Written by Val: There is a wonderful article in this month's Eclectic Horseman by Tom Moate on the mind set of Matter-of-Factness v. What-If-ness. A wonderful piece. Gena's alligator-Walmart analogy brought it to mind.
(The Eclectic Horseman magazine is the only 'training' magazine to which I subsribe. It is what it claims to be, eclectic and is filled is amazing useful articles and essays. I highly recommend it and have given subscriptions as gifts to like-minded horsefolks. eclectic- horseman.com) I have a dear friend who plays What-if-ness a lot. And, it's variation of What-Could-Have-Happened-ness. I call it her Mommy-Gene acting up. I really think that this What-if-ness is a key difference between the way men think and the way women think. I would go as far as to say it's probably hardwired with in the genders. Men simply think and do. Women, think, (over)analyze and perhaps do. Same with kids and adults. Kids do - they are masters of Matter-of- Factness. But in the passages of time and life, we loose that skill and lean more toward What-if-ness. As a kid, I read every CW Anderson book I could put my hands on. One took told of the heroine and her pony crossing a railroad trestle bridge with the pony stepping from railroad tie to railroad tie. On a summer ride, I came across a smiliar bridge and Matter-of-Factly knew that my pony and I could cross. (After all, CW Anderson's heroine did it.) My pony never put a foot down wrong and we crossed that 30' span as if we were riding on blacktop. Matter-of-Factness. Matter-of-factness is kin to Being-in-the-moment. Once I leave Being- in-the-moment, I open the door for What-if-ness to start casting seeds of doubt. It was last year, I think, that I was paralyzed by fear to start the spring riding season. I could logically sort through why the fear was a false belief, but I was paralyzied from taking that first ride on G_S. It was so bad I actually thought about selling all the horses. Regrettfully I do not recall all the details about how I worked through the fear. But I did. I know there was a certain stepping out in faith. Focusing on staying in the moment. Acknowledging the fear was real to my pysche and being brave enough to work through and past the fear. This season was totally different. I tacked him up and hopped on. I didn't even do any lateral flexions to see if I had his brain. I knew I did and I knew we were both ready to go - and go we did. What-if-ness can hurt us in many ways. We can telegraph What-if-ness to our horses and cause problems; spooking, trailing loading issues, not walking through puddles, etc. Whereas Matter-of-FActness gives our horses the confidence to trust us and do what we ask. What-if-ness causes me to look at the scary rock the horse just noticed and confirm to him that this is a rock worth spooking at. Where as Matter-of-Factness causes me to stay focused on the point to which I am riding telling my horse, it's just a rock, nothing to worry or fear. What-if-ness and its kin are weeds we need to pull from our lives before it chokes out the tender seeds of Matter-of-Factness. Matter- of-factness and Being-in-the-Moments are horse skills and life skills that I/we need to cultivate, nourish and encourage. Val __________________________ Judy http://iceryder.net http://clickryder.com
