WEBVTT
00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:56.000
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Adventure Paradox podcast.
00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:59.280
Today we have a fellow horse speaker guest.
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:07.120
I am so excited to invite Julia Carpenter, the founder of The Two Stepway, to the show.
00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:08.400
Welcome, Julia.
00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.159
Where are you coming in from today?
00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:11.040
And how are you?
00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:12.159
Thank you, Kat.
00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:13.439
Nice to talk to you.
00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:19.280
I am in Western North Carolina, and I am so happy to talk with you.
00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:20.560
Where are you?
00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:23.760
I'm right outside of the Jackson Hole, Wyoming area.
00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:24.719
How very nice.
00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:27.760
So we both have mountains around us, which is lovely.
00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:29.840
Mountain horse girls.
00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:32.159
And I see you've got a dog in the background.
00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:37.359
I was reading in your bio, you know, the original name of this podcast was Horses, Mountains, and Dogs.
00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:39.439
That's very spirit, right?
00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:40.000
Very much.
00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:40.879
Very much so.
00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:41.840
Very much so.
00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:44.240
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:48.640
I'm sorry, I know I had a few mix-ups as we were getting going, but I'm so glad you're here.
00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:55.280
And as I was looking at your work, I was reminded of your incredible acronym, which I'll get to in just a moment.
00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:58.960
But for those who don't know, I'm going to give you a proper introduction.
00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:08.879
The two-step way helps horse owners and caregivers learn how to be with their horses and how to really see them to promote connection, trust, and health.
00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:17.920
Julia is interested in helping animals, particularly horses, heal from trauma and has studied intently with that goal in mind.
00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:26.319
She has coined the phrase and teaches the deep meaning of see the being, which you trademarked, you told me.
00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:27.840
I love that so much.
00:02:28.079 --> 00:02:29.360
Let's start there.
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:31.920
What is this see the being?
00:02:32.079 --> 00:02:35.040
Where did it come from, and how do you define it?
00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:40.879
Yeah, so in the work that I do, it's as I was saying, two steps.
00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:44.079
So I'm gonna start there because it leads up to this very well.
00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:58.800
And what I realized is any transaction, communication with any animal, another human, is how we are, how we transmit and how we receive information.
00:02:59.519 --> 00:03:04.399
And so those boil down to two things.
00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:09.199
And one is how to be like how do you know what you're transmitting?
00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:19.759
Oftentimes we're transmitting a whole lot of things that we don't think we are, and particularly in humans, because you can be still stressed from the day before.
00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:27.839
You might have broken up with someone, you might have a horrible boss, you might be worried about something coming up, you might have a sick child.
00:03:28.160 --> 00:03:38.560
And your nervous system is wired in a way that doesn't know that's any different than the stress of a tiger being right here right now.
00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:48.079
And so your brain is often, through thinking, sending information that is incorrect to your nervous system.
00:03:48.399 --> 00:03:55.439
And so horses and other animals, they don't have language in the way that we do.
00:03:55.519 --> 00:04:12.000
So they're considered neurosceptors, so they're busy reading our nervous systems, the little ticks we're giving off, information from the tension in our body, our gestures, even our moods, they're picking up on that sour energy.
00:04:12.399 --> 00:04:19.680
So we can be trying to force that all back into our nervous systems and saying we're fine and we're this and we're that.
00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:23.360
But even distraction is really hard on them.
00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:40.560
So if you're just waiting for a call or you've gotten a bit addicted to your cell phone, your schedule's busy and you're moving from one thing to another, a horse doesn't understand that and other animals either, as anything different than how you present.
00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:48.240
So one part of my work is learning to be very sure of what you're actually presenting to the world.
00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:51.839
And that's through sort of a right brain reception.
00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:53.280
And we're always doing that.
00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:55.680
It's an underlying thing that we do.
00:04:55.920 --> 00:05:07.519
And so that's incredibly important is to learn how to be authentic in yourself, be aware of where you are in your nervous system, learn how to calm your nervous system.
00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:14.399
It's called anonomic, so you don't really have control over it, but you do have control over the thinking that you have.
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:22.479
So that's why meditation, focus on the breath, the body is so important because it brings us back to the right here, right now.
00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:26.879
And once we're right here, right now, mostly nothing is happening.
00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:36.240
And so when nothing is happening, your brain, without the thinking, is feeding your nervous system the right information for the first time in a long time, if you become aware.
00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:39.839
And then you can present that to your animals.
00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:43.839
And then the next part is the deep seeing, see the being.
00:05:44.079 --> 00:06:06.639
And so, with that, it's learning how to come to an animal without judgment, without a preconceived story, without an agenda, without any of these things, and learn to see who is right there in front of you and what they may need in the moment and how to respond to them.
00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:18.719
And so the two together are incredibly important to all of us, and particularly to prey animals, in judging how safe and secure they feel.
00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:42.240
And so, if you get that dance right between making sure that you're transmitting the information you wish to transmit and are receiving deeply the true information, and also sometimes when your mind isn't as busy, you actually really see how much those animals are trying to communicate with you that you didn't even notice.
00:06:42.560 --> 00:07:05.199
I have so many stories now from my work that almost feel unbelievable, but when they become aware that you're aware of them, the kind of information they tell you is incredibly precise, sophisticated, important, and often they answer to what they actually need and really helps connection and bonding.
00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:06.639
I love this so much.
00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:08.879
Of course, you're preaching to the choir here.
00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:10.240
Like, yes.
00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:20.879
For someone who has maybe never communicated with an animal or thought about being or seeing their animal in this way.
00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:25.920
Will you share a story that you have of an experience?
00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:40.399
Sure, I'll have a ton of them, but some really good ones I can think of is one of a horse I went to once I became a practitioner and I was looking for work and going out to cases where people were having problems with their horses.
00:07:40.719 --> 00:08:11.039
I got a call from a woman who had gotten a new horse, I think three months before, and she wanted to connect with him, and she said he was just a handful and he wouldn't settle, and she thought he had an ulcer, and he was very flighty, and so I went out to meet this horse and went in and let him see that I saw him and had a very regulated nervous system when I entered his stall.
00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:15.439
And when I met the horse, you have not seen a horse that looked like this.
00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:23.039
And there's pictures on my website somewhere, probably in considering animals, but the horse looked like a giraffe.
00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:26.719
He had stuck his whole neck as high as it would go in the air.
00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:33.840
His eyes were completely checked out, and he was just had his head up in the air, like in the ceiling.
00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:40.320
And when I came to meet him, and he would pace his stall, and he was just completely like lost.
00:08:40.560 --> 00:08:51.519
And so I went in his stall with him and I presented this very calm feel, and then I started to take him in, and I did it without judgment.
00:08:51.680 --> 00:09:08.480
And I said to myself, I kind of said where his body tone was, his head was high in the air, and his eyes were startled, and his nervous system was shut down, and I could not hear any digestion, and I watched his breathing, and it was intense and rapid.
00:09:08.800 --> 00:09:16.399
And I just took those in without judgment and awareness and just meditated in the stall with him.
00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:22.080
And pretty soon he went into a absolute deep trance.
00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:36.800
He stayed on his feet, but his head came down, and his lip hung down, and some jewels started coming out of his mouth, and he just absolutely went into this such a deep trance.
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:46.720
My husband was filming the session, and the woman that owned him, I said, We're gonna scare this horse when we try to bring him back because he's so far from us.
00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:49.840
But I think he went into shutdown.
00:09:49.920 --> 00:09:58.400
So when an animal goes into shutdown, say it was a gazelle on a plane and a cheetah landed on it and it went into shutdown.
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:05.200
Well, it's gonna come out of shutdown if it gets a chance to escape in the same way that it went out.
00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:14.000
This animal's body was not flaccid, it wasn't like he had fainted, it was much more full of energy, but in a deep trance.
00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:17.920
So I was afraid of waking him up because we might really panic him.
00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:26.160
And so I said, Could you please walk out and start making noise way outside of the stall, then come back?
00:10:26.800 --> 00:10:35.440
So they just quietly entered and came back, and that was the first day, and the woman was amazed that, like I said, this is a healing trance, it's very good for him.
00:10:35.520 --> 00:10:44.000
You could see his muscles twitching, and if you know anything about somatic work, it's a release of old trauma, so there's stuff starting to process.
00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:50.000
The next time I went to work with him, he was a lot better than that, a lot more expressive.
00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:53.040
But I got the idea that he didn't get any sleep at all.
00:10:53.280 --> 00:10:54.560
And he was hyper-vigilant.
00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:58.000
And I said to his owner, have you ever seen this horse lay down?
00:10:58.160 --> 00:11:00.160
And she said, No, I have not.
00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:03.840
And so I started to work with him in the aisle.
00:11:04.160 --> 00:11:13.120
And as he got sleepy and relaxed and realized I was paying attention to him, he started to keep putting his head into this other stall.
00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:17.280
And there was no animal in there, and there's two stalls side by side and one stall alone.
00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:20.720
And the two horses that had lived there before lived side by side.
00:11:21.040 --> 00:11:25.840
And I realized he was asking, could he be in that stall?
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:30.879
And I said to the owner, I said, Could you maybe think of switching this horse to this stall?
00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:39.040
Maybe it would help him get some rest and to sleep because he'd be beside the alpha horse, and the other stall was all alone by itself.
