Accepting the differences

Trigger Alert:  Mental Health, Depression, Suicide

One of the things that I have come to enjoy doing on an almost daily basis is working on a paint-by-number painting while listening to a podcast.  (In case you didn't know, painting by number has come a long way from the blocky paintings I remember as a child.  You can create some beautiful paintings that are worth hanging as art in your house!)  I have found that the painting process is sort of meditative and it puts me into a state of mind where I can just listen for hours and absorb a lot of information in a way that I could not do if I wasn't painting.  I listen to a variety of podcasts, but the one I happened to be listening to recently was The Journey On Podcast with Warwick Schiller.

This is the first paint-by-number painting I did.

 

I find that I have to space out listening to these podcasts with Warwick because no matter who the guest is, there are always multiple powerful observations and concepts presented that I need time to digest.  A few nights ago, I was listening to Episode 37, with Kerri Lake.  I had recently listened to a different episode and really thought it was too soon to listen to another one, but I couldn't find anything else I wanted to listen to.

I had never heard of Kerri Lake, and to be honest, I wasn't really expecting much.  I don't know why.  Like I said above, I always come away with lots of food for thought after the podcasts, so I'm not sure why I thought this one would be different.  

It may have had something to do with the fact that Ms. Lake has worked as an animal communicator.  What she does now is quite a bit more than that.  But I have to admit that when I hear the term "animal communicator," I don't have a lot of respect for it.  I've heard about these communicators and I know people who have used them.  And these people seem to be very impressed.  But I have sort of categorized them in the same way that I view the psychics who advertise their services on TV.  It isn't so much that I believe psychics can't exist or that people can't communicate with animals.  It's more that I question the formality and consistency of it.  Is it really possible for a psychic to be able to see something in the future for every single person based on a phone call?  Is it really possible for an animal communicator to translate the thoughts and feelings of multiple species of animals into the kinds of ideas that make sense to humans?

I still don't know the answers to those questions after listening to the podcast, but I sure got some good insights anyway.  I won't give a blow-by-blow account of the content, because I think it is worth listening to for anyone and everyone, especially if you are a parent or you interact with kids on a regular basis.

There were two especially powerful moments for me during the podcast.  The first was when Ms. Lake talked about how she had basically been born with this ability to see animals differently than the average person does.  And that when she tried to communicate this ability to her parents, they refused to accept it.  As a result, she tried to hide her ability and she felt ashamed and guilty about it.  It made me wonder how many times as adults we dismiss the ideas of children.  How many times do we refuse to acknowledge their perceptions of the world around them.  And what is the impact of that lack of acknowledgement on the people they become?

Which leads me to the second moment when Ms. Lake talked about how she tried to take her own life.  It snuck up on me.  It seemed like she was sharing just another life experience and then I realized what she was saying.  It was like being hit in the face.  Because her perception of animals was so foreign to so many people, not just her parents, she reached the point where she simply did not want to be a part of this world any longer.  This woman, who I had come to believe was a beautiful human being with so much value, had come to the point where she could not make herself fit into the world around her and no longer wanted to try.

And it occurred to me to wonder how many times this has happened.  How many times someone has found so little acceptance that they simply cannot bear to go on.  How our culture is intolerant of the things that cannot be categorized.  We can target our perceptions of race and gender and religion and disability and an assortment of other things because we can categorize them.  And if we can categorize them, we can set up procedures to work on our prejudice.

But what if we can't categorize the differences?  How do we see those people?  How do we work on accepting people who are just "different?"  

I'm reminded of a character in a popular work of fiction.  She perceived the world differently than the kids around her and was often bullied or made fun of.  As the book goes on, we discover that some of her perceptions are more accurate than we could have imagined and that she is brave beyond belief.  But very few other characters ever realize that about her, and I suspect that for most readers, her story is overshadowed by the larger struggle of the main characters.  But what if the people around her had been more accepting of her?  Her bravery may never have been necessary in the first place because the environment that supported the horrible events in the book may never have existed.  What larger changes could we see from a society that doesn't belittle, marginalize, or diminish those that see the world differently?

But let's forget the world at large for now and look at a much smaller subset - the horse world.  I struggle all the time with talking to other horse people about the things I learn about horses that are on the fringe.  It is one of the biggest reasons I have this blog.  It is somehow much less threatening to publish my less conventional thoughts to the anonymous internet world than it is to talk about them with the horse people I know.  Because horse people are the same as any other group of people.  There are pervasive beliefs that permeate the core of the horse world.  And questioning those beliefs is often met with extremely negative reactions.

I'm thinking of widely-held beliefs like the following:

• Horses need to wear a noseband to keep their mouths shut so they don't evade the bit.
• Piaffe and passage are advanced dressage movements that can only be performed by upper level, talented dressage horses, and you need to use a stick to teach piaffe by tapping on the horse's legs.
  
• Horses need to be kept in stalls for their own safety.
• Only a professional farrier can properly trim a horse's hooves.
• Only a licensed vet can properly float a horse's teeth.
• Only a certified nutritionist can properly balance a horse's diet.
• Only commercial feeds can meet a horse's nutritional needs.
• Humans need to show the horse who is the boss.

And I could go on.  But what if I told you:

• I never put a noseband on my horse, even if he is wearing a double bridle.
• I was able to ask for and get piaffe and passage on my low-level Friesian, who was considered completely unsuitable for upper level dressage and had trouble cantering, and I didn't need a stick to teach the piaffe.
  
• My horse is always turned out, except for brief periods of time spent eating in a stall (or during the day during the brutal Virginia summers).
• I trim my horse's hooves myself, with no oversight from a farrier.
• I use an equine dentist who is self-trained.
• I set up my own system for balancing my horse's diet.
• I minimize the use of commercial horse feeds when I set up my horse's feeding program.
• Sometimes if my horse doesn't want to do something, I stop asking and "give in."

Do you feel like you need to point out the assorted reasons that the things I'm doing aren't a good idea?  Does it make you feel uncomfortable because you do something different?  Do you think I must be a kook who wouldn't know good horse care if it fell on her head?  Maybe not, if you are already reading this blog, but you might know someone who would feel those things.  If you did answer yes to one or more of my questions, why?  And what information might change your mind?  A scientific study?  A direct experience that contradicts your certainty?  An expert with a different perception of the way horses think?  (Feel free to let me know in the comments!)

The thing is, I didn't always do these things.  (And I reserve the right to continue to evolve!)  I spent decades thinking that the conventional beliefs were true, and I not only didn't question them, but I actively promoted them to others as the incontrovertible truth.  But there came a point about nine or ten years ago when I realized that those "truths" didn't always seem to make sense.  And I took my first terrifying step on the path to educating myself instead of relying on "experts" to tell me what to do.

On that path, I have encountered a lot of "different" people.  Not all of those "different" people have ended up being people whose advice I wanted to follow, but every single one of them has put me in a position to think through my experiences and see how they align with conventional beliefs.  And they have all allowed me to grow and become a better horsewoman.

I'm glad I ended up listening to the podcast with Kerri Lake.  I'm curious enough about what I heard to explore further and learn more about her experiences.  And in the process, I hope to improve my ability to accept those people who see the world in an unconventional way as well as to learn ways to improve my connection with my horse and her quality of life.