THE HORSE RIDING ANALOGY

When things go pair shaped as they have for me lately, it'd be so easy to just stay off blogger and maintain a false sense of everything going great. But I hardly ever do that as I find being honest and open about my difficulties does help me in the long run. It may also help others who experience similar challenges. Who knows??

I'm so lucky to have a  friend who I can talk to about this because its certainly not something that I'd share with Peter or my other circle of friends. So my friend contacted me last night and we had a nice email chat which always prompts me to think about things in more depth or from a different perspective. I believe that the more I understand and become aware of my thoughts and subsequent actions, the better placed I'll be to manage those negative behaviours.

Today I see things a lot differently with less drama and emotion attached. I liken my journey to learning to ride a horse. Pre a year ago I knew very little about horse riding. I'd hop on and without any skills or experience I'd soon be falling off and then repeating the same mistakes over and over again. It was obvious that I need horse riding lessons.

So I found out about the lessons and enrolled myself and got some really good tuition. I started to practice horse riding again and slowly I got better at it. I was developing skills and getting experience under my belt plus my confidence was increasing. This was much better than just winging it without lessons.

But every now and then the horse throws me off and I lie on the ground feeling battered, bruised and deflated. Eventually I pick myself up, dust myself off and give it another go.

My conversation last night brought me to a point where I wondered if deep, deep down I still dont see myself as a horse rider. After 30+ years of not knowing how to ride a horse its hard to change my perception of myself. Maybe it comes down to a lack of belief in myself, in my ability to change???

I guess it comes back to a key message that Matii (my SP) gave me in our last session together: "Whether you believe you can or believe you cant, you're right." Perhaps its time to start believing that I can.

And finally I was at a management training session yesterday and the presenter shared this with the group: Instead of 'thinking' into a new way of 'behaving', try 'behaving' into a new way of 'thinking'.

More on this later. If you're still reading, thanks for listening.

:-) M