09/18/2023
Did you know, that most people have a really poor understanding of what emotions are?
Not because they are wrong, or bad, or stupid. But because "something-something-something-late-stage-capitalism" has for decades failed to acknowledge emotions at a cultural level, and even saught to sweep them under the cultural rug. Emotionally intelligent people are very hard to manipulate and are therefore very difficult to exploit.
Emotions are not things. They are not behaviours.
I read a post the other day, talking about how happy well trained horses, will no longer be emotional.
By their explanation, they informed me their own poor understanding of emotions, which is actually the most publicly common understanding of emotions.
Repeat after me and burn into your brain:
MOST PEOPLE BELIEVE A TRAUMA RESPONSE IS AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE.
People will see a horse who is misbehaving, over threshold, having a meltdown and will label the horse as emotional. If I had a penny for every consultation where a client labelled their horse emotional when what the horse was truly having was a trauma response...
Thinking critically, emotions are actually within threshold always. They are higher brain functions. In situations where a brain feels unsafe, emotions turn off. A trauma response is an emotion that goes over threshold. A trauma response is a devolved instinctual root of emotions. An ancient, Jurassic evolutionary trait that existed millions of years before emotions evolved.
E.G. A frustrated horse, can be calm and within threshold and can be explaining to their world through very regulated emotional expression that they are annoyed. They are neither dangerous nor unmanageable. They are having a logical response to their environment and are emotionally balanced within their frustration. But then a rider starts to push on them further. Their rage escalates. They are not being listened to. Their rider lacks the empathy or wherewithal to empathise with how they feel. Then they reach rage threshold. Their limbic system goes black. Their brain goes down a functionality level. Now they are fighting you. We incorrectly call that fight; Emotional Behaviour. What it truly is; a Trauma Response. Emotion long since flew the coup. They are not being emotional. They are in process of being traumatised.
I will say that again.
A frightened, angry, panicking, or aggressive horse is not being emotional. They are having a trauma response.
A trauma response is the nervous system only. It is reactive, not responsive. The lizard brain, 240 million years old, takes over. All feelings, all thoughts, evaporate. Now, you have a horse who has four and only four expressive options before it. Their brain perceived a threat to their safety or comfort, and now you have only
FIGHT
FLIGHT
FREEZE
FAWN
These are the trauma responses. But most people- most trainers especially- will see a horse in this state and call it emotional. It is the Industrial Revolution Ghost, gaslighting emotions because the 19th century workforce the Industrial Revolution exploited, if they were to truly feel what was happening to them, would revolt. So instead they made emotions the enemy. The enemy to exploitation.
So too we are with horses. Sadly.
When a horses brain and nervous system feels safe, comfortable and confident, the trauma responses become benign, passive or turn off all together. Then the brain graduates higher- into the limbic system (To speak simply on the matter). The limbic system is responsible for EMOTIONS, CONSCIOUS MOVEMENT and MEMORY FORMATION. It is the largest part of a horses brain and is more developed than a humans.
Jaak Panksepp, Estonian neuroscientist, bless that sweet man, spent his life exploring the neurology of mammalian emotions. He mapped them in the mammalian brain. He found 7 concrete singular emotional systems in the brain. His science is peer reviewed and robustly accepted. But conveniently ignored by many.
PLAY
CARE
SEEKING
LUST
PANIC
RAGE
FEAR
This is the basis of my work with EH. Starting here.
A calm horse, who is consenting to movement and is forming learning memories... is being emotional.
An out of control horse who is having a meltdown, is having a trauma response.
Trauma responses are about triggers and reactivity.
Emotional responses are about memories, movements and feel.
It is a fundamental misunderstanding, that will probably be a theme that I would have to consistently speak on for the rest of my life. Because the roots of this misunderstanding run multi-generations deep in human culture.
