It’s always about the here and now.

Often, we notice that we're not feeling great, and we start looking for an explanation for it, sometimes we look to our past or we look outside ourselves blame it on other people. These actions suggest we think it is caused by something outside of ourselves, outside of our control. The truth is, that couldn't be any further from the truth. No matter what you are feeling it is always triggered by the here and now, so even when it's causes us to think about the past, even when it reminds you of a more difficult time in your life, it's always about the here and now.  Something in the here and now triggered a thought for you that created a feeling that drove the cognitive action of remembering the past or dwelling on a past event or blaming other people, making excuses etc.

I know a lot of people do this when their horses have a reaction that is unwanted, they say things like, I think he must have had a beating, or I think he has been mistreated in the past, as if it is something that is outside of the here and now causing the behaviour, but even for a horse, even if his response is due to trauma it was triggered by the here and now.  We don’t need to know or understand the past event to be able to help.  We just need to know what triggers it now and help them through that. This is the same for humans.

It took me a long time to notice that when I didn’t feel great, I would start looking at my past or looking outside myself, one of those things. Then one day I was listening to a podcast of another Life Coach, and they said, “it's always about the now, always”. As I listened, I realised that whatever triggers the emotion and whatever thought you have it is always in the here and now because it cannot be any other way.

Even if you're a person who experienced trauma and you have a trauma response, something in the here and now triggered it.  I think that’s what Ekhart Tole was saying in his book “The Power of Now”.  I've come to realise that when we are fully present in the now, if our awareness and boundaries are anchored in the now that is actually the safest place to experience life off and on our horses. Once I realised this it kind of surprised me as I wondered why I chose to escape the now most of my life as a child, but I guess in all honesty more often than not, the now can be quite tedious, often boring, you know repetitive, the imagination we use when we go to our past or future is likely more fun as a child and then I think it just became a habit.

What if we found a way to enjoy the here and now, to be glad for it, to be grateful that you get to be in it, after all it is where the past and future meet in each moment. What could we introduce into our day that would encourage us to want to be in the now.  I think if we create a day-to-day way of life that is what we want and choose then we automatically become more present.

I'm not saying don't have something to look forward to, don't have a holiday or a celebration to plan etc but what if we didn't need to rely on that to actually genuinely enjoy the here and now. What could we think about our present circumstances that would allow us to genuinely appreciate them and who we are right now, not where we have been or where we're going but show up from a place of truly appreciating and enjoying the experience we are having in the moment.

Our horses never live in the past or the future, although I have seen horses who are not enjoying their present shut down, but under normal circumstances they can show us how to live in the now, away from humans it is the only place they live, they cannot live anywhere else because they don’t have the Pre-frontal cortex that humans have. I am not including trauma, the body responding to a felt sense of the trauma is not what we are talking about here, horses and humans, I imagine any species with the fight, flight, freeze survival mechanism can have this. 

I am talking about imagination, about thinking about the past and future more than thinking about our present, when our mind is in the past, but our body is in the here and now, when they are disconnected.  

I am talking about having our thoughts, feelings and body in the same moment, horses are wonderful examples of how to do this, to simply exist.

If you watch horses in the field, in any given moment they have clear boundaries, they communicate clearly to each other about that, then they go back to what they were doing.  They graze, communicate, take action, return to grazing, horses don’t hold grudges, criticise, judge or dream about the future, there minds, emotions and body are all in the same moment. I sometimes envy how easily they seem to find conflict, it just is, they don’t make it a problem.  They communicate what they want to communicate and return to what they were doing.

As humans our pre frontal cortex is both a great gift and at times a hindrance. Like most things in life nothing is all good or all bad it just is.  Horses don’t have a pre frontal cortex to manage, monitor or supervise but neither do they have the freedom of choice that we do particularly if we have developed the skill of being able to stay connected to the here and now while learning from the past (even if it is just the moment before) and knowing the future we want to create for ourselves (sometimes that is just the next moment).

Have a great week my friends, I hope you enjoy every moment. 😊

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