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I stepped outside earlier today to open the gates after giving senior heart mare her lunch and to check and top off everyone’s water. It was raining. Only it wasn’t quite drizzle and it wasn’t quite a steady rain, light enough that for a moment I even wondered if it was raining. It was trying at least. I noticed that half the herd didn’t mind; they were in the pasture grazing, while the other half were patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for me to open the gates to see if senior mare left anything in her bucket. (Spoiler alert; she didn’t.)
And I thought back to all the times I’d seen horses graze in steady to even moderate rain showers, and how I can often tell just how heavy the rain is by watching them canter back to the shed to stand under the roof. Sometimes they decide to stand under some trees instead; it just depends on the day and their moods.
The bottom line? Horses don’t mind the rain that occurs in their lives, and I feel as if we should adopt this attitude as well with the metaphorical rain that falls in our own lives.
Now, let me assure you I’m not talking about ignoring it or toxic positivity-ing the rain away. There are times when rain sucks. Actual rain on your wedding day (If you’re old enough, you can hear the Alanis Morissette song in your head.) or when you’re hoping to have an outdoor show or picnic is rough. It can make you change your plans and create big disappointment. But there are times when the rain is welcome. Right now we’re in a moderate drought, which is much improved from where we were just a few weeks ago, so although the weather makes my joints and spine ache and causes me to look for pain relief, I certainly don’t mind it. Not even when I get soaked to the skin doing chores, because Mother Nature has a sense of humor where if it’s going to pour, it happens to do so about chore time.
Identify the “Rain”
In our own lives it’s important to identify the rain, or in our case it most likely is grief, disappointment, regret, or some other unpleasant emotion. I want to stress that these emotions are as natural and as intrinsic a part of our own internal ecosystems as rain is to the global ecosystem. And like rain, sometimes these emotions come too much too quickly and overwhelm us. Again, this isn’t a flaw and while I could probably do a whole podcast, and maybe I will, talking about how just as climate change has altered precipitation patterns, the stressors in our own lives change our emotional patterns, it’s still a way for the system to work. It’s neither right, nor wrong, it simply is.
The horses identify the precipitation (rain, vs. the hose which they do not like), and determine the best way to deal with it. So too, when we identify the “rain” in our own lives, we can then decide what emotional regulation methods we can use or what we need in the moment. And, if it’s a case where you don’t know what you need, when it’s raining you seek shelter or at least an umbrella, and so too in our own lives, looking for safety, whether that’s curling up with a comfort food or comfort show (or a comfort kitty), taking a nap, or crying it out. Do I need shelter from this storm, and if so, what can I do to provide that to myself?
That’s the question the horses are asking themselves and that’s the question we can learn to ask ourselves as well.
What are you doing to provide shelter for yourself today?
