Bella and Bird do their magic-Dr. Deana Plaskon, Ph.D.

Dr. Deana Plaskon, Ph.D., has just released a new children’s book, Bella and Bird Explore Anger. The story is rooted in real-life resilience and compassion.

Dr. Plaskon, who holds a Ph.D. in human behavior and is certified in equine therapy, has spent decades helping children and families navigate big emotions. When she rescued Bella, a gentle Gypsy Vanner horse, to assist in her therapy work, she couldn’t have imagined how the horse’s own journey would shape her mission.

In 2022, Hurricane Ian devastated Pine Island with 150 mph winds. Many animals didn’t survive, but Bella did—despite a serious eye injury and being stranded without food or water after the island’s only bridge was destroyed. She was cared for by boat until help could arrive.

That resilience became the heart of Dr. Plaskon’s new children’s book series. Bella and Bird Explore Anger follows Henry, a young boy who storms into Bella’s pasture. With the gentle guidance of Bella and her barn swallow sidekick, Bird, Henry learns how to uncover the roots of his anger and channel it into healing.

The book empowers children to process difficult emotions with compassion and resilience—lessons inspired by a real therapy horse who’s weathered storms of her own.

You can learn more about Bella here: https://bellabirdbooks.com/

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Ishi Abel with the Horse Human Connection Matrix. Today I have Dina Paskin with me, who is a children's author and an equine therapist. Thank you for joining me, Dina. I'm so curious about your books and what you do. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So recently you have one book published and you have another one coming out. How did you get started doing children's books? Yeah, thank you. So my first book just launched. Three weeks ago, Uhhuh, it's called Bella and Bird Explore Anger. And the how I got started was I was inspired by my own horse named Bella, hence Bella. And she adopted her from Southern California in 2022, and she came all the way across the country to southwest Florida where we live, and we live on an island. And she arrived early, so she wasn't supposed to be arriving until the beginning of October. Mm-hmm. And she arrived early and three a week after she arrived hurricane Ian hit our area. Hurricane Ian was a catastrophic hurricane and it wasn't supposed to hit our area. It was supposed to go all the way around and up to Tampa Uhhuh. But at the last. Hour it turned and it hit us directly. And Bella was there early and she experienced the hurricane and she experienced it firsthand. We know that she from cameras before the cameras went out, we know that the horses in the livestock were in a lot of water. Hurricane force winds, hurricane Ian was just categorized as a category five. Mm-hmm. So the horses endured. Quite a bit. And because we were on an island, the only access to the island was a one-lane bridge, and that was destroyed by the hurricane. So you couldn't access the island, so you could not get the horses water and food you had to boat boated in. And with that experience, she inspired me. To create the children's book series. I was inspired by her resilience and I thought about the children and the adults. Mm-hmm. Who were going through the hurricane and myself mm-hmm. And my own emotions going through this hurricane. And as a licensed clinical therapist and educator, I thought, gosh, I'm really struggling with this. Mm-hmm. I wonder how the kids are managing. And that's how my book series was born. Wow. Incredible. So did you choose her without meeting her or do, did you go to California and meet her? Nope, I did not. I chose her. So I became a licensed clinical mental health therapist. And I didn't wanna do your typical talk therapy across the desk with individuals. I tend to be active. I believe that, you know, emotions need motion. Mm-hmm. And so. I came across a person in school who was doing equine therapy, and I thought, wow, I love horses. I've always loved horses. Used to wear my cowboy boots to bed and never had a horse, though I never had a horse, and I thought that's what I wanna do. But before I jumped into it. I needed to make sure. So I volunteered and I volunteered at a few barns for a couple years, and then I researched and just dug into horses and the type of horses and what horse would be perfect for me and for equine therapy. And I came across the gypsy banner. Mm-hmm. And I read about their history and how docile and how they created the. Gypsy Vanner, well known as the gypsy vanner in the us how they created the gypsy vanner to be part of the family. Mm-hmm. And I thought this is a perfect horse for, for equine therapy. Mm-hmm. So I did a bunch of research and. Bella came across my, my email that she was available and I thought, wow, she's the perfect horse. She was 15 when I adopted her, and she was a brood mare, so she was raised on a ranch in Southern California and the owner had decided to adopt her out, and that's how I adopted her. Wonderful. Yeah. Do you, did you ever have a sense that she found you more than that you found her? I, I really believe that. I mean, just in the, in