A Life of Learning

The year is almost over and I am once again reflecting on what it has meant to share my days with horses. This year I have spent more time teaching young people to ride and had a very busy year of Centered Riding. I was able to attend a few clinics and riding lessons for myself and with experience have become a better instructor overall. This past fall, I took that experience and carried it to the classroom of a local community college where I was hired to teach anatomy and physiology to adult students. I was surprised at how quickly I adapted to the environment and was able to discipline myself to prepare for classes, which unfortunately, meant spending several hours at a time sitting in front of a computer. Standing up and speaking in front of a class, sometimes for up to 2 hours at a stretch was even more challenging. It turns out that my experience speaking to students on or off a horse in a large arena (usually with a microphone) gave me the confidence to speak "without notes" and present a large amount of material with the authority of an expert. I credit my ability to think on my feet to all the years of working with horses and students, not knowing exactly where the lesson on the ground or in the saddle was going to go, but remembering to keep my attention on what was right in front of me. That sense of presence kept me focused and allowed me to tap into the stored information in my brain, placed there after years of seeing or doing the same thing, over and over. It is that unconscious competence that allows us to automatically come up with the answer to a question or solution to a problem quickly and calmly. It made me feel so good to know that my unconscious competence reaches beyond my knowledge and skill with horses.

As life at school became more hectic, I found it more difficult to find time to give lessons as well as work part time as a health care practitioner. As my husband would say, you're trying to split " two halves of your time, THREE WAYS". I was not able to give my all to each of these activities and had to make a decision. Unfortunately, the decision was made for me, when my beautiful Chanty died suddenly in October.  Since that time I have given very few lessons and am still trying to work out a way that I can resume lessons for ALL of my riders, not just those who have their own horses. I am continuing to look into using another horse, one who belongs to a boarder at the stables and in the new year I will get back to giving lessons, as my job as instructor at the college does not start up again until the spring.

While I was struggling to manage my time between school, lessons and work I developed a very common physical symptom known as heartburn. When it first hit me, I dismissed it as being simply a temporary problem related to my recent food intake or caffeine consumption. I began taking an occasional Tums. That turned into an occasional pepsid, which became a twice a day pepsid. At times I would wake up in the morning with a burning sensation in my throat and runny nose from the irritation making it's way up the back of my airway. Ironically, the heartburn was at it worst when I was presenting a lecture on the autonomic nervous system and the role of the sympathetic branch to stimulate the fight or flight reaction. Without going into too much detail, this part of our nervous system allows us to respond quickly to danger or the presumption of danger. If I were a horse I'd be moving my feet with head held high, pupils dilated inside large eyes, nostrils flared, snorting and puffing up my body to look larger. Fear tells our bodies (and theirs)
to bring more blood to the heart and lungs and muscles of the skeleton, while shutting it off in the non vital areas of the stomach and intestines. In response, the acid in our stomach churns to try and digest even when there is not a lot of blood flow or movement in the stomach/intestines. The valve keeping the acid in the stomach weakens and up goes the acid into esophagus and your throat.

It was obvious that my life was out of balance. I was isolating myself in a world of deadlines and self imposed standards of excellence, convinced that I needed to make each A&P class, a high quality experience, even though I was not given the time or the resources to do it all. For much of my day, I was thinking about what I could be doing to prepare for classes in order to complete EVERY chapter in the allotted time, even though it meant presenting large amounts of material. This would put stress on me to have a large amount of information compacted in to each lecture and put stress on students to learn the material quickly in time for an upcoming exam. I became inpatient, short tempered and unable to enjoy the simple things in life. What had I gotten myself into?

It's called real life...unfortunately I was dealing with it in the very same way that many humans approach life...motivated by fear. Fear that you will not be able to complete your goals, fear that you will fail, fear that people will think you are incompetent, fear that you will get sick from the stress, fear that you will let someone down who looks up to you- fear, fear and more fear. Apparently, we are no different than the horse. Fear drives their behavior as well. As humans, we spend most of our time with horses trying to convince them that there is nothing to fear and that the internal message telling them to run, run, run needs to turn down the volume or turn off completely. How is that accomplished? With small steps-moments of fear, followed by moments of reassurance and relief. Each time they survive the few moments of fear, their confidence builds and so that when they encounter the same fear again, they are able to handle it. Doing TOO MUCH at one time overwhelms the horse and eliminates their ability to cope with the fear or react in a more controlled way. Once they adapt to their environment, they let go of what has passed and return to the present moment. I have used this method many times over the years when I first work with a horse, but completely forgot the lesson in it all when it came to my own experience. We as humans tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves that pushes us to respond as if our life were in danger. That stress, if not quickly relieved, changes our very physiology and throws off the balance in our mind and body. The longer the mind and body spend in this constant state of fear, the longer it takes to recover from its effects. We also tend to revisit the moments of fear frequently, as if we can change the outcome by reliving them over and over.

I have finished the quarter at the college and after 2 weeks am just beginning to regain my sense of balance. I have returned to spending more time with my horses (I was recently given another horse, a 5 year old Arab gelding....more on that in another blog) and have completely stopped taking the pepcid. I sleep better and I feel a sense of peace in my life, able to look outside of myself and enjoy the experiences of others. I can share my love of animals, friends and especially FAMILY at this time of year when it means so much to just have time with each other.

I told my college students that they should never stop learning, that they should consider themselves a student for the rest of their lives. In that spirit of learning, I can say that no matter how old you are, you are always susceptible to the effects of fear when it is allowed to rage out of control. I have learned that I need to work on something new in small increments, especially those things that take me out of my comfort zone. I need to give myself a break and relieve the stress of a new challenge with something that is familiar and comforting, even if it means taking a deep breath and allowing a moment of peace to wash over me in the midst of a busy day. Enjoy the beauty of nature, the love of family and friends and spend the day with your favorite horse. They will teach you all you need to know about life.