April 11, 2024 • 47 mins
In this thought-provoking episode of Inscape Quest, host Trudi Howley invites Ali Schultz, the founding partner of Reboot.io, for a profound discussion that expertly weaves the worlds of equine and leadership principles, and human social behavior. The seasoned executive coach, certified Equus facilitator, and ardent horsewoman, Schultz, offers invaluable insights into horse herd dynamics and their striking parallels with human societal behavior.
Unravel the intertwined facets of equine and human dynamics and significant principles of congruency and safety in effective leadership. Schultz illuminates how drawing parallels between equine-human interactions and our professional and personal realms can serve as incredibly valuable tools.
Featuring riveting discussions of true partnership, workplace relationship dynamics, non-verbal communication, and the role of the nervous system in varied settings, this episode offers a fresh lens on leadership, dynamics, relationships, and personal development. Discover how understanding and internalizing equine behavior can vastly improve our interactions in everyday life and yield insights into building a more mindful, empathetic world.
From the exploration of the intriguing 'parasympathetic reset' in horses to the impact of group culture and boundaries in coaching and psychotherapy, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom. Learn the importance of presence, attunement, and shared experiences in fostering meaningful relationships, and the need for unity in energy to facilitate a genuine connect among team members for enhanced organizational harmony and productivity.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to InScape Quests, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley. Join me as together we delve into discussions about
relationships, work, and passions, unlocking profound insights that may shape our lives.
(00:20):
This is InScape Quests, where the journey within meets the quest for understanding.
My special guest today is ali schultz
ali is a founding partner of reboot.io and
an executive coach she weaves business acumen with the innate wisdom of the
(00:41):
body the world's wisdom traditions and the way of the horse to help her clients
reconnect to their truest self ali has a master's in religious studies from
the University of Colorado.
And as a certified Equus experience facilitator, she's an avid horsewoman and an artist as well.
(01:03):
She lives with her partner and a small herd of beautiful horses at Deep Peace Farm in Colorado.
Music.
(01:29):
Welcome ellie i'm really grateful for
you being here today where hopefully we can engage in
some conversation about how workplace can
be a place where we can really achieve
our fullest self thanks for having me i think
this will be a fun conversation so it seems important at this moment of time
(01:51):
when we have awareness of increased polarization of groups that we also have
an increased awareness of power dynamics showing up in society at large.
I'm hoping that finding new and healthy ways to understand about individual balance,
(02:13):
that you could enlighten us as you
specifically work with exploring how the way of the horse can serve as a model
for leadership and how horse and humans can be successful together and what
horses may teach us about executive presence.
(02:36):
There's a lot to put on one animal. And I do believe that horses offer us the
experience of a different way of being and specifically a different way of being in relationship.
I'll say it feels like to be in right relationship to a horse means that it's
(02:58):
not a relationship of dominance or something oppressive in the sense that, you know,
you're just with an animal and that animal is just their job. job.
To be in right relationship with a horse, it requires a different way of being
with yourself ultimately.
And all of those skills that we can glean from that space, that inner space, that individual space,
(03:25):
we can then bring into the arena with our horses or with a horse and really
experience relationship.
Place in kind of real, in a real-time way in which we're getting feedback.
So there's a lot that one can glean from the experience of being with horses
that will travel really well into many other areas in life.
(03:49):
And so in thinking about different areas in life and noticing what those dynamics
might be, I mean, power dynamics can show up in the microposm of our barn stable environments.
They'll show up in, of course, bigger corporations, startups,
historic systems, like the legal system, school systems, etc.
(04:13):
Any place there's a hierarchy, right? We think dominance, we think there's one
leader, we think those types of things.
You could even include family systems or parenting in some of that thinking.
I will say this, what we've learned in our family systems,
whatever we've originated in, we've learned a lot about relationship or what
(04:37):
it means to be in a relationship according to what we've survived as individuals, as individual humans.
And we bring that information into any of the environments or arenas that we
find ourselves in as we navigate life.
And without looking at what we learned and how those beliefs were formed in our early imprinting.
(05:01):
We can fail to see how our way of being in the world, if left unquestioned,
Or if we don't get curious about it,
it may be a way that's impacting the systems that we're in or the relationships
that we're in in a negative way.
As you're talking, I'm thinking about a conversation that I had with a previous
(05:25):
podcast guest that we were talking about the history of horses.
I was thinking in particular about the novel Black Beauty.
And as you're talking about ways of seeing and showing up in the world and remembering
that book was the first ever novel written about horses and the way we can look
(05:50):
at life through the eyes of others, through the eyes of the horse.
So as we introduce the idea of understanding ourselves better through the eyes
of horses, other sentient beings,
why do you think that's particularly useful at this moment in time?
(06:11):
It's really hard for me to think about Black Beauty without getting choked up.
That's like like the one book, I can't even watch the movie.
I can't even get through the movie trailer.
And I think the beauty of that story in particular is we start to see this other
being as something other than an object. This thing has feelings.
It has some inner experience.
(06:32):
And even without being, you know, anthropomorphizing. No, is that the word?
Yeah, anthropomorphizing of the other animal. There's a being there.
There's a sentient being there. And...
Horses, in reality, are so sensitive and they feel their way through their lives.
(06:53):
Horses in a herd are safer than a solo horse.
So when you think about it, a horse that flies solo is not a safe horse at all.
And there's a lot that the herd provides. The herd provides safety,
protection, comfort, resources, connection, clarity, all these things.
And within the herd dynamics and
(07:15):
the herd system itself there's a
lot to think about in how horses organize they're much
more of a lateral system than a
share system and that is
contrary to what we think about when we think about
this myth that the stallion is the leader of the herd and he
has a harem of mares and you know
(07:36):
they make more horses that's really not how it
is in the horse's world with that
lateral system everyone in the
herd has their own role play and everyone
has their own level of confidence playing
that role so how they are in the group and learning where their place in the
(07:57):
herd is depends on where their spot in the herd is sometimes we see this when
we let our horses out with you know a new group of friends it either works or
it doesn't or it takes takes about a month or two for them to sort it out themselves.
But in the while, it's interesting to note that the leader of the herd is the one who moves the least.
(08:19):
I'll repeat that. The leader of the herd is the one that moves the least.
They're not the most charismatic.
They're not the most hand-waving. They're not the most running around doing a lot of things.
They have so much gravitas and attunement to what's happening in the larger
field surrounding them and to the individuals in space that they can move less
(08:44):
because they're unnoticed.
If there's a group of young horses horsing around, so to speak,
or causing a bit of a commotion, there may be a situation in which a leader
really only has to twitch an ear,
for those horses to stop what they're doing.
Go back to some sort of I don't know, space.
(09:08):
Something more harmonious, a feel or a vibe that's more harmonious.
Same goes for, you know, let's say there's a horse trying to get at a pile of
hay or a certain resource, water, food, whatever.
And, you know, the leader, if the leader was commanding his space,
(09:29):
he might have to just look at a direction or wrinkle his nose.
And the horses might then just move away.
Like they notice everything about the leader in a way,
but the leader has that sense of gravitas and horses in general with each other,
whether they're the leader or not, they have a connection and a way of being
(09:50):
with others that is highly attuned.
As I said earlier, like they are, they're bodies in space and that's how they
know their world, that's how they process their world.
In terms of understanding horses in this way, moving as a group,
and that there are individuals designed to exist as a herd,
(10:13):
they mirror human social behavior and relationships in this way.
