There is nothing worse then riding on a chilly or cold day, bundling up, and 5 minutes into the ride, having to unbundle for a hot flash. It is a great way to get your horse really good at having jackets put on and taken off but really not a fun way to ride. Well, maybe riding in 80 or 90 degrees and having a hot flash burst on the scene and not being able to unbundle might be worse. Hard to decide.
I had up to 20 hot flashes an hour and they made me nauseous, and very faint. I was miserable. Not only did I not want to ride, I didn't even want to take care of the horses or be with them. For me, the doctors were no help so I took matters into my own hands and figured it out, with a ton of research and trial and error. (If you want so see my big mistake and funny story, here is a link to that blog: Toxins in the Tack Room)
1. I started eliminating toxins. I found this great cleaner, Thieves, that not only was toxin free, it cleaned really well, was much less money than my other cleaners, and the best part, it smelled like Christmas. I use it for everything, including cleaning the horses! That started me on a search for where I had other toxins around me and I was shocked. Shampoo, Soap, Toothpaste, Moisturizer, and that was just morning. Then I looked in the kitchen and laundry room: not only were there toxins in my detergents and soaps, but also in the foods I was eating! I progressed on to other areas and finally the tack room. Can you believe we pay for toxins to put on our horses? Wound care and fly spray just for a start contain a ton of toxins and horses are way more sensitive to toxins than we are. What was I doing to my precious partners? Toxins are Endocrine disruptors which muck with hormones and boy did I and my three mares have a lot of hormone issues to overcome! In a very short time, we were all feeling better. Less pinned ears, less kicking, less hot flashes, we all seemed to be heading the right direction.
I had up to 20 hot flashes an hour and they made me nauseous, and very faint. I was miserable. Not only did I not want to ride, I didn't even want to take care of the horses or be with them. For me, the doctors were no help so I took matters into my own hands and figured it out, with a ton of research and trial and error. (If you want so see my big mistake and funny story, here is a link to that blog: Toxins in the Tack Room)
1. I started eliminating toxins. I found this great cleaner, Thieves, that not only was toxin free, it cleaned really well, was much less money than my other cleaners, and the best part, it smelled like Christmas. I use it for everything, including cleaning the horses! That started me on a search for where I had other toxins around me and I was shocked. Shampoo, Soap, Toothpaste, Moisturizer, and that was just morning. Then I looked in the kitchen and laundry room: not only were there toxins in my detergents and soaps, but also in the foods I was eating! I progressed on to other areas and finally the tack room. Can you believe we pay for toxins to put on our horses? Wound care and fly spray just for a start contain a ton of toxins and horses are way more sensitive to toxins than we are. What was I doing to my precious partners? Toxins are Endocrine disruptors which muck with hormones and boy did I and my three mares have a lot of hormone issues to overcome! In a very short time, we were all feeling better. Less pinned ears, less kicking, less hot flashes, we all seemed to be heading the right direction.
2. I added a couple of products that were simple to my diet, and to my bedtime routine. These support my thyroid (Endoflex), support my hormones (Progessence Plus), and support my health (Ningxia Red and Sulfurzyme). It was easy to implement and really helped. No more night sweats for a start. I felt like I was coming back into myself, the hot flashes were dissolving away and now I rarely have one.
3. I eliminated processed sugar. This one was by far the hardest but the most rewarding! I have a love of chocolate treats and when I found out that sugar is a huge trigger for hot flashes, I was crushed. But I was done with hot flashes. So, I eliminated processed sugars. To my amazement, it was easier than I thought and I LOVE my new dessert. Unsweetened 100% Cacoa, Raw Unfiltered Honey, and then I get to pick my favorite flavor, Peppermint, or one of the citruses, or something else! It takes diligence and I have learned a ton. I was shocked to find that just about all condiments have sugar in addition to just about every other thing we had in our pantry. I now use Tapitio Sauce for all condiments or once in a while yellow mustard. For salad dressings, I just use the hot sauce and call it a taco salad or I use some spices and more of those yummy essential oils which have so much flavor.
It has been a journey for myself and my horses and I am happy to say, I now have one or two hot flashes a day, usually about 20 minutes after going to bed and I think it is trigger by the Progessence plus I put behind my knees right before bed but it helps keep them away for the whole next day so it is worth it.
If you are interested in finding out the nitty gritty details, I would love to have a chat with you, every person is different, and every hot flash is unique. Just know, there is hope, there are things you can do, and you can take control of your hot flashes. If you would like to chat about your hot flashes and/or rider health, click here and put it on my calendar! (It is called bundle conversation because I use one calendar and also talk about how CBD helped me and set up bundles for people and horses). Schedule a chat!
