April 18, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode of the podcast, I am reading chapters 8 and 9 of Dancing the Tightrope. I'm starting to put things together, as you will hear when you listen. At the very beginning of chapter eight, I had a wild experience going out and learning the negative-positive poll in a completely new or deeper way.
Let me tell you something that's interesting about that particular super tool as I call it. It is eight years later, and I am still BEGINNING to understand just how powerful this mechanism inside of us is if we learn to use it. If there's nothing else I have for you for this podcast, pay attention to that story and see how you can start using it for yourself, because this one is powerful.
I'm also beginning to find out all the holes in my training and all the things I thought I knew that I didn't really know. Because if there's any distinction, especially around this time of the book, but maybe for the whole book, there is a big difference between knowing something and having the wisdom to know how to use it in the right place and in the right time.
I hope you enjoy these chapters of Dancing the Tightrope.
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Episode Transcript
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Intro (00:02):
Lynn, Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk
about the dilemmas of balancingwork and life and now here's
your host. Lynn Carnes,
Lynn (00:19):
Welcome to the Creative Spirits Unleash Podcast. I'm
Lynn Carnes, your host. Thisepisode of the podcast is
chapters eight and nine ofDancing the Tightrope. I'm
starting to put things together,as you will hear when you read,
oops, sorry, you're hearingthese chapters. At the very
beginning of chapter eight, Ihad a wild experience going out
(00:41):
and learning the negativepositive pole in a completely
new or deeper way. Let me tellyou something that's interesting
about that particular super toolas I call it. It is eight years
later, and I am still beginningto understand, notice, I said,
beginning to understand just howpowerful this mechanism inside
(01:02):
of us is, if we learn to use it.
If there's nothing else I havefor you for this podcast, pay
attention to that story and seehow you can start using it for
yourself. Because this one ispowerful. I'm also beginning to
find out all the holes in mytraining and all the things I
thought I knew that I didn'treally know. Because if there's
any distinction, especiallyaround this time of the book,
(01:25):
but maybe for the whole book,there is a big difference
between knowing something andhaving the wisdom to know how to
use it in the right place and inthe right time. I hope you enjoy
these chapters of dancing thetightrope. Chapter Eight, my no
riding, riding lessons, thehorse is your responsibility. As
I was nearing Camden for one ofthe sessions, my phone rang. It
(01:49):
was Bruce, do you trust yourselfto trust me? He asked. I quickly
answered yes, and then wonderedwhat was about to happen. He
gave me directions to a newlocation. When I pulled into the
new farm, Bruce had a lessongoing on, rather than working in
the round pen. He and anotherperson, a professional horse
(02:09):
trainer, were working ontrailering a large horse,
putting a horse in a trailer isno small task. Well trained
horses walk on calmly. However,just as with the dangers of a
trail ride, asking a flightanimal to subject itself to a
tiny, rolling prison is a verybig ask. Things go wrong, people
get injured or die. Horses getinjured or die, yet, moving
(02:32):
horses from one location toanother is necessary, so we
humans train them to do it. Theprofessional trainer in this
case had been involved in atraumatic trailering situation.
She had reached out to Bruce tohelp because she was caught
between a rock and a hard place.
She would rather never have totrailer another horse. She could
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also not continue to be aprofessional horse trainer
without being able to do thisessential task. I got out of the
car and leaned against the hoodto watch the lesson unfold. She
would walk the horse to thetrailer. Bruce, who was sitting
out of her sight in the front ofthe trailer, would ask, what's
your number. As she brought thehorse near the trailer, step by
(03:19):
step, he would ask her, what'syour number, and then what do
you need to do to balance yourpoles? I watched this session
with great interest, because inmy mind, he was working with an
experienced horse trainer whoclearly did not need the lessons
the way I did. I was aware ofhow dangerous it can be to
trailer horses observing herreactions. It was clear that
(03:42):
this woman had been injured andhad seen horses injured in the
process, she was working withBruce to recover her confidence
after their session ended andshe left, we sat down near the
trailer to debrief what I hadobserved. They had been working
with a rescued thoroughbred whohad been mostly living on his
own in a pasture for many years.
He had only recently beengelded, so he still had a lot of
(04:06):
his stallion tendencies. Inother words, he was a lot of
horse to handle while we werestanding near the trailer. Bruce
gave me the horses halter ropeand said, the horse is your
responsibility. You don't haveto hold the rope the whole time.
It's fine if you drop the ropeand let him graze around us, but
remember, he's yourresponsibility. We were not in a
(04:29):
fenced area. It was wide open.
At first, I held the rope. Ididn't dare let it go. After
all, my catastrophic fortuneteller mind had already pictured
the newly gelded thoroughbredrunning to the highway a mile
away. After a few minutes, Bruceasked me to trust him again. I.
Drop the rope and let's talk.
The horse isn't going anywhere,but remember, he's your
(04:53):
responsibility. My rules werescreaming in my ear, don't let
go. You know, better than totake that chance. What if
something happens? Bruce's pointwas to build my tools, and it
felt like we were back with theflags in the round pen. I had
worked with him long enough toknow he wasn't going to let it
go, so I dropped the rope moreto humor him than to trust
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myself as we were talking, thehorse did indeed keep grazing as
he nibble the yummy Cloverfarther and farther away from
me, I felt a familiar tick,tick, tick, like an inner time
bomb waiting to explode. It wasa feeling I had discovered many
years ago with my daughter, Jen.
At the time, I was still in thenumbest of my numb years, she
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disappeared, and my negativepole, a feeling for which I had
no name for in those years,pierced through the armor to get
my attention. Jen and I were atthe library in Charlotte on one
evening, she was in secondgrade, and we had just moved
across the country from Texas toNorth Carolina. I was in a
constant state of feelingoverwhelmed, trying to orient in
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a new job in a new town in a newstate, as a single mother, while
at the same time she was doingthe same with a new school and a
new apartment and lots of newexpectations, I found us a table
and familiarized her with thelayout of the large library so
she could find what she neededfor her assignment. My plan was
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for the two of us to work at thetable once she found the
materials she needed, I hadbrought my own work to do as
well, so I sent her off toexplore and was quickly buried
in some work long sinceforgotten. Having a few minutes
to myself was heavenly. At somepoint, I felt the inner tickle
that something was off. Myattention started dividing
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between whatever I was doing andglancing up, expecting Jen to
come around the corner anyminute, the sensation sort of
felt like a ticking time bomb,where the beat was getting ever
faster and ever louder. Withevery peak, the inner tickle got
stronger and more annoying. Sodid the inner struggle. A part
of me did not want to be thehelicopter mom who hovered and
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worried over every littleassignment. Another part of me
was anxious and impatient forher to be finished so we could
go home. Still, another part ofme felt she needed some space to
learn how to navigate feelingthis thing, whatever it was, was
the price I had to pay to be abetter mom than the control
freak I really was nonenonetheless, the super anxious
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part of me worried she had beenkidnapped. Finally, I couldn't
stand it anymore, and I got upto take a spin through the
library and see where she wasand how she was doing. I found
her working just as she shouldhave been, and immediately, the
sensation of something being offdiminished at the time. It did
not occur to me that the feelingI was experiencing was a good
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and useful thing. I treated itas an indicator of what a bad
mom I was. The feeling was thefeeling it's as natural as the
air we breathe. The problem wasthe story I was telling myself
about the feeling both thatnight and every time I felt it.
Bruce was helping me rewritethat story when the horse moved
out of my arbitrary range, itfelt like the inner ticking had
(08:20):
become a bomb that was about togo off. I went to pick up the
rope and bring him closer towhere we were talking. Bruce
asked, What made you go bringhim back? I would start
answering with things like hewas getting too far away. I
worried he would make a breakfor it. I thought someone might
come up and spook him. In otherwords, I explained myself
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something I had been trained todo my whole life. Secretly, I
was thinking, if I lose thishorse, you are going to kill me.
I do not want to be the one whocaused this horse to get hurt. I
don't want to get in trouble.
All the visible justificationsfelt so rational and right to
me, and no way was I going totell him my secret fear of
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failure. But he kept pressingand I kept fishing for the
explanation that would get himto leave me alone. We repeated
this pattern several times. Iwould drop the rope. The horse
would follow his nose to yummygrass farther and farther away,
and my little inner time, Bobwould go off, I would bring the
horse back, drop the rope, andBruce would ask me, What made me
(09:29):
choose that moment to bring himback. I would fish for a better
answer, and only one answersatisfied him, no amount of
logic, rationale or pleasing Himstopped the pressure he was
applying most of the time. Hehad to come up with the answer
for me, you went to get thehorse to balance your negative
positive pole. He asked, Whatwas your number? When you went
(09:52):
to get him that time? Now, I hadto admit that I had been trying
to be tough the last time I hadallowed the horse to drift.
Pretty good distance. Perhaps toavoid the interrogation, maybe
to get Bruce to think I couldtolerate the pressure, possibly
to test myself, maybe to seewhen he would jump in. Probably
a mix of all those reasons myconditioning was interfering and
(10:16):
my need for approval wasfighting with my inner rebel.
Oh, I don't know. I guess it wasabout an eight. I said, What
made you wait that long? Whywould you let your poll go as
high as an eight beforeaddressing it? My Kid Mode brain
went into damned if you do,damned if you don't, territory.
Still caught in the belief thatmy job was to please Bruce and
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show him I could handle thepressure I under reacted to the
signal my negative pole wassending. At some level, I was
aware I was under reacting.
Damned if you don't, but myinner kid voice screamed, the
only way to be safe is to holdthe rope. Of course, this method
did not consider that I wouldnever have been able to hold the
rope if the horse truly feltlike he needed to run away from
(10:59):
danger. Bruce was not satisfiedwhen I held the rope, damned. If
you do, Bruce watched my innerturmoil with amusement. My
choices of micromanaging and notintervening went to war with
each other. My kid voicecontinued to nudge, scream, beg
and plead with me to find a wayto please Bruce, get his
(11:20):
approval or get him off my back.
I was missing the pointaltogether. Finally, after
several repetitions and someadditional coaching from Bruce,
I started tuning in to theticking time bomb as a signal
rather than a threat. This wasnot anxiety, and it was not a
(11:42):
test of me to see if I couldplease Bruce. This was a
recalibration of my instincts.
This was body, mind and spirittraining. We were developing my
invisible tools. We continue totalk, and the horse continued to
graze, and when the signalreached a certain level, I
brought the horse back into therange that balanced my poles.
