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You’re listening to episode 31 of the Confident Rider Podcast
with Jane Pike
Hello glorious person! We are riffing this week. I think that’s
what it’s called, when you kind of like riff with a topic. I could
totally be using the wrong word, but what I mean is that I
haven’t had a fixed idea for what it is that I’m going to talk
about today, so I’ve decided to pop or run with the first thing
that has come into my head and I guess that’s also going to be,
as a matter of course, what has been or is most relevant for me
right now and that’s all about connection, knowing how far to
take things in training and really being able to stay in your heart.
The other thing that I want to bring into this conversation within
the scope of what I just mentioned is fear, because this is
something that all of us are dealing with all of the time and I
think that fear shows up in so many different places on the
spectrum that sometimes we don’t even recognize that what it
is we’re going through is actually a fear response.
When it comes to thinking about fear, we often flash forward to
the really likely targets where we’re either immobilized by the
thought of doing something, maybe we feel like our physical
safety is under threat…So you might project yourself back to a
time in your riding life where you felt things were going a little
bit pear shaped or perhaps even a time in the future where you
were concerned about how things might actually show up. But
the fear that I want to talk about and work with today is
specifically that internal fear that relates to belief and also that
internal fear that is like a trip wire inside us that really causes
that voice to pipe up and say, “let’s tone it down. You know,
let’s keep safe, let’s go into lockdown, let’s not go there.”
Because that’s something that I have been negotiating myself in
a really conscious way this last couple of weeks and have been
having some really fantastic experiences as a result of
navigating my way through.
So let’s go back to what I first mentioned, which is this idea of
connection and knowing how far to take things in training. This
is something or a question that comes up a lot. I know just
recently enjoy ride my membership program, it’s something
that we’ve been discussing. It’s been front of mind for a lot of
people. It’s how far do you take things, you know, how do you
know when to push and how do you know when to hold back or
to tone it down? And the way that I want to address this is to
break it up into a few different areas. So of course we have our
horses and we can talk about training and how far to take things
on a couple of different levels. We talk about it from a training
perspective, so when we’re trying out something new or we’re
wanting to do something together with them, it’s like how do I
know when this is too much or I actually have to go through
that resistance line, which is a natural part of going outside of
the comfort zone.
So my answer to that is you know how far to take things by
recognizing whether or not you’ve lost the mental or emotional
connection with your horse. So as soon as you’ve lost that
connection, you know that you’ve gone too far and if you’re
able to maintain the connection within the experience, then you
know that you’re still operating below a threshold that is
keeping you both in the learning zone. I used to really overcomplicate
and overthink this, but that understanding and that
definition has clarified things for me tenfold. I get now, as soon
as I lose that mental or emotional connection, it’s time to tone
it back to actually stop anything that might be related to a skill
based training side of things and actually say, okay, what is it
that we need to do to reestablish the connection? That is
always the first piece that needs to be taken care of.
Now we can look at connection within the capacity of ourselves
also. So a connection to ourselves means that I still am able to
maintain a feeling of centeredness. I can still be in my heart, you
know, if we want to talk about it that way, if we want to get
outside this kind of traditional paradigm of talking about fear.
When you feel fear or when you’re going through a period of
discomfort, which can be, you know, putting yourself out there
and learning something new or feeling a certain amount of
emotional discomfort, you can still be in the midst of that. You
can still be observant and aware of that experience while still
being connected to yourself. As soon as you lose that
connection to yourself, as soon as you lose that ability to say,
here I am in the midst of this discomfort and this is, this is how
it is I need to navigate my way through. As soon as you lose
that, you need to come back because that is the point that
you’ve gone outside of yourself. And that is the point that
you’ve lost all objectivity of what it is you’re going through and
of your experience. So connection is the first point. It is the key
point. It is the foundation point.
Am I connected to my horse? Am I connected to myself? And
usually that latter point is going to determine that connection
between us and our horses. It’s always the first piece that we
need to start with. So my practice over the last couple of weeks
off the back of going to a clinic and having a few buttons pushed
and looking at what that means and how it is that I want to
adventure forward was that I’d got into the, got into a way of
going that was just a little bit too safe, you know, and I was, I
recognize that catch point or that resistance line in me that was
quite easily activated and I don’t think I was practicing activating
that enough.
