June 4, 2025 • 59 mins
This episode goes deep and personal. It contains live examples of Equine theraputic work; Also called Equine Assitested Practices EAP. The subjects of suicide and helplessness are mentioned. Charlie's Buck has meant many things to all involved.
About Amanda Held:
Amanda Held is the founder of the Equine Wisdom Institute and author of Healing in Harmony: Emotional and Spiritual Wellness for Horses and Humans. A veteran, Mustang gentler, and certified holistic life coach with training in trauma-informed care, somatic integration, and energy psychology, Amanda has dedicated her life to helping people and horses heal together. Her signature modality, the Equine Wisdom Integration Method™ (EWIM), is a structured, ethically grounded system that teaches trained facilitators how to safely and effectively use horse behavior as a mirror for human emotional awareness.
📘 Learn more about her book:
http://www.EquineWisdomInstitute.com
📞 Connect with Amanda: equinewisdominstitute@gmail.com
Disclaimer: The tools discussed in this episode are not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace professional mental health care. They should only be used by trained and certified facilitators. Please do not attempt to replicate this work at home without proper guidance and education.
For more information on names or materials referenced, or to contact Ishe- please email. iabel.hhc@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi.
And is she Abel with the HorseHuman Connection Matrix.
And today I have with me Amanda,held from Hooves and she also
has a book that is about to bereleased.
Healing in harmony.
Healing in harmony.
And she's gonna weigh in onCharlie Bucks and she brings a
very unique perspective becauseof the work that she does, and I
(00:21):
just, I can't wait to hear howshe helps to unpack some of this
and all of the nuances thataffect.
Human relationships and how wecome together with horses as
well.
Welcome, Amanda.
Yes.
Thank you so much for having me.
And it's an an honor to be apart of this unpacking.
And so I did listen to youroriginal story where you share
(00:43):
what happened, and then Ilistened to Kimberly and Asha
and their perspectives as well.
I just wanna say, you know,everything that Kimberly and
Asha said, I think Iwholeheartedly support.
I agree with, and I feel likewhat we're really doing here is
we're painting this holisticpicture.
(01:04):
Mm-hmm.
And if you've ever worked withme or if you know anything about
the work that I do.
I believe that it is paramountto never consider anything from
one perspective.
If we really wanna be holisticin our viewpoint and our ability
to influence and change ourlife, I think it's important to
lay all the information out onthe table and then make a
(01:26):
decision based on all theinformation on how you wanna
move forward.
I'm coming from quite adifferent perspective.
It's not a horse training perperspective, but it's more of an
energetic perspective.
And if you've ever done anyenergy research, Rupert
Sheldrake, I recommend his workto everybody.
(01:48):
He does a lot of work in theMorphic field, but the research
and work that I've built, theEquine Wisdom Institute around
is largely based off of the lawsof nature and quantum
entanglement.
So that's the approach that I'mgonna be taking today in
unpacking what is going on.
(02:09):
And so I have tried to, I, Iguess I wanna start by saying I
believe that when we generalize,we polarize.
Mm-hmm.
And I think one of the biggestchallenges, and especially
listening to the conversationwith Kimberly in the horse
(02:31):
training realm is that theanswer is always, it depends.
You had me at always.
I was like, wait a minute.
We're not supposed to say alwaysand never.
But in that sentence, it works.
Yes.
Right.
And so I also believe we can'tsay always and never except when
we're working in the con contextof universal laws and
(02:52):
principles.
Okay.
Because the laws are alwaysabsolute.
So in the work I've been doingover the past 15 years, I've
really learned how to see thelaws of nature at play.
Mm-hmm.
In every.
Situation that is brought infront of me.
And just to give people a littlebit of background on me, I
(03:12):
started working with wild horsesand becoming a horse trainer in
2003.
So my work has largely been inWildHorse, gentling.
I am also a little bit neurosspicy, so I don't have autism,
but I have pretty escalated hd,which is you know, really become
a superpower to me.
But my brain works a little bitdifferent and it works very much
(03:35):
in patterning and I'm alwayslike, I see patterns in
everything, which I think hashelped me be really effective in
working with horses, gettinglast chance, horses being able
to get horses to places that noone else can get them, because
horses.
Also really love patterns,patterns to horses actually
bring them safety and security.
(03:57):
So that totally makes sense.
Yeah.
Yes.
As pre animals it totally makessense.
Absolutely.
So clarity and patterns, that'sreally how I work with my
horses.
And I would love to meetKimberly one day because man, I
resonated with everything thatshe was saying, so she's
awesome.
I really enjoyed what she had tosay about the situation.
(04:19):
Yes, she's so before we dig in,there's some fundamentals that I
just wanna kind touch on.
And one of the things I put inmy notes about.
Horse training and I, I am nolonger a horse trainer and I no
longer give lessons unlesssomething crazy comes outta the
blue.
My life has now turned to theequine assisted healing space.
(04:43):
So I run five day healingintensives primarily for
veterans, but sometimes forother groups of people as well.
And we learn about the laws ofnature.
We learn about what I call thehuman blueprint, so our own
special intrinsic drivingforces.
And then we also work with howdoes the horse work with who we
(05:06):
are at an intrinsic level.
Mm-hmm.
And.
In doing this.
'cause you know, I came from theold school horse training, then
into the natural horsemanshipand then into the realizing that
horse horses are incrediblyintelligent, sentient beings.
Then I didn't want to like doanything to reprimand them or
(05:28):
confront them, and then Icreated a whole mess there.
And so I like to feel like I've,I've landed somewhere in this
space of neutrality sayingalways, it depends, but looking
at each case individually,because it is in the minutia
that we get the information.
(05:50):
But one of the things I've seenover and over and over and over
again in the equine assistedhealing space,'cause most of my
clients are not horse people,they're just coming to heal, is
that horses will reflect thelife inside of the human.
That is why they're so powerfulin the therapeutic space.
(06:11):
But at the same time, thisinnate ability that they
possess, you know, becausethey're attuned to our nervous
system, because they're preyanimals, because they have a
social hierarchy similar tohumans, whatever all these
reasons are that make horses,horses, this isn't something
they can turn off ever.
(06:31):
So every session that any humanbeing ever has with a horse is
always a therapy session in someform.
Now, most people choose not tosee that, and many, many people
compensate for that by shuttingthe horse down and putting it in
(06:53):
to learned helplessness andcalling it a good broke horse.
But somewhere in there, at somepoint, that horse has seen you.
It's a type of avoid, it's atype of avoidance is what you're
describing.
Oh, well, absolutely.
Because, because people who arehurt and don't understand, and
this is not from a place ofjudgment.
'cause I used to be one of thosepeople.
(07:14):
It's a, it's a place ofobservation.
But the reason that horses cantrigger us so deeply is because
they see us.
And if we're not used to beingseen or if we don't like what's
being seen, it's triggering.
It's confronting.
Right.
And so when you don't know whatto do with that information, a
(07:35):
lot of times you, you feel likeyou have to overpower it.
Right.
And we, we try to controlsituations in order to feel
safe.
And if we don't wanna be seenor, or things are being
uncovered, we may not feel safe.
Absolutely.
So this is a systemic issue inthe entire society of horses
(07:55):
because a lot of people, myselfincluded.
Get into horses because horsesgive us a level of empowerment
mm-hmm.
That maybe we can't findanywhere else.
And if you are seeking externalempowerment, then that typically
means that internally you'redisempowered.
(08:17):
Right.
I noticed the demographic ofwomen with horses and you know,
like 10, 15 years ago andstarted, you know, like mentally
noting that a lot of women thatI'd met who had horses were kind
of in broken relationshipslooking for that empowerment.
Exactly as you're saying.
I mean, the demographics showthat clearly, but we've made a
(08:39):
lot of progress I think in thelast decade.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And so I'm gonna say somethingpotentially confronting here,
but this is a pattern in doingall of the work that I've done
over the past 20 years manypeople look to their horses to
provide them with something theydidn't get from their parents.
(09:01):
Mm-hmm.
It's just and you know, and I'm,I did it too came into the horse
world, very broken.
But our voids in our childhoodmm-hmm.
Create our values as an adult.
And instead of being taught,'cause we're just not taught how
(09:21):
to fill our own voids at, atthis stage in humanity we start
to look at outside things to dothat for us.
Right.
And so some, sometimes peoplebecome overachievers and maybe
they do like dirt bike racingor, you know, something that
involves inanimate objects.
You know, which tends to gobetter for people, but the
(09:42):
horses they see right through,they see all of it, you know,
and I know the, the wholenervous system thing is, is a
huge buzz right now.
I mean, it's very true, but Ilike to say like, when we're
being inauthentic or when, whenwe're not fully owning what is
inside of us and, and what'sinside of us can, can feel
(10:04):
really ugly and still be okay tothe horse if it's being
expressed truthfully.
But we've been told, and we'vebeen conditioned, you know, if
you show up and you're sad or ifyou show up and you're angry,
people aren't gonna like you.
Right?
We're talking about congruenceand how horses expose our
incongruence and, and that inour culture.
(10:28):
We're taught to be incongruentand we have to be incongruent to
function the way our culture isset up, the way workplaces are
set up.
But when we're with our horses,they would much prefer, in fact,
insist that we be congruent andthey teach us that.
Absolutely.
You said that beautifully.
And so that is really, I guessin essence, they're constantly
(10:52):
tuned into and picking up onanything that we are repressing
and they can't turn that off.
And I think the new wave ofteaching.
Is really waking people up andkind of busting some of these
myths.
Like, you can't be, if you'reafraid the horse is gonna be
(11:13):
afraid.
Here's how I perceive thisscenario, and again, I, I
wholeheartedly agree with theother perspectives.
This is just gonna.
Go deep, and I hope you're readyto go deep because that's,
that's where my space is at.
That's where I live in theminutia.
So there's obviously yourcomponent in here, and one of
(11:39):
the things that I have seen overthe years often is when we get
horses that have a past.
Mm-hmm.
And maybe we don't know exactlywhat the past is, but there's
this whole narrative about whothis horse is.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, you have that inyou, and then the horse can see
that in you.
And so it's like, oh, well thishorse is a bolted, this horse is
(12:01):
a bucker, this horse is a biter.
Okay.
But those are all symptoms andthose are all results of
something deeper, but.
When we have a narrative and wethink, oh, this horse is that,
that horse reads that on ourface.
(12:22):
Horses respond to our beliefs.
That is, is a breakthrough thingthat I have discovered in my
research over the past 15 years.
They wholeheartedly, yes, theytune into our nervous system.
That is a whole, very validthing.
But horses respond to ourbeliefs.
Our perspective is made up of afew things.
(12:44):
Right.
And kind of like what you said,our past experiences, if you
were a kid and you played withsnakes and you had a pet snake
and you loved them and you wouldcatch them in the garden and you
see a snake, you're gonna, yourbrain's gonna produce dopamine.
Mm-hmm.
And maybe some serotonin, right?
Mm-hmm.
But if you were a kid and youwere bit by a snake, or your dog
(13:05):
was bit by a poisonous snake andit died, you're gonna see a, a
snake and you're gonna releasecortisol and adrenaline and
epinephrine, right?
So.
We are so biological in, in youknow, my friend Steven Gardner,
he always says, are we, are wesentient and intelligent
spiritual beings, or are weslightly intelligent monkeys?
(13:27):
And I'd like to believe thatwe're somewhere in the middle of
that, right?
So we have this spirituality andthis divine connection, but we
also are driven by our hormones.
And no matter what happens inour life, our hormones are
always gonna come in andoverride us no matter what.
