Breathing Room

One of the dictionary definitions of breathe is to make manifest. Another is live. Another is to pause and rest before continuing.

Remembering to breathe has always been a problem of mine. Really. I'd be concentrating on something so hard I'd forget to breathe. It might have been taking tests, or learning dance steps or any of a number of tasks I was concentrating soooo much on, that I'd just forget to breathe.

I'd hold my breath. Holding your breath you are not relaxed. You are not making anything manifest, you are not living and you are not pausing and resting before continuing. You are frozen, tense...and waiting. Probably waiting to take your next breath, only maybe you don't realize that.

The word inspiration (also respiration) comes from the same root meaning. Inspiration is to breathe life into an idea. When you don't breathe, there is no life. Nothing can happen. Dead.

So, I realized that a lot of the time I was on this horse I was holding my breath. That couldn't have felt very relaxing to Autumn, and I'm sure I was not feeling very relaxed. I was waiting for what she was going to do next. I was in a very re-active mode, not an active one. If you are not active, you are not the leader. You need to be the leader of your horse. They are waiting for you to tell them what to do.

From the horse's point of view, a "leader" who is perched as rigid as a clothespin on their back, not breathing, is not a leader. They are a nervous wreck. How much confidence do you think that inspires in the horse?

To my little horse's credit, she didn't particularly take advantage of my non-leadership stance. She was giving me the benefit of the doubt, more or less. Are you asking me to do this? Are you asking me to go faster? Are you asking me to not move? Poor thing, she was probably trying to constantly second-guess me.

Other horses are not so kind. They get pissed off. What the !@##! are you doing up there? What do you want? Get off my back!! Now.

In my head I might have been thinking "I want to go right." My body might have told her "go straight" or "I'm not sure where I want to go." So she'd decide for us. Breathing may not be the total answer to being a balanced leader, but you sure can't be one without it!

Before you can get your body to relax (and your mind) you need to breathe. Consciously, sometimes. In...out...in...out. See? Not so hard. It can be, though, once your brain gets taken over with the ugly What Ifs. What if she (fill in the blank)...bucks, rears, jumps sideways, bolts, stops, goes too fast, goes too slow (never an issue with Autumn)? Never mind that she'd never done most of this.

Now that fear had entered the equation, and I accepted that unexpected, bad things can happen, I was waiting for the "what next." What else was she going to do? I was waiting for something bad to happen. Not a particularly confident, leadership place to be...neither in life in general, nor with a horse, specifically.

I was totally projecting into the future, instead of being present in the moment, as they say. The NOW was playing second fiddle to the NEXT. I was always worried. Worry is putting fear into the future.

Unfortunately, the light bulb about breathing didn't really go on. I'd think of it, I'd stop and breathe, and make it through the day. But it just doesn't change that fast. Going from rigid, non-breathing, lack of confidence to relaxed and breathing and confident does not happen overnight, just because you make that decision. Getting your brain on board is one thing; getting your body on the same page is quite another. Especially when you are in your, shall we say, mature years?

It takes time. It takes patience. It takes determination. It takes learning about your limits as well as your horse's. It takes discipline. It takes a teacher.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Boy, was I ready. Now...where's that teacher?