00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:41.520
And she said, Well, I could easily do that.
00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:51.840
And the minute that I had pointed to the stall, the horse gave maybe 30 releases at once in a row, just yawning, yawning right in our face, a whole open mouth.
00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:53.759
Yes, that was it, thank you.
00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:55.200
Put him in the stall.
00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:58.960
She called me excited, woke up with shavings all over his tail.
00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:00.879
She could tell he'd lied down.
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:04.480
He started to eat, his poop got solid again.
00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:06.560
I mean, all these things go together.
00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:19.600
I had another horse that, you know, I asked it what was wrong after it was relaxed like that, and it went over and sat on the wall because its whole back end is like I can't relax because my back is led love to, is like an old person.
00:12:19.680 --> 00:12:21.440
And as soon as it's like, get a vet.
00:12:21.520 --> 00:12:22.960
I think there's something wrong with the back end.
00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:28.320
Had another horse turned its head absolutely sideways, it had an embedded cheek tooth.
00:12:28.560 --> 00:12:29.520
But it's amazing.
00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:43.440
As soon as they realize that you're there to help and that your eye is on them and that you're seeing what they're showing you, and your mind is open to judgment, they will let you know more or less what they need.
00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:46.800
And it's just such fulfilling work.
00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:54.960
Sometimes it could be I had an FEI dressage rider whose horse couldn't get a movement on one side.
00:12:55.120 --> 00:13:03.200
And I asked her as I was working, I said, Do you ever have a doubt when you're going into the moment of this exercise?
00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:08.720
And because sometimes doubt and horses feel your doubt, and she's like, Yes.
00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:12.720
And the horse was like, Thank God this has been brought up.
00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:16.480
And it just went into these yawns and it started rolling in its stall.
00:13:16.640 --> 00:13:23.120
At first, you wonder if you believe this stuff, but when you see it over and over again, you don't even question it anymore.
00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:24.879
But we can all do it.
00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:33.360
It's a choice of the state of awareness and where you decide to put your attention that will make all the difference.
00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:40.640
That story is like, oh, it's like a warm blanket, you know, just hearing it and hearing him remarkable.
00:13:40.800 --> 00:13:42.080
Well, it makes me love doing the work.
00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:48.879
Like you can't uh you can't get enough of it because it's so helpful to so many creatures.
00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:50.720
Um being heard.
00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:51.120
Yeah.
00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:52.560
Yeah, I love it.
00:13:52.800 --> 00:13:56.640
I think I've had an interesting paradox in my space this week.
00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:58.800
So I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it.
00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:03.280
Yesterday I interviewed Janet Jones, who wrote Horsebrain, Human Brain.
00:14:03.520 --> 00:14:11.440
And so really going into the science and what is actually happening, and then also looking at the side of okay, what are we applying?
00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:14.560
Are we anthropomorphizing or what is actually happening?
00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:24.000
And before we started recording, you mentioned I was talking about the spiritual horse seeker summit, which we just ran, but spirituality and science, they don't always get along.
00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:28.879
And they can have, in fact, they can really not get along too.
00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:29.840
That's right.
00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:30.879
That's right.
00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:35.600
My feeling, and I was talking to my friend about this, is I love both.
00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:38.240
I love seeing one reflect the other.
00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:45.360
And I heard you saying this before we started recording, but there are a lot of paradoxes, yeah, and especially in the horse space.
00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:52.960
And I would love to hear your thoughts about that from your perspective, because you're clearly very well versed in both.
00:14:53.280 --> 00:14:59.200
Oh, well, I'm not the expert in this, but I am so excited by it and think about it a lot.
00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:01.600
And there's so many examples of this.
00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:18.080
As I was saying to you off-air, is that to me it almost feels instead of science and spirituality being opponents, I'm starting to feel on the far end, something really exciting is happening.
00:15:18.160 --> 00:15:20.160
And I think it also takes the open mind.
00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:25.040
There's scientists that don't have open mind that insist on things that I think hold us back.
00:15:25.280 --> 00:15:55.600
But one of my favorite things, because I've been trying to get people to see, I think it's been my mission in life, I think I was born as a child to do this, is to help others understand how each animal is a true individual, just as each person is, and has a life's purpose and desires and a will, and are way more sophisticated and have deeper stories to their lives than we think.
00:15:55.759 --> 00:16:02.800
I went through college constantly being told I was anthropomorphizing, so I did get that on my papers.
00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:04.320
I did become a scientist.
00:16:04.400 --> 00:16:11.280
I work for a conservation research organization researching wildlife, so I've written scientific papers.
00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:31.200
I know how they have to be written, but I also have had my mind opened up and seen things that science had not found yet through growing up on a horse farm and with dogs and animals around me all my life, and knowing when that's where you spend all your time and where all your concentration is.
00:16:31.280 --> 00:16:34.640
And I'm 60 years old now, so I say it counts for something.
00:16:34.800 --> 00:16:39.920
You know, that is experience, and experiences deep too.
00:16:40.160 --> 00:17:04.240
And so I have seen and I know now, and science will get there, and it is, but what's so exciting is I can take my mind and through a little dance between being present and being attuned to the horse, I can have a horse relax and lie down and go to sleep.
00:17:04.319 --> 00:17:08.480
And I can do it, I do it to the rescue horses, and other people have seen me do it.
00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:09.759
I have it on film.
00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:32.559
But once you know that something in your mind can affect another creature to the point where it can't be my goal, because anytime something becomes your goal or you're after it, or you need to prove it, you go into your left brain and you're not in your right brain anymore, and your right brain is the wide receiver, and this is becoming part of science too.
00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:37.119
It used to be that was not really taken seriously now, but it is now.
00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:44.559
Ian McGilchrist has written tremendous books on it, but the brain hemispheres look at problems totally differently.
00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:59.120
And in our today's world, we're all getting two left hemisphere in the sense that that side of your brain was the tool-using side, and the fact that you're always on a smartphone already has you right in this space.
00:17:59.360 --> 00:18:09.279
There's a real agenda-driven side of your brain in use in answering questions using tools, solving problems, using language, mathematics.
00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:16.559
That's all left brain, but the right brain is doing a different job.
00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:19.039
So that's related, which seems weird.
00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:23.360
It's related to the sympathetic side of the nervous system, which is your fight-flight.
00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:40.480
But the reason it is because a prey animal, a horse, or anything else, they have to have a broad receiver, they have to have a big knowledge, a very careful knowledge that is immediate coming into them, right?
00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:44.400
And so that's our unfiltered brain.
00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:47.680
And I don't know if you've heard of the work of Alan Shore.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:51.039
He's a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist, I think.
00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:55.440
And he's the one that's talking about right brain to right brain therapy.
00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:18.160
And so, in that, for people with PTSD or attachment theory with babies, what you're doing there is the therapist not only is listening to the words of their client, so they're not only trying to help their client, the client is telling a story about himself, but the client's brain has also decided what kinds of things to suppress, right?
00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:24.000
Because you have a decision, I am going to grow out of the ashes and this is gonna be me.
00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:29.120
And so a lot of our trauma we leave behind, but it isn't still in our somatic nervous system, right?
00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:31.759
It's in our bodies, it's there.
00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:39.759
So what he realized is that we needed to talk to people on an underlying level, too.
00:19:39.840 --> 00:19:45.920
So when a therapist sits down, they're also watching the same things, believe it or not, that I'm watching in a horse.
00:19:46.080 --> 00:19:48.160
Where in the nervous system is this person?
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:59.360
They're not saying I doubt it to what they're listening to in language, but they're noting the underlying distress, they're noting the level of tension, they're noting the lack of eye contact.
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:04.640
And these are not judgments, but when they take them in, I think it's fascinating.
00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:14.559
They've proved it's not just mirror neurons, which fire when we have empathy, but they're finding we have a whole bunch of neurons that are firing to synchronize us and match us.
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:27.120
All social mammals will, and probably other things too, I don't know, but we'll synchronize when we spend time together because we start to become very aware of the things.
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:39.120
I might be very aware of your expression and how you're feeling about our conversation and those moments when you see somebody light up and you're responding on some different level and understanding that underlying information.
00:20:39.360 --> 00:20:55.759
So at the same time, what I think happens when I work with a horse, that's like saying, when I'm naming these things without judgment and just rolling my eyes across them, it's almost like I'm saying, I see you, and they read that off the signature match of my nervous system with their nervous system.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:04.880
So it's almost like if a horse is really nervous, I'm never saying, calm down right away.
00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:06.720
I'm not saying that to them.
00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:10.400
I'm watching, and I'm saying, I see tension in the neck.
00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:15.680
And the funny thing that I've realized is people have taken pictures of me working with a horse.
00:21:15.840 --> 00:21:18.400
I'll be matching it in the sympathetic part of its nervous system.
00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:21.279
You'll see me with this tension looking with the horse.
00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:24.160
I'm not trying to look like that horse.
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:28.480
I'm not trying to do a mirror matching little exercise.
00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:34.240
I'm just reading them, but my body's firing from the inside and doing a very similar thing.
00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:36.400
But that's giving that horse a sense.
00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:43.759
Like if we were two horses and we're on the plane and we're eating together, we're turning tail to tail, and you see something over there and your head shoots up.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:47.600
I fill with the same tension you did, and I'm waiting for your next movement.
