My Lesson in Relaxing

Success! I started the New Year off with something that was going to be very challenging for me- a vacation.  No work, no plans, and not a thing in the world to do.  I had to work very hard to let go of worry, anxiety, guilt of not working, and the need to be moving, working, and planning.  At the beginning of last summer I made it a point to give myself one day a week off from teaching and riding and now I’ve successfully completed a five day vacation!

Believe it or not I actually learned a lot from the people who live and work on the island of St. Lucia, rather than other vacationers, about relaxing.  The beautiful people of St. Lucia live on “island time.”  Island time means you have all the time in the world to get done whatever it is that needs to be done and you therefore never have to worry or fret because things will be done when they get done.  No worries.  I don?t mean to imply that they don?t work hard or
efficiently- they most certainly do!  Perhaps they are so efficient because they are not burdened with the worry or fear of not accomplishing their tasks.  When their work is completed they know how to truly soak up and enjoy their down time. Read more

Happiness- Do you want fries with that?

In today’s modern society we can get most everything in an instant. Fast food.  Fast cars.  Instant messages.  Emails.  Text messages.  Online ordering.  Instant gratification.  One would think that with everything being right at our finger tips that we would be happy with all of this instant gratification.  Why then are so many people unhappy?

While many of our needs, wants, and desires can be taken care of instantly many more cannot and this is where many people become restless and unhappy.  Success in any aspect of life does not happen instantly.  No body, no matter what the tabloids say, literally becomes successful or famous or rich over night.  Successful people work hard, are determined, and often, according to Malcolm Gladwell, put in over 10,000 hours of practice before making it big.  If Jack Canfield had wanted instant success he never would have gotten the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books published. He would have given up because over 100 publishers turned him down before any one told him yes.  Read more

Choice

Life itself is not a choice. We didn’t choose to be born and we don’t get to choose when we die. What we can do, is choose everything else in between. We can choose our job. We can choose where we live. We can choose our friends and lovers.  We can choose to smile and not frown. We can choose to laugh and not cry.  We can choose to be grateful and not complain.  We can choose to see the bright side instead of the dark side.  We can choose to be helpful and to be friendly.  We can choose to follow our dreams and make them come true.  We can choose to be confident and inspired and happy and joyful and kind and enthusiastic and to believe.  We can choose to sing and dance and to smile.  We can choose forgiveness and love. Read more

