The Power of the Herd (43 page)

Using the Emotional Message Chart found at the end of this chapter, in conjunction with the horse's Four-Point Method for Emotional Agility outlined earlier in this chapter, helps you stay centered and think clearly when uncomfortable feelings arise. Inspired in part by the work of Karla McLaren (particularly concerning her innovative insights into sadness, grief, and depression first presented in her audio book
Becoming an Empath),
the Emotional Message Chart is a key to the valuable messages behind the most troublesome emotions. It has been updated and expanded for use in the workplace, though it's equally effective in navigating personal relationships. (
If you want more information on how to use emotions to navigate
personal challenges, I highly recommend McLaren's most recent book,
The Language of Emotions.)

In spoken language, the same word sometimes expresses multiple meanings according to the context. Similarly, emotions like fear and vulnerability feel comparable yet hold different messages. The same goes for anger and frustration, sadness and grief, and envy and jealousy. Also, keep in mind that on the Emotional Message Chart, the definitions of these highly informative feelings
relate specifically to
emotional intelligence.
So while you may find ten different meanings for sadness in the dictionary, the only definition you'll find here is one that you can use as a reliable message to help you make informed decisions and take effective action to move forward productively.

Some people, particularly those who have suppressed emotion for so long they have trouble feeling these somatic messages in their initial stages, find that they don't notice an emotion arising until it intensifies into a much stronger signal. If this happens to you, you may find yourself skimming the “Intensification” column and reading the related entry in the “Message” column to discover the message that coincides with whatever current situation has given rise to an emotion you can no longer ignore.

The Emotional Message Chart and commentary presented here offer brief examples of how the meanings behind these potentially volatile signals can help you manage your own and others' emotions in professional situations at work, at school, in community organizations, and in political and social activism contexts.

A more succinct outline of the chart is featured
at the end of this chapter, which you might want to copy and post above your desk, in the break room, or on your home and office refrigerators for quick reference. Subsequent guiding principles build on this information in preparing for productive conversations on difficult topics, advanced fear-management skills, and emotional-strength-training principles.

Horses show a remarkable talent for managing risk and negotiating change — without suffering the chronic anxiety many humans endure. In taking cues from the ways these powerful animals respond to and recover from encounters with predators, I realized that it's helpful to discern between an external threat in the environment, which is fear as nature's warning system, and the kind of fear I now distinguish as
vulnerability,
which is an internal threat, a challenge to your self-image, belief system, or comfortable habits. The two feel similar, and most people treat them as the same; but fear and vulnerability call for different responses, though both can be relevant in times of significant change and innovation.

With an external threat, you need to move to safety. With vulnerability,
you're not in immediate danger, but circumstances are asking you to expand out of your comfort zone. Take the recent financial crisis. Some people are facing the very real threat of losing their jobs and homes. Others are dealing with the vulnerability of having to modify the ways they do business, of having to step into the unknown and try something new.

Humans sometimes don't protect themselves when they should, and they sometimes go into flight-or-fight mode when there's no real danger. It's as if we're more reactive to and fearful of change than an actual physical threat. Much social strife is caused at home, at work, and between countries by our inability to recognize the difference between fear and vulnerability. Horses, on the other hand, embrace change and enjoy life even as they keep track of all the lions and wolves wandering through their neighborhood.

Like other large herbivores, horses use speed, size, agility, and power to protect themselves and their young, drawing additional security from the group. But they also benefit immeasurably from their ability to read the intentions and emotional states of predators
at a distance.
Nature documentaries sometimes overemphasize successful kills, no doubt for sensational purposes (and perhaps because of humanity's overidentification with predatory dominance). But it's important to realize that thousands of hours of film depicting a relatively peaceful coexistence between predator and prey are left on the cutting-room floor. In Africa, it's common to see lions lounging less than a hundred feet from grazing herds that can clearly assess from moment to moment whether these giant cats are dangerous. Video clips also show single adult horses, zebras, and wildebeests attacking and driving off predators who've managed to pull down another herd member. And after that close encounter with death? Both rescuer and rescued shake off the encounter quickly and get back to grazing, back to
life.

Fear
resilience
is a lesser-known feature of natural herd behavior that many humans have lost. Social structures based on predatory dominance encourage people to prey upon each other, creating inescapable stress in abusive work, home, or school environments. Developing nonpredatory power helps people boost their courage and combine forces to transform the four Stone Age Power Tools and other needlessly destructive practices that currently wreak havoc beneath the surface of virtually all cultures, religions, and business and educational disciplines.

Like lions, tigers, and wolves, our more “carnivorous” coworkers can learn to balance their talents and needs to support the healthy functioning of any organization's ecosystem. This is only possible, however, when savvy, emotionally
and socially intelligent leaders and team members learn how to set boundaries, manage fear, and defuse aggression — without shaming people or holding grudges. (See Guiding Principles 3 to 11 in
chapters 15
to
23
.)

Remember: in pastoral cultures, expert herders combine predatory and nonpredatory power to direct these opposing forces for the good of the entire interspecies tribe. Rather than stirring up fear to gain control — which creates dangerous stampedes in large groups of loose animals — master herdsmen calm and focus the animals in emergencies while joining forces with fellow tribesmen to fight off predators if necessary. (See
chapter 8
.)

