Corraling Confidence: Equine Principles for Cultivating Inner Strength with Shane Jacob

Horsemanship can provide us insights and parallels into the way we cope as a teenager and adult. When Shane Jacob was young, his only friend was his horse, and this friendship helped him through troubling times. As an adult his mission is to use the principles he has learned to teach teenagers and their parents how to develop inner strength, resilience and most above all self love. 

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Transcript

Katische Haberfield: 0:05

Welcome back to the Infinite life with Katische Haberfield podcast. I'm your host Katische Haberfield. We're in season 13. And in this season, we're talking to fascinating and interesting people who have perspectives, tips, and tools in areas that I'm personally interested and fascinated about, but aren't necessarily my areas of speciality. So I thought I'd have a break from the traditional format of the podcast. I'm bringing in some interesting people to converse with. So this week we have a guest who's coming from Las Vegas in Nevada, and his name is Shane. Shane Jacob is the founder of the Horsemanship Journey and developer of Stable Living Coaching. The Stable Living Coaching program uses principles seen in horses to help teens increase self confidence, overcome stress and anxiety and decrease the chances of teen pregnancy, depression, and addiction. It offers a companion program for parents so they have less stress, less overwhelm, less guilt, and more peace. Sounds great to me. Shane, welcome to the podcast.

Shane Jacob: 1:16

Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity and I love your show.

Katische Haberfield: 1:19

Thank you. Now, where do we start? I mean, horses are amazing creatures. There's lots of different angles that you can have a look at horses and how they can help. And I think that not a lot of people think of the healing side of horses. They just think them of as farm hands, modes of transportation, fun things to jump and do, traditional sort of horse jumping, horse racing, all that sort of stuff. So I brought you in today to talk about the healing aspects and how we can change our perspective and our lens on how horses can actually be involved in our lives.

Shane Jacob: 1:56

Yeah, horses are just these, like you said, these magnificent noble even creatures. I've had been blessed to be able to work, spend my career working with horses over the past several decades. And it's been an opportunity, a lot of learning. I can't pinpoint why some people speculate the just the size and the size of their heart and the blood flow, and there's all kinds of theories, but, somehow horses connect with people in a way that, that they need, it's like an emotional need that they serve. And so there's just so many, it's actually. A term called hippotherapy where, we use horses and I've been involved in a lot of things over the years where for disabled people, we see horses a lot of time, horse, therapy for PTSD and all kinds of different conditions, right? That horses can help in and they do. pretty amazing to see the results of when the connection between a horse and human happens and the healing that just naturally happens.

Katische Haberfield: 3:06

I didn't grow up with horses, but I do remember when I was a little girl, my cousins, I come from a very big family here on both sides of the family, we had lots of cousins on each side and we used to always have to travel at Christmas time to go and spend time with the cousins. And I remember being taken out to, on my mother's side, my auntie's husband, his family were very big horse people. And I remember the horse still, and her name was Pretty Candy. And I remember getting to ride on the horse, and I'm a city girl, so I never get to be around horses. And I remember Them taking photos and I still have those photos today, and I remember talking to my uncle Must have been ten years ago and saying to him Oh, I remember pretty candy that moment of getting to be up with the horses is stuck in my memory is one of the most Happy moments of my childhood. And he was flabbergasted that I could even remember the horses name And you know that I still had the photos and that I had such a connection And like you say, sometimes you can't explain it. It's just, wow, that was a great experience to have. I'm not a horse riser. I'm not an equestrian, but geez, I really enjoyed that connection to nature, that feeling of being free and, wishing I could have more of an experience with that, but I grew up in the city, so it wasn't to be. Did you grow up with horses? Mm.

