Category: The (almost kinda) Daily

In the southern hemisphere, we are making our way towards the year’s brightness. The globe is shifting and turning, and alongside her, we are shifting also. Stroking my horses, I’m left with a handful of hair, the sign of spring incoming.

I often think of this often when I am outside in the field with my ponies; how they stand all night under a moon I may have missed, a wind I have not felt whilst ensconced in the comfort of my bed.

That, on occasion, I wake up without being exactly sure why, only to look outside and see someone has taken a milky paintbrush and raised it with a single streak across the sky. To consider we are under, above, between and within galaxies splits time like torn paper and I stand in the space between the two sides waiting for them to join back together. For the minutes to continue on.

Incoming spring, with all her zest, has made a wildness of my insides. I wonder, know, my horses feel the same.

When I thought of writing this to you today, I wanted to begin with lightness and brightness. I wanted to speak to you in words that galloped across the page, that would please the social media fairies with their easy readability, rather than with the density of poetic musings which it seems these days I can’t extricate from my work. If posts are to be lost to the algorithm, I think to myself, let them at least be the posts I wish to write.

So here we are.

Let us pick up from this place by speaking of stomping (stomping, I have just realised, is a very satisfying word. It sounds exactly like it feels). This week there’s been a lot of stomping.

Stomping thoughts of the gremlin kind who barge their way in, who do their best to convince of the things you are busy trying to un-convince yourself about. Like you will manage to do all the things you know you need to do. Like you aren’t letting people down by perhaps NOT managing to do all those things in the time frame you expected. Little stomping trotters marching their way through the time you hoped would be for daydreaming, for art making, for rest.

Stomp, stomp, stomp.

There’s only one thing to do when it comes to stomping and that’s to stomp your way outside. To explain out loud to the earth your situation and to let it catch you. The ground, the earth is beyond benevolent, incredibly understanding when it comes to stomping feet.

‘We understand,’ she says, ‘you can let it all go here.’

Movement as a muscle to work thoughts through.

I stomped my way out to the paddock with the intention of only sitting, but Saffy in her chestnut brightness (see, I am managing to include the brightness) was looking at me over the gate. She must have heard the stomp and came to see.

In the moments that followed, we had an invisible conversation. I grabbed a halter, placed it on her lovely head and led her out.

‘Let’s go,’ I said to her, the stomp already lightening.

‘Let’s,’ she replied enthusiastically, and I could have sworn out loud.

My stomping, it appeared, made for a certain brashness that my usual self would have been less inclined for.

‘I think,’ I told Saffy, ‘we should go on an adventure.’ I pointed to the back paddock, the steep forest of Macrocarpa that scuttled up the long hill to the side.

‘Let’s go there.’

Walking down the track, Saffy arched forward like a swan, her nose and whiskers leading. I spoke to her of the rounds of wood stacked satisfyingly on the edges of the stones, her nostrils opening and closing as if she were gently blowing bubbles.

‘Those are just trees,’ I told her, ‘albeit in a different stage of life. They came down in the winds we had last month.’

She nodded, delighted, understanding, continued on.

We took turns for who was leading, her looking with wide eyed curiosity, but feet that never hesitated, that always kept along.

When it came time for us to go through the dark wood, the track narrowed to single file. I considered how we should do the order, and decided to let Saffy go ahead.

‘You go,’ I encouraged her, ‘I’ll lead from behind.’

At this point, her moving trotters faltered. Unsure of the track, or perhaps the darkness of the forest, she stopped. To get in front, I had to clamber round. At one point, I realised my entire weight was resting on her as I made my way from the back end to the front. If she had moved, I would have fallen, but she didn’t. She understood the assignment and let me climb round by her side.

By the top of the hill, I noticed: no more stomping. No more stomping of the feet or of the thought based kind.

I write this because:

There are days where our aspirations are otherwise but all we’re left with is the stomp. Where the gremlins mess with the thoughts and tie knots of our insides. And so there are things I always seek to remind myself…

The earth can hold a stomp, and will gladly do so if for other days you hold her gently in return.

That there is little that is more enjoyable than shared movement with a horse. That they are not there to cure you but they will gladly accompany you.

That the outside is always a remedy for what the insides are finding hard to hold.

In solidarity for those who find this week in mostly stomp.

A couple of weeks back- over the weekend that marked the end of my trip in the UK- I went on a writing retreat in Cornwall. Truth be told, I had been steamrolling towards it in my mind. I was getting bored of saying ‘I’m tired’, of pushing to the side things that are important to me in favour of the ‘things that needed to get done’, of expending energy in ways that were making me feel slightly wonky.

I knew I wanted to make a book project I have been dreaming up to be the focus; there was lots of white space in our days there factored in, lots of opportunities for us to skip off and do our own thing.

