March 21, 2025 • 29 mins
Rachel Garfield, a therapist specializing in chronic pain and trauma, shares her journey through intense pain, and the healing principles she learned that helped her recover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The following podcast is part of the Mind, Body, Spirit
dot FM podcast network.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is Rachel Sidney Garfield. She's both
a therapist specializing in pain and drama as well as
a competitive horseback writer. She had a miraculous recovery following
a fall from her horse in which she broke three vertebra.
(00:45):
Her clinical technique, which she calls the Equina Reset, is
based on the training principles of horseback writing. Rachel continues
to ride, compete, and live a full and largely pain
free life. Her forthcoming book, Stay the Course describes the
pain management techniques she discovered during her own recovery process.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Welcome, Thank you, Tom.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
It's my pleasure to introduce Rachel Garfield. I've been back
an email conversation with her for a couple of years
and she has quite a story involving in a broken
back horses and will come out on this program. I
have an interesting perspective of horses, being an orthopedic surgeons.
These creatures are freaking dangerous, and Rachel has a testimony that.
(01:33):
But she's also come through an awful lot, and horses
have been part of her story. So she's most a
therapist specializing in pain and trauma as well as a
competitive horseback rider. She has her own amazing story. She
had America's recovery in the aftermath of backbreaking horse fall,
which she took in about twenty seventeen eighteen. She went
on and comte as a jumper. Eighteen months later wrote
(01:53):
to be called Stay the Course, which will hopefully be
published soon, about the pain management she discovered during her
own recovery process. Virtechnique is based on the training principles
of horseback writing she titled The Acquiner Reset. Rachel has
a fullwach life and continues to ride, compete, and live
largely pain free. Follow her Rachel Sidney a question on
(02:14):
Instagram and YouTube. So, Rachel, welcome to the show. We've
talked back and forth for a long time, and this
is the first time I've actually had a zoom call
with you, I think, and so welcome.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Thank you. It's a true privilege. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
So Rochie told a little bit before the podcast started
about your background and you talk about this horseback fall
in twenty fifteen, you said it was, yes, but it
really something's happened when you were a very competitive writer
in your team.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Correct, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yes, And can.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
You tell us that instant for because that's really a
big part of this whole story.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yes, I agree. So I grew up my mom was
a trainer, and we were in Connecticut and Vermont in
New York City, and my mom was a horse trainer.
My father had an avidage dressed in horses, and horses
were really a huge part of my childhood. I wrote
(03:16):
in all of my mom's lessons when I was about
four years old. I later went to Pony Club when
we moved to Vermont, and I was on what's called
the Pony Club rally or eventing teams. The sport that
Pony Club gears us up to do is what's called
the horse trial or an event. We call it eventing,
(03:37):
which is three phases kind of like a triathlon, which
is dressage, cross country jumping, and stadium or show jumping.
Show jumping or stadium jumping or show jumping.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
We call it up in the air a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, I guess you and you say you.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Were pretty pretty competitive back then.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Yes, and I was really moving forward. I had a
pretty private, promising horseback riding career. It was my passion.
I trained every day every summer. We went to clinics, competitions.
It was all consuming.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And what happened when you were I was about or so.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
I was on a pony club eventing team, and so
that means there were four of us all in a competition,
and it was in Woodstock, Vermont, at the Green Mountain
Horse Association, an amazing place to ride. I was with
the Upper Valley Pony Club. And this goes into I
(04:44):
guess a little bit of emotional pain is that my
horse was not really the same caliber as the other
girls horses. He was wonderful, but this is a very
elite sport, and I felt we kept up, but I
felt a bit inadequate at times because we would do
very well, but it was it was rough. My horse
(05:09):
just wasn't the same caliber as the other girl's horses,
although he was good, and I pushed him very very
hard this one day and we were in I believe
we were in the winning position. So there's three phases,
so you know, you don't know if you're going to
win until all three phases are completed with all four riders.
And I pushed him really hard. It was a boiling
(05:31):
hot day in Vermont and I was on a cross
country course and I remember that there's a jump, it
was like an in and out on top of a bank,
I believe it was, and you jump on the bank
and you have to jump off the bank. And something happened,
and I honestly don't remember exactly what it was, but
I just know that he was so tired that he
(05:53):
didn't really have enough enough impulsion, enough energy to get
up on the bank, and he stumbled and I fell
off him. I'm very fortunate he didn't fall on top
of me. That I would have been called a rotational fall,
and that's pretty dangerous. But I fell off and he
fell down, and all I could remember is that we're
both standing there blocking traffic, and you know, this is
(06:17):
a serious sport, and I remember hearing someone yell at
me over the microphone to get out of the way
because the next horse was on course and I was
basically blocking traffic at this point, so I had to
rush him off the course and then allow for the
next horse who was on course, and then I had
to walk him back on foot rather than ride and
(06:37):
go through the finish and finish the course, and he
was hyperventilating. I mean, he was at the point of collapse.
And I felt so terrible, almost like a murderer. I
felt like I was the most selfish, awful person for
driving this horse to this point of exhaustion, and so
(07:02):
coupled with some other aspects of my childhood that I
won't delve into, but I'll just say my self esteem
was not too high at that point. I didn't really
have the self esteem to keep going as a competitive
rider at the time, which was really too bad, because
I really did have a promising riding career. I could
(07:24):
have done a lot with my horseback riding competitively. I quit,
and it haunted me.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Did the horse survive?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
He did, But was he permanently damage at all?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Or I just pretty much drove him into exhaustion.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And so so many bad stopped just for a seconds.
So she told me earlier, she did at that point,
that was it for you? You just simply stopped riding.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I did. I took him home after that competition, and
I'll never forget it as long as I live. And
we unloaded him from the trailer and took his bandage
bandages off, and that you bandage when you trailer a horse.
And I put him out in the pasture and he
just galloped off and just shook his mane and his
(08:13):
head and was like good riddance. He was so happy
to be home and to be free. And I just
remember standing there and thinking, I'm done. I can't do
this to him anymore. I probably would not have been
done had I had another option to ride a different
horse who was more capable of doing the sport and continuing.
(08:35):
So I felt like there was no choice. I was
sixteen years old and this was my option. So I
had to choose between his well being or my winning,
and I chose his well being.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
But wow, that's that's quite a metaphor.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I mean, that's so obviously horseback right really consumed your
life in a big way.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Until the Really both of my parents put everything into it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And that's what how do they react to that? I mean,
that's a big deal.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I didn't speak to my father for three.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Years, and so he wasn't happy.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
An My mother and I were like best friends. She
had me very young, and I mean we were fine.
I think she had gotten pretty exhausted from the whole sport.
But I guess you could call that my rebellion as
a teenager, I sort of dove into partying and just
(09:31):
all the things I never could do because I was
always training and just having sort of a normal teenage childhood.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And that was going in too much detail. During the
next years. He has some other big losses, right.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
I did? Are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Well?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Going forward? I'd say my biggest losses really happened. That
was my biggest childhood loss. My other losses were just
unusually losing my parents at an unusually young age. My
dad died in a car accident in New York City.
(10:17):
That it was big, definitely.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And had you reconciled by.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Then, Yes, thankfully we did.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And your mother passed away also.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
My mother passed away nine or ten years after that
or so, maybe a little bit more. My father died
in a car accident. My mother died of cancer. It
was just decades too soon for both of them, and
I was very close to them. It wasn't perfect by
any means, but I was very close to my parents,
(10:50):
and I'm an only child. So I felt very much
like an orphan after that.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, so best forward to this accident that broke your back.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Briefly, what is what happened there?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Okay? So I moved to North Carolina after college and
I met my husband. Uh, I had children. I want
very much wanted to have this situation I had with
(11:23):
my mother. I think I wanted to have that. But
you know, my first child enjoyed riding horses a little bit,
but you know, it wasn't her grand passion. But my
second child was obsessed with horses really from the moment
she could say the word horse. And she saw a
(11:46):
pair of riding britches that I had bought for my
first child when she was five years old, and was like, Mama,
why did why did Charlotte get to ride?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
What?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Why did you get to ride? What? What?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
You know?
Speaker 4 (11:57):
There were pictures of horses all over my house and
she just sort of beat me down. And I had
gotten divorced, I had become a single mother and didn't
really have the opportunity to put my daughters in in
writing lessons or you know, I steered them away from
the sport because it doesn't really go hand in hand
(12:18):
with being a single mother. But there was no steering
her away. She was just consumed and it was very
clear she was a horse crazy girl like I was,
and she wanted it. And so I said, okay, you
want to be a horseback rider. We're going to figure
this out. And we did so.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
So you started to write again.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Yes, we did it together, and first she did and
we got her into some writing lessons and she learned
to ride. I did not teach her to ride. She
would definitely be mad if I said to the world
that I taught her to ride. Somebody else taught her
to ride. But I like to think I had some
impact on her at some point. And it wasn't an
(13:00):
enough to just do the one riding lesson a week.
So we decided that we would figure out a way
to get a horse and to lease a horse. And
then I knew I did teach her some, even though
it doesn't count on paper in her mind, I did
do some. You know, we did it together. I talked.
Let's just say I gave her everything I had in
(13:22):
me from my early riding training.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And so was a nice mother daughter deal.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
It was very nice and we were you know, we
it was it was amazing, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
So I wanted to jump ahead because I really want
to hear people. So, so, you took.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
A bad fall.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I know you broke through vertebrae, which obviously a lot
of acute pain, and then we talked about how you
do a chronic pain after that. So look at the
big picture. You had a huge impact of a horse.
You were connected to being injured because I mean, you
felt like it was your fault. Whether it was or not,
that's a whole different story. You were very connected to
(14:01):
your parents through horsemanship.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And then you're having kids.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You're now connected to your daughter through the same connection.
So and then you lost your parents, which is part
of the whole big picture, mixing with horses, which you
had lots of trauma that and trauma's an odd way
of connecting with itself. I mean, the thread goes all
the way through this, right, parents, horses, losses, you lost
(14:27):
your potential writing career. Then you're riding a horse, and.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
I interrupt you just for one second, David. I think
this is important for people listening, so that you know,
to feel a little bit relatable. I don't want to
get too graphic, but I'll just say that horses and
my horseback riding and my competitions as a kid gave
me something positive to hold onto because my parents went
(14:52):
through a pretty ugly divorce, and when that happened, I
felt like I had really lost my family, my home.
