Sport psychology

CAPO vs FOPO

By |2024-07-26T15:50:41-04:00July 26, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

We just had our first Reading Far book discussion. The book we read and discussed was Michael Gervais’ “First Rule of Mastery: Stop worrying about what other people think.” First, let me say how much I enjoyed the lively discussion and how appreciative I am that people on the call made the choice to share their thoughts and experience. It made the experience personal and meaningful. Second, my mind is still buzzing with all the great questions that were raised.
One particularly meaningful distinction that was raised was the difference between caring about what others think ( let’s call that Caring About People’s Opinions – CAPO) and worrying about what people think (Fear of People’s Opinions – FOPO). Caring is born in social fabric of our being. We are inherently social creatures and, as Michael rightly points out in the book, the connection and caring for our community and something larger than ourselves is one of the pathways to living an authentic and purpose driven life. One of the pathways to living to our potential. Fear is born in an overemphasis on performance and separateness which leads to insecurity. Fear squashes the expression of our authentic selves and limits our potential.
It is ok to care, But, let us be thoughtful about whose opinions matter most. Let us surround ourselves with others who care about us and the greater community as much as we care about them. And, let us choose people with courage who are willing to share their truth with those they care deeply about. Let CAPO be a source of inspiration and connection and a guard against fear. ~ Paul

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Father’s Day

By |2024-06-24T13:15:57-04:00June 24, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

I used to think of Father’s Day as celebrating me as a father; the day I got to be king for a day and choose what I want to eat and how I spent my time, usually riding. The day I got treated to an uninterrupted nap, a special breakfast, or a fancy meal. The day I got presents and special attention from my boys.
I think there is value and virtue in celebrating our fathers in this way. I will pick up the phone today and delight in a hopefully long and warm conversation with dad. I am grateful for all he has done over the course of my life. I am grateful for the thoughtfulness, investment, and effort he put into being a parent and his active participation in our lives. I am grateful for the sacrifices he made along the way to ensure we had more than what we needed. In addition to a home, food, and clothing, he ensured we had access to a sense of value, a connected community, and education. He also supported us in pursuing our interests, passions, and the opportunities that presented themselves along the way. I am grateful for him and the time I get to spend with him.
I woke this morning with a different appreciation of this day. This morning I was overwhelmed by an appreciation for the gift of fatherhood. In my wildest dreams I never imagined the richness and joy that being a father would bring into my life. I realize now that Father’s Day is not a day to celebrate me but a day of profound gratitude. Gratitude to my wife Pam for sharing in the miracle of creation and partnering with me in nurturing two amazing humans. Gratitude for my boys whose who gifted me with the most meaningful and rewarding adventure of my life.
I love you all beyond measure. ~ Paul

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Chaos… and Change

By |2024-06-24T13:11:17-04:00June 24, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

Justin rode my mare the other day for the saddle fitter. When he shared how it went, he said that Nubble didn’t feel as good as she has in the past. Recently, I had made some significant changes in the way that I ride her. I have been “holding her together” less and working toward helping her find her own balance and, I have also noted this change in her. Justin and I ended up talking a bit about the best way to proceed. Should I continue the path I am on, trusting that this is a period of change and reorganization that will right itself? Should I go back to “holding her together?” Should I find a space in the middle? Or, should I work to explore and learn something I know nothing about?
When I was in graduate school, there was a movement in the psychology where it was proposed that, in the process of growth and change, a system (person, family, group, etc.) would go through a period of chaos or disorganization before finding a new level of organization.
Order out of chaos. There are so many examples of this self-organizing or re-organizing phenomenon. In fact, every biological growth process exists as a constant reminder of this process. If you haven’t watched a video on the metamorphic change of a caterpillar to a butterfly, I strongly recommend you witness this miracle.
However, I find the relationship between chaos and change an uneasy one. Even though I can recount example after example of desired and positive changes flowing out of difficult and chaotic periods, I can also recount example after example of systems pushed to irreversible chaos. I am forever troubled by the uncertainty of it all. I search for clues as to where the change is headed and what the chaos means. Am I on a good path and need to trust the process? Am I on a path to destruction? Or, perhaps the scariest question, what will my world look like on the other side of change?
It is hard enough to face these challenges when it is our own life. It is doubly hard when our path forward impacts the health and wellbeing of those under our stewardship and care. Perhaps that is what mentors, instructors, confidants, therapists and other fellow travelers along life’s path are for. They offer clues to possibility and help us screw up our courage to navigate the chaos and uncertainty of change. And, in the process help us honor and care for the horses that give so much to us.
~ Paul

