10. "The most unlucky person"?

Blog 10 - “The most unlucky person”?

My family and clients were amazing.  Somehow Chris managed to continue to run his business and me around until I could drive again, which took about a year.  

Clients were understanding, all of them stayed and changed temporarily from full to DIY livery.

Chris and friends stepped in to do the jobs that my clients and I could not - my life is full of the most extraordinary people.

In the meantime I started to look “outside of the box” of conventional riding instruction, became qualified in sports psychology and Nero Linguistic Programming, which helped me in my recovery and with my coaching.  The number of coaching clients grew significantly - as did my joy in working with them.

I knew I had to ride again and negotiated a deal with my concerned family, 
No backing (this soon became re-backing), 
No problem horses (this soon became no rearers) and 
No jumping (this soon became no jumping over anything that won’t fall down if you hit it).  

I gave up on physio’s and started exploring and benefiting, more or less, from various other types of bodywork. 

 

I had a scoliosis of the spine which gave my torso a C-shaped curve to the left.  The scoliosis went undiagnosed but all of my instructors could see this asymmetry and in attempting to mask, rather than address this issue I rode with an S-shape to my torso instead, which created the illusion of but not straightness.  

This issue was compounded by the injuries to my leg and once I was riding regularly again I knew the time as right to at last start to train with Mary Wanless which I did, and co-taught alongside her for more than 10 years.

While still on crutches I was chatting to my then farrier and referring to my “accidents” over recent years he told me, “You must be the most unlucky person that I know.”  

He wasn’t a friend exactly but more than just my farrier, he had had his forge at my first yard, had shod my horses for years, and I had enjoyed watching him un-mercilessly pull the leg of and train numerous apprentices over the years.  His comment was well intentioned but my response surprised us both and really opened my eyes, “I am not” I told him, “I’ve got the best family and job in the world.” 

Doubtless we have all been told things that we could have chosen to interpret in ways that confirms the worst.  Comments made in jest or sympathy that are supposed to build rapport and make the recipient feel better but have instead made us wallow longer than necessary in self-pity.  

While we have no control over the things that people say to us we do have control over how we receive, interpret and act on those things.  

Thank you ex-farrier for helping me to acknowledge what a lucky person I am. 

However, being “lucky” is an interesting concept and if you should find yourself telling someone that they are “lucky” to have the family, relationship, job, house, yard, holiday, life that they have they may not take it as the compliment you intended.  

Scratch a little deeper and you will find out that that “luck” required and requires a lot of hard-work and soul searching - and always comes at a cost.

Next time - "Leaving the Master first time" published 9th March.

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