But despite writing being the object of the weekend, I found there was so much ‘not writing’ that happened that felt equally important. As I headed down to breakfast the second day, I scribbled out this list:

Writing likes

pause, and

company, and

rest, and

reading, and

daydreaming, and

playing, and

being held lightly.

So much of writing happens when you are not seated at a desk, pen in hand and paper on the table. In fact, that’s a very old-school, capitalist stream of thought.

And why I share this with you is because I believe the same is true of playing and working with our horses- another creative art, whether we recognize it as such or not.

Riding (or playing, or being a horse person in general, and horses too of course)

likes

pause, and

company, and

rest, and

reading, and

daydreaming, and

playing, and

being held lightly.

The magic exists in the not doing, as much as it does anywhere else.

There was a moment at the end of our ride when I looked up, and as though on a timer, the pine trees released their pollen. The norwesterly wind too seductive an invitation, clouds of yellow released on the breeze.

‘Look Merc’, I said. ‘Even the trees are celebrating you.’

My patchy pony- all my ponies for that matter- have been enjoying a few months off, a combination of crazy workloads and family commitments causing a temporary halt to riding plans while I figured out a more sustainable way to do this thing we call life.

Everything had got a little too lifey for my liking and I was no longer willing to have my days roll out the same way– especially if what was falling off the edge was horse time.

With that in mind, I set my trip to the UK as my deadline, told my horsey crew to rest up and rally their resources. Once my feet landed back on Aotearoan soil, I would be present and back in the game.

Had it been possible to open the doors of the aircraft myself and ride back home from the airport, I can assure you I would have been here for it. As it happens, things worked out roughly close to that; after food, drink and sleep, I was happily ensconced out in the paddock the next day.

There is something glorious about being able to grab your halter and lead rope and pick up where you have left off. To be able to walk with a loose rope away from other horsey friends, down windy tracks, past rambunctious dogs and children and out to the arena.

It’s one of those small-big things I never take for granted.

‘You are so ridiculously clever, so, so kind,’ I said to Merc, and I really meant it.

It’s a marvel to me that by some grace of the universe it’s possible for this to happen.

That a human has the privilege of deciding she would like to play together with a horse and that she equally might have a horse that allows this to happen. That she suspects- in whatever way it’s possible to suspect- that this same horse might actually enjoy it too. That he seems to enjoy moving his body with her as much as she does so with him.

How did we get so lucky?

One thing I’ve always observed about Merc is that he thrives on blocks of rest. His body uses the time to untangle threads that previously made his body bound, his mind and heart are keen for the connection.

My previously reluctant pony was buoyant to the point of being frisky. If gaits could be captured in gesture, his trot would be a smile. I matched him stride for stride.

It’s fun when you get to this part; where the forward is more free flow, where the body starts to move as a coordinated whole, where the conversation starts to become one of directing energy rather than attempting to create it.

When your horse reminds you of how you want things to be and what else in life is possible.

We had an interesting discussion in Stable Hours this morning, which is a weekly live Q&A in JoyRide. It started with discussions about emotional relationships to different parts of the body and then meandered into a conversation on beliefs, in all their many, varied forms.

When I first got into the field of mindset and behaviour, I found information about beliefs- how they affect us, how we can go about shifting them- confusing, and in some instances intimidating. What if I had a limiting belief that I didn’t even know about that was somehow holding me back? What is it I could do then? How can I possibly change something if I’m unsure what it even is?

Us humans love to fear the unknown.

So much of who we are, of course, is formed by what it is we believe. It can restrict our possibility or expand it. Allow us to attempt something new or keep us in the confines of what it is we already know. Allow us to a fuller breadth of experience is all sense of the word, or keeping us running up and down on the same spot. We understand this. And we also know that so much of what we believe we have absorbed; osmotically, as a result of the people we hang out with, the circumstances of our growing up, the possibilities afforded to us. Not all of our beliefs have been the result of active choice.

It’s no wonder we are interested in learning more about it.

After years of wondering, learning and yet more wondering, I’ve arrived at something I think is relatively simple, at least in theory- it takes a little more work in practice (as all things of deep roots do).

In this video, I discuss what it is I believe is needed to shift a belief of any sort, in a way that does not require digging around, or worry, or deep lines of investigation. It simply this:

The willingness to be different at the end of an experience than you were at the beginning.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

xx Jane

Back when I was a teenager- or at least on the cusp of teenage-ness, probably around 13 years old, my parents bought me a horse who was called Minnie. At that stage of my life, Minnie was beyond anything I had allowed myself to dream. She was beautiful, the colour of red burnished treacle. I used to run my hands over her coat, marvel at her sheen.

