Horsemanship Journey and Stable Living Coaching with Shane Jacob

Shane Jacob joins me on the show and talks about his transition from teenage years to being an adult. Shane tells his story about how alcohol addiction caused a lot of pain in the lives around him and how he suffered the consequences of some bad decisions. 

And, that's kind of what led me to, develop our stable living coaching, which is, we use principles that horses demonstrate to, really to help teams know what I didn't know and to set them up for a life of, hopefully less pain and, more accomplishment. Right. one of the reoccurring themes in our podcast episodes is.

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Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:03.01)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host. Today we have a special guest speaker, Shane Jacob of Horsemanship Journey. Shane, thank you for being here with us and take a few moments to introduce yourself to listening audience. Yeah, James, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show. I appreciate your show. I've had a chance to listen to it as of late and

and I'm all about parenting. thought parenting was over when my kids turned 18, but I was sadly mistaken or pleasantly mistaken. came to find out it was kind of a shock in the beginning, yeah, made some decisions as a young adult in my teens and early 20s that led to a pretty destructive cycle that I was stuck in and addiction to alcohol for

a long period of time and I caused a lot of pain and a lot of trauma and a lot of really permanent damage to people, a lot of people. And at some point later when I was finally, when I could finally break free from the cycle that I felt like I was stuck in for so long, eventually I looked back and I said, a lot of us have said, I said, I wish I would have known now, you know, known then what I know now.

And, that's kind of what led me to, develop our stable living coaching, which is, we use principles that horses demonstrate to, really to help teams know what I didn't know and to set them up for a life of, hopefully less pain and, more accomplishment. Right. one of the reoccurring themes in our podcast episodes is.

One of them is like failure to launch. One of them has to do with addiction, special needs, self-confidence. There's like, I don't know, 20 or 25 of them. can't rattle them all off right off the top of my head, but we have parents that are parenting adult children that are caught in a cycle of addiction. And then we have parents that are raising, still raising adult children, you know? And I think our...

James Moffitt (02:29.591)
Our age range is between 12 and 40. And my wife and I have a Facebook parenting support group. We started it out in 2015 when my wife and I had two teenagers still living at home. And they gave me a run for my money. And I was doing everything I could not to wind up in prison. And so told my wife, said, hey, let's start a parenting support group and see if we're the only parents on the planet having these issues.

So we wound up with, we had 10 members back then and now we have like 1.3 thousand members. And so it just blew up and took off. so this podcast is in support of that parenting support group and it has done very well for itself since May of 2023. And so apparently there's a huge need for supporting parents as well as providing support for young adults.

because just as parents don't have an instruction booklet for children, kids, teenagers, they're transitioning into adult life and it's a very difficult time. I remember looking back when I was 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, man, I was a dumpster fire. And it's only by the grace of God that I'm actually sitting here alive and can actually talk to everybody about this kind of stuff. And so know you have a very powerful story.

I love how you were able to break the vicious cycle of addiction and make something of yourself and do this horsemanship journey. I think it's a very unique thing that you're doing. Feel free to talk to us a little bit more about that. Yeah. So many things about what you're talking about there, James.

There's so many things that we can do as parents, and we look at why and what we want. And I'll tell you, the one thing, I'll go, I'll go to the foundation or to the core. Okay, we'll just begin with that, the way that I see it. And here's the way that I see it. The way I see it is, we human beings, regardless of the age of our children, okay? So we can have younger children or teenagers or adult children or whatever the thing is.

James Moffitt (04:57.55)
We're in a relationship with someone that has their own free will and I relate that because we do the same thing with horses. Okay, we're responsible for horses. They have their own free will and it's a relationship that we're in. And usually what we do is we want that horse to do a certain thing. I want him to go a certain speed at a certain direction or a certain direction at a certain speed or whatever. And I want him to do a certain thing and, I want him to behave a certain way. I don't want him to.

behave rude. don't want him to sit there and paw the ground and be impatient and all the things that horses can do that might be annoying to people. And I want him to act the way I want him to act the way I want him to act. And so a lot of time I just spend time just angry and upset and just wish, you know, and just complaining about that, what that horse isn't doing and why he isn't doing it and what the hell horses are coming to and horses these days aren't what they used to be when I was a kid.

