The Horseman's Mindset

When is it time to admit you are stuck with your horse and you need help? In this episode Ashley talks about her experiences with some tough horses and how her judgmental thoughts were getting in the way of her being proactive.

The fifth century Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu put it this way.

"Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."

.This is a jam-packed episode!  

We discuss a very controversial comment made during my interview with Kristi Smith recently.   I go over my reaction to and thoughts on her comment and why I think she is absolutely right!  

We talk about when is it ok to sell a horse and how you can do so in a way that might lead to an even better life for that horse than you even imagined!

The closing segment of this episode we talk about transitions!  How to make sure you can correct your horse without over correcting them as you use transitions to build their confidence, balance, impulsion, straightness and collection.  

Joining us today is my guest, Kristi Smith.  This is the second part of my interview with her so be sure to check out the first part so you have some context for our conversation today.  We talk more about the book that Kristi co-authored with Linda Parelli: How to develop emotional fitness in horses.

Joining us today is my guest, Kristi Smith.  We talk about the book that she co-authored with Linda Parelli: How to develop emotional fitness in horses.   

This is going to be a bit of a heavy episode and is not appropriate for young ears so please save this for yourself when your kiddos aren’t around in case it is not age-appropriate. I am going to be talking about some hard mental health struggles I have experienced recently and it is my hope that this is an informative episode for you if you aren’t familiar with mental illness and if you are - maybe it will be relatable and remind you that you are not alone in your battles.

Welcome back friends to another episode. I have been on a bit of a mental health hiatus from life for the last two weeks or so. Being a person professionally diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder unfortunately  means that no matter how well I manage myself, my stress, my time, my food, my work, all the things… I can still have what I call flair ups with this disease. This is something that I find extraordinarily frustrating because there is nothing more that I want in myself than to just be a stable, functional and consistently mentally healthy human but that so far - two years post diagnosis and professional treatment has not yet been my reality. There is no magic bullet so to speak as far as a cure for many of the different mental health disorders out there. And for bipolar disorder specifically I require very consistent professional care, therapy, life coaching, acupuncture, supplements, and regular check ins with my psychiatrist.

I'm sharing about my recent experiences in the hopes that it might help you to face some of your demons as well.   Or at the least help you to empathize with and understand the world of mental illness a little better.  Everyone deserves peace and wellness in this life.  Thanks for listening.  

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Welcome back to another episode of the Horseman’s Mindset. Today we have a special guest and friend of mine, Kim Worlow. I met Kim over ten years ago when I was traveling more and doing clinics, I had a group of ladies in Arkansas that would clinic with me twice a year and Kim was one of those gals. Kim is a Leadership coach and she coaches leaders to discover their own Success Formula to get stress working for them instead of against them.

Kim is certified through the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching and holds a Master’s Degree in Rehab Counseling from the University of Illinois.

We met originally through a mutual friend and horseman Arvell Bass and Kim and Arvell put together leadership retreats for corporations in Arkansas blending the worlds of corporate leadership with horsemanship. They would do things like start a colt in front of an audience and use the horse’s reactions and eventual trust with Arvell to illustrate and better understand how our energy projections, intent, authenticity etc… is everything when we are building trust and rapport with a team in order to go on and achieve goals together.

Kim and I have also put on clinics together teaching horsewomen how to become more effective leaders for themselves in order to be the best leaders they could be for their horses.

This is part two of a three part series with Kim.  Today we talk about authenticity and how our horses are authenticity detectors.  How learning to be a leader doesn't mean that you have to be perfect it just means you need to be honest about your thoughts, feelings and emotions!  We talk more in depth about limiting beliefs and how they may be holding you back.  

Kim is a wealth of insight on bringing awareness into our thought lives. I’m so excited to share her with you all! Let’s dive in!

LINKS:

For more information on Kim:

Welcome back to another episode of the Horseman’s Mindset. Today we have a special guest and friend of mine, Kim Worlow. I met Kim over ten years ago when I was traveling more and doing clinics, I had a group of ladies in Arkansas that would clinic with me twice a year and Kim was one of those gals. Kim is a Leadership coach and she coaches leaders to discover their own Success Formula to get stress working for them instead of against them.

Kim is certified through the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching and holds a Master’s Degree in Rehab Counseling from the University of Illinois.

We met originally through a mutual friend and horseman Arvell Bass and Kim and Arvell put together leadership retreats for corporations in Arkansas blending the worlds of corporate leadership with horsemanship. They would do things like start a colt in front of an audience and use the horse’s reactions and eventual trust with Arvell to illustrate and better understand how our energy projections, intent, authenticity etc… is everything when we are building trust and rapport with a team in order to go on and achieve goals together.

Kim and I have also put on clinics together teaching horsewomen how to become more effective leaders for themselves in order to be the best leaders they could be for their horses.

This is part one of a three part interview with Kim. We get into what some of the common limiting beliefs are that get in your way. What role awareness plays in leadership, and learning how to see the truth of a situation instead of allowing our minds to unconsciously produce a story around an event that may or may not even be true! We also get into what success is and how that can be defined by the individual. You don’t have to define success by what culture tells you it is or your parents taught you it was. Success is something that you can define for yourself and that in itself gives you the freedom to live the life that you create for yourself instead of just letting life happen to you without ever considering if its what you want.

Kim is a wealth of insight on bringing awareness into our thought lives. I’m so excited to share her with you all! Let’s dive in!

