gratitude Archives - Horses Know The Way Home

Go For IT Gratitude!

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Brian Reid Posted in Brian's Blog 7 Comments

Are you grateful, really grateful?

Have you heard the conversation that goes like this.

Q: “Are you happy?”

A: “Yes”

Observation: “Then tell your face about it”

Just because we say the word grateful does not mean we are feeling grateful.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of empty comments about gratitude from complacent, otherwise preoccupied, casually unaware, others.

Maybe, if we are honest we can remember being the other.

Well, I have an “Other” way to look at gratitude that will put some HorsePower in your gratefulness and move you and others to gratitude in action.

“Go for IT Gratitude”

Here is the story:

Last week I visited my good friend Spencer LaFlure and his wife Judy. They live in Athol NY within the Adirondack National Forest which is 6 million acres of land. All the other National Parks combined can fit within its borders.

This is where Spencer grew up and where he calls home and he is proud of it.

I went there to get away and “go for it” with my gratitude.

I brought Brenda Lee and Kylian along with us so they could go on a ranch vacation also.

I did not bring them to ride, drive, or train.

I brought them there because I’m grateful for them in my life.

I wanted them to hang out and be horses, to run, gallop, frolic and be with each other in the depth of nature.

I feel grateful for them in my life so I “Go for IT”.

IT, being my Inner Truth in action, my Inner Truth of joy for joy’s sake.

While there, I said thank you to Spencer and Judy many times to acknowledge their gift to me and for offering their ranch experience to my wife Katleen, Brenda Lee and Kylian.

My “Go for IT” was seen in asking Spencer to show me his home, his land, his chosen place to live “In the Wild”.

I wanted to be the Witness of Spencer’s life work as my “GO for IT Gratitude”.

I witnessed, listened, and enjoyed and let him see my joy as he showed me his life.

We cruised Lake George where he and his father would swim 300 head of horses across as part of the dude ranch yearly chores.

We visited Gore Mountain where Spencer would teach and entertain skiers, and while there we bumped into his old friends.

We visited the Dude Ranch where Spencer stepped out his own and where he has his school of Advanced Whole Horse Dentistry.

All the while I had no need to say thank you. All I had to do was be witness to how his life was and where it is going now and show him my happiness in experiencing it all.

After saying goodbye and getting back to the rhythms of life at home, I reached out to both Judy and Spencer and let them know again how much it meant to me to give the gift of their life to those closest to me in my life.

And now I’m going to Go For IT and let him witness how this inspirational visit is unfolding in my life.

It may be our own ranch.

It may be letting him know how much closer Brenda Lee and Kylian are after their first vacation together.

It may be Katleen sending them 120 photos of the entire weekend.

It may be the smile I’m holding in my heart during our next phone conversation.

It will be so much more than just saying “thank you” as I show him the Nextness of his friendship in my life.

Thank you Spencer and Judy for sharing your life and inspiring this whispering.

Thank you Katleen for sharing the journey with me and capturing it in your beautiful photography.

Thank you Brenda Lee and Kylian for giving me reason larger than myself to create my life.

Thank you, who are reading this, for it is the thought of your witness, that inspires me to “Go For It”, and for that I am eternally grateful!!!

The next time someone does something that you feel grateful for, try this:

Acknowledge their gift and the let them see its Nextness in your life.

Show them what happens next after the gratitude acknowledgement.

It could be your happiness, your smile, your joy.

It could be your new state after receiving their gracious gift.

It could be your action of using their gift in your life and letting them witness its use.

Go for IT.

Feel the Connection.

Make your move.

Create that change.

Brian

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Learn and practice one principle a day to help you find your Way Home at any time and in any given situation.

Create a solid foundation from where you can fully release your Personal HorsePower and make that move toward what matters!

There is Life after Death

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Brian Reid Posted in Brian's Blog 3 Comments

At some point in our life, we deal with loss …The loss of a friend, a partner, a soulmate.

In a recent conversation with my wife we talked about Quinn, the Friesian she let go off in 2011. He used to be Kylian’s best friend before he met Brenda Lee in person and he used to be Katleen’s equine soulmate, along with Kylian.

This Whispering is about how I used the story of being human to help her in 2011 with how to create life in the next chapter of the story of Quinn, her horse friend.

The human I’m referring to is Frank Reid, my father, and how he became more alive in my story of him since his death than when he was alive.

My father, as all of us, had many sides to his personality. I often refer to him as a “More Than”. More kind, more selfless, more funny and more generous Than anyone else I knew. More mean, more violent, more selfish and more fearful Than anyone else I ever knew.

