When the Horse Dies: Get Off…. and Stop Dragging It Around!

By Louise Lebrun

When The Horse Dies, Get Off... and Stop Dragging It Around! explores Relationships, Parenting, School, Work and other powerful and culturally-ingrained processes and their impact on our ability to live our lives. Louise LeBrun does not beat around the bush with politically correct analyses. The tone is authentic, the language punchy, the concepts transformational. LeBrun's words awaken the quantum biological human in each of us, create the space for movement, new energy, and new beliefs. This book makes it very difficult to continue to move through your work, your family, your community and your life numb to the impact you have just by being one of the sleeping masses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780978395087

Book preview

Frost

CHAPTER ONE

Of Horses, Riders and Journeys – How to Make Sense of it All

Years ago, while listening to one of those audio tapes on setting and achieving goals by a woman whose identity is now long lost to me, I was startled when I heard her say, When the horse dies, get off! She was referring to that moment that we all know so well, when we recognize that what we’re doing isn’t working and we pause, knowing that this choice, in this moment, will define the quality of our lives.

What obvious, imminent sense! And yet, over the ensuing years, I’ve come to realize that one of the reasons we have such difficulty getting off of our dead horses is either we can’t tell that the horse is dead (even when others can) or we’re unwilling to let ourselves know the truth of it’s lifelessness.

We’ve lost our ability to trust that we see what we see, we hear what we hear and we know what we know. We look to others to tell us, to talk us into or out of things, rather than trust our own truth about our experience. We don’t seem to know when to stop, let go and walk away.

We’ve lost our ability to trust that we see what we see, we hear what we hear and we know what we know.

We keep trying to fix our dead horses, tweaking here and there, dressing them up with new ideas and the trappings that go with them, completely oblivious to the underlying smell of decay. It is almost as if we are frantic in our desire to have it not be so because if it is, and we don’t know what else to do, what will happen to us? Better to dress this one up and lug it around, wishing and hoping and praying for it to return from the dead than to have to come face-to-face with our own fear of not knowing what to do instead.

This book is about the many ordinary processes of our daily lives that have become ‘dead horses’ that we seem to insist on trying to ride. It’s about the struggles that ensue as we pretend that things that aren’t working, are, and the subsequent weight of our efforts to maneuver to create fulfilling lives, dragging around a dead horse. This book is about recognizing a dead horse when we see one, letting go and moving on – even when moving on means stepping into the seeming darkness of the unknown.

Far too many of us are riding dead horses. If we’re not pretending that we can’t see the problem, we’re tinkering at the edges of it, hoping that if we just keep moving, we’ll outwait or outrun the problem. We live in marriages that don’t work, send our children to schools that not only bore our children to tears but have become unsafe in many ways, stay in jobs we hate…..and all along the way, we tell ourselves that it’s just for a while, that things will get better, that it’s what we have to do to ‘pay our dues’ or ‘lay the groundwork’….and we turn our attention to something more compelling, like 500 television channels to numb ourselves into the no-know-zone, in the hope that we’ll go back to sleep and we won’t care anymore. Better to not care than to be afraid.

We keep trying to ride these dead horses. They don’t work; they haven’t worked for a long time and because we don’t know what else to do, we keep digging the spurs deeper and deeper into dead flesh, shocked when the chunks fall off. Movement is a sign of life. For many of us, the time has come to awaken to our dead horses, get off and get on with living differently. Better to know the fear of the unknown than to continue to fear what we already know. At least, the unknown carries the potential for more!

THE BIG PICTURE

I’ve been working with people and their problems for much of my adult life. That’s a lot of conversations on a great variety of topics. Many a time during these conversations, I’ve had the freedom to say whatever felt right to me; to share an authentic moment with another human being, devoid of the censoring, withholding and silencing that we so often impose on ourselves, and just tell the truth as it existed for me.