Shane Jacob: 4:23

I did as a, they were in my family growing up, they were more of a tool, my dad, I grew up in a ranching family. And so there was a connection there, but it was a little bit different, you know, horses, the use of horses. I love your story, by the way, about pretty candy. I'm going to remember that name. Horses their use, if you look at it, it's changed over time. I mean, they used to be, we relied on them, right. For our well, for human beings, wellbeing, for our transportation, they're our beast of burden, mules built countries, you know, they built the United States dams and highways and, carried goods and this and that, and they got us where we need to be. And they, and so over time, they change their use, right? And so now are they really necessary and even in ranching, with drones and all the machines that we have to, virtual fences and all kinds of things that we do to do jobs that horses used to do, are they necessary? Well, I think they're necessary. It's just that their, use has changed, now they're for recreation. And I believe that this is a legitimate use for horses, right? It's a legitimate use for horses a need that they can feel in certain areas that they actually make a difference.

Katische Haberfield: 5:41

And Shane, I was I guess my journey with understanding a little bit more about the healing components and abilities of horses was, I think it was in 2011 or 2012 or 2013, somewhere around there. I read a book and it was called The Horse Boy, A Father's Quest to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson. I dunno if you know that story at all. No, so Rupert was married to this lady Kristen Neff, and they both had an autistic son, and they, Kristen is all about self compassion and Buddhism and that sort of, that approach to the world Rupert is a

bit more traditional https: 6:27

in his, I think he is from Zimbabwe or something upbringing and they had a boy who was very incredibly autistic and I remember being just totally enamored by this book because it talked about the lengths that parents will go to to help their son cope with emotions and I mean this is different because it's an autistic child but they took this child to Mangolia because they couldn't get any help. All of the experts at the time were just saying he's autistic, he'll always be like that, you just have to cope with the tantrums, you have to cope with his physical reactions, his violence and his despair, and we can medicate him, and they said no. And In Mangolia , there's two aspects to his story, but you know, the main aspect of the story was that so he went to see shamans to help him, but also the journey was involved that the story talks about is, is the little boy whose name was Rowan's bonding with the horse that carried him through Mongolia. and the way that the horse helped him deal with his emotions. So there were quite a few books in that series and I haven't caught up with it, but I remember being vividly entranced by the, this first introduction to the thought that a horse can help you with your emotions. And how have you seen that? Experienced in the way that you work?

Shane Jacob: 7:56

Yeah, so with the my program Stable Living is a little bit different. We're not it's not actually hypotherapy. We're not putting people with horses all the time. We have a couple of live events where we actually have people come and we demonstrate the principles. Most of the things that we do are with we, we relate principles to horses. So for example, forgiveness, right? so. If you look at the principle and what that can mean to somebody who can't let go of something from themselves or somebody else. And when, when you look at a horse, the way that they handle something that we would perceive to be unfair happening to them. When I see that, when I see how that the horse handles that. There's a, there's a little magic that happens somehow in how I can make that happen for me. There's also, I think, an element of with, especially with teens and with adults, it doesn't really matter that, I don't know, it makes it easier to have a little bit of cooperation, it makes principals a little bit easier to accept when they can there's that like natural, I don't know what the word is, but it's a natural, they see the natural effects, positive effects of what happening. And so that makes these principles that we know can help human beings a little bit easier to accept. And that's just one. And I'll tell you just a little teeny bit more about that. So let's just say. I'll talk about that one just for a moment. So horses and human beings, it's a relationship, right? And so it's not going to be perfect. And so in that, let's just say that I, as the human being do something that unfair. Okay. And let's say that it was, I was unaware is why I was doing this activity. And then I came to say, oh this horse doesn't understand what's going on. That's why it's not working. We were both getting frustrated. And so something I did here was unfair and I'm learning. Now I'm going to try to fix it. Right? Another thing that can happen, which happens with human beings relating with each other is that I react on about emotion, right? I just do a reaction. There's not a lot of thought that goes into it. And then I regret it. I do something that was unfair, right? These things happen in our lifetimes, They happen a lot. So When, when I look at how a horse is not going to be a doormat and let bad activity that he doesn't understand continue to happen with no consequence, right? And so when you go back and you change your thing, he's going to be prepared that the same thing might happen again. And however, once you establish and it doesn't take very long, that you've changed your behavior and you now you're communicating in him to a way, you've changed this perceived unfairness or whatever you've repaired to the best that you can, you've changed your activity of how you're going about doing whatever it was that you're doing. And it only takes about two to sometimes three times depending on the severity of what the thing was. what happens is once that horse realizes, the trust comes back so very fast, and then it's gone. I mean, it's gone, right? There's no residue, right? Immediately you could call that residue when you first come back, because he's unclear. He doesn't, he thinks the same thing could happen again. So it's not like horses just roll over all the time and let you do things that are, that they think are unfair. But what the difference is, is a lot of times in our exchanges with each other, being able to fully let go. Right of things that we've done and what they mean about ourselves and things that people have done to us and what we make that mean about ourselves and about them. A lot of times we can hold on to those things that have that we're not living in the moment. We have this stuff back playing and you know, we just hold on to it for so long and horses really do. They just. It's gone, right? When you say forgive and forget, it's gone. So, when you actually witness this, right, and it's not like you would do something unfair just for the sake of a demonstration, but when you see, as we improve our relationship with horses over time, and if you have ever seen this exchange, it's magical.

