Curiosity

My home office looks out on our backyard. I have an unobstructed view of our two horses all day long. They can also see me. In fact, some days they get as close as they can and just stare at me for what seems like hours. If it’s feeding time, I get the message. But this also happens at other times. I say “they” but, to be honest, I’m really talking about my Quarter Horse mare, Candy. Fidla, our Icelandic mare, has such a massive forelock and phlegmatic personality that you can hardly tell if she’s awake or asleep, let alone what’s going on in her brain. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …
 

Candy, on the other hand, is somewhat transparent. You can really tell when the wheels are turning. She watches me with bright eyes, ears forward, and head slightly lowered, even if I’m just typing on my computer. So, what’s going on here? Slow day in Horseville? Actually, I think that, for whatever reason, her curiosity is piqued.

 

In one of our first radio interviews many years ago, Pat Parelli told me that curiosity and fear are mutually exclusive states in a horse. If Candy is curious, she can’t be afraid. As Clinton Anderson would say, she’s in the thinking side of her brain. It’s a good state for a horse. I want my horse spending as much time as possible being calm, confident, and comfortable, thinking rather than reacting. Then when I inject myself into the situation, I just try to maintain that. There may be some health benefits, too. About 60% of domestic horses (and nearly all race horses) have ulcers and experts tell me that stress is the biggest cause. When curious, a horse is not feeling the harmful effects of stress.

 

I used to feel that I needed to do something when Candy was staring at me. Feed her, pet her, entertain her. Something. I don’t think that way anymore. A difficult lesson for most of us to learn is that smart horsekeeping often demands that we do nothing at all. Simply leave the horse alone. For me, this is one of those times. I’ll keep doing what I do at my desk and hopefully, Candy will continue to find that curious.

Slow down your molecules

Every now and then, I come across a term or phrase that is so right I just have to pass it on. This one comes from our dear friend, Karen Scholl, who has helped Diana and me immensely on our horsemanship journey.

Horses mirror us in many ways. When we are tense or anxious, our horses often pick that up and reflect it right back at us, which can set in motion a vicious cycle of escalating tension. We can break the cycle by deliberately calming ourselves. But simply saying, “relax” or “calm down” or even “breathe” to ourselves or to students often doesn’t cut it.  Karen found a more provocative, visual way to get the idea across. “Slow down your molecules,” she would say. For me, this creates a vivid mental picture that I can work with. I see my tension as molecules whirring about in my body, bumping into one another, and I can visualize slowing those molecules down and creating order among them. This is very similar to the effect of Transcendental Meditation, which I practiced regularly at one time in my life. Both are ways of settling your mind, which is the first step in settling your body and settling your horse.

So give it a try the next time you need to calm yourself. Slow down those molecules! I’m betting it will work for you just like it works for me.

Learn more about Karen’s work at www.KarenScholl.com.