I came across something called the trust technique on Surrey horse and rider the other day and it caught my attention.
The trust technique is a way of working with animals, particularly helping those with behavioural issues. It is a bit hippyish, but you basically meditate with your horse and the horse chills out. Sounds weird but there were lots of videos of this working with clients horses - and I have noticed that when I am chilled Tonto is super chilled.
Curious, I decided to sign up for their one day video course pass.
I was expected to learn a bit about how to calm nervous animals - but in the end got a several hour tutorial on meditation and an investigation into my many deep routed emotional issues. I found myself unexpectedly crying at my computer on more than one occasion!
The first few videos' were all about how to be peaceful - which means removing all conscious thoughts about the past and the future from your mind and disengaging with your emotional thoughts. The theory is, if you can be truly peaceful, your animal picks up on this and it encourages them to be peaceful. It is really just an extension of the normal stuff we already know - if I am stressed and angry, Sof will pick up on this and become stressed and angry herself ect. The video's gave tutorials on how to disengage with your negative emotions and re-condition emotional responses to remembered events. Very much like CBT (for the psychologists amongst you).
But the videos went on to look at the causes of problem behaviour. They highlighted that it could be for several reasons:
a) the animal has had a bad experience and now has an emotional response which make you upset
b) you have had a bad experience and now has an emotional response which make your animal upset and causes the behaviour
c) both you and your animal have had similar bad experiences and now have an emotional response.
They had an activity called 'thought surfing' which identified which category you were in. Sof and I are in category C. I have a habit of rescuing emotionally damaged animals - I don't set out to, they just seem to find me. It would make sense that I am identifying with them, which causes me to sympathise and try to help them - but it is not something I had realised until this exercise.
At this point I had been watching the course for several hours and was truly exhausted. I went to sleep exhilarated and excited for what the next day would enfold.
Unfortunately the next day brought crushing disappointment. The latter stages of the course moved onto Reki healing. It is something I just can't stretch to. The video's suggested that you can physically 'heal' an animal via your thoughts alone. It also suggested that you could pick up on an animals thought processes, even when you are simply holding a photograph. For me this is too far. Yes I think on an emotional level you can influence your animal by being calm, they will follow suit - but reading their minds and fixing physical aliments? Nope our neural network is not that powerful. Soo disappointing because I had gotten so much from the previous day. I now almost feel silly for believing in the first few modules.
Still just because someone is wrong about something does not mean they are wrong about everything. I think I am going to try and give this meditation thing a go and see if it helps calm Mr T, Sof and my more than mental cat. I'll keep you posted.
The trust technique is a way of working with animals, particularly helping those with behavioural issues. It is a bit hippyish, but you basically meditate with your horse and the horse chills out. Sounds weird but there were lots of videos of this working with clients horses - and I have noticed that when I am chilled Tonto is super chilled.
Curious, I decided to sign up for their one day video course pass.
I was expected to learn a bit about how to calm nervous animals - but in the end got a several hour tutorial on meditation and an investigation into my many deep routed emotional issues. I found myself unexpectedly crying at my computer on more than one occasion!
The first few videos' were all about how to be peaceful - which means removing all conscious thoughts about the past and the future from your mind and disengaging with your emotional thoughts. The theory is, if you can be truly peaceful, your animal picks up on this and it encourages them to be peaceful. It is really just an extension of the normal stuff we already know - if I am stressed and angry, Sof will pick up on this and become stressed and angry herself ect. The video's gave tutorials on how to disengage with your negative emotions and re-condition emotional responses to remembered events. Very much like CBT (for the psychologists amongst you).
But the videos went on to look at the causes of problem behaviour. They highlighted that it could be for several reasons:
a) the animal has had a bad experience and now has an emotional response which make you upset
b) you have had a bad experience and now has an emotional response which make your animal upset and causes the behaviour
c) both you and your animal have had similar bad experiences and now have an emotional response.
They had an activity called 'thought surfing' which identified which category you were in. Sof and I are in category C. I have a habit of rescuing emotionally damaged animals - I don't set out to, they just seem to find me. It would make sense that I am identifying with them, which causes me to sympathise and try to help them - but it is not something I had realised until this exercise.
At this point I had been watching the course for several hours and was truly exhausted. I went to sleep exhilarated and excited for what the next day would enfold.
Unfortunately the next day brought crushing disappointment. The latter stages of the course moved onto Reki healing. It is something I just can't stretch to. The video's suggested that you can physically 'heal' an animal via your thoughts alone. It also suggested that you could pick up on an animals thought processes, even when you are simply holding a photograph. For me this is too far. Yes I think on an emotional level you can influence your animal by being calm, they will follow suit - but reading their minds and fixing physical aliments? Nope our neural network is not that powerful. Soo disappointing because I had gotten so much from the previous day. I now almost feel silly for believing in the first few modules.
Still just because someone is wrong about something does not mean they are wrong about everything. I think I am going to try and give this meditation thing a go and see if it helps calm Mr T, Sof and my more than mental cat. I'll keep you posted.
 |
| me trusting Sof on our 'no reigns' hack last summer |
No comments:
Post a Comment