On loving a left brain introvert — and why it can be hard

"Horses and humans have very similar emotions, but I think why they have them is very different. Horses are quite simple: they are pretty much driven by fear or dominance. They can get confused, frustrated, fearful, anxious, angry, maybe even sad or unhappy, but the reasons are very black and white. It is based pretty much on the moment, and while they can have past memories that drive their behavior today, they do not hold that against humans the way humans can."  —Linda Parelli


At one point during my Fast Track course, I was corrected by an instructor when I said that one characteristic of Left Brain Introverts is a tendency to get angry. "Horses don't get angry," she said. "They don't have that emotion." Since then I've heard Linda Parelli talking about horses getting angry multiple times, but I think there's a level on which Linda and my instructor are both right, for, as Linda suggests, horses don't get angry in the way that humans understand the emotion.

What my Fast Track instructor seemed to understand at the time (though I didn't) was the all-too-human tendency to attach lots of meanings to emotions. I believe she wanted me to see my horse without all the baggage that I was attaching to the idea that he was angry, and I've written previously (here) about how liberating that was.

But I think it's important to go a little further now because the fact is that horses—left brain horses, anyway—do get angry (sometimes quite angry), and they can be very dominant, and humans have negative associations with both of these characteristics that impede our ability to empathize with and appreciate our left brain horses. (Not having worked with a Left Brain Extrovert, I will restrict my comments from here on to Left Brain Introverts [LBI's], though I imagine some of this might apply to both).

Humans tend to view dominance as an aggressive, negative thing. We react defensively and judgmentally when others behave in a dominating way, or at the very least we see it as a challenge we need to answer by asserting our own dominance. Anger is even more difficult for us. If someone is angry at us, we tend to take it personally, once again becoming defensive—often by blaming or ridiculing that person—and in the process we become angry ourselves.

When LBI's show anger or dominance, we project a lot of these feelings and motivations onto them, and it tends to trigger our defensiveness and with it our blame, judgmentalism, aggression, etc.

It's interesting because right brain horses might exhibit more extreme emotion and more dangerous behavior than LBI's, but it's much easier for us to learn to accept their behavior. Once we get a little understanding about prey animal psychology, it's clear that when right brain horses are behaving in a dangerous way they are, quite simply, terrified, and once we have some Parelli skills, we can help them safely through that fear. This brings you and your horse closer as partners, and makes you feel like the hero who helped a small, distraught child find her parents. Good feelings for everyone.

But when your horse's unconfidence or intolerance manifests as anger, it feels bad to the human. We take it personally ("how dare he!") and we get defensive: "Look, dude, I may not be the perfect human, but if anyone else had to deal with you, you'd be at the auction already." Good feelings, indeed.

The problem is that, while right brain horses tend to say "I can't," left brain horses more often say "I won't." They may still be simply protecting themselves from what they perceive as a bad situation, but their refusal has a more defiant feel to it. Furthermore, while all horses are honest, LBI's are honest in a particularly ego-shredding way. Right brain horses might show you clearly where your leadership is lacking, but there's a part of them looking at you with eyes that say, "Please figure out how to do this better so we can both be happier." They are, as the Parelli's explain, looking for a leader, and as a result they're much easier to impress. It's almost like they want you to succeed.

Trying to impress an LBI, on the other hand, is like trying to impress your chain-smoking, tough old bird of a grandmother. LBI's don't particularly seem to care whether you get it right or not; they just tell you the truth in a kind of disinterested way, and there's always plenty more truth where that came from. And that's on a mild day.

On an extreme day, when they decide they do care, it comes out in the form of a temper tantrum. At this point your LBI is basically saying to you, "Oh no you didn't just push my button!" And things can proceed to get downright scary for the human—which is, of course, the LBI's intention: for you to be intimidated enough to drop the idea altogether. At these moments, when you feel that your horse is threatening you and you're concerned for your own safety, it is very hard to look at your LBI with love.

