#86: Dancing the Tightrope: Chapter 6 & 7; The Decision-Sort of: Imbalance is a Good Thing

In this episode of the podcast, I’m reading Chapters 6 and 7, The Decision – Sort of, and Imbalance is a Good Thing. As you will hear, at this stage of the journey, I’m somewhat flailing. Looking back on it, I’m still surprised that I took the path I did. Some part of me saw the promise of taking the more difficult path – something that was typically not my norm.

 

It has been fascinating for me to go back and read these chapters several years later. I typically can’t remember what I wrote last week, much less four years ago. In that way, it’s fresh. It’s also a little bit like reading a personal journal. I’m reminded of what I went through. 

 

I hope you enjoy these chapters – they will keep coming every week until we get through the book, and then my podcasts with guests will resume. 

Episode Transcript

Intro (00:02):
Lynn, Welcome to Creative Spirits Unleashed, where we talk
about the dilemmas of balancingwork and life. And now here's
your host. Lynn Carnes,

Lynn (00:20):
welcome to the Creative Spirits Unleash Podcast. I'm
Lynn Carnes, your host. In thisepisode of the podcast, I'm
reading chapters six and seven,the decision sort of and
imbalance is a good thing, asyou will hear at this stage of
the journey, I'm somewhatflailing. Looking back on it,
I'm still surprised that I tookthe path I did. Some part of me

(00:41):
must have seen the promise oftaking the more difficult path,
because it definitely was not mynorm. It has been fascinating
for me to go back and read thesechapters several years later.
You know, I typically can'tremember what I wrote last week,
much less four years ago, andthat way, it makes this fresh.
It's also a little bit likereading a personal journal. It

(01:03):
gives me a way to be reminded ofwhat I went through, which I
think is one of the most usefulthings about journaling. I do
think we forget what happens inour lives, and journaling is a
great way to keep us in touchwith how we're growing. So for
these two chapters, I hope youenjoy them. They will keep
coming every week until we getthrough the book, and then my

(01:26):
podcasts with guests willresume. In the meantime, please
like and share this so that theword can get out. I'm hearing
lots of good feedback aboutthis. Would love to hear yours
as well. And with that, enjoythese chapters of dancing, the
tightrope. Chapter Six, thedecision sort of barely a baby
step. As I learned more and moreabout horses safety and trail

(01:48):
riding, it became clear to methat I would not be getting back
on the horse mocha anytime soon.
The truth was, I had beentraumatized. The accident had
shaken my confidence on twolevels. First, it showed me my
lack of riding skills and thetrue danger of the sport. More
importantly, I lost confidencein my confidence. I had
encountered a domain in which Icould not bullshit my way

(02:10):
through. I was now learning thathorses are expert BS detectors.
It was tempting to regain myconfidence by leaving it
untested by the experts, but myinner cowgirl, the one who
begged her parents for a horse,kept whispering in my ear with
sounds that could only be heardby my heart, something bigger
was moving me towards a lifeaffirming choice. Suddenly,

(02:32):
horses were everywhere, even inplaces they had never been
before, like down the road fromme, the World Equestrian Games
Game came to town 20 minutesfrom my house. It was like the
Olympics for the horse world inthe months leading up to the big
event. Ironically, a year to theday after my accident, the
nearby venue held qualifyingevents to see who would make the

(02:54):
cut. The only Western disciplinethat showed was an event called
raining even though I had grownup with rodeo and barrel racing
and cow horse cuttingconnections, I had never heard
of reining, curious as to whatit was all about, I made a point
to be at one of thepreliminaries. The minute the
horse and rider came out toperform, I was smitten. The

(03:16):
riders and horses seem to moveas one. This was the kind of
riding I had dreamed about doingwhen I was growing up as a
child, I had drawn 1000s ofpictures of cowboys and horses
galloping in raining not only dothe horses run full speed, but
they also do a dramatic slidingstop where the horse pushes his
back legs underneath him in anextraordinary feat of

(03:38):
athleticism. Imagine a horsesliding in a second base and you
will get the picture. It's jawdropping. Plus these were
American quarter horses, andthey were gorgeous. Many were
palominos with long, flowingblond manes. They were unlike
any horses I had seen in theother disciplines. This Texas
girl had found her dream horses.

(03:59):
Within a month, I would learnthat long time friend Janice had
gotten involved in reining, andall the time I knew her, she had
never even mentioned horses.
Now, I discovered that theOklahoma barn where she trained
her horses was very close towhere my family lived in Texas.
It had to be more than acoincidence. When she suggested
I come visit her there, I jumpedat the chance. She told me to

(04:22):
bring my boots. I laughed. I hadseen those horses in action. Not
only were they extreme athletes,but they were highly sensitive
to their rider. One of theinteresting things I had noticed
about reining horses was howmany stallions were being ridden
in every other discipline at theGames, the male horses were
predominantly geldings, which,in dog terms, means neutering,

(04:44):
removing his man parts make thehorse much calmer and safer. Not
so in raining stallions were thenorm. All three of Janice's
horses were stallions. When Iwalked into the barn with my
boots, the same warm feeling Iexperienced as a child walking
into the rodeo. Returned, thefeeling was home. I almost
choked up as I walked throughthe barn greeting each horse.

