Equine Wisdom Applied / Amanda Held

This episode goes deep and personal.  It contains live examples of Equine theraputic work; Also called Equine Assitested Practices EAP.  The subjects of suicide and helplessness are mentioned.  Charlie's Buck has meant many things to all involved.   

About Amanda Held:

Amanda Held is the founder of the Equine Wisdom Institute and author of Healing in Harmony: Emotional and Spiritual Wellness for Horses and Humans. A veteran, Mustang gentler, and certified holistic life coach with training in trauma-informed care, somatic integration, and energy psychology, Amanda has dedicated her life to helping people and horses heal together. Her signature modality, the Equine Wisdom Integration Method™ (EWIM), is a structured, ethically grounded system that teaches trained facilitators how to safely and effectively use horse behavior as a mirror for human emotional awareness.

📘 Learn more about her book:

https://a.co/d/2y96KgH

http://www.EquineWisdomInstitute.com

📞 Connect with Amanda: equinewisdominstitute@gmail.com

Disclaimer: The tools discussed in this episode are not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace professional mental health care. They should only be used by trained and certified facilitators. Please do not attempt to replicate this work at home without proper guidance and education.

Transcript

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Hi. And is she Abel with the Horse Human Connection Matrix. And today I have with me Amanda, held from Hooves and she also has a book that is about to be released. Healing in harmony. Healing in harmony. And she's gonna weigh in on Charlie Bucks and she brings a very unique perspective because of the work that she does, and I just, I can't wait to hear how she helps to unpack some of this and all of the nuances that affect. Human relationships and how we come together with horses as well. Welcome, Amanda. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. And it's an an honor to be a part of this unpacking. And so I did listen to your original story where you share what happened, and then I listened to Kimberly and Asha and their perspectives as well. I just wanna say, you know, everything that Kimberly and Asha said, I think I wholeheartedly support. I agree with, and I feel like what we're really doing here is we're painting this holistic picture. Mm-hmm. And if you've ever worked with me or if you know anything about the work that I do. I believe that it is paramount to never consider anything from one perspective. If we really wanna be holistic in our viewpoint and our ability to influence and change our life, I think it's important to lay all the information out on the table and then make a decision based on all the information on how you wanna move forward. I'm coming from quite a different perspective. It's not a horse training per perspective, but it's more of an energetic perspective. And if you've ever done any energy research, Rupert Sheldrake, I recommend his work to everybody. He does a lot of work in the Morphic field, but the research and work that I've built, the Equine Wisdom Institute around is largely based off of the laws of nature and quantum entanglement. So that's the approach that I'm gonna be taking today in unpacking what is going on. And so I have tried to, I, I guess I wanna start by saying I believe that when we generalize, we polarize. Mm-hmm. And I think one of the biggest challenges, and especially listening to the conversation with Kimberly in the horse training realm is that the answer is always, it depends. You had me at always. I was like, wait a minute. We're not supposed to say always and never. But in that sentence, it works. Yes. Right. And so I also believe we can't say always and never except when we're working in the con context of universal laws and principles. Okay. Because the laws are always absolute. So in the work I've been doing over the past 15 years, I've really learned how to see the laws of nature at play. Mm-hmm. In every. Situation that is brought in front of me. And just to give people a little bit of background on me, I started working with wild horses and becoming a horse trainer in 2003. So my work has largely been in WildHorse, gentling. I am also a little bit neuros spicy, so I don't have autism, but I have pretty escalated hd, which is you know, really become a superpower to me. But my brain works a little bit different and it works very much in patterning and I'm always like, I see patterns in everything, which I think has helped me be really effective in working with horses, getting last chance, horses being able to get horses to places that no one else can get them, because horses. Also really love patterns, patterns to horses actually bring them safety and security. So that totally makes sense. Yeah. Yes. As pre animals it totally makes sense. Absolutely. So clarity and patterns, that's really how I work with my horses. And I would love to meet Kimberly one day because man, I resonated with everything that she was saying, so she's awesome. I really enjoyed what she had to say about the situation. Yes, she's so before we dig in, there's some fundamentals that I just wanna kind touch on. And one of the things I put in my notes about. Horse training and I, I am no longer a horse trainer and I no longer give lessons unless something crazy comes outta the blue. My life has now turned to the equine assisted healing space. So I run five day healing intensives primarily for veterans, but sometimes for other groups of people as well. And we learn about the laws of nature. We learn about what I call the human blueprint, so our own special intrinsic driving forces. And then we also work with how does the horse work with who we are at an intrinsic level. Mm-hmm. And. In doing this.'cause you know, I came from the old school horse training, then into the natural horsemanship and then into the realizing that horse horses are incredibly intelligent, sentient beings. Then I didn't want to like do anything to reprimand them or confront them, and then I created a whole mess there. And so I like to feel like I've, I've landed somewhere in this space of neutrality saying always, it depends, but looking at each case individually, because it is in the minutia that we get the information. But one of the things I've seen over and over and over and over again in the equine assisted healing space,'cause most of my clients are not horse people, they're just coming to heal, is that horses will reflect the life