(12:02):
Bruce's training with me thatday had nothing to do with
pleasing Him and nothing to dowith me making mistakes. Pushing
my pole up over and over againhad everything to do with
helping me recalibrate mysystem. He didn't care if I did
things his way. What he wantedwas for me to respond deeply to
the situation in front of me,not from my rules in my past,
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but by impeccably using my toolsto address the situation in
front of me, responding underpressure, Bruce's methods were
showing me new possibilities forsomething I had been practicing
for years. I could react or Icould respond. Reacting came
from my past in Bruce'slanguage. That mindset was
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tyrant. Responding happened inthe present moment. That mindset
was Alpha. It wasn't thelabeling that made the
difference. It was his absolutecommitment to offering
situations to respond ratherthan react under pressure, no
matter how many times I told himit was the horse that, quote,
unquote, made me do it. He cameback with the answer, it's not
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the horse. It's the pressurecreated by the horse. His
methods went to the very core ofmy being. In the 20 years prior
to this chapter of my life, Ihad been on a journey to learn
how to respond rather thanreact. My early corporate
persona was a take no prisoner'shard ass who felt almost nothing
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that personality worked greatfor the type of roles I had,
internal auditor, credit review,officer, loan underwriter, guard
at the gate for the safety ofthe bank's money. There were
rules, and I followed them to aT I expected everyone else to
follow them too. Then the bankdecided to re engineer the way
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it approved commercial loans.
Somehow, I was tapped to leadthat project. Now, my job was to
rewrite the rules of commerciallending. I was called on to be a
leader in the year of the reengineering project, I began to
see glimpses of another way ofbeing, another way of
interacting with others.
However, my personal operatingrules were strong and my style
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was both compliant andauthoritarian. At the same time,
I did what I was told and Iexpected others to do the same
when I was the one doing thetelling. Looking back on it, I
can see the mechanistic natureof my thinking. Being the one
rewriting the rules meant I hadto at least consider looking at
creativity and spontaneity. Atiny spark was lit when I was
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asked to lead credit trainingfor the entire bank, I realized
that my job was now tofacilitate true learning,
especially since I had beencharged with taking a one year
program down to 10 short weeks,I had been subjected to some of
the traditional. Additionalcredit training, where we sat
for hours listening to someonedrone on about how to analyze
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financial statements, fill outcredit approval reports or call
on a bank customer. The learningyield with this method was low,
and we were never going toshrink the program from 50 weeks
to 10 by selling and telling weneeded a better way. My team
decided to move to a moreexperiential learning model,
where we facilitatedopportunities for the trainees
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to learn and grow by trial anderror. In one brilliant move,
the design team recommended thatwe quit treating the trainees
like royalty when they arrivedfor their 10 weeks of training.
Instead, we built a treasurehunt. The only instructions the
new bankers got when theyarrived in corporate housing was
how to get to their desk thenext morning, there they would
find the first assignment, whichwas to find the fax machine.
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This was a few years ago, and atthe fax machine, they would
receive further instructions. Bythe end of the first day, they
would have familiarizedthemselves with their new work
environment, gotten signed on tothe computer and gotten busy
completing their firstassignment where our prior
methods had yielded trainees whoexpected the answers to be given
to them. This new approachcreated 100 hungry explorers who
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relish the hunt for their ownanswers. Taking this approach
forced those of us in charge ofthe program to change our
leadership style. No morecommand and control. Lectures
where we ran the show weretraded for a facilitative
teaching style that encouragedthe trainees to ask questions,
push back and struggle withtheir learning process. Not only
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were we training ourparticipants, but we also had to
retrain ourselves. I almostwashed out of my own facilitator
training program. My old rulesof command and control were so
comfortably ingrained in my mindand seemed effective, at least
to me. Learning to facilitateversus deliver a lecture was
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excruciating. The process addedmore sparks to my self awareness
journey. Eventually, I gotpretty good at facilitating, and
so did many of my team members.
Others opted out because theydid not want to examine their
own beliefs and assumptions.
They most certainly did not wantthe uncertainty of facilitating
a session where they would becalled on to respond in the
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moment rather than react in apredictable fashion, we truly
changed the culture of learningduring this time. We were
willing to do the hard work ofworking on ourselves and set the
conditions for deep learningthrough this and many more
experiences, I had come tobelieve I was a master at
responding rather than reacting.
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Another level of mastery.
Working with Bruce was startingto show me another level of
mastery. After every session offinding the middle I would
finally get to work with thehorse on the ground. Bruce
breaks everything a horse doesinto four parts, movement,
direction, rhythm and track,the actions happen in that
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order. A typical assignmentstarted with his picture. It
looks like this. Get the horsemoving. He picks direction once
he's moving at a walk, keep himgoing in that direction for one
full rotation in the round pin.
Let the horse tell you how muchpressure to apply when he
reaches the start line. Turnyour back in the opposite
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direction from where the horseis moving, relax and drop the
picture from your mind. Itsounds so simple. It is, if you
can stay in alpha mindset.
However, tyrant mindset isalways there, promising a better
way to handle all the waysthings can go off plan. The
horse doesn't move. The horsemoves at a faster rhythm. The
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horse starts to move and thenturns around. The horse stops to
graze. I had watched many videosand live demonstrations of this
type of work. It looks so easy,I had no idea how much unseen
energy work was happening. Toget a horse to move in such
ways, I needed to come to awhole new level of listening and
observing to stay in aresponsive, energetic space. In
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one of my early round penexperiences, I was in the middle
and the horse got to be whereverhe wanted to be, my picture was
to achieve movement with thehorse. At the first sign of
movement, I was to immediatelyturned my back and let the horse
be I won't bore you with all theways I had at my disposal to
achieve that goal. It doesn'tmatter anyway, because I way
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overshot the goal. The horse'sear twitched, and then he raised
his head and I kept addingpressure. Pretty soon I had him
walking along the rail. After acouple of minutes, Bruce stop me
and ask how I did I was so proudof myself. After all, I had that
horse moving. Thank you verymuch. Then he asked me to review
what had happened and thesignals I had missed. Did you
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see the ear twitch? Did younotice his head come up? Did you
notice him shifting his feetbefore he started walking? Well,
maybe, did you not count the earTwitch as movement, or did you
not think you caused the Twitch?
Truth be told, I was waiting forthe kind of human signals that
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caught me over the head. What Ithought was good, Bruce called
out as tyrant mindset. But herewas the confusing part. He was
okay with it. I don't want thehorse to do the picture. I want
you to have the opportunity tobuild your tools. What you just
saw was how focused you get onthe goal, so much that you
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forgot the frames that make upthe picture. You need to break
it down frame by frame. Thistime you overreacted, where was
your listening and hearing?
Where was your patience? How doI know when you are in tyrant
because you are either over orunder reacting? You are beating
yourself with a two before formaking a mistake. You're not
letting the horse tell you whatto do, when to do, how to do. Be
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the conduit, just as with theflags and finding the middle.
You don't have to listen to thevoices of your past. The answers
are right in front of you in thehere and now. The horse will
tell you how much pressure toapply. You will constantly be
adjusting. A mistake is not amistake. It's an opportunity.
When you feel your negativepoll, go up, listen to it and
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listen to the horse, then adjustas needed. When he completes the
picture, let him know byreleasing the pressure. Now
let's try it again. Bruce shineda light on something. I thought
I was long past I wanted to beperfect, better than perfect, if
possible, when it wasn'tperfect, and it can never be
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perfect, I beat myself up inways that offered complete
deniability. I wasn't beatingmyself up if I was just getting
frustrated for not being able todo something. Was it? It wasn't
perfectionism if I wanted to begood, right? Even though I had
been working on these verytendencies for many, many years,
I had mostly been successfulwhen the waters were calm in the
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space of the meditation retreator working off the grid in the
mountains, I could maintain mycomposure and respond in the
present moment with any form ofpressure. Came my old ways in a
new package. Just because Iwasn't raging or being bitchy
did not mean I wasn't operatingon old rules. The spiral into
feeling not good enough was soautomatic, it was invisible. The
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neural pathways were like wellworn deer tracks in the woods.
The energy followed the path ofleast resistance. I left the
moment and operated from myrules of the past for several
more lessons, we had many, manyrepetitions in the round pen.
Sometimes I would slip intoalpha, but tyrant would be
waiting to pounce as soon asBruce raised the pressure. On
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one memorable day, I had beenmaking progress. More and more
often I was able to reach for mytools. I was also getting more
skilled in working with thehorse from the ground,
especially in creating movement,direction, rhythm and track,
while my ego wanted to give mecredit for getting good at this,
the truth was that the patternwas getting somewhat
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predictable. Then on a calm day,nature offered some chaos to
test my ability to reach for mytools. On a clear, sunny day, I
was at the far end of the roundpen, standing a good distance
from Bruce, who was outside thefence, Mac the horse was
standing between us when a hugetree branch from at least 50
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feet up suddenly cracked andfell to the ground about 100
feet from where we werestanding, boom as fly animals.
When horses hear sounds likethat, they run first and ask
questions later. The two horsesstill in the pasture, took off
away from the sound at fullgallop. Before the branch even
reached the ground, so did Mactoward me. He was seeking the
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safety of the herd, and as faras he was concerned, I was the
herd, except I wasn't the herd.
I was a much smaller, squishyhuman in his flight mode, he
would have run over me before Icould have taken two steps while
I was still processing thebranches, it fell. Mack took off
in my direction. Quickly, Irealized the danger wasn't the
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tree branch. It was the 1000pounds of hooves, muscle and
panic running straight at me. Ihad two choices. I could react
in a self protective mode, whichwould have been to either turn
and run away or drop and curlinto the fetal position, both
would have done what selfprotective actions often do give
me a false sense of securitythat only make things worse. The
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choice to respond felt riskier.
I could reach for my tools andrespond by raising his negative
pole enough to turn him away.
Suddenly, Bruce is coaching up.
Let the horse tell you what todo, when to do, how to do was a
matter of life and death. Thepressure that created the danger
was extremely high. Max oncomingenergy was showing me the tunnel
vision of survival mode. In asplit second, I made the second
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choice. I raised my arms andstarted waving him. Off. Then I
started jumping in Mac's eyes,the jumping, waving woman in
front of him was even moredanger than the tree branch
behind him. He stopped in histracks. I dropped my arms and
stood quietly. He stood quietly.
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The other horses in the pasturehad stopped and were now
standing quietly. The danger waspassed. I looked over at Bruce,
and he said, Well done, alphaunder pressure, no second
guessing, no beating myself up,no quest for perfection,
allowing the moment to be andthen pass, allowing the next
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moment to come in be and thenpass, flow, feel, listen, hear,
patience, timing, observe,feeling from within the sweet
succession of the frames,allowing that to be my reward.
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This was the essence of versusnatural, human ship method, just
as the dog whisperer CesarMillan found that most of his
dog training was actually peopletraining. This horse whisperer
was retraining the human underpressure with no predictable
outcomes. Slowly, I startedrealizing what was different in
this work. No more road rage onmy way home when traffic built
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up, I used it to practicepatience rather than get myself
worked up. When I was drivinghome in a blistering
thunderstorm, I drove it frameby frame, rather than one,
wondering through the panic howI would ever make it through
when I got home, I welcomeddiscomfort as an opportunity to
try out the new tools that thework was unleashing when I made
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a mistake, I was more likely torecalibrate rather than beat
myself up. Yet, even as I feltmyself changing, I still wanted
more information about thehorse. I still wanted to get on
a horse and to be able to stopthe horse. Then, by chance, I
met a woman 20 minutes from myhouse named Lynn brown Len
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practiced natural horsemanship.
