Creature Signals & Your Horse-Body: How to Have a Conversation

This is Part 3 of a series of articles that explore how the way of the horse can serve as a model for leadership and how to be successful together, what horses teach us about executive presence, and how to lead authentically.

Next to a horse (or a herd of them) we find ourselves with a 1200 pound animal with an incredibly fast flight reflex who communicates entirely through body and gesture, and who also understands intent, emotional resonance, breath, and all of the physiological cues intonated by bodies with triune autonomic nervous systems wired for safety (self preservation) and belonging (being together) who values peace and freedom.

To Communicate with a Horse, You Must Find Your Horse-Body

Horses know intimately that 93% of language is non-verbal. (The breakdown comes from Dr. Albert Mehrabian, author of Silent Messages, who found that 7% of any message is conveyed through words, 38% through certain vocal elements, and 55% through nonverbal elements such as facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc.) To be with horses, you must find your very own horse-body. This, among many things, calls us into the present and into our own bodies.

In her post “How to Have a Conversation with Someone Who Doesn’t Talk,” author and horsewoman Anna Blake muses:

“People talk to horses constantly. The words are unintelligible most of the time, to both us and the horse, but we chatter away, explaining what we are doing as we do it. “Now we’ll clean your feet.” Sometimes we are so uncomfortable with the quiet that we fill in their half of the conversation, too. We get busy with our mouths, usually because we have some level of anxiety. […] We know horses don’t literally talk. Sure, a horse is intelligent enough to learn some verbal commands, but is it the words or your body language that informs him? Humans have the luxury to live on autopilot most of the time, we probably use our brain more often than our senses to listen to the environment, thinking more and feeling less in the moment. It’s a luxury that horses don’t have.”

The horse is fluent in the language of the body and awareness of the moment. Humans need both, not just to be effective members of the horse herd, but their human herds as well. This is where we meet the horse: on the shared ground of sentient bodies in space. The horse needs to know and trust that you are 1.) there and kind (that you are safe), and 2.) to know where you both stand in relation to each other.

This is also the challenge (and opportunity) for many humans. We humans must awaken parts of ourselves and our innate hard-wired ways of knowing that we may not exercise as often as other ways of knowing, like rational thought. These include, but are not limited to, all facets of embodiment such as: intuition, instinct, curiosity, body sensation, empathy, and presence. In this arena, we will need to rely on those instinctual knowings to not only find our way but to lead successfully.

Being body-centric from a human point of view can feel like coming home in a body that holds many things that perhaps we’d rather flee (or have tried to flee by living exclusively in our minds). It can also be challenging to cultivate the constant awareness in ourselves to meet the space that is completely normal for the horses. For example, it may be hard to downshift to the place of breath, and let that take up more space than we are used to in our relational awareness.

Anna Blake writes,

“It’ll feel exhausting at first, using our senses that are out of shape from computers telling us the weather instead of going outside. Exhausting in the things we try to not do which are now rote, like overusing our hands, and instead trusting our breath to be eloquent to answer a horse’s questions. […] the most challenging boundaries are the ones we place on ourselves, to be consistent and kind while focusing on a level of awareness that is exhausting for us but totally normal for a horse. We have to be in constant communication with our own sympathetic nervous system by breathing. We have to be so aware of space that we constantly mitigate our position.”

Since horses use their whole body to communicate, we begin by adapting ourselves to understand and communicate with them. In short, we meet them where they are, in intonations of their own language. We don’t ask them to learn our language first. We aim for rapport and listening to find out what their map is like.

Horses process requests more slowly than the average human, sometimes taking 30–60 seconds to process an offer (of your presence) or a request (from you). Kelly Wendorf, founder of EQUUS, speaks of ‘the speed of the heart, and the speed of the mind’ using this experiment:

“Think of an apple, now a pie, now a balloon. Easy and quick, right? That’s the speed of the mind. Now, feel sad, feel happy, feel mad, feel joy. Not so easy. That’s the speed of the heart. Some choices, and actions, need to be informed by the heart. And the heart takes time to ‘think’. Horses (and donkeys!) think at the speed of the heart most of the time. They invite us to trust that timing, and to lean into a way of being that is deliberate.”

The speed of the heart refers to or accesses much more of the body in the response. How does your whole body feel when you sit with each of these?

As part of finding rapport with the horse, we need to slow down to the speed of the body.

How you approach the horse is where the relationship begins. Everything you do builds rapport (or not). Your approach says so much about your fit as a potential leader for the horse. Your presence precedes you. Notice what you most naturally do when approaching. How you do anything is how you do everything. How is your breathing? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you afraid of? How is your heart?

What would you say about your presence? What do the people around you say about your presence? What would a horse say about your presence?

Are You Worthy of Leading a Vulnerable Being?

Horses are looking for leadership, not dominion. We can offer that to them in our way of being present with them. Are we worthy of being a leader of vulnerable beings? Are we able to know what the herd needs to assure safety and connection? How are our presence and attention? If we check in with ourselves, are we congruent with where we are? Are we able to be present for an other? How is our breathing (is it indicative of relaxation and safety, or are we panting or holding our breath)?

Poet Nayyirah Waheed writes:

things. that should be asked
often. in every type. of
relationship:
how is your heart.
is your breath happy. here.
do you feel free.

A horse will want to know, or have a conversation about: What is our awareness of the larger environment? Do we feel safe here? Do you understand me? Are we able to attune to where they are and what they might need based on what they value? How do we respect their space by also being crystal clear about our space? Is it clear what roles each of us has? Who’s doing what, who’s leading and who’s following, and who decides where to go?

(This may also sound a bit like any good, clear meeting in any office on any day of the workweek.)

How you are in your approach are important. What you focus on is also important. And who you are to them is important. As their leader, you need to be able to drop into the various herd roles and be able to sense what role your horse may need at any given time.

Remember, while a horse may be large in stature and even larger when scared and upregulated, on the inside, deep in their DNA, parts of them are still small cat-sized prey animals running from the dinosaurs. Our ability to assure that they are safe is key to finding the connection needed to do things together. We do this with a wide array of the creature signals we transmit via our body language and how we communicate (and what we don’t communicate). Because they can feel us, sometimes before we can articulate how we are feeling, our ability to be present can make us a safe haven for them, and a strong leader.

“Let’s redefine leadership as the one who breathes and smiles the most: Let an inhale relax your body, let an exhale leave soft shoulders and a soft belly. Let a smile give you a soft jaw.” — Anna Blake

Sharon Wilsie writes about the greeting ritual horses do with each other and the various herd roles horses can take on in her book, Horse Speak, in a way that made me think of a company culture adopting the Red-Yellow-Green check-ins (based on Polyvagal Theory) that we’re huge proponents of here at Reboot, and also a really good onboarding program within an organizational culture that tends to psychological safety and creates humane work environments. To read more on her glossary of horse vernacular, check out her work here.

Present Awareness & Being With — an exercise.

Notice how you are the next time you are listening to someone. Can you listen fully? Are you relaxed? Do you jump in and fix or advise? Where is your heart while you listen? What do you notice in your body? How is your breathing? Does that person feel heard and understood?