On Using Your Voice (And Being Too Much)
Here’s an example of how this story unfolds: Person A- let’s call her Suzie- has a question. She starts to type and finds after a
Here’s an example of how this story unfolds: Person A- let’s call her Suzie- has a question. She starts to type and finds after a
I came to a really great definition of learning recently: Learning is not the process of accumulating, but the process of giving up. The bigger
In the beginning, a dream is a fragile thing. When it’s felt in your belly and makes itself known in your mind, it can feel
You know, Dee tells me, it seems to me that humans worry about failing a lot. We ride softly across the sand. Huh, I tell
The other day I was participating in a Facebook thread around nerves and anxiety, and one of the commenters asked if the person in question
Investigating the source of our nerves is secretly a call to ask more beautiful questions of ourselves. It’s an opportunity to observe those parts that
Wait, wait, mum, I want you to watch! I turned around to see a complicated series of structures that all fed into each other. A
“Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as
What do you think it would look like if we all just practiced trusting ourselves? How do you think that would make things different for
One of my favourite parts of JoyRide, my membership program, is the weekly Q&A session that we have. It’s such a great platform for discussing
Another conversation I have been reading online that I’ve been musing about and wanted to chime in on. Let’s break it down into two parts:
Over the Christmas break, I got tagged in a post of a group I am a part of that was considering the concept of “free-floating
In ancient Greece, Cassandra was one of the Trojan Princesses of Apollo. As the story goes, Apollo took a bit of a fancy to her
All this talk of red mares is nothing new. Feisty. Furious. Opinionated. Difficult. Unpredictable. The category of options in the red mare handbook written by
I had a conversation the other day and something was mentioned to me that I had never heard of before: A silent disco. What, I
Confidence is something that we are all in dynamic relationship with, and I am in constant conversation with riders who tell me that they have
With a handful of exceptions, most riders I work with have a pre-disposition to the flight and freeze response and as a consequence, I’ve developed
If you need to rest, you should do that. Life is not a race to fill in the gaps. ❤️ Jane
Vitality: exuberant physical strength or mental vigor; the capacity for survival or for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence; the power to live
There’s a great quote from Jack Nicklaus which is: The most important part of winning is losing. I’ve come to understand the importance of this
Imagine that standing next to you there is a little girl (or a little boy). They come with you everywhere that you go.
I’ve spent a good part of my life not being very nice to my body. It’s kind of been like a low-grade relationship with the
In the field of horses and humans, there is so much knowledge around. We know about the nervous system, training systems, methods of managing our
Nadia and I often adventure around the farm. She’s mostly brave mixed in with a little bit of not-so-braveness. In her not so brave
Now this one… this is something that you need to continually practice. And you know why? Because every time you leave yourself *off* the list,
This one has stung at times, but here’s the thing you have to remember: Standing up for yourself… Operating within your own integrity…
“You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest? … The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” ~ David Whyte Wholeheartedness, you now
Moving has become your anti-freeze practice. I mean, granted, you’ve always moved. For years you’ve done yoga and walked and run and been diligent about
It’s interesting, because a few years ago if someone had asked you to describe the word “anticipation”, it’s like that you would have paired it
With so much going on in the world at the moment, it’s important to realise that you are more resilient than you might give yourself
Well, this year has been quite the time. There’s been stuff come up which has never really crossed your radar in terms of being on
Outsourcing your power to trainers, clinicians, coaches, people at your barn. It’s a conversation that I am having with riders I work with all the
A big little thing that makes all the difference not only to how I evaluate my training sessions but also in my ability to stay
One of the most common “deflation points” I see with riders that I work with are feeling of failure or disappointment around situations “coming back”
I talk about how important it is to exercise our superpower of showing up a lot, and someone recently asked me what I think the
You know, it can be really tough weighing in on conversations around dealing with fear. There are so many different philosophies that people subscribe to,
How long does it take to come back? One of the most important questions to ask. When you feel afraid, how long does it take
Developing your confidence requires midwifery. Us humans, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we need to go about things alone. We maroon ourselves on
It’s easy to lose yourself in trainings, theories, and teachings that are focused on finding solutions to your stresses, anxieties, and challenges. But in our
Like many others no doubt, I’ve been struggling a bit recently. The nature of my work means that I spend a lot of time online,
Many years ago, when I was quite young, a cat adopted me and took up residence in my barn. She was wild enough to make
I’ve has several conversations with people the last few days and a personal experience yesterday that all relate back to a similar core theme: Many
Is it ever NOT appropriate to calm down? Our body is running through a number of organic stress cycles all day. Up, down, up, down.
