Transitions

Posted by The Divine Cowgirl on May 18th, 2009 at 01:18pm

“All change begins with endings” – Bridges from the book Transitions

Riding horses is one transition after another. As students move from walk to trot; trot to halt; halt to canter and all the possible combinations within each gait, they learn both to handle their bodies and support their horse partners in the process of change.

I have noticed over the years that how we handle change both in the arena and life tells a lot about what we believe. I have also noticed that neither life nor horses come with an instruction manual and both require us to do a bit of research and learning to have optimal experiences.

I taught my riding students that transitions have three parts. First there is the preparation, in your mind you make the decision that some type of change is going to occur. Second there is the “riding” of the actual change. And finally there is the release into the next phase. In riding terms, the first phase requires shortening the reins because the horse’s frame will shorten as it collects itself in preparation for what is to come next. Shortening the reins also signals to the horse that something is coming. It is the beginning stages of communicating change.

Flowing into the middle phase, the rider does a half-halt, or a stopping of forward movement with the body and a lift of the pelvis which supports the horse in drawing its hind legs under itself and closing its frame. The final phase is the rider releasing the horse to flow into its next movement.

As you can imagine all of this requires timing and coordination. It also requires understanding how the horse moves and balances. And it requires communicating in the language the horse understands. So often I have witnessed owners try make a gait change by simply pulling in the horse’s mouth. They approach riding like they drive a car. They see the horse’s mouth as the brake and just like some drivers hang on the brake.

The problem is the mouth is NOT the brake. Riding is really learning to control the horse’s body and hind quarters. Riding requires us to understand the physiology of the horse. We learn that the horse must engage its hindquarters and we must learn how not to interfere by pulling on the mouth which inadvertently dumps the horse onto its forehand and out of balance.

Often the rider finds themselves in a tug-of-war with the horse and ultimately blaming the horse for the transition and in reality the human is the one who sets the tone and creates the experience.

What I have noticed is that most riders give little thought to the transition. Instead of preparing for and becoming conscious of the change, they let the change surprise them. I have noticed that in life too. As a culture we don’t deal with change well. We don’t talk about change or transition productively. We often are victimized by the surprise of what seemed to suddenly come to us. And while we can’t always see change coming in our lives, we can have a plan on how to deal with it.

The first step in dealing with transitions is to know that life is one transition after another. Life is not about one gear, one flavor or one idea. We are engaged in constant change. Our bodies change, our status changes, our passions change, our work changes, our families change, our friends change, we move, we travel and the list goes on and on.

The second step is actually surrender – letting go of our need to control life. Even in riding you can prepare and set up the transition to go smoothly and still get something entirely different. Life sometimes has different ideas of what is to come next. AND we can decide how to navigate whatever comes our way. Our preparation is in how to relax rather than stress or attempt to control. We take a moment and collect ourselves and our consciousness. We can be a victim to life or we can decide that there is a powerful way to move into the next life experience.

Our job is to be present. If we are in the moment rather than in our history or our fear, we can perceive what the next step is. Being present allows to respond rather than react to circumstances.

Having navigated many life transactions, I can honestly say I have experienced them in struggle and in surrender. Both get you through the experience; one gets you there with a little more grace.

The whole point of this blog is to bring to our consciousness the knowing that we have choice in how we deal with change. In my mind we owe it to ourselves to pause and take a deep breath when we become aware that we are in a transition. Rather than get caught up in what we need to do next, we can become aware of who we want to be in this shift. We can decide we are grounded or that we are peaceful or any number of states of being rather than be the drama queen. Responding rather reacting allows us to be awake to possibilities. Reacting allows us to be focused on getting attention to what may be wrong or hard.

How do you deal with transitions? What has been hard or what has been easy in change or endings in your life? What would you do differently in your next experience with change?

Let me know what you think,

The Divine Cowgirl

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