My family has always celebrated Christmas. Filling Christmas stockings with treats and small gifts is one of our favorite traditions. As I was opening mine this year, one small, thin packet caught my eye. It stood out from the usual stocking fare. It was light, flat, and made no perceptible sound when shaken.

I was surprised to find a packet of Breadtopia dried sourdough starter inside. I love to cook, and I am endlessly curious about how different foods are made. Still, I never expected the gift of sourdough. Three days later, I baked my first loaf.

As I read the paper or scroll through social media, the new year inevitably brings a flood of retrospectives on the past and exhortations toward goals and resolutions for the future. At times, I find these reflections helpful and enlightening. Recently, though, I have become more aware of how easily they can limit our experience and quietly strangle creativity if we are not careful.

I see this every day in my work in the horse world. Riders get locked in. Locked into a discipline. Locked into a trainer. Locked into competitive or performance goals. Locked into a specific philosophy or perspective on the horse.

In psychology, there is a concept known as top-down processing. This is the tendency to filter experience through existing knowledge, ideas, plans, and learned procedures. It can be enormously useful because it is efficient. It helps us select what seems important in our environment and organize our behaviors and responses accordingly.

In contrast, there is bottom-up processing. Here, experience is taken in with far fewer filters, making room for awe and wonder. Meaning, understanding, and response emerge from the experience itself rather than being imposed upon it. While profoundly inefficient, this mode allows for a depth of creativity and an expansion of consciousness that predetermined frameworks simply cannot offer.

Much of my last twenty-plus years with horses has been devoted to developing this bottom-up way of being. I have often been told that I needed clearer goals or that I was wasting my horses’ potential. What those voices did not know is that I spent my first thirty years with horses deeply immersed in traditional knowledge, skill acquisition, and competitive ambition. I gained a great deal from that education, but in the end it left me feeling frustrated and empty.

We talk often about living in the present. Sourdough has become a surprisingly rich reminder of what that truly means. Each loaf, bun, bagel, or pretzel anchors me in the moment and reminds me of the vast world of possibility that opens when I do. Two weeks ago, I never would have imagined that I would be nurturing a yeast culture and baking bread today.

Here is wishing that everyone finds their own “sourdough” as we enter the wide and open opportunity of a new year. ~ Paul

#PsychSaturday 

#RidingFar 

#BottomUpProcessing

#TopDownProcessing

#PsychologyInPractice

#MindfulLiving

#CreativeProcess

#PresenceOverPerformance

#CuriosityAndGrowth

#EmbodiedAwareness

#HorseHumanConnection

#PersonalGrowthJourney

#EverydayPhilosophy

#FindingYourSourdough