You know, all the things you go on and on and on. And it's the same thing as parents. And I have a different approach. And that is, is that the place that we need to begin, if we want something to change is right here. Okay. Right here in our minds, in our own heart. And I'm a hundred percent about that. mean, because we really don't, first of all, it's where our power is.

Second of all, I don't think that most of us, how much power that we have, how much our influence affects what happens to us, how much our influence impacts other people and their behavior, their thoughts, and therefore their behavior and their results. So I'm all about just trying to change the focus off what our kids are doing or not doing that is disturbing us. That's causing us some level of unhappiness or discomfort.

and just beginning here, because that's what we can control anyway, right? Right. Absolutely. And one of the things that I did when I first started this podcast episode was I was thinking about, so what is foundational towards parenting? Where do we begin? And so I just did an introduction episode about the podcast. And then my second episode, I think, was about the marriage relationship and about how

James Moffitt (07:23.66)
how critical and important it is for moms and dads to have a solid marital relationship. And what does that mean? And what are the responsibilities for one spouse to the other? And what is the role of a father? What's the role of a mother? What's the role of a family in the foundational makeup of a family with regards to how children are? My speaker's just

Wow, changed. That's okay, we'll keep going. Anyway, I felt like that was very important to outline in the beginning.

James Moffitt (08:09.678)
I got to change my headset. Okay. Hang on one second. I'm going to pause this for one sec.

Okay, yeah. James, the thing of it is that I think we've all been told and we know that people that are kids learn more, they get more caught than what they're taught.

They learn from our experience and our example and they're watching and all this and that. Yeah, they're way more than our preaching and our words and all that, right? So we kind of know that. But I mean, what does that exactly mean? Does that mean that we don't can't make any mistakes or if we do how we I mean exactly how does that come out? And what I've come to realize is that really that the bottom line and the foundation is that nothing is going to have more influence on the outcome and on the results.

and on changing behavior and getting the things that we want regardless and including influencing other people and influencing what actually happens to us, then the truth about who we are. And the thing of it is, is the truth, and so that's a good question for you, for your listeners is, what is the truth about who you are? What is that truth? Because the thing of it is,

You get to decide whatever that truth is. It is totally, if you choose to do so, you can believe whatever you want to about yourself. Belief is a learned skill. And that belief that you have, your self beliefs about you, the confidence, I'll just wrap everything up into one thing, self confidence, self image, self esteem, your self efficacy, your total beliefs.

James Moffitt (10:01.692)
system that you hold to be true about you is going to be the most important, I believe it's the most important endeavor, maybe with the exception of developing a faith in God, that you will ever, I believe that is the most important thing that we can do on this planet because it influences all of our outcomes and it gives us the capacity, it gives us the capacity to give and love.

to the people that need us, that depend on us, that we're responsible for, for our kids. Those things are be able to be developed. The thing about that is, is like most of us don't really know what we really do hold to be true about ourselves. We never really thought about it in a deep way. We know some things and here's the deal with that. If you haven't intentionally purposely thought about who you are and what is true about you. And if you're not making those conscious decisions and working on developing beliefs about yourself.

and developing a relationship with yourself that you like, it's happening anyway. It just might not be happening as good in a way that you particularly like. And so I believe, and that's why we've developed this thing, the same thing is true with horses. These principles kind of, because horses is a relationship with man and horses.

