What Horses Have Taught Me (so far)

I had an interesting conversation in the tack room yesterday. 

It was one of those great talks that keep replaying in your head and it highlighted how helping Westernaires has unexpected benefits.

I was asked about a post that I made on the wrangler Facebook page. It took me a little while to remember it. (Here’s the full post from Thanksgiving Day: “Thankful for the hardworking wrangler crew at Westernaires. It’s easy to learn from and work with such a positive and helpful group. Without question learning to understand and work with horses has made me a better man, a better father and husband and an overall better person (I’m much less of an ass now…I know, right? You should have seen me before!). Happy Thanksgiving everyone.”)

The question I got was: How am I a better man, a better father, a better person—now? 

There was a momentary flash of annoyance and frustration in my head—I’d walked into the tack room to fix a door, to get something done, to check something off of my to-do list, not to talk. Fortunately, that unhelpful feeling quickly faded. Standing next to the still-broken door, I took a breath and thought about the question and how I could answer it; and looking back I’m so glad that I did. How can I be helpful here?

For many years, on any given Saturday you’d have found me sitting in the car or on the bleachers impatiently waiting for my daughter to finish her ride. All that waiting was inching me towards insanity usually only seen in career politicians. I was spending time with my car, not my daughter. So we signed up together to be wranglers. I won’t be bored, I’ll be able to walk behind the scenes and I’ll get to spend time with my daughter. Lots of things to check off my list there.

A year later, I find myself not in my car, but standing in the tack room thinking about my life and what’s different now. And in a mental montage that someday may be worth watching on a streaming service I realized that working with horses has changed me. Or maybe I have changed so that I can better work with horses.

I’ve always struggled with finding patience—with myself and with my children, my wife and the world. Patience is a trait that goes over well with horses—they are huge fans of it. If you slow down, are purposeful, think about things from their perspective and try to teach something in several different ways, your success rate will improve. Time doesn’t mean a whole lot when you are learning to bridle a horse for the first time.

So I found myself some patience, of all places, in the pasture at Westernaires—I’m still searching for more, but I’m off to a great start. I’m kinder to myself, my children, my loving wife and the world at large. I’ve learned that the slow, deep breath I often use to calm myself before approaching a nervous Zephyr on farrier day or a very excited Fast Eddie when it’s time to tack him on a Saturday morning works surprisingly well everywhere—whether I’m stuck behind the slowest car in the universe or speaking with my children after something in our lives has gone amiss.

The other answer I gave was that I’ve been working on doing my best to be helpful. I don’t always pick the job I want to do, I do my best to do the job that is most helpful to Westernaires. And when I find myself thinking about a situation with a horse or a social interaction with another person, if I feel it necessary to mentally categorize what’s going on, I divide things that happen as helpful or not helpful. It’s a surprisingly powerful litmus test. It’s much easier to push forward with a positive attitude and get things done when you are able to recognize something as helpful (or not helpful) instead of thinking of it as good or bad. With good or bad its much easier for me to let my emotions sweep me away and before I know it, I’m arguing instead of doing something beneficial. When most things are either helpful or not helpful, it’s easier to keep some distance and to give yourself the patience to think about something in the most helpful way possible. 

I’m not spending as much time thinking and judging what’s going on around me; now I’m spending more time being helpful, more time trying to be the kind of father, husband and man I want to be. 

I remember a year ago receiving advice from wranglers who told me that a horse can sense your emotional state; if you’re nervous, anxious or stressed horses will react to that. I didn’t believe them at the time, but I do now. It may not be that the horses sense your emotions, maybe it just centers on the fact that you’re choosing calm, you’re choosing patience. However it works, rest assured that it does.

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Westernaires is a non-profit organization located in Golden, Colorado, comprised of over 1,000 dedicated young people, aged 9 to 19. they encourage self-respect, responsibility and leadership through horsemanship and family participation. Since 1949, Westernaires has proudly trained young people to use their talents and skills in the best traditions of the West.

For more information on Westernaires, visit: www.westernaires.org