She even ran guided trail rides.
Surely with her, I would get ona horse, chapter nine, filling
in the holes, Swiss cheesewhen I walked into the barn at
transitions, Lynn brown greetedme and introduced me to Phoenix,
the horse that would be one ofmy greatest teachers. His first
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greeting was a toothy nip on theback of my hand. We were going
to be such good friends. While Icame hoping to ride. He was not
saddled. It was a hint of thingsto come. Even though I was well
into my lessons with Bruce, myproving mindset popped up
repeatedly, I still found myselfwanting to prove to Lynn that I
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was ready to ride, given thatshe regularly ran guest trail
rides, I was sure she would putme on a horse today, she started
by asking me what experience Ihad with horses and what I was
trying to achieve. After Idescribed both, she asked, Would
it be fair to say that you wantto build a solid foundation of
horsemanship? She didn't ask meif I was ready to ride today.
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She didn't ask me if I knew howto saddle a horse, which
obviously needed to be done ifwe were going to get on with my
desire to ride today. She didn'task me if I knew how to do
ground work. She didn't have toask me anything more. Phoenix
was telling her everything sheneeded to know. Lynn's way of
working with horses focuses ondeveloping trust and connection
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with a relaxed horse, ratherthan using force, fear and
intimidation to get the horse todo our human bidding. Horses
communicate with subtle cues,and she was reading Phoenix to
get a sense of how relaxed hewas in my presence, what I saw
was a still compliant horse justwaiting to be settled. What she
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saw was a frozen, shut downhorse just waiting to be killed,
rather than begin the lessonwith all the ways my body
language and energy were sendingscary messages to the horse. She
started with Swiss cheese. Youhave been around horses and
learned some things. What I havefound with a lot of my students
is that their horsemanshipknowledge is like Swiss cheese.
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They know some beginner thingsand intermediate things and even
advanced things, but they alsodon't know some beginner things
and so forth. There are holes intheir knowledge. Most of the
time those holes don't matter,but sometimes an event happens
and all the holes line up.
That's when we have disasters.
As she was speaking, scenes frommy accident flash through my
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mind, thinking I knew how tostop a horse by pulling back on
the reins, thinking I could staybalanced in the saddle, only to
be quickly bounced out of myseat, thinking I knew how to
fall in a safe way, only to landwith a bone shattering splat,
not even realizing that a horsecould be operating in a fearful
state of mind all the. Holes andthe Swiss cheese lining up
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perfectly so that I could bechauffeured by the ambulance
crew for a three day, two nightstay at the local hospital.
Those innocent holes nowappeared more ominous. If I were
ever to get back on the horse, Ineeded to close those gaps. So
yes, it was fair to say that Iwanted to build a solid
foundation of horsemanship, itwould have to start on the
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ground. Lynn approached the workwith horses very differently
from Bruce, and yet her lessonswere also very complimentary. We
did a herd watching experience.
On my second lesson, she droveme up to an enclosed area where
her six horses were standingaround. In my eyes, they look
like every other hoarder horsesI'd ever seen. Horses were
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standing there looking around,not really concerned, noticing
anything before we left thebarn, she asked me not to speak
as we went up the hill. When shefinally did utter a word, she
simply asked me what I observed.
My ill informed eyes had seenvery little. Well, one of the
horses is swishing his tail.
That's about all I see, I said.
Then she took me through thebasics of horse body language.
(31:09):
It was a direct lesson inunderstanding the 50,000 years
of DNA in a prey animal whocommunicates in subtlety and
energy. First, she shared,horses have four basic needs,
safety, comfort, food and play.
(31:31):
Hmm, I thought sounds a littlelike human needs, as described
by Maslow. Second, she explainedthat horses communicate with
energy and gesture. They readeach other and every nuance of
our human body language. Therewas a whole language going on
here that was invisible to me.
In watching the herd of horses,she pointed to the pecking
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order. Yes, horses have apecking order, just like
chickens and just like humans.
Did I notice the shift they madewhen we came near and then again
when we started talking? Could Itell which horse was the leader
at the moment, which one waskeeping watch? Who was the low
horse in the hierarchy? Whichones were connected or
(32:15):
disconnected from the otherhorses? After we looked at her
dynamics, we moved to individualhorse body language, she had me
looking at their eyes, postures,legs and mouths. Were their eyes
soft and blinking, or hard andfixed? Did their body appear
soft and supple, or more like astiff board? Was a back leg
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cocked? Or were all four legssquared off? Were their lips
compressed, or were they lickingand chewing? In a short time, a
whole new world opened up to me,a horse can either be in a
comfortable place or a paralyzedplace. To the untrained eye,
that look almost the same.
Horses are masters at stuffingtheir worry into a compact
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package. Quickly, I begandrawing parallels to my
experiences in a variety ofcorporate settings, listening
patience timing on one memorableday, back when I was a banker in
Texas, I was returning from aclient meeting with a long list
of promises to fulfill. Severalof us on the floor, shared an
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assistant who was normally avery sunny, helpful person. On
this day, she did not look upwhen I approached her desk. She
was frequently busy and focused,so I thought nothing of
interrupting her. When I startedtalking, she did not look up. I
missed the first subtle signal,even though a little whisper in
(33:41):
the back of my mind was sayingsomething's not right, I started
to dump my list of to do's onher rather than listen to what
she was telling me, albeit withenergy and gesture rather than
words, I added more pressure. Ijustified it to myself, after
all, helping me was her job. Apart of me was beginning to see
(34:03):
that she might be in anythingbut a relaxed, comfortable
state. The go getter in me dovein anyway. Bad idea. Really,
really bad idea. After a fewmore sentences, she turned on me
with a fury that would haveknocked back an f5 full tornado,
pouring pressure onto an alreadypressure filled situation was
(34:24):
not the right move. As I sulkedback to my office, head down,
our manager took me aside. Hehad witnessed the takedown and
was smiling in a conspiratorialway, you picked a bad time,
didn't you? We talked for amoment about my poor timing and
lack of patience. He shared alittle bit of the backstory on
what had been going on at theoffice while I was out with
(34:47):
clients that day. Had I beenreading the situation, I would
have seen dozens of signals thatwould have told me to be
patient. It was a painful lessonon timing worth its weight in
gold. I. Now back at Lynn'sfarm, I realized there were more
lessons from this story. Addingpressure to a horse who looks
calm and relaxed but is insurvival mode while hiding his
(35:07):
worry can lead to unexpectedexplosions. Spend any time
around people who take theirhorses out of their usual
environment, be it on the trailor in a trailer, and you will
hear things like, he was fine,and then suddenly he ran the
other way, or he was always soeasy to get on the trailer. I
have no idea what got into him.
Go slow, to go fast. During myearly lessons, Lynn took me into
(35:32):
the world behind the horse'seyes. When I was a kid watching
Westerns or going to the rodeo,it looked to me like all you had
to do was hop on the horse, giveit a kick, yank the reins, and
off you went. I honestly thoughtthe most difficult part was
swinging the leg over how naiveworking with Lynn and Bruce, I
learned that horses are always,always, always assessing their
(35:54):
safety. Their body languageconstantly telegraphs how safe
or unsafe they are feeling. Myfirst assumption went out the
window. Just because a horse isstanding still does not mean he
feels safe. I now realize howincredibly well trained movie
horses are, too by learning toread the signals communicated by
their eyes, ears, tail, feet andmore, I was now much more highly
(36:19):
attuned to how my gestures,energy and even breathing and
heart rate affected their senseof safety and trust. The more I
learned, the more I wanted toknow.
After many lessons with Lynnstill on the ground, I was sold
on the process of developingtrust and connection with the
horse. I had also startedconnecting many more dots
(36:39):
between what I was learning inthe barn and how it impacted the
ways I developed trust andconnection in my human
relationships. Every sessionwith Lynn started with a debrief
of how I had applied theprinciples she was teaching me
in different situations, mostinvolving no horses at all. One
day, I came into the barn andLynn said, today, you are
getting on after months ofgroundwork, it was finally time
(37:03):
for me to start writing Phoenix.
By this time, many more of myearly assumptions have been
blasted to oblivion. I wasenjoying working with the horse
on the ground, whether leadinghim up and down the road or
moving in the round pen. Now itwas finally time to saddle up.
Well, okay, sort of saddle up.
You have developed good trustwith Phoenix. Today we are going
(37:24):
to start by having you developconnection through your seat.
Lynn said, as she showed me thebare back pad, we would be using
the pad connected to the horse,much like a saddle, but had none
of the support of the westernsaddle in the form of stirrups,
saddle horn and wooden tree thatholds the rider in place. The
only thing that would be holdingme in place as we moved around
(37:45):
would be my balance andconnection to him. She taught me
through the process of saddling,focusing especially on being
gentle and connected when it wastime to tighten the cinch that
held a pseudo saddle in place, Iwas about to realize that just
because I had changed my minddid not mean I had changed my
ways. I started out verypresent, my invisible tools of
(38:07):
listening, hearing, patience andtiming were all in play as I
began saddling Phoenix. Lynn hadreminded me that he was a rescue
horse once destined for Olympicgreatness. He had been training
in a high performance show barnwhere the horses were treated
like machines rather thansentient beings. In his
performance life, his dailyroutine involved being brought
(38:29):
out from his stall, which mightfeel like a prison, to an animal
whose DNA is programmed to runfree over wide open spaces, tied
up on each side of his face, tobe brushed, have his hoof picked
and then settled. Phoenix's fearhad boiled over years ago in the
show barn. One day, he said,Enough is enough, and flipped
himself upside down while tiedup to be settled. At that point,
(38:52):
his rider decided he was moretrouble than he was worth, and
moved on to another horse. Lynneventually rescued him, and he
became her star lesson horse.
Now he was standing patientlywaiting to be my teacher, step
by step. Lynn continued talkingme through the process of
saddling, which I had learned todo in middle school back when my
assumption was once a horse is,quote, unquote, broke, he is
(39:14):
safe to ride. I didn't know ityet, but my proving mindset was
just waiting to pounce when itcame time to pull the Cinch
tight. I had gone through allthe steps, she explained, all
while staying present as Iworked with Phoenix, just
putting the pad up there was aprocess of letting him sniff it
and waiting move in and moveout, give and take, try again
(39:35):
and assess each moment wasdesigned to give him space to
realize that this wasn't goingto kill him. Finally, he took a
deep breath and relaxed. The padwas on his back. In my mind, we
had just reached the pinnacle.
