The power of letting go
‘I’ve got a quiet confidence and a lack of expectation that feels so light,’ I told J and then my mum the following morning while we were chugging down the M1 in the horsebox.
The past week had been a real struggle. A crisis of confidence after Aintree.
It all started out so well
If you read my previous post about my struggle to uncover what brings me joy, you’ll know the agony I went through when it came to taking my horse riding hobby back into competition. Adopting a minimalistic approach to life has freed up more time, space and money than I could’ve imagined but what to do with all that can feel daunting.
I knew all too well how competing had gone before, how it had affected my mental health, my relationship with my mum and how I struggled to separate my self-worth from my results. A red rosette equalled a good person and no rosette equalled a bad person. Typing that out makes me realise how ridiculous that sounds but I know I’m not alone. We all fall foul of tying up our self-worth in the extrinsic, it might be follower count, blog views, salary or our children’s success. We all have a slippery slope when it comes to self-worth and mine strangely is competing horses. A bizarre hobby I’ve enjoyed with my mum since I was a child.
I’m guessing it’s my slippery slope because it is deeply rooted in my childhood. Every Sunday I would ride for dear life at our local show and then we’d all troop back to my grandparent’s house to watch my performance back on the video camera and critique it. My mum and I laugh about how this perhaps wasn’t the healthiest approach, but people weren’t as woke back then.
I had a strong word with myself at the start of the season and was very clear that I would only compete if I found joy in it. Be more Roger Federer I thought to myself. As in, compete for the love of the sport instead of the win. Easier said than done, especially for those of us who thrive on validation. I’m not afraid to admit that, even though I’m trying to distance myself from it, I still love validation.
This start of the season felt so exciting at first glance, like a fresh page waiting to be written on but if I look closer I can see there were cracks. Oscar (alter ego Supernova when he’s competing) had already proven his capabilities having made it to Horse of the Year show in 2017 and 2018. Me on the other hand? On reflection, I felt like a hasbeen with something to prove. I’d made it to HOYS once when I was 14 and again with Teddy in 2015 when we were second, but this felt like an age ago. I had professional help to get me there both times but this time it was just me, my weekly riding lessons – and my mum.
In day to day life I try to steer clear of goals but I couldn’t help myself in this arena – I wanted to qualify for Horse of the Year show again. Qualifying for Horse of the Year show is the equivalent to being nominated for an Oscar in the world of showing horses – nothing like aiming high after a two year break! There is no higher honour than HOYS and only so many can make it.
Twenty chances (though we couldn’t compete at all of them) over six months lay ahead and we got off to a flying start. A sixth, an eighth and then a third. We’re judged on performance, way of going, type and confirmation and only the highest placed who hasn’t already qualified can qualify. These classes are big (it’s the oscars remember), some with over 30 ponies forward, so to come home with a rosette is a real achievement. More importantly I was enjoying every tiny moment of not just competing, but the prep, the travel, even the sleeping over night in the horsebox with my ever snoring mum. This was what I intended to hold close, this is what mattered.
Halfway mark and I struggled
As the qualifying shows passed, even though we kept getting great results I found myself increasing the pressure and I began to panic. What if it doesn’t happen? What if I’m not good enough? What if HOYS 2015 was me at my best and I’m done? These thoughts had been silent up until now but they began to amplify and my naive response was to increase the pressure. I need to work harder I thought, I need to want it more, I need to visualise it clearly and then it will happen. Work hard and visualise I did. I made lists of everything I could improve and worked tirelessly on each one. I pushed myself past every limit I thought I had in my lessons and my own practice time. I did my favourite yoga for equestrians Youtube video regularly and meditated my way through the competition series of Headspace three times. I took comfort in the fact I felt I was doing everything right and hard work would be rewarded. In the space of a few weeks I’d gotten so lost in the idea of winning and wanted it so badly I was prepared sever a limb for it. Any limb – you choose!
Mum had been telling me she thought Aintree would be the one all season. This is where she was convinced we’d qualify. Why? I still have no idea. I think it was more that she wanted it to happen here because unlike me she loves horse racing and it would’ve felt idyllic to bring home the golden ticket at such a prestigious venue. Aintree came around and in terms of enjoying ourselves (and qualifying), it was a disaster. We barely spoke after arriving, tensions ran high, Oscar internalised my anxiety which meant he felt on edge and I dropped my rein in my show! We came home with a third but I was so disappointed with my performance I felt as though I’d not even started, let alone finished the class.
I’d gone to pieces in a way I hadn’t experienced all season. This wouldn’t do. I look back now and think what a waste of a joyful opportunity, how could I deprive myself like that and be so ungrateful – but at the time I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. All I saw was not good enough in ten foot neon letters.
