Aversion

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

All right, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome back. Welcome to the first if you're here for the first time. Whatever the case may be, I'm happy that you stopped in. I I'm a little I'm a little kind of down in the dumps for this one. But the whole the whole point of this podcast is to talk about real life, the real things that happened to us, how to navigate those things, how to deal with them the best way we can, you know, how to use our minds the best way we can, and and how to live the best version of life we can, you know, in spite of sometimes just going through something. And uh that is the point of this podcast. So even though I hate getting on here and talking about things when I'm feeling bummed out, it is real. And you know, life is this is a real podcast about real life, and there are real struggles in life, and if we try to pretend otherwise, we're not doing ourselves a service. So, that being said, you know, this is probably gonna be short and sweet. Um, but if you followed along my channel before, you know about my one horse, you know that she's been on and off for the past few years, injury, had to go back to the basics, all this stuff, and I was so excited to get back into it this year. Like I was so ready. We had, you know, for uh competitive barrel racing for anyone out there who's tuning in for the first time. That's what I do with the horses I train and I ride, but um yeah, so I was so ready to get back into it this year. You know, I I had been building this horse back up for the past few, you know, three years almost now, and dealing with issues and this, that, and the other. And then I finally just I was like, yeah, we're in a good place, and I really, really was focused on, you know, sending her back out to real competition this year at the beginning of the season. You know, she had she had gone out to a couple small races at the end of last season and had done really good. So I just I was like, yeah, man, we're gonna we're gonna hit the ground running this year, and it's gonna be a great year. And I really, really in my heart believed that and manifested it and had all the positive vibes going. Um and unfortunately, I don't know. I don't really know what's going on, but something seems to be going on again. I took her to I took her to the first barrel race of the season last weekend, and she did really great, like as far as work the pattern really great. I was really happy with with how she performed, and again, just like yeah, I'm excited, like we're rocking and rolling this year. But I had I was working her last week, and I just felt I felt like her something was a little different with the how she was moving, you know, something just felt a little weird. It she didn't feel lame, she didn't feel like she was unsound, nothing like that. It's just she didn't feel totally right. I mean her stride was a little shorter than it usually is. I don't know how to really describe it, um, but nonetheless, she just something just seemed a little weird. Um, but not it, not anything that I was like, oh, I can't, I can't ride her, can't take her to the barrel race, anything like that. Go to the barrel race last weekend, and I was warming her up, and I just felt her step just a little funny a couple times, and again, it wasn't anything profound, it wasn't like, oh, she's lame, she's hurting somewhere, I can't run her, nothing like that. Like in my head, I was like, Oh, she just you know, because the little warm-up pens, the the ground there kind of stinks, they have rocks and stuff like that sometimes. So I was like, she just stepped, she just stepped a funny way, or you know, wasn't paying attention to where she put her foot, and like just not a big deal. And so I I breezed her through the pattern, she did really great. Come out of the arena, and she kind of does the same thing again where she like almost looks like she had like a misstep, like going back to the trailer. And I was just like, in my head, nothing was really profound, but in my head, I just was like, something seems off, and so I was like, Alright, I'll give her a day off because she's probably gonna be sore after making you know the first run of the season like that. You know, she might be a little just muscle sore the next day, same way we get a little muscle sore when we work out, you know, if we haven't worked out for a while. I was like, I'll give her a day off, and on Tuesday, I'll put her on the lunge line and really see what's going on. And so put her on the lunge line today, and again, she's like kind of faking me out because she she looks okay, and then she'll like have a couple like missteps, and then she'll look okay, and then she'll have a couple like strides where her her stride is really short, and I I really don't know for sure if it's going on, I don't know if it's anything, but I just uh I just felt like this overwhelming like sense of doom, you know, like great, here we go again. Like, what's wrong now? What's going on now? And the big part of me wanted to just deny what I was seeing because again, I wasn't really seeing anything really pro you know, profound. It's not like she's like limping on one leg or anything like that. It's just that her stride looks uncomfortable, it looks short, she's kind of doing she's wanting to drop her shoulder instead of be soft in the rib cage, and then she's having these like little missteps now and again. And a lot a large part of me wanted to just dismiss it and say, You're you're making it up, like you're you're over-exaggerating, or or at least just give it more time, you know, give give it a little more time to make sure you're actually seeing what you think you're seeing before you go down the pathway of like getting vets out and spending all the money to do workup and diagnostics, and before you tailspin in an emotional spiral that, like potentially your horse is is lame again this year, and you got to go through all you know, all the stuff that comes with it. And that one of the things I don't think we've talked about on here before, but we'll have to do another day, is when is our brains have an incredible ability to go into denial about things that we don't want to accept, and we also as humans have tendencies to what I what I what I call aversion techniques, which basically just means when something happens that you don't like, that you're scared of, that you're fearful of, that you worry about, that you're stressed about, that you're upset about. Our mind is kind of almost like the fight or flight response. Our mind just wants to get away from that thing. And so we call it aversion technique, where literally your mind is like, you know what, I don't want to accept this, I don't want to deal with this, I don't want to be here, I don't want this situation to be real, I don't want to experience this. And one of the coping mechanisms of the mind in kind of that primal fight or flight state is to just go into aversion and just say, I gotta get away from this thing. And we deny it, we block it out, we we try to run away from it, we try to get away from it. I mean, yes, aversion techniques fleeing away from the thing that is causing problems, that is very effective when there's a real physical threat, right? Like if you were being chased by an aggressive dog, the fight or flight, the sympathetic nervous