Natural Journey
- Where does it start?
When I began
my journey it took me a while to understand the comment "If you want to be Natural, just do the opposite of what you
have always done." This is hard to do because as humans we always seem to have an agenda. If we have an agenda, we usually
have a time frame that goes along with that agenda. If we miss a deadline or don't complete a task we feel like we have failed.
No one likes to fail. Horses don't like to fail either. If a horse had an agenda it would look like this:
1. Keep myself
safe and alive.
2. Find ways
to make myself comfortable.
3. Look for
something or someone to play with.
4. Be sure
to fill my tummy.
That's the
extent of the horse's agenda. They don't have a time frame on any of these tasks because it's an on-going process that happens
all day, every day. Some days are safer and more comfortable than others and some days they have more fun and eat a little
more or less than usual.
If our goal is
to think, act, feel and play like a horse, then we need to lose our agenda. The trick is how do we do this? I believe it goes
back to what Pat has always said, "do the opposite of what we have always done."
Our horse
knows us by the agendas we stick to. Come to the barn, catch our horse, brush our horse, saddle our horse, bridle our horse
and ride our horse.
That is
why most of us bought our horse, isn't it?
In order
for the horse to see a new human without an agenda, we need to change our focus and become like a horse with no agenda.
Once the
horse sees we have no negatively predictable patterns and we aren't a threat to his safety, comfort, play or eating, we become
more attractive and his curiosity comes up. "Who are you and what did you do with my owner/predator." is what they ask themselves.
When that happens, the journey begins. It's not until our horse asks questions like this that we have any hope of convincing
them that we want to have a new relationship.
We have to become different long enough for the horse to begin to think of us in a different manner. Opposite
is about as different as it gets. It's extreme and obvious.
That's why it works. I had a lot of opposite work to accomplish before my journey began to take on the real success each
of us looking to achieve.