Just the loss when I was six years old of
my happy little family in Connecticut just haunted me. And
the thing that gave me something to live for, something
(15:16):
to hold onto, something to feel good about myself, was
my horseback riding. So when I lost my horseback riding
at sixteen, it was like there was nothing to hold onto,
no family, no home. And then that pattern kind of
(15:38):
perpetuated later when I lost my parents, it was like
what is there? But I had my children. But you
can only hold on to your own children so much
before you suffocate them. I didn't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I'm sure I.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Did do some of that because I'm not perfect, but
I made mistakes, but I was the first to try
to admit it and do better and just do the
best I can as a mom. So getting my daughter
Julia the opportunity to ride, we found a horse to
lease to. You know, it was one step at a time,
(16:12):
you know, So that she could ride more and more
and more, and train more and more and more, not
just take one less than a week. It felt almost
like something that I could give her, But I think
I was also giving it to my own wounded in
her child.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah no, absolutely mean the horse.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
You now giving it to her was like healing me.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, absolutely no.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I mean that's a big part of the story because
all of a sudden you had another loss on a horse,
and you're connected to your daughter through this, and now
you have a broken back and obviously a cute pain
that's not a big deal.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Did you have surdy for your back?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Were you able to go thankfully? I mean I had,
You'll know, I think what this means the world, won't
I want to say it was mild, no, mild to
moderate instability, uh, sacral fracture. It wasn't enough to need surgery.
I mean I think had it been a little bit more,
(17:10):
you know, I had S two and S three were
fractured and T twelve was fractured, and so it was
a mild to moderately unstable sacral fracture. But it wasn't
fully unstable, So I was stable. I didn't break my pelvis.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, but it's obviously it's a pretty big policy. So
this jump forward again.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
So when you really that's a I didn't catch on
our pre interview discussion, is that again you had gained
a lot through forces again, connection to forces, connection to
your past, feeling good about writing, connection with your daughter.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
For goodness age, I mean, really a pretty big deal.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
And it kept my mother and me alive in a
way because my mom had died and before my daughter
got into the riding and I got back into writing
with my mother had died, and so it was healing
my loss of losing my mom, who was very much
my best friend and my first trainer. So riding became
(18:11):
a way to sort of keep my mom alive.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So anyway, No, that's a that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So you were so then you had cute pain, had
cronic pain, and you said that horses had a lot
to do with your healing. And what I want to
do in the second podcast is sort of go in
more detail about how this change your practice now. But
I'd like to just be in the next five minutes
just trying to figure out during your healing process, just Ballpark,
(18:38):
how long were you disabled by pain?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Just Ballpark year two years, five years.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Kind of pain are we talking about?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Well, mental just disabled by pain, whether it's mental or physical.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It doesn't really Wow, I.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Don't want to make one up into three phases, Well
I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I just want to make sure we have a time factory.
We all want to know is what how did you
come out of this?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Other words, your trauma story clearly is quite lenk. That's
how pain works in general, and people are about storing pain.
But we also know from the neuroscience now the emotional
pain and physical pain are exactly the same thing that
the DNA is selling their level, and I'm now convinced
that people actually can't tell the difference. You know, if
(19:20):
you have severe mental pain physical pain, they come from
the same part of the brain as unpleasant signals, and
you really cannot tell the difference. So I'm just saying,
I guess that what I'm asking in general, how long
did you feel you were being taken down by pain
or just discomfort?
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Okay, I was an acute pain, you know, for about
acute pain right probably three months. I think it morphed
into chronic pain after that. But the acute pain was
like a storm, and I noticed that it was also
(19:58):
acute mental pain exist factly what you're saying, and there
was something about hitting it or approaching it from the
side of the mental pain that actually seemed to relieve
the physical pain.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I'm sorry, I say it again, please.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So in order to transcend this pain is I guess
what you would say, I had to hit it from
the emotional side. I couldn't escape when my body broke,
all of the memories of these losses that you just
described surfaced and coupled with intense physical pain. Not the
(20:37):
kind of physical pain of chronic pain, the kind of
physical pain where you feel like your body's attached to
an electric fence. You know, not quite what you're talking about,
but that was the beginning. There was times when that's
honestly what it felt like, that passed. It would It
was intermittent, and you know, it got fewer and farther
(21:00):
between those episodes where I was attached to an electric fence.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I'm sorry. What was an episode, like we said, episodes,
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well, I would I would turn just a specific way,
and I noticed, like I had a compression fracture of
my thoracic spine. So if I turned just the right way.
It was as though someone just took a hot knife
and stuck it right in my back, and it was
(21:27):
there's no dis really honestly describing this to anyone.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So I'm assuming you had stopped writing again. Is that
fair statement?
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Well, this was after right after I broke my back
from writing, so I was about it.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Did you quit? I know you're writing again now, but
how long did you start?
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I did not stop. Well, you never stopped part of
my healing. So I break my back, I have intense
acute pain. I'm healing, I'm in the brace. It's a
several months. It's the acute pain. I go to physical therapy.
