This sounds familiar...

Sorry for the lack of posting these days. Our days are just packed full from morning until night and when I get home, I head for the shower and hit the hay. Let me recap some of this past weeks events.

Last week I was in a demo for the Building Confidence in Riding course. The focus was follow the rail using indirect rein and direct reins to reinforce. Kucha was picked because he tries so hard and if you address him too quickly or make him feel wrong, he goes inside of himself, gets submissive ears and gets impulsive. When I was asked to participate, my heart rate skyrocketed, but I am so proud that I was able to get it together for him, warm up and participate! He looked more like the left brained horse that was with us, Ginger! He was such a champ. He never hesitated at the 20-some people in the stands and was more interested in eating grass! Awesome.

This weekend, a group of us went to Mesa Verde to see the cliff dwellings of Native Americans from LONG LONG ago! If you ever get the chance to go, it is beautiful and well worth the trip. On our way to Mesa Verde, we stopped for lunch and had the chance to go into Nathan's Hat Shop. Hats for Jack Nickelson, Will Smith, etc have been made here. I found the most beautiful hat and would love to have it made for myself, but maybe at a later point in life! Also, at Mesa Verde I was blessed to see wild horses for the first time in my life. A mom and baby were on the right hand side of the road and two large bays with awesome feet were to the left! Nibbling on the trees and then crossing the street like they owned the place. It felt as though it was a little gift to see them.

This week is our Moving in Harmony course and the same puzzles that presented themselves last week are still here this week. I am relearning how to post my horses trot. I am trying to retrain my body to get rid of 13 years of prior training and become a more fluid rider for my horse. However, it is proving to be extremely difficult for me and I am discovering that I am shutting down a bit. Negative attitudes and thoughts that it will never come to me often fill my head. This afternoon I realized that I do this in other parts of my life as well. When something doesn't come easily to me, I tend to shut down. When math got too difficult, I didn't even want to try. My mind would close and progress would be almost non existent. Same with accounting lol. BUT, when I would finally relax and be open to learning and open to the process, I would make progress. I am finding that when the posting gets difficult, I want to just play online and avoid it.

So my challenge to myself is to play with trotting every day. I will not let an attitude that has accompanied me in other areas of my learning to follow into my journey with my horse. And when I do, I need to recognize it and move past it. I have had glimmers of the correct posting and my horse shows it to me right away by lowering his nose to the ground at the trot! It is when I push myself to get it again that I seem to erase the progress I made.

Something to think about!