Life Lessons learned from Horses - "Everything has been figured out, except how to live."

Life Lessons learned from Horses

By Celie Weston

"Everything has been figured out, except how to live."

~ Jean Paul Sartre

Do you feel in control of your life? Do you walk your talk?

What are you thinking right now after reading those words? Are your thoughts positive or negative?

Can you quiet your mind and just listen?

Your mind is a separate entity from you - always busy with something, and quite often that "something" is destructive. The mind is busy worrying, telling you to hold yourself back - "Don't get too involved" - "Be careful" - "Don't say too much" - "Who do you think you are anyway?"

Does this sound familiar? The mind bases it's information on previous experiences, good or bad. The problem is that it makes interpretations all by itself based on "facts" that most likely aren't even true. Every time a thought crosses your mind ask yourself: "Is this really true? - Could there perhaps be other options, other explanations?" Whenever you experience a negative thought, keep asking yourself this question until you see the depth of the lie…

The mind is a huge influence on how we communicate with others. It gets in our way more than anyone could ever imagine.

Years back, I participated in an exercise on Powerful Listening. However, I didn't know that I was participating. My team mates and I were simply taking a break, eating some food, having a chat about what was going on in our lives.

At the end of our break we were asked to fill out a sheet with the question: "What did the other person talk to you about?"

I was mortified!

All I could remember from my conversations was what I had said, my thoughts, my LIFE! I could barely remember a single thing any of the other people had said…as it turned out, they felt the same way. It wasn't my fault, I just wasn't aware of what my mind was doing.

Hearing and listening are two very different things. The first is merely physical, the second is the ability to silence your own inner dialogue and understand the message that someone else is trying to convey - without any form of judgement or comparison to your own opinions. It's the ability to Empathize. This is not possible if your mind is busy judging whether what that person is saying is right or wrong, good or bad.

Be still, be present - try to avoid labeling anything as good or bad, just let it be. -Like the flower on the side of the road - pure beingness - experience how you can become awareness itself.

Empathy creates understanding, the same interests, mutual feelings, shared realities. The result of all of this is love. It is difficult to love someone if you don't understand them. But once you can empathize, you can identify and love begins to grow. This is how friendships are founded.

Good rapport is when two people are on the same wave length, they have things in common. When I work with horses I also need to create rapport. A great way to indicate that they can trust me, that I can understand them, is to mirror their behavior and body language. This can be done with humans as well.

If a person is quiet or shy - soften your voice, don't overwhelm them with loudness or big movements. Mirror everything that they do, but do it in a natural way. Mirror the way they talk, the volume of their voice, what position they are standing or sitting in, even mirror their mannerisms if they have any. Body language is a key factor to successful communication - Horses have taught me that.

If you can achieve a mutual understanding and trust on this level, your communication is already off to a great start!

So the life lesson is:

Gain control of your life by gaining control of your mind.

And remember,

When you let your self go, others will be less willing to let you go.