inside of the human. That is why they're so powerful in the therapeutic space. But at the same time, this innate ability that they possess, you know, because they're attuned to our nervous system, because they're prey animals, because they have a social hierarchy similar to humans, whatever all these reasons are that make horses, horses, this isn't something they can turn off ever. So every session that any human being ever has with a horse is always a therapy session in some form. Now, most people choose not to see that, and many, many people compensate for that by shutting the horse down and putting it in to learned helplessness and calling it a good broke horse. But somewhere in there, at some point, that horse has seen you. It's a type of avoid, it's a type of avoidance is what you're describing. Oh, well, absolutely. Because, because people who are hurt and don't understand, and this is not from a place of judgment.'cause I used to be one of those people. It's a, it's a place of observation. But the reason that horses can trigger us so deeply is because they see us. And if we're not used to being seen or if we don't like what's being seen, it's triggering. It's confronting. Right. And so when you don't know what to do with that information, a lot of times you, you feel like you have to overpower it. Right. And we, we try to control situations in order to feel safe. And if we don't wanna be seen or, or things are being uncovered, we may not feel safe. Absolutely. So this is a systemic issue in the entire society of horses because a lot of people, myself included. Get into horses because horses give us a level of empowerment mm-hmm. That maybe we can't find anywhere else. And if you are seeking external empowerment, then that typically means that internally you're disempowered. Right. I noticed the demographic of women with horses and you know, like 10, 15 years ago and started, you know, like mentally noting that a lot of women that I'd met who had horses were kind of in broken relationships looking for that empowerment. Exactly as you're saying. I mean, the demographics show that clearly, but we've made a lot of progress I think in the last decade. Oh yeah, absolutely. And so I'm gonna say something potentially confronting here, but this is a pattern in doing all of the work that I've done over the past 20 years many people look to their horses to provide them with something they didn't get from their parents. Mm-hmm. It's just and you know, and I'm, I did it too came into the horse world, very broken. But our voids in our childhood mm-hmm. Create our values as an adult. And instead of being taught,'cause we're just not taught how to fill our own voids at, at this stage in humanity we start to look at outside things to do that for us. Right. And so some, sometimes people become overachievers and maybe they do like dirt bike racing or, you know, something that involves inanimate objects. You know, which tends to go better for people, but the horses they see right through, they see all of it, you know, and I know the, the whole nervous system thing is, is a huge buzz right now. I mean, it's very true, but I like to say like, when we're being inauthentic or when, when we're not fully owning what is inside of us and, and what's inside of us can, can feel really ugly and still be okay to the horse if it's being expressed truthfully. But we've been told, and we've been conditioned, you know, if you show up and you're sad or if you show up and you're angry, people aren't gonna like you. Right? We're talking about congruence and how horses expose our incongruence and, and that in our culture. We're taught to be incongruent and we have to be incongruent to function the way our culture is set up, the way workplaces are set up. But when we're with our horses, they would much prefer, in fact, insist that we be congruent and they teach us that. Absolutely. You said that beautifully. And so that is really, I guess in essence, they're constantly tuned into and picking up on anything that we are repressing and they can't turn that off. And I think the new wave of teaching. Is really waking people up and kind of busting some of these myths. Like, you can't be, if you're afraid the horse is gonna be afraid. Here's how I perceive this scenario, and again, I, I wholeheartedly agree with the other perspectives. This is just gonna. Go deep, and I hope you're ready to go deep because that's, that's where my space is at. That's where I live in the minutia. So there's obviously your component in here, and one of the things that I have seen over the years often is when we get horses that have a past. Mm-hmm. And maybe we don't know exactly what the past is, but there's this whole narrative about who this horse is. Mm-hmm. And you know, you have that in you, and then the horse can see that in you. And so it's like, oh, well this horse is a bolted, this horse is a bucker, this horse is a biter. Okay. But those are all symptoms and those are all results of something deeper, but. When we have a narrative and we think, oh, this horse is that, that horse reads that on our face. Horses respond to our beliefs. That is, is a breakthrough thing that I have discovered in my research over the past 15 years. They wholeheartedly, yes, they tune into our nervous system. That is a whole, very valid thing. But horses respond to our beliefs. Our perspective is made up of a few things. Right. And kind of like what you said, our past experiences, if you were a kid and you played with snakes and you had a pet snake and you loved them and you would catch them in the garden and you see a snake, you're gonna, your brain's gonna produce dopamine. Mm-hmm. And maybe some serotonin, right? Mm-hmm. But if you were a kid and you were bit by a snake, or your dog was bit by a poisonous snake and it died, you're gonna see a, a snake and you're gonna release cortisol and adrenaline and epinephrine, right? So. We are so biological in, in you know, my friend Steven Gardner, he always says, are we, are we sentient and intelligent spiritual beings, or are we slightly intelligent monkeys? And I'd like to believe that we're somewhere in the middle of that, right? So we have this spirituality and this divine connection, but we also are driven by our hormones. And no matter what happens in our life, our hormones are always gonna come in and override us no matter what. So, if we are challenged, if our core values are challenged to a high enough degree, and this pro, I promise this will relate later, but if our intrinsic