Waking, Dreaming, Sleeping: Leadership in Horsemanship

I find these days that many people talk about leadership in horse training. They talk about it’s importance and the differences between the leadership and domination. What amazes me in these stories is the bold assumption people make believing that they know where to lead the horse.

What horses taught me, is that unless we are really able to connect with ourselves, we have no idea where to lead the horses. What is more, we have no idea where to lead our own lives. We are sleepwalking through the life making reflexive decisions based on emotions, habits and emotional patterns. We hardly ever find time to reflect, and especially when we are with horses this time to reflect becomes very limited.

Running

We run. We run in our heads, we run in our hearts. We continue to chase ourselves, even if we stopped chasing our horses. We jump from one thought to another, from feeling like a World Champion to feeling like someone who would never achieve anything. We struggle to keep an honest smile on our face, if things we planned to see are not happening for us. We look for excuses. And we find them. Like putting the hand in the magician’s hat and pulling another rabbit, we pull out from our mind another excuse that makes us feel safe and accepted.

“My horse is not engaging because it’s too hot”,

“My horse is smashing with the tail, because of the flies”,

“My mare is distracted and not connected because she is in heat”,

“I have to move his feet, because he moved my feet”,

“I have to wave him away, because he pushed me”,

We pull from our heads these excuses, like a magician pulls the rabbits from his hat. We pull endless number of rabbits.

And they all look the same, and they all come from the same magician’s hat — our mind.

When, from this state of disconnection, of sleepwalking through the life, we want to lead our horses they get tensed and scared. And they should be. With their bigger awareness, and direct connection to infinite Intelligence of the Nature, our horses see that our limited awareness fuels limited actions.

And horses already know where it can lead us all to.

This can lead only to more tension and more disconnection.

Sleeping

I see that Sleeping is the default living mode for so many of us, people. We sleep not only in our beds. We sleep at work, we sleep in the stable, we sleep in our relationships, we sleep running errands. We see something, we react to it. We see some other people do something, we do the same. We like to think that we have opinions, and beliefs but we do not.

We eat bad food, and emotions caused by this bad food are influencing what we do. We drink unhealthy liquids, and these liquids change the way we respond and behave. We watch bad movies, and these bad movies affect our moods and what we do. We read bad things, things full of aggression, and judgement. And then we judge and are aggressive towards ourselves. We repeat what other people do, because we fear that we will be worse than they are or not accepted.

We have thousands of thoughts running in our heads, like the laundry in the washing machine, and these thoughts are hunting us for years, decades, sometimes even for the whole Life. Sometimes it is the same thought coming, and coming, and coming to us every single day, and every other minute of every single day. In most of the cases these thoughts are not even ours. These are the thoughts we heard, or that someone else told us, these are the things we read somewhere or just that we overheard. But they glued to us so strongly that they started to feel like ours. And because of their emotional background, they started to feel important.

The Sleeping Mode, so widely and beautifully described by many spiritual schools, is not a theory, and it does not apply only to some other others. It applies to everyone. Every one of us has short moments, or longer periods, and for some of us it is whole years, of being asleep.

Again, this is not a theory. If you look around you will see many people who sleepwalk through their lives. These people are like machines. And their horses live in the world of these machines.

Dreaming

When you are Asleep, you can start to Dream. Again, I am not talking about sleep that you can experience in your comfortable bedroom, but about the way we live our lives without awareness.

Sometimes you Sleep, and you do not have any dreams. This is actually a very good situation, because there is nothing that bonds you to stay Asleep. But sometimes you Sleep and you have these beautiful, vivid dreams. Some of these dreams feel so nice, that we prefer them to the reality. When it happen, we stay Asleep even if we hear the alarm-clock ringing. We just cover the alarm clock with the pillow, and we close our eyes even harder, to continue Dreaming our beautiful dream again.

We prefer the comfort of staying in the Mental Bed, because we are afraid of waking up and seeing the reality. We fear that seeing reality may require some changes from us. And that it may change our life as well.

We all talk. We talk about how much we want to change, and how much we want our horses to reflect this change. We talk about pure connection with horses, and about being pure ourselves. But we are simply too afraid to do that. We are too afraid of the changes. So we prefer to talk, and to Dream. And to stay Asleep.

Dreaming about being Awaken

From time to time, I meet people who dream about being awake. I have a cousin that used to ask me to call her before the important exams at the University. Just to make sure that she is awake in time, as she could sleep through every alarm-ring you can possibly imagine. We could call her, and she would answer the phone, and we could speak with her, ask questions, and she was responding and seemed very conscious. We even could ask her to solve some simple mathematical tasks, and she would laugh and tell the correct results. And yet after few hours, she would still call back, quite nervous and angry that we didn’t wake her up for the exam. During the phone-calls she was speaking with us, while being asleep.

From time to time, I see the same situation when I guide people with their horses. I see people who Dream about being Awaken, present and aware. I see them stepping further and further away from being awaken towards deeper and deeper sleeping and dreaming. Sometimes horses that came to these people’s lives to guide them and wake them up — really give up. These horses see no point in continuing to wake their person up. They see no change in the person that can make this mission successful. They see no chance for being Awake together. They see their humans falling deeper and deeper Asleep, and becoming more and more attached to their dreams.

These horses become shut down, and sad.

They start to literally live their life to make it end. Because they lost hope.

Awaking

Awaking is possible. What is more, you can wake up in many ways. I know meditation techniques that allow to experience it. I know personal guidance that makes it possible. I know many techniques and ways that you can experience it. But I haven’t seen one that is more effective, simple and native, than the one shown and guided by the horses.