00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:53.840
And if I have that same level of sympathetic tone, when you say, run, I'm ready to run with you, right?
00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:56.720
So I'm ready to go, and I don't have to translate anything.
00:21:56.799 --> 00:22:04.160
But if you also said, Ah, it was the wind, I can go right, we can both deregulate, go right back to grazing.
00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:06.319
We're all now relaxed again.
00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:14.319
So that variability is very important, but that reading underlaying what we might think of as that left brain taking in.
00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:24.960
So now going back to what we were talking about, science mostly wants to categorize, use things as very left brain most of the time.
00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:34.799
And the right brain is very intuitive and not quite sure how it has all its information and perceptive and very important.
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:42.319
The two brains functioning together is your absolute best set, but that's a very interesting way that they would do.
00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:50.720
It would be led by a right brain getting a feeling, pausing, taking the time in the background, the left brain being ready to.
00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:54.319
produce the story or pass on the information.
00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:57.200
But right now we stay two over here.
00:22:57.360 --> 00:23:08.000
And the interesting thing in a lot of the scientific studies that are going on right now in what we'll call the woo-woo edge, the far out edge, are interesting.
00:23:08.160 --> 00:23:11.200
Have you heard of Veda Austin, the water woman?
00:23:11.360 --> 00:23:12.400
Oh my God.
00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:20.400
She's a woman that freezes water and it catches an image and when it freezes, she'll freeze it.
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:21.759
You have to see her book one day.
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:24.080
And yeah, I think I've seen this.
00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:25.600
Wow.
00:23:25.840 --> 00:23:30.559
But she's also an incredibly well studied scientific person.
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:40.480
And what is fantastic is she'll try to set up these studies in the Petri dishes and try to see why she's getting the results she does.
00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:49.840
But any time that she wants to prove to somebody that this is going to work or something, the water won't cooperate.
00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:50.400
Yeah.
00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:58.080
And then all these things like those I was just hearing somebody on a podcast about those random number generators and intuition.
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:07.519
So when they try to set up those things, those will go great and a random number generator is a closed thing you can't interfere with.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:13.600
But if a doubter is there when the random number generator is there, the experiments don't work.
00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:21.200
So there is some sort of block and I don't know that it's been figured out what it is yet.
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:34.960
But what I love is where we are that there's still wonder that there's enough proof that makes us know that we're trying to figure things out I love both of them.
00:24:35.279 --> 00:24:57.200
I have a way more open mind than I used to I came out of science and then when I saw coming out of my brain a horse skid to a fence and lie down in front of me I'm like okay now I have to know why this happens and I have read far and wide and connected all my own dots and am fascinated by it and still have an incredibly open mind.
00:24:57.360 --> 00:25:13.360
Every day I have more questions than answers even though I'm also gathering answers as fast as I can that just opens up more questions which I love which is also the journey we're on we never get to the destination and that's the whole point of it.
00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:31.680
We work totally you're making me think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs which I'm sure you're familiar with and I actually just wrote a chapter about this for a book which is coming out end of June called Wings of Purpose but I wrote about the sixth level which I'm not sure you've heard about I have not heard about it.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:26:04.880
But it came later in his life where he realized most of us think that fifth level which is self-actualization purpose right actually the sixth level is what he calls awe or transcendence or wonder like beyond these things they could even explain and the moment I heard that I was actually in a transcendental meditation meeting in this guy I was like there it is and that it's because we can get so focused on all these little pieces and miss.
00:26:05.519 --> 00:26:10.960
Yes and that's what I'd want to bring back to everybody is to have a sense of wonder.
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:25.840
And I still get that and I love it and I think people need to I would say throw their cell phone out but you can't none of us can but you need to get away from it.
00:26:25.920 --> 00:27:25.380
Seriously you need to have experience you need to sit and perceive and take in on that right brain that wide receiver of not knowing what's going to happen just feeling wind smelling air using your senses we're really narrowing the senses we use.
00:27:25.460 --> 00:27:27.620
We barely use our noses anymore.
00:27:27.779 --> 00:28:05.300
Yeah we don't make eye contact we don't do this what I was talking about is really taking in right brain to right brain and really seeing the being I think that's probably the most important thing there is is see the being in all of us in ourselves don't have it be this flat surface image of you should really how recently did you feel what your body feels like know where your knees are I mean we've forgotten any of that we're up in our head and in our phone and we need to get ourselves back.
00:28:05.460 --> 00:28:10.660
We're turning into zombies and ghosts that's my wish for people even if it's 15 minutes.
00:28:11.060 --> 00:28:38.019
Yesterday I lost my phone Julia I lost my phone later discovered my children have taken it hidden it anyhow regardless I had no phone all day and I had people showing up at my house and I had to coordinate to make sure children are getting picked up by a babysitter and I recognized how incredibly dependent just checking in you know to do directions have you found the way I'm on my way I'll be five minutes late.
00:28:38.500 --> 00:28:45.539
And to have no phone and just do it on email and then I went to this networking event last night same thing.
00:28:45.779 --> 00:28:52.019
Normally we would exchange contact info but to not have it and just be fully present.
00:28:52.259 --> 00:28:56.660
And it was funny too because I realized I don't even have business cards anymore.
00:28:56.900 --> 00:29:08.980
And I recognized two things while you were talking one I don't know if you're familiar with Jill Bolte Taylor who wrote the stroke of insight right so that's a lot with the brain hemisphere.
00:29:09.300 --> 00:29:21.940
Exactly so she came and spoke at Center for the Arts in Jackson Hallyom almost 20 years ago she was actually my inspiration for saying I one day want to do a TEDx talk that helps people that much.
00:29:22.259 --> 00:29:26.019
And so my TEDx talk just came out it's called how horses promote connection.
00:29:26.100 --> 00:29:38.740
I don't know if you thought and as I was preparing for it you just really clarified something for me that it was so demanding to be in the left side of the brain which isn't where the magic happens for me.
00:29:38.980 --> 00:30:00.900
And it can't even McGilchrist will tell you that it can't but it serves a very important purpose but it's just gotten too much use recently and the other side of us is atrophying and that's unfortunately where empathy is and deep consideration and I really don't feel we'd be where we were in the country if we were more balanced in our brains.
00:30:01.140 --> 00:30:11.380
Meditation is so good for you because it does start to balance those hemispheres again anything where you're back in body out in nature so important.
00:30:11.860 --> 00:30:51.060
So totally important I mean you're preaching to the choir if you could just cast it for us because luckily we're at a time where there is a lot of awareness about this you know I mean I think it's something 15 or 20 minutes on a screen like we're on hijacks the nervous system right definitely if we know that like between calls I try to always go outside get a little air check on the horses say hi yeah birds and the bees all the things and then return to be able to be present but what's your vision if you could have that two percent trajectory change in where you feel things are going what you want to see happen in the future.
00:30:51.300 --> 00:31:27.300
Ah wow I think we're in a really tough spot I believe that we have become addicted to cell phones and I don't think that was our fault but we're in a place where we need to wake up and the the problem is that we can't one because we become so reliable and two because the very use of the cell phones changes your brain and so spending that time off of them is so much bigger than you think it is.
00:31:27.539 --> 00:32:14.900
And you would feel a lot of that depression and there's something you sense that feels wrong that you feel derailed you feel off track a little bit because the human body was meant to touch the earth with your feet and to use your senses and they're really rapidly going away and anybody that has a child please limit the use of their phones and get them outside feeling the air and touching the earth and running and using their bodies this is so important and it's important in a bigger way than we think it is it's more than our health it's everything.
00:32:15.060 --> 00:32:17.940
We don't want to be alienated from earth.
00:32:18.180 --> 00:32:28.100
Yeah and we're moving towards rapidly and we're being swept along and it's not all of our doing with the AI which is changing every single day.
00:32:28.340 --> 00:32:48.900
And sure it's useful but I feel so lucky because one I live out in the middle of the country with a dark night sky heat with wood people make fun of me because they call my cell phone my landline because I leave it in the house I understand people have very busy jobs.
00:32:49.060 --> 00:32:57.300
I work with horses I'm lucky I'm outside I can forget my phone I'll have the old archaic calendar planner schedule.
00:32:57.539 --> 00:33:14.180
Even me I sense a difference but what I see in my clients is they think they're paying attention and they want to more than anything and they love their horses dearly and they're interested in the work but their level of being able to stay with simple attention is shot.
00:33:14.340 --> 00:33:46.980
It's really it's scary to me to see but I think if everybody could try to take a one day of their holiday and make it an offline day and feel uh meditation I've had two clients that I started to work with taught them how to get present had them listen to Sulu Tones have you ever heard of those these beautiful so modulating by and I had them listening to that and two of them said they did not realize what they were missing and what had happened to them.
00:33:47.140 --> 00:33:51.700
They were old enough that they recognized the feeling of what it was before that.
00:33:52.019 --> 00:33:54.420
And both of them quit corporate jobs.
00:34:42.300 --> 00:35:05.419
The people whose horses I was working with and they told me they quit because of me and I'm like oh but that was a good idea you know but on the other hand seriously sometimes we don't even know how much level of stress is on us that we could let go of even right yeah or reconnect with I know there's something it feels like I need but I'm not sure what it is.
00:35:05.579 --> 00:35:05.819
Yeah.