drivers and values are challenged to a high enough degree, I don't care how spiritual you are, I don't care how connected you are, I don't care how full love you are, your biology is gonna override you, and those hormones are gonna start driving your bus. And so we have to look at the support of and challenge to our perspective. That is literally what governs every action or inaction or response or proactive thing that we do in our life. What, what do you mean by challenge to our perspective? Can you break that apart a little bit? Absolutely. Mm-hmm. So we all have and I, I teach a course called discovering Your Human Blueprint, right? Mm-hmm. So, but we all have a blueprint. It's unique to us. Mm-hmm. And so we have our intrinsic selves and we show up in the environment. And, you know, at the end of the day, we're all waves and particles connected in oneness in the quantum field, right? Mm-hmm. But our body allows us to come here and have some separation so that we can have our own human experience. If you walk into the arena and Charlie comes up to you and he puts his head in your chest and takes a big breath and just, you're gonna, that's supportive in that moment, you're gonna be flood, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin. Right. And your body is gonna have a physical response, and that physical response is also gonna send a vibration or signal to Charlie He's gonna be having the same kind of response if we're having that experience. Correct. If Charlie comes up and puts his teeth on you and pinches you, that's not gonna release dopamine. That's gonna release adrenaline. Actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna disagree there. My experience has been different when he pinches with his teeth. I'm seeing it through a therapeutic lens, and my experiences have been really positive with being pinched and it definitely releases a bunch of stuff and creates this shift. And I don't even know how to necessarily describe the physical sensations and the energetic sensations that happen, but it started with that horse at Lis MIT and Ryan's place that racked its teeth on my scalp and opened up my chakra. It's part of my experience. It's part of my perspective. It's part of my response. So now when he does it to you, you don't see it as a threat, but what about the first time it happened and it caught you off guard and you didn't understand it yet and you hadn't processed it? So the first time it happened, I, it, it didn't, I was warned. I was, she said, she stood there and said, he's gonna bite you. This pony's gonna bite you and if you trust him, he won't bite you hard. But if you can't let go and trust him, he'll bite you harder. And I was like, of course it's gonna bite me. Like, what? But he bit me. And something happened and it was, it was delicious in a way, not in a weird, I like pain kind of way, but in an energetic release kind of way. And so I never had, had an experience with a horse biting me in a bad way ever. Okay. So that. So you were primed by another person, Hey, he's gonna do this to you. What about when you fell off and got hurt? Did you see that as supportive in that moment when you were hurt at times? I've, I've come off a horse. No. It was not supportive at all. So in that moment it was challenging, right. And you've carried that challenge with you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And now it's governing the way that you're moving forward in your relationship with Charlie and your decision to ride or not ride or whatever. Right. And it's escalating, which, you know, has led us to, to this situation. But in essence, every interaction that you have is either gonna be supportive or it's gonna be challenging. That's going to influence the way that your brain releases its chemistry. It's critical. It's a piece that I haven't heard talked about a lot. I don't know if I've ever heard it talked about in the context of horses. Lot of my training is in human behavior. That's where that comes from the human behavior work that I do., At the core level, it's either support of or challenge to our perspective. Mm-hmm. And we respond to every single thing in our environment that way. Now, when we're aware of that and we have the tools to process through things that happen to us, and we shift our perspective, we can shift what brings us pleasure and what brings us pain by shifting our perspective. And that is really at, at the essence, the work that I do is helping people gain a holistic perspective. Mm-hmm. And then. Like, I believe that we all should, if it's our life, we should be deciding, right? And so if you're not deciding, somebody's deciding for you. And so what I want to do in the time that we have today, is kind of look at just another perspective. So you have a lot of different facts and opinions and thoughts and perspectives. And hopefully by the end of interviewing all the people that are gonna weigh in on this, you can make a decision for you that's gonna best help you and best help Charlie. And I, you know, so that's, I believe, and I, I have in my notes here training, horse training doesn't work unless the horse trainer is teaching you to be a trainer. Absolutely. And so the, the episode that you didn't watch with or have a chance to listen to yet with Carissa, we deal with some of that. And I've already, from listening to you and Kimberly and Asha and Carissa, I always, I already feel like a softening, where in the beginning I'm like, I don't know if I ever wanna even ride again. And now I am, I'm at a different place and it, it, I notice how it continues to change as my awareness of different things is growing. Absolutely. So I wrote here too, this is another thing that I see so often and the, the question I always used to ask when I would get a horse horse training client in is what do you want from your horse? What do you want from your horse? Because that's going to really largely depend on what we do and the whole basis of the training. And guess how many times somebody was able to answer that question immediately with clarity? Never, no, never, never. No, no. Mm-hmm. People will say, I don't know, or, you know, we want a show. Okay. But that's broad. Like, what are your expectations of your horse? What do you want from them? And so a a lot of times people would say like, you know, they would come up with something. Okay. Okay. I wanna show. Okay. And what, okay. What do you believe that showing is gonna give you? Well, it's gonna gimme the opportunity to go out and have fun, and be