The other day I got to over thinking, which is something that I do all too often. With everything that is going on in our world nowadays I have decided that staying balanced now more than ever is so important. The COVID-19 virus and the Shelter-in-Place Orders have my routine and days so out of balance. I am sure some can relate to this. My 3 year old, who normally goes to daycare 5 days a week, is at home now full time. I am trying to keep to some what of a regular routine for him but that has thrown off mine. Please don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to have this time with my family. Even so, it still has been an adjustment and rough on everyone here. I crave balance in my life and it is so hard to keep at times. No matter if I am juggling between work, house cleaning, caring for loved ones, taking care of the animals or trying to spend quality time with my family. There needs to be time for myself and balance for all these other things in my life.
As I was brushing my horse yesterday and was about to saddle him up, something came over me, and I had the urge to just ride bareback. I wanted to feel every movement he was making and see if I could seamlessly move with him. I had this fairytale dream in my head like we were riding along the beach fully in-tuned with each other, carefree, just like in the movie The Black Stallion. So I took him out into the arena, climbed up on the fence and eased myself onto his back. It surprised me that he flinched and was wobbly underneath me at first. My horse is as solid as they come, so for him to be unsure of what is going on told me so much in just that one little bit. Surprise, surprise I was off balance! My heart sank at first. I was so disappointed that we weren’t automatically going to ride off into the sunset. So I started with my normal routine of bending and stretching and it amazed me how much more I need to work on this. I proceeded to go through our routine with trotting and loping and I had to back off and go back to basics. Not for my horse but for myself because I was ridiculously out of balance. I think we get so caught up in our lives that we forget that we need to center ourselves first before we can help others. Sometimes we need to hit the reset button and go back to the basic steps or routine and stay there for a little bit in order to help us move forward more balanced. Otherwise, we will get so off balance and overwhelmed that things will slowly fall out of sync. So this week I am committed to riding my horse with no saddle, going back to basics and working on my balance.
I urge you to find what helps you to feel balanced.