It is this most surreal feeling to process. its the feeling of looking out on your life thinking “this cant be real. this is too good to be true. This is overwhelmingly amazing!” I thought. You can feel that feeling from a lot of things, it could be your first foal you bred yourself. It could be the feeling of winning that barrel race or doing so damn good you heart feels like it could beat straight out of your throat. You are so ecstatic by life, it pours through you at a rate we can hardly process and believe is real.
I love when reality gives me a jolt of ecstasy.
I gave birth January 23, about 2 months before my due date on March 30. It was a lot to process the shocking speed at which I became a mom. Not just a new mom but a mom to a 30 week old, 3.5 lb little girl. Still as I write, it feels hard to believe this is my life. But it is, and I love it!
I discovered love and excitement like I hadn’t before. Not just for my new baby girl, but for my partner and also my new role in all of our new lives together. My role has changed, still I am not sure how I will navigate the new world once our baby is out of the hospital but I know it will be perfectly aligned.
Things in life seem to happen for a reason, wouldn’t you say? Maybe at the moment you don’t understand why certain things happen. Maybe you never will. But, maybe these things that are so hard to put into your brain of comprehension are there for a reason you just haven’t discovered, yet. And this undiscovered realm of thinking is an invitation for yourself to dig deeper, to understand more, to feel God and our spirits more than before. You are being brought down a path, it is your path, it’s time to love it. Even if it makes no sense, even if it feels unfair, even if you don’t understand it yet; there will be a day you will, I promise. Even if it is the last day on earth for you; you will discover your place in all of this unfolding of life. Your place is exactly where is was supposed to be. That gives a great sense of peace, love and understanding.
When things don’t go to plan, adjust your way of seeing the plan.
My plan has changed quite a lot recently. Bringing a life into the world has given me so much more than a new title, it’s given me a new sense of purpose and clarity I never experienced. Instead of doing this life for me, I am doing it for her, for my family and for my future. This is something I never had a lot of clarity around until now.
“What does my future look like? what do I want? How can I get there?” the questions went on and on as I stared ahead into a foggy unknown path of pure misdirection.
thats what I thought anyways..
until I landed here.
It all was for a reason.
The confusion.
the love.
the decision.
the path.
It was all mine, even if at the time I felt like a passenger, I was indeed the one helping steer the ship. I had help too. The suggestions of what could be. The thoughts coming into my mind from unmanifested belonging, they crept in and told me where to go. I had to believe and I also chose to believe.
I put faith in front of fear.
Instead of straining my eyes to try and see through the fog, I closed them. I took a breath in of truth, trust, and faith and I took the next step that felt the best. I continued to do so until I opened my eyes and found a baby girl in my arms and a loving partner by my side.
is it magical?
yes. it can be.
being purely you. Loving yourself and loving the direction you are going. Loving the lessons. Loving the detours you were not expecting but can surrender too as an invite to grow and evolve more. Surrendering to your path, allowing life to sway you and allowing your decisions to be the invitations to a life far greater than you thought possible.
I always knew competition would show all the shadows in my life. That’s why I feel so deeply that personal development is the root and the starting point for all the external results we want to achieve; either in the arena or life in general.
In the arena, we cannot fake anything and we cannot pretend. It is us, our horses, the clock, cow, judge, obstacles; whatever your discipline is. There are no faking results. That is one reason why I love competition, it calls out all the BS. It shows where I lack, either in the actual arena or in the many “arenas” of my life.
If you’re not confident, your riding performance will show that, if you have anxiety about being seen, your performance will show that. In so many ways, our development as a human is needed if we are to overcome our own set of obstacles to really shine and thrive!
This brings me to a quick story about why I was not performing well. I think after many years, I finally have my answers as to why. To back track, this takes us roughly 4 years ago. I went to the USA to work for a few futurity trainers and I came home thinking I knew everything there was to know about barrel racing.
I did learn a lot, but when it was my time to shine and show off how much better I was than everyone else, it was a total disaster.. No kidding. I had a 4 year old futurity horse I could hardly get a qualifying run on and if we did manage to turn three barrels, it was definitely not fast. I was so embarrassed and confused after every run being a let down. “What was I missing in this?” I asked myself. I reached a state of very unhappy and hopeless. Before I ran I wondered why I was even going into that arena and as you can imagine my performance kept reinforcing this mental state I was trapped in.
Eventually, after many realizations and major humbling, I overcame this mental block. Slowly we scratched off the possibilities that were causing this unfortunate hiccup. First we looked at the horse; after a vet and a variety of therapeutic treatments later, she was in the clear. Now who else do we have to blam? Oh ya, it was me.