So, if we are challenged, if ourcore values are challenged to a
(13:50):
high enough degree, and thispro, I promise this will relate
later, but if our intrinsicdrivers and values are
challenged to a high enoughdegree, I don't care how
spiritual you are, I don't carehow connected you are, I don't
care how full love you are, yourbiology is gonna override you,
and those hormones are gonnastart driving your bus.
(14:13):
And so we have to look at thesupport of and challenge to our
perspective.
That is literally what governsevery action or inaction or
response or proactive thing thatwe do in our life.
What, what do you mean bychallenge to our perspective?
Can you break that apart alittle bit?
(14:34):
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
So we all have and I, I teach acourse called discovering Your
Human Blueprint, right?
Mm-hmm.
So, but we all have a blueprint.
It's unique to us.
Mm-hmm.
And so we have our intrinsicselves and we show up in the
environment.
And, you know, at the end of theday, we're all waves and
particles connected in onenessin the quantum field, right?
(14:56):
Mm-hmm.
But our body allows us to comehere and have some separation so
that we can have our own humanexperience.
If you walk into the arena andCharlie comes up to you and he
puts his head in your chest andtakes a big breath and just,
you're gonna, that's supportivein that moment, you're gonna be
flood, dopamine, oxytocin,serotonin.
(15:21):
Right.
And your body is gonna have aphysical response, and that
physical response is also gonnasend a vibration or signal to
Charlie He's gonna be having thesame kind of response if we're
having that experience.
Correct.
If Charlie comes up and puts histeeth on you and pinches you,
(15:43):
that's not gonna releasedopamine.
That's gonna release adrenaline.
Actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonnadisagree there.
My experience has been differentwhen he pinches with his teeth.
I'm seeing it through atherapeutic lens, and my
experiences have been reallypositive with being pinched and
it definitely releases a bunchof stuff and creates this shift.
(16:05):
And I don't even know how tonecessarily describe the
physical sensations and theenergetic sensations that
happen, but it started with thathorse at Lis MIT and Ryan's
place that racked its teeth onmy scalp and opened up my
chakra.
It's part of my experience.
It's part of my perspective.
It's part of my response.
(16:26):
So now when he does it to you,you don't see it as a threat,
but what about the first time ithappened and it caught you off
guard and you didn't understandit yet and you hadn't processed
it?
So the first time it happened,I, it, it didn't, I was warned.
I was, she said, she stood thereand said, he's gonna bite you.
This pony's gonna bite you andif you trust him, he won't bite
(16:46):
you hard.
But if you can't let go andtrust him, he'll bite you
harder.
And I was like, of course it'sgonna bite me.
Like, what?
But he bit me.
And something happened and itwas, it was delicious in a way,
not in a weird, I like pain kindof way, but in an energetic
release kind of way.
And so I never had, had anexperience with a horse biting
(17:10):
me in a bad way ever.
Okay.
So that.
So you were primed by anotherperson, Hey, he's gonna do this
to you.
What about when you fell off andgot hurt?
Did you see that as supportivein that moment when you were
hurt at times?
I've, I've come off a horse.
No.
It was not supportive at all.
So in that moment it waschallenging, right.
(17:31):
And you've carried thatchallenge with you.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And now it's governing the waythat you're moving forward in
your relationship with Charlieand your decision to ride or not
ride or whatever.
Right.
And it's escalating, which, youknow, has led us to, to this
situation.
But in essence, everyinteraction that you have is
(17:52):
either gonna be supportive orit's gonna be challenging.
That's going to influence theway that your brain releases its
chemistry.
It's critical.
It's a piece that I haven'theard talked about a lot.
I don't know if I've ever heardit talked about in the context
of horses.
Lot of my training is in humanbehavior.
That's where that comes from thehuman behavior work that I do.,
(18:15):
At the core level, it's eithersupport of or challenge to our
perspective.
Mm-hmm.
And we respond to every singlething in our environment that
way.
Now, when we're aware of thatand we have the tools to process
through things that happen tous, and we shift our
(18:36):
perspective, we can shift whatbrings us pleasure and what
brings us pain by shifting ourperspective.
And that is really at, at theessence, the work that I do is
helping people gain a holisticperspective.
Mm-hmm.
And then.
Like, I believe that we allshould, if it's our life, we
should be deciding, right?
(18:57):
And so if you're not deciding,somebody's deciding for you.
And so what I want to do in thetime that we have today, is kind
of look at just anotherperspective.
So you have a lot of differentfacts and opinions and thoughts
and perspectives.
And hopefully by the end ofinterviewing all the people that
are gonna weigh in on this, youcan make a decision for you
(19:20):
that's gonna best help you andbest help Charlie.
And I, you know, so that's, Ibelieve, and I, I have in my
notes here training, horsetraining doesn't work unless the
horse trainer is teaching you tobe a trainer.
Absolutely.
And so the, the episode that youdidn't watch with or have a
(19:42):
chance to listen to yet withCarissa, we deal with some of
that.
And I've already, from listeningto you and Kimberly and Asha and
Carissa, I always, I alreadyfeel like a softening, where in
the beginning I'm like, I don'tknow if I ever wanna even ride
again.
And now I am, I'm at a differentplace and it, it, I notice how
it continues to change as myawareness of different things is
(20:05):
growing.
Absolutely.
So I wrote here too, this isanother thing that I see so
often and the, the question Ialways used to ask when I would
get a horse horse trainingclient in is what do you want
from your horse?
What do you want from yourhorse?
Because that's going to reallylargely depend on what we do and
(20:28):
the whole basis of the training.
And guess how many timessomebody was able to answer that
question immediately withclarity?
Never, no, never, never.
No, no.
Mm-hmm.
People will say, I don't know,or, you know, we want a show.
(20:48):
Okay.
But that's broad.
Like, what are your expectationsof your horse?
What do you want from them?
And so a a lot of times peoplewould say like, you know, they
would come up with something.
Okay.
Okay.
I wanna show.
Okay.
And what, okay.
What do you believe that showingis gonna give you?
Well, it's gonna gimme theopportunity to go out and have
(21:08):
fun, and be social, and havegoals to work towards, da, da,
da, da.
Okay.
And what will that give you?
Oh I don't know.
Okay.
Well, think about it like, whatdo you, what do you really want?
Because at the end of the day,everything that we do is to gain
a feeling, right?
So how do you want your horse tohelp you feel, or how is
(21:31):
accomplishing all of this?
Gonna help you feel.
And so because they tune intoour beliefs, all of our beliefs
generate feelings.
Mm-hmm.
And courses are so emotional,they're tuning into our feelings
because our feelings are whatcarry a vibration.
(21:52):
Absolutely.
So if we're not looking atfeelings and we're not looking
at beliefs in our relationshipwith our horse and to our horse,
we're gonna have gaps.
And those horses.
Great at putting our gaps rightin front of our face with a
little bow on it.
Which is amazing if you know howto work through those scenarios
(22:15):
and situations.
And frustrating if you don't,because you know, so many times
it feels like, well, thispattern, it just keeps happening
over and over again.
And, you know, I call it likerunning with a rubber band
around your waist.
You'll make progress.
You're running, you're running,you think you've got it, and
then boom, something willtrigger and you just snap back
and you're back at ground zero.
(22:36):
And so if we don't deal with ourbeliefs, then we're gonna keep
living Groundhogs Day through adifferent scenario.
And that's, so back to beliefs.
Our beliefs generate feelings.
Feelings generate vibration.
(22:58):
Horses tune into the vibration.
So, yes, it's our nervoussystem, but it's actually more
complex than that.
It's actually the vibrations ofour emotions that the horses are
tuning into and horses.
A lot of people, and a lot ofpeople are not aware how they
function at that level.
(23:20):
Like many people are not.
Like, I can bring if, if, ifyou'd like.
I can bring an example to that.
Sure.
From, from all of this, it'slike, I know what I want with
Charlie.
I want that that chocolatetruffle that Kimberly talks
about, which is described in theepisode of co-created rides.
It's that I wanna explore withmy horse in partnership
(23:42):
co-creating, you know, I wantthat sense of adventure and that
sense of connection, and thoseare the rides that matter to me.
Those are really the rides thatmatter to me.
And yeah, there's this otherlike, oh, let's go trail riding
with friends that is aboutbelonging and inclusion.
And I, I, like this week, hadthis, all of this sadness come
(24:04):
up with the idea that, that,that might be gone for me.
Like I saw a Facebook thing of acouple of friends, you know,
trailering and riding fromEugene, which is like an hour
away, to a place that's reallymuch closer to me that I, I have
a trailer, I have horses, butbecause of where I am, things
that a lot of horse people takefor granted because they do it
(24:28):
with habituation, they do itwith dominance of putting your
horse in the trailer and goingfor a ride because of some of
the things I've been through andsome of my experiences that
isn't even on the table for meright now.
And all of this, like, loss ofthat, you know, what is the
emotion there?
It's that not belonging thatgoes so deep.
(24:50):
Got uncovered because I don'texperience a lot of that
anymore, but I certainly did asa child.
Sure.
And, and so that's the kind ofthing you're talking about.
And when I'm with Charlie andwe're, we're connecting on the
ground, it's this wonderfulthing like you described,
including all of the, thehormones and neurochemicals.
And I've experienced thatchocolate truffle of a ride lots
(25:15):
of times, but not recently.
And so yeah, that's, that's whatI want.
Yeah.
And what I don't, and what Idon't want and what I need to
work through.
And that's only a piece of thefear.
Like as you described all thesedifferent experiences, like
seeing that trainer come off washorrible.
The three times I've been thrownfrom a horse, I.
(25:37):
Or you know, in my memorysomewhere, although when you
were talking about that, it'sreally interesting because as
I've worked the memory chains ofEMDR, not once has a, a trauma
on a horse been part of thatchain.
Like, it's kind of amazing tome.
Like what?
And I'm, I've got some curiosityabout what's happening from a
(25:58):
neurochemical perspective, thatthose experiences like
childbirth is incrediblypainful.
But that's not part of trauma onmy memory chain and neither is
being thrown from a horse.
I can explain specifically whythat happens.
Right.
Okay.
And so it has to do with twodifferent types of stress.
There's distress and there iseustress.
(26:21):
And so everything that I teachgoes back to our human
blueprint.
Again, the support of orchallenge to your blueprint.
Mm-hmm.
And so we enter situations thatare stressful, that could be
seen as traumatic, right.
But if we can see that thesituation that we've entered is
(26:46):
somehow connected to our highestvalues.
Then when we experience it or wethink about it, because whether
you're remembering it, you'reliving it or you're imagining
it, your body responds exactlythe same.
Mm-hmm.
We enter into a state ofeustress, which is a positive
stress that actually doesrelease positive chemicals in
(27:06):
our body.
If we enter into a scenario thatis seen as traumatic and we
cannot connect it to our values,we cannot connect it to our
blueprint, then we will enterinto a state of distress, and
that's where we start to releasenegative chemicals.
So when things are high in yourvalues, like family, like
(27:27):
horses, when you are challengedin those areas that are in your
top three to five, you don't,your body does not respond the
same because you're releasingdifferent chemicals into your
body.
That's why a lot of times peopledo get bucked off and they get
right back on.
You know, if you got attacked ina parking lot.
You've got away, you aren'tgoing back into the parking lot
(27:50):
to get attacked again.
But if you get bucked off ahorse, you wanna get right back
on.
And again, that goes back toyour perspective.
These things are of high valueto you.
And so you do process thosethings differently when you
think about them.
They release a differentchemical into your body and that
creates different types ofneuropathways in your brain.
(28:13):
Does that make sense?
It does.
Okay.
But there's another part of thisas well, and I'm, I'm trying to
take this this is just so deep,and I'm trying to take it full
circle in the allotted amount oftime that we have, but there is
also a universal law called thelaw of correspondence as above,
(28:34):
so below as within, so without.