I have received a couple of questions on buddy sour. I have a couple of things that have worked really good for buddy sour.
1. Feeding with the flag - from Carson James. This one took me a few months but I was dealing with a VERY aggressive mare that had bit me in the back, kicked another horse over on me, twice, so this was first and foremost in changing her attitude. I took the buckets of feed in to the pasture, gave my quiet mare, Taika, her food and set the aggressive mare, Binky's, food about 5 feet away. Mostly because I had a hard enough time getting Taika to eat so I didn't want to disturb her. I made Binky stand 50 feet off until she lowered her head and walked in respectfully. If she even twitched an ear, she went back to 50 feet with me looking like a mountain lion, mostly for my safety, I could not be wishy washy. I had to get my timing right and it took a few months but they now all go to their buckets and stand there waiting patiently. If an ear flicks back, they MOVE off their feed, every single time. What I didn't expect was how much it helped the buddy sour! It was huge.
2. I put them in the small arena together and I just sit in the middle and hang out. If they stay on opposite sides of the arena, not exactly but in general, I leave them alone. They can come up to me but not in my bubble, about 3 to 5 feet away from me. If they get onto the same side of the arena, I make them work, or at least I make the horse that approached the other one work. I do this until I see them start to move toward each other and then turn away all on their own. Then I know they got the lesson. I only did this twice and never even needed to do it when I added the third horse. I can take anyone out at any time and there is no issue.
3. I take the one out that is the worst, and start walking away, if they want to go back to their buddy, we go back and I make them move their haunches politely and softly but make them move, then move the shoulders, and just work on supple for 5 minutes or so and then I walk off like nothing different and if they want to go back, we repeat. The combination of these has been amazing for my three mares! Keep me posted. There are a few other things too but these are my favorites.
Overcoming my fear had to start with safety in all situations and learning these above things, really helped me with my safety, with their safety, and it built my courage, very fast. I could see how leadership and partnership really wasn't as hard and scary as I thought. Timing took a bit but the more my timing on things around them on the ground improved, so did my timing on riding.
If you would like more information on overcoming fear, or buddy sour, you are welcome to join my small FB support/cheerleading group! Click Here.
One of the things that has a huge impact on courage is "Cruise Control" or speed control at all gaits. Think about it, if you ask your horse to walk, they should walk until you ask them to change speed. You have to do your part, keeping your body in the rhythm you want, but they also have to do their part.
Think about riding like you are walking through the mall with your friend. You walk together, you are not constantly pulling on their shirt to keep up with you, or holding onto their shirt tail to slow them down, you walk together. If one stops to look in a window, you both stop to look in the window. It is the shopping mall dance of sorts. Riding should not be any different.
But "HOW" do we get this.
1. If the horse speeds up when you are not asking them to speed up (thoughts and body, sometimes I think trot and my horse trots before I ask, this is a win and is ok). But if you didn't ask for it and didn't think it, change direction. I love doing the change direction because the horse has to think to change.
2. If the horse speeds up, bend them onto a circle until they are at the speed you want and then release and go straight again. This is also great for working on the bend.
3. If the horse slows down, let them break gait and then do enough to get them back to where you had them. This is different for all horses so if your horse is super lazy, you might have to kick and spank with a crop. If you horse is more sensitive, it might just be a tap of the crop. The key is as soon as they break gate, Tell them to get back to the gait they were at. This isn't the same as asking them to do it the first time, this is a correction.
4. If the horse slows down, as soon as they break gait, Stop and back them. They will figure out that slowing down is work. It will also help them stay in tune with you and improve their backing. I am not as huge a fan of this method as the kick or spank but I still like to have this option.
The more you practice these, the better you will get, the better your communication, the better your timing and the better your horse will be in a lot of areas. Timing on these is critical. You don't want to just keep kicking on your horse, it should be crystal clear to stay at the speed you want, don't beg for it. That will just make them dull.
Have you ever felt that fear start up when you think about going to ride your horse? You have the thought, what if the wind starts blowing? What if he is frisky? What if….Insert yours here!
We can all play the what if game for days looking for the things that can go wrong. What if, we change that around and look for the "what if" that are AMAZING? Wouldn't it be wonderful to think about riding your horse and be flooded with feelings of JOY?
It is possible and if you were ever that FEARLESS KID, it will come back to you!
I had a horrendous accident and I let it HOLD ME BACK from enjoying my riding. I had to make the DECISION to change my FEAR to COURAGE and get my riding back! Once I made the decision, the process opened up for me and here are the 3 key steps that I went through to getting back into the saddle again and riding my horse.