This brings me to the big thing I realized was missing those many years ago. I am trying not to be embarrassed to say this, but it was self-love. Like, the real self love. To help explain the definition of what I was going through, I will tell you what it is not. It was myself not taking care of “me.” I was unable to fill my own cup up, so I turned to external factors. I wanted my barrel racing to fill my self esteem. I wanted other people to make me feel qualified enough to be here(like being born isn’t enough already..). I wanted support from a partner to allow me to feel loved and supported because really, I was unable to do it for myself. I thought I needed all these things to reach victory in the arena. I learned that even if I had all these things on my side; they wouldn’t fix the bigger issue going on within myself internally.
This was a “me vs me” journey I had to face.
Before this realization, I always felt personally attacked when my barrel racing runs didn’t go well. I took it to heart as a reflection of my self-worth; hello unnecessary pressure. I became so reliant on “winning” that if I wasn’t getting that “win” I was miserable and felt no love, either from others or simply myself. If I wasn’t winning in the arena, I could hardly stand to look at myself. Sounds crazy right? But it’s a very real thing we face in lots of areas, not just riding. But like I said before, our life outside of riding reflects ourselves on the inside of it too!
I learnt that we can get caught up wanting external factors to make us feel certain ways about ourselves; worthiness, beautiful, love etc.. But the problem is, when we don’t get those things we lose it all. But, here is the ticket; if we create those feelings within ourselves first, nothing outside can take that away from us; not a run, not a person, not any external circumstances – it is solely an inside job.
A quote from this book I’m reading called Spirit Hacking By Shaman Durek said “?If you’re wanting people to honour your time and your gifts, then you need to honour your time and you need to honour your gifts.” Aka it starts with you.
Moving forward, I have become so sure of myself and my journey I don’t take defeat in any arenas of life personally anymore. I take everything that happens as a necessary lesson for me to grow and I am just grateful I get the opportunity to try again. I will change and pivot in order to become better. The difference is now, my internal state is solid while I am traveling down this path that is inevitably full of ups and downs.
Once I became so sure of myself, and let go of the “need” to win; the craziest thing started to happen – I actually started winning! I started riding with confidence no matter the outcome, I just felt lighter and at ease with my journey. All the pressure of competition just swept away from me because the competition result didn’t have the weight of my self worth riding on it. This new me started with self love. And that’s loving all aspects of this, the highs and lows. It’s understanding the path we’re on and feeling at ease with it knowing it is all for our higher good.
I hope you can move forward, no matter what happens and still feel ok about yourself. You are already complete. When it becomes an inside job and you rely on yourself to bring you the internal feeling of success, nothing can take that away. And that’s when you know you have reached true success! When that happens, life becomes easier and the things you want will come to you as they are supposed to. Always remember to enjoy the ride.
At the end of the day, who do you report back to? Who do you share your day with and judge whether it was good or not?
To answer that simply, ask another question: Who are you trying to hopefully keep alive, healthy and well? That hopefully, is You.
You are the centre, you are the controller of your own life.
I am here to call out those who make excuses for where they are today. I would ask those individuals what did you do yesterday? What did you do this past month? This past year or ten years to bring you here?
it is easy to blame, to use outside circumstances as a way to get out of why you are where you are. Why you aren’t as healthy as you’d like to be, why you aren’t as happy as you like to be, why you aren’t as alive as you’d like to be.. but at the end of the day, who do you have to sit with and be honest with — yourself.
You can lie to them, but you can’t lie to yourself.
You can pretend to them and make them believe you are someone you are not. You can take those small actions you know deep down are not helpful, but you do them anyway, of course, you can! You are the creator, you are a part of the creator. The creator’s energy sits inside all of us humans on earth. — You are the creator of your destiny.
Yet, we pass the Paton on to some outside circumstance. “this thing right here is why I am how I am.” Leaving you with no responsibility; just the way you like it.
But, at the end of it all, you are still responsible for you. In today’s world of knowledge being so incredibly accessible, you have no excuses anymore. Well, the only excuse might be that “I hold my progress back. I am closed-minded to new possibilities. I struggle to be responsible for my actions.” The list can go on and they are very worthy, but, do they belong in truth?
I just have one small example I am going to share, it’s so basic you might even laugh. But it helped spark this topic idea and my desire to sit down and write it down.. so here it goes.
Iwas in the shower this morning. To backtrack I also recently got my hair coloured at a salon. The lady said it is best not to use really hot water on your hair as it will damage it further. (who else has been told this) Along with 100 other things we are told are good or bad with good reasoning too! It’s not just made-up rules, these suggestions if you will, are backed by facts and it would be best if you listened to them and tried to implement them in your day to day.
