1. Mind Change – 1 Session Down: I had my first Mind Change session with Kent yesterday. We rolled right along for 2 hours and it seemed like 30 minutes. We covered a lot of ground with not even much break to drink! There were some laughs and some tears but no time to relish in any of it. We worked on some deep stuff and I would normally say I’m still processing it all, but I was instructed not to try to consciously process, so I guess my sub-conscious is processing without me and I’ll tell you what my conscious side says about it later, when I get filled in ;). I’m excited for a building on this first foundation session tomorrow and seeing the fruit that comes. One thing I loved more than anything is it is so simple, right along with everything else I know to be of truth. It’s nice to have someone experienced in truth to show you the way, but once you get the grasp, you have it within yourself to take it on. I really feel this is how it is with Mind Change, and I couldn’t be more excited to learn more and utilize it myself!
    
2. Learning in Lessons: I’ve had the pleasure of teaching a teenage student who is here for the summer. She had her third lesson with me tonight and 2 amazing discoveries came through. The first: I had the idea to start using some of the mind change ideas in our warm up. I would have to type a lot out to explain this idea, and it’s still developing, but after I had her try it out for about 10 minutes I realized we were on to something huge. I am going to start this routine at the start of my own rides also and I just know that big things are going to come from this in the area of learning my horses’ language and beyond. My excitement can hardly be contained!
    
3. Breaking Habits Restoring Movement: The second breakthrough came back to somatics (the gift that just keeps giving!). A neutral wrist is really important to me in riding, but I have seen it be a struggle for many riders who have not been taught that concept early on. As I always work to address it in my students, in the past it has been a slow process getting the mind to let go of the trained patterns of movement (I think calling things bad habits is in the least not helpful, but usually quite detrimental, so re-framing that in truth is an important highlight here!). Today, when addressing this topic, I thought, why don’t we just apply somatics here with the idea of getting her body to recognize a new movement that is available to her? IT WORKED. We broke it down a few times, and then used it again to connect her head, torso and arm together after the neutral wrist was easy. This made the barrel pattern flawless with no struggle, no fight, nearly without effort. This is what riding, horsemanship, barrel racing…. LIFE is supposed to be like. All of these puzzle pieces are coming together and I’m absolutely blown away at how simple it is now to help riders and how simple it is for them to grow fast, painlessly and in purity. My heart is overflowing.
    
4. & 5. Grace: Since this is my blog, and I can do as I please, I’m totally giving myself permission to just do 3 steps today. I’m tired (probably for all of the processing my sub-conscious is doing) and hungry and on a mission to create a work out plan for my horses. So that is all for this week, but big things are happening and big things are still coming. THANK YOU for taking time out of your life to read little pieces of mine. I always love to hear from you, so if you feel inclined, always feel welcome to reach out. We are all in this life together; let’s live it that way.
   
    

5 Steps Closer, thank you for coming along. 

Nicole & The Team,
Uriah, Kadima, Birdie, Blondie, Dean, Grace, Rocki, Salily, Shasta & Shmini