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Let the Birds Sing

By |2024-06-01T21:19:25-04:00June 1, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

One of my fondest memories of my grandparents’ lake house was waking up in the morning to the symphony of bird song. In those moments I felt deeply comforted. I would often sit quietly listening before sneaking over to the open window to see if I could identify which birds were singing. I was always impressed by the majesty of the Blue Jays, the brilliant colors of the Goldfinches, and the Robins dancing on the lawn.
One of my great joys now is sitting on my front porch each Saturday morning gathering my thoughts for this post. The birds sing and, even in challenging times, a sense of peace flows through me.
There is a lot of talk about the power of nature to restore and heal our souls. It is thought that our relationship to bird song is hard-wired into our brains. Birds and their song were a sign to our ancestors of natural abundance. Their rhythmic and melodic patterns are, in and of themselves, soothing. And, in the face of danger, the birds don’t sing. A natural alarm.
When we search for help with our personal challenges and discomfort. We often look for something to do. A tool or action to change the way we feel or react or respond to specific situations. While I am not one to knock a good strategy, I have come to believe that we are often better served by finding those places of connection and abundance. For it is in the context of positive connection that our souls are soothed and magical things happen both in ourselves and in our relationships with our horses.
Hoping we all can find a place this week “where the birds sing.” ~ Paul

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On Comfort and Pain

By |2024-05-30T15:55:19-04:00May 30, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

This last weekend I stepped out of my comfort zone. I rode my Westphalen restart project Lil’ Joe in a Lester Buckley clinic on our home farm. Joe had come to me with a bolting issue and I have taken the restart very very very slowly. While I had been riding him regularly in the round pen, the start of the clinic was his second time in the indoor and maybe the seventh or eighth time ridden in the bridle.
I remember Lester asking what we were looking to accomplish. I said, “a good experience for Joe.” and Lester agreed. Suffice it to say that Joe had good experiences for all three days. It got me thinking, yet again, about this cultural glorification of discomfort or pain. I have two new insights (Well, maybe not so new, but insights all the same.). The goal is not discomfort. And, you have to be comfortable to get uncomfortable.
One of the great travesties of the “No pain, no gain” mentality is that it easily gets warped into the seeking of pain as the end goal. I believe that this is the single greatest cause of real injury; physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. The value in discomfort is not the discomfort itself, but rather seeking comfort in the discomfort. Allowing yourself to experience physical discomfort just enough so that you become stronger and the effort is no longer uncomfortable. Allowing yourself to experience psychological or emotional discomfort long enough so that you can seek and find the comfort in the new situation. We all grow in this way.
When you are in the arena with Lester, it does not take long to connect to his kindness, attentiveness, knowledge, wisdom, gentle humor and skill. It was not that I thought that nothing bad could happen, it was that I knew he would use his expertise and do his best to ensure that Joe and I got a good deal. I also quickly came to believe that if things “went south” he would be there to help us work it through in the best way he knew how. That kind of presence and connection to me and my horse was the foundation for my being able to regulate my anxiety and engage my curiosity and courage. Without the relational comfort, stepping outside my comfort zone would be pushing or forcing myself there. This is profoundly different than engaging my desire and curiosity for expanding my experience and allowing myself to step out of my comfort zone.
We have all seen it with horses. We have seen moments where they have been pushed into discomfort. And, if we are lucky, we have seen moments where it was set up for them to engage their curiosity and courage to seek comfort in the initially uncomfortable.
If we need to glorify something, let’s glorify the drive for exploration, curiosity, and play that blossoms in positive connection. Let’s glorify the consistent, caring, attentive, healthy relationships with ourselves, others and our horses that make it all possible. ~ Paul

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Reachable

By |2024-05-29T14:05:03-04:00May 29, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

Did you ever have one of those moments where you realize that you have missed the boat in an exchange with your partner? You wanted something so desperately that you got hyper-focused on one particular action, behavior, or sentiment. So narrowly focused, in fact, that you totally miss it when the very thing you want is generously offered.
There is a lot of talk about the power of focus in achieving our goals. It is easy to see how this can be a strength in almost every aspect of horsemanship. Missing the mark in our riding is so often attributed to distraction. We get distracted by our thoughts, feelings, and the world around us.
There is less talk about what happens when this valued strength is overplayed. This is especially true when we get focused on a specific outcomes. The more we get focused on our desired outcomes, the less we are able to pay attention to the rest of our world and experience. The less aware we are what the world is actually offering us.
Perhaps the delicate balance between focused intention and receptive awareness is part of what is meant by feel. I know I am going to pay closer attention to to this dynamic balance. And, when I notice an elevation in my desire to achieve a specific outcome, I need to make sure that I can feel what others are offering. I need to make sure I am reachable.
~ Paul
PC – @ErinGilmorePhotography @eringilmorephotos

