The Process of Pivoting

How often do we get stuck in a negative mindset, not just around our riding, but in life in general? Thoughts are magnetic, and attract other similar thoughts. It can feel virtually impossible at times to get out of a negative spiral once our thoughts have taken a negative turn.

Photo Credit: Mutt Love Photography

Has anyone ever told you "Think positive!"? Did it seem like an impossible task at the time? When we are feeling really down in the dumps, trying to shift from depression, fear, frustration, anxiety, et cetera to joy and happiness is often too far a stretch. So how do we go about changing how we feel?

The process of pivoting involves finding a thought that feels just a little bit better than our current thoughts, to climb up the emotional guidance scale. For example, let's say we feel powerless. Rather than trying to reach for something that feels unattainable such as joy, a thought of anger will feel better than complete helplessness. From anger we can shift to frustration, and so forth. Here is an example:

Powerlessness: I'm never going to be able to ride my horse properly, I'm not a skilled enough rider to own a horse like this. I should just re-home her, she'd be better off with someone else.

Anger: I can't believe they sold me this horse last year. They completely took advantage of me. It had to have been obvious to them when I tried her that I wasn't an experienced enough rider for a horse like this. They just wanted to get her off their hands. This is all their fault!

Frustration: I don't know what to do next. I clearly can't handle her, but I love her and don't want to sell her.

Contentment: I guess she at least is enjoying her life, she doesn't care that I'm stuck in a rut. She just wants to eat, sleep, and feel safe. I'm not harming her by keeping her, and we have lots of years to figure stuff out together. I'm not getting hurt either, I'm just frustrated. Maybe we can just take some time to have fun without pressure.

Hopefulness: I could probably take some more lessons, maybe that would help me figure out her buttons faster. Maybe if I did a couple lessons a week instead of one every other week, we would probably make a lot more progress.

Optimism: I think this could actually work out. Everyone needs help; even Olympic riders have coaches. I haven't given us enough of a chance to get to where I want to be, it takes time to learn to ride really well. There's no reason why I can't learn how to ride her well, look at how many people started where we are at and achieved their goals.

Jumping straight from powerlessness to optimism would be too much of a stretch, but climbing there gradually makes it attainable. Ironically (or maybe not), that is also how we train horses. One step at a time, building the foundation block by block. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a Grand Prix horse. If we can learn to break things down into steps, pivoting to better feeling thoughts bit by bit when we are feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, we can change our thinking from negative to positive and shift to a better feeling place.

This in turn helps our horses by taking the pressure off of them. If we are happier and break things down into attainable steps, they will feel that shift in our energy and expectations. Just like us, they are happier to work with someone who has a positive attitude and makes the work environment fun vs. high stress and pressure. Then we can go back to the whole point of horses: enjoying our journey with them.