Episode 299: Thematic Thinking: Unlocking New Perspectives

Episode 299: Thematic Thinking: Unlocking New Perspectives.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 299: Thematic Thinking: Unlocking New Perspectives.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
I think you already have this skill somewhere else in your life, and if you can learn to transfer that skill over to being with your horses, I think it's going to unlock some things for you.

Speaker2:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Speaker1:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to help you understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In this episode, I want to share something with you that I do regularly that I notice can be a challenge for riders. I'm going to explain how I do it so that you can decide if you'd like to try it too. If you're a longtime podcast listener, you may have noticed that the podcasts often run in themes. Let's pause for a moment and look at the last five episodes, or I guess four, including this one, which makes it five. When I look back, I see allowing choices. Building your equestrian toolbox. Marking mistakes and mimicry. Limits when copying isn't enough. And then this podcast. And when I look at them in my mind, I see one theory that I have been looking at from different angles this whole time and the thing that unites all of these in my mind is mistakes. So the one theory that I am pursuing in my thinking and have been for the last six weeks is the idea of mistakes. And mistakes can be my mistakes, and mistakes can be the horse's mistakes. Another thing that I'm doing is that each of my horses has a specific task that I'm focused on for a period of time. I'm going to talk more about that in a minute. Let's focus for just a minute on the idea of having a theory that I'm thinking about. So the theme that I see when I look back over the episodes you've been listening to again would be the theme of mistakes or limitations.

Speaker1:
And when I am recording these podcasts week after week, the way that I'm actually experiencing this is I go out and I ride my horses, I go out and I feed my horses, I go out and I lead my horses in and out. I'm basically handling my horses. And while I'm doing that, I'm thinking about you, the listener of this podcast, and I'm thinking about you who are listening to this podcast, who are also my students inside my different programs. So I'm out there with my horses doing whatever it is I'm doing. Let's use Ember as an example. So I'm getting ready to start her under saddle. So I'm out there. I'm with them when I'm feeding them, I'm handling them and I'm watching myself do this, and I'm watching myself do this while I'm thinking about mistakes. Mine and the horses, and I'm thinking about you. If it sounds like a lot, what I want you to actually think about is that someone who's been cooking, like, maybe there's a cooking TV show that you like, you can often see somebody who's cooking in the kitchen preparing several different things at the same time. There's kind of this front burner thing they're working on, and maybe they've got something simmering on a back burner, and maybe they've got something in the oven and they're probably having a conversation with somebody. If it's a TV show, might be having a conversation with the TV crew.

Speaker1:
So a cook who has experience is doing all of these different things at the same time. The thing on the front burner is the thing they're actively handling and doing, and the thing on the back burner is something that they know they have an idea of how long to leave it simmering back there and the thing in the oven same way. So this is the way that your brain can work. If you look around, you do this in other areas. Maybe you're driving your car, maybe you're at your job, maybe there's something that you're doing where it's like you can actually separate the front burner thing and the back burner thing. So that's what's happening when I'm out in the barn. And because I've been doing the horse training and being with my horses in this highly interactive way, that's very consistent. It happens to be an area where I'm unconsciously competent most of the time. So that means, in case you're not sure what that means, go back to episode five, The Four Stages of Competency. But I'm unconsciously competent at a lot of times, which means it's like the cooking. It's just part of what I do, so I don't have to think about it a lot. Although when you look at episode 296, From Theory to Saddle building your equestrian toolbox that week when I was recording that episode, I was actually thinking about how when I haven't done something recently, like starting a Colt, if it's not something I've been doing a lot recently, it feels like pulling out tools that I haven't used for a while.

