Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / When the Healer Burns Out: Burnout, Menopause & Sustainability in Equine Therapy | Suzie Latchford of Heal With Horses | EAW 44

Transcript

When the Healer Burns Out: Burnout, Menopause & Sustainability in Equine Therapy | Suzie Latchford of Heal With Horses | EAW 44 · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
• 0:05
  author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
• 0:12
  thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really helps us get this work done.
• 0:24
  As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
• 0:27
  And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
• 0:31
  equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
• 0:35
  If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
• 0:40
  com.
• 0:41
  So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
• 0:44
  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:47
  I've got Susie Latchford from Heal With Horses in Canada.
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  She's out on Lake Ontario.
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  In a peninsula.
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  It's a wine growing area.
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  Sounds divine, and it is divine.
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  About two and a half hours east of Toronto.
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  However, Canada has this thing called a winter.
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  And having lived in Canada myself, I'm always astonished when people are doing
• 1:10
  the kind of work that we do there because it could be really tiring and tough.
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  And I first visited Heal With Horses, I think, oh, almost like 15 years ago,
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  and when it was still quite new and it's been growing and growing and growing
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  and I sort of watched these things from afar in awe watching as people do this
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  amazing work, but often in conditions that are really quite challenging.
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  So I've got Susie on the show to talk to us about how she does what she does.
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  And hopefully we can learn how to maybe all be a little bit.
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  Tougher or maybe more grateful for the slightly more temperate
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  climates that we're working in when we catch ourselves complaining.
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  So Susie, welcome to the show.
• 2:02
  Can you tell us a little bit about Heal With Horses and what you do?
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  What's your approach and what you got started?
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  Suzie Latchford: Yeah, that, that's a loaded question.
• 2:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:14
  So he, with horses came about with absolutely no plan really.
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  I read a couple of books one including The Horse Boy, which actually
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  led me to Rupert in, in Ileana.
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  So in that I'm the type of person that will go, Hmm, how do I learn that?
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  I really it's really inspiring me to have read that book and, and then
• 2:41
  looked, you know, researched a little bit more and how do I learn that?
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  So I just am the type of person that will reach out and, and see what,
• 2:52
  what can birth from that, I guess.
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  Yeah.
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  And lo and behold yourself and Ilena came and trained a
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  bunch of us here at the farm.
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  At that point, it, yes, it was very new.
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  We did have a couple of structures to be under during that, during that.
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  But that's that's how I started.
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  And before that, a certification called Feel, which is more like emotional
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  reflective work with horses non ridden.
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  Mm-hmm.
• 3:22
  Okay.
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  And with that first certification, I felt, I didn't feel it
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  was as useful for children.
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  I, I guess you could say.
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  Mm.
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  And whereas the Horse Boy Method specifically, you know, was working
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  more with, with younger, younger people.
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  And I'm the type of person as well.
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  Like I have a culinary background, so everything's a recipe to me.
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  So I That's interesting.
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  Yeah.
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  That, that's my analogy in life is, is recipes and taking, you know, a little
• 3:56
  bit of this and a little bit of that and, and then all of a sudden you have a,
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  hopefully a really good recipe at the end.
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  And so Horse Boy is, is one of the, the main ingredients at our farm.
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  Rupert Isaacson: You know, it's interesting that you say that.
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  I'm always encouraging people to do more than Horse Boy.
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  As you may know, we actually have three programs now.
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  We have Horse Boy Method Movement Method, which is no horses
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  How to do the stuff at home.
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  Yeah.
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  Or in schools.
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  And then we also have something called Takin Now, which is
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  how to train the horses in the classical system from the ground.
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  All the in-hand work long reigning and lunging.
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  And this is done with, you know, adult artists people with trauma,
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  veterans first responders.
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  And that came out of necessity because we were battling for time to actually train
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  and maintain and condition our horses.
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  And then I was rather, oh gosh, actually it's the, it's our clients.
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  They could be the horse trainers and it, they turned out to be really good at it.
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  But I always, I'm always encouraging people to not just do what we do.
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  And this is something which I find perplexing about the therapeutic or
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  equine assisted world is that we all know that in any professional capacity
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  you want to have as many strings to your bow as you possibly can.
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  Right.
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  As many arrows in your quiver, because you just never know the
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  context of the particular person who's gonna walk through your door.
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  But so often one finds it's like, no, I only do this, you know, and I die on
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  this hill, you know, of this philosophy.
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  And it's like, well, right.
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  But it presumably, if we are asking.
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  People to make changes like a, an autistic child to speak, or somebody to
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  go through some transformation process.
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  If we are not doing that ourselves, if we are like rigid in a belief system, how
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  are we going to, what tools have we got really to help somebody else go through?
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  We're not really leading from the front, are we?
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  So I'm, I'm always very encouraged actually, when people say,
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  I don't just do horse boy.
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  I do like three or four other things.
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  'cause that to me is totally sane, you know?
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  So you, you've now grown from these small beginnings into quite a big operation.
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  You've got a, you've got an indoor space.
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  You, you have 27 horses you told me, and a hundred animals, social animals, you
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  know, 'cause you, as, as you say, you never know what someone's gonna get into.
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  And social animals of all kinds, you know, bring out communication.
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  But we're here, I'm, I'm interviewing you from Spain.
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  We're in November, heading to December.
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  And you know, I, I would warrant that the weather is rather different here
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  where I am to where it is with you.
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  How do you guys up there in Canada deal with the extreme weather conditions?
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  'cause, you know, even if you've got a covered space, you know, PE sometimes
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  it can be hard to drive people to get to you in blizzards and that sort of thing.
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  How, how do you make that whole thing work?
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  Suzie Latchford: It, it's definitely challenging.
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  Like we kind of, our doors stay open in the winter and we do keep scheduling.
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  But we have to be very what's the word I'm looking for?
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  We have to communicate with our, our participants or clients very openly
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  and be on the same page as far as like if it's totally ugly out mm-hmm.
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  And dangerous to try and get here, or the horses are just not able to,
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  you know, be themselves and mm-hmm.
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  Weather circumstances, then we have to, we have to reschedule and ca
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  cancel and, and then that also has you know, financial repercussions as well
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  because winter is already tough enough.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But I guess, you know, being in our 15th year now w we've learned that we
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  have to be as busy as we can in the spring and summer and, and shoulder
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  seasons to prepare for the winter.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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  I mean, how do you deal with it?
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  'cause you know how particularly with autism, people can get very
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  latched onto and, you know, obsessive with the things that they like.
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  And I, I know I've been out to your place admittedly a long time ago, but
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  it was delightful and I could see how.
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  An autistic child or person could really rely upon that for
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  the high point of their week.
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  So when you're dealing with that kind of extreme focus, do you find that the
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  kids and adults that you're working with are, are actually pretty adaptable?
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  Does, does the, does growing up in Canada actually make people weirdly a bit more
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  adaptable because you, you just kind of have to roll with the seasons or mm-hmm.
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  Is it actually quite a problem?
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  Suzie Latchford: I think there's a scaling down that kind of happens from the summer.
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  Like we know, like with families and, and some families might even be bringing
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  their, their child twice a week Mm.
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  Times.
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  When it, when the weather is good.
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  But I'm telling you too though, but in the summer there's heat
• 9:00
  problems that we have to deal with.
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  Ah, yes.
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  Rupert Isaacson: That's in Canada also gets really hot.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Bad.
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  Suzie Latchford: So it's like you're eure almost all the way around.
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  But we, but we make, do we, we try to do things earlier in the day.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But again, communication, communication with our families
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  and and the scaling down like.
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  As school approaches in September, everybody's schedule changes.
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  And so there's already that little bit of interruption that I know is
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  challenging for the parents of, of kids on the spectrum that have to get out of
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  their summer routine and then get back into a school routine and then, you
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  know, and then the going into the winter and having that interrupted even more.
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  So I guess, I guess what I'm saying is it's not like an abrupt stop.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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  And there's, it makes Go ahead.
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  Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
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  Suzie Latchford: Bit more leading, leading into, and I didn't even realize
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  that until you asked that question, so.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I, I find it intriguing because, you know, we
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  actually deal with this in the opposite way in Texas, where, you know, the
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  extreme heat through several months of the summer would really limit like
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  the hours you could do things and that it was even safe to do things.
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  And we had to really think around this.
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  But one of the things I, I find is that if one is following nature
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  weirdly, the children, particularly the really obsessive, slightly rigid
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  autistic children, I find that they follow it more easily when it's nature
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  than when it's a sort, it appears as an arbitrary thing that even when.
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  Cognitively,
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  there might be some challenges in understanding, well, why can't I go today?
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  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
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  There's
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  Rupert Isaacson: something so uncompromising about a heat wave or
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  a blizzard that, you know, and maybe that's an intrinsic structure of the work
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  that we do that we don't really value.
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  Do you know what I mean?
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  Yeah.
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  I think we take it for granted, but it sort of actually do, do you not feel it
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  aids that flexibility in the human being?
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  Because so many people live sort of divorced from nature, including in Canada.
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  You know, you can be inside, or in Texas, you can be in the air conditioning.
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  But as soon as you actually have to go out, you do have to follow that pattern.
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  And perhaps by the time someone's been with you for a while,
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  they're actually in that pattern.
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  And neurologically they're adapting simply because of the environment.
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  Would you, what are your thoughts on that?
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  Suzie Latchford: Oh, I would agree a hundred percent.
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  And it's so,
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  yeah, we have to be that way.
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  Yeah.
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  With the, at least, I mean, on the farm here, like we live, eat, and
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  breathe, like we walk out our back door and we're immersed in our animals.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Like there's 50 chickens or turkeys running at you, and, and then you go out
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  and open another gate, and then you're in the general population as we, as we
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  call it, with the goats and the mm-hmm.
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  And the pigs and the mini horses and but yeah, I, I would,
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  I would definitely agree.
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  Yeah.
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  That just ingrained perhaps and, and with the more structured autistic people Yeah.
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  They, and they don't necessarily wanna be out in it either.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
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  Yeah.
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  It's, it's, it's so interesting, I think that one of the great ills of our modern
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  life is that one can set up sort of unreasonable expectations about life.
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  Suzie Latchford: Mm-hmm.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Which then effectively mean that one can never deal with
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  flex, the flexibility needed.
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  You know, so disappointments are crushing, you know, rather than, well, you know,
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  it's snowing out or it's just too hot.
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  Yeah, sure.
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  But that faith that, well, the weather will change and I'll be able to go back
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  again and until just sort of looking at this through the Canadian lens just now
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  Suzie Latchford: mm-hmm.
• 13:21
  Rupert Isaacson: It hadn't occurred to me actually that so much of the work
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  that we all do, 'cause it's also nature based and outdoor based, is probably
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  getting more flexibility and life skills into people than we realize.
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  You know, you really
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  Suzie Latchford: about it that way.
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  It's
• 13:47
  Rupert Isaacson: in our preamble.
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  Before we sort of switched on the record button here you were talking
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  really quite eloquently, I thought about your follow the child principle.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And the idea of structures, this sort of is leads in from this nature
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  idea that your structures need to be somewhat invisible, but at the
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  same time very sound and, you know, nature imposes structures, right.
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  That are exactly like that.
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  But talk to us about that.
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  How, how do you implement your follow the child strategy and how do you
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  make sure that you are structured without it seeming oppressively?
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  So,
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  Suzie Latchford: For me it's,
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  I think being around horses so much has taught me to be more, to feel
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  more because that's what they do when, when they're reacting to something.
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  It's, it's a feeling that they're getting.
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  And then and, and when people come here,
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  it, each person's different.
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  And so I've learned to gauge how to, and to change my approach with
• 15:01
  each person depending on what.
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  What their body language is saying in a, in a sense.
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  Which is also how horses live through body language, right?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And so
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  I just allow that to, I guess it's being empathetic or, or compassionate
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  or, or but that gives me a sense of how to lead the session from there.
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  So we'll have so and so come a little girl who's on the spectrum and she's
• 15:33
  fun in, in, in quirky, but she also has things that she has to have with her.
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  And so for, for instance, it's a, it's a little, she brings her her
• 15:44
  bicycle helmet and it has spikes on the top and it's pink and cute.
• 15:49
  And, and, but one day she wanted to be a unicorn and, you know, we might've,
• 15:55
  I think we had a horse in already, but she wanted to ride the mini horse.
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  So we got mini horse in and put the unicorn.
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  We have a little unicorn costume or whatever that you can put
• 16:08
  on there, halters and stuff.
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  Of course you did.
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  And, and so away what she had her unicorn helmet on and all of her stuff, and you
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  know, Lily had her unicorn helmet on.
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  They went, you know, down the driveway and then came back and that was enough.
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  And then she was onto the turkeys.
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  So.
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  We go play with the turkeys and then, you know, and then she
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  might wanna do something else.
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  And so we just, and, and we're just elaborating on, you know,
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  her intelligence and what she has to share and her questions.
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  And, and it's really quite fascinating the whole, the whole process.
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  So
• 16:51
  Rupert Isaacson: where do you do, do you sometimes encounter people
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  who, this certainly happened to us in the early years when we were,
• 16:56
  you know, always following the child because as you say, we wanted them
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  to sort of develop this voice mm-hmm.
• 17:02
  Where particularly people who are struggling to communicate, you know,
• 17:06
  they're being so directed all the time that they kind of lose the motivation to
• 17:12
  communicate and communicating becomes, you know, a schlep an effort that they
• 17:18
  maybe don't want to do because they're not being listened to anyway, you know.
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  And so we often found that spending that time at the beginning,
• 17:29
  particularly sometimes, you know, a couple of months just building that
• 17:31
  relationship where they really knew that we would listen to whatever they.
