02/04/2025
Food for thought ā„ļø
Your horse doesnāt need you to be perfect
In fact, the pursuit of your perfectionism just might be the main thing holding you back from a successful relationship with your horse.
āPerfectionism is often defined as the pursuit of flawless performance or outcomes, accompanied by critical self-evaluation and harsh self-criticism.ā
- Hritz N
You see, perfectionism is rooted in a fear of failure. And when you are working with your horse, fretting about the future (fearing you will fail, and putting extra stress on yourself to be sure you are doing it perfectly), you are not present. What your horse desires the most to feel safe is a present minded, stable individual. One thatās predictable in there energy when with them. Horses donāt have large pre frontal cortexās, which is the part of the brain for humans, used for organizing, planning, perfecting, manipulating, ect. While they do have a small one, it functions differently than ours. So when we get stuck in it, they just donāt really understand it. They rely heavily, however, on memory. Each time your with them their memory of the event before and the āfeelingā they had with you is strong.
There is power in being present, and grounded when working with your horse. More power in that than you being overly focused, stuck in the thinking part of your brain in order to be āperfectā. While a small amount of perfectionism can be good to keep you striving for better, we have to work hard to āget out of that spaceā when you are working with your horse.
While getting better is always the goal, and learning to ask with better technique is great, we canāt get stuck in the loop of perfectionism which leads to the anxiety of failing due to over self evaluation, and fear that we wonāt be able to ever to do it our own standards. Take relief in knowing your horse isnāt asking you to be perfect, you are the only one doing that. Iāve seen some of the most incredible bonds and relationships created with imperfect riders.