Speaker1:
And the reason I want to share this with you is because I truly do believe that you already know how to use this skill of having something on the front burner and something on the back burner. I think you already have this skill somewhere else in your life, and if you can learn to transfer that skill over to being with your horses, I think it's going to unlock some things for you. So let me continue on sharing how I do it, so you can look for how you might be able to do it too. So again, when I'm out there and I'm working with my horses, I have you, the listener or my student in mind. And that is not a weird thing for me because I've been doing it for a long time. What it feels like to me is it feels more like you had a conversation with your friend last weekend, and you're about to see that same friend again this weekend, and maybe your conversation was about, I don't know, whatever hobby you guys have together, let's just say it's biking. And so you were out biking on Tuesday and Wednesday, and while you were biking, you had an experience that you want to share with your friend next Saturday. And so when I am thinking about you, it's more in that context.

Speaker1:
But what's amazing about doing something like that is that it makes me notice the things that I'm doing, which means that by default, me thinking about you and recording this podcast or you as a friend that I'm going to meet up with again next weekend, that actually dials up my awareness of the things I'm doing and the things I'm experiencing. And that means that for me, some of the things that are a little unconscious because I'm unconsciously competent, my muscle memory and my thinking patterns are so developed that I'm not thinking about it. I'm just doing it. That brings up my awareness to what I'm just doing, so I can share it with my friend the next weekend when I see them. So one way that you could take that and you could actually do that, would be whether you were having an actual conversation with a friend week to week, or whether you were actually doing journaling week to week, you could actually bring your own awareness up by simply sitting down once a week and journaling about your discoveries. You could bring your own awareness up of what you experienced, what you were doing, what your theory was for, why something happened. You could do that with a notebook on your own, or you could do some version of this with another person. So let's look specifically at this week. At the beginning of the podcast, I said, I want to share with you something I do regularly that I notice can be a challenge for the riders.

Speaker1:
And what I do is I always have a theory that I'm thinking about a concept, and I focus on that one theory across the board with all my horses and mistakes or limitations, but specifically mistakes. That's my current focus. So I'm watching for mistakes. Mine and the horses. On top of that, each horse has a particular focus that I'm working on, and the example I'm going to use the most in this podcast is going to be Amber. So another thing you can pause and think about is do you have a theory that you are thinking about day after day, week after week, let's say for 2 to 4 weeks in a row? If you've never tried that, I highly recommend it. And I know it might sound like focusing on mistakes is a terrible thing to focus on, but it's actually quite freeing in my experience, because I get to start to see and discover all those things that I have recorded podcasts on, like marking mistakes or when copying isn't enough, or even the episode on allowing choices. These are all ideas that came up because I'm willing to focus on me thinking about mistakes from many different angles. One thing that really stands out to me from this week is how amazing it is that horses can learn what to pay attention to and what to ignore, and that is a different way of looking at mistakes. So, for example, this was a milestone kind of a week for Amber because I went from doing 100% groundwork to her first ride this week, which means that there was the first mounting.

Speaker1:
And when I am mounting and dismounting on a young horse for the first time, I actually have things I do that are sloppy on purpose. For example, when I am mounting and dismounting, I actually let my foot bump into their butt while I'm doing that right off the bat when I'm doing it for the very first time, and the reason I do that, the reason I'm sloppy on purpose is because it's basically like a planned mistake. So embers first experience with mounting and dismounting, I actually do it more in the dismount at the beginning is that as I go to swing my leg and dismount, I'm going to let my foot brush across her rump. And because I'm being sloppy on purpose, she will accept early on that that's a thing that could happen. So rather than mounting perfectly and dismounting perfectly from the beginning, I'm actually bringing what could be considered mistakes. I'm bringing those along on purpose, because if I know I'm about to do it on purpose, let's use the dismount. If I know that as I'm dismounting, I'm going to let my foot bump into her rump, then I'm going to be prepared for the possible reaction she could have. I'm going to prepare her differently before I even mount. I'm going to support her differently as I dismount.

