Yeah I know – what the heck has THIS topic got to do with a clinic? Read on sunshine…
Remember that old fairy tale about the prince that was spelled by an evil witch and turned into a frog? And the only way out of the spell was for a girl to kiss the frog? And the girl did? And found the love of her life prince inside the frog?
I had one of my blinding flashes of the bleedin’ obvious this morning when I realized that BEing Present – which makes it easy to be aware of the truth behind every situation / problem / crappy thing that happens with my horse AND in my life – i.e. seeing what’s REALLY going on here – means that if the girl was Present to the truth of what was really going on here, then kissing the frog was really no big deal at all.
Her inner guidance system would have TOLD her that something REALLY good was going to come out of kissing that frog. I call it knowing to your bones that something is right.
I’m snorting with laughter here – bear with me and you’ll see where I’m going with this! (I just had someone tell me that they had to read this 3 times to get all the nuances of it, so I HOPE you’ll see where I’m going with it!)
And then my mind flipped to my husband – more snorting with laughter, no he’s not a frog in disguise, but he could be a prince! – and I had a clear look at the alternate reality – THAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED – if I hadn’t been on this path with horses. I’m telling you now, you people who know him, if you tell him about this blog I’m going to sack you from friendship!
Here’s the thing… I would have been looking down the barrel of retirement with a man that I spent a lot of time cross with.
As I said, bear with me…
Working with horses has given me a way to do relationships differently – not just my husband but my kids too and the people I work with and students, even the people behind the counter or website that annoy the crap out of me with incredibly bad service. By developing my Feel for my horse, I’ve developed my Feel for my man and I am better and better able to see the truth of what’s really going on in the moment – with me mostly, but with him too. And if I’m not able to find the truth in the moment and the peacefulness that comes from that, I have the confidence from all that beautiful horse work that I WILL get what I need.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not remotely perfect at it – but I can ALWAYS find peace. I can ALWAYS find the answer to fear or worry or frustration or anything else. I can allow myself to grieve when I read of the 3 US firefighters killed in our country yesterday when they came here to help us in our time of desperate need. I’m simply not afraid of grief any more. I can allow myself to see the magnificence of the inside of my horse and not be afraid of that. I can allow myself to see the inside of myself and I can allow myself to see the inside of my man.
There was a big breath at that last one and some tears of gratitude.
And all of this and more has come through the grace of my horse.
In the old days I would have wished that I’d found “it” earlier, understanding my Feel for others, being more Present so the past no longer matters except as it adds to the beauty of the moment, but these days I most often see the beauty of what each piece of crap in my life has added to the beauty of “now”.
And all of this through the grace of a horse – many horses in my case.
It’s funny, I don’t even want to talk about the clinic that I came in to blog about this morning, because this is way too big. I’ll do it tomorrow.
Much love to you all and may you too find your prince or princess inside the frog…
Lovely post! Hugs to you!
And so much love and support for your poor beautiful burning country. Growing up as a Californian, fire was always a huge fear of mine, and I was even a fire lookout for a couple years. And the Swan Lake fire this summer on the Kenai Peninsula was huge and sobering. Things regrow, but the loss is brutal. I think
I hear you Devony
p.s. Those of you who know my prince can relax – I just HAD to ‘fess up!