Riding with Fear, Part 2: Psychological Fear

its an impossible one. To illustrate this point I often will ask people in my office to demonstrate what perfection is. I say Lets imagine we are at the world chair sitting championships. Everything hinges on you being able to sit perfectly. How are you going to do that? They inevitably look at me like Ive lost my mind but we always have a good discussion after this. There is no sitting perfect there is sitting well and this can mean many different things.
Because perfection is an impossible construct to define by its nature it creates uncertainty. Your mind does not really know what it is aiming for only that the bar is high and the pressure is on. To reduce this experience of pressure you are going to have to redefine your target. Abandon the word perfection and look for alternatives. How about competence? How about effectiveness? Then get more specific than this. What is a competent body position and what can I do to attain this? As you can see your mind and the rest of you will have a much easier time conceiving of what you want.
As well try to accept that each performance you give will be different just by virtue of the variables involved. You cannot control everything so dont even try. Choose what you can control and allow your focus to be about these elements.
Cultivate Your Rational Mind
Once you have found out what it is you fear go beyond the alarm and look at the situation without all the emotional cloud. This may mean you have to attend to your body a bit first like doing several cycles of deep breaths to calm your system. Another nasty but natural by product of the fight or flight system is what it does to your thought process. Your mind becomes frantic to assess and monitor whatever the risk or danger is. What you experience is many swirling thoughts that further confuse and frighten you. So take a step to calm your body and you will also experience a calming of your mind.
Next name your fear. Say I know what that alarm is that means I am feeling afraid of failing. Calling it what it is helps you organize your thoughts and set up a problem solving approach.
Finally be ready with your replacement thoughts. These are the directions you want your mind to follow instead of the
scary chatter circulating in your head. Jodi came up with these
Focus on the small things focus on my task focus on my horse
Everyone wants me to do well they are behind me
Mistakes are a part of riding even the pros make them
All my training and hard work went into this now I get to enjoy it!
Actually Jodis list was much longer than this and she made a point of adding to it every so often in her riding journal. This helps her begin to create a new language for herself and a new response to her fears. Like Jodi you would do well to remember this dealing with your fears is not a one shot deal. You will have to decide on a plan and repeat and repeat. If you do this youll find that your internal alarmist will get shrunk back down to the size it was meant to be.