Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

This episode happened some months ago, but today I was given the photo you see below, so I decided to write a post about the insights about horses, that I gained from my deliberate encounter with a snake. 

I used to be snake phobic – so bad that I couldn’t watch them on TV without having nightmares.  I had gotten rid of the outright phobia with my healing work, but was still pretty afraid of them when someone suggested that “knowledge is power, perhaps I ought to find out more about snakes.” 

Coincidentally, (yeah right!)  a couple of days later I saw an advertisement in the local paper that a snake expert was giving a talk locally.  So I went along and met Syd Cook, the local and mad as a meat axe snake catcher.  (”Mad as a meat axe” is an Aussie expression about being really nuts! And just kidding Syd!)  

Syd generously allowed me to make an appointment to come and see his reptile collection and work on my fear of snakes the same way as I work on horses’ fears. (My offer to make him some homeopathic snake anti-venine for all his poisonous snakes may have also piqued his interest!)

I’ve written extensively about how to work our horse’s comfort zone and expand it rapidly in both “Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You” and the book and audio lesson set “Zen Connection with Horses”. 

But this time, with the snake, I was on the receiving end of what could be, if not handled right, a deeply terrifying experience for someone who had been phobic. 

I used the same techniques as those we describe in Zen Connection with Horses.  I very quickly realised that some of the fear that I was experiencing was the snake’s fear and when I took steps to change that for him – just like it is with the horses, my own fear was reduced dramatically.  That was the first very liberating discovery. 

Then when the snake felt safe, I was able to start working on expanding my own comfort zone, never being too far out of my comfort zone and only coming out of my comfort zone for a short period at a time and giving myself time to dissolve old fears that were no longer useful to me. 

It was an amazing experience with the snake as a thinking being, that was not at all what I was expecting.  I have got to tell you that I am now in awe of snakes and the generosity of this particular little snake and so comfortable with THAT snake that I could have taken him home.  (Only to a house vacated permanently by the husband though!)

It took about an hour for me to get to the point that you see in the photo – relaxed and smiling, having a comfort zone with this beautiful little snake being active in my hands and up my arms. (Just not inside my jacket, which he would have liked to do!) 

But the big insight that I wanted to share with you, that I got from this snake encounter, was how do you reckon I would have coped if someone had just forced me to put up with that snake in my arms when I was terrified of it?  Do you reckon that something inside of me would have to die a little not to go at least a little insane? 

What do you think my reactions would be from that day onwards if I was forced to hold the snake?  How do you think I would feel and react if every day I had to hold that snake?  Even if I stood still and held that snake without complaining, do you think that the fear would really be gone when I know that I HAVE to hold it, that if I don’t hold it, I will just be forced again?  

From the practical experience of my snake encounter I realised how lucky (not quite the right word, maybe blessed is the right word?) our horses and ourselves are when we know and understand how to develop a deep place of comfort, a place where we and our horse bubble with joy – a place of no fear, a place that you and your horse can both find with the book and audio lesson set “Zen Connection with Horses”.