Nomadic animals like horses also exhibit a marked talent for adapting to change. Carnivores fight over territory, sometimes to the death. Herbivores harmonize with the landscape and the seasons. If water and grass become scarce, they search for greener pastures with their family groups, often migrating with other nonpredatory species. There's a real sense of adventure in the herd when it's time to move on, not fear or resentment. Horses show incredible endurance migrating over vast distances precisely because they know how to enjoy, and be nourished by, the journey.

Subsequent guiding principles offer specifics on how to use fear and vulnerability in negotiating risk and navigating change. (For an in-depth look at fear-management skills, see Guiding Principle 7, in
chapter 19
. To understand the important role that vulnerability plays in team building and group creativity, see Guiding Principle 5, in
chapter 17
. To understand the importance of emotional heroism in leadership, see Guiding Principle 11, in
chapter 23
.)

In the meantime, here's a quick look at the functional messages behind these two interconnected emotions:

In its purest form, fear is nature's warning system of an external threat in the environment. Intensifications like worry, anxiety, and confusion result from trying to explain fear away or control what scares us while ignoring a deeper message we don't want to face. For instance, it's common for people to override fear in order to enter into an abusive relationship, disregarding early evidence that something's not quite right in order to reap some other benefit, such as a wealthy lifestyle or prestigious marriage. (In this case, a perpetually anxious wife might worry about keeping the house clean and making sure dinner is served on time to avoid a beating.)

Panic and terror are the result of true and urgent endangerment that is being ignored, often pointing back to and accentuated by an injury or trauma the person wasn't allowed to work through. Peter Levine, author of
Waking the Tiger,
and other psychologists active in the field of somatic psychotherapy have some important insights to offer people who work with trauma survivors, including military personnel suffering from post–traumatic stress disorder.

Dissociation (“going blank and numb” under stress) is a state that can initially result from not being able to flee a situation perceived as deadly, such as a serious accident, rape, physical abuse, or war. However, survivors of extreme experiences sometimes get stuck in this mode, freezing in mildly stressful situations when they're not in physical danger, such as in conflicts at work or when speaking in front of groups. This leads to the “perpetual assistant” phenomenon, in which an otherwise brilliant person is unable to realize her true potential.

Experiential education can help dissociative people retrain their nervous systems to handle increasing stress and recognize that they are no longer in physical danger. (Long-term abuse survivors sometimes experience dull senses at the beginning of their treatment, as their nervous systems were essentially short-circuited by extreme stress and violence.) Equine-facilitated therapy is particularly effective in this regard because it capitalizes on the oxytocin (calm-and-connect) response in the presence of a large, nonjudgmental animal, inspiring people to develop relaxed yet heightened awareness, boundaries, assertiveness, and other skills associated with power and relationship.

Vulnerability is an emotion that feels like fear on the surface, but it represents an internal threat, a threat to your self-image, belief system, or comfortable habits. The key lies in separating it from fear, our natural warning system, which points to external threats. If, upon checking in with the mind-body awareness system, you find no discernible threat in the immediate environment, check to see if the threat seems to instead arise from a conflict within the self.

Vulnerability marks the point at which an old coping strategy, behavior pattern, or perception of the world is being challenged — or a previously repressed part of the self is being revealed. People with a low tolerance for vulnerability tend to develop a rigid identity based on established methods, degrees, or familial or societal norms. This false sense of self, or “conditioned personality,” is merely a collection of habits and has no creative power to imagine a new way acting in response to change or unexpected information. (See Guiding Principle 6,
chapter 18
, for strategies you can use to move beyond limiting thought patterns.) Panic results when the conditioned mind feels a need to “run away” from the insight. Rage arises when the personality tries to fight or violently suppress the insight. (See Guiding Principle 5,
chapter 17
, for ideas on how to develop a higher tolerance for vulnerability.)

When vulnerability becomes an external threat.
Here's the tricky part about fear and vulnerability. In some highly competitive environments, and most certainly in overtly predatory social structures, people are encouraged and sometimes even taught to use a colleague's or competitor's vulnerabilities against him in order to boost their own status.
(Vulnerabilities include lack of training in a new area, skill deficiencies, miscommunications, honest mistakes, unpopular concerns, high sensitivity, shyness, and interpersonal weaknesses.) Guiding Principles 3 (
chapter 15
), 5 (
chapter 17
), and 7 (
chapter 19
) address how to deal with this destructive aspect of group behavior.

When anger arises, it signals that someone has invaded your physical or psychological space, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps with the intention to control or take advantage of you. Either way, the surge of energy that accompanies this emotion helps you stand your ground when someone pushes your boundaries. Anger feels similar to frustration, and both can intensify into rage. Frustration, however, emerges when you meet resistance in changing someone else's behavior, or when you're ineffective in handling a technical difficulty. Anger encourages you to hold your ground (without ordering others around). Frustration emerges when you've reached a block that prevents you from achieving a goal.