the three years, the hurricane anniversary is coming up actually on the 26th of September. Mm-hmm. It'll be three years. So I've had her for three years and she's, she really did bind me how everything has laid into place from adopting her from first even becoming a. Clinical therapist and then an equine therapist. I'm certified in two different equine therapies and then adopting her, her arriving early. Mm-hmm. If she didn't arrive early and didn't come to the island, my book series wouldn't exist. Right. And I, my sense is, is that Bella knew exactly what she was doing. Mm-hmm. Yep. I've had, I've had similar experiences. They, they're magical in so many ways. Wow. So tell me, you say you're, you're trained in two certified in two different equine therapies. Can you tell me a little bit about what those are? Sure. The first one, Izzy Gala. I came across EG. Gala and I became certified in EG. Gala, and then I came across Arch. That's Arenas for Change. And Lynn Thomas is the founder of Arch. She actually founded EG. Gala. She left EG. Gala and then a founded arch. So that's, that stands for Arenas for Change, and I connect a lot with, I connect with both of them. But Arenas for Change is extraordinary because it's all about the narrative storytelling of our lives. And it's called Arch because an arch. Often when you see an arch or think of an arch or even like, I think of a rainbow as well, you're on one side and then a transformation happens and you're, you walk through the arch and you're on the other side. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a gateway of sorts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's narrative storytelling and there's no writing that's involved in equine therapy. And you. You have clients, you know, it's their, it's their own story, and so you help them tell their story, and through that storytelling, they can often heal. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it sounds, sounds amazing. It sounds like a lot of what I do, I do something similar with it's kind of Jungian and Gestalt where it's like a big sand tray that we work with, props and symbols. And then and then there's storytelling about the goal, because I'm not a therapist, I'm a, a coach, so we work with goals and obstacles that the obstacles end up, you know, bringing stuff up though. And so kind of the same thing. It's it's good work. It's powerful work. Yes. It really is. And there's so many symbols in the pastor that you can utilize and clients can connect with along with the horses there and the other horses and how they interact with each other. And often it's a met their metaphors for people in their lives or themselves. Oh, abso, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I this work so. About the anger. Like I didn't, I I started to order the book and I ran into a glitch and I got sidetracked and I didn't come back to it. So Bella and the angry, like there's an angry bird or something, right? Actually Bird is, bird is the Wisecracker. So here's the book here. Okay. And I, so Bella is Bella my horse, and she mirrors mimics. The therapist in the story and, and in the stories and bird how I came up with Bird was there's a bird that was making his nest in Bella's stall and he was using her hair and he was always there. And I've had, I have pictures of him and that's how I came up with Bird. And I was, I would talk to him. I'd go in there. There you are. Bird. Hey bird. How's it going, bird? And hi. Hi. Bella's hair would be hanging over his nest, part of his nest. And when I started creating this series, I first wrote about Bella's adventures coming from Southern California. Mm-hmm. And then through my editor. She suggested, you know, you have a great story here, but a lot of emotions. Let's think about separating the emotions out. Mm-hmm. So. With that I thought, you know, she, we need some humor. There needs to be some humor in my stories. I don't wanna lose children or in adults. I want to help, help keep them engaged. And I thought about Bird in her stall and I named him Bird.'cause you know, he's Bird. And I thought, you know, he's such a wise cracker. He does the funniest things. I said Bird, Bella, and Bird. So Bird is her friend, her wisecracking friend who brings in humor into the books and together they help. Henry Henry's my first character in the book. Mm-hmm. He comes dorming into the pastor and together they offer that balance, you know, that calmness with the humor. And he helped, they help Henry work through, understand and then manage his anger. So it's, it's been my experience just in real life with horses that a lot of times if you're angry, they'll, they'll walk away. I mean, they, they need congruence and they certainly don't want you to pretend you're not angry if you are. But when there's a whole lot of anger present, they will often just move, move as far away as they can. Is that, is that your experience? I haven't personally had that experience with Bella. I feel that Bella is so in tune into to, into emotions, like mm-hmm. Like many of the horses that I've been around, and you're right, not every horse is meant to do therapy. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, and not every horse is meant to be ridden. Right. Not every horse, they, I think they have their, their trades and their specialties, like people. And Bella, she she doesn't walk away from the anger. She certainly doesn't come, you know, embracing it. But I have seen her. She's there, she's respectfully there in the space, and when you're willing to engage, she engages. That's a lot with the story. Henry comes storming in and he wants to engage, but he's so angry and so Bella comes over and says, is, you know, is everything okay? And Henry says, can't you tell this is my angry face? And you know, that's how he starts. And Vela says, oh yes, I, I can tell you're very angry. And then Henry, you know, says, why he's angry he can't have his favorite pie. And then bird swoops in and says, did someone say pie? You know, he hears the word pie, so. I feel like even with the sadness book the second book coming out in November, it's a different character. Her name is Molly. Mm-hmm. She's, she's in the pastor and she's, she's very sad. She's crying and Bella and Bird give her space. They don't come storming in and wanna know why she's sad. They allow her that space to sit with it and allow her to start the conversation. Like Henry, Henry starts the conversation and says why he's mad. And, and they respectfully, you know, respect that. With, with Bella personally, as, as the owner of her you know, her and I, I feel as though she's. She's just so docile and she's very calm and she gives that very calm presence. Mm-hmm. And in the three years I've had her, I, she's incredibly, every single person that has met her and many horse people have said. That's a hard horse. Yeah. She's a hard horse. Yeah. Sounds like an an incredible story. And and what a great way for Bella to be able to reach even more people. Do you do sessions with children? Yeah, I haven't done so Bella once the hurricane hit, I had her for three weeks. And then it took three weeks to get the bridge fixed. And that was such a. Catastrophic traumatic experience, not only for me, but for her as well. That I decided to move her off the island and to move her away from like the island in case any other hurricane came by. And so I moved her to the North Fort Myers area in Florida, but we encountered some other struggles and e eventually about a year and a half ago, I ended up moving her out of Florida into New Jersey. IB my time in New Jersey as well. My family lives in New Jersey, and so it was really the perfect fit. And how things have just evolved is really amazing to me because I began this whole process of adopting her to do equine therapy. Mm-hmm. And here I am doing children's books. She ends up at a barn where next year we have have expanded and we wanna start offering equine therapy. So Bella's role will hopefully change next year where we can start offering that with individuals who are interested in equine therapy. Nice. Nice. That sounds great. So, were you doing equine therapy in Florida? Yeah, I started to do the equine therapy in Florida and then the hurricane hit was only three weeks and I actually, yeah, so I actually incorporated, you can incorporate through the arch program online, and so I was doing on online equine therapy with clients as well. Which is a very unique process. Yeah, that's, I mean, I've heard of people doing energy work with herds and kind of some psychic things with horses, but I haven't heard of like a therapy session online with them. That's, that's really interesting. Yeah. I have incorporated what I learned through the arch program. Mm-hmm. With a lot of clients that I've seen. And, and they don't even realize that it's equine therapy, but there are the horses on the screen and there are lots of different ways that you can incorporate that. So you don't have to actually be in the pastor and, but it certainly helps. There's other ways that you can bring that into online sessions and do the best that you can to bring the tools that you offer in the pastor through an online version. Interesting. I'm learning all kinds of new things. That's, that's fascinating. Really fascinating. So do you have plans to get more horses? I don't have plans to get more horses, but my fantastic barn manager she's always adding horses to the, to her herd. We just added a mini, which is fantastic'cause I love the minis and I think they offer a lot and can offer a lot with the therapy. So she's gonna probably be part of our therapy program. And so me personally, I am very happy with Bella and just loving and having her as my, my first horse and I would love more horses. But as you probably know, it's a lot of work. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They can be, they certainly can be a lot of time commitment too. It is, it's a lot of time commitment. If I were to get another horse though, I would certainly do the gypsy banner. I just find them to be incredibly in tune. And they wanna be in your pocket. They're, you know, much like my dog. I have a dog that's like a pony and looks like Bella actually. And and she reminds me, they remind me of each other. So I would probably do another gypsy vanner for sure. And I just find them to be very connective. And I'm around a lot of the other horses as well, and they're all, they're all fantastic. They all offer something, but there's something truly special about the gypsy van. I know I have one of my main horses that works with people is a draft ish breed. So she's built like, she's a Mustang, but she's built kind of like a vanner or a fell pony. That, that she's very heavy boned and, and she's very calm and when we used to ride on the trail, she was. Really calm on the trail too, you know, pick her way through anything. And she's not very reactive and she's very deliberate as she steps carefully around people. And so I get exactly what you're talking about that. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes too, like even with the reactive horses can be actually good for clients to see that because it does help, you know, because it's about mar mirroring, but they're not actually mirroring and doing what we're feeling inside. What they're doing is bringing out what we're feeling inside, right? So when we say in equine therapy that they mirror us, it doesn't mean that if I'm anxious, the horse is gonna be anxious. It means that when I'm around the horse. I'm sensing my anxiousness, it's bringing it out in me. And so even like the reactive horses that are in other pastures and things like that, that they can help with clients because you can watch their body language and be in tune with that and, and say, oh, you know, the horse over there. Tell me about what you were feeling when you saw it galloping, or, you know, bucking or whatever a reactive horse might do. Hmm. So we might not necessarily have the reactive horses in the pasture with the ground therapy. They could be often another pastor around. And that's the fascinating thing about I I feel about equine psychotherapy is that, you know, you're in that natural setting and then you can bring, again, back to the online, you could bring a reactive horse, a horse that looks reactive on the screen, right? And that's doing that. And you can have that conversation. You know, things up. I guess I'm, I guess I'm a little confused and I, I should clarify'cause I don't know how much of my podcast you've listened to that I was recently diagnosed as being autistic. So context and the way I process information may be a little bit different than you, but I'm, I, as you're. Characterizing horses as reactive or non-reactive, because I'm assuming if there's a reactive horse, then there's also a non-reactive horse. I, that's not my experience at all. My experience is it's how the people show up. Like not too long ago, I went to visit a farm where there were some Arabian, and I haven't worked a lot with Arabian. They are, you know. Warm-blooded horses, they are certainly hotter and more energetic and maybe more flighty. And so the woman who I was visiting hadn't worked with the young one very much, and so she, there was some fear present and it took me going in and establishing some leadership. For me to, to quell any fear I had because it was unfamiliar. But once I did that and started showing up with some HeartMath and got them on board for what we were gonna do. They both completely calmed down and acted like any therapy horse would. And so from my perspective, it's not, I mean, all horses are prey animals. All of them could be flighty. Of course some draft breeds are probably less so. But in my study of dominance in the horse world and. How equine assisted practices, which is the blanket term I give to all equine therapy, equine learning, equine coaching riding programs that deal with these sort of things. It's how we show up that shifts the horse and so, yeah. Yeah, I am. Yeah, definitely. I agree that it is how we show up and if we are showing up anxious. Yeah. But a lot of clients around equine therapy, they might never have been around a horse. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, we have like veterans and. Individuals that never been around horses, so often they'll come to the barn and they'll be, they'll be anxious or unsure and, and so if they see a horse that is maybe reacting in, in their environment mm-hmm. It'll bring something out in them. And so that's an opportunity to kind of tap into that. Mm-hmm. And just say, okay, how is that making you feel? And I think it's fantastic that you are able to. Tap in and, and understand and process that fear that you were feeling. That's exactly the magic I feel about being around horses. It is, they they give us so many opportunities to be coherent, to be congruent and to be present. And it's through that presence and slowing down that then we're able to become more self-aware and figure out what's going on with ourselves or be led through it by a professional. Yeah. And with, with Henry, with the anger book. Mm-hmm. That's exactly the idea is, you know, first off, having the pictures and the, my illustrator create that calm presence mm-hmm. With the coloring and the pasture scenes. Mm-hmm. And just naturally creating and bringing you into the storyline. And then Bella this, you know, pretty big horse. I mean, she's a small draft, but also mimicking that calm. Presence through the words and the storytelling. Mm-hmm. And that's very important to