Reconciliation Horsemanship

A reel on Instagram that got me thinking. It was in that tone of satire but with an underlying hint of truth. A couple were moving haybales between wagons and the caption read, “I’m not healthy, I’m very sick but I don’t have time to be sick and take care of myself. I’ve died 3 times today, send Gatorade, we are not okay!”

Two main things I want to address, the mentality and the products. No I don’t get any commission off this and no I’m not here to push a product. My hope is maybe there are a few others out there like me who don’t know why their body does what it does but they’re ready to try something out to get them through their day a little less miserable. This is what helped me and a friend, it may not help you, but that’s why this blog is here to put more information in your hands for your own decisions.

Now the mentality behind that I fully get and lived out for YEARS, especially growing up in a southern ag culture. It also got me thinking about products like electrolytes that can help you get you through your workday outside. Well, they’re supposed to anyways. I lived for years with a salt sensitivity, which meant drinks and products like Gatorade and Powerade would make my hands and feet swell. So my body needed something but what I could give it made it sicker.

Speaking as someone who is a product of this mentality that darn near killing yourself and exhausting yourself to the point of no return is something to be proud of, can we stop please? Can we just not. Yes, there is pride to be taken in hard work and NOTHING about agriculture and horses is easy. Yes we have to push through a lot of things so the animals get fed, etc. But can we take a moment to consider maybe your horses, students, family, business, everything and everyone in your atmosphere of influence actually needs you to take care of yourself? If we take a few minutes here and there, or do small things to actually take care of ourselves, we can be more fully there for our horses, our students and clients, and more fully usable for your purpose. If you’re only functioning at half capacity and you have the ability to do something about it, but you’re not because of a not-so-great thought process, because you’re…fill in the blank, why? (Please note, I said *and have the ability to do something about it. * Some things are out of our control, some things seem out of our control.) I also want to be careful here to not perpetuate shame or the message of “do more, work harder,” my aim is not to add a heavier load to an existing burden. There is a time and place for working harder, for pushing through, and there is a time and place to take care of yourself because others need you. Read that again.

They need your story, your gifting, and your God-given purpose on this earth. So, I’m “joyfully rebelling against” the mentality that we have to be half dead, and anything less is unacceptable. No, because our horses suffer from it and so do our students and families. When we can help it anyways. Think of the airplane oxygen mask principle- you can’t help others until you yourself can breathe. But with balance, not taken to a huge extreme.

This section called Horseman’s Health is for little things that have helped me function better, feel better, and have improved my own equine sessions without taking away from what I’m doing. All while continuing to sweat out in the nitty gritty part of all that is horse training.

Speaking of sweating, here is the name of the product I found that actually helped me during the summer heat electrolyte wise: Redmond Re-Lyte Hydration Electrolytes. Credit where credit is due, my friend who runs a medium sized cattle operation found this and after trying it out herself she recommended it to me. It doesn’t cause a reaction from my salt sensitivity, and it helped me keep pushing through the heat while I worked colts this summer in Kentucky’s heat and humidity. It tastes good and mixes into a bottle of water. It does occasionally form little “pearls” at the top of the water bottle that eventually dissolve just not immediately like the rest of the powder. An example of minimal effort, just a little something that helped me get through my days feeling not completely wiped out after working.

A final note- emotional health can be and is often affected by physical health, and you can only push so much until you burn out. Friends, burnout SUCKS, especially if you’re hard on yourself like I am. Coming from someone on the other side, if not some days still in, burnout. If you’re not okay, your horses and students won’t be. If you want to truly help people and their horses, if you’ve got farm chores that aren’t getting done any other way, or even want to produce quality horses, let’s learn to be honest about our needs, and maybe start listening to what is going on in our bodies. Let’s become better discerners of what to push through and what to address. Your current horses, spheres of influence, and future horses will thank you.