Charlie Bucks

The main question is- How do implement giving horses choices, when we dont always understand, their answers & When sometimes we dont like the answers?

A very intense full week, has a terrible ending. In this episode, Ishe is very vulnerable admitting what she doesnt know.  This is a multi part serries of episodes.  The stage is set here, for the story of what happened and the contributing factors.

In the next few episodes, Ishe plans to get expert help on the issues. So keep listening...

CPDST< EMDR< ASD<Natural horsemanship,intution, EFT & EAP collide with the ER.

Transcript

0:01

Hi, I am Ishi Abel with the Horse Human Connection Matrix. Today I'm gonna tell you a story and I give you some background talk about several different things, including what it's like to have an autistic brain. The line that I've been walking for nearly 10 years about riding horses and how I interact with them and what I call horse ship. After telling you the story of what happened last week, I am going to ask a couple of way more experienced horse people. What their take on it is, what they would do to proceed and for them to just comment on their perspective of what happens. Because when we walk two worlds, when we connect with horses and want horse ship. We have to leave a lot of things behind and just like we wanna create a habitual ness in training horses, we have been habit habituated in how other horse people trained us and whatever tradition that was, and it's hard to shake some of that loose. And our emotional state is constantly reflected. And I believe that whatever we're processing unconsciously and constantly, our brains are computers. We are constantly processing whatever it is that we're processing is creating our world. Because I truly believe that our thoughts are words, our deeds and our actions create the reality that we live in. So you may have heard me talk about my horse Charlie before. Charlie is a 9-year-old Mustang that I bought from a young girl. She was 18 and she had gotten the horse from the person who, the trainer that took it from the, I'm wanna call it the reservation, who took the horse from the Mustang pens. And Halter trained it. And this girl, it was this young girl's first project on her own to train this horse, and she had some mentoring. When I first put the horse in the round pen, it was frantic, it was anxious. It kept doing quick turns about the size of the pen. It had been kept in. It did not demonstrate balance, it did not demonstrate any kind of calmness or regulation. And I took with me a woman I used to respect quite a bit, who'd been a horse woman her whole life and had successfully trained many, many horses in old school methods with a big heart and wanted her opinion on it. We brought this horse home and the story that the young girl had told me is that she'd done a lot of groundwork. She'd gotten on the horse once and it had bolted, not bucked, but bolted. And I thought, you know, consulting with this experienced horse, woman that, you know, I think we can start at the beginning, retrain the horse and it shouldn't be a problem. So I wanna back up a little bit and tell you what my my experience has been at that point. Training horses. So I have another horse named Csy, who you've heard me talk about and I had a mentor help me train Csy. That's Issa. You've probably heard her speak. If you've listened to all of my podcasts iE was a checked out horse, so there was never a fear of her taking off or running. She was really checked out, so we had to really coax her. In fact, it was three months getting on her back frequently before I could actually get her to take steps because she was so afraid of ropes, and she'd been so mistreated that like kicking her or waving a rope behind her was just not an option. It wasn't an option. I remember one lesson Carissa gave me on her old mare, where for an hour she had me sit on this horse in the pasture and predict which leg would move next to bring my awareness to how the horse moved, because that would translate into how I would communicate with Sipsy to get her feet moving. Oh, Chris has a lot of. A lot of methods, a lot of things that really work that I think other people don't know about. So my experience was that I had helped train Sipsy by being given homework to do, and that Carissa actually trained her and worked her when she came once a month. And then I would do the homework and learn what to do and create. The relationship with this horse. So I'm planning to do something similar with this horse, Charlie, as I bring him home. That's the plan. I also wanna include in my history in, in my conscious mind, what happened when I ended up sending Csy to another trainer to put some finish work on her. I wanted her to understand her leads better. I wanted her to be able to drop into elope, which she'd been resistant to do. This was after she'd had years of training. That was very slow. So I've gone really, really slow in whatever I do with untrained horses because I don't wanna make a mistake. I don't wanna create a trauma in them that then I have to backtrack to try to figure out, because I'm not sure what I'm doing to begin