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Sometime during the Mark Rashid Aikido and Horsemanship clinic, someone started to tell a long story about how difficult their horse was.  He looked at them and said, “Don’t tell a story.”  From then on, all week I noticed the stories.  They were all tethered to the past, to stuff that was probably going to go wrong because it had gone wrong in the past.

Sometimes it is hard to remember to tell the story of what we want instead of what we don’t want.  Focusing on what we want can feel counter-intuitive and require some heavy habit breaking.  Aren’t our conversations usually grounded in our problems?

Today riding Amadeo, I focused on what I wanted, and on getting quiet and soft enough to let that come through.  Instead of paying attention to all of his clatter (which after all is only mirroring my clatter), I kept coming back to breathing, offering softness, and being consistent about what I was doing.  So every time he grabbed the bit (think every 5 seconds or so), I asked him to be soft.  I took long breaths, and after a short time, so did he.  New story, good ending.