Monster or bag?
My husband and I had just finished loading a bag of supplemental feed into the storage bin, and so we put the empty bag in the trash. But the trash can was close to the fence inside the barn and Lulu came over to investigate. She sniffed the bag, it smelled like food. She grabbed the bag with her teeth to get more information and the sturdy plastic of the bag crinkled, so she took a step back, still gripping the bag with her teeth. The bag inflated with some air and crinkled even more. Lulu backed up in a hurry, the bag following her face because her teeth were still clenched on it. Eyes rolling she whirled around and raced out into the paddock—the bag coming along for the ride. She stopped, not knowing what to do and opened her mouth. The bag dropped to the ground, now inert. She stared at it for a moment, and then began to sniff it.
Fear is a signal, response is a choice (sometimes)
I see two ways of looking at this moment. My husband and I laughed, because silly horse, if she had just let go of the bag it wouldn’t have chased her. She created this whole scenario. So that is one way of looking at when to let go of something—is the something chasing you because of something you are doing? But the other way of looking at it is that she was very interested in something, and she held on while she worked through her fear of this thing that she was trying to understand. Are you persisting in the face of something scary trying to get a better handle on it?
My husband became certified in SCUBA diving for many reasons. But one of the big ones was he was afraid of sharks. So while we were living in California, and the ocean was right there, the shark issue was much closer than it was in Colorado or Texas. And his access to learning to dive was also greater. So with training and equipment he swam into the Pacific ocean. He got to play peek a boo with a sea lion, and had an otter steal a noise maker from the dive master. He also went down to South America where he got to swim with nurse sharks. One of the things he has noticed about how his neurodivergence works is that he is more likely to charge toward something he is afraid of.
I did a training with Natural Lifemanship at their headquarters in Brenham, TX at the end of 2023. It was called the Wild Horse Immersion where we practiced Equine Assisted Psychotherapy principles with untamed horses. The horse I was working with was very good at ignoring pressure from people, and horses. She was usually the one exerting subtle pressure over others. She just had to start quietly backing up and the others would give her space. But one of her herd mates, who was working with some other participants in the training, went to resistance when pressure was applied to her. She would charge at people. While these responses to fear were not necessarily choices for the horses, they could have been. And when we are able to slow down a fear reaction and examine it, then we have more choices in how to respond.
Response is also ingrained and habitual
We all have different ways of approaching fear. Lulu, is very curious, but she will run when a bird flies out of a tree, and then investigate from a distance. My husband moves towards things that frighten him. I’m much more likely to start from a distance and try to figure out what is going on before I get there. All of these choices have to do with both the way our brains are naturally wired and the experiences we have had. Which makes figuring out when to let go much more complicated. Because not only do we have to figure out if what is chasing us (and scaring us) is something we created and if we just let go the fear would vanish? Or if it is something that is important enough to hang onto and we need to work through the fear? And no one else can answer this question for us.
But it can help to have a guide. A good therapist can help you decide if you are hanging onto something that is chasing you around but not serving you, or if you need help working through your fear to be able to achieve something. (I’m sure Hubby and I laughing at Lulu didn’t help her work through her fear of the feed bag attached to her face. But I did support her later in allowing her time to understand the bag when she felt more confident.)
Tolerating discomfort allows for a wider range of choices
And sometimes we have to sit in the uncomfortable place of not knowing if letting go would bring us relief or loss (or both!) This is another place where a good therapist can be with you in the discomfort and help you tolerate the not knowing until you have more information. Our brains hate not knowing! But that discomfort is a huge trigger for learning and growth, especially if you can forestall creating an explanatory story. For example when the bag started rustling, Lulu probably first thought “monster!” Her story was a monster was attacking her face and she needed to get away. Once the bag was on the ground and she could get a better look at it, (and smell it and taste it) her story probably shifted to “bag that smells like food, but has no food in it.” Of course I’m giving my horse human thoughts to illustrate a point—who knows what her horse stories were? (and they were made up of sights, sounds and sensations not words.) But when we don't know, we create a story to help us understand. Sometimes changing our story (with more information) from "monster" to "bag with no food" can help us face a fear.
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