So this picture here captures one of the most fun days I have had riding since I was a kid. I just felt… joyful. I
I love these words: There is no such thing as balance, only balancing. So much of what I do has been transforming what we might
I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately, and we’ve also been having a lot of conversations in JoyRide around belonging, connection, and even loneliness.
Yesterday, I booked in for a dressage lesson in a week’s time and a working cow clinic not long after that. Truth be known, I
Kickback. One thing that’s important to realise is that we train people how to treat us. Just like with horses, if you have allowed yourself
A sense of humour is something that I really value. I know mine has served me well. But I’ve also noticed a tendency I’ve had
Capacity is a word that I frequently use in my work. Much of what I do revolves around finding ways to increase it… To increase
Maybe 20 years ago now, I sat in the office of someone I had booked in to talk to so I could discuss the struggles
When we come to strongly identify with feelings of anxiety, worry or concern, it’s easy for our awareness to switch on only during the moments
At the moment- even more so than usual- there’s a lot of stuff out there ready and willing to soak up your mental and emotional
I often get tagged in the comments of various posts in response to someone asking for help dealing with riding related fear. Maybe they’ve had
A theory that I’m working on that brings together three different areas of current (and ongoing) fascination for me: brain mapping, riding as an embodied
Let’s talk about the Itty Bitty Shitty Committee for a second (or those little voices in your head that you tell you what you can
In one of the last sessions of the day I had over the weekend, I was asked a question about dealing with pressure at competition.
Want to be able to see into the future? Tell me in a sentence or two about your horse and I’ll let you know the
In a world that idolizes rush, busy-ness and, hyper-productivity, it’s no great surprise that the natural need of our body to rest and cocoon at
At the start of my last clinic, I asked all the women in the room how many women in their maternal line had complete decision-making
Spaciousness. I remember at the beginning of the year, when I was thinking about what I wanted to experience more of, the word that popped
It only takes a few moments to check in with yourself and to feel into the edges of your skin. I take some time to
The other day, I was sitting on the mounting block in the middle of the arena deciding whether or not I would ride. Truth be
I was scrolling through my Facebook feed yesterday and a random article about Adele (the singer) popped up, along with some click-baity headline about how
A message pinged into my inbox: “Can you tell me more about the mind-body connection? I don’t feel very connected to my body at all.”
The last week, I’ve been working on some new material for my membership pathway that centres around our ability to rest in good feeling and
Way back in the early days of starting down the path I’m on now, I remember having a lightbulb moment when working with someone who
My horse Dee is a very kind soul. He’s one of those horses that you could easily underestimate or put in a compromising position simply
You know something? You can move your body quickly but slow your inner world down at the same time. Being able to move in power
The last month has been a rough one for me. I seem to be playing tag team with a variety of different lurgies that have
Of all the reasons that we fail to celebrate the little markers of progress with our horses, otherwise known as the Big Little Things, comparisonitis
One of the questions I hear a lot is “how to I reset myself after my horse spooks or I get a fright? I find
🌷 Slower: Give yourself a chance to rest in the pause. Notice the difference between the activation that comes with building of energy inside you
There’s a lot of discussion around relaxing and releasing tension- but not so much about what we are releasing into. The fact is that tension
Showing up is one of the lesser talked about and seldom celebrated superpowers. And consistently showing up- making your way out to the arena, stables,
I know I’m not the only one who has needing reminding about this at one time or another, so in case that’s you right now
Navigating that line in terms of knowing how far to “take things” in training is always an interesting discussion. We all know that in order
Gentle wiggling I hear you say? What’s that all about? Well, let’s start by getting a better understanding of what freeze is. Freeze is the
In a world that idolizes rush, busy-ness and, hyper-productivity, it’s no great surprise that the natural need of our body to rest and cocoon at
Oftentimes, we fail to hear the voice of our intuition, not because it isn’t there, but because the space between the flash of insight and
Any of us involved with working with horses on a regular basis will have something that we are looking to improve. That “something” can provide
Us lot are really very good at making a big deal out of things. We love to inflate, exaggerate and think about what things mean,
