Perspective

Recently I took my horse to a trainer to help me work some stiffness out of my horse. I felt Lakota was heavy on the front end and wasn’t very supple. Her movements were rigid. I thought it must have to do with her reining background. I had a few other “bugs” I wanted to work out before trail riding season started.

Within the first two days, Stacia, my new trainer, said, “Lakota is ignoring you in the round pen, she is walking over you in the stall, she is fearful of anything on her right side, and she is resistant to making an effort.” I was aghast. Surely, I would have seen these things. When I watched Stacia work with Lakota, I could see how these things were true. I said to her, “I can’t believe I didn’t see this with her myself.” Stacia laughed and replied, “Isn’t this just like our relationships? We just don’t see it when we are that close.”

I thought of so many different ways to follow up this observation that I became "speechless." It could be that  sometimes it takes an outside person to help us realize what is actually happening. It could be that sometimes things in our relationships start out so small that we dont catch them, they grow without us noticing and then one day - bam - they are right in our face and we cant figure out how that happened. Our horse doesnt start out running over us, it happens in increments when we dont pay attention and nip it in the bud. He just pushes the envelope ever so slowly until we say - "Hey! Enough!" So many ways to look at this.