Easy Does It: The three states of being

Copyright © 2010 Lif C. Strand
www.spiritualhorsemanship.com

Three states of being in Spiritual Horsemanship

• Soft eyes
  
• Relaxed body
  
• Peaceful mind
  

Your point of view

Spiritual Horsemanship is about choice and partnership with horses, as opposed to the historical use of force and hierarchy/dominance. It is about softness, allowing and pleasure – for yourself and your horse – rather than hardness, pushing and unhappiness. Softness, relaxation and peacefulness are attractive, not just to horses but to other humans.

Spiritual Horsemanship involves both your inner and your outer life experience, as each affects the other. It is based on the idea that when you make positive changes in your inner experience, your outer experience will change. It is also based on a supporting idea that changing any one area of your life will affect all other areas of your life. Thus, improving your relationship with your horse will have broad results in other areas of your life.

When you experience pleasurable states you feel good, and when you feel good, you are vibrating at (in a state of harmony with) a level like that of Source energy, the energy of the Universe (or God, Goddess, Great Spirit, your choice of terms). Vibrating at this level is energizing, because Source energy is infinite. The stronger your positive emotions, the better you feel and the more energy you have, because the energy comes from outside you. In such a state you are open to the world, generating energy, able to receive information and process it on many levels. The highest levels of positive energy are experienced as transcendent bliss.

When you experience negative emotions such as anger or fear - when you generate such emotions through pushing, dominating, forcing - you don’t feel good. Your Reptile Mind puts you in a self-protective state of being: Hormones are released into your system, your heart rate increases, your muscles tense as your body prepares itself for action on both the physical and emotional levels. A sort of shell of imperviousness protects you – you don’t feel much pain, you have a surge of energy. But the cost is high – you are closed off to the world. You can’t receive much information, you can’t think – your ability to process information is limited to what the Reptile Mind can deal with, and you become a hard shell of self-protection.

In such a state you are vibrating at the level of physical matter. Vibrating at this level is tiring because the energy comes from your own body and physical energy is finite. The stronger your negative emotions, the more quickly you use up your own personal energy. The lowest levels of negative energy are experienced as depression and despair.


Your horse’s point of view

Horses, like all prey animals, are of necessity masters of reading body language – not only that of their own species but of other species as well. This is what allows zebras to assess the risk from a nearby pride of lions – accurate reading of the body language of a hungry lion versus a lazy, satiated one is the difference between living to another day and becoming lion dinner.

Horses can immediately tell the difference in your emotional states and react to them. Your negative states of being can elicit fear in a horse - anger is interpreted by a horse as aggressive, predatory behavior. Predatory body language raises flight or fight behavior reaction and can lead to unwanted responses when a horse is not allowed escape from your negative states.

On the other hand, your positive states of being reassure your horse and are attractive to him. Like with a good lead mare in a wild herd, it is in the nature of your horse to want to do what you want if you exhibit the positive body language of positive emotion such as contentment, relaxation or happiness. Being able to get yourself in a state of positive emotion will bring you positive results with your horse.

Your relationship with your horse reflects who you are as a human being in general as well as your relationship with everything in your life. As you achieve success with the lessons of Spiritual Horsemanship, you will find your whole life responding. Learning to change your level of vibration with horses is the foundation for Spiritual Horsemanship.

The three states of being

The three states of being in Spiritual Horsemanship are soft eyes, relaxed body and peaceful mind. Being able to on-purpose generate any of them will lead to success with all three, and will allow you to become an open, non-threatening, spiritual partner with your horse. Practice with achieving the three states will make it easier to create them in yourself at any time – when working with your horse, when dealing with your family or your work or any circumstance in your life. Achieving the three states of soft eyes, relaxed body and peaceful mind is not only calming to yourself, but it attracts more of that same calm, higher, pleasurable vibration into your life and into the world around you. When working with your horse, you become non-threatening and attractive (in the sense of being an entity that your horse wants to pay attention to and be near). In such a state your desires for your horse’s response to you are more easily communicated, and you become open and sensitive to your horse’s physical and non-physical communication.

When you change yourself so that achieving the three states becomes natural and habitual behavior for you, then your relationships with other humans and your whole physical environment similarly change. Spiritual Horsemanship can become a way to resolve issues throughout your life, not simply with your horse.

Using “soft eyes” is the first step in creating a higher vibrational state of being. Soft eyes enable you to see a whole picture rather than just the details, to look at nothing specifically but see everything. This is right-brain functioning. Using the right brain can put you in a timeless place where you can dream of goals and end results yet you can get there working on many things simultaneously (rather than focused and sequentially). On-purpose use of soft eyes is a way to achieve a relaxed body and peaceful mind.

A relaxed body drains tension from the mind, which allows the shell of self-protection to dissolve. Having a relaxed body signals to a horse a lack of aggressive purpose. A relaxed body also feels more pleasurable than a tense body. It is more balanced, and allows for faster and greater sensitivity in response to your horse.

A peaceful mind is a mind connected to Source energy and is the result of soft eyes and a relaxed body. When connected to Source energy, you are most attractive to your horse and most open to communication from him.

When the three states of being are all positive, it puts you fully in the world, allows you to become a holistic part of everything, and allows what you are inside to manifest outside. In such a state, your horse can become part of you and together you become more than two beings working together, more than the sum of the parts. You become the Centaur, one being with one goal, joyfully achieved together.


Next: Practice makes perfect – soft eyes.