The End of the Rainbow
Nuggets of gold
Every horse is a living breathing soul, chock full of feelings and opinions. And you can never really have control over another living soul. But, if we can find a way to communicate with each other effectively, we can come to an understanding and, if we’re consistent, a partnership.Coming back from injury, I’ve talked about my struggles and occasional triumphs around getting back into the saddle. It took time for me and my wonderful trainer to find the right rhythm and focus for lessons that allowed me to take it slowly but still progress. In her genius, my trainer has been teaching me in small, focused sessions where we focus first on the basics, then progress to movements where I have to learn how to use my body, my cues, to communicate with my horse in a way they not only understand but appreciate.
It has changed my way of riding and made me a better rider now while providing the foundation to continue to grow.
Recently, I’d been trying to master a turn on the forehand. It’s basically trying to move Ty’s hind end around while keeping his front end still. It’s a move he knows well. The problem was mine trying to communicate this to him. So, my trainer and I broke it down and working through each element of the maneuver, found that with a shift of my foot position, Ty finally understood what I was asking. We accomplished the move.
One shift of my foot position, that was the nugget. Every lesson, I find one. One shiny piece of information that registers in my brain and changes the outcome. Like when I finally figured out how to cue Trudy in a completely different way than I cue Ty, and it worked. Or finding the right placement of my hands to help keep Ty straight. Little things that are not so little in the end.
It’s kind of funny to me that I worried about my brain going stale once I retired. What I have found is exactly the opposite. When I think about it, I’ve spent most of my life responding to the expectations of others. First my parents and family, then the military, then employers, even a spouse and other relationship partners. Always trying to be what others wanted. Sometimes with success, many times not.
I’m generally competent and reasonably intelligent so I’ve been able to have some small success in my life. But for so much of it, I’ve felt restless and unsatisfied and at times it was difficult to mask those feelings. I sometimes think if I had been better at faking it, I would’ve accomplished so much more!
But would it have made me happier? I doubt it. Just look at the world now. All those billionaires and their accomplishments and what the world considers amazing success. And yet I can’t name one that seems happy to me. Just look at the list of rich and powerful in the Epstein files. People so miserable and unsatisfied that they participated in horrible things just to try to feel something, anything, regardless of who they hurt and destroyed in the process. But that’s more airtime than any of them deserve in my blog.
For me, settling now into “retirement” I’m finding myself learning constantly, all the time. But this time, for the most part, I get to choose the subject. And this time, I’m older, slower, more precise, and dare I say wiser. The way I learn now is different and the little bits of wisdom I find are precious.
Figuring out the right amount of lightness and pressure that makes Trudy happy? Nugget. Realizing that Ty, my brilliantly trained Friesian, just needs me to catch up with him and give him the correct cues he’s looking for? Nugget. Understanding my dog Alya is not broken, just reacting from fear? Nugget. Learning a Pilates movement and practicing it so I can feel where it hits in my body so I can teach my students effectively? Nugget. Understanding I need to keep in touch with friends and colleagues, so I don’t become isolated? Nugget.
Nuggets, light bulb moments, glimmers even; whatever you call them, these little bits of treasure accumulate and create change, growth, improvement, and, dare I say, contentment.
And really when you look at that pile of gold, a common theme I see is communication. Communicating with my students, my animals, all the people in my life.
I think back on my life in the corporate world. Most of the time communication was a one-way street. Information always coming at me, expectations being laid out for me, then feedback about how well I was meeting those expectations (or not) being dumped on me. As a people manager, I tried to hold space and listen to my team. But even so I can imagine they felt like, and rightly so, I was just there to translate the messages from above and ensure we continued to progress toward goals that others had set for us.
Being a middle manager, if no one has told you before, is pretty thankless. You can generally be assured that at any given time, someone above or below you will be unhappy and somehow it will be all your fault.
These days the only person I really have to report to is myself. Yes, and also my horses and my dog. Oh, right and my trainer and my editor and….
Okay, like Bob Dylan sang, you’re gonna have to serve somebody. The difference here is the satisfaction I feel when I pick up one of those nuggets is so much better than any corporate feedback ever could have been. The moment I know my horse and I are in sync, the times my dog comes back to me in recall, the smile on a friend’s face when they see me walk in the room, or the glimmer of recognition, the head nod, of a Pilates student when they feel in their body what I’ve been trying to teach them.
People, like horses, are living breathing souls, chock full of feelings and opinions. And there is no such thing as control over another living soul. But communication and understanding can get us where we want to go.
Nugget.
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