Why is it helpful
to look at human behavior when we
know that horses are prey animals and
humans are predators is it because you're saying that the horse's nervous systems
(10:35):
are highly attuned and that they can therefore register intentions that are
around them by other beings things.
Absolutely. As a horse, if you are about to become lunch for someone like a
tiger or a lion or something hiding in the bushes,
(10:57):
your instincts are pretty keen on knowing that this lion was just sitting by
the watering hole with me and a few zebras were totally fine.
And then this lion started pretending to be a rock so something is going wrong and.
Suddenly the situation doesn't feel safe right so
(11:18):
horses are incredibly into incongruencies within
their environment and within other
beings humans excluded and it's
a pretty well-honed instinct as a prey animal
and so when you put humans and
horses together what you
(11:40):
get is as a human you have
a 1200 pound biofeedback mechanism in your space to tell you how safe you feel
to them according to their instincts and that level of sensitivity that the
horse has I will say two things.
(12:02):
One, humans also have that. We often overwrite.
And two, that sensitivity is one of the key things that has made the horse one
of the most successful land mammals on the planet.
I'll add that as a human.
This gruency is important because you want to be, you know that phrase,
(12:25):
be the dog that you're, or be the owner that your dog wants you to be.
In the same way, how can you be the human that your horse needs you to be?
How can you be the safe, the safe haven that your horse needs you to be,
that your horse might want to follow, that your horse would trust?
In order to achieve that, you know, in the horse-human relationship,
(12:47):
you have to find that congruency in yourself.
It requires owning how you're feeling right now, even though you may not want to name it.
It means really inquiring, well, how am I right now?
I haven't asked myself that in the last six months or maybe the last few hours
or maybe the last few decades.
But in a way, it's how do we become more human? How do we become more vulnerable?
(13:09):
How do we become more authentic with ourselves so that those in our presence
are safe with us or feel safe with us?
And so even as I'm talking about this now, I am intonating and this translates
into our human spaces, too.
In fact, it translates in a really big way.
(13:30):
And so in order to work with a horse, or not in order to work with a horse,
but if you have the opportunity to work with horses in a way that gives you
feedback about how you're showing up in the field and how you're affecting those
you're with, it's really great information.
Motivation to then take and work on with whoever you work with,
(13:50):
you know, if you're interwork or a guide in that, in your interstate,
you know, inquiries, because that's where.
That could be a big piece of growth for you as a human.
These seem to be really powerful statements in understanding both human and
horse dynamics and interrelational dynamics.
(14:12):
And I love what you've said about horses don't override themselves,
that they have this authentic presence.
And ultimately, it's all about feeling safe in order to go back to whatever
their nature of being a horse is. is.
(14:32):
And what I'm hearing you say is that if you don't meet the horses with presence,
then in a very similar way that
actually happens or can happen with the humans in our lives too. And so,
My understanding is that when you're present and curious about their world,
(14:56):
the horse's world, or other humans that you're interacting with,
if you don't have an agenda other than to be there with them in the moment,
that's where the real power lies.
I agree. I agree 100%. They'll reach back for you. That presence is so different
(15:20):
than the impressive, dominant stance that we talked about earlier.
And when you have a more power with dynamic versus a power over dynamic,
as my mentor Kelly Wendorf will say, that's available.
That neutral curiosity is available and this relationship is available.
(15:41):
Available and it's a really potent
and magical space and it does require
one to be very present
and aware really in the here and now
it's you know the relationship then has a chance to have a little bit more harmony
right everybody's on equal footing not like somebody's holding something over
(16:05):
someone else right the human isn't holding something over the horse and it It
leans much more towards,
as you were noting, the pleasure of being together.
My curiosity then is what's here for us in this moment?
Where might your attention be? Where might my attention be? How can we come together?
And how can I, as a human, see what you're seeing over there, of course?
(16:30):
And how can we play in that space of togetherness?
There's a lot more true partnership that's possible in that space.
And it takes more time to get there, right?
So I guess I posit this as for the
humans who have horses or who work with horses, you know, for a living,
(16:50):
it's a whole different rhythm than I have to exercise at 9 or 11 horses a day
and get these horses training program, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
This is a different way of being a horse.
And Warwick Schiller often quotes a leadership book.
I believe that it might even be renee i'm
not quite sure but he'll say you know you put relationship before
(17:13):
the task and when that is in place especially
with the horse you're saying here i am
in this relationship that i see you there and i
feel you there and what now
do we want to do with our together obviously
the horse is not going to respond words right so as a human we must be attuned
(17:35):
in a different way into that all those other ways of knowing the world that
are like the 93 percent of non-verbal ways in which we communicate and understand.
Bodies that aren't you know i think so
many horses just look at the horse industry so
many horses that are in training are really objects where they are the thing
(17:59):
by which things need to get done every day they're part of a program and there's
a rhythm and a bunch of tasks that they need to complete and the relationship
is very often overlooked besides obviously obviously, the occasional,
you know, molasses, muffin, or carrot, etc.
So there's a lot more that can happen even with a functional horse-human relationship
(18:21):
or the transactional horse-human relationship.
That's how I think of those training situations, traditional training situations, probably.
When there's a larger awareness and a wider awareness put on the relationship
itself out and maybe less of an awareness around,
you know, lunging in circles or drilling another cutter where it might be.
(18:45):
Similarly, I'd say in a work environment, think about the humans you work with.
If you can't attune to the person who's in front of you as a manager,
that's going to be a bit of a problem, right?
Humans aren't software and humans aren't robots.
Unfortunately, it would make management so much easier. And
work is probably the most people-y place and the people-y things
are the hardest parts of most
(19:08):
work environments and so learning how
to lead the person in front of you if you are a leader if
you are a manager is going to require a similar
method of putting relationships or tasks so you begin you know you enter that
space with curiosity with an open mind with presence and you build a relationship
(19:30):
and then move it into and what do do we need to do today?
Or what are our goals? How are we doing on things?
So the intention to show up that way in our relationships, to show up with presence,
it's something that we can bring into work environments, something we can bring into our homes.
(19:51):
Hopefully we bring it into our homes. That's where we need it as well.
And especially for parents, it matters in all of these situations because these
are our relationships in life and how we show up there creates this ripple effect.
In an interpersonal way, not just in our one-on-one spaces, you know,
(20:13):
our communities as well.
And so really knowing how at least showing up in this space helps us understand
how we're affecting that space and that relationship.
Everything you're saying is so very profound.
Generally, we really are living in a very fast-paced world right now.
(20:33):
And i get the sense
from talking to other people that in all those
messages that there really is just
this sense of we're just not enough so
i love this idea that you're talking about
of thinking more along the lines of relationship before tasks and you know this
(20:57):
idea of of play and mutual curiosity and potency and where the magic happens.
I like this idea of maybe we can be more adaptive and more flexible through
understanding how horses behave in their natural environment and how they interact
(21:20):
with us and also especially Freshly.
Appreciate all the work that you're doing at Reboot.
And I do want to let listeners know that you have lots of wonderful free resources
on your website, and I'll put your website in the show notes.
But I think all this that's coming into the general public's awareness really is a gift.
(21:45):
And you had previously mentioned about the nervous system.
I'm understanding and seeing that there There really is a lot of information
now in the public domain about how the nervous system works,
and it's becoming more and more common to have that language of the nervous
system, fight, flight, and freeze responses are a little more common in regular use these days.
(22:13):
I'm wondering if you might just dive into the idea of the parasympathetic reset
that's It's just very essential to the very nature of being a horse and being
a successful horse in terms of an alive horse.
Jane Carroll, who I interviewed in a previous episode, she describes the parasympathetic
(22:37):
reset as a horse going back to grazing.
I think my favorite quote or way to frame this is in the herd with horses.
If something happens there's the there's unrest there's a disturbance there's
something scary that just ran through the pasture or something threatening or
(22:58):
something perceived as a threat they will rearrange themselves run around chase
the thing out of the way and once the threat is gone,
they back to grazing like jane said.
Linda Kohanoff stands it this way. She says, horses return to a state of deep
peace, which is, I guess, one of the namesakes that I named my own farm after.
(23:23):
That and a Celtic pollen.
But that is the parasynthetic reset.
And for humans, I think we went around a lot with a lot of threats that even
if they go away in reality, they don't always go away in our mind.
And I think that's the gift of the prefrontal cortex that we have or the way
that our brains are arranged and all the different parts of our brains that
(23:48):
have evolved through time, like then talk to each other.
Like it's harder for us to not perceive the threat as real.
If we have a worried thought, if we have anxiety about something,
it's just like our mind gets on a track and it's much harder to get off that
track and come back to a space of deep peace or to just go back to grazing.
(24:10):
And so parasympathetic reset, especially for humans, adapts us long-term,
whether it slides us into burnout, depression, health problems,
whatever it is, like that's the path there.
But our ability as humans to realize when our minds are on that track and it's
(24:32):
going really fast, and how do we then get off of it?
How do we come back to what hopefully is a true reality for us,
which is, oh, I can take a deep breath.
Oh, I am alive. I can take three deep breaths.
I can walk around and just be in my body. I can stare at the sky and feel safe.
(24:54):
I can do what I need to do to regain a sense of inner safety.
These are all things that can help us reset internally.
A sigh often helps. Yawning, I think, is somewhere in the mix of things that can help us.
Box breathing. Like there's all these different tools we can reach for to facilitate
(25:16):
the reset on a nervous system level.
But I think it's such a fun metaphor to live from.
We could call it horse culture, right? And all right, the threat's gone.
We don't have to run anymore.
It's back to grazing. Like we are copacetic. The harmonious resonance has been restored.
(25:40):
Word yes you know peter levine talks
about that a lot in his work about
the nervous system and just this
idea of yeah we are alive so
noticing what's going on in the body coming back into the body and you know
bringing ourselves back into away from a state of dissociation or unfreezing
(26:07):
the numbness that we're here. We are alive.
And everything you're saying is so important. And how do we be with all this stress is interesting.
And in the concept of a book that Mark Rashid wrote, it was a wonderful book
called Horses Don't Lie.
(26:29):
He said that we're looking at their nervous systems horses
nervous systems because they're so
big so it's actually easier to see
what's going on they're these giant nervous systems
in front of us and we can learn their body language
where it may be a little harder for us to start learning what the non-verbals
(26:52):
in a another human being might be like so in this this very large way we get
to see what nonverbal communication really is,
what the language of the body is.
And for horses, their bodies, as you've described, are literally their lifelines.
(27:15):
Yeah, because they don't have the words. And so everything in their world means something.
And as I said earlier, they process with their whole bodies.
They think with their bodies.
And as humans, we're so cut off. We're above the net. primarily
right we're thinking we're rationalizing our
world we forget we have a heart we forget we have a gut we forget we
have intuition we forget we have all these other ways of
(27:37):
knowing in the world and ways of resourcing ourselves in ways of making decisions
and ways of being informed as a human mammal right and it's you know for horses
they live that all the time that's their lifeline And for us as humans,
one of the questions that again,
(27:58):
like I worked with my mentor, Kelly Wendorf, was how do you get access to your horse body?
How do you assume that horse body? How do you start to find that in yourself?
Yourself it's a really interesting metaphor to play with you know how can we be more embodied,
in our lives and through our lives to whatever
(28:18):
degree that it feels safe for us and how
can we begin to parse the information that we're getting by living that way
by showing up that way in various situations so that it informs us with i guess
from a wider perspective right we're not not just operating from our thinking brain only.
(28:40):
You know, for a horse, every little bit means something in the herd.
And we as humans, it's really similar. I think...
Once you gain an awareness, the subtleties and the shifts in physiology, for example,
but even the subtleties of feeling, feeling states,
(29:01):
you can begin to see how you shift, for example, in a group situation versus
individually or with a certain person over maybe someone you love dearly and
who loves you back just for who you are.
We can begin to understand how do I show up in groups? How do I show up differently in relationships?
What's mine and what's not mine? Because I think as human bodies in relationship,
(29:27):
it's similar to horse bodies in relationship, and we're mirroring off each other a lot.
We should always realize that it's humans, but even having a sense of that concept
exists, right? And that is what's happening.
It can help us begin to parse out our human group environments,
like work environments other social systems whatever
(29:48):
organizational systems might be at play or
if other connectionship dynamics lives in
our bipedal lives so you
mentioned organizational systems and you've
talked a lot about the somatic experience
and awareness how do you really apply that
(30:08):
somatic experience in the
workplace in that organizational development
work how is it useful everything that
you've just laid out there yeah there's so much i think and goes back to how
our nervous systems are as an individual and how our nervous systems are in
(30:32):
groups so in a similar similar sense to the bursar.
If I, as an individual, perhaps anxious or angry or afraid, let's just say afraid
of something, and I'm running that circuitry in myself, in my own experience.
I enter maybe a meeting or a group situation at work, but I don't stay or I
(30:58):
don't have a space to check in, a safe space to check in and say,
wow, I'm really terrified about that earthquake that happened last week or the situation with,
you know, a colleague, whatever it might be.
The people in that meeting with
me are going to feel through a similar emotional Wi-Fi that horses have.
They're going to feel that feeling. And I said, unnamed, they're either going
(31:22):
to start feeling it and wonder what's going on, or they're going to like,
look at me and go, So I don't know if it's going to be perfect.
I can't trust what she's saying versus what I'm feeling from how she's showing.
And so in that way, there's so many layers of what's going on.
How can I become more congruent with how I'm feeling?
And how can I name that safely in a group setting?
(31:46):
How can we in this group setting name safely for each other?
How are we checking in? Are we maybe red, yellow, or green to pull in some polyvagal
language language or polyvigilable scale language.
Do I feel safe? Do I feel triggered? Am I offline?
How's my nervous system now? As humans, we need the words to help us narrate
(32:09):
what's going on. Whereas with horses, it leagues ahead of us in terms of they
just get it by being there.
With humans, we need to carve out, refine, and attune our depths of being,
really, so that we can be with each other in a more intelligent and kind and clear way, I would say.
But really, when you think about it, it's the fact of a safe environment,
(32:33):
a safe place to be, especially in an orgy environment.
I think another thing that's really interesting is tracking when we're present
and when we're not present in a word environment.
So if we're not present, what is it that knocks us back into our inner defenses
or our argument building in
our our minds or trying to force an issue and block our way of thinking,
(32:55):
what is it that keeps us showing being present?
And how can we catch ourselves when we're not present and then loop back to presence?
How can we show up in a place of curiosity so that we can...
Get more done together so that we can communicate in
a way that is going to be better hopefully
(33:19):
received in the group in a way that's
not attacking or defensive or
any of those fear-based tactics tactics really
but fear-based ways in which we're going
to come off with a sense of that oppression
and during the real again i'm not
saying we need work environments that are are non-hierarchical
(33:42):
i actually think that word hierarchy is essential and
it's helpful for structure as long as
it's clear structure and descriptions are clear running
structures are clear it all works well and hierarchy
does not mean anything oppressive by any sense if the humans in the room are
building cultures through accepted human accepted but just through through behavioral
(34:09):
norms that say, hey, this is how we behave here.
And so even from that place and the culture that you're building,
which is the style of all of the behaviors that are happening in the group,
if you don't look at your cultures that you're building in your organizations
early on and aim to create them with intention.
(34:31):
You're going to set yourself up for a small disaster down the line.
And setting up your cultures with an intention to be mindful of what you're
putting into place means being mindful of a lot of things. How do we communicate?
How do we check in with each other? How do we fire people?
(34:54):
How do we hire people? How do we lean into hard conversations?
How do we face conflict together in a circle? How do we challenge each other in a healthy way?
How do we manage or how do we communicate with each other?
What being in the red look like for a nervous system is checking in red.
(35:16):
How do we then know how to support each other?
I mean, there's so many ways in which we overlook like the basic building blocks
and what it means to be in an organization with that culture.
And that culture is the sum of all the behaviors in organization.
(35:36):
It's do we have hard conversations? Do we not talk about things?
What do we not talk about? How do we talk about the hard things?
Do we talk about everything?
And all of that needs to be on the table in terms of how do we consciously start
to look at all these little pieces so that it supports more safe ceiling space
relationship so that we can then create awesome things,
(36:00):
do awesome things in the world and meet these audacious goals we may have set for ourselves.
So we're doing these tasks and getting some cool shit done.
As you describe both meeting work colleagues,
where each person is at and beginning to engage in more openness and more observations
(36:24):
of others and self to get more clarity about really how we can do things in a more connected way.
Also aware that both in coaching and psychotherapy, there's a real need for
learning how to set boundaries at the same time as all this other building block stuff is going on.
(36:48):
And I'm wondering what we learn from horses about setting boundaries,
because you did say in an earlier part part of our conversation that for horses
it's really not safe for them to trust incongruence and so as we learn to set
(37:09):
boundaries in our human herds what might be the parallels there.
Yeah and my favorite quote on boundaries
is by from mark mullen and it
goes something like boundaries aren't about keeping other
people out it's about keeping yourself in
and I feel like one of the keystone pieces of boundary
(37:32):
work is not how do I control other people but it's
how do I do the work inside of me so that I am I can show up in this space as
me with my boundaries intact I know what I want I know what I need I know what
I need asked for I know what I'm I'm available for, and what I'm not available for,
(37:52):
and I'm willing to leave if I don't feel like what's here is going to work for me. And that's okay.
But to arrive at that piece of ground as a human, in our human herds,
is a really powerful place.
And it demands a lot
(38:13):
of inner work inside side of us a lot of
self-trust a lot of confidence a lot of trusting
our inner knowing not abandoning ourselves knowing
what we needed and really feeling our
sovereignty and like that first fidelity of i am i am for me first and i know
(38:35):
what i need i know what i want and i know when the situations that i'm going
to be in aren't a match for me or i don't want to be here or Or they're not
supporting me in the ways that I need.
I mean, you can roll that out as a human into all your herds and be like,
does this friendship make me feel small and want to run away? Or can I be me here?
(38:58):
Can I be me at work? Can I be me and my most intimate relationship partner or partners?
And, you know, I will just also say, if your horses have no problem taking risks,
they have no problem saying no stop
that that's not cool with me but humans we
have problems saying that we have problems being direct because we feel like
(39:20):
we're going to get kicked out of the tribe or we're going to end up in whatever
hads ways lead us to our our individual steaming pile of shame that lives on
inside of us and keeps us small.
Somehow, our sense of belonging is really close to shame, in whatever our shame is.
(39:41):
And being able to assert oneself or be with oneself or hold one's space as a
human in the way in which horses navigate through their herd life,
it can be a really stark comparison with some really bold differences.
And it's a really awesome thing to see when people can begin to assume more
(40:09):
of their own agency when it comes to boundaries,
and they can get more and more comfortable with that.
I love this concept that you're talking about, Ev, in terms of keeping your sovereignty intact.
I love that there's so much weight to what you said.
It seems like once you've done your internal work processing and the awareness
(40:33):
and actually not creating more harm in the world, that keeping your sovereignty intact is so key.
So thank you for talking about that i'd
actually really like to share a quote from mark
rashid who i'd mentioned earlier as the author of horses don't lie because it
(40:54):
ties in with what you were just saying and one of the many wonderful quotes
he has is he says that horses are nothing if not not a study in harmony.
It's not so much that they strive to stay in harmony, but rather they are skilled
at re-establishing it once it's been lost.
(41:17):
It's the way things work in nature.
And without occasional discord, there can be no harmony in the first place.
It's that ebb and flow that brings life like the beating of a heart.
And one of the reasons for this is there's a lot of horsemanship these days
that isn't geared towards working with the ebb and flow.
(41:40):
So anyone expecting absolute perfection from a situation that involves the interaction
of two different species,
such as horses and humans, they're going to be in for a fairly substantial disappointment there.
And applying everything you've said
to horses and humans together really harmony
(42:03):
isn't about perfection it's about synchronization coming together for a common
goal not a mechanical type of synchronization that's you know evolves through
repetition of endless circles or ritual habit patterns,
but through a synchronization that's flow, blended energy.
(42:28):
And that's what brings the spirit to life.
Yeah, I love that so much, actually.
And I think that's what happens in our relational spaces as well as humans.
When you're present, when you can be attuned, that's the real magic.
And it requires not directing your life from your mind only.
(42:49):
Personally and you know not being out
of control then it's thinking that you must control all the things or that you
do control all the things you know you have to be in a place of allowing you're
also showing up in a way that's shallow and just purely traditional i do this
you do this i do this and make you do this if you don't want to do this that's
hard hard relationship and i think.
(43:13):
Those gritty and granular spaces of being together.
Whether it's with you through this podcast, Proust and Struthie,
with our intimate partners in life, with people that challenge us in life,
our cats, our favorite four-legged friends,
those more interpersonal spaces,
(43:37):
truly where the magic is.
That's where the connection happens. That's where our hearts fill up in a much bigger way.
And perfection is in, honestly, just the feeling of that and the fact that we seek it.
You know, perfection is certainly not filling some glossy image of what we paint relationships like.
(44:02):
You know, it's how present can we be and what's here for us now in this space and this relationship.
And it's a real jewel, or it can be, if you're with the right person,
perhaps the right animal, right?
To be able to be in a place where you have your experience and it loops.
(44:23):
They have their experience and it's a shared thing, but there's a check-in and
there's play and resonance or a place of connection and a place of acceptance.
I would also say safety and belonging are there as well.
But it's a space in which i would
posit you know part of the magic is this feeling where
(44:44):
love can actually exist true love in
a way where there's just this mutual aspect that i am here in my fullness and
i see you there in your fullness and i don't need you to complete me and yet
somehow how you are adding to my experience in an exponential, positive way.
(45:05):
Absolutely love what you've said. And I think as you're talking about allowing
for space, for flow, and for magic to happen,
and noting that there's energy there, and there's also space for balance as well.
And it's really a beautiful aspiration to wrap up our conversation with today.
(45:29):
And really grateful for everything you've shared with all your insights,
wisdoms, and experience.
And we have a lot more to talk about, I know.
And I think hopefully there's a lot of things here that listeners will get out
of what you've shared today.
So thank you so much, Ali, for being here. Oh, yeah. Thank you.
(45:53):
You thank you for tuning in today and investing your time with us feel free
to share this episode with a friend and we look forward to reconnecting with you in our next episode.
Welcome to InScape Quests, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley. Join me as together we delve into discussions about
relationships, work, and passions, unlocking profound insights that may shape our lives.
(00:20):
This is InScape Quests, where the journey within meets the quest for understanding.
My special guest today is ali schultz
ali is a founding partner of reboot.io and
an executive coach she weaves business acumen with the innate wisdom of the
(00:41):
body the world's wisdom traditions and the way of the horse to help her clients
reconnect to their truest self ali has a master's in religious studies from
the University of Colorado.
And as a certified Equus experience facilitator, she's an avid horsewoman and an artist as well.
(01:03):
She lives with her partner and a small herd of beautiful horses at Deep Peace Farm in Colorado.
Music.
(01:29):
Welcome ellie i'm really grateful for
you being here today where hopefully we can engage in
some conversation about how workplace can
be a place where we can really achieve
our fullest self thanks for having me i think
this will be a fun conversation so it seems important at this moment of time
(01:51):
when we have awareness of increased polarization of groups that we also have
an increased awareness of power dynamics showing up in society at large.
I'm hoping that finding new and healthy ways to understand about individual balance,
(02:13):
that you could enlighten us as you
specifically work with exploring how the way of the horse can serve as a model
for leadership and how horse and humans can be successful together and what
horses may teach us about executive presence.
(02:36):
There's a lot to put on one animal. And I do believe that horses offer us the
experience of a different way of being and specifically a different way of being in relationship.
I'll say it feels like to be in right relationship to a horse means that it's
(02:58):
not a relationship of dominance or something oppressive in the sense that, you know,
you're just with an animal and that animal is just their job. job.
To be in right relationship with a horse, it requires a different way of being
with yourself ultimately.
And all of those skills that we can glean from that space, that inner space, that individual space,
(03:25):
we can then bring into the arena with our horses or with a horse and really
experience relationship.
Place in kind of real, in a real-time way in which we're getting feedback.
So there's a lot that one can glean from the experience of being with horses
that will travel really well into many other areas in life.
(03:49):
And so in thinking about different areas in life and noticing what those dynamics
might be, I mean, power dynamics can show up in the microposm of our barn stable environments.
They'll show up in, of course, bigger corporations, startups,
historic systems, like the legal system, school systems, etc.
(04:13):
Any place there's a hierarchy, right? We think dominance, we think there's one
leader, we think those types of things.
You could even include family systems or parenting in some of that thinking.
I will say this, what we've learned in our family systems,
whatever we've originated in, we've learned a lot about relationship or what
(04:37):
it means to be in a relationship according to what we've survived as individuals, as individual humans.
And we bring that information into any of the environments or arenas that we
find ourselves in as we navigate life.
And without looking at what we learned and how those beliefs were formed in our early imprinting.
(05:01):
We can fail to see how our way of being in the world, if left unquestioned,
Or if we don't get curious about it,
it may be a way that's impacting the systems that we're in or the relationships
that we're in in a negative way.
As you're talking, I'm thinking about a conversation that I had with a previous
(05:25):
podcast guest that we were talking about the history of horses.
I was thinking in particular about the novel Black Beauty.
And as you're talking about ways of seeing and showing up in the world and remembering
that book was the first ever novel written about horses and the way we can look
(05:50):
at life through the eyes of others, through the eyes of the horse.
So as we introduce the idea of understanding ourselves better through the eyes
of horses, other sentient beings,
why do you think that's particularly useful at this moment in time?
(06:11):
It's really hard for me to think about Black Beauty without getting choked up.
That's like like the one book, I can't even watch the movie.
I can't even get through the movie trailer.
And I think the beauty of that story in particular is we start to see this other
being as something other than an object. This thing has feelings.
It has some inner experience.
(06:32):
And even without being, you know, anthropomorphizing. No, is that the word?
Yeah, anthropomorphizing of the other animal. There's a being there.
There's a sentient being there. And...
Horses, in reality, are so sensitive and they feel their way through their lives.
(06:53):
Horses in a herd are safer than a solo horse.
So when you think about it, a horse that flies solo is not a safe horse at all.
And there's a lot that the herd provides. The herd provides safety,
protection, comfort, resources, connection, clarity, all these things.
And within the herd dynamics and
(07:15):
the herd system itself there's a
lot to think about in how horses organize they're much
more of a lateral system than a
share system and that is
contrary to what we think about when we think about
this myth that the stallion is the leader of the herd and he
has a harem of mares and you know
(07:36):
they make more horses that's really not how it
is in the horse's world with that
lateral system everyone in the
herd has their own role play and everyone
has their own level of confidence playing
that role so how they are in the group and learning where their place in the
(07:57):
herd is depends on where their spot in the herd is sometimes we see this when
we let our horses out with you know a new group of friends it either works or
it doesn't or it takes takes about a month or two for them to sort it out themselves.
But in the while, it's interesting to note that the leader of the herd is the one who moves the least.
(08:19):
I'll repeat that. The leader of the herd is the one that moves the least.
They're not the most charismatic.
They're not the most hand-waving. They're not the most running around doing a lot of things.
They have so much gravitas and attunement to what's happening in the larger
field surrounding them and to the individuals in space that they can move less
(08:44):
because they're unnoticed.
If there's a group of young horses horsing around, so to speak,
or causing a bit of a commotion, there may be a situation in which a leader
really only has to twitch an ear,
for those horses to stop what they're doing.
Go back to some sort of I don't know, space.
(09:08):
Something more harmonious, a feel or a vibe that's more harmonious.
Same goes for, you know, let's say there's a horse trying to get at a pile of
hay or a certain resource, water, food, whatever.
And, you know, the leader, if the leader was commanding his space,
(09:29):
he might have to just look at a direction or wrinkle his nose.
And the horses might then just move away.
Like they notice everything about the leader in a way,
but the leader has that sense of gravitas and horses in general with each other,
whether they're the leader or not, they have a connection and a way of being
(09:50):
with others that is highly attuned.
As I said earlier, like they are, they're bodies in space and that's how they
know their world, that's how they process their world.
In terms of understanding horses in this way, moving as a group,
and that there are individuals designed to exist as a herd,
(10:13):
they mirror human social behavior and relationships in this way.
Why is it helpful
to look at human behavior when we
know that horses are prey animals and
humans are predators is it because you're saying that the horse's nervous systems
(10:35):
are highly attuned and that they can therefore register intentions that are
around them by other beings things.
Absolutely. As a horse, if you are about to become lunch for someone like a
tiger or a lion or something hiding in the bushes,
(10:57):
your instincts are pretty keen on knowing that this lion was just sitting by
the watering hole with me and a few zebras were totally fine.
And then this lion started pretending to be a rock so something is going wrong and.