After his passing, I got on with my life and decided to pursue a childhood dream of being a Body Builder. During this venture I could often be witnessed in the gym lifting incredible amounts of weight. People around me were amazed and gave me great space when I was working out. Not because I wanted them to but rather because of the intense focused state I would put myself into, in order to lift these weights. I would tap into my fathers’ violence and meanness and move weights that were previously beyond my imagination.

While in this state a funny thing happened, I was filled with gratitude for my father being my father. Something I had lost long ago, wiped out by the states of being on the other side of too much alcohol, and what that does to an already intense personality acting out his pain on others.

Here I was, headphones on, listening to Christine Aguilera’s music as loud as it would go and the most obvious forces driving my performance were my fathers intensity, anger and violence applied to my childhood dreams in a focused pursuit.

I never asked for this intensity but here it was, available for my use to create rather than destroy. An option only made true by my choosing to direct it toward the life I wanted to create, the story I wanted to write.

I wondered if he ever had this option, if he was ever aware of this choice.

Resentment, loss and anger were transformed through awareness and understanding to gratitude, love, and support and the gift was my father “ALIVE” in my life, lifting me toward the life I wanted to create. My father was alive in my life and I was forty at the time. “Thank you Frank”.

Back to Katleen. As I listened to Katleen share her feelings of her loss of Quinn I was moved to see how well she was doing.

I remember she was feeling the loss, the pain, the sorrow and she was O.K. with it. She was actually slightly beyond O.K. to a state of satisfaction that she could at once feel pain, loss, sorrow, and confusion all the while feeling warmth, fondness, connection and love toward her companion. She was solid in her authenticity and genuineness. Two states that Quinn taught her were the foundation of living in the moment and following your heart. As I listened to her, I felt a sense of relief that she was doing well and a sense of gratitude toward having a friend who lives life according to the life lessons her horses have taught her. To be in the moment, to be genuine and authentic.

In her authenticity she shared that she will never get to feel him again. She alluded to her sense of his “goneness”, his forever absence from her life, his death.

This is where I asked her to think about another option, his Life.

I shared with her the story of my father and asked her to consider that every horse she owns or rides from this day forth will be influenced by her relationship with Quinn. She could honor his life and bring him back into her world by feeling for his presence and guidance with every relationship she has going forward and toward the life she is creating. She could create the story of Quinn’s next rather than his never. The choice was hers, she was aware of the option.

I also reminded her of how so many people ask me how old Brenda Lee is, while what they are really asking is how long till she dies. What they don’t know is Brenda Lee will always live in my life forever as Quinn does in Katleen’s story.

It’s not the story of the loss of Quinn, it is the story of the living of Quinn in Katleen’s life.

Visit this link to read Katleen’s guest Blog about Quinn.

Have you been in the situation of losing a loved one?

What are the gifts that your loved one(s) have left for you, today?

Share it with me and with us all and let your gifts expand.

Feel the Connection,

Brian Reid

Get Brian’s and Brenda Lee’s help to move you, make that change and ultimately gallop to freedom within a timeframe beyond your imagination.

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Click here for more info about this book.

Letting Go with Gratitude to Let’s Go!

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Katleen Reid Posted in Brian's Blog Leave a comment

Guest Post by Katleen (written in 2011, reposted in 2014)

“I hope you discover and open the gifts Quinn has left for you as you tend to your heart”

(Brian Reid)

Quinn has left us.
I’ve always been afraid of losing him.
Afraid of not knowing how to move on without him and his silent wisdom.

Drawing of us together by my friend Les Kiger

Reflecting back on this day and the first days after his passing, has given me some beautiful insights and maybe opened the first precious gifts he has left for me forever.

The horses I share my life with have all opened ways toward great introspection. The ponies were my first start. Kylian added the playful note and Quinn the wisdom. All of them stimulate a different part of me daily, a part to be developed more thoroughly than without them. What started as a leisurely pursuit, evolved into a way of living.

I can’t say that I appreciate one more than another as I love them all, but Quinn….he was and will always be one of a kind. His unexpected appearance in my life and my unexplainable attraction to him (however the Friesian breed is my favorite above all) were the answer to all I needed at the time we found each other. I didn’t know then, but I learned to recognize along our time together, that he was playing a crucial role in me developing myself as the being I am.

