Not everything that is faced can be changed But nothing can change that is not faced.
~James Baldwin
There is a particular heaviness that settles in the body when we avoid something we know we need to face. It may not be noticeable at first: a tightness in our breath, a small hesitation, a thought that we keep pushing to the side. But this energy of avoidance accumulates. It slowly drains us as is lingers. And once we finally turn toward whatever we’ve been circling, even gently glancing at it, there is an immediate shift. Not because the challenge disappears, but because facing it, even the smallest, most compassionate micro moment, begins to restore the energy we have spent trying not to look at it.
Everything is energy, our thoughts, actions, and even non-actions.
At the beginning of a training ride or competition, I picture my horse as a ball of energy. I have two choices: I can build her up or tear her down. Each movement, every cue, takes energy away. Of course, I will expend energy over the course of the day; the question is how little I can use and how much I can have at the end?
My key to training is to teach my horses to use as little energy as possible; to move efficiently, to calm their minds, and to let their breath guide their bodies. Their breathing tells me everything about their mental state. My job is simply to help them avoid anything that drains their vitality and to show them how to focus and relax.
When I ride with clarity instead of tension, when I remain balanced and use the softest touch to reset them, they conserve their strength. When I live with clarity instead of avoidance, I conserve mine.
The same principles that keep a horse balanced and efficient are the ones that keep us steady in our own lives.
Address what is in front of us to clear the way for effortless actions.
Riding endurance, whether it is a 50-mile or 100-mile event, is not effortless; in fact, it takes genuine effort. However, effort doesn’t always equate to lack. Completing an event with a horse that feels and looks great is achieved through the energetic signature of “less is more.” Use less energy, more efficiently.
How do we translate this into our lives?
Benjamin Franklin said, Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Not as a productivity commandment but as an energetic one. Avoiding costs more than action; facing things even gently gives back to ourselves.
To reclaim our energy, we don’t need to overhaul our lives. We only need to stop allowing it to leak out. Avoidance costs more than action. One small turn towards what we’ve been avoiding, one moment of clarity- these are the shifts that will change everything. Most transformation doesn’t happen in grand gestures. It happens in the micro moments.
In riding and in life, the goal isn’t to push harder- it is to waste less. When we stop spending energy on what no longer serves us, we have more available for what matters. Just as a horse moves freely as the tension dissolves, so do we as avoidance dissolves.
When we face what’s in front of us with softness instead of strain, that’s how we keep ourselves and our lives sound. In the end, the softest way through is always toward. Not force, not with urgency, but with a steady willingness to meet what’s here. When we turn towards our lives with clarity instead of avoidance, we reclaim the energy we’ve been losing. And in those small, honest moments of facing, we begin to move through the world and within ourselves with ease.
Every gentle turn toward what we’ve been avoiding is a step back into our own power, one micro-moment at a time.
Avoidance has never been a great tactic in solving any problem. For most situations in life, not addressing what’s going on only makes matters worse.
~Luvvie Ajayi