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  Brought to us even if it was negative, like, I don't want to do this, or
• 17:40
  I wanna get down from the horse.
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  I don't wanna get on the horse side.
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  Yes.
• 17:42
  Thank you.
• 17:43
  Please tell me what else you don't want to do, because, you know, we
• 17:45
  are, we are after communication here, we don't care whether it's a yes or
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  a no, but from our point of view, from our side, it has to be Yes.
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  Because we don't wanna be shutting down communication.
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  But, you know, we would sometimes get challenged by, or, you know,
• 17:58
  criticized for saying, well, you guys have no structure, you know,
• 18:00
  it's just like so open and so loose.
• 18:03
  How are these kids gonna, you know, develop without you imposing
• 18:07
  some kind of obvious structure?
• 18:08
  And obviously we had our answers to that, but I'm intrigued to know what yours
• 18:11
  are because I know that you are also really following the child in this way.
• 18:15
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah, I, I feel it's learning from the child and, and mm-hmm.
• 18:22
  If you're, if you're wanting to remain in a structured type session, then you're not
• 18:28
  in the, the first time or second time they come, you're gonna lose that, that trust
• 18:35
  and that if you can't get out of your own way on how you feel that structure
• 18:41
  should be, or that session should be run.
• 18:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:43
  So you get out on those first few sessions of building that
• 18:49
  communication and building that trust.
• 18:51
  And then maybe they'll, you know, they'll never get confident enough to get on
• 18:56
  the horse if that's what the goal is.
• 18:58
  And another thing is still having the parents feel like their, their
• 19:02
  kid isn't getting anything out of it unless they're on that horse.
• 19:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 19:06
  But,
• 19:07
  Suzie Latchford: you know, there's always, there's
• 19:09
  Rupert Isaacson: always, do you run into that?
• 19:11
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 19:12
  Definitely.
• 19:14
  Rupert Isaacson: What, how do you, how do you cope with it when you do?
• 19:17
  Suzie Latchford: Well, we just assure the parents that, you know, that there's
• 19:21
  reasons for why we're doing it this way, which is basically what I just said.
• 19:26
  And that's building that communication and trust as with that person so
• 19:34
  that they don't say no automatically.
• 19:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you find that most parents actually
• 19:38
  do accept the logic of that?
• 19:39
  Or do you sometimes get pushback?
• 19:41
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah, sometimes we get pushback.
• 19:44
  Mm, for sure.
• 19:45
  Rupert Isaacson: What's your sort of second phase of explanation?
• 19:48
  Like, you know, 'cause I say you, you, you could put it in that way that you
• 19:51
  just put it to me and that obviously to me makes a lot of sense, but as you know,
• 19:55
  sometimes it doesn't to, if you have to go a bit deeper, what do you tell them?
• 20:01
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 20:02
  And, and.
• 20:05
  I guess also, like I should mention this is that before, like, let's,
• 20:10
  let's say, we'll give you an example.
• 20:13
  We haven't met the family yet.
• 20:14
  Somebody, a parent has just called and, or emailed and said, you know, we're
• 20:19
  interested in trying this for a child.
• 20:22
  They're this age and just got diagnosed as being on the
• 20:26
  spectrum and blah, blah, blah.
• 20:28
  So we invite them to come for a free meet and greet.
• 20:32
  So that, you know, the, the child comes and the parents come and they get a
• 20:37
  good idea of the environment and our philosophy as well, and, and sort of
• 20:42
  preparing them for some of those things that could happen before they happen
• 20:48
  definitely makes it a bit smoother.
• 20:51
  Rupert Isaacson: That makes a lot of sense.
• 20:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:53
  We, we, we used to sort of, what I've found is I generally now with the last
• 20:58
  few years, say to a parent or caregiver or, you know, here is the neuroscience
• 21:07
  about why we have this approach.
• 21:08
  And I'll even like have the diagram up on the, on the wall.
• 21:11
  So like, you know, that's the, your cortisol problem.
• 21:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:16
  And this overstimulated nervous system problem.
• 21:18
  Over here, we're gonna create this oxytocin and, you know, this BDNF,
• 21:22
  this brain derived neurotrophic factor for the neuroplasticity
• 21:25
  and this is how we're gonna do it.
• 21:27
  But if we.
• 21:28
  Threaten the child effectively with constraints.
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  We're just gonna get more cortisol, so we won't get that communication.
• 21:36
  Are you down?
• 21:37
  And then they'll normally say, oh yeah, but then what I'll say
• 21:39
  is Right, but you'll forget that.
• 21:42
  So, when and, and we are not guaranteeing that we're putting your kid on a horse
• 21:46
  because if the kid does not want to, we're certainly not gonna do that,
• 21:50
  which is, as you say, why you have all those amazing other animals as well.
• 21:54
  So usually what I do is I actually say to them, I'm gonna want you after 12 weeks
• 21:59
  to do a movement method course on, you know, even just online or a short one
• 22:04
  with me, so that you do really understand what we're doing and you can take it home.
• 22:09
  And then if they say, well, we haven't got time, I'll say, okay, I'll extend
• 22:14
  it by another six weeks or eight weeks.
• 22:16
  And then if the answer is still no, then I'll say, Hey, listen, maybe I need to
• 22:23
  make this place available to a family that will go the extra mile at home.
• 22:30
  Because yeah, as good as we are, we won't get the job done.
• 22:35
  The only thing that will get the job done is if you actually
• 22:37
  do this at home, kind of 24 7.
• 22:40
  Do you, do you have a way of sort of bridging that gap?
• 22:45
  Because I feel a lot of listeners and viewers.
• 22:49
  Facing this issue, you know?
• 22:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:51
  And often it's a credibility issue 'cause we all have imposter syndrome.
• 22:53
  Right.
• 22:54
  You know, and there's, we've all had people say, well,
• 22:56
  you're just playing with ponies.
• 22:57
  And I'm like, well, actually we are.
• 22:59
  But you know, there is this really good neurological reason why it
• 23:02
  works, but there's nothing actually wrong with, with pleasure and joy.
• 23:05
  Right.
• 23:06
  So, yeah, you're obviously very experienced now and you can hold
• 23:10
  your ground, but, you know, let's say you've got a young, young
• 23:14
  employee, she's not, you know, as confident as you perhaps or something.
• 23:18
  How do you, how do you help everyone to understand what the
• 23:22
  true nature of structure really is?
• 23:24
  Yeah,
• 23:26
  Suzie Latchford: that's a good question.
• 23:29
  Our our manager right now is finishing her master's in counseling
• 23:33
  and, and psychology, or she's gonna be a psychotherapist.
• 23:37
  And when she's, she came to us as a placement student when she was doing her
• 23:42
  undergrad in behavioral, what was it?
• 23:45
  Behavioral psychology.
• 23:47
  Anyways she tends to be very list oriented and very, you know, structured And and so
• 23:56
  we we've, Liv has become less structured now, I guess within, within the, the
• 24:04
  sessions and her facilitation skills.
• 24:06
  So, where am I going with this?
• 24:10
  Rupert Isaacson: The it, yeah.
• 24:13
  You have to put your own staff through the learning curve too.
• 24:15
  Yeah,
• 24:16
  Suzie Latchford: yeah, yeah.
• 24:17
  So she, she can be that way outside of sessions until the session comes
• 24:24
  and then she has to kind of, okay.
• 24:27
  Start following the lead of the, of the,
• 24:29
  Rupert Isaacson: sounds like she's more of a client than,
• 24:31
  Suzie Latchford: than an
• 24:32
  Rupert Isaacson: employee
• 24:33
  Suzie Latchford: doing very well now.
• 24:34
  And so it can be learned, right?
• 24:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 24:38
  Suzie Latchford: It can be learned.
• 24:39
  It's not black and white.
• 24:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 24:42
  I mean, and to be honest, I think in the early years I probably would've tried
• 24:48
  to be more black and white in that way.
• 24:50
  But by the time Horse Boy Method sort of became a thing, I'd already had
• 24:55
  my ass handed to me so massively by my son, you know, with every time
• 24:59
  I tried to, you know, impose that kind of authoritative thing that I
• 25:04
  realized, yeah, this, this is futile.
• 25:07
  But in fact, it's, it's not just futile.
• 25:09
  It's, it's damaging and wrong and against happiness.
• 25:12
  And when I looked at my own childhood, I was like, yeah, I, I wasn't, I
• 25:17
  think this is why it's so hard for people to learn, follow the C child
• 25:20
  as none of us grew up that way.
• 25:21
  Right.
• 25:22
  You know?
• 25:23
  Yeah.
• 25:23
  We all grew up very directed and told what to do.
• 25:28
  How's that affected?
• 25:29
  You know, when I first met you, you.
• 25:31
  Had these very young children who are suddenly now not so young.
• 25:36
  No.
• 25:36
  How has that affected your own parenting, would you say?
• 25:39
  Suzie Latchford: Oh
• 25:41
  I've, I've always been a very flowy, not, I hate trying to put things in a box.
• 25:49
  It's been, it's a lifelong of mine and, which has been hard.
• 25:58
  Well, with my parenting skills, Ron and I are both very on the same
• 26:03
  page as far as raising our kids.
• 26:06
  And you know, we may get criticized for, for being too open or too easy,
• 26:13
  or not having enough structure, but our kids are all still here.
• 26:22
  Well, that's, that's to my mind, we're like, well, that's okay.
• 26:27
  We'll just, you know, build something onto the house and everybody can stay
• 26:32
  here, be a community and blah, blah, blah.
• 26:35
  But
• 26:36
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
• 26:36
  Suzie Latchford: I have that naturally.
• 26:37
  I, I feel
• 26:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes.
• 26:40
  I, I think you're right.
• 26:41
  I think you and Ron both do.
• 26:42
  'cause Ron, you know, I know your husband and he's also one of these.
• 26:47
  Very flexible lateral thinkers.
• 26:50
  But at the same time, you know, you guys do have a lot of structure.
• 26:52
  Like, you know, Ron is a construction guy.
• 26:54
  Yeah.
• 26:54
  You can't build a house without structure.
• 26:56
  Exactly.
• 26:57
  You can't run a farm without structure.
• 26:59
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 26:59
  Rupert Isaacson: And you can't keep livestock without structure.
• 27:02
  And I, so I often think people who don't come from those backgrounds
• 27:05
  misunderstand what structure means.
• 27:08
  Right.
• 27:09
  They often think it means constraints, but actually structure.
• 27:14
  I always feel structures like, like I'm looking at you now,
• 27:17
  and what I see is Susie, right?
• 27:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:21
  But actually there's a structure to Susie.
• 27:22
  There's this skeleton that's inside you.
• 27:25
  There's this nervous system, which is very structured.
• 27:28
  There's this, you know, pulmon system, there's all these structures.
• 27:32
  But when I look at you, I'm not really aware of that.
• 27:35
  Right.
• 27:35
  I'm just more aware of the personality, the aesthetic, the person.
• 27:40
  Or if I look at a tree, I'm not looking at the transpiration of that, what's going
• 27:44
  up and down from the roots to the leaves.
• 27:47
  I see tree, but of course there is structure and I always feel that that's
• 27:50
  where people get structure wrong.
• 27:52
  That they try to make it visible when it should be invisible.
• 27:57
  And I, I feel that like if you're living the kind of life that you are
• 27:59
  leading, you know, on a farm like that, the structures are so inherent.
• 28:03
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 28:04
  Rupert Isaacson: You know what I mean?
• 28:05
  They
• 28:06
  Suzie Latchford: absolutely.
• 28:07
  And it's not nine to five.
• 28:08
  See, and I've struggled, you know, over the years with.
• 28:13
  Like, I don't have a nine to five job.
• 28:16
  And, and so some, but we've grown up in a society that says your day
• 28:23
  is supposed to be nine to five, and you're working from this time to that
• 28:27
  time, and then on those times that you're not working, you're supposed to
• 28:31
  be doing this, this, this, and this.
• 28:32
  Yeah.
• 28:32
  So that's, you know, as I said, coming out of a big, big burnout,
• 28:38
  like those aspects of feeling guilty for, you know, not having the same
• 28:45
  structure that other families have and our house looks like a barn most
• 28:51
  Rupert Isaacson: of the time you should see mine.
• 28:52
  That's why I've got this false thing behind me.
• 28:56
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 28:56
  And the guilt of, of that and, and living in an unfinished house and you know,
• 29:03
  Rupert Isaacson: you have guilt around that.
• 29:05
  Yes.
• 29:06
  Why?
• 29:06
  Why Susie?
• 29:07
  Because, because you, the, the, the happiness that you give people
• 29:13
  through your farm and your non nine to five and everything is so tangible.
• 29:16
  It's
• 29:17
  Suzie Latchford: where is
• 29:17
  Rupert Isaacson: the guilt from?
• 29:19
  Suzie Latchford: I think it's just inherent like not, you know,
• 29:23
  I grew up in a middle class.
• 29:24
  Family, parents were teachers and different age and time in history.
• 29:30
  And it, it was all about having a nice house and, and having it be
• 29:35
  clean and, and, extracurricular activities are scheduled and you
• 29:40
  know, like our life is just like,
• 29:46
  and I'm okay with that.
• 29:48
  I, I think now but it, there is a, there's a huge amount of acceptance
• 29:54
  that you go through because you're not, you're not those things
• 30:00
  Rupert Isaacson: That's so interesting to me.
• 30:01
  You know, it's funny, when I met you, I never would've thought
• 30:04
  that you'd have been somebody who suffered that way because
• 30:08
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 30:08
  You know,
• 30:08
  Rupert Isaacson: when, when you see people from the outside, you know, I, I,
• 30:11
  I, I came to your farm, I came to your house, I saw you were doing great work.
