lisa hayes

ego

i've been struggling with my ego lately.  i don't know why.  when billy was at the barn i cared very little about what the other horse owners thought of me and my training techniques.  now that he is at home i worry constantly about what the neighbors are thinking, what are they saying?  deep down i KNOW that it doesn't matter.  all that matters is how billy feels about everything.

i've been reading jane goodall's book "Reason for Hope" and it's given me some ideas.

she wrote, "'love they neighbor as thy self.'  how could i love my self when i so often failed to live up to the standards i set?  then i realized that the "self" that we have to love is not our ego, not the everyday person who goes around behaving thoughtlessly, selfishly, sometimes unkindly, but the flame of pure spirit that is in each and everyone of us, that is part of the creator; what the buddhist call "kernal".  we have to learn to understand and love this spirit within in order to find peace within."

the idea that we start loving ourselves by loving that inner peaceful, kind self really felt right to me.  i could hear that and understand it more than the far flung, "love thyself".  loving myself is one of the hardest parts of this journey i'm on.

i've felt overwhelmed lately.  overwhelmed by my ego.  i've allowed it to step in and take over.  so to turn that around i am going to focus on loving my inner guru with the thought that loving that part of myself will cause it to grow...

"that which is loved can grow."  ~jane goodall

hopefully by loving my inner peaceful, kind self it will over take the ego part of myself.

"there is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally."  ~don miguel ruiz

letting go of ego goes hand in hand with taking nothing personally because it's the ego that worries about what other people are thinking about me, saying about me, if they are laughing at me.  if my ego side is shrunk down to a manageable size then it would be easier to not take things personally.  it wouldn't matter what others are thinking or saying!

my goal this summer/fall: to nurture my peaceful, kind self by loving myself - causing that side of myself to bloom and grow.

yesterday

a little something for the weekend

i won this DVD set when i made a video for the horse and soul tour in iowa...  kalley is a wonderful teacher.  i could sit and watch her for hours.  she is so confident and calm.  her descriptions and directions are easy to understand and learn from.  i highly recommend the Pre Saddle Training DVD set!!  it goes over all the level 1 stuff, but with a high degree of excellence.  i found it very helpful when she would show one of the entry level games and then talk about how to improve it before riding the young horse.

i really admire Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling.  his books are easy to read and beautiful to look at.

i am really interested in this book.  stephanie also writes a wonderful blog with lots of really helpful information.

i listened to this book on my ipod while playing with billy last winter.  it was a wonderful book!!! i highly recommend it.

billy REALLY needs one of these....

susannah conway

"... every day is a new beginning. Platitude, cliche, TRUTH. When you really sink into what that means it's remarkable really. We get to start over every 24 hours. We get to choose again: another breath. Another meal. Another decision. Another chance."          ~Susannah Conway

when i read the above in a love letter that showed up in my inbox the other day i was blown away by the truth of it.  every day is a new day.  that is true for us and is most certainly true for our horses.  i have put an end to a session that is not going well, returned billy to his pen, or turned him loose for a little graze, while i walked away for a little while.  i took that time to really think things over, get re-inspired and head back out a few hours later.  for billy that is exactly like a new day.  a new session, a new day, a new beginning.

lucky us that horses are so forgiving and willing to live in the moment...

Susannah Conway went on to say,  "When I'm having a crap day and nothing seems to be going right, I sink so gratefully into my bed, knowing that sleep will reboot my brain, ready to start again tomorrow."

i like to think of sleep as a reboot time.  that is so true.  when i don't get a good nights sleep i feel so weighed down by yesterday and yesterday's problems.  when i get a good nights sleep i feel so refreshed and yesterday stays in yesterday and doesn't leak over into today.

because really, i have enough to think about without yesterdays sessions leaking into today's!

david frost

being neighborly

the other night i took billy for a little walk up the road.  the destination was our neighbor's house about a 1/4 of a mile away.  angus and handsome hubby were with me.  angus was struttin' his stuff, peeing on everything along the way, making his mark.

billy was eyeing the grass along the road trying to be sneaky enough to snatch a bite here and there.  the walk was merely to get out and get moving, i didn't have an agenda so i didn't mind the naughtiness on billy's part.

as we got closer to the neighbor's house the horses on the other side of the road spotted us and came galloping over to see what was up.  billy took it all in stride.  we've been playing with relaxation as we walk, keeping him connected to me so he doesn't want to leave me and be silly with them.

the neighbor has 3 mules and a horse and 2 big dogs.  the dogs had made their way out to the road to investigate angus.  handsome hubby was calling angus back to us, as we were nervous that the big dogs would mistake him for a gopher.  i'm not sure what happened as they were in the tall grass but the next thing we heard was angus screaming and the neighbor dogs snarling.  the grass was shaking and we were both certain that they were killing angus.  it turns out that they were attempting to as he was well and truly mauled when we got him out of the grass, handsome hubby walked right into the fray kicking as he went.  angus was alright, shaken and in shock, but alive.  billy was totally unfazed by all the commotion.

the neighbor walked out of the horse shelter he was cleaning and made the comment that if i was going to walk my horse up through all the horses, horses on both sides of the fence, i was just simply asking for trouble.  this confused me because not one of the horses was acting up in any way.  the ones on the left hand side of the fence were all just standing around watching the commotion, his horse and mules were leaning over the fence also watching the dogs and billy was standing beside me, head down, watching handsome hubby haul angus out of the mauling.

i tried repeatedly to tell the neighbor that his dogs were attacking my dog and he kept saying "i know i know" and then talking on and on about how his dogs were going to lose their teeth one day because they go after his mules (which the black one was doing as he was talking).  i'm not worried about billy.  he does not tolerate dogs creeping up on him and will kick them if warranted, but i would have appreciated the neighbor man listening to me that his dogs were in fact going after my dog and this had nothing what so ever to do with my horse being there.

i realized today as i was thinking about it and getting madder and madder, that i didn't feel heard in that situation.  the neighbor thought i was a sissy girl, screaming because his dogs were walking along the road with my horse. (when in fact the screaming he heard was angus... not me...)

one of my triggers is being ignored.  not heard.  i hate it when i feel like people (and animals) aren't listening to me.  i'm trying and trying to make my point and they are just doing their own thing, not listening, talking over me, walking over me, ignoring me.

as i walk along this path one of the things i want to get a handle on is how i respond to being ignored.  i want to be present to the fact that it really bothers me and makes me feel like an idiot and then move past it.  allow it to happen, i can't control what others do, but can set things up so that i am more interesting than what is happening around me.

i am capable of doing this with billy, but in the moment of him going LBI and just standing, leg cocked, head down, ignoring my plea to "please walk forward!" i tend to get frustrated and then angry.  that's when billy goes all the way over to LBI and stands there, laughing at me.  it's in that moment that i need to stop what i'm doing and re-think my tactics.

in both cases, me getting angry and talking louder to be heard doesn't work.  it just makes me seem like a crazy person.  just ask my kids...  and getting angry and louder with billy definitely does not work.  he just either ignores me more or gets scared and loses confidence in me as a leader.

this is most certainly a journey of never ending self improvement.  that self improvement will spill over into all aspects of my life.  thereby improving my relationships with my hubby and my kids as well.  (and maybe even my neighbors... sigh.)