Despite her inherent and regal loveliness, the fact that she strutted round as though she was a Queen (side note: she was), Minnie was not without her quirks. She was sensitive and feisty. The charisma that she carried, the air of whatever it is that makes a horse stand out meant I had to work to harder, learn more, step up to be the kind of horseperson that really met her standard. But I was in love, had time and was up to the task. I got up to muck out early, cleaning paddocks before school, and as soon as the bus arrived at our corner, around 4:30 pm, my bag would be flung to the side, I would change out of my school uniform, and you’d find me in the paddock, in the arena, riding round the farm, always in the company of my beloved horse.

At this stage of my life, my family had started competing. It seems funny to look back on – my horsing adventures seem so removed from this kind of life now- but at the time I loved it, and it allowed us to travel round and have many experiences together as a family. When I think about my competition life, or if someone asks me to describe it, I would say I was a nervous competitor, yes (that anxiety was, in part, the reason that I have the business that I do now), but I was also fierce. The anxiety was less about a specific fear and more about the fact I took what I was doing very seriously. I took myself and my horse seriously. And I did so long before anyone else did.

There’s a part of me that loves and most definitely roots for the underdog. There was a showing class at the Sydney Royal Show where there were over 80 horses in my class (a thriving era in agricultural scenes which seems to have taken a tumble in the years of late). The showing world is known for being subjective and political. I was told: ‘you don’t have a chance. No-one knows you. But you know, you can at least go out there and have fun.’

This particular story has a fairy tale ending- lord knows, we know they so often don’t. But Minnie and I- we won that class. With the 80 something horses. All the words of “you can’t do it” ignited something within my head. I believed in my horse and beyond that, loved her with intensity. Maybe she felt that. Maybe we just got lucky. But it still stands regardless as one of the best moments of my life.

The actor, Ethan Hawke- one of the Patron Saints of creativity- talks about how moved he was listening to a speech by the wife of one of his recently passed away screen writing heroes. To quote the article speaking to the same in the New York Times:

“She looked out at the crowd and laughed. She said John Cassavetes was always disappointed because nobody would finance his movies; he’d always felt dismissed and disregarded. “‘And now here you guys are making a big deal out of him,’” he remembered her saying. She said that was nice, but that they shouldn’t miss the point. “‘Make a big deal of yourself.’ You know? Whatever indifference the world gives you, he felt it, too. So you’re just as good as he is. Like, go out and do it.”

I believe this to be true, not because I’ve read it, but I’ve lived it. I have no idea why the seed exists inside me, but I hope it exists within you too. And if it doesn’t, please make it your mission today to start to find it.

I took my riding seriously long before anyone else did. I took my business seriously years before it earned me a single dollar (and I continue to take it seriously through all the ups and downs). As a writer, who hopes to share experiences of wonder and is moved to write as part of her love letter to the world, I take my words seriously, regardless of the numbers who read them in return.

I take it all seriously- which is different to gruffly, or holding on too tightly, or being arrogant and not humble- because they are all important to me. They are part of my vitalis, my vitality, and the sharing of what it is I love.

Taking yourself seriously is important. It’s, in part, the curative for self-doubt. It is the thing that needs to happen, before and not after, someone else takes you seriously. And perhaps, most importantly, it’s what allows you to create a life that is lived on your terms. In developing self-trust.

Take yourself, the things you love seriously. But as a start point- not as a thing you get to at the end.

Taking yourself seriously is what allows you to devote time and to keep showing up for all the things you love.

Onwards,

❤️ Jane

I often joke about wanting to be Arwen from Lord of The Rings. I use the word ‘joke’ loosely, because potentially, if given the option, I would seriously consider it. I talk about her to my horse, Merc, so much that he’s really started to buy into the whole situation also, despite being slightly concerned over basic logistics, like if there’s hay or hard feed available in Elven Kingdoms. I tell him of course, and hope that I’m convincing, because the reality is I have no idea myself.

The thing is, if you were to question me about Arwen, tried to nail me down on all of the specifics, subjected me to a pop quiz, I would most likely fail the test. Because I don’t know that much about Arwen at all—what I love is my idea of her, the archetype of Arwen and all that she represents. I’ve seen her flash across my screen, bow and arrow in hand, horse with mane streaming, powerful, fast, determined. I see her and a jolt flashes across my adult, childlike heart that sings in universal recognition. She taps into a part of me that I wish to bring more to the surface. I want those things expressed in me.

Stories, mythologies, and archetypes have existed for millennia as portals for humans to express their fears, longings, and desires. As ways to shape and conjure what we experience as a collective. We have been influenced by them to negative effect- a long and extensive conversation for another day- but we have also been empowered, uplifted by them. We cannot separate ourselves out from our mythic imagination, from our dreams and hopes that express in the imaginative collective.

I see imagination devalued generally as a tool- and there have been times when I’ve rejected it myself- but now I strongly rally against this. For better or worse, we are where we are because of our imagination. Understanding the power of symbolism, of images, of our ‘first thought, best thought’ that lies just under the surface of our skin, is an important piece in understanding our creative potential, of how we can use our imagination as a way in to deal with things that feel challenging, hopeless, or cause us to be overwhelmed.