• 30:15
  You know, you had a great relationship, you had great kids.
• 30:18
  The house is beautiful.
• 30:20
  I, you know, I don't expect houses to not be a little bit messy
• 30:23
  'cause you should see mine if we live outdoor lives like birth
• 30:26
  Suzie Latchford: all the time.
• 30:27
  And it never
• 30:27
  Rupert Isaacson: would've occurred to me that you had anything but
• 30:31
  pleasure in that experience.
• 30:33
  Were you always feeling this guilt, do you think?
• 30:36
  Or did it creep up?
• 30:39
  Suzie Latchford: I think I've always had it for sure,
• 30:44
  Rupert Isaacson: because I have, does Ron have it too?
• 30:45
  Suzie Latchford: I have a very Type A mom.
• 30:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 30:49
  Suzie Latchford: Very, very type A mom and lover to bits.
• 30:51
  And we're so involved in our lives, both of, both of my parents.
• 30:57
  And always have been.
• 30:59
  But she's very, very organized.
• 31:01
  Very controlled and very structured.
• 31:03
  And does she
• 31:04
  Rupert Isaacson: criticize you for your wildlife?
• 31:07
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah, a little bit.
• 31:08
  Yeah.
• 31:09
  For sure.
• 31:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Have you challenged her and say, all right, mom,
• 31:12
  there's a hundred animals outside.
• 31:15
  Tell you what we'll swap for a week.
• 31:18
  I'll do the housework.
• 31:19
  You keep all that going.
• 31:22
  And then at the end of that, let's have a little talk about structure.
• 31:25
  Suzie Latchford: And I don't get any more animals.
• 31:27
  You have too many animals.
• 31:33
  Like this year it was like, I want a Turkey.
• 31:37
  I need Turkey in my life.
• 31:40
  Now we have four turkeys and two peacocks.
• 31:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 31:45
  Suzie Latchford: I'm like, and how
• 31:45
  Rupert Isaacson: do you stop?
• 31:46
  How do you stop the raccoons and the, and the coyotes getting them,
• 31:49
  Suzie Latchford: The coyotes have been an issue.
• 31:51
  Yeah.
• 31:52
  But we have more of a compound now that's fenced.
• 31:56
  Then the, the fences are high enough.
• 31:59
  Yeah.
• 31:59
  And we do big dogs, but their wimps and are al always with us in the
• 32:03
  house, unless they come out with us.
• 32:05
  But
• 32:06
  Rupert Isaacson: well, the packs of coyotes will eat them too, so.
• 32:08
  Yeah.
• 32:08
  Yeah.
• 32:09
  They, they are.
• 32:10
  Oh
• 32:10
  Suzie Latchford: yeah.
• 32:11
  Oh yeah.
• 32:11
  They're bad.
• 32:12
  They're especially up where
• 32:12
  Rupert Isaacson: you are.
• 32:13
  'cause you have brush wolves, right.
• 32:14
  You have the coyote wolf hybrids, which are actually quite a lot bigger.
• 32:18
  Yeah, yeah.
• 32:20
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 32:20
  But, raccoons.
• 32:21
  I don't know.
• 32:22
  They've never knock on wood, bothered us too much.
• 32:25
  That might just be because of the dogs and there's just always gone around here, so,
• 32:32
  Rupert Isaacson: so it's, it's very interesting to me.
• 32:34
  So you also, you've also just said that you've just come out of a big burnout.
• 32:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:38
  Again, that's intriguing to me 'cause I think that's a bit of an,
• 32:41
  a non-res subject in what we do.
• 32:45
  I myself have gone through various times of burnout with this because
• 32:51
  what, what we do is just so intense, you know, between the long hours,
• 32:56
  between the responsibilities with the livestock, between the responsibilities
• 33:01
  for just keeping people alive mm-hmm.
• 33:04
  With horses, and then on top of that now to deliver the service and then, you
• 33:10
  know, the financial instability and so on.
• 33:12
  Tell me about this burnout.
• 33:14
  Did it hit you by surprise?
• 33:16
  And what did you do about it?
• 33:19
  Suzie Latchford: Well, it's been going on for quite some time, and I think I,
• 33:25
  I feel like you just get used to it.
• 33:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:27
  You can't stop.
• 33:28
  Right?
• 33:28
  This is the thing, like when, when you're feeling exhausted and
• 33:32
  you know that you're not right.
• 33:35
  But regardless the amount of responsibility on your
• 33:38
  shoulder, it's like holding the.
• 33:39
  It's like, you know, there's so many people responsible that you're
• 33:44
  responsible for, and so many animals that you're responsible for that.
• 33:48
  It just gets to be so overwhelming sometimes.
• 33:52
  You know, when you have to manage staff and you have to pay your
• 33:56
  staff and there's payroll and then, you know, our animal expenses just
• 34:01
  for hay and feed is 42,000 a year.
• 34:05
  So, and then trying to describe what we do to get funding, as I said in a box is,
• 34:13
  is really, is really, really challenging.
• 34:16
  Thank goodness for Chet GPT, I've just become best friends with ai.
• 34:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:21
  AI really does help with this stuff.
• 34:23
  I agree.
• 34:24
  Suzie Latchford: Oh, for grants, like, I was like, it's just such a breath of
• 34:27
  fresh air because they just put it in the box that it needs to go in and then,
• 34:32
  and then, you know, engage the reader.
• 34:37
  That's that.
• 34:38
  I don't
• 34:38
  Rupert Isaacson: consider that cheating at all.
• 34:39
  It's, it's exactly what AI is supposed to do.
• 34:41
  Yeah.
• 34:42
  Yeah.
• 34:42
  It's not supposed to write your novel.
• 34:43
  It's supposed to get you a grant.
• 34:45
  Absolutely.
• 34:45
  Yeah.
• 34:46
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 34:47
  And it's, I would spend probably weeks on a grant, whereas now I can spend hours.
• 34:55
  Yeah.
• 34:57
  So, but going back to the lead up to the burnout, it's, it's gradual.
• 35:04
  Until you get to a point where I, like I was in a bad depression.
• 35:10
  Like I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know how bad it was until
• 35:14
  I started to feel a little better.
• 35:16
  Okay.
• 35:16
  And this, this is just six weeks ago.
• 35:20
  So, okay.
• 35:22
  And then, yeah, the 42,000, it, it is to feed your animals, getting the hay
• 35:28
  in, feeding them, you know, getting the hay out there, getting the, the feed in
• 35:34
  for all of the animals and not having always enough money for payroll to, to
• 35:40
  have some come in and feed for you, like on the days that you need it, right?
• 35:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:47
  So you do it and it, it just, it just compacts And it just got to the point.
• 35:53
  And at my ripe old age of 53, like there's other contributing factors for women
• 35:59
  that, of that age that impact as well.
• 36:03
  And your body is, and your mental wellness just goes,
• 36:10
  Rupert Isaacson: did it, when it hit you how did it manifest?
• 36:14
  Like, did you just collapse?
• 36:16
  What was the,
• 36:18
  Suzie Latchford: Then
• 36:18
  Rupert Isaacson: how did you keep things going?
• 36:19
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 36:19
  High blood pressure for a long time, like really bad.
• 36:23
  Anxiety to the point where I'm just up in flight mode all the time.
• 36:27
  So my central nervous system is like, Ooh, there's a bear out there constantly.
• 36:32
  Not, which then would exasperate everything else.
• 36:37
  Not resting properly not giving your body that time it needs to, or not giving
• 36:42
  your body, not your body, not being able to, or your mind not being able to,
• 36:47
  to deliver that rest because it's just
• 36:51
  Rupert Isaacson: in.
• 36:51
  Right.
• 36:52
  So how did it manifest?
• 36:53
  Like did you suddenly not getting outta bed one day?
• 36:56
  Sorry.
• 36:57
  Suzie Latchford: No.
• 36:57
  Cortisol?
• 36:58
  No.
• 36:58
  I always had to get outta bed.
• 36:59
  Like I always had to do it, but it just made it like, for a while I
• 37:04
  didn't even wanna be around horses.
• 37:07
  Yeah.
• 37:07
  It was like connecting with our horses.
• 37:09
  I was kind of like taking a back burner on wanting to facilitate.
• 37:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:15
  Not facilitate, like all those things that you loved and enjoyed that are all of a
• 37:19
  sudden you're so terrified because you're like, where did my love go for that?
• 37:27
  Because it feels like a burden right now.
• 37:31
  Rupert Isaacson: This is so honest that you're talking about this.
• 37:33
  Okay.
• 37:33
  So do you feel you are out of it?
• 37:37
  Do you feel you're still in it?
• 37:38
  Do you feel, how, how are you, how are you coping with it?
• 37:42
  How are you dealing with it?
• 37:43
  Suzie Latchford: I am.
• 37:44
  I'm coming out of it.
• 37:46
  So now I'm all of a sudden I'm being more mindful and going, okay, you need
• 37:51
  to give yourself a break and be nice to yourself because if you keep going on
• 37:57
  this way you're gonna be good for nothing.
• 38:01
  And I know that I, I still have a lot of work to do in this life.
• 38:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:06
  And I need to have the energy in order to, to move forward with that.
• 38:11
  'cause I'm not done yet.
• 38:12
  And I feel that intrinsically and authentically, intuitively.
• 38:17
  Rupert Isaacson: So I generally feel that, yeah, when we have these,
• 38:20
  these Nadia moments, these, you know, bottom of the barrel moments, it's
• 38:25
  often actually right before there's going to be the next transformation
• 38:30
  to the next really good thing.
• 38:31
  I mean, I think we've all gone through enough of them in our lives to sort of
• 38:36
  know that pattern, but it's, it's very, very hard to see that when you're in it.
• 38:40
  And as you say, it's so relentless the, the life that we lead.
• 38:45
  You know, so interesting listening to you because, you know, this is normally
• 38:48
  what our clients come to us with, right?
• 38:51
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 38:52
  Rupert Isaacson: I think what do you find that it's giving you
• 38:54
  actually even more empathy with the clients because you can really
• 39:00
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 39:02
  It's almost scary 'cause you can relate so much better.
• 39:07
  So
• 39:08
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 39:08
  Yeah.
• 39:08
  The vulnerability.
• 39:10
  Yeah.
• 39:10
  Thank you for, thank you for talking like this because, you know, it, this
• 39:14
  work that we do, it's so predicated on having a strong personality,
• 39:18
  leadership, all of these things.
• 39:21
  And as you know, I mean it's, it's predominantly female run our, our world.
• 39:26
  Luckily we've got some great male men within horse boy world, but you
• 39:29
  know, it's vast majority is female.
• 39:32
  And so one thing I, I really value about that is that you give, you see a lot of
• 39:36
  really great female leadership and that knock on effect, not just to girls, but
• 39:41
  also to boys, you know, to see strong women in these, in these leadership roles.
• 39:46
  But mm-hmm.
• 39:47
  I think it's, it's, it's also difficult because as you say you know, there
• 39:51
  are certain things that can hit.
• 39:52
  And you were saying just now at 52, you know, there are
• 39:55
  certain contributing factors.
• 39:57
  So can we talk about that actually really directly, because I think that
• 40:00
  menopause is something which isn't talked about enough in our line of work
• 40:07
  because pretty much all the women who are my colleagues you know, have been
• 40:12
  running these programs for a while.
• 40:13
  They perhaps started them in their mid thirties.
• 40:16
  Yeah.
• 40:17
  And then right about the time that they are really hitting their stride.
• 40:23
  Boom, the menopause hits.
• 40:25
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 40:25
  You know,
• 40:25
  Rupert Isaacson: how does this, I know, I, I know so many of our listeners and
• 40:30
  viewers will be going, yep, that's me.
• 40:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:33
  Tell us about how that impacts you and the work and,
• 40:38
  Suzie Latchford: well, you don't know who you are anymore.
• 40:42
  Like, I was a bit of an identity crisis I found for myself.
• 40:47
  And I know I talked to my doctor about it and he goes, you don't know how many women
• 40:52
  that have come into my office and said that they don't know who they are anymore.
• 40:58
  And that's a big one.
• 41:00
  So it's rediscovering yourself in a different way.
• 41:03
  All of a sudden, like, I'm gonna talk about periods because for me, my period
• 41:11
  or, or my menstrual cycle each month was a bit of a navigation tool for me.
• 41:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 41:17
  Suzie Latchford: So I knew it was like a, it's an ebb and flow, and
• 41:22
  then all that's gone and you can't, it's like you're lost a little bit.
• 41:29
  You're motherless
• 41:30
  Rupert Isaacson: maybe.
• 41:30
  Yeah.
• 41:31
  Suzie Latchford: Like the moon cycle or you know, I would know, oh, okay,
• 41:36
  I am PMSing, so this is the next phase and this is the next phase.
• 41:40
  And you know, you, you get your cycle and then a couple days later you feel
• 41:45
  this sense of your skin feels better and your body feels better and your
• 41:49
  cleansing and then, you know, it was just something to count on, something
• 41:54
  that you knew and sudden it's gone
• 41:57
  Rupert Isaacson: back to structure again.
• 41:58
  Yeah.
• 41:59
  Nature.
• 41:59
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 42:00
  You're not quite sure.
• 42:04
  Yeah.
• 42:04
  It's just learning a new way of being, I guess.
• 42:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Is there kind of grief with that, that of, of sort
• 42:10
  of almost watching an old self die?
• 42:12
  Yeah.
• 42:12
  Before the new self is birthed.
• 42:13
  Yeah.
• 42:14
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 42:15
  It really, a hundred percent.
• 42:17
  And yeah, those feeling and then the physical ailments of it, you know, all
• 42:22
  of a sudden you skin is, say you're your, you know, your, you don't have
• 42:27
  as much muscle or you've lost muscle and you're weaker and not as resilient.