00:35:05.980 --> 00:35:08.139
And sometimes it's just reconnecting.
00:35:08.460 --> 00:35:09.019
Amen.
00:35:09.179 --> 00:35:43.179
I feel like as we're wrapping up here something we haven't touched on which is really important and again I'm very well versed in somatic healing and trauma and all these things but I want to make sure that our audience hears it from you because there's a lot happening in the space right now around trauma work not only in horses and their trauma and humans and their trauma but there's a lot of interesting science around trauma being passed down through the DNA which I've been quite curious about like one of my horses is a recovering racehorse, right?
00:35:43.499 --> 00:35:45.419
And that's basically like PTSD.
00:35:45.659 --> 00:36:04.459
And I'm sure you've seen the video of the bells going off right it's like and so I'm like curious your magic that you want to share with our audience specifically around the somatic healing available and what you're seeing in the trauma space like your personal genius around it.
00:36:05.099 --> 00:36:28.859
Okay so I will talk from a horse point of view but I mean it relates to people too one with horses I do believe that you're correct and I have written articles on this I would say that most horses have been traumatized in their life or domestic horses because movement is incredibly important to horses when they're fearful they want to run.
00:36:29.099 --> 00:36:30.779
When they can't run they fight.
00:36:30.939 --> 00:36:58.379
When they can't fight or run they freeze right so what we do by the way that we used to and some of us are getting better about it but we all came from a horse world that was you know I'm among them but we have horses on ropes right and we hold them still and we get a saddle on them that's traumatic to them and the more that they can't move the more that is actually causing PTSD where you can't get out of what's happening to you.
00:36:58.619 --> 00:37:08.859
All that trauma is put onto you you can't move through it it gets caught in the body and it gets stuck there in horses that is unprocessed trauma.
00:37:09.179 --> 00:37:14.699
I got into this horse because I have a traumatized baby that was rescued by the state of Georgia.
00:37:14.779 --> 00:37:19.739
He's not a baby anymore but he was rescued by the state of Georgia he was in a horrible situation.
00:37:19.899 --> 00:38:08.219
There were starving horses in the pasture with him horses with broken legs just an absolute mess they had to go in and clean up 82 horses and 100 head of cattle that were just in a horrible situation and this guy was taken out as a little baby the rescue thought they were helping him they did the quick 180 days to training so here's an individual that's you know was in taken away from his mom young in a pasture with four stallions hanging out with a little group of individuals he was one and a half years old close to starved and they start putting tack on him and tying him up and spraying him off and all these people think they're being kind which they are because it's better than where he was from and they have to find him a home and rescues are busy but he wasn't prepared for that he didn't have the mental tools for it.
00:38:08.459 --> 00:39:02.939
And so he learned to freeze and would immediately turn off his nervous system and his eyes would check out and he'd be standing there absolutely full of tension he'd be putting his tack on and my husband and I both raised with horses been in the horse business our entire lives he was a steeplechase jockey I've worked at the track I've worked with polo ponies racehorses hunter jumpers polo hunters and anyway very gentle just trail riders now and long distance riders especially my husband but anyway we would try to gentle saddle this horse same checkout every time get on him he'd try to be good and then about the third thing that would happen to him on a ride some branch would finally hit him he'd come completely unglued and it would be like a rodeo I mean it would literally be like somebody losing their PTSD trauma and and too dangerous just absolutely too dangerous.
00:39:03.099 --> 00:39:17.579
So I decided turning out I'm gonna restart the whole thing I noticed that he kept just turning off like that right so I started to recognize this and I didn't know all the stuff I know now.
00:39:17.819 --> 00:39:30.539
And I saw that freeze that you see on a bunny when it decided not to run and then your dog is coming by and he's so close and you just see and I recognized that look and I was like that's extreme fear.
00:39:30.699 --> 00:39:32.139
That's a freeze mode.
00:39:32.219 --> 00:39:33.499
So I did figure that out.
00:39:33.659 --> 00:39:43.579
So I started looking at PTSD trauma in humans because this was quite a while back and I didn't know that there was other people doing a similar thing at the time.
00:39:44.219 --> 00:39:59.739
And so I read Von der Klock's book and all the ones on the body keeps the score and all of those I figured out and I learned about volyvagel theory and I started to realize what it was going to take to heal this horse is to do it from his will.
00:39:59.819 --> 00:40:12.619
So I completely moved where my saddling area was and I took it with the saddle up to his pasture and trained him from just never used any tie up device at all not even a halter.
00:40:12.779 --> 00:40:31.659
I would point out at the group and I'd get them to start to follow me out of the herd I'd ask if I could put the saddle pad on when he'd let me I'd give him a treat but if I'd had enough motivation with a scratch I would have done it but this was farther than that because I usually don't like to use treats because I don't like to raise the excitement threshold.
00:40:31.739 --> 00:40:36.619
I don't really want to change them I want them to really be in a connection with me.
00:40:36.859 --> 00:40:53.099
So I would do each stage of this but he would come looking for me and I would hold his bridle out and he'll slide his head into it and I can put all of the tack and tack that horse up a scared horse a horse that was absolutely frightened of it just loose.
00:40:53.739 --> 00:41:14.059
But the thing is that you have to go slow enough you work from will you let those re-myelinations occur but you can't get rid of them unless you go slow enough because what was happening tied in the same spot was we'd hit a point where that switch was almost like it been broken and it will throw immediately.
00:41:14.219 --> 00:41:34.219
It will throw in an association and as soon as that switch throws there's no learning so he can't make a new memory so I can set that on his back as gentle and gentle over and over again for five years and nothing would have changed because the brain can't remyelinate when the stress is that high.
00:41:34.379 --> 00:41:40.139
And the stress gets that high because the nervous system shoots up because it was relying on old information.
00:41:40.219 --> 00:41:47.259
So you have to get the threshold low enough so the information will be new and perceived.
00:41:47.579 --> 00:42:34.699
Yeah and able to be received that's right in the human world it's the same thing and I would say those therapists that are using that right brain to write brain communication those are the ones to go for they're also listening to your story but in that they're going to be seeing the being they're going to be responding on a somatic level with you and they're going to be able to heal the body because your left brain and you may think your story is one thing because you've chosen to forget leave parts behind that are your trauma but you can't get rid of that trauma unless it can get out of you so on that intuitive side if you can heal through the somatic side then you can bring that stuff up and get rid of it.
00:42:35.179 --> 00:42:42.299
So good and thank you for the work you're doing on behalf of humans and horses it's remarkable.
00:42:42.459 --> 00:42:55.739
Okay I know our audience is going to want to find you we'll put all these links in the show notes but what are your favorite social media handles if you have them and websites and all the things as you can probably guess because of what I am I'm not much of a social media person.
00:42:56.059 --> 00:43:02.539
I do have Facebook page it's Julia Carpenter and I'm sitting on a horse so that's me because that's a pretty common name.
00:43:02.779 --> 00:44:53.499
And then the two sites I'd rather have you go to and there's tremendous amount of good writing on the blog at twistepway.com some of those stories I told you other stuff is on there and then the other site is consideringanimals.com love it and remind me is it the number two two step way no it's written out two step way yep all together twostepway.com I love it all right we will put that in the show notes thank you so much you so much that's wonderful for your work it's incredible and you guys share this with a friend because more people need to hear this incredible wisdom and actually that's gonna be my final question because this one came through everybody talks about the heart horse right yeah heart horse here watch my zoom is gonna do this a little bit Julia okay here comes the heart horse it was like the big thing yeah but as you were talking I was thinking about the wise horse or there are so many teachers that we've all had if we've worked with horses for a long time and some of them have come from that experience that wisdom that teacher that taught you you know the mirroring and different things where you realized you didn't even realize you know like the teacher appears when the student is ready you suddenly realize oh I'm being taught who's your wife's horse so his name is Magneto he's a bae you'll find him on my twostepway.com page but listen this is a really interesting thing because I bought Magneto to go long riding with my husband and I was looking for a pack horse to take along and he was not a it was sort of an interesting choice but it was before COVID and it was really not a good buying time for horses and we found him and he was the one that ended up being all shut down and traumatized like that.
00:44:53.979 --> 00:45:30.779
I did not end up taking him long riding but what I realized is that he came into my life for a more serious purpose and he actually put me back on the track I'd been on as a little child and took me back into my real purpose in life and is still in up there with me teaching me all the time and I know that where he is in his own journey is to teach me in mine.
00:45:31.259 --> 00:46:00.379
So there's no right place for Magneto to be in his healing or no place that he needs to have gotten to because everything is a lesson and if we could all look at our horses that way and see that anytime you think you have a problem with your horse that it's actually an opportunity and a huge one and is usually the thing you need to work on more than anything else because they mirror something that we need help with.
00:46:01.019 --> 00:46:01.659
So good.
00:46:01.819 --> 00:46:13.499
Oh my gosh okay mic dropped right there all right guys we're gonna close with that please share it with a friend and we're gonna go find Magneto and hold him in our hearts forever.
00:46:13.819 --> 00:46:14.299
Thank you so much.
00:46:16.059 --> 00:46:20.219
All right till we meet again thank you so much Julia for your work and everything you're doing.
00:46:20.379 --> 00:46:21.019
Keep going.
