The Bridle

In our modern world, we've all been told what we should want and wish for. Whether it's a big house, an expensive car, trendy clothes or otherwise, we've all been sold heavily on this being what we should want. What about you though? What are your dreams? What do you wish for? Does that line up with the things you're working for today?

Transcript

Hello folks,

I wanted to talk a bit about goals.

More particularly,

How we allow ourselves to dream and set goals.

Now as a culture,

We're sort of pre-programmed with what we're supposed to want.

You're supposed to want to be successful and rich and have the nice car and the nice house and the yacht.

That's packaged to you as financially successful.

Women are supposed to want to have a fairytale princess wedding to Mr.

Right.

Have a man who comes along and sees them for who they are and saves them.

And they're supposed to want 2.

5 kids and a minivan.

And it's going to be wonderful.

That's what we're packaged as.

That's how this is sold to us.

And I'd like to tell you right now,

It's alright to want something different.

And it's alright if you want what the conventional dream is.

That's alright too.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a stay at home mom.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a CEO.

But it's okay if you don't.

It's okay if you don't want children,

Can't have children,

Would like to adopt,

Would like to foster,

Or are just not up for it,

Or your goals and dreams are not aligned that way.

It's okay if you don't want an obscene amount of money.

Shocking in a capitalist culture,

Right?

I didn't always think this way.

I used to think that I would have my princess wedding and I would marry Mr.

Right and we would have 2.

5 kids and a house in the suburbs.

I used to think that the horses in my life were what helped me with my paradigm shift.

And I think everybody that changes their thinking has a different catalyst for their paradigm shift.

Mine was horses.

And I was at one point training and showing and working with a trainer who was fairly brutal.

She was aggressive and mean in everything she did.

She was really successful and she is now incredibly successful at the discipline that she shows in.

She's the best in the state and among the best riders in the country.

But I was so unhappy and she used to make me do things to that horse that I loved.

I would get on my horse in a halter as a kid and ride him around just in the field and we would go play in the creek.

I loved that horse and in order to advance,

She wanted me to do this and she wanted me to do that.

And it all felt unnecessary.

I felt that my goals were different than hers.

And because of how the dynamics in the barn were,

I wasn't allowed to express that.

I wasn't allowed to have different goals.

What do you mean you don't want to go to the show?

Everyone wants to show.

Everyone wants ribbons.

Buckle up and do it.

And as an adult looking back,

I now know exactly how that felt being stuck working towards a goal that I didn't want,

That wasn't mine.

And I look back on that now and I assess where I'm at when I'm working towards something.

Is this goal what I want or is it what someone else wants for me?

And the major catalyst that completely changed my life was in the discipline that I was riding in.

Once you get to a certain level,

You have to use a piece of gear called a double bridle.

And now a bit is the piece of metal that goes in the horse's mouth.

And the way it works is you pull on a rein and it creates pain and pressure in the horse's mouth.

They give to pressure to try and make it stop hurting.

And there's ways that trainers mince around that and make it sound fancy and all that,

But really you pull the rein and it hurts.

It's only point of existence is to cause pain in your animal.

So we were using one bit and the double bridle is exactly what it says.

It's two bits and it's a lot more painful.

There's a lot more going on.

There's a chain under their chin.

There's just a lot more of everything going on,

Much more pressure,

Two sets of reins.

You can hurt them even better.

It's a scary piece of equipment.

And my trainer was trying to convince me to use that on my horse who I could ride around with a rope around his neck.

You know,

Not fancy.

We didn't do any of these fancy elegant movements,

But I could plop around on him in a field with nothing on his face.

And I knew,

I just knew in my bones that that was not what I wanted to do.

And I didn't want a ribbon,

A title,

Whatever.

If it meant putting that thing on my horse,

I couldn't stand up for myself.

I was kind of a wallflower and very shy and surrounded by adults that were pushing me into things.

So I would never stand up for myself,

But I did for Bud.

I did for my horse.

That was the first time I had ever told an adult no.

And it was scary.

And it was hard because all of my friends were also riders at this barn and they all reacted the same way as the trainer.

Oh,

Well,

You're not going anywhere in life.

You might as well just quit now.

But I learned something.

Horses are mirrors of us.

And we learn a lot about ourselves if we pay attention to how horses react.

I learned that I didn't have it in me to be brutal enough to climb the levels in this discipline and that really my calling was with something else.

I ride my horses without bridles.

Either no bit or nothing on their face at all.

And I have found that that has changed the way I think and feel and behave around these animals so much because you can't force them when you're not hurting them.

There's nothing you can do to force them.

You have to negotiate with them.

You have to respect them.

And it becomes creative.

Your cues to your horse almost become like Reiki.

You can almost hover near them.

When you do groundwork.

If you put your hand up a certain way,

They'll move away from it.

If you pull your hand back,

They move towards it.

It almost feels like Reiki.

And I would have never known that this was a thing if I had just done what I was told was my goal.

It's good to have goals.

We all need goals,

But they need to reflect who we are as people.

We need to set our own authentic goals.

Mine was I didn't want to chase a ribbon.

I didn't want to lose the connection I had with this animal.

I didn't want to destroy his trust for a 50 cent ribbon.

Sometimes our goals don't line up with what we're told they should be.

And it is very hard to find our own voice and stand in our own power enough to say,

You know what?

No,

That is not what I want to do.

Christians like to say that they're born again.

Some Christians do.

And I appreciate the sentiment because I feel like that day as a rider,

As an animal behaviorist,

As a horseman,

And as a person,

I feel like that day I was born again too.

I was able to say no to someone that I was told to respect when they had ideas and goals for me that did not line up with my heart and what I wanted to do.

I was able to,

For the first time in my entire life,

And thankfully not the last,

I was able to say no to stand in my power and draw a line.

From that day on,

Everything changed and it wasn't easy.

It wasn't magically better,

But I'm so glad that I did that.

I am so glad that I said no because my goals and my dreams and my hopes never were in the show ring.

They were never in any of the things I was practicing.

They are galloping my horse down the beach with nothing on his face.

They are wheeling my wheelchair up to a thoroughbred racehorse and getting on him and having him trust me enough to take care of me when I can't walk myself.

They are galloping up a hill in deep forest.

They are swimming in the creek with my horse in a place that only a horse can get to.

Those have been my greatest moments,

My greatest hopes and dreams.

And I had no idea that that's what I would be doing.

I had no idea that I would become a therapeutic riding instructor and work with disabled folks after stepping sort of backwards into this,

Using the horses to heal myself.

I had no idea and I never would have learned or thought of any of this had I not told my trainer no.

What are your goals?

What are your hopes?

What are your dreams?

And what are you being told should be your goals and hopes and dreams?

Do they line up?

Are you being told to put a bridle on your horse?

Are you able to tell people no?

The day we start learning to set our own authentic goals that reflect us as a person,

The day we start saying no to the things that don't is the day we can start working towards our dreams and working towards becoming who we are meant to be.

Who will we will be the most happy,

The most effective,

The most joyful as.

We owe it to ourselves.

We owe it to the whole world to stand in our power,

Assess where we're going and what we're being told and see where the discrepancy lies.

Thank you for listening.

Have a beautiful day.

Reviews

I've listened to all your talks since I discovered you on Insight Timer. Each one amusing and deeply meaningful. I look forward to more in the future.

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In gratitude 🙏🩷

Beautiful and inspiring - thank you so much for sharing your story here ❤️🙏✨🐎