Mental Distractions and Anticipations in the Horse Interactions

 Mental Distractions & Anticipations

Many people get triggered by distractions and mentally go far away from where they are with their horse as they get lost in their "stories" of what ifs, history of previous experiences, or anticipation of what might potentially happen. 

Just the slight mental distancing can immediately be felt by the horse and unintentionally teaches him he is on his own. Without proactive, specific, segmented communication relative to the present scenario, there is no support offered to the equine. The horse will then take over and delegate how to protect/handle himself.

This triggers a vicious cycle of the handler/rider getting physically tight ( and offering unintentionally communication) because of the 'surprising' equine responses. Then often the human's emotions get triggered as frustrated develops because it feels like the horse is no longer listening to them. Their aids become increasingly chaotic criticism.

This then reinforces the horse's mental flee and physically avoidant behaviors leading to unwanted cycles of interactions.

To change these undesired outcomes with the horse, I'm encourage students to switch their words and associations as they try to "avoid" potentially uncomfortable situations. Instead, they learn to turn them into what I call Positive Alternatives. 

Example: Rider thought- "Here's a scary scenario, I hope my horse doesn't spook," is switched to: 

"Here's an Opportunity to help break down the scenario into segments and help my horse work through _____ to build his trust and try."

By learning to stay mentally present to be specific when the horse is initially showing concern, communicating what he CAN do, addressing his feedback and counteroffers with more specificity, helps diffuse potentially increasing mental defensiveness and unwanted physical equine responses.

Refining the "tools" used to communicate increases adaptability in how things are presented by the human relevant to the realtime feedback from the horse.

Practicing intentional communication helps allows for increasing self-awareness of how, what, when, and why an aid was used. Then assessing the horse's feedback "tells' the human if the horse needs more follow through or us ready to move on without fear and chaos.

If the rider and horse remain mentally present in the Conversation, they can work through initially big and overwhelming scenarios in small, quality segments. Each segment connects and influences the quality of the next. Soon the initially daunting scenario is diffused into an uneventful outing.