00:46:21.259 --> 00:46:22.699
All right you too thank you
00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:56.000
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Adventure Paradox podcast.
00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:59.280
Today we have a fellow horse speaker guest.
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:07.120
I am so excited to invite Julia Carpenter, the founder of The Two Stepway, to the show.
00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:08.400
Welcome, Julia.
00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.159
Where are you coming in from today?
00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:11.040
And how are you?
00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:12.159
Thank you, Kat.
00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:13.439
Nice to talk to you.
00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:19.280
I am in Western North Carolina, and I am so happy to talk with you.
00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:20.560
Where are you?
00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:23.760
I'm right outside of the Jackson Hole, Wyoming area.
00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:24.719
How very nice.
00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:27.760
So we both have mountains around us, which is lovely.
00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:29.840
Mountain horse girls.
00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:32.159
And I see you've got a dog in the background.
00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:37.359
I was reading in your bio, you know, the original name of this podcast was Horses, Mountains, and Dogs.
00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:39.439
That's very spirit, right?
00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:40.000
Very much.
00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:40.879
Very much so.
00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:41.840
Very much so.
00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:44.240
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:48.640
I'm sorry, I know I had a few mix-ups as we were getting going, but I'm so glad you're here.
00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:55.280
And as I was looking at your work, I was reminded of your incredible acronym, which I'll get to in just a moment.
00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:58.960
But for those who don't know, I'm going to give you a proper introduction.
00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:08.879
The two-step way helps horse owners and caregivers learn how to be with their horses and how to really see them to promote connection, trust, and health.
00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:17.920
Julia is interested in helping animals, particularly horses, heal from trauma and has studied intently with that goal in mind.
00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:26.319
She has coined the phrase and teaches the deep meaning of see the being, which you trademarked, you told me.
00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:27.840
I love that so much.
00:02:28.079 --> 00:02:29.360
Let's start there.
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:31.920
What is this see the being?
00:02:32.079 --> 00:02:35.040
Where did it come from, and how do you define it?
00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:40.879
Yeah, so in the work that I do, it's as I was saying, two steps.
00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:44.079
So I'm gonna start there because it leads up to this very well.
00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:58.800
And what I realized is any transaction, communication with any animal, another human, is how we are, how we transmit and how we receive information.
00:02:59.519 --> 00:03:04.399
And so those boil down to two things.
00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:09.199
And one is how to be like how do you know what you're transmitting?
00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:19.759
Oftentimes we're transmitting a whole lot of things that we don't think we are, and particularly in humans, because you can be still stressed from the day before.
00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:27.839
You might have broken up with someone, you might have a horrible boss, you might be worried about something coming up, you might have a sick child.
00:03:28.160 --> 00:03:38.560
And your nervous system is wired in a way that doesn't know that's any different than the stress of a tiger being right here right now.
00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:48.079
And so your brain is often, through thinking, sending information that is incorrect to your nervous system.
00:03:48.399 --> 00:03:55.439
And so horses and other animals, they don't have language in the way that we do.
00:03:55.519 --> 00:04:12.000
So they're considered neurosceptors, so they're busy reading our nervous systems, the little ticks we're giving off, information from the tension in our body, our gestures, even our moods, they're picking up on that sour energy.
00:04:12.399 --> 00:04:19.680
So we can be trying to force that all back into our nervous systems and saying we're fine and we're this and we're that.
00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:23.360
But even distraction is really hard on them.
00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:40.560
So if you're just waiting for a call or you've gotten a bit addicted to your cell phone, your schedule's busy and you're moving from one thing to another, a horse doesn't understand that and other animals either, as anything different than how you present.
00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:48.240
So one part of my work is learning to be very sure of what you're actually presenting to the world.
00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:51.839
And that's through sort of a right brain reception.
00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:53.280
And we're always doing that.
00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:55.680
It's an underlying thing that we do.
00:04:55.920 --> 00:05:07.519
And so that's incredibly important is to learn how to be authentic in yourself, be aware of where you are in your nervous system, learn how to calm your nervous system.
00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:14.399
It's called anonomic, so you don't really have control over it, but you do have control over the thinking that you have.
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:22.479
So that's why meditation, focus on the breath, the body is so important because it brings us back to the right here, right now.
00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:26.879
And once we're right here, right now, mostly nothing is happening.
00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:36.240
And so when nothing is happening, your brain, without the thinking, is feeding your nervous system the right information for the first time in a long time, if you become aware.
00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:39.839
And then you can present that to your animals.
00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:43.839
And then the next part is the deep seeing, see the being.
00:05:44.079 --> 00:06:06.639
And so, with that, it's learning how to come to an animal without judgment, without a preconceived story, without an agenda, without any of these things, and learn to see who is right there in front of you and what they may need in the moment and how to respond to them.
00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:18.719
And so the two together are incredibly important to all of us, and particularly to prey animals, in judging how safe and secure they feel.
00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:42.240
And so, if you get that dance right between making sure that you're transmitting the information you wish to transmit and are receiving deeply the true information, and also sometimes when your mind isn't as busy, you actually really see how much those animals are trying to communicate with you that you didn't even notice.
00:06:42.560 --> 00:07:05.199
I have so many stories now from my work that almost feel unbelievable, but when they become aware that you're aware of them, the kind of information they tell you is incredibly precise, sophisticated, important, and often they answer to what they actually need and really helps connection and bonding.
00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:06.639
I love this so much.
00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:08.879
Of course, you're preaching to the choir here.
00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:10.240
Like, yes.
00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:20.879
For someone who has maybe never communicated with an animal or thought about being or seeing their animal in this way.
00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:25.920
Will you share a story that you have of an experience?
00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:40.399
Sure, I'll have a ton of them, but some really good ones I can think of is one of a horse I went to once I became a practitioner and I was looking for work and going out to cases where people were having problems with their horses.
00:07:40.719 --> 00:08:11.039
I got a call from a woman who had gotten a new horse, I think three months before, and she wanted to connect with him, and she said he was just a handful and he wouldn't settle, and she thought he had an ulcer, and he was very flighty, and so I went out to meet this horse and went in and let him see that I saw him and had a very regulated nervous system when I entered his stall.
00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:15.439
And when I met the horse, you have not seen a horse that looked like this.
00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:23.039
And there's pictures on my website somewhere, probably in considering animals, but the horse looked like a giraffe.
00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:26.719
He had stuck his whole neck as high as it would go in the air.
00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:33.840
His eyes were completely checked out, and he was just had his head up in the air, like in the ceiling.
00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:40.320
And when I came to meet him, and he would pace his stall, and he was just completely like lost.
00:08:40.560 --> 00:08:51.519
And so I went in his stall with him and I presented this very calm feel, and then I started to take him in, and I did it without judgment.
00:08:51.680 --> 00:09:08.480
And I said to myself, I kind of said where his body tone was, his head was high in the air, and his eyes were startled, and his nervous system was shut down, and I could not hear any digestion, and I watched his breathing, and it was intense and rapid.
00:09:08.800 --> 00:09:16.399
And I just took those in without judgment and awareness and just meditated in the stall with him.
00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:22.080
And pretty soon he went into a absolute deep trance.
00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:36.800
He stayed on his feet, but his head came down, and his lip hung down, and some jewels started coming out of his mouth, and he just absolutely went into this such a deep trance.
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:46.720
My husband was filming the session, and the woman that owned him, I said, We're gonna scare this horse when we try to bring him back because he's so far from us.
00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:49.840
But I think he went into shutdown.
00:09:49.920 --> 00:09:58.400
So when an animal goes into shutdown, say it was a gazelle on a plane and a cheetah landed on it and it went into shutdown.
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:05.200
Well, it's gonna come out of shutdown if it gets a chance to escape in the same way that it went out.
00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:14.000
This animal's body was not flaccid, it wasn't like he had fainted, it was much more full of energy, but in a deep trance.
00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:17.920
So I was afraid of waking him up because we might really panic him.
00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:26.160
And so I said, Could you please walk out and start making noise way outside of the stall, then come back?
00:10:26.800 --> 00:10:35.440
So they just quietly entered and came back, and that was the first day, and the woman was amazed that, like I said, this is a healing trance, it's very good for him.
00:10:35.520 --> 00:10:44.000
You could see his muscles twitching, and if you know anything about somatic work, it's a release of old trauma, so there's stuff starting to process.
00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:50.000
The next time I went to work with him, he was a lot better than that, a lot more expressive.
00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:53.040
But I got the idea that he didn't get any sleep at all.
00:10:53.280 --> 00:10:54.560
And he was hyper-vigilant.
00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:58.000
And I said to his owner, have you ever seen this horse lay down?
00:10:58.160 --> 00:11:00.160
And she said, No, I have not.
00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:03.840
And so I started to work with him in the aisle.
00:11:04.160 --> 00:11:13.120
And as he got sleepy and relaxed and realized I was paying attention to him, he started to keep putting his head into this other stall.
00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:17.280
And there was no animal in there, and there's two stalls side by side and one stall alone.
00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:20.720
And the two horses that had lived there before lived side by side.
00:11:21.040 --> 00:11:25.840
And I realized he was asking, could he be in that stall?
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:30.879
And I said to the owner, I said, Could you maybe think of switching this horse to this stall?
00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:39.040
Maybe it would help him get some rest and to sleep because he'd be beside the alpha horse, and the other stall was all alone by itself.
