Rupture and Repair: Part 2
Rupture and Repair: Part 2
by Meagan Good, MA, LPC; Founder of Take Heart
February 20, 2024
In any relationship, there is nuance to the rupture, and nuance to the repair. This plays out in equine therapy beautifully because the connection built between horse and client is not fake or contrived to produce some kind of therapeutic outcome. The connection is built through authentic and real relationship, and requires vulnerability, intimacy, authenticity, and risk as we express our thoughts, feelings, and needs with one another. While it looks different with a horse than a human, the principles in the relationship stay the same.
I recently had a client working through this very real relational challenge: How does she open herself up to a real and deep relationship, including the risk and discomfort of rupture and repair? Now at a place of greater stability herself, Anna (name changed to protect confidentiality) had been working on communicating her thoughts clearly, expressing her emotions honestly, and requesting what she needs assertively. We have been working with my horse Boone, who struggles with some of the same things. Both had life experiences that included others invalidating their emotions, gaslighting or manipulating their beliefs, and disrespecting their needs – sometimes even their most basic needs for safety. Both had experienced levels of abuse in relationships that should have been safe, and both were expected to accept the abuse instead of resisting it. Both had experienced rupture without repair, and both had learned to be wary of relationships because of it. To protect themselves, both had become people-pleasers, doing everything in their power to avoid any conflict in relationship.
When rupture happens without repair, and we stay in relationship with the offender, we stop offering trust – not only with that person, but often with others, too. In the moment, this makes us go into our survival brain responses (flight, fight, please, freeze) when someone makes a request of us, even if the request is relatively small, because we don’t trust the intentions behind the request. In the longer-term, it often makes us avoid relationship altogether, or at best, build only shallow relationships. Rupture without repair can also develop a wedge in our relationship with God. We can come to believe that He is a distant God who doesn’t care about us, or even that we must deserve the poor treatment. These rupture without repair kinds of situations effectively erode our faith over time and leave room for some pretty unhelpful beliefs to develop about God, ourselves, others, and the world around us.
In our sessions, we have been working on building this trust in Boone (and in so doing, rewiring some of Anna’s neuropathways about trust and relationship as well). We do this through making requests of Boone while respecting his relational pace (which is slow!) and his needs for reassurance, while holding our own boundaries when he tries to connect on his own terms without respect for Anna’s needs (such as asking for belly scratches by bumping into her). Anna has developed good insight into Boone’s needs, which often mirror her own and help her explore her own needs – something which she had shut down for years because so many people in her life reinforced the belief that her needs didn’t matter.
In this recent session, Anna was asked to halter Boone and have him walk around her on a 22’ long lead line in a circle, while staying connected. Boone often struggles with compliance when asked to do a task like this, so we are working on rewiring his compliance mindset (and Anna’s!) by asking him to stay in a connected place throughout the activity. In compliance, we are just submitting to try to get the pressure off of us. In connection, we are working together towards a goal.
Anna sent Boone around her at a walk and the connection was beautiful. His head was level, his body round, his face relaxed, and his eye softened. His ear stayed on her and everything in him said “I’m here with you.” I asked Anna to increase the request to trotting in a circle, and she felt confident enough to try it based on how connected Boone was at the walk. She increased her body’s energy, gave the end of the lead line a small swing, and said “trot” aloud. Boone changed in a second – he threw his head up high, eyes wide, pace now faster and irregularly skipping between a trot and canter, and now pulling out to the end of the lead line. Everything in his body braced and said “what?? I’m not ready for this! Where did that pressure come from?”
Anna did nothing wrong – her increase in pressure and energy was small and appropriately communicated, and Boone is not new to trotting on a line where he would have misunderstood or feared the request. But it was the first time in their relationship that Anna had asked Boone to do anything requiring a little more energy! It had taken us months to get to the point where Anna would feel ready to ask Boone for anything, because Anna had always felt like a burden for asking something of another being. Her deepest fear was that she would lose the relationship (or lose safety in the relationship) if she asked for too much. Instinctively, Anna shifted back into survival brain “please” mode, and dropped her request and went to comfort Boone and apologize. She had learned through years of abuse that it was HER job to repair the relationship, even if she was not the one who ruptured it.
