The Virus: What It Has Done To us and What it Can Do For us

It has curtailed our autonomy. and for predators there is nothing more destabilizing than to loose one's autonomy. As prey animals, horses seek security with an innate drive every bit as hard as predatory animals (including humans) seek autonomy.

Trauma drives humans to have the same desperate need for security that horses exhibit in their daily lives.

And the virus has taken it all form us. We have lost both our autonomy and our security. The effects are obvious. People who have fallen from horses many times in their lives all of a sudden find that a few falls gives them anxiety and loss of confidence in their riding ability. Physically, many of us are out of condition-- making riding harder to enjoy. When we do not feel in control of our lives it can make it seem even more important to feel in control of our horses. Constant exposure to information about sickness and death has caused some people to project a debilitating hypochondria onto their horses making every cough, scratch, or blemish seem like a medical emergency. 

But it does not have to stay that way. The virus has also done something for us. Upon reflection. it has taught us that as individuals, and as a people, we can do things never thought possible. Two years ago no one would have believed that the vast majority of the nation would accept wearing masks in public, curtailing social events, isolating from older relatives, meeting by zoom and transforming much of our economy into a home based system of workers. But we have done so and are at the cusp of defeating this virus within the next six to nine months.

Here is why that matters--two years ago few of us would believe that we could make radical improvements in our lifestyle such as eliminating sugar and making exercise a center piece of each day. Two years ago few of us would believe that they could become competent trainers of  untrained horses. Two years ago few of us would believe that they could condition their horses and their own bodies ride fifty miles in a day.

If we step back and look at how much this world has made us change we should be able to question our beliefs about what is possible in terms of our horsemanship, our health, our capacity to help others, and our own individual ability to make gentler the life of this world.

Over the past six months I have made transformations in my own health that I never really believed I could do. Over the past six months I have seen horses in our program transformed in ways that I never believed possible. Over the past six months I have seen changes in our infra structure at the horse lot that I never believed we would be able to afford. Over the past six months I have learned more about teaching others to overcome trauma than I ever thought I would have the capacityto learn. 

It is the ultimate irony of the past year that while the virus forced us to build walls around our bodies, it gave us the opportunity to knock down the walls of disbeleif in our own abilty to change, and to change for the better.

I have never been more optimistic about the future of our program than I am right now. If you are in our program and find yourself in a hole I do not have an elevator to bring you out, but I sure can show you where the stairs are.