with. I have to have help. And you know, we all know what we know. We all start where we start. So that's my history with, with bringing Charlie home. That's my history with sending Csy. Oh, I sent her to this other trainer and I believed that this woman would be okay. I sent Chris a video of the woman riding. She seemed like she could ride. Okay. She got CSI's attention right away. She was very very big and definitely in charge, and the woman said I could come visit once a week. We would check in and she didn't check in with me. I tried to visit. She told me it wasn't a good time, three different times. And finally I got in the trailer and went down there before she was done to find my horse had dropped like 50 pounds, which wasn't a bad thing'cause she was overweight. But in that amount of time it seemed a bit severe. And when I came and found Cyps E, she was in a paddock with another horse. I. Who wasn't letting her eat and she was just standing there completely checked out. She didn't acknowledge me, she didn't look at me. She was just inward, like when I had got like worse than when I had got her. So when I brought her home, it was another year on the ground to reestablish trust and relationship before we could pick up our training again. And a lot of people disagree with me like, oh, that wasn't necessary, before or during the time that Carissa was mentoring me, training Cyps EI went with another young woman who used to come out to the ranch all the time and, and ride and, and play with horses in the round pen and do whatever we do, try on equipment and go for rides. And we decided to go to a competition where there were. I believe there were six trainers in six round pens who were each brought in a horse that was only halter broke. And in a weekend they had a weekend to use whatever methods they had in front of people. There was an audience to train these horses and then ride them through a mountain trail and obstacle course that was set up in an indoor arena. And we went both days, all day and watched these different trainers with these different horses, and some of them were more successful than others. We watched horses be very dysregulated. We watched trainers go up, come down, be aggressive, advance retreat. Use timing, release, all kinds of the things that natural horsemanship does. And at the end of the two days I said, sure, you can do that, but at what cost? What is that horse gonna be like later? That's that one trainer and that horse over a weekend. When that horse goes back to its owner, do you think the owner has those same skills, the same body language, and will be able to take and proceed and just ride that horse? No. Absolutely not. No. So for decades it's been standard to, oh, won't you just go take your horse to a trainer and put 30 days on it and get it back and it'll be fine. Well, sure if everybody speaks the same language. If everybody gets big and aggressive and dominant and knows how to do that all the time, that might work. That worked for a long time. Were the horse treated like slaves? Absolutely. So some people will take 90 days to put on a horse and that's better. I see a lot of horse trainers quit and they all have the same complaint. I can't help the people. I can train a horse, but I can't get people to understand what I've done. That's a big problem for the horse, for the owner, the keeper, and for the frustrated horse trainer. It's really hard to find somebody to train a horse, which is why I took Sipsy, you know, an hour away to this woman who I thought would do good by her who did not. That's why I've waited and done four years of groundwork with Charlie not wanting to make a mistake because my favorite person mentor has a full-time job doing something else and a farm and family, and not a lot of time. That's why I talk about this stuff because there's change and the change has come. The change is coming. It's, it's happening. It's already happened in a lot of respects, but the change brings with it more questions. If we're gonna allow them choice, we have to stand by it, and that's hard. It's really hard because people wanna ride horses because we're habituated to riding horses because we have, in our mind still that language of just get bigger, make the horse, do it. Take'em through it again. Take'em, get off, and make'em do it. And then get back on. Make'em, make'em. Make'em. Dominance. Dominance, dominance. I found myself in two very, very different places last week. We went into the round pen. I went into the round pen with a woman who teaches Continuum, which is a quiet introspective movement meditation. This woman also has a horse and she choreographs with horses and she's very present and another woman who spends a lot of time meditating and does EFT tapping. So both of these women have a meditation practice, are very centered, grounded. Gentle and wanting to connect, and we could come into that round pen with no agenda. We spent seven hours in beautiful horse time with everybody's nervous systems, relaxed, playing with crystal bowls and hand pans, and tapping and connecting, and we really were welcomed into their culture, their world of slow and