United States Eventing Association

Pressure Proof Tip with Daniel Stewart: Four Letter Word Starting with F

Fear is a word we’ve all experienced and one that can leave the best of us feeling a bit belittled and bewildered. It’s also one of the most misunderstood of all emotions. Like an onion, fear has many layers, and when we peel one layer away we’re often disheartened to find another and another… and if we’re not careful, each of those layers can make us cry a little more!

On the outside it’s easy to see why most of us define fear as a negative because it possesses the power to make us feel doubtful, discouraged, and distracted. Fear makes us pump-the-brakes when exposed to challenges and accelerate the perception of shame when we lack the courage to chase after them, but when we find the strength to climb over the mental walls constructed by fear we’re often rewarded with the realization that fear does serve two important functions: (1.) Fear brings our attention to things that can hurt us, and (2.) Fear teaches us what we’re capable of.

Firstly, fear works much like the smoke-alarm in a kitchen. When the alarm goes off we immediately stop what we’re doing and direct our attention to the threat because that it can hurt us (i.e. the smoke or fire). In much the same way, when we experience a fear (something that threatens us) our flight-or-fright-brains makes us stop and directs our attention to that fear. That’s why it's so hard for so many of us to get beyond so many of our fears, which brings me to the first point of this Pressure Proof tip: Everyone feels fear.

We all experience fear from time to time. It doesn’t mean we’re cowards; it simply means we’re human with a highly functioning survival instinct based on thousands of years of human evolution designed to keep us safe by avoiding things that can hurt us. After all, we’d all be in a lot of trouble if smoke alarms in our kitchens didn’t exist!

The second unique (and surprising) function of fear is that it serves as an indicator of potential courage. I know this seems a bit oxymoronic, but fear can actually be used as a measuring tool for courage, After all, we’ll never know if we’re able to get up if we’ve never been afraid of being knocked down. We’ll never know if we can hold it together if we’ve never been afraid of falling apart. It’s a bit ironic, but when we view fear in this way it’s clear that it can be just as motivating as it can be intimidating. In fact, fear creates the foundation that courage is built upon. Fear isn’t the absence of courage, it’s the building blocks of courage, kind of like Jenga for equestrians!

Now that we know the two functions of fear, let’s dedicate the next three monthly Pressure Proof tips to talking about how to overcome them. What we’re looking for here is the metaphorical broom stick or fondue fork that we can use to push the stop button on our brain’s smoke alarm; and the good thing is there's plenty of brooms and fondue forks to go around!

The first step to pushing fear’s stop button is to admit that we get afraid from time to time. We all do. It doesn’t mean we’re weak, it just means we’re human. The second step is to make a list of the fears that impact us the most and then figure out how to expose ourselves to those fears (in a safe way) so that we can get used to them. This is called desensitization (exposing ourselves to our fears so they no longer feel overwhelming to us) and one way to accomplish this is by creating what I like to call this a fear-a-myd (writing our fears on a pyramid, with our mildest fears on the bottom and our biggest fears on top).

It might look something like this:

Cantering
Backing the trailer
Trotting without stirrups
Competing in front of a crowd

Once we’ve created our fear-a-myd we then devise a plan to become desensitized to those fears by simply exposing ourselves to them in a safe and controlled way. Remember, the key to desensitization is that we purposely expose ourselves to our fears so that we can take back the power they have over us. When done correctly, we end-up building a second fear-a-myd that looks something like this:

We begin to desensitize ourselves to crowds by competing in schooling show before the big ones
We learn to trot without stirrups while using a neck strap on a comfy pony
We back up a trailer in a field instead of a crowded gas station
We start cantering on a longe-line with a trusted coach

As you can see, when we give fear a function we can actually use our own vulnerability to provide us with the power to prove how courageous we actually are. After all, without fears there can be no fearless!

I hope you enjoyed this month’s Pressure Proof tip and are looking forward to my next two tips on fears. In the next tip we’ll talk about the different kinds of fears, including those you probably don’t want to recreate (like the fear of falling) and their unique solutions.

Also, If you’re a visual learner and would like to take my online self-paced equestrian sport psychology class (30 videos, PDF’s, and short quizzes) please just let me know. It’s upbeat and enjoyable and I’m certain you’d love it! For more info visit: https://daniel-stewart-s-school.teachable.com/p/equestrian-sport-psychology