10/03/2025
A great way to start October with lots of learning,braiding, clipping, and farm sittings đđđ´ to my new and repeat clients alike- thank you for the opportunity and your preference! This Fridayâs musing is:
Feelings v Facts
This week I began a new apprenticeship under a nationally renowned farrier. On the first morning before stepping into the truck he asked, âwhere did you go to school?â He had never heard of my university and it became clear he wanted a different answer- what horseshoeing school? Well, I had already told him I did not go to school for that but everything I had already learned was on the job. So he snarled and grumbled and then said, âmy job today is to find out what you know and what you donât.â To which I replied, âitâs easy: about shoeing I know very little, and what I donât know is a whole lot. Can we start from the beginning?â Verbal anatomy, biochemics, physics, and geometry tests ensued the rest of the day. At the end, seemingly disappointed, he told me: âwhatever answer you give me tomorrow, you better have something to back it up with. Facts. Because everyone has an opinion. Your experience does not make it a fact.â
Full stop. Letâs revisit that again. âYour experience is not able to be called factâ and Iâm paraphrasing but he alluded to it itâs not fact, itâs an opinion. And we all have those. We are entitled to our experiences, outcomes, and opinions. But he wanted the peer-reviewed, irrefutable, researched âfactsâ behind my answers. It led me to ponder where else I have heard to question everything, to ask for the compelling proof behind what people - horse people mainly- are claiming as âfactâ. At the end of our last day this week he said, âit is ALWAYS ok to- and you should - ask âHow do you know?ââ Because I found out under fire that most of my answers to that question were in fact because thatâs just what I have been taught. By people I consider credible, with experience and expertise. But I think thatâs exactly how the system works isnât it? Exactly how the wheel is supposed to turn. We donât question who we consider authority- thatâs how they want it too! Just buy it- hook, line, and sinker. Because after all, shouldnât we all be trusting the âexpertsâ with the credentials and experience we donât have?
In reality, thatâs the entire reason we SHOULD be asking these people how they are so sure of what is leaving their mouth. For example, I commented to him about severely contracted heels on one of the horses and he loved to be able to chew my ass on this one: âwhat makes you think that? How do you know these heels are contracted? What is the measurement to determine that?â Well, as it turns out none of my answers were valid to him hhahaha because there is no standardâŚ. It was my experience and me going off of what my mentors had taught me, my own educationâŚ
Which led me to ponder this morning how my bodywork mentor is constantly reminding us students that our brains are born biased. Again, my paraphrasing, but to oversimplify it our brains that run our nervous systems like predictability, horses do the same thing- they thrive on routine because itâs predictable. And we automatically generate our own narrative- predictions- about what the outcome is, what we will find, etc. She is always telling us the same thing as my farrier mentor this week- QUESTION. Everything. Everyone. Where is this information coming from? Educate yourself.
As it turns out, feelings are pretty closely related to predictions of outcomes. And people get really, really defensive about feelings! Confirmation bias leads our brains to seek exactly the outcome we predict or expect and law of attraction then seems to complete the cycle and make it reality. âSee? Exactly what I thought would happen.â And so the cycle goes. Some relationship counselor on a reel last night that came across my scrolling was talking about how important it is in relationships that we donât get ahead of ourselves and just start assuming things that may not be true! She suggested we list the facts of what just happened or is bothering us âX said YZâ and what the feelings are âI feel X is ignoring meâ as an exercise to help separate the two. Because turns out, our brains are GREAT at letting our feelings cloud the facts of what actually was said or what happened in the moment. And, many times, our feelings donât match the facts, though our brains marry the two and call it âtruthâ.
So as we go into the weekend I know for one Iâll be questioning my own self about what I know. Where did I get this information from? Who did THAT person get that information from? How do I know this information is fact and not feeling? And so on. We are allowed to have our own experience. We have a right to operate based on that, and hold our own opinions based off what current knowledge we have amassed. But I think the takeaway from this weekâs apprenticing is that we need to be clear that there are 80 ways to do the same thing, perhaps say the same thing: our interpretation matters and we canât exactly call our feelings, facts. Just because an instructor said it, doesnât make it fact.
A great way to start October with lots of learning, braiding, clipping, farm sittings, and these hams under gorgeous sunsets đđđ´ to my new and repeat clients alike- thank you for the opportunity and your preference!