present. Two days later, I had a trainer come who I had sent Charlie to several months ago to put some rides on him because I have been afraid to get on this horse. I had back surgery. I'm 62 years old and there was something in his history, something in my intuition that has said, don't get on. I watched Carissa ride him. I watched somebody else ride him. I hired two other trainers who couldn't see where he was and didn't wanna get on him either. I mean, having a horse stand still at the mounting block, taking a step or two that's an easy fix. It can do that in 10 minutes, but neither one of these other young women would get on him either. So the horse has a don't get on me vibe. Even though he's takes a saddle, he's very calm, he loves to come up and, and nuzzle and be close to you, and he's friendly and he wants to be a good partner. So I took him down and had this, this other trainer put some rides on him and, and she has similar philosophies, so I thought, well, this will work great. So she did that and I went down and I wrote him, I wrote him on a little trail ride and it was great. I could feel him come up under me. I could feel that he wanted to be a partner. So the thing that I'd like to add about being afraid to get on Charlie, like other people had hesitated and one of them had actually figured out that she knew the horse by a different name'cause I had changed his name. That the young girl that sold him to me had told this woman that he had bucked, but she told me that he only bolted. So I think in my mind there's always been this possibility that what ended up happening could happen. And even though I had this great relationship and still have a great relationship with the horse I didn't wanna get on him. And so I did this tapping the EFT, tapping with my friend who. Did it with me and the horse, and normally doing it with the horse, you use a surrogate with an animal, but he was right there, so she tapped right on his body with him and with me about both of our fears, about my fear of getting on and about his fear of humans from being a Mustang and being branded and caught and separated at the pens and GED and possibly injured there. Okay. And there's one thing that I've come to in walking this line in between how I wanna be with horses and what tradition says, and what dominant says and what's safe and what's not safe. When do I wanna do what? And, and a while back, like probably six years ago, I came to the conclusion that for safety, health, and travel, I would be the leader. I will be the benevolent leader. I will use dominance if I have to during those times because they are under my care and I'm responsible and I have no problem stepping into leadership. Maybe part of the problem is I don't know enough about horse training to be able to train horses, but I'm not actually trying to train horses. I'm trying to hang out with horses. I'm trying to be coached to train horses, and I would still like to ride, and I don't know why it's so hard. And I'm looking forward to people, you know, weighing in on this and and telling me what they think. So, and I don't think I'm the only person with this type of dilemma because more and more people are waking up to what's possible with horses. They're waking up to what happens when we can connect with them in these ways. And a lot of people just quit writing. I mean, that might be where I am. I, I don't know. But then she came here a couple months later and we did fine on flat ground and we took him up on a trail on a hill. And so in this situation, and give you some more background, the situation is I am. I have complex PSDI am doing EMDR. I am almost done. It works really well and, i'm happier than I've ever been. I'm less reactive than I've ever been, and I'm really looking forward to finishing it and having no more trauma in my life. Okay. I say that with a smile because we all know life happens, right? But at least the cumulative stuff will be gone, and I'm way, way more functional. But what happens with EMDR is while you're working in a memory chain, while you're processing and reprogramming that particular memory. The issue of that memory shows up in my life every single time. So part of what I've been working on this week has been choice, saying what I need to say, where's the edge of control? That sometimes there's just nothing you can do. Sometimes you can say your peace, but you can't control other people's lives. You can't control their actions. You could be forceful and again, like this is like how alike is this with horse training and dominance and making people do something, right? So this trainer and I both have a lot of experience, but we've experience in different realms. We have different experiences and we've had different teachers. I trust her to be her own person, and I have hired her to do a job. So we're, we're in the round pen and we're talking about equipment. We'd had a BLL on Charlie and I was gonna go ride with her, so I needed the BLL for sipsy, or somebody needed to wear a bit or a halter. So we chose a riding halter with knots before Charlie. To give up the buzz so Sipsy could wear it. I'm riding in a bareback pad, she's riding