It felt like I had summitedMount Everest, as my inner self
(39:56):
did the happy dance. Lynnexplained how the straps went
through the different loops. Myinner celebration completely
drowned out the guidance Lynnwas providing in that moment, I
totally went back to my past. Itwas tyrant mindset. In an
instant. What happened inside mereminded what happens when I'm
in deep meditation or in flowwhile water skiing, as soon as I
(40:17):
think to myself, I'm doing it,I'm not doing it anymore. When
it came to the cinch, I had onegoal. It should be tight. This
was a rule I had learned as apreteen. A loose saddle can come
off to the side and lead to abad accident. I failed to hear
Lynn as she described the frameby frame, moment by moment
(40:38):
method, which would help mereach the goal while at the same
time, keep Phoenix's mindfeeling safe and connected to
me. I gave it a good yay, justlike I had been taught as a kid,
and just like the Cowboys do inthe movies, Phoenix stomped his
hook, swished his tail andbrought his head around as if to
say, what the hell all weresignals that the horse was
(40:58):
feeling very unsafe. Phoenixjust showed me how far I had to
go. Some horsemen would ignorethat kind of behavior because
the horse didn't run or bite.
Others would force the issue,insisting through fear and
intimidation that the horsecomply. Some would take that as
a signal to abandon the ride andhope for a better day tomorrow.
Lynn's standard is to do none ofthose things. Early in my
lesson, she said, You need torealize that every time you ask
(41:22):
something of a horse, you take alittle bit of his confidence
away. It pays to let him knowwhen he's giving you what you're
asking for they want to pleaseus. She showed me how to tighten
the Cinch without the Yank. Itwas a much more humane process,
and the result was just aseffective. However, just because
I had succeeded in getting theCinch tight, there was no way
she was letting me back on theback of this horse while he was
(41:44):
in a fearful state of mind. Hispot wasn't boiling yet, but it
would get much hotter if wedidn't turn down the temperature
before making such a big ask. Weslowed way down. We walked the
tightrope. We were not harsh andwe were not soft. Instead of
force and fear or quitting andplacating, we stayed with him.
(42:05):
The horse's stomping didn't stopme from saddling or riding him.
It just meant that I had torestore safety and regain trust
and connection before I couldmake that kind of request of
him. Once he let us know he wasrelaxed. I had the first of many
terrific rides in each moment,she showed me how to continually
bring the horse along and payattention to the signals that he
(42:28):
was with me, alpha and not insurvival mode or tyrant. It was
a constant series of makingrequests and reassuring the
horse. We had to go slow, to gofast when I skipped steps, it
took much longer, because I hadto dig myself out of the hole I
had created. The gift ofstressors. Dancing among several
(42:48):
activities reveal the holes Ihad been digging my whole life,
but also the positive side ofthe stressors that create
pressure, uncertainty and fearwhen riding at Cedar Creek, just
walking up and down the steephills, flooded my body with
adrenaline. So did a bobble onmy water ski. Walking near the
edge of anything high off theground was enough to make my
(43:10):
knees turn to jello. Just aboutanything physically scary sent a
flock of butterflies through myentire torso. It is a wonder I
didn't take flight at everypossible trigger. It wasn't
until I started applying thelessons from Bruce and Lynn as I
was writing Phoenix that thingsreally started to change. Once I
began to see pressure as a gift,albeit only occasionally, a
(43:32):
whole new world opened. First Ihad to own what I was starting
to call my mistake cycle, whichI did more often than I did the
what's next cycle, thinking ofit as the what's next cycle,
turned my mind to focusing onthe next frame, rather than
allowing my past to interfere.
(43:53):
My words and beliefs simply didnot fully align with my feelings
and actions. This was notbecause I'm some huge hypocrite
who means one thing and saysanother. It's a battle between
my intentions and myconditioning. Old habits die
hard. Decades of the survivaltraining called Life had
established their ways with me,while my brain and my mouth has
(44:14):
balanced the value of mistakesin the learning process, my body
brace for the consequences withwith the slightest hint of a
mistake, every cell in myphysical system vibrated with
warning signals that bad thingswere coming, just like what
happened in finding the middle.
It took the pressure of gettingback on the horse with the gift
of teachers who could show methe incongruity, to begin
(44:34):
unwinding the twisted cords thatheld me in a stiff, pseudo safe
place. I had chosen teachers whowent way beyond writing
technique and equitation. BothBruce and Lynn had seen the cost
of human created mistake cycleon the horse and human their
approach worked at the rootcause of many of the problems
with horses, which is the wayhumans deal with things not
(44:56):
going perfectly in. My ownperfectionistic tendencies would
cause me to either beat myselfup or beat others up around me.
When Mistakes were made morethan once, Bruce called me out
for beating up the horse when Icouldn't get him to do what I
was asking him to do. I didn'tthink of it as beating anyone up
at all. In my mind, it was justthe normal frustration of
(45:17):
learning in truth, it was themistake cycle in action. It was
as if Bruce could read my innerdialog and not even the parts
that I could hear. He wasreading the dialog behind the
dialog, the energy that wasrunning my actions in his book
open Andre Agassi describes inagonizing detail just how the
(45:37):
mistake cycle works on our innerdialog. After years of hearing
my father ran to my flaws, oneloss has caused me to take up
his rant. I've internalized myfather, his impatience, his
perfectionism, his rage untilhis violence doesn't feel like
my own. It is my own. I nolonger need my father to torture
(45:58):
me from this day on, I can do itall by myself.
It wasn't necessarily a ragingfather or mother that caused me
to take up a rant. It was thewhole gamut of teachers and
parents and siblings and bossesand so much more. It wasn't
necessarily a rant in thetraditional sense of the word,
(46:19):
which I envisioned like a tempertantrum. It was more like a low
level of frustration, just asBruce had described dozens of
times with my clients and me inthe round pen with the horse,
you feel a mistake, and youstart hitting yourself over the
head with a two before you startsecond guessing yourself. You
get up in your head, rather thanletting the horse tell you what
to do, when to do and how to do,you leave the moment that's the
(46:41):
past interfering in my mind, asI said, I started to spell
interfering this way, the pastis E N T, E, R, F, E, A, R, I N
G. My fear of mistakes wascausing the very thing I was
trying to avoid. It was notintentional. It was automatic,
and I had repeated it millionsof times in my life. In the face
(47:05):
of a variety of behaviors, Brucecould repeat the mistake cycle
to his clients with confidence,because everyone he had ever
worked with found themselves inthe cycle, not every time, nor
all the time. It happened whenthe pressure got high enough. He
also frequently described theother side of fear. Rather than
making myself feel better bybuying another car or working
(47:26):
with myself to death or eatinganother bar of chocolate, he
suggested that our own humanendorphins offer a genuine
reward, one that can't be takenaway if I were to get out of the
proverbial hole I kept diggingmy actions and feelings would be
the thing to lead me out of it,not my brain and my mouth.
(47:49):
Pressure would get me into afeeling space where true change
was possible. Phoenix offered mea golden opportunity to feel
differently, learning a lot fromacross the arena. Lynn yelled,
your back is locked again. Everytime I asked something of
Phoenix, my flow went out thewindow. My body went from moving
(48:09):
with the horse in harmony andbalance to rigid and stiff as a
board. I sat up straight as ifsaying, now I'm in business with
my body. I talked at Phoenixrather than with him. All I
wanted to show my teacher wasthat I knew, quote, unquote,
what to do in my own mind. Thisfelt like the way to ride. Me
telling the horse what to do,and the horse instantly
(48:30):
responding. Except what I wasdoing gave me the exact opposite
of what I was trying to achieve.
My stiffness communicated dangerto the horse. Sitting up, took
me out of my balance seat andmade me more likely to fall off.
All I was showing Lynn was thatI had a lot to learn. I was
unintentionally creating thevery thing I was trying to
(48:51):
avoid. Without Lynn watching meand calling out what was really
happening, I would have blindlyfelt great as soon as she
pointed out my locked up back. Icould feel it. I just couldn't
imagine doing anythingdifferently. My automatic
response was to brace fordanger. What if he ran away?
What if he balked? What if hestopped suddenly and I went
(49:12):
flying over his head? I thoughtmy mind threw 1000 potential
catastrophes at me. She pointedout that my own nervous state
was causing the horse concern.
When I didn't breathe, he movedwith more stiffness, trying to
figure out my instructions andto make sure I wasn't about to
kill him. By this time, we hadbeen working together for
(49:34):
several months, knowing how todo this versus actually doing it
under pressure were clearly twodifferent things. I was in the
froth, that place of discomfortwhere the old way doesn't work
and the new way doesn't workeither. The froth is my term for
the productive learning zone,like the froth at the edge of
the ocean, where the bubbles arewater and air mixed. The froth
(49:55):
is a state of mind and bodysensation where the old and the
new mix together. In the froth Ifeel agitation. I'm toggling
back and forth between thecomfort of the deficient old way
and the tentativeness of the newway. Would I ever get past my
fault? We were about to findout, relax, breathe now slight
pressure with your right legwhile you look left and stay
(50:18):
relaxed. Lynn said, in one ofthe most vulnerable moments I've
ever experienced. I somehowfinally let go. I took a deep
breath, relaxed and gave theslightest pressure with my leg,
the horse smoothly turned, andwe moved together in a flow that
could only be called magical.
Just writing about it almostmakes me want to cry with joy.
In that moment, the sensationcourse through my body, felt
(50:39):
like it was opening to a flowthat I had been seeking my whole
life. I felt it down to my toes,which suddenly felt light and
fluffy rather than tight andgripping. I was dancing the
tightrope on the back of thehorse for the rest of the day. I
felt the sensation of doingthings from a relaxed and
focused state of being my feetboth felt lighter and more
(51:00):
grounded at the same time, mybody moved with ease. Later, I
came to realize it was thestream of endorphins, those feel
good, hormones that Bruce hadpromised as a payoff. I had
caught my first glimpse of whatwas possible in the afterglow of
the experience, I reflected onhow I had been approaching every
aspect of my life, from dailyroutine to the dangerous bracing
(51:21):
with fear was second nature.
After the experience withPhoenix, I played with ways to
bring the flowy feeling into myeveryday life. My awareness on
my feet was particularly keen.
The more I tuned in, the more Inoticed how often my feet
clenched in a death grip, yetwith some attention and
(51:41):
intention, I could let go, andmy toes and feet would relax. My
fluffy toes would return for amoment when I faced the next
thing, whether a phone call, apersonal encounter, the next ski
set or the next horse. My feetwould brace for danger and
death. My movements lost theirfloat. My awareness would tune
in and I would rock back intofluffy toes. My awareness would
(52:05):
shut down, and I was back togrippy toes, rocking back and
forth. I've been tuned into myfeet ever since, constantly
increasing the time I spend influffy toes, becoming ever more
aware of the dance betweenbracing and embracing, bracing
for danger and falling into myrules locked me up, both in mind
(52:25):
and body, embracing pressure,fear and uncertainty as an
opportunity to use my tools,opens me up to handle anything
now I could see, in a way, thatI could bring into practice,
that It was the very act offacing pressure and uncertainty
that would become the medicinesto heal me. Thank you for
(52:45):
listening to the creativespirits unleash podcast. I
started this podcast because Iwas having these great
conversations, and I wanted toshare them with others. I'm
always learning in theseconversations, and I wanted to
share that kind of learning withyou. Now what I need to hear
from you is what you want moreof and what you want less of. I
really want these podcasts to bea value for the listeners. Also,
(53:09):
if you happen to know someonewho you think might love them,
please share the podcast and, ofcourse, subscribe and rate it on
the different apps that you'reusing, because that's how others
will find it. Now I hope you goand do something very fun today.
