How To Melt Resistance Around Horses - ForTheHorse

How To Melt Resistance Around Horses

Resistance, both from horses and from riders has several levels.

Let's concentrate on how to actually offer your horse what he or she requires, and how to make riding joyful rather than frightening.

There can be these resistances coming up between horse and rider...

  • Resistance to understanding
  • Resistance to raising your standard as a rider
  • Resistance to being with your horse because of fears

In our Harmony For the Horse Program we help you to get clear on any resistances that are holding you and your horse back from joyful riding.

CLICK HERE to discover more about how we can help you to reach freedom, achievement, oneness and joy that you most seek with your horse.

First, let's ask this question...

What is the resistance that you most need help with? 


What is it that you wonder about, "If I could just deal with this one thing, then everything would be alright, between myself and my horse".

Once you identify that, then we can start to overcome the resistance.

If you followed me for any time at all you'll know that all of my work in our Harmony For The Horse program starts from within.

It starts inside of us.

If its resistance from your horse, the first place that you can look is within yourself.

Identify Your Own Resistance


For example,  "What is my resistance to having a spooky horse?"

or...

"What is my resistance to my horse's resistance?"

Whatever that may be:  my horse is having trouble bending to the right, my horse is acting up all the time, my horse doesn't like to be alone.

I want you to find your truth here. That's what it's all about. 

Because when you find your truth, then you can find your horse's truth. Then you can sort out your problems.

You need to take time to do this, though.

It's not enough just to have the thought or to ask the question intellectually.

What we need to do is, we need to get into the feeling of that. We need to feel into what that feels like.

What does our resistance feel like to us? What does it feel like in our bodies?

Because the intellectual part is easy for us to have.  What's more difficult and more evasive, but actually has more power, is the subconscious and what's within our body? 

Where is it contained in our body. 

But once you let yourself go deeper then you'll start to get some different answers.

Your mind knows, but your body still has the resistance and when you have the resistance still in your body, that's when you may feel like crying or you may feel like vomiting at the thought of going to ride your horse on a day that's windy, or you may feel like quitting horses all together.

I was just talking to someone this morning about how she felt like quitting with some horses that she rides, but not all horses that she rides. So when you get these feelings, that's when you know that there is a resistance within your body.

If you don't have your body on board with your mind, in other words, if you don't have your subconscious on board with your conscious, it will be very difficult for you to do anything with your horse consistently.

Resistance Or Opportunity


Do you look at this as a resistance or an opportunity?

When you are with your horse and things aren't going as you want, they're not going exactly as you planned,and something has come up out of the blue, which has upset your horse, are you seeing this as a resistance or are you seeing it as an opportunity to learn? 

Because if you see it as an opportunity, as a means of communication with your horse, or as a means to build trust, or a way to listen, or a way to connect a way to understand better, then this is how you can truly give your horse what he or she needs.

It's about the energy of your intention, the energy behind the intention of what you do, which is what horses pick up on, so well.

But when you're feeling, when you think, when you know, that this is about an opportunity, rather than a resistance, then there's a different energy.

Whereas if you're thinking, "Oh, not this, again, my horse is rearing, or my horse is whinnying to get back to his friends, are you busy saying to yourself, '"Oh, I hate it, when this happens."?

There's a different energy behind that intention and the horse knows that.

When you really feel into yourself then you can find out how to get down to the bottom of all of this, and you're open to whatever happens.

This is really interesting because if you have a resistance, it will make you do things that are outside of what you would normally do or is out of alignment of who you are.

And this is where it will not be helpful to you at all. Because you don't want to be in that position. Or in that place of acting out of alignment of who you really are.

You want instead to create a partnership, co-creation with your horse where the responsibility of horse and rider is shared.

PRO TIP:  MELT RESISTANCE WITH CURIOSITY

Melt Resistance With Curiosity


Whether it's with you, whether it's your horse, it's curiosity.

That means ask questions.

That means don't block what is being presented to you.  When you feel like you have to block or you're saying "Oh, not this again." "I don't want to deal with this horse," or "I'm too scared to get on."...

Rather than blocking it, become curious and ask yourself questions.

Listen with curiosity, rather than push back. 

In other words, when you start pushing back, that stops the process completely.

I want to give you an example of a student who is in our program. She loves her horse dearly and has totally good intentions, but underneath she had that lack of curiosity and the resistance that stayed there, that lingered there, that she didn't even know was there, until we helped her and showed her that it was there, was severely holding her and her horse back.

So how this was coming out with her horse was that she had busyness happening. Her hands were really busy.  She had done a lot with horses over many years and been taught a lot. So she was trying to apply all that she was being taught and adding this and adding that, and trying this and trying that, and adding to all of this busyness.

So that when she put her hands on the reins, her horse started to get really uptight all the time and began to have anxious behavior.

It was just her horse saying to her, it's too much noise I'm trying to concentrate and I can't concentrate is just too much.

When we helped her to see that it was an opportunity rather than a resistance then things really started to change.

She could finally ground herself.  She could be in a place of power and the horse started to change because the feeling in her hand started to change.

We taught her how to feel, basically, through working from the inside.

And basically, her horse also was saying, "I'm asking for space to come to my own conclusion."   There was not enough space for the horse to find a conclusion, to give an answer, and then the rider to receive the answer, then for the two of them to choose which answer was the best one, the one that suited the best for that situation.

So we need to create space, we need to create a container.

Sometimes horses get to the place where they don't trust, because of experiences.

They don't trust themselves. They don't trust their rider.

And they're saying to themselves, "Okay, I've done this before, I know what happens, it didn't feel good."  "I don't know the way out."

If this resistance or this behavior is met with curiosity, then we're able to find the solution.

And that's when we started to ask this rider even deeper questions, so the rider can then access her truth.

And that's what this is all about because when the rider accesses her truth, she can then access the horse's truth.

And then that's when we can get into the techniques.  We can be specific and clear.

We can hone into exactly what techniques will help that horse and rider pair to get what they need to get the self carriage, to get the results that they want to get, the harmony and the partnership that they're looking for, the bond and the communion.

So everyone's feeling safe.

If you want support in this way, to find your truth and then connect with your horse and get the results that you are yearning for...

CLICK HERE to schedule a call with us!

About the Author Chris Adderson

Chris Adderson teaches riders and horses how to move with ease and grace to create astounding results and lifelong relationships of their dreams. She teaches valuable skills and educational strategies to help you re-ignite your ultimate confidence and self-belief so that your horse willingly partners with you, in lightness, and then helps you establish a step by step plan and strategy to support your growth together. This will leave you feeling confident, capable and available to step into your genius as a rider to serve your horse.

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