I was in physical therapy for probably eighteen months for
my back, my neck, my shoulder, in my hand. I
(22:08):
did also have hand surgery about a year later after
I don't know how many months. It was ten months,
ten months of physical therapy exercises and doing these repetitive
movements and lying flat on my back and handling acute pain.
(22:29):
I noticed along the way that certain things would soothe me,
soothe the emotional pain, the physical pain, all of the pain.
And it wasn't just narcotics. And one of those things
was painting. I'm an artist painting brushstrokes, but I noticed
that there was this repetitive rhythmic motion that would relax me.
(22:51):
And so I would be moving my feet while I
was painting, and I would be I would take this
into my physical therapy and it would be the same
repetitive rhythmic activities. And I did what they told me,
and I worked extremely hard in physical therapy, and I
was in pretty good shape going into this because I'm
(23:11):
an athlete. So at about ten months, I kept saying,
when can I ride again? When can I ride again?
And I visualized in my mind's eye cantering a horse,
cantering a course. I visualized that, and I would do
these repetitive motions, and those were the two things that
soothed me, that made me feel like that there was
(23:33):
hope that if I just kept thinking about cantering in
the woods, painting pictures, moving my feet, my neck, my hands,
my wrist, just doing things repetitive, almost like rocking a baby.
I just had to like rock myself soothe myself repetitively,
and little by little the pain started to get better
(23:57):
and better, and ten months into it, I beat down
my physical therapist enough and doctor's enough to say said, okay,
you can get on a horse for five minutes at
a time. I didn't really take a break. I mean
I had it ten minutes, ten months, and then I
had to ride again. I just felt like I didn't
(24:20):
dodge a bullet of this mainitude so that I could
stay on the sidelines forever. I had had too much
loss and just I just did not want sadness, loss
and brokenness to be the story of my life and
I will be.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So let me surmarize this because I want to really
go into the wor detail on the second podcast about
what you do now with yourself and patience. But you
brought out some really interesting principles. So you're in private
practice now right, you have your own practice. So the
principles that again has assured and I'd just say this
again that we just used to sort of minimize, is
that the repetition is really key as far as so
(24:58):
the bottom is in ronic pain, illness, physical and mental
is sustained what we call threat physiology or fight or flight,
and your body breaks down and so we know anity, depression,
Oh she did. All these things are actually inflammatory metabolic
disorders as well as physical symptoms. So healing occurs by
increasing time and safety. So what's happening with repetition? You
(25:21):
start stemling the vegus nerve, which the daytime inflammatory starts
calm when things happen. Art is a big deal where
you're using somatic tools acual you put your brain somepolace
else you're not going to distract yourself. The repetition and
the art actually calms people down, so against the profound
shift of physiology. But there are two things you say,
that's what a critical one is hope. We actually find
(25:41):
out in the laboratory that hope actually decreases inflammatory sidiklines
flat out directly decreases cida klines, just having some hope.
But the final one, which is a big one, is
moving forward into the life that you want as opposed
to fictional one that you don't want. And so what
you're doing, you're switching the tension.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Of your brain into where you want to go, and
the brain.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Actually changes physical structure, and that's why people really heal
at a deep level. So I call it deep healing
compared to self help. So, Rachel, any, so any other
final comments you'd like to before you conclude this part
of the podcast.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yes, at the end of the day, growing up riding
my mother training me in pony Club, I had this
grit and I always had a positive attitude. I don't
know why. I'm not going to say it was perfect.
I could be a brat like anybody else, but I
would win the sportsmanship awards in pony Club because I
(26:41):
had these horses that weren't quite up to par or
they had a bad habit. And so I think what
I brought, what allowed me to really get to where
I am in the beginning, was that I always had hope.
I always saw the glasses f full, and I just
(27:02):
I made my mind up early on that it made
me angry. I didn't want to let the bad take over.
So a little bit I learned to jannel it and
I became grateful. I found meaning in this accident, like
and I work with my clients, and I think, if
you have meaning in your suffering, kind of like Victor
(27:23):
frankel Man, search for meaning, you know, if you can
find some sort of meaning for this nightmare that we
call life. Sometimes it just helps to realize, Okay, this
is really awful, but it's gonna make me stronger, and
it's gonna make me better at this and because of this,
and you find the good in it. And so I
had to do that, little by little, found gratitude one
(27:45):
day at a time. I just had to tell myself, Okay,
be grateful that you can move your legs without your
physical therapist today. Be grateful that today it doesn't hurt
as much to load the dishwasher like I would try
to do the tiniest little baby steps. And so so
that's kind of what got me there. So I learned
to be grateful. And then I realized I had come
(28:06):
up with this technique that I didn't even realize. I
was too close to it to see it. And I'll
tell you a little bit about that after.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
So, Rachel, thank you very very much. And you really
have some major principles here. This is a big story.
