Amanda Held Author of "Healing in Harmony"

https://www.skool.com/equine-wisdom#:~:text=skool.com/equine%2Dwisdom

https://www.equinewisdominstitute.org/

I put the webpages first, because I know you'll want to visit them.

Amanda knows stuff! She's been through the things that make people strong and smart.  She survived, she gets it and now she is sharing the light and knoweldge in her new book and at SKOOL.

Amanda understands horses, listen please you dont want to miss this.

Transcript

0:01

Hi, this is Ishi Abel with the Horse Human Connection Matrix. Today I have with me Amanda Held, and she's the author of a book coming out very soon, healing in Harmony, which I think is gonna be a super important book for all horse owners and for this industry. I don't like calling it an industry for our passion in general. Welcome, Amanda. Thank you so much for having me, Ishi. Yeah, this is great. I've been wanting to have more conversations with you. So I know you a little bit from the six o'clock Pacific time morning meetings that you've been having. So why don't you tell me a little bit about about what you're doing, about how you started this morning, meeting, about why you're writing the book. Just tell me about you. Sure. So I'll keep it at the 5,000 foot level to save time, but in essence, I started out as a horse trainer. Back in 2003, I got into Mustangs and I at the time had learned natural horsemanship, which I thought was totally awesome because it wasn't the barbaric ways of treating horses. And so for about a decade, I used the natural horsemanship philosophies to rehabilitate last Chance forces. And through that experience, I. Ended up in the equine assisted healing space, so equine assisted psychotherapy and learning. And when I started to see the sentient, I'll say of the horses in sessions with humans, it became quite clear to me that there was a reflection component and a sentience in these horses. And they were so much more than just animals that needed to be dominated or trained. And when I had this realization, I didn't wanna train anymore, and I kind of. Put horses on this pedestal where I swung from, you know, just being your typical horse trainer. Like, I'm gonna make this horse do what I say when I say, and that's a good broke horse. And to saying, oh my God, we can't say breaking horses anymore. We can't put any pressure on them. Like they're sentient. They like no more than people. Mm-hmm. And so I just kind of swung the other direction and I was afraid to do anything too. Two, or with my horses.'cause I didn't wanna like upset them. And it was interesting because I thought that doing that would make them like me better and wanna connect with me more. And it actually didn't, it made them start doing things like biting me and pinning their ears at me. So I feel like it was so imbalanced. I just kind of became overpowered. Then they wanted to start overpowering me and I found myself in this space of like. I don't know. I don't know how to be around my horses anymore. Like they, they wouldn't even acknowledge me. They didn't want anything to do with me. And I was over supporting them and I was just in turmoil. So I decided to just you know, incorporate a lot of the things that I learned and teach on the outside as a human behaviorist and the laws of nature and the laws of balance, and just ask the horse like. Help me find the happy medium. Help me find this balance. And so through a lot of research, a lot of observation, a lot of time with them and a lot of implementing the laws of nature, I found a way to be with horses that is of the deepest connection, a deeper connection than I ever thought possible. And I feel like in life when you figure something out, so many times after you figure it out, all these other people start showing up with that similar challenge or issue. And so that's really what led to the community. I felt so alone in those first days because it's like you would either get people that are like. You need to back'em up. You need to run'em in the round pen, or you get other people, like if you use a whip, that's a weapon and you're a terrible person. So I wanted to create something to help people and guide them and not necessarily towards what I think is right, but helping people do what I did and tap into their inner wisdom. Tap into the inner wisdom of the horse and develop a deeply powerful and connected relationship based on who they are and who their horses are as being. Wow. That's, that's incredible. So I think a lot of people have had a similar journey trying to find this balance coming out of the dominance. And I, I will say dominance is predominant in natural horsemanship. And I didn't realize you were a behaviorist. This is really interesting because we've touched a lot on this on the last two episodes that are not published yet. So when you say you're a behaviorist, what's the background there and how adamantly do you subscribe to that, to today with your work with horses? It's quite interesting. I started out in getting my degree in equine science and then I kind of took, when I had this realization about the sentient of horses, I was really heavy into like the equine assisted learning space. And so I really left horse training kind of all together other than rehabilitating. Horses that were donated to the sanctuary and getting them into our human program. I became very, very interested in human behavior. And again, I believe, you know, our voids create our values, right? And so our struggles shape the path that we're on. And so in 2013, my dad, who was my business partner, my best friend, my partner in crime, we ran our boarding and training facility together. He. Pass away unexpectedly, and I lost everything. So I lost my dad. I lost the farm. I had to rehome most of my horses, and I found myself in this space of just really, really, really poor mental health. Just shortly before that, I had actually ended up in the institutionalized for my mental health. I was diagnosed with a, a lot of things like bipolar complex, PTSD. And what I went through after losing