Kindness

“We are all telling ourselves stories. The question is, does your story empower you or hold you back?” -Tony Robbins

By Elisha Bradburn | Photos by Denver Deschenes

Elisha and Boone reflecting

You may be asking yourself, what does the story I am telling myself have to do with kindness and horsemanship? The story we tell ourselves can be either kind or unkind to ourselves and our horses. Allow me to clarify what I mean by “story.”

Imean the story you tell yourself about you, your horse, what your relationship is like, what “always happens,” and what it all means. It is all so simple, and yet so complex. Simple, as the horse really is just trying to have his needs for safety, food, comfort and play met in each moment.

Complex, because we all know how much horses pick up on our feelings, conviction and confidence which are all dictated by the story we are telling ourselves.

The simple “needs met” part of the kindness equation is a bare minimum, yet often overlooked, so let’s unpack that a bit first.

The beginning and bare minimum kindness we owe our horses is to meet their basic needs.

By needs, I mean needs according to a horse. Safety for a prey animal, such as the horse, is on top of the needs list. The horse is always evaluating whether he feels vulnerable, worried, or at ease with his current environment. As a part of your horse’s environment, are you aware of your effect on your horse? Do you make your horse feel confident as you are consistently trustworthy and fair? If not, sadly, you could be enough to put your horse on edge. If your horse scares you, and puts you on edge, your horse feels your anxiety and also feels fearful. After all, if his meat-eating predator is scared, shouldn’t he be too?! Safety therefore, has to be addressed first, as if you never become at ease with each other, it is very difficult for either of you to learn in this survival state.

The next basic need is a species appropriate diet, meeting all nutritional requirements. Is he fed enough, or too much? Does he, at least most of the day, have access to forage to satisfy his natural grazing behaviour?

Is the horse in an environment where he is comfortable? Does he have a good hair coat for the weather, or is he blanketed appropriately if you blanket? Does he have shelter for when it is very windy, wet or hot? Whether that be a treed area or a shelter of some sort.

Are his feet well-balanced and maintained by a knowledgeable farrier?

And lastly does your horse get opportunity for play? This is as important to his mental well-being as it is ours. The opportunity to socialize with other horses and move freely is so good for the horse’s mind and body.

So, given all of this, whether the horse’s basic needs are being met can be measured empirically, so it should be easy to assess whether this basic kindness is being met. With needs met, we can move on to kindness on another level. This is where things get a bit more complex (and interesting!) and bring us back to the story you tell yourself.

“He always bucks when we go on trail rides.” “He knows I am nervous, so he takes advantage and rears and bolts to get rid of me.” “My mare is cranky because she was abused in her past home.”

Kind communication between Elisha and Boone

These are all stories we tell ourselves about our horses. The problem with stories, is they influence the complex bit of

horsemanship. That is the intangible, the invisible, the feeling about us, the energy, or whatever you want to call it. When we say “this always” or “he never,” we are not making room for any other outcome. Pat Parelli puts it well when he says, "Never say never, don't always says always, usually say usually.” This all goes back to spirit and intention, which I touched on in a previous article, and is very powerful. The self-fulfilling prophecy, so to speak.

So, if we can be honest with ourselves about the story we hold onto about ourselves and our horse, and humble enough to own whether or not we are providing for our horse’s basic needs, we can see if we want to make some adjustments, perhaps write a new, kinder story.

If we approach the horse with kindness, unconditional kindness, we have the power to change our relationship with our horse for good. Unconditional kindness is dependant on us, not the being we are interacting with. We decide to be kind, even if we don’t get kindness in return. When we are kind, we have the self-control needed as a horseman, to make the best decisions and actions for the horse’s well-being - on the fly.

Kindness does not allow anger to decide, but reason instead. Keep in mind kindness isn’t always fluffy either. At times it can be downright firm, in an effort to protect ourselves and our horses from dangerous behaviours and outcomes. Kindness means drawing clear boundaries so we don’t make our horse feel he needs to be the leader. Not being the clear leader can put our horse in a position of feeling on edge and vulnerable, as he thinks he has to take care of himself if he is indeed the leader in his mind.

Being a good leader is being the kind of leader we would

want to follow. It means pausing when necessary, and really paying attention to the feedback our horse is giving us. Kindness makes way for understanding and empathy. As Pat Parelli also says, “Your horse doesn’t care how much you know until he knows how much you care.” Consider what it might be like if everyone approached you with unconditional kindness. It really meets the deepest needs of any being. It makes it possible to rewrite our story with our horse. By letting go of an old story that doesn’t serve us anymore, we make room for endless possibilities! We even fulfill some dreams just by starting out with limit blasting kindness!

Wishing you a Christmas full of kindness and love, from our farm to yours!

Elisha Bradburn and her husband Clay own Faithful Farm, an equestrian centre in the Fraser Valley. Elisha’s passion with horses lies in psychology based horsemanship, with a strong consideration for the horse’s point of view. Elisha is available for speaking engagements and can be followed on her Legacy Horsemanship pages on both Facebook and Instagram or e-mailed at legacyhorsemanship@shaw.ca.

(See her listing in our Business Services section under TRAINERS)

Season’s Greetings

From our family to yours

office@okeqvet.com

Warm wishes to you all and your horses for a healthy, happy and safe holiday season!