MIA update

Well, it is about time I showed up again! The last few months I have spent making, breaking and confirming plans, from horses to houses. I have missed you. I have had to lease a horse. OMG!!!! And I don't recommend it. This little mare is going to be a joy, but she has been presented to me as pre level one. But, what do I care? This is a love affair, not a competition! See below.


The pursuit of excellence in any area requires the ability to just stay the course. This is what is hardest for me because everyone else seems so far beyond my capabilities. Then I remember how much I just love the horsey and all the fear and trepidation is washed away.

My most recent equine colleague is a little (and I mean tiny) quarter horse, called Ladybug (here to fore known as LB) with a huge brain and heart leased because shipping my own horse, HonneeBunnee was cost prohibitive. And as with most decisions there are both wonderful as well as worrisome outcomes.

I was very lucky to have gotten 10 days to play games and establish a romance without any pressure of performance. A pressure that I am committed to resisting should (and they will) those feelings come up. Although she is perfect just the way she is I was hoping to get a string. Then I thought that I just want to love her and if I do any accomplishments will just come.

In psychological research it has been established that all it takes to feel the pressure of performance or competition is the presence of another person. They don't even have to be doing what you are doing. That is how fragile our sense of belonging and desire for recognition is. I feel it acutely. Yesterday some new women showed up at the ranch where LB and I were goofing about. Immediately I felt pressure to be good and on target and right and blah, blah, blah! The horse instantly wanted nothing to do with me. I had changed. I had become tight. And she doesn't do tight! I just noted it and went on, but I want to think about it and have at least some understanding that this can come up in me.

I want to stay the course and develop my romance with LB. I already love her even though she is at a level in her education that is far less than I had fantasized about. My vision for us will be to continue to be a pair of funny girls just goofing and riding and tickling each other. That is the prize. Right? Yet, my human side wants to win, and be recognized and honored and...Now I am making myself laugh.

Seventy eight days out from Pagosa। Arranging for horse transport and a car in Pagosa. People have told me that March is a good time to save on a rental, but I did not see much savings really. Extremely pleased with shipper so far.




Bunnee had a meltdown on Tuesday and I did on Friday। Her huge gaits have made me question my ability to ride a horse at all, which is and has always been tenuous. Not only do I question my ability to ride but recently my horse activity and how hard I have had to work has given me even more cause to pause! I have always seen myself as coordinated, athletic even. But now...I wonder if this too has been a self deception. I used t think that I avoided sports because competition made me nervous and sad. But maybe it is because I was so challenged in the required physicality!


I have been trying t0 teach myself to juggle for six months. The books say that I should (watch out for that word) be able to juggle within a couple of hours!!! I have just gotten the fundamental pass down. I asked someone else who has never juggled to try. They said, "I can't do that." I persisted. They were juggling in a few minutes! I did this with ten other people all of them juggling within a few minutes just as the book described. I started to see myself as someone maybe just a little challenged in this department. I know my loving friends will think, well, here she goes again with the self deprecation. But this is just about giving myself a break, not self criticizing. About self understanding and self compassion. I would not put the pressure on someone else who was equally challenged. Would I? What this means that instead of being mad at myself I can just let it go and understand that I have to stay committed.



These problems make me think of how ego invested many, (including myself) are in their horses and their horses performance. I have to remind myself to get out of my own way daily and just "be"with the horse. It is so easy to be with Bunnee, but I keep thinking, I have to "go" somewhere, or "be" somewhere. Like we have somewhere to go. Social comparison is so strong in people and I am very susceptible to negative self talk. Social comparison can be created in the laboratory by social scientists. Even when they are philosophizing about how they do not socially compare people are in actuality socially comparing themselves. Whenever I hear someone admonish me (even though they seem to think they are offering insight) that I must enjoy the journey, or be present I feel put down, not encouraged. Now, not only did I have a problem in my horsemanship the message is clear that my attitude is wrong. After all the self doubting thoughts just come. I am not in control of them...they just come. Once again I feel the pain of inadequacy.


It is a constant vigilance to pay attention, not to the payoff, whatever that is, but the process. Which really is easy to do when the conscious mind is not pulled off track by internal or external pressure. This occurs with all activities as so beautifully explored in the book, The Inner Game of Tennis. As Baba Ram Das so simply expressed it I will "Be Here Now". I hope to see you there!

Late Bloomer

Ninety days out of Pagosa Springs Colorado. A clean three months, 12 weeks! Not all that long. I hope I live to see it. The grandeur of the San Juan River Valley. TravelBlogs are an especially boring brand of blog so I won't go into it but to say, it ain't half bad in Sunny Pagosa Springs Co.

The day I woke up and realized that I was average was a painful day. I thought that I probably would not ever win a Nobel, or a Pulitzer. I realized I would not be in the Olympics. I came to the jarring insight that I was average height, weight, intelligence...average everything. After a shudder of sadness and a kind of desperation I was overtaken by a complete sense of calm. The relief of not having to be accomplished freed me to finally pursue something with abandon.

