This week's Pep Talk: "Trust is Key"

Are you a horse lover? I can remember childhood days in suburban Kansas City, Missouri. Our family, actually my older sister, had a Shetland pony, Tonka, which was kept at a stable not too far from our modest middle-class home. I can remember, many times, watching her stubbornly refuse to gallop away from the barn but, WHOA, once she turned in the corral and saw home, that little horse did its best Secretariat impression. However, right before the gate leading back to the barn, she would slam on the breaks and, often, throw her rider, usually an unsuspecting friend. I thought it was funny at the time but it also made me, still am today, a tad nervous around horses.

Those were the thoughts running through my head as I sat on a bale of hay, beer in hand and, as the emcee, listened to an expert in equine therapy, I had just introduced, speak at a fundraising event for Zuma’s Rescue Ranch, http://www.zumasrescueranch.com. It’s a fabulous nonprofit organization with a mission encouraging neglected kids and horses to heal each other.

Equine therapy is a growing platform to help abused kids overcome obstacles, learn better life skills and become students, not victims, of their experiences. For the kids, interacting, caring and feeding horses - intuitive animals that sense an abused kid’s fragile psyche – are excellent therapeutic tools in restoring hope for their futures.

One of the expert’s statements hit me with the force of a stallions’ kick: “Think about it. A kid’s trust in adults is shaken by abuse and then they’re asked to go visit another adult, a therapist, and talk about it. There are serious trust issues to overcome,” Phil Tedeschi shared. “Not so with horses. Through working with these incredibly intuitive animals kids can take the initial, and critical, steps toward trusting again.”

What he said was a vivid reminder of the important of trust, defined as: “a firm belief in the reliability of a person.” There is nothing more important to our success in life than being able to trust others and vice versa, being a person of trust. When trust departs a relationship its like a torpedo hitting the side of a ship, there’s a big hole and lots of damage. That’s why it’s so important to live a life that honors, nurtures and adds value to the communities we serve. Think of it as making big deposits in the trust bank

Make it your mission to be trustworthy. It’s not easy. Life tempts us to violate the trust of our intimate relationships – home, work and elsewhere. Do not surrender to the temptations. Trust that the fallout, from being untrustworthy, will be more painful, in a multitude of ways, than any kick received from the most rebellious horse you could find in any stable.