Finding Your Ikigai

Anyone who has ever met me knows that I am passionate about horses. Always have been. Like literally–out of the shoot hardwired that way. I’m pretty sure anyone who doesn’t share my obsession and unwittingly stumbles onto the topic thinks I am just plain annoying. I’ll admit it. Most people don’t get it and that’s okay. I came to accept that years ago. I always just assumed that horse would just be a hobby, an annoying quirk that others tolerate. A fountain of verbal diarrhea I can’t seem to stem the flow of. When another horse lover is found a little light in my chest goes off blinking eureka! Happy, happy, happy!

Let me tell you, nothing in the aftermath of my accident was as painful as the death of my passion. With the news of my paralysis came the drying of my well of obsession. I was a shell of a person. The loss of my independence, the loss of my hair, the loss of my looks (or so I believed then), the loss of future dreams all paled by comparison. I tried to stay involved, hanging onto what little wisps of hope I had that I would magically start walking and be able to ride. I anchored myself with the belief that if I prayed hard enough (the faith of a mustard seed right?), visualized my healing long enough, ate just the right foods and fueled my healing with my desire to be a valid horse woman again, that I would heal. I mean we’ve all heard about “that guy” who was a quad and can walk now. Or “that woman” who spontaneously grew her face back so why not my hair? Why not my spinal cord? There are medical miracles everywhere so why not me right? Well, I’m still waiting.

After sixteen years I haven’t given up, but those first five years were hell for me. Let me just say, I did not handle things well. I drank a lot, smoked a lot, and my life lacked even the faintest amount of direction. Newly engaged after my accident, my relationship went to hell. My sense of self was destroyed making it impossible for me to love my partner. I couldn’t be present in my relationship when many moments left me mad as hell at my circumstance. I tried to hide it well. Did a fair job by the amount of people always telling me I was an inspiration, but inside I was just existing between bouts of righteous acrimony. I spent years going through mostly fruitless surgeries and days of endless therapy. I was miserable and didn’t even know it.

I never wanted to learn to carriage drive. I thought it just consisted of pleasure driving—a few laps around a ring in some old antique wearing a frufruish getup from the same era where I could win at Concours d’ something. Not my bag. I always wanted to be a three day eventer. I wanted to be a hardcore competitor. In a moment of weakness I called the United States Driving for Disabled’s (USDFD) New England representative Mary Gray and learned about the sport of combined driving. I won’t get into the history of the sport here but the best way to describe it is to say it’s a three phase event modeled after three day eventing. For a little taste check out this amazing video from Cavewood Productions. It was during that first conversation that I also learned about the Para-Equestrian World Championships for combined driving. It took me about a half a second to set my sights on the Worlds as my future goal.

After just finding out about combined driving my life changed completely. I planned a trip to the USDFD headquarters in Georgetown, Kentucky. I honed my slider board transfer skills so that I didn’t have to take my lift to get me out of my chair and off I went. The moment I got those reins around my wrists my life fell back into place with the audible click of my heart snapping back together. You see, I had started riding at eight years old on a wonderful Fjord mare named Tryggen and started driving with another wonderful Fjord gelding. It was a full circle event that put my life back on track. I still can’t describe the joy of being able to trot across those beautiful Kentucky fields. The wind in my face. The sound of Freddie’s footfalls in my ears and the feel of his mouth at my hands. It had been five long years since I had been able to communicate with a horse that way. I was enraptured.

I had my first carriage ordered before I even left Kentucky and started searching for my first driving horse. Soon after I went back to school focusing my studies on psychology and business so that I could help others in my position. After meeting the current USDFD president I harbored more dreams of sitting on a nonprofit board where I could help others experience my new found freedom. My life finally started moving.

I bought my first driving horse, a Dales pony named Red Prairie Trotter about a year later. As a three year old, I had him trained specifically for me and soon after got my first carriage. I bought a piece of land and built my own home. Over the years I had some difficulty getting the right equipment and the right horse needed to reach my goals. It’s a bit of a sordid story that I’ll leave for a different time so that I can keep true to the importance of the topic at hand. Trotter and I attended our first show a year after I bought him where I was interviewed by my local paper. After the article I was approached by the founder of Rhythm of the Rein a local therapeutic riding program and was asked to sit on the board of directors. I said, “Yes of course,” and have sat as the board chair for about six years. That one article also became the inspiration for a new nonprofit that Mary gray and I later cofounded named Winning Spirits.

You see, what I had thought would always be an annoying obsession had ended up being what the Japanese call my ikigai or my reason for waking up in the morning. I had always known I loved horses but it was nothing more than a hobby…right? Wrong. It’s what gave my life meaning. It’s what made all the suck I experienced everyday bearable. The thought of knowing that someday I would be in the position to help someone else feel the same elation I was able to experience while driving. To feel like a real horse person again. Free and uninhibited. A person can work through any pain if they have a good enough reason. Finding your thing is the most important task in anyone’s life, if you ask me. Knowing without a shadow of a doubt what brings you joy despite current circumstance. For some that may be a few things. For me it’s mostly just the one, but for those with no clue…a life of listless suffering. So many cause others to suffer inadvertently by not being able to deal with painful circumstances, past or present. The trick to dealing with what seems like insurmountable crap is finding a way to weather it. To cope. Figuring out what brings you the most joy into your life, and pursuing it, will bring more joy. None of this is new or exciting information. But no matter how deep in current suck I am, I can still say when looking back at my life that this is true, and I’m not some self help guru or televangelist. I’m not trying to get you to buy anything either. I’m just Sara. A bald, slightly round, single mom in a chair with a serious love of horses.

So, something especially shitty happens to you…now what? Find your ikigai. Make it your work. Make it your life’s purpose. It will be your saving grace. It was for me.