Lately I have been out working and playing with the horses more. Indeed the horses have huge part of my transition back out into world of relating and working beyond the Zoom screen.

There’s no doubt that being out at the ranch and out in the pasture with the horses is calming. Here’s a little of the science regarding horses from HeartMath that I believe is very compelling:

So that’s pretty good reason to consider getting out with some horses.

There’s more.

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Leadership Benefits

To be an effective leader one of the most crucial skills is our ability to build relationships. Most of us focus that effort on building relationships with others. Of course, that’s important, but what might be even more critical is our relationships with ourselves.

Whatever we are saying, thinking, or feeling about ourselves is the filter through which we see, interpret and interact with others. Too often though, we think because those thoughts and feelings are in our heads, invisible, no one else knows what’s going on.

There are days when I walk into a situation thinking:

• “I sure hope no one knows that I don’t really know what I am doing.”

• “I am totally pissed about what’s going on, but no one can know that, it’s not the right message.”

• “I sure hope I don’t make a fool of myself today.”

Often these types of thoughts are such a common thread I may not even know it’s running. Yet these internal messages are impacting how I experience our world, how I relate, and how I make decisions and lead.

Bring in the Horses

Horses are big biofeedback machines. They are constantly sensing our breath rate, our heart rate, and arsenal and cortisol levels. They notice any changes and though they may not know what stress I am under or what that inner dialogue is, they have a keen sense when my inner critical comes online.

Usually as leaders, parents, role models we have learned to pretend that everything is just fine. We come by that naturally because we are taught to show confidence, control, be professional, strength – that’s leadership – right? Basically, though we’ve learned to be incongruent!

Maybe you can remember being told, “Never let them see you sweat, cry or rage.” That is not okay or unprofessional. Of course, you learned how to cover it up.

But here’s the deal, horse’s pick up that incongruence immediately. They know when we are incongruent or masking what is really going on for us. The horse finds that uncomfortable and awkward. They don’t trust the incongruence and move away because it doesn’t seem safe.
We are fascinated by how the horse ‘just seem to know’.

Truth is people do to. I’m sure you have had those moments with someone:

“Wow, something is up with _ I am going to stay away.”

“No way do I trust that information – something is off.”

But we human beings tend to play the social game. We do nice and polite or pretend everything is good. That ends up having a big ripple effect on all our interactions and decisions.

Going out with the horses, provides a safe space for you to go out and discover what is going on. Making shifts as you go and owning what is. Being vulnerable and really showing up. Getting that feedback from the horse that can support you in developing a stronger relationship with yourself.

Developing a better relationship with yourself is not about getting rid of that inner critic. It’s about developing a larger self and presence, or your own somatic (body-based not just story running) awareness.

When you can notice and sense what is really happening inside of you, you have choice and more influence with others.

Why?

Because people, like horses, trust and want to follow someone who knows themselves and is congruent.

Most of us keep looking outside, reading, studying, observing others – but until we get a strong somatic awareness all that knowledge hasn’t yet landed in our whole-ness.

So you see horses have a great deal to offer us. Just being around horse helps our hearts and they are great at providing compassionate, straight feedback for effective communication and leadership.

Come play!

I am encouraging my clients to get their company to sponsor a trip to Montana – big sky, horses and some awesome coaching. Check out Find Your Mojo in Montana or make date for a personal intensive.

Let’s chat!

I took up my guitar during my year of Covid. I am not a real guitar player. I think some might call me a campfire player.

However, I started some lessons and got to pick my own song. I picked Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine. I love this song.

My instructor didn’t blink and just started in with the chords and strum pattern. Within seconds, I knew it’d be years before this song would be one I included in any campfire situations.

However, I have been working my way through learning the strum pattern, developing my chops for new chords and not giving up.

Just last week, I decided that I was making no progress and just stuffed the song into my notebook of guitar songs and decided – hell I am just going back to EASY guitar songs.

Well damn – I had a blast playing those songs I love and even picking a few. I for sure was Closer To Fine – maybe not the Indigo Girls version yet – but I was a better guitar player!!!

There’s that Crooked Line!!

This is such a metaphor for my life.

I did have a plan that I might just be good enough to play the song and share – but like I said that’s a ways off. However, I am going to include alittle youtube link below so you an listen if you don’t know this great song!

My Equus work has some of the same crooked lines as I have evolved my Equus coaching and my programs. The horses come into my practice in magical ways.

Sometimes that magic is a new addition to my familar herd out at Stillwater HorseWhisper Ranch. Sometimes it’s a horse that shows up in m meditation or what I refer to as my invisable herd. Most recently it was a new offering: Re-Entry with Grace and Ease.

