Respect is the balance of trust and fear. I learned this at a Dan Duckering horse clinic almost 4 years ago now and I’ve been working on it ever since.
I’ve noticed it’s not essential to have a balance of trust and fear in relationships. You can easily get around it as long as you are coasting along day to day without forward movement or challenges. But it shows up when it comes time to do hard things together, a lack of respect (or lack of balance between trust and fear) is a recipe for disaster.
A human gets along just fine with a horse in the pasture. The human does his life, the horse eats grass and everyone is happy. When you decide you want to “work with” your horse and do something together, 1 of 2 things happen if trust and fear are out of balance.
If the horse has too much trust for the rider the horse will walk over top of the human or not walk at all. Have you seen cartoons of little kids on fat ponies? The pony stands and eats grass while the little kids short legs bang on the side, and the horse never moves. That pony has too much trust and it does what it wants. Everything is hard for that pony and rider.
If the horse has too much fear, the only time it’s nice to be around him is when he’s sleeping or doing something else. A scared horse is unpredictable. It will be triggered easily and lash out, kick, bite, rear, or run when you ask anything from it. The odds of going anywhere calmly and rationally with a scared horse is little to none.
Do you wonder why it’s hard to work with someone? Take a look at the balance of trust and fear.
Are you too nice?
I thought it was good to be nice, but I have changed my mind.
Nice is an awful thing to be. It has no clarity, no boundaries, and no limit. When you are “nice”, you are expected to always be nice, even when your limits are pushed and you’re being treated unfairly. There are no consequences for others, they can walk all over you without fear because you will always be nice.
Are you full fear?
When I am afraid of losing something I am aggressive, demanding, controlling, or overbearing. Other people don’t hear my words because they are in protection/survival mode. They are afraid of my reaction, they are afraid of my words, and they are afraid of my agenda. They either avoid me or come at me with guns ablazing
Keeping trust and fear balanced isn’t easy. It’s a feeling, a nuance, that you need to always stay attuned to. The more lopsided trust and fear become, the harder it is to bring back in to balance. I have seen, and been a part of, relationships where you can not do hard things together because they are too unbalanced.
We can do more great things together than we can on our own, but we can not do nearly as great of things without respect.
“If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.”