What is our conditioned self? How many times do we do something and wonder why it is done like that. Our answer is usually, well that is how it has always been done, so why change it. But what if it is not serving us to do it that way? What if we had a choice to do something differently? Something that falls in line with our beliefs, how we want to live our life?
Take my Thoroughbred, Kassie, she has been conditioned throughout her life to be a horse, be brushed, be ridden, have babies. None of which were her choice. When working with my horses and clients, is to give them a choice. As a life coach, it is not my job to tell people what to do, they need to figure it out for themselves and want to do it. If we feel it deeply in the core of our body, it will stick, it is muscle memory. I just hold space and ask questions in order to help them get there. Going back to Kassie. When I first got her, she just did what she was told to do. I had her in the round pen, she happily walked, trotted and cantered at my command. Awesome I thought....then I looked at her, watched her. Her head was turned out, she was looking into the distant, in fact, she was so checked out, I could have been over the other side of the property and shouting commands at her and she would have done them. She had been conditioned to do these motions, it is what it is. Same for grooming. I would bring her in every day and brush her, she stood stock still, lifting her legs on command, moving this way and that way and just letting me do what I needed. OK, so this is great, but not really how I work with horses. In fact, it is definitely not how I work with horses.
So I started to give her choices, let her change how her conditioned self has been taught. I would wait to see if she wanted a brush near her. She was so confused that she had a choice. Her answer for the most part is no thank you. She stands with her head in the corner and her bum to me. When you have this huge horse with her butt in your face you listen. I would step back out of her space and wait. She would come around. As we danced like this for weeks and now months, Kassie has her voice, she has been able to let me know what she wants. Some days she likes the brush over her body. She also has brushes she prefers. I have found this out, by watching, listening to her. For the most part, she stays pretty dirty, her tail has been rubbed (even though I did insist on a tail and mane wash, because honestly, we can't be completely gross and itchy), I rub oil in it and let her get on with it. She is not sore, she is healthy and she is most importantly happy. Happy that she has changed her conditioned pattern and feels safe in doing so. On a bigger scale, she has had trauma and goes into regular PSTD mode, these are getting fewer now, but it was because I allowed her to have her voice, let her have her episodes. Didn't try to control her or tell her she couldn't have an outburst. Don't get me wrong, they are scary, she has hurt me (not meaning to, but she did), but she needed to have a voice and work through her trauma that she has been burying for a long time. So through having a new voice she is slowly coming through her trauma, we are currently being curious about how far we can go to graze whilst still feeling safe. She lets me know when she has gone far enough. If something catches her attention, I listen and allow her to investigate. I reassure her and don't take her back to that place of being a "good" horse and doing as she is told. The pay off, she trusts me fully, she wants to be with me and now we can start re training, as it is on a mutual basis. We have a long way to go, a long, long way, but we are on the right path.
Mirroring this to human form, it takes just as long to change habits, conditioned formats. Have you ever wondered why you repeat the same mistakes, choose the wrong relationships, choose a particular job, friends, clothes? Is it choices you have consciously made, or it is because you are following a historical pattern that our parents / friends / peers chose? For example, we are told, get a good job, get a house, get married, have a family, work hard to support all these lovely things around us and save so we can retire eventually, if we haven't burned ourselves out trying to get to that point. Did we ever sit down and actually look at what we as an individual wanted out of life? Can we break the mould?
Conditioning goes a lot deeper and can be the root of a lot of trauma, but once we acknowledge that it is something we can change and we can change our story, it becomes freeing and enables us to start walking towards our more authentic self. From watching Kassie and being on my own journey, I can honestly say, it is a pretty nice place to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment