EFT: A Different Approach to Restoring Riding Confidence

A Story of Riding Joy Reclaimed

by Betsy Crouse, ACAP-EFT

Riding horses can be risky. Just ask Amy Thompson, who grew up on a horse ranch in Texas in the 1970s and was riding before she could walk. In August of 2012 Amy was thrown twice from her horse in the span of a few minutes. The second fall sent her to the hospital with a concussion, dislocated breastplate, misaligned vertebrae in her neck, and severe bruising of multiple ribs, two of which were dislocated.

Physical recovery was slow. Mental/emotional recovery was incomplete, leaving Amy with lingering fear. She fought the fear as best she could, but she never got on that horse again. After a difficult process spanning many months, she finally sold him and bought another horse. But the fear was still with her.

Her trainer said she was riding differently – stiff, tense, hesitant – and Amy knew it was true, but in spite of her experience level, she was stymied. Over and over she berated herself: “I have been riding all my life! What is wrong with me??”

Frustrated, discouraged, and full of self-blame, Amy recognized herself in an article about the brain-body “freeze” and “discharge” responses. Hearing scientific reasons for why her fear symptoms weren’t going away was a relief to Amy – in her words, it was “like someone turned the light on from complete darkness.”

It’s Not About Willpower

Most riders (especially experienced ones) with lingering fear after a scare or injury assume that they are lacking in willpower or courage. That assumption is a mistake. Part One & Part Two of this series described the brain-science of getting stuck with persistent fear symptoms, and introduced the energy-psychology process known as Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFT.

Here in this final article we’ll review some of the more traditional methods of rebuilding rider confidence, look at what EFT cannot do and does not replace in a rider’s program, and then follow the details of Amy Thompson’s story, from stuck-as-stuck-can-be to riding freedom.

Options For fearful Riders

A rider seeking help with fear will find relatively few resources geared specifically to that purpose. But three books published in the last several years fit that description: Riding Fear Free, by Laura Daley and Jennifer Becton, K.I.C.K. Your Fear of Horses, by Heidi McLaughlin, and Build Complete Confidence with Horses, by Kelly Marks.

Daley writes in detail about how a fearful rider can employ the process known in learning theory as “fear extinction.” McLaughlin, through the story of her own trials and triumphs, shares wisdom gained through firsthand experience and from a range of accomplished horsemen and women. Marks covers a wide variety of emotional awareness and mental development techniques that help establish and strengthen confidence.

Within their different and excellent approaches, the three books have much in common. The authors all stress the importance of riding a horse well-suited to one’s experience level, and of finding the right teacher/trainer. They write about how essential it is for riders to work at expanding their knowledge and developing their skills. And they emphasize that this process is ongoing. All these things are essential to a rider’s success, and they are things EFT is not a substitute for, and which it cannot replace.

What EFT can do is shorten (often dramatically) the process of dissolving fear symptoms associated with horses and riding. Again, this does not replace knowledge about horses and riding, nor the development of riding skill. But it can make these things much easier, by eliminating the racing heart, churning stomach, shaking limbs, and “brain freeze” that strike a fearful rider. “I went to trainer after trainer and shelled out a lot of money,” writes author McLaughlin, “but my fear kept me from being able to organize the knowledge I was getting and put it into action” (p.19).

Cognitive Methods vs. Energy Psychology Techniques

Just how is this shortening-of-the-process accomplished? The answer lies in a fundamental difference between cognitive approaches and energy psychology techniques.

The books listed above mainly address fear and doubt by encouraging riders to develop mental control over negative thoughts, feelings, and reactions, replacing them with positive thoughts, feelings, and reactions. These cognitive methods use repetition to “outweigh the past” (similar to developing a new habit), and/or they seek to teach a new response to a particular circumstance, then reinforce that new response until it becomes automatic. These methods work, and the authors take great care in sharing how to get the most out of them.

But when the information and responses in question link to things perceived as significantly dangerous, even life-threatening, the authors acknowledge that success with these methods will be a long process requiring commitment and persistence. For instance, “It takes hundreds and thousands of [short, positive] rides to overcome fearful memories,” says Daley (p.15).

EFT takes a different path. Rather than seeking to override or replace fearful memories, EFT gently targets the very events that threatened the rider. Combining a simple, self-applied routine of fingertip tapping on acupressure points with a methodical focus on piece after piece of such an event, successfully applied EFT “drains the emotional charge” from the memory.

This drain mimics the discharge response studied by Dr’s Peter Levine and Robert Scaer, and described in Part 1 of this series. The brain-body can then process the memory, in the words of neurologist Scaer, as “a successful survival experience.” Following that processing, whether by our natural (but often blocked) discharge response or via energy psychology techniques like EFT, fear symptoms are no longer triggered by the memory or by similar circumstances.

It may sound like hocus-pocus, but the bio-science of the discharge response is thoroughly laid out in Scaer’s book 8 Keys to Brain-Body Balance. And while EFT can seem more than a little magical to the people it helps, success is not achieved by a wave of a wand. Achieving efficient, effective results for issues of any complexity requires systematic application of EFT based on founder Gary Craig’s “art of delivery” principles.

Amy’s Experience With EFT

So how does it work in real life? Well, Amy Thompson was willing to share her story.

Amy included the following in her initial description of her situation: “The moment I mount, now, I feel anxious and tense. When I’m riding I’m on high alert all the time, thinking about what might happen. My heart races if my mare stumbles or even twitches. My body reacts if the wind picks up or thunder rumbles, if I hear a loud noise, if the ring is crowded…” She even felt tense on the ground, just tacking up. “Riding has become very complicated,” she said unhappily.

All this was happening to a very experienced rider who had ridden since early childhood. Amy couldn’t believe the place where she found herself. She could maybe understand her impasse with the horse who had hurt her, but the fear reaction to everyday things was something else completely.