And the same things apply and it's kind of fun to watch horses demonstrate these principles, but they learn from us, right? They learn from us and they know what's inside of us. Just like our kids do. You come to the barn, there isn't any secrets. You walk into the barn, the words out, man, you're not going to be holding it in and keep, there's not going to be a secret. And that horse is so keyed in on reacting to you just because of the nature of Ecoins that

that everything you do he's queuing off and he's reacting on. A lot of times we don't really realize, and I'll tell you, I rejected this idea for a long period of time of my life. I thought that it didn't matter. What I thought about me is my own business and it's not impacting what I'm doing with horses and people. I can treat you in a way and it has nothing to do with me. And I wasn't happy with me. And I didn't.

James Moffitt (12:20.304)
I didn't really like me, I was kind of ashamed of me, not kind of, I flat ass was, very ashamed of things that I'd done. And because I wasn't happy with me, I didn't think it mattered in the rest of how I came out in the world, but I was so wrong because it came out in every way, in everything. When I came to know this and I can really internalize it,

and see the changes in myself as I decided to change what was true about me and to know that I could, and then to begin to do this. And then we've developed these eight habits to cultivate a relationship with yourself that you want to have and develop beliefs about yourself that you want to have. It doesn't take very long. Okay. It's a lifetime pursuit. Okay. It's not something that you finish. A lot of times we look at

our self-image and our self-esteem and you're like, I have good self-esteem. I did that a long time ago. I got good self-confidence and those people, she, see, they don't, they do things that that's what you do when you don't have good self-confidence, what they're doing. See that I don't do that. I already have confidence, but it doesn't work that way. It's something it's happening right now for you. If you're not intentionally do it. What I mean is, is that things that we do and things that happen to us,

Our mind is constantly making meaning out of what we're doing and what's happening to us about what that means about who we are. And if we're not intentional about that, it's not gonna come out as good as it can and we're not gonna end up having the kind of life experience. It's just not gonna be as good as it could be. And that's why it's so important.

James Moffitt (14:10.738)
So looking back at being a teenager and transitioning into adulthood, can you go back and look at how that was for you and some of the mistakes that you made and maybe some of the struggles that you had as a young adult in coming to a realization of what it meant to be an adult? Yeah, I sure will. And I appreciate that,

James, you know what you said earlier is so true that the transition to adulthood and becoming fully responsible, autonomous human beings, it's a big change. I mean, it's a big deal. And it's there's just so much change happening and, and, you know, we don't know what we don't know. And what happened with me was, is, was I was a young man and a teenager and a young man into my twenties.

I just, for whatever reason, and I didn't have any specific trauma or anything that I could kind of blame it on, but for, I don't know what the reason was, but where I had thoughts, a lot of thoughts, constantly going through my mind that I wasn't as good as that I was less than that. So have something's a little bit off with me that I didn't measure up that I was defective in some way that I was a little bit not as valuable as. so.

You know, I tried to fit in in school and I tried to do did pretty good in sports and I did pretty good in school and all the things. But yet at this all this time I'm hearing these, you know, I'm really shy. I don't know how to to fit into, you know, and to in groups of people and be able to communicate freely with people. And it's just it was very it was very uncomfortable, almost to the point of I don't know if you call it painful, but it was definitely discomfort.

And I didn't know that feeling discomfort and a lot of us really don't, know, teenagers and kids, we don't know that it's okay. We kind of think we're supposed to feel good all the time because our brain is guiding us to seek pleasure and avoid pain. So we kind of do whatever is available to do. And so when I first experienced, when I first experienced alcohol, I was 15 or 16, maybe for the first time. And guess what? I felt better.

James Moffitt (16:34.17)
I didn't have all that stuff going through my mind. So I felt like I'd solved my problem. know, game over, problem solved. Thank you very much. I solved my problem. The thing of it was, that little process right there, that thought process of feeling discomfort, trying to avoid it, finding comfort in that way, that process led to...

20 plus years of drinking to excess on a daily basis. It led to a tragic DUI accident where I was been caused so much harm and damage to other people that it's hard to, I can't even describe it and things that can't be repaired. I was locked up in jail for a lot of time. ended up, the relationships around me slowly disintegrated. I didn't even really realize what was happening.

