Once I started to pull these Keys to Success together, I realized how many potentially life changing concepts there are in this list. So if it’s a case of information overload, simply refresh your memory one lesson at a time – one meditation at a time. You can review each three day group from 21 Days to a Quiet Mind – The Essence – there are no time limits on your access to the program.
1. It is not just lip service when I say contact me for any extra support that you need. I have lots of options to assist you at my fingertips, many of which are free.
2. Anything that doesn’t feel good to think about doing, then don’t do that meditation or that exercise or that task yet. Some of you will already be healing in just the right amount for you at the moment, so you don’t need to be adding anything else to that right now. You’ll have access to these meditations for as long as you want or need. Let me know if this happens to you so that I can follow up with you later.
3. Soft ahhh… eyes. I imagine that you really have the idea now, how important the soft smiling ahhh eyes that allow things to flow are. Trying too hard is the single biggest thing that gets in the way of many things, so whether it’s about feelings or thoughts or energy, allowing things to flow to understanding, is perhaps the biggest key to success and it’s one that I suspect will continue to unfold, layer by layer, over time.
There’s a confidence that comes from knowing that with the FLOW of the feelings, comes the understanding and wisdom from your soul – knowing that with every insight, you feel more and more Lightness of Spirit – so you really can afford to allow those feelings to flow.
4. The power of your intention is huge. Just decide that you want to develop a Quiet Mind and allow that to gradually unfold and develop even more strength as you move forwards from this 21 Days. Just decide for another level of allowing your feelings and the understanding that they bring, to flow today. Just decide to allow the beautiful, deep feelings of appreciation to flow – today and always. Just decide and ALLOW everything to just flow in perfect timing.
5. Decide to be kind to yourself today. Right now, pause for a moment and feel what it feels like to decide that you will be kind to yourself today and always. Notice how even this is easier at the end of your 21 Days and no doubt it will get easier and deeper still as time goes on.
6. Developing a sense of inner awareness. As you feel inside yourself with your horse or other special animal on any day, pay gentle attention to everything that you are feeling inside. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else – you are magnificently unique and any comparison will automatically reduce your awareness. And know that whatever you are feeling is right for you in that moment – this may help those of you who are experiencing doubts such as whether you are “doing it right”.
7. Appreciate whatever your gift of awareness is today. Don’t try and get back what you had yesterday or the day before – be aware of whatever heightened awareness you are gifted with THIS day.
8. The same goes for your connection to your horse – enjoy and appreciate whatever connection you have with your horse today – not thinking about what it was like yesterday or what it is for someone else – just allowing however you are feeling your connection TODAY, to flow in THIS moment.
9. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate. And then soak some more and appreciate again.
10. Understanding the five different ways in which we feel our connection to our horse, ourselves and to others is another key to success – here’s the 5 feels lesson.
11. Releasing emotions is a good deal – understanding them is even better and creates opportunities for ongoing inner peace. If you find emotional release with any of the meditations, you can choose to repeat the music until you feel complete and at peace or you can complete the healing with your horse.
During every meditation, use your soft, smiling ahhh… eyes that ALLOW whatever you need to know to float to the surface of your mind. I promise you there is ALWAYS a “feel good” feeling at the bottom of every insight, there is ALWAYS a sense of lightness of spirit and if that isn’t there yet, then it’s still to come and contact me if you need any help with that.
12. Grounding can be very important to re-center ourselves after powerful meditations. Sometimes you can go so deep that you feel a little “spacey” afterwards. Do all the meditations with your feet on the ground, then you’ll notice the grounding effects of the feet exercise at the end of the meditations and REALLY get into that grounding exercise. Here are the basic instructions:
Paying gentle attention to that outward breath, feel down to your feet and how they feel on the ground. Flex your toes and really feel the ground with them – really wriggle your feet and feel deep into the ground. Then take this relaxation and Quieter Mind out into the rest of your day.
13. The power of good posture. Sit in good posture whilst you listen to your meditations – good posture can become another way of accessing a Quiet Mind. Your posture can also improve as you get insights from your meditation, so sitting upright in a good chair or even on a hay bale or in the saddle on a 44 gallon drum or on a good strong saddle stand, can create an opportunity for you to notice that posture improvement and anchor it.
