Happy New Year!
I hope you had a good holiday season.
Mine was, shall we say, a little different than normal and not quite what I had been expecting.
However, I won’t go into the gruesome details but suffice it to say there were times when I wished it wasn’t just the turkey being stuffed.
I should have remembered the words of my dear Uncle David.
I’ll pass on his advice to you in a moment but first I’d like to tell you why I am so excited about 2019.
I believe that it is my mission to help both horses and humans to bring about an amazing companionship together.
I’m so happy to share my knowledge and experiences and I love seeing horses and their owners happily working together as partners and friends, it makes my heart sing.
But I think this mission became really clear to me about two years ago when so many friends and students started telling me their beautiful stories about the transformations in their relationships with their horse after we had worked together. 
So since then, I have been trying to figure out how I can best help more horses and more people to bring about these transformations too.
And what I’ve come to realize is that women need to really OWN who they are in order to become the best human possible partner they can for their horse.
To do this requires a shift in your understanding, in your thinking, in your focus, and in the approach you use.
This in turn transforms your confidence and self-belief to the point where you are free to be yourself and still enjoy a wonderful relationship with your horse.
I’m looking forward to explaining how you can do this in the weeks and months ahead but for now, let’s get back to the wisdom of Uncle David.
He wasn’t actually a real Uncle of mine but I called him Uncle David anyway.
He was from Hawaii and consequently never seemed to get flustered or stressed about anything. He used to just wave his hand and say, “forget about it” in his beautiful Hawaiian accent.
I used to think that he was just ignoring the situation and running away from his problems.
But somehow he always got things done without conflict and when he said this, it really did seem to make everything better. Kind of like a kiss from your mother when you had a “booboo”.
But it dawned on me after a while what he was really doing…
Buddhist philosophy teaches non-attachment and that clinging tightly to a situation, possession, or outcome is to be avoided.
Well, Uncle David’s modern-day saying was equivalent to the old school Buddhist philosophy of meditating with mantras.
Buddhist monks would sit in meditation saying certain things over and over in order to keep them calm and stress-free. These sayings were called ‘mantras’.
Uncle David had found his own magic button to happiness by using his own mantra…
That is, simply saying… “Forget about it”.
Okay, so maybe it sounds whimsical and a little silly but think about it for a second… 
By saying “Forget about it” to problems, to stresses, to people’s bad choices, to whatever is making your life feel heavy, you are allowing yourself the gift of release.
Now, saying “Forget about it” doesn’t mean you give up. It doesn’t mean you lose all responsibility. It doesn’t mean that you are walking away from anything.
Rather, it helps you let go of the emotional attachment you have to the issue – which means you’re able to make better decisions and take clearer action and even then, only if you want to.
We all enter the New Year bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the year ahead but then life happens and before long we are back in the grind and letting ourselves get stressed out.
Start saying “Forget about it!” to anything that stresses you and see how you feel.
I guess it’s the Hawaiian version of ’turn the other cheek’ or ‘don’t worry, be happy’.
I’m willing to bet you’ll feel lighter, happier, less stressed, and you’ll probably live a few minutes longer as a result as long-term stress can have very damaging effects on your body and your mind.
Of course, the same thing applies when you are out with your horse and training isn’t quite going the way you want and you’re starting to get frustrated with one thing or another…
Just say… Forget about it.
Despite what you may have been told, you don’t have to keep upping the pressure till you get what you want.
Just say… Forget about it.
Take a step back, breathe deeply, hit the reset button, and maybe try something else.
Isn’t that what you feel like doing anyway?
This is part of allowing yourself to be who you are and allowing your horse to be who he or she is.
Follow your heart, look for the good in the situation, and seek to work together instead of fighting.
Isn’t that what partners are supposed to do anyway?
Try it and let me know how it goes.
Until next week, happy horses!