We continue today with our list of strategies to meaningfully connect with your horse. This series of posts explores how mindfulness allows you to connect with the people and animals in your life. The first step, as we mentioned last week, is Step 1. Setting Intention, or consciously making a decision to connect with your horse in this present moment. Shifting your mental, emotional and physical focus in this way creates a space wherein a meaningful connection can be created between you and your horse, at least for right now. With any action, intention setting is the first step. The next step, described today, is Step 2. Internal Noticing of your thoughts, feelings and body sensations.
What does it mean to notice things in such a way? There have already been a few posts on this topic, so far on the blog. Life happens quickly – one is often inundated with a myriad of sensory impressions, and pressures to make various decisions within time limits and deadlines. It often seems adaptive to filter out the undercurrents of emotions and physical sensations and instead focus on the task at hand. Internal noticing is different. Internal noticing is a process of allowing, being with, and letting things unfold as they do. There is no molding or modification; rather, what you are invited to do is to remain with a certain experiencing just as it is, and to shine the light of awareness on this one experience. And as you stay aware in this way, you can intentionally monitor select aspects of that experience, rather than taking it all in at once. For example, you can intentionally notice thoughts, body sensations or other parts of the experience, and notice how they shift with time during the noticing.
When you are with your horse, there is no limit on the variety of things that can be noticed. There is an entire universe within you, within your horse, and in the surroundings around you. For this step though, we are simply noticing what we experience inside ourselves. What are the body sensations? What are the thoughts? What are the emotions? Do they shift with time? And while noticing something like this, you are invited to notice in a particular way. Notice what is occurring inside you with curiosity, an open mind, and without judgment. You can notice things without agenda, without worrying about doing it right or wrong, and gently. Gently noticing means paying attention without making it a chore or a task. And it means being kind with yourself if your mind wanders or you fatigue or you are bored. That’s your experience in that moment, and you can shift awareness back in the next moment. If judgments arise, notice the judgments and then get back to noticing the thought or feeling or whatever else you have set the intention to consciously notice. This is a different way of paying attention, with mindful attitudes.
Here are some suggestions to practice noticing internally. They are often used in mindfulness-related therapies, including Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT). We encourage you to try these in the next week, either when you are alone or when you are around your horses.
Noticing Internally
Pay attention to your five senses. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel physically, if you are touching anything? What do you taste, if that applies?
Notice the feeling of the air on your cheeks.
Are there any thoughts right now? Imagine you are looking up at the sky and watching the clouds floating by. Imagine that each cloud is one of your thoughts. Watch your thoughts in this way.
Are you able to notice your emotions? Is there one or a blend of emotions? What are they? Keep breathing at a natural rhythm as you notice the various emotions coursing through you. Are they most obvious at a certain area of the body? How do they change over time? If you need to pick one emotion to pay attention to for now, feel free to do so.
Notice the feel of your feet on the ground. Notice the position of your lower back. Where are your hands resting at the moment?
Shift weight forward and backward as you stand, and notice how that changes the physical sensations in your feet.
Notice how it feels inside parts of your body, like your stomach. Describe the sensations to yourself, for example, fluttering, heavy, clenching, and so forth. Notice if they shift over time.