Mm-hmm.
And so our primary programhappens to us.
Through the experiences we havebefore the age of 12.
Mm-hmm.
So your brain was veryneuroplastic and your beliefs
about yourself were gettingprogrammed into you.
(28:58):
And this is all happening upuntil the age of 12.
At the age of 12 are brainwavesshift into a beta brainwave
state, which is where the gatesto our subconscious are locked.
Whatever's in there is in there,and our brain actually changes.
And then we live the rest of ourlife in these feedback loops of
our core programming.
(29:19):
And our core programming is donein the forms of beliefs.
So whatever you were taughtabout yourself by your
environment before the age of12, I'm not worthy.
I'm not good enough.
I am stupid.
Nobody likes me.
You know, I can't do anything,right.
I'm clumsy.
Whatever negative beliefs are inthere have to be reprogrammed.
(29:41):
In order for you to change.
And so then because as within,so without our environment is
constantly responding to all ofthis that's in here and horses
are a part of that.
I mean, I believe, you know,when your car breaks down, I
believe that that's feedback foryou.
(30:03):
When you walk through a doorwayand you bang your shoulder,
that's feedback.
Every single thing in ourenvironment mm-hmm.
Is talking to us all the time,trying to wake us up to where we
are out of alignment with ourauthentic self.
And horses just seem to do thisat a really amplified level
because of who and what theyare.
(30:24):
And so, you know, when we talkabout.
I, I know you had mentioned thatyou have guilt about this horse
trainer as well, you know, and Icertainly don't wanna bring
somebody into this that's nothere to, to participate or
reveal anything about thatperson.
But what I can tell you, justfrom the hundreds of people I've
(30:45):
worked to have had horseaccidents and my own personal
horse accident it is feedbacktrying to wake you up to the
fact that somewhere in your lifeyou are selling yourself out.
You are not being authentic, youare not being in alignment.
And I had a really bad acaccident on my heart horse.
I was, you know, dating a guywho'd just come back from rack.
(31:07):
He was being awful.
He wasn't integrating well.
You know, I had this hor horheart horse I had I had him so
well trained.
We rode bridal list like, youknow, and we had, I'd gotten in
a, in an argument with this guyand I got on my horse and he was
very different in that moment.
And we were trying to teach thebaby Mustangs to pony.
(31:30):
And my lariat kind of grazed hisflank, which wasn't new.
And he sent me end over end andI smashed my collarbone.
But when I learned all of thisstuff and I learned that
everything has a spiritualmessage for you that happens in
your life, I realized that goingthrough that experience.
(31:54):
Woke me up to where I wasallowing things in my life that
I shouldn't have been allowing.
What it, what is the collarbone?
I've broken mine twice.
You've broken yours and shebroke hers.
Now I gotta know.
Oh, did her, her clavicle end upbeing that's shattered.
All great changes proceeded bychaos.
I believe that the amount ofchaos that ensues, it will be in
(32:17):
direct proportion to the amountof impact that whatever's gonna
happen happens.
Right.
The collarbone symbolizes thetransmission of heartfelt truth
into authentic expression.
And so if there's injury in thecollarbone, it's a difficulty
speaking from your heart oryou're holding back your truth
(32:37):
due to fear of judgment orrejection.
So the clavicle also carriesburdens and emotional weight and
a sense of over responsibility.
Hmm.
So if I look back to when Ibroke my collarbone, I was
having to carry all the burdens.
You know, I was, I had two kids,I was running a, a boarding and
training facility if it happenson the left side of your body,
(33:00):
that's the feminine side.
So that's like family orphysical or social.
And the right side is moremental, vocational, and
financial.
And I know at that time youknow, I mean boarding a, running
a boarding business is.
I just felt like I can't keepgoing like this.
I have so much responsibility.
I have so many people's horsesto take care of.
(33:21):
I have so much financial burden,you know, the cost of hay is,
you know, so, so I always tellpeople when you get into an
accident, a horse accident, lookat what was going on in your
life three days prior to thataccident happening, because
there's information in there.
(33:41):
And so we call it feedback.
Everything is feedback.
And there's four different typesof feedback.
So the first type of feedback ispsychological feedback.
That's when something comes intoyour experience and you see it
as a support or challenge,right?
So when we're living outside ofour blueprint, something happens
in our environment, we're like,Ooh, this is outside of of my
(34:05):
scope.
This is not fueling me.
This is gonna deplete me.
But if I don't say yes, peoplewon't like me.
If I don't say yes, I'm going toget kicked out of the tribe, and
then I won't have safety andresources and so on and so
forth.
So we're like, okay, yeah, I'lldo that thing that I don't want
to do.
And then it's like, ugh, like agut punch.
(34:25):
Like you, you commit tosomething you don't want to do
and you feel sick, right?
That turns into physicalfeedback.
But again, we don't wanna getkicked out of the tribe because
that's our safety and security.
So then we, we continue to sellourselves out and we get this
physical feedback and we don'tcare.
We just put our heads down andpress on.
(34:46):
Then it comes into ourenvironment.
We get environmental feedbackand that typically shows up in
our relationships.
Maybe it's an argument with aspouse or a child, maybe it's a
coworker or dealing with a, aboss at work, but something
happens, starts to happen in ourrelationships, or it can happen
with our horses.
Even, you know, the horsedoesn't wanna come up to you
where the horse is stuck in itsfeet.
(35:07):
It doesn't wanna move forward.
It doesn't wanna cooperate.
That's also environmentalfeedback.
And then the fourth level offeedback, I call the pattern
disrupt.
It is the thing that happens toyou that is so painful that it
has to invoke some type ofchange in your life.
Right?
So yeah, I had some of those,yeah.
(35:28):
When I broke my clavicle, Icould no longer muck stalls for,
you know, a month.
I had to have surgery.
Oh, I went from taking care ofeverybody to having to be taken
care of.
You know, I was in thisrelationship with a person I
thought cared about me, and whenhe was so mad at me that I did
this, you know, and all he wasdoing was like ridiculing me.
(35:49):
So it was an eyeopener that, youknow, I'm selfish because I have
horses and I shouldn't begetting hurt.
And it was like, wow.
I think the universe was tryingto tell me for like eight years
prior that this person shouldn'tbe in my life anymore, but I
wouldn't listen.
Right?
And so when we don't listen,things in our life escalate,
especially things with ourhorses.
(36:11):
And that's what leads us to theinjury.
And I can say this now because Ihave worked with literally
thousands of people.
And when I take them to thatmoment of the pattern disrupt,
and we unpack that and weintegrate it, they can always
see, they can always see wherethey were selling themselves at.
(36:32):
Sure.
And so we had chatted a littlebit before you hit record, you
know, about the EMDR therapy.
And so, you know, and I'm of theopinion if it works for you,
keep doing it.
I, you know, different strokesfor different folks EMDR, I've
met some people that have saidit has been super helpful.
(36:53):
Before I learned any of thehealing work that I do now, EMDR
was the only thing that hadremotely moved the needle
forward for me.
So I'm glad that I experiencedit and it got me to a point
where I could do other work onmy traumas that really needed to
be done.
I also know some people thathave had horrific experiences
(37:13):
where it's really set them back.
So, you know, I don't have anyjudgment or opinions on any type
of treatment.
If it's working, do it.
However, the thing that Iobserved with the, the EMDR, for
myself personally and for a lotof the veterans that I've.
Worked with is that you know,with EMDR you create like a box,
(37:34):
right?
And you put, you put stuff in abox, or at least I did.
I, you know, I had to createlike a safe box and then I could
put anything in the box and thenit couldn't get to me.
And you know, I had this memoryof my mom and this abusive
situation, and when I went anddid the EMDR on it, it was like
in my mind, my mind built abrick wall and my mom couldn't
(37:55):
get through the wall to get tome.
And so I made something up aboutthe experience that wasn't true,
but I.
It detached me from the emotionof it, because then when I would
go to the memory, instead of heractually getting to me and
hurting me, she never got to me.
She was stopped by this brickwall.
(38:16):
Okay.
So that's great.
Like it got me to a point whereI could do other things.
But in all of the trauma workthat I do now, in conjunction
with integration and the laws ofthe universe what I do now is if
we're working on a trauma withsomebody, we go back into the
actual memory and we pull in, webalance and pull in things from
(38:40):
the other side.
Not to change reality.
If you can't deal with somethingin a moment, you put it in the
box and there may be differentapplications of the box.
I mean, every therapist isdifferent, every person is
different.
So the other thing I wanted tocomment on is it did occur to me
at some point that doing thisEMDR is effective, is being so
(39:01):
effective for me because.
The way I, I term it is so manydifferent things and so many
different modalities over theyears, starting from my very
early twenties, did I pulleverything out up to that point
and look at it and do verygestalt things and work with
Jungian type of psychology.
And then at different points inmy life, again, have pulled all
(39:23):
of this stuff out and applieddifferent modalities to it.
So by the time I've arrived atEMDR it's like the reverse of
what you've done or experiencedmaybe with the veterans and
yourself is that you've done,you've done the EMDR and now
you're finding that we stillneed to unpack this stuff and
that's what you're speaking tonow.
So I guess the question is, doesthe order seem important?
(39:48):
Well, my answer's gonna be, itdepends.
I don't think that's really a, Ithink that's a generalized
question that would have to be.
You know, there's very manynuances to that, but I think,
you know what I, what Irealized, and again, I'm not, I,
I'm so grateful that I had itwhen I did.
(40:10):
It certainly helped me get tothis point, but, but what I have
learned since then, and I feellike what I currently do works
so well with any otherapplication that you're doing,
is that when we work with thethings that happen, what we're
(40:31):
actually doing is we'reextracting really important
information out of thosechallenging times, and we're not
just seeing it as something thatshouldn't have happened to me.
Right.
Right.
Because if I have a trauma andthen I'm told, or I believe that
shouldn't have happened to me.
(40:51):
Then I'm gonna wake up every dayand go, oh my gosh, something
happened to me that shouldn'thave happened to me.
And so I'm not saying thatanything should or shouldn't
happen to people, but I see whatthe belief this shouldn't have
happened to me does to people.
It deteriorates them from theinside out.
So a lot of the work that we doisn't necessarily in, we call it
(41:16):
the right, wrong, good, badperspective or the should
shouldn't perspective.
Mm-hmm.
But the cause and effectperspective, right.
And so I still think that workneeds done in the cause and
effect perspective, or we keepreliving the pattern.
Like it keeps showing up in ourenvironment.
It shows up and shows up and,and so I listened to your
(41:37):
initial and I say all of thatand it's relevant because you,
you said, I feel like every timeI do an EMDR session, something
chaotic comes in and it happens.
And so I'm just curious.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm not saying I certainlyhave the answer, but it, it
sparked a question in me of isthat, does that have something
(42:01):
to do with the law ofcorrespondence and Yes.
And are we getting the lesson,or I guess I would say are, it
seems like we're not, you know,we can, we can dull the
emotional impact that the memoryhas on us.
(42:22):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, that is, can be super,super beneficial.
But to me, if we're not gettingthe wisdom of the feedback of
the experience, so the, let meclarify a little bit of that.
It's an incomplete, it's anincomplete.
(42:43):
When the issue of wherever I amin the memory chain.
And what happens, lemme explaina little bit, is, you know, we
set up a memory from the memorychain working chronologically,
and as we set up that memory,then the next session we do, you
know, a dot on the computerscreen or some kind of bilateral
stimulation that, that reducesthe intensity of the experience.
(43:06):
And then we come in and.
Say, what did you, what was thenegative belief you had about
yourself then?
And then say she'll say, andwhat would you rather believe?
So then we create a new beliefsystem that gets imposed on that
experience as it's beendesensitized.
I think, and I guess it has todo with moving this around in
the brain, but during the timebetween the two sessions is
(43:28):
where I'm talking about.
And that's where I have noticedrepeatedly that whatever is open
in the memory chain where we'vebrought it up, we've set it up,
but we haven't processed it yet.
I'm experiencing, I.
A similar thing in real time,which does allow me to work on
it at a less intense, allows mysubconscious mind to explore it,
(43:52):
examine it, re-experience it ata much lesser intensity level
because it's a differentsituation and it's in real time.
So somehow, I don't know thateverybody experiences that, but
that's been my experience andthat's what happened this day.
And it may be very interestinglyand a coincidence of whatever
(44:12):
the message was for the trainerwith the collarbone, like we all
bring something to theexperience energetically.
Charlie brings something, Ibring something, I bring my
beliefs, I bring where I am inthe EMDR.
He brings his experiences, shebrings hers, and you know, it's
it's a coalescence of how we allcome together.
(44:35):
Absolutely, because everybody'sa vector and everybody's playing
a role in everybody else'sexperience.
But what stood out to me most,you know, and I I certainly
agree just from the horsetraining and the mechanics of
the situation it, it too much,too fast was, was dead on,
right?
Mm-hmm.
So if, if you are not ridingCharlie comfortably in the arena
(45:01):
at several gates and workingwith him, you know, in, you
know, we start at the round pen,you know, can you do transitions
at the round pen?
Can you do short 10 minutesessions?
You know, if you aren't able tocommunicate with him fully and
have his trust and have a goodrelationship in the round, if he
didn't have any of that, hedidn't have any of those skills
(45:22):
yeah.
Then he shouldn't even be in thearena.
Right.
And, and if you can't do it inthe arena, you know, so it it,
it was just.
From a, from a baseline logicalperspective, it was too much,
too fast.
He didn't have the appropriatelevels, channels of
communication on him that heneeded to be able to regulate
(45:44):
himself in the mountains, youknow, so that's just common
sense, right?
The obvious.
But what stood out to me themost, and I would really love to
touch on, and I know we're,we're kind of at our time
almost, but to me the mostimportant thing was what, what
you had said is, I don't havecontrol.
I, there's, I can't do anything.
(46:05):
I'm, I'm helpless, I'm out ofcontrol, or, you know, whatever
you were saying in thatsituation.
And so typically when I workwith somebody that's been
through a horse accident or hasex experienced any type of
challenge or trauma, is I askthem to go to that, go to that
moment.
How do you see yourself in thatmoment?
(46:28):
What are the beliefs that youbelieve about yourself in that
moment?
I am what it is aboutresponsibility.
What?
How far does my influence andresponsibility go?
(46:50):
And if I don't push control,exert everything.
That in both these cases wouldbe a really big response to
control the environment of otherpeople for a better outcome for
everybody if I roll it back.
(47:12):
Okay.
So everything that you just saidto me was about other people.
Yeah.
So what's the belief?
I what I, what I wanna say, likethe positive belief is that I am
not responsible ultimately forwhat happens to other people.
Okay.
(47:33):
But what's the negative beliefin there before you came to that
conclusion?
I'm not sure.
It's like I could have preventedthis.
I could have prevented that, butI couldn't like it.
Well, it's in that, it's inthat, it's in that space of I
should have done more.
So how about, so just again,taking from your words and the
(47:55):
things that I've heard you sayas you speak about this, it's
like, you know, I wanted to domore, but I didn't.
I wanted to tell her to get offmore from me or I, or I couldn't
in, in, in the case with her.
I, I could have been moreforceful.
But would that have beenappropriate in the case from the
(48:17):
E-M-D-R-I, I didn't know whatelse to do.
Like I had tried and tried andtried and I didn't know what
else to do.
So is there like a, I can'ttrust myself and I'm not capable
or like, what?
We gotta go deeper.
I what?
I'm not, I'm not in control andI have, so I don't have it
(48:43):
pulled up here, but I, it's kindof like I should, I should have
known more things to do.
I should have had moreknowledge.
I should have acted differently.
Okay.
So what we gotta turn that intoa belief.
I, so I'm not, I.
Capable.
I'm not enough.
(49:05):
I have blind, I have blind spotsthat I don't understand.
Okay.
I don't understand.
I, I, and I do, like, as anautistic person, I'm just
learning that I have these blindspots that I do not fully
understand.
Okay.
And then some of it is like, Imean, the incident from the EMDR
(49:27):
is my son's suicide.
Right.
So if you go to that momentmm-hmm.
How do you see yourself in thatmoment?
I, what I did the best I could.
I mean, we're through, I, I'vecome through that section and
I've got it down to like a one.
(49:49):
Mm-hmm.
I did the, I did the best Icould.
Yes, absolutely.
You did.
I.
And you are not responsible forother people.
Right.
And so there's, you've done alot of work on that.
Mm-hmm.
But what I'm seeing is thatthere's still a core belief and
we've gotta get to the root ofit.
(50:10):
We've gotta identifyspecifically what is that
belief, because that keepsrepeating itself.
And we've gotta balance andintegrate that belief in order
to get it to stop repeatingitself.
And I'm curious, and we'll getit, but I'm curious how Charlie
(50:31):
will respond differently to youonce we can identify this belief
and integrate it.
Mm-hmm.
So let's go back to the scene,because again, both of these
scenes have to do with stuffthat you can't do anything
(50:51):
about, right?
Mm-hmm.
It's happening.
You can't do anything about it.
Mm-hmm.
So how do you see yourself inthat moment?
I am what?
I am not in control.
Like, I'm like a witness.
I'm not in control and I'm awitness.
Yeah.
Is there any helplessness inthere?
Yeah, definitely helplessness.
Like it's really hard to watchthings just happen and try to
(51:14):
interact with them and have itnot make a difference.
Okay.
So would you say that would behelplessness?
Yes.
Okay, good.
When you said that, I got chillsin my body, so have you done any
work on being helpless?
You mean sat with it, movedthrough it?
(51:37):
Any gimme more information?
Yeah, I mean, I've done some, Imean.
Okay.
Probably not enough.
Probably not enough because youknow what?
I just realized it's happeningagain right now with another
situation.
Real time today.
So see, so there it is.
So that's what we've gotta getout.
That's the root, right?
(51:57):
And so everything else thatwe're working on are symptoms,
which is fine, but if we don'tpull the root, we're just
managing the symptoms, we'rerunning with that rubber band.
So are you open to just tryinga, a, a short experiment?
Sure, sure.
Okay.
All right.
(52:17):
So if you go back and we'll justdo it on char, this Charlie
memory specifically, but you cando this with any memory.
So if you go back to thatmoment.
You see yourself and Charlie'sbucking the trainer and you're
just standing there and you'relike, I am totally helpless.
Well, the moment, the momentwould be when she was turning
(52:40):
circles and I said, why don'tyou get off?
It would be that moment, Ithink, because that's, that's
the moment that I go to thatmoment.
I could have, I could have donesomething differently.
Do you see yourself as beinghelpless in that moment?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes and no.
I mean, both moments, I'mhelpless in both moments.
(53:03):
Go to the moment that you seeyourself as most helpless.
Yeah, I think you're right.
It's when he was bucking, whenthey were coming at me and he
was buck.
It's, it's the moment in betweenwhen he is coming down the hill
at a cantor and then buck.
Yeah.
That moment.
Good.
Okay.
So in that moment you seeyourself as helpless.
(53:25):
Mm-hmm.
When you think about that, what,what do you notice in your body?
There's like a hollow feelingaround my heart and my chest.
Okay.
All right.
So I just want you to close youreyes.
So in that moment, you werephysically helpless, right?
Because there was nothing youcould do to stop anyone at that
(53:47):
moment, right?
Right.
Okay.
So that is one area of life, butwe have several other areas of
life.
There's spiritual, there'smental, there's social, there's
family, there's vocational.
Okay.
So in that very moment where yousee yourself as being helpless
(54:08):
physically to the situation thatis happening.
What would you say in thatscene?
The opposite of helplesswould've been integrated,
connected, present.
Okay, great.
So go back into that moment.
Mm-hmm.
(54:28):
So physically you weredisconnected, but where were
you, where were you actuallyconnected in that moment to what
was happening and why it washappening?
So what, what's the connectionthere?
Spiritual good.
So I just want you to go backinto that scene and I want you
(54:50):
to see where you actually wereconnected spiritually.
Yeah.
And yeah, I've got goosebumps inthe series of events that I am
here as a player playing mypart.
Okay, good.
So those goosebumps that youget, you have right now.
Mm-hmm.
That's your neuropathways inyour brain starting to light
back up.
Mm-hmm.
And that's your BA brainchemistry balancing.
(55:13):
So I want you to close your eyesagain.
Where else were you connected inthat moment?
I was connected with my hor,with my horse Csy, who was in
the hand.
Good.
So just go back in there and seeyourself being connected to Csy
in that moment.
Yeah.
I can actually feel hergrounding with me in that
moment.
Mm-hmm.
(55:34):
Good.
Were you using your voice atall?
No.
Okay.
If you go back into that memory,can you see anywhere else that
you were actually connected?
I.
I can, as I go into the memory,I can feel my feet and I can
feel an expansiveness from myhead upward, like a, like a
(55:56):
earth sky connection.
Great.
Great.
Okay.
So whe when you go back to thatmoment mm-hmm.
How does it help you feel toknow that you actually were
connected in that moment?
It feels like things aredissipating.
Like I can almost, as I close myeyes, feel an energy leaving my
(56:18):
body from the sides of it's notso personal.
Great.
And so now that you know thatit's not so personal, how does
that help you feel?
What's the specific emotion?
I feel much more present andintegrated.
Good.
And so if you close your eyes,where do you feel present in
your body?
(56:39):
In my entire torso radiatinginto my limbs.
Okay.
And I want you to give that acolor purple.
Great.
And now I want you to grow that,that purple color feeling of
integration.
And I want you to just fill upyour body.
Okay?
And I want you to see thatpurple color actually radiating,
(57:00):
dissipating out of your body.
It's gonna fill up your house,it's gonna fill up your land,
it's gonna go up and it's gonnafill up Charlie and Sipsy.
And you're just gonna fill yourwhole little property there with
that beautiful purple presenceand integration.
(57:20):
And it had exactly knew exactlywhere to go because I do the
like, energy bubble of lightover my property.
Perfect.
As a practice.
Yeah.
Wow.
That was, are we done?
Yeah.
So I, that, that was amazing.
People, you know, so, so this isjust I mean, it's, it's the most
powerful thing.
(57:41):
And obviously a, a full sessionis far more nuanced and, and
long than that.
But that's just a little tasteof something that we can do.
And now if you just take sometime you know, I like to do it
before I go to bed.
When I wake up in the morning,just continue to bring up that
color.
(58:01):
Mm-hmm.
And so.
Just to kind of bring it fullcircle.
Right.
You had said originally when westarted talking about what you
were wanting from your horsemm-hmm.
It, it kind of got paired downto being connected.
Yeah.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
And so what happened in thisincident, because you weren't
(58:28):
seeing the connection led to thepolarity happening.
Right.
And so now we've expanded yourperspective to see that.
Yeah.
It doesn't take away fromanything that was there or
anything that did happen.
We're not trying to take awaythe negative.
Mm-hmm.
But everything has two sides andeverything has two sides to the
same degree in every container.
(58:50):
And so all we've we're doing isbringing up the other side to
show that.
There was actually balance inthat moment.
Right.
So this is, this is taking thatlittle nugget of wisdom that
says like, anytime we are havingan opinion, it it, it's a brain
instead of a heart thing.
Anytime we're having an opinion,we as humans automatically lock
onto the arguments to supportour opinion.
(59:12):
And what we really need to bedoing is looking for all the
information, not just whatalready supports our opinion.
Because that's how we findbalance.
And that happens in our head.
And what you're doing ishappening in our heart and our
soul.
Absolutely.
And it's connecting the heartand the brain because they can
heal each other.
Yeah.
(59:34):
So this is amazing, Amanda.
Thank you for that demonstrationand Wow, absolutely.
Thank you for, for being willingto share and be vulnerable and
for all of the work that you'redoing to try to help everybody
get this important work out tohorses and humans.
Yeah.
So good.
I'm gonna pause the recordingnow.
Hi.
And is she Abel with the HorseHuman Connection Matrix.
And today I have with me Amanda,held from Hooves and she also
has a book that is about to bereleased.
Healing in harmony.
Healing in harmony.
And she's gonna weigh in onCharlie Bucks and she brings a
very unique perspective becauseof the work that she does, and I
(00:21):
just, I can't wait to hear howshe helps to unpack some of this
and all of the nuances thataffect.
Human relationships and how wecome together with horses as
well.
Welcome, Amanda.
Yes.
Thank you so much for having me.
And it's an an honor to be apart of this unpacking.
And so I did listen to youroriginal story where you share
(00:43):
what happened, and then Ilistened to Kimberly and Asha
and their perspectives as well.
I just wanna say, you know,everything that Kimberly and
Asha said, I think Iwholeheartedly support.
I agree with, and I feel likewhat we're really doing here is
we're painting this holisticpicture.
(01:04):
Mm-hmm.
And if you've ever worked withme or if you know anything about
the work that I do.
I believe that it is paramountto never consider anything from
one perspective.
If we really wanna be holisticin our viewpoint and our ability
to influence and change ourlife, I think it's important to
lay all the information out onthe table and then make a
(01:26):
decision based on all theinformation on how you wanna
move forward.
I'm coming from quite adifferent perspective.
It's not a horse training perperspective, but it's more of an
energetic perspective.
And if you've ever done anyenergy research, Rupert
Sheldrake, I recommend his workto everybody.
(01:48):
He does a lot of work in theMorphic field, but the research
and work that I've built, theEquine Wisdom Institute around
is largely based off of the lawsof nature and quantum
entanglement.
So that's the approach that I'mgonna be taking today in
unpacking what is going on.
(02:09):
And so I have tried to, I, Iguess I wanna start by saying I
believe that when we generalize,we polarize.
Mm-hmm.
And I think one of the biggestchallenges, and especially
listening to the conversationwith Kimberly in the horse
(02:31):
training realm is that theanswer is always, it depends.
You had me at always.
I was like, wait a minute.
We're not supposed to say alwaysand never.
But in that sentence, it works.
Yes.
Right.
And so I also believe we can'tsay always and never except when
we're working in the con contextof universal laws and
(02:52):
principles.
Okay.
Because the laws are alwaysabsolute.
So in the work I've been doingover the past 15 years, I've
really learned how to see thelaws of nature at play.
Mm-hmm.
In every.
Situation that is brought infront of me.
And just to give people a littlebit of background on me, I
(03:12):
started working with wild horsesand becoming a horse trainer in
2003.
So my work has largely been inWildHorse, gentling.
I am also a little bit neurosspicy, so I don't have autism,
but I have pretty escalated hd,which is you know, really become
a superpower to me.
But my brain works a little bitdifferent and it works very much
(03:35):
in patterning and I'm alwayslike, I see patterns in
everything, which I think hashelped me be really effective in
working with horses, gettinglast chance, horses being able
to get horses to places that noone else can get them, because
horses.
Also really love patterns,patterns to horses actually
bring them safety and security.
(03:57):
So that totally makes sense.
Yeah.
Yes.
As pre animals it totally makessense.
Absolutely.
So clarity and patterns, that'sreally how I work with my
horses.
And I would love to meetKimberly one day because man, I
resonated with everything thatshe was saying, so she's
awesome.
I really enjoyed what she had tosay about the situation.
(04:19):
Yes, she's so before we dig in,there's some fundamentals that I
just wanna kind touch on.
And one of the things I put inmy notes about.
Horse training and I, I am nolonger a horse trainer and I no
longer give lessons unlesssomething crazy comes outta the
blue.
My life has now turned to theequine assisted healing space.
(04:43):
So I run five day healingintensives primarily for
veterans, but sometimes forother groups of people as well.
And we learn about the laws ofnature.
We learn about what I call thehuman blueprint, so our own
special intrinsic drivingforces.
And then we also work with howdoes the horse work with who we
(05:06):
are at an intrinsic level.
Mm-hmm.
And.
In doing this.
'cause you know, I came from theold school horse training, then
into the natural horsemanshipand then into the realizing that
horse horses are incrediblyintelligent, sentient beings.
Then I didn't want to like doanything to reprimand them or
(05:28):
confront them, and then Icreated a whole mess there.
And so I like to feel like I've,I've landed somewhere in this
space of neutrality sayingalways, it depends, but looking
at each case individually,because it is in the minutia
that we get the information.
(05:50):
But one of the things I've seenover and over and over and over
again in the equine assistedhealing space,'cause most of my
clients are not horse people,they're just coming to heal, is
that horses will reflect thelife inside of the human.
That is why they're so powerfulin the therapeutic space.
(06:11):
But at the same time, thisinnate ability that they
possess, you know, becausethey're attuned to our nervous
system, because they're preyanimals, because they have a
social hierarchy similar tohumans, whatever all these
reasons are that make horses,horses, this isn't something
they can turn off ever.
(06:31):
So every session that any humanbeing ever has with a horse is
always a therapy session in someform.
Now, most people choose not tosee that, and many, many people
compensate for that by shuttingthe horse down and putting it in
(06:53):
to learned helplessness andcalling it a good broke horse.
But somewhere in there, at somepoint, that horse has seen you.
It's a type of avoid, it's atype of avoidance is what you're
describing.
Oh, well, absolutely.
Because, because people who arehurt and don't understand, and
this is not from a place ofjudgment.
'cause I used to be one of thosepeople.
(07:14):
It's a, it's a place ofobservation.
But the reason that horses cantrigger us so deeply is because
they see us.
And if we're not used to beingseen or if we don't like what's
being seen, it's triggering.
It's confronting.
Right.
And so when you don't know whatto do with that information, a
(07:35):
lot of times you, you feel likeyou have to overpower it.
Right.
And we, we try to controlsituations in order to feel
safe.
And if we don't wanna be seenor, or things are being
uncovered, we may not feel safe.
Absolutely.
So this is a systemic issue inthe entire society of horses
(07:55):
because a lot of people, myselfincluded.
Get into horses because horsesgive us a level of empowerment
mm-hmm.
That maybe we can't findanywhere else.
And if you are seeking externalempowerment, then that typically
means that internally you'redisempowered.
(08:17):
Right.
I noticed the demographic ofwomen with horses and you know,
like 10, 15 years ago andstarted, you know, like mentally
noting that a lot of women thatI'd met who had horses were kind
of in broken relationshipslooking for that empowerment.
Exactly as you're saying.
I mean, the demographics showthat clearly, but we've made a
(08:39):
lot of progress I think in thelast decade.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And so I'm gonna say somethingpotentially confronting here,
but this is a pattern in doingall of the work that I've done
over the past 20 years manypeople look to their horses to
provide them with something theydidn't get from their parents.
(09:01):
Mm-hmm.
It's just and you know, and I'm,I did it too came into the horse
world, very broken.
But our voids in our childhoodmm-hmm.
Create our values as an adult.
And instead of being taught,'cause we're just not taught how
(09:21):
to fill our own voids at, atthis stage in humanity we start
to look at outside things to dothat for us.
Right.
And so some, sometimes peoplebecome overachievers and maybe
they do like dirt bike racingor, you know, something that
involves inanimate objects.
You know, which tends to gobetter for people, but the
(09:42):
horses they see right through,they see all of it, you know,
and I know the, the wholenervous system thing is, is a
huge buzz right now.
I mean, it's very true, but Ilike to say like, when we're
being inauthentic or when, whenwe're not fully owning what is
inside of us and, and what'sinside of us can, can feel
(10:04):
really ugly and still be okay tothe horse if it's being
expressed truthfully.
But we've been told, and we'vebeen conditioned, you know, if
you show up and you're sad or ifyou show up and you're angry,
people aren't gonna like you.
Right?
We're talking about congruenceand how horses expose our
incongruence and, and that inour culture.
(10:28):
We're taught to be incongruentand we have to be incongruent to
function the way our culture isset up, the way workplaces are
set up.
But when we're with our horses,they would much prefer, in fact,
insist that we be congruent andthey teach us that.
Absolutely.
You said that beautifully.
And so that is really, I guessin essence, they're constantly
(10:52):
tuned into and picking up onanything that we are repressing
and they can't turn that off.
And I think the new wave ofteaching.
Is really waking people up andkind of busting some of these
myths.
Like, you can't be, if you'reafraid the horse is gonna be
(11:13):
afraid.
Here's how I perceive thisscenario, and again, I, I
wholeheartedly agree with theother perspectives.
This is just gonna.
Go deep, and I hope you're readyto go deep because that's,
that's where my space is at.
That's where I live in theminutia.
So there's obviously yourcomponent in here, and one of
(11:39):
the things that I have seen overthe years often is when we get
horses that have a past.
Mm-hmm.
And maybe we don't know exactlywhat the past is, but there's
this whole narrative about whothis horse is.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, you have that inyou, and then the horse can see
that in you.
And so it's like, oh, well thishorse is a bolted, this horse is
(12:01):
a bucker, this horse is a biter.
Okay.
But those are all symptoms andthose are all results of
something deeper, but.
When we have a narrative and wethink, oh, this horse is that,
that horse reads that on ourface.
(12:22):
Horses respond to our beliefs.
That is, is a breakthrough thingthat I have discovered in my
research over the past 15 years.
They wholeheartedly, yes, theytune into our nervous system.
That is a whole, very validthing.
But horses respond to ourbeliefs.
Our perspective is made up of afew things.
(12:44):
Right.
And kind of like what you said,our past experiences, if you
were a kid and you played withsnakes and you had a pet snake
and you loved them and you wouldcatch them in the garden and you
see a snake, you're gonna, yourbrain's gonna produce dopamine.
Mm-hmm.
And maybe some serotonin, right?
Mm-hmm.
But if you were a kid and youwere bit by a snake, or your dog
(13:05):
was bit by a poisonous snake andit died, you're gonna see a, a
snake and you're gonna releasecortisol and adrenaline and
epinephrine, right?
So.
We are so biological in, in youknow, my friend Steven Gardner,
he always says, are we, are wesentient and intelligent
spiritual beings, or are weslightly intelligent monkeys?
(13:27):
And I'd like to believe thatwe're somewhere in the middle of
that, right?
So we have this spirituality andthis divine connection, but we
also are driven by our hormones.
And no matter what happens inour life, our hormones are
always gonna come in andoverride us no matter what.
So, if we are challenged, if ourcore values are challenged to a
(13:50):
high enough degree, and thispro, I promise this will relate
later, but if our intrinsicdrivers and values are
challenged to a high enoughdegree, I don't care how
spiritual you are, I don't carehow connected you are, I don't
care how full love you are, yourbiology is gonna override you,
and those hormones are gonnastart driving your bus.
(14:13):
And so we have to look at thesupport of and challenge to our
perspective.
That is literally what governsevery action or inaction or
response or proactive thing thatwe do in our life.
What, what do you mean bychallenge to our perspective?
Can you break that apart alittle bit?
(14:34):
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
So we all have and I, I teach acourse called discovering Your
Human Blueprint, right?
Mm-hmm.
So, but we all have a blueprint.
