Trust is a scary thing.
In order to fully trust someone you have to completely make yourself vulnerable to getting hurt. We’ve all experienced being hurt by someone we thought we trusted.
With horses they tell you never to trust them. As soon as you trust them you let your guard down and get hurt. I have to respectfully disagree with this common belief. Riding is a partnership; you have to trust each other. Let me explain.
Horses naturally avoid water of which they cannot judge the depth of. It’s a self-preservation instinct. A puddle no wider than four feet could literally be an endless pit of painful death…to a horse. We, as humans, understand that the four foot wide puddle is not an endless pit and that they can in fact walk through it and survive to annihilate their grain that night.
This is where the trust comes in. My horse trusts that I will never put him in a situation that will cause him harm. He doesn’t know for sure that at some point I won’t, but he trusts that I will protect him. Based off of past events, he is right. I’ve never given him a reason to doubt me.
In the same regards I trust him to know where his feet are at all times. I trust that he will listen to me when I pull him up from a gallop, or when I lead him down a bank he isn’t sure about. He’s 1,700 pounds; I have to trust that he won’t decide that having my on his back is the worst thing ever!
So we trust each other, and ride in harmony…every once in a while questioning each other, but always giving up the luxury of adamant knowledge for the blissfully blind trust. Things are peaceful, and everyone is happy and confident in each other. There are mistakes made, no one is perfect…but we trust each other enough to understand that the mistakes made were not in order to cause harm…perhaps just someone thinking they knew better than the other, or a simple missed judgment.
Like taking the long spot on a jump…just simple missed judgment.
Why can’t people be more like horses?
In order to fully trust someone you have to completely make yourself vulnerable to getting hurt. We’ve all experienced being hurt by someone we thought we trusted.
With horses they tell you never to trust them. As soon as you trust them you let your guard down and get hurt. I have to respectfully disagree with this common belief. Riding is a partnership; you have to trust each other. Let me explain.
Horses naturally avoid water of which they cannot judge the depth of. It’s a self-preservation instinct. A puddle no wider than four feet could literally be an endless pit of painful death…to a horse. We, as humans, understand that the four foot wide puddle is not an endless pit and that they can in fact walk through it and survive to annihilate their grain that night.
This is where the trust comes in. My horse trusts that I will never put him in a situation that will cause him harm. He doesn’t know for sure that at some point I won’t, but he trusts that I will protect him. Based off of past events, he is right. I’ve never given him a reason to doubt me.
In the same regards I trust him to know where his feet are at all times. I trust that he will listen to me when I pull him up from a gallop, or when I lead him down a bank he isn’t sure about. He’s 1,700 pounds; I have to trust that he won’t decide that having my on his back is the worst thing ever!
So we trust each other, and ride in harmony…every once in a while questioning each other, but always giving up the luxury of adamant knowledge for the blissfully blind trust. Things are peaceful, and everyone is happy and confident in each other. There are mistakes made, no one is perfect…but we trust each other enough to understand that the mistakes made were not in order to cause harm…perhaps just someone thinking they knew better than the other, or a simple missed judgment.
Like taking the long spot on a jump…just simple missed judgment.
Why can’t people be more like horses?
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