I started to write about riding horses if you really want to ride horses. Don't let anything stop you. I was going to give a pep talk on making it happen. But then I realized, the loss of confidence can turn into feeling like riding would be a chore, at least it did for me. So I changed course and decided to write about how to have fun riding again. I have had so much fun and thinking about it, helps me want to get on and ride!
First of all, riding a horse, is all about the connection to your very best friend. It is like going to the mall and shopping with your bestie, only riding a horse takes that connection one step further to actually feeling the rhythm between the two of you physically. Hearts connected and bodies connected. That feeling of pure joy as the two of you see the sights together.
With that in mind, riding can be fun for both of you. I spent most of my hours riding as a kid, riding trails and playing, almost no time in an arena. We would race each other and even race motorcycles. We would jump over anything and everything that we could find. I think my favorite was playing tag in the heat of summer. We would swim in the ponds and if our horses touched the ground, we were out and had to sit out in the heat until everyone was out. We would do this for 8 or 9 hours. I think back now to our poor horses swimming for hours but I think they enjoyed not being in the 100 degree heat.
As an adult, I love to play "I Spy", "Red Rover", and tag (having the horse touch all kinds of stuff while I am riding). I also love a good jumper competition but the arena work can feel too much like work! What are two or three things you can do to make riding more fun for you? Think about them, picture them, get excited about having that fun on your horse again. It will help overcome the confidence issues as you bring joy into your thoughts of riding, more and more.
Picture what that fun will look like. Develop that picture and share that picture with your horse. The more you can imagine that fun, the better you will feel about riding.
Why is horseback riding fun? I would love to hear the number one thing you would enjoy having fun with your horse! Whether it is riding or not riding, not everyone wants to ride.
If you enjoyed this and would like to see some fun ways to ground play with your horse, you can get my guide, 5 Fabulous Ground Play Challenges here!
It was a really windy day. Tarps and boxes were blowing around and the noise from the leaves in the trees was like a freight train. I took Michelle for a walk because other than the wind, the day was gorgeous. I thought it would be good to practice walking behind me at the end of the lead rope.
Up the hill, she was so good. She stayed back and we had a great walk. Around the corner of the pasture, we kept walking and voila, the cardboard flew off the car trailer right next to us. It gave us a great opportunity to do some work and ignore the cardboard. She did very well but I could tell I was at her threshold.
We turned to walk back to the pasture gate. She was at the end of the lead rope behind me, but I could tell she was a powder keg by now. I kept checking over my shoulder to make sure she didn't run me over and she escalated some more. I checked more. Then, BAM, it hit me. Can horses sense fear? YES!
She didn't know I was worried about her running me over. She thought I was worried about what was behind us, the cardboard, attacking. When I had that realization, I immediately started walking confidently just like I had on the way out. It was a drastic difference for her. She immediately blew out and started to relax. She followed along at the end of the lead rope, and I knew she wasn't going to run me over. I was confident. I needed to be her leader, not the person afraid of being run over. As soon as I let go of the fear behind me, she let go of the fear behind her and we had a lovely walk back to the pasture.
As I was reviewing this later, I realized that the fear of what is behind us is far more than just in that moment. My fear of my accident in 2000 was a fear of what was behind me, in the past. There are so many fears that we carry along that are behind us. These fears are an anchor holding us back from living life to the fullest. Drop the anchors, raise the sails and become the captain of your life!
Life is just passing by, faster and faster, the feeling of not going anywhere but just surviving day to day. Do our choices, the little ones we make every day, contribute to these feelings?
My dreams were fading into the background and daily life seemed to be like quicksand, sucking me in. I had a roof over my head, food on the table, but my life seemed to be consumed by the chores every day and not the creation of my dreams.
I helped a friend on her farm, after her farm sitter had an emergency. I took an hour to two hour every day to go take care of her farm. Guess what, my life went on, my chores got down, I am not even sure what I missed during that time away. That means, the choices I am making every day, could be made differently to use that hour or two differently and put that time towards my dreams.
But, that came back to, "How to make better choices?". I knew I had time that I could work with, I knew my main dreams, I knew the steps I needed to take to get closer to my dream come true but was that really enough?
There were a few pieces that I was missing. First thing I had to do was make the decision to make better choices. That was more challenging than I thought. The decision meant that I would have to do it. No excuses, I had just proved I had the time. The decision meant that there was only one thing holding me back from my dreams, and that was my mind. My heart was where it needed to be, but my mind had to follow along.
To get my mind where it needed to be, I needed a process. Something in writing, that I could see, that I could look at, that would give me the answers to all those excuses I create. Once I had the process (if you would like to have a copy of the process I used, click here), I had to put the process into action.
I have good days and I have not so good days, but now, I can measure how I am doing on making better choices. This gives me the ability for the last step. CELEBRATE. Even one new choice, celebrate it. The more celebration and joy that you can bring into your life, the more you will want to create those great feelings.
