Judgement.. Humans Do and Horses Don't

I was giving a presentation the other day and whilst telling a little snippet of my story I saw a women in the audience showing sympathy with sad and painful facial expressions, it did not make me feel good. It had been a sad story but it had happy ending and I didn't like being reminded of the pain and sadness it had caused me. I was reminded of this as I was thinking about judgement, how one word can arouse judgement from another person. I believe we all judge based on experience, these experiences become the templates for our encounters in similar situations. So, going back to my experience with the lady in the audience and how she made me feel, her experience of my story was sadness and pain and that is what she reflected back to me, causing all sorts of triggers for me.

The horse does not judge at all, he treats each individual the same and reacts with non verbal communication. How does this help? It enables people, maybe for the first time, to not feel judged and become triggered by another human. If you keep getting labelled you begin to believe the label and become what is says is in the jar. If you have a condition every service provider you go to has their perceived understanding of what is in the jar.

When the client meets the horse in a beautiful natural environment they can be relaxed as they are not being judged by the horse. The clients barriers come down and slowly they start to be who they truely are, their authentic self. When a client is with the horse there is nothing to hide, the horse facilitates the client by reacting to the clients body language. In time the client begins to recognise sensations in their bodies, thoughts they are having, breathing patterns and how this affects behaviour by seeing how the horse reacts.

So why do humans judge? Is it lazyness? it is easier to default to our memory bank recall the condition and then say "Oh Yes I understand" with a knowing look and a head full of preconceived ideas that go with the condition. In other words pass judgement. What would it take for humans to be more horse like and not judge? Despite humans knowledge of a condition, how difficult would it to be present to people with a blank page? A judgement through a look, a facial expression, a word can put a person into their assigned jar and prevent them from discovering who they really are.

Being with the horses has made me so aware of judgement, reminding me to stop, take a breath and not pull down those stored memories that relate to my experience of a condition or circumstance. In doing that I hold a space for people to be themselves.