Believe in Yourself

This is an account, written by one of our learners, of her first meeting with Blue.

Yesterday I spent a morning in a delightful setting near Shaftesbury with Tricia Day and one of her ponies, Blue and I laughed and I cried and several times I stood in wonder at how this semi wild pony could guide me towards such moments of true insight.

I have loved horses all my life and fortunately for me they've been a large part of it. They are my passion, my solace, my peace and my fun. I am also a qualified counsellor so how it took so long for me to realise the obvious benefits of putting the two together I don't know. It took my own horse, a beautiful, huge, one eyed horse to do that for me. A horse who sees, and I mean sees,  no reason not to be confident, cheerful and beautiful despite his significant disability.

I've always known that horses help people, I know because I've seen it and felt it many, many times over. They know things you don't want to know yourself and they show you in a way that's unavoidable but without any criticism or judgement. What I didn't know, before I started on this journey of mine, was how this equine assisted stuff would work for others and, on this particular day in June, for me in rural Dorset.I know my horses have helped me; just by being with me and accepting me as part of the group. With them I don't have to worry about how I look, whether I'm clever and funny, whether I'm liked or whether I'm doing the right thing, I can just be me and that me who doesn't worry about all those judgements is a true me and actually seems to be a totally acceptable me. To my horses I'm safe and from a prey animal there can be no higher accolade.So, what was I to learn from Blue, a beautiful but wary pony in this Dorset field?

The whole process is so simple and yet so complex it's actually hard to know where to start. Firstly, why did I choose to work with Blue in particular? I know partly why, I wanted to make him better, make him less scared but in truth I also wanted him to like me, to accept me, see the integrity I know is there but isn't always able to be seen beyond the insecurities and guard.  Is this also what I saw in Blue? Was I instinctively needing to protect him like I need to protect that vulnerable part of me which doesn't always quite know how to relate to others?

The point is though did Blue actually want me to protect him? Can trust be there just because one side wants it to be or knows that they themselves can be trusted? Invaluable relationship stuff!

So what happened? I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd expressed this wish to work with Blue but at that point hadn't really thought about why or how beyond knowing there was a challenge ahead, not least of all to actually get near enough to put on a headcollar and get him to the roundpen. Well luckily for me Tricia is not in the business of setting people, or horses, up to fail and I was duly given a bucket of horse nuts and told to walk to the roundpen with Blue in cautious but definite pursuit. So there we are, me and Blue looking at each other and wondering where this is all going and he thinks, well I don't know about you but I'm off and off he goes cantering around as far from me as possible. He is, after all, a flight animal stuck with someone who could be a significant threat. So what shall I do?  

Do I, as some would advocate, say "Fine, you want to go, I'll push you and only let you stop when I decide". Well that didn't work! A few minutes later I'm still in the same situation, standing in the middle of a roundpen  with a horse who doesn't want to be anywhere near me. Great!

Here I am, an experienced horse woman and I'm stuck! I am in an unfamiliar situation with none of my usual props,not an easy position to be in. Time to stop and think. Would that scared part of me want to be pushed and hurried along - no, it needs time, patience, kindness and trust.

Tricia asks me," What do you want to happen" and I know it's not this. So I stop and Blue stops, we look at each other again and I sit down away from Blue and wait.We both relax as I chat to Tricia and our energy lowers.

I've become more aware over the last few months of the impact of our own energy on others but it has never been more apparent than when standing in that roundpen with Blue; he misses nothing and I mean nothing. All horses can feel that energy from within another but like people some are more sensitive than others. Blue knows when you have a thought and certainly an intention. I'm not saying he can read minds, although there were times when I wondered, but he can most certainly feel energy and interpret it in relation to his own feelings of safety. He knows when you are about to move and when you do so does he.

When I stand and start moving Blue begins to follow and when I stop so does he and gradually he gets closer to me and we look at each other. This happened several times, it was like a dance in there, I moved a step to the right and so did he, to the left and so did he, I went back, he came forwards, I crossed one leg in front of the other and so did he, unbelievable. I know horses are supposed to be able to mirror you  but this was incredible,  a truely amazing experience.Mirror or no mirror we still didn't touch and I wondered how we would get to the next stage.

When would Blue allow some physical contact and then I realised - it wasn't just Blue stopping the process. Yes, Blue is wary and needs to be treated with sensitivity but there were two of us in there and as they say it takes two to tango. How was I influencing this process, it couldn't all be down to Blue. I realised I was actually halting the process because of the same old reasons that stop me doing all sorts of things, I didn' t want him to run away from me (in other words be left on my own) or fail in my goal.

Actually when I look back I realise that there were several opportunities for us to touch I just didn't trust myself or Blue enough to do it. Once I'd seen Tricia reach out and touch Blue I realised I just needed to believe I could touch him too and sure enough I could. It was tentative and perhaps at this stage more tolerated by Blue than enjoyed but nevertheless it was a touch.

And there it was, my big lesson, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.

I went into that roundpen thinking I wouldn't be able to touch Blue and sure enough until I changed my attitude I couldn't. If I don't trust myself why would anyone else. I have of course recognised this lack of confidence in myself before (although not normally around horses) but what Blue was able to do was allow me to re-think and within a second and without judgement he rewarded me. I already knew that feeling of positive, calm confidence (not that I often feel it!)  and I knew that when I capture that feeling and keep it within me I can achieve whatever I want to but now I know how to capture it because I did it with Blue and because he lives in the moment and responds to what he feels at that moment I was able recognise the exact point of change and the impact it can have. Fabulous. It's so hard for another person to do that for you, respond so immediately and so fully without influence or judgement, clever Blue. 

The wonderful thing with a horse is that they sense these feelings, you can't fool them. There's no hiding from horses but however scary the resulting vulnerability is it can also have such immense and even life changing power.

And anyway no one except me and Blue need to know what happened on that fine day in Dorset and he's not telling!