United States Eventing Association

Pressure Proof Tip with Daniel Stewart: Reframing Isn't About Hanging Pictures

At some point in your riding career, you probably found yourself feeling or dealing with a little fear, failure, or frustration. We’ve all been there. Regardless of whether we’re competitive or recreational, we’ve likely found ourselves getting a bit stuck on stress or a struggle; dealing with a little defeat or disappointment, or feeling overwhelmed or underprepared. You name it, and we’ve probably all felt it…and it can get the best of the best of us. The good news is that it’s actually quite normal to feel these emotions from time to time and, and feeling bad things might actually say something really good about us.

Sports psychologists profess that it’s common (and even expected) for us to experience periodic anxious emotions when we engage in activities that are meaningful to us. After all, if doing what we're doing doesn’t mean anything to us, we likely won't be very worried about not doing it well. But when we’re doing things we love, the fear of failing, loss, or not doing it well can frequently become part of our story. So my first piece of advice is to always remember that when you’re frustrated by how you’re feeling, it’s probably an indication you’re doing something you really love (or doing it with a horse you love).

But this does create a bit of an obvious conundrum. While it may normalize the negative and help us understand why we sometimes feel bad things when doing good things, the fact still remains…we’re feeling bad things while doing good things! As if this weren’t enough, our brains give greater priority to the negative in our lives, meaning it’s only a matter of time before the bad begins to feel worse and the good begins to feel…well less good (because less gooder isn’t a thing). As it turns out, negative emotions are a bit like onions; each time we peel away a layer there’s another layer, and each one makes us cry more!

With this in mind, learning to lower the bad so we can lift the good is one of the greatest mental skills any of us can develop; and the good news is there’s a really simple two-phase trick that can help us do just that: (1) Silence our egos by accepting and admitting that we’re not always going to be perfectly good at feeling good, and (2) Trick our brain into lessening the sting and stigma of any harmful or humbling thoughts by reframing them into humorous ones. As it turns out, levity, laughter, and light-heartedness are three of the strongest of all coping mechanisms!

Reframing is the practice of changing bad thoughts into good by purposely changing how we interpret or label them, and we can multiply its impact by coming up with labels that help us feel some of that laughter and light-heartedness. One neat way to do this is by creating labels that become blended words (think hangry, clamping, jeggings, and spork). For example, we can blend feeling frustrated and cranky into FRANKY and tell ourselves that “Franky got the best of us today,” or we can blend a missed distance into a MISSTANCE and tell ourselves that “It was just a little misstance”. Another fun option would be to find an acronym that makes us smile like saying, “I sometimes feel a bit of PMS when riding in front of crowds.” In this case, PMS stands for "people make me scared."

This form of reframing works because of how our brain works; it’s incapable of creating two opposing emotions at the same time…meaning we just can’t feel calm and tense, nervous and excited, or happy and sad at the same time. The brain just isn’t wired that way. We have to pick one. This also means that we can’t be laughing and crying at the same time (even though most of us have tried!). The choice is ours. How much does it mean to us to be calm, excited, and happy?

So the next time the bad is ruining a good thing, remember that reframing hurtful thoughts into harmless or humorous ones can literally change the way your brain interprets those situations and lessen the control they have over you. Follow up your new comical commands with a little smile and chuckle, and you’ll all be shocked at just how good you can become at controlling your emotions before they take control of you!

I hope you enjoyed this month’s Pressure Proof tip and are looking forward to more. If you’re a visual learner and would like to take my online self-paced equestrian sport psychology class please just let me know. It’s upbeat and enjoyable and I’m certain you’d love it! For more info, click here.