Katische Haberfield: 12:24

And so how did you, get the idea to apply the principles that you've seen in horses to help teens increase their self confidence? Where did that come from for you? Why did you realize that there was this need? And, and talk us through that story of that.

Shane Jacob: 12:45

Yeah, it just it just came about from basically teaching writing and teaching horsemanship and I saw this and people are, you know, there were drawn to horses. I think it's credited to Winston Churchill said that there's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of man, right? Men and men and women. And, I've found that to be true. I don't know what exactly, like I said before, I can't make the connection to it, but in teaching horsemanship, I've seen this connection and people's strong desire to, you know, to learn really. I think what we want to do is we want to connect. we want to connect with our horse. I think that's what people are really drawn to. They're drawn to a relationship where it's a willing partnership. But I think what we really crave is the connection. I think we crave a trust relationship where we have a solid connection. And so, there's You know parallels in horses and there's not there's some things that do not parallel because they don't have the same type of brain that we do right and which for them that's just the way of things and that's good and so there's some things that we can look at that they do that are helpful not everything is aligns with people because they're not human beings. But there's so many things and what I found is that when you look at principles If we can make a connection to something that they're doing, what I found in order to answer your question is that teens and adults, more cooperation, it's through demonstrating or showing a principle inspired by a horse, rather than showing you a research paper.

Katische Haberfield: 15:23

Yeah. And

Shane Jacob: 15:25

you some facts about saying, look, Tish, this is what I need for you to do, because I said so, but if I can tie this to the thing, it makes it, I enlist so much core cooperation. So it helps with the desire for you to get your own desired result.

Katische Haberfield: 15:41

so if there's a parent and they said, look, my child is feeling feelings of anxiety and potentially depression, how can your horsemanship journey help them? What are the parallels between what horses do at, how do you explain that to a parent that says, yeah, okay, I can help your child with anxiety and potentially depression. What are the parallels? And how does a horse principal help there?