It's unique to us.
Mm-hmm.
And so we have our intrinsicselves and we show up in the
environment.
And, you know, at the end of theday, we're all waves and
particles connected in onenessin the quantum field, right?
(14:56):
Mm-hmm.
But our body allows us to comehere and have some separation so
that we can have our own humanexperience.
If you walk into the arena andCharlie comes up to you and he
puts his head in your chest andtakes a big breath and just,
you're gonna, that's supportivein that moment, you're gonna be
flood, dopamine, oxytocin,serotonin.
(15:21):
Right.
And your body is gonna have aphysical response, and that
physical response is also gonnasend a vibration or signal to
Charlie He's gonna be having thesame kind of response if we're
having that experience.
Correct.
If Charlie comes up and puts histeeth on you and pinches you,
(15:43):
that's not gonna releasedopamine.
That's gonna release adrenaline.
Actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonnadisagree there.
My experience has been differentwhen he pinches with his teeth.
I'm seeing it through atherapeutic lens, and my
experiences have been reallypositive with being pinched and
it definitely releases a bunchof stuff and creates this shift.
(16:05):
And I don't even know how tonecessarily describe the
physical sensations and theenergetic sensations that
happen, but it started with thathorse at Lis MIT and Ryan's
place that racked its teeth onmy scalp and opened up my
chakra.
It's part of my experience.
It's part of my perspective.
It's part of my response.
(16:26):
So now when he does it to you,you don't see it as a threat,
but what about the first time ithappened and it caught you off
guard and you didn't understandit yet and you hadn't processed
it?
So the first time it happened,I, it, it didn't, I was warned.
I was, she said, she stood thereand said, he's gonna bite you.
This pony's gonna bite you andif you trust him, he won't bite
(16:46):
you hard.
But if you can't let go andtrust him, he'll bite you
harder.
And I was like, of course it'sgonna bite me.
Like, what?
But he bit me.
And something happened and itwas, it was delicious in a way,
not in a weird, I like pain kindof way, but in an energetic
release kind of way.
And so I never had, had anexperience with a horse biting
(17:10):
me in a bad way ever.
Okay.
So that.
So you were primed by anotherperson, Hey, he's gonna do this
to you.
What about when you fell off andgot hurt?
Did you see that as supportivein that moment when you were
hurt at times?
I've, I've come off a horse.
No.
It was not supportive at all.
So in that moment it waschallenging, right.
(17:31):
And you've carried thatchallenge with you.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And now it's governing the waythat you're moving forward in
your relationship with Charlieand your decision to ride or not
ride or whatever.
Right.
And it's escalating, which, youknow, has led us to, to this
situation.
But in essence, everyinteraction that you have is
(17:52):
either gonna be supportive orit's gonna be challenging.
That's going to influence theway that your brain releases its
chemistry.
It's critical.
It's a piece that I haven'theard talked about a lot.
I don't know if I've ever heardit talked about in the context
of horses.
Lot of my training is in humanbehavior.
That's where that comes from thehuman behavior work that I do.,
(18:15):
At the core level, it's eithersupport of or challenge to our
perspective.
Mm-hmm.
And we respond to every singlething in our environment that
way.
Now, when we're aware of thatand we have the tools to process
through things that happen tous, and we shift our
(18:36):
perspective, we can shift whatbrings us pleasure and what
brings us pain by shifting ourperspective.
And that is really at, at theessence, the work that I do is
helping people gain a holisticperspective.
Mm-hmm.
And then.
Like, I believe that we allshould, if it's our life, we
should be deciding, right?
(18:57):
And so if you're not deciding,somebody's deciding for you.
And so what I want to do in thetime that we have today, is kind
of look at just anotherperspective.
So you have a lot of differentfacts and opinions and thoughts
and perspectives.
And hopefully by the end ofinterviewing all the people that
are gonna weigh in on this, youcan make a decision for you
(19:20):
that's gonna best help you andbest help Charlie.
And I, you know, so that's, Ibelieve, and I, I have in my
notes here training, horsetraining doesn't work unless the
horse trainer is teaching you tobe a trainer.
Absolutely.
And so the, the episode that youdidn't watch with or have a
(19:42):
chance to listen to yet withCarissa, we deal with some of
that.
And I've already, from listeningto you and Kimberly and Asha and
Carissa, I always, I alreadyfeel like a softening, where in
the beginning I'm like, I don'tknow if I ever wanna even ride
again.
And now I am, I'm at a differentplace and it, it, I notice how
it continues to change as myawareness of different things is
(20:05):
growing.
Absolutely.
So I wrote here too, this isanother thing that I see so
often and the, the question Ialways used to ask when I would
get a horse horse trainingclient in is what do you want
from your horse?
What do you want from yourhorse?
Because that's going to reallylargely depend on what we do and
(20:28):
the whole basis of the training.
And guess how many timessomebody was able to answer that
question immediately withclarity?
Never, no, never, never.
No, no.
Mm-hmm.
People will say, I don't know,or, you know, we want a show.
(20:48):
Okay.
But that's broad.
Like, what are your expectationsof your horse?
What do you want from them?
And so a a lot of times peoplewould say like, you know, they
would come up with something.
Okay.
Okay.
I wanna show.
Okay.
And what, okay.
What do you believe that showingis gonna give you?
Well, it's gonna gimme theopportunity to go out and have
(21:08):
fun, and be social, and havegoals to work towards, da, da,
da, da.
Okay.
And what will that give you?
Oh I don't know.
Okay.
Well, think about it like, whatdo you, what do you really want?
Because at the end of the day,everything that we do is to gain
a feeling, right?
So how do you want your horse tohelp you feel, or how is
(21:31):
accomplishing all of this?
Gonna help you feel.
And so because they tune intoour beliefs, all of our beliefs
generate feelings.
Mm-hmm.
And courses are so emotional,they're tuning into our feelings
because our feelings are whatcarry a vibration.
(21:52):
Absolutely.
So if we're not looking atfeelings and we're not looking
at beliefs in our relationshipwith our horse and to our horse,
we're gonna have gaps.
And those horses.
Great at putting our gaps rightin front of our face with a
little bow on it.
Which is amazing if you know howto work through those scenarios
(22:15):
and situations.
And frustrating if you don't,because you know, so many times
it feels like, well, thispattern, it just keeps happening
over and over again.
And, you know, I call it likerunning with a rubber band
around your waist.
You'll make progress.
You're running, you're running,you think you've got it, and
then boom, something willtrigger and you just snap back
and you're back at ground zero.
(22:36):
And so if we don't deal with ourbeliefs, then we're gonna keep
living Groundhogs Day through adifferent scenario.
And that's, so back to beliefs.
Our beliefs generate feelings.
Feelings generate vibration.
(22:58):
Horses tune into the vibration.
So, yes, it's our nervoussystem, but it's actually more
complex than that.
It's actually the vibrations ofour emotions that the horses are
tuning into and horses.
A lot of people, and a lot ofpeople are not aware how they
function at that level.
(23:20):
Like many people are not.
Like, I can bring if, if, ifyou'd like.
I can bring an example to that.
Sure.
From, from all of this, it'slike, I know what I want with
Charlie.
I want that that chocolatetruffle that Kimberly talks
about, which is described in theepisode of co-created rides.
It's that I wanna explore withmy horse in partnership
(23:42):
co-creating, you know, I wantthat sense of adventure and that
sense of connection, and thoseare the rides that matter to me.
Those are really the rides thatmatter to me.
And yeah, there's this otherlike, oh, let's go trail riding
with friends that is aboutbelonging and inclusion.
And I, I, like this week, hadthis, all of this sadness come
(24:04):
up with the idea that, that,that might be gone for me.
Like I saw a Facebook thing of acouple of friends, you know,
trailering and riding fromEugene, which is like an hour
away, to a place that's reallymuch closer to me that I, I have
a trailer, I have horses, butbecause of where I am, things
that a lot of horse people takefor granted because they do it
(24:28):
with habituation, they do itwith dominance of putting your
horse in the trailer and goingfor a ride because of some of
the things I've been through andsome of my experiences that
isn't even on the table for meright now.
And all of this, like, loss ofthat, you know, what is the
emotion there?
It's that not belonging thatgoes so deep.
(24:50):
Got uncovered because I don'texperience a lot of that
anymore, but I certainly did asa child.
Sure.
And, and so that's the kind ofthing you're talking about.
And when I'm with Charlie andwe're, we're connecting on the
ground, it's this wonderfulthing like you described,
including all of the, thehormones and neurochemicals.
And I've experienced thatchocolate truffle of a ride lots
(25:15):
of times, but not recently.
And so yeah, that's, that's whatI want.
Yeah.
And what I don't, and what Idon't want and what I need to
work through.
And that's only a piece of thefear.
Like as you described all thesedifferent experiences, like
seeing that trainer come off washorrible.
The three times I've been thrownfrom a horse, I.
(25:37):
Or you know, in my memorysomewhere, although when you
were talking about that, it'sreally interesting because as
I've worked the memory chains ofEMDR, not once has a, a trauma
on a horse been part of thatchain.
Like, it's kind of amazing tome.
Like what?
And I'm, I've got some curiosityabout what's happening from a
(25:58):
neurochemical perspective, thatthose experiences like
childbirth is incrediblypainful.
But that's not part of trauma onmy memory chain and neither is
being thrown from a horse.
I can explain specifically whythat happens.
Right.
Okay.
And so it has to do with twodifferent types of stress.
There's distress and there iseustress.
(26:21):
And so everything that I teachgoes back to our human
blueprint.
Again, the support of orchallenge to your blueprint.
Mm-hmm.
And so we enter situations thatare stressful, that could be
seen as traumatic, right.
But if we can see that thesituation that we've entered is
(26:46):
somehow connected to our highestvalues.
Then when we experience it or wethink about it, because whether
you're remembering it, you'reliving it or you're imagining
it, your body responds exactlythe same.
Mm-hmm.
We enter into a state ofeustress, which is a positive
stress that actually doesrelease positive chemicals in
(27:06):
our body.
If we enter into a scenario thatis seen as traumatic and we
cannot connect it to our values,we cannot connect it to our
blueprint, then we will enterinto a state of distress, and
that's where we start to releasenegative chemicals.
So when things are high in yourvalues, like family, like
(27:27):
horses, when you are challengedin those areas that are in your
top three to five, you don't,your body does not respond the
same because you're releasingdifferent chemicals into your
body.
That's why a lot of times peopledo get bucked off and they get
right back on.
You know, if you got attacked ina parking lot.
You've got away, you aren'tgoing back into the parking lot
(27:50):
to get attacked again.
But if you get bucked off ahorse, you wanna get right back
on.
And again, that goes back toyour perspective.
These things are of high valueto you.
And so you do process thosethings differently when you
think about them.
They release a differentchemical into your body and that
creates different types ofneuropathways in your brain.
(28:13):
Does that make sense?
It does.
Okay.
But there's another part of thisas well, and I'm, I'm trying to
take this this is just so deep,and I'm trying to take it full
circle in the allotted amount oftime that we have, but there is
also a universal law called thelaw of correspondence as above,
(28:34):
so below as within, so without.
Mm-hmm.
And so our primary programhappens to us.
Through the experiences we havebefore the age of 12.
Mm-hmm.
So your brain was veryneuroplastic and your beliefs
about yourself were gettingprogrammed into you.
(28:58):
And this is all happening upuntil the age of 12.
At the age of 12 are brainwavesshift into a beta brainwave
state, which is where the gatesto our subconscious are locked.
Whatever's in there is in there,and our brain actually changes.
And then we live the rest of ourlife in these feedback loops of
our core programming.
(29:19):
And our core programming is donein the forms of beliefs.