bring that in. And then, and Henry is senses that, and then can start to understand why, what anger is first and how he's feeling it in his body. Mm-hmm. So in my book, I always start with, walking the children and adults through how they're feeling. These, this big emotion or this emotion in their body, like anger and sadness, happiness and fear. And so we do the, I do the body cues. You know, what are you feeling in your body? Mm-hmm. And part of that is emotional literacy as well, to give them the words to express, well, what am I feeling in my body? Yeah. It, it all sounds great. It sounds, sounds like the books will help a lot of people. Definitely, definitely. So are there more books planned? You have one about to be released and is it gonna be a series or where are you gonna go with it? Yeah, yeah. So it is a series of four books for now. Mm-hmm. I started with with four big core emo, the core emotions with the first one being anger. Mm-hmm. And then the second one is sadness. The third one is happiness. And they're all written. They're all written, they're just waiting in the queue for my illustrator, Leah. So she's illustrating happiness right now. We have been working on my character Piper, the little girl named Piper. And then the last one is on fear and. It, the, the stories are gonna be coming out. Hopefully happiness will be in the winter. And there's a lot of intention in my stories. I had to come up with a relatable, a relatable storyline with anger. Henry wants something, he wants his favorite pie and he can't have it. And I feel that all of us children and adults can relate to wanting something and getting really angry. But it's also explaining that anger's not bad. It's not bad to feel angry and to have those underlying feelings. What is bad is how you react to it. And I wouldn't even use the word bad. And how you react to it is bad. It's how can you better manage that reaction? What can you do to understand the anger and reset and better manage it? And so in the sadness book the, the relatable story is Molly, my little girl is left out. Her friends don't wanna play with her. And so we, Bella and Bird walk her through processing that feeling of the emotion of sadness in her underlying feelings. Why do you think anger is not, is like so rejected? I mean, it's the most rejected emotion in our culture and, and we really shun people for being angry. I love that you asked that and it's one reason why I started with anger. Mm-hmm. So my editor said, you know, what emotion do you wanna start with? I could have started with happiness'cause that's a positive emotion. And I started with anger intentionally. There's so much intention in, in my stories. Because I feel as though there is such negativity about anger. And anger's not bad. It's not bad to feel angry. We all feel angry every single one of us. And it's, it's an innate, it's innate within us. We just have to learn to understand where is the anger coming from and why and when we start to understand that we can better process it. Well, I know like for myself, times where I'm angry or very angry or full of rage, I am mostly dysregulated. And when I'm dysregulated, you know, my brain's offline. Mm-hmm. And so I'm not gonna have awareness and understanding. And so in my mind, like how do we shift our culture to be able to hold some space for people when they're angry? That doesn't. Make it worse by shaming or shunning them or walking away. Yeah, I, that's just so fantastic. And that's what happens in, in the book with Henry and, you know, Bella and Bird don't shun Henry. They invite him into a conversation and it's about having open, honest conversations. But first it's about teaching him. His, the cues in his body and what he's feeling and to reset. So one of the first skills, it's a lifelong skill and it's so simple because it's innate in all of us, is my box breathing. So I have Henry bell and bird walk him through box breathing, a simple innate tool to begin to reset. Mm-hmm. And it's, once you reset that, then you can start to open up a conversation. Then Henry gets angry again. He's like, I'm feeling angry again. And that often happens. That's why I, I have that in my story.'cause I feel that yeah, we can start to reset, but then we Oh, you froze for a minute. Are you there? I. Okay. You there? There you go. You, you froze for a minute, so I, I left, I, I missed you at reset. Can you say that sentence again? Yeah. So we in the book Henry learns to reset I don't know if I mentioned the box breathing. So the first, yeah, I got the box breathing. Yeah. Yeah. The first skill is that innate skill of box breathing. But then intentionally in the book, Henry gets angry again. He's feeling that angry again because, you know, we could box, breath and calm down, but then we. Get angry again. You know, we could start thinking about that. We could start thinking about what made us angry. And, and that's intentional in the book, because I feel as though that does happen with anger. It's like, how can we work through it? So it is a storyline of working through that anger with these regulation skills, you know, self-regulating, as you mentioned. The foundation of my books, the, the framework