I limited my own ability to earn and learn and progress in this world. And it was a terrible cycle, a terrible, painful cycle that, I caused myself from that, from that little thought process. Okay. So, when I talk about these things, I know what it's like to, I know what it's like to feel discomfort. We all do. Right. Sure. I know what it's like to try to find.

try to find solutions. And I mean, there's so many ways that we do it. We bury ourselves in media, in movies, we isolate ourselves in porn and gambling and overeating and drinking and drugs and all the things to try to escape or buffer or, you know, mask or cover up a way that we're feeling because we don't, a lot of times we don't even know that it's okay. We don't even know that the goal is not necessarily to feel good all the time.

We're just so hungry to sink, feel good that we're just reaching out and then if we're not careful, we can get caught in these traps. And so that's what one of my big messages is to teens is, know, I mean, life is not about, it's okay to feel that discomfort and actually embrace discomfort. Discomfort is how we go through discipline. It's what discipline is, is being able to...

James Moffitt (18:52.114)
go through a little bit of a discomfort, but just being able to sit with discomfort and live it and feel our feelings and feel our life rather than covering it up and trying to mask it with all these things that end up having a terrible result. And that's what happened to me. And I was just, I'm very grateful, but by the grace of God and the gift of horses that I was able to finally break free from this cycle and, you know, try to repair and come back and, and, and go back and.

and try to help people avoid the kind of things that I did myself. Right. Well, that's a powerful story. I remember as I was growing up, I had a very authoritative set of parents. My dad was a drill instructor for 26 years and my mother was European descent and they're raised in a very authoritative, authoritarian families.

And so when I was in my teenage years, I remember one of the things they taught me, which I've carried on into life, was that before you do something, think about it. Think about what you're fixing to do and think about what the results are going to be. What are the consequences of what you're fixing to do? And you know, as a young man and as a teenager and a young adult, I was just hell bent on getting out of the house and getting away from the iron fist that I

perceived that they were ruling me and my sister with and i escaped from that and and i thought my parents were out of touch i thought that he they didn't really know what they were talking about and and then i came to find out i guess i was probably i don't know twenty five or twenty six i remember putting a quarter and pay phone in houston texas and calling my mom and dad and eating a lot of humble pie and let them know that

You y'all are not as big idiots as I thought y'all were. You you really understood the world better than I did and you really tried to, I might not have appreciated their methodology, right? But they were doing the best they could with what they had. they tried to impart some wisdom and some knowledge to me. And thankfully some of the stuff they taught me did take root.

James Moffitt (21:13.702)
And I was able to, as I was going through the process of learning how to be a responsible, mature adult, I was able to, to fall back on some of those lessons to, to help me to mature and to, become who I, who I've become today. And, but well, like I told you earlier, I was, I was, I was a dumpster fire. I made plenty of mistakes and, and, I don't know why, but it's like,

teenagers, I think, I think, I think it's just part of the growth process, the part of the maturity process, in that we want to learn through the school of hard knocks. Yeah, our parents said, nothing happens good after midnight. Well, we want to go party and have a good time. And everything's gonna be fine. We don't we don't worry. We're invincible when we're young, right? And we think we think that nothing bad is going to happen. And you know, we'll get home at two o'clock in the morning and everything will be fine. And

You know, unfortunately, we know that when you're when you place yourself in bad environments, where you place yourself in an environment where bad things can happen, mistakes can be made. You know, it's like you said, you know, you can get into a DUI situation and people get hurt. You wind up in jail. People, you know, people lose lives and just all kinds of horrible consequences can happen. And and you know what?

The thing that I would like to encourage young adults to think about is try to listen to what your parents are telling you. Try to, no matter, their methodology may not be perfect, none of us are perfect, right? We don't get a manual to learn how to be parents, and parents try to do the best they can. And typically what parents do is they default back to the way they were raised, right? And so that's how they try to parent their children.