But there are a few key things to remember here:

(1) Though a horse having a temper tantrum feels more confrontational and therefore more personal to us than a horse that is simply driven out of its mind by fear, the LBI doesn't want to be in that emotional place of extreme intolerance any more than the right brain horse wants to be panicked. It looks more deliberate, more calculated, and therefore like something they are choosing to do, but they are still being overwhelmed by an emotion that they are not enjoying having. We associate a temper tantrum with bratty children and see it as a manipulative strategy. But even if bratty children are being somewhat calculating, if it's a genuine tantrum they are also the victims of their own excessive emotion and don't know a better way to cope with it. I believe it's the same with horses, and it is therefore just as incumbent on us to help our LBI's learn more tolerance for the sake of their own well-being as it is for us to help right brain horses learn how to be more brave.

(2) A horse pitching a temper tantrum is, still, a prey animal reacting. It is an animal that, having assessed the situation, does not feel that whatever thing is being asked of it is in its best interest. When your horse starts getting punky with you in response to such a situation, it's hard to know exactly what to make of him—it's hard to trust his intentions and to trust him with your well-being. But that is exactly what he is saying to you: "it's hard for me to trust you with my well-being right now." He behaves in a dominant fashion because he is taking responsibility for his own well-being. No, he is not respecting you in that moment, but it isn't personal the way we imagine it to be when other people are what we perceive to be rude or disrespectful. It is simply a fact: I don't respect your leadership skills enough to believe that you will take care of me in this moment and so I am going to take care of myself. (Side note: in humansville this is called being responsible for yourself and is generally seen as a good thing.)

(3) Finally, whether they are people or horses, LBI's are not warm and fuzzy. Their area of specialty is most definitely not blowing sunshine up people's asses to make them feel good about themselves. They are often, in fact, honest to the point that it is painful. As an LBI myself, I understand that this is actually one way of showing love. If I love someone, I want them to be the happiest and the best that they can be, and I know that only by facing up to the facts is that possible for them. So although it may not feel that way to them, I am actually trying to give them loving support when I am brutally honest with them.

Whether they intend it as a gesture of love or not, all horses will tell you the—sometimes brutal—truth. This is what makes them such valuable teachers. But right brain horses make this process a little more palatable by giving you a lot of extra credit bonus points for showing them that you care. LBI's, by contrast, want to know up front and in no uncertain terms that you both care and know—a lot. And they want daily proof. LBI's are more like those extremely demanding teachers who have such high standards that, if you get an 'A' in their class, you know you really earned it.

It's only recently that I've really started to appreciate the favor that my LBI horse does me every day by being this kind of demanding teacher. Now that I've started playing with other horses, everything Lupin has drilled me in is there at my fingertips without my having to think about it at all. And I realize now that what he has been doing is teaching me, not just unconscious competence, but excellence, and if this is not exactly proof of how much he loves me, it is proof of how much he cares that my leadership is solid, which in horseville I think may be almost the same thing.

In closing, I'll say one other thing for LBI's, which is that their seeming indifference goes both ways: Lupin may not be easily impressed by my leadership efforts, but he is not radically affected by my leadership failures either. As an example, I've been learning how to play with my donkey from Lupin's back. On our first trail ride, I was all kinds of spazzing out while I tried to manage the donkey, and Lupin calmly soldiered on, paying no mind to my frantic twisting and turning and—I'm embarrassed to say—cursing and swearing. Indeed, it was in large part owing to the fact that Lupin, at least, kept his head that we all came through okay.

The moral of the story? When your LBI remains completely non-plussed as you try to advance your skills, remember that he will also remain non-plussed in circumstances that could easily cause other horses to freak out. And when he does lose it emotionally and pitches the mother of all temper tantrums, try to remain calm and don't take it personally. Because when it's your turn to lose it emotionally, your LBI will be there, calm and not taking it personally.



Note: I am greatly indebted to Dan Thompson for changing my perspective on temper tantrums, and for helping me work through some of Lupin's tougher ones.