I recently read a post that wasn’t horse related from someone who had been in a tough situation and had instantly fallen into self-blame. My intuitive self felt the limpness of her spirit in that moment. A common situation that I’m witness too more than I would like. There was much to say from a logistical position that may or may not have been helpful, and plenty were offering that advice. But my heart suspected they needed something more. They needed the spark back that makes someone entranced by Wonder Woman as a child, that leads us to believe in fairies, that sees an Astronaut shoot off into space—the part of us that believes it’s possible to do the same.

I said to her: I think we need to go a little bit women who run with the wolves on this.

My point: Imagination, archetypal imagery may not be the entire story to bring the help you need, but it IS part of the story. Often a big part. Do not be talked out of the magic and mystery of your imagination. If you feel you have lost that side of you, conjure it back. Invite yourself to read stories, look at art and imagery that uplift and inspire you. Let yourself be Arwen. And don’t let anyone tell you it should be any different.

Onwards.

❤️ Jane

Pictured is Merc, starting to tune out after I tell him for the 1,000,000th time how we need to be like Arwen.

There’s a small mound that lies a few meters down from our top paddock that’s one of my favourite places to sit. Maybe you would like to sit there with me too. It’s covered by long grass which makes it a little hard to see, but if you go through the gate and head left towards the arena, you’ll see me sitting there. There’s absolutely space for you.

The horses, most likely- if this is a normal day- are there in front of me. Eating each a pile of hay. Elvis, my husband’s horse, will tell the others in no uncertain terms that sharing’s not for him. His ears will pin right back. His head will toss to add a bit of drama and their advances will be met with his hind end, a clear signal saying it’s better if they stop.

In response, Merc will scuttle off. He is a peace lover after all. Not interested in fights. Ada will have tried to have at least a nibble, hopeful of perhaps being friends. And when Elvis tells her once more that this pile is definitely his, she will make the opening and closing motion with her mouth, that baby horses do, in the hope her age will grant her a free pass. Which, in this situation, never works.

We can sit and we can watch their gentle politics. We’ll probably quietly chastise Elvis, amid soft laughs. “Don’t be such a grump,’ we’ll say.

We might point to other piles of hay: ‘Over there’ we’ll tell them, ‘Don’t get mixed up in his stuff, he’s being mean’.

And then eventually, the tetris of the feed time will all settle, and conversation, both horse and human will all stop. And we’ll be left with the sound of air and birds and whatever particular words captures the sound of horses eating hay, that’s as calming as a heartbeat and a hug.

This last couple of weeks have been a little rough. I have had a flu that’s completely knocked me out. If I felt ok in the day, the coughing kept me up all night to the point where I was seeing stars and was good for little more than lying flat in bed. When a body is forced to lie still, it’s interesting to observe what swirls close to the edges of the skin. One day, two days, I feel I can get away with, but beyond that, I start to get concerned.

I have things to do, people to show up for. For those of you who are self-employed know, nothing outside of you stops even if you do. It’s a difficult conundrum. It’s easy to say, ‘you have to rest’- and I agree completely- but there are very real responsibilities and concerns of the day to day that are not made up or the product of mental drama or self-interested imagination. I am yet to reconcile all the sides and moving parts.

And yet, in amongst it all, I recognize my privilege and my blessings. I talk with people who are really doing it tough. Those who are caregiving or are needing care themselves. Those who feel overwhelmed by the state of the world, or who are stumped in their horsing life to the point where what’s not working feels utterly consuming. I hear their stories and wish that I could fix them all.

The offer to sit next to me, on the little mound of grass, at the top end of the paddock, is part of what I know is able to help. It’s the searching out of shards, of glimmers, of small happinesses.

When I think of the last little while, it’s the glimmers and the shards that have seen me thorough. Sitting and watching the horses eat hay. The new notebook I got with the hare on the front cover. All the lovely comments to an essay I wrote about frogs. My husband making me endless cups of tea and bringing me hot water bottles. A scarf I’m knitting (I’ve taught myself to knit). The lovely comments from people in JoyRide telling me it’s ok. The specific light that hits the pillow in my bedroom around mid-afternoon. A new book that turns out to be really good. An idea for a course that I’ll put out soon.

Glimmers, small happinesses, however you refer to them, are as important as water and food.

Sitting here this morning, and writing this to you, I am not without my concerns or my worries. But I can hear the Kākā, a New Zealand Mountain Parrott, arguing with each other in the trees. The rain that was heavy last night has stopped and I’m grateful for the stillness. I can see the Kōwhai tree out my window, who never fails to watch over me. Every day I trace the outline of her branches and her leaves.

And even though as I type, I have described these things as small, the little voice inside of me says that’s not true. It’s the noticing of such things that is, in fact, the everything.