my dad by everyone's assumptions was going to just make me curl up into a ball on the ground and, and die and give up. But what happened instead is I. A divine timing. I was introduced to the De Martini Institute, and that is for personal development and behavior. Dr. Di Martini does a seminar called The Breakthrough Experience, and I had signed up for it. Just in pure desperation I was very, very heavy at that time into my victim energy and my, my victim story, and I just really didn't wanna be alive anymore. And so I found this institute and I went to this breakthrough seminar, and it fundamentally changed the way that I see the world, my life, and everything in it. And in that experience, what really stood out to me is the incorporations of the universal principles and the laws of nature. So after I got through the seminar, I really took a deep dive into these laws and I found that there is actually a framework that can explain and give you understanding about everything in your life. The why we behave the way we do, why we perceive the way we do you know, what is this whole free will versus predestination, you know, it was really like a look beyond, excuse me, beyond frameworks and it changed my whole life and it gave me a life. Better than I ever thought would be available to me. And so in doing that and doing the work on myself first and changing I took a lot of classes on human behavior. I did get my master's in psychology just because it, it made sense with the path that I was going on. And it was good to have an understanding, again, of both sides, right? Like the psychological side. But also the behavior side. And when I was in school, I took a behavior class specifically and it was the most amazing, my favorite class I've ever taken in college. And it made me realize that our psychology, and this is my belief, but this was the awareness I had. I believe that when we treat our psychology or our psychology is really a symptom of our biology. And I'm gonna explain that because when I say that people typically give the same look you just gave me like what the, what the hell does that mean? Right? But there are things intrinsic to humans in our, our DNA, in our systems, in our biology. Really govern our behavior and we like to think that we're these sentient beings in control of everything and, and really when it boils down to it, if something happens in your perspective, that's a threat to you, your biology will override everything that you know, and it will start driving your bus. And so I had spent decades in therapy trying to heal from the complex trauma, trying to treat all of these symptoms. I tried medication, I tried EMDR. I tried all these different types of therapy and nothing made me wanna live or even really made me feel better. I think with everything I tried that failed, I just felt a little bit more hopeless. But then I started to. Study behavior, and not just behavior, but the way that our behavior works with the laws of nature and the universal principles. And it just was like this, like the skies opened and the angels saying, and I was like, I'm onto something here. Like I was able to use these tools and kind of put a lot of different things that I have learned into one system. I used it to totally transform everything in my life. And of course it's ever evolving and I always tell my students, like if I'm teaching you the same thing in six months that I'm teaching you today, I've failed you as a teacher. Mm-hmm. Because the journey is a spiral and the journey end never ends. I, I ended up putting all of this, the horse piece, the human behavior piece, the psychology piece, and then I'm also I have 23 years in the military active duty air force and also international guard in which I'm still serving. And so the military piece was heavy on my heart as well, because when I got out of the military in 2003, that's when my mental health tanked. It was a wild Mustang named Shelby that really saved me and kind of started the whole process. And she's 23 years old today. I, I still have her out in the pasture, but I knew that our veterans needed help because I would know these people, and I'm not a combat veteran, but I would know a lot of these people and I would support a lot of these people. they would come back and they just weren't the same. I would watch them turn to alcohol, I'd watch their families fall apart. I would watch their mental health fall apart. So all these little pieces of me came together into this organization that I founded in 2011 called Hooves. And it stands for healing of our Veterans Equine services. And through hooves, I created this healing framework. It is now delivered in a five day intensive format. We've helped over 800 veterans regain their lives through working with the laws of nature and through working with horses. Wow. That is, that is amazing. What a journey it has. What an incredible, A couple lifetimes, what an incredible journey. Yeah. So, and, and you know, I've talked a little bit about my path and there are definitely some parallels with a lot of things you're saying. So the way I like to say it is, and it sounds like this with you, with the the institute that you got the breakthrough for the de martini thing that. Something, let the light in. Like we have all this grief and we have sorrow and we have wreckage. And we were talking this morning, we have chaos from those things and something cracks and the light starts to open up and then all of these things spring forth from that. And I just think that's, I just think that's amazing. The, wow. So, so that's how you got to hear. So tell me what the book's about Tell, I mean, I know a little bit, but tell everybody about what the book's about. Yeah, so the book is called Healing and Harmony, emotional and Spiritual Wellness for Horses and Humans. And of course there's a, a story behind it. Again, I'll try to keep it brief and high level, but as I'm down this rabbit hole I. It had been, let me think, what year was this? I would say 2019. So I've been running the program for almost a decade. I am