It's Not About The Trailer: Part 2

                                                         Horse Sense And Friendship


“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”
-- W.C. Fields

Horses make great friends. The relationship between the teenage girl and her horse is iconic.  The Academy Award nominated movie, War Horse, was about a horse whose profound connections (formed instantly, just as Hollywood likes it) compelled him and his people to risk their lives for each other over and over.  To “ride off into the sunset” has become an idiom for the romantic happy ending.

A lot of people think of a stable and reliable friendship as somehow dampening romance and intimate connection in committed relationships. Or they think that the romance in their relationship has faded and only the friendship remains. When you dig deeper, what you’ll find is that the quality of the friendship has faded and taken the romance with it.  Most relationships don’t split up as a result of fighting or even affairs.  Most split up as a result of emotional disengagement and security.  We often don’t have the horse sense to know that the friendship and trust in our relationships have to come first.

Be A Better Horse

Horses are huge and strong, but unbelievably perceptive.  They can feel a tiny fly land on their fur. They can turn their ears to listen to sound on all sides of them. Their field of vision is significantly wider than ours. They are also very sensitive to emotions.  Horses know each other and their owners accurately and deeply. 

Successful couples do this as well.  They are curious about each other.  They keep current about each other’s lives at every level.  When people are beginning a relationship, they spend hours talking about their families, friends, work, hobbies, likes, dislikes, and values.  Non-judgmental attention creates an emotional connection and safety which helps to draw them closer.  When people commit to each other and get into their busy lives they often stop doing this. People change and mature through every life stage and it is important to stay up to date and stay connected. 

This means listening to details about each other’s day but it also means talking about deeper feelings and ideas. What would your partner like to change or accomplish in their friendships or work lives? How do they feel about the kids growing up?  What are their biggest stressors or sources of inspiration? Talking about these types of things, and listening without trying to fix problems, helps keep a friendship strong and emotionally connected.

Sometimes this is easy to do and people just don’t get around to doing it.  Sometimes it can be hard to do because couples get into cycles of criticism and defensiveness/withdrawing.  This cycle can be hard to avoid when painful issues within the relationship have been left unaddressed.  Also, the desire to “fix” things for our partners often gets in the way of these conversations.  Couples usually want to feel heard by someone they can trust to just listen and not judge.  Fixing is often felt as an attempt to shut down the expression of the feelings. 

If you come home and tell your partner that you hate your boss, a response such as, “What did she do?” or “Yeah, he is a jerk sometimes. What happened?” feels like your partner is supporting you and wanting to share your life.  If they say, “I told you to get another job a month ago.” or “You should ask him what you are doing wrong.” or “You can’t keep complaining about it unless you are going to do something to change it.” shuts down the conversation and misses an opportunity to deepen friendship.  We all have the desire to be effective caretakers.  This help may or may not be welcome (always a good idea to ask) but it should wait until your partner feels like you know what they are experiencing and what it means to them.

“A horse doesn’t care how much you know until he knows how much you care.”
---Pat Parelli

I know that none of this seems particularly romantic or sexy, but that brings me back to, “It’s not about the trailer.”  Elizabeth Taylor said, “Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.”  It makes sense.

The Importance Of Sleep

Babies And Sleep Deprivation: Effects On Emotional Stability

A friend of mine reminded me recently of a time when her twins were about 3 months old.  She had called me because she was furious at her husband for being insensitive, unappreciative, and selfish.  When I asked her what had happened, she explained that he had stayed up to do the midnight feeding so she could get a few hours of sleep.  But when he had come in to go to bed himself, he had “taken his belt off too loudly”.  When her husband suggested the intensity of her reaction was related to the fact that she hadn’t slept more that 4-5 hours (in 2 or 3 blocks of time) for weeks, she got even more angry. We laugh about it now, but it is a great example of what makes parenting newborns so hard.  

A recent study, done by Dr. Mathew Walker at UC Berkeley, explains this phenomenon which is all too familiar to new parents: Sleep deprivation makes it harder to manage stressful emotions.  In this experiment, healthy men and women were shown emotionally disturbing pictures after varying degrees of sleep deprivation. Brain scans showed significant differences in neural activity.  "Rather than the brain being dulled or suppressed in its activity when you're sleep deprived, we found that the deep emotional centers of the brain were approximately 60% more reactive when you're sleep deprived," said Dr. Walker (Medscape Psychiatry, October 25, 2013).

The parts of our brain that enable us to moderate our emotions by using logic, problem solving, and creating context for our experience are sleepy, while the survival “fight or flight” part of the brain is working in overdrive. And this situation in and of itself makes it even harder to understand what is happening at the time. 

So the lesson for new parents?  

• Most likely, regular 8 hour nights of uninterrupted sleep are not in your near future.  But make it an actual priority to get as many naps as you can squeeze in.  People always tell moms to nap when the baby naps - and this advice is often ignored because of the piles of other uncompleted tasks that are building up.  
• Learn to ask for (and accept) help.  This is a great time to develop this important skill.  It really does take a village.  If people offer help, tell them what you need.  If you have a fridge full of lasagnas, let them tidy up your house or hold your baby while you sleep.  
• Keep mindful of the fact that sleep deprivations makes you more vulnerable and reactive so you can try to step back and breath when overwhelmed. Relaxation breathing actually helps to change brain activity.
• If you and your partner (or other sources of support) are snapping at each other,  cut each other a little slack and take things one day at a time. It will get easier.

Preserving your mental health is an important part of caring for yourself, your baby, and your family.  In the words of may wise flight attendants across the globe, “In the event of an emergency, if you are traveling with young children, put the oxygen mask on yourself before helping your child.”