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    Tag: Book

    • Coming In Strong for the New Year

      I took a two week break from the blog for the holidays. Between family visits, holiday parties, work, and travel, this introvert was exhausted. Isn’t it strange that we take time off only to fill it with activity? Some folks thrive on social activities, but I tend to get more worn down as they pile…

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    • Book Updates

      Two brief but important updates for the Standing in a Field With Horses book: I’m spending the rest of my afternoon decorating the house with lights and greenery. The morning was full of feeding drippy horses and scooping soggy manure in the rain. I wish it were snow instead, but we do need the moisture!…

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    • Good Days, Bad Days, and a Request

      One of the things that continuously tripped me up in learning how to work with horses was that I would make a lot of progress and then one day it would seem like none of it mattered. The horse would suddenly regress, spooking at things they had accepted before, refusing things, getting fidgety, or outright…

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    • Today is the Day!

      Book officially LAUNCHED! Click on either Amazon Kindle or SmashWords link on the maevebirch.com main page. It will take you directly to the respective book sales. I hope you enjoy Standing in a Field With Horses. I will be back to my regularly scheduled blog posts after this weekend. 🙂 If you like the book…

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    • A reminder for tomorrow!

      A reminder that I’m releasing my first book, Standing in a Field With Horses, tomorrow morning, November 13th! Click on the respective buttons on the main page of the maevebirch.com website to be taken directly to the book sales. Because I’m not a well-known author by any stretch of the imagination, getting my book seen…

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    • Book Launch Sunday

      Three days to launch! Well, less if you count that it’s late afternoon on Friday where I am. I hope you’ll forgive me if I end up doing multiple posts this weekend… Is everything going to go smoothly? Yes. Am I still losing sleep over the launch of my first book? Also yes. Enjoy the…

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    • Intuition and Experience

      Intuition, or “going with your gut.” How do you view it? Is it a valuable tool used in gauging a situation? Or does it bow before the irrefutable evidence of experience? In my book, Standing in a Field With Horses, initially intuition, even messages seeming to come from the horses, were dismissed as folly. Of…

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    • Excerpt from the Chapter: Mirrors

      My barn mentor once told me, “The horse is a mirror where you can see your feelings reflected.” If you’re afraid, the horse becomes afraid. If you are calm, the horse is calmed. This is why horses are such good partners in psychiatric and behavioral therapy. They can sense emotions hidden even from the human…

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    • The Fear of Embarrassment

      All of us have felt the sinking feeling of embarrassment at some point in our lives. Something goes wrong and suddenly you’re wishing you were anywhere else but there. Maybe your heart was racing, you broke out in a sudden sweat, or felt numb. Maybe you got angry or struggled to hold back tears. The…

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    • Excerpt from the chapter: Ruby

      After brushing Ruby without incident, I took her out to the ring, still shaky from knowing I’d almost gotten hurt through my ignorance. Ruby was very perky, alternately sniffing the sand and snorting excitedly about the new surroundings. I elbowed her shoulder a couple of times to keep her a safe distance from me, as…

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