Rest and Digest

Did you get some moments of true calm and relaxation this summer?

Welcome to all my new subscribers, flitting over from Matthew Ferreraʻs or Toby Nealʻs most awesome Substacks to see if anything interesting is happening here. Welcome to all my friends and family who have been with me for a while on this writing journey.

To those of you who are newer - if you find yourself a little lost in the story line or wondering where is the value proposition in my writing, feel free to reach out privately for a conversation about why reading might be worth your valuable time. Oh heck, please reach out to me, any of you, for any reason at all. Sometimes the silence is deafening.

But to summarize, right now I am writing about horses in hopes that your resistance lowers and maybe you will see something with fresh eyes when you realize I am actually writing about us as humans. Thatʻs how it works for me, anyhow.

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Here we are in the waning days of summer (for those of us in the northern hemisphere). In some places, like here in Hawaiʻi, school has started. The weather here is not so different as it was in January. We donʻt observe daylight savings time. But even so, even in the tropics, the pace feels a little slower in June and July, the traffic lighter, the spirit lighter and inclining towards celebrations - graduations, weddings, Independence Day or Kamehameha Day or Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea.

I should be writing about long summer days filled with relaxation like other folks I follow on Substack. Instead, last week I wrote about tension, about the sympathetic nervous system, responsible for the fight-or-flight response to a threat that both humans and horses exhibit.

I ended by observing:

When you canʻt fight or flee, you freeze for survival or to not feel the pain. And then you can get stuck in freeze. You can get stuck with the gas pedal running your nervous system even when there is no immediate, actual danger.

The brain responds to a potential threat the same as to an actual threat. “what happens before what happens happens” - Hottie shutting down just being led out of the pasture. Safety is in the herd. My awareness of her reassured her that she was safe in the world when I was around and led also to her trusting the other two horses as a herd to keep each other mutually safe.

My new mare Hottie was the lucky recipient of knowledge and techniques I gained the hard way during those early days with Zara. I could recognize that Hottie shut down at the mere suggestion represented by a halter in my hand. It meant being taken out of the pasture to do something. Even though I had never taken her to do anything even once, she was anticipating all the awful things it might be. It was clear to me that for much of two decades of her life the “something” this sensitive mare was pushed to do was not something she felt relaxed about doing. Whatever her history, her freeze mode was persistent and began way before any actual threat materialized.

Like Hottie, many (perhaps most) horses become shut down, obedient, “safe” horses as their instincts are overridden again and again. It is kind of the point of “breaking” a horse to ride. Some horses, like Zara, like many Arabians, refuse to be broken that completely. The entire breed has developed a reputation for being unpredictable as they suddenly get triggered back from freeze mode to flight or fight mode.

The times I got bucked off Zara after we finally were successful at introducing her to being ridden were initially such a mystery to me. It always happened when she seemed perfectly calm. She was not truly calm however. She wanted to please me and kept doing what I asked while her anxiety built until she finally disappeared into herself, no longer present, just going through the motions. When a car door slammed, a rider made a sudden movement across the arena, some random stimulus jarred her awake, Zaraʻs instinct reacted before her mind could override it, just as I leapt forward to grab Bobʻs arm when the sword descended in the exercise I described last week. I was flying through the air before I had time to recognize and respond to Zaraʻs fear.

Eventually, becoming increasingly nervous about riding her at all, I recognized what happened before what happened happened! I could feel Zara “disappear” beneath me, and when that happened the only tool in my toolbox at the time was simply to dismount under my own power before I was subjected to an unintended dismount. From the ground, I could safely regain Zaraʻs attention and confidence. Neither of us was happy with the situation though. It was many years before I had the maturity to put our relationship above my assumption - societyʻs assumption - that a horseʻs value (or perhaps my value as a horse person) was in riding.

By then we had both gained a lot of practice in quickly finding our way back to calm after our sympathetic nervous system fired. But what is that state of true calm?

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The state when we are truly calm rather than on high alert, or externally quiet but trembling inside, is governed by the parasympathetic nervous system. You know how I keep mentioning horses “lick and chew,” or exhale deeply, or even yawn, when they shift from nervous to relaxed? The shorthand for parasympathetic nervous system mode is “rest and digest.” Take a moment if you want, close your eyes, do an inner scan. Are you having a relaxed Sunday morning reading this crazy writerʻs rambling thoughts? Perhaps you let out a sigh. Or is there a thought that lingers at the edges of your consciousness keeping you on edge, or at least triggering you back to a level of anxiety as soon as I suggest the very existence of such a thought?¹

Humans exhibit the same behaviors as horses when we shift from alert mode to relaxed mode and back to alert again. In Equine Guided Education sessions those are the signals I watch for as horses mirror the humanʻs interior state.

Kūkūilama - relaxed, curious, enjoying the view. He taught me a lot about the nervous system.

Twenty years ago I learned I was supposed wait for Zara to lick and chew before moving on with something I was teaching or after a moment of alarm. Or for her to blink after her eyes had gone blank as if a dimmer switch was turning out her inner light. Following that rule worked and kept me safe and her learning. It was only four years ago when the explanatory information finally came to me so I understood the biology behind it. That there is a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system in mammals. That the vagus nerve is central to a healthy relaxation response and governs connection as well as digestion. That neither humans nor horses learn well under pressure. I wish I had this information sooner.

The good news is that the practices I found in my adventures with human wisdom teachers - everything I wrote about in the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction memoir essays - those are effective tools to develop a healthy nervous system, just as much as all the little nervous system reset hacks I am learning today. The years I spent learning to meditate and “hold the frequency;” my choice to leave behind a life where value was assigned according to achievement and discover how enduring value can be created through authentic connection with other humans and creating shared commitments; experiencing the healing power of music and art and simply offering compassion and love and acceptance without it being a trade for something - all of it was time and energy well invested.

Even living my proverbial best life, even if I do all my self-care practices every day without fail, shit happens. Our bodies are wired for this. We are meant to have the occasional response to a threat and then immediately come back to calm. But just like my mare Hottie, in the world of everyday stresses we have come to perceive as “normal”, we may end up in a constant state of lower level sympathetic nervous system response - with negative physical and emotional consequences.

I think that nervous system overload was already an epidemic in the school system and in the business world and in a society where social media is gathering our eyeballs by encouraging those threat reactions. The reality of the pandemic left many of us showing additional signs of lingering trauma response.

The pandemic was a disruption that also offered me golden opportunities. Perhaps it did for you as well. My cherished Arabian gelding Kūkūilama arriving in my life was a key moment in my pandemic story, one that unfolded through a series of warm personal connections. Because I had time for the story to unfold. Because ironically my pandemic story began with me closing my appointment book, turning off the alarm clock, and sinking into an experience of moment to moment, spacious, true calm and relaxation, safe in my bubble with my ordinary stressors on pause.

More on Kūkūilamaʻs story next week. It is another one of my stories of crazy “coincidences” and reading omens and being open to what the Universe conspires to bring my way. Until then - letʻs take a deep breath together and exhale with a satisfied sigh.

1. For a possibly not randomly chosen example, I am writing this on August 17th, a deadline that may have been looming and producing anxiety for my readers in the real estate world. Many of us are pros at projecting horribly anxiety-producing futures around perceived or forecasted threats. The reality of change, regardless of our current perception labeling it as “good” or “bad", will only be seen as it unfolds. Today, this present moment, finds me sipping a cup of 100% Kona coffee and looking at a wild windswept rain squall blowing through on summer tradewinds. Iʻm home. Iʻm safe. Iʻm loved.