(05:07):
Next to the barn was a hugepractice arena. The arena was
full of horses and professionaltrainers teaching the horses how
to make their moves. Janice wentout to ride a stallion, and I
was so impressed as she didspins and ran at high speed
around the arena, she got offand handed the reins to Trevor
dare, who was training one ofher horses. He looked my way and

(05:29):
gestured for me to come over. Myheart started pounding, facing
the prospect of getting back inthe saddle for the first time
since my accident sent crazysensations through my body. I
started stretching, goingthrough the routine I do before
a big ski tournament to helpcalm my nerves. After getting
myself as calm as I was going toget, I walked out into the

(05:51):
arena. I looked at Trevor andsaid, just because I look like I
know what I'm doing, don'tbelieve it. Hold the reins,
please. He walked me around thearena as I tried to find my seat
in the saddle, he kept checkingin, asking if I were ready to
take the reins. No way was Igoing to let him give me the
reins. I had just seen thishorse, a stallion, no less,

(06:13):
running full speed. I wanted theSafe Ride, the easy ride inside
I was a kid on a pony ride. Intruth, I was overreacting to my
fear. I didn't yet have themental tools to properly
calibrate what I could andcouldn't handle. As I got off
the horse that day, I realizedthat I had broken through a
barrier. It was barely a babystep, but it was enough to take

(06:35):
the next step back in a saddle.
Cedar Creek stables is about 20minutes from my house. I had
seen their signs for years. Anda month after my accident, my
daughter, Jen had taken hercousin to ride there. Upon
returning, she said it was agood thing I couldn't go. Not
only was the entire ride goingeither up or down steep hills,

(06:57):
but they also walked the horsesthrough the creek. She couldn't
imagine me being okay with thatafter my accident, especially
since going down a hill hadplayed a part in my fall. After
returning from my trip toOklahoma, I simmered for a few
more days in the afterglow ofspending so much time with the
reining horses, I wanted to dosomething more than a pony ride.

(07:19):
The next frame in my picturewould be to simply get back in
the saddle again. I called myfriend, Marla, and asked if she
would join me on a trail ride atCedar Creek. Notwithstanding the
hills and creeks, I assumed thiswould be the safest place for me
to practice getting back on ahorse. When the owner, Howard,
handed out our horseassignments, he had a twinkle in

(07:42):
his eye as he told me I would beriding Ben Marla would be on
Hidalgo The barn was a short busride away. On the ride, I did my
best to calm my nerves. It wasdifficult to believe that
something I had loved so much asa child now filled me with this
level of fear as the bus bumpedalong the road, I called up my
childhood excitement,remembering how it felt whenever

(08:04):
we talked my mom into taking usout to the local stables. By the
time the bus pulled in, I wasready to go. As we walked into
the bar and they pointed me toBen. Now I understood the
twinkle in Howard's eye. Therewas just one problem, no way in
hell was I getting on Ben. Ben'sa draft horse. He was a foot
taller than the next tallesthorse. I'm tall, so Howard

(08:26):
probably thought a tall horsewould be fine with me. Nope,
nope, nope, just no. Marlaquickly volunteered to ride Ben
before I walked the half mileback to the car, I would ride
Hidalgo, a normal sized horse.
Problem solved, at least for themoment. The ride took us over
the creek and up a hill, up, up,up we went. I tried to remember
the instructions. Was I supposedto lean forward or back on the

(08:49):
way up and which way on the waydown? Damn, for every up there
would be a down based on how farwe were going, this was going to
be a long way down. When we gotto the top of the hill, they
stopped on flat ground to do asaddle check. Our job was simply
to stand still and wait. Myhorse was antsy. His feet moving
right and left. Looking back, Irealized he was reflecting the

(09:12):
state of the nervous woman onhis back while they had given us
a set of four simple moves toget the horse to go, stop, turn,
right and left. It wasabundantly clear to me that,
once again, I had no controlover this horse. My safety was
in the herd, and being on ahorse that did this every day
with people of all skills andwith a guide in the lead to

(09:34):
handle the unexpected for myentire life, when someone asked
me, Do you ride? The answer hadalways been Yes. Now I was
beginning to understand thedifference between being able to
get on a horse and being able toride like being able to clean a
fish compared to doing brainsurgery or launch a paper
airplane, compared to flying afighter jet sitting on an antsy

(09:56):
horse during some. Battle checkbeing told to relax, loosen the
reins and to sink into my seatwas like asking me to go from
the miniature golf course towinning the masters. I was still
a passenger, but now the fog wasclearing. I was truly becoming
aware of how much I had to learnthat was just in the

(10:16):
horsemanship domain since Istarted working with him 10
months before, Bruce had shareda whole different world in the
humanship domain, maybe thisride would check a box in the
simplest of terms, I had fallenoff the horse. Now I had gotten
back on. I even put my big girlbritches on by holding the reins
of my very own. Maybe I couldjust call it good. But first we

(10:38):
had to make it back to the barn.
I tried not to think about whatwas coming the hill where I had
my fall was tiny compared tothis one. We were at the top of
a mountain and the barn was atthe bottom. A potentially
traumatizing downhill walk wasin front of me, sure enough, as

(10:58):
we started down, the guy told usto lean slightly back as the
horse made his way down thehill. At this point, I truly
began to understand what genuineanxiety feels like. Adrenaline
started shooting through mybody, and with every slight bump
or misstep, I felt like I wasgoing down. My mind catapulted
1000 thoughts a minute, mosthaving the word shit in them, I

(11:21):
tried to breathe deeply, butthat seemed to just tell my
brain that things were reallybad. Somehow, someway, we
finally made it to flat ground.
I was so relieved. Then Iremembered that we had to cross
that creek again. This time wewouldn't just cross it. We would
walk in the creek for quite aways, my mind sent out more
shitty thoughts, really, let'sjust check the box and tell