Sometimes there’s music involved and sometimes there’s a connection that just totally comes out of nowhere.

Definately a crooked line.

This is also very true in my writing. That book of mine has some amazing arms and legs. It’s been in the making well before the Beauty of Conflict was put out into the world. It may likely be still in it’s journey – popping into the public in little bits for while longer.

A crooked line – but as long as I don’t get to assuming that’s right or wrong. There’s many answers to those questions and none are definate – I will remain Closer To Fine!

What about you? Are there some crooked lines in your life! Just know life is NOT about getting from a A to B (or Z) – it’s about the crooked lines and not taking life too seriously! That’s what I call Closer to Fine!

I watched a short clip of a Republican Senator yelling at Dr Fauci about the timing for lifting the face mask directive. His position was clear that people’s liberties have been taken away for long enough.

Fauci responded saying for him the face mask mandate had nothing to do with people’s liberties but was related to public health.

The stand off. Different values and different perspectives.

I admit I don’t understand the liberties side of the this argument. I don’t believe asking someone to wear a mask takes away their liberties. I believe it protects our freedom. Does wearing a seat belt take away liberties? Do speed limits take away liberties?

Do I like wearing a mask? Not so much. However, I do want to protect people from the spread of disease and a virus out of control.

I am also not a vaccine fan. But I did get mine. Why? Because where I live people don’t wear mask or stay six feet a part. We have lots of tourism and we don’t seem to think it matters that we contribute to the spread of the virus by the choices we make.

I am glad that I live in a place where I can be outdoors. Lots of space. But I also realize I want to travel. I want people to visit. If this virus continues to run wildly through cities and areas where the impact is greater and there may not be the same resources – I don’t want to contribute to that spread.

I’d wear a mask anytime to protect more big outbreaks. I also though wear my seat belt and drive mostly at the speed limit.

I consider doing all three of these things very much a part of supporting freedom and the liberties of ALL PEOPLE.

I’m still working on Crazy, Cracked, Warm and Deep.  It is slowly finding it’s wings.  As I was wrapping up what I thought was enough of the old stories and pieces – my fiftn grader rose up.  I knew this piece needed to be included.  Here’s a teaser for the book.

The Final Chapter: Fifth Grade

There are moments in life best to just forget. Right?

Often those moments don’t really go away. Instead, they lurk beneath the surface of our psyche, waiting to resurface, and play havoc.

For me one of those moments occurred when I was in fifth grade in the early 70’s in the inner city of Richmond, VA. My city school system was going through a LONG period of finding a solution to social injustice and racial segregation with the latest attempt to integrate.

The plan was to bus kids into an inner city building while a new better school was being built.

The building I was bused to held only fifth grade.

There were about 350 fifth graders, 90% black and 10% white.

Looking back, I would definitely say there were some flaws in the thinking of the people who devised the plan. I also get the intense injustice and justified anger of the disenfranchised black students.

However, at the time, I was simply one of the 10%, and determined to find a way to survive my first year of being bused out of my neighbor and into a new school district.

I struggled.  I was a young girl of 10 years, who apparently looked a lot like a boy.

Day One 

“Susie Clarke – are you here?” Ms. Childs, a tall, thin, black women standing in front of the classroom holding a clipboard, picked up her eyes to look for a raised hand as she went through the class list.

“Susie Clarke – where are you?” 

“Here!” I called out.

“No, I said Susie. Do not start off on the wrong foot young man!” She said with a stern look.

“I am Susie. I am not a boy.” I could feel a lump forming in my throat, as everyone in the class laughed, but I spoke with a determined strong voice.

No way was I going to show any tears.

Ms Childs’ looked, and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she checked me off.

That was the start of day one.

Things got worse.

Later that day Ms. Childs told me to come with her. She took me to the girl’s bathroom. Then she asked me to pull down my pants to confirm I was indeed a girl.

I was horrified but agreed. She was finally satisfied.

Though Ms Childs created some of my initial problems with that opening day event, she also strongly encouraged me to stay positive, and not give up on my efforts to engage in making the school a better place.

Charlotte – A Girl on a Mission

Charlotte was one angry young girl. Clearly, she had good reason to be angry growing up black in Richmond, VA.

Unlike many of the other black students, Charlotte took every opportunity to let me know she had the upper hand in this school environment.

When we had to be lined up in the hall, she’d slap me across face. Then she’d remind me I should be in the back of line. I didn’t belong upfront.