00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:41.520
And she said, Well, I could easily do that.
00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:51.840
And the minute that I had pointed to the stall, the horse gave maybe 30 releases at once in a row, just yawning, yawning right in our face, a whole open mouth.
00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:53.759
Yes, that was it, thank you.
00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:55.200
Put him in the stall.
00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:58.960
She called me excited, woke up with shavings all over his tail.
00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:00.879
She could tell he'd lied down.
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:04.480
He started to eat, his poop got solid again.
00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:06.560
I mean, all these things go together.
00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:19.600
I had another horse that, you know, I asked it what was wrong after it was relaxed like that, and it went over and sat on the wall because its whole back end is like I can't relax because my back is led love to, is like an old person.
00:12:19.680 --> 00:12:21.440
And as soon as it's like, get a vet.
00:12:21.520 --> 00:12:22.960
I think there's something wrong with the back end.
00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:28.320
Had another horse turned its head absolutely sideways, it had an embedded cheek tooth.
00:12:28.560 --> 00:12:29.520
But it's amazing.
00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:43.440
As soon as they realize that you're there to help and that your eye is on them and that you're seeing what they're showing you, and your mind is open to judgment, they will let you know more or less what they need.
00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:46.800
And it's just such fulfilling work.
00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:54.960
Sometimes it could be I had an FEI dressage rider whose horse couldn't get a movement on one side.
00:12:55.120 --> 00:13:03.200
And I asked her as I was working, I said, Do you ever have a doubt when you're going into the moment of this exercise?
00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:08.720
And because sometimes doubt and horses feel your doubt, and she's like, Yes.
00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:12.720
And the horse was like, Thank God this has been brought up.
00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:16.480
And it just went into these yawns and it started rolling in its stall.
00:13:16.640 --> 00:13:23.120
At first, you wonder if you believe this stuff, but when you see it over and over again, you don't even question it anymore.
00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:24.879
But we can all do it.
00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:33.360
It's a choice of the state of awareness and where you decide to put your attention that will make all the difference.
00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:40.640
That story is like, oh, it's like a warm blanket, you know, just hearing it and hearing him remarkable.
00:13:40.800 --> 00:13:42.080
Well, it makes me love doing the work.
00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:48.879
Like you can't uh you can't get enough of it because it's so helpful to so many creatures.
00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:50.720
Um being heard.
00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:51.120
Yeah.
00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:52.560
Yeah, I love it.
00:13:52.800 --> 00:13:56.640
I think I've had an interesting paradox in my space this week.
00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:58.800
So I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it.
00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:03.280
Yesterday I interviewed Janet Jones, who wrote Horsebrain, Human Brain.
00:14:03.520 --> 00:14:11.440
And so really going into the science and what is actually happening, and then also looking at the side of okay, what are we applying?
00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:14.560
Are we anthropomorphizing or what is actually happening?
00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:24.000
And before we started recording, you mentioned I was talking about the spiritual horse seeker summit, which we just ran, but spirituality and science, they don't always get along.
00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:28.879
And they can have, in fact, they can really not get along too.
00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:29.840
That's right.
00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:30.879
That's right.
00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:35.600
My feeling, and I was talking to my friend about this, is I love both.
00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:38.240
I love seeing one reflect the other.
00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:45.360
And I heard you saying this before we started recording, but there are a lot of paradoxes, yeah, and especially in the horse space.
00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:52.960
And I would love to hear your thoughts about that from your perspective, because you're clearly very well versed in both.
00:14:53.280 --> 00:14:59.200
Oh, well, I'm not the expert in this, but I am so excited by it and think about it a lot.
00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:01.600
And there's so many examples of this.
00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:18.080
As I was saying to you off-air, is that to me it almost feels instead of science and spirituality being opponents, I'm starting to feel on the far end, something really exciting is happening.
00:15:18.160 --> 00:15:20.160
And I think it also takes the open mind.
00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:25.040
There's scientists that don't have open mind that insist on things that I think hold us back.
00:15:25.280 --> 00:15:55.600
But one of my favorite things, because I've been trying to get people to see, I think it's been my mission in life, I think I was born as a child to do this, is to help others understand how each animal is a true individual, just as each person is, and has a life's purpose and desires and a will, and are way more sophisticated and have deeper stories to their lives than we think.
00:15:55.759 --> 00:16:02.800
I went through college constantly being told I was anthropomorphizing, so I did get that on my papers.
00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:04.320
I did become a scientist.
00:16:04.400 --> 00:16:11.280
I work for a conservation research organization researching wildlife, so I've written scientific papers.
00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:31.200
I know how they have to be written, but I also have had my mind opened up and seen things that science had not found yet through growing up on a horse farm and with dogs and animals around me all my life, and knowing when that's where you spend all your time and where all your concentration is.
00:16:31.280 --> 00:16:34.640
And I'm 60 years old now, so I say it counts for something.
00:16:34.800 --> 00:16:39.920
You know, that is experience, and experiences deep too.
00:16:40.160 --> 00:17:04.240
And so I have seen and I know now, and science will get there, and it is, but what's so exciting is I can take my mind and through a little dance between being present and being attuned to the horse, I can have a horse relax and lie down and go to sleep.
00:17:04.319 --> 00:17:08.480
And I can do it, I do it to the rescue horses, and other people have seen me do it.
00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:09.759
I have it on film.
00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:32.559
But once you know that something in your mind can affect another creature to the point where it can't be my goal, because anytime something becomes your goal or you're after it, or you need to prove it, you go into your left brain and you're not in your right brain anymore, and your right brain is the wide receiver, and this is becoming part of science too.
00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:37.119
It used to be that was not really taken seriously now, but it is now.
00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:44.559
Ian McGilchrist has written tremendous books on it, but the brain hemispheres look at problems totally differently.
00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:59.120
And in our today's world, we're all getting two left hemisphere in the sense that that side of your brain was the tool-using side, and the fact that you're always on a smartphone already has you right in this space.
00:17:59.360 --> 00:18:09.279
There's a real agenda-driven side of your brain in use in answering questions using tools, solving problems, using language, mathematics.
00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:16.559
That's all left brain, but the right brain is doing a different job.
00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:19.039
So that's related, which seems weird.
00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:23.360
It's related to the sympathetic side of the nervous system, which is your fight-flight.
00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:40.480
But the reason it is because a prey animal, a horse, or anything else, they have to have a broad receiver, they have to have a big knowledge, a very careful knowledge that is immediate coming into them, right?
00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:44.400
And so that's our unfiltered brain.
00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:47.680
And I don't know if you've heard of the work of Alan Shore.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:51.039
He's a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist, I think.
00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:55.440
And he's the one that's talking about right brain to right brain therapy.
00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:18.160
And so, in that, for people with PTSD or attachment theory with babies, what you're doing there is the therapist not only is listening to the words of their client, so they're not only trying to help their client, the client is telling a story about himself, but the client's brain has also decided what kinds of things to suppress, right?
00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:24.000
Because you have a decision, I am going to grow out of the ashes and this is gonna be me.
00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:29.120
And so a lot of our trauma we leave behind, but it isn't still in our somatic nervous system, right?
00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:31.759
It's in our bodies, it's there.
00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:39.759
So what he realized is that we needed to talk to people on an underlying level, too.
00:19:39.840 --> 00:19:45.920
So when a therapist sits down, they're also watching the same things, believe it or not, that I'm watching in a horse.
00:19:46.080 --> 00:19:48.160
Where in the nervous system is this person?
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:59.360
They're not saying I doubt it to what they're listening to in language, but they're noting the underlying distress, they're noting the level of tension, they're noting the lack of eye contact.
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:04.640
And these are not judgments, but when they take them in, I think it's fascinating.
00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:14.559
They've proved it's not just mirror neurons, which fire when we have empathy, but they're finding we have a whole bunch of neurons that are firing to synchronize us and match us.
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:27.120
All social mammals will, and probably other things too, I don't know, but we'll synchronize when we spend time together because we start to become very aware of the things.
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:39.120
I might be very aware of your expression and how you're feeling about our conversation and those moments when you see somebody light up and you're responding on some different level and understanding that underlying information.
00:20:39.360 --> 00:20:55.759
So at the same time, what I think happens when I work with a horse, that's like saying, when I'm naming these things without judgment and just rolling my eyes across them, it's almost like I'm saying, I see you, and they read that off the signature match of my nervous system with their nervous system.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:04.880
So it's almost like if a horse is really nervous, I'm never saying, calm down right away.
00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:06.720
I'm not saying that to them.
00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:10.400
I'm watching, and I'm saying, I see tension in the neck.
00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:15.680
And the funny thing that I've realized is people have taken pictures of me working with a horse.
00:21:15.840 --> 00:21:18.400
I'll be matching it in the sympathetic part of its nervous system.
00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:21.279
You'll see me with this tension looking with the horse.
00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:24.160
I'm not trying to look like that horse.
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:28.480
I'm not trying to do a mirror matching little exercise.
00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:34.240
I'm just reading them, but my body's firing from the inside and doing a very similar thing.
00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:36.400
But that's giving that horse a sense.
00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:43.759
Like if we were two horses and we're on the plane and we're eating together, we're turning tail to tail, and you see something over there and your head shoots up.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:47.600
I fill with the same tension you did, and I'm waiting for your next movement.