(11:43):
everybody you got back on thehorse. Anybody can ride these
horses. Why are you making it sohard? As we splash through the
creek, my body hurl sensationsof impending death, and my mind
believed every one of them. Imarveled at how calm and normal
everyone else seemed to be. Iwondered how the horses knew
where to step when they couldn'tsee the bottom of the creek. I
waited for it to end by death orby walking to the barn. I really

(12:06):
didn't care. It just needed toend. Finally, the ride was over
when I got off. My knees hurtand I could barely walk. I had
done it. I rode a horse bymyself and went home in a car
instead of to a hospital or inan ambulance, I could now
officially check the box and sayI got back on a horse. It was
done, or was it by the time Igot home, my knees were fine,

(12:31):
but my mind wouldn't let it go.
While standing outside the fireover the last 10 months watching
others work with Bruce, Irealized my passive engagement
had shown me that horses hadsomething to teach me. My
internal conversation withsomething like this, I checked
the box and my knees hurt, sothat was a good excuse to never

(12:52):
go back again. I'm pretty sure Ialready know what Bruce is
teaching. Just do that. But ifyou know it so well, why were
you so freaked out on a trailride designed for beginners,
learning to reach for my toolsinstead of my rules, sounded
like an interesting possibility,but all the other people riding
horses aren't doing this messyinternal work. Why me? How will
you feel if you walk away thenext week? I called Marla. Want

(13:17):
to go ride marinating. Bigdecisions, those moments in time
put a stake in the ground, outof the blue declarations usually
marinate with me for a longtime. What looks like inactivity
or tentativeness or even fear isoften just the process of
letting a pending change seepin. This awareness is in

(13:40):
contrast with my machinethinking, where I want to push a
button and everything is old assuddenly new, like laundry that
goes in soiled and comes outfresh and clean. I crave the
machine response, but changedoesn't work that way, at least
not deep change how you liveevery day. Change, while I can
exactly pinpoint the moment Ibecame a slalom water skiing

(14:00):
addict, the good kind of addict,I can point to the moments that
created tiny sparks that ledeventually to a raging fire.
During the time when I wastraveling every week to
Washington, DC and New YorkCity, I got a message from my
husband. We had been living onLake Lure for a couple of years,
and the ski boat was goinglargely unused. We were both too

(14:21):
busy with work to really enjoyour home. He asked what size
life jacket might fit me, havingnever had my own ski jacket, I
guess, medium, and forgot aboutit. When I came home late Friday
from that trip, I walked into mydining room where a beautiful
vase of hydrangeas, a newwetsuit and life jacket waited
for me. He had also left a notethat read, can't wait to ski

(14:42):
with you in the morning. Imelted this hesitant skier would
most certainly ski with him inthe morning. Soon thereafter, I
saw a friend and neighbor inaout skiing behind her deck boat
with another local acquaintance,Lori. At that point, I knew
enough about slalom skiing toknow that the right boat is
everything. Thing, the Wakeproduced by a ski boat is

(15:02):
designed to be small, so you canzip through it at high speeds. A
deck boat is not a ski boat, soI invited them out on my ski
boat. Watching Lori zip back andforth across the Wake blew me
away. She was positively glowingas she got back in the boat, and
I knew I wanted to rush likethat, but I had also taken some
bad falls in the past. Aftermarinating in Lori's Joy, I made

(15:25):
an offhand comment to BobWashburn, a long time, local
resort owner, that I would love,love to learn to cut across the
Wake like Lori, I just didn'twant to fall. His response was
quick, I can teach you how tocut without falling. So we
booked some ski lessons. Thenext year, Russ and I found a
random ski course on a lakewhere we took our boat on

(15:46):
vacation. I drove the boat withhim, zipping back and forth,
terrified that I would run overthe buoy strung together to
guide the boat's path. The nextyear, we bought our own portable
ski course and put it in thelake we were visiting. I
couldn't get around a singlebuoy, but at the end of that
trip, I told him I was going tofind a ski school to teach me
how to go around those elusivebuoys. Many more ski mornings

(16:10):
with Ina and Lori and ski schoolexperiences transpired before
the day I realized I was a truewater skier. None of these
moments were the moment. Ihonestly can't point to the
exact moment, and that's thepoint. I guess I knew it was
serious when I went along withmy husband's crazy idea that we
should build our own ski lighttalk about big change, a

(16:31):
Saturday morning diversionturned us into owning a ski
light, along with a LeadershipRetreat Center farm and much
more, all because of a series oftiny sparks cultivated over time
the fall from the horse was aSaturday morning diversion
between ski sets. On the morningof the accident, I skied, and as
I left to go ride horses for acouple of hours, I said, I will

(16:53):
be back to drive Austin able,who runs the ski school on our
lake. Instead, I spent theafternoon in the emergency room,
and the next three days in thehospital, still seeking the
skill to stop a horse. Now thatI was back on a horse a year and
a half after the accident, I wasdone marinating, some part of me
wanted to push the button anddeclare, I'm back on a horse.