LINKS:

For more information on Kim:

In this episode Ashley discusses your responsibility for managing your energy and how you come across to your horse.  Is your horse's behavior a product of his environment, his own physical/mental/emotional state OR is it a product of how you make him feel in a given situation?  How you manage your fears, emotions, stress etc... can make or break your relationship with your horse.  This episode will give you some ideas on how to recognize and manage fear and how to keep your confidence and your horse's confidence your number one priority.  

Whether you have a performance horse or a hobby horse, making sure that your horse is pain-free and comfortable is critical to your long-term success.  We want our horses to be able to do their jobs and my goal as a trainer is to take the path of least resistance in my program.  If I notice a horse is really struggling with a lead, or maneuver or gets unsettled or frantic when I ask for something I'm going to investigate those things with my vet!  Not everything is a behavior or training problem!  Dr. Sisk talks about how we are our horses' advocates.  It is our job to pursue a diagnosis with a vet if something doesn't seem right.  Sometimes it can take a few visits to completely unearth the issue but it is worth getting to the bottom of it.  Your horse will thank you!   

If you are interested in setting up an appointment with Dr. Sisk text the clinic at: (417) 448-0131  

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In this episode Ashley shares some of her recent health struggles along with some reflections on teaching a great group of ladies at her clinic at Sitter Downs in Lone Jack, MO this weekend.  She also had a major milestone breakthrough in her study of equine massage and manual mobility therapy and shares the results of that in her training horses this week.  Exciting times as she continues to pile on more knowledge into her training approach.  The learning never ends guys are you ready to dive in?!

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We kick off this episode with a guest, Kim Johnson.  Kim has started a local Fellowship of Christian Athletes Equestrian chapter and is hosting events out of my home barn the old Equus Curito Equine Center which is now Cross Creek Saddle Club in Louisburg, KS.  

For more information on the horse huddles and upcoming kids summer camp please visit the following links:

Do you have a horse that runs up and down hills on the trail?  Or worse, bucks while doing a hill?  YIKES!!!  This can be a tricky problem to solve because there are lots of possibly reasons as to why your horse is exhibiting this behavior.  Tune in to this episode and listen to Ashley walk you through the possible sources of this frustrating trail riding problem.  She also shares her favorite group training exercise to help your horse work through general anxiety on the trail!

"Horses can not tell if you are mad at them or mad at yourself." - Linda Parelli

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the amount of information that is out there?  How do you know if a technique will work for you?  In this episode Ashley explains her method of testing out new information and how she is able to sift through massive amounts of new useful information without allowing herself to become totally overwhelmed.   

Update on recent happenings and I walk you through a groundwork session on a training horse and how I reframed my own expectations of what that session would be and how I would fix a connection problem.  I am thinking about connection in such a different way than I ever have before.  It used to be I would look for what I needed to change in the horse when I mentally "lost" them.  Now I look for what is going on inside me when my horse loses connection and the insight I found was interesting but the positive change in the horse was amazing!  I hope you enjoy the episode - Ashley

Show Links:

Interested in learning more about the Polyvagal theory?  Email Ashley at pioneerhorsemanship@gmail.com to receive information about the recorded class.  

Do you ever stop to consider what it is you have been consuming mentally?  You may be unwilling to put yourself in a place right now of self-reflection.  And that is ok.  Life is seasonal.  Sometimes we just need to sit in the mess.  But we have to consider how that affects our horses.  We don't get to wallow in self-pity and at the same time expect greatness from our equine friends. Our horses have this tendency to reflect our state-of-being back at us and if we are willing to listen we can recognize the need to change up what we have been putting into our minds in order to bring a more regulated energy to our leadership.  

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Fear can feel like an impossible barrier to your goals with your horse.  It is your brain's job to keep you safe so it compiles all of the the information gained from the past to draw conclusions of whether you should feel safe or be in a sympathetic state (flight, fight etc...). In this episode I will walk you through the first steps in retraining your fear patterns and regaining your confidence.  Awareness and knowledge are where this process begins!  See you in the episode! 

The freeze response is an often overlooked side of horse behavior.  Horses that have learned to go into freeze get labeled "unpredictable", "counterfeit", "dishonest" etc... when actually it is an involuntary neurological response to fear, flooding, pain, overstimulation, confusion.  Your horse can't control whether it goes into freeze mode.  But you can learn how to recognize the signs and change your perspective on this tricky  defense response!  In this episode Ashley talks about the first couple of times she saw a freeze response in a horse and how she started to recognize the signs - the hard way.  

What is it that makes some people learn so much faster than others?  Is it natural ability, skill, intelligence?  All of those things can play a role but what really levels the playing field may surprise you.  What can you do to make yourself more coachable and cut your learning curve down?  Ashley answers all of these questions and more as we dive into another episode.  

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"We are not in charge of our horses timeline: they are. And whenever possible, if our horse is really struggling with a concept, I think it's critical that we spend the time on it until we're able to, at the bare minimum, plant a seed that we can then start developing and growing in the upcoming sessions."  

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This episode is about Regaining our momentum when it has been lost.  If you have owned a horse for long enough you have experienced a loss of momentum or a roadblock, of sorts, placed in the way of your goal.  How you manage your thoughts, emotions and expectations during this time is critical to your wellbeing, that of your horse and your long-term success as a rider.

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Do you find it hard to mentally move past bad experiences with your horse?  Do you end up in a spiral of self deprecating thoughts and guilt?  ME TOO!  In this episode I will share with you how to shift you mindset to be the most effective and reliable partner for your horse!