Suddenly the situation doesn't feel safe right so
(11:18):
horses are incredibly into incongruencies within
their environment and within other
beings humans excluded and it's
a pretty well-honed instinct as a prey animal
and so when you put humans and
horses together what you
(11:40):
get is as a human you have
a 1200 pound biofeedback mechanism in your space to tell you how safe you feel
to them according to their instincts and that level of sensitivity that the
horse has I will say two things.
(12:02):
One, humans also have that. We often overwrite.
And two, that sensitivity is one of the key things that has made the horse one
of the most successful land mammals on the planet.
I'll add that as a human.
This gruency is important because you want to be, you know that phrase,
(12:25):
be the dog that you're, or be the owner that your dog wants you to be.
In the same way, how can you be the human that your horse needs you to be?
How can you be the safe, the safe haven that your horse needs you to be,
that your horse might want to follow, that your horse would trust?
In order to achieve that, you know, in the horse-human relationship,
(12:47):
you have to find that congruency in yourself.
It requires owning how you're feeling right now, even though you may not want to name it.
It means really inquiring, well, how am I right now?
I haven't asked myself that in the last six months or maybe the last few hours
or maybe the last few decades.
But in a way, it's how do we become more human? How do we become more vulnerable?
(13:09):
How do we become more authentic with ourselves so that those in our presence
are safe with us or feel safe with us?
And so even as I'm talking about this now, I am intonating and this translates
into our human spaces, too.
In fact, it translates in a really big way.
(13:30):
And so in order to work with a horse, or not in order to work with a horse,
but if you have the opportunity to work with horses in a way that gives you
feedback about how you're showing up in the field and how you're affecting those
you're with, it's really great information.
Motivation to then take and work on with whoever you work with,
(13:50):
you know, if you're interwork or a guide in that, in your interstate,
you know, inquiries, because that's where.
That could be a big piece of growth for you as a human.
These seem to be really powerful statements in understanding both human and
horse dynamics and interrelational dynamics.
(14:12):
And I love what you've said about horses don't override themselves,
that they have this authentic presence.
And ultimately, it's all about feeling safe in order to go back to whatever
their nature of being a horse is. is.
(14:32):
And what I'm hearing you say is that if you don't meet the horses with presence,
then in a very similar way that
actually happens or can happen with the humans in our lives too. And so,
My understanding is that when you're present and curious about their world,
(14:56):
the horse's world, or other humans that you're interacting with,
if you don't have an agenda other than to be there with them in the moment,
that's where the real power lies.
I agree. I agree 100%. They'll reach back for you. That presence is so different
(15:20):
than the impressive, dominant stance that we talked about earlier.
And when you have a more power with dynamic versus a power over dynamic,
as my mentor Kelly Wendorf will say, that's available.
That neutral curiosity is available and this relationship is available.
(15:41):
Available and it's a really potent
and magical space and it does require
one to be very present
and aware really in the here and now
it's you know the relationship then has a chance to have a little bit more harmony
right everybody's on equal footing not like somebody's holding something over
(16:05):
someone else right the human isn't holding something over the horse and it It
leans much more towards,
as you were noting, the pleasure of being together.
My curiosity then is what's here for us in this moment?
Where might your attention be? Where might my attention be? How can we come together?
And how can I, as a human, see what you're seeing over there, of course?
(16:30):
And how can we play in that space of togetherness?
There's a lot more true partnership that's possible in that space.
And it takes more time to get there, right?
So I guess I posit this as for the
humans who have horses or who work with horses, you know, for a living,
(16:50):
it's a whole different rhythm than I have to exercise at 9 or 11 horses a day
and get these horses training program, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
This is a different way of being a horse.
And Warwick Schiller often quotes a leadership book.
I believe that it might even be renee i'm
not quite sure but he'll say you know you put relationship before
(17:13):
the task and when that is in place especially
with the horse you're saying here i am
in this relationship that i see you there and i
feel you there and what now
do we want to do with our together obviously
the horse is not going to respond words right so as a human we must be attuned
(17:35):
in a different way into that all those other ways of knowing the world that
are like the 93 percent of non-verbal ways in which we communicate and understand.
Bodies that aren't you know i think so
many horses just look at the horse industry so
many horses that are in training are really objects where they are the thing
(17:59):
by which things need to get done every day they're part of a program and there's
a rhythm and a bunch of tasks that they need to complete and the relationship
is very often overlooked besides obviously obviously, the occasional,
you know, molasses, muffin, or carrot, etc.
So there's a lot more that can happen even with a functional horse-human relationship
(18:21):
or the transactional horse-human relationship.
That's how I think of those training situations, traditional training situations, probably.
When there's a larger awareness and a wider awareness put on the relationship
itself out and maybe less of an awareness around,
you know, lunging in circles or drilling another cutter where it might be.
(18:45):
Similarly, I'd say in a work environment, think about the humans you work with.
If you can't attune to the person who's in front of you as a manager,
that's going to be a bit of a problem, right?
Humans aren't software and humans aren't robots.
Unfortunately, it would make management so much easier. And
work is probably the most people-y place and the people-y things
are the hardest parts of most
(19:08):
work environments and so learning how
to lead the person in front of you if you are a leader if
you are a manager is going to require a similar
method of putting relationships or tasks so you begin you know you enter that
space with curiosity with an open mind with presence and you build a relationship
(19:30):
and then move it into and what do do we need to do today?
Or what are our goals? How are we doing on things?
So the intention to show up that way in our relationships, to show up with presence,
it's something that we can bring into work environments, something we can bring into our homes.
(19:51):
Hopefully we bring it into our homes. That's where we need it as well.
And especially for parents, it matters in all of these situations because these
are our relationships in life and how we show up there creates this ripple effect.
In an interpersonal way, not just in our one-on-one spaces, you know,
(20:13):
our communities as well.
And so really knowing how at least showing up in this space helps us understand
how we're affecting that space and that relationship.
Everything you're saying is so very profound.
Generally, we really are living in a very fast-paced world right now.
(20:33):
And i get the sense
from talking to other people that in all those
messages that there really is just
this sense of we're just not enough so
i love this idea that you're talking about
of thinking more along the lines of relationship before tasks and you know this
(20:57):
idea of of play and mutual curiosity and potency and where the magic happens.
I like this idea of maybe we can be more adaptive and more flexible through
understanding how horses behave in their natural environment and how they interact
(21:20):
with us and also especially Freshly.
Appreciate all the work that you're doing at Reboot.
And I do want to let listeners know that you have lots of wonderful free resources
on your website, and I'll put your website in the show notes.
But I think all this that's coming into the general public's awareness really is a gift.
(21:45):
And you had previously mentioned about the nervous system.
I'm understanding and seeing that there There really is a lot of information
now in the public domain about how the nervous system works,
and it's becoming more and more common to have that language of the nervous
system, fight, flight, and freeze responses are a little more common in regular use these days.
(22:13):
I'm wondering if you might just dive into the idea of the parasympathetic reset
that's It's just very essential to the very nature of being a horse and being
a successful horse in terms of an alive horse.
Jane Carroll, who I interviewed in a previous episode, she describes the parasympathetic
(22:37):
reset as a horse going back to grazing.
I think my favorite quote or way to frame this is in the herd with horses.
If something happens there's the there's unrest there's a disturbance there's
something scary that just ran through the pasture or something threatening or
(22:58):
something perceived as a threat they will rearrange themselves run around chase
the thing out of the way and once the threat is gone,
they back to grazing like jane said.
