Wasn't expecting that!

Was booked into a "Calm and Confident" workshop tonight through RC. Hadn't really got a clue what to expect but had a really really good night.

I know I keep saying in my blog that I over analyze stuff but that it's how my brain works well... it really really is! And if you're reading this, you're heading into more analysing... so be warned!

I am turning ever more geek like and am ashamed (?) to admit I took loads of notes. I hope my interpretations are right and that I've not got stuff drastically wrong.

Workshop was with Mary Stitson of http://www.calmandconfident.co.uk/.

First off we looked at what confidence actually is and how it (and fear) are something we learn rather than are born with. Then looked at how we learn and how most of it is sub-conscious which is 90% of our brain function.

Then we had to answer a short questionnaire about our personalities and the results of the questionnaire were assigned a colour. So for example, on my questionnaire, my colour was Blue. Imagine a pie chart split into 4 sections - red, yellow, green and blue. We all scored differently according to how we'd answered the questions. Each colour represents a different personality.

1st quarter - Reds - dominant, competitive, can be insensitive
2nd - Yellows - sociable, demonstrative, persuasive
3rd - Greens - supporters, patient, encouraging
4th - Blues - reserved, cautious, precise

There were also people who scored very similarly for two colours (two colours next to one another so a few people were yellow-green but people could have been red-yellow etc etc). You also have people who are polar opposites so red vs green and blue vs yellow.

Regardless of your personality, you can fear, you can feel unconfident etc. Your personality would just show it in different ways so for example, you'd rarely see a Red personality as nervous.

I was Blue. This is what they say about a Blue person:

• • Precise
  • Cautious
  • Conscientious
  • Likes facts
  • Objective thinker
  • Prepares meticulously
  • Likes peace and quiet
  • Likes time to think things through
  • Reticent about expressing true feelings

  How to relate to me:

  1. Give me time to analyse my thoughts and feelings
  2. Speak in a straightforward way, but don't be gushing
  3. Remember that I may appear aloof and distant because I don't like being
     rushed
  4. If I appear irritated, it is with myself, for not expressing myself
     adequately
  5. Realise that I dislike social gatherings, loud people and having my privacy
     invaded

That is the first time I have EVER done a questionnaire like that and thought "that is EXACTLY me". She said blues are analysts - muchos chuckles amongst me and friends. That's exactly what I am. Literally. Tis my job!!!

90% of our brain function is sub-conscious and when our conscious tries to push the sub-conscious aside, the sub-conscious pushes back more so we need to understand how our sub-sconscious works. It cannot tell fact from fiction so we can change the memories that affect our way of thinking. That's not to say we should ignore our sub-sonscious.

Our sub-conscious gives us an awareness of risk that's invaluable but an awareness of risk does not equate to fear. Fear can be crippling, not useful. This is especially true when we're with horses. Horses are prey animals and as such, they have evolved to tune into fear. re usefulness of fear, from fear we get adrenalin and if we can harness that adrenalin, it can be really useful. We can reposition it within the body:

1) See a "scary" fence
2) Get a rush of adrenalin
3) re-route that adrenalin away from fear, channel it to ie your legs to get them to respond
or
4) Use the adrenalin as an anchor (anchors coming soon.... don't panic lol)

We all have strategies/programmes/methods for everything we do. They are all learnt and we all have our own personal strategy for riding which covers what we do and how we feel. They are usually negative ones ie our sub-conscious saying "don't do that, it could lead to X which could ie hurt".

To overcome "confidence battles" we need to reprogramme our sub-consciousness. Our sub-consciousness can't tell the difference between fact or fiction, it doesn't process negative commands and we can re-programme it quickly.

We went through 4 techniques that could help us reprogramme our sub-consciousness.

Fast Phobia Cure - hypnotherapy

• Think of a situation that scares you
• Focus on it, how you feel, what you see, what you hear, what you smell etc
• Scale it on 1-10 as to how much it scares you
• Focus on the emotion involved - the fear and where it is in the body
• For the "guinea pig" it was in her stomach, a churning. For me it was in my chest, almost choking/suffocating feeling and in my hands, tingly and shakey.
• Move the fear out of your body, visualise it out in front of you. For the guinea pig, the churning/spinning got faster here
• Slow it down and change the colour of it
• Once the emotion's movement is calm, bring it back inside your body
• Scale the scenario again on 1-10, should be lower

For Mary, she visualises the spinning out there in front of her whilst riding in situations that worry her - out in front of the horses ears.

