Dreams, Failure, Communication, Horses- all the things

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Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast episode. Thanks for tuning in. I am driving home from working all night, so it's bright and early in the morning where I am, but I am exhausted and figured the ride home would be a good opportunity to do another podcast episode. And that's what I'm loving so much about doing the podcast episodes. If you might have heard me talk about on here before, you know, I was doing YouTube videos before making the decision to switch over to just recording the podcast episodes. And I'm you know, I'm so happy that I made that decision because the YouTube videos were just they were great because like you, you know, you could show things and and see pictures and videos and all that stuff, but uh it just was such a limiting thing because you had to be a little more set up, you had to be a little more prepared, you had to have a little more time, and the the podcast recordings are great because when I find myself with an hour ride home, it's a great opportunity to to do a recording, and so I feel like I'm able to do a lot more, which is really really neat. But you know, the reason that the thing that prompted me to start the first the YouTube videos and then to switch over and do this with the with the podcast, the thing that prompted all of that, and it's kind of a cool story, uh, because it just highlights you know where life takes you, but I I've always wanted to have a horse farm to do therapeutic riding for people who are struggling with anxiety and depression. I you know, all the way back when I was in college, I did research papers on this and you know, volunteered at places decades ago. I you know, this has been something that's been a part of my hopes, dreams, and desires for ever since I can really remember. There's a lot of science behind horses being therapeutic, not only for physical stuff, but uh for mental and well-being and mental health disorders. So that was always my thing that I wanted to do. I always wanted to, I mean I, as you know from listen if you've been listening to these, as you know, I have my own performance horses that I that I compete with, you know, across the country, and like I still I have my own personal horses, but I board them at a facility. I don't have them, you know, in my backyard. I don't have, I don't own a farm of my own. And but the dream to own the farm for all the years that I had it was never not so much, you know, because I wanted to have a couple of personal horses and I needed to have the big farm to have those couple of horses. Like my goal was always to have the farm to have the space and and the flexibility to bring in horses that needed rehabilitation and retraining, pro you know, problem horses that needed help. And I always had this vision of of retraining them and rehabbing them and letting people that were coming to the farm for mental health slash therapy, like let them be a part of that process, and in a way, it's like the horse heals the person, the person heals the horse, and you know, I just thought it would be so cool to be able to help people with their mental health in that kind of way, but if you fast forward to where we are now, the farm never ended up happening, and you know, sometimes we try and sometimes we fail at things, and sometimes we try and we we keep trying and we keep failing and we keep trying and we keep failing, and at some point some point, you know, it's okay to reevaluate your your trajectory and re-evaluate your goals, and that's kind of where I was at with the horse farm for many years, you know, tried to make it happen, and just it just wasn't happening. I mean, you know, just for all different reasons, all like there were so many properties and so many different reasons why one or the other property didn't work out, and uh job, you know, jobs were a part of it, like location, proximity to to other people we know, family we know, like that was a part of it, and it just timing was a part of a lot of it, you know. There's so much that goes into place, or there's so much that is involved in making the puzzle pieces fit together and for things to fall into place perfectly, and you know, sometimes when you feel like you're doing everything right, and it just seems like the pieces are not falling into the puzzle, and the universe is just not cooperating with you, and it's like okay, what is going on? And I say this all the time you know, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans, and that's kind of where I got with the farm idea. You know, I got to a place where all of us it just it just felt like something just felt like the universe was telling me that like maybe I didn't want what I thought I wanted, you know, like maybe I know you've dreamt about this since you were a kid. I know that this has always been on your vision board, always been you know, a goal that you wanted to achieve, but just maybe you want to rethink it, and it's okay to change your mind, and that's that was just kind of where I felt like I was with the farm after you know all these years of just it just being a thing in my life of trying to find the farm and just read all these roadblocks and all these headaches and all these things not working out, and I just felt like I had gotten to a point where I was like, you know what, maybe maybe God is trying to tell me something, like maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to do, like maybe I should re-evaluate if I even still want this, because we get so consumed sometimes with with uh the ideas that we've had in our head or the or the things that we've had in our head that we wanted, and we get we get so wrapped up in not wanting to give up on that, that sometimes we forget it's okay to just step back and reevaluate things. And for me specifically, I mean a lot of time had passed in in all this search for these properties, a lot of stuff had changed in my career, a lot of stuff had changed in my husband's career as far as our jobs and our situations, and you know, at the end of the day, it just it just started to feel like I was trying to put a square peg in a round hole, and I just reached a point where I was like, why are you trying so hard to make something happen that clearly for some reason doesn't seem meant to be? And that's when I made the switch in my head to to accept that hey, it's okay, like it's okay if this never happens, it's okay if I never own the farm, you know, the hundred-acre farm or the 50-acre farm that I had always dreamed about, like it's okay. And this is another one of my favorite sayings be determined about your goals, but be flexible when it comes to what it looks like to achieve those goals, and