The interesting thing about using states as a way of interpreting What Is Happening, is that it creates an entirely different set of guardrails around an experience. Instead of measuring the quality of the response to my cues, I’m measuring the continued availability of my horse for sensory input, leading to an adaptive (by her), and therefore informed choice as to motor output. I want to see evidence that she’s opening up, and regulating within the challenge, not shutting down and simply complying.
I find it very meaningful to grow my skills in reading the small communications (nonverbal, but quite apparent if I pay attention) of my animals. In this walk, I’m looking for movement within the state of Just Right Challenge - and I’m actually thinking of a little dial going from 1-10, based on Tundra’s body language. 1 = super easy and almost (but not quite) Home-like in routine and expected and automatically adapted to. 10 = a very high level of attention on a possible threat, but without escalating into the very different floor of Anxiety, where those threats become all she is able to think about.
With this in mind, you can watch (along with me) how Tundra experiences this little walk together. I see her moving quite fluidly up and down the “1-10 levels” within a level, but I don’t see her escalating to a whole different floor. Nor does she descend into a state where she is not even trying (which I would designate as a relaxed and sort of self-caring attitude to the experience; like she approaches eating). The whole walk (in my opinion, anyway) was a Just Right Challenge, and mutually enjoyable. I stopped the video because of time (trying to respect your attention spans, and your JRC parameters), but she did indeed calmly and happily move with me back to the herd and the second breakfast, with a pause to let me unsaddle her. No escalation. Enough stress that she is moving her “limiters” of inexperience and lack of confidence outward.
This sort of experience where I’m not exactly co-regulating; rather keeping the experience graded so she is successful in self-regulating, is very transferable to humans. Think about your own approach to a challenge which could be fun, could be too easy, or could shoot you up into Anxiety if some variables are shifted slightly. It’s not about someone “helping you do it,” so much as it could be someone helping you stay within a space where you can do it “yourself.” That attention to the parameters of the task or environment, by watching your own small movements up and down the stress ladder, is a form of care that is (again, in my opinion) very magical.
Some people’s nervous systems are naturally robust and not so prone to escalation out of a Challenge and into the higher stories. Others are more “mobile.” This is not a weakness (in fact it is a very valuable strength), but it can be tricky for someone with this characteristic to manage all the boundaries on the experience, while also focusing on the task. Helping by holding the space, slowing down the pace as needed, and keeping distractions a little less apparent is not enabling in the codependent sense. I think it is a really precise (and very technically elegant) form of coaching, personally.
If you are a facilitator of anyone else’s learning, have a try at using this sort of observation to help them grade a new challenge (or even a moderately practiced one). It is a lovely way to engage a non-dual, or non-binary, or non-judgemental perspective. It’s not at all pass or fail. It’s all about the little dials that (limiters as they can be) can be moved just a touch, here and there, to support success.