What I learned and experienced about connection and being true to myself and them, was as real as it could be the day Quinn passed away. The connection we shared and that grew along the years was profound. With Quinn it was all about softness, mindfulness, inner peace, awareness and connecting to a higher level of consciousness. This experience of connecting at that level with another being gave me such a feeling of “oneness” that it even didn’t matter any more whether I had him next to me, at the other side of the pasture or even out of sight. And no matter if this was only in my imagination or if this was the real deal, it mattered to me and to how I experienced him as an equine being. The day he passed away to me felt as his “being” just leaving his equine physical body without disrupting the heartfelt connection.

With Quinn and Kylian in the Summer of 2009

I don’t ignore that I was afraid. I don’t hide that I was as sad as I could be. It hurt like hell to feel him suffer and I didn’t want him to go at all! I wanted him to stay, to be able to have more magic moments like we had, to hear his happy nickering in the morning, to smell him or to feel the shivering down my spine when touching his whiskers. To have his shoulder to lean on and his silent wisdom to support me while playing with Kylian. But I knew, and I knew very well, that he only had issues when I had issues with my issues and the last thing I wanted to put him through was experiencing me not being true to myself the last day we could spend together like this.

So in contradiction to what we humans often say – “be strong”, “get yourself together” – I cried and cried and cried. I let all out: fear, pain, sadness, love, gratitude, all came out as a flood and all I could do was just go with that flow. No restriction, no tension, no shivering, no hurting throat from holding in any emotion. And I thanked him….nothing else was in my mind but gratitude, endless gratitude.

All day long, while his prognosis was still uncertain, Kylian, Jolly and I stayed together with him. The purity of each of our emotions and connection was clear and the appreciation coming from Quinn was felt. All happened at his rhythm. We let him be free to be until his last breath when he decided that it was enough.

And than it was all peaceful. Tears kept on flowing but it was as peaceful as it could be. No pressure, no tension, no “holding on to” or non-accepting anything. It was not good, nor bad, but just OK and peaceful. All was well.

All was connected, we all were connected and the level of connection reached it’s summit. Was Quinn’s work done? Was he done with me? With us? Was he satisfied and proud and comfortable to go? Was I really able to move on?

“Thank you for allowing him the dignity to release his spirit when it grew too large for his body. He will watch over you always and guide you to your Home.”

(Deborah Barbour Lundy)

And he has guided me Home. Toward him, I had the courage to open up my heart. And the friends being here today to support me with their kindness, I have to thank him for. As each one of them appeared in my life once I came Home. The passion for life that I rediscovered, I have to thank him for. The ability to reconnect with myself, I have to thank him for. And as Brian says in his Whispering – There is Life after Death - “She could honor his life and bring him back into her world by feeling for his presence and guidance with every relationship she has going forward and toward the life she is creating” That is taking place right now, tomorrow and the day after and next. I’m very much aware of that and as my friend Joni said this so beautifully “he is with you in all-ways” …. He is. I see and feel him in all shapes of the beauty around me.

“The love within you can transform your pain to beauty with benefits, if you let it”

(Brian Reid)

The first two days after his passing away, I didn’t feel like talking. Not because I was holding in or suppressing, but just because all was peaceful. I remember sharing this feeling with Brian first, which was based on the connection we share and to me it was just enough to know that he knew because I knew he understood ..

Those days I felt no need for consolation. It was enough to feel the presence of my friends, my friends who appeared into my life since the presence of Quinn, and that feeling passing through….”you’re not alone”. Thank you all for your kindness.

I learned to let all flow while letting go and keep that smile even throughout the tears. Because, none of us has any reason to be sad today because of what happened the day before but only grateful for what it has left over for us to carry further into eternal development. I will move on with an open heart full of love for all who will cross my path.

Have you lost a dear one?

How did you experience this time and how does it feel today?

Would you like to share your story with us?
Katleen Reid

What’s the Gravity of Your Situation?

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Brian Reid Posted in Brian's Blog 2 Comments

We all have dreams, desires, hopes and “somedays” that we would admit more of, if we could get past the gravity of our current situations. Many of us have successes in certain areas of our lives, where others often tell us, how good we are.

If only we could be that good, in that one particular area or areas, that we keep behind the curtains of our lives, covering the skeletons in our closets.

You know what I’m talking about! Those areas where we are stuck, trudging, slipping and getting sick and tired of being sick and tired. Those areas of our lives that hate time. The time it took to get there, and the time we have been hovering there with seemingly no movement, while time keeps marching on.

There is a way out and it is not the Law of Attraction (at least not the common understanding of it), nor is it focusing on the stars. The answer is right at your feet, quite literally as well as figuratively. The first step before and after you have found something that matters to you, is to clear away from the Gravity of your current reality.