Step 1 - Health. I know this sounds massive, and for some, this will not be an issue at all, but for me, getting older, I needed to get my health back. One of the reasons kids are fearless is because they don’t have aches and pains. I changed my diet a couple times until I got it right and in doing so, my migraines disappeared (BONUS), my flexibility improved tremendously and so did my confidence with my balance and strength riding. I also had to get my mindset fixed but both of these are complete topics on their own. The other part of this was my horses health and mind. These four elements - Rider Health, Rider Mind, Horse Health, and Horse Mind - all have to be functioning for courage to prevail.
Step 2 - Knowledge. This one was so hard for me at first. How do you go about getting the knowledge you need. The horse trainers I talked to didn't "get" the fear, they didn't have fear. They just said "GO CANTER" or whatever it was because they didn't connect with my level of fear like the horse connected with it. I also tried going to "coaches" but they didn't "get" the combination of rider and horse feeding fear off of each other. I finally found an amazing coach that really helped with cutting the ties to the fear from the accident and I worked through an anchoring process, using Stress Away on my right wrist and Thieves on my left wrist to ANCHOR calm and courage respectfully from a smell to a feeling. These two pieces of knowledge were a huge start.
Step 3 - Experience. This was the hardest part at first. I had to put myself into a "what if" things go amazing place and fill myself with those emotions. I had to use my Anchors to set it into my mind and body. I had to create an amazing vision for what I wanted the ride to look like and then I had to GET ON and ride. I created exercises to help build the confidence and courage as I went and those first few rides, where I had complete peace and joy were worth every minute of working on this process.
So in a nutshell, these are the 3 things that I found worked for me: Health - Rider and Horse; Knowledge; and Experience. Following these 3 pieces of foundation, are so important so that you can enjoy riding your horse again in Confidence and Courage! Think about how grateful your horse will be to not have to deal with your fear any more!
We can all play the what if game for days looking for the things that can go wrong. What if, we change that around and look for the "what if" that are AMAZING? Wouldn't it be wonderful to think about riding your horse and be flooded with feelings of JOY?
It is possible and if you were ever that FEARLESS KID, it will come back to you!
I had a horrendous accident and I let it HOLD ME BACK from enjoying my riding. I had to make the DECISION to change my FEAR to COURAGE and get my riding back! Once I made the decision, the process opened up for me and here are the 3 key steps that I went through to getting back into the saddle again and riding my horse.
Step 1 - Health. I know this sounds massive, and for some, this will not be an issue at all, but for me, getting older, I needed to get my health back. One of the reasons kids are fearless is because they don’t have aches and pains. I changed my diet a couple times until I got it right and in doing so, my migraines disappeared (BONUS), my flexibility improved tremendously and so did my confidence with my balance and strength riding. I also had to get my mindset fixed but both of these are complete topics on their own. The other part of this was my horses health and mind. These four elements - Rider Health, Rider Mind, Horse Health, and Horse Mind - all have to be functioning for courage to prevail.
Step 2 - Knowledge. This one was so hard for me at first. How do you go about getting the knowledge you need. The horse trainers I talked to didn't "get" the fear, they didn't have fear. They just said "GO CANTER" or whatever it was because they didn't connect with my level of fear like the horse connected with it. I also tried going to "coaches" but they didn't "get" the combination of rider and horse feeding fear off of each other. I finally found an amazing coach that really helped with cutting the ties to the fear from the accident and I worked through an anchoring process, using Stress Away on my right wrist and Thieves on my left wrist to ANCHOR calm and courage respectfully from a smell to a feeling. These two pieces of knowledge were a huge start.
Step 3 - Experience. This was the hardest part at first. I had to put myself into a "what if" things go amazing place and fill myself with those emotions. I had to use my Anchors to set it into my mind and body. I had to create an amazing vision for what I wanted the ride to look like and then I had to GET ON and ride. I created exercises to help build the confidence and courage as I went and those first few rides, where I had complete peace and joy were worth every minute of working on this process.
So in a nutshell, these are the 3 things that I found worked for me: Health - Rider and Horse; Knowledge; and Experience. Following these 3 pieces of foundation, are so important so that you can enjoy riding your horse again in Confidence and Courage! Think about how grateful your horse will be to not have to deal with your fear any more!
Come join my "Cheerleading" group cheering each other on in this journey. If you don't experience fear, come help those of us that do and if you do have fear, it is a safe place to share, learn and grow! Click here so that you can enjoy riding your horse again!
I normally write about fear and courage, mixed in with a little horse or rider health, but in the last few days, a number of "UNKIND" situations have come across my path in the horse world and I feel compelled to say a few things that are from my heart. There are two sides to every coin, and every story so I am going to try and give my thoughts from a "whole" perspective.