Questions on a Cold Winter Night

Bitter wind races across the frozen ground
Like the thoughts speeding through my mind
Twisting, turning, tossing
We live inside our own heads
Wish I could open mine up to see
Yearning to figure it all out!
And then
The sun on the horizon delivers
Illumination and warmth to chase the cold uncertainty away
No mystery, no questions, nothing left to figure out
No cause for worry
It’s already here
The answer is in your smile, a kind word, a child’s laughter, a bird’s song, a dance, a hug, LOVE.

~~~
Claire Affleck
Claire Affleck Training website
Email me

Next On My List

This year I’ve been focusing on some personal goals.  The first goal I committed myself to over the summer was taking a day to not work, relax and rejuvenate.  I had to really work on letting go of feeling guilty for taking time to myself.  I have to admit that with practice this has gotten much easier! I really look forward to my days off now.  And what’s really great is by the end of my day off I am excited and looking forward to my work the next day.  I think I’ve found a nice balance between appreciating a day of rest and loving my work.

This fall I decided to focus on abundance.  Often my business slows down in the winter time but this year I’ve been focusing on maintaining my lessons throughout the fall and winter, on keeping a barn full of great horses in training, and keeping my fall/winter income up to par with what it is in the summer time.  In order to help myself in this department I’ve really tried to keep a positive and grateful mindset. I focus on being grateful for what I already do have, therefore attracting more like things to myself.  I have to admit, this fall I’ve had more new lesson students sign up than any other previous year.  I also have a full barn of horses in training and a barn full of above and beyond helpful and supportive friends.  Read more

Riding Lessons For Life #18

Balancing Energy:
I’ve observed something interesting in the relationship between horses and riders.  Horses and riders create harmonious partnerships; they tend to balance one another out.  Riders that have very active, energized personalities do very well on calm, relaxed horses.  The relaxed horse needs an energized rider to get them motivated!  Riders that are very calm and relaxed themselves do well on highly energetic horses because the calm rider tends to relax the energized horse.

Balance.  The different personality types balance one another so that horse and rider are in harmony. I’ve also observed this same balance in humans.  When you’re feeling down or unmotivated, you seek out those people in your life that will energize and lift your spirits up.  When you have a hundred things happening at once in your life, you seek those that will help calm and relax you.  We all balance each other in life.  Read more

Acknowledging All Feelings

Our emotions can often be overwhelming.  Although we may try to maintain positive thoughts all the time, we are human and are therefore prone to a wide range of emotions and feelings.  When we feel positive emotions like love, happiness, and gratitude the world seems at peace.  What do we do when we feel more negative emotions like anger, frustration and sadness?  Suppressing or ignoring those negative emotions is not going to make them go away.  Although it may be more difficult than acknowledging a positive feeling, acknowledging ALL of our emotions is exactly what we should do.

The first step of this process is to identify your feeling or emotion.  Being present in the moment and being aware of what your mind and body are telling you is key here.  Sometimes identifying an emotion can be tricky.  For example, your initial reaction to a situation may have been anger but you are really feeling more hurt than angry.  Taking a quiet moment to reflect on exactly what you are feeling and to identify it is the first step. Read more

My status update

Awhile back I wrote on vowing to value my time off, vowing to take one day a week to rest (Monday), vowing to relax and be rejuvenated for the upcoming week.  I’m going to be honest here. Within 48 hours of writing that article, I broke my vow.  But, I didn’t let myself feel bad about it.  Since then, I have been better about truly taking a day to rest.  The most challenging part is letting go of the guilt that I feel for NOT working, however I consciously make an effort to let that go and I am proud of the progress I’ve made in that department.

Now I am working on focusing on ABUNDANCE in life.  Although my business is equipped to continue through the winter, things often slow down a bit when the weather gets cold and the snow begins to fly.  It becomes harder for people to travel in winter conditions, money becomes tight with the upcoming holidays, kids are busy with school and school related activities, and not to mention that it is pretty darn cold in the barn!  So the trick is for me to think of abundance of business throughout the winter and the entire year.  Each time I start to get that negative or nervous feeling in my gut about it I take a deep breath and tell myself, “Don’t think that I am “lacking” think  that I have an “abundance” and the Universe will deliver that to me.” Read more

Riding Lessons for Life #17

Do Nothing:
In a recent discussion about riding and training horses, a fellow professional rider said, “The hardest thing to do on a horse is NOTHING.” I couldn’t agree more!  Riders often feel the need to dictate each step the horse takes by using their legs, hands, and seat to communicate with the horse during the entire ride.  In other words, riders like to feel a sense of control over the horse.  However, a true partnership between horse and rider requires trust.  A rider trains the horse to respond to signals and then the rider must give the horse a chance to respond appropriately to the command.  When riders don’t allow the horse to respond on their own, you get a horse that requires you to dictate everything.  When the rider allows the horse to respond correctly and allows the horse to go along without interference, you get a happy partnership.  The horse knows his job and the rider can enjoy the ride!   The difficulty for the rider is  doing nothing and allowing the horse to be, trusting that the horse will carry on without constant instruction. Read more

Riding lessons for life #15

Positive Competition Attitude:
Maintaining a positive mental attitude is important in all aspects of life, but as a competitor as well as a coach I am constantly aware of how important a positive mental attitude is in a competition setting. Horse show riders need to keep a positive attitude in the show ring.

I find it’s important to visualize jumping your course of fences perfectly with your horse.  You have to keep those positive images and those positive thoughts in your head as you enter the ring.  Any negativity or worry will transpire to the horse and he’ll also begin to worry!  Thinking positively during your whole course is imperative.  Even if you have a mishap at one jump, keep going as if nothing happened and try to do the next one better.  It’s essential that one mistake doesn’t snowball into everything getting worse and worse.  The same is true in life; we don’t let one bump in the road throw us totally off course!  Instead we take a deep breath, learn from our mistake, gather ourselves up and get back on track. Read more