After an interviewing ‘How Very Daisy’ a few months ago on our Listen with Equiteam podcast, I had this harsh realisation that she could have been talking about me.
The words ‘Sometimes you just lose your mojo and you don’t even know why’ rang through my head. It really was me.
There was no denying that I found this winter a slog, with first world problems such as having no where to ride when it’s wet (which was the whole of this winter), my heart horse had been in rehab all winter, only to be told that at best she might come back as a walk hack, I was feeling under pressure at work, and I’d fairly recently lost someone very close to me.
But the realisation of the situation left me with this incredible pang of guilt and shame. I didn’t feel scared, I didn’t feel nervous, I just had no fire in my belly and no desire to do anything with my horses.
A confidence coach needing to boost her mojo – I felt like a fraud – I was giving what little energy I had left to my clients but it wasn’t exactly the stuff that should be going on behind the scenes.
It took me another month, to pluck the courage to send this email,
“Hi Daisy,
I think I would benefit from your help. For the first time ever my mojo has left the building, I’m making excuses not to ride one of my horses, I have nothing in the diary and basically short of just needing to man up I think I might need some extra support.”
I told no one, not even my closest people that I had messaged or was arranging a session – I just needed to figure it out in my head.
A week later during the session we worked through lots of things and I took away some really useful nuggets (this is my summary – not Daisy’s words!).
1. My constant use of ‘This isn’t my real job’ when referring to coaching has deep seated meanings, and something I need to work on in terms of self belief.
2. The horse I was referring to in the email is Joules. She is an absolutely fabulous little horse, we are steeped in history, and I have owned her for 15 months but done very little with her except hack and a few clinics. I’d made every excuse not to do stuff with her from ‘I’m on the borderline of being too big for her – what will people think?’, to ‘I can’t recreate what I used to with her…’, ‘I’ll ride Cianti first and see how I get on for time…’ and the list goes on and on.
My take home from this is that she isn’t Cianti (most people would say this is a good thing – she is actually much easier and probably more talented!), so stop trying to make her my Cianti.
The sense of guilt was real. Poor Joules – all this time I had been so focused on Cianti that Joules had always taken a back step and now I felt so bad for her – I hadn’t given this kind, sweet, fun little horse the time to shine and that was really unfair on her.
We agreed an action point that I either decided to just sell her at a loss and draw a line in the sand, or commit to six months of work where I would truly invest in her and then make a decision.
3. I needed to put in some self protection around Cianti. I needed to put a date in place with the vet to re-assess her, stick to it and not move the goal posts, as the feeling of ‘hope’ that she might come back into work and be OK, when I have already been told that she won’t, was actually tearing me apart from the inside out.
4. I need some self-care. It won’t surprise anyone to know I am rubbish at this!
5. It’s OK to grieve and this looks differently for everyone and takes time. I think I had stopped speaking about how I really felt about losing my Mum as everyone else had moved on and I hadn’t. I didn’t want to be ‘that’ person six months on.
What next?
I left the meeting armed with so much to think about and some action points, but also the sense of feeling much better about myself.
For me, point two was the main reason I had initially reached out. I knew that I didn’t want to quit and sell Joules, so operation get her fitter commenced.
Because we were getting to the end of the British Dressage qualifying period, so many local BD shows were full, so I emailed some organisers and asked to be put on the waiting list. I was both delighted and apprehensive when I got a cancellation for our first dressage at Howe Equestrian Centre.
Armed with an epic support team off we went, Joules was an absolute super star, she behaved impeccably and did two very pleasing tests with 69.48% for second and 68.65% for third.
I was so unbelievably ring rusty, but absolutely delighted. Two Petplan qualifying scores under our belt and most importantly we both were smiling.
A couple of weeks later we headed to Netherton Equestrian – there is nothing like a bit of pressure – it was our second outing and it was the last chance to qualify before the qualifying period ended – she totally pulled it out of the bag with 69.83% test, won the class overall and got our qualifying score.
The scores are wonderful to have, but the biggest changes have been in us both and our relationship. She has always been such a friendly little horse and loves her job, but it’s like she has taken a huge breath, she is much less tense, less spooky, less reactive, happier, more willing to try, easier to ride, and she now whinnies and trots over to me every day when I get her in.
I truly believe that horses are so much more perceptive than we sometimes give them credit for and I wonder if she knows she now has her own Joules sized space in my heart?
Either way I’m so grateful for a well-timed kick up the arse and what ever happens at the Area Festivals is almost unimportant, because the biggest win for me has come from the turnaround in our relationship, the fact I now look forward to riding her, the fun we are having together and the return of my mojo.
Liz x
