Fear Conditioning – Humans
Last month, we talked
about two kinds of fear – the constructive kind and the destructive kind.
One is put in our system by God to keep us from danger. The other is
programmed in us or our horses by pain, bad experiences and any other
stimuli that cause the brain to send a message to your system to protect
yourself. The second one is called conditioned fear. The more it is
repeated, the deeper the groove in our brain becomes and the harder it
becomes to overcome it. To say it simple, we can get deep grooves in our
brain that are called Psychological Hooks. When the PH’s are negative ones,
then we have work to do to replace that groove with a positive and
productive groove.
I get all kinds of e-mails
from these articles and from my web site. This month, I got an e-mail from
a little girl asking for help. She said that her grandmother wanted her to
become a barrel racer, but she was afraid of her horse and wanted to know
what she could do to overcome that fear. I questioned her to find out where
her fear came from and she wrote back that this horse had bucked her off
when he was younger and green. She had never recovered confidence in the
horse, especially when she speeded up and felt more vulnerable. Come to
find out, the incident where she was bucked off was quite a time ago. My
next question was this: “Is this your grandmothers’ desire or your desire
that you barrel race?” Her answer was that it was both.
It is much easier to train
a horse that has not been fear-conditioned. It is much easier to work with
a student that has not been fear-conditioned. When you are working with
both at the same time, it is a big challenge. The horse and rider develop a
dance together – the rider becomes afraid, tenses up in all muscle systems –
sends a message to the horse to tense up and on the dance goes. Or
sometimes, it is the opposite – the horse gets afraid and sends the signal
to the rider. To change the fear grooves in this team, you often have to
separate them to break the patterns of the dance.
One big factor in
overcoming and replacing fear-conditioning is DESIRE. If this young person
has a great desire to barrel race, our chances of helping her are very
large. BUT, if her desire is more to please her family, our chances of
helping her are slim. Why? The answer is, because you cannot place your
desires inside of another person. It is desire that drives commitment, try,
hard work and determination. It must be inside the person who is trying to
overcome fear. I always ask parents and grand parents in situations like
this to really take a look at who has the biggest desire here. That is what
will determine the outcome. It is a matter of re-programming the brain.
Remember that it is the brain that sends the signal to the rest of the body
to panic. So, we have to start over with this child the same way we start
over with the fear-conditioned horse. We start building positive hooks and
grooves in the brain. We start by putting the child in safe situations that
build confidence and security. A solid-minded horse that I call a packer
will give a child more confidence that we can ever give them. A packer is
usually an older horse with one foot in the grave and one still trucking. A
child that is afraid needs confidence built by a horse of this type. They
need to go at the speed that they are comfortable with. The child will push
themselves when they feel ready and should not be pushed by the desires of
others.
I hope you are watching
the Olympics this month. You will see story after story of people who had
to overcome great obstacles of fear or adversity to get where they are. They
tell about training for 8-12 hours daily and giving up many other things in
life to train. Some have taken horrendous falls and had to learn to get up
and try again to perfect their skills. It can be done and the outcome is
usually the developing of a champion. Again, I believe that the biggest
driving factor is DESIRE. If we have the desire to do something – we will
find a way. If we don’t, we need to find something else to do that we enjoy
and are desire driven to do. There is nothing sadder to me than to see a
child driven by a family member to do something that is causing her or him
to be in fear. And, there is nothing as fun to watch as people who love
what they do and are doing it with complete confidence and security.
May all your Psychological
Hooks be positive ones. If not, start changing them today. I leave you
with this thought – it all begins in the brains – whether training horses or
people.
Sow a Thought
Reap a Word
Sow a Word
Reap a Habit
Sow a Habit
Reap a Destiny.
Author Unknown