You.
Lynn, Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk
about the dilemmas of balancingwork and life and now here's
your host. Lynn Carnes,
Lynn (00:19):
Welcome to the Creative Spirits Unleash Podcast. I'm
Lynn Carnes, your host. Thisepisode of the podcast is
chapters eight and nine ofDancing the Tightrope. I'm
starting to put things together,as you will hear when you read,
oops, sorry, you're hearingthese chapters. At the very
beginning of chapter eight, Ihad a wild experience going out
(00:41):
and learning the negativepositive pole in a completely
new or deeper way. Let me tellyou something that's interesting
about that particular super toolas I call it. It is eight years
later, and I am still beginningto understand, notice, I said,
beginning to understand just howpowerful this mechanism inside
(01:02):
of us is, if we learn to use it.
If there's nothing else I havefor you for this podcast, pay
attention to that story and seehow you can start using it for
yourself. Because this one ispowerful. I'm also beginning to
find out all the holes in mytraining and all the things I
thought I knew that I didn'treally know. Because if there's
any distinction, especiallyaround this time of the book,
(01:25):
but maybe for the whole book,there is a big difference
between knowing something andhaving the wisdom to know how to
use it in the right place and inthe right time. I hope you enjoy
these chapters of dancing thetightrope. Chapter Eight, my no
riding, riding lessons, thehorse is your responsibility. As
I was nearing Camden for one ofthe sessions, my phone rang. It
(01:49):
was Bruce, do you trust yourselfto trust me? He asked. I quickly
answered yes, and then wonderedwhat was about to happen. He
gave me directions to a newlocation. When I pulled into the
new farm, Bruce had a lessongoing on, rather than working in
the round pen. He and anotherperson, a professional horse
(02:09):
trainer, were working ontrailering a large horse,
putting a horse in a trailer isno small task. Well trained
horses walk on calmly. However,just as with the dangers of a
trail ride, asking a flightanimal to subject itself to a
tiny, rolling prison is a verybig ask. Things go wrong, people
get injured or die. Horses getinjured or die, yet, moving
(02:32):
horses from one location toanother is necessary, so we
humans train them to do it. Theprofessional trainer in this
case had been involved in atraumatic trailering situation.
She had reached out to Bruce tohelp because she was caught
between a rock and a hard place.
She would rather never have totrailer another horse. She could
(02:55):
also not continue to be aprofessional horse trainer
without being able to do thisessential task. I got out of the
car and leaned against the hoodto watch the lesson unfold. She
would walk the horse to thetrailer. Bruce, who was sitting
out of her sight in the front ofthe trailer, would ask, what's
your number. As she brought thehorse near the trailer, step by
(03:19):
step, he would ask her, what'syour number, and then what do
you need to do to balance yourpoles? I watched this session
with great interest, because inmy mind, he was working with an
experienced horse trainer whoclearly did not need the lessons
the way I did. I was aware ofhow dangerous it can be to
trailer horses observing herreactions. It was clear that
(03:42):
this woman had been injured andhad seen horses injured in the
process, she was working withBruce to recover her confidence
after their session ended andshe left, we sat down near the
trailer to debrief what I hadobserved. They had been working
with a rescued thoroughbred whohad been mostly living on his
own in a pasture for many years.
He had only recently beengelded, so he still had a lot of
(04:06):
his stallion tendencies. Inother words, he was a lot of
horse to handle while we werestanding near the trailer. Bruce
gave me the horses halter ropeand said, the horse is your
responsibility. You don't haveto hold the rope the whole time.
It's fine if you drop the ropeand let him graze around us, but
remember, he's yourresponsibility. We were not in a
(04:29):
fenced area. It was wide open.
At first, I held the rope. Ididn't dare let it go. After
all, my catastrophic fortuneteller mind had already pictured
the newly gelded thoroughbredrunning to the highway a mile
away. After a few minutes, Bruceasked me to trust him again. I.
Drop the rope and let's talk.
The horse isn't going anywhere,but remember, he's your
(04:53):
responsibility. My rules werescreaming in my ear, don't let
go. You know, better than totake that chance. What if
something happens? Bruce's pointwas to build my tools, and it
felt like we were back with theflags in the round pen. I had
worked with him long enough toknow he wasn't going to let it
go, so I dropped the rope moreto humor him than to trust
(05:16):
myself as we were talking, thehorse did indeed keep grazing as
he nibble the yummy Cloverfarther and farther away from
me, I felt a familiar tick,tick, tick, like an inner time
bomb waiting to explode. It wasa feeling I had discovered many
years ago with my daughter, Jen.
At the time, I was still in thenumbest of my numb years, she
(05:40):
disappeared, and my negativepole, a feeling for which I had
no name for in those years,pierced through the armor to get
my attention. Jen and I were atthe library in Charlotte on one
evening, she was in secondgrade, and we had just moved
across the country from Texas toNorth Carolina. I was in a
constant state of feelingoverwhelmed, trying to orient in
(06:03):
a new job in a new town in a newstate, as a single mother, while
at the same time she was doingthe same with a new school and a
new apartment and lots of newexpectations, I found us a table
and familiarized her with thelayout of the large library so
she could find what she neededfor her assignment. My plan was
(06:24):
for the two of us to work at thetable once she found the
materials she needed, I hadbrought my own work to do as
well, so I sent her off toexplore and was quickly buried
in some work long sinceforgotten. Having a few minutes
to myself was heavenly. At somepoint, I felt the inner tickle
that something was off. Myattention started dividing
(06:46):
between whatever I was doing andglancing up, expecting Jen to
come around the corner anyminute, the sensation sort of
felt like a ticking time bomb,where the beat was getting ever
faster and ever louder. Withevery peak, the inner tickle got
stronger and more annoying. Sodid the inner struggle. A part
of me did not want to be thehelicopter mom who hovered and
(07:10):
worried over every littleassignment. Another part of me
was anxious and impatient forher to be finished so we could
go home. Still, another part ofme felt she needed some space to
learn how to navigate feelingthis thing, whatever it was, was
the price I had to pay to be abetter mom than the control
freak I really was nonenonetheless, the super anxious
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part of me worried she had beenkidnapped. Finally, I couldn't
stand it anymore, and I got upto take a spin through the
library and see where she wasand how she was doing. I found
her working just as she shouldhave been, and immediately, the
sensation of something being offdiminished at the time. It did
not occur to me that the feelingI was experiencing was a good
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and useful thing. I treated itas an indicator of what a bad
mom I was. The feeling was thefeeling it's as natural as the
air we breathe. The problem wasthe story I was telling myself
about the feeling both thatnight and every time I felt it.
Bruce was helping me rewritethat story when the horse moved
out of my arbitrary range, itfelt like the inner ticking had
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become a bomb that was about togo off. I went to pick up the
rope and bring him closer towhere we were talking. Bruce
asked, What made you go bringhim back? I would start
answering with things like hewas getting too far away. I
worried he would make a breakfor it. I thought someone might
come up and spook him. In otherwords, I explained myself
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something I had been trained todo my whole life. Secretly, I
was thinking, if I lose thishorse, you are going to kill me.
I do not want to be the one whocaused this horse to get hurt. I
don't want to get in trouble.
All the visible justificationsfelt so rational and right to
me, and no way was I going totell him my secret fear of
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failure. But he kept pressingand I kept fishing for the
explanation that would get himto leave me alone. We repeated
this pattern several times. Iwould drop the rope. The horse
would follow his nose to yummygrass farther and farther away,
and my little inner time, Bobwould go off, I would bring the
horse back, drop the rope, andBruce would ask me, What made me
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choose that moment to bring himback. I would fish for a better
answer, and only one answersatisfied him, no amount of
logic, rationale or pleasing Himstopped the pressure he was
applying most of the time. Hehad to come up with the answer
for me, you went to get thehorse to balance your negative
positive pole. He asked, Whatwas your number? When you went
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to get him that time? Now, I hadto admit that I had been trying
to be tough the last time I hadallowed the horse to drift.
Pretty good distance. Perhaps toavoid the interrogation, maybe
to get Bruce to think I couldtolerate the pressure, possibly
to test myself, maybe to seewhen he would jump in. Probably
a mix of all those reasons myconditioning was interfering and
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my need for approval wasfighting with my inner rebel.
Oh, I don't know. I guess it wasabout an eight. I said, What
made you wait that long? Whywould you let your poll go as
high as an eight beforeaddressing it? My Kid Mode brain
went into damned if you do,damned if you don't, territory.
Still caught in the belief thatmy job was to please Bruce and
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show him I could handle thepressure I under reacted to the
signal my negative pole wassending. At some level, I was
aware I was under reacting.
Damned if you don't, but myinner kid voice screamed, the
only way to be safe is to holdthe rope. Of course, this method
did not consider that I wouldnever have been able to hold the
rope if the horse truly feltlike he needed to run away from
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danger. Bruce was not satisfiedwhen I held the rope, damned. If
you do, Bruce watched my innerturmoil with amusement. My
choices of micromanaging and notintervening went to war with
each other. My kid voicecontinued to nudge, scream, beg
and plead with me to find a wayto please Bruce, get his
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approval or get him off my back.
I was missing the pointaltogether. Finally, after
several repetitions and someadditional coaching from Bruce,
I started tuning in to theticking time bomb as a signal
rather than a threat. This wasnot anxiety, and it was not a
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test of me to see if I couldplease Bruce. This was a
recalibration of my instincts.
This was body, mind and spirittraining. We were developing my
invisible tools. We continue totalk, and the horse continued to
graze, and when the signalreached a certain level, I
brought the horse back into therange that balanced my poles.
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Bruce's training with me thatday had nothing to do with
pleasing Him and nothing to dowith me making mistakes. Pushing
my pole up over and over againhad everything to do with
helping me recalibrate mysystem. He didn't care if I did
things his way. What he wantedwas for me to respond deeply to
the situation in front of me,not from my rules in my past,
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but by impeccably using my toolsto address the situation in
front of me, responding underpressure, Bruce's methods were
showing me new possibilities forsomething I had been practicing
for years. I could react or Icould respond. Reacting came
from my past in Bruce'slanguage. That mindset was
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tyrant. Responding happened inthe present moment. That mindset
was Alpha. It wasn't thelabeling that made the
difference. It was his absolutecommitment to offering
situations to respond ratherthan react under pressure, no
matter how many times I told himit was the horse that, quote,
unquote, made me do it. He cameback with the answer, it's not
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the horse. It's the pressurecreated by the horse. His
methods went to the very core ofmy being. In the 20 years prior
to this chapter of my life, Ihad been on a journey to learn
how to respond rather thanreact. My early corporate
persona was a take no prisoner'shard ass who felt almost nothing
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that personality worked greatfor the type of roles I had,
internal auditor, credit review,officer, loan underwriter, guard
at the gate for the safety ofthe bank's money. There were
rules, and I followed them to aT I expected everyone else to
follow them too. Then the bankdecided to re engineer the way
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it approved commercial loans.