Horses came to our lives not to be lead.

Horses came to our lives not to be taught.

Horses came to our lives to lead us, and to teach us.

Thanks to being awake all the time, horses point out very clearly and beautifully whenever we are falling asleep. They know that you are falling asleep, way before you can sense it even if your awareness is greatly expanded by now. Thanks to their pure connection to the infinite Intelligence, they know the ways that can help you to become fully present, awake and aware. Each time the ways they guide you to become awake are tailor-made especially for you, and especially for this moment of your Life.

These ways are not some recurrent techniques. These ways are fresh, new and creative. They ways are always something more and something different to that you might have learned from books and seminars. These ways are always unique, special and designed to help YOU, and to help you here and now. They are like prescriptions written by the best doctor. They will work for you. Possibly not for other people. And they will work for you NOW.

The Journey doesn't have to be long

Horses show us that the journey to be awaken doesn’t have to last for years, decades or lives.

This is the nature of human mind, to fear to be Awaken. When you Wake-Up, your dreams cannot control you. You become free. Your mind wants you to stay Asleep, and makes you believe that the Journey towards being Awaken has to last for a long time.

How come?

Because when the journey towards being Awaken lasts for a long time, it’s easier to hide that you start to snooze again!!!

The Nature works Here and Now, the Life is happening Here and Now. If you do not see any changes in response to your change Here and Now, do not comfort yourself by choosing to jump back to your Mind Bed. You have to have the Real-Life effects, you have to see changes, if you do not see these changes, and the changes that come from being Awaken are always something new and surprising for you, you cannot plan or design them in advance, you are still deep Asleep.

Acknowledge it, swallow this truth like a big grapefruit and move on. Remove all pillows from your alarm-clock. Have the desire to Wake up, and just do it. This is not difficult. And you are not alone. You have support. Your horse is with you!

Horses show that you can Wake-Up Here and Now. And that you can change your whole Self in one second. This change doesn’t mean to abandon who you are now. The change is not based on neglecting or not appreciating yourself. This change is about becoming more YOU. This change is about growing towards the sun, just like a plant grows. The plant changes not to avoid darkness. The plant grows to seek more light.

How to Wake-Up?

To Wake-Up it is enough to notice the alarm-clock that rings. This alarm clock, when you are with your horse, is your horse. Your horse gives you feedback all the time. And your horse wants you to be Awake.

This feedback comes in a form of your horse’s behaviours. Calmly observe your reflexive reactions, your body’s language, emotions and thoughts happening in response to your horse’s actions and lack of these actions.

What your horse does, tells much about you, and very little about your horse.

What you say, think or feel in response to what your horse does, tells you much about you, and NOTHING about your horse.

Supporting other people on this path has become something that I find myself doing now. I have not planned this to happen. When I started sharing with people my approach to horses and horsemanship, I just wanted to support them in discovering the world of happiness that I was experiencing, that was free from control and fear.

When I started to guide my students on this path, I very soon discovered that their horses don’t really need their people to have another set of skills. In fact, I learned that giving new skills to the old people (and by old, I mean the unchanged, unaware humans that are Asleep), can be very harmful and can lead them to deeper and deeper disconnection.

I discovered that horses do not need you to have a deep knowledge behind the behaviours that horses do. What is more, horses do not need you to have any scientific knowledge behind what you or your horses do.

I very soon understood, that the only thing that horses really do need and want is to have their humans connected. As much connected to themselves, as much present, and as much aware and Awaken as possible.

During all my Online Classes, Live Clinics and JoinAnna Program this is the underlying base of all experiences, Cues and things we do with horses.

We take actions to become more connected.

We do exercises to experience our connection or lack of it and to ask horses for the further guidance on how to become even more connected.

During all OneHorseLife Online Classes and Live Clinics the only thing I do is to connect people with themselves, and then the connection with the horses just happens. The Only thing I do, is to support people I meet to Wake Up, and to not be afraid of being Awaken.

It amazes me all the time how easy is that, when we have support of the horses, and how beautiful real-life and real-time effects you have when you become connected and when you allow your horse to wake you up, and tell you where to take the next steps.

This way, I discovered the ultimate truth: HORSES ARE LEADING US

Horses are the leaders, and they lead their humans in many directions. They cause “problems” and they “do not cooperate” if we do not listen to subtle communication. They do that just to make you take the next steps on your journey. They push you in the right direction, and they show you how to change. Given, that you want and are ready to listen.

Horses support us on this journey, because with their bigger Awareness and bigger Understanding they see our struggle. They cannot understand why our awareness and understanding stay so limited, even if we are provided the guidance on how to change it. They cannot understand why do we choose to stay Asleep. And they cannot understand why so often we Dream about being Awaken instead of just Becoming Awaken. They cannot understand why we limit ourselves so much and to such an extent.

Horses want us to grow, and they want to teach us how to live an aware and fully present Life.

Horses know that if we grow — our lives, their lives and the whole Life will be changed forever.

Unless we connect with our selves, we have no idea where to lead the horse. What is more, even when our awareness expands a little bit, we still have a very small idea of where the journey will lead us, not to mention where it will lead our horses.

When the awareness is fully expanded, we have no desire to lead anyone.
We understand that the Life is based not on LEADERSHIP, but on SUPPORT.

Life is about supporting each other in expressing our existence to the fullness.

Upcoming Workshops:

B.A.S.E. Kick-Start Training: Starting 15th September 2016

Upcoming Clinics:

2nd-4th September: SWEDEN

23-25th September: NORWAY

7th-9th October: THE NETHERLANDS