Yielding

Where does the power to transform our minds come from? Getting truth into our deepest being takes time and repetition. And the following parable is from watching a horse trainer on YouTube.

For horses to become rideable, they are chosen, fed, and tamed. Can you then climb on them and tell them where to go? Many repetitions of touching, giving rewards, and exposure to scary things all play together to help the horse be safe for the rider, but also for himself. A horse tied to a post must control himself from rearing backward if something spooks it. It’s a danger to himself and those around him.

What are the cues a horse understands? Boss horses use their teeth, their ears, their body language, and an aggressive approach to their peers to control them. Peace from these things is their reward. When they move according to the boss horse, the pressure is taken away. This is for a wild horse herd to escape a mountain lion, they must form a group and race as one being. They have a leader that makes this happen.

I watched the YouTube of a professional trainer taking a perfectly calm-looking horse and finding a trigger that made them unsafe. Like people, each one is different. The horses’ natural being is to fight or flee from danger. Tame or not, they still react to danger. They are taught to discern what is not real danger, and it requires tapping their body or waving a scary object. This pressure is their training. His intention is never to harm or to beat them into submission; his intention is to educate them on trust, to know that as a leader, he will protect them, expose them to what appears to be scary, and show them that it is not actually going to kill them or cause a life-threatening injury. He is teaching them to respect him as a leader.

My takeaway from watching this horse trainer is when he talked about wanting the horse to know his intentions. He has a whip in his hand, a bridle, a rope. Each is scary in the beginning. When the trainer unveils his pure intentions, patience, and understanding, the horse is transformed.