Overcoming Fear

By: Kasey Thompson, U.S.A.

There she was, my dear wife of 20 years, Jennifer staring straight into the flared nostrils of an animal she had feared nearly her whole life. My 7-year-old bay quarter horse, who moments earlier was bucking and running with all the excitement of the whole wild west, ran right at her, slowed from a gallop to a trot, to a walk, and stopped cold only a few inches from Jennifer’s nose. It was then that something magical happened that changed her life and mine.

Moment’s earlier the bay became spooked by a hose, that in his mind was a venomous snake, and he wanted nothing to do with me or anything that resembled captivity. His triggered selfpreservation instinct was pumping adrenaline through his huge muscles as he ran from what he believed to be a life-threatening situation. The most interesting and inexplicable event was that my wife, with her fear intact, decided to walk out towards the charging horse due to what she explains as, an urge to help another scared and troubled soul. There was an emotional, burning call for help sent from the bay’s heart and mind to Jennifer’s that translated loosely to, “Help me and I’ll help you!” How did these two beautiful creatures compartmentalize their fears and find each other in an exquisite moment of compassionate concern? That was something I had to know. My horse reached deeper inside my wife’s psyche than any human effort had reached in her previous 37 years of life. Where did the untapped strength and courage to approach a charging animal originate - and why?

Jennifer had been through it all as she was abused as a child, a victim of multiple sexual attacks in college, and a life long sufferer of depression. These events and others caused her to live her life in fear. Horses were just one more terrifying thing in her life. But that day she felt empathy for this previously frightening animal and reached out, because she knew the pain caused by fear and wanted to help.

Fear had permeated my life as well. A decade ago, at the age of 40 I discovered just how much fear surrounded me. As a father I feared the loss of a child. As a professional I feared the loss of my job. As an individual I feared potential illness, not to mention so many other little piercing fears that I’d developed over a lifetime of worry and anxiety.

To my surprise it was the silent, constant time spent engrossed in my brain’s limbic system that was subtly and silently taking me down, mentally. My worries and anxiety didn’t rise to the level of phobia. Maybe I would have noticed them earlier if they had. Instead, my fears were compiling to the point of failure because I was living the unexamined life. Never did I share my fears with a single person, which means I never tried to remedy my fears either and eventually they took their toll. It was one winter night after a reasonably stressful day when the total weight of these collected concerns caused a total emotional collapse. I don’t remember one singular event that triggered what was about to happen, only that I felt my energy drain from my spirit and body by the day’s end. That evening, on the way home from work, my brain essentially decided the amount of anxiety was too much to handle, and quickly went into self-preservation mode by shutting down. I couldn’t think or talk clearly. My heart raced, but my mind raced faster. I felt like I was emotionally on fire. I didn’t understand what was happening to me other than I was scared. I was a grown man and I was terrified of life and all the “what ifs” that paraded through my brain everyday, all day.

Eventually I was humbled to the point that I sought professional help, where I shared all that was plaguing me, and discovered just how common my experience was with adults and even children. My psychologist called it psychological burn out. I called it a life crisis. Others, including family and friends, called it a nervous breakdown. But whatever you call what I was experiencing, it was dark, lonely, and hopeless.

A GLIMMER OF HOPE

I fell into a deep depression - an infirmity that I later discovered through therapy, had chronically plagued me since childhood. But again, I never shared that pain. I’d felt some of these feelings before, but this depression was different. I was listless yet edgy; panicked yet apathetic; and worst of all suicidal, yet I didn’t want to die. Those thoughts and feelings inundated me for weeks and even months until therapy and changes to my lifestyle provided a glimmer of hope and a yearning to live a different life.

Part of that different life included re-entry into the equine world as a path to

learning, healing, and peace. Associations with health professionals, equine professionals, and the equine itself have taught me how much the horse can offer and how much humans have to learn, from behavioral and psychological points of view. After all, a species that’s roamed the earth for millions of years obviously has a few tips and tricks to share with its two-legged counterparts in regard to healthy perpetuation of life.

TWO POINTS OF LEARNING

So, what did the experience between Jennifer and the horse teach me about overcoming fear? What did the bay horse do that sent out a distress signal to my wife where she responded without delay and without thought of herself? I distilled the various observed actions of that day into 2 points of learning for further examination.

1. Fear is common between the horse and the

human, but pride is not. We all have fears whether they be of heights, tight spaces, or sharks. Some fears may be much less detectable and require a third party to assist us in pinpointing them, such as fear of abandonment, fear of commitment, or a fear of failure. Regardless, we all have fear, as do horses. The difference between the horse and the human is that we repress, conceal, or bury our fears. There are many reasons why, but one controllable factor is pride. This type of pride exists because of another fear – the fear of being judged. My experience as a life coach, an equine specialist, and a human has taught me that this combination of fear and pride prevent a person from even approaching the entry to the path of healing, and likewise thwarts a great deal of curative therapy. It took the severity of a collapse on my part to finally be willing to get help and I know pride definitely played a part in keeping me from reaching out earlier.

Interestingly, horses don't have this form of pride and are willing to let their fear be seen by all. Jennifer’s response to seeing the bay and his soul-smarting display of fear caused her to forget herself and help.

How much better off would humanity be if vulnerability was acceptable in society? Then those who are willing could take note of other’s fears and provide assistance to the aching soul.

2. Relocate, regain perspective, reflect, but

don’t ruminate. Horses move quickly away from the perceived place of danger to find a place of safety. At that point the adrenalin clears their system which allows logical thinking to re-start and gain a new perspective as it peers back at the source of fear. The horse looks back, usually with additional herd members. This reflective glance lasts only long enough to learn a lesson and then get back to the business of life. This behavior can be observed in what some call domestication, or others call desensitization, when horses become at ease in situations where they were once flighty and scared. For example, wild mustangs approach populated areas with less trepidation as they learn not to fear human civilization when no danger is present. In truth, dangers do exist for the horse, as they do in all our lives. But the horse is able to focus on survival needs while courage increases, and anxiety is reduced.

Humans have a tendency to ruminate on a fear, re-live it, and expect it to reoccur. Our brain’s limbic system, whose job it is to be on the lookout for danger, can begin to dominate our thoughts. This leaves little time to focus on our true survival needs such as, physical and mental health, relationships, and self-development.

We too, can focus on our needs, increase our courage, and reduce anxiety as taught to us by the horse, but we must first learn to be okay with sharing our fears and receiving assistance from our herd. The bay’s bucking and running showed he was scared and Jennifer, sensing his pain, acted as his trusted herd member to help. We won’t be able to enjoy the benefits of those therapeutic equine behaviors listed in the second point if we cannot get past the health-limiting pride noted in the first.

Jennifer specifically exhibited the power of an empathic act of love, which is available to us from our family, friends, and helping professionals, because they ubiquitously understand what it’s like to suffer from fear. That commonality of fear can become the catalyst in assisting us to overcome the resistance of being vulnerable and trigger endless acts of assistance. Once we can talk about our fear, we can then benefit from the safety, the combined learning, and the actions of the herd. It begins with each of us willingly sharing our fears as an exemplary act, in order to gain the described benefits. Once our fears are shared, the actions of love and empathy will definitely follow, as proven by Jennifer and the bay. ~*~

“For the first time in my life I saw what fear looked like in the eyes of a horse.”