So anyway, thank you very much. Appreciate you being on
the show.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Okay, well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I'd like to thank our guest Rachel Garfield for being
on the show today and sharing her journey through intense
pain and the healing principles she learned from competitive horseback
riding that helped her recover. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
reminding you to be back next week for another episode
of Back in Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb, and
(28:45):
in the meantime, be sure to visit the website at
www dot backincontrol dot com.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Reading
The following podcast is part of the Mind, Body, Spirit
dot FM podcast network.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is Rachel Sidney Garfield. She's both
a therapist specializing in pain and drama as well as
a competitive horseback writer. She had a miraculous recovery following
a fall from her horse in which she broke three vertebra.
(00:45):
Her clinical technique, which she calls the Equina Reset, is
based on the training principles of horseback writing. Rachel continues
to ride, compete, and live a full and largely pain
free life. Her forthcoming book, Stay the Course describes the
pain management techniques she discovered during her own recovery process.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Welcome, Thank you, Tom.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
It's my pleasure to introduce Rachel Garfield. I've been back
an email conversation with her for a couple of years
and she has quite a story involving in a broken
back horses and will come out on this program. I
have an interesting perspective of horses, being an orthopedic surgeons.
These creatures are freaking dangerous, and Rachel has a testimony that.
(01:33):
But she's also come through an awful lot, and horses
have been part of her story. So she's most a
therapist specializing in pain and trauma as well as a
competitive horseback rider. She has her own amazing story. She
had America's recovery in the aftermath of backbreaking horse fall,
which she took in about twenty seventeen eighteen. She went
on and comte as a jumper. Eighteen months later wrote
(01:53):
to be called Stay the Course, which will hopefully be
published soon, about the pain management she discovered during her
own recovery process. Virtechnique is based on the training principles
of horseback writing she titled The Acquiner Reset. Rachel has
a fullwach life and continues to ride, compete, and live
largely pain free. Follow her Rachel Sidney a question on
(02:14):
Instagram and YouTube. So, Rachel, welcome to the show. We've
talked back and forth for a long time, and this
is the first time I've actually had a zoom call
with you, I think, and so welcome.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Thank you. It's a true privilege. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
So Rochie told a little bit before the podcast started
about your background and you talk about this horseback fall
in twenty fifteen, you said it was, yes, but it
really something's happened when you were a very competitive writer
in your team.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Correct, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yes, And can.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
You tell us that instant for because that's really a
big part of this whole story.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yes, I agree. So I grew up my mom was
a trainer, and we were in Connecticut and Vermont in
New York City, and my mom was a horse trainer.
My father had an avidage dressed in horses, and horses
were really a huge part of my childhood. I wrote
(03:16):
in all of my mom's lessons when I was about
four years old. I later went to Pony Club when
we moved to Vermont, and I was on what's called
the Pony Club rally or eventing teams. The sport that
Pony Club gears us up to do is what's called
the horse trial or an event. We call it eventing,
(03:37):
which is three phases kind of like a triathlon, which
is dressage, cross country jumping, and stadium or show jumping.
Show jumping or stadium jumping or show jumping.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
We call it up in the air a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, I guess you and you say you.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Were pretty pretty competitive back then.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Yes, and I was really moving forward. I had a
pretty private, promising horseback riding career. It was my passion.
I trained every day every summer. We went to clinics, competitions.
It was all consuming.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And what happened when you were I was about or so.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
I was on a pony club eventing team, and so
that means there were four of us all in a competition,
and it was in Woodstock, Vermont, at the Green Mountain
Horse Association, an amazing place to ride. I was with
the Upper Valley Pony Club. And this goes into I
(04:44):
guess a little bit of emotional pain is that my
horse was not really the same caliber as the other
girls horses. He was wonderful, but this is a very
elite sport, and I felt we kept up, but I
felt a bit inadequate at times because we would do
very well, but it was it was rough. My horse
(05:09):
just wasn't the same caliber as the other girl's horses,
although he was good, and I pushed him very very
hard this one day and we were in I believe
we were in the winning position. So there's three phases,
so you know, you don't know if you're going to
win until all three phases are completed with all four riders.
And I pushed him really hard. It was a boiling
(05:31):
hot day in Vermont and I was on a cross
country course and I remember that there's a jump, it
was like an in and out on top of a bank,
I believe it was, and you jump on the bank
and you have to jump off the bank. And something happened,
and I honestly don't remember exactly what it was, but
I just know that he was so tired that he
(05:53):
didn't really have enough enough impulsion, enough energy to get
up on the bank, and he stumbled and I fell
off him. I'm very fortunate he didn't fall on top
of me. That I would have been called a rotational fall,
and that's pretty dangerous. But I fell off and he
fell down, and all I could remember is that we're
both standing there blocking traffic, and you know, this is
(06:17):
a serious sport, and I remember hearing someone yell at
me over the microphone to get out of the way
because the next horse was on course and I was
basically blocking traffic at this point, so I had to
rush him off the course and then allow for the
next horse who was on course, and then I had
to walk him back on foot rather than ride and
(06:37):
go through the finish and finish the course, and he
was hyperventilating. I mean, he was at the point of collapse.
And I felt so terrible, almost like a murderer. I
felt like I was the most selfish, awful person for
driving this horse to this point of exhaustion, and so
(07:02):
coupled with some other aspects of my childhood that I
won't delve into, but I'll just say my self esteem
was not too high at that point. I didn't really
have the self esteem to keep going as a competitive
rider at the time, which was really too bad, because
I really did have a promising riding career. I could
(07:24):
have done a lot with my horseback riding competitively. I quit,
and it haunted me.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Did the horse survive?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
He did, But was he permanently damage at all?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Or I just pretty much drove him into exhaustion.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And so so many bad stopped just for a seconds.