Shane Jacob: 16:09

So, it's, it's just about all principles, you know, horses, one thing about horses that is that they, they, it's, which kind of goes along with my idea of forgiveness is that they, they're really in the moment, they, they're fully in the moment. There's not like any residue from the past, fully reacting. And so there's a big lesson just in that right there, right? Because if, when we look at the reasons that we're doing things and the reasons that we're feeling things, a lot of times we have to uncover and go back and see. What's playing in the background that's affecting what's happening right now. Because if the more that we can come, people that can come to live in the moment, which is like horses is really helpful. depression and anxiety when you look at that, when you uncover what's happening inside of our mind as we learn how to manage our minds and understand that all the noise that's happening in there. Because you know, the thing of it is, is young people there's not really a manual, and there's so much massive change going on throughout the teenage years in this transition to adulthood. a big deal. and it's it's it's not easy. Being older, I look back and a lot of times it's easy for me and people of my generation to say, well, you know, you guys got it so easy, but there's a lot of things that are so much more difficult. So as we and really try to make the connection, the, like the horse connection, right. if. as adults, if we try to make that connection with these young, young adults and teens and adolescents to find out to be able to uncover and be able to come back into the first of all, to understand, I think what my big message to the world, there's a couple of things. And that is, is that, I think that our goal in life a lot of times is to feel good all the time and we're really just like driving for that our brain drives us to feel good, and we're not really taught that it's okay not to feel good sometimes, right, we're not going to. And so when we, when we have these thoughts that causes anxiousness or can lead to depression. We think something's wrong, so then we go and do something that makes us feel better, and it leads to something that's worse. And that's kind of been my, that was my life story as a young person. It led me to, to causing tremendous amount of permanent pain and damage human beings. And And put a on a good part of my life. And, and that was the things is the noise that was going on inside of my head about not knowing that I was okay. And, know, these bad feelings and I didn't know it was okay not to feel bad sometimes, right? That's just going to be the way that it was. so if we can unpack and have kids understand that, hey, it's okay, it's going to feel bad sometimes and have a connection and have somebody there with them, because, this connection thing is something that's just, it's a deep emotional need that we all crave as human beings, specifically without being with a horse, that's kind of hard to make that connection, but living in the moment is a surely a big, important piece of that.

Katische Haberfield: 19:30

And I have two boys just to give you context. So I've got one who's, what is he? He's 16, turning 17. And the other one is 18 turning 19 this year. And so as a mother, you have to hold yourself back sometimes, because when your child is in distress, right. Or your child is angry or they're frustrated or whatever it is, life isn't working out for them. The first thing you want to do is you want to make it better. It's okay. It's okay, I'll make you feel better. What can I do to fix it? What's it? And then you have to pull back and go, he's okay to express that anger. He's okay to feel life's unfair. He's allowed to feel that outcome was rigged or not in his favor or the, my sons are debaters, so they do lots of public speaking. And, I find it really difficult sometimes because I'm trying to learn how to guide them through this, but in debating, there are certain topics where the topic really does not slant towards the discussion that you've got to do, affirmative or negative, and they're given a topic and it's just really skewed towards the other team. And that's part of the skills to trying to just see how you can have a go. And they'll come out afterwards and they might be like, That was, that sucked, that topic was really bad, that was rigged and it might take them several days to get over that and you're like, you as a parent, you're tired of hearing the same story and you're trying to give them the balanced perspective and sometimes I'm like, just let him sit down with his big brother and they can gnash it out and talk about how unfair it was and what they can do better next time and yes, they lost that debate and no, he didn't do anything that means that he threw the debate or it was his fault or cause he's the youngest on the team or whatever. But it's perfectly normal to feel upset when you lose something, right? You know,

Shane Jacob: 21:13

There's so many lessons in what you're saying, I totally relate. It's the kind of things that we talk about a lot every day in stable living. It's it's the expectation that his life can be fair or not. That's number one, is it going to be, and then what are we going to decide to think about that? And what are we going to, how are we going to be able to handle it? And, and then, failure, like how, what's the, what's our perspective on failure? What are we, you know, we're so. Particularly at this age that you're talking about late teens, and that is we think that it's pretty easy to take on an idea that failure really means something about ourselves. You know what I'm saying? And the life is not about, I'm, I don't have anything against winning, but I mean, we have to, failure is going to be part of the deal. we have to kind of learn how to embrace failure to get to where we're going.

