The moment I became a mother, a significant part of me was tucked away, almost hidden in the shadows of my new role.
It wasn’t just about me anymore; it was about us. Over the past year, I have been absorbed into this collective identity of “us,” and now I find myself sitting here, pondering where my individual self has gone. (I write about this further in this blog posts)
I keep asking myself, where am I, what do I desire, and who do I want to become once again?
These are the very questions that used to ask my journal before I discovered I was pregnant. Back then, I would often do yoga almost every evening, with my laptop or a paper journal right beside my mat.
I had a clear sense of who I was. I understood my mission and knew exactly what I was meant to be doing.
But now?
I haven’t reconnected with myself in quite some time, and it feels like I’ve hid my own identity to a corner, withdrawing the essence that I am supposed to share with this world.
Yes, being a mother is a precious gift. It embodies a purpose all on its own, and I deeply honor that. Perhaps I honor it more now than the path to rediscover myself, as myself.
“I’ can wait, but my baby needs it to be “us” for a while. (Cue the baby music playing from her stand and play station as she looks up at me with a smile.)
However, no matter what we do, we cannot deny who we truly are. We can try, but it comes with a price tag: depression, anxiety, discontentment, fear, resentment—the list goes on. I am sure each of us has experienced these emotions from time to time.
These feelings are clues that we are out of alignment. They are like road signs, signaling “wrong path,” “major detour,” “not for you.” You know the feeling; it’s trying to tell you something, but the message is just a whisper. A whisper is easy to ignore, but the feelings build up over time. Perhaps we just try our best to ignore them, numbing them with any distractions we can find.
The remedy is to be BRAVE in embracing who we are. Trust the whispers you hear and take intentional time to get to know yourself.
Here are a few questions you can ask:
Why do I feel I am here on this planet? In what area of the world do I want to make a contribution? How can I help others? What do I believe I am naturally good at? If I had total freedom, how would I spend my day? Imagine the entire day and your surroundings—who are you with, what are you doing, and how do you feel?
Life is a winding road. Some say destiny will always find its way. I believe that is true, but you also have to give destiny a helping hand. You have to be open to life, approach it with curiosity, and trust that things will work out. It will always be ok, ask teh quote goes “Everything is OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end.” Be bold and courageous enough to take risks, as risks are your belief in the idea that everything will always be okay.
Its been a while since I wrote.. thats ok. But it makes me kind of sad. I used to pound these keyboards with vengeance! Declaring my thoughts to my screen, but who else? I guess maybe I needed the time to realize I can pound the keys as a warrior, sharing my words to improve our world.
That is what I intent to do.
Life is filled with so many things and the kicker is we are all experiencing it slightly different from one another. I guess that is the gift from God, to live and experience it in our own unique way. Because how boring would it be if it, if we were all the same.
Our experience is what makes us who we are. It is what determines your life being a “success” or not. I quote success because it is a word we all can describe differently. But for my curiosity sake, I am going to give the official definition to success.
The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.
The good or bad outcome of an undertaking.
Hm, number two interests me. The good or bad outcome, does that mean most things are going to be considered a success because anything could be defined by good and/or bad?
Good and bad is also up to interpretation. Someone could say one event was bad, but perhaps that event lead to a great victory in another aspect of life. Was that initial event really “bad” then? I say no. I also say that good and bad are words we should be careful when defining anything.
It reminds me of The Story of the Chinese Farmer by Alan Watts
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.
— Alan Watts
So good… maybe.
Life is how you experience it. Im reading a book and one paragraph really hit me when describing what it is to gain experiences in life. She said that she took a group to Egypt. Some members stayed in the hotels and ate out at places like Burger King.. she said, you went to Egypt, but did your really experience Egypt?
Her relation was to us living on this spinning condensed pile of rubbish in the middle of literal space! We are living here but are we really experiencing here?
It makes me heart feel all excited and anxious to think that we get the chances to go out and live. To think of the possibilities awaiting us, to think of all the unknown people we haven’t met yet and the experiences we have experienced yet. All the storied we will be taking with us to our grave, as we collect memories of a life well lived and experiences well gained.
I see it as a badge we wear. If you have experienced a lot then you are advancing a lot! And remember no such thing as good or bad, just what it is. Some are heartache experiences, but they shape you, they make you and you can be proud you are here to fully feel it. All we have to do is feel it, feel life happening. Tap into the emotional side, the feminine side of life.
For far too long we have been in a teeter totter of masculine energy that has been in its heights for too long. Too much thinking, and not enough feeling.
Maybe it sounds silly, but without emotion what do you have? Without love what do you have? Look around the world and you will see it.
Next writing will be a story of patriarchy and matriarchy, finding the balance in all of us.
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.
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.