So, although you may not be in a position to sit beside me, or for us to have a coffee and talk about our day, perhaps together we can look out for the shards and the glimmers knowing that someone else out there is doing the same.

We’re all in this together, after all.

Onwards,

 Jane

The word ‘mother’ covers many situations and complexities. We can be a mother to biological children. We can be mother to children not born to us. We can mother, never having given birth nor lived with a child. We can mother in the face of loss, or within a framework that was very different to the one that we may have once imagined, or perhaps hoped for.

To go through a pregnancy and birth is inherently a transformative experience, and one that our culture and society does not hold well. Despite the advances in so many areas of health care, pregnancy, and early motherhood- I would argue even well beyond that- is a vulnerable time for women’s health and wellbeing.

During pregnancy, I would look up the different stages that my body was going through only to have the period of gestation compared to a piece of fruit.

This week, your baby is a grape.

This week, a kiwi fruit.

Now, they are an orange.

There was little to no information about the true nature of the physical changes my body was going through, let alone the mental, the psychic and the spiritual. My body experienced pregnancy like an earthquake, a hurricane, a spitting volcano. Nowhere was this discussed or really mentioned.

I did not want to hear of bowls of fruit.

Statistics also show that women are poorly informed about the true nature of giving birth, which can result in a whole myriad of problems for our future physical wellbeing and leave us uninformed to make decisions about the process of giving birth. Our bodies are amazing, yes. But there is much to be said about the role of religion and a patriarchal culture that has placed much of the reality of what women face in the transition towards and within ‘mother’ behind a curtain of invisibility, isolation, and shame.

Especially when it comes to discussing parts of the body which might now be painful or experiencing dysfunction when they occur in places whose names we have been conditioned to not say out loud.

Why am I talking about this? The overwhelming majority of those I work with are women. If we were to break into groups the number of people in the equestrian community who are mothers, the numbers would be big. Huge in fact. And I know many of those women have not had an easy time.

Their bodies have undergone changes that make the transition back to riding and horsing hard, and because of everything I have mentioned above, embarrassing to talk about. I read that it’s ‘normal’ to tear in childbirth, to be stitched up. I can assure you, if you are one of those people, it being ‘normal’ does not ease the pain and difficulty of the actual event.

Of all the women in my antenatal group, I was the only one not to have a c-section. The only one.

None of this is a judgement- quite the opposite. Instead, it’s a call to recognise that an empathy and understanding for what women go through during pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood is essential if we are to support mother’s back into the process of riding and getting back into the saddle, should that be the desire.

Physiologically, but also mentally and emotionally.

Matrescence brings a complete reconfiguration of identity.

For me, horses were a lifeline that I refused to give up. I was lucky to be supported in that. I know that many women aren’t. And while some are fortunate to ease into motherhood as a smooth transition, many more find it hard- for all the reasons and so much more that I haven’t mentioned or described.

This book that I have pictured, Matrescence, is brilliant. I highly recommend it.

And as trainers, male or female, I also recommend you add it to your list. This is not a female issue. It’s a human one. And we need bigger, wider conversations for both humans and horses that speak to the fullness of our real, lived, experience.

Onwards,

❤️ Jane

On navigating difficult conversations or,

not wasting energy on attempting to change the mind of people who aren’t ready for it or open to it.

Today, is a short one. I just wanted to flag that up to prove I’m capable of a writing brief post (which, ironically, is getting longer by the second).

Ready?

I never answer a question I wasn’t asked.

I can’t tell you (well, I’m telling you now) how much simpler this has made my life, especially when it comes to navigating online spaces.

In practice, it looks something like this:

If you weren’t specifically asked the question, don’t answer it.

And if you/we do offer advice, ‘constructive criticism’, or ‘give feedback’ when it wasn’t requested, then to ask ourselves, how do we benefit by doing so? Like really benefit. Is it really about the other person? Or is there something that we gain ourselves, a need that’s lurking underneath the surface.

Something to consider anyway, and I can tell you from experience, it’s definitely worth trying on for size.

Onwards,

❤️ Jane

PS. There is no always or never- sometimes it’s right to interject without request. But for the most part I’ve found the above to serves me very well!

On balance,

Or allowing the movement to organize the posture.

Last night, Giles and I were chattering in the kitchen talking about nothing in particular when I asked him how the waves had been that day. Giles is a keen surfer and while I understand very little about swell or how the wind direction affects the movement of the water, I hope that by way of osmosis I will learn a little more about the sea and its ways.

It’s interesting, he told me. I’ve been watching a martial arts guy who also surfs on YouTube, and he talked about things in a slightly different way to how many other people do. Something about what he mentioned- at least how he mentioned it- made sense to me. And so, I practiced for a while the movements that he talked about, and I noticed a really big difference when I was out there on the wave.

He described the process that he went through; how he had to look behind him to gauge the waves position. How that arced his body in a particular way. How the successful completion of the movement required a degree of anticipation, that meant not only coordinating with the movement of the water in that moment, but how it might move and behave many moments forward in space.

