Spread your wings!

The Concept of Plenty, or How to Spread your Wings!

If you are like me, you are never content with yourself, where you are, what you have. You always look or hope for improvement of yourself, your job, your life. There are great assets to having this kind of personality: we usually become very skilled at what we are doing, we keep learning, evolving, we are humble and take criticism well. The flip side to this kind of personality is that we often try to improve because we secretly think we are not good enough, and this is painful. Besides, nothing fixes an inferiority complex, or the feeling of not being enough.

What I have learned with time, is to accept myself as I am, and accept that I do not have to be the best at everything I attempt. I don’t even have to be good sometimes, I just have to enjoy the process. For example, in my days of teaching music, I loved teaching everyone who enjoyed playing an instrument, even if they had no “gift” at all and started music in their retirement. The fact that they were happy playing music made me happy, and I always, always encouraged them to keep playing and have fun!

I apply this to myself with horseback riding. I do it because I love it, not because I am good at it. Sure I am slowly improving and I get to have more success with more difficult horses, but I really ride just because I like it. My heels are always up too much, my elbows leave my sides, I am wobbly. On the other hand I have a good seat and I can feel what the horse needs through my body and I know how to deal with rider’s anxiety. As I correct my posture and I strengthen my qualities, I feel that I am spreading my wings as a rider, rather than improving. This leaves my ego and my never being enough out of the equation. There is much more joy in the saddle without the highs and lows of self-judgement.

I strongly believe that it only takes a small shift in our outlook upon life is all it takes to move away from wanting more and start loving ourselves as we are. This does not mean we will be static from now on. It means we will look at life and ourselves from a place of joy, love and plenty!