social, and have goals to work towards, da, da, da, da. Okay. And what will that give you? Oh I don't know. Okay. Well, think about it like, what do you, what do you really want? Because at the end of the day, everything that we do is to gain a feeling, right? So how do you want your horse to help you feel, or how is accomplishing all of this? Gonna help you feel. And so because they tune into our beliefs, all of our beliefs generate feelings. Mm-hmm. And courses are so emotional, they're tuning into our feelings because our feelings are what carry a vibration. Absolutely. So if we're not looking at feelings and we're not looking at beliefs in our relationship with our horse and to our horse, we're gonna have gaps. And those horses. Great at putting our gaps right in front of our face with a little bow on it. Which is amazing if you know how to work through those scenarios and situations. And frustrating if you don't, because you know, so many times it feels like, well, this pattern, it just keeps happening over and over again. And, you know, I call it like running with a rubber band around your waist. You'll make progress. You're running, you're running, you think you've got it, and then boom, something will trigger and you just snap back and you're back at ground zero. And so if we don't deal with our beliefs, then we're gonna keep living Groundhogs Day through a different scenario. And that's, so back to beliefs. Our beliefs generate feelings. Feelings generate vibration. Horses tune into the vibration. So, yes, it's our nervous system, but it's actually more complex than that. It's actually the vibrations of our emotions that the horses are tuning into and horses. A lot of people, and a lot of people are not aware how they function at that level. Like many people are not. Like, I can bring if, if, if you'd like. I can bring an example to that. Sure. From, from all of this, it's like, I know what I want with Charlie. I want that that chocolate truffle that Kimberly talks about, which is described in the episode of co-created rides. It's that I wanna explore with my horse in partnership co-creating, you know, I want that sense of adventure and that sense of connection, and those are the rides that matter to me. Those are really the rides that matter to me. And yeah, there's this other like, oh, let's go trail riding with friends that is about belonging and inclusion. And I, I, like this week, had this, all of this sadness come up with the idea that, that, that might be gone for me. Like I saw a Facebook thing of a couple of friends, you know, trailering and riding from Eugene, which is like an hour away, to a place that's really much closer to me that I, I have a trailer, I have horses, but because of where I am, things that a lot of horse people take for granted because they do it with habituation, they do it with dominance of putting your horse in the trailer and going for a ride because of some of the things I've been through and some of my experiences that isn't even on the table for me right now. And all of this, like, loss of that, you know, what is the emotion there? It's that not belonging that goes so deep. Got uncovered because I don't experience a lot of that anymore, but I certainly did as a child. Sure. And, and so that's the kind of thing you're talking about. And when I'm with Charlie and we're, we're connecting on the ground, it's this wonderful thing like you described, including all of the, the hormones and neurochemicals. And I've experienced that chocolate truffle of a ride lots of times, but not recently. And so yeah, that's, that's what I want. Yeah. And what I don't, and what I don't want and what I need to work through. And that's only a piece of the fear. Like as you described all these different experiences, like seeing that trainer come off was horrible. The three times I've been thrown from a horse, I. Or you know, in my memory somewhere, although when you were talking about that, it's really interesting because as I've worked the memory chains of EMDR, not once has a, a trauma on a horse been part of that chain. Like, it's kind of amazing to me. Like what? And I'm, I've got some curiosity about what's happening from a neurochemical perspective, that those experiences like childbirth is incredibly painful. But that's not part of trauma on my memory chain and neither is being thrown from a horse. I can explain specifically why that happens. Right. Okay. And so it has to do with two different types of stress. There's distress and there is eustress. And so everything that I teach goes back to our human blueprint. Again, the support of or challenge to your blueprint. Mm-hmm. And so we enter situations that are stressful, that could be seen as traumatic, right. But if we can see that the situation that we've entered is somehow connected to our highest values. Then when we experience it or we think about it, because whether you're remembering it, you're living it or you're imagining it, your body responds exactly the same. Mm-hmm. We enter into a state of eustress, which is a positive stress that actually does release positive chemicals in our body. If we enter into a scenario that is seen as traumatic and we cannot connect it to our values, we cannot connect it to our blueprint, then we will enter into a state of distress, and that's where we start to release negative chemicals. So when things are high in your values, like family, like horses, when you are challenged in those areas that are in your top three to five, you don't, your body does not respond the same because you're releasing different chemicals into your body. That's why a lot of times people do get bucked off and they get right back on. You know, if you got attacked in a parking lot. You've got away, you aren't going back into the parking lot to get attacked again. But if you get bucked off a horse, you wanna get right back on. And again, that goes back to your perspective. These things are of high value to you. And so you do process those things differently when you think about them. They release a different chemical into your body and that creates different types of neuropathways in your brain. Does that make sense? It does. Okay. But there's another part of this as well, and I'm, I'm trying to take this this is just so deep, and I'm trying to take it full circle in the allotted amount of time that we have, but there is also a universal law called the law of correspondence as above, so below as within, so without. Mm-hmm. And so our primary program happens to us. Through