When I talk with students about their horses I often like to replace “a horse” with “a child” just to give the flow-of-thinking another direction and to give the whole conversation another perspective.
I heard one time from a student that her other trainer suggests to tie the horse to the box for few hours a day to calm him. It sounded like an interesting idea to my student. To expand student’s awareness I asked: what about if we exchange here “a horse” with “a child” – would it be still an interesting idea? It changed the whole perspective of the student.
I like to also refer to this analogy whenever I speak with students about biomechanics, which is an amazing tool that may help us understand how the laws of physics influence the movement, speed, acceleration and power of the horse, but will not answer the question how to support your horse in expressing his beauty, desires and his self through movement. I often ask the students to exchange “a horse” with “a child” in their thinking how to biomechanically engage their horses into the movement. It works wonders when the student discovers herself that she would not work only on the technique of the jump or movement with a child, but would start and along the way continue with finding the child’s personal motivation to move in a given way or engage into the action alone the soul, brain and spirit.
I now will use the same analogy to answer a question I offen get from students IS MY HORSE MY MIRROR?
– Let’s now, just for fun😉, exchange in the sentence “MY HORSE IS MY MIRROR” word a “horse” with a “child”. How does it sound now? Is your child only your mirror? How do you feel about thinking about your child this way? Does it help to see the individuality of the child and it’s own emotions and desires or not?
If you have some problems in the family, your child will be affected by these problems as well, in the same way as you are. If you are going through a nasty divorce, you will see that it affects your child as well. But there is so much more in that than just mirroring you 💓 it’s your child unique psychological constitution, emotions, life experiences it had, support from other members of the family that it can count on, level of connection with you, self esteem built and many many other factors that will affect your child response, it’s strength, way it manifests, length of manifestation and influence it will have on your child’s future.
Horses are not our mirrors, they have their aspirations, emotions, life purpose – they help us see some things we reject to see (until we are very ill, broken, burnt out or pushed up the wall to see them), but we never should treat them as objects.
Instead of saying: >>My horse is my mirror<<, try saying: >>My horse is my partner that shares with me my life journey, and together we can understand this journey better<< and see where it guides you.