in a balanced ride saddle. And I ask, as I always do, do you want a helmet? Because helmets have saved my life twice and because when I was taught, I was taught, always wear a helmet. You never know what's gonna happen. I've got some really dented up helmets and I have a good brain still. Thank God. So I asked a helmet, she didn't want a helmet. We walked up my driveway, walked up the road, which scares the shit outta me.'cause sometimes there's log trucks, but there weren't, it was late in the day and up to a trail and we went up this trail. And the horse. My horse didn't wanna go, go through the gate. She didn't wanna go through the gate to, to the trail, and I had to get off and walk her. I had to walk her for a while and then I got back on. And I should say that the one trail ride I've been on in I four or five years is on Charlie, down at her place. So when I've ridden, I've ridden up and down the driveway. I've ridden in the pasture. I've ridden for about 15 to 20 minutes at a time.'cause that's all I wanna do and that's all my horse wants to do, has wanted to do. So as we're, as we're doing this, Charlie's going along just fine. He walks out like he could keep up with any gated horse, like he's got a nice forward walk. And we started up, my horse was, was misbehaving. My horse was saying, I don't wanna do that. So here's a point at which I need to make a choice. Am I gonna force her? Is old school coming back into my head, make her do it. Get off and make her do it. Don't leave off here. That's bad training. And I can tell you that Carissa's told me many, many times it's okay to just get off. That's okay. It's better to get off than to get hurt. It's not gonna destroy your relationship. Like staying on my. So I got, I got off her and I did make her, I made her, I made her go up this little berm of dirt, which, you know, we walked it three times. I got back on her and I made her do it with me on her back, and that was a success. I probably should have stopped there, but I'm looking up the hill. I. And the last time we'd walked, we'd done some horse hiking on this, in this place, on this trail. And the last time Charlie had been really interested in what was up that hill. So I suggested that she take him up the hill and see what happened. And I would just walk ssy up the hill and it might take me a little while. And she did that. So I'm halfway up the hill walking my horse. She's at the top of the hill and I can see them escalating. She's turning him in circles again. He has a halter on. He's had trouble balancing. And I say, how about you get off him and you ride Sipsy and I'll just walk with Charlie for a while. That's what felt right to me, to my knowing. We gotta listen to our intuition. And she said, no, no. I can teach him how to navigate down this hill and how to carry my weight. I'm like, okay. So I'm watching them and Charlie and I had an agreement if. You need me to get off your back instead of bucking, I want you to take your nose and touch my boot. And he had done that to me the couple two times that I'd been on him since I'd brought him home from her house. I'd been on him for five minutes and he put his nose on my boot and I got off again. There's nothing wrong with getting off. I mean, you're not thinking a lot of forward progress, but in my mind, there's a reason he's asking me to get off. And yeah, that's a hard edge. Is that the reason? Like we always doubt ourselves. I set up this communication. Can I trust it? Does it mean something else? Can I push through it? Where is the edge? Where's the edge? So I see him do this with her. He puts his nose on her boot and he looks at me, aren't you gonna do something? That's how I read it. Again, I've paid her to do a job. I've spoken my piece. The next thing that happens is he starts running down the hill that's covered with big gravel. And I'm like, oh no, this is not good. This is not good. She can't grab a one arm stop in this halter. She would've, if she'd put a bit in his mouth, she would've been able to. And next thing you know, he starts bucking and she comes up over the top of him. And just one flip in the air and one shoulder roll flip on the ground, and I'm like, oh my gosh, she's hurt. She says, my clavicle is broken. I don't doubt that one bit. She's also scraped up. She's hit her head. I'm holding my horse. I'm trying to calm Charlie down, who is still bucking and is coming down to her, so I move him over. So. He, she's not in his trajectory as he's bucking down the hill and I bring my horse closer trying to get the rain, which is a loop rope from a halter that is now on his front foot. And I try to calm him. I'm grounding my feet. I'm like, it's okay, Charlie. It's okay. And I think I'm gonna get him calm and just when I think I'm gonna get him calm, I step over to try to get the rope. I let go of my horse and she's like, no, it's a much better idea for us to run home. So they ran off down the hill with him. Rain looped over front leg, her trailing her loop also. I'm like, I just hope they go home. I hope that's what happens.'cause we're half a mile away, maybe a little more, and there's a road with traffic on it, which scared