Somehow, I was tapped to leadthat project. Now, my job was to
rewrite the rules of commerciallending. I was called on to be a
leader in the year of the reengineering project, I began to
see glimpses of another way ofbeing, another way of
interacting with others.
However, my personal operatingrules were strong and my style
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was both compliant andauthoritarian. At the same time,
I did what I was told and Iexpected others to do the same
when I was the one doing thetelling. Looking back on it, I
can see the mechanistic natureof my thinking. Being the one
rewriting the rules meant I hadto at least consider looking at
creativity and spontaneity. Atiny spark was lit when I was
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asked to lead credit trainingfor the entire bank, I realized
that my job was now tofacilitate true learning,
especially since I had beencharged with taking a one year
program down to 10 short weeks,I had been subjected to some of
the traditional. Additionalcredit training, where we sat
for hours listening to someonedrone on about how to analyze
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financial statements, fill outcredit approval reports or call
on a bank customer. The learningyield with this method was low,
and we were never going toshrink the program from 50 weeks
to 10 by selling and telling weneeded a better way. My team
decided to move to a moreexperiential learning model,
where we facilitatedopportunities for the trainees
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to learn and grow by trial anderror. In one brilliant move,
the design team recommended thatwe quit treating the trainees
like royalty when they arrivedfor their 10 weeks of training.
Instead, we built a treasurehunt. The only instructions the
new bankers got when theyarrived in corporate housing was
how to get to their desk thenext morning, there they would
find the first assignment, whichwas to find the fax machine.
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This was a few years ago, and atthe fax machine, they would
receive further instructions. Bythe end of the first day, they
would have familiarizedthemselves with their new work
environment, gotten signed on tothe computer and gotten busy
completing their firstassignment where our prior
methods had yielded trainees whoexpected the answers to be given
to them. This new approachcreated 100 hungry explorers who
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relish the hunt for their ownanswers. Taking this approach
forced those of us in charge ofthe program to change our
leadership style. No morecommand and control. Lectures
where we ran the show weretraded for a facilitative
teaching style that encouragedthe trainees to ask questions,
push back and struggle withtheir learning process. Not only
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were we training ourparticipants, but we also had to
retrain ourselves. I almostwashed out of my own facilitator
training program. My old rulesof command and control were so
comfortably ingrained in my mindand seemed effective, at least
to me. Learning to facilitateversus deliver a lecture was
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excruciating. The process addedmore sparks to my self awareness
journey. Eventually, I gotpretty good at facilitating, and
so did many of my team members.
Others opted out because theydid not want to examine their
own beliefs and assumptions.
They most certainly did not wantthe uncertainty of facilitating
a session where they would becalled on to respond in the
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moment rather than react in apredictable fashion, we truly
changed the culture of learningduring this time. We were
willing to do the hard work ofworking on ourselves and set the
conditions for deep learningthrough this and many more
experiences, I had come tobelieve I was a master at
responding rather than reacting.
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Another level of mastery.
Working with Bruce was startingto show me another level of
mastery. After every session offinding the middle I would
finally get to work with thehorse on the ground. Bruce
breaks everything a horse doesinto four parts, movement,
direction, rhythm and track,the actions happen in that
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order. A typical assignmentstarted with his picture. It
looks like this. Get the horsemoving. He picks direction once
he's moving at a walk, keep himgoing in that direction for one
full rotation in the round pin.
Let the horse tell you how muchpressure to apply when he
reaches the start line. Turnyour back in the opposite
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direction from where the horseis moving, relax and drop the
picture from your mind. Itsounds so simple. It is, if you
can stay in alpha mindset.
However, tyrant mindset isalways there, promising a better
way to handle all the waysthings can go off plan. The
horse doesn't move. The horsemoves at a faster rhythm. The
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horse starts to move and thenturns around. The horse stops to
graze. I had watched many videosand live demonstrations of this
type of work. It looks so easy,I had no idea how much unseen
energy work was happening. Toget a horse to move in such
ways, I needed to come to awhole new level of listening and
observing to stay in aresponsive, energetic space. In
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one of my early round penexperiences, I was in the middle
and the horse got to be whereverhe wanted to be, my picture was
to achieve movement with thehorse. At the first sign of
movement, I was to immediatelyturned my back and let the horse
be I won't bore you with all theways I had at my disposal to
achieve that goal. It doesn'tmatter anyway, because I way
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overshot the goal. The horse'sear twitched, and then he raised
his head and I kept addingpressure. Pretty soon I had him
walking along the rail. After acouple of minutes, Bruce stop me
and ask how I did I was so proudof myself. After all, I had that
horse moving. Thank you verymuch. Then he asked me to review
what had happened and thesignals I had missed. Did you
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see the ear twitch? Did younotice his head come up? Did you
notice him shifting his feetbefore he started walking? Well,
maybe, did you not count the earTwitch as movement, or did you
not think you caused the Twitch?
Truth be told, I was waiting forthe kind of human signals that
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caught me over the head. What Ithought was good, Bruce called
out as tyrant mindset. But herewas the confusing part. He was
okay with it. I don't want thehorse to do the picture. I want
you to have the opportunity tobuild your tools. What you just
saw was how focused you get onthe goal, so much that you
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forgot the frames that make upthe picture. You need to break
it down frame by frame. Thistime you overreacted, where was
your listening and hearing?
Where was your patience? How doI know when you are in tyrant
because you are either over orunder reacting? You are beating
yourself with a two before formaking a mistake. You're not
letting the horse tell you whatto do, when to do, how to do. Be
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the conduit, just as with theflags and finding the middle.
You don't have to listen to thevoices of your past. The answers
are right in front of you in thehere and now. The horse will
tell you how much pressure toapply. You will constantly be
adjusting. A mistake is not amistake. It's an opportunity.
When you feel your negativepoll, go up, listen to it and
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listen to the horse, then adjustas needed. When he completes the
picture, let him know byreleasing the pressure. Now
let's try it again. Bruce shineda light on something. I thought
I was long past I wanted to beperfect, better than perfect, if
possible, when it wasn'tperfect, and it can never be
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perfect, I beat myself up inways that offered complete
deniability. I wasn't beatingmyself up if I was just getting
frustrated for not being able todo something. Was it? It wasn't
perfectionism if I wanted to begood, right? Even though I had
been working on these verytendencies for many, many years,
I had mostly been successfulwhen the waters were calm in the
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space of the meditation retreator working off the grid in the
mountains, I could maintain mycomposure and respond in the
present moment with any form ofpressure. Came my old ways in a
new package. Just because Iwasn't raging or being bitchy
did not mean I wasn't operatingon old rules. The spiral into
feeling not good enough was soautomatic, it was invisible. The
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neural pathways were like wellworn deer tracks in the woods.
The energy followed the path ofleast resistance. I left the
moment and operated from myrules of the past for several
more lessons, we had many, manyrepetitions in the round pen.
Sometimes I would slip intoalpha, but tyrant would be
waiting to pounce as soon asBruce raised the pressure. On
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one memorable day, I had beenmaking progress. More and more
often I was able to reach for mytools. I was also getting more
skilled in working with thehorse from the ground,
especially in creating movement,direction, rhythm and track,
while my ego wanted to give mecredit for getting good at this,
the truth was that the patternwas getting somewhat
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predictable. Then on a calm day,nature offered some chaos to
test my ability to reach for mytools. On a clear, sunny day, I
was at the far end of the roundpen, standing a good distance
from Bruce, who was outside thefence, Mac the horse was
standing between us when a hugetree branch from at least 50
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feet up suddenly cracked andfell to the ground about 100
feet from where we werestanding, boom as fly animals.
When horses hear sounds likethat, they run first and ask
questions later. The two horsesstill in the pasture, took off
away from the sound at fullgallop. Before the branch even
reached the ground, so did Mactoward me. He was seeking the
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safety of the herd, and as faras he was concerned, I was the
herd, except I wasn't the herd.
I was a much smaller, squishyhuman in his flight mode, he
would have run over me before Icould have taken two steps while
I was still processing thebranches, it fell. Mack took off
in my direction. Quickly, Irealized the danger wasn't the
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tree branch. It was the 1000pounds of hooves, muscle and
panic running straight at me. Ihad two choices. I could react
in a self protective mode, whichwould have been to either turn
and run away or drop and curlinto the fetal position, both
would have done what selfprotective actions often do give
me a false sense of securitythat only make things worse. The
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choice to respond felt riskier.
I could reach for my tools andrespond by raising his negative
pole enough to turn him away.
Suddenly, Bruce is coaching up.
Let the horse tell you what todo, when to do, how to do was a
matter of life and death. Thepressure that created the danger
was extremely high. Max oncomingenergy was showing me the tunnel
vision of survival mode. In asplit second, I made the second
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choice. I raised my arms andstarted waving him. Off. Then I
started jumping in Mac's eyes,the jumping, waving woman in
front of him was even moredanger than the tree branch
behind him. He stopped in histracks. I dropped my arms and
stood quietly. He stood quietly.
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The other horses in the pasturehad stopped and were now
standing quietly. The danger waspassed. I looked over at Bruce,
and he said, Well done, alphaunder pressure, no second
guessing, no beating myself up,no quest for perfection,
allowing the moment to be andthen pass, allowing the next
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moment to come in be and thenpass, flow, feel, listen, hear,
patience, timing, observe,feeling from within the sweet
succession of the frames,allowing that to be my reward.
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This was the essence of versusnatural, human ship method, just
as the dog whisperer CesarMillan found that most of his
dog training was actually peopletraining. This horse whisperer
was retraining the human underpressure with no predictable
outcomes. Slowly, I startedrealizing what was different in
this work. No more road rage onmy way home when traffic built
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up, I used it to practicepatience rather than get myself
worked up. When I was drivinghome in a blistering
thunderstorm, I drove it frameby frame, rather than one,
wondering through the panic howI would ever make it through
when I got home, I welcomeddiscomfort as an opportunity to
try out the new tools that thework was unleashing when I made
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a mistake, I was more likely torecalibrate rather than beat
myself up. Yet, even as I feltmyself changing, I still wanted
more information about thehorse. I still wanted to get on
a horse and to be able to stopthe horse. Then, by chance, I
met a woman 20 minutes from myhouse named Lynn brown Len
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practiced natural horsemanship.
She even ran guided trail rides.