• 42:32
  And so all of those things that go along with that as well.
• 42:35
  Did you find
• 42:36
  Rupert Isaacson: that was a real, a, a real thing?
• 42:37
  Like suddenly you're picking up the hay bale and thinking,
• 42:40
  whoa, this feels heavier?
• 42:42
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 42:42
  For me it's my, yeah, the muscle, my, my muscles and legs and things like that.
• 42:48
  And that, that could be contributing just also from being exhausted too.
• 42:54
  Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
• 42:56
  considering a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
• 43:01
  taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
• 43:05
  Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
• 43:11
  Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
• 43:18
  developed in conjunction with Dr.
• 43:20
  Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
• 43:24
  We work in the saddle with younger children.
• 43:27
  Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
• 43:33
  It works incredibly well.
• 43:34
  It's now in about 40 countries.
• 43:37
  Check it out.
• 43:38
  If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
• 43:43
  method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
• 43:46
  applied in schools, in homes.
• 43:48
  If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
• 43:53
  at home that will create neuroplasticity.
• 43:56
  when they're not with you.
• 43:58
  Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
• 44:01
  If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
• 44:04
  really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
• 44:08
  in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
• 44:13
  So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
• 44:16
  also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
• 44:20
  And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
• 44:25
  am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
• 44:28
  need, as well as Serving my clients.
• 44:31
  Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
• 44:36
  absolutely gives you this.
• 44:38
  Mm mm Yeah.
• 44:40
  So, yeah.
• 44:41
  What, what, what are your strategies?
• 44:42
  Let's structure them out.
• 44:44
  So, so, so the strategies first for the hormonal side, because with
• 44:51
  this is coming emotional, right?
• 44:55
  Hormone is emotion.
• 44:57
  And then let's go to the physical.
• 44:58
  I think this is so useful for people to have a really frank discussion about
• 45:02
  this, because you are not gonna stop, you know, you're gonna be doing this until
• 45:06
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 45:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Drop, right?
• 45:08
  So you've got, and I think so many of our, our listeners who are in the same
• 45:12
  boat, they're like, okay, I'm menopause.
• 45:13
  I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm dealing with burnout.
• 45:16
  I'm, but, you know, my, my, my practice is bigger than it's ever been.
• 45:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:21
  This is a measure of success.
• 45:23
  Alright.
• 45:25
  What are my strategies then?
• 45:27
  So let's go to the and I know menopause is different for everybody, so it's
• 45:31
  a bit like autism, you know, it's different in every person, right?
• 45:34
  Yeah.
• 45:34
  But what are your strategies emotionally?
• 45:37
  Like what, be beyond the, the loss of Okay.
• 45:42
  The, the menstrual cycle and, and identity, but, mm-hmm.
• 45:46
  Or, or at least navigation as you said, but what are the other
• 45:51
  emotional impacts and how do you, how do you deal with those?
• 45:59
  Suzie Latchford: Hmm.
• 46:03
  Being aware, like I was aware that I wasn't right, but it wasn't enough
• 46:11
  almost to, because I still couldn't stop.
• 46:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 46:16
  And then that would exasperate everything.
• 46:22
  But
• 46:24
  for me now being at, you know, coming out of the burnout at this point, it's
• 46:30
  just being more mindful and, and telling, like it's retraining your brain really.
• 46:37
  And so, 'cause you can ruminate so much on stuff and it just gets worse and worse.
• 46:44
  So stopping and being aware of your thoughts and trying to change that
• 46:52
  negative chatter, but you have to have the strength to do that too.
• 46:59
  So,
• 47:01
  and I don't know,
• 47:06
  gosh,
• 47:09
  how, I guess you just get, I got so far down that I had to do
• 47:16
  something to bring myself back up.
• 47:18
  So I, I personally had to try a different medication for a bit
• 47:23
  that helped my brain sort of.
• 47:25
  Spark again, if you will.
• 47:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:28
  And that snapped me out enough to be able to take that step back.
• 47:32
  Hmm.
• 47:34
  And it, it just, and I, I just be started becoming more positive and I started
• 47:39
  having those conversations in my brain that were more positive and more like
• 47:44
  me again, because I'm a, I'm a, I'm a person that sees the, the glass half full.
• 47:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 47:53
  Suzie Latchford: I was not, I was seeing the glass half empty.
• 47:56
  Rupert Isaacson: That must have been quite shocking.
• 47:57
  Yeah, it's
• 47:58
  Suzie Latchford: scary.
• 47:58
  It was very scary.
• 48:00
  And, and so
• 48:05
  yeah, being open to trying something different, whether it's,
• 48:10
  you know, medication for a bit or
• 48:14
  going to a naturopath, I don't, I don't know.
• 48:17
  But there becomes this point where you know that if it, if you don't
• 48:22
  do something, then you're just gonna go downhill and then nothing's good
• 48:29
  for anybody or anything anymore.
• 48:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Did you also get to a point where you could reach out to help?
• 48:39
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 48:41
  Indefinitely?
• 48:44
  Yeah.
• 48:47
  Yeah.
• 48:47
  It.
• 48:51
  I had to reach out to my family doctor and my friends and
• 48:59
  support group and, and family.
• 49:02
  And that had to be a combination of, of, of a few things.
• 49:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 49:10
  It's very difficult when you've been leading, you know, for so long.
• 49:16
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 49:17
  To,
• 49:18
  Rupert Isaacson: because, because the worry is, you know, I think
• 49:19
  for all of us is when we ask if someone else will step forward that
• 49:26
  unless we are leading by example the whole time.
• 49:29
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 49:29
  Rupert Isaacson: You know, people will lose their own momentum.
• 49:33
  Have you actually found that that's not true?
• 49:35
  Have you found that
• 49:38
  asking your team to step up more has actually been galvanizing for them?
• 49:43
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 49:45
  So I, I was speaking about Olivia, who is basically our manager right now.
• 49:49
  And she, like, she just, one of our staff went on maternity leave and so
• 49:57
  it was time for, for Liv to step up and and she took it and ran with it.
• 50:03
  And, you know, I feel so fortunate to have.
• 50:06
  A young person, like she's just turning 25, a young person like
• 50:10
  that to have so much like energy and inspiration and, and hard work.
• 50:16
  And they're hard to find now.
• 50:18
  Yeah.
• 50:18
  And so I, you know, she's a godsend for me.
• 50:23
  And I don't tell her enough, but I see, I see her being, she can be successful in
• 50:32
  this in this industry, be because of that.
• 50:35
  And there's just not very many people out there like that.
• 50:38
  So, yeah.
• 50:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 50:40
  Yeah, it's, it's
• 50:42
  Suzie Latchford: definitely,
• 50:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you think, and listening to you talk, you know,
• 50:49
  I, I, I'm starting to talk more and more about burnout when we
• 50:52
  are doing the horse boy trainings.
• 50:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 50:56
  And telling people, look, you are gonna burnout.
• 50:59
  In fact, if you think about your 24 hour cycle, you actually burn out every day.
• 51:04
  There's a point at which you fall unconscious.
• 51:06
  Right.
• 51:06
  You actually could not stay awake and working if you tried, and if
• 51:11
  you pushed yourself through that, it would just lead to insanity.
• 51:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 51:16
  But I, you know, in our sort of particularly our Protestant
• 51:20
  Anglo-Saxon culture, this idea of to be the constant workhorse that
• 51:24
  work ethic is so instilled in us.
• 51:27
  That when the inevitable burnouts happen we are, we feel ashamed,
• 51:33
  we feel it shouldn't be happening.
• 51:36
  We try to fight it.
• 51:38
  And more and more now I'm telling people expect it and plan for it.
• 51:43
  Yeah.
• 51:43
  And actually learn.
• 51:45
  What is your burnout cycle?
• 51:47
  Like, I think, I think I have a six weekly burnout cycle myself.
• 51:51
  Because, you know, I travel a lot.
• 51:52
  I'm on planes a lot.
• 51:53
  I'm on jet lag a lot.
• 51:55
  Then when I'm home, you know, there's large livestock and we've got clients
• 51:58
  and blah, blah, blah, and I got young kids and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 52:01
  And, you know, of course there's going to be burnout.
• 52:05
  And it used to be that I wouldn't, I wouldn't even allow the topic to
• 52:09
  come up and then I'd notice myself like hitting the bottle and Yeah.
• 52:17
  Being like really grumpy and not being nice and people pointing it
• 52:25
  out to me, you know, and me like not wanting to hear that at all.
• 52:29
  And then at a certain point kind of going, oh, actually, shit, you're right.
• 52:32
  Okay, what am I gonna do about that?
• 52:35
  And I started doing things that I never did before.
• 52:40
  So, for example, I, I take naps I use yoga nidra a lot.
• 52:45
  Yeah.
• 52:45
  Have you come across yoga nidra?
• 52:47
  The guided, it's phenomenal.
• 52:50
  Yeah.
• 52:50
  So guided meditations while you basically lie with your eyes closed.
• 52:54
  Yeah.
• 52:54
  You don't have to sit in some uncomfortable pose.
• 52:57
  And basically what you do is you just go through a body scan of being aware
• 53:01
  of these different parts of your body.
• 53:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:03
  And there's no wrong way to do it.
• 53:04
  So if you fall asleep, it's fine.
• 53:06
  And, but it, it's, they call it nons sleep, deep relaxation.
• 53:09
  It's like a, a, a deep rest that where 15 minutes can be
• 53:15
  like, you just slept tonight.
• 53:18
  And just beginning to sort of let myself even just be comfortable with the
• 53:27
  fact that I'm tired meant that I could
• 53:32
  Suzie Latchford: It's not a weakness.
• 53:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
• 53:35
  Exactly.
• 53:36
  But we were all brought up, you know, to see it as that
• 53:40
  Suzie Latchford: I find, like even with Ron, you know, like it, if he's feeling
• 53:46
  physically tired or you know, his back is sore, like I, it's it, for me,
• 53:52
  it's like it affects him so much more.
• 53:54
  Mm.
• 53:56
  I'm assuming it's like a sign of, you know, weakness and, and it's not, it's
• 54:01
  just your body's telling you something.
• 54:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 54:05
  And if you've gone it as hard physically, you know, as you and Ron have, you know,
• 54:09
  in the course of say, the last 20 years or, or so, you know, how can there not
• 54:14
  be, you know, a point at which your body just says, dude, you know, come on.
• 54:18
  And it's also gotta be hard for a guy like Ron, because I know him.
• 54:20
  You know, he's, he's, he's a big strong dude.
• 54:22
  He's very capable.
• 54:24
  He's got all those skills.
• 54:25
  He's used to being the guy with the skills and the guy with the strength
• 54:28
  and the guy, you know, and to feel a kind of wobble in that is very scary.
• 54:34
  Yeah.
• 54:34
  Yeah, yeah.
• 54:37
  So as you move forward now mm-hmm.
• 54:40
  Because your, your, your program is as bigger than it's ever been.
• 54:43
  As you say, you've got a hundred animals and you've got, you know,
• 54:46
  four turkeys in your life as well as, you know, all the horses and so on.
• 54:50
  Yeah.
• 54:52
  How are you, how are you reorganizing everything so that this is now
• 54:56
  sustainable for you personally?
• 55:00
  Suzie Latchford: Definitely trying now to figure out like,
• 55:05
  how is this gonna run without me?
• 55:07
  Because once Okay.
• 55:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Succession plan.
• 55:09
  Yeah.
• 55:09
  Suzie Latchford: Have to, and you know, it is a community organization.
• 55:14
  Like we, we are a charity not one person that's supposed to own it.
• 55:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 55:19
  Right?
• 55:20
  You have a board and.
• 55:22
  We do things a little differently, but we basically have picked our
• 55:26
  board and we're all on the same page and, and get things done.
• 55:32
  But preparing for the future as to I, you know, my goals right now are,
• 55:38
  are to make things more efficient.
• 55:41
  You know, there's still a lot of things lacking on the farm, like
• 55:44
  just proper fencing and, and proper ways of making it easier to feed the
• 55:50
  animals and, you know, not having all the goats eating the pig's food, even
• 55:54
  though it's all the same, but Right.
• 55:56
  Goats are
• 55:59
  Rupert Isaacson: goats Yeah.
• 56:01
  Suzie Latchford: And
• 56:01
  Rupert Isaacson: great social animals, but they are a pain in the us.
• 56:06
  Suzie Latchford: I, it's, they're, they're wonderful.
• 56:07
  But when you, when it comes to feeding, it's mayhem and those things figured out
• 56:14
  and, you know, so it's not frustrating.
• 56:18
  Every day isn't frustrating when it's time to feed and, and having those going on.
• 56:24
  And so those are, those are my main goals.
• 56:26
  Moving, moving forward and, and still expanding our programs.
• 56:33
  I don't wanna create a whole, like not many more new programs or anything.
• 56:37
  I think we have a good core, core, core things that we're doing
• 56:42
  that are working but becoming a little more affluent for me.
• 56:46
  I, I would like to get back to doing a bit more of the communication type
• 56:54
  pieces with the horses from the ground.
• 56:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 56:56
  And just think more about their body language, learning more about what, what
• 57:00
  they're communicating back to us and being, to share that a little bit more.
• 57:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, absolutely.
• 57:07
  You know, one of the things which, you know, people often assume with
• 57:11
  Horse Boy is that because it's a mounted program we're spending all
• 57:14
  our time in the saddle and actually, you know, all the preparation for
• 57:17
  it is on the ground, you know?
• 57:19
  Yeah.
• 57:19
  We are constantly doing groundwork with our horses so that when we're
• 57:22
  in the saddle with someone else's kid, we know it's gonna flow, but
• 57:27
  that flow actually comes from time spent on the ground with the horse
• 57:32
  rather than time spent in the saddle.
