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Managing Anxiety Around Horses with Tanja Mitton

This article is from the December 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

When it comes to managing anxiety around horses, we have to differentiate between two types of anxiety.

The one that exists in our mind and is not reflected in our environment, and the one that exists in our environment and is reflected in our mind.

Let me explain this a little more.

There can be a lot of anxiety in our mind even though there is no reason for it to be there. This verses the anxiety that is there for a reason, often because we are in danger of getting hurt and so the mind, justifiably starts to worry.

I often speak to riders who tell me that they have constant ‘what ifs’ and that they worry about getting hurt even though they know that their horse is totally quiet and reliable. This means that the anxious feelings have nothing to do with the actual riding.

This is so common, and it is important to pull the situation apart to understand what it is that the anxiety has attached itself to.

Often it is a fear. But not a fear of the horse, rather a fear of...

Doing the wrong thing

Being judged

Making a mistake

Not knowing what to do

Being out of control

Anxiety can easily be attached to a memory from the past or the unknown in the future.

If you have been feeling anxious around your horse and you know that it is nothing to do with your horse, but it comes from yourself you need to peel back the layers to find the trigger of the anxiety.

Start by ‘listening’ to the stories you tell yourself before you get on your horse. Is the story true or not? Does it motivate you to ride or does it make housework seem really tempting, just so you have an excuse not to ride?

Again, if your horse is quiet and you know that you can ride him/her without any problems then start to change your story?

If I tell myself every time I get into my car that the brakes might fail and I might end up in a major accident, I am going to become nervous about driving my car.

If the car has a regular service and I know that the brakes are fine, there is no reason for this story. If, however, I know that the brakes are dodgy, and I haven’t serviced the car in ages then my anxiety is valid, and I am better off not getting into the car.

This brings me to my second point. What to do when your anxiety comes from your environment, or better, if there is a reason to feel anxious.

You have to ask yourself, is the horse you are riding or want to ride, suitable and safe for you? This includes the environment you are riding in as well as the regularity of your riding. Sometimes riders end up with a horse that is not the most suitable equine partner. This might be because your horse is too much for you or your horse needs regular work and becomes simply too fresh when he/she is too long in a paddock with lots of feed and not enough interaction. It can be daunting to bring a fresh horse back into work, by yourself in an open area, when you haven’t ridden for a while yourself. If your mind comes up with ‘what if’s’ then quite frankly there is a good reason for the ‘what ifs’.

Rather than telling yourself to put your ‘big girl pants’ on, it would be far wiser to get someone to come and help.

Instead of wishing your anxiety away, make the anxiety your friend. Sit down with it, get to know it, follow the anxiety back to where it first starts and find the trigger. Get to know yourself, instead of running away from yourself or trying to hide parts of yourself.

You might find that you are stronger than you think, braver than you imagined and capable of far more than you ever dreamed off. The first step is not pushing away the fears and running with your head through the wall, the first step is to get to know the fear, then to confront the fear and to deal with whatever keeps the fear alive.

Horses are not only amazing animals that we can learn from, they also make us dig deeper inside ourselves.

Happy riding everyone.



Tanja Mitton - Australia’s No. 1 Equestrian Success and Mindset Coach.
Phone (07) 5446 7339, 0419 891 319, Email: tanja@equestriansuccessmindset.com | www.equestriansuccessmindset.com

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