As people we decide daily who to listen to or engage with and we do this by reading or feeling the energy of others.  A horse also has this ability.  So what do you do when a horse decides not to engage/listen to you? Most horse people would tell you to increase the pressure until you get the response you are after. I question that answer with the following thought.

What if the answer was in the truth of what it would take for you to engage/listen to a person you are turned off by and have chosen not to engage/listen to? The truth is for you to engage with someone you have consciously or unconsciously decided not to engage with, they would have to change their energy. And if they didn’t change their energy and yet you were forced to engage with them (the pressure was increased) what would your internal response be? Would you trust them or would you always be looking for a way out, an escape route? Would you be angry or fearful?

Would you feel a connection with them? Is this the situation you want to be in with a horse? Lets explore this further.

Do you engage willingly with someone who is uncomfortable, not confident, untrustworthy, untruthful, or unsure? Or would you be more inspired to engage with someone who is comfortable with themselves, confident with what they are doing, trustworthy, truthful and sure of themselves?

These are all energetic feelings that we get from others. Horses pick these energetic feelings up and respond to them faster than people do. People for the most part have been taught to ignore how they are really feeling and just push through. “Fake it until you make it.” This leaves people pretending that they are confident, when in reality they are not. When people pretend, most horses will show them they don’t want to engage with them by not listening to them. Just like you don’t listen to people you think aren’t qualified to be talking to you.

A horse will quickly pick up on how you are truly feeling and will not willingly engage with a leader who is having negative hidden feelings about themselves. And if you are truthful with yourself you are just like the horse, that is why you don’t want to engage with that person that is hiding what they really don’t know and who they really are.

So how do we rise above this and become that person that is truly a leader we willingly want to engage with? My answer is take the time to learn and master the skills you know down deep in your heart you are lacking. It is only through mastery of something that you will gain the above positive thoughts about yourself that will draw people and horses into wanting to engage with you. As a society I believe we need to stop lying to ourselves and our children about how great we are and really put some time and effort into mastering what we want people or horses to engage with us about. If I want to be a leader for a horse I must master being confident, comfortable, trustworthy, truthful and sure of myself.

Maybe the next time you decide to add more pressure to get a horse to listen, you could think about the last time you were forced to engage with someone you felt like running from. And just maybe you could work on yourself, to be worthy of the attention of the horse…just a thought.