• 57:35
  And this is often I think, not looked at enough in therapy programs.
• 57:41
  If they're ground based, the horse doesn't get enough exercise, you know, someone
• 57:45
  actually should be riding them and trail riding them and taking them out in the
• 57:49
  world and giving them an interesting time.
• 57:51
  But that doesn't have to be you, that can be a, a another staff member, you know?
• 57:56
  Yeah.
• 57:57
  Or they love to jump and they love to go crazy, but they can be free jumped.
• 58:00
  They can, there's so many ways to, to do that kind of thing, to give
• 58:04
  them the outlet for that energy.
• 58:05
  And at the same time, the people that are very riding focused.
• 58:09
  Often don't spend enough time on the ground.
• 58:11
  So often it seems to be about having a team where you've got people who have
• 58:15
  their various likes and preferences, and then you can sort of divide the wellbeing
• 58:20
  of the horse up into those chunks so that people aren't doing the thing that scares
• 58:26
  them or that they don't really mm-hmm.
• 58:27
  Like to do or bores them or, or whatever.
• 58:30
  So much it is about tribe and team.
• 58:32
  I feel you know, the, having spent time in Mongolia with actual horse
• 58:37
  tribes, you sort of see how it's always a big extended family endeavor.
• 58:41
  Horses are complex, particularly in those climates, and you deal
• 58:44
  with this climate yourself.
• 58:46
  I wanna go back to the winter and I know winter is, is a great time
• 58:50
  for burnout in Canada when you have to be outside in it all the time.
• 58:53
  I, I worked as a window cleaner, as an illegal immigrant in Montreal
• 58:57
  through the winter and, you know, blah.
• 59:00
  Yeah.
• 59:01
  You know, but I was 21.
• 59:02
  I mean, you know, imagine doing it at, you know, 50 something.
• 59:06
  But how do you keep your horses and how do you go through
• 59:11
  the winter with your horses?
• 59:14
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 59:14
  So our horses are out 24 7.
• 59:17
  They have shelters in the field that you would think they
• 59:21
  would use more than they do.
• 59:23
  Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting, isn't it?
• 59:24
  Yeah,
• 59:25
  Suzie Latchford: yeah.
• 59:26
  So they, they'll go in there, in and out, but it's not always
• 59:30
  because the weather is bad.
• 59:32
  So like, we've just never had, I, I grew up boarding my horse like I got a horse
• 59:39
  when I was 12 and you know, she was in a stall, you know, and then turned
• 59:43
  out during the day and then sort of brought back in and, and that's how I
• 59:48
  just knew horses were just in a stall.
• 59:51
  But when we moved to our property here and they could finally get horses back
• 59:55
  in my life, we didn't have a barn.
• 59:56
  So of course they had a shelter.
• 1:00:00
  And I learned from that experience that they're pretty happy to be
• 1:00:04
  able to come and go as they please.
• 1:00:06
  And, you know, we feed, we have hay available 24 7, so, you know,
• 1:00:12
  they're not worried about when their next meal is coming, which
• 1:00:15
  creates less stress for them.
• 1:00:17
  Mm.
• 1:00:18
  And we feel when our horses come in to do a session or to do some work or for
• 1:00:24
  a brush or for whatever reason, we feel that allowing them to go back out and
• 1:00:30
  mingle with their herd and be a part of that equine system, if you will, is,
• 1:00:34
  is the best thing we can do for them.
• 1:00:38
  Rupert Isaacson: I so agree.
• 1:00:38
  It's really interesting.
• 1:00:39
  You know, we obviously in, I, I've been through all these
• 1:00:43
  different ways of keeping horses.
• 1:00:45
  When I was a boy, we kept our horses out all the time.
• 1:00:50
  In England, except in the winter they came in at night, um mm-hmm.
• 1:00:53
  Because they were hunters.
• 1:00:54
  They were gonna be clipped, so they were wearing rugs, but then we'd
• 1:00:58
  bring them in at night for warmth.
• 1:01:00
  Yeah.
• 1:01:00
  But they were outside in their herd all day, and that was just very normal.
• 1:01:04
  Then of course, in Texas, well, we just had a 24 7 outside climate,
• 1:01:08
  you know, horses needed shade.
• 1:01:09
  They'd go in to shelters for the shade, but we, we had them,
• 1:01:14
  you know, living outside of the shelters and they loved that.
• 1:01:16
  Then when I moved to Germany, we spent the last several years in
• 1:01:19
  Germany, it was really interesting.
• 1:01:21
  We had to board the horses, and I'd always been very kind of, oh
• 1:01:25
  yes, well, you've gotta keep your horses out, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:01:27
  And it was the first time because we, we couldn't just like show up
• 1:01:31
  and buy a farm that, I mean, the kids were very young and so on.
• 1:01:35
  So we were like, okay, let's board the horses.
• 1:01:37
  It'll be easier for us in these years because we need to give a lot
• 1:01:42
  of attention to infant children.
• 1:01:45
  And Germans are people who love rules and regulations and structure.
• 1:01:51
  And so the, the summer was very easy because the horses
• 1:01:54
  were out most of the time.
• 1:01:55
  But the winter, they don't put the horses on the fields because they
• 1:01:57
  don't want to see a lot of mud.
• 1:01:59
  I grew up in England, it's like, yeah, mud.
• 1:02:01
  I mean, it's just weird.
• 1:02:02
  We invented mud.
• 1:02:03
  It's like, you know, you awards for the Muddiest farm, you know, so, you've got
• 1:02:07
  those Monty piping things about, you know, oh, have some nice mud, you know,
• 1:02:11
  would you like a bit of mud with your mud?
• 1:02:13
  But.
• 1:02:14
  Then suddenly with them, mud's not allowed.
• 1:02:16
  So what they would do is they would put the horses out for maybe two hours
• 1:02:20
  a day in what they called a paddock.
• 1:02:23
  And the paddock was just like this sterile area of sand.
• 1:02:28
  They sure they could stand out there in a group.
• 1:02:30
  They didn't even have a free ha thing.
• 1:02:33
  And I looked at this and kind of went, what are we gonna do?
• 1:02:37
  These horses are standing in like 22 hours a day, then they've just been put out,
• 1:02:44
  okay, we are working them as well, so let's shave a couple of hours off there.
• 1:02:48
  It's not enough.
• 1:02:49
  What do we do?
• 1:02:50
  So I thought, okay, this gives me a lot of compassion for people suddenly
• 1:02:53
  who are having to keep horses in this way because they may not have a choice.
• 1:02:57
  You know, they, they live in a outskirts of a town.
• 1:03:00
  That's the only thing available.
• 1:03:02
  And then you're at the mercy of the barn owner.
• 1:03:04
  So we came up with this idea of crazy time where we spent a lot of time letting
• 1:03:10
  horses free jump in groups, in herds, inside covered arenas or open arenas
• 1:03:16
  with outside with, with better footing.
• 1:03:19
  And we found that went an awful long way.
• 1:03:22
  And then we'd like go in the forest in the day and we'd like ride one, lead two and
• 1:03:26
  let them like gallop on anything we could do to like, give them their endorphins
• 1:03:31
  and give them their social time and give.
• 1:03:32
  But like we had to put so much effort into it.
• 1:03:35
  Then we, then we rented a place where we could just keep them.
• 1:03:40
  24 7 outside again with just shelters exactly as you described.
• 1:03:44
  And Germany gets a bit of a Canadian winter not quite as bad, but we certainly
• 1:03:48
  get quite a few weeks of like deep ice snow if you're a certain altitude.
• 1:03:54
  And we found that the horses of course, just thrived.
• 1:03:57
  And if you think about the step in Mongolia, that's exactly
• 1:04:01
  what you find, isn't it?
• 1:04:01
  You've got like really hot summers, but like massively cold winters.
• 1:04:05
  And this is where the horse comes from.
• 1:04:07
  This is what horses are actually adapted to.
• 1:04:10
  Yeah.
• 1:04:10
  So it it, it's intriguing to me that you, you, you've found that actually there in
• 1:04:15
  Canada, even with the snowy climate, the horses really are totally okay with this.
• 1:04:20
  Yeah.
• 1:04:20
  Suzie Latchford: Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:22
  Now we do blanket the ones that need it.
• 1:04:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:04:25
  Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  Suzie Latchford: But there's a, you know, we have one Oberon.
• 1:04:28
  I mean, he's, he's an American cream draft in a Lucy Cano mix.
• 1:04:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Ooh, that sounds quite intriguing.
• 1:04:37
  Suzie Latchford: You know, like, we've never blanketed him.
• 1:04:41
  He doesn't need it.
• 1:04:41
  He doesn't want it.
• 1:04:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:04:44
  Sometimes they tear the blanket off.
• 1:04:45
  Yeah.
• 1:04:46
  Suzie Latchford: We put a rain sheet on him and he's also
• 1:04:49
  the, the lead guy out there.
• 1:04:51
  Right.
• 1:04:52
  So we put a rain sheet on him and it freaked the entire herd out.
• 1:05:00
  I had to take it off.
• 1:05:01
  Rupert Isaacson: That's funny.
• 1:05:03
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:05:04
  They didn't know who he was.
• 1:05:05
  It was like, it was funny.
• 1:05:08
  Yeah.
• 1:05:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you, do you find that that is a growing thing in
• 1:05:14
  Canada now that people are actually trusting a little bit more to nature?
• 1:05:17
  Because certainly when I was living there, people were very much about putting the
• 1:05:22
  horses up in the barns through the winter.
• 1:05:25
  Is it beginning to change?
• 1:05:27
  Suzie Latchford: I believe so, and, and I also, it's also depending on what
• 1:05:31
  you're doing with your horse and where you're boarding it, so Absolutely.
• 1:05:34
  You know, definitely there's boarding facilities out there where people can,
• 1:05:40
  you have, you pay extra, but your horse has a stall or you pay less and it's,
• 1:05:45
  they're out with other horses 24 7.
• 1:05:48
  So it just depends on what you're doing.
• 1:05:51
  Rupert Isaacson: It seems to be more and more that it's,
• 1:05:52
  it's about the herd structures.
• 1:05:55
  Yeah.
• 1:05:55
  That really brings about the wellbeing for the horses.
• 1:05:58
  And as, as much as I do these trainings going around different countries,
• 1:06:04
  different places one of the things I see in the more old school types
• 1:06:09
  of therapeutic riding center is lack of equine wellbeing, because
• 1:06:16
  these herd structures are ignored.
• 1:06:18
  I, I was actually very pleasantly surprised.
• 1:06:21
  I went and did a, a training earlier this year in Michigan,
• 1:06:26
  which is sort of, you know, as.
• 1:06:29
  As Canadian as you can be while being an American or as American as you can
• 1:06:32
  be while being a Canadian, there's an interesting hybrid of people.
• 1:06:35
  There's like, you guys are kind of like Canadians, kind of cool, you know?
• 1:06:38
  But this is a path international center.
• 1:06:42
  You know, I'm used to the path international places, having these
• 1:06:45
  very rigid structures and the horses are all in stalls all the time,
• 1:06:48
  and often, frankly, not very happy and often a bit stiff and arthritic
• 1:06:53
  and not looked after in that way.
• 1:06:55
  Despite the fact that there's often a lot of good infrastructure
• 1:06:58
  and all these safety protocols.
• 1:07:01
  But this place is called Renew.
• 1:07:03
  Had they'd built this barn and then realized actually the horses
• 1:07:06
  don't really want to be in here.
• 1:07:07
  And so they'd just gotten all these really cool outdoor paddocks with these horses
• 1:07:12
  all in their different herd structures and the, even in their climate and the
• 1:07:20
  resulting equine wellbeing that I was seeing mentally, emotionally, as well as
• 1:07:25
  physically was just much more like what I'd see in a horse boy place, frankly.
• 1:07:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:31
  Do you, are you, do you help other people in their getting their
• 1:07:37
  therapeutic things off the ground?
• 1:07:39
  Do, do, do you, have you, do you sort of advise people now sort of a little
• 1:07:42
  bit on lead structures and that?
• 1:07:44
  I,
• 1:07:45
  Suzie Latchford: I haven't yet, but I feel it's something, in the last year or so,
• 1:07:50
  I've, I've been thinking more about, you know what, like I have enough wisdom now.
• 1:07:54
  I feel that I could be sharing stuff to, to make it easier for other people
• 1:08:00
  to try and do something similar.
• 1:08:03
  Rupert Isaacson: No, I agree.
• 1:08:04
  I agree.
• 1:08:04
  And, you know, I, I think something else that, you know, what's come up
• 1:08:08
  through this conversation, I didn't expect us to, you know, be talking
• 1:08:11
  about burnout and menopause and so on, but this is actually so important.
• 1:08:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:16
  Because if, if you don't have wellbeing or the horse doesn't have
• 1:08:21
  wellbeing, how can you possibly transmit that to somebody else?
• 1:08:25
  Right.
• 1:08:26
  Suzie Latchford: Well, and that's why we started, all of these things were for,
• 1:08:30
  to help people with their wellbeing.
• 1:08:33
  And so yeah.
• 1:08:35
  Rupert Isaacson: It's like doctor, physician, heal thyself.
• 1:08:38
  But
• 1:08:38
  Suzie Latchford: yeah,
• 1:08:39
  Rupert Isaacson: so I, I feel that, you know, one of the things
• 1:08:41
  I'd love to see from you would be a series of courses or trainings
• 1:08:51
  Suzie Latchford: mm-hmm.
• 1:08:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Really directed at people running these types
• 1:08:54
  of businesses who are female.
• 1:08:56
  Yeah.
• 1:08:56
  But also male.
