Buck Brannaman once said that horses were the mirrors to our souls and that we may not always like what we see. I used to compare Sasha's behavior to my own and now I find that I do the same with Carl, my five-year old Arab gelding. He's very sweet, maybe a little ADD, and usually spooks at the stupidest things...a cone, a blue barrel, someone sweeping the aisle or bringing in a wheelbarrow. It was enough to drive me crazy each time I was sitting on his back and he decided to spin and dash away or crab-walk sideways in an effort to avoid whatever he thought was seconds away from threatening to bite or attack him.
I was resigned to the fact that the first fifteen minutes of each ride would be mentally and physically draining as he tried every evasion trick in the book. My inside leg muscles would ache from pressing him over and my arms would be sore from fighting to keep his head in the middle of his chest. My voice would convey frustration and my eye sockets were wearing thin from the constant eye-rolling at his fear-of-everything antics. If he was supposed to be an extension of my body as I sat on his back, it sure didn't feel like it. Was Carl a mirror to my soul? I didn't think so. I mean, was I really that difficult to deal with?
A few weeks ago, I was showing some of my friends at the barn how to work the new Keurig machine we had bought for the barn kitchen. After the lesson, I was opening some of the cupboards looking for any place we could store our cups. As I slowly opened one of the higher cupboards, I was met with my biggest fear: the common spider. It wasn't doing anything other than hanging out in its web at the back of the cupboard. It didn't look at me with it's eight eyes, deciding whether or not to attack me and it certainly wasn't big enough to eat me.
But, still, I jumped back in horror and danced around as I announced the presence of the spider. I even hid behind one of my friends as I proclaimed my intense fear of the eight-legged creatures. One of my friends chuckled at me and finally told me what I needed to hear. "You're just like your horse!" In that moment, I smiled. She was right! Carl had an irrational fear of cones, barrels, and other random things that moved and I had an irrational fear of spiders and bugs. We both acted the same way when faced with the things that scared us.
I had been looking at it all wrong! It wasn't about being difficult, it was about working through our own fears. Carl was young and he needed help learning how to work through what was a threat in his mind, no matter how silly or irrational I thought it was. I have to help give him that confidence that the cone, barrel, broom, or wheelbarrow isn't going to suddenly come alive and chase him down. After all, life isn't a Stephen King novel.
Buck's words of wisdom aren't just for horses, either. It's relevant with our children, family members, friends, and co-workers and the overall message of holding the mirror up to ourselves every now and then is a good one. He's right that we won't always like what we see, but it's a start to remember that we create our own mood and that mood can have a profound effect on the people that surround us.
