Giving Up!

“Men are born soft and supple; dead they are stiff and hard.  Plants are born tender and pliant; dead they are brittle and dry.  Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.  Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.  The hard and stiff will be broken.  The soft and supple will prevail.”

                                                                                                         -          Lao Tzu
 

Who knows what makes us hard.  Maybe the hard world in which we live.  Maybe the people we must deal with.  Maybe we grow hard to better shoulder the burdens we place on ourselves.  Maybe in trying to be soft and pliable, we stretch ourselves too far and snap, leaving nothing but broken twigs.

The idea of giving is a difficult one for me to put into practice.  Sadly, I am not a particularly generous person by nature, at least with my money or possessions.  Time I give away like it’s going out of style and that causes its own set of problems.  With personal matters set aside, my horse has been teaching me the reward of giving.

I had the privilege of taking a “bungee” lesson last month.  From a lady who pegged me as “stressed and intense,” I received a tool that started to teach me to release.  “Release?” you wonder.  “Haven’t you been jumping for years?  You should know how to release by now!”  Yes, I should, but I’m not talking about a jumping release.  It’s much harder to soften the tension on the bit when all four feet are still moving across the ground, at least that’s the case for me.

I know I’m not strong enough to hold up a 1200 lb. horse, but I still let them talk me into just that.  Once you have their momentum riding on your hands, dropping that support feels as stupid as trying to touch your toes at a dead run.  The mental picture is far from pretty.  The bungee helped me find my center and while I released the tension on the rein, I did not just drop the horse on its nose.  The results spoke for themselves.  We went from stiff and pulling to supple, bouncy, and malleable.  It was wonderful.

 I thought hard about that sensation.  About how I was forced to let go, in order to make progress.  It was literally impossible to achieve the balance and harmony required of us if I didn’t give up control.  I began to realize how applicable the lesson was to the rest of my life.

I’ve been having a little trouble in my daily life dealing with some people.  They’ve taken advantage of me and left me very angry.  I hung on to that anger, letting it fester and feed itself.  I let my anger role off me in clouds, hoping it would ooze into them and they would realize how much their actions bothered me.  They didn’t and that only made me angrier and that made me miserable, but I kept at it.

Albert Einstein is famous for his insanity quote (and maybe a few other things). “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  In my riding, I had been pulling and pulling and hoping eventually the horse would respond.  At work, I just got madder and madder and hoped someone would notice.  I’ve been wasting precious time.

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

So, I’m giving up!  When Nutmeg starts to pull, I center myself and give instead.  When someone ticks me off, I haven’t quite figured out how not to get mad, but I’m not going to harbor that anger and let it take over.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from becoming a sopping flopping wet rag.  In order to give the rein without dropping the contact, I have to be strong in my center.  In order to put aside anger, I must find a peace within myself and I must hold true to myself preventing others from controlling my decisions and attitude.

I’m giving up, but not giving in.  It’s a Fresh Perspective for me.  I hope it will make me a softer person, a happier individual and a better rider.  What do you need to release from your death grip?