Monday, June 29, 2009

Thresholds

Life is funny. I went to a clinic with Kelly Sigler, 3 Star Parelli professional, and learned what I needed to learn, but it wasn't what I was expecting to learn. I took a one hour lesson with Kelly on Sunday after auditing all day Saturday.

I was excited to be trailering Cici to a Parelli clinic. The last couple of years with Jeepers I hadn't wanted to trailer her any longer than 15-20 minutes to an event. Oh we did trailer to local spots for trail rides, but clinics were always beyond our reach. This clinic in Rehoboth was about 50 minutes away.

Cici loaded with no problems, but in the end just didn't settle. When we finally got to Johnson & Wales she was wide eyed and soaking wet. Linda helped me unload her and said, "Oh she'll be fine" as Cici dropped her head to immediately start eating grass. She would walk a bit then eat, walk a bit then eat.

Me? I was an immediate wreck! Talk about emotional fitness. I found I had stepped over a threshold I had not even considered existed. I thought this might be emotional journey about letting go of Jeeps and moving on with Cici. But my anxiety was a total surprise.

Linda was a rock. She told me to breathe. She told me, again, Cici was fine. She told me I was here to have fun. She told me we needed to do more of this trailering LOL.

Once in the indoor and walking Cici around to see all the new things I quickly realized she was fine. I was still the basket case. Kelly suggested taking some deep breathes as I'm sure I had stopped breathing the moment we got Cici off the trailer. I started talking and telling Kelly about Cici and what we had been working on. As time went on I was able to focus more and more on the why I was there, and less on the oh my god what happened.

Kelly was great. She used all the tools I've learned in natural horsemanship, to help me. She took the time to explain things, to make suggestions, to adjust what I was doing, to compliment me, to help me move on. We played with the big green ball! And got it on Cici's back! I can't wait to go to the barn today and grow what was started yesterday.

Emotional fitness. Who knew I was taking a clinic on crossing thresholds and developing my emotional fitness?!?!

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