emotions
Costing money
Not progressing
Bad habit
Stubborn
Flighty
Some situations you might be familiar with
You’ve planned your training session - be it the best ever piaffe or just walking in a straight bloody line for once - and they don’t have the courtesy to go along with your plans - frustrating.
Perhaps you’ve put in thousands of hours of work and a truck load of money only to show up on the day of your competition to your horse stopping at a fence, spooking at the judges corner, or refusing to enter the ring.
Maybe they have a little personality quirk that just irks you - a well timed nip, throwing their head around, being difficult to catch in the pasture, or pushing you around. It makes you hesitant to spend any time with them.
Perhaps you are a professional trainer that has encountered a difficult horse that tests the limits of your knowledge and ability. They don’t respond to your techniques in the same way as all of the other horses you’ve trained. You think that your professional image is being threatened. You leave the round pen annoyed.
What is irritation really?
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Jung
We use the term ‘irritation’ or 'annoying' outside of its meaning all the time. Often we use it when there’s just a block in our path which means we’ve gotta go around it - no big deal. That’s a slight inconvenience.
Irritation is that pang of sensation that makes us growl a little bit.
It’s a signal that a nerve has been touched. Where is the root of that nerve? An interesting question to ask yourself. Where is it directing you to look if you treat that sensation as a guide?
Most often if not always, irritation is a signal that you’ve seen something in another that is a reflection of a repressed, unintegrated, perhaps shameful part of yourself. As much as we want to externalise it and ‘other’ it, this sensation can lead you to See yourself in a very real way.
Often in these moments however, we seek confirmation that our irritation is justified and that it really does exist in that other horse or person and not in us. We play out the story of the villain and the innocent and we bank up information that strengthens those identities.
Think back to the last time your horse (or your husband) annoyed you. You may have called up a friend and told them about it. I’m going to guess that you wanted their response to echo yours.
“Oh that’s so annoying, I would have been annoyed too! You must be so frustrated, poor thing.” Yes! Sweet confirmation that it is them, not me.
You’d hate to talk with me at that moment because I’d say
“Well actually, it is you.”
Emotions - Looking into the burning bush
A burning bush is something that takes your attention fully and wants to tell you something. When your emotions are burning hot and vying for your attention, it is time to sit in front of the fire and listen.
Annoyance is a type of burning bush, just like excitement or anger or grief - it has something to tell us. Actually underneath irritation is deep seated emotions like pain or anger that it is covering.
We can be most stubborn in these moments and pull back from the truth, which is that the most annoying things we see in others are the things which we have not accepted in ourselves.
A choice between two doorways
In the moment when irritation flickers right in your face, you have a choice. You can choose the doorway that continues the storyline of hero and villain, self and other, good and bad.
This is a fun doorway, we like this one because we love a good story despite the emotional turmoil we go through to continue it.
Or you can open the doorway to looking inward and find that it all exists within you which leads to compassion, understanding & ultimately bliss. This takes you beyond the linear story of life where you can start to become the creator.
It’s through this doorway where the resolution to our ‘problem’ can be found.
Pause before choosing
We will go through the same doorway and continue repeating a pattern, telling the same story over and over again unless we engage a pause. A pause is a breath, a moment of stillness, no action, just a smidgen of awareness. Gaining tools to help us pause will change the course of our lives as we make different choices. More on these tools below.
The perception paradox
We see the world not as it is but as we are.
We see this world through our own unique perspective with its many layers of unconscious foundational belief structures.
If we believe ourselves to be flawed and unworthy, this will permeate through our perception. We will interpret an interaction, a conversation, a behaviour as we believe we are on a deep level.
Our emotions tell us when one has been tickled.
You may be thinking “but it is just a fact - she really is an obnoxious horse! Multiple people agree with me!”
‘Obnoxious’ people & horses can exist without irritating you.
Horses have their reasons for enacting behaviours that cover and protect their vulnerabilities. So do we. Someone who has already ‘Seen’ that in themselves and dissolved it with compassion can witness a horse or a person being ‘obnoxious’ and not be irritated. They will feel compassion instead.
Even when we do this work for years, those triggers find cunning ways to sneak up on us. It’s a long road to become completely holy. I’m not sure I’ll make it this lifetime.
Horses are our guides
Should we choose it, horses would show us an outward reflection of our own inner beings that are full of conflict and tension - no matter how well veiled.
The horse can see through all of it and react accordingly - the best teachers are often labelled the most difficult ones because they are most sensitive to our inner currents.
Horses hold no pretence. They aren’t here to pretend they don’t have fear or anxiety. They are highly sensitive creatures with well tuned instincts that put up with our forgetful, incongruent, confusing behaviour extremely well.
Our emotional reactions are burning bushes of light that hold our attention in the desert. Allowing it to engulf us is ‘Learning by Burning’.
Tools to help you pause
Next time you are in the round pen, the arena or the stable and your horse is getting on your wick, see if you can step outside of the story by engaging a pause and make some room for compassion.
Asking questions
Asking Questions is one of the most powerful ways to get right into the crux of the matter. This is why, depending on the person, asking questions can make defences go way up or completely dissolve them. Some aren't ready to see the truth and we shouldn't force. This exercise is best done kindly with yourself.
Questions can help to isolate the exact thing that is annoying you and then deconstruct it from there. When we see our irritation as a facade for the true vulnerability underneath, the question has done its job.
“What behaviour exactly is irritating me?”
“What word do I choose to use for this behaviour?”
“What is this sensation showing me?”
“Am I lacking knowledge in this area?”
“What core belief is this irritation triggering?”
(not listened to, not good enough, unlovable, time is running out, I only have limited resources.)
“Do I often feel irritated by the same thing in different horses/humans?”
Breathing
Our breath and our heart rate are intrinsically linked and directly affect our nervous system which essentially runs the show. Gaining awareness and control of the breath is the most effective, productive thing you can do, especially when it comes to working with horses.
If you are wanting to choose that second doorway that takes you into being aware and changing your storyline, breath work is your tool to do so.
Cultivate Compassion
To feel compassion towards yourself, if it hasn’t been nurtured in you through childhood, can take some practice and time to develop. The words we use towards ourselves and others are important to notice and craft if we are to become compassionate beings.
Affirmations to cultivate compassion
I love myself unconditionally
I am worthy of love
I am gaining strength
I am progressing
I celebrate my wins
My failures are valuable lessons
Repeat one of these or something of your own as many times as necessary
Conclusion
Did this topic irritate you? Probably. The truth is annoying. You know Rafiki from The Lion King? When Simba was right at his lowest point, that monkey got on his nerves. Rafiki fleshed out the archetype of the Sage which has been the bearer of deep uncomfortable truths since the dawn of time. Utilising the tools in this article can help you to interact with your own inner Sage to usher in growth, integration, understanding and compassion.
This will ultimately give you a closer relationship to yourself and your horse. This is the dream isn’t it? The relationship that we fantasised about when we were children. A horse that could take us to the moon and back. A horse that we could move in harmony with. This is all possible.
When we look inward and discover it all exists within us.
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