(17:14):
Now it's time to get back on thehorse. Every time I pictured
returning to the farm where Ihad the accident, the screen
went blank. There were too manysteps not yet taken between here
and there. Rather than judge myparalysis, I listened. I stayed
in touch with Babs, who tooksuch good care of me after the
fall. Then kept her apprised asI kept taking baby steps, my

(17:38):
opportunities to ride coveredtwo ends of a very large
spectrum. On one end was CedarCreek, which offered guest rides
and confidence buildingexperience. On the other end was
my friend Janice's reininghorses in Oklahoma, which showed
me a world of possibility thatboth set my heart on fire and
seemed very far out of reach.
The difference was like drivinga typical car on the road versus
getting a chance to hang outwith the pit crew at a NASCAR

(17:59):
race. The next four months wentby like a blur. I started going
to Cedar Creek regularly. Marlajoined me one more time, and
then decided to start takingEnglish writing lessons closer
to her house. I didn't feelready for lessons, and certainly
not in a tiny English saddle. Myflavor was definitely Western
writing. My only goal over thefour months was to make it down

(18:22):
the hill without the adrenalinerushing, heart pounding
sensations, yet some part of mewanted the thrill of the ride.
After my first trip to Oklahoma,I knew I would be back. I wasn't
dreaming of being a Reiner yet,but being on a farm with
hundreds of horses and a chanceto ride a real horse was
alluring. Plus, my family wasright down the road. My dad had

(18:43):
been having some healthchallenges, and coming to
Oklahoma was a way to check onhim without seeming overly
worried. The next time I went toOklahoma, they put me on a
beautiful blue eyed cremelostallion, one of Janice's
horses. This time I took thereins, already, the trainers in
the barn were asking me if I wasready to trot or to canter or to
spin. It was a good kind ofpressure. Over a couple of

(19:06):
visits to that arena, I managedto walk, trot and canter, plus I
was able to do a few slow spinson the back of a very well
trained horse in controlconditions in both the trail
rides and in the arena, I wasstill having adrenaline,
rushing, heart poundingsensations, even though these
were relatively control settingsin Bruce's language, my negative

(19:28):
pole was at a 10 on a scale ofone to 10. That's a lot of
energy. And there was no doubtthe horses could feel that I
thought something was wrong withme, and longed for someone to
tell me I was good, that I couldgo back and ride the horse, but
it would have been a lie. Iwasn't good, and the answers
were not coming from someoneelse, but I didn't know that

(19:48):
yet. I still just wanted tolearn to stop a horse, because
every time I got on one, it feltlike it was nanoseconds away
from galloping off with meholding on for. Dear life.
By this time, I had beenbringing clients to Bruce for a
year. We had a session soonafter my experiences in
Oklahoma, and I mentioned myexcitement and continuing

(20:11):
trepidation to him, we werefinishing a porch session where
Bruce and I were debriefing thework. Now that the client had
left, I turned the subject tome, all this adrenaline was
starting to take its toll, andhe gave me the same spiel I'd
been hearing him give my clientsfor the last past year. Yeah,
Bruce, but I don't want messy.
Option three, I want easy.

(20:32):
Option two, I thought so, partlyout of desperation to move away
from the personal stuff and intothe skill stuff, I asked him a
question, do you give ridinglessons? The answer was yes. I
wasn't really thinking throughthe ramifications of taking
riding lessons almost threehours from my house. I just knew
Bruce could help me work outwhat was happening when I was on

(20:53):
the back of a horse. I booked asession for a couple of weeks
out excited to get on a horseunder Bruce's tutelage. It
turned out Bruce and I had verydifferent definitions of quote,
unquote, riding lessons, chapterseven. Imbalance is a good
thing, the balancing act of alifetime. When I signed up for

(21:16):
riding lessons, I soughtbalance. My conscious self
wanted balance on the horse.
Losing my balance had cost medearly. My deeper self sought
more. The only tight rope I'veever walked was a slack line of
foot off the ground. Yet themetaphor of walking a tightrope
resonates with me. When I wasleading major change initiatives
in my banking career, it wasalways a balancing act of

(21:38):
regulating the heat byacknowledging the emotional
turmoil we were creating, whileat the same time keeping the
focus on deadlines and clients.
When leading processimprovement, I deeply learned
the benefits of balancing speedand quality. Going slow to go
fast almost always netted abetter result. As a business

(21:58):
leader, I find the balancingacts are constant, such as
focusing on the short termversus the long term, on cost
management, as well as customerservice. As a lover of food, the
balance is in the exchange ofcalories consumed with calories
burned. One of the benefits, bythe way, of slalom water skiing
is the intense calorie burn. Asa coach, I'm always balancing

(22:18):
challenge and support. Everybalancing act feels like walking
a tightrope. To me, in my ownself awareness work and in
assisting others in theirs, I'vecome to realize that the biggest
balancing act is the one betweenour two basic human needs,
attachment and self expression.
Dr Gabor Mate is an addictionresearcher who frames addiction

(22:39):
as an ill fated solution for anattachment problem. Our human
needs are non negotiable. Weneed others, and we also need to
be who we are. It's thebalancing act of a lifetime.
Unlike many trade offs,attachment and self expression
do not offer an equalopportunity of choosing one over
the other, because our basicsurvival needs favor the

(23:03):
attachment side of the balancingact, we tend to choose getting
those needs met above everythingelse. We need to meet our basic
survival needs of food, water,shelter and safety. We need warm
hugs. We need to know we arecared for. We need to know we
belong. We need to believe weare enough. We know those needs

(23:23):
are met by how we feel. Noamount of talking to our brains
is going to give it to us. Awarm hug on paper and a real
warm hug are very, verydifferent when we don't get what
we need, we do other things tomake the empty feelings go away.
We have a lot of strategies forsatisfying our need for love,