So the practice of it is recognizing the point where you are
teetering on the edge of your comfort zone and understanding
that at that point the primary focus needs to be re connecting,
recentering, you know, dropping back into your heart and
getting out of your head. And then from that place saying, how
is it that I need to move forward? You know, how is it? Or what
is it that I need to do? And when you’re in that space, when
you’re in a heart space place of awareness, of navigating your
emotional experience, then you’re able to look through things
or look at things with a completely different lens to when you’re
caught up in your head. It’s a lens that connects you to your
intuition. It’s a lens that connects you to your courage and it
allows you to operate from a really creative and generative
space as opposed to a reactive one.
So when I’m in that place, I can say to myself, who is it that I
need to be for my horse right now? And what is the best option
for us? And I can also say, I see you, I see what it is that I’m
experiencing. I see this anxiety, I see this fear, I see this
apprehension. I say this concern, I see you and yet I will take
you with me as I make movements towards the higher intention
of what it is that I want to create. So Nadia and I, for those of
you who have been following my Facebook page or do follow
my Facebook and Instagram pages, you will see that I’ve been
sharing snippets over the course of the week of what I am
calling Nadia and I’s brave bucket challenge. And basically Nadia
has a lot of internal anxiety that we’ve been working through
for quite an extensive period of time.
And I just got to this point where I’m like, you know what, I
recognize that I need to have more courage than you right now
and I really need to be your courage encourager. So I think we
have, you know, all of us recognize that our horses have
different personalities just like we do. And what I know about
Dee is that he is, he has a, he has definitely an anxious streak
and he’s sensitive as well, but he’s brave too. Like he’s curious
and he hasn’t had that, uh, taken out of him in any shape or
form. So he’s happy to adventure. And for the times that
perhaps I am feeling a little bit trepidatious, is that a word he
will have courage for me, you know? And that is the way that
we encourage each other. We encourage, we encourage
courage in each other and so we can step in that way where
sometimes, He will fill my bucket.
Sometimes I will fill his and sometimes we are filling each
other’s. With Nadia because of, for whatever reason she’s kind
of being held between two hands and two legs for, for a really
long time and not really given much choice in a showing her
opinion…so outside of that constricted framework, you know,
outside of the arena that she’s traditionally known, she doesn’t
really know how to manage yourself. And so she doesn’t trust
herself to be able to go into the world, I guess, and be okay with
what, Nadia, let’s forget the arena for the moment. Let’s get out
and live it up together. Let’s live life. And I’m really lucky to live
on this beautiful inlet that is a packed mud flat. So the sea exists
beyond it and it’s like a big Bay.
If you’re trying to picture it, it’s a big Bay and at high tide it fills
then you can ride on it. And there’s kind of like a channel that
stays full most of the time that you can go and play in. So we’ve
been going out onto the inlet every day and I have been, um,
bare back and you know, just in the halter and it’s just been this
really beautiful experience. And on the first day, I actually went
with my son. It was, this was the starting point for our brave
adventure where I’d been, um, I’d taken him and his friends
swimming on the Saturday and they’d gone out with their lovely
horses and had a really great time playing in the channel at low
tide. And then on Sunday he wanted to go swimming again, but
his friend Elizabeth wasn’t feeling well.
And I was like, you know what? I could just walk out with you
and your horse, but why don’t I take a horse? Why don’t I take
Nadia? And I thought, let’s just do it, you know, and let’s go.
And the worst that can happen, I thought is that I’ll just get off.
So what I know about her just to kind of tick those boxes as
well, is that her modus operandi is, and she just gets very tight
and she feels like she’s got very big and it’s not a very pleasant
feeling, but also she’s, she doesn’t tend to revert to any of those
likely suspects that would cause us to think that this wasn’t
really a good idea. So I trusted, you know, where her energy
went and how I could direct it and she, we need a few times
grant going down the road and kind of got tight a few times.
And what I discovered that as long as I just kept her feet
moving, she was really okay with being out there and trusting
me to take the reins metaphorically and literally. So we got out
there and adventure and I had that point inside me, that
apprehension point, that feeling, that feeling in my tummy for
me, it comes in my tummy of is this going to be okay? Is this a
good idea? We don’t think this is a good idea. And I recognize
that and I didn’t stamp it down. So this is the point where
training with kindness becomes the thing. The thing that we’re
often not good at because at that point where we recognize
that resistance in us, the tendency is to go, “Oh, you’re so
stupid. Why do you feel this way? I can’t. You should be braver
than this. You should totally have it together, yada, yada, yada.”