Surely with her, I would get ona horse, chapter nine, filling
in the holes, Swiss cheesewhen I walked into the barn at
transitions, Lynn brown greetedme and introduced me to Phoenix,
the horse that would be one ofmy greatest teachers. His first
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greeting was a toothy nip on theback of my hand. We were going
to be such good friends. While Icame hoping to ride. He was not
saddled. It was a hint of thingsto come. Even though I was well
into my lessons with Bruce, myproving mindset popped up
repeatedly, I still found myselfwanting to prove to Lynn that I
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was ready to ride, given thatshe regularly ran guest trail
rides, I was sure she would putme on a horse today, she started
by asking me what experience Ihad with horses and what I was
trying to achieve. After Idescribed both, she asked, Would
it be fair to say that you wantto build a solid foundation of
horsemanship? She didn't ask meif I was ready to ride today.
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She didn't ask me if I knew howto saddle a horse, which
obviously needed to be done ifwe were going to get on with my
desire to ride today. She didn'task me if I knew how to do
ground work. She didn't have toask me anything more. Phoenix
was telling her everything sheneeded to know. Lynn's way of
working with horses focuses ondeveloping trust and connection
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with a relaxed horse, ratherthan using force, fear and
intimidation to get the horse todo our human bidding. Horses
communicate with subtle cues,and she was reading Phoenix to
get a sense of how relaxed hewas in my presence, what I saw
was a still compliant horse justwaiting to be settled. What she
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saw was a frozen, shut downhorse just waiting to be killed,
rather than begin the lessonwith all the ways my body
language and energy were sendingscary messages to the horse. She
started with Swiss cheese. Youhave been around horses and
learned some things. What I havefound with a lot of my students
is that their horsemanshipknowledge is like Swiss cheese.
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They know some beginner thingsand intermediate things and even
advanced things, but they alsodon't know some beginner things
and so forth. There are holes intheir knowledge. Most of the
time those holes don't matter,but sometimes an event happens
and all the holes line up.
That's when we have disasters.
As she was speaking, scenes frommy accident flash through my
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mind, thinking I knew how tostop a horse by pulling back on
the reins, thinking I could staybalanced in the saddle, only to
be quickly bounced out of myseat, thinking I knew how to
fall in a safe way, only to landwith a bone shattering splat,
not even realizing that a horsecould be operating in a fearful
state of mind all the. Holes andthe Swiss cheese lining up
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perfectly so that I could bechauffeured by the ambulance
crew for a three day, two nightstay at the local hospital.
Those innocent holes nowappeared more ominous. If I were
ever to get back on the horse, Ineeded to close those gaps. So
yes, it was fair to say that Iwanted to build a solid
foundation of horsemanship, itwould have to start on the
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ground. Lynn approached the workwith horses very differently
from Bruce, and yet her lessonswere also very complimentary. We
did a herd watching experience.
On my second lesson, she droveme up to an enclosed area where
her six horses were standingaround. In my eyes, they look
like every other hoarder horsesI'd ever seen. Horses were
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standing there looking around,not really concerned, noticing
anything before we left thebarn, she asked me not to speak
as we went up the hill. When shefinally did utter a word, she
simply asked me what I observed.
My ill informed eyes had seenvery little. Well, one of the
horses is swishing his tail.
That's about all I see, I said.
Then she took me through thebasics of horse body language.
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It was a direct lesson inunderstanding the 50,000 years
of DNA in a prey animal whocommunicates in subtlety and
energy. First, she shared,horses have four basic needs,
safety, comfort, food and play.
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Hmm, I thought sounds a littlelike human needs, as described
by Maslow. Second, she explainedthat horses communicate with
energy and gesture. They readeach other and every nuance of
our human body language. Therewas a whole language going on
here that was invisible to me.
In watching the herd of horses,she pointed to the pecking
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order. Yes, horses have apecking order, just like
chickens and just like humans.
Did I notice the shift they madewhen we came near and then again
when we started talking? Could Itell which horse was the leader
at the moment, which one waskeeping watch? Who was the low
horse in the hierarchy? Whichones were connected or
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disconnected from the otherhorses? After we looked at her
dynamics, we moved to individualhorse body language, she had me
looking at their eyes, postures,legs and mouths. Were their eyes
soft and blinking, or hard andfixed? Did their body appear
soft and supple, or more like astiff board? Was a back leg
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cocked? Or were all four legssquared off? Were their lips
compressed, or were they lickingand chewing? In a short time, a
whole new world opened up to me,a horse can either be in a
comfortable place or a paralyzedplace. To the untrained eye,
that look almost the same.
Horses are masters at stuffingtheir worry into a compact
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package. Quickly, I begandrawing parallels to my
experiences in a variety ofcorporate settings, listening
patience timing on one memorableday, back when I was a banker in
Texas, I was returning from aclient meeting with a long list
of promises to fulfill. Severalof us on the floor, shared an
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assistant who was normally avery sunny, helpful person. On
this day, she did not look upwhen I approached her desk. She
was frequently busy and focused,so I thought nothing of
interrupting her. When I startedtalking, she did not look up. I
missed the first subtle signal,even though a little whisper in
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the back of my mind was sayingsomething's not right, I started
to dump my list of to do's onher rather than listen to what
she was telling me, albeit withenergy and gesture rather than
words, I added more pressure. Ijustified it to myself, after
all, helping me was her job. Apart of me was beginning to see
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that she might be in anythingbut a relaxed, comfortable
state. The go getter in me dovein anyway. Bad idea. Really,
really bad idea. After a fewmore sentences, she turned on me
with a fury that would haveknocked back an f5 full tornado,
pouring pressure onto an alreadypressure filled situation was
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not the right move. As I sulkedback to my office, head down,
our manager took me aside. Hehad witnessed the takedown and
was smiling in a conspiratorialway, you picked a bad time,
didn't you? We talked for amoment about my poor timing and
lack of patience. He shared alittle bit of the backstory on
what had been going on at theoffice while I was out with
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clients that day. Had I beenreading the situation, I would
have seen dozens of signals thatwould have told me to be
patient. It was a painful lessonon timing worth its weight in
gold. I. Now back at Lynn'sfarm, I realized there were more
lessons from this story. Addingpressure to a horse who looks
calm and relaxed but is insurvival mode while hiding his
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worry can lead to unexpectedexplosions. Spend any time
around people who take theirhorses out of their usual
environment, be it on the trailor in a trailer, and you will
hear things like, he was fine,and then suddenly he ran the
other way, or he was always soeasy to get on the trailer. I
have no idea what got into him.
Go slow, to go fast. During myearly lessons, Lynn took me into
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the world behind the horse'seyes. When I was a kid watching
Westerns or going to the rodeo,it looked to me like all you had
to do was hop on the horse, giveit a kick, yank the reins, and
off you went. I honestly thoughtthe most difficult part was
swinging the leg over how naiveworking with Lynn and Bruce, I
learned that horses are always,always, always assessing their
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safety. Their body languageconstantly telegraphs how safe
or unsafe they are feeling. Myfirst assumption went out the
window. Just because a horse isstanding still does not mean he
feels safe. I now realize howincredibly well trained movie
horses are, too by learning toread the signals communicated by
their eyes, ears, tail, feet andmore, I was now much more highly
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attuned to how my gestures,energy and even breathing and
heart rate affected their senseof safety and trust. The more I
learned, the more I wanted toknow.
After many lessons with Lynnstill on the ground, I was sold
on the process of developingtrust and connection with the
horse. I had also startedconnecting many more dots
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between what I was learning inthe barn and how it impacted the
ways I developed trust andconnection in my human
relationships. Every sessionwith Lynn started with a debrief
of how I had applied theprinciples she was teaching me
in different situations, mostinvolving no horses at all. One
day, I came into the barn andLynn said, today, you are
getting on after months ofgroundwork, it was finally time
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for me to start writing Phoenix.
By this time, many more of myearly assumptions have been
blasted to oblivion. I wasenjoying working with the horse
on the ground, whether leadinghim up and down the road or
moving in the round pen. Now itwas finally time to saddle up.
Well, okay, sort of saddle up.
You have developed good trustwith Phoenix. Today we are going
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to start by having you developconnection through your seat.
Lynn said, as she showed me thebare back pad, we would be using
the pad connected to the horse,much like a saddle, but had none
of the support of the westernsaddle in the form of stirrups,
saddle horn and wooden tree thatholds the rider in place. The
only thing that would be holdingme in place as we moved around
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would be my balance andconnection to him. She taught me
through the process of saddling,focusing especially on being
gentle and connected when it wastime to tighten the cinch that
held a pseudo saddle in place, Iwas about to realize that just
because I had changed my minddid not mean I had changed my
ways. I started out verypresent, my invisible tools of
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listening, hearing, patience andtiming were all in play as I
began saddling Phoenix. Lynn hadreminded me that he was a rescue
horse once destined for Olympicgreatness. He had been training
in a high performance show barnwhere the horses were treated
like machines rather thansentient beings. In his
performance life, his dailyroutine involved being brought
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out from his stall, which mightfeel like a prison, to an animal
whose DNA is programmed to runfree over wide open spaces, tied
up on each side of his face, tobe brushed, have his hoof picked
and then settled. Phoenix's fearhad boiled over years ago in the
show barn. One day, he said,Enough is enough, and flipped
himself upside down while tiedup to be settled. At that point,
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his rider decided he was moretrouble than he was worth, and
moved on to another horse. Lynneventually rescued him, and he
became her star lesson horse.
Now he was standing patientlywaiting to be my teacher, step
by step. Lynn continued talkingme through the process of
saddling, which I had learned todo in middle school back when my
assumption was once a horse is,quote, unquote, broke, he is
(39:14):
safe to ride. I didn't know ityet, but my proving mindset was
just waiting to pounce when itcame time to pull the Cinch
tight. I had gone through allthe steps, she explained, all
while staying present as Iworked with Phoenix, just
putting the pad up there was aprocess of letting him sniff it
and waiting move in and moveout, give and take, try again
(39:35):
and assess each moment wasdesigned to give him space to
realize that this wasn't goingto kill him. Finally, he took a
deep breath and relaxed. The padwas on his back. In my mind, we
had just reached the pinnacle.
It felt like I had summitedMount Everest, as my inner self
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did the happy dance. Lynnexplained how the straps went
through the different loops. Myinner celebration completely
drowned out the guidance Lynnwas providing in that moment, I
totally went back to my past. Itwas tyrant mindset. In an
instant. What happened inside mereminded what happens when I'm
in deep meditation or in flowwhile water skiing, as soon as I
(40:17):
think to myself, I'm doing it,I'm not doing it anymore. When
it came to the cinch, I had onegoal. It should be tight. This
was a rule I had learned as apreteen. A loose saddle can come
off to the side and lead to abad accident. I failed to hear
Lynn as she described the frameby frame, moment by moment
(40:38):
method, which would help mereach the goal while at the same
time, keep Phoenix's mindfeeling safe and connected to
me. I gave it a good yay, justlike I had been taught as a kid,
and just like the Cowboys do inthe movies, Phoenix stomped his
hook, swished his tail andbrought his head around as if to
say, what the hell all weresignals that the horse was
(40:58):
feeling very unsafe. Phoenixjust showed me how far I had to
go. Some horsemen would ignorethat kind of behavior because
the horse didn't run or bite.
