After the clinic I found a veterinarian who focused on Sports Medicine. She did a thorough lameness exam on Talon and suspected his issue could be from “Kissing Spine.” She x-rayed his back and the x-rays confirmed her suspicion.
When I asked what I could do for him she suggested some supportive therapies and also believed doing “good” dressage could help–especially shoulder-in. I asked how to do a “good” shoulder-in and she chuckled as she said, “That’s a question for your trainer.”
Just like Kim had mentioned at the clinic this veterinarian was saying “good” dressage could be therapeutic to Talon. Now, I just had to figure out how to do “good” dressage!
She also diagnosed him with gastric ulcers and we put him on a proton pump inhibitor as treatment.
My inner engineer was kicking in and wondering what actually caused these problems in the first place…
When I worked as an engineer one of my roles was to determine the root cause of any problems. Often the problems we notice are actually “symptoms” of other issues. Only addressing the “symptom” will not eliminate the issues causing the symptom, so the symptom will keep recurring until the root cause is identified and addressed.
What was the root cause of Talon’s Kissing Spine and Ulcers?...I couldn’t answer these questions at the time, but I was determined to start figuring it out.
I also thought it was a strange coincidence Talon and I both had back pain. I decided this could be helpful as I could use myself as an experiment; if I could figure out how to address my own back pain perhaps I could somehow apply what I learn to helping Talon.
I remembered what Kim had said about Dressage done well being like “yoga” for the horses, so I thought trying yoga myself would be a good place to start my experiment…
I pulled into the Yoga Studio’s parking lot and sat in my car for a while. As I sat there watching other people walking into the studio I found myself feeling insecure as my mind flooded with negative thoughts…
“This is a dumb idea.”
“My friends are going to think I’m weird for trying this.”
“I’m probably not flexible enough to even do this.”
“I’m going to look so stupid.”
You get the idea…
Despite being filled with insecurity and discouraging thoughts, I somehow summoned the courage to get out of my car, go into the studio, and TRY SOMETHING NEW–which would end up being one of the best decisions of my life.
Since that day, Yoga has become a daily practice for me–it’s not always in a yoga studio, but the “practice” is something I incorporate into my life in some way each and every day.
I would have to write a book to even come close to fully explaining all my Yoga practice has taught me and done for me, but I will share some of the main lessons that applied to my partnership with Talon throughout this blog series.
I went to Yoga for answers to my physical issues and it did eventually lead me to being able to relieve the physical pain I was feeling, but along the way I had to become aware that the body and mind are connected…
In the beginning, I was only focused on what I could physically do to relieve my pain–searching for ways I could stretch, move, strengthen my body to provide relief. I found some ways to temporarily relieve my pain this way, but the pain would always come back.
I really disliked the Mindfulness and Meditation practices at this beginning stage–my pattern in this stage of my life was to run FULL-STEAM at all times–if I wasn’t DOING something I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing anything.
However, Mindfulness and Meditation are part (or should be part) of every Yoga practice, so I had to do at least a small amount of it even when I signed up for high-paced, power flow classes–which was all I signed up for at this time! Even with this small amount of Mindfulness and Meditation practice, I started to become aware of how busy and negative my thoughts were…mostly busy with negative thoughts towards myself. I struggled to quiet my thoughts for even one minute of breathing exercises. My inability to quiet my thoughts started to irritate me, so I became more determined to figure this piece of “Yoga” out…
So I practiced….and I practiced….and I practiced….
All of the sudden, I was doing just as much if not more Mindfulness and Meditation practice than the physical movements of yoga that had originally drawn me to the practice.
Through this practice I got VERY familiar with my internal state—and it wasn’t a nice place in there…
My internal state was negative, worried, unable to relax. My internal state was STRESS!
I was also beginning to notice I could feel different parts of my body tighten when negative thoughts and worry took over…MY THOUGHTS WERE CAUSING TENSION IN MY BODY!
With this new awareness, I realized it didn’t matter how much I stretched, moved, strengthened my body–there would always be tension in my body if I had INTERNAL STRESS–my mind was affecting my body! I now knew I had to put just as much focus on healing my internal state as I had been focusing on healing my physical body, because I wouldn’t be able to heal one without healing the other. I had to figure out how to think more positively and reduce my stress.
Of course, I immediately began ruminating on how this might apply to Talon…what might be causing him internal stress? How could I lessen his stress? How was his internal state affecting his body?
I didn’t know the answer for either of us, but I was determined to start figuring it out.
Talon's Story Blog Series Navigation
Ready to Elevate Your Horsemanship?!....
Comentários