A little while back, good friend of mine was sharing with me a conversation she’d had with her father….. “Dad I’m so unbelievable frustrated!” “I feel like I’m here to help change the world. Yet, when I look at the world it feels as though it’s this enormous, angry tornado that is breaking apart, fragmenting, and annihilate everything in it’s path. Dad, I feel like I’m battling this giant tornado with the equivalent of a hair dryer.”
My friend’s father smiled and said, “Well honey, why don’t you just try creating a larger tornado that can engulf the existing one?” “Become the energetic force you’re wishing to create in the world and let the power of that momentum pull the old tornado into it’s path.
It was the kind of unexpected but truly brilliant response that comes from living a full life and maturing into the age of the wise elder.
Many of you can probably relate to this sensation. When you look at your own personal life it may feel like your life is pulling you in 10 different directions at once.
– You’re trying to help the kids get their breakfast and get everyone out to door on time.
- You keep getting a strange urge to research the effects of musical drumming.
– You’re working extra hours to support your boss with the latest creative project. – You’re trying to be supportive and plan a wedding for your niece in your spare time.
– Your computer just broke.
– Your grandfather just passed away and your family is in a uproar about what type of ceremony he would have wanted
Some of the chaos is amazing, some of the chaos is the never ending challenge of living a life in this modern age, and some of the chaos is down right depressing, confusing and utterly frustrating.
So how exactly do you form another tornado? One with a still center of joy.
Nature and horses have left me standing in awe each and every time I choose to slow down for a moment and listen to it’s ancient wisdom. One of the primary messages is that “Life (a.k.a. the tornado) forms around our emotional energy states.
For instance, take my client Sarah, who recently showed up for an Equus Coaching TM session, “I just want to see this horse run through the arena, she said” “I’m trying everything I know how in order to encourage the horse to run but it’s clearly not happening!”
“What are you actually feeling in this moment,” I asked her.
“I’m feeling frustrated, she muttered.”
What do you imagine the sensation of running or galloping might feel like to a horse?” I asked her.
“Um well, I guess it probably feels, light hearted, playful and free”, Sarah responded.
“ Wonderful! What part of you is honestly feeling light hearted, playful and free? I asked.
“I’m not feeling that way at all I feel frustrated and I feel like I’m a failure at this, Sarah fumed”
So you might ask, is Sarah just suppose to just tap her rosy red shoes and hope that she can leap into a new emotional energy state of light heartedness and freedom? Not exactly.
Horses have shown me that we have to open up to the true emotional state we are currently in and embrace fully it. In other words, stop denying and/or resisting the confusion, sadness, overwhelm. Opening the kink in the emotional hose, is vital to let all the emotional energy flow without our intense cultural judgements of which emotions are good and which ones are bad. Only then, can we free ourselves to begin cultivating a new authentic emotional energy state.
When I witness clients like Sarah embrace their true emotions I watch nature sigh a big sigh of relief. It happens almost instantaneously as we more we become honest and connect with ourselves, the horse seeks to connect more deeply with us.
Sarah begins to laugh. She tosses her hands in the air with a gesture of playful surrender. Unbeknownst to her, a new tornado is organically forming. The pressure of trying to preform and do well by the horse was the same familiar pressure she always carried around to perform well so others would like her.
As we spoke and gently started to release her internal kink, she slowly began to feel compassion towards herself. The lines of frustration on her face from a lack of prefect execution shifted into a light hearted more carefree smile. It dawned on her that the only approval she ever needed was her own. Suddenly the horse began to run!