First of all, my perspective. I have been that "PERSON" that was rude, that made a bad comment, that spoke out of line. I have to tell you that when I realized it, either at the time, or later, it made me very sad. I was sad that I could be mean, and I was sad that I inflicted that on another person.
Most recently, there was a person asking about feed and not realizing it at the time, my comment was very CONDESCENDING. Thankfully, the admins of the group, caught it and deleted it and issued me a warning. I share this because there were some lessons in it for me. I now, re-read comments I am making, from the perspective of the person I am intending to receive the comment. What I have realized is that I have very strong opinions and I don't take other people’s feelings into consideration nearly as much as I thought I did! Am I getting better, yes, do I still make mistakes, YES.
What this shows is that we don't always know what the person saying (or writing) the comments has been through and where they are coming from. We have not walked a mile in their shoes. This also shows that we should say something when someone trounces on us. In a nice way, but say something, speak up. I know in my case, it has really helped me to be better, not perfect, but better.
Secondly, the horse’s perspective. A horse needs, food, water, and safety. That is it. They don't know if they are going to the Olympics or helping a little girl (or older woman) with her dream of owning her first horse. They don't share in the human "ego" that seems to be so prevalent in these recent days. They don't know that everyone is on lockdown and stressed (well, they might feel the stress) but really, they are just BEING horses. It doesn't matter to them that they are fastest, prettiest, can jump the highest, or receive the best dressage scores. They want to be loved and cared for.
Thirdly, the perspective of the person being the brunt of the comment. A couple recent examples and my advice to them:
First of all, my perspective. I have been that "PERSON" that was rude, that made a bad comment, that spoke out of line. I have to tell you that when I realized it, either at the time, or later, it made me very sad. I was sad that I could be mean, and I was sad that I inflicted that on another person.
Most recently, there was a person asking about feed and not realizing it at the time, my comment was very CONDESCENDING. Thankfully, the admins of the group, caught it and deleted it and issued me a warning. I share this because there were some lessons in it for me. I now, re-read comments I am making, from the perspective of the person I am intending to receive the comment. What I have realized is that I have very strong opinions and I don't take other people’s feelings into consideration nearly as much as I thought I did! Am I getting better, yes, do I still make mistakes, YES.
What this shows is that we don't always know what the person saying (or writing) the comments has been through and where they are coming from. We have not walked a mile in their shoes. This also shows that we should say something when someone trounces on us. In a nice way, but say something, speak up. I know in my case, it has really helped me to be better, not perfect, but better.
Secondly, the horse’s perspective. A horse needs, food, water, and safety. That is it. They don't know if they are going to the Olympics or helping a little girl (or older woman) with her dream of owning her first horse. They don't share in the human "ego" that seems to be so prevalent in these recent days. They don't know that everyone is on lockdown and stressed (well, they might feel the stress) but really, they are just BEING horses. It doesn't matter to them that they are fastest, prettiest, can jump the highest, or receive the best dressage scores. They want to be loved and cared for.
Thirdly, the perspective of the person being the brunt of the comment. A couple recent examples and my advice to them:
1. A person has memories of a special horse and when that horse was sold, the new owner contacted them and told them to TAKE DOWN ALL PHOTOS, they could not share anything to do with that horse ever again. This at a minimum was rude and uncalled for and at worst case, is crazy. My advice - Think of this as an episode of "I LOVE LUCY". You know something whacky is going on. Picture this desperation of "Lucy" with the knowledge that something funny is going to happen to "Lucy" and just sit back and watch for the punch line.
2. A young lady received an amazing compliment about her young horse and before she could even bask in the joy, another horse person basically told her she wasn't good enough and was going to wreck the horse, get it to someone that could develop that horse properly. What happened to encouraging the young people and welcoming them into our sport? The horses don't care what level they reach. Let the young ones thrive with the really nice horses and bask in the joy that they picked out a good one, that they are enjoying and caring for a special one. My advice - think of that "neigh"sayer as a Grinch. A little tiny green Grinch that is jealous of your joy. Picture yourself as the WHOLE town of Whoville and bask in the joy of knowing that you did a great job picking an amazing horse and enjoy the heck out of riding and developing that horse to the very best of your ability. But most of all, have fun with your horse!
We can all learn to laugh a little more. Practice seeing things as cartoons. This takes the negative power away from those that are having some challenges and it puts us in control of how we feel, in spite of "those" people that forget to be kind (or intentionally are unkind).
If you have ever felt like your family needed a little more laughter, this book is a great family story, about my family and how I was raised, and how to bring a little more joy and laughter into your life.
I have a supportive horse community helping overcome fear, in a kind environment, and would love to have you join us (if you are not already part of the amazing group). For those of you that don't have fear, you can cheer on those of us that do have fear and for those that have fear, it is a great support group! Click here to join!
