The Potential In Feeling Pleased

While I have been on my Parelli journey, I have been constantly amazed at how often a lesson I first learn while working with my horse turns into a life lesson that I can use with my family and friends. Most recently this happened with something I learned in one of my first clinics with Carol Coppinger about the potential that comes from feeling pleased.
We had been playing in the clinic with the circle game and trying to improve the elements, particularly the send and allow. Like many of the other participants, I was feeling the "clinic effect" of not being able to get my horse to do the things there that seemed to be easy when we were playing at home. I was getting a reasonably good send but no matter what I did, I couldn't get Sonny to maintain gait. He would wander around me at a walk but if I asked him to trot, he either broke gait back to the walk or he stopped altogether when he was behind me.
My horse Sonny and I are both LBIs which makes for some interesting sessions. I can get pretty focused and when I do, his opposition reflex springs into action so I try to maintain my sense of humor when playing with him. I was acutely aware of both Carol and Jane Bartsch, my local Parelli instructor, watching us and I really wanted to show them how much progress Sonny and I had made since the last clinic, but the harder I tried to get him to maintain gait, the worse things got. I was beginning to feel embarrassed by how bad we looked and them more frustrated I felt, the less cooperative Sonny became. Looking around me, I could see that many of the other clinic participants weren't having any better luck than I was and I could sense the frustration level rising.
Finally Carol told us to circle up around her and asked one of the other clinic participants who had been having trouble if she would be willing to volunteer for a demonstration. As the rest of us watched, the woman backed her horse away and tried to send it off on a circle. The horse's response was lackluster at best. It circled half a lap and stopped. The woman tried to resend the horse but he just stood there looking disinterested. Carol suggested she bring the horse back to her and start over which she did but without much improvement in response from her horse. As the woman struggled on, we could all see that her frustration growing and her horse's response becoming duller and less motivated. Standing in the circle watching, I could understand the pressure she must be feeling and could identify with her frustration. I was thinking of the hundreds of time during my journey with Sonny when I had been faced with a similar situation and how hard it was in those moments to maintain a positive outlook when my horse either didn't understand or didn't want to do what I was asking.
Finally Carol had her stop what she was doing and asked her what she was feeling. When the woman replied that she was really frustrated, Carol asked her how she thought that affected the horse. The woman turned and looked at her horse and the horse immediately looked away. It was apparent to all of us that there wasn't much of a connection between them at that moment.
That was when Carol told us that she wanted each of us to stand in front of our horses and to look directly at them and feel unhappy with them. I turned to face Sonny, and thinking about how our session had been going, didn't have to stretch far to feel unhappy. Almost instantly Sonny turned his head away from me and when I continued to focus my unhappy thoughts on him, actually stepped away from me.
"Now," Carol said, "I want you to feel pleased with your horse."
I thought about what a neat horse Sonny is an how much I enjoyed being with him. I couldn't help but smile and almost as soon as I did, Sonny turned his head and looked at me. I thought about much I loved going to Carol's clinics and started to grin. Sonny stepped toward me and started to push at my pocket for a carrot. For the rest of the clinic, whenever I felt myself becoming frustrated or a little too intense I practiced feeling pleased with Sonny. Whenever I felt pleased, Sonny became a little more focused on me and a little more responsive. I noticed that when I was feeling pleased, it was almost impossible for me to become worried about how I was doing or to feel embarrassed by my perceived lack of progress. When I was feeling pleased with Sonny I was happier and more positive and more relaxed.
While Carol's message about feeling pleased was a powerful lesson in the potential for positive thinking to improve my relationship with my horse, I recently used it to help my mother. My mother is almost 89 years old and suffers from some serious back problems. For the past five winters, I have taken her to the Florida Keys for a month so she can enjoy a break from the Delaware winters, which can be pretty miserable for someone who suffers from arthritis. She has always looked forward to these trips but this year I noticed that she was having some real anxiety about our upcoming travel.
My mother is a worrier and worries about things over which she has no control. As Mom has gotten older, it has become more uncomfortable for her to travel long distances in the car and she was so worried that she wouldn't be able to make the 7 hour drive from Orlando to the Keys that she actually considered not going to Florida at all this year. I planned our trip so it would involve only 2 hour segments in the car but by the time we left she had gotten herself pretty worked up and the strain was really visible in her face.
The first day involved a drive from our house to Amtrak's Auto train. She made the drive without any significant back pain and when we got settled on the train and I asked her how she was, she told me that she was surprised she had done so well but she was worried about the next days drive. I told her that instead of worrying about the next segment, I wanted her to feel pleased about how well she had done on the first leg. With some encouragement, I had her smiling and laughing about how good she felt. I could almost see the tension draining out of her.
For the next few days, any time she started to express a worry about something I would suggest that she "feel pleased" about something else. Pretty soon all I had to do to get her to smile was to ask her if she felt pleased. I am happy to say we are almost to the Keys and my mother is relaxed and enjoying herself. For a woman who has spent her life worrying about almost everything, and who has had to live with almost constant pain for the past few years, this has been a pretty remarkable transformation.
It is just one more reason why I love Parelli Natural Horsemanship. It really is a way to make the world a better place for both horses and humans!