Lion Heart

Human beings carry the wisdom of both predator and prey. True empowerment depends on finding a balance between the two. Cultivating the strength of your “inner lion, ” without letting it run amok, is tricky. If you don’t have enough lion, people will walk all over you, and you’ll lack the conviction and focus to follow your dreams. If you have too much lion, you’ll lose the sensitivity that nurtures relationship and creativity. The problem is we’ve grown up in a culture of conquerors where predatory behavior is reinforced in school and rewarded in business. those who refuse to claw their way to the top often have trouble imagining an alternative because the “wisdom of the prey” has been educated right out of them.

 

Some accept the role of victim simply because they can’t stomach becoming a tyrant. Horses have much to teach us about that middle ground between submission and aggression. they’re not cowardly weaklings designed merely to panic and run. Mature horses can seriously maim or even kill a mountain lion.

 

When we work with horses, predatory aggression becomes a colossal waste of energy because a horse isn’t giving full attention to a lesson when he’s feeling threatened; he’s figuring out how to escape. Horses easily outsmart doctors with fancy new cowboy boots, physicist with advanced degrees, and trainers with thirty years’ experience. those who rely on fear and intimidation will spend a great deal of time confronting the increasingly inventive evasion techniques their horses will devise. this dynamic creates the adversarial relationship many riders consider normal.

 

Horses have little tolerance for timid, retiring, passive-aggressive people. If you sweetly ask for respect without the conviction to hold your ground, they’ll herd you around for sport and become increasingly demanding, even dangerous over time. Horses require a balance of strength and sensitivity. If you have too much “lion” in you, they’ll shift towards evasion. If you don’t have enough lion, they’ll treat you like a plaything.

 

When we develop the wisdom of predator and prey, the lion transforms from aggressor to protector, from the murderer of sensitivity to its champion, helping us access the courage to feel and the willingness to act. the horse with the heart of a lion neither suppresses emotion nor becomes paralyzed by it. she uses her keen prey-animal instincts to sense aggression underneath the toothy smile of a colleague and employs her agile, non-predatory mind to evade trouble without engaging in a carnivorous battle to the death. She holds her ground without ordering everyone else around. She embodies true assertiveness, becoming neither tyrant or victim. she develops focused, goal-oriented thinking alongside a responsive, heartfelt, process-oriented mind capable of nourishing relationship.

 

Bringing our predatory nature back into balance is the challenge of a lifetime. Luckily, we have living, breathing horses to help us reawaken the wisdom of prey, while demanding that we own our inner lion and put it to good use. Way of the Horse Oracles