14. The power of your breathing. The movement of your ribs when you breathe is not just important for you and your health, it’s important for your horse too, in order for them to relax their ribs and carry you with more strength, ease and fluidity. Horses often mirror the tension in our breath and body by having tension in their breath and body.
What we’ve been doing over this 21 Days, is cultivating a habit of focusing on the outward breath to trigger a Quiet Mind and the understanding that flows within that Quiet Mind. Then when something happens that makes us get tight and tense, we can focus on our outward breath and that habit can by itself trigger the flow of relaxation and understanding. If our riding seat is secure to start off with, this breathing in an emergency situation, allows us to keep that stability and then the confidence that brings us, is communicated to our horse.
Don’t TRY and put the pause in there at the bottom of your outward breath – just notice how it ever so gently starts to appear and then later extends into a longer pause – and feels good, all by itself. Instead, set your intention to lengthen the pause at the bottom of your outward breath. This means that you can allow the pause at the bottom of your out breath to get longer without trying at all. So pause right now as you’re reading this and say to yourself “I set my intention to lengthen the pause at the bottom of my out breath during this meditation with my horse”.
15. While you’re noticing that outward breath and the lengthening pause, feel how the flexibility of your spine and the expansion of your ribs feels more and more effortlessly smooth, just as it should be while you are doing this.
16. Don’t look for rhythm in your breath – just breathe as much or as little as you need to in that moment as you focus on your outward breath. Rhythm can come later, when it’s appropriate.
17. For those of us who struggle occasionally in emotional overwhelm, bathing the brain in carbon dioxide by allowing that pause at the bottom of your breath to get longer, is a physical access into a Quiet Mind that gives us more opportunity to find the clarity we need in order to understand what it is that we need to know or do to come out of that overwhelm. Priceless.
18. Allow the magic of restoring a healthy oxygen/carbon dioxide balance to improve your health and well being. Spend more time during your day noticing your out breath and the pause at the end of it lengthening – and remember to take a moment to soak up and appreciate what you are feeling.
19. Keep It Simple – any time you feel that what you are trying to do is an effort or too complicated, then drop back into just paying gentle attention to your outward breath and allow the intention you have set to do the work for you. Just being aware of what the pause at the bottom of your out breath is doing – whether it’s there or not, whether it’s lengthening or not – and soaking, appreciating and celebrating when you notice the pause coming back or getting longer – THAT is what will make the changes you are looking for, as fast or as slow as is perfect for you, right now.
20. As you’re paying gentle attention to your own breathing and noticing the lengthening of the pause at the bottom of your out breath, with very soft smiling ahhh eyes, just observe what’s happening to your horse’s breathing.
21. Horses help people best, when people help horses too.
We escalate each other into feeling good and a place of peacefulness and healing. When you systematically help your horse to live the routine of their life without fear, then their heart rate is lowered and their positive effect on us is greater – not to mention the positive effect this has on your horse’s well being too.
The greatest gift we can give our horse in exchange for their support, is to help them live their lives free from routine fear and anxiety. The lovely feelings of well being that you have been experiencing over this 21 Days becomes a two way street where we continue to escalate each other into mutual well being.
22. Sit with your horse for as long or as little as is comfortable on any day that you meditate with them. There’s no such thing as not having enough time – however short the time, it is a valuable opportunity for a deeper connection with your horse. You may spend as little as 2 minutes or you may find yourself melting into two hours – whatever feels right is right for you and your horse on any given day.
23. Did you notice that a Quiet Mind is a seriously good “problem” solving opportunity? Anything less than feeling good is something to notice – allow the feelings to flow in that moment to the Inner Guidance that flows from those feelings. And if that doesn’t happen, you can use a deeper Quiet Mind to find a solution.
You can decide that you WANT to be aware of how your horse is feeling/thinking/being, so that you CAN use your Inner Guidance System to have you and your horse filled with feelings of well being.