is what's called emotional intelligence. Mm-hmm. Emotional intelligence is incredibly a fantastic I, I have, I'll say understanding because with emotional intelligence, you can increase your emotional intelligence at any time. So we have a high emotional intelligence or low emotional intelligence, or somewhere in between. We can always, you know, better, better that. The skills, the techniques in my books help to increase and give children and adults those lifelong skills. And I say adults a lot because it's so important for parents, teachers, therapists, to role model the skills in my book. And without that role modeling, it's so important. Children aren't gonna learn. They need to see it as well. And, and be able to feel it. And, and that seems to be like a big disconnect that our culture, especially with some of the younger generations, it it's just rampant that it's non-existent. And so making the book even more important, so it's not, the book isn't just about the character being angry, it's about co-regulation and holding space for people that are angry. And that seems every bit is important. Absolutely. Yes. And one of the, one of the essential tools that I have in every single book is my emotion wheel. Here's a picture of it on my bookmark. Okay? So this is the, this is my bookmark and this is, this emotion wheel is in every book, and I created the emotion wheel specifically for the book series. I didn't think there were any good emotion wheels out there. Sorry for those who created them, but I felt as though they weren't getting the feelings correct. So you have an emotion. Mm-hmm. Like anger. Mm-hmm. And then if you think of an iceberg, the above iceberg, sticking out of the water is anger. That's the first thing that our bodies, the physiological feeling that happens. But underneath that anger are emotions. And so I wanted to give children and adults that emotional literacy. What words can you place with that anger of what you're feeling? And so my emotion wheel does that and I, we walk Henry Bell and Bird walk, Henry, through that conversation and that he can have with his mother. He does, he, he, he utilizes the emotion wheel. Mm-hmm. Then he goes and has the conversation with his mother about what he was feeling, and together they have this open, honest conversation. See, Henry got so mad that he couldn't have pie, that he threw his truck. It almost hit his sister and it landed in the dog's bowl. Okay. And that often happens when we're angry, right? We can throw things and, and things like that. And so by the end of the story, he has these tools along with the emotional wheel, that emotional literacy, some of the words that he can begin to have a conversation within news. And, and he has that conversation with his mom. And at the end, his mom also says. Because Henry apologizes, right? It's a balance. Henry apologizes to his mother for what he did, and his mom says, the next time I make pie, I'll let you lick the bowl and spoon. So it is about giving the kids and the parents these tools and to come back often to come back with, with the tools in this book, right? Because we can easily forget. Easily. Yeah. So can we agree that anger is a secondary emotion? Is that kind of what you're saying, that there's almost always some kind of hurt underneath it? Yeah. Anger is, anger is what we call a core emotion, and then there are underlying feelings. So the feelings are. You can be a little bit angry, which would be you're upset or you're mad, or you can be a lot angry, which the underlying feelings would be frustrated and furious, which Henry's furious. That's the word he learns, is that he's furious. So there's, there's those underlying feelings that we're, we're we feel with anger. Hmm. Okay. Wow. You have written some amazing books that are gonna just, I think they're gonna be really, really popular. I'm, I'm excited to order one for my granddaughter and and read it with her. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Is there anything else that you wanna talk about today? Oh gosh. There would be so much we could that all afternoon. We probably could. Yeah. Yeah. No. You know, one of the things I just wanna say, one of the things that I am in the process of creating is a awareness campaign, and it's called soar, SOAR. Okay. And it stands for self others. Awareness and resilience. So it has to do with emotional intelligence. So it's soar with emotional intelligence. I have these bands that I give out when I'm at book festivals or anywhere where I'm public and I just give them to the kids and adults. And that's, that's pretty much the framework of emotional intelligence is understanding our, our emotions and feelings, understanding that of others and being self-aware. Then building that resilience and so look for my SOAR campaign. Hopefully it gets out everywhere in schools and libraries and the communities. Awesome. It's such an important thing. We need this right now, so badly. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much, Dr. Dina for being with me on the podcast today. I've really enjoyed meeting you and learning more about what you do. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it. Yeah, absolutely.