Developing Self-Carriage for Your Mind: Half-Halt Yourself to Empowerment
Developing Self-Carriage For Your Mind: Half-Halt Yourself to Empowerment
According to the USDF (United States Dressage Federation) Glossary of Judging Terms:
The term SELF-CARRIAGE is defined as:
State in which the horse carries itself in balance without taking support or balancing on the rider’s hand.
When you confirm that your horse is in self-carriage, the feeling is like none other.
Not only is there an incredible trust between the two of you, but this powerful connection that bubbles up from your energized, athletic partner is palpable.
You feel proud that you have cultivated the qualities you’ve been dreaming about: lightness with your aids, a new level of balance, and most appreciated… a gorgeous eagerness from your horse to truly show you what they can offer in your co-creative dance.
What if you could cultivate these same wonderful feelings from your own mind - instead of constantly battling the negative thoughts that attempt to construct unproductive neural pathways that bring you down?
Can you relate to any of these?
“I’m not a good enough rider.”
“My horse deserves better.”
“I wish I could ride as well as…”
“I’m freaking out, but I better not tell anyone or they will think I’m being difficult.”
“Oh crap, my trainer just raised the jumps! I am so not ready for this. But I can’t tell her.”
Or… fill in the blank with your negative self-talk statement here. If you’re human, you’re bound to have at least one.
There are plenty of techniques to help you flip your script and focus on more positive affirmations.
Although they truly can help most people, simply saying good things about yourself might not be the best solution if you’re lacking in self-esteem.
If your positive affirmations lack true self belief behind them, they can actually cause more issues. The negative mind chatter can tend to get stronger and take over, with thoughts like: “Oh, you don’t really believe that…. Or “Come on, you’ll never be able to change. It’s just who you are.”
Understanding the root cause of why you believe the thoughts in your mind is what will truly empower you. You can then choose to stop these thoughts, once you’ve discovered why they showed up in the first place.
Your subconscious mind, the one that has been faithfully recording your experiences and the meanings you’ve decided to attach to them, will reveal the reasons why you say the things you say to yourself, over and over again.
I’ve discovered, studied, and now assisted in nearly one hundred remote sessions where my clients have been able to access the old security tapes in their minds. We’ve been able to unravel the reasons for the beliefs that hold them back from shaping their future of their own design.
Nearly 90% of my clients are often surprised by the scenes their minds chose to bring up in these unique hypnotherapy sessions. (Also known as RTT®: Rapid Transformational Therapy®).
The starting point of their issues can often be pinpointed back to a time when they were younger. As a way of coping with situations that they didn’t fully comprehend, their young minds initiated a ‘running/looping program’ to protect them from their reality.
Once the client understands why this happened, they get to choose to release those old beliefs.
For example, one rider that lost confidence to ride again after a fall, discovered that her fears actually originated from not being able to trust her body from trauma in the past. Once she understood the meaning she had attached to those experiences, I helped guide her to a place where she could accept that she was indeed now a capable adult, and could also embrace a new mind-body connection. She can now believe in herself to make sound decisions which will keep her safe and happy in life.
For me, I wanted to get to the root of the constant butterflies I had every time I was about to jump a fence with my pony. It was often embarrassing to admit to my clients that I was anxious about jumping, despite how much I truly loved it. I decided to go through the same process myself and discovered that my concussion at age eleven left me with the impression that jumping was something I needed to be fearful of, in order to keep me safe.
Once I understood the root cause, I was able to release those old beliefs and reassure my mind and body that I do everything in my power to go slow and steady. I remind myself that I’m taking all the precautions to be as safe as I can be and that I trust my steady pony, always.
You might be wondering: What happens in these empowering sessions?
I guide people into a hypnotic state, which isn’t as scary as some people perceive it to be. We do it all the time when we drive ourselves home from work and don’t remember all the turns that got us to our front door. It also happens when we watch television intensely or (ahem) endlessly scroll on social media. Not you!?! It’s okay, we all do it, including myself. No judgment!
Once you are that relaxed, the conscious mind can take a breather and the subconscious mind, the one with all the recordings from your life, can take the spotlight.
After discovering the scenes from your past that have significance to your issue, you then get to have those amazing ‘aha’ moments. As you review the scenes from your past, I gently guide you to observe with a sense of curiosity. I remind you that you aren’t reliving the scenes, but reviewing them to reveal the thoughts and beliefs that you formed in those moments. With that understanding, you can then release, rewrite, and embody a new and updated version of yourself. It’s much like a computer program getting the latest software.
With this deeper understanding of your past experiences and the meanings you attached to them, powerful insights can emerge. You get to create the affirmations that you will truly now begin to believe in, and blaze new trails with wildly productive thoughts, which will soon turn into new neural pathways, the superhighways in your brain.
Then you will start to enjoy the feeling of self-carriage for your mind. These sessions provide an incredible way to half-halt your life back into balance. You will be empowered to know that you become the writer and director of your life, with the ability to create re-writes at any time.
You are powerful. More so than you’ve ever allowed yourself to believe.
The fact that you are able to learn to ride horses can show you how adaptable you are in incredibly challenging situations.
As any true equestrian knows, mastering your mind-body connection while riding a moving, thinking, sometimes unpredictable being, is not something to be taken for granted in the least.
You owe it to yourself to strive for that lightness, that balance, that eagerness to show your horse what you can offer, by tapping into all the tools available to master your mindset.
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Beth Lauren Parrish, creator of Inspired Riding®, is a CHA Certified Level 3 Instructor for English & Western, Level 1 Equestrian Tai Chi Instructor, and Certified as a Hypnotherapist and Practitioner for RTT® (Rapid Transformational Therapy).
She has been teaching for over 23 years and has the tools to enhance her clients' transformations rapidly and profoundly.
For more info, kindly visit: https://www.inspiredriding.com