Linda Kohanoff stands it this way. She says, horses return to a state of deep
peace, which is, I guess, one of the namesakes that I named my own farm after.
(23:23):
That and a Celtic pollen.
But that is the parasynthetic reset.
And for humans, I think we went around a lot with a lot of threats that even
if they go away in reality, they don't always go away in our mind.
And I think that's the gift of the prefrontal cortex that we have or the way
that our brains are arranged and all the different parts of our brains that
(23:48):
have evolved through time, like then talk to each other.
Like it's harder for us to not perceive the threat as real.
If we have a worried thought, if we have anxiety about something,
it's just like our mind gets on a track and it's much harder to get off that
track and come back to a space of deep peace or to just go back to grazing.
(24:10):
And so parasympathetic reset, especially for humans, adapts us long-term,
whether it slides us into burnout, depression, health problems,
whatever it is, like that's the path there.
But our ability as humans to realize when our minds are on that track and it's
(24:32):
going really fast, and how do we then get off of it?
How do we come back to what hopefully is a true reality for us,
which is, oh, I can take a deep breath.
Oh, I am alive. I can take three deep breaths.
I can walk around and just be in my body. I can stare at the sky and feel safe.
(24:54):
I can do what I need to do to regain a sense of inner safety.
These are all things that can help us reset internally.
A sigh often helps. Yawning, I think, is somewhere in the mix of things that can help us.
Box breathing. Like there's all these different tools we can reach for to facilitate
(25:16):
the reset on a nervous system level.
But I think it's such a fun metaphor to live from.
We could call it horse culture, right? And all right, the threat's gone.
We don't have to run anymore.
It's back to grazing. Like we are copacetic. The harmonious resonance has been restored.
(25:40):
Word yes you know peter levine talks
about that a lot in his work about
the nervous system and just this
idea of yeah we are alive so
noticing what's going on in the body coming back into the body and you know
bringing ourselves back into away from a state of dissociation or unfreezing
(26:07):
the numbness that we're here. We are alive.
And everything you're saying is so important. And how do we be with all this stress is interesting.
And in the concept of a book that Mark Rashid wrote, it was a wonderful book
called Horses Don't Lie.
(26:29):
He said that we're looking at their nervous systems horses
nervous systems because they're so
big so it's actually easier to see
what's going on they're these giant nervous systems
in front of us and we can learn their body language
where it may be a little harder for us to start learning what the non-verbals
(26:52):
in a another human being might be like so in this this very large way we get
to see what nonverbal communication really is,
what the language of the body is.
And for horses, their bodies, as you've described, are literally their lifelines.
(27:15):
Yeah, because they don't have the words. And so everything in their world means something.
And as I said earlier, they process with their whole bodies.
They think with their bodies.
And as humans, we're so cut off. We're above the net. primarily
right we're thinking we're rationalizing our
world we forget we have a heart we forget we have a gut we forget we
have intuition we forget we have all these other ways of
(27:37):
knowing in the world and ways of resourcing ourselves in ways of making decisions
and ways of being informed as a human mammal right and it's you know for horses
they live that all the time that's their lifeline And for us as humans,
one of the questions that again,
(27:58):
like I worked with my mentor, Kelly Wendorf, was how do you get access to your horse body?
How do you assume that horse body? How do you start to find that in yourself?
Yourself it's a really interesting metaphor to play with you know how can we be more embodied,
in our lives and through our lives to whatever
(28:18):
degree that it feels safe for us and how
can we begin to parse the information that we're getting by living that way
by showing up that way in various situations so that it informs us with i guess
from a wider perspective right we're not not just operating from our thinking brain only.
(28:40):
You know, for a horse, every little bit means something in the herd.
And we as humans, it's really similar. I think...
Once you gain an awareness, the subtleties and the shifts in physiology, for example,
but even the subtleties of feeling, feeling states,
(29:01):
you can begin to see how you shift, for example, in a group situation versus
individually or with a certain person over maybe someone you love dearly and
who loves you back just for who you are.
We can begin to understand how do I show up in groups? How do I show up differently in relationships?
What's mine and what's not mine? Because I think as human bodies in relationship,
(29:27):
it's similar to horse bodies in relationship, and we're mirroring off each other a lot.
We should always realize that it's humans, but even having a sense of that concept
exists, right? And that is what's happening.
It can help us begin to parse out our human group environments,
like work environments other social systems whatever
(29:48):
organizational systems might be at play or
if other connectionship dynamics lives in
our bipedal lives so you
mentioned organizational systems and you've
talked a lot about the somatic experience
and awareness how do you really apply that
(30:08):
somatic experience in the
workplace in that organizational development
work how is it useful everything that
you've just laid out there yeah there's so much i think and goes back to how
our nervous systems are as an individual and how our nervous systems are in
(30:32):
groups so in a similar similar sense to the bursar.
If I, as an individual, perhaps anxious or angry or afraid, let's just say afraid
of something, and I'm running that circuitry in myself, in my own experience.
I enter maybe a meeting or a group situation at work, but I don't stay or I
(30:58):
don't have a space to check in, a safe space to check in and say,
wow, I'm really terrified about that earthquake that happened last week or the situation with,
you know, a colleague, whatever it might be.
The people in that meeting with
me are going to feel through a similar emotional Wi-Fi that horses have.
They're going to feel that feeling. And I said, unnamed, they're either going
(31:22):
to start feeling it and wonder what's going on, or they're going to like,
look at me and go, So I don't know if it's going to be perfect.
I can't trust what she's saying versus what I'm feeling from how she's showing.
And so in that way, there's so many layers of what's going on.
How can I become more congruent with how I'm feeling?
And how can I name that safely in a group setting?
(31:46):
How can we in this group setting name safely for each other?
How are we checking in? Are we maybe red, yellow, or green to pull in some polyvagal
language language or polyvigilable scale language.
Do I feel safe? Do I feel triggered? Am I offline?
How's my nervous system now? As humans, we need the words to help us narrate
(32:09):
what's going on. Whereas with horses, it leagues ahead of us in terms of they
just get it by being there.
With humans, we need to carve out, refine, and attune our depths of being,
really, so that we can be with each other in a more intelligent and kind and clear way, I would say.
But really, when you think about it, it's the fact of a safe environment,
(32:33):
a safe place to be, especially in an orgy environment.
I think another thing that's really interesting is tracking when we're present
and when we're not present in a word environment.
So if we're not present, what is it that knocks us back into our inner defenses
or our argument building in
our our minds or trying to force an issue and block our way of thinking,
(32:55):
what is it that keeps us showing being present?
And how can we catch ourselves when we're not present and then loop back to presence?
How can we show up in a place of curiosity so that we can...
Get more done together so that we can communicate in
a way that is going to be better hopefully
(33:19):
received in the group in a way that's
not attacking or defensive or
any of those fear-based tactics tactics really
but fear-based ways in which we're going
to come off with a sense of that oppression
and during the real again i'm not
saying we need work environments that are are non-hierarchical
(33:42):
i actually think that word hierarchy is essential and
it's helpful for structure as long as
it's clear structure and descriptions are clear running
structures are clear it all works well and hierarchy
does not mean anything oppressive by any sense if the humans in the room are
building cultures through accepted human accepted but just through through behavioral
(34:09):
norms that say, hey, this is how we behave here.
