Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

We were taught how to be brave around our horse, we were taught to ignore our fear, push it down, get on with it, ride them through it and many other ways of describing “pay no attention to your fear”.  We were even taught to get back on when we were bucked off – even if we were terrified.  And we were taught all that by wonderful, well-meaning people who knew no other way of dealing with fear.

I am sooo… happy to be able to tell you that we don’t need to walk that path any more.

In fact, our fear is a message from our soul, that inner part of ourselves, that we are in danger.  Yep, when we feel fear, it is almost always because we are in danger.  And we are supposed to make ourselves safe when we are in danger – not ignore it!

This over simplified explanation of how our brain deals with emotion will help this make sense to you. 

There are three basic parts of the brain that deal with emotions – the front brain, the middle (the limbic system) and the back part of the brain (the Reptilian brain).

The front part of the brain is where we deal with our emotions consciously.  That’s where we feel a little uneasy, where we feel an early warning signal that I call Not Quite Right and we deliberately and consciously choose to do something about it. 

In the audio lessons that are part of the Zen Connection with Horses book and CD set,  I take you step by step through discovering how you feel the early warning signals of Not Quite Right when you are with your horse and step by step, what action you can take to deal with that feeling that something is Not Quite Right. 

When we don’t pay attention to the early warning signals, then our brain shifts the feeling down into the mid part of the brain, the Limbic System, where we feel the emotion (in this example, the fear) more intensely. 

When we don’t do our emotions in the more intense “feeling” part of our brain, either because f overload or simply choosing not to, the emotions get pushed down to the back part of the brain (that I call the Reptilian brain). 

The back part of the brain is where we get the opportunity to “do” the emotions physically.  It’s where we can act them out -  it’s where kids do tantrums, where we slam the door, kick the cat (I’m kidding), throw the dinner at the husband (I’m not kidding).  It’s where we can dance it off, use a punching bag, run until we drop and actually work off the emotion.  It’s where we can even ride it off (only with a particularly generous horse though!)

When we don’t deal with the early warning signal, the Not Quite Right as I call it, or when we don’t feel it and deal with the more intense emotions in the Limbic system, and when we don’t do it physically or act it out in the back part of the brain either, it’s the Reptilian brain’s job to bury the emotion.  And it buries it in various parts of our body.

And since we’re on the subject of fear, fear gets buried on the kidneys and terror gets buried into the bladder.

This is an ingenious short term survival mechanism, like many other things about our bodies, it’s absolutely brilliant. This burying of the emotion clears the emotions away from the brain and stops us from going mad.

The trouble is though, that this solution is just short term.  Because next time we feel fear, the old fear that we buried comes whooshing back up and intensifies the fear that we are feeling now.  Fear and all the other emotions are cumulative, each fear adds on to the other.  So that the terror that you feel when something goes wrong is a whole bunch of fears that have been adding to each other over the years.

Doesn’t that explain why sometimes you are afraid of something and you don’t even understand why it’s such a big deal?  Or if you haven’t noticed it in yourself, I bet you’ve noticed it in someone else?  I’ve got dozens of personal stories about stuff like that.

Thank goodness though, that this problem can be dealt with quite simply.

For a start, we can deal with our emotions, we can avoid the old fears coming back up, if we simply take action on the early warning signal of Not Quite Right and take action every time we feel that something is Not Quite Right.

Now that is a huge deal that I’ve just given you here.  This is the answer to life, love and the universe.  Every time you take action when you feel Not Quite Right, you avoid feeling fear at all.  Because you are taking action on a very minor early warning signal.

I said it was simple and it is.  It takes practise and for me it took a commitment to myself that I was sick and tired of that horrible feeling of dread that came up in me whenever I was going out my horse.

I made that commitment to myself and it is rare now for me to feel any kind of fear when I’m around any horse.  Fear comes with many labels – anxiety, uneasy, panic, dread, fear, terror, lack of confidence, claustrophobic, alarmed, helpless, threatened, vulnerable.  Anger is one of the effects of fear when it is intensified and so is rage.  

Now thinking about Not Quite Right and taking action on that will be enough for some of you reading this article to transform your lives with your horse.

It wasn’t enough for me though and I suspect that with the ground getting harder every year, that it won’t be enough information for many of you either.   There is so much exciting stuff to understand!

The book Zen Connection with Horses will bring you insights that will give you a freedom from fear and a delight with your horse that will just knock your socks off.

And if Zen Connection with Horses doesn’t give you what you’re looking for to deal with fear around your horse (and any of the other negative emotions too) then I will give you your money back.  You have my personal “love this book or get your money back” guarantee. That’s not so riskt because this book is getting rave reviews from world class horse people, to beginner riders and everyone in between.

Zen Connection with Horses is a book and CD set, where you download the audio lessons into your MP3 player and take it out to your horse, where it’s the most useful to you.  It takes you step by step through 8 simple little lessons on the ground, discovering how you experience Not Quite Right.  It takes you through some seriously BIG insights about how you emotionally experience the connection to your horse that will provide a huge insight for you about your fear or lack of confidence. It’s simply too big to put here in one small article!

Click here to go to the shop for Zen Connection with Horses now.

If you’re not rushing off to buy Zen Connection, then read this article again so that it really sinks in – it’s a big concept and seriously worth it!