And I learned that as a young father, I knew that I didn't want to be as heavy handed with my children as my dad and mom was with us, right? And so I had to break that cycle. I had to break that generational curse of doing the things that I knew was wrong when I was being raised, right? And so I would just encourage young people to try not to go through the school of hard knocks because it can be painful.

James Moffitt (23:39.012)
We learn by making mistakes. That's part of the human experience, right? And I think our parents are trying to minimize some of that pain for their children, right?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. You know, there's so much in what you said. It's a good thought to have that what happened to us is that our parents were doing the best that they could. And that's all that we can expect from anybody is to do the best that we could. Most of the time, we're all doing the best that we can. The thing of it is is

We're reacting either intentionally or unintentionally, like you also mentioned, off of things that are inside of us, things that happened in our past, things that... And what those things are is they're affecting what we hold to be true about ourselves. They affect what we think we are. And so therefore it's coming out in how we are interacting with our kids and it's having an influence and impact. And so I come back to,

Let me just want to talk a little bit about cooperation, okay? Getting cooperation because it is more than, you know, getting upfront agreements and it's more than having, you know, open discussions and coming to agreements and having consequences and all that is necessary and good. It is more important than all of that. What is more important in cooperation and getting

If you really want to be an influence, okay, and have the biggest impact and have the best outcome and get more of what you want, then what it is going to be is your focus on you. here's, let me be more specific about that. Cooperation, here's the thing, what you described, I went through a similar thing. My mom and dad did the best they could and I don't have any complaints about what they did. And they made plenty of mistakes, I'm sure, and they just did what they could do, right?

James Moffitt (25:42.854)
However, I, as a young person, I was rebellious, kind of similar to what you described. I wanted out, I wanted away, I didn't want to have anything to do with the kind of life that they were living. And guess what? If my focus as a parent today is on, am I showing up as a calm, confident, respectful leader that people want to emulate? I mean, do I love my life?

I mean, how much time am I spending on my screen? How do I interact with other people? How do I make you feel when we communicate with each other? Am I leading the kind of a life to where teenagers and young adults or anybody in the whole world, regardless of what their age looks at me and says, wow, when I'm around that person, I feel better. I looked at something is going on in his heart and soul and I can feel it and I can see it and it's coming out and that's the way that I want to be.

Enlist that is really worth true cooperation comes from it's it's a lot more It doesn't mean that you're always going to get a hundred percent cooperation because people have their own free will they're going to do what they want We can't control that we can we can there's a lot of tools that we can improve things like some of the things I've discussed with you know discussions and agreement and consequences and so on okay, these things are like I said are important, but more importantly is

When you look at me as your leader, do you see someone that you truly emulate or do you see someone up here that is the dictator that somebody says I should listen to, but I can't figure out why? Right. I hear you. And it's it is it is so it's so important that that parents, like you said, have a calm demeanor and be

I went through a police academy years ago, back in 82. And I remember them telling us that there's two ways to get respect. One way to get respect is to demand it. Demand it because you're in a position of authority. Demand it because you drive a patrol car, because you've got a badge and a gun and all these things, right? Or you can command respect. And commanding respect came from within. Commanding respect was being a respectful human being.

James Moffitt (28:10.884)
and treating other human beings with respect. No matter what your interaction with them is, no matter what the situation is, you can still treat them civilly with civility and you can still treat them with respect. Yeah, they might have made a mistake. Yeah, you may have pulled them over in traffic because they broke a traffic law or whatever the situation is, but you don't have to treat people like dirt. And it's the same thing with parenting. If you want your

teenager or your young adult to respect you, you've got to respect them. You've got to treat... you have to... what's the old biblical term? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? If you want people to respect you, you want people to love you, it's like friendships and relationships. If you want somebody to be your friend, well guess what? You need to be a friend. You need to be a friend to that person and you need to respect their confidentiality. You need to build trust.