• 1:08:57
  There's a sort of male menopause too.
• 1:08:59
  You know, you can't really call it that, but you know what I mean, as, as people
• 1:09:03
  hit middle age and the, the various, you know, things that can come up to
• 1:09:09
  really say having, and I think for that.
• 1:09:13
  If you were to sort of structure again that word out some sort of
• 1:09:18
  course that people could do you yourself have to have gone through
• 1:09:23
  it and felt the despair, right?
• 1:09:26
  Yeah.
• 1:09:26
  Suzie Latchford: Oh yeah.
• 1:09:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Otherwise, what have you got to offer?
• 1:09:29
  What do you, when would you say you arrived at that point of despair?
• 1:09:37
  Suzie Latchford: Oh, definitely.
• 1:09:38
  Yep.
• 1:09:41
  What?
• 1:09:41
  I was terrified.
• 1:09:42
  I was terrified.
• 1:09:43
  Rupert Isaacson: EE exactly.
• 1:09:44
  Did talk us through that.
• 1:09:46
  Like did it suddenly catch you by surprise That was there suddenly like a realization
• 1:09:51
  and, and what, what did your inner voice say when, when you hit that realization,
• 1:10:03
  answer those two things, if you would.
• 1:10:05
  So first thing is, is at what point did you notice that you really were
• 1:10:08
  actually not just unhappy, not just depressed, not just, you know, tired,
• 1:10:12
  not just, but actually despairing.
• 1:10:16
  Let, maybe just go with that one first.
• 1:10:18
  How at what point did you realize that
• 1:10:24
  Suzie Latchford: within the last year?
• 1:10:27
  Just feeling like I was spinning out of control not making good decisions.
• 1:10:32
  Just vi like, I felt like I was vibrating at a level
• 1:10:37
  Rupert Isaacson: with the people.
• 1:10:38
  Good decisions with your livestock generally.
• 1:10:40
  Like what?
• 1:10:41
  All
• 1:10:42
  Suzie Latchford: Everything.
• 1:10:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:10:44
  Suzie Latchford: Everything in myself how I was reacting to things.
• 1:10:51
  Did you
• 1:10:51
  Rupert Isaacson: find you were getting kind of mean?
• 1:10:53
  Suzie Latchford: Oh yeah.
• 1:10:54
  I was getting mean, I was not, I did not feel nice.
• 1:10:57
  No, I wasn't being and did you
• 1:10:59
  Rupert Isaacson: notice that at the time or were you just so into it
• 1:11:02
  that you were kind of blind to it?
• 1:11:04
  Suzie Latchford: I was aware of it in questioning it all the time.
• 1:11:07
  Like, why am I feeling angry?
• 1:11:09
  This is not me.
• 1:11:10
  Yeah,
• 1:11:13
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:14
  And then at a certain point you went, okay, I gotta do something about this.
• 1:11:21
  I gotta put, I gotta walk the walk that I'm, walk the talk
• 1:11:25
  that I'm saying to my clients.
• 1:11:28
  If you were to give advice to somebody who's hitting that, and I bet you so many
• 1:11:35
  people listening to this are hitting that.
• 1:11:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:11:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:11:38
  And it's so honest of you.
• 1:11:39
  It's, I I I, I've got so much respect for you, Susie, for, you know, 'cause
• 1:11:43
  we could have just had, we could have just had a big conversation
• 1:11:45
  about how successful your program is.
• 1:11:47
  And it is, and, and it, what we mustn't lose sight of is that through this whole.
• 1:11:54
  Burnout thing.
• 1:11:55
  You never like dropped the ball.
• 1:11:57
  You know, you, you, you, you kept it going.
• 1:11:59
  Yeah.
• 1:12:00
  You know, you, you, you fulfilled your, your, your obligations and so forth.
• 1:12:04
  And again, so many of the women listening I think are in that
• 1:12:07
  position where they are doing that.
• 1:12:09
  But okay, so you, you reach that, that thing you say, okay, shit,
• 1:12:13
  you know, I'm not myself, I'm being kind of mean as this not me.
• 1:12:16
  This is not Susie.
• 1:12:17
  And you're right.
• 1:12:17
  I know you having, I hang, not hung out that long, but the interactions we had,
• 1:12:22
  this is a very sunny, positive person, as you said, a glass half full person,
• 1:12:27
  which is of course why you got the whole thing off the ground in the first place.
• 1:12:30
  And of course Ron is that way too.
• 1:12:32
  Yes.
• 1:12:33
  But so did I know you said okay, you, you said okay to stop to this, to that.
• 1:12:43
  But can you go into just a little bit more detail?
• 1:12:46
  If you were going to, if you were going to give a, like a training
• 1:12:50
  to another woman in your position a year from now, what would you say?
• 1:12:57
  What, like what are the steps?
• 1:12:59
  Like really what are the steps to like get through this, survive
• 1:13:03
  it, and get back to thriving?
• 1:13:06
  Suzie Latchford: Woo.
• 1:13:13
  That's a hard one because, you know, I do think so differently.
• 1:13:18
  I, I don't.
• 1:13:22
  If I could go back and change a few things of how it all started.
• 1:13:30
  I am, I am in general.
• 1:13:32
  Let's start
• 1:13:33
  Rupert Isaacson: there.
• 1:13:33
  That's perfect.
• 1:13:34
  Let's start there.
• 1:13:36
  Suzie Latchford: Having a bit more of a plan, not being
• 1:13:39
  running things so much on a whim.
• 1:13:42
  And, and in that
• 1:13:44
  Rupert Isaacson: structure,
• 1:13:46
  Suzie Latchford: yes, there was a lot of sacrifice and I sacrificed
• 1:13:51
  a lot, but then I also expected the people around me to sacrifice
• 1:13:56
  things too, which is Ron, my family.
• 1:13:59
  You know, like this just became, this farm became our lifestyle, which I was
• 1:14:05
  okay with, but not always, you know, Ron may not have always been, you know,
• 1:14:10
  like, it's, it's, he's formed around it and been a part of it, but it's, I'm not
• 1:14:20
  even answering your question right now.
• 1:14:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, no, but this is a free flow though.
• 1:14:24
  I mean, and I just fired this at you and I, I think we're
• 1:14:26
  arriving towards an answer, right?
• 1:14:29
  Absolutely.
• 1:14:29
  When you say, let's just back to your opening statement there,
• 1:14:32
  you said you would have more of a, you've had more of a plan.
• 1:14:36
  What would've been in that plan?
• 1:14:46
  Suzie Latchford: Well, I didn't know, like at that point I didn't
• 1:14:48
  know heel with horses was gonna be what it is today, like at all.
• 1:14:55
  And
• 1:14:56
  Rupert Isaacson: you didn't know how big it was gonna get.
• 1:14:58
  Suzie Latchford: No, I didn't, you know, I, I didn't know that small animals
• 1:15:04
  were gonna be a apart, I didn't know, you know, that we would expand on the,
• 1:15:12
  on the horses as, as much as we have.
• 1:15:14
  I didn't know what program, I didn't know we would have a mobile component.
• 1:15:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Ah, yes.
• 1:15:20
  We haven't talked about your mobile component.
• 1:15:22
  I don't talk about that.
• 1:15:23
  Yeah.
• 1:15:24
  Suzie Latchford: So those, those little things are beautiful,
• 1:15:27
  that, that came out of it.
• 1:15:29
  But, but maybe going back and just having somewhat of a plan you
• 1:15:35
  know, to start with, like, I didn't know how to get charitable status.
• 1:15:39
  We didn't know anything.
• 1:15:41
  We didn't know how to have a board.
• 1:15:43
  We didn't know it.
• 1:15:45
  It was just learning all of those things as we go.
• 1:15:49
  Right.
• 1:15:50
  And to be able to go back and do, you know, what, what are the, what
• 1:15:57
  would you recommend to someone to, you know, not do some of those things
• 1:16:02
  so that you don't arrive in such a burned out spot, having more money.
• 1:16:07
  Right.
• 1:16:08
  Nice Rupert, you know, having a little bit more of a some finances to, to go
• 1:16:15
  into something like this with um mm-hmm.
• 1:16:19
  Would certainly cut down a lot of the stress.
• 1:16:22
  But I mean, I don't know it,
• 1:16:28
  but then at the same time, like, this is the way that my life went with it.
• 1:16:33
  It doesn't always have to be that for someone else.
• 1:16:37
  Right.
• 1:16:37
  Rupert Isaacson: if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast,
• 1:16:41
  I'm guessing you are, then you've probably also always wondered a little
• 1:16:46
  bit about the old master system.
• 1:16:48
  of dressage training.
• 1:16:50
  If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
• 1:16:58
  exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
• 1:17:05
  of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
• 1:17:11
  well being of the horse and the rider.
• 1:17:14
  Intrigued?
• 1:17:15
  Like to know more?
• 1:17:17
  Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
• 1:17:21
  Check out the free introduction course.
• 1:17:24
  Take it from there.
• 1:17:25
  I wonder if what you are, what you are arriving at here is a
• 1:17:27
  mentorship component, you know?
• 1:17:29
  Yeah.
• 1:17:30
  20 years ago when we were sort of getting into this this was a very
• 1:17:34
  young field and I think we all got into it organically, obviously, you
• 1:17:37
  know, I did, you know, it was never my intention, but obviously it happened to
• 1:17:41
  me and then, you know, you go with it.
• 1:17:43
  So I think people like you and I had to kind of react and roll with and a
• 1:17:49
  sort of organic evolutionary process.
• 1:17:52
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:17:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Whereas if someone was to come to us now and say, oh,
• 1:17:56
  Ru or Susie, I would like to do this, you know, how should I proceed?
• 1:18:01
  I think you'd be in a very good position to say, well, here are the, here's
• 1:18:04
  here would be some good structures.
• 1:18:06
  Here's some mistakes that we made.
• 1:18:08
  Yeah.
• 1:18:08
  Actually outta these mistakes, some good things happened, but, you know,
• 1:18:12
  perhaps you could mitigate some stress by trying to grow in these.
• 1:18:18
  Particular ways here are some pitfalls to avoid, et cetera.
• 1:18:21
  You know, none of us had that, you know, coming 'cause who, who really could have
• 1:18:24
  mentored us because when you and I were coming in, there was Path International.
• 1:18:30
  There was tantra up where you were, they were running these very kind of
• 1:18:33
  almost sort of military, you know Yeah.
• 1:18:36
  Types of outfit, which we knew was not gonna work for our population.
• 1:18:42
  People that don't follow top down instruction, you know, people that need
• 1:18:45
  a much freer follow the child approach.
• 1:18:48
  So we weren't gonna get that kind of mentorship.
• 1:18:51
  Now where I got, where I was so fortunate was I got, 'cause I, you know, I
• 1:18:56
  directly reached out for it, but all the mentorship I got from Temple Grandin
• 1:19:00
  about how to proceed, and that's of course where Follow the Child comes from.
• 1:19:04
  It's not some idea that Rupert Isaacson had it, it really came
• 1:19:08
  from mentorship from Temple.
• 1:19:11
  And actually probably you could argue from her mother, you know, who, who came up
• 1:19:14
  with you could actually argue that Horse Boy Method and Movement method are largely
• 1:19:17
  driven by the efforts and researchers of Temple Grandad's mother back in the 1950s.
• 1:19:22
  But the, the, you know, we, we, we, yeah.
• 1:19:28
  Our, our field was just very young.
• 1:19:30
  If you were going to talk to your younger Susie, go back 20 years,
• 1:19:37
  what would you tell her to do?
• 1:19:39
  Suzie Latchford: Well, I would still tell her to listen to her gut and trust it.
• 1:19:46
  I, I know that's mm-hmm.
• 1:19:48
  You know, honor, know as much about yourself as you can.
• 1:19:53
  I know that's difficult too, because you haven't gone through
• 1:19:56
  a lot of the experiences yet and be true to your authenticity.
• 1:20:01
  I mean, I am, I am a born introvert and learned how to be
• 1:20:06
  an interesting, I learned how to be an for a very, very long time.
• 1:20:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:20:12
  Understanding those two things and knowing, oh, I'm feeling overstimulated.
• 1:20:17
  Okay.
• 1:20:18
  And that's my, that's, that's a cue to perhaps getting some solitude and,
• 1:20:25
  and taking that time to breathe and ground again or whatever you need to do.
• 1:20:33
  Because being out in the public all the time, and even if it's on
• 1:20:38
  a farm and you're managing other people, you're, you're still on.
• 1:20:42
  And it's, and when it's at your own home it's hard to have
• 1:20:47
  those, boundaries, if you will.
• 1:20:49
  So I think that's pretty important.
• 1:20:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:20:55
  I mean, most of us have to grow our practices out of our home places.
• 1:20:59
  It's
• 1:21:00
  Suzie Latchford: mm-hmm.
• 1:21:01
  Rupert Isaacson: And, and it's interesting having done both I've, I've had the
• 1:21:06
  experience of, you know, my practice being outta my house out of my farm,
• 1:21:11
  and also my practice being at another farm and me having a house away.
• 1:21:16
  And I'd say there's pros and cons to both.
• 1:21:18
  Yeah.
• 1:21:19
  But
• 1:21:23
  if they are on your farm, as you say, it's really important that you
• 1:21:28
  can find some territory of solitude.
• 1:21:32
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:21:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Where at least people would only come in by invitation.
• 1:21:38
  I think that's important, sort of looking at the, you know, because it, it is really
• 1:21:43
  difficult as, you know, like when we were first starting at new trails, there wasn't
• 1:21:47
  a bathroom unless he came into the house.
• 1:21:48
  So it's just something simple like that.
• 1:21:50
  You, you can't deny someone the bathroom, you know?
