How Emotional Awareness Can Transform Your Relationship with Your Horse

How Are You Feeling?

Do you know how you are feeling right now? What is the word that sums up your emotion and your mood? Can you identify it and write it down?

If you struggle with these questions or don’t feel confident in answering, maybe it’s time to consider how you can change this. If you can’t communicate your feelings with yourself, how can you communicate effectively with other people and your equine companions?

Let’s begin by looking at an Emotion Wheel.

This photo by an Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

This can be a useful tool to refer to when journaling or when you just can’t quite place exactly what it is you’re feeling. Start by considering the main emotions: surprise, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, bad, and happiness.

For example, let’s say today you’re feeling a bit… sad. Why is it that you’re feeling sad? Maybe you’re feeling vulnerable. And maybe you feel vulnerable because you’re feeling fragile due to something that happened in the past week. On another day, perhaps you feel happy. That happiness could stem from feeling proud of yourself because you were feeling confident.

By starting to identify our emotions, we can break them down further into what makes up sadness, happiness, anger, or any other feeling. This process helps us get to the root of how we’re feeling and why.

Exploring the "Why"

Now that we’ve identified our feelings and found a specific word for them, we can start asking, Why do I feel this way? For instance, on a day when you feel sad, vulnerable, and fragile, perhaps it’s because you spent a week battling the flu. On a day when you feel happy, proud, and confident, maybe it’s because you finally saw tangible results from your hard work.

By understanding the reasons behind your emotions, you can begin to take control of how you respond to them.

Linking Emotions to Physical Reactions

Think about how your physical body reacts to these emotions. What changes in your mental and physical state when you’re feeling fragile compared to when you’re feeling confident? Consider your bodily tension, the way you carry yourself, your pain threshold, and your tolerance for stress.

Now, imagine how fragile you and confident you might react to different scenarios. Let’s bring it back to your equine relationships for a moment.

Applying This to Your Equine Relationships

Picture this: your horse is being particularly unreceptive during a schooling session. If you’re feeling fragile, how might you react? Would you get frustrated, angry? Would you give up or cry? And how would your horse react to your emotional state? How would you feel afterwards?

Now, consider how you might handle the same situation if you’re feeling confident. Would you slow down and allow your horse time to process? Would you be more definitive and clear in your requests? How would your horse respond? And how would you feel after handling it in this way?

If your emotions will hinder a session for you and your horse, is it worth carrying on and “pushing through” or will this hinder your progress not just for today but potentially long term too? Will taking a break and coming back to the schooling session later be more beneficial for you both? Maybe you should go for a gentle hack; practice some groundwork or just have some bonding time?

These differences in reaction, driven by your emotional state, can significantly impact not only your relationship with your horse but also your own sense of achievement and well-being. This is why it is crucial to understand how you are feeling, and how this affects you and your horse.

Practicing Emotional Awareness

An excellent exercise for practicing emotional awareness is to create checkpoints throughout your day where you ask yourself how you are feeling. This can also help you document how your emotions change over time. If this feels overwhelming, start small. Ask yourself each morning how you’re feeling. After a while, add an evening checkpoint. Then, work in a midday check-in as well.

As an advocate for journaling, I encourage you to write down your answers. Use a notepad, the notes app on your phone, or even commit to this challenge with a friend and text each other your answers. If remembering to do this is a struggle, set reminders or alarms on your phone. However, you don’t have to write everything down—simply taking a moment to think about your emotions can still be incredibly helpful.

By learning to identify, understand, and manage your emotions, you can strengthen your communication skills—not just with others, but also with yourself and your equine companions. The journey to emotional awareness is a gradual one, but each small step brings meaningful progress.

Further Resources:

https://www.6seconds.org/2022/03/13/plutchik-wheel-emotions/ https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Practices-FeelingsSensations.pdf