Finding calm

Read this, it's a little long, but worth it, I think.

"In observing his [Merlin, the author's highly traumatized and reactive stallion] behavior over time (well, really more like enduring and surviving his behavior over time), I found the trauma pattern to be 'consistently erratic.' Merlin seemed to try, sincerely, to keep it together. he was at times engaged and filled with promise, intelligent, and even enthusiastic about learning something new. Then suddenly, seemingly without warning, he'd trip off into a rage, whereupon he'd either lunge toward the handler, rearing and striking with teeth bared, or pull away and run so frantically he'd lose his balance and slide on his side, sometimes ten or fifteen feet across the arena into the fence, scraping his hide, lying there for ten minutes covered with sweat, staring blankly as if he'd given up the ghost while his pulse was racing frantically. These tantrums were heartbreaking to witness, and absolutely horrific if you happened to be in there with him.

At the same time, touch was so offensive to Merlin that experienced equine massage therapists, T-Touch specialists, and veterinary acupuncturists couldn't get near him. While the stallion's response to training techniques would send him into an occasional, unpredictable rage, putting your hands anywhere near his hide sent him into an instantaneous, guaranteed rage. ... for the first week or two, doing nothing with Merlin involved a high level of vigilance and some serious self-defense skills.

The strategy seemed simple enough. I decided to see how far away I needed to stand from Merlin in order for the horse to calm down. My goal was to start from this place, and move closer, day by day, inch by inch, until I was finally touching him. Instead, I found that Merlin demanded I stand in the same place day after day, about five feet from his body. If I even leaned in, he would pin his ears and begin to show the first signs of flight-or-fight. So I simplified the goal even further. Thinking that perhaps i would have to stand there until Merlin finally trusted me, I spent ten to thirty minutes each day standing in the corral with the stallion, five feet away from him, holding a whip in a neutral position in case he decided to attack, which he was progressively motivated to do. After a week, it seemed like he looked forward to a form of companionship that asked nothing from either of us.

Standing there for days on end, I developed a relaxed yet heightened state of awareness -- out of necessity. If I held my breath or tensed my body in any way, Merlin would do the same, which meant he would either move away or attack. In terms of his or my rising physiological arousal, however, it was actually difficult at times to tell 'who started it.' Because Merlin's demeanor could change so quickly, it didn't matter who started it. I had to address the situation immediately or it would get out of hand. And so I began to think and react not in terms of who was afraid, angry, or agitated but more along the lines of assessing when fear, anger, and/or agitation were present in the horse-human system. By noticing the slightest rise in my own blood pressure, heart rate, or tension, then immediately adding breath and relaxation while simultaneously holding my ground, I could calm Merlin at a distance of five feet, often without lifting the whip -- if I noticed the shift in its earliest, most subtle form and took immediate action to calm my own body while simultaneously  conveying strength and power." (pp. 182-3 in The Power of the Herd by Linda Kohanov)

If you have ever wondered what it is like to live with a highly traumatized and reactive child then go back and read that passage again. Before I continue, do not think for a moment that I am equating a child and an animal, but brains in mammals have been shown to process emotion and trauma in the same places and there is a lot we can learn from the animals in our midst. Also, in many ways, I think parents who are in the thick of it can find more emotional compassion for an animal than for a child... the parenting is just that hard.

I don't know if reading this passage struck you as forcefully as it struck me, but after I read it, I had to stop for a moment and catch my breath, then read it again to make sure I read what I had thought I read. I have never felt as seen and understood by someone as when I read this passage. All of it... the high reactivity that would come from no where, the aggression, the out-of-controlness, the inability to tolerate touch, the seeming hopelessness... was there captured by a woman who just wanted to give that stallion a decent home and make him feel safe. 

But it wasn't just the description of the hurt, but how she finally managed to win his trust. The season of the only goal being trying not to elicit a fear response, of just being present and not doing anything, the tentative overtures of care that were rebuffed, the inch by incremental inch of progress, I've been there. And then the realization of how attuned our emotions were and the necessity of me being able to manage my own emotions first, of taking many deep, slow breaths the second I found my pulse starting to increase. Over and over and over. The experience changed me deeply. 

The book is The Power of the Herd: A Nonpredatory Approach to Social Intelligence, Leadership, and Innovation by Linda Kohanov. It was quoted in some of the course materials for my Equine Facilitated Learning license. It sounded interesting so I checked it out of the library. I have spent the weekend doing little else but read this book. I am finding it so fascinating as it covers history, brain science, sociology, and of course, horses. I am finding it so thought provoking that I will be ordering my own copy of it, and I have added four or five more books to my reading list. 

Healing is possible. Merlin went on to be able to live in a herd and to accept human contact. My child can give and receive love in the safety of a family. But in both cases, the change had to come from outside the hurt being. The hurt had caused such damage that there was not the possibility to change on their own, only react in ways that caused harm to themselves and those around them. It was the people who were reaching out who had to change first, who had to understand that their calm could be transferred if only that calm could be maintained. 

And here is why I want to do this work. Understanding oneself to know what emotions you are projecting can be hard. Learning to maintain calm in the face of trauma is hard. But because horses can reflect back to us the emotions we are projecting, we can use them as mirrors to know ourselves better and make positive changes. Then, if we can make those changes, we can then be in a place to enable our hurt children to begin to calm and heal.