A little bit about this post. This blog post has been adapted from a seminar that Brittany gave down at the United States Olympic Training Center about a year and a half ago. She was fortunate enough to be able to co-instruct down there with Daniel Stewart with the Equestrian Athlete program. Part of what Brittany does as an Equine Facilitated Psychotherapist is working with athletes and working on their mental health and how their mind can impact their performance and emotional wellbeing.
We’ve split this seminar into 4 different sections. This week is Part III
Last week we talked about how being in connection with horses can make us feel better because of all those feel good hormones that our brain releases, so working with horses can improve our mental health and addressed how we can be cognizant of this when we are working with horses.
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present”
~ Lau Tzu
This quote for me, demonstrates the state of mind and the moments that come from when both our left-brain and our right brain are fully integrated. When I’m upset, it’s usually because I’m rehashing a ride, and usually beating myself up about it. If I’m anxious, its mostly because I’m so busy anticipating what is going to be happening in the future, that I’m not focusing on the here and now.
But why am I so concerned about the past and worried about the future?
For me, its mostly because I don’t want to screw up. I don’t want to look bad, do poorly, embarrass myself… I’m supposed to be a professional here! I’m supposed to ride perfectly; know my stuff… and look good all while looking effortless.
It’s not really something that I am capable of. That anyone is capable of. We’re not perfect, we’re not going to be perfect. I ride a lot of young horses and some days…. Things do not go remotely as planned.
So, to sum it up, I’m worried about “failing” or what my idea of failing is. Everyones idea of failing is a little bit different. For me at its core… not being good enough. And this shows up in a lot of different ways for me. Like I said, I ride babies a lot, so I don’t always place in the ribbons, but a failure for me can be letting myself down, letting my students down, letting my horse down.
But failure could mean blowing a big interview, not having a good jump school, or a flat lesson. There are a million ways that “failure” shows up on a day to day basis.
With that, what does failing or “failure” mean to you?
Humor me (because yes I am a therapist) ask yourself what does failure FEEL like for you?
Now, I know some of you have probably heard this before but “failing isn’t a bad thing”.
And I know that it sounds stupid and cliche.
But hear me out, what if failing was actually a good thing?
Think back to a time in which you thought you had “failed” something. When you failed, what was something you learned from it? Did anything good come from it?
Let me share with you a story…
Back when I was a teenager I had this big upper level horse we called Paint.
Paint and I did a lot of really dumb things together. And while I adored him and learned a lot from him, we had a complicated relationship. Mostly, he did what he wanted and occasionally listened to my thoughts on the matter. But, when I was 17, Paint and I were competing at the Preliminary level together and contemplating making the move up to Intermediate together. Our last event that spring was down at the VA horse center in Lexington, VA tackling their spring CCI* (back in those days all they had was the long format- or classic format. These days it would be considered CCI**L)
Paint was notorious for being a jerk on the flat. But we slaved away all winter and spring working to improve our flatwork from our last CCI*. All our hard work paid off; we were sitting in 7th place in our highly competitive division going into cross-country.
And cross-country, was our thing. My strong point, and his. I was feeling pretty good about our next day.
And that’s when things started to fall apart. The first 3 phases went mostly smooth. Paint got excited before steeplechase. He started dancing and jigging and popping up onto his hind legs. But Paint settled quickly into his rhythm and stride for Phase B. It was a great ride over those big steeplechase fences.
We trotted into our 10 minute box (vet check) after Phase C and his TPR was almost stupidly close to normal. And as we got ready for our 2 minute countdown to start Phase D; Paint started getting unmanageable. Dancing rapidly turned into me barely being able to stay on him, and he started standing on his hind legs for most of the last 2 minutes. When he wasn’t standing on his back legs rearing, we were cantering circles around our trainer, who had grabbed him by his reins and kept us in the vicinity of the start box.
