Attunement and Restarting after Shutting Down
That evening in December was a breakthrough for the pony I’d been training. She started out so tense that I considered calling off the session and just letting her rest. When I got her out I noticed a hypersensitivity on her hind end, especially psoas and stifles— more than the day before. When I ran my hand over her hind quarters she flinched and tucked her pelvis under. She had her tail clamped down tight and was breathing quickly. She wouldn’t even let me touch her psoas point on the right side. When I picked up her hind legs they trembled and she didn’t want to fully release their weight into my hands. I felt this was likely attributed to the wild running and jumping and sliding on the steep hills in the pasture on Monday and then standing in her cold, hard stall when her turnout was restricted. I could tell that healthy movement would be the best way to release her tension and pain but I was open to the possibility that she may not be willing to do anything that day.
My philosophy is that I will work with any horse, even horses in pain, if I feel that my work will help them and that they are open to that work. The horse gets to decide. This was one of those situations. Something clicked with the mare as I was observing her physical and emotional state. She saw my eyes open and felt my hands soften as she flinched under my touch.
She felt my empathy and saw me seeing her.
This is a pony who was completely shut down when she came into my client’s life. I knew from the first session that she had experienced trauma in her life before her new guardians, and I had been working to allow her to feel safe enough to express herself. Well, a huge part of horses feeling safe comes from attunement— a feeling of being seen and heard and understood. When a horse gets this they can finally let go and realize they can guide YOU to help THEM. That is exactly what I saw in that little mare.
She started pointing to her right shoulder but couldn’t fully reach on the crossties so I unclipped her and allowed her to move and gesture openly. She put her nose on each place she wanted me to know about and released so much tension in the form of licking, chewing, yawning, and deep breathing. I’ve never seen her diaphragm move so much.
I could see the spaces created between each rib and the breath reaching these spaces that had been previously closed off. Her shutting down before kept her from feeling the pain and she had stopped living in her whole body.
Everywhere she pointed me to I followed with my hand and let her show me what she needed. Sometimes it was just awareness of her pain, and other times she wanted me to put pressure on an area. Sometimes to move the fascia. Sometimes she wanted me to scratch or rub the skin. Sometimes to guide the heat back to the surface of her body. She guided me all the way through both sides of her body, releasing each step. The flinching and pelvis tucking went away.
When I brought her into the arena, we had more softness than ever before.
The underside of her neck hung underneath her like a cotton dish towel draped over a clothes line.
Her nostrils softened and opened to allow the big inhalations that filled her, all the way back to her stifles that had trembled only 15 minutes before. They were now full and warm and holding her. With that new level of relaxation, I was able to improve impulsion, in re-educating the aids so that we don’t see over and under reactions. She wasn’t afraid of my whip or my body language or my gaze, unlike earlier sessions, and I could direct my energy to her body parts to ask them to yield and bend, and when she didn’t move how I intended, she allowed me to clarify without assuming she was in trouble. She would stop and take a deep breath and let us try again together.
Meanwhile, another trainer entered the arena with several young students and their horses. I sometimes feel a unique kind of pressure from those watching me who I feel don’t understand the work I do. I sometimes worry about them judging me, or wondering, why would someone pay this woman to just stand there and look at the horse? She’s not even doing anything. But those worries didn’t consume me that evening. I felt safe for people to see me waiting and the pony expressing herself– expressing her concern and then saying thank you when I saw it and paused with her. Because I knew inside that I really wasn’t DOING much of anything… but I was ALLOWING this mare to come into her body more than I’d ever seen before. I hoped that others could see that, but in that moment, it was enough that the pony and I were participating in that moment together.
The juxtaposition of the conversations I heard while continuing my work were startling at first– they rattled against my heart and gut. “With this kind of noseband, you’re supposed to tighten it as much as you can,” the trainer said as she strapped the lesson horse’s mouth shut, the kid sitting astride watching. “You know why? It’s to keep her mouth shut so that she won’t resist–” “The pressure,” finished the child. “Yes, exactly”. I longed to approach that child and tell her that her trainer told her wrong. Tell her that if her horse is going to open his mouth in a tense way that everyone ought to know it so that they could change. And how there shouldn’t be anything the horse felt the need to resist or avoid. I wanted to tell her how horses should lick and chew and swallow to release tension and make the forehand available for lifting and the hind end to be able to step under and carry their weight.