So there I am, kind of cold and wanting that water scorching. But the hairstylist came into my mind, her warning to not use hot water on your hair. At that moment I had two choices; I could listen to her advice, or I could ignore it. Both options would lead to a certain set of consequences.
Option one was a positive consequence, I don’t damage my hair. However, the second consequence is I further damage my hair and then complain about it in a few months. Both are my choice, both lead to consequences I am responsible for. The hairstylist isn’t going to barge into my shower and yell at me for having the water too hot, she quite frankly doesn’t care what I do with that knowledge. Heck, she might even want me to damage my hair quicker so I go back to her sooner to help me fix the problem. But what is that what’s best?
What would I prefer in the long run?
I would say I want healthy hair; therefore I will be accountable for it and make sure I don’t use hot water like it was suggested.
It’s the small things.
Realizing you are in control. You report back to You at the end of the day. If you feel the need to blame someone or something, just pause and ask yourself “What was my part in all of this?” “What STILL is my part in all of this?” “Are there things I could do differently or do better?”
Those answers will vary, but it could be as simple as I need to learn more. I need to be open-minded to more information, perspectives and ideas. Or, it could be “I need to make choices that serve my future self, my higher self, my truest self. I need to be kinder to me and take care of me. I need to love myself more and act in accordance to that love.”
There is no one answer.
But it all lies within you. You are in more control than you give yourself credit for.
No one is coming to save you, but you can save yourself.
Believe in your power and own it! You have a lot to give.
Tack and equipment are a big part of training horses. We have many options out there today to choose from and every horse and rider is different. We all feel differently about every piece of equipment, so how do you choose what you need?
We are going to discuss tie downs. Some always say yes to tie downs, some say it depends and some try to stay clear of them by any means necessary.
It’s important to keep in mind that some tools are temporary. We evolve just like our horses, so what may have worked in the past might not work anymore and it’s our job as the trainer and rider to figure that out. The use of tie downs in barrel racing has been around for years and years. They range from thick flexible leather nosebands to thin solid steel hitting the bridge of their nose. Like any piece of equipment, they can be dangerous and torturous for the horses in the wrong hands.
Tiedowns have a place in the tack room but not on every horse. It is our job to decide when it seems fitting to use a tie down and for what purpose.
– Does your horse need more balance and stiffness? Then perhaps a leather tie down will improve your communication and create that wall for them to feel secure and stable.
– Does your horse toss their head anytime you use the reins? Then maybe it’s time to understand your bits better and uncover the reason why your horse is tossing its head before you mask the behaviour with another tool.
Horses communicate without the use of speech, therefore it is our job to listen to them in other forms. This is through our intuition, our energy, verbal cues, posture, body language and other hidden components to language horses respond to that we as riders can be unaware of. At the end of the day, tools are simply tools and there isn’t one magic tool to make a horse perform how we want. It takes understanding them and working with them, not against them.
It’s our job as trainers to educate the horses, if they aren’t educated then we have no one else to blame but ourselves. Use the tools, but don’t rely on them to do all the work.
When there are no shortcuts, there are also no holes.
Do the work, take your time, teach them the way, guide them, allow them to make mistakes and correct them as you go. You can create a beautiful working relationship where you and your horse can shine as brightly as possible. It’s time to shine!
Fully embrace all you set out to do. Feel it in your bones and know where you are is where you are meant to be.
Feel a hunch, trust it. Feel a push, move with it. Feel like you should step up, start stepping. Everything in life, is here for you. You can choose to ignore it and stay where you are or you can choose to push past your insecurities to do what you feel is right.
I feel everything starts with you, with I, with me. I am choosing to do what I can with where I am and with what I have. That’s all it takes. Be flexible to life unfolding, like a corral is flexible to the waves of an ocean. Flow with it, accept it for what it is and trust it is all in the timing it is meant to be. Don’t resist the lessons of life, feel them, embody them and know they are the transformations you need to bloom fully. Each chapter is a lesson and a realization to be had – that is what it’s all about.
Feel and do, it is that simple.. yet it is the hardest thing to accept and live out. It takes stepping over the self limiting fear, and looking it in the face as you wave it goodbye.“You will no longer control me” as you continue down the path meant for you.
The path is fuzzy, it’s blurry; but it’s yours – if you want it.
From launching WCH a few years ago, to the evolution of life and of myself we are now standing “here”. As I overcome my own human experiences, I know there is more than just my own goals, my own achievements I want to achieve, there is more to life and the more I see the more I know I am meant to be here, doing this.