We had 2 technical refusals that day out on course. Both of which were because I had no breaks out there. I came in so discouraged. I had failed. I had failed my horse; I had failed myself. I was certain I had failed and embarrassed my trainers. I was certain I had blown my chance at making the Area II young riders team.
I don’t even have photos from the event, because I was so upset with myself, that I didn’t want to even be reminded of it. Which now, looking back at it, is kind of a shame. That event marked a huge turning point in my life.
Yes, I “failed” at it. However, I didn’t actually fail. I rode to the best of my abilities on a horse that at the end of the day, was a huge strong horse, that a young rider probably shouldn’t have been on. I had 2 technical refusals. But I had them because I took the safe choice and option for myself and my horse and got us home in (mostly) one piece. My horse was fit enough for the task at hand (ok, more than fit) and he bounced back sound and ready to SJ the next day. My family wasn’t ashamed of me. And I survived the experience.
That fear I had of losing the chance to ride on the young riders team? Completely unfounded. In fact, one of the Area II young riders coaches came and found me after my cross country ride. They asked me to think about taking a spot on the team for the championships that summer. I, in the depths of my despair, said I needed to think about it. And the next day, I actually turned down the chance to ride for Area II. Paint, as much as I loved him, had proven he wasn’t a team player. And was a complete wild card. As I told the coaches for the team, I didn’t want an entire team to be counting on us, when I felt like I couldn’t count on him to take care of us.
As I recounted all of this back home to my trainer and explained to him my reasoning, I was sure I had embarrassed him and failed him. I was so ashamed to be sitting in his office and telling him I had messed up. I was 17 years old and was certain that I was no longer good enough to be trained by him anymore.
It wasn’t every day that Jimmy Wofford took on teenagers to coach (as I had had it beaten into me by my previous trainer). So I had to explain all of this to my idol. All of my failures gone over with a fine tooth comb. This was the biggest shame I had.
And you know what?
He looked at me and said words I never thought I would hear from him
“I am proud of you”
FLOORED.
So was the weekend a failure? No, I learned a lot. And because I was willing to show up, and try, I ended up ahead in the long run. What that weekend taught me, was that by fully showing up, in all the good the bad and the ugly, I could succeed. Because to really succeed one has to be vulnerable. And that feeling of being vulnerable and to face my failures, and my fears of inadequacy that that particular event brought up, started me down a path a never thought I’d be on.
One that lead me all over the country, gotten me numerous experiences, a couple graduate degrees, and got me teaching at the Olympic Training Center. It allowed me the experience of failing, and from that failure, taught me how to keep failing, fail again, and fail better. It let me take a leap of faith and start my own business, to learn and try, try again, because failing, doesn’t kill us. If we can learn how to be vulnerable in our experiences and in owning our failures as learning opportunities, we can achieve huge things.
I saw Jimmy for the first time since I had graduate college several years ago when he came to a clinic out here in Colorado. I packed up my little homebred gelding and drove down the clinic worrying that he wouldn’t recognize me. And secretly hoping he wouldn’t recognize me. because all my beliefs around me “failing” were up. The “what am I doing with my life” thoughts came up. He did recognize me, he did remember me, and it was like there had been no gap in our relationship. And when he heard what I was now doing with my life (therapist, training, etc) he told me he was incredibly proud of me and what my sisters and I are creating for our barn and our students. He also really liked my pony.
Really, it had come full circle. What I perceived as a failure, shaped my career in a way that I never had dreamed it possible. And to dream in a way that pushes me so far out of my comfort zone, that it’s more of a suggestion than an actual place.
Yes yes, I can hear you all asking yourself, well what does this have to do with me, with learning, or with be learning how to be the best athlete possible?
My answer is… a lot.
By breaking down our fear of failing, and befriending the art of failing, we take the scariness out of it. We can be gentle with ourselves around our expectations for both ourselves and our equine partners.
Cuing back to that whole reprogramming our brains talk… We have to reprogram the way we think about failure. Because if we’re too afraid of failing and what that means, then we won’t even try.