Being in Right Relationship

Being in Right Relation explores our connection to animals, plants, the Earth, and each other.  I speak about increasing intuition, tapping into the source of our planet and how to make a real apology.

Transcript

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This is the Horse Human Connection. A captivating podcast where we extend into the world of equine assisted learning. Horse Training. and gentleness in working with these magnificent creatures. Captivating stories from the leading professionals and ordinary people alike unravel novel ideas in being with horses. The horse human connection is an idea, a place, and a voice. The idea is to support the quiet revolution and recognize the intelligence and true nature of the horse. The place is a destination farm near the Umpqua Forest and River that slows down visitors and patrons enough to experience the shift. The Voice is this podcast. Welcome to today's episode. Hi, this is, is she able with the horse human connection matrix? My last podcast, didn't have a lot to do with horses. And this one may not either. I haven't done a podcast in a while. As some of you may have noticed. There are a couple of different reasons for that. It's been a super busy summer. And back in the spring, I had reached out to about six different people thinking that I might schedule interviews. And. Even after getting back to some of them, it just seems like everybody's had a really busy summer and it's just not been a high priority. I have never asked for donations or. I even thought about charging. I definitely would never want to commercialize. I hate commercials so much myself. I just don't think I could take part in that. But I'm contemplating. Setting up so that people could donate if they appreciate the podcast. It is interesting that even though I haven't released a new podcast in, I think four or five months, The numbers keep going up. Not, not significantly, not in the thousands, but enough to keep me hopeful enough to keep me talking. Oh, somebody is listening out there and I appreciate that. And I appreciate people telling other people about my podcast. I, I do this because I think I have something worthwhile to say, Because I hope people can learn something from listening. There's a couple of different things I want to talk about today. And while it's not about horses directly. And more and more of my podcasts may not be about horses directly. It is about right relationship. When I went to Ecuador the city and came back. I started to be in right relationship with the horses. But what I've noticed is that being around the horses. Means being heart-centered being in right relationship. And other animals too. And then there's a much, much more complicated thing about being in right relationship with people. And as a mildly autistic person, this has alluded me for many, many, many years, and I wanted to speak to this and I wanted to speak to right relationship with the earth. And how some things are congruent and how they're not. My mother. Was in 12 step programs. She seemed to think she was an alcoholic, although I never saw her drunk. The extent of her drinking was too. Go up to her room to sit in her easy chair, to pour a glass of rose a. And to write sad poetry. And the reason I mentioning all this is because. I grew up with the concept that people. When they realized they were wrong. Art to admit it. And try to make amends. And apologize and apologizing and making amends are not always the same thing. So I grew up with this concept and my father. Although they were divorced and he probably never went to a 12 step meeting in his life. Well, so subscribed to this idea. The idea of apologizing. When you've hurt someone or done something wrong. Is a way to acknowledge and show empathy. And I guess I've become a little particular about apologies because sometimes people make a general apology. Because I think it's the thing to do, but it doesn't seem sincere. To me. Right. Apology. Includes exactly what they've done and exactly how you felt and shows empathy for the pain that they caused you. Or inconvenience or whatever it was that you experienced that they're apologizing for. Mans are different than an apology in a way that it's moving forward. So that the behavior. May not be stopped right away, but at least there's a realization of it. And. Way to either make up for it, to get a redo. Or. Create a situation. Where there's learning and growth. Like I myself have been in a position where I found myself apologizing for the same thing repeatedly. And that's, that's the apology that needs an immense. It needed me. To do something differently. So that I wouldn't have to keep apologizing because after a while people are going to be like, could you just change the behavior instead of apologize all the time. Like, they're just not getting it. Oh, I worked with a young woman for a while with horses and. I was going to have her put some training on one of my horses, who she had a good relationship with. But there were a lot of things that she didn't understand about, about training horses. And this was at a time where I was still finding my way between. The dominance, the benevolent leadership and the co-creation. And so being on the fence with all these things, it was difficult to make a decision, but two older. Horse trainers, more experienced horse