Stop Projecting!

Tank is my big momma, who taught me so many lessons, she will be leaving the world in about a week, so I'm sharing her teachings.

When I got Tank I was at a very vulnerable and broken point in my life, past trauma had boiled up, I was explosive and suffering. I saw Tank as my savior, my therapist, my support system, I saw her as my everything. I relied hard on her to keep me together through very hard things. She was often up to the job, but sometimes, she wasn't, and this hurt me so deeply.

Horses are incredible healers, their quiet, gentle souls stitch our broken hearts back up. They carry us physically and emotionally through so much more than we realize. I took everything Tank did as a personal reflection of myself, as an ethical person, as a trainer, and my ability to have a future with horses. I put so much intense pressure on our relationship and it was crushing, to both of us. I'm not sure when I realized, I don't think it was just one moment. There were days I watched Tank struggle to handle things and I immediately went to my own self-doubt, self-shaming, saw all my flaws. Like they say a horse is a reflection of us, so if she is flawed, it must be because of me?

This WHOLE mentality carries this underlying self-focused theme. My horses are not a reflection of me, they are themselves. They are born whole and complete and full beings. Then they grow up and life happens to them and they become who they become and bring with them their own baggage. They have their own full, emotional lives. While they can be great supports to us, they aren't here to fix us.

When Tank has a bad day, it's not because I'm a failure, it's because life has hurt Tank, and she needs help to heal herself. Rather than focusing on how Tank can help me, how Tank can heal me from my traumas and emotional mess, I had to stop and focus on how I could be there for HER. How could I bring comfort, safety, autonomy, and love back into her life?

When I stopped focusing on trying to read every behavior of Tank's as a thing that was meant FOR me, or About me, and realized it was about her and her needs, I was finally able to help her. Tank's behavior isn't a reflection of my mental health - it's a display of HER mental health. She isn't a tool to heal my brokenness, she is my friend and she is in pain and I can help her, despite me being a bit broken at that time.

In helping her, I found help for myself, because she needed me to be better to help her. In helping her I learned so much about psychology, mental health, neuroscience, behavioral health, and various types of therapies and even spiritualities. These became tools I used for myself too, with her as my motivation to heal, but not my crutch or duct tape keeping me together.

We need to shake this self-focused idea that horses are here as our therapy guides, that they are just a tool for our own healing, that they are just a reflection of what we put on them. We need to remember that they are whole beings, with their own mental health, emotions and feelings. They can be a supportive friend for us, but we need to be there for them as much as they are there for us, as with any friend.