system, the the un the subconscious part of our brain that it handles that animal instinct and animal reaction, you know, that would kick in and we would immediately want to flee from that dog that is chasing us. And in that moment, it's a very healthy survival response. But like we talk about on here all the time, a lot of the survival, the primal survival instincts that our our brain does and reacts with without us even knowing that it's doing it, a lot of that stuff was designed to protect us from physical threats, things that were going to cause us physical harm or put us in physical danger. Those responses, though, our mind doesn't decipher between physical danger and something that's making you feel upset, feel stressed, feel anxiety, feel fear, feel worry. Those emotions, when when something bad is going on in your life and you're having a bad experience, the brain, that that primal instinct part of the brain responds to it or wants to respond to it the same way you would respond to a physical threat to your safety. And that's what a lot of times that's what that's what aversion techniques stem from. When we get into a situation or an experience that we don't like for whatever reason, our mind kind of naturally wants to just run away from it. And sometimes what that looks like is just denying it, you know, like being in denial about it, saying it doesn't exist, trying to talk ourselves out of whatever the thing is, trying to ignore whatever the thing is, just trying to block out that it exists. And like I already said, obviously that's not a healthy coping skill when it comes to things that are not actually a physical threat for us. Because if it's an uncomfortable situation or experience, because we're having emotions of fear, of frustration, of worry, of anxiety, you know, all of those emotions, a lot of times what the situation needs is for us to turn off the subconscious primal part of our brain and instead activate that prefunctal cortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for critical thinking, of making good, logical, sound decisions, of guiding us to do the best things in potentially bad, complicated, or complex situations. And I just was thinking about that today because out there watching my horse on the lunch line, I just I just felt it, I felt all the emotions come, you know, washing over me. And I don't even know what's going on. Like hopefully it's fine, hopefully it's nothing bad. Hopefully the vet comes out and and isn't it's a either I'm making it up, or if I'm not making it up, like it's an easy, easy fix. Like hopefully it's it's all gonna be good, but right now it's really easy to let my mind kind of run away with me for all the the the bad what could be's and what ifs, and because of that, it's like that that flood of just negative emotion, of dread, of worry, of frustration, of disappointment, you know, all of that. And I felt myself today, I felt those emotions, and then I felt myself wanting to deny what my gut was telling me, which is that something doesn't look right, and we should probably get it checked out. And I actually had to stop myself, which is what we all usually have to do because none of this is easy, like we talk about on here all the time. None of it is easy, it takes a lot of of practice, it takes a lot of awareness, most importantly, awareness of how how your mind works, what your brain is doing, and with that awareness, then you then come the tools to figure out how to how to deal with it, how to change it, how to do better. And you know, I felt myself going into this headspace, and I and I just I had to stop myself, and I had to activate that that prefrontal cortex, I had to activate that that logical critical thinking part of the brain to to get myself to realize, hey, logically, you think something looks weird and you think something looks off. I know you don't want to spend the money to have the vet out here, I know you don't want to get news that you don't want to get, I know that you don't want to, you know, take her out of work until the vet can come look at her. I know you don't want to have to skip the next barrel race this weekend. I logically and and critically thinking, logically, I I know the conscious part of my brain is like, I know all of that. But you have to weigh the benefits and the risks. And if you if you are right and something is wrong, and you dilly-dally and you don't do what you need to do to take care of it as soon as possible, you are potentially putting yourself, the the animal, everything in a worse situation down the road. So just do the right thing and and have and and have the right thing happen and you know get the right information so you can make the right decisions going forward and and you can do the right thing. So that's what I did. As much as it just was hard to do, I just said, okay, we're gonna stop. I'm gonna put her in her stall, I'm gonna call the vet, I'm gonna get them out here the first available appointment that they have, and you know, I'm not gonna work her until they can evaluate her. If that means we have to miss, you know, the barrel race this weekend, we miss the barrel race. And I I'm also I'm not gonna I'm not gonna jump to conclusions, I'm not gonna overthink this, I'm not gonna run the list in my head of of all the possibilities. I'm just gonna wait. I'm gonna wait on an expert opinion, I'm gonna wait on a true assessment and wait on true information before I start spinning my wills about what to do with that information. So again, a quick little example, but to it, I'm just I was just so bummed out this afternoon, and I just thought it was an important topic to talk about. It we have we all have things that happen to us, big things, little things, in-between things. You know, they're not all the same, they're not all on the same level for sure, but we all have things happen to us that we just really don't want to believe are true, we don't want to deal with, we don't want to to experience, we don't want to live in the emotions that come with the things. Like we all go through those situations, and our natural tendency is if we let the subconscious brain take over, the natural tendency is deny aversion techniques, run away from it, pretend it doesn't exist, pretend it's not happening, and don't deal with it. And so next time you feel this same thing in your life, I want you to hopefully think about this example, and I know it's painful, but try to recognize what is happening, turn off your subconscious primal brain, turn off that fight or flight response, activate the prefrontal cortex, activate that part of the brain that critically thinks, that that logics through things, that can handle complex situations, and then really think you know about what your best approach is, think about what your best avenue is, think about how to best handle the situation so that the situation doesn't end up being worse down the road, so that you get out of the bad situation in the best way possible. All right, thanks so much for tuning in, and I'll keep you guys posted on whatever ends up happening, of course. But um again, think about this example in your own life and and hopefully use it to your advantage. Tune back in next time. If you think uh anybody would like to hear this podcast, please share it. That would be really, really appreciated. And thanks so much, and I hope you have a great rest of your night. Bye.