having a lot of spiritual experience with courses. I think that learning is multifaceted and should come from different areas. So I'm always in a textbook or a educational book. I'm always in a research project. I'm always in just going out and spending time connecting energetically and telepathically with the horses. And then you know, there's your own journey, which I believe is never ending too. I believe the day we stop unpacking stuff is the day that we're not here anymore. So I have all these different things going on and I think that through my own journey again,'cause I think that's probably how it starts for everyone. I was found myself in a place of a lot of stress and pressure. I didn't, I didn't realize it at the time. I was just trying to like, you know, chop wood, carry water, move forward, make progress in my life. But I, I realized in hindsight that I really was kind of lighting myself on fire to keep other people warm. If that makes sense. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I am a peacekeeper, right? And so it's easier because I'm strong because I'm independent. Because I don't like conflict. A lot of times it's easier to just let everything roll off your back. Right? And I'm, that was like my philosophy, like, be like water, just let it roll, right? Some people are like, oh, the way of life is ultimate surrender. Just surrender to everything. Well. I promise you, from my experience, that didn't work out too well because I was denying the truth that there were things happening that I wasn't okay with. And you know, running a nonprofit is a lot of pressure. You know, it's the world of nonprofit is changing. We have about 45 volunteers that work for us that we could not afford to pay if we had to. So I'm trying to manage these volunteers. The relationship between my husband and my daughter, he's the stepdad, was really bad at the time and they were always fighting and I was playing mediator there. Then I'm constantly cultivating donors and you know, when you're going to cultivate somebody that's gonna give you money, you really have to. Support their values and and ideas. And so I found myself just in this ugh, space of like pure depletion. Can I, and can I ask you? Yeah. Can I ask you a little bit, there's some, some points of real interest Yeah. In some of the things you've said. So from having a personality type that wants to placate and keep the peace and let things roll off of you to, like this morning in the session, I, I said something that was the result of a belief and you called me on it right away in the most. Gentle way, and I love it when people do that. Like I wanna challenge my beliefs. I want other people to challenge their beliefs. But between getting to that point and to a point where you're managing 40 volunteers, you can't manage 40 people and have things roll off of you when you are directing them. I mean, you can have some things roll off of you, but it's a very different personality type. How did you get from A to B? Well, I'm about to tell you. Okay. It's alright. So no, this is perfect. That was a great question. So all of this is going on, right? And I have this miniature horse that was born at our farm in, 2019. He was born on Memorial Day. His name is Patriot, and he was born with dwarfism. Okay. And he's, he's just a man, he's a fighter. We didn't think he was gonna live originally. He, he had some complications and he's like the comeback kid, right? And so he very quickly, I like bottle fed him and he was like my baby. And so we had this really deep spiritual connection, right? And then one day I woke up and went out and Pat couldn't stand. He was down. And you know, when we did get him up, he could barely move. He was neural, he was like five out of five on the neurological scale. Like he just was a disaster. And so it was during CO it was like 2020 and we took him up to Michigan State and we couldn't go in because of Covid. So they took him. And they x-rayed his spine and they came back and they said, look, he's got a Chiari mal malformation, so that means C one in the vertebrae is, is not formed correctly. And he's got compression in his neck at C six and C seven. He needs the, like the surgery that they do for wobblers, the basket surgery and the vertebrae$10,000 of vertebrae. And I was like, well, I would, I would never put this baby mini horse through through that, you know, it's. That'd be cruel. It would be cruel. So I said, well, did you look at his feet? Because when he would stand, he was very under himself. Like a founder force. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I had already had his feet x-rayed and, and the feet didn't show anything, but they were like, Nope. Like, we aren't gonna waste your time or money with feet x-rays. Like his spine is jacked. That's why he is neurological. He can't function. Okay. Take him home, call the vet, make an appointment to have him put down on Monday. And when all of this started, I told him, I said, listen, I wanted, I don't wanna be selfish in this. I wanna do what? What's best for you? So if you wanna go to heaven, if you wanna stop fighting, whatever, stop eating and then I'll know. And I swear to you, Ishi. Every time, whether he was laying down or standing up. Every time I would go in the barn and he would see me, he would grab a mouthful of hay and just start violently munching on it. So I was just like so torn because you know, here Michigan State says it's a spine, like you can't fix that. And so I was like, well, you know what? I'm gonna make you comfortable through the weekend here, have some ine. I gave him some banta mean that night, Saturday morning he's up like totally up on his own, blinking at me eating as soon as he sees me. And I'm like, okay, well if this was full-blown neurological, that wouldn't, the bmy wouldn't have done it. Right? So I did have the vet come, but instead of putting him to sleep, I had her X-rays whole legs and I needed to see the whole picture. And when it was the digital. Radiograph and when I saw the picture, his coffin bone was 90 degrees in his puff. Wow. So it was just like, oh my gosh. Well, I'm not saying all that stuff isn't wrong with his spine, but this is a major issue. Whatever's at the base is gonna affect everything going up. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I was like, okay, we are not putting him down. We're gonna figure this out. One of my best friends, she actually wrote a little excerpt in the book Dr. Jackie Insco, she's a veterinarian, but she also does a lot of holistic stuff as well. Mm-hmm. So she's on, she does both. And she referred me actually to an equine podiatrist. I took him down to the podiatrist and he said, you know, I mean, I'm not hopeful, but I have some shoes that I could try. They're for fos.'cause his tendons, what it was is his tendons were contracted. Right? Oh, but let me back up. So anyway, I see the radiographs, I see the 90 degree coffin bone. I call one of my mentors and she says to me, okay, Amanda, where are you tiptoeing? In your life. Yeah. And I freaking lost it. I became a puddle on the ground because I was tiptoeing around everyone. Like it's what I was leading my, it was my strategy to get through life was tiptoeing and it totally showed up in him. Totally. So it was that moment, it was like that instant moment that I had that awareness. It wasn't about me anymore. It was like, if I don't start standing up for myself, this horse is my baby. My soul horse is gonna die. And it was like, you know the universe, I believe whenever we change direction, have a new awareness, set a goal. I believe we're always tested three times when my first test came, about 20 minutes after that phone conversation, when one of our volunteers came up and. I don't remember if they were wanting something like my time or if they had an idea that they wanted, that I didn't wanna do, but I was like, no. And they were kind of like, whoa, whoa. Did you say like, you know? And I was like, no, I'm sorry. I, you know, I'm not interested in doing that right now. And I was like, oh my gosh. And then I think you go through this thing when you're like a chronic people pleaser, where you're like, was I just mean. Just setting a simple boundary or saying no feels like mean, so, but then it felt kind of good at the same time. And I knew, like I knew at that point that it was not negotiable and that I had to totally restructure my boundaries. And I did. And I just did. I just started speaking my truth and there were some people that flipped out and they're no longer in my life and I just. Yeah, bless them on their way. No hard feelings, but, but what speaking my truth helped me realize is that there were a lot of people that were in my life that weren't reciprocal. They were just there because I was a doormat and they could get whatever they wanted. And when I stopped giving them their way, they didn't. You know, I became the villain in their story and they left. But then what happened is new people came in and when we look at the natural law of balance, we'll never have a loss without a gain. So as soon as I started getting rid of those people, more people came in and they were more of a vibrational match for Amanda, who's honest, and Amanda who has boundaries. And so I was doing all this really, really. Challenging work, but rewarding work. I was making changes, implementing everything, and, and you know, patriot didn't just magically heal and like a wand was waved, but he started to get better. We hadn't seen any progress in six months and from that point that I changed, progress was made daily and, and now today, he'll be six years in May. He lives a great, he has a great quality of life and he free roams our farm. And he runs and he plays and, and he does all the things. And he always knows when you're standing by the treat bin, he magically appears for snacks. But as I recovered, he recovered. So I was onto this. Then I started getting calls from like friends. So I had, I have a Magna wave pulse electromagnetic therapy machine. And my friend called her horse had put its leg through the barn, the metal. And so she was just calling to ask if I thought Magna Wave could help. And I said, well, how open-minded are you? Because I have a discovery that I'd love to share, you know? And she was like, oh, totally. So. I, I looked at what had happened. I looked at the actions and the inactions and, and I have the horse's body now kind of broken down into reflective parts, right? So the back feet represent things happening in the past. Front feet, our future, so on and so forth. And, and when we look at like the left side is the feminine energy, the energy of being the, the maternal energy. The right side is the masculine, the energy of doing the mental. So I have the body broken down and I said, well, where's the injury at? It was the back left. And then what's the action or inaction the horse is doing? It's dragging. It's. And hoof represents disconnect. So any problems in the feet are a disconnection of something, and she was dragging it. And so I, I said this to her and then she turned into a crying puddle because she was like, I know exactly what it is, you know, and then she ended up going into therapy and dealing with her issue with the therapist, and she. Reached back out to me a couple months later and she was like, not only did my horse make a full recovery, my horse is so bonded to me now that it's like our relationship is a, a totally different level. Right. So that kept happening. Let me recap a little bit. Okay. So what I'm hearing and getting from this is there's a very spiritual intersection between. Being able to look at ourselves and self-honesty and how horses are such spiritual, sentient beings, and how we heal from those things and they kind of come with us. And in an essence, that's a lot about what the book is about. Am am I wrong? It's exactly what it's about. And. I didn't get the idea for the book right away. So I spent five years trying to disprove this because I first of all was like, maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe this is all bs, you know? But I was like, if I'm gonna