ReMind: The Inner Work Behind Outer Excellence
I’ve just finished another six-week ReMind Online Container with a group made up of both horse riders and driven humans from all walks of life: Entrepreneurs, parents, people healing trauma, and athletes determined to break through plateaus and hit peak performance. And once again, the same truth emerged with astonishing clarity:
We are all walking around with inner tensions far greater than we realise.
This isn’t limited to those carrying obvious big-T trauma. In fact, those are often my easiest people to support. Their system’s need is visible, almost unmistakable, from an energetic standpoint. The more surprising truth is that, in general, 85% of us, based on current psychological research*, carry significant inner tension born not from dramatic events that happened to us, but from what should have happened as we grew up but didn’t: emotional attunement and safety, understanding, consistent connection, etc.
These unmet needs become our blind spots.
And they inevitably surface the moment we want to perform, achieve under pressure, build a business, lead a team, or navigate our closest relationships.
Connection:
For my equestrian clients, this inner landscape has a direct and measurable impact on how we connect with our horses. Horses are relational, sentient, deeply energetic beings who read our inner state far better than we do ourselves. They don’t read our résumé, and we cannot fake confidence or leadership — we have to be it. With horses, we succeed through presence, not pressure.
So when we consciously reconnect the parts of ourselves that have been disconnected, blocked, or suppressed, we automatically connect more clearly with our horses. Not in a poetic sense — in a physiological, neurological, behavioural sense.
Image: Olivia Cottingham
The stronger your internal connection “muscle” is, the better you can navigate pressure, unpredictability, and high-stakes moments without collapsing into dysregulation, old survival patterns, fear responses, or the outdated control-based systems we still see lingering in the equine world.
This is why so many riders feel their horses respond differently — softer, braver, more honest — the moment our internal work begins.
When we become more integrated and connected to ourselves, the connection to our horses upgrades too. The same applies to our closest people, our goals, and our businesses: when the connection within improves, connection everywhere else upgrades automatically.
Why Inner Work Matters, Especially Under Pressure:
As we move through the ReMind process, the pieces begin to fall into place. We get the rare opportunity to psychologically and neurologically reprogramme the loops that run our subconscious mind. And considering that 95% of our behaviour is driven by the subconscious**, not the logical, conscious prefrontal cortex, this matters immensely, especially when stakes are high.
Last weekend, I was kindly invited to speak about ReMind at the Emile Faurie Charity Ball and Auction. Just moments before I went on stage to promote inner work, mentalist and mind-reader Edward Crawford stunned the room by predicting four guests’ thoughts, behaviours, and outcomes of a task.
It was a beautiful demonstration of what I was about to explain — how we are far less consciously in control than we believe. It set the stage perfectly for me to introduce the profound impact that conscious inner work has on our performance, wellbeing, and potential. So I could get straight to the details of what this actually looks like:
The ReMind Process: Reprogramming the Inner Landscape for Excellence
ReMind is a complex process customised to each unique student, but in general we go through this structure:
1. Authentic Self
We begin by reconnecting with the core: your fire, your true motivations, and the inner spark that remains steady no matter the circumstances. This anchors everything that follows.
2. Your Biggest Block
We all have internal limitations that aren’t necessarily rooted in truth unless we believe them to be. In this phase we uncover these beliefs, understand where they live inside the body or subconscious, and evolve them.
3. The Nervous System
Here we identify your stress profile: what your system does automatically when pressure rises. Then we strengthen your capacity so you can stay regulated for longer and return to balance faster.
4. Emotional Patterns
This is the most time-intensive phase. We examine three of your major emotional patterns — most of which were formed much earlier in life than we usually imagine.
My teacher, Gabor Maté, uses a brilliant analogy:
Reprogramming our emotional landscape is like learning to ride a bike that turns the opposite way.
The conscious brain understands the pattern within minutes, but it takes six to twelve months of practice for our subconscious to adapt and actually ride the bike.
This is why ReMind isn’t a one-off session; it’s a layered process with intentional integration between each step.
5. The Mind
Finally, we explore how to use the conscious mind to refine focus, sharpen attention, and amplify performance. It is a powerful, underrated tool once the emotional patterns and nervous system foundations are in place.
Integration: Where Real and Long-Lasting Change Happens
Between every phase, there is integration work that takes around ten minutes per day. It’s simple but essential. We are always either growing or stagnating — acting from connection (authenticity) or disconnection (fear). If we don’t create space for the inner work that fuels growth, authenticity, and connection, our dreams and goals inevitably start to fade.
ReMind exists to prevent that drift, to build inner strength, and to help people meet their lives, and the pressure that comes with them, with more presence, capacity, and connection. If there’s one takeaway from this latest container, it’s this: Inner tension is universal. Inner alignment is available.
When we reconnect with ourselves, every connection in our lives — including with our horses and with our goals or peak performance — transforms with us.
To join the next round of the ReMind Online Container, go to experienceremind.com or Instagram @remind.compassiontolead