• 1:21:53
  And then next thing you know, they're sat they're sat at your kitchen table
• 1:21:56
  and people are sat there forever.
• 1:21:58
  Yeah.
• 1:21:59
  So you are running workshops out of where you are.
• 1:22:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:22:03
  And so how do you deal with, how do you do that when you got burnout?
• 1:22:06
  Suzie Latchford: Well, exactly.
• 1:22:07
  I haven't been doing them very much in the last couple.
• 1:22:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you feel ready to go back to them?
• 1:22:13
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 1:22:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:22:15
  Would you do them from your home now or would you look for another space?
• 1:22:20
  Suzie Latchford: I don't have to do them in my home.
• 1:22:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:22:22
  We
• 1:22:23
  Suzie Latchford: have the clubhouse down there.
• 1:22:25
  You
• 1:22:25
  Rupert Isaacson: have a clubhouse.
• 1:22:26
  Okay.
• 1:22:26
  Yeah,
• 1:22:27
  Suzie Latchford: that's in front of the we have a dome, a white riding
• 1:22:30
  dome with the end walls, and it's like one of those fabric spaces.
• 1:22:35
  And then, so the clubhouse is basically a 50 by, what
• 1:22:42
  is it, 50, 50 feet long by about 15 feet wide.
• 1:22:49
  And so we have a space that we can use in there, and then we
• 1:22:52
  have outdoor spaces as well.
• 1:22:54
  Okay.
• 1:22:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, I, I, I, I, I hear you on all this.
• 1:22:57
  It's I think there's a learning curve that everyone has to go through
• 1:23:01
  where you do it in a way that perhaps isn't optimal because you can't.
• 1:23:09
  Have, you can't wait for conditions to be perfect.
• 1:23:11
  You know what I mean?
• 1:23:12
  It's like, when is the right time to have a child or when is the right time to start
• 1:23:15
  a business or it, it's, there's never a right time, so you just gotta do it and
• 1:23:19
  Suzie Latchford: yeah, you'll learn.
• 1:23:20
  Rupert Isaacson: But it might be more or less stressful.
• 1:23:22
  Yes.
• 1:23:23
  It's intriguing to me that you say you're an introvert that's
• 1:23:27
  learned how to be an extrovert.
• 1:23:28
  'cause I'd say I'm the same.
• 1:23:30
  Suzie Latchford: Oh yes.
• 1:23:32
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I can, I, you know, I can absolutely project a very
• 1:23:35
  confident smokescreen and, and I have to.
• 1:23:40
  I mean, it's, it's not that it's just life requires it.
• 1:23:44
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:23:45
  Rupert Isaacson: But as you say, there is a cost.
• 1:23:50
  And so if you don't try to balance it out with these periods of
• 1:23:56
  solitude, you know, weirdly, I find plane rides really relaxing long.
• 1:24:01
  I'm often doing long hauls, you know, between Europe and, and North America.
• 1:24:05
  And it's like, ah, eight hours, no talking.
• 1:24:08
  Suzie Latchford: You're like,
• 1:24:12
  Rupert Isaacson: it's like I'm good.
• 1:24:14
  Yeah.
• 1:24:14
  And I often come off, you know, I get jet lagged, but I often come off quite
• 1:24:17
  refreshed spiritually just 'cause there's been time to go and tell.
• 1:24:25
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:24:27
  So something that you said, which I think is quite innovative
• 1:24:30
  you've got this mobile unit.
• 1:24:33
  I love that because we used to do a lot of that in the early years of Horse Boy.
• 1:24:37
  We would take our animals out to schools to you know, autism facilities resident.
• 1:24:42
  We'd even go into the parks in Austin with our horses and un just with a horse
• 1:24:47
  trailer unbox and start playing with the ponies and seeing who wanted to come up or
• 1:24:55
  you know, and even in Germany, actually, what I started doing, particularly when
• 1:25:00
  we were at this boarding facility and I knew we had, we had people that you
• 1:25:05
  just could not keep safe around that.
• 1:25:08
  So I would say to that, to their group or their parent, meet me in the forest,
• 1:25:13
  there's a car park like over there.
• 1:25:15
  I will be there at 11 o'clock with two horses.
• 1:25:18
  Yeah.
• 1:25:19
  And learn to use those environments of public spaces.
• 1:25:22
  So tell me about your I think not enough people do this kind of thing and people
• 1:25:27
  get very stuck on their own properties.
• 1:25:28
  Tell me about your mobile unit.
• 1:25:32
  Suzie Latchford: Well, it, it came about actually quite a few years
• 1:25:36
  back in a smaller scale where, you know, we get invited to bring
• 1:25:41
  animals to the Lavender Festival over the weekend and blah, blah, blah.
• 1:25:46
  But we, we wrote a grant and got some funding and it bought us a little van.
• 1:25:52
  That we could put the animals in and, and then paid for us to go out in, into
• 1:25:58
  some nursing homes in, in our community.
• 1:26:00
  So that's how it started.
• 1:26:02
  So nursing
• 1:26:03
  Rupert Isaacson: homes are where you tend to do your mobile unit.
• 1:26:06
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:26:07
  Yeah.
• 1:26:07
  So, that's how that began.
• 1:26:10
  And so it is just, and now, you know, there we have enough of a
• 1:26:15
  rapport that sometimes families will a ask us to come and bring the
• 1:26:20
  animals for their child's birthday.
• 1:26:23
  Or we've been, as far as Ottawa University, where they've had us come
• 1:26:27
  in and during exams and bring the animals into the library to give,
• 1:26:33
  give the students a bit of a break.
• 1:26:35
  And I might just say, you know, we've brought a, a piglet bunnies.
• 1:26:38
  What a great idea.
• 1:26:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Who came up with that idea?
• 1:26:39
  That's a great idea.
• 1:26:41
  Suzie Latchford: I know.
• 1:26:42
  Well, they contacted us and we, they, we did it twice one year.
• 1:26:46
  And we were at Queen University just in October, and they had us come in for
• 1:26:53
  their alumni event in October in the fall.
• 1:26:57
  And, and again, and, and because so people are, are realizing that
• 1:27:03
  that animals are, are helping people's wellbeing even if it's just.
• 1:27:09
  Like, a lot of the time they have dogs walking around the airports and stuff,
• 1:27:12
  or, or a, or a pig or something like that.
• 1:27:15
  Just, just to offer some comic relief and a bit of stress relief.
• 1:27:18
  So, but it a hundred percent
• 1:27:21
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 1:27:23
  When you going into the old people's homes mm-hmm.
• 1:27:25
  How do you, how do you do it?
• 1:27:28
  Suzie Latchford: In the summertime, like in the spring and the summer, if they have
• 1:27:31
  a garden, we'll, we'll do it out there.
• 1:27:34
  But the last few times, the one nursing home, we've just, we have
• 1:27:39
  a little Kon Kon Piglet right now named Bridget, and she is a star.
• 1:27:45
  She's the cutest little thing you can imagine.
• 1:27:48
  She's like a bull in a China shop, but she goes, she just walks in
• 1:27:54
  with everybody and she, like, as soon as you scratch her, she flops.
• 1:27:59
  So there's pictures of her just with the, the residents, like in their
• 1:28:03
  wheelchairs, just bending over, scratching her, and we bring little, like, back
• 1:28:07
  scratchers and stuff so that they're, they can reach the animals better.
• 1:28:11
  We bring our goats the bunnies.
• 1:28:15
  Yeah, we've even we can fit the mini horses in that little minivan as well.
• 1:28:20
  We don't do that as often, but we have brought them to places
• 1:28:25
  as well, so it's pretty cool.
• 1:28:28
  Rupert Isaacson: What do you find is the reaction?
• 1:28:30
  What, what does it bring out of people in business?
• 1:28:32
  Oh, well,
• 1:28:34
  Suzie Latchford: specifically in the seniors homes you'll get them,
• 1:28:37
  like, they'll have memories like from, and, and it's fantastic.
• 1:28:43
  Sorry, my dogs because they're actually talking about, you know, when they were
• 1:28:48
  younger and if they lived on a farm and how the animals made them feel.
• 1:28:51
  And, and it's rekindling like nice memories and nice feelings for them.
• 1:28:58
  So that's pretty, it's pretty awesome.
• 1:29:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Do stories come out?
• 1:29:04
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:29:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Can you give us an example?
• 1:29:07
  Does anything spring to mind?
• 1:29:09
  Suzie Latchford: Oh, jeepers.
• 1:29:10
  I haven't been doing them as much, so
• 1:29:15
  I can't think of any specific stories offhand, but just really just the the
• 1:29:22
  experiences of like, quite a few times of, of, you know, they'll be holding the
• 1:29:29
  bunny and petting the bunny and they'll, they'll have a bunny story come up, or,
• 1:29:33
  oh, I used to have bunnies or I used to.
• 1:29:37
  Live on a farm, and I would, I would be the ones passed to, you know, feed
• 1:29:42
  the chickens or get the eggs or, you know, feed the pigs and, you know, oh,
• 1:29:47
  we used to have pigs when I grew up.
• 1:29:50
  And it, it just, it also sparks a lovely conversation and communication piece
• 1:29:55
  Rupert Isaacson: where Absolutely.
• 1:29:57
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:29:58
  Rupert Isaacson: It's, what I think it seems to spark is neuroplasticity.
• 1:30:01
  And, you know, one of the difficulties with the way we view aging in
• 1:30:06
  our society is we put old people in, like old people parking lots.
• 1:30:13
  Yeah.
• 1:30:13
  And when these are the people who've got all the wisdom and you know, in any
• 1:30:18
  other human system in the world, the elders are respected, treasured, looked
• 1:30:23
  after, consulted with, you know, because they're your repository of a lifetime
• 1:30:28
  of, of information that you need.
• 1:30:30
  And here in the west, we just park them.
• 1:30:35
  And of course when the brain is part, the body is parked, the brain
• 1:30:40
  gets parked and the brain starts to, you know, not do what it should.
• 1:30:45
  So one of the things which that's why I was intrigued about if stories come out,
• 1:30:49
  because I've definitely seen mobile units at work and I wish there were more people
• 1:30:55
  in our field doing the mobile units.
• 1:30:58
  With the small animals.
• 1:30:59
  Yeah.
• 1:30:59
  You know, because often stories come out even with people who seem to
• 1:31:03
  have retreated into dementia and then suddenly really lucidly you will get
• 1:31:10
  a story about, you know, a particular time in their life that might have
• 1:31:18
  a real resonance to the family.
• 1:31:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:31:21
  Maybe this family has lost that type of communication with that person
• 1:31:28
  and then suddenly there's, you can retrieve a bank of memories and stories
• 1:31:34
  that become part of the family law.
• 1:31:37
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:31:37
  And
• 1:31:38
  Rupert Isaacson: bring that person back to life in the eyes of the family where
• 1:31:41
  they might have sort of written them off.
• 1:31:43
  And then also sometimes healing of trauma.
• 1:31:45
  There was, I dunno if you listened, but we did a podcast a few weeks ago
• 1:31:51
  with my friend Giddy Bergoff, who runs an amazing program in Germany, and she
• 1:31:57
  used to actually be a dementia nurse before got into the whole equine thing.
• 1:32:02
  And she talks about how the sense smoking a bunny or scratching a pig
• 1:32:10
  or even like with a ball of wool or something sparking memories.
• 1:32:14
  And some of these memories that were coming up were from the war.
• 1:32:19
  And of people who'd really gone through some pretty terrible things as civilians
• 1:32:26
  and had had to kind of push them down, you know, horrible things when the
• 1:32:29
  Russians invaded, that sort of thing.
• 1:32:31
  You can imagine.
• 1:32:33
  And the stories of that coming up, bringing a kind of a healing
• 1:32:40
  which maybe they'd sat on that story for 50 or 60 years.
• 1:32:43
  Yeah.
• 1:32:44
  So I'm, I'm a great believer in the mobile units going up, particularly
• 1:32:50
  to the very young and the very old.
• 1:32:52
  But, and then also the same, the same group they're called Green Care Farm.
• 1:32:56
  They're in Munster in Germany.
• 1:32:58
  In the local school, which was doing movement method.
• 1:33:01
  Someone made a bomb threat or in a school shooting threat.
• 1:33:05
  It was a school that was overwhelmed with Russian and Ukrainian refugees
• 1:33:09
  and of course their fighting.
• 1:33:11
  And this freaks everyone out and so they brought all of their
• 1:33:14
  animals into the school and it completely changed the dynamic.
• 1:33:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:33:22
  So I often think that that's actually some of the best work
• 1:33:26
  that people in our field can do.
• 1:33:28
  Is that something that you are looking, you will expand, do you think?
• 1:33:33
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah, I would love, yeah.
• 1:33:36
  Anything like that?
• 1:33:37
  You know.
• 1:33:39
  The education system is just, well, in Canada it's struggling.
• 1:33:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Both show a place where it isn't.
• 1:33:48
  Yeah.
• 1:33:49
  Suzie Latchford: My teach my sisters are both teachers and my dad's
• 1:33:51
  a retired teacher and my mom was in the education system as well.
• 1:33:56
  So, I just hear from my sisters how chaotic is it?
• 1:33:59
  It is.
• 1:34:00
  And you know, and behaviors and how they handle them and or how
• 1:34:06
  they're supposed to handle them.
• 1:34:07
  And I feel like jeepers, all, you just bring an animal into the classroom
• 1:34:13
  and change the tone, like immediately.
• 1:34:18
  Rupert Isaacson: It does.
• 1:34:18
  It's like a shamanic effect.
• 1:34:21
  Yeah.
• 1:34:21
  It seems to bring out, put everyone on the top of their game somehow.
• 1:34:24
  I agree.
