Hello Readers!

First of all, let me apologize (as I so often do) for my lengthy absence. Adjusting from life in the rural Midwest to one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country has not been a gentle or easy transition for me, and it’s unfortunately been reflected in my ability to balance my workload. The good news is I’m slowly creeping back into full operation, so be prepared for several super fun updates throughout the week!

Anyway, enough regrets. My goal is to keep my website and social media presence happy, inspiring, creative-fuelling spaces, and I had a learning experience this past weekend that I’d like to pass along to you.

If you also follow me over on Twitter and Facebook, you may have seen that I’m an equestrian. Horses have been a part of my life since I was a little girl and I currently share my daily life with two of the greatest ones ever born.

This is Star:

He’s a Missouri State Champion mounted shooting horse. He’s trained through 2nd Level dressage via one of the modern greats. He’s an amazing, experienced trail horse. He’s 28 years old and you’d never guess it from his behavior.

You see, no amount of thorough, correct training can change the baseline of a horse’s personality. Sure, you can shape it and they can learn how amazing it is to be able to work in harmony with a rider. But if you’ve got yourself a thinking horse, especially one who is easily bored, they often like to try to make their own fun. This past Saturday was one of those days.

Now, to be fair, at 28 years old and having dealt with a handful of corneal ulcers, Star’s eyesight may not be quite what it was when he was in his youth, and I was riding just before dark, when all the shadows were tall and probably hiding tigers. Due to no fault of his own, he’s been out of consistent work for the past few months and I only just started him back last week. I’ve been bringing him back into work slowly and cautiously, given his age and the fact that I know he has to build up a lot of muscle in his hind end. And I should have decided to saddle him up instead of hopping on him bareback… especially when he spooked on the way to the arena.

Long story short, I misjudged how much energy he had in him. I misjudged how easy the past several rides had been with him. And literally two minutes after I said (out loud to my husband and mare, who were waiting by the arena gate) “I think I’m going to get off now,” yet chose to take “one more lap” around the arena, Star gave me a great, big, dirty spook.

His spooks aren’t the terrifying ones that involve bolting or bucking or rearing. His are more of jarring splats followed by a hasty evasion either by leaping to one side or by spinning and taking up a lovely canter to “run” away. Saturday’s spook was one of the splat-leaps and, as I was bareback and quite unprepared, I very quickly felt myself slipping… and slipping… and then I was mostly parallel to the ground.

I have a healthy fear of falling off horses. Which is weird, considering the fact that I routinely choose to crawl up onto their backs. I had a pretty nasty fall in college that’s aftermath was managed poorly, and it’s something that stuck with me. There’s a certain degree of fear that goes with unscheduled dismounts and striking the ground never feels good. I’ll do everything in my power to stay on top of a spooking horse and if I realize it’s too dangerous to stay up there, I’ll do an emergency dismount and calm everyone down. I didn’t have the time to try that this time around.

But you know what’s weird? Due to the fact that I’m an overly cautious rider, it’s been about 9 years since my last fall. I remember it being terrifying. I remember it hurting. I remember thinking all of the terrible “What if”s that go with emergency type situations. But as I was sliding down Star’s barrel the other night, my brain engaged with only two thoughts; first, how to properly try to align my body to minimize damage and second, an almost humored resignation to the fact that this was happening and there was nothing I could do about it.

I hit the ground as perfectly as I could have asked for, Star hung his head in shame that he’d dropped his rider, and I was up within seconds, unfazed. Yes, I acknowledge it could have ended in a different manner, but since it didn’t, I chose to reflect on the event.

You see, there are a lot of things I don’t do with my horses–and in life–out of fear of getting hurt. In several of these cases, I’m competent enough in the presented question to handle most situations. Yet fear of pain–physical, mental, emotional–often holds me back. My anxiety struggles likely will never let me walk completely away from this fear, but you know what both my anxiety and I learned on Saturday?

Sometimes the things you fear aren’t half as scary or painful as you think they’ll be.

Yet how often do we let those things we’re afraid of hold us back from what we want to achieve? I realized I’ve been going through my life letting that fear of being hurt (which, admittedly, can be a really helpful trait in a whole heap of situations… just not all of them) keep me from doing a lot of things that I love and want to do. From adventures with my horses to adventures with my writing, both aspects of my life I’ve studied since I could still count my age on nothing but my fingers.

So here’s what I learned this weekend, Readers. Fear is okay. Fear often keeps us safe. But some fears have festered in our heads for so long that we let them rob us of the joys in life. Be smart. Be safe. But also remember that sometimes falling doesn’t hurt nearly as much as you’ve convinced yourself it will, and that the joy of the ride will always overshadow it.

If you have a passion or joy in your life that you’ve let fade away due to fear of pain or failure, I’m encouraging you to take a deep breath and hop in that saddle again. Odds are good you’ll stay on. And even if you do fall, it may not hurt as much as you feared.

Take care, Readers!