Welcome to EFT 4 Riders!
This is a website for riders, and also for horses. When you, as a rider, feel tense, nervous, or fearful, the harmony between you and your horse fades. When you are frustrated with and blaming yourself, the shadows grow. The beauty is gone, the joy is lost, and your horse feels these things as much as you do.
When conventional confidence rebuilding techniques don’t work, there is a brain science reason for that failure that is not about courage or will power or persistence. And there is an unconventional approach tailor-made for those situations. It’s a self-applied acupressure-related modality called Emotional Freedom Techniques, aka EFT or “tapping,.”
Please come in and look around! You’ll find articles about the brain science of trauma, information about EFT, and some before-and-after stories. I hope that you, and the horses you love, will benefit! (And if you have a non-horsey issue you are welcome, too – EFT has a reputation for helping with a very wide range of issues.)
Understanding
Riding Trauma
Riding Trauma: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Discharge Responses
Learn what happens in the brain/body system when we experience trauma, and why we get stuck. Beyond the fight-flight and freeze responses, it’s the absence of the “discharge response” that leaves us with recurring fight/flight symptoms. Read more…
How Come Rodeo Bronc Riders Don’t Get Traumatized?
Riders who experience very similar scary circumstances are often impacted quite differently (i.e., do or don’t have lasting negative symptoms). Learn why this is, and why overcoming persistent symptoms is not about courage or willpower. Read more…
I’ve Tried It All And Nothing Helped. How Is EFT Any Different?
Learn how EFT differs from traditional confidence-rebuilding, and what things it is not a substitute for and cannot replace. Read about how a bad fall nearly ruined riding for a lifelong equestrian, and what happened after she found EFT. Read more…
Pre-EFT Stories
Amy Thompson
“I grew up on a ranch in Texas and rode all my life. A few years ago I had three falls from my horse and the last one landed me in the hospital. Afterward I couldn’t bring myself to ride my horse again. After many months of struggle I finally sold him. I then bought a mare with a lovely disposition, but couldn’t ride her without fear. I was so totally frustrated by all the ‘brain freeze’ over even the smallest things.”
Bethany Buschkill
“I had a string of falls, including three concussions, and lost all riding confidence. For several years I tried every confidence-building tip, trick, and training that I could find – read every book, took lessons, did clinics, practiced visualization, did calming exercises in and out of the saddle. But it really all boiled down to a mix between “cowboy up and get back on,” and “keep on doing it until it gets better,” and neither was working for me.”
leila strickland
“At the time I learned about EFT I had been struggling with my confidence in riding for several years. I’d had two bad falls from my “soulmate horse” – in one my horse did a complete somersault, in the other he fell on the road, pinning me under him. I still wanted to ride, badly, but I was afraid and couldn’t enjoy it anymore.”
jowellyn neville
“I was giving my horse some oral medication (no problem previously) when he spun and kicked me in the head. I woke up on the ground with my horse standing over me, as if wondering what I was doing there. At the hospital, I was told that I had a broken jaw, nose, eye socket, crushed sinus, and a full thickness tear from my upper lip to my nose, and, later, teeth and eye issues, and mild (a misleading label!) brain injury.”