So she told me earlier, she did at that point,
that was it for you? You just simply stopped riding.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I did. I took him home after that competition, and
I'll never forget it as long as I live. And
we unloaded him from the trailer and took his bandage
bandages off, and that you bandage when you trailer a horse.
And I put him out in the pasture and he
just galloped off and just shook his mane and his
(08:13):
head and was like good riddance. He was so happy
to be home and to be free. And I just
remember standing there and thinking, I'm done. I can't do
this to him anymore. I probably would not have been
done had I had another option to ride a different
horse who was more capable of doing the sport and continuing.
(08:35):
So I felt like there was no choice. I was
sixteen years old and this was my option. So I
had to choose between his well being or my winning,
and I chose his well being.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
But wow, that's that's quite a metaphor.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I mean, that's so obviously horseback right really consumed your
life in a big way.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Until the Really both of my parents put everything into it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And that's what how do they react to that? I mean,
that's a big deal.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I didn't speak to my father for three.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Years, and so he wasn't happy.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
An My mother and I were like best friends. She
had me very young, and I mean we were fine.
I think she had gotten pretty exhausted from the whole sport.
But I guess you could call that my rebellion as
a teenager, I sort of dove into partying and just
(09:31):
all the things I never could do because I was
always training and just having sort of a normal teenage childhood.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And that was going in too much detail. During the
next years. He has some other big losses, right.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
I did? Are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Well?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Going forward? I'd say my biggest losses really happened. That
was my biggest childhood loss. My other losses were just
unusually losing my parents at an unusually young age. My
dad died in a car accident in New York City.
(10:17):
That it was big, definitely.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And had you reconciled by.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Then, Yes, thankfully we did.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And your mother passed away also.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
My mother passed away nine or ten years after that
or so, maybe a little bit more. My father died
in a car accident. My mother died of cancer. It
was just decades too soon for both of them, and
I was very close to them. It wasn't perfect by
any means, but I was very close to my parents,
(10:50):
and I'm an only child. So I felt very much
like an orphan after that.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, so best forward to this accident that broke your back.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Briefly, what is what happened there?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Okay? So I moved to North Carolina after college and
I met my husband. Uh, I had children. I want
very much wanted to have this situation I had with
(11:23):
my mother. I think I wanted to have that. But
you know, my first child enjoyed riding horses a little bit,
but you know, it wasn't her grand passion. But my
second child was obsessed with horses really from the moment
she could say the word horse. And she saw a
(11:46):
pair of riding britches that I had bought for my
first child when she was five years old, and was like, Mama,
why did why did Charlotte get to ride?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
What?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Why did you get to ride? What? What?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
You know?
Speaker 4 (11:57):
There were pictures of horses all over my house and
she just sort of beat me down. And I had
gotten divorced, I had become a single mother and didn't
really have the opportunity to put my daughters in in
writing lessons or you know, I steered them away from
the sport because it doesn't really go hand in hand
(12:18):
with being a single mother. But there was no steering
her away. She was just consumed and it was very
clear she was a horse crazy girl like I was,
and she wanted it. And so I said, okay, you
want to be a horseback rider. We're going to figure
this out. And we did so.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
So you started to write again.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Yes, we did it together, and first she did and
we got her into some writing lessons and she learned
to ride. I did not teach her to ride. She
would definitely be mad if I said to the world
that I taught her to ride. Somebody else taught her
to ride. But I like to think I had some
impact on her at some point. And it wasn't an
(13:00):
enough to just do the one riding lesson a week.
So we decided that we would figure out a way
to get a horse and to lease a horse. And
then I knew I did teach her some, even though
it doesn't count on paper in her mind, I did
do some. You know, we did it together. I talked.
Let's just say I gave her everything I had in
(13:22):
me from my early riding training.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And so was a nice mother daughter deal.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
It was very nice and we were you know, we
it was it was amazing, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
So I wanted to jump ahead because I really want
to hear people. So, so, you took.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
A bad fall.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I know you broke through vertebrae, which obviously a lot
of acute pain, and then we talked about how you
do a chronic pain after that. So look at the
big picture. You had a huge impact of a horse.
You were connected to being injured because I mean, you
felt like it was your fault. Whether it was or not,
that's a whole different story. You were very connected to
(14:01):
your parents through horsemanship.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And then you're having kids.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You're now connected to your daughter through the same connection.
So and then you lost your parents, which is part
of the whole big picture, mixing with horses, which you
had lots of trauma that and trauma's an odd way
of connecting with itself. I mean, the thread goes all
the way through this, right, parents, horses, losses, you lost
(14:27):
your potential writing career. Then you're riding a horse, and.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
I interrupt you just for one second, David. I think
this is important for people listening, so that you know,
to feel a little bit relatable. I don't want to
get too graphic, but I'll just say that horses and
my horseback riding and my competitions as a kid gave
me something positive to hold onto because my parents went
(14:52):
through a pretty ugly divorce, and when that happened, I
felt like I had really lost my family, my home.