approach this, I need to approach it if I'm gonna be valid.'cause I also have an academic background, right? Mm-hmm. If I'm going to really be valid. I want it to be balanced. So of course, like it's very easy to be spiritual. But it's one side of things. So how can I bring in both sides? And so I have the concept, I have the phenomenon, I have the evidence through all these case studies, through my own case study. Now I need to figure out scientifically, what is going on here? Why is this a thing? So I started, you know. Researching traditional Chinese medicine, meridians, chakras, quantum physics. I just went down all these rabbit holes. You know, like I had mentioned before, there's like the spiritual component, the mental component, you know, the personal component. So I took all of this and I've researched it for five years. I've tried to disprove it in five years in hundreds of case studies. It is yet to be incongruent or incorrect. It's interesting because it, I'm so engulfed in it. It's my day-to-day life. It's my truth that sometimes I don't realize it until I start talking about it, like on podcasts and things like, I, I hope that this changes the world for people and horses. I think that it already has, you know what occurs to me because the concepts that you're writing the book about were not new to me. When, when I met you, it's like I've had experiences. I, I can't even remember where I started doing, you know, the metaphoric thing.'cause I have a little bit of training and reiki and, and a few other things that, that lean into some of what's in your book. I'm just so grateful that you've been able to pull all that together and that you're searching for the scientific side of this and that you tried to disprove it. The intentions. Like sometimes I know that intention can. Manifest and dictate what happens just like when we want to go somewhere on the horse and we set that intention like this is what's next, this is what will happen. It's like things fall into place with that intention, and the more you work with intention, the less work it is. It's just the thought. And so I see intention. Your, in your pathway, you know, that manifested this as well, and it's like that's a microcosm of the, of the bigger thing that you've done. Absolutely. And I don't know, I just, I love how those things turn in and of themselves. Absolutely. I, you know, I believe that in and of itself really is a system, and so when you talk about. People knowing this stuff. I think that's what's so amazing is that I'm not, I'm not creating something new. I, whenever I teach, when I teach in my healing intensives, when I teach in my equine clinics, it's more of a remembering Yeah. Than it is a teaching. Right. Because this is what's. Us all, which is why I love the behavior because it's a system. And I'm also a very, very heavy A DHD, and my brain works a little bit different, like to say neuros spicy, but it has served me well and it has been a gift because I love super deep rabbit holes of quantum and anything outrageous and deep. Mm-hmm. But. There are people that don't, number one, and there's people that can't see it yet. Mm-hmm. And I'm not one of those people, like I have friends that just are, they're like a direct channel. And I am not like, when we go into ceremony or meditation or breath work, you know, people will be like, oh my God, I astral traveled, or I did this, or I have these visions, or I, you know, I don't. My systems don't work that way. It's not how I'm set up. I don't have those experiences, but I believe, like my gift is to take very complex things and I need to have a system. My brain craves systems. I can do anything if I have a system to do it. And so I've taken these really complex things and through systems and pictographs and charts, I've. Hopefully made them simple enough for anyone to understand, you know? And are there people that can go to a horse and have that direct line and immediate connection and just channel exactly what the horse is saying and what the horse needs? Absolutely. There are animal communicators that do this, but this book and the work that I do are for the people like me that maybe aren't there yet or don't wanna be there or can't. Find a way to get there. So it's just taking things and organizing it and giving you a step-by-step process. And I feel like that's what I've done with all of the information. Whether it's connection work with horses, whether it's healing trauma, whether it's growing your business. You know, I also have a DHD entrepreneurialship, but everything is in a system that I can then pass along to help the next person save time, effort, and energy in getting the thing accomplished. I think I just had an epiphany. Cool. Share. Okay, so I have a, I have a podcast episode about release work, and it's all intuitive and it's something I do to bond with my horses. It's, you know, a little bit of Masterson, a little bit of Cummings, a little bit of, you know, me, a little bit of just bladder meridian and acupressure. But the thing is the feedback loop in a very regulated co-regulating, taking it down, meditative way when I'm step into this space with them and I just got this flash of like, if I overlaid your system with what I'm doing, because during these sessions they will point out on my body what corresponds to their body where they want me to work, and, and then we energetically work on that place on their body. So if I were to take your system and overlay it, I bet that there'd be a reflection of whatever it is I need to work on in the body part that they're asking me to work on. And somehow, without actually acknowledging what the thing is, energetically, we may be addressing that. What do think, oh, I think you're spot on. I think you're spot on. And, and actually that is the perfect description of my intention for this book. It's, it's meant to be a piece of the puzzle, and it's meant to, I'm getting really bad goosebumps. It's like, okay, cool. That's right. Yes, absolutely. And so that is, that is. What the purpose of this book is. And so what