Early with this one as traveling tomorrow. The eighth day of Christmas.
I thought to say Happy Christmas and to spread some lovely horsey gems, I would share some excerpts from Carolyn Resnick’s book Naked liberty and some quotes from her.
There will be one each day, starting on the 12th for 12 days look out for the last one on 24th. Before new year there will be a draw.
To win you need to comment ( not just like) on any or all posts, the more you comment the more chances to win!
The person drawn will receive a free place on any of my Introduction to the Waterhole Rituals days next year. We look forward to your comments. Merry Christmas.
“Ask the horse when he is willing”
jaynedforster.wordpress.com 
This takes some intuition and confidence and self control. I am learning. I am hearing myself say “Do you want to trot?” in place of “lets trot now” my pony loves it!
Also having the relationship and bond so strong that you just know when your horse would be willing to trot or maybe its a day where he would rather just go for a walk with you, hang out with you or maybe flat out gallop! maybe a day where he is unwilling to do anything. These days I know how to encourage my horses willingness to blossom and come forth. The more I work with the waterhole rituals the better I read my horse. We also know ourselves and I know when its something in me that’s not in balance so they have a day off or we share territory and I listen.
Yeah. The cartoon says it all .. I feel like that horse my most favourite living horse has had a look like that on his face more than once. Thinking in switched places, I know how different my life would have been if as a child I had been asked the ‘are you willing’ question at appropriate moments.. so I wonder how we lose that awareness of what I (and I presume most of us) want for ourselves.. to be asked, not told.. to be given the choice, and all those wonderful validations of respect for my (our) freedom and autonomy. Could it be so hard to change this ‘telling’ because we are afraid of hearing “NO” and because we see that as the thin end of the wedge of our ‘leadership’.. that we are losing the horses respect if they say ‘no’ and we respect that ‘no’. And afraid of rejection?
We have been taught an ‘ell of a lot of rubbish in our lives and it’s all lurking there ready to undermine us until we really work through it and let it go. Past experiences of rejection can be a powerful memory preventing us risking a ‘refusal’ or a ‘no’ I think?
(i’m curious Kate.. what do you do if your pony says ‘no’ and you are at that point late and need to get home? I love hearing how your Pony loves being asked. It’s that relationship again, isn’t it.. How long have you been together? I like your points about intuition and self-confidence and so forth.. makes sense to me)
The great thing about horses is they never fear rejection, when we can learn from them we don’t see a no as rejection its just how another being feels in that moment. Horses have taught me not to take things personally, they don’t!!! We just ask when the horse is willing because it feels good for the horses to say yes, it encourages us to observe and find the yes before we ask. Its good never to learn to say no and the more my horses have learnt to say yes the more they want me to ask requests of them, so they can give me more yes’s it could work the same with people, children love to be asked to do something in the right way and to be praised for it. We all do.
“We just ask when the horse is willing because it feels good for the horses to say yes, it encourages us to observe and find the yes before we ask.”
What an insightful remark Jayne! This is gold-dust 🙂
i’m not sure what you mean by ‘its good never to learn to say no’ though…..