trainers. Had. Advised me not to have this young woman. Put the 30 days on the horse and there were some good reasons why they saw that. And so I ended up pulling it back away from her. And it destroyed the relationship. A couple of years later, I, with a different horse. Asked her to come and do some very specific things with the horse that I knew she could do. In a sense, hoping that she would realize I did trust her in some ways. And it was my way of making amends to. To write the pain that I had caused her. And, and I did apologize, but this is an example. I'm mentioning all this because it is an example of. How I want to be in right relationship, how I want to be able to move forward and grow as a person and change behaviors that hurt people. And gosh, it'd be nice if. Other people do the same. It. It makes a difference. It makes a big difference. It's been my experience though throughout my life that a lot of people don't do that. Don't believe that. And it's extremely difficult for them to apologize. And this has been. Entirely baffling to me for decades until I finally got to a point of acceptance where. I realized people could be sorry. And not apologize. And it's hard to talk about that concept without talking about the concept of forgiveness. Talking about forgiveness is. You know, can you forgive someone if they don't apologize? Can you forgive them all on your own? Is it, is it a. A bilateral thing or can it be a unilateral thing and clearly can be both. I am. I'm struggling with one such thing. Now there's a. There's a person from my past. Who. Didn't said some things many, many years ago. That affected me so deeply and so profoundly that I'm still trying to recover from them. And this person, although we've tried to talk about it several times has listened and been validating and maybe even slightly empathetic, but never taken responsibility and apologized for. This thing that they did that really traumatized me, really sent me over the edge. Sent me so far over the edge. I've read about in books as there's this black abyss, this. This deep dark hole. That's. So black and so deep that it could swallow you whole and. If you do come out. You come out a changed person. And that's, that's where it sent me. And. Being in right relationship with myself. I am needing to find a way. To forgive this person without them taking responsibility, without them agreeing with me that what they did was. Was really horrible. And it's ironic that I'm talking about this in terms of 12 steps, because. It was kind of inside of a 12 step thing. I got blamed. For someone else's drinking, which is never anybody's responsibility or fault. But the person doing it. Anyway, being in right relationship with the horses have taught me. What the land has taught me. So in one of my episodes with Jenny Patel, Thompson, She begins to talk about the cockleburs the Not yellow dock, not curly dock. Oh, it's escaping me the other. The other doc that has a Burdoch the Burdoch numbers. Covering her horses. And she goes on to talk about how the land. I was compacted and devoid of minerals and how the Burdoch has a very deep taproot that can actually bring the minerals back to the surface and aerate the land and how her land was covered with these. So we all that have horses struggle with invasive species and pastures being taken over by. Different nasties from time to time. And what to do about that. I am contemplating spraying my pasture. I don't want to spray my pasture, but I have the most obnoxious. Tarweed that has taken over and it's chest high and I'm not short. I'm five, seven and a half ish. And it's everywhere. And there's no grass and the courses are covered with it. And I'm just not sure what to do. So do I let it take over and just watch and see what happens? And it came about, it took over because I went out there and mucked around. I got on my tractor and I love my tractor. And tore up the ground thinking I was gonna like The soil to favor the grass, not the buttercup and the knapweed that were a problem. And what did I do? But I spread tarweed everywhere. So now, do I sit back and watch and see what nature has in store? Why it's there? Is there a reason to be in right relationship? Or do I go to the two, four D and cross my fingers that I'm not contaminating everything. I don't want to use chemicals. But I also want my horses to have grass. And I also don't want my horses to have. You know, toxic weeds. There's so many weeds that are, if the horses eat them, they could die. And that's worse than the chemicals. So it's, it's a quandary for sure. I've had vetch on the edges. Of my driveway spreading into the edges of my pasture. And so I did spray some of that. I tried to weed it by hand the first two years and it just didn't do much good. So I sprayed a little bit last year. And I felt real conflicted about it. So, I don't know. Sometimes I wish this was a talk show and not just a podcast. Cause I would really like to hear. From other people on some of these topics, like the forgiveness thing and the chemical thing. But they're all related. They're related because I want to be in right relationship. During COVID I have a friend. And we started walking and you know, how everybody was keeping to just a few, a small circle of friends for their, for their community and for their social time without trying to infect everybody. So one of the things we