'I'm afraid of ruining my horse'

I’ve been wondering lately about something I hear quite often from the sort of lovely folk I like to work with, and that is. “I’m afraid of ruining my horse” or variations on that theme. It gives me cause to wonder because in some ways it’s a noble and humble sentiment, isn't it, but in reality, I never see it help achieve anything useful.

What I often see instead are budding trainers who begin with such love and enthusiasm, yet at best end up in a sort of non-progressing limbo state, sometimes for years, taking anything that doesn’t look to them like ruining their horse as a win, and at worst, just stop enjoying the training journey or even give up.

More wondering happens when I hear myself or others ask, ‘But what about all those people whose mind it never crosses that they might be ruining their horse? They often succeed in doing it very well. It seems to make sense, then, to tell myself repeatedly that this is what I must not do or that I will do everything in my power to ensure it never happens, with some added terror talk thrown in to seal the deal. All in the hope that this might be the answer to ensuring it never happens. It isn't.

What I see in reality as these new, inexperienced trainers approach their training with well-intentioned worry as their wingman is that the journey starts to transform into a “rough ride,” so to speak, because as soon as we bring worry, before we’ve even walked in the arena we are separating ourselves from our creative flow and the potential for connection with our horse.

In much the same way as someone who seems not to care what they do to their horse in pursuit of their goals, although it’s hard to hear, we are really doing the same thing, just with a different flavour. ‘How so?’ I hear you cry. Well, because both of these mindsets are all about ‘Me’ and how ‘I’ feel and actually little to do with the horse.

The truth is that I will make mistakes and I will likely do things that confuse the horse from time to time, or some other thing, but to be a valid and effective trainer, I must be able to own the truth of this and be prepared to experience the discomfort it can bring. In this acceptance and honesty, I will grow as a human and a trainer while fully honouring the horse. Pretending it never happened or preoccupying myself in the futile pursuit of ensuring it never happens is to be missing the gift of growth that training my own horse is offering me.

Me and Irish in-hand work Kenya

On a practical level, worry, which is another word for fear, however well meant, simply has no place in the training arena, whatever its good intentions. You might say, ‘Well, my fear is founded. It’s in the best interests of my horse that I worry about getting this right or what terrible things might I end up doing?’  

As a well-seasoned worrier, that if I didn’t terrify myself into being ‘good’ I might go off the rails completely, I am here to tell you that this logic is completely arse about face and it never makes for fun. Learning to change my selfish worry for healthy, aware concern has been a game-changer for my life and my training ability.

So what can we do instead? What might help those of us who have a deep awareness for what we are entrusted with when we enter a training relationship with our horse, but also those of us who can take that awareness from healthy concern to the unhelpful energy generated by the fear that we might be committing actual crimes?

First of all, it helps to slow your mind down and come right back to something you know to be true. Truth over personal belief or opinion is always a great place to start in calming the nevous system. So the truth is that horses are herd, prey and flight animals. We don’t have to go deep into animal psychology to understand that in the name of survival, fear is pretty much their middle name. So it makes sense that any added fear from those around them is not going to be helpful, and it's 'helpful' that we must first and foremost aim to be.

The energy of concern, fear, and separation, which happens when we are mainly thinking about ourselves and our feelings, is a sure way to create disconnection from our horse.  All the horse hears and feels is “worry.” They have no idea what it’s about, so they assume it to be related to their safety. 

Worry, concern and fear, however well-meaning, affect our human behaviour in a number of ways...

·      Tension in the body and mind. I love the term body-mind because the two are really one.

·      Distracted thinking focused on the self and its worries, or outside stimuli, often now missing the needs of the horse in that moment.

·      Lack of presence often resulting in reactive rather than responsive behaviour.

·      Second-guessing resulting in tentativeness and a lack of committed action in the moment.

·      Hyper-vigilance for mistakes and perceived errors is setting in now. Leading to more worry, fear, and so more disconnection.

·      Now we are becoming hyper-critical of the self. Evidence is gathering for how we aren’t good enough. We should never have embarked on this. Someone else could do it better. Phone an expert to do it for me, and soon what began as a wonderful dream has turned into a self-sabotaging nightmare. While your horse is likely now on high alert or has switched off.

Crikey, that all sounds like doom and gloom, doesn’t it? And all from our beautiful intention, not to ruin our horse. This is certainly a cycle I got myself into on more than one occasion in the past.

So what's the good news? Well, it's that because all of that and I mean ALL of it is one hundred per cent mind-created, it can change because there are no thoughts that aren’t transient and no beliefs that aren’t up for investigation and change in any given moment.

Because our thoughts one hundred per cent create our experience of the world, that means there is always the possibility of creating a new experience, which in this case might be to happily and successfully train our horse without any ruining happening, ever. Guaranteed!  That’s a big statement, isn’t it?