So whatever you were taughtabout yourself by your
environment before the age of12, I'm not worthy.
I'm not good enough.
I am stupid.
Nobody likes me.
You know, I can't do anything,right.
I'm clumsy.
Whatever negative beliefs are inthere have to be reprogrammed.
(29:41):
In order for you to change.
And so then because as within,so without our environment is
constantly responding to all ofthis that's in here and horses
are a part of that.
I mean, I believe, you know,when your car breaks down, I
believe that that's feedback foryou.
(30:03):
When you walk through a doorwayand you bang your shoulder,
that's feedback.
Every single thing in ourenvironment mm-hmm.
Is talking to us all the time,trying to wake us up to where we
are out of alignment with ourauthentic self.
And horses just seem to do thisat a really amplified level
because of who and what theyare.
(30:24):
And so, you know, when we talkabout.
I, I know you had mentioned thatyou have guilt about this horse
trainer as well, you know, and Icertainly don't wanna bring
somebody into this that's nothere to, to participate or
reveal anything about thatperson.
But what I can tell you, justfrom the hundreds of people I've
(30:45):
worked to have had horseaccidents and my own personal
horse accident it is feedbacktrying to wake you up to the
fact that somewhere in your lifeyou are selling yourself out.
You are not being authentic, youare not being in alignment.
And I had a really bad acaccident on my heart horse.
I was, you know, dating a guywho'd just come back from rack.
(31:07):
He was being awful.
He wasn't integrating well.
You know, I had this hor horheart horse I had I had him so
well trained.
We rode bridal list like, youknow, and we had, I'd gotten in
a, in an argument with this guyand I got on my horse and he was
very different in that moment.
And we were trying to teach thebaby Mustangs to pony.
(31:30):
And my lariat kind of grazed hisflank, which wasn't new.
And he sent me end over end andI smashed my collarbone.
But when I learned all of thisstuff and I learned that
everything has a spiritualmessage for you that happens in
your life, I realized that goingthrough that experience.
(31:54):
Woke me up to where I wasallowing things in my life that
I shouldn't have been allowing.
What it, what is the collarbone?
I've broken mine twice.
You've broken yours and shebroke hers.
Now I gotta know.
Oh, did her, her clavicle end upbeing that's shattered.
All great changes proceeded bychaos.
I believe that the amount ofchaos that ensues, it will be in
(32:17):
direct proportion to the amountof impact that whatever's gonna
happen happens.
Right.
The collarbone symbolizes thetransmission of heartfelt truth
into authentic expression.
And so if there's injury in thecollarbone, it's a difficulty
speaking from your heart oryou're holding back your truth
(32:37):
due to fear of judgment orrejection.
So the clavicle also carriesburdens and emotional weight and
a sense of over responsibility.
Hmm.
So if I look back to when Ibroke my collarbone, I was
having to carry all the burdens.
You know, I was, I had two kids,I was running a, a boarding and
training facility if it happenson the left side of your body,
(33:00):
that's the feminine side.
So that's like family orphysical or social.
And the right side is moremental, vocational, and
financial.
And I know at that time youknow, I mean boarding a, running
a boarding business is.
I just felt like I can't keepgoing like this.
I have so much responsibility.
I have so many people's horsesto take care of.
(33:21):
I have so much financial burden,you know, the cost of hay is,
you know, so, so I always tellpeople when you get into an
accident, a horse accident, lookat what was going on in your
life three days prior to thataccident happening, because
there's information in there.
(33:41):
And so we call it feedback.
Everything is feedback.
And there's four different typesof feedback.
So the first type of feedback ispsychological feedback.
That's when something comes intoyour experience and you see it
as a support or challenge,right?
So when we're living outside ofour blueprint, something happens
in our environment, we're like,Ooh, this is outside of of my
(34:05):
scope.
This is not fueling me.
This is gonna deplete me.
But if I don't say yes, peoplewon't like me.
If I don't say yes, I'm going toget kicked out of the tribe, and
then I won't have safety andresources and so on and so
forth.
So we're like, okay, yeah, I'lldo that thing that I don't want
to do.
And then it's like, ugh, like agut punch.
(34:25):
Like you, you commit tosomething you don't want to do
and you feel sick, right?
That turns into physicalfeedback.
But again, we don't wanna getkicked out of the tribe because
that's our safety and security.
So then we, we continue to sellourselves out and we get this
physical feedback and we don'tcare.
We just put our heads down andpress on.
(34:46):
Then it comes into ourenvironment.
We get environmental feedbackand that typically shows up in
our relationships.
Maybe it's an argument with aspouse or a child, maybe it's a
coworker or dealing with a, aboss at work, but something
happens, starts to happen in ourrelationships, or it can happen
with our horses.
Even, you know, the horsedoesn't wanna come up to you
where the horse is stuck in itsfeet.
(35:07):
It doesn't wanna move forward.
It doesn't wanna cooperate.
That's also environmentalfeedback.
And then the fourth level offeedback, I call the pattern
disrupt.
It is the thing that happens toyou that is so painful that it
has to invoke some type ofchange in your life.
Right?
So yeah, I had some of those,yeah.
(35:28):
When I broke my clavicle, Icould no longer muck stalls for,
you know, a month.
I had to have surgery.
Oh, I went from taking care ofeverybody to having to be taken
care of.
You know, I was in thisrelationship with a person I
thought cared about me, and whenhe was so mad at me that I did
this, you know, and all he wasdoing was like ridiculing me.
(35:49):
So it was an eyeopener that, youknow, I'm selfish because I have
horses and I shouldn't begetting hurt.
And it was like, wow.
I think the universe was tryingto tell me for like eight years
prior that this person shouldn'tbe in my life anymore, but I
wouldn't listen.
Right?
And so when we don't listen,things in our life escalate,
especially things with ourhorses.
(36:11):
And that's what leads us to theinjury.
And I can say this now because Ihave worked with literally
thousands of people.
And when I take them to thatmoment of the pattern disrupt,
and we unpack that and weintegrate it, they can always
see, they can always see wherethey were selling themselves at.
(36:32):
Sure.
And so we had chatted a littlebit before you hit record, you
know, about the EMDR therapy.
And so, you know, and I'm of theopinion if it works for you,
keep doing it.
I, you know, different strokesfor different folks EMDR, I've
met some people that have saidit has been super helpful.
(36:53):
Before I learned any of thehealing work that I do now, EMDR
was the only thing that hadremotely moved the needle
forward for me.
So I'm glad that I experiencedit and it got me to a point
where I could do other work onmy traumas that really needed to
be done.
I also know some people thathave had horrific experiences
(37:13):
where it's really set them back.
So, you know, I don't have anyjudgment or opinions on any type
of treatment.
If it's working, do it.
However, the thing that Iobserved with the, the EMDR, for
myself personally and for a lotof the veterans that I've.
Worked with is that you know,with EMDR you create like a box,
(37:34):
right?
And you put, you put stuff in abox, or at least I did.
I, you know, I had to createlike a safe box and then I could
put anything in the box and thenit couldn't get to me.
And you know, I had this memoryof my mom and this abusive
situation, and when I went anddid the EMDR on it, it was like
in my mind, my mind built abrick wall and my mom couldn't
(37:55):
get through the wall to get tome.
And so I made something up aboutthe experience that wasn't true,
but I.
It detached me from the emotionof it, because then when I would
go to the memory, instead of heractually getting to me and
hurting me, she never got to me.
She was stopped by this brickwall.
(38:16):
Okay.
So that's great.
Like it got me to a point whereI could do other things.
But in all of the trauma workthat I do now, in conjunction
with integration and the laws ofthe universe what I do now is if
we're working on a trauma withsomebody, we go back into the
actual memory and we pull in, webalance and pull in things from
(38:40):
the other side.
Not to change reality.
If you can't deal with somethingin a moment, you put it in the
box and there may be differentapplications of the box.
I mean, every therapist isdifferent, every person is
different.
So the other thing I wanted tocomment on is it did occur to me
at some point that doing thisEMDR is effective, is being so
(39:01):
effective for me because.
The way I, I term it is so manydifferent things and so many
different modalities over theyears, starting from my very
early twenties, did I pulleverything out up to that point
and look at it and do verygestalt things and work with
Jungian type of psychology.
And then at different points inmy life, again, have pulled all
(39:23):
of this stuff out and applieddifferent modalities to it.
So by the time I've arrived atEMDR it's like the reverse of
what you've done or experiencedmaybe with the veterans and
yourself is that you've done,you've done the EMDR and now
you're finding that we stillneed to unpack this stuff and
that's what you're speaking tonow.
So I guess the question is, doesthe order seem important?
(39:48):
Well, my answer's gonna be, itdepends.
I don't think that's really a, Ithink that's a generalized
question that would have to be.
You know, there's very manynuances to that, but I think,
you know what I, what Irealized, and again, I'm not, I,
I'm so grateful that I had itwhen I did.
(40:10):
It certainly helped me get tothis point, but, but what I have
learned since then, and I feellike what I currently do works
so well with any otherapplication that you're doing,
is that when we work with thethings that happen, what we're
(40:31):
actually doing is we'reextracting really important
information out of thosechallenging times, and we're not
just seeing it as something thatshouldn't have happened to me.
Right.
Right.
Because if I have a trauma andthen I'm told, or I believe that
shouldn't have happened to me.
(40:51):
Then I'm gonna wake up every dayand go, oh my gosh, something
happened to me that shouldn'thave happened to me.
And so I'm not saying thatanything should or shouldn't
happen to people, but I see whatthe belief this shouldn't have
happened to me does to people.
It deteriorates them from theinside out.
So a lot of the work that we doisn't necessarily in, we call it
(41:16):
the right, wrong, good, badperspective or the should
shouldn't perspective.
Mm-hmm.
But the cause and effectperspective, right.
And so I still think that workneeds done in the cause and
effect perspective, or we keepreliving the pattern.
Like it keeps showing up in ourenvironment.
It shows up and shows up and,and so I listened to your
(41:37):
initial and I say all of thatand it's relevant because you,
you said, I feel like every timeI do an EMDR session, something
chaotic comes in and it happens.
And so I'm just curious.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm not saying I certainlyhave the answer, but it, it
sparked a question in me of isthat, does that have something
(42:01):
to do with the law ofcorrespondence and Yes.
And are we getting the lesson,or I guess I would say are, it
seems like we're not, you know,we can, we can dull the
emotional impact that the memoryhas on us.
(42:22):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, that is, can be super,super beneficial.
But to me, if we're not gettingthe wisdom of the feedback of
the experience, so the, let meclarify a little bit of that.
It's an incomplete, it's anincomplete.
(42:43):
When the issue of wherever I amin the memory chain.
And what happens, lemme explaina little bit, is, you know, we
set up a memory from the memorychain working chronologically,
and as we set up that memory,then the next session we do, you
know, a dot on the computerscreen or some kind of bilateral
stimulation that, that reducesthe intensity of the experience.
(43:06):
And then we come in and.
Say, what did you, what was thenegative belief you had about
yourself then?
And then say she'll say, andwhat would you rather believe?
So then we create a new beliefsystem that gets imposed on that
experience as it's beendesensitized.
I think, and I guess it has todo with moving this around in
the brain, but during the timebetween the two sessions is
(43:28):
where I'm talking about.
And that's where I have noticedrepeatedly that whatever is open
in the memory chain where we'vebrought it up, we've set it up,
but we haven't processed it yet.
I'm experiencing, I.
A similar thing in real time,which does allow me to work on
it at a less intense, allows mysubconscious mind to explore it,
(43:52):
examine it, re-experience it ata much lesser intensity level
because it's a differentsituation and it's in real time.
So somehow, I don't know thateverybody experiences that, but
that's been my experience andthat's what happened this day.