When I got back to horsebox I felt so disappointed with myself I cried. When I got home I slumped into a not good enough coma for a day or so before I decided to claw my way out of it.
I decided to re-center myself by reading back over my journal and instantly realised how far I’d veered off course. The pages from just a few weeks earlier were as if a different person had written them. There was talk of what a win looks like for me (thanks Brene Brown!), what I feel proud of, how much I’m enjoying the tiny moments of competing again and making new memories to treasure with my mum. Where had that person gone? Had she been swallowed up by increasing pressure and a fixation of achieving the goal she wanted so badly? I think she had but in reading the old journal entries it was as if I could feel how much happier and lighter she felt and I was determined to come home to her.
Then, I let go
I realised being fixated with the idea that this goal would happen if I wanted it badly enough and me visualising it and being grateful for it before it had even happened only increased the pressure. Instantly I could see how unfair this amount of pressure was not only on me, but on Oscar too. I also realised I had once again fallen down that slippery slope and married self-worth to my results. This realisation felt like an out of body experience – I’ve found awareness can get you like that – it was as if I was seeing myself through different eyes and it was this awareness that gave me the power to make a change.
I got back in touch with why I’d set out on this quest in the first place and that allowed me to let go of the idea that HOYS was going to happen. I truly made my peace with it potentially not happening and returned to leaning into the joy of the experience approach. I let go of wanting to fit in with the crowd I felt I’d be a part of if I made it too. I reassured myself I would be no more worthy whether I qualified or not. I left the past in the past, the future in the future and I shifted my focus to the here and now. Turns out that’s all there really is.
Within a week we went off to our next show. Now we’re back to where we started, trucking down the M1 with a quiet confidence and a lack of expectation. Something shifted dramatically at that show. It was as if the world had slowed down in comparison to Aintree. I noticed everything that was going on around me. The feel of the sun on my back on the hottest day of the year and the sound of the birds flying around the arena still echo in my memory. I didn’t feel intimated by fellow competitors like I had been and I kept my expectations at zero. Then we went in the ring and again I felt heightened levels awareness as well as a delicious dose of self-belief, as if it was some sort of side-effect of letting go. I focused on the riding and not on the result. I felt every stride, every breath and it all just…happened.
We won.
We qualified for Horse of the Year Show. We were handed our golden ticket the chocolate factory and we’d officially be competing at the final at the N.E.C in October. Everything I had wanted, dreamed of and visualised had unfolded.
Tears streamed down my face when they called our number (859) forward as the winner I’d forgive anyone for thinking those tears were because my dream came true, I had achieved my goal. That’s partially true of course, but the real story is those tears were ones of pride for myself and gratitude for Oscar sticking with me. Pride that I had found the courage not only to validate myself but also show self-compassion when the going got tough.
I owed that glorious result to the inner courage I’d found to carry on pursuing my dream without beating myself up, listening to those critical voices in my head and getting in my own way. Letting those your not good enoughstories and that unbearable pressure to prove myself delivered everything I had been aching for, and I had enjoyed every minute of the journey. If that didn’t make me weep I don’t know what would.
Naturally my critical voice piped up a treat following the win and I’m blaming my lack of writing for the last two weeks on that fact. It’s a funny thing to want something so badly but then to be terrified of success when it arrives. Everyone talks about their fear of failure but I expect it you see, because it feeds that core belief I harbour that I’m simply not good enough. I know this isn’t true but try telling my mind that when I’m struggling. Changing that belief is becoming my life’s work and I’m making excellent progress. Like with all progress there is backwards as well as forwards, there is sideways, upwards, down and everything in between.
External measures of self-worth are like an alluring apple that turns out to be poisonous. They trick us into thinking we’re either better or worse than other people and it simply isn’t true. Not qualifying for HOYS wouldn’t have made me any less of a person in the same way as winning the final in October wouldn’t make me any more of a person.
Surely we are all equal, validations aside, and that often feels lost in our society which makes me feel sad. I think this is what my Grandad meant when back in those local show and video camera critique days he used to tell me ‘success and failure are imposters and I should treat them both in the same way’. It’s not easy to do but I think any other approach leaves us subject to fragile external validation in a way that we’ll never find the courage to find the most important validation of all – that which comes from within whether we win or lose.
My hope is this story might help anyone struggling with goals. Perhaps it might sew the idea that maybe letting go of all the internal chatter might make it happen for you as a byproduct of enjoying the journey and even if it doesn’t that’s ok too – you’re still just as worthy.