Along the way, there were times when we would ‘hit the wall’ of existing beliefs, values and attitudes that prevented us from going beyond where we already were. Those of us behind the wall are convinced that to allow anything to penetrate that wall is to court imminent death – spiritual, emotional and sometimes physical. At these times, reason and logic are not sufficient to make sense of that which is visceral and of the body, to be able to penetrate the musty fortress of an entrenched world view….to breathe fresh air in the form of fresh thoughts….and for life to be willing once again to raise its little head and engage the world. It is in those moments that my ‘horses’ begin to awaken…..nostrils flaring, catching the scent of something stirring…..muscles rippling in anticipation of the reach and the stretch of stride.

From time-to-time and with great encouragement and support from those present, I’m able to ‘get on my high horse’ and ride to my heart’s content. There are many horses from which to choose and they change from one year to the next – as do I. Over the years, these horses have varied in size and purpose – from the small, playful ponies to the mighty and unstoppable Clydesdale. Yet each horse that I ride (the story), in its own way has shaped me (the rider) and profoundly affected the journey of my life. In inviting others to ride with me, their lives too, have been profoundly touched.

In the following pages, I will saddle up and ride! Sometimes, the ride will have the halting step of the inexperienced and untested colt, and sometimes it will have the gait of the wild and quick moving free-range mustang. Sometimes, it will have the feel of the noble blood lines of the Arabian stallion and at other times, it will offer the raw power and rippling strength of the massive Clydesdale. And yet, regardless of shape and form; regardless of strength and size and mass, each ride is an offering to share with you the discoveries that I’ve found within myself from the willingness of so many others to open their minds, to open their hearts and to claim the truth of their own experiences – whatever the consequences.

Take note that I have no interest in converting you or talking you into or out of anything. I have no desire to make you wrong, change your mind, ‘fix’ you or even attempt to give you answers to the challenges in your life. You’ll not find the ‘five keys to’ or ‘ten steps to’ anything in the coming pages. My hope is that what you will find is something much more powerful….and something that is already there – waiting for you to notice and claim as your own.

My desire is to offer you the insights that have formed, layer upon layer, over decades of being present as others discovered their own truth; to reveal my thoughts to you for you to ponder, consider, play with and map to your own experience of the world, knowing that as you do, your own, unique, individual truth will rise to the top for you to consider.

To be sure, there will be times when my truth looks very much like your own. Quite likely in those moments, you’ll feel good about you, you’ll feel good about me and you’ll feel good about what you’ve read. Equally sure, there will be other times when my truth may feel like an attack on yours and that won’t feel quite so good to you. It is in those moments that the potential for your evolution lies not in arguing which truth is the ‘right’ truth (after all, it’s personal and highly subjective, remember?) but in noticing your reaction to what I’ve declared as true for me…and your willingness to stay with the uncertainty/confusion/conflict that forms in you. That sense of chaos/confusion….that strong response in the body….is the precursor to something significant, wherever it may lead. My hope is that saying what’s true for me may awaken and call up the deeper truth that waits inside you….somewhere….to be heard. What you do with it all is up to you.

TIPS FOR RIDING HIGH IN THE SADDLE

‘Riding horses’ is very different from reading a book. If you were to read this book, the rules typically would say that you begin at the front, read from one page to the next consecutive page and finish at the back. Alternatively, ‘riding horses’ says: pick any horse that appeals to you, saddle up and ride until you no longer have the desire to ride. That means that you might be drawn to begin in the middle and may decide half way through the journey that the ride is too high. No problem! Just stop, get off and either pick another horse or take a break. It’s as easy as that.

The trick is to listen to that inner voice that directs you and to not force yourself to ride when you don’t want to. To not listen means that you risk falling off the horse, becoming fearful of riding or learning to hate horses. Take it easy, one ride to the next. And most importantly, do it your way. When you do things the way that it feels right for you, it’s impossible to do it wrong.

Like any good rider, you’ll discover that you have become part of the horse as you engage the journey. That means that as you begin to read, you might have ‘feelings’, or notice things moving inside you. Not to worry – just relax, take a nice deep breath and keep on riding.

