Our minds processing filters - Could they be affecting your riding confidence?

If you struggle with your riding confidence, or confidence in general, you may have wondered, "Why me?" Why would I feel fear and anxiety but not other people at the yard? How is it I always hold myself back but others can just go for it? Whether its having the nerve to go out competing, hacking, fun riders or jumping...

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) held all the answers for me. After not riding for about 18 months and not knowing how or why id been left with my confidence so shaken that I was questioning whether or not I would ever ride again. Which for a rider of over 20 years and an equestrian coach, was not a position I ever thought I would find myself in.

NLP not only helped me understand WHY my mind was working in the way it was, but more importantly HOW I could change it!

The first step as always, is about awareness and that is where I want to start with my first blog.

The NLP Communication model shows how we all experience reality in exactly the same way, through our senses - sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

However, our 'internal representations' of these events are often very different. Which in turn affects our state, whether we are happy, sad, calm, excited, nervous, scared, anxious etc. And of course this impacts our behaviour and actions, or more likely, if we are not feeling very confident, our in-action.

So how is it our internal representations are formed so differently? This part is down to our minds processing filters.

The 3 main filters we have are Delete, Distort and Generalise.

So, why do we have them?

Every second we are receiving around 2 million bits of information! And we would go crazy if we had to process and remember all of it. So our brain is very efficient at getting rid of what it thinks we don't need by deleting information, distorting and generalising. So this is a hugely important process, however not always beneficial or working in the best way to get us what we want from our riding or confidence.

DELETE - So what gets deleted in our every day life? Deletion occurs when we pay attention to some areas and not others. Without deletion, we would be bombarded with too much information for our brain to handle. Most of the information we receive through our senses gets deleted. Things like background sounds and smells, the feel of your clothes on your body. Until something changes, like a particularly cold gust of wind blows in or someone makes you aware of something, then we become conscious of it.

However sometimes we can become so absorbed and focused on something that even bigger parts of data can get deleted, like someone talking to us.

We also delete information that does no conform to our expectations or beliefs.

And this is particularly the part that I believe pays a big part in our riding confidence.

For example, if someone believes riding is scary or dangerous or they are scared about riding their horse, what do you think gets deleted?

All the good rides! Or all the good parts about their ride.

If they rode for 30 minutes but their horse maybe bucked or spooked once, how do you think they may remember that ride? They focus and remember the 5 second 'blip', not the 29 minutes and 55 seconds where everything was going really well. Because that does not conform with their expectations and beliefs that riding is scary and dangerous.

However, we can choose what we want to focus on, if we want to change our perception and improve our confidence.

DISTORT - Have you ever ridden with an instructor and your horse might buck or shy and you have explained that that buck was a leaping vertical handstand! But your instructor said "They just did a bit of a kick!"

Or that that shy was your horse leaping and bolting to the inside, leaving you hanging on for dear life! But your instructor said "She just stepped to the side, you sat it really well!"

Differing testimonials are also given after a traffic accident by witnesses. Or have you ever been to a party and you thought it was great but your friend who went to the same party said it was rubbish, music was no good, beer was weak and she didn't like the people.

Our internal representations of things can be so different that it could be like describing completely different events.

We experience what has been stored in our memories, whether that's real or imagined, after that information has been through our minds filters.

Fear is often the reason our distortion filter works the way it does.

GENERALISE - Generalising is a hugely beneficial tool for our minds to have! Its how we learn, stay safe. Its helped us survive as a species.

For example, We do not need to know that every fire or flame will be hot and burn us. At some point we have experienced it or learned it from others and we can then generalise that every flame is hot and will burn.

Opening doors, we often generalise that every door that has a knob to turn, we turn and it and the door opens, every handle we push down or that doors can be pushed open... Until it doesn't, and we then see the sign "PULL".

This is great, otherwise we would have to touch every flame to know it burns, and each time we meet a door we would have to stop and work out how it opens.

But generalising in our riding doesn't always help us or our confidence.

If you had a riding fear and you fell off once on a windy day, we could generalise that if its windy our horse is going to have us off.

The wind is a common one. What other common generalisations do you hear in the horsey world?

How do you feel about chestnut mares?

These filters give us our internal representation and depending on what and how they filter and what then plays on our internal screen, will determine our emotions, our state and our behaviour.

Every time we ride, we get to choose which chunks of information we want to focus on.

Is focusing on your fear going to help you to ride? NO!

It is not going to help you get what you want or feel how you want to feel.

What might you be deleting, distorting and generalising in your riding?

How can we start making changes?

Start with the with the end in mind...

When do you ever talk or think about what you DO want?

Our unconscious mind can only give us what we show it. I'm pretty sure you are not planning for a wild ride of broncing, bucking, bolting and spectacular falls... so stop imagining it happening. Your unconscious mind doesn't know the difference between real or imagined. So if you've thought about it happening or imagined it, your mind is living it and we wonder why our hands are sweaty, our breathing is shallow and were frozen in fear.

Instead, focus and visualise on what you DO want. How do you want your riding and your relationship with your horse to be? How does it look and feel?

What do you have when there is no fear?

If you'd like to read more tips on how to improve your confidence for riding, you can follow me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/stlequestriancoaching

Or if you have any questions or you'd like to connect with me to find out more about how NLP or Time Line TherapyⓇ could help to improve your confidence, you can get in touch via my website stlequestriancoaching.com

Or email at sam.taylor1986@yahoo.co.uk