I first cast my eyes over these words many years ago and for me, it is one of the yardsticks of training; that the measure
“If we silence the parts that we find unacceptable, they find other ways to be heard”. “The parts we find unacceptable” are usually those that
I’ve been playing with something recently which is a personal take on the Buddhist practice of Tonglen. Tonglen is slightly different to the usual meditation
When to lean in and when to retreat? Embodied Discernment is a process of tuning into yourself and your responses to a situation and asking:
You know the beautiful thing about belief? It’s learned in relationship. Everything that we have come to understand about the world and ourselves has been
I read something on a post the other day about a horse routinely being given a herbal calmer 30- 40 minutes before riding, which I’ll
I’ve set my space up to allow me to insert as many moments of movement into the day as possible. One of my favourite things
“Every time you think you are broken, know this: you are never really breaking. Noone can break an ocean, darling. All you are doing is
Scene 1: You sit down at your computer and log in to the latest news site. The top five stories are filled with not great
Self-care is somewhat of a catchphrase at the moment, and rightly so. But sometimes I think that the idea of self-care and the associations that
Questions around certain topics seem to come in waves, and at the moment, I’ve been getting a lot of questions arriving in my inbox around
You know what can be helpful to realise? You can’t and shouldn’t seek to be relieved of your humanity. And being human means that you
I had a really interesting ride this morning, and I think that my experience demonstrates the necessity for us to be able to viscerally get
I realized not that long ago that most of the activity that I do was pretty neat and orderly. I didn’t allow myself- at least
I know that for me, one of the most important lessons of the last couple of years has been learning to trust the walkie talkie
Effective horsemanship is as much about learning to be a sustainable presence as it is anything else, and sustainability- the capacity to keep showing up
With a handful of exceptions, most riders I work with have a pre-disposition to the flight and freeze response and as a consequence, I’ve developed
After the webinar yesterday and the Live Q&A in my membership program, I’ve been musing more and more about just how necessary it is for
There’s some stuff that’s hard to talk about when it comes to discussing how you feel as a rider or horseperson, and anger is definitely
There are two phrases I’ve been messing around with lately, and they have really helped me get a handle on what it means to operate
The body has the most beautiful way of organising itself, and many times, our well-intentioned efforts to calm down when we feel we are “up”
In order for us to feel like we are on top of things both in and out of the saddle, we need to feel like
A non-horsey friend came over the other day and said to me, Jane, what are those boots that you have standing near the end of
Boundaries are a complicated subject. We refer them in different contexts all the time without having an embodied understanding of what it really means to
Over the last few days, some of my equestrian peers have posted articles about Black Lives Matter, the protests, and shared articles of support. In
Just take a deep breath. Lengthen your exhale. Slow your breath down. If you’ve ever felt upset or anxious in the saddle, these are all
It was 8:45 am in the morning when I jumped in the shower. Better get a move on, I told myself, you haven’t even begun
Slow your body down. Anxiety can feel like a permanent state of being when we are outside the window of what we can comfortably deal
If we allow them too, horses provide us with a direct channel to our own aliveness. On the one hand, that’s something we all yearn
I’ve spent a good part of my life not being very nice to my body. It’s kind of been like a low-grade relationship with the
The night before last, my little boys and I all dived into the outside bath and spent a good 90 minutes star gazing. It’s become
Most of us arrive at our riding from 30 floors up and wonder why the whole experience feels a little left off centre. What do
I was walking back from feeding the horses last night and I suddenly had this acute awareness that I am caring less and less what
Mary Poppins talked about a spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down, and to be honest, she was making a pretty huge point. Medicine
It’s so easy to bash yourself up. It’s so easy to be hard on yourself, to open social media, and compare yourself to every combination
I’m a failure, I’m ruining my horse, I think I should give up, my horse is feeding off my nerves, I had an accident and
I just looked up vitality in the dictionary just now and it was defined as this; exuberant physical strength or mental vigor; the capacity for
Anger has a bad reputation and frankly, I’m bored with it. So many of us have been trained out of our anger. Trained out of