Just the loss when I was six years old of
my happy little family in Connecticut just haunted me. And
the thing that gave me something to live for, something
(15:16):
to hold onto, something to feel good about myself, was
my horseback riding. So when I lost my horseback riding
at sixteen, it was like there was nothing to hold onto,
no family, no home. And then that pattern kind of
(15:38):
perpetuated later when I lost my parents, it was like
what is there? But I had my children. But you
can only hold on to your own children so much
before you suffocate them. I didn't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I'm sure I.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Did do some of that because I'm not perfect, but
I made mistakes, but I was the first to try
to admit it and do better and just do the
best I can as a mom. So getting my daughter
Julia the opportunity to ride, we found a horse to
lease to. You know, it was one step at a time,
(16:12):
you know, So that she could ride more and more
and more, and train more and more and more, not
just take one less than a week. It felt almost
like something that I could give her, But I think
I was also giving it to my own wounded in
her child.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah no, absolutely mean the horse.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
You now giving it to her was like healing me.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, absolutely no.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I mean that's a big part of the story because
all of a sudden you had another loss on a horse,
and you're connected to your daughter through this, and now
you have a broken back and obviously a cute pain
that's not a big deal.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Did you have surdy for your back?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Were you able to go thankfully? I mean I had,
You'll know, I think what this means the world, won't
I want to say it was mild, no, mild to
moderate instability, uh, sacral fracture. It wasn't enough to need surgery.
I mean I think had it been a little bit more,
(17:10):
you know, I had S two and S three were
fractured and T twelve was fractured, and so it was
a mild to moderately unstable sacral fracture. But it wasn't
fully unstable, So I was stable. I didn't break my pelvis.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, but it's obviously it's a pretty big policy. So
this jump forward again.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
So when you really that's a I didn't catch on
our pre interview discussion, is that again you had gained
a lot through forces again, connection to forces, connection to
your past, feeling good about writing, connection with your daughter.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
For goodness age, I mean, really a pretty big deal.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
And it kept my mother and me alive in a
way because my mom had died and before my daughter
got into the riding and I got back into writing
with my mother had died, and so it was healing
my loss of losing my mom, who was very much
my best friend and my first trainer. So riding became
(18:11):
a way to sort of keep my mom alive.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So anyway, No, that's a that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So you were so then you had cute pain, had
cronic pain, and you said that horses had a lot
to do with your healing. And what I want to
do in the second podcast is sort of go in
more detail about how this change your practice now. But
I'd like to just be in the next five minutes
just trying to figure out during your healing process, just Ballpark,
(18:38):
how long were you disabled by pain?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Just Ballpark year two years, five years.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Kind of pain are we talking about?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Well, mental just disabled by pain, whether it's mental or physical.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It doesn't really Wow, I.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Don't want to make one up into three phases, Well
I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I just want to make sure we have a time factory.
We all want to know is what how did you
come out of this?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Other words, your trauma story clearly is quite lenk. That's
how pain works in general, and people are about storing pain.
But we also know from the neuroscience now the emotional
pain and physical pain are exactly the same thing that
the DNA is selling their level, and I'm now convinced
that people actually can't tell the difference. You know, if
(19:20):
you have severe mental pain physical pain, they come from
the same part of the brain as unpleasant signals, and
you really cannot tell the difference. So I'm just saying,
I guess that what I'm asking in general, how long
did you feel you were being taken down by pain
or just discomfort?
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Okay, I was an acute pain, you know, for about
acute pain right probably three months. I think it morphed
into chronic pain after that. But the acute pain was
like a storm, and I noticed that it was also
(19:58):
acute mental pain exist factly what you're saying, and there
was something about hitting it or approaching it from the
side of the mental pain that actually seemed to relieve
the physical pain.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I'm sorry, I say it again, please.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So in order to transcend this pain is I guess
what you would say, I had to hit it from
the emotional side. I couldn't escape when my body broke,
all of the memories of these losses that you just
described surfaced and coupled with intense physical pain. Not the
(20:37):
kind of physical pain of chronic pain, the kind of
physical pain where you feel like your body's attached to
an electric fence. You know, not quite what you're talking about,
but that was the beginning. There was times when that's
honestly what it felt like, that passed. It would It
was intermittent, and you know, it got fewer and farther
(21:00):
between those episodes where I was attached to an electric fence.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I'm sorry. What was an episode, like we said, episodes,
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well, I would I would turn just a specific way,
and I noticed, like I had a compression fracture of
my thoracic spine. So if I turned just the right way.
It was as though someone just took a hot knife
and stuck it right in my back, and it was
(21:27):
there's no dis really honestly describing this to anyone.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So I'm assuming you had stopped writing again. Is that
fair statement?
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Well, this was after right after I broke my back
from writing, so I was about it.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Did you quit? I know you're writing again now, but
how long did you start?
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I did not stop. Well, you never stopped part of
my healing. So I break my back, I have intense
acute pain. I'm healing, I'm in the brace. It's a
several months. It's the acute pain. I go to physical therapy.