Inner Voice - no hypnotherapy. NLP (neuro-linguistic programming)

• Think of a situation that scares you
• Listen to your inner voice - male/female? where is it? supportive? what's it saying?
• What happens to the voice as you progress through your scary situation?

The guinea pig for this had two voices, on either side saying "you can do it" and "you can't do it" (or saying words to that effect). She had to imagine picking up one voice and pushing/throwing it further away, the voice getting quieter so she could hear the positive voice louder.

I spoke up at this point because my inner voice shuts up. My inner voice is actually my mum in my right ear (why my right?!?! - had never THOUGHT about stuff like this but there you go, tis my mum in my right ear LOL) being rational, calm, encouraging, objective and all the rest of it.

So I'll sit there and look at the jump, weigh it up and all the time this voice is telling me "c'mon look at it .. it's 18", T-Jay's nose is 2'6 in circumference, it's nothing, you've done higher jumps, it's fine, it's a doddle" then I'll decide to do it and the voice shuts up. Then I'll either change my mind or spend the few strides towards the jump thinking "argh".

For those of you who know me or have seen me jump, I'm sure you'll all be thinking that you can actually see me going through this. Shall I? Shan't I? Yes! Hmm.. maybe not.

Mary talked it through with me and asked me what happens immediately before my inner voice switches off. I said that I reply and she pointed out that I actually have two inner voices - mum and ME. Never thought of that before! Mum is there being positive (whooo... I actually have a POSITIVE STRATEGY!) and I'm there replying.

She asked me what would happen if I didn't reply to mum. The thought had never crossed my mind and I have no idea what would happen but I'm going to give it a go. I don't really know though how it'll work in practise because there has to be the point at which I say "I am going to jump this jump" and that's the point at which the inner voices shut up so I need to figure out a way of not committing myself to jumping the jump LOL

• I can also see that this would have a HUGE impact on self esteem and weight loss etc. If you're always hearing yourself say "I'm ugly and fat" is it any wonder you believe it? "Weight loss is too hard" blah blah blah. So I really have no excuse now do I? I need to reprogramme myself and maybe that's where things are different from a couple of years ago when I lost loads of weight? I believed it was easy at the time. Now I don't.
  
  Movie Making - fact vs fiction
  
• Imagine a screen
• Picture the incident/scenario that makes you scared - audio, smells etc included
  How does it make you feel?
• Run the whole "movie"
• Turn it to black and white and turn to mute etc
• Rewind it, watch it, rewind it faster
• Play it again, slow it down, stop
• Rewatch it in full colour, noise etc, keep it running

I don't think my note above are quite right for this bit but the principle is simple enough I guess. Lightbulb moment with that that is how I learn my dressage tests, JUST as Mary said "this is especially useful for dressage tests" LOL

With my eyes shut, I "ride" the test, I imagine being on the right diagonal, imagine the correct canter leads etc. Have to admit, since I've learnt my tests this way, have never got lost again!

Anchoring - achievement. Positive strategy rather than a negative one.

An anchor is a trigger for an emotional response. Smell is often one ie a loved one's aftershave/perfume etc.

To develop an anchor, you need to focus on a really strong emotion, replay that situation and really focus on the emotion involved. Do it several times whilst doing an action that will be your trigger ie press finger and thumb together then in time, when you press your finger and thumb together, you'll get that emotion.

Can be inventive here and for example, use holding double reins as the anchor to trigger the feeling of winning the class etc etc.

Inner Voice was the one that really struck a chord with me and then movie making, although I'm curious about the anchors and I liked the double rein idea. Hadn't ever really thought of translating it into something like that.

Need to remember that our sub-conscious doesn't like being told what to do/what to feel/what to see etc and doesn't recognise negative commands. Instead of seeing a jump and thinking "that scares me" we can train our sub-conscious by thinking "that used to scare me but now it's OK"

We also need to be aware of our affective environment, the people around us. At a show, we will be surrounded by people who are a negative influence ie "I'm really nervous" or "I think fence X is really scary". There's not only our immediate environment but the environment of our family/friends etc "I worry about you when you jump" - it will all impact on our sub-conscious.

It takes 30 days for our sub-conscious to form a new strategy.... one down, 29 to go....!!!

I really do have brain ache tonight. I had no idea what tonight was going to be about nor what I would think of it all. I certainly wasn't expecting to be feeling quite so positive about it all.

Definitely tempted to go one to one next time and with T-Jay too!