In the girls bathroom, she’d push me into a stall. She’d tell her friends, “Behind this door is the boy playing a girl.” She’d make sure I stayed put by leaning against the stall door making it impossible to get out.

I wasn’t her only target.  Any light or white skinned person would attract her wrath and it really didn’t matter if a teacher was present or not. She was taking a stand against white people.

Charlotte was the ringleader of a gang of playground bullies who were relentless. Our playground was a two block walk from the school, creating ample bullying time. My hunch is this was their way of channeling their much deserved rage of being discounted in a white culture.

As a 5^th grader, it was difficult to be the target. So I took Ms Child’s advice to stay positive.

I decided to run for Student Council President under the platform of “no bullying.”

We had the school event of speeches. I stepped up on that stage and said “I am running because I want to stop the bullying.”  You could hear a pin drop, then there was a rolling, rising wave of laughter.  Yet, I was committed and thought I delivered a solid message and concern.

I talked to anyone who would talk to me.

I believed I had a chance to win, and eagerly put my posters around.  I didn’t get flustered by any side comments or the popularity of some of the other’s candidates running.

Voting Day

I arrived early to cast my vote. Like any confident candidate, I put my vote in the ballot box with a check beside my name.

Later the principal came over the school’s public address system to announce the winners.  I thought he’d only list the winners.

No. He chose to read each name and how many votes they got.

I did not win.
I had one vote.
I knew it was my own.

I was horrified.

I slipped out to go to the bathroom.

Guess who was there.

Yes, Charlotte.

She grabbed me, spun me around, saw the tears, give me a slap across my face and started laughing.

“That will teach you white girl/boy – whatever.”

I did manage to pull away and collapsed in humiliation and shame in the stall.

That crushing moment was seared into my cells.

I am not quite sure how I recovered.

I did get through 5^th grade.

However, I did make a vow to never, ever put myself in a situation where I was asking people to choose me…Never step into that kind of leadership.

Then I did what any good survivor does. I buried that moment.

The memory has stayed unearthed longer than other painful blows, many of which, on a physical level were much worse.

What I didn’t realize though is that memory has played havoc with my efforts to speak out with my own my voice, to market my services, to write and share my stories.

Don’t get me wrong, I have stepped out into leadership, but under someone else’s platform. I lead other people’s programs, and coach under the umbrella of other people’s models.

More recently though, at thrive!, CrisMarie and I  have been standing forward with our own voice and our own model.

Our platform is the beauty of conflict.

Hmm, someone could make the connection that making conflict beautiful may be about as popular as a white girl running on the platform against bullying. I really had not given that any thought until just now. (That may need some more processing.)

Selling the beauty of conflict hasn’t been easy. No one likes conflict. Not even us and we’ve written two books on it.

However, conflict is natural, normal and creative.  This is when used – which is what we do helping leaders and teams.  Bullying is really just conflict, not being dealt with.

As we work on our marketing efforts for our business, and define our voice and brand, I have bumped into that old crippling doubt and unearthed roots of my fears: Fifth Grade!

This book, Crazy, Cracked, Warm and Deep has taken forever to write and share.  There are all sorts of reasons I wrestle with getting these stories out.

The various demons have all become little pieces of the book making their way out.

This damn book is only about 50 pages but it has felt like the writing of centuries.

As I have was coming to some sort of conclusion in assembling the book, guess who showed up?

No not Charolotte. My fifth grader, “Why am I not in the book? Are you still so ashamed of me?”

I needed to listen. I am turning towards that little eager, humiliated fifth grader. I am crying with her as I write.

My fifth grader deserves a chapter.  So this is her piece to the puzzle of me.

There wasn’t any reason for me to be ashamed of my efforts in fifth grade.

As Brene Brown would say, “I entered the arena.” It’s okay that I lost, and I am glad I voted for myself.

I don’t want to bury the moment. I want to release it. Share it.

No matter what the color of your skin, your economic status, sexual orientation, gender preference, I am guessing you’ve experienced a humiliating moment.

Maybe you buried that humiliating moment too, only to have it play havoc with some part of your life.

If so, I hope this story will inspire you to remember and embrace that part of you. I hope to let you know you are not alone.

Don’t bury it. Don’t hide. Lead through it.

This recent moment of mine is already different than fifth grade.

One, because it unearthed the earlier moment, and has helped me re-frame and rewrite those old vows.
I will step up to lead with my voice.
I will ask people to choose me (and us).
Yes, I will cast another vote for myself.
I will learn from, rather than, bury a negative result.

Bottom-line: I didn’t bury the impact or lesson this time.

I learned how to lean in.

I am leading through it.

For that I am grateful.

Take that Charlotte!