the experiences we have before the age of 12. Mm-hmm. So your brain was very neuroplastic and your beliefs about yourself were getting programmed into you. And this is all happening up until the age of 12. At the age of 12 are brainwaves shift into a beta brainwave state, which is where the gates to our subconscious are locked. Whatever's in there is in there, and our brain actually changes. And then we live the rest of our life in these feedback loops of our core programming. And our core programming is done in the forms of beliefs. So whatever you were taught about yourself by your environment before the age of 12, I'm not worthy. I'm not good enough. I am stupid. Nobody likes me. You know, I can't do anything, right. I'm clumsy. Whatever negative beliefs are in there have to be reprogrammed. In order for you to change. And so then because as within, so without our environment is constantly responding to all of this that's in here and horses are a part of that. I mean, I believe, you know, when your car breaks down, I believe that that's feedback for you. When you walk through a doorway and you bang your shoulder, that's feedback. Every single thing in our environment mm-hmm. Is talking to us all the time, trying to wake us up to where we are out of alignment with our authentic self. And horses just seem to do this at a really amplified level because of who and what they are. And so, you know, when we talk about. I, I know you had mentioned that you have guilt about this horse trainer as well, you know, and I certainly don't wanna bring somebody into this that's not here to, to participate or reveal anything about that person. But what I can tell you, just from the hundreds of people I've worked to have had horse accidents and my own personal horse accident it is feedback trying to wake you up to the fact that somewhere in your life you are selling yourself out. You are not being authentic, you are not being in alignment. And I had a really bad ac accident on my heart horse. I was, you know, dating a guy who'd just come back from rack. He was being awful. He wasn't integrating well. You know, I had this hor hor heart horse I had I had him so well trained. We rode bridal list like, you know, and we had, I'd gotten in a, in an argument with this guy and I got on my horse and he was very different in that moment. And we were trying to teach the baby Mustangs to pony. And my lariat kind of grazed his flank, which wasn't new. And he sent me end over end and I smashed my collarbone. But when I learned all of this stuff and I learned that everything has a spiritual message for you that happens in your life, I realized that going through that experience. Woke me up to where I was allowing things in my life that I shouldn't have been allowing. What it, what is the collarbone? I've broken mine twice. You've broken yours and she broke hers. Now I gotta know. Oh, did her, her clavicle end up being that's shattered. All great changes proceeded by chaos. I believe that the amount of chaos that ensues, it will be in direct proportion to the amount of impact that whatever's gonna happen happens. Right. The collarbone symbolizes the transmission of heartfelt truth into authentic expression. And so if there's injury in the collarbone, it's a difficulty speaking from your heart or you're holding back your truth due to fear of judgment or rejection. So the clavicle also carries burdens and emotional weight and a sense of over responsibility. Hmm. So if I look back to when I broke my collarbone, I was having to carry all the burdens. You know, I was, I had two kids, I was running a, a boarding and training facility if it happens on the left side of your body, that's the feminine side. So that's like family or physical or social. And the right side is more mental, vocational, and financial. And I know at that time you know, I mean boarding a, running a boarding business is. I just felt like I can't keep going like this. I have so much responsibility. I have so many people's horses to take care of. I have so much financial burden, you know, the cost of hay is, you know, so, so I always tell people when you get into an accident, a horse accident, look at what was going on in your life three days prior to that accident happening, because there's information in there. And so we call it feedback. Everything is feedback. And there's four different types of feedback. So the first type of feedback is psychological feedback. That's when something comes into your experience and you see it as a support or challenge, right? So when we're living outside of our blueprint, something happens in our environment, we're like, Ooh, this is outside of of my scope. This is not fueling me. This is gonna deplete me. But if I don't say yes, people won't like me. If I don't say yes, I'm going to get kicked out of the tribe, and then I won't have safety and resources and so on and so forth. So we're like, okay, yeah, I'll do that thing that I don't want to do. And then it's like, ugh, like a gut punch. Like you, you commit to something you don't want to do and you feel sick, right? That turns into physical feedback. But again, we don't wanna get kicked out of the tribe because that's our safety and security. So then we, we continue to sell ourselves out and we get this physical feedback and we don't care. We just put our heads down and press on. Then it comes into our environment. We get environmental feedback and that typically shows up in our relationships. Maybe it's an argument with a spouse or a child, maybe it's a coworker or dealing with a, a boss at work, but something happens, starts to happen in our relationships, or it can happen with our horses. Even, you know, the horse doesn't wanna come up to you where the horse is stuck in its feet. It doesn't wanna move forward. It doesn't wanna cooperate. That's also environmental feedback. And then the fourth level of feedback, I call the pattern disrupt. It is the thing that happens to you that is so painful that it has to invoke some type of change in your life. Right? So yeah, I had some of those, yeah. When I broke my clavicle, I could no longer muck stalls for, you know, a month. I had to have surgery. Oh, I went from taking care of everybody to having to be taken care of. You know, I was in this relationship with a person I thought cared about me, and when he was so mad at me that I did this, you know, and all he was doing was like ridiculing me. So it was an eyeopener that, you know, I'm selfish because I have horses and I shouldn't be getting