04/11/2024
āØLove thisā¦the power of being seen.āØ
The Communication Gap
I didnāt know anything about animal communication when I first started trimming. I just studied from various trimming sources and applied what I was learning. I would simply repeat things If the horse didnāt limp afterward. This was the basis of my learning until about 18 years ago when I was trimming a nervous horse one day and asked my wife to come and comfort him while I trimmed. She always had a calming way with horses. I remember very clearly trying to trim this horseās hinds. This was where he had the most anxiety. There was a moment where he stopped struggling and got very relaxed. I wanted to take advantage of this stillness and get as much done as possible but the world seemed to have stopped and the peacefulness and presence was too distracting. I turned to look and see what was happening and noticed my wife and this big brown gelding staring into each otherās eyes. I asked her, ā What are you doing? ā Stephanie replied, ā nothing. ā I said, ā you are definitely doing something. What is it? ā she said, ā Iām just looking at him. ā I said, ā Itās more than that. ā She knew I wasnāt going to stop asking her so she said, āIām just telling him that I see him.ā Right then I could see that he saw her too.
Iāve spent the rest of my life trimming horses with that awareness. Iāll admit that there were a few years following that day where I used that awareness as a technique to get horses calm for trimming, but over time I realized that they werenāt only calm, they could communicate what they wanted me to do with their feet. My learning curve took a steep upward trajectory and I got a lot better at solving their problems. The next problem that presented itself was that sometimes the owner was the problem and I didnāt know how to tell the owner that or where I got the information from. I guess you could call it intuition. This awareness soon became a bigger problem for me. The horses started giving me more resistance and acting up when they knew I knew what they wanted me to say to the owner and I didnāt say anything. Eventually I would try to find the most tactful way to say it for themā¦for the horse. I remember the first time I actually talked back to a horse and said, āOk, Iāll say it, but itāll probably be the last time I see you.ā The horseās response really surprised me. They kind of energetically shrugged their shoulders, as if to say, āIād rather they hear the truth than have my feet fixed.ā That was literally the end of my old way as a trimmer. I got fired a bit after that. I even made some enemies. I also learned that my desire to really see things as they are and be seen as I am was greater than my desire to be liked. Call me woke if you want, but I never went back. Once you see it, once you feel it, you canāt go back.