In this situation with Boone, however, there was an important level of nuance for her to learn. She DID rupture the relationship by increasing her request for Boone to trot. But the request was fair and appropriate. It would be like in a human relationship, asking appropriately for something she needed of someone else, and them not responding well. And on another level of nuance, in this situation with Boone, it was okay for her to comfort him. The challenge was that Anna needed to learn that it was okay for her to make the request, AND it was okay for Boone to have big feelings about it. We knew that there were no safety, health, or training/understanding barriers keeping Boone from fulfilling her request, so Anna needed to learn that it is okay for her to not drop the request just because someone has feelings about it! She’s allowed to have a need, too. That’s part of respecting and loving herself in relationships.
We discussed these nuances for a bit, checked in with ourselves and our internal emotional regulation, and Anna decided to try again. This time, she knew she could stay connected and support Boone in his big feelings, while still maintaining her request for what she needed. We strategized together about what that looks like with horsemanship techniques and how she could communicate that support and hold that connection with Boone while not just backing down from the request for him to trot, and she was ready to go.
Anna asked Boone to walk again for a few laps, going back to his comfort zone and re-establishing safety and connection. This was the first step in repair – and it reassured both that the connection was still sound between them. Once both were feeling regulated in body and mind and connected again, Anna asked for a trot. The first try was vastly improved from the original. Boone tensed his body at first, but within one lap was trotting rhythmically and relaxedly around Anna. His head leveled out, his eyes and body softened, and he was able to settle into a comfortable movement around her, while staying connected and not just checking out and complying. It was beautiful to watch both beings in this state of connection through movement and both bodies relaxing into the task together.
The repair here involved Anna staying regulated, calm, and focused on completing the task in connection, not just completing the task. She had to hold onto her own belief that she is not a burden, but that she is allowed to make requests in the relationship (requests also deepen relationship!), and that the request was fair, safe, and appropriate. She checked her horsemanship (communication) skills and strategized how to best make the repair in a way Boone would understand. On Boone’s side, the repair involved his willingness to offer trust again, and his own pursuit of connection and not just obedience. It was once easy for Boone to just comply – to go into “autopilot” and just “do” the task being asked of him, but he too is learning that connection is worth the search, and is staying more present and open to connection than he once did.
With this repair made, not only did the task get accomplished – but the relationship grew deeper. At the end of the session when we went to leave, Boone followed us as we walked over several acres back to the gate, completely by his own choice. We had already removed the halter and lead line, given him a small treat and said our goodbyes. He felt so connected and safe with Anna that he wanted to stay right with her! You might not think this is a big deal, but Boone can be hard to catch in his big field – he likes his freedom – and he’s never one to follow you to the gate, especially after doing a task that challenges that compliance in him. Anna and Boone had created a really special connection through repairing the rupture in their relationship, and Boone reinforced just how much progress was made by following her all the way to the gate.
Repair is where the most vital parts of a relationship are built. Trust is increased, vulnerable risks are positively rewarded, authentic connection is cultivated. The hard work is worth it. In the very best and closest relationships, we learn we don’t have to fear the inevitable rupture, because repair is something we are committed to. We trust each other enough to give the assumption of positive intent – the benefit of the doubt – when rupture happens, that it was not meant to cause intentional harm. We lean into the hard work of repair together because we know the result is invaluable – true and deep connection.
Think about the difference here for someone healing their relationship with self, others, and God. When we know in our deepest place that the other person is committed to repair, there is a true safety in the relationship. Take marriage for example: marriage was designed to be a sacred commitment to relationship – a commitment to repair no matter what. One of the reasons divorce is so painful is that the commitment was broken. Our soul needs a commitment to repair in order to develop safety in a relationship, so that we can fully let down our guard and live wholeheartedly with someone. Another example is the death of Jesus on the cross to redeem us and restore our relationship with God, ruptured by sin. The ultimate repair of the rupture of sin between us and God was fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Now that’s commitment to repair! It can be as profound as that, or begin as simply as a promise to yourself (and your loved ones) that you will do your best to repair the inevitable ruptures that arise in relationship. But I guarantee: it’s worth the risk. Commit to the repair, and you’ll find a restorative depth to the relationship.
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