24. FEELING our feelings. Allowing ourselves to feel the feelings and the understanding that so very often flows from them – THAT is the most important part of our problem solving process. For those interested in understanding HOW your emotions and other feelings act as guidance to helping you reach your dreams, here’s a chapter from Zen Connection with Horses that explains that (if you have trouble reading this online, you can download it from the Lesson Resources).
25. You will have the opportunity to unfold many layers of deeper connection with your horse during the rest of your lives together. Repeating any of these meditations and exercises when it feels right for you and your horse, is one of those opportunities.
26. I imagine by now that you really understand that appreciation – soaking up every little bit of feeling good – is the key to escalating ourselves into feeling even better. When we are in that place of Inner Awareness when we soak up and appreciate all the good feelings that we experience, when we allow our attention to wander all over our body – when we notice EVERYTHING about how it feels – that combination of feeling good and being in that state of Inner Awareness is what anchors feeling good into our new way of being, our new “normal”.
Making this a routine practice will escalate you into more and more layers of feeling a lightness of spirit.
27. Some horses have stuff of their own going on and are not in any state to be able to support a human in such an active way. So if you’re working with a horse that you think might be distressed, then you can take any of these meditations outside and sit where you can see the sky and the clouds to do this work first – Quieten your Mind and then take that Quiet Mind back to help your horse.
Once you get into incorporating your Quiet Mind with practical exercises with your horse, you come into a whole new sort of Keys to Success…
28. Being familiar with the catching exercise in the 4th key to Happiness with your Horse and the way that you personally experience the early warning signal that something is Not Quite Right is a powerful foundation exercise because so much else that you do with your horse is built from that point.
29. Don’t settle for anything less than feeling good – peacefulness, contentment, excitement, happiness, joy – as you are doing any exercise, use your early warning feeling that something is Not Quite Right, as a signal that something needs to change. You will find that you will unfold layers of those good feelings over time.
30. If the answer to what you need to know or do doesn’t flow in the moment – then stop and back away to take the pressure off your horse, decide that you want to know the answer to “Whose is this? What do I need to know or do?” and with soft, smiling ahhh eyes, allow yourself to be gently aware of whatever is going on in your body, pay gentle attention to your out breath and allow the answer to float to the surface of your mind when it’s ready.
Be especially aware and open to the idea that what you are feeling is your horse and the action that you need to take may be about helping THEM to experience feelings of well being.
This is the magical reciprocity, the two way street, that I talk about – your horse helping you and you helping your horse, both of you escalating each other into feeling good – more and more.
These questions are covered in more detail in this excerpt from Zen Connection with Horses.
31. The simplicity of any of the exercises in this 21 Days, can be covering up complex emotions and old stresses. So please, do not take it personally, whatever time your horse takes to do this task. Nuno Oliveira, one of the old riding Masters, famously said that the solution to every problem is in the foundation. The answer to uncovering every layer of a deeper connection and a greater “feel good” bond with our horse is in the foundation of the everyday routine things that we do with them that are often very simple.
It is well worth whatever time it takes in this meditative state, for your horse to release whatever old stresses and tensions that they have been holding around any task.
32. Don’t underestimate the value of the time you spend waiting for your horse to Chew – when the chewing comes with yawning, it is a signal that your horse is releasing old stress and tension. You can read more about the sometimes profound healing opportunities involved in waiting for your horse to Chew in this excerpt from Zen Connection with Horses and in the 7th Key to Happiness with Your Horse.
When that releasing and yawning and stretching and chewing happens, don’t forget to take some time to soak up and appreciate how good you both feel.
33. AND be aware that their body may have some physical healing to do as they process that, so for big releases stopping at that point is probably an excellent idea!
34. Remember that appreciation is one feeling that you can CHOOSE DELIBERATELY. So, right now as you’re reading this, choose appreciation for everything that your horse IS – allow your attention to drift over all the things you have to appreciate your horse for, until you feel the flow of that feeling. STAY in that space until you really have the feeling of appreciation flowing.
35. And last but not least, have you noticed that your Quiet Mind is getting deeper and easier with practice? In my experience there are many layers of a Quiet Mind and for me personally, they are still unfolding.