Just Do It

And other annoying mottos and homilies

Riding horses is something you can only learn by doing. I can exercise my body, I can watch lesson after lesson, I can read a million articles, but it won’t really come together until I’m in the saddle. In lessons on Trudy, I work on “feel”. I quiet my mind and relax my body until I can feel and call out, without looking, which leg is striking the ground. That’s not something I can do in my mind alone. I have to be sitting on her, riding her, tuned into her. And it is a really good thing to practice, not only for my riding and my relationship with Trudy, but as a way to prevent the anxiety or PTSD that can pop up from time to time. In learning to ride again comfortably, I’m also learning how to quiet my mind and trust.

Practicing feel is something we’ve restarted in lessons in the new year and I want to continue to refine. That’s not a resolution, mind you. I know that January is the month for resolutions. But not for me. Resolutions feel arbitrary and performative. They are like pronouncements I’m not ready to make. I don’t have enough information yet. I don’t know what’s coming. And frankly, if there is something I need to work on, I don’t see any point to hanging about waiting for the new year to give me permission.

That said, a new year can be a good time to take a look back and acknowledge where I’ve been, what I’ve been through, and how I came through it.

Usually when I do this, I experience moments where I pat myself on the back at how far I’ve come. Occasionally, I might wish to rap myself on the knuckles for making a misguided decision that likely resulted in a mess. But honestly, even in those moments I can find the lesson; the biggest of all being that a mistake isn’t really a mistake at all, but just a “teachable moment”.

Now listen, I’m not really trying to write a self-help book here and I promise I’m not always positive and zen. I curse something awful when I’m driving, I eat a shocking amount of sugar for a diabetic, and I buy more leggings and shoes than any human with only two legs and feet could ever wear. I periodically beat myself senseless over past idiocy, long after it matters to the universe. And I still find myself awake at three in the morning sweating over whether some quip I made trying to be funny was actually just annoying, or worst of all, accidentally insulting. Ooh, I also run a tally in my head of people I may have offended even though it’s likely most of them don’t even remember me, much less anything I may or may not have said to them.

You might wonder if that gets exhausting. Well, yes. Yes, it does.

But enough about my “teachable” qualities. Let me tell you about last year. For me, 2025 started without a job, my career in the financial industry having come to a close. The year ended with me working on my Pilates Teacher certification and beginning to work at a chain of studios here in LA.

From Banking to Pilates in one fell swoop. All of this, directly or indirectly, a result of falling off my beautiful horse. Twice.

Now please, please, don’t feel like you have to fall off a horse to leave your job or learn Pilates or to make any other life change. Really. There are less painful ways to get the message. That method was reserved for me and my thick head, with the universal acknowledgement that I’m a fast healer. Supposedly.

Pilates has been a lifesaving practice for me. Not only has it been integral for me to heal the broken bits but has truly helped me transform and reshape my entire body and even refocus my mind. I’m stronger, leaner, and much more fit for riding my horses safely.

Yet now that I’m leading Pilates classes on a regular basis, it will come as no surprise to you that I lay awake questioning who I think I am trying to teach anyone anything. I spend a stupid amount of time replaying my class in my head and criticizing it. Wondering if I cued that correctly or if I rushed through an exercise or sweating over trying to get through fifty minutes of the next class and, oh my god, what if I totally blank? And my favorite twinkie: what if they all hate me and think I’m the worst teacher ever?

See? Not very zen.

For someone who recognizes I have never been and never will be perfect, I can spend an awful lot of time impersonating a perfectionist.

This is even more obvious as I work on compiling past blog posts for a book I wish to publish. And let me tell you, I blush at my past writing. Reading some of my early blogs makes me cringe. They are overly long, overly sentimental, and I can tell that I was still finding my voice and my reason for writing. And of course they are full of mistakes. I mean, ahem, teachable bits.

But I carry on, hoping to continue growing and evolving. Very little progress gets made by just sitting alone and wishing, as tempting as that can be. You have to actually DO something, and likely fail a few times, for real growth to happen. You have to get into that saddle and feel it.

So, if you reel, stumble, and wobble through life making a shit ton of teachable moments, it’s okay.

Not to be a broken record here, but Pilates could help you with that wobble. I know a teacher, if you’re interested.

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