Enjoy The Journey

I have recently returned home from an experience which has expanded my awareness and deepened my understanding of how humans and horses work together to change the world. Yes you read that right: we are going to change the world.   Let me back up a bit:

I have been following a horseman for many years in his career: Mr. Warwick Schiller (warwickschiller.com).  Warwick and his wife Robyn have been working with reining horses for decades, which is what initially brought me to his work, as this was my chosen riding discipline when I was in high school.  Life of course happens and I was never able to devote the time and energy to the discipline I would have liked, however, the passion for this particular approach to horsemanship never left me, and so I followed along as Warwick and others like him went on from training horses to giving clinics and talks on the subject.  20 or so years ago, many of us working with horses in a western discipline had many similarities in how we approached that partnership.  We were brought up to view the horse as a subservient member of the team.  I was alpha. I had to show my horse who was “boss” and take control.  Horses needed ‘leadership’ (our interpretation of the term at the time) and if I wasn’t going to lead, then they would (that last part is true to a degree).   I would go out to the pasture, halter my horse, walk to the barn, saddle up, and away we’d go.  I felt I had a good kinship with my horses, I didn’t mistreat them, I took care of their needs, I felt a bond, etc.  I used the tack and equipment that was either required or accepted at the time, but I internally had a threshold of what I was willing and not willing to ask of my horse or “do to” my horse to get a desired outcome, so I would never have considered myself abusive, and still don’t. 

Over the years, an interesting thing happened to me on a personal level as well as in relationship to horses.  I began to evolve. I started to learn more about myself, about my connection to nature, to the rhythm of the cosmos in a sense, and my place in it. My sensitivities to the world around me increased (or I allowed them back into my awareness is more to the point), and my career began to take off in the world of leadership.  I started to experiment with different approaches to leadership than I was taught. I started to reject the idea of dominance and hierarchy and started to go against the grain a bit and include my team members in the discussions about topics which impacted their work.  I valued their input. I asked what they needed to be successful, I made changes to processes based on their feedback, etc.  all the while, I also started to shift in my relationship to my horses.  I would pause before haltering and take time to notice what state of mind they were in.  I would ask them what they needed and pause for the answer.  I would allow the “no” answer to an ask and started to treat them more as an equal than a “beast of burden”. 

My evolution as a leader and my evolution as a horsewoman were running parallel.  I was studying leadership and horsemanship alongside one another.  I was researching “natural horsemanship” methods and getting hit with so many synchronicities in how I show up as a leader at work and how I show up as a leader with my herd.  I could go on and on about the details around this process for me, but that’s an entire book and this is meant to be a short blog so I digress…

The point is, as I evolved and then recently stepped fully away from traditional leadership structures to build my own, I also found myself inviting the horses to help me teach others how to lead in this “new” way I had “discovered”.  I put those words in quotes as I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek here.  As I moved into this new world of Equine Assisted Learning with a focus on collaborative leadership models, I found an entire network of amazing humans and horses showing up for this same reason.  In this discovery, I found so many parallels between my work and the work of others.  Foundationally, there is this collective shift occurring.  We are moving from dominance to partnership.  From control to collaboration. 

The biggest shift which happened for me with my horses was when I first got my horse Hank.  He came to me very shut down, his nervous system was overtaxed and when he started shifting out of that state, he bounced from freeze to flight and back again, ping-ponging off the walls of fight/flight and freeze/faun, rarely ever resting in a regulated state.  The journey this took me down in my studies of polyvagal theory, emotional resiliency, trauma-informed therapies, and so on ran parallel to my work with Veterans and First Responders, and with leaders who are also over-taxed, stressed, and shutting down. 

Though all of this, I was shifting and changing. I was discovering the connections between how we show up and how we influence others.  How our energy impacts outcomes, and how important it is to be grounded in our bodies, connected to the earth, and regulate our nervous systems.  Horses are excellent at grounding, being in their bodies and fully present in the moment – unless they too are in a dysregulated state, most often due to some impact or experience they carry with relationship to humans.   What does this have to do with Mr. Schiller?