that's kind of what I did with this journey to try to get this farm to do this therapeutic writing and help people with their mental health. When I made the decision to stop pursuing that so hard and heavy, I made the decision instead to start this YouTube channel, which has now become this podcast channel, and I decided to try to talk about stories and talk about examples from my horses because I get therap, I feel like my horses are therapeutic for me. So I had the idea of trying to share those experiences and talk about them on this forum and see if that would allow me the avenue to to reach out and help people and still somehow somehow provide that same that same kind of vibe, that same kind of mental therapy using the horses, but in a different way than I ever imagined it would look. And that's a really long-winded way of saying how I ended up doing this. But I just think it's kind of a cool and and also an important story because life has a lot of variables, and life has a lot of variations, and we do a lot of things, and our desires, our energy levels, our ability, it's always changing, and it's always functioning, and where we are one day is not where we are another day. And the things we know change, the way we perceive the world around us change, and opportunities change. They come and they go. So all I'm saying is be determined about what you want to do with your life, but be flexible when it comes to what it potentially could look like, and don't be afraid to be creative if if you're trying to get something done and you're just having a hard time getting it to look exactly like you want it to look, don't be afraid to just sit down and just ponder. You know, just consider is there another avenue? Is there another design? Is there another way you can still accomplish in general what you're trying to accomplish by being flexible with how it looks? Don't be afraid to think outside of the box, is I guess what it all boils down to. But anyway, back to what I wanted to chat about on this drive home. Uh, again, using the horses as an example, uh, using what the horses teach me as uh an example, you know, slash catalyst to to figure out what to talk about on here. I was at the barn uh the other day and I, you know, was talking to one of the girls that ride there, and we were talking about certain things, you know, that the horses need to know how to do with their body. Um one what we were talking about was flying lead changes, uh, which is just a way to teach a horse to change leads in their stride, uh, essentially. So anyway, it just it's just some it's a skill that they have to learn, and it it requires skills on the horse's part, and it also requires skill on the rider's part to be able to ask, you know, the right way and and to elicit the right response from the horse. Uh so anyway, I was talking to this girl and she was talking about training her horse, and she was talking about doing flying lead changes, and she's like, Yeah, she's like, I can't get him to do it. She's like, but it's frustrating because because she works with the she actually works with the professional trainer. Um, and she said, when my trainer is on the horse, she can get him to do them, but I can't. And I got to thinking about that because we talk about us that us horse people that have horses, we talk about we talk about communication with the horse so much. And you'll hear people, people who are really good horsemen, uh, people who have really good horsemanship skills, you will generally, very rarely hear them blame anything on the horse. Like you will very rarely heal hear them uh blame anything on the animal. Like typically, if they can't get the horse to learn something, if they can't get the horse to execute a maneuver that they have already learned, typically, uh like like I said, not I'm talking about good horse, like people who have good horsemanship and are are very good trainers and very good riders and and very good with horses. Typically, those people you will rarely hear hear the blame default to the horse. Typically, what you will hear them say is, well, I didn't ask the right way, I didn't give the right cues, I didn't sit the right way, I didn't position my hands the right way, and all that means the same thing. It means that you as the rider did not communicate clearly through your cues, through your body language, through your verbal language, through whatever you're doing. You did not communicate clearly to that animal what you what response you needed from that animal, or what response you were trying to get from that animal. And I was thinking about that because I was just like, yeah, you know, it's such common, it's so common knowledge and common acceptance in the horse world, again, against people who are, you know, have really good horsemanship, that it's such a common, it's just it just is what it is, and everybody accepts it. But we don't apply that same logic or that same rationalization to our relationships with other human beings. And I just was thinking about that a little bit because I thought it was really I thought it was really interesting. And I think the reason I wanted to talk about it today is because I think we should all challenge ourselves to really be better about turning the focus to ourselves when someone around us is not giving us what we need. Just like I do with my horses, if they, you know, if if I ask them for something and they don't give me the right response, if they don't, you know, if they don't do what I'm asking them to do, if they don't behave the way I want them to behave, if they don't want to execute a skill the way I want them to execute the skill. I'm the person having the person communicating to them, I'm the person telling them what I want them to do through all these different cues and and you know everything that that we do, I'm communicating with them. Hey, this is what I want you to do. So by default, like the first place my mind goes when the animal doesn't do it correctly, my mind immediately goes to me first. Did I ask the right way? Were my hands where they needed to be? Were my legs where they needed to be? Was my body where it needed to be? Was I clear in my communication? Was I direct in my communication? Did I do what I needed to do to make the horse understand what I needed from the horse in that moment? And before I start looking at anything wrong with the animal, before I go down any pipeline or pathway to search for a problem with the animal, I make sure I've checked off all of the boxes as far as making sure I'm communicating correctly and directly and effectively to the animal what it is that I need. And a lot of us, most of us, have a hard time doing that when it comes to our relationships with one another. And I want you guys to challenge