Transcript for this weeks message

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Horsemanship Journey podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I appreciate you for taking your time to join us today. Today I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, at The Horsemanship Journey, we use horses to demonstrate principles. And a lot of times horses are good examples that we can relate to, and we can try to emulate. And it's just interesting; it's kind of magical the way that we can see behavior in horses that can improve our own lives.

Today, one of the things I wanted to talk about was a subject that might surprise you about horses and what they can set an example for us in, and that is forgiveness, believe it or not. That's right, forgiveness. And horses are great examples of forgiveness. And forgiveness ,believe it or not, is important. It's important in becoming a good horseman. It's important in relationships, and it's important in having some peace in our hearts and our minds. So, what are you talking about Shane? Horses are really good examples of forgiveness? Tell me about that. Here's the deal. We're human beings. We're imperfect souls. The relationship with horses and man is just that, it's a relationship, and we're going to make some mistakes. Okay. And that's going to be the way it's going to be.

The deal is with horses, on their side of it, if we ask them to, they let it go and they let it go completely. What I mean by ask them to is, mean, well, let's just take a look at a couple of examples. For example, let's just say that I'm getting frustrated because I'm asking my horse to do something, and he's not doing it. And so I'm getting frustrated, and so I'm getting angry. And then I start to react in my anger, and I do something, you know, unfair to the horse. Okay. And don't you say this never happens, or you've never done it. We all have done things that weren't perfect. Okay. To say the least, to one degree or another that we wish that we could have went back and redone with how we operate with our horse, with our communication with our horses. And it happens so much. I mean there's lots of different ways and things that we can do.

A lot of times we may be asking our horse for something in a certain way, and he can't figure it out. He's totally confused. It's a miscommunication. We think like, why in the hell aren't you doing what I'm asking you to? And he's on the other end of it saying, I don't know what the hell you want because I'm giving you everything I can think of to try to solve this mystery. And so, we're both getting frustrated and the emotions are going up, and so then there's going to be a reaction one way or another. And so that's one way. Or let's just say that we learned a new way and it's like, I've been doing this wrong the whole time. No wonder I haven't been getting the result. And then we kind of feel bad for the way that we've been going about doing a certain thing. There's all kinds of instances when it can be imperfect, and we can feel like it was unfair or wrong or miscommunication or something that, you know, if we had it to do over again, would rather have done it different.

So what I mean when I say that horses let it go, if we ask them to, they completely let it go. What I mean is, is if we change our behavior. So, when we realize it and then we go to change it, okay, that's when they let it go completely. If we don't change it, they're going to hold the boundary. If we're doing something unfair that they believe is unfair, a horse believes unfair, he's going to have a reaction. And he's going to continue to have that, and it may escalate unless we change our behavior, unless we recognize it and we go try to fix it and repair it. Some of us, well, let me finish. Like I said, if we do change it and we go about the same, let's say that we go about the same ask for the same result in a different way, and we continue to ask in a new way that becomes clear to the horse or in a fair way because we believed that we were unfair. When we change that, it doesn't take very long, and the horse will fully let it go. What I mean by that is he won't have this negative reaction, and he won't assume that you're gonna continue the negative behavior once you've established a short pattern of change. Okay.

Some of us on the other hand, we don't let go so easy. People can do things to us that we deem is unfair, and we're not letting it go. Okay. I remember that guy did that one thing to me that one time… And I mean, I don't know how many years ago that was, but I am not forgiving him for that. It’s just not forgivable anyway. It was totally wrong. It's totally unfair. There is no excuse for that in my world. Not letting it go.

Like I said, again, I want to come back to the idea of boundaries. What I mean by that is, horses do have boundaries. And so what I mean is, is that most of them, won't take unfair behavior. They won't take a beaten without fighting back or without having a reaction, trying to get away or do something. They understand that forgiveness, it’s not about agreeing with something that's wrong. And it's not about accepting something that's wrong. It's not about allowing what we think is wrong to continue or to happen, right. They're going to get out of the way. We would call that a boundary. You're nota martyr. You don't have to feel like you're run over and continue to accept bad behavior. That's not what forgiveness is. The horses say, okay, if you're going to continue this, things are going to continue to be bad. What the difference is, is that it's about letting go of the bad when the offender wants to change, when the offender is repentant or when the offender stops the offense. Okay. And so that's the thing that we can look at with horses and say, maybe I can try to adopt that. And why? If the horse lets it go completely, the horse does let it go completely. And he remembers it no more once the offender stops the behavior, is repentant, and makes the change. And you know why? I don't know exactly why, but I know one of the reasons is this, or it might be this, in part, the horse can let it go completely because he isn't harboring a bunch of bad behavior that he can't forgive himself for.

Okay. Now, I've found that it's a hell of a lot easier to forgive other people when I've forgiven myself. Right? And forgiveness, it's not about other people. It's not about what other people have done for us. It's not about granting someone or giving someone a gift. It's about ourselves. Okay. I’m not forgiving him for doing that; it's not like you're going to give someone the gift of forgiveness. Who you're giving the gift of forgiveness to is yourself, if you decide to forgive. I'll tell you a little story that illustrates that pretty well.