And it's all those mechanisms that are in play that are important in the parent-child relationship, as well as when they become a young, after they're 18. Like you said, parenting doesn't end at 18. And so that you become a mentor, right? You've already probably taught them everything that you can possibly teach them about being an adult. And so you can't be a helicopter parent and you have to allow that.

that young adult to make the mistakes that they're going to make, you know, because they're going to make mistakes. I'm 63 years old. I still make mistakes to the day, right? Every day is a new experience, you know, and I like to tell people you do the best you can with what you have, right? You take all the life lessons that you've learned up until today and you approach this day like it's a new adventure and you do the best you can with what you have.

I love that the because you cannot demand respect and I like the command respect that in the the police officers are great visual great example to think that through the same thing applies to horses. You cannot demand respect you will you cannot get respect from demanding respect and so that's a that's a great example and a great analogy. 100 % right I. I just to go along with this the things that.

James Moffitt (30:33.084)
The things in our relationships with our children, regardless of their age, the things that are making the biggest difference are coming from how we feel about ourselves. And I can't emphasize that much. And so what are the things that determine how we feel about ourselves? You mentioned things that...

maybe a past trauma or our whole past experience, right? And so how do we feel about ourselves? mean, do we have, if we have anger, unresolved anger, if we have shame surrounding things that we've done and you know, every human being gets to experience shame. And so, you know, is that coming out in some way? the answer is yeah.

Okay. If you wonder if it's coming out, the answer is yes. It's a part of you. So what, what I'm suggesting it and love you as a priceless, invaluable soul, regardless, regardless. And I mean, this is a big statement, regardless of what you have done. Okay. Cause everybody done something that they'd kind of probably rather not talk about. I've done some stuff.

Okay, we're not gonna talk about it today. But shame wrapped up to separate, to fully accept yourself regardless of what you have done and regardless of what has been done to you. To fully accept yourself, to love yourself 100%. And to do things that demonstrate that and practice this loving relationship with your life, with yourself over the course of your lifetime. It changes you.

And here's the big thing, okay? I'm so serious about this. I'm not even suggesting it's just a good idea so you'll feel better and have a better life and your kids will be more well adjusted, okay? All that's true, but that's not the whole deal. The true thing, the real deal is, I believe that it is a commitment to pursuing a positive, loving relationship with ourselves over the course of our lifetime.

James Moffitt (32:54.146)
is not just a good idea, it's our duty and responsibility as human beings on this earth. And here's why, because nothing else will have, because we don't have the capacity to give and to love the people that we care about the most in this world without having a great relationship with ourselves. And we don't have the capacity to make our full contribution on this planet for the short time that we're here. That is how serious I know that

That what we believe hold to be true about ourselves is and so I believe it just takes some thought first of all to come to know that you can choose I mean, what if I said to you? What if you could believe anything you wanted to do about yourself? What if you could believe anything you wanted to believe about yourself? Okay, because you can't And once you accept that and once you choose what you want that to be it's

It's a learnable skills, okay? There's habits that you can do on an ongoing basis. And it's not something that you accomplish and move on, okay? Because here's what's happening. We go along in life and either something happens to us and we don't feel so good about it. And then we make meaning or if we're not consciously doing it, our subconscious is doing it for us and we don't feel good about ourselves.

And then we do something, we feel a little bit better. It goes like this, or somebody does something, somebody says something to us. Oh man, what does that mean about me? And we take a negative meaning and it affects how we think about ourselves. So if we're not consciously doing this on a, on a commit to this pursuit on a ongoing basis for lifetime, we're not getting, I'm here to tell you, we're not getting all we can out of this beautiful experience that we get to live called life. Right. That's for sure.

Sometimes in this parent support group we're in, I hear a lot of horror stories and I hear lot of, my child's involved in this. My son or my daughter, you know, they're involved in drugs or whatever and they wound up in jail, you know, and you hear the prodigal son story where the kid gets out of jail and comes back home and the parents are there for them and they want to do...