did was we walked on this particular trail along the river. And to me as ourselves, we began to identify edible plants. And we would try to remember them. And come home and look them up. We didn't have reception. She had an app, so we would take pictures and then look them up later. And we would refer to our edible books when we got home. And it was so hard to remember. What the different things were like, I was shocked at how hard it was for me to remember. Because I generally have a pretty good catalog read memory for that. And it had been in my periphery for some years. So anyways, we did that for a couple of years, and then I moved to a different property further away. And once you start noticing edibles, you're going to notice them. You just, you can't turn it off. Right. So last spring. I had the idea that my food wasn't being very nutritious and I wanted to make some changes. So I began eating. Some of the superfoods that come out in the spring, the wild that is I started juicing some cleavers. I also found wild nettles. I had been looking for them for a long time and remembered a spot where they were. And I just craved them. Oh my gosh. I harvested some, I brought them home. I dried them. I made tea with them. And then I started cooking with them and made soup with them. I added them like you would oregano or basil to all kinds of dishes. And I just craved them. I couldn't get enough of these nettles. They are one of the most nutritious foods. And I remember a story about them. Sustaining people during world war II that had taken to hiding in the Hills and they are so high in protein and B vitamins more so than any other plant. That people were able to live off of nettles for weeks. Anyway, my body needed nettles. And eating the wild plants began to change my relationship with how I could remember them, how I would catalog, where they were. It put me in a different relationship with them. Which I found very, very interesting. And something shifted. I, I felt more energized and I've been depleted for a while. I've had a. I talk openly about it. I've had complex PTSD. I've had autistic burnout. I had a death in my family and. There are times when I just don't have much energy. And so these superfoods. We're really feeding me. So throughout the summer, I've noticed the more. And then I began to harvest herbs and save seeds. Between the springtime superfoods eating a lot of the weeds out of my garden, along with the plants that I grow. My intuition has increased. So when I went out to pick berries and I'm discovering things that in places that I walk regularly, that I never saw before I found black cap raspberries. There's a whole mountain of them and I have walked there, but I'd never saw them. Suddenly they're calling to me and I'm over and I'm picking them and I'm enjoying them and I'm saving their seeds. And next I learned about Sola berries, which some of my neighbors had talked about, but they're absolutely delicious. And. They are a super food. And then the Oregon grape along my driveway, that was so annoying and prickly. Oh, my gosh, they're my new favorite berries. They're too tart to eat alone. But when you put them in a syrup with the solo berries and with some elderberries and with some huckleberries, They are absolutely amazing. And. What I found is once I started eating them. I could find more berries, more easily. Now, I know that sounds a little, probably a little woo woo. To some of you, but again, I'm talking about. The connectivity. And it reminds me of when I first started with the horses. When I first started. Acknowledging that they had something to tell me. And listening. Rather than being in a position of dominance. There is a shift. A huge shift. And it's the same type of shift that I'm experienced eating. The wild DS. It puts me in a different relationship. It wakes at my intuition. The way, the horses and woken up my awareness. So the other day, I'm driving with a friend. On the logging roads here in Oregon. And she's complaining about her knee. Being quite painful. So I said, well, let me see if I can just pick out some things that would help your knee just to see how I do. And w w you know, we'll check it with technology. When we, when we get back into reception. So my, I fell upon a flower that I wasn't familiar with. And turns out it's called pearly everlasting. She was somewhat familiar with it. So we picked some pearly. And the next thing my eye fell on were some for cones. And there were trees. We're in. Replanted part of the forest that had maybe. 10 twelve-year-old trees. And some of the fur cons were golden. They were less ripe. And some of them were darker brown. And my, I fell to the golden ones. And so we, we gathered some of those. So we came home and we Googled to ensure enough, both pearly everlasting and the SAP. From the greener cones that the brown or cones wouldn't have had the, the same amount of SAP in them. We're two things that in a compress would really help the swelling and pain in her knee. How did I know that I had no idea? My theory is because I've been eating. The wild plants. My relationship changed. My intuition changed and I am a great one for trusting intuition. I love to teach people about their intuition. The next thing that happened is we were driving on a different day. And my first husband used to talk about huckleberries and that his mother taught him along