I had also noticed his evolution.  As someone who worked within the western riding discipline, utilizing much of the same principles I was taught, and who was doing so on a national stage, I was intrigued when his personal journey began to shift.  His focus moved to a focus on the nervous system, the way horses connect in the wild and began to emphasize connection and the relationship with the horse.  Perhaps others were doing this as well, but as this was someone I was loosely following along already, I noticed his shift first.  A simple thing such as going to apply a halter and the horse moved his nose away, he would draw back, not pursue, and wait for the horse to come to him.  Simple? Yes. Mindblowing? YES!  This small change said so many things to the horse.  I see you, I hear you, I respect you, and I can wait for you.  WOAH! This was not part of my training. This was new, and this felt right.  A quote he says often is that “Connection is rooted in attunement, which is the sense of being seen, being heard, feeling felt and getting gotten.”  Which he credits to Sarah Scholte of Equusoma (equusoma.com). It made sense on so many levels to make this shift in how we show up with our horses, how we build partnerships, relationships, trust, understanding, rapport….all the things I was teaching in leadership, and I realized, this is what the horses have been teaching me all along.   His work, along with many others, helped plant the seed for putting my leadership ideology alongside my understanding of herd dynamics and leadership in relationship to horses.  

(photo credit: warwickschiller.com)

Fast forward, and he started a podcast. When this first occurred I was fascinated as it was different than what I expected.  I was thinking this was a “horsemanship 101” let’s interview cool horse people and talk about riding techniques….but no.  This was not it.  He was having deep and meaningful conversations. They were talking about the other aspects of their life that led them to where they were.  Their personal journey.  This was cool stuff!  What was even more exciting was that Warwick began to talk about his personal journey, and how he had begun to do the deep inner work of understanding how he was showing up, how his energy was impacting his life and his loved ones, and how it changed his horsemanship and relationship to his herd.   This was when I first felt like I was seeing true synchronistic parallels.  I too was showing up differently, doing the deep inner work, etc.  However, he was doing something I never had the courage to do: he was telling the world about it. 

I am sensitive to energy. I am sensitive to those elements which we cannot see and cannot always explain.  I hear and see things that others cannot always access.  I have always had these abilities, yet I do not share them as it’s not always acceptable or mainstream to talk about such things.  Yet, here was a world-famous clinician having these conversations out in the open with other world-famous horsemen and women who have the exact same experiences!  Holy cow, this was the affirmation I was seeking that I was on the right path.  If the western discipline world of horses could not only accept, but admit they have had the same connection to energy that I feel, then who else out there has this same sense? Is it more widespread than we assumed? Who else, like me, hasn’t had the courage to stand up and be truly authentically congruent within themselves?

(author at Return to Freedom: returntofreedom.org with herd of mustangs)

An interesting thing happened as I watched on from the sidelines – his podcast blew up, and his popularity grew as he talked more and more about the “woowoo” side of things.  This told me there really was an interest and connection for so many people out there.  He gave all of us permission to show up authentic in all aspects of ourselves.  To see the journey we were on of self-discovery, and continue to put it out there, no matter how weird it may seem to someone else.

In pulling all of this together, I started making correlations.  How our nervous system functions and connects body/mind/spirit in wholeness, and how we find congruence – TRUE- congruence through this pathway. The impact horses have in supporting our evolution and connection to ourselves and our place in the bigger cycles of life, how to stay grounded while still sensitive to things we cannot explain – and don’t need to. 

Leadership of self is first, leadership of others is second, and it all comes from our interconnectedness through our mind/body/spirit and its relationship to others/earth/cosmos.  This is authentic leadership.  This is where congruent collaborative leadership lives.

Now that you’re caught up, I will tell you the profound experience I had this past weekend when I attended his horsemanship clinic as an auditor (I didn’t bring a horse, I watched from the sidelines).

He began with opening the clinic by describing how the nervous system works in simple terms we could all appreciate and apply.  He drew a diagram in the arena dirt to give us a framework, and he credited this design to someone else whom I did not write down, so if that information comes back around to me after this blog is posted I will return and edit with proper credit.  Here is my rendering of what he drew: 

When we look at this diagram we realize that many horses and humans alike, bounce between the lower two corners represented by the orange arrow in my diagram.  When we move up the continuum on either the left or right side, we move towards awareness and stillness depending on if we’re more on the alert side of things (awareness) or the numb side of things (stillness).   The goal is to exist above the purple line in my diagram. Living in a regulated state and vacillating between awareness and stillness and only utilizing Fight/Flight and Freeze/Faun when there is an actual threat that requires this emergency lever to be pulled.  Our bodies get stuck in these states due to repeated stress on the nervous system and we build a sort of neurological superhighway (these are my words). It becomes the “norm”, and it can come to a place where our bodies no longer recognize a regulated state, and are uncomfortable when we reach it as it is so unfamiliar.   This is a big part of my work with Veterans, First Responders, and leaders alike.