And it may be very interestinglyand a coincidence of whatever
(44:12):
the message was for the trainerwith the collarbone, like we all
bring something to theexperience energetically.
Charlie brings something, Ibring something, I bring my
beliefs, I bring where I am inthe EMDR.
He brings his experiences, shebrings hers, and you know, it's
it's a coalescence of how we allcome together.
(44:35):
Absolutely, because everybody'sa vector and everybody's playing
a role in everybody else'sexperience.
But what stood out to me most,you know, and I I certainly
agree just from the horsetraining and the mechanics of
the situation it, it too much,too fast was, was dead on,
right?
Mm-hmm.
So if, if you are not ridingCharlie comfortably in the arena
(45:01):
at several gates and workingwith him, you know, in, you
know, we start at the round pen,you know, can you do transitions
at the round pen?
Can you do short 10 minutesessions?
You know, if you aren't able tocommunicate with him fully and
have his trust and have a goodrelationship in the round, if he
didn't have any of that, hedidn't have any of those skills
(45:22):
yeah.
Then he shouldn't even be in thearena.
Right.
And, and if you can't do it inthe arena, you know, so it it,
it was just.
From a, from a baseline logicalperspective, it was too much,
too fast.
He didn't have the appropriatelevels, channels of
communication on him that heneeded to be able to regulate
(45:44):
himself in the mountains, youknow, so that's just common
sense, right?
The obvious.
But what stood out to me themost, and I would really love to
touch on, and I know we're,we're kind of at our time
almost, but to me the mostimportant thing was what, what
you had said is, I don't havecontrol.
I, there's, I can't do anything.
(46:05):
I'm, I'm helpless, I'm out ofcontrol, or, you know, whatever
you were saying in thatsituation.
And so typically when I workwith somebody that's been
through a horse accident or hasex experienced any type of
challenge or trauma, is I askthem to go to that, go to that
moment.
How do you see yourself in thatmoment?
(46:28):
What are the beliefs that youbelieve about yourself in that
moment?
I am what it is aboutresponsibility.
What?
How far does my influence andresponsibility go?
(46:50):
And if I don't push control,exert everything.
That in both these cases wouldbe a really big response to
control the environment of otherpeople for a better outcome for
everybody if I roll it back.
(47:12):
Okay.
So everything that you just saidto me was about other people.
Yeah.
So what's the belief?
I what I, what I wanna say, likethe positive belief is that I am
not responsible ultimately forwhat happens to other people.
Okay.
(47:33):
But what's the negative beliefin there before you came to that
conclusion?
I'm not sure.
It's like I could have preventedthis.
I could have prevented that, butI couldn't like it.
Well, it's in that, it's inthat, it's in that space of I
should have done more.
So how about, so just again,taking from your words and the
(47:55):
things that I've heard you sayas you speak about this, it's
like, you know, I wanted to domore, but I didn't.
I wanted to tell her to get offmore from me or I, or I couldn't
in, in, in the case with her.
I, I could have been moreforceful.
But would that have beenappropriate in the case from the
(48:17):
E-M-D-R-I, I didn't know whatelse to do.
Like I had tried and tried andtried and I didn't know what
else to do.
So is there like a, I can'ttrust myself and I'm not capable
or like, what?
We gotta go deeper.
I what?
I'm not, I'm not in control andI have, so I don't have it
(48:43):
pulled up here, but I, it's kindof like I should, I should have
known more things to do.
I should have had moreknowledge.
I should have acted differently.
Okay.
So what we gotta turn that intoa belief.
I, so I'm not, I.
Capable.
I'm not enough.
(49:05):
I have blind, I have blind spotsthat I don't understand.
Okay.
I don't understand.
I, I, and I do, like, as anautistic person, I'm just
learning that I have these blindspots that I do not fully
understand.
Okay.
And then some of it is like, Imean, the incident from the EMDR
(49:27):
is my son's suicide.
Right.
So if you go to that momentmm-hmm.
How do you see yourself in thatmoment?
I, what I did the best I could.
I mean, we're through, I, I'vecome through that section and
I've got it down to like a one.
(49:49):
Mm-hmm.
I did the, I did the best Icould.
Yes, absolutely.
You did.
I.
And you are not responsible forother people.
Right.
And so there's, you've done alot of work on that.
Mm-hmm.
But what I'm seeing is thatthere's still a core belief and
we've gotta get to the root ofit.
(50:10):
We've gotta identifyspecifically what is that
belief, because that keepsrepeating itself.
And we've gotta balance andintegrate that belief in order
to get it to stop repeatingitself.
And I'm curious, and we'll getit, but I'm curious how Charlie
(50:31):
will respond differently to youonce we can identify this belief
and integrate it.
Mm-hmm.
So let's go back to the scene,because again, both of these
scenes have to do with stuffthat you can't do anything
(50:51):
about, right?
Mm-hmm.
It's happening.
You can't do anything about it.
Mm-hmm.
So how do you see yourself inthat moment?
I am what?
I am not in control.
Like, I'm like a witness.
I'm not in control and I'm awitness.
Yeah.
Is there any helplessness inthere?
Yeah, definitely helplessness.
Like it's really hard to watchthings just happen and try to
(51:14):
interact with them and have itnot make a difference.
Okay.
So would you say that would behelplessness?
Yes.
Okay, good.
When you said that, I got chillsin my body, so have you done any
work on being helpless?
You mean sat with it, movedthrough it?
(51:37):
Any gimme more information?
Yeah, I mean, I've done some, Imean.
Okay.
Probably not enough.
Probably not enough because youknow what?
I just realized it's happeningagain right now with another
situation.
Real time today.
So see, so there it is.
So that's what we've gotta getout.
That's the root, right?
(51:57):
And so everything else thatwe're working on are symptoms,
which is fine, but if we don'tpull the root, we're just
managing the symptoms, we'rerunning with that rubber band.
So are you open to just tryinga, a, a short experiment?
Sure, sure.
Okay.
All right.
(52:17):
So if you go back and we'll justdo it on char, this Charlie
memory specifically, but you cando this with any memory.
So if you go back to thatmoment.
You see yourself and Charlie'sbucking the trainer and you're
just standing there and you'relike, I am totally helpless.
Well, the moment, the momentwould be when she was turning
(52:40):
circles and I said, why don'tyou get off?
It would be that moment, Ithink, because that's, that's
the moment that I go to thatmoment.
I could have, I could have donesomething differently.
Do you see yourself as beinghelpless in that moment?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes and no.
I mean, both moments, I'mhelpless in both moments.
(53:03):
Go to the moment that you seeyourself as most helpless.
Yeah, I think you're right.
It's when he was bucking, whenthey were coming at me and he
was buck.
It's, it's the moment in betweenwhen he is coming down the hill
at a cantor and then buck.
Yeah.
That moment.
Good.
Okay.
So in that moment you seeyourself as helpless.
(53:25):
Mm-hmm.
When you think about that, what,what do you notice in your body?
There's like a hollow feelingaround my heart and my chest.
Okay.
All right.
So I just want you to close youreyes.
So in that moment, you werephysically helpless, right?
Because there was nothing youcould do to stop anyone at that
(53:47):
moment, right?
Right.
Okay.
So that is one area of life, butwe have several other areas of
life.
There's spiritual, there'smental, there's social, there's
family, there's vocational.
Okay.
So in that very moment where yousee yourself as being helpless
(54:08):
physically to the situation thatis happening.
What would you say in thatscene?
The opposite of helplesswould've been integrated,
connected, present.
Okay, great.
So go back into that moment.
Mm-hmm.
(54:28):
So physically you weredisconnected, but where were
you, where were you actuallyconnected in that moment to what
was happening and why it washappening?
So what, what's the connectionthere?
Spiritual good.
So I just want you to go backinto that scene and I want you
(54:50):
to see where you actually wereconnected spiritually.
Yeah.
And yeah, I've got goosebumps inthe series of events that I am
here as a player playing mypart.
Okay, good.
So those goosebumps that youget, you have right now.
Mm-hmm.
That's your neuropathways inyour brain starting to light
back up.
Mm-hmm.
And that's your BA brainchemistry balancing.
(55:13):
So I want you to close your eyesagain.
Where else were you connected inthat moment?
I was connected with my hor,with my horse Csy, who was in
the hand.
Good.
So just go back in there and seeyourself being connected to Csy
in that moment.
Yeah.
I can actually feel hergrounding with me in that
moment.
Mm-hmm.
(55:34):
Good.
Were you using your voice atall?
No.
Okay.
If you go back into that memory,can you see anywhere else that
you were actually connected?
I.
I can, as I go into the memory,I can feel my feet and I can
feel an expansiveness from myhead upward, like a, like a
(55:56):
earth sky connection.
Great.
Great.
Okay.
So whe when you go back to thatmoment mm-hmm.
How does it help you feel toknow that you actually were
connected in that moment?
It feels like things aredissipating.
Like I can almost, as I close myeyes, feel an energy leaving my
(56:18):
body from the sides of it's notso personal.
Great.
And so now that you know thatit's not so personal, how does
that help you feel?
What's the specific emotion?
I feel much more present andintegrated.
Good.
And so if you close your eyes,where do you feel present in
your body?
(56:39):
In my entire torso radiatinginto my limbs.
Okay.
And I want you to give that acolor purple.
Great.
And now I want you to grow that,that purple color feeling of
integration.
And I want you to just fill upyour body.
Okay?
And I want you to see thatpurple color actually radiating,
(57:00):
dissipating out of your body.
It's gonna fill up your house,it's gonna fill up your land,
it's gonna go up and it's gonnafill up Charlie and Sipsy.
And you're just gonna fill yourwhole little property there with
that beautiful purple presenceand integration.
(57:20):
And it had exactly knew exactlywhere to go because I do the
like, energy bubble of lightover my property.
Perfect.
As a practice.
Yeah.
Wow.
That was, are we done?
Yeah.
So I, that, that was amazing.
People, you know, so, so this isjust I mean, it's, it's the most
powerful thing.
(57:41):
And obviously a, a full sessionis far more nuanced and, and
long than that.
But that's just a little tasteof something that we can do.
And now if you just take sometime you know, I like to do it
before I go to bed.
When I wake up in the morning,just continue to bring up that
color.
(58:01):
Mm-hmm.
And so.
Just to kind of bring it fullcircle.
Right.
You had said originally when westarted talking about what you
were wanting from your horsemm-hmm.
It, it kind of got paired downto being connected.
Yeah.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
And so what happened in thisincident, because you weren't
(58:28):
seeing the connection led to thepolarity happening.
Right.
And so now we've expanded yourperspective to see that.
Yeah.
It doesn't take away fromanything that was there or
anything that did happen.
We're not trying to take awaythe negative.
Mm-hmm.
But everything has two sides andeverything has two sides to the
same degree in every container.
(58:50):
And so all we've we're doing isbringing up the other side to
show that.
There was actually balance inthat moment.
Right.
So this is, this is taking thatlittle nugget of wisdom that
says like, anytime we are havingan opinion, it it, it's a brain
instead of a heart thing.
Anytime we're having an opinion,we as humans automatically lock
onto the arguments to supportour opinion.
(59:12):
And what we really need to bedoing is looking for all the
information, not just whatalready supports our opinion.
Because that's how we findbalance.
And that happens in our head.
And what you're doing ishappening in our heart and our
soul.
Absolutely.
And it's connecting the heartand the brain because they can
heal each other.
Yeah.
(59:34):
So this is amazing, Amanda.
Thank you for that demonstrationand Wow, absolutely.
Thank you for, for being willingto share and be vulnerable and
for all of the work that you'redoing to try to help everybody
get this important work out tohorses and humans.
Yeah.
So good.
I'm gonna pause the recordingnow.
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