It’s messy, it’s confusing, it’s frustrating, it’s scary, but I choose to look at it all with curiosity and a smile.
I had this one idea to launch a campaign with used show shirts, so I launched it. It is building momentum as the initiative behind the movement is being felt and supported. Thank you to all of those who are standing behind me and supporting me as we collectively continue to support our communities.
Thank you for the path, thank you for the chance to be messy and still make it through. I thank the supporters who see what I feel, as I continue to sway between the guidelines. I feel, I listen and I do. To all of those that are doing the same thing, we give you the energy and love to continue doing what you feel as well.
All this being said, imagine a world where we all follow our path fearlessly.
Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.
The path of least resistance is real. We see it all around us, from the rain running down in a stream away from our barn, to the natural ways we can train and work our horses. We have to approach our day to day in a way that will set us up for success. At the end of the day we want to feel accomplished and successful, right? I know I sure do. So how can we better our odds of feeling this way after work, after a day at a race or competition, or a training session with our horses?
How can we apply the principle of “make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard” to our advantage? How can we use our own path of least resistance to set ourselves and our horses up for success? This idea is something I learnt from training barrel horses and something my mom has taught me from her time training dogs. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it applies in many areas of our life.
Let’s uncover how it works! Imagine again the path of least resistance, it’s easy right? It flows naturally, it all goes in the natural direction. Meaning, you can get the work done with the least amount of effort and struggle potentially involved. There are simply less obstacles for you to overcome. Meaning, we can control and structure our days and training sessions in that way. We can make the right thing easy like the path of least resistance and the hard thing full of it, with all the obstacles and resistance.
This is a part of the foundation to training horses. We want to show our horses the path we want them to take, we have to clearly identify the path of least resistance. It doesn’t matter what discipline, but we always have to remind ourselves of this principle.
A riding example is making perfect circles. They’re important for me as far as training barrel horses, but choose whatever aspect of training you’re working towards. But here, our goal is perfect circles. We want to think of the circle as the path of least resistance or the most comfortable path for our horses. We begin by setting up our circle correctly, once they are going we allow them to go on their own, but if they fall out or into the circle, we correct with our leg and/or rein which is a resistance for them. But once they are in the proper position again, we give them the opportunity to hold themselves naturally in a way that is the most comfortable for them.
Eventually the horse knows that that path of least resistance is to hold the circle correctly on their own. The cool thing about this is we allow for mistakes, we allow for things to go off track and we give ourselves the opportunity to correct as we go. This approach helps me understand how I am influencing my horses. Am I being fair and giving them the chance to decide what the path of least resistance is for them? Am i allowing for them to make the mistake before i guide them on the better path? This way they, like us will actually learn through our process and develop a better understanding of right an wrong.
When I apply this ideato my own personal life, I feel my goals are more attainable because i know which path is the least resistant and i try to strategize my days to make it happen!. We have the control toplan our days to allow for success, just one small successful step is all it takes.
Eventually with consistent effort, we will be able to set up everything in our lives to guide us down the path of least resistance. We can accomplish the things we set out to do, we just have to set ourselves up for success by making the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.
It’s spring! Although it feels like winter is lingering and won’t give up the stage. I can’t help but feel the spring weather around the corner, eagerly waiting to shine its bright light on all of us. Creating life through its energy; the trees begin to bloom, the grass returns to green and everything seems to become full of life again; ourselves included.
I love creating and just challenging myself to grow into a higher version of myself with everything I do. However, this month’s article has come to me slowly. My mind is not flowing as it usually does with ideas so I took a drive to park in front of the Grand River at a local walking trail. Hoping nature would spark some creativity and ideas worth sharing with all you amazing readers.
I had the idea for this column which started as a seed inside my mind a few weeks ago. Now, I am finally bringing it into fruition with my hands typing these words on my laptop. It took a while for the idea to grow inside of myself until I felt it was ready to harvest into reality in the outside world. Sometimes ideas are perfect in our minds. We don’t want to ruin it by making it real and maybe a little less perfect in reality, so it stays put in our brains. This might have been a case of that. But I am all for taking imperfect action!
So here I am, harvesting with action the ideas and vision I made inside of my mind a few weeks ago. This is the topic for The Rider this month.
How does a vision or idea become reality? When we want something in life, there are a few stages to getting it. The first is awareness. It’s noticing the idea inside our mind. It’s seeing the possibilities that can play out in the future. It’s the unknown, the unlimited future floating as ideas in the darkness of your brain. Secondly, it is believing and seeing it clear as day. It’s knowing it is yours to create before it is yours in the current moment of time. In your soul, you see it to be already true. Now, the final, and potentially most important step is the action needed to get you to that thing you envision for yourself.
