Looking for evidence:
Our brains love direction. Tell it what to look for and it will find it.
I had an instructor once who asked me to test it. I was told to notice everything yellow for a week. It was amazing how many things would jump out at me that I had driven by a million times and never noticed. There was yellow everywhere!
This is such great news! If we ask our brains to find beauty, it will. If we ask it to find kindness, it will. Tell it to find how you are doing well and how you are a great rider, it will. The problem is as a species from way back in the cave man days our brains have evolved to find danger and things that are “wrong”. Our brains are programmed for negative. It is its job is to keep us safe. It lets us know when someone or something is “bad.” It is so much easier to notice all the things that our horses are doing wrong, versus when they are behaving well or how we are wrong and what we did badly.
Our brains also love to be right. If we tell ourselves something our brains will show us all the evidence on how we are right. We may even subconsciously create evidence to prove we are right. If we tell ourselves we are a bad rider, our brains will show us how that is true and pointing out every little thing we do wrong. This can cause us negative feelings that may make us tense up and make things worse, creating more evidence that we are a bad rider. This is true whether we are talking about our horsemanship, our parenting skills, our body image, how smart or capable we are, anything! We will find or create evidence to prove our thoughts true.
We need to tell our brain to look for the good. Find all the things you are doing well. Our brains will start creating more evidence to prove us right. Test it. Go for a ride and look for what is going right and notice that yellow shed down the road
Have a great ride!