Growth through brokenness.

So Israel broke his arm yesterday. He was on a pony ride, and then Bons let him have a tiny amount of time with the horse (Mr Bubbles) under his control. The horse trotted and then loped, and Izzy fell off. He broke both his ulna and radius on his right arm. The bones stayed in alignment, so just a cast for the next 6 weeks. We had to pay up front at the hospital ($1100) but should get the money back through either the Alberta Health Care system OR our travel insurance.

It brought up lots of feelings for me. Mainly around the feeling of inadequacy and ignorance; and all to do with horses.

I remember feeling this way when I worked at Circle Square, and even though I was not working with the horses, it felt that all the cool kids knew how to work horses. I ultimately learnt how to be comfortable on a horse, and even enjoyed it. But now I feel back to square one.

I feel that horses are just walking injury-traps, and at the same time that I really want to be a great horse-rider; probably due to the fact that horse riding is an important part of Bonnie's history, and a small dark part of me whispers that she will ditch me for some boot wearing cow-poke. (She has assured me that this is not true, and that she chose me, an Aussie from the coast, for many reasons).

However, the dark part keeps whispering that I am useless, and a waste of space. It's tough to live on a horse ranch and feel totally incompetent with horses.

These feelings came up due to their being 2 being thrown off horses in 2 days. And I had no idea how to not be thrown off, or keep my kids safe around horses.

After a big talk with Bon, she has helped me to start processing these feelings and learning more about horses.

I also received a really timely call from Squiz, who gave me a great sentence: The wise man respects his fear, but still wants to keep learning and growing.

I want to be a wise man, I want to keep learning and growing, I want to respect my fear.

So I am resolved to actively grow into the person I want to be. I want to be wise, multi-skilled, able to ride a horse. So I lean into my fear and grow.

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Visions for the Future

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A Year in Alberta

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