During the first day, he often discussed congruence, regulation, and connection as a state of being, not as a proximity to the other.  His statement on connection was that you are creating a sense of safety through awareness.  In the TeachingHorse® work that I do, we instruct leaders to “notice what they notice” as a pathway to connection, which is a very similar principle.  Throughout the clinic he engaged with the auditors routinely, inquiring about chosen riding disciplines, etc. and at one point asked if anyone did “EAP” (Equine Assisted Psychotherapy is a common blanket term for equine assisted learning, equine facilitated coaching, etc. as well as true equine assisted therapy).  I raised my hand, and at one point during the clinic when he would reference congruence and these other foundational principles which are utilized in EAP/EAL work, he would look my direction and I would give a nod of acknowledgement.

At the end of the first day, I and a few other ladies went to dinner.  Upon preparing to leave, Warwick walked in and sat down to dinner himself.  The ladies I was with wanted to offer to purchase him a glass of wine as a thank you for a good clinic, so they approached to see if this was something he would enjoy. Knowing how exhausting his days as a clinician must be, we didn’t have any desire to disturb him or require that he be “on stage” any longer, it was intended to be a brief interlude on our way out the door.  I was the last to approach his table after they’d all been chatting for a moment, and when I approached, he exclaimed “you’re my EAP gal!”  This opened up a flurry of conversation between the two of us.  At some point we were making polite goodbyes to allow the gentleman his peace and quiet, and he invited me to sit down with him and talk further.

I won’t go into our entire conversation, but I will share that it was one of the most profound and impactful conversations I have had in a very long time.  I say this because not only did I feel “seen, heard, felt, and gotten”, but I hope in some small way, so did he.   Our conversation flowed between the parallels of leadership, horsemanship, personal growth, and all things related.  We talked about the nervous system and guests he has had on his podcast who study these topics with such amazing depth and clarity.  I thanked him for providing a platform for people like his guests to come forward, which in a small way gave people like me permission to step forward authentic and whole.  The best part for me was that I had an opportunity to speak to the person behind the persona, and he is exactly as he seems. Genuine, congruent, kind, and curious about how the world around him works.  

At one point he asked me why I chose to go into leadership with horses.  I gave him the simple and easy answer: so I can change the world.  Let me explain: I guarantee that everyone you know has a “bad boss” story.  Very few people have an equal number of “good boss” stories.  Why is this? My theory is that we often place people in these positions without formal training.  You’re an accountant? Excellent, you can lead accountants.  NO! They are not the same skillset.  We require degrees, experience, and education for all sorts of things, but not to be a leader.  We set many individuals up to fail due to this lack of training and awareness of what tools are available to them.  The other reason is that good leaders must focus on themselves first, not the people in their team.  Turning the lens on ourselves can be very uncomfortable for people if it is not something they are accustomed to doing.  My mission is to bring my style of leadership training to enough leaders to help them make one small change to their approach, gain some awareness of how they show up, have one new tool in their toolbox to address a scenario, lead with curiosity before judgement, and so on.  My goal is these small changes make tiny ripples which reach out to impact their relationships at work, at home, and with their friends and family.  This small change will then influence those around them to also explore small changes within themselves and so on, and so on it goes as the ripples become waves in the ocean, stretching far and wide.  My hope is that I will one day see a world where there are more “good boss” stories than “bad boss” stories, and where leadership training is the norm for all leaders at all levels.  This personal development tool, whether in a formal leadership program or simply seeking personal leadership skills, is valuable to all of us and needs to be made available to everyone.  This is how I plan to change the world.

Warwick is also on a path to change the world from what I can tell, and he is doing the same thing: providing opportunities to shift perspectives, provide new tools, and offer a place to build new relationships.  Horses have been with us for thousands of years and have watched us as we have evolved.  Our relationship with them has transformed right alongside, and they continue to show up for us, supporting us in this effort.  I feel we are finally reaching a time when the horses are being seen, heard, felt and gotten.  Warwick is a pivotal part of that transition along with (thankfully) many others like him.  He is providing one small ripple, which will turn into waves in the ocean.   He too is changing the world.

We hold the power within ourselves to change, to evolve, to get curious about the world around us and seek answers to life’s tough questions. This journey is a personal one, and it can be very long if we are lucky.  There is a symbol called the Unalome which Warwick has tattooed on his wrist, and I also have tattooed on my leg, which represents the journey of life on the path to enlightenment.  The journey is not straight, it is full of twists and turns, but this is where the lessons live.  The Unalome is a symbolic reminder to Enjoy the Journey.  So friends….in the words of Mr. Warwick Schiller: Journey On.

In good health,

Sonia 

PS: You can find Warwick Schiller’s Journey On podcast on all major streaming networks.  I can’t pick a favorite, just start listening!