I was in physical therapy for probably eighteen months for
my back, my neck, my shoulder, in my hand. I
(22:08):
did also have hand surgery about a year later after
I don't know how many months. It was ten months,
ten months of physical therapy exercises and doing these repetitive
movements and lying flat on my back and handling acute pain.
(22:29):
I noticed along the way that certain things would soothe me,
soothe the emotional pain, the physical pain, all of the pain.
And it wasn't just narcotics. And one of those things
was painting. I'm an artist painting brushstrokes, but I noticed
that there was this repetitive rhythmic motion that would relax me.
(22:51):
And so I would be moving my feet while I
was painting, and I would be I would take this
into my physical therapy and it would be the same
repetitive rhythmic activities. And I did what they told me,
and I worked extremely hard in physical therapy, and I
was in pretty good shape going into this because I'm
(23:11):
an athlete. So at about ten months, I kept saying,
when can I ride again? When can I ride again?
And I visualized in my mind's eye cantering a horse,
cantering a course. I visualized that, and I would do
these repetitive motions, and those were the two things that
soothed me, that made me feel like that there was
(23:33):
hope that if I just kept thinking about cantering in
the woods, painting pictures, moving my feet, my neck, my hands,
my wrist, just doing things repetitive, almost like rocking a baby.
I just had to like rock myself soothe myself repetitively,
and little by little the pain started to get better
(23:57):
and better, and ten months into it, I beat down
my physical therapist enough and doctor's enough to say said, okay,
you can get on a horse for five minutes at
a time. I didn't really take a break. I mean
I had it ten minutes, ten months, and then I
had to ride again. I just felt like I didn't
(24:20):
dodge a bullet of this mainitude so that I could
stay on the sidelines forever. I had had too much
loss and just I just did not want sadness, loss
and brokenness to be the story of my life and
I will be.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So let me surmarize this because I want to really
go into the wor detail on the second podcast about
what you do now with yourself and patience. But you
brought out some really interesting principles. So you're in private
practice now right, you have your own practice. So the
principles that again has assured and I'd just say this
again that we just used to sort of minimize, is
that the repetition is really key as far as so
(24:58):
the bottom is in ronic pain, illness, physical and mental
is sustained what we call threat physiology or fight or flight,
and your body breaks down and so we know anity, depression,
Oh she did. All these things are actually inflammatory metabolic
disorders as well as physical symptoms. So healing occurs by
increasing time and safety. So what's happening with repetition? You
(25:21):
start stemling the vegus nerve, which the daytime inflammatory starts
calm when things happen. Art is a big deal where
you're using somatic tools acual you put your brain somepolace
else you're not going to distract yourself. The repetition and
the art actually calms people down, so against the profound
shift of physiology. But there are two things you say,
that's what a critical one is hope. We actually find
(25:41):
out in the laboratory that hope actually decreases inflammatory sidiklines
flat out directly decreases cida klines, just having some hope.
But the final one, which is a big one, is
moving forward into the life that you want as opposed
to fictional one that you don't want. And so what
you're doing, you're switching the tension.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Of your brain into where you want to go, and
the brain.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Actually changes physical structure, and that's why people really heal
at a deep level. So I call it deep healing
compared to self help. So, Rachel, any, so any other
final comments you'd like to before you conclude this part
of the podcast.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yes, at the end of the day, growing up riding
my mother training me in pony Club, I had this
grit and I always had a positive attitude. I don't
know why. I'm not going to say it was perfect.
I could be a brat like anybody else, but I
would win the sportsmanship awards in pony Club because I
(26:41):
had these horses that weren't quite up to par or
they had a bad habit. And so I think what
I brought, what allowed me to really get to where
I am in the beginning, was that I always had hope.
I always saw the glasses f full, and I just
(27:02):
I made my mind up early on that it made
me angry. I didn't want to let the bad take over.
So a little bit I learned to jannel it and
I became grateful. I found meaning in this accident, like
and I work with my clients, and I think, if
you have meaning in your suffering, kind of like Victor
(27:23):
frankel Man, search for meaning, you know, if you can
find some sort of meaning for this nightmare that we
call life. Sometimes it just helps to realize, Okay, this
is really awful, but it's gonna make me stronger, and
it's gonna make me better at this and because of this,
and you find the good in it. And so I
had to do that, little by little, found gratitude one
(27:45):
day at a time. I just had to tell myself, Okay,
be grateful that you can move your legs without your
physical therapist today. Be grateful that today it doesn't hurt
as much to load the dishwasher like I would try
to do the tiniest little baby steps. And so so
that's kind of what got me there. So I learned
to be grateful. And then I realized I had come
(28:06):
up with this technique that I didn't even realize. I
was too close to it to see it. And I'll
tell you a little bit about that after.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
So, Rachel, thank you very very much. And you really
have some major principles here. This is a big story.
So anyway, thank you very much. Appreciate you being on
the show.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Okay, well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I'd like to thank our guest Rachel Garfield for being
on the show today and sharing her journey through intense
pain and the healing principles she learned from competitive horseback
riding that helped her recover. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
reminding you to be back next week for another episode
of Back in Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb, and
(28:45):
in the meantime, be sure to visit the website at
www dot backincontrol dot com.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Reading
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The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!