How Childhood Expectations Shape Our Relationships With Horses

I was four, maybe five years old. We were at church, which, as any four year old could tell you, is not an experience designed with four year olds in mind.

I could not sit still.

Quite honestly, I am not sure I was actually capable of sitting still.

When the family returned home after services, I found myself in time out. I know my parents were well intentioned, trying to teach me self control. Yet it had a different impact than they intended.

What I did not understand then, and what I would spend a good portion of my adult life working out, was that an expectation had been set that I simply could not meet. Not because I was defiant. Not because I was bad. But because of my level of development and maturity on that particular Sunday morning.

The bar was set at a height I could not reach, resulting in pressure. Pressure to control the behavior. Pressure to contain what could not be contained.

Lately, I have been thinking about this a great deal.

Several clients this week found themselves exploring similar territory, tracing the patterns of early relationships forward into their present lives and, in more than a few cases, all the way into the saddle.

It is one of the quieter revelations in equine psychology and horsemanship work: the way we learn to relate to authority, expectation, and pressure in childhood often follows us into adulthood. It shapes our relationships, our leadership, and very often, our relationship with horses.

It shows up in how we respond when our boss sets an impossible deadline. It shows up in how we feel when our partner needs something we do not know how to give. And it shows up, reliably and sometimes painfully, in our relationships with our trainers and in how we ride.

The Pressure We Bring Into the Saddle

When I reflect on my early years with horses, I can see it clearly now.

I spent a great deal of time trying to control behavior that was not controllable. I set expectations that did not account for the horse in front of me, their age, their experience, or their particular nervous system on that particular day.

When they could not reach the bar I had set, I applied more pressure.

I was not being cruel. I was doing what had been modeled for me, in church pews and elsewhere.

Control the uncontrollable.

Contain what cannot be contained.

What I was inadvertently doing was recreating, in the arena, a dynamic I had first experienced as a small child.

Different players. Same script.

Trauma, Expectations, and Horsemanship

This is not an indictment of our well intentioned parents, nor is it a reason for self criticism. It is an invitation for curiosity.

The patterns we carry are not character flaws. They are adaptive strategies we developed to navigate a world that sometimes asked more of us than we could give.

They made sense once.

They may not make sense now.

Many riders unknowingly carry old expectations, fears, and relationship dynamics into the saddle. Horses, however, have an extraordinary ability to reveal those patterns. They respond honestly to pressure, tension, inconsistency, and emotional incongruence.

They also respond to presence, clarity, patience, and emotional regulation.

In many ways, horses become mirrors for the unresolved dynamics we still carry.

Whose Expectations Are You Riding With?

The question worth sitting with, whether you are in the saddle or not, is this:

Whose expectations am I riding with today?

Are they mine?

Are they my horse’s?

Or do they belong to someone, or something, much further back down the road?

Your horse will tell you if you are willing to listen.

They are remarkably honest about what is being asked of them, and whether it is something they can actually do.

~ Paul