And so even from that place and the culture that you're building,
which is the style of all of the behaviors that are happening in the group,
if you don't look at your cultures that you're building in your organizations
early on and aim to create them with intention.
(34:31):
You're going to set yourself up for a small disaster down the line.
And setting up your cultures with an intention to be mindful of what you're
putting into place means being mindful of a lot of things. How do we communicate?
How do we check in with each other? How do we fire people?
(34:54):
How do we hire people? How do we lean into hard conversations?
How do we face conflict together in a circle? How do we challenge each other in a healthy way?
How do we manage or how do we communicate with each other?
What being in the red look like for a nervous system is checking in red.
(35:16):
How do we then know how to support each other?
I mean, there's so many ways in which we overlook like the basic building blocks
and what it means to be in an organization with that culture.
And that culture is the sum of all the behaviors in organization.
(35:36):
It's do we have hard conversations? Do we not talk about things?
What do we not talk about? How do we talk about the hard things?
Do we talk about everything?
And all of that needs to be on the table in terms of how do we consciously start
to look at all these little pieces so that it supports more safe ceiling space
relationship so that we can then create awesome things,
(36:00):
do awesome things in the world and meet these audacious goals we may have set for ourselves.
So we're doing these tasks and getting some cool shit done.
As you describe both meeting work colleagues,
where each person is at and beginning to engage in more openness and more observations
(36:24):
of others and self to get more clarity about really how we can do things in a more connected way.
Also aware that both in coaching and psychotherapy, there's a real need for
learning how to set boundaries at the same time as all this other building block stuff is going on.
(36:48):
And I'm wondering what we learn from horses about setting boundaries,
because you did say in an earlier part part of our conversation that for horses
it's really not safe for them to trust incongruence and so as we learn to set
(37:09):
boundaries in our human herds what might be the parallels there.
Yeah and my favorite quote on boundaries
is by from mark mullen and it
goes something like boundaries aren't about keeping other
people out it's about keeping yourself in
and I feel like one of the keystone pieces of boundary
(37:32):
work is not how do I control other people but it's
how do I do the work inside of me so that I am I can show up in this space as
me with my boundaries intact I know what I want I know what I need I know what
I need asked for I know what I'm I'm available for, and what I'm not available for,
(37:52):
and I'm willing to leave if I don't feel like what's here is going to work for me. And that's okay.
But to arrive at that piece of ground as a human, in our human herds,
is a really powerful place.
And it demands a lot
(38:13):
of inner work inside side of us a lot of
self-trust a lot of confidence a lot of trusting
our inner knowing not abandoning ourselves knowing
what we needed and really feeling our
sovereignty and like that first fidelity of i am i am for me first and i know
(38:35):
what i need i know what i want and i know when the situations that i'm going
to be in aren't a match for me or i don't want to be here or Or they're not
supporting me in the ways that I need.
I mean, you can roll that out as a human into all your herds and be like,
does this friendship make me feel small and want to run away? Or can I be me here?
(38:58):
Can I be me at work? Can I be me and my most intimate relationship partner or partners?
And, you know, I will just also say, if your horses have no problem taking risks,
they have no problem saying no stop
that that's not cool with me but humans we
have problems saying that we have problems being direct because we feel like
(39:20):
we're going to get kicked out of the tribe or we're going to end up in whatever
hads ways lead us to our our individual steaming pile of shame that lives on
inside of us and keeps us small.
Somehow, our sense of belonging is really close to shame, in whatever our shame is.
(39:41):
And being able to assert oneself or be with oneself or hold one's space as a
human in the way in which horses navigate through their herd life,
it can be a really stark comparison with some really bold differences.
And it's a really awesome thing to see when people can begin to assume more
(40:09):
of their own agency when it comes to boundaries,
and they can get more and more comfortable with that.
I love this concept that you're talking about, Ev, in terms of keeping your sovereignty intact.
I love that there's so much weight to what you said.
It seems like once you've done your internal work processing and the awareness
(40:33):
and actually not creating more harm in the world, that keeping your sovereignty intact is so key.
So thank you for talking about that i'd
actually really like to share a quote from mark
rashid who i'd mentioned earlier as the author of horses don't lie because it
(40:54):
ties in with what you were just saying and one of the many wonderful quotes
he has is he says that horses are nothing if not not a study in harmony.
It's not so much that they strive to stay in harmony, but rather they are skilled
at re-establishing it once it's been lost.
(41:17):
It's the way things work in nature.
And without occasional discord, there can be no harmony in the first place.
It's that ebb and flow that brings life like the beating of a heart.
And one of the reasons for this is there's a lot of horsemanship these days
that isn't geared towards working with the ebb and flow.
(41:40):
So anyone expecting absolute perfection from a situation that involves the interaction
of two different species,
such as horses and humans, they're going to be in for a fairly substantial disappointment there.
And applying everything you've said
to horses and humans together really harmony
(42:03):
isn't about perfection it's about synchronization coming together for a common
goal not a mechanical type of synchronization that's you know evolves through
repetition of endless circles or ritual habit patterns,
but through a synchronization that's flow, blended energy.
(42:28):
And that's what brings the spirit to life.
Yeah, I love that so much, actually.
And I think that's what happens in our relational spaces as well as humans.
When you're present, when you can be attuned, that's the real magic.
And it requires not directing your life from your mind only.
(42:49):
Personally and you know not being out
of control then it's thinking that you must control all the things or that you
do control all the things you know you have to be in a place of allowing you're
also showing up in a way that's shallow and just purely traditional i do this
you do this i do this and make you do this if you don't want to do this that's
hard hard relationship and i think.
(43:13):
Those gritty and granular spaces of being together.
Whether it's with you through this podcast, Proust and Struthie,
with our intimate partners in life, with people that challenge us in life,
our cats, our favorite four-legged friends,
those more interpersonal spaces,
(43:37):
truly where the magic is.
That's where the connection happens. That's where our hearts fill up in a much bigger way.
And perfection is in, honestly, just the feeling of that and the fact that we seek it.
You know, perfection is certainly not filling some glossy image of what we paint relationships like.
(44:02):
You know, it's how present can we be and what's here for us now in this space and this relationship.
And it's a real jewel, or it can be, if you're with the right person,
perhaps the right animal, right?
To be able to be in a place where you have your experience and it loops.
(44:23):
They have their experience and it's a shared thing, but there's a check-in and
there's play and resonance or a place of connection and a place of acceptance.
I would also say safety and belonging are there as well.
But it's a space in which i would
posit you know part of the magic is this feeling where
(44:44):
love can actually exist true love in
a way where there's just this mutual aspect that i am here in my fullness and
i see you there in your fullness and i don't need you to complete me and yet
somehow how you are adding to my experience in an exponential, positive way.
(45:05):
Absolutely love what you've said. And I think as you're talking about allowing
for space, for flow, and for magic to happen,
and noting that there's energy there, and there's also space for balance as well.
And it's really a beautiful aspiration to wrap up our conversation with today.
(45:29):
And really grateful for everything you've shared with all your insights,
wisdoms, and experience.
And we have a lot more to talk about, I know.
And I think hopefully there's a lot of things here that listeners will get out
of what you've shared today.
So thank you so much, Ali, for being here. Oh, yeah. Thank you.
(45:53):
You thank you for tuning in today and investing your time with us feel free
to share this episode with a friend and we look forward to reconnecting with you in our next episode.
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