confidence problems </3

missponymad

missponymad

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I have an 16.3hh, 12 year old appaloosa who is an eventer and its not him that has the problems, its me...my friend brought her new horse to my house to use the jumps and she jumped the skinny and her knee got caught on the wing and knocked it into her horses side and he went crazy, bucking across the school and she came off, and knocked herself out by hitting her head very hard on the fence. It was really scary to see her get thrown around like that and I haven't jumped since, I keep having these "visions" in my head where I'm about to jump the tiniest jump (about half a foot :/) and I'm the instructor but I'm watching myself ride at the same time (its really weird) then my horse refuses and a cloud of dust from the sand and rubber completely blocks my sight so I can't see anything then when all the dust settles again me as the instructor is not there any more and its just me on my own and I'm laying in the jump with broken bones and scars and bruises! It sounds like the silliest thing ever and it feels so stupid because before I watched her come off I was jumping 4 foot 9 spreads and not thinking twice about it, I can't even imagine jumping a 2 foot upright at the moment :'( please help and I will love you forever <3
 
Confidence problems are really difficult, I think you have to know yourself, and sometimes it is necessary to go back a few stages. If you can't face jumping at present, don't - do something different to renew your enjoyment, and do get a good instructor who you have confidence in to help you.

One thing I have learnt is that if you are frightened around horses, they will know so do not put yourself in a postion where your worry/fright matters, or they can take advantage of you.
 
I have dreams like that, used to have them about motorbiking when I'd ridden too quickly and recently due to loss of confidence with my rather unpredictable lad. Have also been guilty of 'what if x happens, then y will, then z, then he will die and I will die'. What's worked for me was 1) thinking about what happened to trigger the worry, why it happened, and what I would do about it next time. Then run that successful scenario in my head a few times. 2) refuse to allow myself to think of it again by diverting to something else each time. 3) resolve to deal with one small step at first. No what ifs, just focus and do that one thing even if it's tiny. Maybe for you it would be a cavaletti. Then work from there, reflecting on the good results each time you get concerned. The voice of reason that tells me my fears are groundless sounds like my mum! Good luck.
 
missponymad said:
What is NLP?? And thanks to you both!!
Click to expand...

NLP is neuro linguistic programming, im not sure of the correct terminology, but its a technique that takes an old memory thats stopping you from functioning to the best of your ability, and retrains your brain to process it in a different way to help you overcome its debilitating effect.
Its used in sports coaching along with visualisation to help peoples performance, but can be used in most situations like yours.
 
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