Equuality: Reflections on Life with Horses

Power in Inaction


About the Book
One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on. -D.H. Lawrence

As humans it is natural for us to feel the need to fix things. This need is so deeply ingrained in most of us that we often act with urgency as the motivation without consciously thinking that is what we are doing. We see a way that something could be better, stronger, faster, more complete, in greater balance, and we act to make that happen. This can be a great thing. This drive is what brought the first tribes out of Africa, sent men to the moon, and created every piece of great artwork.

Where it gets us into trouble is when it becomes our only mode of action. We start to see everything as needing fixing or improving and we feel the need to make it happen. The more we do this, the easier it is to fall into, until we tilt out of balance, always having to do, act, change, unable to sit still and just be.

What we forget, wrapped up in this state, is that we don't have to act for transformation to occur. As Heraclitus told us 2500 years ago , "Nothing endures but change." Many times we create more problems for ourselves by trying to act, to fix. Sometimes the best thing we can do is sit still and wait for change to happen.

I see this phenomenon with horses all the time. Maybe the weather has just changed from sunny and 65 to 40 and gusting overnight. I get my horse out to play and she is too energized by the change to focus on the new great idea I have for her. It is easy for my first reaction to be, "She needs to learn to focus. I have to fix this!" And suddenly I have put her into a little box labeled "problem horse" and I am in opposition to her. I could spend the next one, two, or five hours trying "fix" her, find all sorts of new "problems", and do a lot of damage to our relationship.

Or I could take a different path. I could trusting in myself, my horse, and the world to even out. Just by changing my energy this way, I will have put myself in synch with her. We have partnership, rather than confrontation. I can play in whatever way she can play that day and in so doing I will respect her, gain her respect, and build my leadership. Then we will both be more prepared for whatever challenge we encounter next.

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