Katische Haberfield: 22:04

Yeah, exactly. Yeah., I know that, for example, in our school years, people want to encourage kids to be our best and we want them to strive to be the best they can, but it does put this external pressure on them that, in the school world, you're expected to get A, A, A, A, A and win this championship and win this cup and be the premiers. Once you get out of school, you realize that's a school is a really kind of bubble environment, isn't it? it doesn't teach you that you're going to fail at your first job. You'll be late for your first interview. you'll stuff up the zoom connection. You'll have a boss who absolutely friggin hates you. So it can be hard , to explain to them that they're in a bubble right now.

Shane Jacob: 22:48

Yeah, there's so much more we, we get to, I just did a podcast that's on myself where, we get to where we think we're finished as young people. We kind of have it all. And, there's just, there's so much more available. I want to just comment on your comment just, and that is, is I think what, at the core of what. My perspective on what you just said at the core , is the idea that can seem conflicting about self acceptance. And I, can speak to this because I struggled with the idea for so long. And the, here's what I mean by that. Self acceptance says that regardless of where you are, You need to believe and accept everything's just great, right? Yet self improvement means to strive for more. So I, can't wrap my head around this conflict. I'm like, I am not going to accept myself. I'm not happy with where I'm at. When I have my results, I'll celebrate. I feel like you're asking me to take a trophy and I haven't won yet. And I was really stuck in this cycle of believing this way. And. some ways, in the way that I thought about it, it was a complete backwards idea. But what I have found is if you can wrap your head around this idea, and this is one thing that we talked to teams about too, because it's, it's kind of a hard concept for me, it was for me to get. And that is that. It is possible for me to fully accept me, and accept my position and where I'm at, without accepting defeat, without accepting mediocrity, without settling for less, without accepting failure, or any of it. Right. It's kind of like forgiveness. It's like separating what I have done with my value as a human being, because if I choose to be happy with me, a hundred percent fully accept my position, my station, my progress, my evolution in life, as I am right now, a hundred percent, if I can do that, okay. With does not mean that this is where I'm going to be, right. It just means that I'm happy with me and my value as a human being, as a soul on this planet fully. My infinite priceless value at this moment and at all times. Because once I've done that I've erased and opened the gate and cleared the highway, if you will, to be able to actually move quicker to where I was going where before my thinking that I couldn't was what was the one of the main things that was holding me back. So, this conflict that you talked about where it's win win win and if you don't there's a problem. It's hard to manage both of those but it's possible to do, and it can make it really can make. Concrete differences when, if you can accept that idea.

Katische Haberfield: 25:35

Mm. Yeah. And so for anyone who's listening, do you have any, tips for them in helping their teens or even themselves? Cause I know I have this, this constant relentless battle, as you said, between I need to improve, with I'm happy where I am. It does sound easy conceptually, but it's not easy. Some thoughts and ideas on how we can navigate that in our daily life.

Shane Jacob: 26:06

If inside what helped me and what I, propose is that, is that you separate your, position, your progress, your goals separate what you're unhappy with that you did, that you've done, past and separate that from imperfect perfection of you.

Katische Haberfield: 26:30

Mm.

Shane Jacob: 26:30

So if I can look at the mirror and say, Shane, you haven't done everything perfect, which is not going to be possible because you're an imperfect human being as it is. And I learned, there's also a tip that I learned from Michelle Maidenberg, which is the tie to tie the things that I want to improve to a value that I have. And so that means let's just say that, I'm unhappy because. I didn't reach a goal and so I look at it and say, well, why didn't I reach my goal? Well, I didn't reach my goal because I got derailed to go do this other thing for temporarily. Well, why did I go do the other thing? Why I'm so unhappy with that? Well, it turns out that I turned, I did that to help another human being. So, and that's because I care about other human beings and I tie that to a goal. This is an example. I'm totally making it up as we go. But if, but we are driven. by our core values. You know,

Katische Haberfield: 27:29

Mm. Mm.

