Heart to Heart

Horses can teach humans a lot about the pace of life. Today life seems to be moving so much faster. Most of us try to keep stress at arms length on a daily basis. However speed is depicted as value, time is money and so forth. It appears the faster something can go the more desirable it is. The element of speed brings many good things but it may also be detracting the same amount.

Horses pick up so many things from their owners and riders that they can crave affection or behave in responsive ways to us. Attempts to create connections and train horses where owners have not made a responsive bond can and do sometimes result in total confusion and the horse does not respond well. It can take much more energy and time to achieve something because we are not achieving things together. They may turn their hinds, kick out, create excessive head movement, move away, become agitated, or simply break their concentration completely. Your horse is an intelligent and sensitive creature that demands your full attention. When a rider stands, coffee in hand chatting to a friend,smoking and pushing the animals face away and then mounts and expects total obedience and understanding from it, it is clear that the bond is either not in place or has been broken.

Those who want to have better companionship with their horse must learn heart-based communications. Heart-based communication occurs when a person is aware of their own heart space, and adjusts their timing, rhythm or intensity to reflect another heart beat. There may be a long silence to achieve this. They must be willing to reflect and listen deeply to the communications another is offering them. In essence they must learn how to create oneness with an inner peace to be able to accept the tacit communication of the animal. When two beings are heart based their hearts become synchronized and then they begin to see and feel conected.

It all seems very esoteric and it probably is but evidence of the partnership can be seen in the arena when miscommunication happens the horse is anxious, nervous and distracted and awaits a physical prompting from the rider as heart based communication has been severed.

It could be argued that the rider who invests time in creating the heart bond will benefit in many ways from this action. Some might comment that the trust that man built up, then withdrew from the equine world many centuries ago can only be regained by listening to and empathising with the heart.