Meditation and The Trust Technique

Inner stillness – a place of quiet confidence, free from judgement, expectation or attachment to outcomes, where we can reduce our thinking levels and find space for our intuition to come to the surface.

This is the mental/emotional state we can access through meditation practice. The value of this practice is that it gives us the tools to access a more mindful approach when we are interacting with our horses (or other animals in our life).

The Trust Technique is a meditation practice that we can do WITH our animals. As well as focusing on being present we “listen” by observing behaviour, with a time frame that is led by them, teaching us to work at their pace.

Then when we interact with them, focused presence in stillness becomes focused attention in action. We continue the practice of listening through observation and working at their pace from a place of quiet confidence.

The Trust Technique can be taught in one session, but it is not the learning of it that creates change but the practice. What is it that can make it so difficult to be still for a few minutes each day, just holding space and observing an animal that needs your help? Whatever it is, it is what gets in the way of real progress – that desire to be doing, getting on with it, wanting to be or feeling you should be somewhere other than where you are right now, that makes us push on regardless.

We are so over-stimulated in our modern world that sitting quietly can be a challenge – it appears as if nothing of interest is happening. But when we can find that inner stillness we notice the subtleties of communication which we miss on a daily basis. That is why horses can surprise us with sudden unexpected behaviours – they were telling us something all along, but our minds were too full of chatter for us to notice. They have to do something big to drag us back into the present moment and get us to listen.

Be present, create the space to listen to your horse and yourself and learn to work at their pace – it’s all you need.