How animals can teach us the difference between instinct and intellect

[Music]

animals

are fascinating their simplicity

their capabilities and their instincts

are admirable

and i believe that we as humans

have a lot to learn from them take a

horse

for example it senses danger and it

leaves

naturally of course because horses are

prey animals and they don’t want to be

eaten

but on the flip side a mountain lion

senses a horse is nearby and it runs

toward its prey it doesn’t think about

the horse

its newborn foal or how much the bite

will hurt

it simply thinks of the horse

as its next meal one thing for certain

about animals

is that they simply follow evidence

we as humans however over analyze

situations

we complicate things and oftentimes

we confuse ourselves my life

has revolved around animals from growing

up on a farm

to becoming an entrepreneur and

developing therapeutic products for

animals

i and my well-being has been intricately

tied to the welfare of my four-legged

friends

but like most strong relationships true

understanding and admiration has come

from both pain and suffering

it was march of 2011. i was studying

biology

on a pre-med track my third year of

undergrad

when i had a horse riding accident that

left me temporarily paralyzed

with a triple fracture in my c2

vertebrae

i was put into a halo traction device on

a morphine drip without real clarity of

what the future held

but i was told i would never ride again

and i may never walk again and my road

to recovery was treacherous

very scary at times and long

but here i stand in heels i might add

to tell you the story

there have been so many twists and turns

for me since the accident but

after regaining full mobility horses did

come back into my life

and one horse in particular has made a

lasting

impact and he has taught me so much

his name is hera so para is this

big-bodied beautiful horse who had a

bright

future ahead of him or at least that’s

what i was told at first but after being

with multiple trainers

and no real results para came back to me

with a long list of behavioral issues

and

two professional recommendations

of humane euthanasia

now just to paint a clear picture for

you this horse was rearing up and

striking out

at everyone who would approach him in a

stall and everyone told me he was mean

dangerous and unpredictable

i listened intently to each of these

trainers and i noticed something

interesting i noticed the fear they had

because of para

but even more so i noticed the fear

para had because of them so

i began seeking alternate training

methods

and what i found were two extremes

feed him carrots until he loves me

or use a whip until he respects me

both felt polarized and equally both

felt wrong

it actually reminded me interestingly

enough of an incident

years prior my very first day in college

a lesson that i learned i sit down in

class

the professor comes in he hands out this

worksheet and it’s full of all kinds of

controversial topics like

abortion and the death penalty and

beside each of these topics is a scale

of one to ten

and we were supposed to rate how much we

either agreed or disagreed with the said

topic

now i grew up in a conservative family

very strong religious beliefs

as you can imagine i adamantly disagreed

with a few of these things

i really didn’t think very much of it i

marked my choices went back home

the next day i came back into that same

class and was presented with an

assignment

to research for one week the topic that

i so

adamantly disagreed with and present a

presentation one week later to room full

of 300 people

convincing them of the opposite and why

they too

should follow my choice that was a very

difficult

task but it taught me an important

lesson

and that was that the middle of the road

is the sweet spot

and it can be found by balancing our

instinct

with her intellect and our reasoning

skills

see what i realized was that the act

that i so adamantly disagreed with

or more importantly was socialized to

believe was wrong

was actually a viable solution in some

circumstances

have you ever asked yourself that

question are your

ideas really your ideas or were you

simply socialized to believe those

things

it’s actually a very difficult thing to

know without serious

self-reflection and true understanding

of both sides of an idea

or a debate see life is not

necessarily black or white

there is a lot of gray area and i

believe that when we embrace the gray

our lives become much more colorful

to me the black and white parts of life

are our

instincts and the gray area is our

reasoning skills

which is derived by our intellect

see the horse sees the mountain lion and

he’s out of there

he doesn’t wait around to reason with

his herd to see if that mountain lion

just so happens to have the same

intentions as the last one

no he simply sees the mountain lion and

he leaves

what that mandatory college assignment

taught me were lessons that i carried

with me into my adulthood

i listened intently to both sides of

stories

i respected all human intellect and i

remained independent

in my own views i really felt that i had

found the gray area

and that was the main reason i knew

there had to be some middle ground for

my horse para

and then one day that lesson really sank

it was the first day i had her back in

my own care i

saddled him up to ride him and i admit i

was a bit fearful