Others would force the issue,insisting through fear and
intimidation that the horsecomply. Some would take that as
a signal to abandon the ride andhope for a better day tomorrow.
Lynn's standard is to do none ofthose things. Early in my
lesson, she said, You need torealize that every time you ask
(41:22):
something of a horse, you take alittle bit of his confidence
away. It pays to let him knowwhen he's giving you what you're
asking for they want to pleaseus. She showed me how to tighten
the Cinch without the Yank. Itwas a much more humane process,
and the result was just aseffective. However, just because
I had succeeded in getting theCinch tight, there was no way
she was letting me back on theback of this horse while he was
(41:44):
in a fearful state of mind. Hispot wasn't boiling yet, but it
would get much hotter if wedidn't turn down the temperature
before making such a big ask. Weslowed way down. We walked the
tightrope. We were not harsh andwe were not soft. Instead of
force and fear or quitting andplacating, we stayed with him.
(42:05):
The horse's stomping didn't stopme from saddling or riding him.
It just meant that I had torestore safety and regain trust
and connection before I couldmake that kind of request of
him. Once he let us know he wasrelaxed. I had the first of many
terrific rides in each moment,she showed me how to continually
bring the horse along and payattention to the signals that he
(42:28):
was with me, alpha and not insurvival mode or tyrant. It was
a constant series of makingrequests and reassuring the
horse. We had to go slow, to gofast when I skipped steps, it
took much longer, because I hadto dig myself out of the hole I
had created. The gift ofstressors. Dancing among several
(42:48):
activities reveal the holes Ihad been digging my whole life,
but also the positive side ofthe stressors that create
pressure, uncertainty and fearwhen riding at Cedar Creek, just
walking up and down the steephills, flooded my body with
adrenaline. So did a bobble onmy water ski. Walking near the
edge of anything high off theground was enough to make my
(43:10):
knees turn to jello. Just aboutanything physically scary sent a
flock of butterflies through myentire torso. It is a wonder I
didn't take flight at everypossible trigger. It wasn't
until I started applying thelessons from Bruce and Lynn as I
was writing Phoenix that thingsreally started to change. Once I
began to see pressure as a gift,albeit only occasionally, a
(43:32):
whole new world opened. First Ihad to own what I was starting
to call my mistake cycle, whichI did more often than I did the
what's next cycle, thinking ofit as the what's next cycle,
turned my mind to focusing onthe next frame, rather than
allowing my past to interfere.
(43:53):
My words and beliefs simply didnot fully align with my feelings
and actions. This was notbecause I'm some huge hypocrite
who means one thing and saysanother. It's a battle between
my intentions and myconditioning. Old habits die
hard. Decades of the survivaltraining called Life had
established their ways with me,while my brain and my mouth has
(44:14):
balanced the value of mistakesin the learning process, my body
brace for the consequences withwith the slightest hint of a
mistake, every cell in myphysical system vibrated with
warning signals that bad thingswere coming, just like what
happened in finding the middle.
It took the pressure of gettingback on the horse with the gift
of teachers who could show methe incongruity, to begin
(44:34):
unwinding the twisted cords thatheld me in a stiff, pseudo safe
place. I had chosen teachers whowent way beyond writing
technique and equitation. BothBruce and Lynn had seen the cost
of human created mistake cycleon the horse and human their
approach worked at the rootcause of many of the problems
with horses, which is the wayhumans deal with things not
(44:56):
going perfectly in. My ownperfectionistic tendencies would
cause me to either beat myselfup or beat others up around me.
When Mistakes were made morethan once, Bruce called me out
for beating up the horse when Icouldn't get him to do what I
was asking him to do. I didn'tthink of it as beating anyone up
at all. In my mind, it was justthe normal frustration of
(45:17):
learning in truth, it was themistake cycle in action. It was
as if Bruce could read my innerdialog and not even the parts
that I could hear. He wasreading the dialog behind the
dialog, the energy that wasrunning my actions in his book
open Andre Agassi describes inagonizing detail just how the
(45:37):
mistake cycle works on our innerdialog. After years of hearing
my father ran to my flaws, oneloss has caused me to take up
his rant. I've internalized myfather, his impatience, his
perfectionism, his rage untilhis violence doesn't feel like
my own. It is my own. I nolonger need my father to torture
(45:58):
me from this day on, I can do itall by myself.
It wasn't necessarily a ragingfather or mother that caused me
to take up a rant. It was thewhole gamut of teachers and
parents and siblings and bossesand so much more. It wasn't
necessarily a rant in thetraditional sense of the word,
(46:19):
which I envisioned like a tempertantrum. It was more like a low
level of frustration, just asBruce had described dozens of
times with my clients and me inthe round pen with the horse,
you feel a mistake, and youstart hitting yourself over the
head with a two before you startsecond guessing yourself. You
get up in your head, rather thanletting the horse tell you what
to do, when to do and how to do,you leave the moment that's the
(46:41):
past interfering in my mind, asI said, I started to spell
interfering this way, the pastis E N T, E, R, F, E, A, R, I N
G. My fear of mistakes wascausing the very thing I was
trying to avoid. It was notintentional. It was automatic,
and I had repeated it millionsof times in my life. In the face
(47:05):
of a variety of behaviors, Brucecould repeat the mistake cycle
to his clients with confidence,because everyone he had ever
worked with found themselves inthe cycle, not every time, nor
all the time. It happened whenthe pressure got high enough. He
also frequently described theother side of fear. Rather than
making myself feel better bybuying another car or working
(47:26):
with myself to death or eatinganother bar of chocolate, he
suggested that our own humanendorphins offer a genuine
reward, one that can't be takenaway if I were to get out of the
proverbial hole I kept diggingmy actions and feelings would be
the thing to lead me out of it,not my brain and my mouth.
(47:49):
Pressure would get me into afeeling space where true change
was possible. Phoenix offered mea golden opportunity to feel
differently, learning a lot fromacross the arena. Lynn yelled,
your back is locked again. Everytime I asked something of
Phoenix, my flow went out thewindow. My body went from moving
(48:09):
with the horse in harmony andbalance to rigid and stiff as a
board. I sat up straight as ifsaying, now I'm in business with
my body. I talked at Phoenixrather than with him. All I
wanted to show my teacher wasthat I knew, quote, unquote,
what to do in my own mind. Thisfelt like the way to ride. Me
telling the horse what to do,and the horse instantly
(48:30):
responding. Except what I wasdoing gave me the exact opposite
of what I was trying to achieve.
My stiffness communicated dangerto the horse. Sitting up, took
me out of my balance seat andmade me more likely to fall off.
All I was showing Lynn was thatI had a lot to learn. I was
unintentionally creating thevery thing I was trying to
(48:51):
avoid. Without Lynn watching meand calling out what was really
happening, I would have blindlyfelt great as soon as she
pointed out my locked up back. Icould feel it. I just couldn't
imagine doing anythingdifferently. My automatic
response was to brace fordanger. What if he ran away?
What if he balked? What if hestopped suddenly and I went
(49:12):
flying over his head? I thoughtmy mind threw 1000 potential
catastrophes at me. She pointedout that my own nervous state
was causing the horse concern.
When I didn't breathe, he movedwith more stiffness, trying to
figure out my instructions andto make sure I wasn't about to
kill him. By this time, we hadbeen working together for
(49:34):
several months, knowing how todo this versus actually doing it
under pressure were clearly twodifferent things. I was in the
froth, that place of discomfortwhere the old way doesn't work
and the new way doesn't workeither. The froth is my term for
the productive learning zone,like the froth at the edge of
the ocean, where the bubbles arewater and air mixed. The froth
(49:55):
is a state of mind and bodysensation where the old and the
new mix together. In the froth Ifeel agitation. I'm toggling
back and forth between thecomfort of the deficient old way
and the tentativeness of the newway. Would I ever get past my
fault? We were about to findout, relax, breathe now slight
pressure with your right legwhile you look left and stay
(50:18):
relaxed. Lynn said, in one ofthe most vulnerable moments I've
ever experienced. I somehowfinally let go. I took a deep
breath, relaxed and gave theslightest pressure with my leg,
the horse smoothly turned, andwe moved together in a flow that
could only be called magical.
Just writing about it almostmakes me want to cry with joy.
In that moment, the sensationcourse through my body, felt
(50:39):
like it was opening to a flowthat I had been seeking my whole
life. I felt it down to my toes,which suddenly felt light and
fluffy rather than tight andgripping. I was dancing the
tightrope on the back of thehorse for the rest of the day. I
felt the sensation of doingthings from a relaxed and
focused state of being my feetboth felt lighter and more
(51:00):
grounded at the same time, mybody moved with ease. Later, I
came to realize it was thestream of endorphins, those feel
good, hormones that Bruce hadpromised as a payoff. I had
caught my first glimpse of whatwas possible in the afterglow of
the experience, I reflected onhow I had been approaching every
aspect of my life, from dailyroutine to the dangerous bracing
(51:21):
with fear was second nature.
After the experience withPhoenix, I played with ways to
bring the flowy feeling into myeveryday life. My awareness on
my feet was particularly keen.
The more I tuned in, the more Inoticed how often my feet
clenched in a death grip, yetwith some attention and
(51:41):
intention, I could let go, andmy toes and feet would relax. My
fluffy toes would return for amoment when I faced the next
thing, whether a phone call, apersonal encounter, the next ski
set or the next horse. My feetwould brace for danger and
death. My movements lost theirfloat. My awareness would tune
in and I would rock back intofluffy toes. My awareness would
(52:05):
shut down, and I was back togrippy toes, rocking back and
forth. I've been tuned into myfeet ever since, constantly
increasing the time I spend influffy toes, becoming ever more
aware of the dance betweenbracing and embracing, bracing
for danger and falling into myrules locked me up, both in mind
(52:25):
and body, embracing pressure,fear and uncertainty as an
opportunity to use my tools,opens me up to handle anything
now I could see, in a way, thatI could bring into practice,
that It was the very act offacing pressure and uncertainty
that would become the medicinesto heal me. Thank you for
(52:45):
listening to the creativespirits unleash podcast. I
started this podcast because Iwas having these great
conversations, and I wanted toshare them with others. I'm
always learning in theseconversations, and I wanted to
share that kind of learning withyou. Now what I need to hear
from you is what you want moreof and what you want less of. I
really want these podcasts to bea value for the listeners. Also,
(53:09):
if you happen to know someonewho you think might love them,
please share the podcast and, ofcourse, subscribe and rate it on
the different apps that you'reusing, because that's how others
will find it. Now I hope you goand do something very fun today.
You.
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