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The True Meaning of Frame

By |2024-05-27T08:37:22-04:00May 27, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

Some of you know about my love of ballroom dance. I don’t love it because I am good at it (some days are better than others). I love it because there are moments where I get to experience seemingly effortless movement in harmony with my partner as we float through the room on a gently flowing river of music.
There are times when the learning process is hard. Finding my own balance in a new movement or series of steps. Building the strength to hold a frame while staying soft and supple in my body. Mastering novel sequences and patterns in my feet, in my posture, and with my partner. The path to mastery in ballroom dance is littered with missteps. However, if you boil it all down, there are several essential components which help along the way.
Self-carriage. We need to be able to take responsibility for, and hold, our own balance. Without our own balance there is little hope of true partnership. Every once and a while we might find ourselves relying on our partners to hold us upright or we might offer support when needed. Yet, the goal is to to carry ourselves with grace, inviting our partner (in their own balance) to move gracefully with us.
Athleticism. No, we don’t need the fitness and flexibility of an olympic athlete. Rather, we commit to finding the limits of our movement and then working along these growth edges to improve our range of motion, our flexibility and our strength.
A common language. In dance there is a code that has been developed through the centuries for its ability to support leading and following without throwing our partners off balance. I chuckle at how awkward and ugly it can look at the beginning, and marvel at the beauty and seamlessness when that code is understood by both the leader and the follower. Understood and executed with faithfulness and tact.
While reading this, you might think I had just spent a day at the dance studio. The truth is that I just spent a day in the arena with Pippa Callanan. And, these were the lessons she shared in a approachable, effective and meaningful way. Thank you Pippa for an awesome day! Can’t wait to dance with my horses over the next several months and see what we can get working for us. Maybe you will join us in November when she returns… ~ Paul

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Finding Your Feet: A Search for Deep Knowledge and Understanding

By |2024-05-22T17:52:49-04:00May 22, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

I often reference a paper that was written by a distinguished psychologist Paul Wachtel, PhD where he makes the assertion that our graduate psychology programs are training technicians rather than scientists who are exploring the edges of our knowledge and understanding. On a similar note, I remember a talk I attended back in the early 90’s where the speaker reminded us that all of the founders of the various popular family therapy models being taught in our 2-year graduate programs where classically trained psychoanalysts with 30 to 40 years of clinical experience. He feared we where prioritizing tools and techniques over deep knowledge and understanding.
As humans, we want clarity and direction. This is especially true in the equestrian world where the development of effective relationships with our horses so often seems a mysterious process. Our desire for clarity drives us to seek out simple digestible answers and direction which many trainers are happy to provide. Heels down, inside leg to outside rein, when your horse does this…do that, and so on and so on. Please don’t get me wrong, technical skill is essentially important. But, just like in the world of psychology, mistaking technical skill for mastery is unfortunate and misguided. What then is the path to mastery?
I spent the day yesterday auditing a Tom Curtin Quality Horsemanship Clinic. It was amazing to watch him ride and demonstrate the days lessons on his horses. He talked about his horses feet being his own when he is in the saddle. He said, “I don’t get on a horse. I get the opportunity to have an extention of me.” If seeing is believing, I believe.
Equally impressive was the way he taught. Sure there were moments where he spoke to technique and technical skills. However, most of his time was spent setting up simple exercises which were designed to help each rider feel their way to the awareness of their horse’s feet.
Riders in the clinic also asked questions in a different form than I am used to. They would ask, “How can I help my horse to…” rather than “What should I do…” questions. Tom would give suggestions or thoughts related to their question and then he would ask, “Did that give you some ideas?”
I love that. “Did that give you some ideas?” Some new ways to think about it. Some new ways of approaching it. Something to explore. Something to master through exploration. A path to both mastery and ownership that did not depend on you “getting it right” or “following directions to the letter.”
In almost every arena of modern life, we are acculturated to perform to a standard. We strive for performance objectives. Test scores. Job titles. Performance quotas. Salaries. Ribbons. Year end awards. The list goes on. What would it be like to give ourselves permission to explore, make our own mistakes, gather some ideas from masters along the way, do some stuff, and seek the mastery rather than performance.
I am going to go and ride my horse today and play with some of the ideas I took away from Tom. Hopefully, I will be able to find my horses feet and put together a few things I have learned along the way in a new way that deepens both my knowledge and understanding. Will you join me on this winding path to mastery? ~ Paul
PC – Erin Gilmore Photography
Tom Curtin Quality Horsemanship
#sportpsych #equstriansportpsychology #mastery #equestriansportpsych #equestrianlife #learning #deepunderstanding