Freedom of mind and body to move and play

It sounds easy when you say it like that, and it IS true, however, with some caveats, that you be prepared to let go of some old, possibly quite strongly held beliefs and perhaps shift the odd paradigm. But if you are serious about enjoying the training journey with your horse, yet find yourself in the grips of the story of ‘ruining’ and the unhappiness this can bring, then this is where you can begin to set yourself free. It is possible to step out of the negative spiral for good and into a fresh new perspective.

Like someone famous once said, when you change the way you look at the world, the world changes. And this includes you, everyone else and everything in it.

So, what to do? let’s see…

First of all, we can take the power out of the word ruined or any equivalent by defining what ‘ruined’ means, not in the dictionary but to us. Because it looks to me as if what’s ‘ruined’ to one person might be finely trained to another.  For example, I see and have ridden horses competing and performing at the very highest levels, who feel potentially "ruined" to me. Would their owners and riders agree? No way. So, we can immediately learn from this brief investigation that ‘ruined’ must be subjective. The idea of ruined and what that looks and feels like lives only inside your own mind. I.e. it’s not real. Brilliant!

Why does this matter? Because when you are using this word in relation to the possibility of doing it to your horse, it looks as if ruined is an actual ‘thing’ that you can do and must avoid at all costs, which results in needless confusion and pressure, both of which we don’t need with us around our horses right?  If you're a bit of a maverick, you can try just dropping it in the name of sanity and experiencing what life feels like to 'be' without it. Maybe you'll need a little more help :)

Learning in Portugal and getting it "wrong" a lot. lol

Secondly, our thoughts and their resulting emotions inform our behaviour, so if our thoughts are worrisome and fearful, our behaviours are now being chosen based on that program running. (see above bullet points) Now, we are becoming vigilant. Looking for all the potential “ruining” going on, and after a time, this starts to be all we can think about, and so of course, now see...

Any small errors, misunderstandings, or backward steps, which are inevitable and even beautiful in their own way, become magnified now in service to our belief that ‘I am a potential ruiner’ (is that even a word?)  Because, over and above all, we love to be right, don’t we. ‘See, I knew I was a ruiner.’ And this is simply how it works over time.

It’s true, we may not do as much obvious physical harm to the horse as someone who doesn’t seem to care what they do to their horse, but the mindset of worry will never allow us to progress past what feels known and safe to our own mind. As healthy progression in training requires spending time in newness and unfamiliarity, a lack of this often leads to stagnation and the potential for confinement and confusion for horses in the moment and insidiously over time.

I trained a good few horses to be tense and vigilant in my early years of pressuring myself with the invented idea that I should not and must never “get it wrong”, even though I didn't know what that actually meant or even what 'right' even looked like.

Nuno Oliveira

Thirdly, the truth is that compared to the highly sensitive world of the horse, we humans are fumbling goofballs. We couldn’t be sensitive enough if we tried for the rest of our lives, and I have made my peace with that and now live in a world where I am simply eternally grateful that they allow my efforts. The late and greats acknowledged this. They all made many mistakes, and sometimes even admitted to it ;)

The truth is that horses are all about who we are being in this space now. Not what our good intentions are, or how bad we feel about ourselves, or how frustrated we are at not being good enough and on and on. They are not interested in your emotional well-being; they care about what this relationship feels like to them here and now, and a calm, centred, purposeful human can ask a great deal from a horse and will be afforded many well-intentioned fumblings and bumblings from this place of calm, assuredness. Not assuredness that I am always right, but that I am here and present, listening and conversing.

How will you know if you are cocking it up a bit? Well, your horse will tell you if you are present enough to listen without the overlay of your worry stories.

From this place of presence, minus the mental interference, there is no need for fear of what crimes we might be committing and the projection of horrors into the future, because now we are in the present in a shared relationship of learning. One in which we ask questions and receive answers from one another, we make beautiful, well-meaning mistakes from which we all learn, smile, sometimes apologise (I am known to do this out loud) and move on…

Now, set free from overthinking, we are fully immersed in the partnership, fully focused in on what is happening in reality. Now we are free to play, investigate, test and experience it all as a wonderful learning process, which includes ugly bits, failures, back steps, and misunderstandings, but the best part is that it also includes the space to learn through our personal feel, a space in which we can now connect with the horses needs and fully support them. But most importantly, perhaps, is that it holds the sense of the joy that this journey is meant to be and the peace that both you and your horse deserve.

"Our greatest limitation in life is the misunderstanding of the mind"

Clare Dimond

If you would like to find out more about how mindset work can deepen your relationship with your horse, yourself and the world, and make the training journey with your horses the joy it’s supposed to be, I can help. Find out more here...

Maxine Kemp is a classical riding trainer and transformative life coach based in East Suffolk UK, who is dedicated to simplifying and demystifying the journey to greater peace well-being and empowerment for humans and their horses.

"It’s not supposed to be that difficult."

To find out more...

visit www.straightforwardequitation.co.uk

and www.maxinekempcoaching.com/equestrian

maxine@straightforwardequtation.co.uk

Tel: +44 7711 982445