We talk about mental, emotional, or physical training, but the reality is that the mind, body, and emotions are one.
When we think about something, it impacts our emotions and our body. When we do something physical, it affects our thoughts and feelings. And no matter what we feel, there is a corresponding response in our body and ideas in our mind.
Just as physical muscles can be built, so can mental and emotional muscles. And the process is the same.
For example, we will hit a plateau if we do the same physical exercise routine every day. There won’t be much change, and we won’t get weaker, but we won’t build muscle either.
To get stronger mentally and emotionally, we must expose ourselves to more challenging mental workouts.
How do we do that?
Here are some scenarios for you.
When we are riding well, and everything’s going great, there might seem to be very few emotional challenges. It feels like we’re cruising along, singing a song, side-by-side with our horse. 😊
But challenges always come up, both big and small. Maybe we don’t care for the judge, the weather is difficult, the ground is terrible, or we get a stomach bug. All kinds of situations always happen.
But when we embrace the idea that just like working out physically to get stronger, we can get mentally and emotionally stronger through adversity, our entire mindset changes. Hardships become opportunities to grow.
We don’t resist challenges. We access what’s in our control and what’s not. We decide what we can do or what we can learn, but through it all, we never turn on our belief in ourselves or our horses.
We take the opportunity to respond calmly with solutions. We keep believing we are enough and we can do it! We welcome those chances to keep learning but never allow them to break our spirit.
When the inevitable challenges come up, how we respond is what makes us mentally and emotionally more vital – or not.
Thank you for this, something to keep working on and re-reading.