Very accomplished people have a mixture of qualities. One of these important qualities apart from luck is drive. That is one trait of which I am quite below average. It simply is not my temperament. But like the small boy who did not speak until he was four because he had nothing to say, I have never had any real drive for anything because nothing seemed worth driving at. Horses changed that. The video below is my beginning liberty about Oct.2009.

What you need to know and what I need to write

I know absolutely nothing about horses. (don't know much about anything really but more about that later) Not that I haven't tried. But as Yoda says to Skywalker, "Do or don't do, there is no try." So I have been "not doing" with horses for a lot of my life. I should not even have them but they are like husbands once you have one (or two or three or four) they are really hard to get rid of. I don't want to get rid of them...I'm just saying...if you did. If you have any sense of their dignity and beauty and grandeur, as a good steward you can not just dump them. You know their pain and don't want to contribute to it. So, I for one, persevere.

I have been to many trainers and have at times in my life for years had 3-5 dressage lessons a week. I still can't ride a step. Sometimes it makes me so angry I would like to litigate. Who do you sue for taking your money and scaring you half out of your ability to hold your bowels three times a week for years? Who do you sue when you have been told you have a mental problem because you can't ride a horse with a 20' canter stride forward and over fences? Who, I ask you? I moved on over and over. And still after years of abuse I love the horses. I can see you can relate to this. (if you are interested my brief story it is in the August Savvy times 2009)

Not knowing anything about horses makes me so nervous because I have signed up for the Fast Track Program. I call it the Nerve Wrack program because I have such anxiety over it. I had too. I, like you have limited dollars to spend on horses. I have already taken the other courses offered. I also have visions of professional status someday...someday...someday. When I follow the other blogs I practically heave with nerves because I can't do any of the tasks they are being asked to do. Yipes, but I have no trouble looking foolish and it is essential to put yourself in a feeling of disequilibrium in order to move out of that state. I would still be crawling around on all fours if I couldn't tolerate it. So would you.

It is 92 days until I leave for Sunny Pagosa Springs Colorado. I live for it. I have never lived for anything. You might call me a late bloomer, but now I have had the beautiful experience of obsession! I wish it for all I love. Night and day and day and night I plan and plot my way to Colorado. I have a box on the lower level where I pack and repack. I have had my tickets for 4 months now. Next month I get to rent the car after that I begin to search for shipping for my dear Bunnee.

Oh yeah, Bunnee the star of the show. The star of all shows. Bunnee is a branded Oldenburg Warmblood Mare. She is eight years old and I have known her all her life but she came to live with me just a year ago when her previous steward was selling her because of the economy. She had gotten in to a trainer for fees and such. She loved my way with the horses and asked if I would take her. I already had three horses but my Levels horse was very old and had started to get a little hitch in his giddyup. So, she came to me. She came to me with very little baggage. Her steward was a 15 year old girl with talent and grace and compassion. She did good things for her.

Bunnee is not her name. Her name is Wradell which sounds to me like she just walked out of the back of a trailer after having given birth at the prom. "Hey Wradell, maw says git rid of all them babies in the trailer, they makin' too much noise." See what I mean? So I don't call her that. I am even going to officially change her name...once I get one. Her grace and elegance, beauty and largess begs for grandeur but her status of a horse and my ignorance reminds me we should be humble. After all it is no credit to either of us that she was born beautiful. That is actually pretty easy to do. We started with Parelli together in May of 2009. I have only been practicing and pursuing since August of 2008. I promised you in my intro that I would not romanticize or use hyperbole in describing my experiences, but in all truth without exaggeration my life and my ability and relationship with horses was profoundly changed the day I first held my first Carrot Stick (TM) and string.

More later. More about the freedom of knowing nothing. More about fear and its' consequences, more about the addiction of anticipation....more, more, more.

Introduction

Right from the beginning I promise you a no holds barred raw picture of what my Parelli Horsemanship Education is about. I promise to any reader including myself: No gloss, no hype, warts and all reporting on my experience with my horse, (affectionately referred to as Bunnee) as I doggedly pursue my horse and human dreams. Some of my experiences you will relate too, while others will be idiocyncratically my own. But no matter what we will find the universal experience of being alive through my horsemanship.

There are only two reasons to blog: To be entertaining or to be informative. I will strive to be both for myself and any lonely reader. I will offer you my insights on life via the relationship I have established with my horse Bunnee.

It is 93 days before I leave for Pagosa Springs Colorado where I will spend my second month at the Parelli Center. But who's counting! I will look to advance my horsemanship but more importantly court a peak experience which began a year ago at the center. The insights I garnered, the friends I made created a Peak Experience. One would think that by mid life with a little luck and sufficient funds that peak experiences such as great love, birth of children or success in career would have been achieved. One would think that there may not be any more. O' contrare! My experience at Parelli Center in the spring of 2009 was more than magnificent, more than emotionally fulfilling! It was Self Actualization in the making!

More to come as the countdown continues.