But the beautiful practice of adventuring into the unknown and
being okay with the possibility is to say to yourself, wow, I feel
that and I get that that is a protective mechanism so you don’t
want to go to war with yourself. Right? Like you don’t those
feelings that you have a valid, they’re valid and they’re
necessary and they serve a purpose. They… The, the thing that
we need to recognize is the emotional forms that come up are
of two sorts. They are either true for the moment or they are
part of a pre patterned or a habitual cycle. That is part of a story
that you’re telling yourself. Now what I recognized about that
feeling that came up for me was that it wasn’t true for the
moment. Sure my horses a little bit tense. Sure, she was having
a little bit of a separation anxiety moment, but really there was
nothing going on that I couldn’t effectively deal with.
The feeling that I had was familiar. It’s like an old friend visiting
you and that is how you know that what it is you’re
experiencing is not true for the moment. So within that, then I
can say, okay, training with kindness. Here I am in the midst of
this experience, in the midst of this emotion and I know that I’m
safe, I know that I’m going to be okay. So I will carry that feeling
with me and yet I will line up my actions with what it is I know
that I need to be focusing on. So in my mind, I’m focusing on
having this lovely calm and relaxed horse. I tell Nadia- truly like I
actually tell her these things- we are going to be out each
other’s courage encourages, you need more courage. I’ve got
your back and I trust that you can do this and I’m rubbing on
her. you know, I’m, I’m sending her the love and I’m sending it
out in front of us and out we ride.
So day four of this week, when we’ve gone out four times, the
last three times have been solo adventures. Yesterday was the
first time that both of us had no apprehension. There was no
whinneying, there was softness. She was happy to stand still,
which is something that she hadn’t been happy to do before
and that wouldn’t have happened unless I was willing to show
up and push through that resistance in myself. Now, if we flip to
the other side of the story, what is fear or apprehension or
anxiety that is true for the moment and how is that different to
what it is that I just described? When an emotion like anxiety or
fear is true for the moment-any emotion- it is coming up in
response to what it is that you are experiencing and what you
need to do to stay in flow with that is not deny it because often
that itty bitty shitty committee has like the upper hand here and
if we’re really good or practiced at berating ourselves, and that’s
a very easy modus operandi to fall into, but what I really want
to encourage you to do is say, “Oh, hi, okay, I feel this way and I
recognize this feeling is trying to convey a message to me.
What is that message? What can I take from this?” That is your
supersleuth job. At that point, as an emotional detective, what
is it that I’m feeling and why is it that I’m feeling this? And it
might be, here is my whole horse in front of me behaving in this
way and I feel like I can’t competently manage what it is on
being presented with. That is really useful information. That is
your emotions doing their job to convey to you a situation that
feels out of your zone to successfully navigate. Now from there,
if you were to stay in flow, you would go, thank you for that,
you know, thank you for that information. Now I know that I’m
not a failure or I don’t have to like give it up completely, but
what I do need to know and what I do need to do is actually upskill.
I need to talk to the people I need to talk to. I need to find a way
of being able to get myself to a place where I’m represented
with this same situation and yet I’m able to challenge it or
navigate it differently. That’s progress. That’s the upward cycles
of progress. So I’m hoping those two differentials are quite clear
because they’re really important pieces of information to get
your head around. If we were to backtrack, thinking about that
connection as well, being able to do that with kindness, being
able to train yourself with kindness really involves staying
connected to yourself. One of the questions that popped up in
the JoyRide group this week, which I think is really interesting
was all around intuition. It’s like, how do I know when I’m just
overdoing the intuition? And my answer was you can never
overdo intuition. What you’re overdoing is the logical thought
that stamps out the intuition in most parts.
So I know for myself that can be a really split second response
between intuitively understanding something intuitively
recognizing that this is either too much or this is okay or you
know, just that that message, that flash of insight in response to
what it, whatever it is that you’re going through. And then even
very quickly after that, having a conditioned response of
embarrassment or guilt or shame even or anything which you
might describe as a not ideal for the situation that actually
clouds your perception of what it is that you’re going through so
that you discount the intuition or you discount the experience
by saying, Oh, you know, but that’s probably not right. We’ve
got very untrusting of ourselves. So this training with kindness
really asks you to reconnect, reconnect to yourself, make sure
that whenever you’re out there training with your horses, that
the connection is the thing that you returned to and extend
from.
