My Story

I started riding horses pretty late in life.  I was around 50.  My youngest child and I volunteered at a horse rescue.  We helped care for the horses and I took a few lessons.  After a period of time, my daughter became interested in becoming a horse trainer.  The head of the rescue talked us into adopting a mustang with the intention of my daughter training her and then selling her to a good home.  Long story short, that good home became mine, and my daughter decided not to be a horse trainer.  Even longer story shorter, that horse - Pogo - also became my personal horse. 

I know what you're thinking, "Green, wild horse, green, older rider ... what could possibly go wrong?"

Well, a fractured sacrum, a fractured ankle, and a couple of cracked ribs later (over a few years) I was just about ready to give up.  She was just so nervous and jumpy, and always ready to bolt.  And I was older and no longer able to bounce! Riding wasn't fun.

I loved her dearly, but our connection wasn't the one I dreamed of. 

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During this time, I had also started diving deeply into equine assisted coaching as well as somatics.  So, before giving up completely on riding I took a moment, and I asked myself, "What are you bringing to this relationship? Is she nervous and jumpy so that makes you anxious, or are you anxious, so that makes her nervous and jumpy?"  (Imagine Pogo giving me the side eye here. "Yup, Lady, It's you, not me.")  Hmmmmmm. "What do I feel when I'm riding? And where does this feeling live in my body?" 

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I started to work on 3 things: 

1. Nervous system regulation. When I was working with her I worked to regulate myself through deep breathing and gentle movements to intentionally release stress. And it helped a lot.  But there was more work to be done.  
    

2. My physical tension.  I worked on where I hold my tension in my body - my low back. Always the low back. For my entire adult life I have had low back pain.  Through gentle yet specific, somatic exercises I learned to release some of that tension and regain conscious control of my low back.  
   
   And Pogo can feel it.  It turns out that the tension I chronically hold in my back translates directly to her when I'm sitting on hers.  She feels it, and gets anxious trying to figure out why I'm so tense, even if my heart rate is low and I'm emotionally calm.  If I do my somatic exercises prior to getting on her back we have a good ride. We connect. If I don't, we have a good chance of it not being any fun for both of us.  
    

3. My personal patterns.  This is the really tricky one.  I had to hold a very clear mirror up to my life and take a peak inside.  Then be willing to accept what I found and make positive change. 

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In the end ...

I didn't give up riding.

I didn't change Pogo. 

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I worked on myself - on and off her back.

And now, I can even put my sister's grandchildren on Pogo for a pony ride. I never would have done that a few years ago.

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Now, when I am with Pogo - either in the pasture or in the arena - I spend time doing breathwork before we do anything.  We both go to this amazing, calm state of mind. When I ride her and feel tension creeping in (either physically, or emotionally from one of us) I practice box breathing to the rhythm of her feet. I check my body.  Everything resets. 

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But the really amazing piece of this story is that this work with Pogo has helped me to unlock the original source of my back pain.  It relates to an early childhood trauma when I was about 3 years old. One that I didn't even remember except through my older sisters' telling of family stories.  Once I was able to start to soften the pain itself, the original story came to me in a meditation - along with all of the feelings and emotions associated with the event.  Not because I needed to see it or remember it, but because I was finally ready to release it, and to forgive. 

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Today, Pogo and I  have a great relationship, and a wonderful connection. I listen to her and she listens to me. That little, wild horse has taught me more about myself than anyone else ever could have. And this has opened up my entire life!