Hi all,
OK, here's a brief attempt at distilling everything that helps to improve confidence down into one post ;D,
Suppose there are three sides to ourselves that are relevant;
1) Physiology
2) State
3) The Internal Representations that we make inside our heads (pictures, feelings, self-talk, etc)
All three are linked and each affects the other. For example, if you think scarey thoughts (what-ifs...), then you start to change state (feel e.g anxiety) and then our physiology changes too (your muscles get "tight").
You can start anywhere you like in the loop and go in any direction. Start gritting your teeth (physiology), worry (state) about how horse might react, then start imagining the worst that could happen (Internal Representations). This is often described as a vicious circle.
The good news is that it works just as well in the opposite direction. So, if you are not happy with the way you are at any given moment in time, you have many options to kick off a more virtuous circle. (actually, an infinite number - ain't that a comforting thought
)
For example:
1) Physiology; deep breathing, singing, laughing (believe me, it works!), licking your lips, shaking your arms & legs (maybe before getting on the horse, though), etc... These ones are easy peasy! The "soft eyes" approach is also one of these. It's physiologically very difficult to experience emotions while using peripheral vision. When focusing (using foveal vision), on the other hand we experience emotions much more strongly. Evolutionally, I guess that must have been useful for hunting.
2) State; using your imagination, put yourself back in a place and time where you felt confident/relaxed/focused, whatever you want, really. This one can take a bit more practice and you can learn how to link triggers to the particular states you want. (It's also often the starting point of a problem if you have an unconscious trigger that you've unwittingly linked to an unwanted emotion.)
3) Internal representations; we all run lots of patterns of thought through our conscious and unconscious minds all the time. It's just like a computer - you run a program, you get a result. Keep running the same programme, you keep getting the same result. The steps to changing this are a) notice the programme you're currently running, what triggers it, what steps does it have, then b) if you're not happy with the results you're getting, change the programme! This is where tools like hypnosis, NLP and so on can be incredibly effective.
There are lots of other potential solutions like EFT, TFT, other energy therapies, flower remedies, etc which could probably be considered s having an effect in more than one of the three areas at a time - it depends on your point of view.
So, if you are having a little confidence trouble, try noticing what you are doing to create the problem and then change something, well, change anything actually! If you change the steps in the cycle, you'll get a different result. Of course, if you have some skill and experience in these matters, you can spot the key changes that will improve things dramatically.
Now, I'd be the first to say that is a rather over-simplified way of putting things, but it is the basis of how we all torture ourselves
These simple ideas will work really well on simple, low-level fears. Try them and let me know how well you get on! If you find you can't get them to work, or they only work for a while, then don't despair, but you might want to consider getting some coaching to help you unravel the deeper knot.
That's what I think is really cool about horses - they show us that the first thing we need to master is ourselves!
Best wishes,
Derek
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