R+ works for everyone but me

If I weren’t such a fan of a constructive approach, I’d probably want to shake you and shout, “STOP THIS! THIS IS NONSENSE! YOU’RE ALREADY DOING SO MUCH RIGHT! YOU TWO ARE AWESOME TOGETHER! YOUR HORSE LOVES YOU!” Luckily, I’m sensible and came prepared; I wrote this blog as a backup plan.

I can tell you that every single one of my clients has said at least three of these things to me:

• “I’m not making progress!”
• “I don’t practice enough..”
• “I’m letting my horse down.”
• “My horse has bitten me or threatened to kick me.”
• “I’m so jealous of [someone else]!”
• “It looks so easy when you do it!”

In other words: you’re not alone and you’re totally normal. When it comes to this, I mean. For all I know you’re a right weirdo when it comes to everything else.

You’re no longer standing in the hallway every week with a saddled horse, just showing up at the barn, parking your bike, seeing which horse you get to ride, and then happily grooming and tacking up before the instructor commands you around and all the obstacles are set up. Or – lucky you – it’s nice weather and you’re going for a hack! You get to ride along with the group, and all you have to do is not fall off.

No, you had to go and care about horse welfare. You had to have all these annoying principles, and once you saw how things really work, you wanted a better life for the four-legged friends you work with. You took full responsibility for the emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing of a mammal weighing who-knows-how-many hundreds of kilos. And if you want to train with R+, you probably don’t have the easiest horse either, because who in their right mind starts R+ training just for fun?

More and more people, actually! I keep meeting people who genuinely enjoy doing things the hard way, especially for their horse. Not me: ironically, I was forced down this path by my old horse. Without him, maybe I’d still be somewhat ‘normal.’ Hm.

You’ve probably heard many times that we’re so hard on ourselves because we only see the idealized version of others on social media. And that’s totally true… the failed moments are edited out, slowed down, and backed by music from Lord of the Rings or How to Train Your Dragon. Even when those people do share their bloopers, you probably suddenly become very forgiving and can put things into perspective much better than when it’s about you. This is partly because we:

• Compare ourselves out of a need for safety. We want to know where we stand compared to those we want to belong to. If EVERYONE suddenly decides to train only with hay instead of hay cubes, you want to know about it. You’ll check why, and try it yourself. If your results turn out completely different, you have to accept that you’re different, might need help, or even should look for another group that’s not yet tired of hay cubes. None of these three things are easy for us social animals; they can even feel “unsafe.” The worst is when things surprise us. So much for being in control! We want to know how others are doing so when we finally see proof of everyone being better than us, we’ll at have seen it coming.
• And why are we so harsh on ourselves? Wouldn’t it be more helpful to focus on what we have in common instead of the differences? Nah, that would be way too healthy and fun. Negativity always weighs heavier, and this has that same evolutionary function: safety. Our brains want to pay attention to potential danger. For every negative experience, you actually need at least five positive ones to balance it out. And we experience the frustrations of our own training, not those of others’. It’s therefore way easier to view somebody else’s journey in a positive light whereas yours doesn’t look anywhere near as impressive. Even more, when things go well for us, we tend to blame the horse or pure luck. When things go badly, it’s our fault. Lovely.

So, comparing ourselves and being super critical is very human. You don’t need to punish yourself for it, and actually, you don’t even have to stop. Sure, it helps to unfollow people online who seem overly perfect, or to quit social media altogether. But we are R+ trainers! So we also like to focus on what we want more of.

• Write down 3 to 5 positive things about your training with your horse every day.
• Whenever you catch yourself comparing to someone, pause and think about what you have in common or even what you have that they might not. This isn’t mean or arrogant; it’s just a way to train your brain to notice the positive side of things more. Our brains will always have quirks, but we can at least keep them from going overboard.
• Talk about it! I’ll bet there are people jealous of you too. If everyone shared their bloopers more often, it would feel more normal and less strange (and less threatening) to your brain.