And when you’re able to stay in that connected place, you’re
able to move forward compassionately and with understanding
and with reverence for what it is that’s showing up for you.
Because ultimately you are not at war with yourself. There is
never any part of you that is trying to work to your downfall.
You know, everything that shows up is for your highest benefit.
It’s just that sometimes we’ve got a little bit out of whack with
what that is. If we haven’t had the opportunity in the past to
actually negotiate something successfully. So if we have been
through a traumatic circumstance or something that had a high
emotional charge and we haven’t found the way to actually
reconcile that in, in the sense that it stays in the past and it
comes forward into the future. So what I mean by that, just to
clarify is if you have been through an experience which has
registered itself in your nervous system or registered itself in
your neurology, then you actually need to find a way of bringing
that cycle to completion before you are able to metabolize the
energy of that experience.
So if you think of something with a high emotional charge or
something which creates a lot of energy, like fear, like anxiety,
they have a huge amount of energy that exists as part of the
emotion and you go up through the arousal cycle into the peak
of that experience. And if you’re unable to come back down
from that, if you’re unable to actually de compress off the back
of those experiences and instead you feel in some way that
you’re stuck in the charge of that, that carries with you and that
is where these pre patterned experiences come up. That is
where we get these familiar occurrences come up in response
to different triggers that set us off because your nervous system
is basically saying, here we go, here we go. Can we get rid of this
energy? Now? Do you have the means to use this experience as
the way to discharge what it was that you went through
previously?
So there’s an invitation with every experience that we have,
even if it’s familiar to us, there’s an invitation to say, here you
are again. Here’s your opportunity again. How are you going to
do it differently this time? What are the skills that you have?
What are the new perspectives and understandings that you
have to be able to see this through to a different solution or a
different completion this time? It’s really a beautiful thing to
think of emotions this way and to think of feelings this way. It’s
been incredibly liberating for me and it’s something that has
softened the edges of my resistance. I’m definitely a recovering
perfectionist. Like I can be super hard on myself if I get things
wrong in my mind. And you know, especially being in the work
that I’m in, I feel like if I take a tumble internally and get to a
place where I’m not in a good feeling space, I’m like, who am I
to be talking about this?
21:16
But, but it’s not the fall that defines us. It’s the rise. You know?
How quickly can you come back from the dips? How easily are
you able to move through the emotional territory that you’re in
with compassion and kindness? And when you’re able to do
that to yourself, then you’re able to extend it to your horse.
You’re able to see that everything that comes up is really all
there…. you know, an expression of them saying, this is what it
feels like to be me in this environment, in this situation with you
right now. And when you understand that the charge goes and
you say, right, what is it? How can we encourage courage in
each other? How is it that we can get both of us to a better
feeling place? So, let’s have some homework. Let’s have some
homework for this week. Think about what it means or feel,
what it means to the operating from your heart as opposed to
your head.
If you were to close your eyes now and just reconnect with
whatever that feels like or looks like for you. And typically when
you’re in that heart space, you’ll feel grounded and centered
and connected to yourself. So get in touch with what it feels like
to be in that place, to operate from that place. And then say
how you can maintain that just as you move through your day
or move through your writing. And then here’s the tricky bit.
When you feel yourself go to a place which is uncomfortable or
challenging or even concerning for you, see if you can cultivate
enough presence of mind before you make any actions moving
forward, or before you decide where to take things to drop back
into that heart place and move from there and see what comes
up, see what comes up. It’s a pretty beautiful practice to get on
board with.
I think that’s, that’s it. That’s it for my riffing. I hope you enjoyed
want to connect up, got any questions, feel like a chat. You can
hit me up. jane@confidentrider.online. Oh, there is so much
information on my website around all of this stuff. Emotional
flow, agility, my favorite, and of course my membership
program, JoyRide. Please come and join me if you’re in the
struggle or even if you’re not, even if you just want to get on
board with all this juicy, amazing stuff that is learning about
yourself. My membership program,
www.confidentrider.online/joyride I would love to see you
there. All right guys, you have a fabulous day and I’m looking
forward to chatting with you in the next episode.