(23:43):
approval and caring, shopping,eating, working, exercise,
gambling, sex and drugs. Whenattachment needs are not
addressed, it's almostimpossible to be true to
ourselves. Authenticity and selfexpression go out the window. We
lose touch with our innerguidance and awareness of who we
truly are. We lose access to thehealthy tools needed to take

(24:07):
care of ourself. As mate says inhis book, in the realm of hungry
ghosts, I believe there is oneaddiction process, whether it's
manifested in the lethalsubstance dependencies, the
dependencies of my downtownEastside patients, the frantic
self soothing of overeaters orshopaholics, the obsessions of
gamblers, sexaholics andcompulsive internet users, or

(24:30):
the socially acceptable and evenadmired behaviors of the
workaholic drug addicts areoften dismissed and discounted
as unworthy of empathy andrespect in telling their
stories, my intent is twofold tohelp their voices be heard and
to shed light on the origins andnature of their ill fated
struggle to overcome sufferingthrough substance abuse, they

(24:50):
have much in common with asociety that ostracizes them if
they seem to have chosen a pathto Nowhere, they still. Have
much to teach the rest of us inthe dark mirror of their lives,
we can trace outlines of our ownend of his quote, my addictions
fell in the socially acceptablerealm of the workaholic. It has
been a try harder, beat myself,prove I can do it, sort of

(25:14):
strategy that works very well inthe corporate world, until I
began to see it for the losinggame. It was the pattern made me
susceptible to the siren song ofmore money, more status, more
responsibility, in exchange forthe warm hugs of belonging and
the elusive feeling of beingenough, everything was fine when
the pressure was low, when theconsequences raised, the

(25:38):
pressure work became everythingand life faded into the sunset.
It was this realization thatmotivated me to leave the
banking world and start my ownfirm. First writing lesson after
leaving corporate America, Ithought I had beat the pattern.
My work life balance wasexceptional, and I rarely caught
myself looking for approval orbeating myself up, but Bruce did

(26:01):
over and over again. He caughtme beating myself up in cagey
ways. In those early sessions,he could see what I still didn't
know that I didn't know. In mymind, I was moving away from
fixing me and instead learningthe skills to ride a horse. When
I pulled into Bruce's farm formy first riding lesson, I opened

(26:23):
the back of my car and pulled onmy boots, my heart fluttered a
bit as I anticipated getting toride either Marley or Mac, a new
gelding that had arrivedrecently. We started with a
porch session, as we had withall the leadership sessions we
had done since this session waslabeled writing lesson, I was
looking forward to hearing somenew ideas from Bruce. When we

(26:44):
began, things started feelingsuspiciously like every other
session we had done. Later, muchlater, I would understand that
his repetition was intentionalto balance out the repetition of
my old patterns. On this day, Ijust wanted him to tell me how

(27:05):
to ride a horse so I could learnto stop the horse. Then he asked
me a riding question, what areyou trying to accomplish with
these lessons? I replied, I wantto learn to ride safely. I've
come to recognize the danger Iput myself in on the trail. I
could walk away, but I haveseveral friends who would love
for me to ride with them. Ididn't mention the tearing

(27:28):
sensation ripping me down themiddle, back and forth. My
thoughts were bouncing. Whowould I be if I didn't get back
on the horse? Why would I everrisk such an injury again? How
can I walk away from this? Howcan I ever do this? Then he
asked, Are you ever going to getback on the horse? I gulped and
said, Yes, I would like to, ifpossible. Once I said it out

(27:51):
loud, I saw it as a stretch goaland set about proving to him
that I would be ready soonerrather than later. In fact, I
thought he might give me achecklist of skills like
stopping from a trot or makinggood circles. I should have
known better. Good he said, nowput that picture aside. The work
we are going to do is not aboutthat picture. It's about

(28:14):
breaking the work down into thetiny frames that make up that
picture. Dang it, his guidancewas still sounding like the work
we had done in the leadershiprealm. I hoped he understood
that I was here to ride.
However, by now, I knew betterthan to argue. Besides, he

(28:35):
confirmed that I had my ridinghelmet as we walked down to the
horse pasture, surely I would beriding today, please. Not so
fast. He handed me the halterand the lead rope and asked me
to pick a horse to quote,unquote, ride. My instructions
were like the ones from the yearbefore, bring the horse into the

(28:55):
round pen, close the gate, takeoff the halter and wait for
further instructions. At least,I could see that Bruce had
brought a bridle and a saddledown to the arena. I wondered
what the first step in a realwriting lesson would be. He
asked me if I remembered how tofind the middle of the round
pen. I thought, are you kiddingme? Not this again. It would be

(29:18):
several more lessons before Irealized how finding the middle
unlocked an essential part of meand turned everything I
understood about balance on itshead.
The balance point is alwaysmoving. My awareness of dynamic
alignment slowly opened from theback of a boat in my quest to
run the slalom course, I keptrunning into the dilemma of

(29:40):
having far less time to practicethan my brain and body needed to
coordinate the intense and fastmovements over a mere 20
seconds, not only does it happenfast, but slalom skiing is also
physically intense. Slalomskiing involves a boat going
straight down the course whilethe skier swings from side to
side in. The ski course, theskier goes through the first

(30:01):
gate, around six buoys and outthe end gate. The swing of a
skier is like that on a swingset, except with far greater
speed and done while moving downthe lake, while the rope is
fixed to the pylon in the centerof the boat. It swings big, wide
arcs as the skier banks the skion edge to slingshot through the
boat wake and then banks the skion the other edge to cast the