If you can’t tell already, this is the process of manifestation. You may have heard of it before but it is the idea of turning something from an idea into a reality. It’s a popular word I am hearing from the “gurus” when they tell you how to live your dream life. This process unpacks a whole list of other questions to ask yourself like “What actually is my dream life? What do I want to create in my future? What does it all look like?” and so on.
Bringing this back to the beginning; the dreams and visions we store in our minds are the seed to our reality. As I’ve said before I’m sure, or will always continue to say, that everything starts with and within ourselves.
We get to choose what seed we are going to plant in order to harvest the results we want in the future. I feel the seed is a powerful metaphor we can use to understand and it’s very timely, because it’s almost spring as you know. The seed is a choice to feel a specific outcome that you want to have. It’s already feeling full of it; full of abundance, love, success, freedom, wealth, whatever it is for you, we have to feel it inside ourselves first. It can be hard to believe in when it hasn’t happened yet, but it is an important step to reaching those desires
I did a thought experiment on this and I want to share it with you. It has to do with what we tell ourselves to be true or not.
We can all agree horses are expensive, right? Financial freedom I’d say is a big pain point for equestrians. We want to be able to support our love for horses, but how can you do what if you aren’t “rich”? When I was going through this experiment, focusing on how I can feel “rich” now.. I was telling myself how hard it is, how expensive it is, how impossible it is, how I am not rich enough for life, is what I was basically telling myself.
Now if that’s the seed I unknowingly was planting, what do you think my harvest will be? Ya, likely all of those things I told myself will become my reality. But, with the concept I laid out above, if I start with the intention of what I want to happen, and I believe it is mine to take, I know I will create that destiny for myself.
I then asked myself “what does being rich even mean to me?” I said “my horses I currently own, my health makes me rich. I listed all my assets that make me happy and make me feel abundant. Before I knew it, I was describing a perfect life that I have been creating for myself for a long time. Maybe I’m not where I want to be. After-all, we are always growing and evolving, but we can choose to feel that we are on the right path by envisioning it, believing in it and acting on it, every single day. That is true wealth and that is true abundance. Now it’s only a matter of feeding it into your reality.
I fully believe in the unlimited power to create that we all possess. I want us all to ‘take the reins’ if you will and start planting the seeds of what you want to have in your future, now. Feel it first, believe in it completely, and then act on it. It will become yours if you stay true on your path.
One final thing;
I believe the dreams you have are there because they are meant for you. It’s not something to be taken lightly or disregarded as “well everyone has these dreams”. No. Your dreams are for you. And they are waiting for you to take action on them. This spring, and the 2023 season, I want to leave you with one question: are you ready to own it?
As I was walking towards the barn one day, my feet were sinking a few inches into the newly laid snow. It was a beautiful winter morning where I looked around, feeling and breathing in all the “thank yous” for this moment. It can be so beautiful when we realize and feel the true moment of right here, right now.
This short story gives a lesson of trusting new paths
Sometimes I am a person who NEEDS to see exactly where I am going before I take any steps towards it. I need to know the most, feel prepared the most, and usually not even follow through because I don’t see it as clearly as I want to.
I had this fully body realization that has changed my perspective of this thought, or inner obstacle that had been slowing me down.
I will say first that I think we do need a plan, we need to know what we want in the future. But in my case, the need for the plan actually stoped me from taking ACITON. Which is the final step to any manifestation you want to bring, so action is really important. And one I have been missing out on doing, because hey, it can be scary to start living as someone you haven’t lived like before in this life.
When I started to walk back from the barn I wanted to play a game to see if I could walk naturally in the same footsteps I took getting there. As I was trying to walk the same path I realized it was quite challenging to place each foot exactly in the imprint I had made earlier. I thought “walking on clean snow where I didn’t see the step was easy. But trying to step in places I knew were there was way harder.”
Was this relating to life?
I think so; I felt the difference. It was an easy experiment that left me pondering if I had been too focused trying to step in a spot I could see clearly that I was missing the idea that new paths are always on fresh snow. I had to walk my own path and be ok not seeing the full picture but believing and trusting in the steps that I am taking.
I think trust is a big key. We will talk more about the power of trust. Trusting what has happened and what is happening to you. Trust and relax the process, it hasn’t been laid out yet in the snow for you to see but your path is there for you to create.
We are all trail blazers in our own way, will you own your path and walk it with confidence?
