Carl Jung once said, “Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakens.” This quote was uttered by Carmelle Kemp during a TEDx talk entitled Why Forgiveness is Unnecessary and can be related to another possibility of how horses can make us better humans.
Hang around a horse rescue long enough and eventually you’ll get to witness the remarkable ability of horses to appear to forgive abuses against them. It is written appear because in our human-slanted world of anthropomorphizing animal behaviors, the word forgive should be replaced with the more accurate word: trust. Many horses who have come to EPH were confiscated by legal means because of care/abuse issues, were relinquished by previous owners who no longer had the means or desire to care for these horses or were considered dangerous and simply were looking for assistance in becoming better horsey citizens. Whatever the defined cause, a new level of trust needed to be developed in order to begin the healing process. Horses can learn to trust again, but parallel to that is the horse’s instinctual ability to understand and make decisions related to a person’s perceived intentions. Examples of this are ponies who buck kids off when they been previously teased or mishandled, or horses that will stand fine for one farrier but not another. Humans are burdened with complex and even mixed emotions beyond the primal emotions horses possess like fear, rage, loss or confusion. It becomes a human’s obligation to understand what a horse is working with in the psychology department and do what is necessary to get your point across. Here’s a tip: horses possess an amazingly accurate BS meter and if you neglect to appreciate what they are communicating you do so at your own peril. Pay attention. Horses also aren’t capable of playing the victim. They have no skills in manipulation or mind games; what you see is what you get and sometimes this brutal honesty can catch you off guard.
It is a common belief that horses are forgiving, meaning they allow people who aren’t skilled to climb on their backs and ride them, or allow people who feel they must train a horse through fear or physical control use these techniques to cooperate with them. While it resembles forgiveness, except in extreme cases, the horse will almost always allow an opportunity to develop a trust, perhaps reestablish a trust, so they can move ahead in their lives. Some humans can never achieve this level of awareness and instead choose to point fingers, assign blame, and let this cauldron of distrust and hate be at a constant simmer. Now would be the time to become envious of the horse with its simple emotions and emulate their behavior. Horses have a strong memory but are unable to hold a grudge or plan revenge.
Carl Jung may have been describing horses as they innately look inward and awaken. Through learning how best to deal with the situation in front of them, horses prove that forgiveness may not be a prerequisite to a happy life. As Ms. Kemp detailed in her discussion, letting go of the things in this world that humans covet and displacing these with a love of oneself, a love of what the world offers and genuinely appreciate what motivates others to interact with us in the way they do, we can treat each other more honestly and compassionately.
To get a hands-on lesson, find yourself in the pasture with a herd of horses and observe. They have it down.