the Sacramento river, how to pick huckleberries. He could never remember the name of them because they weren't any of the berries that we see in the store or that we normally eat. And suddenly I look at this plant. And we were driving in one of the burns here in Oregon, and it's a shock to be in the burn like the first few times it's just, oh my gosh, I just cried and cried and cried, but now I love it because there's so much new growth and there's so much change in the burns. When I say the burdens, I mean the forest where the fires ravaged through. So we're driving and I see this plant and I'm like, what is that? Like my curiosity against suddenly like ding, ding, ding, it just like registered. So we stopped and went over and looked and we had a, we had a minute of reception where we were sure enough. They were huckleberries. And huckleberries are absolutely delicious. Turns out. They have like a thousand times more antioxidants and blueberries and y'all know how good blueberries are supposed to be for you. So another super food. So now we're making elderberry syrup. Four. To strengthen our immune systems and as a preventative for coughs and colds and flu. I'm making. An elderberry syrup that also has pearly everlasting and Mullen. And yarrow in it. For coughs and for decongestant and a histamine and expectorant and antibacterial. And I'm hoping that this will be a much better winter as far as sickness goes. So I wanted to tell you this, but there's this woman called she of the woods and she has a website. And a Google, a Google channel. And we happened upon her looking up the pearly everlasting. And she said a really interesting thing to me and not to me, but on her, on her YouTube, she said, Oh, I see a lots of yarrow here. With the pearly everlasting and she was in an Alpine meadow. And she's like, that's a good indicator of. And I'm getting goosebumps as I say this. So I know it's absolutely true. This is a good indicator of. The flues and sicknesses that are going to go around this year. So just like the hunters know when they kill a deer that has extra layers of fat for their area, that it's going to be a cold winter. This woman knows. When she sees the relationship of. How many plants in a particular area that she knows. Okay. There's more yarrow than there is pearly, which means we're probably going to have a year where we need more. Antiviral antibacterial treatments. Again, this is all being in right relationship. This is all just like the horses. Slowing down and dropping into observation. There's so much. Information available to us. If we do this. Not just from our intuition, but from our mother, the earth as well. These are just some things that I wanted to share that all seem connected. And There's another piece about the people. So I was visiting with another woman that I don't know very well yet. And she was expressing that sometimes there's trouble for her being in social situations. And that she's uncomfortable. And I think how many people do I know that are like that? How many people do I not know that I can see that in. Like, I may miss a lot of social cues, but I seem to have more information about their emotional state than sometimes they do themselves, which. Makes things even more. Awkward sometimes. A lot of us suffer from social anxiety. And w we should look at the way our culture is arranged. But when this woman said this, I, I offered that. I had recently discovered that I'm on the autism spectrum. And she had a big smile and said, yes, me too. So that's part of it, right. That's part of feeling out of place. But what I want to do. And what other people are trying to do is to create. More heart-centered. Social interaction. That is so much more satisfying and transparent. And doesn't have all of the games and. Just strange social customs that we have of pretending and lying and. Putting on masks that we are someone else altogether or being so focused on. As Eckhart totally talks about like the strings of identity, like. Who my family is what my work is, where I went on vacation. What I drive, where I live, how many square feet is my house? Where did I buy my clothes? All of these things are things that identify us. But they have nothing to do with our essence. Nothing. And. To me. Being able to be in right relationship with people. Would mean that we drop those identity things and be able to connect from the heart, but it is so, so hard. With a lot of people. And yet. I think that's one of the lessons that the horses have. When I welcome people into. The world of the horse. And slow everything down. All those identity pieces need to drop away. And maybe they don't all drop away magically all at once, but little by little. We get to a different place. And by paying attention to our intuition. And walking in the forest. Especially off trail. As hunters and gatherers did. We released a particular brain protein. For our brain health for our nervous system health, that's not available elsewhere. These are the things I'm interested in. These are the things I'm interested in cultivating. Because I know my nervous system. Needs as much right. Relationship. As I can get. How. I appreciate you listening, share the podcast with someone. If you can. Contact me if you'd like to be a guest. I'm opening up my podcast to. Other things that are not necessarily related to horses. I appreciate you listening. Ah,