it, it is, talk a little bit more about what it is. There's some, some explanation, some frameworks. You know, I talk about the Morphic field. I cite some of the research and the validating perspectives that other well-known professionals have used to come to these conclusions. So it's the first part of the book is just kind of laying the framework and building up the evidence. The second part of the book is a breakdown of the main body parts of the horse, so, and then what their spiritual root is. And so like I can, I have my, my book open here. I can just give you an example if you'd like excerpt from the book. But it talks about also like the symptoms and the positioning of the book. So like. Here we have ears. So ears symbolize the ability to listen, communicate, and receive information, both in terms of external messages and internal truths for both horses and humans. This area represents openness to hearing and understanding, making it central to effective communication and connection. When issues arise in the ears, whether physical or behavioral, they often reflect a deeper struggle with hearing or accepting the truth. So the emotional root of the ears is healing, hearing the truth, and or feeling heard, right? Right. And so the ears are linked to emotional challenges such as difficulty hearing truth, feeling ignored or struggling with communication. When a horse appears to be deaf to commands, unresponsive, or has I related issues and may mirror the handler's feelings of being unheard or unable to accept reality. Similarly, humans may find it hard to accept feedback, feel dismissed or struggle to express themselves clearly. So there's the explanation of the body part. Then I have some key questions, some facilitative questions that you can sit with in order to actually create a shift. So it's bringing into your awareness, you know, what's going on. And so you can say, okay, yeah, I actually, have something going on in my life right now. Somebody's been telling me something, I don't wanna accept it. Okay, I see where I'm doing that. Okay. Then you can go to the fac, the key questions. So the question for you would be, how can I become more open to listening and accepting the truth, and how can I ensure that my voice is heard? Then there's a question for the horse. How can I help my horse feel more heard and understood in our interactions? And then, the spiritual root of that is the Throat chak. Yeah, that's what I, and receptivity. Right. So spiritually the ears are connected to the throat chakra, which governs the ability to listen, understand and express truth. Blockages in this area can create resistance. To both inner guidance and external feedback. Okay. So I just wanna be the devil's advocate for a sec. Like that totally resonates, makes sense with me and I, I get it. And the first thing that was occurring to me when you started talking was of course throat chakra. So why, why would it be the ears and not the throat? Well, it could also be that, right? But you, again, you have to look at the action or the inaction. Okay. That makes sense. Right? Yeah. And I explained that also, so. You know, the action of the inaction is, is definitely a key factor in that, right? And so if you aren't speaking your truth, that typically shows up in your throat, in your thyroid primarily. But if you're not hearing listening, but if you're not hearing it right, you know, or accepting it, that's when it will show up in the ears. So I have each of the body parts broken down like this, and then I have facilitative questions. And then I also have the 65 like most common equine illnesses or injuries as well. So, you know, colic, laminitis ulcers, things like that. And I have all of the, the kind of the same framework. So it's the spiritual root and then some facilitative questions. Can you foresee a day when veterinarians use this book? So they already are. That's amazing. My friend. Yes. So my, my friend Dr. Jackie yes, she is always, the book is not out yet, but she's always texting me and she's actually helped me through the years kind of develop that. So yeah, she'll be like, she'll text me like, okay, what's the stifle? You know, and we, we text back and forth and. Laugh at ourselves.'cause we're like, it's always so like, and there was, I had, some stuff going on with one of my horses and we were texting about it and I'm like, I hate it when my work is so freaking accurate, so annoying. But it, it can, it can be. But you know what's more annoying because now I'm flashing back on a woman that I worked with for a little bit with a horse, with all of these, all of these problems with, with their hooves and up and back to the veterinary hospital, which is like two hours away. Put that horse through years of torture. And then it had to have it put down. And early on when I worked with her, I got the message, you know, that this is about you not being able to deal with death. And I don't know what that would be. I don't remember the exact injury with, with the hoof. I think it was like a growth on the leg just above the coronary band. And so what I was saying is it's great when. It's great to know this stuff when it works and there's receptivity, but to see it and know it and know that that person's journey is just to go through the suffering and there's nothing you, you can't get in the ears, there's just nothing that's gonna help them see the truth. That's just really tragic, especially for the horse too. Absolutely. And I like we have a saying around here the lips of wisdom are sealed except to the ears of understanding. Yeah. And so I always ensure that people have the ears of understanding before I even share anything about what I do. And if they don't, you know, I mean, I know that there has to be balance in the world, and I guess it's how I've processed. Because when I really first started waking up to the sensient of horses, and when I started to hear them I became traumatized. I remember I was at a, an EQU fest, a very big EQU fest. I will not say which one, and I was walking through the stalls. The horses were