I have a very good friend of mine who told me a story. He told me a story about a person, another man who had, he felt, totally unfair and completely wronged him. He got the bad end of the deal. And, he was very upset about it for a very long period of time. And finally, he worked it out in his mind to where he was going to forgive who had wronged him. Who he believed had wronged him. Who had had been unfair, who had treated him badly, and he was ready to, he was going to forgive him. So, he went to this person who had wronged him and he said, “Hey, you know, I just want you to let you I forgive you.” And you know what he said back to him? The guy said back to him, “For what?” Now, my friend didn't really like that answer because he really had thought that he was giving a gift and granting this forgiveness. And he thought that this guy had totally stole his wife and ruined his life and all kinds of different things. And he'd been harboring these bad thoughts for a long period of time, and he thought that it was all going to be over when he handed this guy his gift of forgiveness. And that guy on the other end, he had in his mind that he hadn't even done anything wrong.

So tell me about that. Let's just think about that. Now, at the time that my friend told me this story, it had been years since this happened. And I could tell he was still upset about this. So what does that mean? I love my friend to death. This isn't about him as far as judging him because anyway, that's neither here nor there. What it is about is that he still, possibly even to this day, still has all of that inside of himself. Okay. That he could, if he chose to, like a horse, be free from. To let it go. If there is any debt to pay, you know, it's not, we're not going to absolve somebody of their, you know, we're not going to grant them absolution or anything like that. If there's any debt to pay, God will take care of it anyway, I believe. But back to forgiving ourselves, okay? Like I said, I found it a lot easier to forgive other people when we forgive ourselves. And we hear and I've heard, and maybe you have too, that it can be one of the hardest, the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Well, I believe that's probably true.

But if it is probably true, if it is true, why should we? Why is it important? Why should we forgive ourselves? What does it mean? Does it even matter? How much does it matter? It matters because what we did means about ourselves. In other words, it's what meaning is because of what we're making it mean. What we're making what we did means about ourselves. It's because we can believe that because we did something that we wish that we wouldn't have, that it means that we're defective in some way. Now, I've done some things myself. I've done some things. Matter of fact, you could say that I'm a poster child to this conversation here today. But then we've all done some things, right? Maybe you think you're the poster child to this conversation. And I'm here to say that it doesn't really matter what it is that you have done.

You know, like I said before, all of us get to experience shame in this lifetime and most of us had some shame wrapped up in some of the things that we've done that we're holding on to. And holding on to it's like eating a little drop of poison every day. It's diminishing us, and it's slowly destroying us, slowly killing us. Brene Brown talks about shame resilience, and she talks about getting through shame. And she lists the steps to get through shame. And again, shame is, “I am less than because of what I have done.” Okay. That kind of is my definition of shame. So to get through shame, let it go. Number one is to own your story, to take ownership of it. To say, okay, I've done this thing, and because I have done it, I'm gonna separate what I have done with who I am. It doesn't define who I am. It just means that who I am is an imperfect person who did something that they wish they wouldn't have or whatever. Own your story. Okay. Share your story with somebody who you earn the trust that you can trust and then feel it and let it go. So according to Brene Brown, that's the way out of that. And I have experienced that, and I can tell you that that is the way out of that.

When I'm able to forgive myself, when I'm able to stop feeling shame, I'm in a better place to improve my behavior. When I'm stuck there, I'm definitely more likely to repeat the bad behavior. I'm more likely to have other bad behavior because I think I'm the kind of person that does those kind of bad behavior things. And when I think I'm that kind of person, like every other person who does things that they wish they wouldn't have. And then when I do what I can to repair or mitigate the damage, when I feel remorse, when I do what I can to repair it… And some of it isn't repairable. We have to know that, I mean, we all know that, right? Some things you can't go back and fix, and that just has to be okay because you can't fix everything. But we do our best if we can to fix it. Mitigate the damage that we've done. We decide to change, and then we decide to let it go.

And when we go through that process and decide to let the things go that we have done, and we decide to fully forgive ourselves like that horse forgives us for the things that we've done. If we can forgive ourselves for the things that we've done, here's what we are. We're less likely to repeat what we don't want to do again. We're less likely to hide in life the feelings that we get from shame. We're less likely to feel bad or depressed about it. We're less likely to have that drop of poison every day that's slowly killing us and having negative impacts in all aspects of our lives. We're more capable of helping others. You are less likely, you have less capacity to help others when you have this guilt and shame rolling around. You're more capable of being a better partner in your relationships. You're more capable of helping other people feel better about themselves. And you're more likely to have more peace in your heart.

So, let's take a look at that horse, or take a lesson from a horse even if you haven't got one. Create and hold a boundary if you need to.Y ou don't have to keep getting run over. It's not about allowing someone to continue something that's harmful. That's not have anything to do with it. What it is is fully forgiving people who have wronged us, okay, beginning with ourselves for our own good and for those that we care about. If you've got something inside yourself, own it, share it with someone you trust, then fully forgive yourself for your own good and for those that you care about. And remember this, you cannot fail as long as you Never Stop Chasing It.

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