Battling familiar fears

What's your go-to when fear arises? Do you shrink and pray for invisibility or rise up and meet your fears head-on? I'd venture to guess you – like me – exist somewhere in the middle, and you likely pick your battles carefully.

I don't particularly enjoy feeling frightened, so I probably err on the side of avoidance a good portion of the time. That, however, wouldn't help me in a recent scenario in my life. I have ridden and jumped horses for the vast majority of my life. I started riding at the age of seven. One day I was put on a horse much too advanced for me – said horse took off with me. I was on cloud nine; while my mom was terrified, I couldn't have been more thrilled. Yes, I was a little scared, but mostly I had the time of my life.

Fast forward to a career having shown at nearly all the major shows and finals. I turned fifty-one a couple of months ago, and I'm in an entirely different situation – one I am not used to and one I am not happy about in the least, to put it mildly.

I have gone soft. I now fear anything and everything that has to do with riding. There is this split second when I throw my leg over my horse when panic takes hold. In this split second, I contemplate not getting on. Sometimes it seems like it'd be easier just to keep both feet on the floor.

For any riders out there, this is probably going to sound especially crazy, but do you know when I am most anxious? It's getting off. For whatever reason, I have fixated on the act of getting off at the end of a lesson or ride, scared to death that the worst is about to happen. I have been trying my own version of exposure therapy, forcing myself to walk longer and longer after I've finished "working" before I let myself dismount.

So, you say, "That sounds reasonable – not that bad." Well, this is when I say, nope, nada, no. I have become so anxious and fearful that my rides aren't a lot of fun. I am lucky to have two wonderful trainers. They gently push and let me take the lead on what I feel comfortable doing. One day on my last horse, I was so petrified that my trainer said, "Why don't we just have a lesson at the walk?" I will say that when it comes to trying to overcome fear, that feeling that your riding trainer or your therapist "gets" where you are coming from makes a world of difference. If my trainer had pushed that day, I can guarantee that the ride would have resulted in a drastically different outcome, one that just fueled my fear.

I fear falling off constantly. It doesn't help that a teenage rider just died of a major head trauma at a horse show after her horse tripped and fell on her. She was an accomplished rider and was well thought of – she had the rest of her life in front of her. I have been out of the horse show world for quite a few years. These days my goals are pretty truncated: showing over poles on the ground or really tiny jumps. I see myself as more at risk than she was (since I have about zero confidence in myself) vs. a young rider who was going places. I was her once upon a time – now, not so much. Hearing news such as this really messes with my decidedly lackluster confidence.

So, other than forcing myself to walk around longer than I'd like at the end of my ride, I have enlisted a riding psychologist's help to help me plot my comeback from the edge where I have been existing. She taught me a new breathing exercise – I inhale to the count of six, hold for a count of three, and then exhale to the count of six. I'd been taught to do it to a count of four, but the 6-3-6 works better than 4-4-4, at least for me. She has encouraged me to watch videos of myself in which I am riding well. She has a positive style and encourages me to see myself in a positive light. She recommends creating pre-ride rituals I can sort of mindlessly lose myself while preparing to get on. These are all helpful; I hope that I can someday not have a pre-ride ritual, that I could just get on, but my 51-year-old self realizes that I'm not an invincible kid anymore. So, I'll take the pre-ride ritual over not getting on any day and hope I can keep building on the progress I've made at tackling what is my greatest fear.

Fast forward to today: I have a new horse, Queenie. She is delightful, and so far, she is everything I could hope her to be. She nickers to me when I get to the barn, is affectionate, and puts up with the ball of fear that is me these days without getting anxious herself. Every time I ride her, I realize how lucky I am to have her; even the person she came from told me to just take a deep breath and trust that Queenie has my back. Because riding is so important to me (the horses make my soul happy), I am willing to deal with a bit (OK, a lot) of discomfort that my fears are causing me.

So, what is your deepest, darkest fear(s)? Are you willing to look at it head-on? Are you willing to put up with the discomfort that comes with facing your fears? I hope that, as I get back to riding, you can get back to what it is that you love to do, too. We've got this!

PS Remember, the Beast that is suicidality thrives when we give up on ourselves. Addressing our fears means we're effectively kicking the Beast to the curb. This is a situation where we can beat back the Beast – this scenario is one where we can come out ahead. And who doesn't want to kick that a**hole from here to Nova Scotia?