hurt. And it was like, wow. I think the universe was trying to tell me for like eight years prior that this person shouldn't be in my life anymore, but I wouldn't listen. Right? And so when we don't listen, things in our life escalate, especially things with our horses. And that's what leads us to the injury. And I can say this now because I have worked with literally thousands of people. And when I take them to that moment of the pattern disrupt, and we unpack that and we integrate it, they can always see, they can always see where they were selling themselves at. Sure. And so we had chatted a little bit before you hit record, you know, about the EMDR therapy. And so, you know, and I'm of the opinion if it works for you, keep doing it. I, you know, different strokes for different folks EMDR, I've met some people that have said it has been super helpful. Before I learned any of the healing work that I do now, EMDR was the only thing that had remotely moved the needle forward for me. So I'm glad that I experienced it and it got me to a point where I could do other work on my traumas that really needed to be done. I also know some people that have had horrific experiences where it's really set them back. So, you know, I don't have any judgment or opinions on any type of treatment. If it's working, do it. However, the thing that I observed with the, the EMDR, for myself personally and for a lot of the veterans that I've. Worked with is that you know, with EMDR you create like a box, right? And you put, you put stuff in a box, or at least I did. I, you know, I had to create like a safe box and then I could put anything in the box and then it couldn't get to me. And you know, I had this memory of my mom and this abusive situation, and when I went and did the EMDR on it, it was like in my mind, my mind built a brick wall and my mom couldn't get through the wall to get to me. And so I made something up about the experience that wasn't true, but I. It detached me from the emotion of it, because then when I would go to the memory, instead of her actually getting to me and hurting me, she never got to me. She was stopped by this brick wall. Okay. So that's great. Like it got me to a point where I could do other things. But in all of the trauma work that I do now, in conjunction with integration and the laws of the universe what I do now is if we're working on a trauma with somebody, we go back into the actual memory and we pull in, we balance and pull in things from the other side. Not to change reality. If you can't deal with something in a moment, you put it in the box and there may be different applications of the box. I mean, every therapist is different, every person is different. So the other thing I wanted to comment on is it did occur to me at some point that doing this EMDR is effective, is being so effective for me because. The way I, I term it is so many different things and so many different modalities over the years, starting from my very early twenties, did I pull everything out up to that point and look at it and do very gestalt things and work with Jungian type of psychology. And then at different points in my life, again, have pulled all of this stuff out and applied different modalities to it. So by the time I've arrived at EMDR it's like the reverse of what you've done or experienced maybe with the veterans and yourself is that you've done, you've done the EMDR and now you're finding that we still need to unpack this stuff and that's what you're speaking to now. So I guess the question is, does the order seem important? Well, my answer's gonna be, it depends. I don't think that's really a, I think that's a generalized question that would have to be. You know, there's very many nuances to that, but I think, you know what I, what I realized, and again, I'm not, I, I'm so grateful that I had it when I did. It certainly helped me get to this point, but, but what I have learned since then, and I feel like what I currently do works so well with any other application that you're doing, is that when we work with the things that happen, what we're actually doing is we're extracting really important information out of those challenging times, and we're not just seeing it as something that shouldn't have happened to me. Right. Right. Because if I have a trauma and then I'm told, or I believe that shouldn't have happened to me. Then I'm gonna wake up every day and go, oh my gosh, something happened to me that shouldn't have happened to me. And so I'm not saying that anything should or shouldn't happen to people, but I see what the belief this shouldn't have happened to me does to people. It deteriorates them from the inside out. So a lot of the work that we do isn't necessarily in, we call it the right, wrong, good, bad perspective or the should shouldn't perspective. Mm-hmm. But the cause and effect perspective, right. And so I still think that work needs done in the cause and effect perspective, or we keep reliving the pattern. Like it keeps showing up in our environment. It shows up and shows up and, and so I listened to your initial and I say all of that and it's relevant because you, you said, I feel like every time I do an EMDR session, something chaotic comes in and it happens. And so I'm just curious. Mm-hmm. And I'm not saying I certainly have the answer, but it, it sparked a question in me of is that, does that have something to do with the law of correspondence and Yes. And are we getting the lesson, or I guess I would say are, it seems like we're not, you know, we can, we can dull the emotional impact that the memory has on us. Mm-hmm. I mean, that is, can be super, super beneficial. But to me, if we're not getting the wisdom of the feedback of the experience, so the, let me clarify a little bit of that. It's an incomplete, it's an incomplete. When the issue of wherever I am in the memory chain. And what happens, lemme explain a little bit, is, you know, we set up a memory from the memory chain working chronologically, and as we set up that memory, then the next session we do, you know, a dot on the computer screen or some kind of bilateral stimulation that, that reduces the intensity of the experience. And then we come in and. Say, what did you, what was the negative belief you had about yourself then? And then say she'll say, and what would you rather believe? So then we create a new belief system that gets imposed on that experience as it's been desensitized. I think, and I guess it has to do with moving this around in the brain, but during