as i approached him he was wide-eyed and

skeptical

and i realized that we both had fear

of the same thing being hurt him by me

and me by him now i’ve never hurt an

animal in my life

it’s not my nature to do so but i can

also assure you

that all the treats in the world

wouldn’t have convinced para otherwise

so reluctantly

and i’m ashamed to admit this against

all my principles of avoiding the

extremes

i gave pera a sedative out of my

own self-preservation my own fear of

being hurt

i gave it to him i walked back into the

tap room

and just moments later i walked out to

be met

by a horse who was nearly unrecognizable

his eyes half shut glazed over

his head resting up against the stall

wall with his lip turned sideways

i felt like a monster

because i had fallen victim to the human

superiority complex

i finally realized that i had been

listening to

everyone’s side of their story except

perez and he was the very subject

of it all you know there was something

in pera in that moment that i understood

i knew exactly what he felt like

as a matter of fact i vividly remember

on the day of my accident

being wheeled into the trauma center at

shands university

already heavily sedated under bright

lights

listening to a neurosurgeon and a

neurologist

two complete strangers to me above me

arguing my own future

i knew what para felt like para wasn’t

mean

he wasn’t unpredictable he was afraid

his survival instincts had kicked in and

rightfully so

at that with that new understanding

we started over completely i turned pear

out with 13 other horses

he established his place in the herd he

got back to his natural instincts

in his natural environment and he

actually started to enjoy

life again see show horses like many

show animals

are treated artificially they’re kept in

these small

box stalls without a herd to follow

and modern lifestyle creates this

artificial environment for

us as humans and animals alike and that

separation

from our natural environment has been

proven time

and time again to cause both

physiological

and psychological changes

before visiting para every day i would

quiet my mind

and my body by focusing solely on my

breath

and my energy amazing things started to

happen

at first pear would take hours to catch

sometimes either i’d run out of daylight

or i’d give up

whichever one came first but after

i made those changes in myself

my energy my approach para

actually started coming to me

he would leave those 13 other horses to

approach

me calmly and curiously and it begged

the question

why had this horse gone from striking

out at other people

to wanting to be with me

now i am a data-driven person so i dove

into research and i found there have

been multiple studies conducted but one

in particular

that was published in 2018 that

proved horse’s heart rate actually

mimics

that of the person touching or handling

them

so horses too have been added to the

list of emotionally responsive

animals to humans see animals are master

discriminators

they can depict the slightest change in

smell in our vocal variety

and in physical and emotional changes

on our faces para was sensing

all of those things silently

pera learned that i wasn’t there to hurt

him

i was there to help him against

all odds turns out i wasn’t the mountain

lion

in a human suit instead i was able to

use my

intellect my reasoning skills to better

understand

pera and how he sees the world and his

innate instincts but i was also able to

use my

past experiences to generate empathy

for him pera’s eyes began to soften

and we started to read each other’s body

language

as i would get bigger and taller para

would back away from

me and when i smiled and bent down

parent coming would come and say hello

i realized he’s so smart his

instincts are far greater than mine

because he lacks all this

intellectual clutter that i hold onto

he simply reads a situation

he responds to the evidence at hand and

he acts accordingly

in other words pera doesn’t complicate

simple things

like you and i do every day as humans

see humans have a very developed

neocortex

which controls conscious thought

self-awareness and language

and many other mammals on this planet

lack that same development

making us one of the only that’s capable

of humor

vulnerability planning for the future

moral decisions and

all these other things and sure those

things

can help us create a fulfilling life

but it’s a very fine line that we walk

because

all of these things suggest reasoning

which must be balanced by our instincts

and that i believe more than anything

else is what animals can teach us

the ability to be present to be

here right here in this moment to listen

and to make decisions based on our best

judgment

derived from our intellect and also

balance it with our innate instincts

going back to pera a lot of people tell

i gave pera a second chance and perhaps

to some extent that

is true and by the way if you’re

wondering

i do ride i’m back in the saddle para

and i have created this

incredible partnership and unbreakable

bond

but beyond that para has given me

an opportunity to truly discover this

delicate dance between our instincts

and our intellect because when we can

master that balance that dance between

those two things

not only will your life become more

fulfilling

but i believe it also makes our lives so

much more colorful

so let’s dance

you