(30:22):
ski out and around the buoy.
It's a constant game of beatingthe boat from one buoy to the
next with each ski pass. Forsomeone in my classification,
lasting 20 seconds. There is nota lot of time to practice. A
practice session behind the boatis typically six passes through
the course, while some try to domore typically, the practice
quits being productive becausethe skier is exhausted. This is

(30:44):
even more true at the elitelevel, where the pass is 16
seconds for pro men and 17seconds for pro women, whether
it's 17 seconds or 20 seconds.
Learning the intense moves whileon the water is no easy task. I
needed a way to practice off thewater. Like many skiers, I tied

(31:05):
a rope to a post and practicedleaning against it in a
simulation of the body positionat the apex of the turn on the
water. The angle of that leandetermines the speed of the
skiers from buoy to buoy. Thedeeper the lean, the faster the
ski moves. Practicing this Leanseemed like the answer to my
dilemma. At every opportunity, Iwent to the old post and did my

(31:26):
best imitation of my bodyposition on the water. I wanted
to build a muscle memory so thatI could do this elusive move
while behind the boat. It turnedout to create more problems than
it solved. My brilliant idea didnot consider the much bigger
problem as long slalom skiingand in most endeavors, whether
business or sport, the balancepoint is always moving. When I

(31:53):
leaned against a fixed post thatwas not moving down the lake
like a boat does at 30 miles anhour, I created a form of static
muscle memory with my hands onthe handle, I would have my
coach review my form. I wouldthink and ask, were my arms
relaxed and in the properposition? Were my hips in
alignment with my shoulders tocreate a good stacked position?

(32:15):
Were my shoulders where theyneeded to be relative to my feet
and hips? It felt like such aproductive exercise, and it was
to a point. Unfortunately, itwas a single point in a game
with countless variables. In away, it was like the analog
clock with no battery, even adead clock shows the correct
time twice a day. Doing thispractice gave me such

(32:38):
confidence. It was like beingable to hit a bucket of tennis
balls or practicing 500 timesfrom 100 times for my TEDx talk.
Every time I took my practice tothe ski course, I felt ready to
apply that lane as I crossed thewake. And every time I ended up
way out of balance on my way tothe buoy, sometimes I could
recover. More often than not, Icould not get back into good

(32:58):
skiing position to continue thepass, puzzling through what was
going on took numerousconversations with my trainer in
ski school, professional AustinAbel. He has a dual quest.
First, he's always taking hisgame to the next level. Second,
he's constantly working on howto coach others to ski at their
next level. One day, he was inthe boat and I was in the water

(33:20):
resting between ski passes atthe end of the lake, I both
celebrated and complained aboutmy leaning through the wake.
Yes, I had achieved the positionI had worked so hard to learn on
land while leaning against thepole, but the pole on land is a
fixed balance point. Skiing 37feet on either side of the boat
has almost infinite balancepoints, just like an analog

(33:42):
clock, my lane against the boatwas in the correct position one
time on the ark, keeping thatposition for more than a split
second threw me out of balance.
As we were talking through this.
He said, your lane was great.
You just stayed in it too long.
The boat is dynamic and the poleon land is static, what I needed

(34:03):
more than the ability to balancefrom a static point was the
ability to move incrementally asthe conditions changed.
Reorienting was more importantthan chasing something that was
in the past. Never once in theski course Am I at the same
angle relative to the pylonwhere the rope attaches. I'm
always moving either right orleft. In addition, my body is

(34:27):
never at the same angle relativeto the vertical and horizontal
axis. I'm either standing talltowards the sky or leaning ever
more or less towards the waterat varying degrees from start to
finish. In other words, my bodymoves in dynamic alignment to
the boat in 1000s of variationsover those 20 seconds. The
permutations of the two axes areincalculable. My lean drill only

(34:52):
showed me the perfect alignmentrelative to the boat for a
single point in time that lastsless than a second on the ski
course, fixing. My mind on thatsingle point of success set the
conditions for multiple pointsof failure. With that insight,
we started working on dynamicalignment. I would come to learn
that not only did I need toreorient my body, my mind played

(35:15):
an even bigger role. All toooften, my mind and body were not
in the same place. When thingswere going well, my mind tended
to jump ahead that thought I'mabout to run this pass
guaranteed that I would not runthe pass. When I had a bubble on
the ski, my mind would take meto oops land, where I wished for
a do over and punished myselffor screwing up with whatever

(35:36):
wrong move I had just made. If Ihad enough bubbles or falls, my
mind would transform me all theway to childhood, while it
reminded me of whatever rule Ihad made up for how to still
look good while screwing up ordeal with a mistake when it was
time to explain myself, my mindwould even jump into the boat
and wonder what the driver wasthinking if people were

(35:57):
watching. The pressure was evengreater with my mind all over
the place, it was a wonder Icould ever calibrate my body to
stay in just dynamic alignment.
The balance point is alwaysmoving. Imbalance is a good
thing. It turns out, imbalanceis more important than balance.
Pay attention to the subtlemoves of anyone doing any sort

(36:19):
of balancing act, the tightropeis never completely still. The
bicycle always moves from sideto side. The rowing boat tips
and corrects constantly. I oncewatched a trick golfer hit a
golf ball 300 yards whilestanding on one of those big
balance balls like you see inthe gym. His legs never quit