Oh, I said, you were following the balance line of the wave. That’s exactly what I teach when I am riding.

I stood up on the tiled floor and we talked about how, just like a horse, a wave has a centre of gravity, a balance line, or a line of energy that determines the waves direction and equilibrium. Successfully merging and matching the wave requires orienting your own centre to the line of dynamic energy moving through. The more successful you are at this, the more easily you flow together. To oppose the balance line of the wave means your balance point is off and the movement runs away with you. Or, perhaps, it’s more accurate to say you get further away from it.

In other words, you and the wave find yourself travelling in quite different directions.

In other words, a situation we would describe in surfing and in riding as ‘unideal’.

In other words, you are no longer standing upright against the wave. Or sitting on your horse. Whichever the case may be.

Understanding balance lines- the balance line of your horse and developing a felt sense of it as your orienting centre- is the holy grail of the biomechanics that I teach. Instead of micromanagement. Instead of contracting this muscle and releasing that. Instead of adjusting this ‘very slightly’, we focus on the movement of the horse and how their centreline- a literal moving, sliding structure in the body- travels and coordinates itself in space.

The possibilities for our horse in movement exist only within the range that they are balanced; our job as riders, then, is not only to facilitate balance in them in order that they can carry us without compromising themselves, but also to ensure that our balance point matches theirs; understanding where and how your horse’s centreline moves in space so you can coordinate together in movement.

Otherwise known as matching yourself alongside the body of the wave.

If you can understand the balance line and seek to follow it, riding becomes more about feel and less about force. The body organically and intuitively orients around the point that seeks to harmonise best with the movement, leaving you free to concentrate on the next best action to take for both of you.

Onwards,

❤️ Jane

On holding fast,

Or when life gets life-ey and you’re not sure you’re down with it.

I’ve had some questions, some swirling of feelings expressed in my membership recently that spoke to the life-ey-ness of life that we are all familiar with. How it can sometimes be a lot to hold. That there are disappointments, people not behaving the way we hope they might (or perhaps we, ourselves, doing that). Grief. So much grief and loss. Ugh. And then that niggling undercurrent that can manifest in feelings of invisibility, or beyond that, sometimes even hopelessness.

It’s destabilising because it should be. A life well lived is a life of curve balls and disruptive energies. Experiences that cause you to question and think and wonder and ultimately, change. To evolve.

But it’s these qualities that are also the hardest to hold. They call things into question, and to change, and you can be left with a feeling of discontent. They can make you feel a little crazy if your bodily container is yet to figure out how to embrace them.

I was marinating on these conversation this morning and remember had some words spoken to me a while back by a very dear friend and mentor that I thought might be helpful to share with you now. This was taken from a time when I myself was really struggling. I sought her out as an ear to listen to my woes, and as a person I trusted to hold my hand as I ventured forward into the unknown.

She said, your container is expanding fast, Jane. With every conversation and interaction, it’s getting bigger and bigger. As she spoke to, she held her hands in front of me and began to move them out to the side, as though holding a beach ball within them that was expanding every second.

Your work then, she said, is to focus on this energy.

She took her hand and traced from her head, down the centre of her body to the ground.

‘The expansion is occurring. Your work is to stay connected and grounded within it.’

It might seem weird to group lots of what I’ve said together with the concept of expansion. At the time, as we lie in the metaphorical (or perhaps not so metaphorical) foetal position, expansive can be the last thing it feels like after all. But I believe anything that shatters the fabric of how we know our current selves in doing exactly that- expanding us. Even if it’s (whatever ‘it’ is) is doing so seemingly against our will.

But let’s get down to the big stuff.

The purpose of this writing is ultimately to share what staying grounded and connected looks like to me in the midst of rapid change. Or perhaps more so, what it doesn’t look like.

It doesn’t look like comfort.

It doesn’t look like calm.

It doesn’t look like clarity, even.

What it does look like is openness. Even if that’s just a splinter of light. A slight opening between your ribs that lets your heart peak out, if only for a moment.

It looks like holding fast. Holding fast like a piece of sea kelp in the ocean that stays anchored to a rock.

It looks like waiting for the spinning ideas and possibilities to land in a way that informs my next right step. Knowing that they will land. They will.

In the midst of new ideas, conversation and possibility, you don’t have to force what comes next. Your only job is to be with it. To be open to it.

And then within that, to stay present in your life. To keep moving. Literally keep moving.

To get your toes in the earth, whenever you can.

To be with your horses if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do so.

And to be ready. For whatever the greater world has planned for you next.

To be expectant that there IS a next for you. Of course there is. You’re fabulous.

If your world is rapidly expanding sideways, keep focused on the up and down.

Hold on to your beach ball for all its worth.

Onwards.