It seemed as if that one bad fall had ruined everything about riding for Amy. But, as is common with EFT, it wasn’t just that fall that was contributing to her fear. By the time we got to that event with our work, she was already in a very different place with her riding than when we started.

An EFT “Event List”

Before we began, and with the help of questions from me, Amy put together a list of “undischarged” events that were likely contributing to her permanent-seeming loss of confidence. The list included eight falls spanning thirty years. We noted the important aspects of each fall, and also established a list of day-to-day symptoms we could use to measure our results.

We started with a fall that happened when Amy was eleven years old. Like many new to EFT, she was surprised to discover “how much was still going on” with such a distant memory. The next event happened at age fourteen, and contained components not present in the first. The third was from age twenty-five and again had some new elements. As we worked our way through the list, Amy began noticing changes at the barn.

Results Begin to Appear

For our first two weeks she was busy with extra lessons and horse shows with her students and didn’t get any riding in, but said she felt noticeably calmer. During the third week Amy rode three times. She reported feeling very calm tacking up, and said, “I had a great ride all three times,” adding that the sound of the farm tractors, which had been on her list of triggers, didn’t bother her.

After our fourth session Amy shared details of one ride in particular. She’d been riding drill team practice, and said “I was so relaxed, even though riders were all over the place in the ring. I had no anxiety about getting cut off. I felt my leg on my mare’s side, heard her hoofbeats – I was present in the moment. It was no problem at all.” With successful EFT, negative thoughts, feelings, and reactions, the what-ifs and imagined scenarios, don’t need to be watched for and managed – they simply aren’t there.

Improvement continued the following week. Amy was riding bareback after a lesson with her trainer when her mare began acting up as a storm blew in, with dark clouds and thunder. Amy’s calm, effective response was so automatic and so relaxed that at first, when I asked how the week had gone, she didn’t even remember the incident. When we first began, feeling her mare move unexpectedly while she was mounted had made Amy’s heart race, but her new level of comfort was now feeling normal to her.

This is not uncommon with successful EFT, and even has a name. It’s called “the apex effect,” in which something that has been regarded as a serious problem becomes such a non-issue that a person hardly thinks to mention the change. This “new normal” is often a night-and-day difference. Amy was being reunited with the joy of riding.

Cause for celebration

A few more sessions into our process Amy sent an update: “I had some lessons this morning and decided to go riding when I was done… oh my goodness! My trainer said she’s never seen me ride so well nor has she ever seen my horse go so well. I was completely present the whole time, very relaxed, and just an overall calm came over me. It was amazing – everything just seemed…easy!”

Like emerging from the twilight zone, after almost a year of beating herself up for those hated and subconsciously triggered symptoms, Amy’s experience on horseback once again matched her knowledge and skill level.

So is Amy’s experience typical of EFT?

First, it’s important to distinguish between using EFT in the moment, as a general stress relief technique (called symptom tapping), and seeking to clear what lies at the core of a persistent and illogical fear. One can use “surface” or “symptom” tapping for temporary relief, or for the mild nervousness that often accompanies doing something new, even under safe conditions. But lasting results for fear that has depth and dimension requires getting to the root of the issue.

Where getting to the core is the goal, each client’s situation is unique. Each person brings their own collection of experiences related to what they want to work on, has varying degrees of recall of past events, has individual goals, and varying time and inclination to do “tapping homework.” That said, Amy’s rate of progress for trauma-related fear is typical of a case involving medium complexity.

Second, it’s also important to note that the events contributing to a rider’s fear may or may not include dramatic, injury-producing falls like the one described here. A beginning rider could be left with persistent fear following a seemingly minor scare that didn’t even end in a fall. Non-riding events or stress may also play a role. The key to recognizing undischarged fear doesn’t lie in circumstances; it lies in the presence of a persistent, recurring reaction involving fight/flight symptoms (excess tension, increased heart rate, sweating, shaking, ”brain freeze,” etc.).

These symptoms range from mild to severe. Many of us learn to tolerate milder degrees of this discomfort in connection with activities like riding, explaining it in various ways and believing it just “comes with the territory” of horseback riding. But one’s best riding is achieved when the brain, body, and mind are fully focused in the present, able to respond, in an alert but relaxed manner, to what is unfolding moment by moment during a ride. People typically seek help from EFT when fear symptoms become intolerable, but it can be used to “re-set” one’s inner responses long before then.

Each person’s experience with EFT will vary, then, depending mainly on the number and complexity of events contributing to a specific issue being addressed, and on the extent of that person’s EFT goals. One rider may just want to be able to canter in a lesson, where another may want to deal with everything involved in a fear of high-level competition.

EFT is learned by a rider during facilitated sessions, but can also be self-taught. Gary Craig and his daughter Tina have written a highly detailed EFT tutorial that is available online for free. One of the best things about EFT is that we can each learn to use it for ourselves.

Postscript

Did Amy’s positive results last?

At the start of the show season the following year, I received a note from her. She wrote:“Today I had my first big show since our work last year. Everything and anything that could have possibly happened, happened! In the schooling ring someone fell off 10ft from me, there was a runaway horse in one of my classes, another runaway horse outside the ring during one of my classes, and a tree fell down! Through all of it, and I mean all of it, I stayed unbelievably cool, calm, and collected. My mind never wandered off and I stayed very positive and focused. Thank goodness for EFT!”

I want to give Amy a heartfelt thank-you for sharing her story. In my view, what people like Amy, stuck for so long, don’t see is that by refusing to give in to their intensely distressing and maddeningly persistent symptoms while they search and search for an answer, they demonstrate at least as much courage and willpower as the people who have never felt those things!