(36:39):
moving as they adjusted andcorrected and reoriented to keep
him stable as he stood on thewobbling ball. When we treat
balance as the sole objective,we miss the point. Balance comes
and goes and comes again soquickly. George Leonard, the
author of the way of a Kido andmastery, said the student asks
the master how he stays inbalance. The master replies, I'm

(37:02):
out of balance much more thanyou are. I've simply learned to
regain my balance more quickly.
The skill of returning tobalance matters. Balance is a
constant act of calibration andrecalibration, more than the
goal to be achieved. Not only isthe balance point always moving,

(37:23):
but we also only have movementby getting in balance when we
are moving. It's a constant actof getting out of balance and
then back into balance, ratherthan being like the top of the
hill to be conquered. Balance issimply a reference point. Watch
a young baby learned to walk.
Recently, I watched a momteaching her son. First mom
helped him stand up, and heteetered tottered and swayed.

(37:45):
When he swayed far enoughforward, he took a step. Two
steps later, his bottom halfcould not keep up with his top
half, and he fell forward on hishands. Next try, his top half
could not keep up with hisbottom half, and he was suddenly
sitting on the ground next try,he was able to take a few more
steps slowly. He was learning tomake the corrections, to string

(38:07):
the actions together into awalk. Walking is an act of
losing and then regainingbalance. We just do the losing
and regaining in such smallincrements that we no longer
realize we are out of balance.
To move things, we must get outof balance and then regain that
balance, preferably in a waythat keeps us aligned and safe.

(38:28):
One of my artistic endeavors isto throw clay pottery on a
wheel. Learning to center a lumpof clay is a critical building
block to creating a cup, aplate, a bowl or a tall vase.
The initial lump starts out ofbalance, and then the act of
centering, we bring the clayinto balance. That centered lump
is just that a centered lump. Tomake something on the pottery

(38:51):
wheel, you must take the clayout of balance. Lifting a wall
of clay is an act ofdisequilibrium, stacking one
layer on top of another, in andout, over and over, the clay
goes out of balance and thenback into balance. The aren't is
in the give and take. Push toomuch and the wall collapses.

(39:11):
Push too little, and nothinghappens. Some of my early mugs
are super thick on the bottom.
As a rookie Potter, I justcouldn't get the bottom level of
clay out of balance enough tomove up the cylinder. The thick
bottoms makes those mugs tooheavy to drink from, but they
are great pencil holders.
There's a subtle problem withdisequilibrium. It feels wrong.

(39:34):
The physical sensations of beingout of balance are
uncomfortable. That's the point.
However we interpret thatdiscomfort incorrectly. We tell
the story. Usually, Isubconsciously that we are
making a mistake. At some level,I wanted Bruce to show me how to
ride a horse without feeling anydisequilibrium while he was
actually here to teach me wouldturn this way, equilibrium. Come

(39:58):
into a gift, finding my center.
On this day, all I knew wasthat, once again, we were doing
Bruce's maddening exercisecalled Finding the middle. To
me, it seemed like anunnecessary impediment keeping
me away from the work I came todo. I thought, How was this

(40:19):
silly exercise going to help mewith anything involving the
horse. Nonetheless, I wentalong, because apparently the
only way I would be able to dowhat I wanted was to humor him
by finding the middle of thedamn round pen. His first step
was to ask me to just go to themiddle and find the closest
approximation to the very centerof the round pen. Once I did

(40:40):
that. I just needed to make amark in the dirt with my heel. I
thought, Okay, this won't be sobad. Surely I can get close
enough for him to let me moveon. I walked into the middle,
looked around a bit, made a tinyadjustment in my placement, and
made the mark with my heel. As Iwas looking around, I had

(41:03):
noticed one weird thing, theround pen didn't exactly seem
round. Oh, well, this was closeenough. I recall that we did
this the prior year, and thewhole process was rather
elaborate. However, I hadsucceeded last year, so in my
mind, that box was checked. Iexpected this time we would move

(41:24):
through the finding the middlestep very quickly. Bruce asked
me if my heel Mark was on themiddle thinking this would hurry
things along, I gave him a smartass answer along the lines of,
it's as close as I can getwithout a measuring tape. When
working with a horse in a roundpen or round corral, the human
typically stands in the centerand does different things to

(41:44):
encourage the horse to move incircles around him or her from
the center and staying in a sixto eight foot diameter, the
human can get the horse to walk,trot, canter, and with the right
moves, can get the horse tochange direction. Knowing this,
I was pretty sure a closeapproximation of the center was
good enough to move to the nextstep. I was wrong. Well, he

(42:06):
said, let's go through a processthat will get you closer, dang
it. He handed me four blue flagsand said, Let's start at the
beginning, step by step. Heguided me to first divide the
round pin in half and then halfagain. The clock in my head kept
ticking, wondering if there wasgoing to be any time left in our

(42:27):
session to do what I came to doafter going through the
agonizing process of plantingthe four blue flags, we knew
that if the division wasaccurate, we would be able to
pull two strings from eachpoint, and the intersection
would be the middle of the roundpin. At this point, I still
thought we were trying to findthe actual middle of the round
pin. It would be many, many moresessions before I realized we

(42:51):
were recalibrating me to find mycenter. So after, we found what
we call the middle of the roundpen, and after I was more than
satisfied that we had theprecise middle pin pointed
enough for me to be able to moveon, he gave me the orange flags.
Now this was starting to seemlike an even bigger waste of