James Moffitt (35:16.036)
everything they can for them. sometimes you get so wrapped up in the emotions of, I'm the parent, you're the child, you're the young adult, and you're screwing up and you're making all these mistakes. And you get so focused on what the other person's doing that, and I hate to say this, because I know a lot of parents may not receive this well, but sometimes you've got to, as a

sometimes you got to step back from that all those emotions. You have step back and go, what's really happening with them? And what did I contribute as a parent for that to happen? Right? And so I think the healing goes both directions, right? If we're introspective enough and if we're mature enough to look at ourselves as human beings and as parents and realize that

not infallible, you know? And so when you talk about the generational curse, some of the things that our young adults are enduring and learning how to process through is because some of that crap we pass down to them, some of that stuff we gave to them, right? And it's like looking in a mirror, you know? You know, there's headstrong parents, right? And then they have headstrong, strong-willed children, and they're

They're telling them, I want you to do this and so, and they turn around and go, screw you, I'm not going to do that. And all of sudden you're like, all of sudden you're seeing yourself in a mirror going, crap, they're, they're strong willed because I'm strong willed. So how do you, how do you work through that? You know, how do you, how do you manage that process and how do you, you know, you learn how to become a better adult, right? You, you, one of the toughest things a parent has to do is to be transparent and go,

Hey, I'm fallible. make mistakes every day. You know, one of the hardest things for a parent to do with their young adult probably is to sit down with them and go, you know, this is how I reacted to you the other day. And, and I was wrong and I shouldn't have reacted that way. And I'm sorry. And I want to, I want you to, I would like for you to forgive me for being, you know, for being stupid and making that mistake, you know? And I think that

James Moffitt (37:43.004)
I think that healing process starts there and it can help that young adult to realize that part of living and part of being in a relationship is it's a give and take relationship, right?

James Moffitt (37:58.982)
For sure. Yeah. So much in what you said, that's a great comments about, you know, just, you started out with just being aware. mean, there's without awareness. mean, it's just, we're just kind of on autopilot and our brains automatically will seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy. And that's going to be our natural man autopilot. That's going to be what's going to happen if we're not thinking about it. And, and that doesn't always serve us well. So this,

I think you mentioned your dad said just, stop and think this through. Think about the consequence. You know, this introspection that I did that you said of awareness is, is, is such a, such a huge concept of just being aware of what's going on with yourself. You're also talking about forgiveness, forgiveness. As we, as we more fully come to accept ourselves,

forgiveness becomes easier. Forgiveness is such a big and important concept in life. And it does become easier as we become more, accept ourselves more. With forgiveness, a lot of times we look at forgiveness as, a lot of us can look at forgiveness as, you know, well, I'm going to grant you forgiveness. I'm going to, you know, I finally decided James, I'm going to let this thing go. I just want to let you know, I'm going to forgive you. Right.

And really forgiveness is about ourselves. know, forgiveness is not something that has to do with you. It's something that has to do with me. I'm going to let it go and it's going to, I'm going to free me. Okay. What you do over there is what you do. But when we, when we can realize that forgiveness is not, you know, about what somebody else has done. It's about what we're, what's happening to us internally.

is what we're letting go. And so that's the big thing there. And then, you know, you know, being willing to admit mistakes, just like you mentioned with your children and adult children or whatever the age is, is to be able to say, Hey, look, I can separate. This is me giving myself some self talk. I can separate who I am. My value as a human being, as a soul. Okay. I can separate my value as a soul to what I, what I did. Okay.

James Moffitt (40:23.748)
I did a thing, I'm not too happy with it, but that doesn't mean that I'm less than. It doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that I'm unworthy or that I've devalued myself somehow because of what I've done. so often we take meaning from what we've done, we devalue ourselves. And that's why we have such a hard time talking about it. And when other people really need to hear it, they need to know that we need to have the

We need to develop the love for ourselves and the acceptance of ourselves where we can take a look at ourselves and say, you know what? I'm an infallible, imperfect human being. It's just, I'm going to make mistakes. I didn't want to necessarily. I didn't mean to harm you. I'm going to make amends. It doesn't mean anything other than to me as far as my value, other than I'm a perfectly 100 % valued, priceless human being.

