Q: A year ago I had a very nasty fall from a new horse onto some pretty hard ground. I broke a few things but I mostly broke my confidence.
How can you deal with fear after a bad experience? I’ve been around horses for about 10 years, I do have general anxiety in my life and that has always leached into my riding somewhat. Before my fall I was the most confident I’d ever been, but afterwards I realised my confidence was not built on the right foundations. I was confident because even though I’d fallen off plenty of times, I’d never been seriously hurt before. So I could push the fear away with that reasoning without dealing with it. I’ve only just started to ride again, I have a fantastic horse I’ve owned for six years who looks after me brilliantly but I’m still struggling with the memory of falling and the fear of being hurt again.
This involves flashbacks of hitting the ground and constant ‘what if’ thoughts while riding. I made the decision a long time ago I want to conquer this and I think its something a lot of people struggle with after being hurt. It’s such a dangerous sport, but how do you accept that?
I look forward to your suggestions and hope it might help someone else to.
Kate, via email
Mind coach Jane Pike replies:
Hi Kate,
I’m very sorry to hear about your accident; I think that you have expressed what many riders go through in the aftermath of injury. Your question is quite multi-faceted- there is so much I could elaborate on in this area, so for the purposes of this column, I am going to primarily focus on some practical steps that you can take to create progression, and that begins with creating an effective strategy to move you forward. It’s a matter of being intelligent, not fearless, so let’s look at how we can make that happen.
From this moment forward, I would like you to reframe your relationship with fear and view it simply as an emotional messenger. It is there to serve a purpose, and in this instance, that purpose is to tell you to get prepared. This preparation will involve two things; your processes and your procedures.
Your processes are fundamentally intrinsic; what do you need to do on a mental level to cope with the situation at hand?
Your procedures are the strategies that you need to put in place, or the actions that you need to take in order to maximise your chances of obtaining a positive outcome.
In order to be able to effectively do this, you need to clearly identify what it is that you are afraid of, which will leave you with two choices. You can either do something to change the situation, or get prepared to cope with it.
Identifying your fear as a fear of getting hurt, you then need to assess whether you have the necessary degree of competency as a rider and trainer to effectively manage your horse. If you feel your skills in this area are lacking, then you need to put a plan in place to bridge the gap. If you feel this is not the primary issue, then we look at the mental skills required in order for you to effectively manage any anxiety that you are feeling in the saddle as a result of your accident.
As a consequence of your experience, you have a mental movie that is stored in your subconscious mind of this particular event. The stimulus, or trigger for this movie to be replayed is riding- it might be a specific part of your riding (say when you jump for instance) but there will be an obvious trigger that causes this mental movie to be on repeat play in your mind. When we experience an event with a high emotional charge, be that positive or negative, the movie becomes a bit of an attention-seeker. It is there, ultimately, to protect you, as a shortcut reminder for you memory to prevent you repeating a bad experience over and over again. In this case, you are consciously aware that its presence limits you; however, the unconscious imprint is so strong that it can be hard to override.
At this point, I recommend two things; firstly, dealing with how you are “storing” the event at an unconscious level by updating your mental software, which is where techniques such as NLP and visualisation really come into their own, and secondly, designing an effective strategy that moves you from the point that you are now incrementally forwards in a manageable and achievable fashion.
Managing your focus is paramount. Anxiety and fear are future-based emotions, and as a consequence, your primary point of power is always in the present moment. When you feel your attention shoot forwards, bring it back to the present moment and focus on one thing. Ask yourself, what one thing do I need to do right now to move myself forward? And then do that one thing.
How do we accept that this is a dangerous sport? By weighing it up. Reconnect with the reasons that you ride. Why do you do what you do? What does it give you? Get in touch with the driving force that compels you to ride in the first place.
With that in mind, make reasonable risk assessments. What is the likelihood of your deepest fears coming to life? Is this a higher probability of occurring in this instance than in any other area of your life? And then most importantly, weigh that up against not having it in your life. What would it cost you not to ride? What would you be missing out on?
Our efforts to avoid risk can lead to stuck-ness and immobility. Look at the facts and then regardless of your decision, make it a practice to move forward joyfully. At some point, it comes down to making a decision about what you want for yourself and then forging ahead with a full embrace of everything.
