Help Myself Hypnosis

 

 

Last week a client told me

“Just a horse” is the thing that keeps me from being “just a human”

 

and I’ve been thinking about that ever since!  

 

What is so seductive about horses that we happily invest our time, money, energy and emotions to a level that non-horsey humans often find difficult to comprehend? I’d guess that perhaps it’s because they offer us an opportunity to reach out, to extend and challenge ourselves; to be more than ‘just a human’ to be extra-ordinary in fact.

 

Humans and Horses -  The Nervous Rider

  

Our basic human instinct to be at least wary of something that has the potential to hurt us is quite normal and has ensured our survival as a species. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being nervous on (or around) horses except that it can be unpleasant and unhelpful if you want to ride.  The first challenge for horse riding humans then, is to overcome the conflicts caused by our natural human instincts.

 

A primitive human survival mechanism means that when fear alerts us to potential danger, we respond with our own particular version of ”fight, flight, freeze or foetal crouch’.  Whilst this was crucial for our caveman ancestors, it doesn’t do much for us when our nerves cause us to 

 

‘fight’ our horse (and ourselves) resulting in a cycle of tension and anxiety.  We exert even more willpower and determination but a bit like getting to sleep, the harder we try the harder it is!  Horse and rider  get frustrated and annoyed.  Our horse becomes resistant and ’spooks’, ’shies’ or ‘refuses’.  We each lose confidence in the other and the rider loses the ability to respond rather than react to challenges.

‘freeze’ so that parts of our body just won’t do what they’re supposed to do!  We simply can’t seem to ‘give’ the rein or release our back or our shoulders for example.  Even worse, our mind ‘freezes’ too and we forget to breathe, or forget which jump comes next or what’s supposed to happen after we’ve entered the arena at ‘A’

‘foetal crouch’ - curling up our body to protect the chest and stomach, which as our ape-ancestors knew, are our most vulnerable parts.  Unfortunately in the crazy process of attempting to adopt this position on horseback, we lean forward, pulling our hands and elbows in to our chest and raising our knees and heels in a direct contradiction of everything our riding instructors ever taught us.

‘flight’ - as in wanting to give up and run away.  We make excuses to avoid riding (its too wet or windy) and pretend that competitions and fun rides just don’t do it for us anymore.  Our rides get slower and shorter and the routes get more and more restricted.

 

Hypnosis for Horseriders is available worldwide as either a CD or MP3 download.  You can buy Hypnosis for Horseriders online NOW via my online shop. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 11:52 am and is filed under Help Myself Hypnosis for Horse Riders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.