Fear of Horses / Confident Horseriding

overcome fear of horses snd horse phobia

Fear of Horses / Confident Horseriding

Overcome your fear of horses, or make yourself a much more confident horserider by using this informative guide "A Mind To Ride"

The Symptoms

Fear – when you have developed unhelpful aspects of the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response.

You may ‘fight’ your horse (and yourself) resulting in a cycle of tension and anxiety. You exert even more willpower and determination but a bit like getting to sleep, the harder you try the harder it is! Both you and your horse get frustrated and annoyed. The horse is resistant, ‘shies’, ‘spooks’ or ‘refuses’. You each lose confidence in the other; you both lose the ability to respond rather than react to challenges.
Parts of your body may ‘freeze’ so that you just can’t ‘give’ the rein or release your back or your shoulders for example; perhaps your mind ‘freezes’ so that you forget to breathe, you forget which jump comes next or what’s supposed to happen after you’ve entered the arena at ‘A’.
‘Flight’ – well you just want to give up and run away! You make excuses to avoid riding (its too windy or wet) and pretend that competitions and fun rides just aren’t your thing anymore. Your rides get slower and shorter and your routes get more and more restricted.

Negative projections – the ‘what ifs’

The subconscious mind has no way of differentiating between what’s real and what’s imagined, so that every time you start thinking about “what if s/he bucks, bolts, runs out” or whatever, your body responds as if your worst fears have just been realised – your stomach churns, your heart pounds, your legs turn to jelly, perhaps your mouth goes dry and it’s hard to swallow, you begin to sweat and feel panicky………..
You lose your ability to ride ‘in the here and now’ because you spend your whole time worrying about what might happen.

Conflicts – part of you wants to do one thing and another part seems to want to do something else entirely! This wastes a lot of energy and results in a loss of focus, motivation and commitment.

You’re not really sure if you want to keep on riding but you can’t quite bring yourself to hang up your hat either.
You think it’s a great idea to enter the 3’ jumping class when its several weeks away, then on the morning of the event you wonder what on earth possessed you….. Even on the approach, part of you wants to jump and part of you wishes you were somewhere (anywhere!) else.
You’d love to be in the ribbons but deep down you’re afraid that it might affect your relationships with your friends or your family (or even with yourself and your riding).

Loss of confidence and self-esteem – never a stable commodity at the best of times, it seems as if they are easy to lose and hard to win.

You value yourself for what you can do, rather than for who you are (so you become a human ‘doing’ rather than a human ‘being’!)
There is a miss-match between what you (or others) think you ought to be able to do and what you find you actually can do.
You get caught up in negative thinking, negative self-talk and anxieties

A Mind to Ride - The Solution

Comprising of the 'Equinimity' audio CD for self-hypnosis, 'A Mind To Ride' is for riders of all standards and disciplines (Hacking, Jumping, Dressage, Eventing, ODE, Endurance, Le Trec etc.). The CD format means you can use it at times to suit you and you can be confident of a full support programme (face-to-face/telephone/email) if you need a little more help.

Sue McIntyre Dip.Adv.Hyp. Dip.Pers.Dev. Cert.Couns

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