Although there was all kinds of other lovely trust happening (as you can see in this photo), Oliver seriously didn’t enjoy being touched or groomed and I needed to be able to groom him and wanted to be able to groom him happily – plus his dislike of being touched indicated to me that there was something there that wanted attention. The video below shows recent footage of major progress with this issue.
The Techniques
I came through the Parelli system a long time ago, so the Friendly Game seemed a logical technique. The trouble with that game is, that when it’s used to get the horse to put up with stuff, it sucks. Think about it – we can make them stand still and put up with something and have all their feelings about that pent up inside, or we can come at it differently and help them actually get a Comfort Zone and enjoyment. Which would you rather?
My version of the Friendly Game follows the good feelings as I stroke the horse rhythmically with my hand, with the goal of having them comfortable to be touched ALL over their body – approaching and retreating, using Not Quite Right as an alert for change. I stop and wait for The Chew when appropriate and use good posture and Inner Awareness as keys to get a horse actually happy to be touched all over. This technique helped Oliver, but it still didn’t get him to actually enjoy being touched.
One of the successful steps forward around being able to groom him without being nipped at, had happened way back early in his time with us, when he had an itchy rash (there’s one of those God sent “problems” again!) and of course he enjoyed the itch being scratched and I could groom him with a very soft brush or cloth – mindfully – and he would tolerate it, but there was still no enjoyment.
Recently Oliver showed me a “picture” of a foal being forcibly foal imprinted as being behind his dislike of touch – I am not sure if that was a deliberate foal imprinting or just the way he was handled during that ongoing medical emergency with his collapsed fetlocks, that was happening when he was born.
I don’t completely understand why it’s taken him three years to show me this – maybe it’s to do with his transition from Warrior Prince with Steve riding him, to Caretaking Princess so that I can ride him. 🙂 Whatever the reason, now is the time that we’re addressing it.
This video was only taken a couple of weeks ago. We spent a lot of time standing around waiting for The Chew, so I have edited this video footage down to the technique that I used and the emotion of the breakthroughs. The video is still longer than normal though.
I apologize for the sound quality – there was a big wind storm and rain. I thought of editing the sound out and doing a voice over, but that would miss the emotion of what happened, so I suggest you pause at the beginning and take yourself mentally into a noisy old tin shed in Australia, in the middle of a storm.
Watch on youtube if you need to.
The Lesson within the Lesson:
Holding space
Holding Space while waiting seems to speed up the time that I spend waiting for The Chew. Back in the old days when I was waiting for The Chew I would be thinking of all kinds of things, not always about the horse and sometimes it took a very long time for the horse to lick and chew. These days I like to Hold Space for them while I am waiting and that seems to add something special to the time I spend waiting for The Chew as well as taking considerably less time than it used to.
What I call Holding Space is a very powerful thing to do – it kind of anchors the other person/horse while they go through whatever it is that they are going through – which is the opposite to escalating them with our pity or our own old history.
That’s a big deal right there folks – when we pity someone, horse or human, we can burden them with our pity – we can actually ADD our own feelings to what they are already feeling, so that their feelings are escalated – made bigger. And yet that is the opposite to what we want. There’s an explanation and a diagram explaining how this works in the book Pathway to Heaven.
While I wait for a horse to chew, I Hold Space by keeping my attention inside myself, by being aware of how I feel in my body, while I am observing them with soft ahhh, smiling eyes. I pay attention to and take action on any Not Quite Right that I experience while I’m Holding Space, but generally it just feels really good to me, even though they may be going through something overwhelming.
Holding Space means I am totally Present and with them while I am waiting for them to chew and it seems to make quite a big difference in the time that it takes to process whatever they are processing and it feels really good too. 🙂
I have personally had lots of validation of the the power of Holding Space when I was on the receiving end of the ladies on staff holding space for me and it felt like a wave of warm, supporting hug washing over me at a time that I was in overwhelm. The overwhelm reduced and I was in a much better state to get a Quiet Mind and my own answers. Later on I was able to ask them who was holding space and the timing was exact.
I am looking forward to a conversation about this incredibly important concept on the forum – click here to go to the forum. Did you notice that there’s a little box you can tick that logs in your User Name and password automatically?