Shane Jacob: 27:31

And so if we can see that in our mind, that helps us maintain our 100 percent value separated from the things that we want to accomplish and the things that, that, that we haven't done, that we want to do differently again in the future, because we're not going to get it right all the first time, but most of the time, all of the time, if you look back and you tie the things that you're unhappy with as far as your progress to a value. It helps you maintain your own. You can see it clear. Okay. You can see your own value, right?

Katische Haberfield: 28:05

And how did you, determine your own core values? we talk about, you talked about the fact that you were a much different person in your team and part of where you are today is due to your own journey. How did you get through this struggle and identify your own What Shane's core values were because that's obviously helped you in your self perception and your desire to help others. So how does a mixed up kid figure out his own, own values to, to help him in that process? How did you do it?

Shane Jacob: 28:41

If you can have a mentor, it helps you a lot because it took me a long time. I lived in an alcoholic haze and an addiction for, in a super destructive phase for a good portion of my life. And it was not, it was ugly. Okay. It was ugly. And, the things that I did fed my insecurities, they fed my proof. I continued to lay on proof of the, of my, of my lack.

Katische Haberfield: 29:07

Mm hmm.

Shane Jacob: 29:08

my inability to cope of something, of my deficiency as a human being. Every day I continue to pile on proof of by the things that I did being you know, doing jail time and all, just a whole bunch of ugliness. Right. and so that's pretty hard to, that's tough, you know? And you know, we all get to, we all get to experience shame at different levels,, all of us have done something, we've all done something we're not too proud of. And so we get to experience shame, but learning how to, You're learning shame. Resilience, is a skill that the sooner you learn it, the better. And I'm a, all about that because, we've all done something. We've all done something right.

Katische Haberfield: 29:57

Yeah.

Shane Jacob: 29:58

And here's the thing. Of what you have done, regardless, you know, I mean, that's a really big statement, but I'm serious about it, regardless of what you have done, you can come to know that you're still 100 percent the same 100 percent as me and you and every other soul on this planet, you can come to know that and. One way to do that, that one step is to, to have a mentor, at least have somebody that has earned the position that you can be able to own your story and share that with, and that you can be able to trust and make that connection. And those are the things that help us get through those times

Katische Haberfield: 30:38

Mm.

Shane Jacob: 30:39

having a mentor like that. And I first started out my, I had, me and my horse, and that was the beginning of this process. And, and so that's where it came from.

Katische Haberfield: 30:51

Interesting. And, when you say look for a mentor, a lot of kids are like, well, How do I know if this person, not all adults are safe, not all adults are going to help them in the right direction, a lot of adults haven't helped them, can't help them because they haven't gone through their own shame resilience or they haven't done their own emotional refraction. how do you explain to kids how to find a mentor? I mean, a lot of grownups still are like, a mentor? Yeah, I should get one of those. Where do I look? So how does a kid who's struggling with their emotions go, how do I know what qualities there are to be in an adult? To know that I can trust them. What should I look out for? Where should they be? Like, where do you start?

Shane Jacob: 31:37

Yeah. It's a super good question. You can't, go to the mentor. com and, or, the mentor store, there is one, I don't know about it, but I think as parents, we can help. We can help play a role in that, we can look at people who have proven track records that we trust and we can try to improve. We can try to look at the, at the individuals that, that our kids are looking up to, that, that they're drawn to and that we trust, that we can put a stamp of approval on, on where they're going with that. I think that we can play a role in that. And just and the same thing applies for us, for, for adults. There's a lot of truth in where we spend our time, we're the average of our five people. And if we want to be some, if we want to change what we're doing, the easy, one of the easiest, quickest ways to do that is through the people that we're spending our time around, but it's, it does take an effort, just like you said, because it's not going to be handed to you. It's something that we need to research and develop relationships and then monitor until we really have a solid trust relationship with who those mentors are. But, but it's a huge concept because especially with kids, they're just, they want to be, they're drawn, they look up to these people and they're trying to emulate them in every way. And so you, you can really make progress with kids can really change with, with mentors.