How in her fingers were reins that attached to the bit, and how under the bit was a tongue, and under the tongue was the hyoid apparatus– the bones cradling the tongue, the muscles connecting to the shoulder and sternum, and how when we unlock the jaw and allow the tongue to be, we unlock all of this and create space for the hindquarters to move into…
I wanted to tell the trainer that this wasn’t fair to the horse and that you need to have at least 2 fingers clearance over all nosebands. But I stopped myself, knowing the defensiveness and the resistance sharing this would be met with in this moment. I thought about going home and writing about how wrong this practice is. But when I got home and began writing this, something else came up… I felt empathy for this trainer and the student. I knew that both were doing the best they could with what they knew, and the trainer could only teach what she had been taught. In a way, I wouldn’t be surprised if her early concern about restrictive equipment had been shut down by her mentors, and how she was just teaching what she had learned. I reflect on the nosebands I’ve tightened on my own horses, and the side reins and pessoa lunging systems I’ve rigged up under the guidance of horsemen I respected, whose opinions I valued, and whose accomplishments I strove for myself. When this trainer and this little girl are open and ready to rethink, they will see me and feel curious. Telling them a better way is of no use yet. And telling others how wrong they are isn’t helpful either. The best I could do is help horses in my hands through the best way I knew, openly, and when their curiosity leads their guardians to me, I would be there.
(As a side note, that trainer later took a lesson with me and we’ve become good friends. Under the surface of all the horsemanship dogma she’d been taught was an incredibly sensitive, empathetic soul who truly wanted to do right by the horses, but didn’t know what alternatives were out there. Never underestimate the power of planting a seed through living the work you believe in.)
But let’s take a moment to consider why it can feel so uncomfortable to be watched by people who aren’t of the same mindset. It comes down to the same feeling that shut down that little mare– lack of attunement. Not being seen, heard, felt, and understood can be jarring. And if you feel it enough you stop responding to the world around you. Thankfully I haven’t gotten the point of being shut down like the little mare, but the two of us know the feeling of attunement and know lack thereof. So how was I able to work through that tension that day? I believe my attunement with the horse herself overrode what was going on beyond– I felt seen, heard, felt, and understood by the pony, and vice versa. And when I had that, nothing else mattered.
At the end of the session I played the permission game with the pony for the first time and within 10 minutes she put her bridle on. I just put it over one ear and then took it off.
I told her I didn’t need anything more from her and I was grateful that she felt safe enough to emote and explore. Safe enough to hesitate and rethink and reform her body. She was moving her face more than ever before. There was life in her tissues.
With all of this beauty, I was led to give my client a heads up that when horses start to develop attunement and feel safe expressing themselves, it is 100% normal and GOOD that we will see some behaviors that may be labeled as “bad”. I could anticipate that the pony may become “pushy” or “stubborn” or “reactive” or “provocative” as she explores her rediscovered ability to communicate with humans and have them listen and respond. I advised my client to simply stay with her and if she notices any behavior that is unusual or even unwanted, just ask her what the unmet need is and help her meet it. It is so key that everyone working with her give her space as she transitions into this new way of being with people.
I reflected on my own gelding, Sage, unlearning helplessness and how at first he was biting me and in so much pain. Which is to say he regained feeling and was safe enough to tell me. I worked through so much and now he lives his life knowing I’m willing to listen. This means that some days he will tell me he doesn’t want to be ridden. He will stop before the mounting block and say, “no thanks”. And it’s my responsibility to show him I hear him and either make a counter offer or just take the saddle off and say ok. If I don’t, I’m just telling him his feelings don’t matter again. Because the relationship isn’t just about me. It’s not about going and meeting my goals and looking good on my horse.
It’s about me and my horse hearing each other and cooperating. Empathizing. Compromising.
The result is a horse that truly trusts us. Who knows that we won’t put them in situations where they aren’t safe, and knows we will truly listen to them if they have concerns. When we give horses the space to reset mentally and return to relaxation after they show subtle signs of discomfort (by whatever means they need us to), they won’t let tension build. With that, spookiness goes away. “Unpredictable behavior” goes away. I was so grateful to see my client’s horse stepping onto that path, back into the magnificent presence of her body.
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