(43:12):
time. I thought we were findingthe middle, and we had found the
middle. My patience was wearingthin. I took the flags because I
was pretty sure not taking themwould make working with the
horse take even longer than italready had. He had me go and
stand next to one of the blueflags and look at the Blue Flag
across from it to see if therewas an equal area on both sides

(43:33):
of the imaginary line. I'm notbig on rework, and this exercise
felt like we were just redoingperfectly good work we had
already done. Still, I humoredhim. Then he asked me to do the
unthinkable. He said, Take threesteps to the right and evaluate
the division of the round penfrom my new vantage point. I

(43:54):
thought, Why in the world wouldI do that? He reminded me of my
negative positive poll. He said,I could also call it a spirit
level, like the ones carpenteruse that feeling of being off
does not mean you have made amistake. That feeling is your
negative positive pole, sendingyou signals that there is

(44:14):
something for you to payattention to that is not
beneficial to you. Again, Ithought, but I don't want to
feel disequilibrium. The feelingwas exactly his point. He had to
yell to raise the pressureenough to get me moving. He
wanted me to move back andforth, forcing the internal

(44:34):
bubble of my spirit level tomove way out of center and then
back again, now move back tocenter and then three steps to
the left, he said, as I wasstanding three full steps from
the Blue Flag, he asked me tofeel my negative positive pole
relative to whether there washalf of the round pin on each
side of me. Hell no, I thought.
Watching my reluctance to moveeven an inch, you would have

(44:58):
thought there was a pit of.
Alligators there now he wantedme to feel it when every bone in
my body was screaming to me tomove back to the comfort zone.
Clearly I was not going to dieif I pushed my bubble that far
off center. But tell that to mybody where the sensations were
screaming, danger, danger, mysurvival mode and reality could

(45:21):
not have been further apart. Histone of voice intended to push
my negative pole up was doinghis job. Every bone in my body
remembered getting into troublewith my parents, my teachers, my
bosses, the past came floodingin, warning me that when I feel
this way, I better get in line,because I'm making a big mistake
here, unless I do what they sayto do. Bruce was pushing my

(45:46):
mistake button, not to drive mecrazy, but to heal me. He was
intentionally setting theconditions for me to go into my
old stories and theuncomfortable emotions so that I
could choose different actionsthan the one I had programmed
myself or had been programmed todo. He said, give it a number on
a scale of one to 10. How faroff is it? With that

(46:09):
distinction, the fog began toclear a little. I gave him a
number, something like an eightor a nine. Now go back to the
right, give me a number. Thistime, it was clearer that the
blue flag across from me and myposition did not represent a
5050, split of the round pen.
Now my number was more like afive. The noise faded into the
background and the innerelectric charge became my

(46:32):
primary focus. It was like atuning fork telling me which way
to move, move back and forth,paying no attention to the Blue
Flag under your feet. Just keepmoving back and forth until your
poles are balanced, when yournumber is zero and the imaginary
bubble within feels centered,plant the orange flags. As I

(46:52):
followed his instructions, theexternal world dropped away. The
only thing that mattered for abrief, exquisite moment was how
I felt. Disequilibrium became myfriend. Now my feelings were not
telegraphing that I had made amistake. Instead, they were
providing the warm voice ofguidance back and forth I

(47:14):
walked, tuning into the littleelectric charge called my pole,
giving it a number as I madesmaller and smaller swings.
Finally, my negative polebalance, the number was zero and
I planted the orange flag. Imentally returned to the real
world and noticed that my orangeflag was a few inches from the

(47:34):
blue flag. It would be yetanother year before I truly
understood the depths of whathad just happened, even though
Bruce, Bruce had given me thefull lesson that day. The orange
flag represents the you. Heexplained, not a you. The
conditioning done bydomestication. Domestication
made you believe that's who youare. It's not it's so ingrained

(47:56):
in you that every inch of yourbeing believes it's you. This
exercise helps lift that veil.
It allows you to consciously seethe difference between a you and
the you. When you are tempted tobeat yourself up over making the
mistake of planting one of theflags in the wrong place,
remember your inner guidancefound the second place. Did you

(48:18):
notice the voice in your headwondering what I was going to do
with your mistake. Did you feelthe urge to hit yourself with
the two before for getting itwrong? Do you really want to
give your power over to thosevoices from your past? Are you
really going to look outsideyourself for approval and
acceptance when you have thispower within you, when you learn
to use your polls to guide you,it doesn't really matter what

(48:41):
they say. When the chatter inyour mind starts, all you have
to do is listen to your polls.
The chatter won't matter becauseit you will be tuning into one
of the tools God gave to guideyou. My ears heard his words,
but it would take a lot more forme to grasp the wisdom and
freedom in what he was teachingme the next five or six times we

(49:01):
started a session in the roundpen. We started with this
exercise. Every time I had thesame response. Why the hell am I
doing this? It became clearerthe day Bruce threw me yet
another curveball.
Thank you for listening to thecreative spirits unleash

(49:23):
podcast. I started this podcastbecause I was having these great
conversations, and I wanted toshare them with others. I'm
always learning in theseconversations, and I wanted to
share that kind of learning withyou. Now what I need to hear
from you is what you want moreof and what you want less of. I
really want these podcasts to beof value for the listeners.

(49:43):
Also, if you happen to knowsomeone who you think might love
them, please share the podcastand, of course, subscribe and
rate it on the different appsthat you're using, because
that's how others will find it.
Now, I hope you go and dosomething very fun today. You.