Did the title of this post get your attention? If you’re like me (and at least 97% of all the horsewomen in the world), you may be wondering what on earth I’m talking about. Of course he’s better cared for! He depends on you to feed him, keep him in a safe and comfortable environment, and scratch that spot right near his withers that always makes him do that funny thing with his lips.
Read the last sentence in the previous paragraph again. (Just humor me and do it, OK?) Anything stand out? How about the word “depends”? (I’m not even going down the bladder control rabbit hole)! He depends on you. So what happens if you get sick? What happens if you injure yourself? What happens if you’re so tired when you feed him at the end of the day that you don’t even notice that little lump…?
Do you see where I’m going with this? You can’t be the best horse owner if you don’t care for yourself. You need to be healthy, at least somewhat fit and rested to be there for him.
The Ugly Truth
Remember the movie A Few Good Men, when Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise get in a shouting match and Cruise says he wants the truth? And Nicholson replies – “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” Can you handle the truth about yourself? Can you look yourself in the eye (in the mirror, of course) and say that you’re doing everything possible to take good care of yourself?
“You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”
“Taking care of yourself” means different things to different people. Understand I’m not talking about massages, girls’ night out, or mani-pedis – I’m talking about your health (which also means different things to different people). For the sake of this post, I’m taking a lead from the World Health Organization, which describes health as, “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
So you don’t have to be running marathons every month (or at all), you don’t have to adopt a vegan diet, you don’t have to spend hours in the gym or drink gallons of green smoothies, but you should at least establish your baseline. Caveat – I am not, nor do I claim to be, offering any medical advice. I am not a doctor, nurse, nutritionist, or personal trainer (or marathon runner, although I do love green smoothies!). I’m simply a 62-year-old woman who has spent the last 50 years, yes – 50 years! – as a horse person, and I have the surgical scars and cantankerous joints to prove it.
The whole “self-care” thing has become a bit of a cliche – which is one reason why I didn’t use it in the title of this post! For a lot of horsewomen, myself included, “self-care” means washing the cut you just got fixing the fence, or at least squeezing on it a bit so it’ll bleed out any germs. Horsewomen, we need to do better.
I’m challenging myself to do better this month, and I’m inviting you to do the same. March is Women’s History Month, so let’s make a little history of our own by becoming the healthiest horsewomen in the world (or at least at the barn).