Musing on Mantras

 Over the winter Jane hosted a series of monthly video meetings with her students. They were a great way to connect and learn, especially for those of us unable to ride in the winter. Surprisingly, a  lot of the sessions were not on riding skills but more on the mental skills that are necessary when you are riding a 1,000 + pounds of prey animal. Jane shared a lot about dealing with fear and a lack of confidence. Not surprisingly, a lot of riders suffer from imposter syndrome or just a general lack of faith in our own abilities. Especially in high pressure situations, like a public clinic or show. 

Carmen was happy to see me (or the hay bag). 
Best not to think about it too much. 

Of course one way to prevent anxiety in these situations is to simply not participate.  I, for one, fully respect anyone's decision to not show. There are a lot of good reasons not to and, to me, it really is a personal choice. I choose to show right now because I get a lot of benefit from it (spoiler, it's not the ribbons that I spent a a few hundred dollars to win either). 

 But I don't want to get onto the show/don't show tangent because that is not the point of this post. Whoops. 

Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh, yes, the sessions with Jane. In one of them she talked about negative self-talk and how destructive it is. We all do it, 'why can't I do X?' "I'm a terrible rider' and 'I don't deserve my horse' etc. 

Funnily enough these thoughts are not helpful. They don't inspire us to to do better, they simply make us frustrated. And, as my friend Tanya says, 'when you're really frustrated you become unteachable.' And none of us want to that. 

here's a truly adorable moment between
Cordelia and Raven to break up the text wall

Jane suggested (strongly) that we all develop personal mantras, or affirmations if you prefer. They were to be short, positive and lead to growth. They were not to be wishy-washy or hopeful. For example, instead of 'I will try to sit the canter' it would be 'I know how to sit the canter'. I don't know if that is the best example but you get the idea. Once we had a few, we were to repeat them everyday. 

To be completely honest (and I try to be in this blog), I was a little sceptical about this making a difference. Okay, maybe more than a little. So I put off doing it. But my thoughts kept coming back to it so I began to work on ones for me. I based them off my biggest worries that I have in riding: that I am not competent and that I am ineffective in redirecting my horse when she (because let's face it, it's mostly Carmen) is dedicated to a behaviour. 

Let me give some examples. At one horse show, years ago, Carmen had a total melt down and I had to scratch mid-test. I was really upset. When I went to pick up my test sheet the person in the office a woman in there said 'you know if you would just be relaxed she would be too'.  It devastated me, even though I knew that this woman had zero idea of what I was dealing with back then. But it hit the core fear I have of being incompetent.  The other one is that Carmen can get pretty wedded to a particular behaviour (like spooking) and even if I could get her by whatever, it was always pretty shitty. Jane would say something like 'bend her' and I would answer ' I'm trying' and nothing changed. Because in my heart I didn't believe I could make a difference. 

honestly, I should have just relaxed here as she bolted
around the ring and it would have been fine.....

After doing some noodling I arrived at three statements: 

1. I am a competent rider

2. I have the skills I need to ride effectively

3. I wear the crown (in other words I get to decide things and not Carmen or Quaid) 

We were to repeat them to ourselves several times a day. 

Full confession- I did not do that. But I did repeat them often. 

And guess what? They worked. When I'm riding and things get a little iffy, like say Carmen acting like she's going to spook in a corner, I tell myself 'I am a competent rider. What would a competent rider do here?' And I do that thing.  And it works. Mostly my advice to me is 'take a feel of the outside rein and put on the inside leg'. Which is pretty basic riding stuff. But then my tension melts and I can be soft and, to my shock, Carmen breathes out and carries on. And, even if she does spook, we recover really quickly. I also use 'what would Jane do? (or WWJD) and that works really well too. 

When Quaid gets a little fussy about going forward I begin to think I'm ruining my baby horse I tell myself that I have the skills I need and I ride forward.  And when either (although it's mostly Carmen right now) begins to get strong and take over I remind myself that there's only one crown and I wear it. 

Quaid or mule. Hard to tell. 

I was surprised at how well they worked. But I'm not going to argue with the success. 

If you had a mantra/personal affirmation what would it be?