Problem Solving and Hay In Our Bras.

It blurted out the end of my fingers before I knew it. “Eventually I learned how to keep hay out of my bra. Can’t imagine what took me so long.”  

I was writing last week’s essay and if I focus too much on what I’m trying to say, my fingers freeze up. So my writing style depends on a percentage of stream-of-consciousness blathering and I make sense of it later. Think of it as riding on a very loose rein because it ends up that writing and riding have a lot in common. Neither like to have their face pulled on.

Readers asked me for tips about hay and bras. I could tell you what my epiphany was in a few words, but it took me all these years, and a pandemic, to figure it out. I deserve to put you through a few paragraphs first.

Warning: I’m going to talk about breasts and that means size is bound to come up, too. It has nothing to do with what men think. Our breasts are only about us. Exhale. I’m about to brag about figuring something out that half of all horsewomen have known for years. Bear with me.

When I write an essay, I like to research something online. Like ropes tethering me to the topic, it’s how I start. Here goes. There were 255,200 breast augmentation surgeries performed in 2022. I couldn’t find statistics, but I doubt horsewomen had many of those surgeries. A small percentage of us have reconstruction surgery after a mastectomy, and best wishes for a full recovery. But breast augmentation is usually not something we do for cosmetic reasons. It might be for fear of getting hung up on a saddle horn. Or so that cantering feels like flying a jet rather than a B-52 with bombs under our wings. I apologize. On the other hand, I would know.

In that same year, 71,364 breast reduction procedures were performed. Also known as reduction mammoplasty, the surgery has seen a significant increase in popularity in recent years. My first reaction was wondering if Medicare paid for it.

Some of us ride without bras or any related concerns. Bless you. You’re excused.

The rest of us have been wrestling with an off-beat wave motion at odds with the rhythm of our horses, our own hips, and the rotation of the Earth. Since we don’t want to stay at the walk for the rest of our lives, we buy bras to ride in. They don’t have lace and the straps look like you could tow a trailer with them. They flatten down any joy a breast might accidentally feel. But just one bra doesn’t work because of the dreaded mono-bosom that makes your chest look like a dashboard in an old car. So then you wear one bra with actual cups and a sports bra over it, one size too small. Then adding another bra on top of the others, as required. And pray we don’t get taken to an emergency room conscious enough to hear the laughter.

Or we move on to one of those expensive sports bras that fit like a mammogram. Nothing moves, our squished breasts are as still as a pond at sunset. Sure, it’s impossible to breathe. A sneeze might mean broken ribs. But this was what some of us did. Every horse, every ride. Just like our helmets.

With so little blood getting to our brains, sometimes we didn’t problem solve well. It’s a poor excuse, but it’s mine. I am finally ready to reveal the mystery that took this many sticky scratchy years to figure it out. It came to me during Covid, when no one in their right mind had gotten fully dressed in months. One day, I noticed a lack of aggravation. In hindsight, the answer was obvious and elegant in its simplicity. Don’t wear the damned thing.

Anticlimactic, isn’t it? The solution was right under my nose all the time. But that was the exact problem. Aren’t we always pointing a finger at anything outside ourselves for the solution? Blame it on the other: fine hay leaves, the wrong neckline, stupid hay bags. When the solution was to change something within my control. Myself.

It’s an idea I first I learned with horses. I didn’t believe the ‘humans are gods’ rhetoric. I had no desire to dominate anyone. Partnership was the goal because even as a kid, I knew making the other wrong didn’t make me right. I had to drop defenses that made me rigid and stiff in the sit bones. It was still a bitter pill at first, but any horse will tell you it’s about learning to get along.

If the solution to every problem was me, then I could change and we’d have no problems. Step one was to stop being a martyr about hay in my bra or anything else that was poking me. Martyrdom has a high mortality rate. It took time, but I achieved every goal I had for my horses. And all I had to do was change everything about myself. I had to learn to slow down, listen, and prioritize my horse’s feelings above mine. I had to stop contradicting myself. Recite less is more until I understood. In short, I had to quit being me. We’ve all heard it a million times, but hearing it doesn’t change us. We do that the old-fashioned way.

Less about me, more about the horse. 

Problem solving is a popular topic in my clinics and classes. How do I fix my horse? How do I stop my horse from grazing, bolting, tossing his head? How can I make my horse behave more like a child or a dog? How do I change my horse’s fundamental instincts? How do I respond to calming signals? How do I make space for my horse to think? How can I let my horse have autonomy? How can I get out of the way of my horse being a horse?

See what I did there? The questions evolved. That’s part of it. We have to ask better questions. Now we are ready to start.

Outdated training methods demand we try to micromanage behavior of the other. Discipline the other. Make being the other harder, so it will give in. Bribe the other. Trick the other. Pretend what the other did was our idea and then get a longer whip or a stronger bit.

It was never about underwear. The day an animal complains about our appearance will never happen, but our grousing or swearing or emotional tantrums do impact them. We are only tripping over our egos. So, breathe. Say yes to change. Find yourself free of restriction, loose in mind and body. Find yourself in a dance of release, with a confident horse. Let yourselves be beautiful.

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An audio version of this essay is available to those who subscribe on Substack.

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