Amani Mediation and Counseling

“There is no forgiveness without rage”
I love this quote by Holocaust survivor, Dr. Edith Eva Eger” it gives us permission to be deeply human in our healing journeys. Growth is hard and beautiful and full of contradictions.

All of this leaves me feeling so grateful that my original training as a therapist is in trauma. I believe trauma is our primary growth agent. We all experience trauma! How we deal with it determines whether or not we grow, or collapse into ourselves and become stunted. Sometimes we do both. A tangled mess of vines that slowly grow up like my crazy unkept jasmine vine. At the end of the day, it’s always reaching for the sky. A predetermined dance upward. Our inherent instinct is towards growth. Processing trauma, reprocessing it and releasing the cortisol and adrenaline associated with traumatic memories is like fertilizing and pruning the vine. Allowing the tangle to become the most beautiful expression of itself possible.

Just some thoughts i wrote after a client session

HEALTHY SELF ESTEEM MATTERS FOR EQUESTRIANS
Real and sustainable confidence (trusting one’s ability) comes from healthy self-esteem (believing in your own worth and value as a human). Confidence without this can be hollow, easily crushed, and certainly fleeting. A loss of confidence without an underlying foundation of healthy self-esteem can also catapult us into shame. Consequently coaches, self- talk, and sports psychology that focuses only on building confidence can, paradoxically, be devastating.

When you are in healthy self-esteem, your nervous system is functioning optimally and with maximum unfettered athletic and artistic ability. It can even withstand adversity, momentary poor performance, and mistakes.
Low self-esteem is the self-perception that our worth as a human being is less than that of others. It equals shame, and shame is perceived as danger by our nervous system because it means we are not good enough to be a part of the group. We are neurobiologically hard wired to want to be a part of the group. Women even more so than men. Our nervous system thinks our survival depends on being accepted and protected by the group. Sometimes our nervous system can’t distinguish between actual threat and the need for safety in numbers, and perceived threat. Shame can make us feel like we could die or like we are being hunted and have no protection.
On the other hand, when we have healthy self-esteem, we realize our intrinsic worth is neither less than nor better than anyone else's. We are eye to eye with others. Same as. We can make mistakes and hold ourselves in loving self-regard. We are intrinsically a part of the group and enjoy feelings of relative safety. Our performance does not dictate our worth as a human being. It’s like a dollar bill is worth a dollar no matter how worn or crisp it is, no matter who’s pocket it’s been in, or what it has or has not bought. It’s just a dollar. It is our birth right to be a part of the group. So, healthy self-esteem optimizes your nervous system and can allow for peak performance. Like a horse that really trust you and gives you that perfectly receptive "on" feeling in the warmup at a horse show.

Conversely, shame can make our nervous systems as chaotic and non-responsive as a horse that's freaking out being pulled away from its buddies. Or like the horse calling in the warmup. The buddies are its safety. The horse’s nervous system believes it could die being taken away from its friends. This is because horses are prey animals and find safety in numbers. The focus of the horse becomes completely self/survival centered. They can appear " annoying, mean", "dangerous", and be extremely hard to influence. They struggle to get control of their nervous system and it's hard for us to access them as well. The same thing happens to our neurobiology when our self-esteem plummets. We feel our worth is diminished and we go into shame. We can become totally self-absorbed (I’m such an idiot. I'm a horrible rider. I'm a fraud. I've wasted all this time and money. I let my horse, sponsor, husband down." you know the drill. And notice how it's really all about YOU!. We, like the frantic horse can become disconnected from our bodies, unable to perform well, harsh and impervious to those around us. In the heat of it, we can totally lack empathy. And even worse, if you’re experiencing shame and consequently feeling threatened, your horse will likely, pick up on this. If your empathy is shut down, this could be disastrous.

When we train horses, we are not just developing them athletically. We are also developing their nervous systems and helping them mature emotionally. We are teaching them to stay in connection and receptive through adversity and challenge. We don’t talk about this enough. To really develop as riders, we need to do the same thing. It starts with cultivating healthy self-esteem. It’s your birthright.

If you are a rancher, veterinarian, or equestrian please call me for your counseling/coaching needs. These are cultures that I know and love, and you wont have to explain your world to me.

We’ve all been there—stuck in a cyclical narrative, frustrated in our relationship, tired of the constant fighting and bickering, feeling exhausted and drained, and thinking to yourself "if my partner would just change, it would all be better."

But is that true?

All relationships are a dance. We each play a role, which means, in order to shift a dynamic, we all need to own our part. Getting out of the loop of constant blame and examining our own rigidity can shift the whole story.

One step leads to another and at first, it may feel unnatural to engage in such choreography—articulating our feelings while consciously allowing room for the other’s perspective. But creating new patterns of mutual self-awareness and affirmation is the key to improving our relational dynamics. If you only think things will get better when your partner makes the change, you're still in the same format.

Let's Turn the Lens on You:

What are some of the common ruts you get into with your loved ones?

Identify one element of that rut for which you are perennially responsible.

What kind of triggers make you defensive in this situation?

What do you think might happen if you were to own your part?

What’s one quality you could bring to the dynamic that could change it for the better?

This is a really great interview!

How To Human Ep86 | All About Trauma with MC McDonald