One of the ways he suggests to help create connection with your horses is to go out to the pasture with a chair and just sit and read. It’s honestly one of my favorite parts of the program… sitting, reading, horses… what’s not to love.

Yesterday the weather was warm enough to sit outside so I headed to the pasture with a chair and a book. I’m currently reading Mind to Matter on my kindle, but I wanted to take an actual book to the pasture so I grabbed The Body Keeps Score. Warwick’s book list scares me a little, it’s not a light hearted book list. It’s a book list that’s going to make you work on yourself. The Body Keeps Score is one of those books. It’s about overcoming trauma, which is a topic I generally push out of my mind and try not to think about. But like they say, the things you don’t deal with keep coming up until you do.

I got to the pasture and got settled in. Instantly Fiddler came over trying to see what I was doing. He grabbed my book and ran off with it. I got the book back, sans some corners. Then he tried to eat my chair. I love this horse. He will always make you feel loved, but I wanted to just sit and be, which is not really possible with him around. I took him out of the pasture and came back to read. Goose and Nora are also in this pasture. We got Nora a couple months ago. She’s super obedient. An amazing cowhorse, and a bit shut down. I really wanted to be able to have some no expectation connection time with her.

She checked out my chair a bit while I was putting Fiddler up, and then mosied off to the hay. She kept looking up at me. She just looked like she didn’t quite understand what the heck I was doing just sitting in her pasture. Goose swung by for a bit and then wandered off to stand by the gate Fiddler had left through. Which is all perfectly fine. The point of hanging out in the pasture is to NOT have expectations. To let them do what they want, to just be. I also like this hanging out in the pasture while I pick poo. I enjoy being in the same space, doing my thing, they’re doing their thing. They sometimes come over, they wander away. These well trained horses who do great at their job… I think most of their lives they’ve been asked to be DOING something, specific, by a human. It’s good for them to know sometimes being around us doesn’t come with demands.

I was a little worried starting The Body Keeps Score, but once I got started it seems like it’s going to be a very interesting book. I’ll give you a review when I’m done. The next few days are going to be VERY cold… so I’ll have to read in the house.

I mentioned in the Warwick Schiller Facebook group that I was outside reading and someone asked if I was reading the book out loud to the horses. I was not, but it was an interesting thought. Do you read outside in your horse’s pasture? Do you read out loud to them? Tell me in the comments. I’d love to know.

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I’ve decided to go back to the basics with Warwick Schiller’s approach. I feel like anxiety may be at the root of her issues. I’m going to help her learn to relax, to come down from feeling anxious. And as I type this I realize I probably need it just as much as she does.

I’m currently reading the book Mind to Matter by Dawson Church. It has reminded me just how much intention and our thoughts create ripples and reality.

Yesterday I was out with Goose for morning feeding. Fiddler gets fed seperate in the morning so I hang with the mares while he eats. Goose came up and we ended up in this fantastic meditative space where I was so present and petting her, paying attention to her eyes and how she felt. It was wonderful. She stayed for quite a while. Later in the afternoon I thought, “That would make a great tik tok video” so I set out to the pasture to recreate the situation so I could video it. HA. What an eye roll she gave me. She wouldn’t stay with me for more than a second. I worked on connection by change of focus and she definitely is better at that, but come and spend time with you for a tik tok video. hells to the no she said.

This morning I went out for feeding time and after reading a chapter in Mind to Matter about energy fields, I decided to just play around with being near her. Not touching her. ugh. it’s so hard. I stood near her. She came up to me, and nosed me a little, gave me her nose to kiss, which I did, but I didn’t reach out to pet her. I noticed as we did this her lip began to twitch. I stayed really present and she walked away, not far, just a few steps, stood there and then had a big yawn and lick and chew. She came back over to me, and the same thing happened. She nosed me, stood near me, I didn’t touch her, she began to twitch around her face, walked away a few steps and had herself a yawn and lick and chew. It happened one more time, though this time she wandered off to her favorite sunny spot by the shelter. When she got to her spot she turned and looked at me and kept connected to me until she closed her eyes in the sun.

This really got me to wondering how comfortable she really is to be around people without an expectation. When we are riding she always seems to need to “do the next thing” she’s very uncomfortable just being. Today’s experience made me wonder if she’s struggling with “just being” with people all together and I just hadn’t noticed before because I’m always “doing” something, petting, training, connecting, stressing… whatever. I think I will continue to see how she does “just being” for a while and see what happens.

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