❤️ Jane

6 things to think about when you are short on time but still want to work with your horse.

1. Choose one thing

If you only have a limited time to work, choose something which is possible and achievable to work with. The number of times that I have started playing with my horse, only to come in some time later and remarked to my husband “I only meant to be out there for 20 minutes” is, well, a lot.

I’m pretty sure Einstein was working with a horse when he figured out his relativity of time theory. We may not understand it fully when we read it but as soon as we hit the barn we are like, oh! Of course. Makes sense.

Anyway, I digress.

It’s a wonderful luxury to have lots of time to play with, but the reality for many (or most) of us is that we don’t. The benefit of NOT having much time is that we can be very intentional and specific about what we DO do.

Intentional and specific leads to less faffing, more clarity, and a more obvious understanding of what’s working and what isn’t.

2. Make something (or someone) a priority (in the case of more than one horse)

This is a weird one to write, especially when it relates to the “someone” part- so I’ll add the note that making someone the priority does not make the other someone’s any less important. What is DOES mean is that there is some sort of order, however temporary or permanent, to how you go about things. Kind of along the lines of doing one thing well, rather than lots of many things more half-baked.

Anyway, let’s keep going. I have five horses in total; I’ll list them for you here:

Merc, who I refer to as my Patchy Pony. Ada, who is my Irish Draught yearling. Saffy, my five-year-old Irish Sport Horse. And Nadia and Dee, who are both warmbloods.

Two of those aren’t in work; Dee, owing to soundness, and Ada, who is just a babe and free to roam as such (I do little bursts of ‘lessons’ with her every so often to establish the life skills!).

For me, looking at this on paper, it’s easy to find it overwhelming, but in my mind it’s very clear. Merc always gets worked first. He is my priority. Both for my work and for my sanity, I need one horse in full work and Merc is my main man and beloved sidekick who I have chosen for the job.

The others I have a well-defined idea of where I’m up to and what I’d love to be working with next but to look at them as a group can sometimes feel overwhelming; prioritising one creates momentum and a start point that my mind can easily latch onto, and from there, I make my way further down the line.

3. Don’t waste time wishing that you had more time.

Chances are time with your horses is your love and your passion, but it doesn’t pay the bills, or directly affect anyone’s wellbeing (and least from your perspective, but I can argue this point all day!) aside from you. Because of that, it’s easy to both put things ahead of time with your horses and / or wait for pockets of time to ‘open up’ / ‘that thing’ to change when you will ‘definitely have more time’. Please don’t do that.

The thing about spending time on the things that you love is that we are trained out of taking it. And sometimes actually berate ourselves when we do. With that in mind, taking time to do something you love means you have approach it with the same degree of dedication that you would squeezing through a gap in a window to retrieve the keys to the tack room you left on the other side. This happened to me recently, and believe me, the commitment it took was unquestionable and intense.

THAT’S the kind of dedication we’re looking for when it comes to making time for what you love, even if you have to snatch it in the dark.

4. Do something in service of your horsing and / or riding

This is actually a principle I work to as part of my writing practice, but it’s directly transferable to here. On the days (weeks) where it might be impossible to do all that much with your horse, think about what you can do ‘in service of’ of them instead.

It could be watching a training series, reading that book that’s sitting in the pile you haven’t quite got to. Moving your body in a way that increases your awareness.

‘Acting in service of’ is one of the most useful mindsets I’ve taken on. It helps me keep creative and think outside the box when the ideal feels far away or things get stuck.

5. Know when to quit (and when to abandon your plans for other things)

Knowing when to quit is perhaps the most important part. If you have a limited window, you don’t want to start a discussion it’s not possible to finish. We want to end with things more harmonious, more clear, with the feeling that more things will be possible tomorrow.

Along the same lines, going in with a clear intention and plan does not necessarily mean that plan is possible; your horse will always ultimately decide that. Like knowing when to quit, knowing when the time ISN’T right to begin a new conversation is equally important. It’s ok to leave thing for another day if the time isn’t quite right now to fully commit. You’re not a failure- you’re just being discerning.

6. Be creative

Sometimes, we can develop a very narrow window of what ‘learning’ looks like. It doesn’t have to mean saddling up and there’s a lot that you can get done standing still. Take the time to pay attention to the details (for example how comfortable they feel about the bridle; doing some bodywork; just, well, hanging out) is always, always worth your time.

What do you focus on when time (or light) is short, and you have limited time to be with your horse?

❤️ Jane

On pressure or,

How tightly do you hold things when only lightness is needed?

I was sitting on some bizarre exercise machine whose official title I do not know to name, when the words were said to me that changed my relationship to my body and my horse from that moment forward.

‘You don’t have to hold the handle like that’, my teacher said. ‘You don’t need to use any pressure. If you just understand the direction that you want the movement to take, then you can just allow your body to follow. You don’t need to force or push.’

