How a Miniature Horse Helped Build Relational Muscle Memory

This is an excerpt from The3rdSpace blog “Prince Simon: A Channel of Peace” available HERE. This beautiful writer is an anonymous client of Horse Sense North, and shares about their horse experience with our equine partner, Simon.

Trauma Teaches Us That Connection Has Rules

My nervous system has been shaped by many experiences, and sometimes connection feels like a job. Safety comes from vigilance. I scan, anticipate, accommodate, perform, and try to manage outcomes.

Simon did not require me to do any of that. He didn’t ask me to be impressive, or entertaining, or to earn his approval. He asked nothing of me. He was just there. And in a way, that was his only request: be present, in this moment, with me. Oddly enough, that felt incredibly vulnerable.

I shared with the facilitator that intentional pauses are difficult for me. My nervous system tends to interpret pause and rest as threats. Somewhere along the way, I learned that worth was tied to productivity, and that doing nothing risked being seen as lazy, unproductive, or just not good enough.

To be fair, I have learned some forms of rest. I can sit beside a lake and watch the sun set. I can notice wildlife, feel the breeze, and take in the beauty of the moment. My nervous system is slowly learning that solitude can be peaceful.

But resting with another being, and being seen while doing absolutely nothing? That’s a different kind of vulnerability.

…

Stuck or Moving

Simon, Equine Therapy Partner

As the session continued, another moment of clarity emerged. When I am in survival mode my nervous system asks: What is wrong? What is the threat? What am I missing? What do I need to do?

But when my nervous system begins to experience true safety, it asks different questions: What is beautiful? What is here? Who is this being? What might be possible?

Neither orientation is naive or disconnected from reality. But one is organized around protection, and the other around connection. And this was not something I came to understand intellectually. It was something my body originally learned in my work with the horses and deeply remembered while standing with Simon.

My feet asked me to keep moving. My jaw asked me to loosen.

The facilitator shared that those somatic messages could hold any meaning I needed them to in my time with Simon. He reminded me that by staying in the moment and loosening my expectations, even by one percent, I could experience a shift.

He also reminded me that the muscle of being comfortable with just being is not built with one repetition, or two, or even three. It’s built by consistently showing up in the arena and remembering how to connect in ways that can’t be forced, faked, or performed.

It is the exact moment where quiet confidence becomes peaceful confidence.

This is an excerpt from The3rdSpace blog. Read the full post HERE.