yourself, myself included, because this is something everybody has to work on. You cannot expect the people in your life to well, first of all, it's no one's responsibility. Your happiness is no one's responsibility but your own. Like that's first and foremost. If you are waiting on other people in your life to make you happy, that is, I mean, I just beg of you, please do not live life that way because you are going to be, you're going to live a life filled with disappointment because it's no one's job to make you happy but your own. It is no one's responsibility to make you happy but your own. But that being said, we do, we are humans, we are tribal creatures, we need community, we need relationships, and we cannot expect if we're not if we're not getting what we need out of a relationship, there is no way that we should ever be blaming that other person for not giving us what we need if we have not first gone down the checklist of ourselves. Like, have I communicated what I need to this person? Have I communicated it directly? Have I communicated effectively? Have I have I been definitive about it? Like that's the other thing. No wishy-washy, no, I think this, I think that, maybe this, maybe that. You know what you need. Communicate it directly, like defiantly. And I'm not saying directly and defiantly in a mean way, like not in a nasty mean way, but I'm saying set boundaries, like set healthy boundaries and do them without being wishy-washy. Like, this is what I need from you. This is what I need to to feel secure, to feel happy, to feel loved, to feel cared for, to feel like this is a relationship that you know is gonna be of value to me in this life. And I understand that's hard to do because we I don't know why. I don't really understand, I don't know why, but we have a hard time doing that with one another. And it's kind of puzzling as to why that is, but we do. We have a hard time with the other people in our lives, sitting them down and and just very directly, calmly and directly saying, This is what I need, and this is what I I need you to do to meet my needs. And I wonder a lot of I actually wonder a lot of times if the reason part of the reason we have the trouble is because people have a hard time being honest with themselves about what it is that they actually need. Like how if you haven't if you haven't had an honest one-on-one talk with yourself in your own mind about what it is that you need and what it is that you want for your life and what you want your life to look like and what you need your relationships to look like and the boundaries that you need to set for yourself to to keep your to keep yourself where you want to be in life? If you haven't had those direct, pointed, honest conversations with yourself one-on-one in your mind, and figured it out for yourself, then how on earth are you gonna communicate that to another person in your life? So I think honestly, probably a lot of the times, that's one of the biggest barriers. And going back to the example of the horse, if I want the horse to do a flying lead change, I need to know that that's what I want the horse to do. First and foremost. I can't go out there and riding around the arena and being like, well, la di-da, like maybe I'll do a flying lead change, maybe I'll do a rollback, maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. Like, I need to have it in my head very clearly that the goal is to get a flying lead change out of the horse. That's step number one. Then step number two is making sure I communicate effectively to the animal that what I will need from them and what I want from them is for them to perform that flying lead change. So give all that a little thought. Again, these these examples from the horses, it's not about training horses. This podcast is not about training horses, but these examples are so applicable to how we live our own life, and that is why working with horses is so, in my opinion, one of the reasons it's so therapeutic, because it forces you to really think about these things and think about how your mind works and think about how you interact with the world around you. And you know, it it forces you to put some puzzle pieces together. And um you know, so that's that's my goal in in sharing it with you all on here. See how it can apply to your own life. What is your takeaway from it? You know, how does how does it fit into what you're what you're dealing with, what you know, what what you perceive, what your world looks like. Don't be afraid to communicate with one another. We we get so we get so worried about being direct with each other and and sharing our honest feelings with each other and sharing our honest needs with each other. And I, you know, I get it, some of those conversations can be uncomfortable, but if you if you do it in in the right way, if you do it in you know, in a polite way, calmly, uh logically, you using the critical thinking part of our brain, not the not the animal instinct, you know, reactionary emotional part of our brain. If we do it from a logical place, we've thought it through. We know this is what we need to be happy, we know this is what we need to be fulfilled, we know this is what we need to feel like this is a relationship that brings us value and not toxicity. You know, this is a relationship that brings me positive, not negative. Like if you if you have that conversation with yourself in your own head and you can clearly define what it is that's missing, what it is that isn't going as well as you want it to go, like what actions you need, what um you know emotions you need, what what is it that you need to feel like this is a relationship that makes your life better and not harder, that brings you joy, not sadness, then communicate that in a calm way and clearly communicate those needs to those other people in your life because there is no way for them to know what it is that you need if you cannot clearly and effectively communicate it to them. There's no way the horses just read my mind. I have to clearly and effectively communicate with them, and I have to be direct. I can't be like all wishy-washy about it. It's like, no, this is what I need from you, and I'm gonna ask you consistently until you give me the response that I'm asking for. And that is how they learn. That is how you build a relationship with the horse. Direct, being direct, being consistent, asking clearly, you know, being definitive. And a lot of those tools are very much applicable to how we have healthier relationships with one another, and how we have healthier interactions with one another. All right, that's all I have for today, and thank you so much for tuning in. Please share this podcast with anyone that you think might like to hear it. And please come back next time.