Speaker1:
And in doing all of that, I'm going to prepare her for actual mistakes by basically practicing a mistake right from the beginning. When you can look at mistakes as learning opportunities, you will literally go from not judging them to looking at how you can build them into the training process. When I think about explaining, mounting, and dismounting on Ember, I can actually imagine that it would be a challenge to believe that a horse is capable of being okay with these sloppy things right off the bat, and then not only being okay with those sloppy things, but then being able to identify when I do want her to move. I'm saying that when I'm mounting Ember or dismounting, Amber and I bumper with my foot, I don't want her to have a reaction. And then at the same time, I'm also saying that once I mount up, I want to be able to have her move. So there's an actual challenge there. If you slow down and think about your own experience, it can be challenging for riders to think that the horse is going to have trouble understanding those two different concepts. So the very first thing you have to do is you actually have to believe that the horse can do this. I have to believe that Ember can have both of these thinkings. If someone doesn't believe this, what they tend to do is they either tend to get the horse really sensitive to movement. So moving forward with the whip or the voice or the leg, and then because they've made them really sensitive, they tiptoe around trying not to accidentally have the horse move and be sensitive.

Speaker1:
The other extreme of this is that the person might accept an overall dullness in an attempt to have a horse that doesn't overreact, and then that person who accepts an overall dullness, then what happens to that person is they struggle to get the horse to move or to keep the horse moving. And also by default, they struggle to keep the horse's attention. It is totally possible for the horse to be able to do both on the first ride. Why is this possible? How is this possible? How can the horse on the first ride tell the difference between Stacy accidentally bumping it in the butt, or Stacy wanting it to move. And what I want you to think about is that horses are really great at reading your energy. I like to call it your intention. And also in my world, rhythm is what teaches. So when I do something rhythmically, it draws the horse's attention to that thing where if I do something randomly, then it's more accepted in my horse's world that that was just probably an accident or a mistake here where I'm going with this. Let me give you a different example. So even though with Ember I was dismounting and I'm bumping into her, but accidentally, I actually had a moment this week where I rode Gabby and I was ponying Willow.

Speaker1:
And when I got done, I rode up to where I was going to Unsaddle and so I dismounted on the wrong side or Gabby's right side. The the not typical side to dismount on. I dismounted on that side and Willow was standing on that side also, and I noticed that I bumped into Willow again. Remember, I'm following a theme. I'm looking for things that could be labeled mistakes. And so I dismount. I accidentally bump into Willow, like legit accidentally bump into Willow, who totally ignores it because she's been around this for a long time. And then I proceed to start Unsaddling Gabby. Both horses are ground tied now, and I proceed to start Unsaddling Gabby. And in the middle of Unsaddling I pull the saddle off that off side also, and I walked over there and I pulled the saddle and the pad off and I went to turn and again I bumped into Willow, who's standing there, who again had no reaction. So accidentally bumping into Willow, that was truly random both times. Yes, you can say that. I could have like, thought about it or whatever, but the whole point is that she's understanding that these random things happen and she doesn't overreact to them. There's no rhythm. I wasn't focused, my intention wasn't focused on her. I wasn't giving her the impression that I was about to ask her to move and then ask her to move, and then having her move. And so I wasn't intentionally moving her.

Speaker1:
And she knows that mistakes are accidents can happen. So the bumping that I did when I accidentally bumped her dismounting and the bumping that I did when I accidentally unsaddled, both of which could easily be labeled as mistakes, could easily be marked. As I talked about in a past podcast, I didn't do any of that. I just accidentally bumped her. And because my awareness is turned up, I noticed it so I could remember to tell you about my mistake. Let's go back to Amber when I'm dismounting from Amber and when I go to bump into her on purpose to mimic an on accident. There's no rhythm, there's no intention. So when I bump into her with my foot accidentally on purpose, I'm mimicking an accidental thing and I'm giving her the opportunity to connect it as being very similar to those mistakes. Like I talked about back in episode 297, where I talked about accidentally bumping into her during groundwork. Are you seeing how all of this ties together? I hope so. One thing that I have mentioned, and I'm going to bring it back to your attention again now, is that dialing up your awareness, bringing up your awareness is an amazing thing. But when you bring up your awareness of what's happening, you will naturally bring up your awareness of things that are working and things that are not working. But you get to choose what you do with the information of the moments that aren't working. I have just shared with you a couple of things that could be easily labeled mistakes.