just like, help, help me, help me. You know? And I could like hear them and it was just like a sensory overload. I could, I had to like leave the barn and I was just like sobbing. And I called one of my mentors and I was like, like, why? Why is this occurring? Like why is this happening? And she never gave advice.'cause that's what good facilitators do. They only ask questions, but she said, how would your feelings change right now? If you knew that those horses had signed up for that mission, right? And I was like, well, I still don't like it. But you know, if we go back to the laws of nature, I mean, you know, nature is both kind and cruel. Both exist and both serve. If you are willing to go there and look at that. That's really true. Wow. Those are great, great conversations. I'm so glad that you have written this book. If we have time, I'd like to ask you a couple of more questions. It's more kind of back about riding. Do we have a little more time? Oh yeah, absolutely. Great, great. So do you believe all horses should be ridden and want to be ridden? Absolutely not. Okay. I don't think that any horse really wants to be ridden. I think that if your horse has a connection with you and they see you as part of their herd that they will tolerate it. And, and this is something I grapple with because there's days where I'm like, I should never ride another horse again because I think it's, you know. Like, no, it's not something a horse would ever do if they had the option to do it. Right. I, so, I, I dunno about that. Sat with, well that's how I felt, right? Mm-hmm. And then I got this experience with these 4-year-old mustangs that I have, you know, and I got them mis yearlings. And I just spent two years doing connection work and things like that. And, and now it's time to back then. When the weather warms up here. But last year I did get them out after, you know, it was like the first time that we were like, okay, I'm gonna have an agenda. We're gonna habituate you to the saddles. And so I got my two trustee horses out and we POed them and I put the saddles on them, just, you know. Not even gonna cinch'em. Right. Put the saddles on. Okay. They're cool. They don't care. They're totally like at a one stress level. Zero. Okay. I'll tighten the cinch. Okay. I have'em on lead ropes. Okay. I'll, I'll just circle them and maybe they'll trot or buck or get elevated. Like it was almost like they were in meditation the entire time. Mm-hmm. And by day three I was, I was tacking them at liberty. I total liberty. And they never, they never even trotted. And I wasn't in an arena, I wasn't in a round pen. They had the ability to go anywhere in that arena and fuck, and do all, you know, when you're a natural horsemanship trainer, you gotta put'em in the round pen and run'em around and, you know, blah, blah, do all the dog and pony. And it's like, and it's really not necessary. I, I, no, I haven't done anything with these babies. I have done nothing but work on the relationship. I do take them on walks. Mm-hmm. I do the connection work, I do the mirroring, I do the breath work, I do the spiral. I ha actually have a blog on my website about habitation versus desensitization, and I have one. There's pictures of me, like hula hooping, and I open an umbrella. I never desensitized these horses. I never sacked them out. I never, I didn't even habituate'em. I just built a trusting relationship with them and I can do anything They, and they're totally cool. So. I did go back on my guilt and thinking that horses didn't wanna be ridden because I can tell you when I go out there now to get other horses,'cause I've not done anything with them in several months. They are trying to intercept these other horses and shove their faces in the halter to go out and to do this stuff. But, but I don't think they would be that way if I hadn't focused on the connection. Right. Now. That being said, I have another horse that I got when I was still an, the old time horse trainer, and this horse, I don't know what happened to him. I got him as a yearling. He is a Mustang. He, I, I went down to do like a demonstration at this adoption fair and I ended up bringing him home and he's, he has a very low sense of self preservation. So if you put something on him and he doesn't like it, he will flail. Until whatever it is, is not on him anymore. And I did back in my old ways, in my old days I did saddle him and I did sit on him a couple of times. The first time I sat on him, he let me get on, get off, get on, get off, get on, get off. And then when I asked him to walk, he freaked out at the movement of the saddle and he launched me headfirst into the round pin wall. Thank God I had a helmet on. And as I started doing this work, I realized, and especially in the equine assisted learning space, right, like he is a little bit of an anxious guy, and I was so determined to try to change that about him because that's what we do, right? We have to make these horses be what we think that they should be. I realized that he just is who he is and he doesn't, he is not interested in ever being ridden and he's really not interested in a lot of things. And I said, I just went to him one day and I said, I honor you. And I see that actually you being the way you are is serving our program more. You know, I got 10 other horses out there that you could. They would lay down and you could just lay on'em, like they don't care. They love people. They're connected, they're safe, they have solid attachment styles. He's a, he's a anxious and avoidant attachment style, I would say, but when I let him just be him mm-hmm. He shifted a lot and he still has a little bit of that edginess to him. He is, but, but there's an acceptance, right? That that's, that's how people get better too. Totally. There's just that acceptance. So I gotta ask you this question. Do you think that natural horsemanship is short-lived and that it's about over? Like, are we about done with this? Yeah. Well, I appreciate the purpose that it served because it got people out of barbaric treatment. It was certainly