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Recombobulation

By |2024-05-15T15:56:36-04:00May 15, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

There are days, and some times weeks or months, when everything goes a bit topsy turvy. Some times it really isn’t all that bad. No one challenge is all that big, but everything seems to go a little wonky at the same time. We could argue whether more bad things are really happening or if we are just worn down, less resilient, and seeing the world differently. Whatever the case, we end up feeling discombobulated.
As I scrolled my FB feed this morning, I saw a post about a truly unique sign in the Milwaukee airport,”Recombobulation Area.” Brilliant! This is exactly what every rider needs!
Enter the latest equestrian facility design innovation: the “Recombobulation Area.” Of course there will need to be several of them. The first is at the entrance to the farm. This could be as simple as a small pull-off area near the barn where we take a moment to close our eyes, take a few deep breaths, and shed the stresses of the outside world.
The second, a small person sized invisible enclosure at the pasture gate or stall door where we pause and connect to the energy and presence of our equine partners. At the same time, we can connect to ourselves, noticing our own state of being and taking a moment to balance and integrate.
The third could be the recombobulation mounting block. In addition to grounding ourselves, we can connect to our capability and confidence while remembering our personal motivations and goals. We can then marshal our ideal mindset for our ride, fine-tuning our intentions and attitudes. Personally, I would use this time to connect to curiosity, openness, and a learners mindset.
Finally, the post-ride space. This mystical space is designed to help riders integrate and appreciate the whole experience. A place where they might regain their equilibrium and composure after a particularly challenging ride. Or, bask in the joy of personal accomplishment and partnership with their horse. A space where they can bury their nose deeply in their horse’s neck and breathe in the beauty of this awe-some experience. Bathe in a deep sense of gratitude for these amazing creatures.
One last thought. I imagine these Recombobulation Areas sprinkled generously with kind and supportive others. People with whom we share our triumphs and tumbles, with whom we laugh and cheer and cry. People who lift each other up.
How would you design your “Recombobulation Area”? ~ Paul
PC – @eringilmorephotography @eringilmorephotos

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Pride – It’s Not Just For Lions Anymore

By |2024-05-08T15:45:16-04:00May 8, 2024|Categories: Sport psychology|

We had a fabulous business meeting yesterday. What made it so amazing was how everyone in our team showed up. They showed up with their energy and enthusiasm, They showed up with their talents and skills. They also showed up with honesty and humility when they knew that the “lift” would require skills that were not their strength.
At some point in the meeting, I remember sharing how challenging it was for me to ask for help and delegate responsibilities. For decades, I ran my my own business and did everything myself, and I mean everything. After making that comment, I got to thinking about what gets in my way. What makes sharing responsibilities and asking for help so hard?
One thing I know is that I never felt like I was better than everyone else. While I am quite capable, I am generally acutely aware of my limitations. Rather, I think the sticking point for me is that somehow I came to think I “should” be able to do everything. And, when faced with my limitations, I felt ashamed. Then, the dark side of pride would take over.
When pride is the pressured reactive result of our battle with shame and worry of what others might think, it can be a dangerous thing. Much like overconfidence and arrogance, it can lead us to choices that ignore real risks, shortcut much needed learning and preparation, and put pressure on relationships including those with our equestrian partners.
I looked up the origin of the use of “pride” as a name for a group of lions and this is what I found. The term “pride” likely comes from the sense of honor, strength, and majesty associated with these animals.The concept of pride also conveys a sense of strength and unity, as these groups work together to survive and thrive in their environment. The term captures the collaborative and cooperative nature of their social structure, as well as the regality and power that lions embody.
I couldn’t think of a better aspirational goal than to live and work in a way that embodies these values. Let’s commit to find that healthy balance where our pride feeds our confidence and motivation. Where it supports our sense of accomplishment. Where it fosters our resilience and perseverance.
I will be searching this coming week for the attitudes and practices that maximize the positive aspects of pride while guarding against the negative. What helps you strike a healthy balance? ~ Paul
PC-@oak spring equestrian, llc

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