“The emotions you currently think of as being the most useless in your life might just be the ones that you need to learn to ride better”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article is one I wrote in 2015, it seemed like a good time to post it, coming into the Lunar new year of the fire-horse!
If you look up a summary of the fire-horse year, you might get something like this: “The 2026 Year of the Fire Horse (beginning Feb 17, 2026) is a rare, high-energy 60-year cycle event symbolizing rapid change, intense passion, and bold action”
If you would like to tune into this energy for yourself, then I will be doing a Lunar New Year Meditation 2026: Connecting to the energy of the Fire Horse session at 5.30pm SG time this coming Saturday, both in person & online.
In the spirit of Lunar fire,
Toby
Your Emotions as Horses
Your emotions are like horses; powerful, fleet, full of energy and vitality. They are also willful and sometimes volatile. The flip side of this is they also contain their own instinctive and natural wisdom. You are the rider of the horses of your emotions.
If you try and control them by whipping and abusing them then they, like real horses will either become resentful, rebellious and devious or they will become broken, sad and scared.
If you simply indulge the horses of your emotions without directing them then they will simply run wherever they want without control, with the according results in your life.
Your emotions are tremendously strong. If you are scared of the strength of your emotions then they will sense that, and like horses with a nervous rider they will react to it.
If you learn how to ride your emotions with love and care, but at the same time with discipline and direction, then you have a tremendous energy source that you can put to positive use in your life, taking you faster in the direction that you want to go – So there is a lot ‘riding’ on the way you as the rider relate to the horses of your emotions!
Imagine you are on the back of a powerful horse now. It is the horse of your emotions. Feel the raw power, energy and life-force of the horse between your legs. When the horse wants to run, let him do so, feel the elation and the freedom as you gather speed, the wind in your hair, the trees and landscape flying by. Where do you want to go? You are the rider and director of this horse, and s/he wants your benevolent guidance.
Working mindfully with the image of yourself as rider and your emotions as horses can help us find out a lot about our current relationship to our emotions, and how we can learn to ride them better, with both more freedom and more control.
One of the keys to understand about emotions is that ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotions are like black and white horses (or brown etc…); it doesn’t matter what colour they are, what mainly matters is how you ride them. The emotions you currently think of as being the most useless in your life might just be the ones that you need to learn to ride better.
Related article: The Sea Snakes of the Mind
The Wild dogs of the Mind
A bag of rats & a big meadow (tactics or strategy?)
© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
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