Katische Haberfield: 32:58

And as you said, the key word there is trust and you don't get trust immediately, you have to develop it and be on a journey, a journey there with trust. I. I know, for example and I'm not supposed to talk about my kids, but watching my youngest son, he had this goal and he had people that he wanted to emulate with, and he knew where he wanted to be with his public speaking skills. But in order to do that. He sort of had to look at who he was hanging around with and say, are they where I want to be? No. Okay. So now I have to sort of strategically look at who's around where I want to be with and how do I get in with that group or those people? And initially it was setback. They're like, no, you can't come in here. No, you can't do our training. You are younger than us. You are way younger than us. This is a privilege we have had to, to earn. And it's taken him a couple of years to earn their trust to become so that he wasn't like this little pain in the neck kid, but somebody who was actually really interested in learning off them and that his ego wasn't so big that they might tell him something and then he would completely disregard it and say, oh no, I know better than that. So I guess, with yourself, you talked about how your horse helps you, in those hard times and, I think there's a little bit of a trust thing between you and the horse there. There might be a good parallel here for people to understand about developing trust. do you have some reflections on how your horse helped you develop trust in yourself and in life and in, in love in terms of self love against self acceptance?

Shane Jacob: 34:38

Yeah. Yep. I do. So, trust is, you know, we can't, we can't demand it when the only way to get trust is that. What I believe about trust is what I've learned that we can, we can make our best decision at the time, which we usually always do to extend trust. Okay. And then we just monitor it as we go along. And so, but the key is that we, we have the courage. So first of all, if I'm making the best decision that I can, I'm going to proactively extend trust. Okay. The thing that really holds us back in relationships and. and. especially with horses, because what we're doing with horses is we're, we're not moving forward because we have fear, right? so this happens just as much with people and horses. So the idea is, is to, to have the courage to extend trust. Right now, maybe that trust will get demolished and we'll have to, and we'll suffer some from it, maybe that'll hurt, maybe it'll cause some damage for us in some way. And maybe as we monitor over time, it'll continue to build and grow and to be into a beautiful thing. we'll never know unless we have the courage to step out and extend that trust. And I think that's the biggest message I have with that is to have the courage. Courage sounds real nice, but, and we all, it has like, when I say it, most people like, yes, you know, I want to be courageous because it sounds so good, but it doesn't feel good when you're doing it. You know, it's, it's, it's hard. It's like feeling fear and taking action through it is much easier said than done. But as we do that, we break through and we exercise courage within, we slowly, we, the trust increases. Our capability increases, and then we have confidence to rely on from the past. It's a, a beautiful process, but it starts with having the courage to extend the trust and being willing to offer that out there, seeing that the result, that there's a higher result on the other side of it.