I sat for a moment, stunned by what probably appears to be a fairly run of the mill observation. Little wires inside my brain started buzzing with the creation of new circuits. I finally ‘got’ something- not as a basic understanding, but in the cells of my body awareness of my relationship to pressure. Sitting in a beige and boring room, no horses within sight, and yet everything about how I would approach them moving forward being changed.

I realised: I had a habit of applying pressure, in everyday situations, in life where it absolutely wasn’t needed.

I repeated the exercise again, this time without the force. My body flowed. There was no restriction or compression. I had been adding energy to something that didn’t result in an addition but only ever took away.

Since then, I have become obsessed with noticing our everyday use of pressure. How lightly (or tightly) we grip a pen. How we hold onto our mug. The sound of other’s footfalls when their going up the stairs. The type of grip a person uses when holding onto the steering wheel. It all matters. It’s all energy consuming (and energy conserving when we start to reconfigure our habits and movements a different way).

It all flows through. How heavily you hit the stairs correlates to how much pressure you put into the stirrups in the rising or posting phase of the trot.

If you hold a pen with a lot of unconscious force, what is the pressure you’re applying down a lead rope?

Do you grip your tea the same way that you hold onto the reins?

I’m convinced that we would have so much energy at our disposal, would find ways to make so much of what we are challenged by more easeful by examining the ways in which we push. By looking at what force we are using when no force is needed. By looking at what we are gripping onto, when it would lie easily in our palm if left alone.

Take out your pen and write. Can you create a new story, but use less pressure to bring it to the page?

Onwards,

❤️ Jane

Training while holding a tea-light candle, otherwise known as:

Going against the grain.

I truly don’t think I would ever have started my own business if I didn’t live in the location that I do. Isolation, combined with a healthy appetite for learning, the willingness to figure things out and take consistent action, and never really entertaining the thought that, well, I couldn’t, played not only a formative role in the creation of my business, but is also an essential ingredient in progressing with my horses in a way that feels natural and humane to us both.

We all know about the benefits of community, and the obvious advantages that this has. I’m not suggesting that friends aren’t important (they absolutely are), or that you don’t need a teacher or a mentor (you do), or a second pair of eyes when you get stuck (please definitely seek this out); what I am saying is that this needs to be balanced with alone time where you are free to bumble on and make mistakes.

Where you can figure out how to hold your hands and coordinate this part your body with that without referring or deferring to someone else.

Where you can let yourself learn, free of the lurgies of comparison or not-so-great-wonderings that accompany us when we are individually doing our best to figure things out in the context of a lots-of-opinions environment.

When I was first invited to speak within summit setting, I was launched into a container filled with other professionals much more skilled, more well-known, and more accomplished than myself. I looked around and thought, I’m so glad it’s taken me so many years to get here. The a-few-years-earlier me would not have been deeply rooted enough in her own understandings. She would have spoken words that were yet to live in her heart, shared knowledge that lacked a point of difference or uniqueness.

And that’s totally ok. The a-few-years-earlier me needed more space, more time, to figure some stuff out. She needed to dive in to learn, to gather knowledge, and to listen to other people’s thoughts and understandings. And then she needed to retreat. To play; to practice. To get oh so many things wrong so she could maybe get a couple of things right.

A similar, slightly different situation:

Once, when I was on a training week for some horse bodywork, I went to a stable that was home to at least a hundred horses and then counting. I looked around, at the comings and the goings. I thought how difficult it must be to learn here, if what you are playing with is different, new, or against the grain. How you are always witnessed, always under the gaze of another person’s eyes.

And so, I say: new learnings, new understandings are like holding a tea-light candle. The flame needs protection to get big. Once it has; once it’s licking the ceiling and not easily extinguished, you can carry it around in all manner of weather and situations and it’s unlikely to go out. But until then, it needs protection. The protection not only of people who are looking to also nurture the flame, but alone time where you get to stare at it, marvel at it, figure out how to make it grow.

My personal challenge is not so much alone time to play with new ideas, or space with my horses to apply new understandings, to figure out what goes where and how this connects with that. My challenge is community; the second eyes, the people around and on hand to help me out.

But if you find yourself in the context of many, YOUR creative challenge might look quite different. Because going against the grain, new learning, and the chance to apply what you have been told to the point where it has practical benefit means you must have time to think things through- alone.

You must have time to figure out how to figure it out in a way that lives in your body, which requires you go through the process of letting yourself learn.

At the end of the day, the ultimate in any learning situation is a balance, between mentorship and independent learning. Between opinions and the space to figure things out. Sticking to something you recognize is right for you or your horse but goes against the ‘most practiced and familiar’ can be tough, even when we know that it’s the right thing for us to do.

Protect your tea light candle insides until they’re a strong and solid flame. At that point, alone or in a group, the flame is sure enough of its own heat to not go out.

Onwards.

❤️ Jane