better than tying them up and doing all the horrible things that were being done to them, you know, previously. But it's of a, it's still of a dominant it's still of a dominant and, and not giving choice. And I also think, and this might lose me some fans, but even our liberty work. Yes, natural horsemanship, liberty work, it's not giving the, the horse some like not true liberty, but mainstream liberty work. If, if I'm making you run and I'm forcing, if I'm making the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy, I'm still totally governing you. I'm still totally manipulating you it was a stepping stone. I think sometimes when we have these changes, like radical change, you know, like my change was radical and it was not effective because I went from the natural horsemanship ways to not wanting to do anything that's not effective either. There's a pendulum that swings. Yeah. And then you find a balance. Yeah. And then, you know, and even that is a, in a revolving spiral, right? the only thing that's constant is change. But yes, I definitely do hope that it's coming to an end. Your book and what we're talking about, which is what I call the quiet revolution is going to change everything. The way I've characterized it is all of the information that we've been able to gather, the relationships that we've been able to develop with horses through equine assisted learning and equine assisted therapy that is. I used to call it the tipping point, and I've been waiting for the time when this tips into, the world of horse shows, the world of natural horsemanship, the world of a lot of old ways that are simply not necessary. I mean, I said to when I first heard a Warwick Schiller interview, NA Sean Cook, I called, I called them both, and I called Warwick Schiller and I said, why would you go through all that when you could just talk to the horse? And it's not quite that simple. You know, my autistic brain oversimplified everything, but it's about that relationship. It's about what you're talking about. And I am excited to see the natural horsemanship go by the wayside, and people have a deeper understanding of the sentient spiritual nature of horse and what they're really here to offer. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I do credit, I absolutely credit the equine assisted psychotherapy and learning space hugely for this revolution because if you look at it, what we're doing in that space. Is, I don't wanna use the word capitalizing because I don't like that. I don't feel like it's accurate, but what we are doing is we're employing the natural abilities or everything that a horse does in an equine therapy session that is their natural way of being. They don't turn it on and off. No, they don't. They, they don't have the capability to turn it off. That's just who they are and how they are, and how they show up in the world. And so what that told me is that it's never off it. It's not. So that means it's holds true just as much in the training space. Mm-hmm. As it does in the therapeutic space. Now it's up to the person if they wanna see it or not, right? But it's always present. It's always present. And you can choose to align with it, recognize it, learn from it, grow from it. Or you can choose to ignore it. But it's there whether you wanna believe it or not, and sometimes I feel like they have waited so long and been so patient with us to see it. Well, I think it's, it's an evolution. Just like anything. I mean, I believe that, I believe, this is just my personal belief, but that horses are a gift to mankind who have come alongside of us to really, I mean, horses have had a firsthand. Role in the evolution of mankind. It's true, right? It's true. Whether it's, you know, hunting, plowing, building, hauling, fighting, you know, fighting. Those are all the old ways. But again, as we look at evolution, we don't need them to do those things anymore. So their role is changing and, you know, I don't know, I'm, I mean, personally, I'm not. Interested in the, the competition space Personally, it, it has no interest. Been there, done that. But what's what has happened, and I believe the future role of the horse in helping us in our evolution is we are disconnected. We are disconnected from nature, we are disconnected from ourselves. We are so. Unintentionally, well, intentionally, but unintentionally to us brainwashed by overstimulation of information technology. You know, we, we have lost touch with who we are and how we were meant to, to show up and move through life. And that's what horses are showing us now. They're bringing us home to ourself. That is so beautifully said. And you know, some of the, even some of the phrases that you chose are, are in previous podcast episodes echoed by other guests and that that was like such a beautiful, oh, I loved what you just said. I I think because that's so important, this might be a good place to stop. Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much for the opportunity to, to share and chat. No, this is wonderful. Thank you so much, Amanda. I am, I'm, I'm very pleased to have had you on the show. Thank you. And if people want to join our school community I. If you wanna get involved. With the community. It's my website is equine wisdom institute.org, which I'm sure you'll put in the comments, but if you go to the website, you can join the school group from there. And it's really just a community. I say it's a community for people who have heard their horses talk and they don't know what the heck to do about it. Or they've been talking to their horses for a long time and they wanna share and help other people who are new. So it's really an evolved community a judgment free. Place where you can go and you can ask questions or you can share your wisdom and help elevate the consciousness of horse owners. It's beautiful. I've en I'm enjoying the community so much. I'm so glad I found you. Thank you for being a part of it. Yeah. And thank you for the opportunity to come on your podcast. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you so much.