…deep inside, at the base of your spine, where I believe Spirit touches tissue…

As you relax into the story that is offered, and you allow and imagine your body beginning to soften on the inside – with your attention placed deep, inside, at the base of your spine…where I believe Spirit touches tissue…– what you’ll delightfully discover is that you’re exceedingly good at riding. Not only that, you’ll discover your affinity for horses and your ability to ride any and all, without stress or damage to yourself. The key is to relax into the story, become one with the horse and not fight or judge the ride.

If along the way you should fall off – meaning you bump into stuff (technical term) in the ride that is unfamiliar to you or that causes you to lose your balance – it’s ok to take a break, to rest and to determine the best time for you to continue the ride. After all, the whole point of riding is to have fun, discover new territory and enjoy the horse and the experience of the ride.

From time to time, you might decide to revisit a horse that you’ve already ridden. Funny thing though – when you begin the same journey again, you’ll notice that it’s different! New things enter into your awareness. It’s as if you’re seeing through new eyes, or journeying this way for the first time. Even those things that may seem familiar are somehow deeper in color and richer in texture from your first experience of them. Think of this as the wisdom of the experienced rider. Once you relax into the horse, your attention gets to wander to new things. Your need to track the horse is replaced with your ability to scan for all the other things in life that are waiting for you to pay attention to them. Your desire and ability to ride the same horse, in new ways, will enrich your life.

What you’ll discover is that who you are as ‘rider’ has changed, from having ridden so many different kinds of horses on so many different journeys. Each time you revisit the ride, now having become ‘more’ – sitting differently in the saddle, more confident, more relaxed – you’ll discover new things from the horse and the ride itself. Funny how that works. We begin to surprise ourselves with all the things we missed! I wonder where else that happens in life?

THE QUANTUM BIOLOGICAL RIDER

Here’s something you may not have discovered yet and might find useful along the way. You are far more competent and experienced than you have been taught to believe you are. We’re learning every day more and more about the miracle that we are as human beings and the immense, untapped potential that we carry and have access to in a nano-second. If you can give yourself permission to just trust, for one small moment, and engage as this Quantum Biological Human that you are, you’ll discover far more than the horse and the ride. You’ll discover that you ARE both the journey and its destination.

We are massive bio-processors; intelligent, living, organic systems that…defy logic and rational thinking.

Science – the god of the culture – is discovering and revealing to us amazing things about who we are and what we’re capable of. We are not the small, puny mechanical devices that Newtonian science has taught us to believe. We are massive bio-processors; intelligent, living, organic systems that have a capability for sensing and processing information at phenomenal speeds that defy logic and rational thinking. It’s no longer up for debate – the results are in. (For more on this approach, check out www.brucelipton.com and visit Dr. Lipton’s website. His offerings will startle you into your own magnificence!)

It’s not that what we’ve been taught is wrong – it’s incomplete.

It is not that what we have been taught is wrong – it is that it’s incomplete. It’s not that we need to throw away all that we’ve been taught. It’s that we must make room for…we must open our minds to…. new discoveries that not only is Human who we are, it is the magnificence of our perceived ‘imperfection’ that is the impetus for us to open up to potential and possibility beyond our current imaginings. Only in so doing that we can ever ‘change our minds’ and create Space for the Movement that is a sign of life and invite the Flow of being fully alive! The Quantum Biological more….

As you read through the coming pages, each ride will offer you something to consider in the world of the Quantum Biological Human. Each ride will encourage you to ride a little harder…a little faster….maybe with hands and feet to the wind with a Look, Ma…no hands! kind of attitude. Maybe with each ride and its subsequent discoveries, you’ll rekindle your sense of play and the joy of the ride, for its own sake.

Imagine! Expressing yourself not because you want to change something or fix something; not because your words form the shield behind which you hide to stay safe; not because someone else wants you