the time between the two sessions is where I'm talking about. And that's where I have noticed repeatedly that whatever is open in the memory chain where we've brought it up, we've set it up, but we haven't processed it yet. I'm experiencing, I. A similar thing in real time, which does allow me to work on it at a less intense, allows my subconscious mind to explore it, examine it, re-experience it at a much lesser intensity level because it's a different situation and it's in real time. So somehow, I don't know that everybody experiences that, but that's been my experience and that's what happened this day. And it may be very interestingly and a coincidence of whatever the message was for the trainer with the collarbone, like we all bring something to the experience energetically. Charlie brings something, I bring something, I bring my beliefs, I bring where I am in the EMDR. He brings his experiences, she brings hers, and you know, it's it's a coalescence of how we all come together. Absolutely, because everybody's a vector and everybody's playing a role in everybody else's experience. But what stood out to me most, you know, and I I certainly agree just from the horse training and the mechanics of the situation it, it too much, too fast was, was dead on, right? Mm-hmm. So if, if you are not riding Charlie comfortably in the arena at several gates and working with him, you know, in, you know, we start at the round pen, you know, can you do transitions at the round pen? Can you do short 10 minute sessions? You know, if you aren't able to communicate with him fully and have his trust and have a good relationship in the round, if he didn't have any of that, he didn't have any of those skills yeah. Then he shouldn't even be in the arena. Right. And, and if you can't do it in the arena, you know, so it it, it was just. From a, from a baseline logical perspective, it was too much, too fast. He didn't have the appropriate levels, channels of communication on him that he needed to be able to regulate himself in the mountains, you know, so that's just common sense, right? The obvious. But what stood out to me the most, and I would really love to touch on, and I know we're, we're kind of at our time almost, but to me the most important thing was what, what you had said is, I don't have control. I, there's, I can't do anything. I'm, I'm helpless, I'm out of control, or, you know, whatever you were saying in that situation. And so typically when I work with somebody that's been through a horse accident or has ex experienced any type of challenge or trauma, is I ask them to go to that, go to that moment. How do you see yourself in that moment? What are the beliefs that you believe about yourself in that moment? I am what it is about responsibility. What? How far does my influence and responsibility go? And if I don't push control, exert everything. That in both these cases would be a really big response to control the environment of other people for a better outcome for everybody if I roll it back. Okay. So everything that you just said to me was about other people. Yeah. So what's the belief? I what I, what I wanna say, like the positive belief is that I am not responsible ultimately for what happens to other people. Okay. But what's the negative belief in there before you came to that conclusion? I'm not sure. It's like I could have prevented this. I could have prevented that, but I couldn't like it. Well, it's in that, it's in that, it's in that space of I should have done more. So how about, so just again, taking from your words and the things that I've heard you say as you speak about this, it's like, you know, I wanted to do more, but I didn't. I wanted to tell her to get off more from me or I, or I couldn't in, in, in the case with her. I, I could have been more forceful. But would that have been appropriate in the case from the E-M-D-R-I, I didn't know what else to do. Like I had tried and tried and tried and I didn't know what else to do. So is there like a, I can't trust myself and I'm not capable or like, what? We gotta go deeper. I what? I'm not, I'm not in control and I have, so I don't have it pulled up here, but I, it's kind of like I should, I should have known more things to do. I should have had more knowledge. I should have acted differently. Okay. So what we gotta turn that into a belief. I, so I'm not, I. Capable. I'm not enough. I have blind, I have blind spots that I don't understand. Okay. I don't understand. I, I, and I do, like, as an autistic person, I'm just learning that I have these blind spots that I do not fully understand. Okay. And then some of it is like, I mean, the incident from the EMDR is my son's suicide. Right. So if you go to that moment mm-hmm. How do you see yourself in that moment? I, what I did the best I could. I mean, we're through, I, I've come through that section and I've got it down to like a one. Mm-hmm. I did the, I did the best I could. Yes, absolutely. You did. I. And you are not responsible for other people. Right. And so there's, you've done a lot of work on that. Mm-hmm. But what I'm seeing is that there's still a core belief and we've gotta get to the root of it. We've gotta identify specifically what is that belief, because that keeps repeating itself. And we've gotta balance and integrate that belief in order to get it to stop repeating itself. And I'm curious, and we'll get it, but I'm curious how Charlie will respond differently to you once we can identify this belief and integrate it. Mm-hmm. So let's go back to the scene, because again, both of these scenes have to do with stuff that you can't do anything about, right? Mm-hmm. It's happening. You can't do anything about it. Mm-hmm. So how do you see yourself in that moment? I am what? I am not in control. Like, I'm like a witness. I'm not in control and I'm a witness. Yeah. Is there any helplessness in there? Yeah, definitely helplessness. Like it's really hard to watch things just happen and try to interact with them and have it not make a difference. Okay. So would you say that would be helplessness? Yes. Okay, good. When you said that, I got chills in my body, so have you done any work on being helpless? You mean sat with it, moved through it? Any gimme more information? Yeah, I mean, I've done some, I mean. Okay. Probably not enough. Probably not enough because you know what? I just realized it's happening again right now with another situation. Real time today. So see, so there it is. So that's what we've gotta get out. That's the root, right? And so