the crap outta me, but my brain is offline. Like I. I am in reptilian brain. I am fight or flight. My mouth is dry. I have adrenaline. I don't know what to do next. I'm barely thinking and I'm like, okay, is she okay? And she's like, go get the horses. I'm fine. I'm like, no, I'm not leaving you here. So I get her up, she's able to walk. We try to assess her neck, her back, and thank goodness she's young. And we proceed to walk down the hill. So these, these two things that happened last week are in such sharp, sharp contrast. We have this lovely seven hour day where there's no sense of time and nothing but connection and regulation and the series of pretty horrible events that end in a trip to the emergency room and a horse that I don't know what to do next with i need to include that part of where my subconscious brain has been last week and what I've been processing has manifested in real time, and the traumatic memory that I'm processing is huge. It was my son's suicide, where I also felt very helpless, tried to help, said what I could, and in the end I could do nothing. And it repeats itself because we create with our thoughts, our words, our deeds, and our actions. And let me add our subconscious. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that should, I have waited for a different week. I mean, there's always something that we're processing. Right. And the trainer. As I'm apologizing for what happened to her, I mean, it's my horse. It's not my fault, but it's my horse. She keeps saying things happen for a reason. It's okay. Maybe he saved me from getting on a worse horse where I might have been killed, which is a great attitude to have, right? So I don't know if it's because my, I have an autistic brain that I see all of the many layers of this. You know, I've had friends say to me, you know, people just don't think that much about stuff, is she not like you do? And I've heard Elon Musk in one interview said, you have no idea what it's like to be in my brain. And I have a small idea, like his brain is way bigger with way more ideas than mine. And, and mine will shut off probably thanks to the horses. But the way we have to think, the way we, we have to completely. See all the different sides and causations and threads that are related to any particular issue. Like I want part of this to be about that. I want people to understand that because if you don't think about things deeply and, and maybe more people do, then I think, I don't know, like we're still learning so much about autism and autistic brains and. On the spectrum. This has just come into my awareness. That makes so much sense. Every autistic person is gonna have times where they're dysregulated and overwhelmed, and then they're very functional. And within that we also have a lot of people that have developmental disabilities where they're very challenged, not necessarily because of autism, but in addition to autism. And they're gonna function well and function not well with overwhelm, but their base level. Is different, just like there are different levels of iq, emotional intelligence, and all kinds of other perspectives in people that are not on the spectrum. And I think all of this is important to understand because the terms that we're using, like disability or high functioning or not accurate to what we're trying to describe, they're not helpful at all. In the least. I know that's off subject, but it's not because we're talking about my experience. My podcast is about horses and about autism and how these things are interrelated. And it's also about psychology. So I am gonna call in people. To comment on this and my big question is what do I do? Like am I at a point, and I was saying this in the round pen, right before we went on the trail ride. I might be done riding, I might be done riding because my horse Sy doesn't really wanna be ridden anymore. She wants to hang out in the round pen with singing bowls and dancers and tappers and people that are just being present and wanna be. Because what horses seem to really be here to teach us is how to be, and I think the Kai what's her name? I can't think of her last name, Kai. With the telepathy tapes, she's getting to a point where I think she's saying that the nonverbal autistic children that meet on the hill telepathically are saying the same thing. Our world is about to shift the science that's now documenting how intention manifests in the field, how powerful intention in our subconscious minds are. The science is catching up. I can't help but think it's related to ai, but here I go, on and on. Lots of stuff to think about. The main question is here, what do I do with Charlie? The dilemma, do I just have him be a therapy horse, let him be, or do I try to get him trained after Now probably having two bad experiences under saddle. One of the reasons that I told Sissy that she needed to be trained was if something happens to me, you need to have value as a horse to other people so you don't end up at the slaughterhouse. That's why you need to know how to be ridden. What are we doing? What are we doing with horses? I can't wait to hear what they have to say. Thanks for listening.