Speaker1:
And yet I'm also giving you my viewpoint of it, which is it's amazing that horses can learn to read our intention, to read our rhythm, that horses can learn to dismiss certain mistakes without that compromising their ability to also be sensitive to when we ask them to move. Because although Amber was completely tolerant and completely accepting of me, accidentally on purpose bumping into her, but when dismounting when I mounted up and I asked her to move forward for the very first time, she was also responsive. Why? Because I have been diligently working on teaching her a cue system that I could use from the ground that I could transfer onto her back. So when I mount it up and I ask her to move forward, and I use that same exact system that I've been practicing from the ground, she immediately recognized the rhythm. She immediately recognized the intention. And even though I'm now sitting on her back as opposed to standing beside her, She naturally filled in that blank with excellence, because the rhythm and the intention was the same as what was on the ground. As I sit here explaining this to you, the one thing I'm tempted to leave out, but I keep feeling drawn to remind you of, is stay in the wonder. When I am out there with the horses. When I am dismounting and noticing, bumping into willow, when I'm mounting and dismounting and I'm bumping into Amber.

Speaker1:
Stay in the wonder. And the amazement at how smart these horses are. Stay in the joy and the amazement I keep wanting to say. Wonder the curiosity of how smart they are and how capable they are. Because what I hope you hear when I talk about my horses and when I share my experiences with you. What I hope you really hear is there is a level of appreciation, amazement and wonder that I have as I watch the horse going through the learning process. And maybe you've taught a dog how to do tricks, and you've just been delighted by watching the dog figure something out. Or maybe you've had that experience by teaching other adults, or children or different animals. If you are the teacher that stays in the delight, the wonder, and the amazement it not only makes it a better experience for the student, it makes it a better experience for you. I would highly encourage you to also focus on one theory for an amount of time. Two weeks, four weeks, six weeks. I like to do it much longer than one day, and you can hear that echoed on the podcast. If you're not sure what theory to focus on, there are almost 300 episodes of this podcast. Grab any title that draws your interest, listen to that episode, and look for a theory that I'm presenting in there, and then take that theory and ponder on it. Journal about it every single day or every day that you work your horse and really think about it, because these theories are not just happening with your horse, these theories are happening in your life.

Speaker1:
So when I stay in the assignment in my own mind of making mistakes or limitations or how I think about mistakes or how I think about problems, that's not just impacting me with my horses, that's impacting me everywhere in my life. And that for me, is when things become really fun. Because any time that I can be thinking about principles or theories that work in life, and I can start to see them working with my horse, but I can also see how I'm showing up around mistakes in other areas of my life. My understanding of the topic, the theory that I am focused on begins to expand. This is also why at the beginning of every year, I tend to encourage people to look for themes of the year, and that would be another great podcast for you to go back and listen to. If you're looking for theories. Because theory a theme, anytime you start focusing on something for a longer amount of time, that's when you're really going to start to be able to view it from multiple angles. Think about looking at a diamond. It has different sparkles and different things that show up when you look at it from different angles. And that brings me to my final point. One of the real challenges that people have with focusing on one theory, or focusing on one task with their horse, and improving that for a set period of time, is that it can often feel like there are so many things that need to be done.

Speaker1:
But what I hope you can begin to see as I share examples here for you, is that when you focus on one thing over a period of time, you begin to develop a depth in that one area. So when you focus on how mistakes might not be the worst thing in the world, how mistakes can actually be a benefit, how mistakes can be differentiated from the the rhythmic things or the intentional things that you're going to do when you begin to focus on one thing and you begin to explore that theory deeper, it actually takes you deeper in all areas with your horse. So it doesn't matter whether you're focused on teaching your horse to back up better, or whether you're teaching your horse to steer better, or whether you're teaching your horse to respond to voice cues better. When you start to really focus on a specific task, especially overlapped with a specific theory, you can really start to see the themes that go through training a horse. Focus on one task, focus on one theory. Enjoy the process, stay in the wonder, and don't be in the rush. It is such a fun way to be with your horses. That's what I have for you this week. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall. Com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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