My friend asked, "Do you like challenge in all creatures or just horses?"
I respond:
I like challenges less and less, though I doubt I'll ever get to zero tolerance of a challenge. I've had an adrenaline reaction tied into facing a challenge, and over the years, I've grown to enjoy life without adrenaline. A whole 'nother universe.
More often than not, I would chose a type of challenge that requires supporting the true nature of a being to surface when a being had chosen, consciously or unconsciously to shrink one's expressions, hide one's essence, in order to get along. In my clinical profession it was a preference for working with people with depression rather than people with actiing out behaviors like addictions, self mutilation, anger dyscontrol.
So it's a stretch for me to be dealing with horses who have little self control, little stop-and-think time between a thought and some impulsive and powerful activity. Give me a depressed horse, an insecure withdrawn horse, and I know just what to do.
And yes, I have kept passing up the opportunities to relate with bomb proof horses and mild, yielding humans in favor of developing relationships with those with some strong opinions and unstable connectedness. Of course, I do like to be silently in touch with the deep stillness within all creatures.
Some paradoxes and contradictions I guess. I mean really, LJB, how can you be married to RNB and say you don't like a big challenge?!!
1 comment:
You know, I am very much the same. I love the painfully shy, the withdrawn, the stoic people and animals. I like to be still and wait for them and help them find their way out.
Overt aggression, meanness, impulse problems are much harder for me. I think I have less natural sympathy and less capacity to see beneath. But, as with all growing, that is changing. Now I look at the surly teenagers with aggressive attitudes and the horses who shout obscenities with their very ears and I just see the babies inside there. And feel sad for them.
Unattractive troubled people and horses have it very hard. One of my loved ones is very unlikeable when he is ill. He is violent, swears, threatens, has no self control, is angry and mean. It is a monumental task seperating the behavior from the person while maintaining my own self. I think that is the task with a challenging horse as well. Can you be safe? If you can be safe, can you see beneath the ugliness and help the horse out? If you cannot be safe, can you help the horse to a place where he can hurt no one?
You know that I am face to face with one of these challenging creatures. I wish I could make a difference for him.
Post a Comment