00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:53.840
And if I have that same level of sympathetic tone, when you say, run, I'm ready to run with you, right?
00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:56.720
So I'm ready to go, and I don't have to translate anything.
00:21:56.799 --> 00:22:04.160
But if you also said, Ah, it was the wind, I can go right, we can both deregulate, go right back to grazing.
00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:06.319
We're all now relaxed again.
00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:14.319
So that variability is very important, but that reading underlaying what we might think of as that left brain taking in.
00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:24.960
So now going back to what we were talking about, science mostly wants to categorize, use things as very left brain most of the time.
00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:34.799
And the right brain is very intuitive and not quite sure how it has all its information and perceptive and very important.
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:42.319
The two brains functioning together is your absolute best set, but that's a very interesting way that they would do.
00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:50.720
It would be led by a right brain getting a feeling, pausing, taking the time in the background, the left brain being ready to.
00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:54.319
produce the story or pass on the information.
00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:57.200
But right now we stay two over here.
00:22:57.360 --> 00:23:08.000
And the interesting thing in a lot of the scientific studies that are going on right now in what we'll call the woo-woo edge, the far out edge, are interesting.
00:23:08.160 --> 00:23:11.200
Have you heard of Veda Austin, the water woman?
00:23:11.360 --> 00:23:12.400
Oh my God.
00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:20.400
She's a woman that freezes water and it catches an image and when it freezes, she'll freeze it.
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:21.759
You have to see her book one day.
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:24.080
And yeah, I think I've seen this.
00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:25.600
Wow.
00:23:25.840 --> 00:23:30.559
But she's also an incredibly well studied scientific person.
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:40.480
And what is fantastic is she'll try to set up these studies in the Petri dishes and try to see why she's getting the results she does.
00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:49.840
But any time that she wants to prove to somebody that this is going to work or something, the water won't cooperate.
00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:50.400
Yeah.
00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:58.080
And then all these things like those I was just hearing somebody on a podcast about those random number generators and intuition.
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:07.519
So when they try to set up those things, those will go great and a random number generator is a closed thing you can't interfere with.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:13.600
But if a doubter is there when the random number generator is there, the experiments don't work.
00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:21.200
So there is some sort of block and I don't know that it's been figured out what it is yet.
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:34.960
But what I love is where we are that there's still wonder that there's enough proof that makes us know that we're trying to figure things out I love both of them.
00:24:35.279 --> 00:24:57.200
I have a way more open mind than I used to I came out of science and then when I saw coming out of my brain a horse skid to a fence and lie down in front of me I'm like okay now I have to know why this happens and I have read far and wide and connected all my own dots and am fascinated by it and still have an incredibly open mind.
00:24:57.360 --> 00:25:13.360
Every day I have more questions than answers even though I'm also gathering answers as fast as I can that just opens up more questions which I love which is also the journey we're on we never get to the destination and that's the whole point of it.
00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:31.680
We work totally you're making me think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs which I'm sure you're familiar with and I actually just wrote a chapter about this for a book which is coming out end of June called Wings of Purpose but I wrote about the sixth level which I'm not sure you've heard about I have not heard about it.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:26:04.880
But it came later in his life where he realized most of us think that fifth level which is self-actualization purpose right actually the sixth level is what he calls awe or transcendence or wonder like beyond these things they could even explain and the moment I heard that I was actually in a transcendental meditation meeting in this guy I was like there it is and that it's because we can get so focused on all these little pieces and miss.
00:26:05.519 --> 00:26:10.960
Yes and that's what I'd want to bring back to everybody is to have a sense of wonder.
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:25.840
And I still get that and I love it and I think people need to I would say throw their cell phone out but you can't none of us can but you need to get away from it.
00:26:25.920 --> 00:27:25.380
Seriously you need to have experience you need to sit and perceive and take in on that right brain that wide receiver of not knowing what's going to happen just feeling wind smelling air using your senses we're really narrowing the senses we use.
00:27:25.460 --> 00:27:27.620
We barely use our noses anymore.
00:27:27.779 --> 00:28:05.300
Yeah we don't make eye contact we don't do this what I was talking about is really taking in right brain to right brain and really seeing the being I think that's probably the most important thing there is is see the being in all of us in ourselves don't have it be this flat surface image of you should really how recently did you feel what your body feels like know where your knees are I mean we've forgotten any of that we're up in our head and in our phone and we need to get ourselves back.
00:28:05.460 --> 00:28:10.660
We're turning into zombies and ghosts that's my wish for people even if it's 15 minutes.
00:28:11.060 --> 00:28:38.019
Yesterday I lost my phone Julia I lost my phone later discovered my children have taken it hidden it anyhow regardless I had no phone all day and I had people showing up at my house and I had to coordinate to make sure children are getting picked up by a babysitter and I recognized how incredibly dependent just checking in you know to do directions have you found the way I'm on my way I'll be five minutes late.
00:28:38.500 --> 00:28:45.539
And to have no phone and just do it on email and then I went to this networking event last night same thing.
00:28:45.779 --> 00:28:52.019
Normally we would exchange contact info but to not have it and just be fully present.
00:28:52.259 --> 00:28:56.660
And it was funny too because I realized I don't even have business cards anymore.
00:28:56.900 --> 00:29:08.980
And I recognized two things while you were talking one I don't know if you're familiar with Jill Bolte Taylor who wrote the stroke of insight right so that's a lot with the brain hemisphere.
00:29:09.300 --> 00:29:21.940
Exactly so she came and spoke at Center for the Arts in Jackson Hallyom almost 20 years ago she was actually my inspiration for saying I one day want to do a TEDx talk that helps people that much.
00:29:22.259 --> 00:29:26.019
And so my TEDx talk just came out it's called how horses promote connection.
00:29:26.100 --> 00:29:38.740
I don't know if you thought and as I was preparing for it you just really clarified something for me that it was so demanding to be in the left side of the brain which isn't where the magic happens for me.
00:29:38.980 --> 00:30:00.900
And it can't even McGilchrist will tell you that it can't but it serves a very important purpose but it's just gotten too much use recently and the other side of us is atrophying and that's unfortunately where empathy is and deep consideration and I really don't feel we'd be where we were in the country if we were more balanced in our brains.
00:30:01.140 --> 00:30:11.380
Meditation is so good for you because it does start to balance those hemispheres again anything where you're back in body out in nature so important.
00:30:11.860 --> 00:30:51.060
So totally important I mean you're preaching to the choir if you could just cast it for us because luckily we're at a time where there is a lot of awareness about this you know I mean I think it's something 15 or 20 minutes on a screen like we're on hijacks the nervous system right definitely if we know that like between calls I try to always go outside get a little air check on the horses say hi yeah birds and the bees all the things and then return to be able to be present but what's your vision if you could have that two percent trajectory change in where you feel things are going what you want to see happen in the future.
00:30:51.300 --> 00:31:27.300
Ah wow I think we're in a really tough spot I believe that we have become addicted to cell phones and I don't think that was our fault but we're in a place where we need to wake up and the the problem is that we can't one because we become so reliable and two because the very use of the cell phones changes your brain and so spending that time off of them is so much bigger than you think it is.
00:31:27.539 --> 00:32:14.900
And you would feel a lot of that depression and there's something you sense that feels wrong that you feel derailed you feel off track a little bit because the human body was meant to touch the earth with your feet and to use your senses and they're really rapidly going away and anybody that has a child please limit the use of their phones and get them outside feeling the air and touching the earth and running and using their bodies this is so important and it's important in a bigger way than we think it is it's more than our health it's everything.
00:32:15.060 --> 00:32:17.940
We don't want to be alienated from earth.
00:32:18.180 --> 00:32:28.100
Yeah and we're moving towards rapidly and we're being swept along and it's not all of our doing with the AI which is changing every single day.
00:32:28.340 --> 00:32:48.900
And sure it's useful but I feel so lucky because one I live out in the middle of the country with a dark night sky heat with wood people make fun of me because they call my cell phone my landline because I leave it in the house I understand people have very busy jobs.
00:32:49.060 --> 00:32:57.300
I work with horses I'm lucky I'm outside I can forget my phone I'll have the old archaic calendar planner schedule.
00:32:57.539 --> 00:33:14.180
Even me I sense a difference but what I see in my clients is they think they're paying attention and they want to more than anything and they love their horses dearly and they're interested in the work but their level of being able to stay with simple attention is shot.
00:33:14.340 --> 00:33:46.980
It's really it's scary to me to see but I think if everybody could try to take a one day of their holiday and make it an offline day and feel uh meditation I've had two clients that I started to work with taught them how to get present had them listen to Sulu Tones have you ever heard of those these beautiful so modulating by and I had them listening to that and two of them said they did not realize what they were missing and what had happened to them.
00:33:47.140 --> 00:33:51.700
They were old enough that they recognized the feeling of what it was before that.
00:33:52.019 --> 00:33:54.420
And both of them quit corporate jobs.
00:34:42.300 --> 00:35:05.419
The people whose horses I was working with and they told me they quit because of me and I'm like oh but that was a good idea you know but on the other hand seriously sometimes we don't even know how much level of stress is on us that we could let go of even right yeah or reconnect with I know there's something it feels like I need but I'm not sure what it is.
00:35:05.579 --> 00:35:05.819
Yeah.