everything else that we're working on are symptoms, which is fine, but if we don't pull the root, we're just managing the symptoms, we're running with that rubber band. So are you open to just trying a, a, a short experiment? Sure, sure. Okay. All right. So if you go back and we'll just do it on char, this Charlie memory specifically, but you can do this with any memory. So if you go back to that moment. You see yourself and Charlie's bucking the trainer and you're just standing there and you're like, I am totally helpless. Well, the moment, the moment would be when she was turning circles and I said, why don't you get off? It would be that moment, I think, because that's, that's the moment that I go to that moment. I could have, I could have done something differently. Do you see yourself as being helpless in that moment? Yes. Okay. Yes and no. I mean, both moments, I'm helpless in both moments. Go to the moment that you see yourself as most helpless. Yeah, I think you're right. It's when he was bucking, when they were coming at me and he was buck. It's, it's the moment in between when he is coming down the hill at a cantor and then buck. Yeah. That moment. Good. Okay. So in that moment you see yourself as helpless. Mm-hmm. When you think about that, what, what do you notice in your body? There's like a hollow feeling around my heart and my chest. Okay. All right. So I just want you to close your eyes. So in that moment, you were physically helpless, right? Because there was nothing you could do to stop anyone at that moment, right? Right. Okay. So that is one area of life, but we have several other areas of life. There's spiritual, there's mental, there's social, there's family, there's vocational. Okay. So in that very moment where you see yourself as being helpless physically to the situation that is happening. What would you say in that scene? The opposite of helpless would've been integrated, connected, present. Okay, great. So go back into that moment. Mm-hmm. So physically you were disconnected, but where were you, where were you actually connected in that moment to what was happening and why it was happening? So what, what's the connection there? Spiritual good. So I just want you to go back into that scene and I want you to see where you actually were connected spiritually. Yeah. And yeah, I've got goosebumps in the series of events that I am here as a player playing my part. Okay, good. So those goosebumps that you get, you have right now. Mm-hmm. That's your neuropathways in your brain starting to light back up. Mm-hmm. And that's your BA brain chemistry balancing. So I want you to close your eyes again. Where else were you connected in that moment? I was connected with my hor, with my horse Csy, who was in the hand. Good. So just go back in there and see yourself being connected to Csy in that moment. Yeah. I can actually feel her grounding with me in that moment. Mm-hmm. Good. Were you using your voice at all? No. Okay. If you go back into that memory, can you see anywhere else that you were actually connected? I. I can, as I go into the memory, I can feel my feet and I can feel an expansiveness from my head upward, like a, like a earth sky connection. Great. Great. Okay. So whe when you go back to that moment mm-hmm. How does it help you feel to know that you actually were connected in that moment? It feels like things are dissipating. Like I can almost, as I close my eyes, feel an energy leaving my body from the sides of it's not so personal. Great. And so now that you know that it's not so personal, how does that help you feel? What's the specific emotion? I feel much more present and integrated. Good. And so if you close your eyes, where do you feel present in your body? In my entire torso radiating into my limbs. Okay. And I want you to give that a color purple. Great. And now I want you to grow that, that purple color feeling of integration. And I want you to just fill up your body. Okay? And I want you to see that purple color actually radiating, dissipating out of your body. It's gonna fill up your house, it's gonna fill up your land, it's gonna go up and it's gonna fill up Charlie and Sipsy. And you're just gonna fill your whole little property there with that beautiful purple presence and integration. And it had exactly knew exactly where to go because I do the like, energy bubble of light over my property. Perfect. As a practice. Yeah. Wow. That was, are we done? Yeah. So I, that, that was amazing. People, you know, so, so this is just I mean, it's, it's the most powerful thing. And obviously a, a full session is far more nuanced and, and long than that. But that's just a little taste of something that we can do. And now if you just take some time you know, I like to do it before I go to bed. When I wake up in the morning, just continue to bring up that color. Mm-hmm. And so. Just to kind of bring it full circle. Right. You had said originally when we started talking about what you were wanting from your horse mm-hmm. It, it kind of got paired down to being connected. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. And so what happened in this incident, because you weren't seeing the connection led to the polarity happening. Right. And so now we've expanded your perspective to see that. Yeah. It doesn't take away from anything that was there or anything that did happen. We're not trying to take away the negative. Mm-hmm. But everything has two sides and everything has two sides to the same degree in every container. And so all we've we're doing is bringing up the other side to show that. There was actually balance in that moment. Right. So this is, this is taking that little nugget of wisdom that says like, anytime we are having an opinion, it it, it's a brain instead of a heart thing. Anytime we're having an opinion, we as humans automatically lock onto the arguments to support our opinion. And what we really need to be doing is looking for all the information, not just what already supports our opinion. Because that's how we find balance. And that happens in our head. And what you're doing is happening in our heart and our soul. Absolutely. And it's connecting the heart and the brain because they can heal each other. Yeah. So this is amazing, Amanda. Thank you for that demonstration and Wow, absolutely. Thank you for, for being willing to share and be vulnerable and for all of the work that you're doing to try to help everybody get this important work out to horses and humans. Yeah. So good. I'm gonna pause the recording now.