This is such a broad topic!
It comes on the heels of a lesson I just co-taught with friend/colleague RW. The student is a delightfully open and ready adult who deals with great love of her horse and great fear of him. Neither horse nor human confidently knows how to behave around the other. We are grateful to be involved with these two, helping them create what they want.
What do most of us want? Safety, clarity about how we stand with others, opportunities to enjoy ourselves, choices, a sense of belonging to and contributing to a greater community, a sense of OK being here wherever that 'here' is.
Some detail of what I want includes just what I was doing today: helping two beings get along better, each in their own skin as well as with each other.
And that is my overriding desire with all that I do with horses and other animals. Wanting to influence in helpful ways so that those beings feel better about the situations in their lives. Not resigned aka feel better, but embracingly feel better. Feel better from a place of understanding and choice.
Choice -- that is so crucial! I am grateful to live in a place and time where many choices are indeed permitted the individual. It has not always been this way.
I think about building a feel good place within a relationship. Not a 'here's a cookie' feel good place. A place that resonates with calm presence deep in every cell. A place I nourish in meditation. A place I have heard called 'softness'.
That feel good place becomes the beckoning harbor light. It becomes trusted and sought. It is missed when one is drawn away with other concerns. It is welcoming any time we slow and find it again.
If I offer that to my students, they may have the basis from where to accomplish anything. What anyone choses to do is personal and there are as many paths through life as there are individuals. But how we do those things, that is what interests me. And I assume that every living being wants the same things -- to survive and to thrive. So that is where we can start, and at any moment.
My regular students know me well. They joke about one of my habits: asking "what do you want?" -- just before they tell what they want! How could I possibly pretend to help someone who has not communicated -- in some fashion -- that they want something and what they want?
Well, I could assume to know and carry on based on my assumptions, but that approach doesn't suit me. I want to enhance your dreams, not mine. Well, truthfully? Enhancing your dreams enhances mine. One of those win-win situations. Which reflects my spiritual nature -- we are all connected and whatever anyone of us does to benefit the deeper Self of 'me' or 'you', of 'us' or 'them', that benefits us all.
3 comments:
I wish more teachers and horse trainers had your perspective. Your student who is afraid of her horse is very lucky to have someone who is willing to really help her and not try to make her ashamed of her fear. She and her horse are being offered by you a great opportunity to grow. I hope she realizes how unusual that is.
Thank you, Victoria. It is amazing how easy it is for people who are living with unrecognized shame to pass it along to others in the form of shaming and criticism.
I know from my personal experience that when we become aware of what we are doing, we make every attempt to change how we express ourselves, finding a way to support ourselves and the others we are in contact with. I think I will write more about shame in a blog entry.
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