And here is the secret of all secrets:

It is not the gravity of your current reality that is holding you back but the glue of your judgment that keeps you bound to situations, and circumstances that has you floating is a sea of complacency, conformity and comfortableness that prevents progression toward your “Matterings”.

Knowing and Appreciating the gravity of your current life situation is the first step to setting yourself free to move toward what matters to you:

The constant voice of your desires calling you toward.
The constant voice of your source of inspiration, yearning for expression.
The constant voice or your witness pushing for expansion.

These voices will not be quieted till you come Home, upon which time it will be replaced by a Next! Your movement toward is all that matters and the gravity of your story is the beginning. But first we must break free of the glue that binds us to our gravity so we can harness its energies.

When scientists were tasked with the mission of getting to the moon they were tasked with the challenge of studying, harnessing, overcoming and aligning with the forces of gravity,

the gravity of earth as well as the moon. They needed to escape from and use the power of gravity, to power their mission.

The gift that scientists had that can lighten your load is they did not judge the force of gravity.

Gravity to them, of earth and well as the moon and in space, was simply a force of nature to be understood, harnessed and aligned with to help them achieve an outcome that mattered.

They did not see gravity as good or bad, they did not think “It should not be” or “ How could you”, they did not wish for better gravity.

They simply worked with the nature of gravity, appreciating every little detail of it in context of how it could be used to help them move a spaceship toward the moon and back.

Did I mention they appreciated the force that they had to overcome?

Imagine, aligning with your nature to utilize the natural forces of the universe to move you toward what matters,

And all you would have to do is appreciate all the forces that are holding you back so you can harness them to your benefit.

But what if you hated gravity, judged its very existence and your collaboration with it?

Then your judgement would prevent you from accessing the gifts that are your natural birthright.

The gifts of NOW and NEXT.

The accepted, appreciated truth of now!

The hopeful, trusting faith in next!

IT* all begins with you

At first there will need to be forgiveness,

Mixed with much acceptance,

Inspired by appreciation,

All for-giving you the freedom to embrace your true nature and move with nature itself toward what moves you.

This is what makes all humans equal,

Our access to our source of inspiration,

Our access to nature itself,

Our judgement disconnects us from it,

Our acceptance harnesses its power,

Our appreciation unleashes its force toward whatever our feeling infused focus is directed at.

Be that the moon, a manicure, our matterings and desired manifestations or something better. If only we would learn to love and appreciate everything that has come before this moment.

Feel the Connection

Brian

P.S.

In my next Blog I’ll go deeper into this topic with a video from the forest of Brenda Lee and Kylian living this very truth for you to see and feel.

Once you have felt it then you can get back there.

P.P.S

This is how Lucy conquers gravity …

*IT = Inner Truth

Tag Archives: gratitude

Go For IT Gratitude!

Are you grateful, really grateful?

Well, I have an “Other” way to look at gratitude that will put some HorsePower in your gratefulness and move you and others to gratitude in action.

I feel grateful for them in my life so I “Go for IT”.

IT, being my Inner Truth in action, my Inner Truth of joy for joy’s sake.

The next time someone does something that you feel grateful for, try this:

Go for IT.

Take the 14-Day Challenge !

Learn and practice one principle a day to help you find your Way Home at any time and in any given situation.

Create a solid foundation from where you can fully release your Personal HorsePower and make that move toward what matters!

There is Life after Death

I wondered if he ever had this option, if he was ever aware of this choice.

This is where I asked her to think about another option, his Life.

Get Brian’s and Brenda Lee’s help to move you, make that change and ultimately gallop to freedom within a timeframe beyond your imagination.

Get Inspirational Whisperings today!

Letting Go with Gratitude to Let’s Go!

“I hope you discover and open the gifts Quinn has left for you as you tend to your heart”

(Brian Reid)

“Thank you for allowing him the dignity to release his spirit when it grew too large for his body. He will watch over you always and guide you to your Home.”

(Deborah Barbour Lundy)

“The love within you can transform your pain to beauty with benefits, if you let it”

(Brian Reid)

What’s the Gravity of Your Situation?

And here is the secret of all secrets:

It is not the gravity of your current reality that is holding you back but the glue of your judgment that keeps you bound to situations, and circumstances that has you floating is a sea of complacency, conformity and comfortableness that prevents progression toward your “Matterings”.

Imagine, aligning with your nature to utilize the natural forces of the universe to move you toward what matters,

And all you would have to do is appreciate all the forces that are holding you back so you can harness them to your benefit.

Learn more practical Personal Development Principles to find your Way Home and move toward what matters in your life, today.

Register here to start your FREE 14-day HorsePower e-course!