Congruence, emotional intelligence and authenticity have become buzz-words recently. Search the internet and there are countless sites offering to help us reconnect with our inner self, with assistance from Reiki, meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, mindfulness, raw food diets and even equine assisted facilitation.
As life gets busier and we become further removed from the simple pleasures; walking barefoot across a lawn, paddling on a beach, sitting on the grass in the sun, standing on a hill-top feeling the breeze across our faces, we lose congruence and humankind becomes sicker and poorer.
Those of us who play with horses for our fun are very fortunate in that we experience Nature regularly, especially if we keep our horses at home. I get to feel the wind on my face every day cycling down to the field with the night-time feeds, as well as the rain, the snow and hopefully, soon, the sun. I slither and slide through the mud in our field, I hear the owl call, the vixen shriek and see the moon and the stars turn with the seasons. In summer I will laze on the grass with the horses, sun bathing and joining in the rolling party, in between pulling ragwort and pooh picking. There is no finer way to see the countryside unfold and observe the wild life than from the back of a horse. Just ask the Queen!
As well as the fresh air and hard physical labour, which has a virtuous Victorian effect on the mood, there are subtler lessons to learn from horses. Horses are very clear about the importance of congruence. There is nothing more distressing to a horse than sharing space with a being which feels one emotion and projects another. To them, this means there must be a big hungry cat in the vicinity. Humans bizarrely do this all the time; they say one thing, whilst meaning another, they hide their fear, even from themselves. Ignoring the big scary plastic bag just makes horses even more wild. They feel responsible for you while you are sat up there whistling away, imagine if you are the only one that could see that dangerous animal and your stupid partner is ignoring all the warning signals you are throwing out. Much better to see the bag and yawn, yes yawn. “That boring thing? Yes of course I can see it silly, it won’t eat us, and it’s just a stupid bag.”
#friendsforagefreedom
Horses have unfortunately become a commodity to feed our egos, an accessory to furnish us with trophies and achievements, or a substitute dependant that needs to be loved and spoiled and cared for in some slightly offbeat displacement activity. As a result they are often kept in totally unnatural environments, provided with what humans perceive as essential: a warm stable, a nice rug and lots of high quality food. What a horse perceives as essential is very different: in the wild they would choose continuous movement, interaction with other horses for grooming and herd behaviours, forage for 16 hours a day to keep their teeth healthy and their stomach acid low, and freedom to roam.
Once Paddy had managed to tell me that barefoot was the only way forward for him, I started to question a lot of the other dogma associated with traditional horse keeping in horse mad Cheshire. The various dilemmas familiar to barefoot horse owners surfaced and individual solutions evolved. Trim versus natural wear, turnout versus grass, the whole minefield of starting to read food labels and learning about ingredients and mineral balance. Luckily for me my first barefooter was an easy transition. Gut health, equine gastric ulcer syndrome, hind gut health, hoof abscesses after chemical worming leading us to targeted worming programmes, the list of what my horses have taught me is endless and will take many years to share.
The lesson for today however is my definition of congruence; that if you live what you believe, are completely authentic, then even without trying, you will show the way and others will follow.
Three years ago we moved to a new livery yard. We had been livery gypsies for a few years. Mel the polo groom had looked after Special Needs Paddy beautifully, which meant that we moved yards every year to her new polo job. We had done a tour of the outskirts of Delamere, complicated slightly by the acquisition of the second horse and then, when Mel left to marry her dream man, we spent a couple of years trying to find equivalent stellar care. We eventually landed at Bankfield shortly after the yard had been taken on by an American couple who were going to run the place as a professional competition yard. There were 18 boxes and they were full. The other liveries were traditional horse owners, all very nice but competitive and pretty orthodox in their training and husbandry practises. We were barefoot but Cal was barely functional and we had just started lessons with Patrice- I was in the self-lunging de-contracting stage which meant lots of trotting around super slow with high hands and maximum neck length and doing lots of in hand work that we didn’t quite understand and couldn’t explain.
Gary and I didn’t preach. We just practised congruence. I remember actively trying not to talk too much about barefoot, or classical riding or natural husbandry. After all, nobody likes the yard know-it-all and having been well educated about toxic livery yards, I had learned to keep my head down and my mouth shut. But if anyone asked a question they got an honest and full answer. And our horses went from strength to strength. Cal’s knee healed completely, we got back out competing and he has turned into a cross country machine. Paddy turned out to be the perfect schoolmaster for Gary and for me- he was very clear that we had discovered Patrice just in time and that he would never tolerate bar or tongue pressure from the downward acting bit ever again. And having felt him finally give me his back after 10 years of resistance I was never going to apply bar or tongue pressure deliberately again.
I still have no idea how it happened but within two years nearly all the horses on the yard were barefoot and yard owner and most of the liveries were having classical riding lessons with Patrice. The American dream didn’t last long, for various reasons including the breakdown of the sham marriage and emigration of their main client. The rest of us were left there, in the vast arena, peacefully pottering along on a journey of discovery.
Once you start listening to your horses they are very clear communicators. And doing right by them becomes very simple, although not necessarily easy. Once it is clear in your head that whatever response you receive from the horse is always the truth, congruence again, and that horses try their best, there is no such thing as naughtiness or resistance. There is only “I hurt”, “I don’t understand”, or “I understand but I can’t do that yet”. A footsore barefoot horse isn’t 100% well; simples. It might have too much grass, a high sugar diet, not enough work, insulin resistance, ulcers, Cushing’s, or an abscess brewing. If there are persistent abscess problems look to your land and your forage. If your horse is resistant, look to your saddle fit but mostly to your training because the work is causing them discomfort. If they don’t want to come in, it’s because they hate being in the dark stable on their own. They need to see each other to communicate and feel safe. They need to touch and groom and play. They need to lie down to sleep, just for an hour, and they need a look out whilst they do so.
And there is no greater compliment than two horses standing to attention at their doors, poised and perfectly balanced, when you walk onto the yard ,as if to say “pick me today, pick me today, I want to work today. “ Particularly when both those horses have been resistant, “work shy”, injured or problem horses for various reasons.
Horses don’t lie. Their bodies don’t lie, their muscle development doesn’t lie. Whatever the others thought of our oddball ideas, our horses gleamed with health and grew stronger and more beautiful, and eventually imitation became the sincerest form of flattery. Congruence.
“Outstanding success with any type of relationship in life or in any enterprise, depends upon authentic intelligence. Remarkable, high functioning individuals or groups are exceptionally coherent and show congruence in their actions and behaviours.”