that did something that I wish I wouldn't have, that did made a mistake, that made a wrong choice, that acted out of anger, whatever the thing was. And that's why I say, regardless of what you have done, and the more fully that we accept that, this is the perfect example. Then it makes it so much easier to go to my kids and say, you know what? You know, I did this thing and I can heal and I can have an open, vulnerable conversation with you, James. can, with my kids and say, hey,

I'm opening this up to let you in so that you can see that I know that I hurt you. I did wrong here. I'm sorry. And, you know, and help me make this well. And we can, and that is what is how we make the connection and that's how we heal. And that's how we set the example. And that's how we can continue to grow as parents and human beings. It's a great, great comment. Yeah. And I think that, I think that's important for, for both parents and young adults.

You know, it's a two-way street. It's all about relationships. And as I said, I've said many times, relationships are complicated, right? They're... It's like a moving target, you know? It's not very... It's not static. It's very dynamic. And you just kind of have to go with the flow sometimes. Tell the listening audience, how did you get into this... What is it called? The horsemanship journey. How did you get into that?

James Moffitt (42:45.882)
Yeah, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a cowboy and do all the cool things cowboys do. And so I've done that. I've done a lot of cool things that cowboys do. I've been blessed to work in the horse industry for, for my adult life. And, you know, when I recognized the cycles and the things and I learned, and I became certified as a life coach and I really have been studying human development, personal development for, for,

I don't know, more than 10 years now, I've become a student of it. and so as I looked back on, like I described earlier, and I said, I wish I would have had those tools and had that knowledge and had somebody, to help me along and to teach me and to, be with me and mentor me a little bit. And, you know, maybe I wouldn't have ended up causing so many people, including myself, some pain, as much pain and destruction is the path that I led.

And if I can alleviate some of that, and I do, it's so rewarding to see people make changes that they want to make in their lives and be what they believe to be better off than they were. And so that was the development of stable living coaching. And so that's what we have going on there. there's nothing more rewarding.

than being able to give of yourself and to share your life's journey with other people, both the good and the bad, and help them to get back on the right path or help them to find their purpose in life, to find the healing and to be able to heal relationships. And that's basically why I'm doing this podcast is because I want my parents

parents and young adults, I want them to understand that there is hope. No matter how bad the situation is now, today, there is always hope. And as long as you're reaching, and you're trying, and you're working towards a solution for those relationships, and for that young adult, I really believe that there's hope. There's light at the end of the tunnel, and there's...

James Moffitt (45:14.879)
What's a rejuvenation? What's the word I'm looking for? Salvation, rejuvenation, whatever. Redemption. There you go. There's, there is, there is a, there's a poss, there's a possibility for redemption. I don't care who you are and I don't care what situation you're in.

So I think that's a good stopping point at this on this episode. And I truly appreciate what you bring to the table and I appreciate you sharing your life story with us and explaining the things that you've explained about all of this. And I'm glad that you're able to reach out and

and touch the lives of parents and touch the lives of young adults, teenagers, young adults, and gosh, using horses and teaching self-confidence and those things, it's probably an awesome teaching tool, right? For sure. Okay. All right. So to my listening audience, I'm going to say thank you for the privilege of your time. You can listen to this podcast episode

on Spotify, the video version will be on Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts Public Radio. If you're on the Spotify app and you're watching the video, you can go to the about page of the podcast and you can see my website, go to the website, sign up for a free membership. Every time I do a blog post, you'll get an email. You can send me email by clicking on a contact link. You can leave me a voicemail.

And I will get back with you. Also do me a favor and if you listen to a podcast episode and you like it, click on the review tab at the top and leave a review for that episode so that other people that are visiting the website can see what's going on and they'll go, okay, well maybe I want to listen to it. So thank you for listening to today for today's episode and have a blessed day and thank you very much. and Shane, thank you so much for being here.

James Moffitt (47:29.765)
Thank you, James.