11/07/2024
Seeing the bigger picture.
Looking beyond the frame of what is directly in front of you.
Drawing in awareness of all of the variables that combine together to paint reality as it is.
The perspective from which we view horse training is created by years of traditional practices.
But, it’s also influenced by the punitive culture within our larger human society.
It’s influenced by children being taught that the fear they feel after their parent strikes them for something “bad” they did is actually respect.
It’s influenced by masses of people becoming further removed from empathetic community mindsets as an individualist culture permeates society.
It’s influenced by the continued disappearance of free community spaces where humans can connect and be together without spending money.
It’s influenced by people, whether they’re consciously aware of it or not, feeling like they lack autonomy.
Feeling that they really have no say over their job, their life as whole. Feeling stuck in a 9-5 position, most of their life committed to working to pay for the basic necessities, while their actual passions go unanswered and unexplored.
People cannot show up and be their best in training when they’re struggling themselves.
They often cannot envision a different world when they’re stuck within the restrictive confines of one that is promoting behaviour that is counterproductive to a more empathetic approach to animal training.
They often don’t have the time to seriously reflect on these things when their schedule is structured in a way that doesn’t afford much time for free thinking.
It’s often too painful to imagine a different, better world when you feel like you’re drowning in the realities of the one you currently live in.
And all of these things; the frustration, the lack of fulfillment, the restrictive societal structures, the reduction of empathy, the lack of autonomy, the lack of ability to picture a different way of doing things…
All of these things inevitably influence how you can show up for the animals you work with.
All of these things inevitably influence your ability to access new information that could help you to perceive a new reality.
All of these things prevent actual growth and forward movement and leave us stuck in tradition and “the way things are.”
It is all connected.
Everything we do outside of the horse world affects the manner we approach everything within it.
The picture painted by our perception is influenced by every aspect of our being.
To try and suggest otherwise would be to massively miss the point.
In order to truly reform the way we view horses and the training of them, we need to reform and heal we see and approach the world as a whole.
We need to start to notice all of the “normal” things in society that are actually just “common,” not normal at all. And they’re actually indicators of underlying problems.
We need to start realize how much dysfunction, disorder and abnormal behaviours we witness, or participate in, on a daily basis.
We need to realize how unhealthy the collective population of humankind is.
We need to realize that we aren’t so different from horses in that the manner in which many of us were taught to do things is damaging to wellbeing.
The manner in which many of us are forced to live is damaging to our wellbeing. And we have been conditioned to view it as normal and see no way out of it.
To start to see the bigger picture is to start seeing the path to a lot more solutions.