00:35:05.980 --> 00:35:08.139
And sometimes it's just reconnecting.
00:35:08.460 --> 00:35:09.019
Amen.
00:35:09.179 --> 00:35:43.179
I feel like as we're wrapping up here something we haven't touched on which is really important and again I'm very well versed in somatic healing and trauma and all these things but I want to make sure that our audience hears it from you because there's a lot happening in the space right now around trauma work not only in horses and their trauma and humans and their trauma but there's a lot of interesting science around trauma being passed down through the DNA which I've been quite curious about like one of my horses is a recovering racehorse, right?
00:35:43.499 --> 00:35:45.419
And that's basically like PTSD.
00:35:45.659 --> 00:36:04.459
And I'm sure you've seen the video of the bells going off right it's like and so I'm like curious your magic that you want to share with our audience specifically around the somatic healing available and what you're seeing in the trauma space like your personal genius around it.
00:36:05.099 --> 00:36:28.859
Okay so I will talk from a horse point of view but I mean it relates to people too one with horses I do believe that you're correct and I have written articles on this I would say that most horses have been traumatized in their life or domestic horses because movement is incredibly important to horses when they're fearful they want to run.
00:36:29.099 --> 00:36:30.779
When they can't run they fight.
00:36:30.939 --> 00:36:58.379
When they can't fight or run they freeze right so what we do by the way that we used to and some of us are getting better about it but we all came from a horse world that was you know I'm among them but we have horses on ropes right and we hold them still and we get a saddle on them that's traumatic to them and the more that they can't move the more that is actually causing PTSD where you can't get out of what's happening to you.
00:36:58.619 --> 00:37:08.859
All that trauma is put onto you you can't move through it it gets caught in the body and it gets stuck there in horses that is unprocessed trauma.
00:37:09.179 --> 00:37:14.699
I got into this horse because I have a traumatized baby that was rescued by the state of Georgia.
00:37:14.779 --> 00:37:19.739
He's not a baby anymore but he was rescued by the state of Georgia he was in a horrible situation.
00:37:19.899 --> 00:38:08.219
There were starving horses in the pasture with him horses with broken legs just an absolute mess they had to go in and clean up 82 horses and 100 head of cattle that were just in a horrible situation and this guy was taken out as a little baby the rescue thought they were helping him they did the quick 180 days to training so here's an individual that's you know was in taken away from his mom young in a pasture with four stallions hanging out with a little group of individuals he was one and a half years old close to starved and they start putting tack on him and tying him up and spraying him off and all these people think they're being kind which they are because it's better than where he was from and they have to find him a home and rescues are busy but he wasn't prepared for that he didn't have the mental tools for it.
00:38:08.459 --> 00:39:02.939
And so he learned to freeze and would immediately turn off his nervous system and his eyes would check out and he'd be standing there absolutely full of tension he'd be putting his tack on and my husband and I both raised with horses been in the horse business our entire lives he was a steeplechase jockey I've worked at the track I've worked with polo ponies racehorses hunter jumpers polo hunters and anyway very gentle just trail riders now and long distance riders especially my husband but anyway we would try to gentle saddle this horse same checkout every time get on him he'd try to be good and then about the third thing that would happen to him on a ride some branch would finally hit him he'd come completely unglued and it would be like a rodeo I mean it would literally be like somebody losing their PTSD trauma and and too dangerous just absolutely too dangerous.
00:39:03.099 --> 00:39:17.579
So I decided turning out I'm gonna restart the whole thing I noticed that he kept just turning off like that right so I started to recognize this and I didn't know all the stuff I know now.
00:39:17.819 --> 00:39:30.539
And I saw that freeze that you see on a bunny when it decided not to run and then your dog is coming by and he's so close and you just see and I recognized that look and I was like that's extreme fear.
00:39:30.699 --> 00:39:32.139
That's a freeze mode.
00:39:32.219 --> 00:39:33.499
So I did figure that out.
00:39:33.659 --> 00:39:43.579
So I started looking at PTSD trauma in humans because this was quite a while back and I didn't know that there was other people doing a similar thing at the time.
00:39:44.219 --> 00:39:59.739
And so I read Von der Klock's book and all the ones on the body keeps the score and all of those I figured out and I learned about volyvagel theory and I started to realize what it was going to take to heal this horse is to do it from his will.
00:39:59.819 --> 00:40:12.619
So I completely moved where my saddling area was and I took it with the saddle up to his pasture and trained him from just never used any tie up device at all not even a halter.
00:40:12.779 --> 00:40:31.659
I would point out at the group and I'd get them to start to follow me out of the herd I'd ask if I could put the saddle pad on when he'd let me I'd give him a treat but if I'd had enough motivation with a scratch I would have done it but this was farther than that because I usually don't like to use treats because I don't like to raise the excitement threshold.
00:40:31.739 --> 00:40:36.619
I don't really want to change them I want them to really be in a connection with me.
00:40:36.859 --> 00:40:53.099
So I would do each stage of this but he would come looking for me and I would hold his bridle out and he'll slide his head into it and I can put all of the tack and tack that horse up a scared horse a horse that was absolutely frightened of it just loose.
00:40:53.739 --> 00:41:14.059
But the thing is that you have to go slow enough you work from will you let those re-myelinations occur but you can't get rid of them unless you go slow enough because what was happening tied in the same spot was we'd hit a point where that switch was almost like it been broken and it will throw immediately.
00:41:14.219 --> 00:41:34.219
It will throw in an association and as soon as that switch throws there's no learning so he can't make a new memory so I can set that on his back as gentle and gentle over and over again for five years and nothing would have changed because the brain can't remyelinate when the stress is that high.
00:41:34.379 --> 00:41:40.139
And the stress gets that high because the nervous system shoots up because it was relying on old information.
00:41:40.219 --> 00:41:47.259
So you have to get the threshold low enough so the information will be new and perceived.
00:41:47.579 --> 00:42:34.699
Yeah and able to be received that's right in the human world it's the same thing and I would say those therapists that are using that right brain to write brain communication those are the ones to go for they're also listening to your story but in that they're going to be seeing the being they're going to be responding on a somatic level with you and they're going to be able to heal the body because your left brain and you may think your story is one thing because you've chosen to forget leave parts behind that are your trauma but you can't get rid of that trauma unless it can get out of you so on that intuitive side if you can heal through the somatic side then you can bring that stuff up and get rid of it.
00:42:35.179 --> 00:42:42.299
So good and thank you for the work you're doing on behalf of humans and horses it's remarkable.
00:42:42.459 --> 00:42:55.739
Okay I know our audience is going to want to find you we'll put all these links in the show notes but what are your favorite social media handles if you have them and websites and all the things as you can probably guess because of what I am I'm not much of a social media person.
00:42:56.059 --> 00:43:02.539
I do have Facebook page it's Julia Carpenter and I'm sitting on a horse so that's me because that's a pretty common name.
00:43:02.779 --> 00:44:53.499
And then the two sites I'd rather have you go to and there's tremendous amount of good writing on the blog at twistepway.com some of those stories I told you other stuff is on there and then the other site is consideringanimals.com love it and remind me is it the number two two step way no it's written out two step way yep all together twostepway.com I love it all right we will put that in the show notes thank you so much you so much that's wonderful for your work it's incredible and you guys share this with a friend because more people need to hear this incredible wisdom and actually that's gonna be my final question because this one came through everybody talks about the heart horse right yeah heart horse here watch my zoom is gonna do this a little bit Julia okay here comes the heart horse it was like the big thing yeah but as you were talking I was thinking about the wise horse or there are so many teachers that we've all had if we've worked with horses for a long time and some of them have come from that experience that wisdom that teacher that taught you you know the mirroring and different things where you realized you didn't even realize you know like the teacher appears when the student is ready you suddenly realize oh I'm being taught who's your wife's horse so his name is Magneto he's a bae you'll find him on my twostepway.com page but listen this is a really interesting thing because I bought Magneto to go long riding with my husband and I was looking for a pack horse to take along and he was not a it was sort of an interesting choice but it was before COVID and it was really not a good buying time for horses and we found him and he was the one that ended up being all shut down and traumatized like that.
00:44:53.979 --> 00:45:30.779
I did not end up taking him long riding but what I realized is that he came into my life for a more serious purpose and he actually put me back on the track I'd been on as a little child and took me back into my real purpose in life and is still in up there with me teaching me all the time and I know that where he is in his own journey is to teach me in mine.
00:45:31.259 --> 00:46:00.379
So there's no right place for Magneto to be in his healing or no place that he needs to have gotten to because everything is a lesson and if we could all look at our horses that way and see that anytime you think you have a problem with your horse that it's actually an opportunity and a huge one and is usually the thing you need to work on more than anything else because they mirror something that we need help with.
00:46:01.019 --> 00:46:01.659
So good.
00:46:01.819 --> 00:46:13.499
Oh my gosh okay mic dropped right there all right guys we're gonna close with that please share it with a friend and we're gonna go find Magneto and hold him in our hearts forever.
00:46:13.819 --> 00:46:14.299
Thank you so much.
00:46:16.059 --> 00:46:20.219
All right till we meet again thank you so much Julia for your work and everything you're doing.
00:46:20.379 --> 00:46:21.019
Keep going.
00:46:21.259 --> 00:46:22.699
All right you too thank you
