I landed with a thud..

I landed with a thud, and it became very clear that wet sand does not make a good pillow. I sat up and watched Spirit, a young pony I had been riding only moments earlier, cantering, and bucking, around me in a circle. Reassuring my mom (who was watching nearby) that I was fine, I picked myself up off the ground and got back in the saddle.

At this point you may be expecting me to share an astute lesson about getting back in the saddle; some type of insightful, real life metaphor. However, as a professional horse woman falling off and getting back on was just par for the course. Understanding the moments leading up to the fall was more interesting to me, because in hindsight I realized a part of me had known this was coming. I had known. And I’d ignored the warning.

Spirit was in training with me, to get started as a riding horse. Up until about thirty seconds before I was ejected from the saddle we had been having a very good ride. She was walking and trotting with me on her back, taking instruction in a relaxed and confident manner. I knew the next step was to ask for a canter, something Spirit had never done with a rider before.

On an intellectual basis it appeared she was ready to give it a try. However, when I considered asking her I felt an internal hesitation. There was a flutter in my belly and something that’s hard to describe in tangible measures didn’t feel right.

I found myself at an impasse, my brain telling me one thing and my body telling me another. Truthfully, it was more than my body. The physical sensations were accompanied by a knowing, a sense that the time was not right. Nonetheless, with a strong argument of “should’s”, “what will people think” and “what, are you scared?” I overrode my intuition and went with my brain.

I decided from the neck up. Then I hit the ground.

There’s nothing like experiential learning to make a lesson stick. Before being bucked off I had prioritized my worries about what others would think over the insights or intuition that I was experiencing. Not only had I failed to trust myself, I had failed to trust the information that Spirit was sharing with me and in the process I had broken her trust in me.

Although Spirit let me get back on her that day, she was resistant to going forward. By asking her to canter before she was ready she had become scared and cautious. She would remain guarded for a number of rides, forcing me to give her the time she needed and then some. Nonetheless, she did regain her confidence and trust and become a solid riding horse.

Over the following days as I nursed my bruised ego and body I reflected on my relationship with myself. It occurred to me that the cautiousness, resistance and fear I often experienced in my own life may be directionally proportional to the trust or lack of trust I had for myself.

Here is why I am telling you a horse story.

You have felt that flutter. Yours arrived before you said yes to the contract that turned into eighteen months of dread. Before you hired the person whose references were glowing and whose energy was off. Before you announced the launch date you already knew was three weeks early.

You felt it. You had the read. And then you built a strong argument out of should, and what will people think, and what, are you scared. And you overrode it.

Nobody watched you land. That is the only real difference. When you go against your own knowing in a business, you don’t get wet sand and a bruised ego. You get a quarter you have to explain, or a relationship you have to repair, or a version of your work you don’t recognize.

And the cost is the same one Spirit paid. Every time you override yourself, you teach yourself a little more not to listen next time. Catching it earlier is a trainable skill, and it is what we will work on in a free live class called Open.

I began to wonder:

What if cultivating trust in myself was as simple as regaining Spirit’s trust?

What if all it took to create confidence was choosing to act on my internal guidance, despite my insecurities and self-doubt?

Since that day I have been consciously choosing to trust my internal guidance. I’ll be the first to admit doing so isn’t always easy but I’m happy to report that yes, it really is that simple.

Not easy. Simple.

You already know. You were taught not to trust it.