Tag Archives: failure

I’ve Never Had a Connection Like That Before…

Connection has become a buzz word in the horse community, but looking at all the interviews and taglines that use the word, I wonder: what exactly are we all talking about? I don’t think we all mean the same thing when we talk about connection. I can’t be totally sure though because as I waited for it through even hour long podcasts… I have never yet heard it defined.

Behind the Scenes at HH: New Videos + Fall Clinic!

I’m changing things up a bit this fall! I’ve been working on some new YouTube videos that share the heart of my horsemanship journey—real, honest, and imperfect in all the right ways. Plus, our last clinic of the year is coming up soon in Warm Springs, VA, and I’d love for you to be part of it.

Mind the Gap

We get a concept or see something is possible before we have the ability to do it in practice. This is a gap between what we want to do and what we can do. We become more able to replicate what we want to see, and that’s good. However while this is happening, during the closing of the gap between, the understanding begins to creep up with new possibility and we push the bar farther out of what we want to do — always beyond what we are capable of. This is how we keep growing. However, if you’re not careful, you’ll get discouraged because you know what you want to see and it isn’t what is happening.

Death and Resurrection

As the event drew near, I realized the larger the investment, the more pressure to produce a favorable outcome builds. What is the point of doing this if it isn’t to ride over the finish line? Most of us know on some level this is not the whole truth. Still, it is a struggle for the goal driven to not only believe there is more to life than a favorable outcome, but to live (and ride) in the peace that larger reality brings.

The Live Wild Beating Heart

God has a sense of humor and loves me, so he didn’t give me a solid riding mount. I already had one of those. I got the learning horse and I got it big. I brought home an enigma that catalyzed an epic adventure I would probably not have agreed to had I seen it coming. Of course that’s the best kind, and the more steps I take into the wild, the more I realize this is the only kind of life I want to be engaged in…

Adverse Conditions

It was hard not to consider this admitting defeat and total failure. Because that’s exactly what it felt like, and I am not one to admit defeat easily. I told myself years ago I would NOT allow work with my horses to become a win-lose scenario. I am not in this to make my horses into losers.

The devil in the details.

I have a feeling this is going to demand more from me that I currently possess in knowledge, skill, creativity, grace and most of all patience. As I got started, I realized this horse is probably going to be the kind that makes me or breaks me – meaning I will either grown and learn, or she’ll be too much for me and I will truly fail her. I can not at the moment accept the latter as a possibility, so I’m prepared to be changed from this process. 

Complicated

I do have a fairly “uncomplicated” horse in the herd and I enjoy her immensely. I am not the kind of person who has to have a problem to solve at all times. Ok. That’s not true, I am that kind of person. However, I am also the kind of person who can enjoy an uncomplicated horse. In fact, I am grateful that the complicated horse will make me better for the uncomplicated one as well. 

I don’t JUST…

I have been re-inspired recently with the concept of brace in horses. I am seeing in a fresh way that if we are willing to look, the layers of brace in even the simple things we do with horses hold practically infinite opportunity. I am taken by the fractal nature of it… astounded how theContinue reading “I don’t JUST…”