Katische Haberfield: 36:52

And I mean, it's like the ability to pick yourself back up after, you know, that's what fear is for me. It's I experienced fear on a daily basis. You start a podcast, who's going to listen to it? How do I do it? How do I record? How do I find guests? You know, every single time I'm like, how am I going to make sure I relate to this person? And you've got to go through the emotion and trust that you will be okay. But how do you. How do you actually have that trust in yourself? Well, as you said, you'd go, I'm going to do my best right now. And I might feel all these emotions and I can freak out and stop right here and now, or I can just keep going minute by minute or whatever it is. And I guess, to take it back to my own personal life, when my kids were little so I got divorced when the kids were very young, they were, two and four, I think it was. And, I was very. of my own emotions and their emotions. And one of the things that I did do was we went to one of these, horse sessions and I went there for the kids, right? You know, I was like, let me help them with their emotions. And, and this could be a fun thing to do. And what was interesting was that watching the horses, so they had this field with these horse therapists and we did some drawings first, cause they're only little. And then. They were like, okay, it's time for you to meet the horses and the horses will choose you. You don't choose the horse. They will come and show us the signs as to which horse wants to come to you. And so I was like, okay, the kids, the kids all choose their horses. Kids will have their horses chosen for them by the horse first. So, you know, they did the brushing of the hair and getting them to the point where they got to lead them around the paddock. And then I was just like, this is for them. This is fine. And then there's this big, beautiful horse that was just like suddenly got really Impatient. It's like, all right, I'm here for the mum now. And they had a laugh with me. They're like, she's chosen you, my dear, and it's your turn now. And I'm like, oh, it's all right. It's just for the kids. No, she wants to work with you. And it wasn't until that, I went through that. Oh, okay. But. Let me see how I go. Do I feel a little bit nervous coming over to this horse and watching the horse, I guess, try to establish trust with you. Cause you know, I'm not from a horse family. And my last interaction before that was as a small child. And I'm like, Oh, I love the horse. I want to be around the horse, but how do I appropriate it's sessions? Not really for me. It's for the kids. And then, what do I do? I'm pretty easy to brush a horse, isn't it? Oh, but and then your own emotions come forward and the horse, the horse interacts with that. And then somehow in the magic of it. At the end of the session, you're like, Woo! That feels better. It's a, it's a hard thing to, to explain in words, but it's a beautiful process to watch and sort of reflect on from above afterwards in your memories and say, yeah, I don't really know what happened there, but geez, I feel better from that interaction. I learned a bit about myself and it was funny just to watch the horse mirror me.

Shane Jacob: 39:52

Horses do mirrors just like our kids do. That's a great story. Yeah. Our, our, horses, another thing that you just reminded me of, you know, horses, they, they, they need our leadership, you know, just like our kids do it's, it's, there's a, really have a, you don't really know what sometimes it's not in your face, but it's and neither are our kids a lot of times, especially when they think they're growing and they already know everything and you're kind of in the way mom now. yeah. But, you know, they, they really, they still crave that and they, they need our leadership. And so the more that we can understand about ourselves, the more that we can have the confidence to be that calm and calm and confident leader that they need so much at these times,

Katische Haberfield: 40:49

Mm.

Shane Jacob: 40:50

Growing up.

Katische Haberfield: 40:51

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I just wanted to touch on before we go, cause we're coming up to the top of the hour. It's coming really fast. What was the name of your podcast again? If listeners want to learn more about your approach to helping teens and adults.

Shane Jacob: 41:07

Yeah, sure. Thank you. It's called the horsemanship journey podcast.

Katische Haberfield: 41:11

Okay. That's easy to remember. And any final remarks or comments or insights that you would like to leave with listeners today?

Shane Jacob: 41:23

I appreciate the, I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today and I appreciate this last question. You know my, my message to the world is that, is that, , the way that we view ourselves, you know, I, I ask people a lot of times I say, you know, what if, what if you could anything that you wanted to about yourself? What if you could And what I've come to know is, is that, having a solid relationship with ourselves. And what I mean by that is an unconditional loving relationship with ourselves is, is not just a good idea. It's not a good idea. Okay, it's not just that you're, it's not just that you're going to have better results and you have more peace of mind and you'll be happier and you'll have more success and have be driven to get your results easier because all that's true, but it's way more than that, without that, and what we don't do. Without a commitment to pursue a loving relationship with ourselves over our lifetime, because a lot of times we think it's something that we just have and then we move on to the next thing. And it's something that is happening throughout our life every moment. Without that commitment, we don't develop the capacity to be able to fully give to the people that we deeply love about and to fully make our contribution to this world for the short time that we're on it. So my plea for me to you is to know that regardless of what you have done, and I mean, regardless of what you've done and what you feel about what you've done or what you think about this or that to know, to come to know someone somehow in your heart and your soul, that you are 100%, you are a priceless, invaluable soul on this planet, period, and I hope you can come to know that and thank you for this opportunity.

Katische Haberfield: 43:24

Thank you so much, Shane. I really appreciate that. And I will leave it. That's exactly perfect advice and I will leave it with that. So thank you.