• 1:34:26
  Now of course if you do more mobile unit, then you have to be more extroverted.
• 1:34:31
  So is that something that you might then now having gone through the burnout
• 1:34:35
  cycle, delegate to another staff member,
• 1:34:39
  Suzie Latchford: delegate most of that?
• 1:34:40
  Yes.
• 1:34:40
  It's usually I'm not usually going and and heading them, heading them up now, so,
• 1:34:46
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 1:34:48
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:34:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Is that kind of what you, your advice would be to people
• 1:34:53
  hitting that mid career thing with What we do is just start learning to delegate?
• 1:35:01
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 1:35:02
  And that's never been my forte, so, but yeah, you have to, you have to.
• 1:35:08
  Now how do you do it?
• 1:35:12
  Well, I mean, I have, I have Liv or I have that I, I can do that with, and she
• 1:35:21
  takes a lot of that off my plate for me.
• 1:35:23
  Yeah.
• 1:35:24
  You know, she was a McDonald's manager and I swear, and Emma, our assistant manager
• 1:35:30
  is also, was, also worked for McDonald's as a manager and they got it going on.
• 1:35:37
  Like they know how to delegate, they know how to Well, they have
• 1:35:40
  Rupert Isaacson: a system, right.
• 1:35:41
  They get given a, a system within that franchise, don't they?
• 1:35:44
  Yeah.
• 1:35:44
  Like you don't have to like figure out how to run a McDonald's.
• 1:35:47
  They tell you how to run a McDonald's.
• 1:35:49
  Yeah.
• 1:35:49
  And
• 1:35:50
  Suzie Latchford: they've applied that elsewhere in their lives now.
• 1:35:53
  Mm.
• 1:35:53
  You know, for this position or for, you know, whatever they're going into.
• 1:35:58
  I think there's been more, I have another staff that was also a manager.
• 1:36:03
  Okay.
• 1:36:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Is that the golden rule?
• 1:36:06
  Is, the golden rule is look to the golden arch when you're hiring your staff.
• 1:36:10
  Suzie Latchford: They were taught to organize and, and you know, like I've
• 1:36:13
  worked in the restaurant business and serving industry as well and it does
• 1:36:17
  teach you like, you know, you have to have a process and you know, you're
• 1:36:23
  picking up a plate off the table.
• 1:36:26
  And there's another plate there, or a glass or something else on another table,
• 1:36:31
  and you have room to take that too.
• 1:36:33
  Then you do it.
• 1:36:35
  Yeah.
• 1:36:35
  Right.
• 1:36:36
  And it, it's so yes, having the key people that are engaged in what we're doing
• 1:36:45
  and, and love it for the same reasons you do, which isn't always easy to find.
• 1:36:49
  Like that's so important in, in the delegating real.
• 1:36:55
  Rupert Isaacson: What do you do?
• 1:36:56
  This is, this is a, an another thing which I think a lot of us face is okay.
• 1:37:02
  It is very easy to say, well, when I was young, we worked harder
• 1:37:05
  than the current generation.
• 1:37:06
  And of course I heard the previous generation to me saying that, but
• 1:37:11
  I do feel that there's a fragility and a lower resilience in general
• 1:37:17
  in the current young person.
• 1:37:21
  They, they, I, it is something to do with social media.
• 1:37:25
  It's something to do with, it really is feeling that solutions can come really
• 1:37:31
  fast when actually they, they can't and you have to, you know, whatever.
• 1:37:37
  I, I find it, it is definitely getting harder to find the
• 1:37:43
  younger people who can do this.
• 1:37:47
  I mean, McDonald's must be finding this too, but yet they seem to be thriving.
• 1:37:51
  Okay.
• 1:37:52
  Yeah.
• 1:37:52
  Where do you, and I'm used to thinking of Canadians as very hardworking
• 1:37:55
  people because, you know, in a very hardworking period of my life,
• 1:37:58
  I was living in Canada and Yeah.
• 1:38:00
  Surrounded by hardworking Canadians, you know, like your husband and you.
• 1:38:03
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 1:38:04
  Rupert Isaacson: What, what are you doing in terms of, yeah.
• 1:38:07
  Trying to find those people who still have that, that grit.
• 1:38:13
  Suzie Latchford: We, we haven't actually looked, they've come, which is so, like,
• 1:38:21
  as I said, oh, and we've gone through many, we've gone through many, many staff
• 1:38:29
  changes, and in nutshell, they're hard to find and they're hard to keep because you
• 1:38:35
  know, your pay scale isn't always as high.
• 1:38:39
  Especially like, I, I'm the biggest volunteer ever Yeah.
• 1:38:43
  In this organization.
• 1:38:45
  People have to be paid and, and, you know, not always knowing if you can
• 1:38:51
  afford that within your organization.
• 1:38:55
  But then now I'm on this train where I'm just going to write as many grants as I
• 1:39:01
  can and and then use that as a model for the, for the years coming, I would always.
• 1:39:09
  Pass grants to somebody else and not always, just in the last couple of
• 1:39:13
  years and we weren't getting enough in.
• 1:39:15
  Okay.
• 1:39:16
  So now, you know, I'm, I'm back on that.
• 1:39:20
  And where does
• 1:39:21
  Rupert Isaacson: one look for, for grants in Canada or in Ontario?
• 1:39:24
  Suzie Latchford: Well, like we, we have a number that will
• 1:39:28
  come right from our community.
• 1:39:30
  So applying for those ones and getting your, they're not always
• 1:39:34
  like a huge amount, but, and then they're, now, now with ai, it's a
• 1:39:43
  lot easier to find the, the ones that you couldn't necessarily find before.
• 1:39:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Are there grants that come from government in Canada?
• 1:39:50
  Suzie Latchford: There are grants that come from government, but we are
• 1:39:52
  not government funded, so they would have to be like the, on the Ontario
• 1:39:58
  Trillium Foundation or the Trillium Foundation is a big government one.
• 1:40:04
  That, and there's other ones available that come up, but depending on
• 1:40:11
  what kind of organization you are and whether your mandate fits
• 1:40:16
  those, those grants or another.
• 1:40:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 1:40:19
  But you find that you can actually fund yourself to a large
• 1:40:22
  degree through grant writing.
• 1:40:24
  Suzie Latchford: Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:40:26
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:40:28
  And, and, and finally, we're at a point where, you know, we
• 1:40:32
  could make a business plan now.
• 1:40:34
  Yes.
• 1:40:38
  You kind of know will I might over the winter.
• 1:40:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I feel, as, you know, we're sort of approaching
• 1:40:46
  the, the two hour mark here.
• 1:40:49
  It, it's really what I love is that this conversation did not go
• 1:40:53
  where I expected it to go, but I went where I think it needs to go.
• 1:40:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:57
  Which is that we have to, we do have to
• 1:41:03
  realize that we are the client as well as the, we are the service user
• 1:41:09
  as well as the service provider.
• 1:41:11
  Suzie Latchford: That's right.
• 1:41:13
  Rupert Isaacson: And perhaps, perhaps the thing about the burnout
• 1:41:15
  thing is it keeps you honest.
• 1:41:17
  Right?
• 1:41:17
  It keeps you from getting into dynamic that, oh, I am the therapist, I am the
• 1:41:22
  the one who has it all, you know together, and you are the one who needs help.
• 1:41:27
  You know?
• 1:41:27
  And when you find just like, Nope.
• 1:41:30
  Yeah know
• 1:41:33
  I can't imagine it can do anything, but make it make you better
• 1:41:36
  at what you do, Susie, because
• 1:41:38
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:41:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Clearly, you know, heal with horses has just.
• 1:41:42
  Gone from success to success.
• 1:41:45
  Yeah.
• 1:41:45
  Suzie Latchford: And we can't always measure.
• 1:41:47
  And that's another thing I've had to come to terms with is I, it's hard not to
• 1:41:53
  measure success in a society that measures monetary financial as being successful.
• 1:42:01
  Yeah.
• 1:42:01
  Like it's only successful if
• 1:42:06
  you can pay yourself lots of money and things like that.
• 1:42:10
  So for me, it's coming to terms with starting something that is very
• 1:42:17
  successful and has helped hundreds and thousands of people and animals.
• 1:42:23
  And not to always, I'm okay with it, but it's like when I see people looking back
• 1:42:30
  at me, you know how you do that kinda, or talking to somebody or you've met
• 1:42:35
  somebody and you kind of like see them.
• 1:42:37
  Like, what are they seeing when they're looking back at me?
• 1:42:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you think they see anything other than just
• 1:42:46
  a self-actualized woman who has made a great go of doing
• 1:42:53
  a business that heals people?
• 1:42:54
  I mean, I, I can't imagine that anyone looks at you through any kind
• 1:42:58
  of critical eye for saying, well, you should be making the same money
• 1:43:03
  that a lawyer makes or something.
• 1:43:05
  I,
• 1:43:06
  Suzie Latchford: yeah,
• 1:43:06
  Rupert Isaacson: I do.
• 1:43:06
  Do you really think that people are judging you like that?
• 1:43:10
  Suzie Latchford: I don't, no, not necessarily.
• 1:43:12
  I guess it's my own judgment.
• 1:43:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
• 1:43:13
  Suzie Latchford: you're right.
• 1:43:14
  It's my own judgment.
• 1:43:15
  I would like to be able to contribute more financially to our home and our,
• 1:43:20
  but I've just done it in a different way.
• 1:43:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, here is a, here's a little exercise we could
• 1:43:27
  go through, because I bet you that you are not the only person running
• 1:43:32
  a program who has this feeling.
• 1:43:36
  Suzie Latchford: Mm-hmm.
• 1:43:39
  Rupert Isaacson: So bear with me here.
• 1:43:42
  Okay.
• 1:43:47
  I know that what I'm about to say is gonna make you have a knee jerk reaction.
• 1:43:51
  So I'm not gonna tell you to not have the kneejerk reaction.
• 1:43:53
  I just want you to notice that kneejerk reaction and see if
• 1:43:58
  you can not stay there too long.
• 1:44:00
  Right?
• 1:44:01
  So have it, but then go kind of, oh, well there's that kneejerk
• 1:44:06
  reaction that's, you know, part of my conditioning, but I don't, okay.
• 1:44:12
  What's my next thought?
• 1:44:13
  Let's just go.
• 1:44:14
  So, so what if, and I want all you people who are listening and watching
• 1:44:23
  this to perhaps do this with us.
• 1:44:26
  What if
• 1:44:29
  enormous financial success
• 1:44:33
  is about to come
• 1:44:37
  through?
• 1:44:39
  Doing what you do or through something completely unexpected.
• 1:44:48
  It could come from either and to just say, I am open to the possibility
• 1:44:57
  that this could be the case.
• 1:45:00
  Suzie Latchford: Mm-hmm.
• 1:45:01
  Rupert Isaacson: And just try that thought on.
• 1:45:04
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:45:05
  Rupert Isaacson: And you don't have to think, well, how would that be?
• 1:45:07
  What can I do?
• 1:45:08
  Or do I need to have some, you know, online program or, or, so just I'm open
• 1:45:17
  to a feeling of absolute financial ease
• 1:45:25
  from whatever source.
• 1:45:35
  And now we take it to the next level, which is, does that, do you feel a
• 1:45:41
  slight sense of discomfort in the base of your throat as we talk about this
• 1:45:48
  or in your chest somewhere or,
• 1:45:51
  Suzie Latchford: yeah, maybe a little in my
• 1:45:54
  Rupert Isaacson: approach.
• 1:45:54
  Yeah.
• 1:45:55
  Okay.
• 1:45:55
  That would be normal, right?
• 1:45:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:45:58
  Okay.
• 1:45:58
  So I want to now dive into that discomfort for about.
• 1:46:04
  Six seconds, it's not much.
• 1:46:05
  Right?
• 1:46:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:46:07
  What I want you to do is think, well, but how on earth can that happen, Rupert?
• 1:46:13
  How can I resolve my financial quandary
• 1:46:24
  and still deliver what I do?
• 1:46:29
  And as you ask that question, I want you to breathe in through your
• 1:46:34
  nose and we're gonna hold it till it gets a little bit uncomfortable.
• 1:46:41
  Suzie Latchford: Mm-hmm.
• 1:46:41
  Rupert Isaacson: And then I'll do something like that with my hand.
• 1:46:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:46:46
  And I want you to let it go.
• 1:46:49
  Give it to God.
• 1:46:51
  We'd like a shout a roar.
• 1:46:53
  I'll do it along with you.
• 1:46:55
  'cause it's always a good thing to do.
• 1:46:57
  Okay.
• 1:46:57
  So, so sorry listeners, this is gonna startle you in a moment.
• 1:47:00
  And then we just give it to God and let it go and let the universe sort it out.
• 1:47:04
  All right.
• 1:47:05
  So first thing, now, feel that discomfort at the base of your throat.
• 1:47:10
  Now you're gonna breathe in through the nose and really hold that question till
• 1:47:13
  it feels like you kind of want to cry.
• 1:47:15
  So here we go.
• 1:47:51
  Okay.
• 1:47:53
  It's taken care of.
• 1:47:58
  Suzie Latchford: It's actually, somebody showed me
• 1:47:59
  Rupert Isaacson: that one a while ago and it, it's worked.
• 1:48:02
  It's really worked.
• 1:48:04
  Suzie Latchford: It's one thing that I do believe when I'm feeling like
• 1:48:09
  unsuccessful or why do I keep doing this?
• 1:48:12
  Or I just wanna throw in the white flag, like yeah.
• 1:48:16
  Or so.
• 1:48:17
  But I always know that
• 1:48:21
  the universe
• 1:48:25
  will provide and
• 1:48:29
  for whatever reason going through the difficulties and the challenges are all
• 1:48:33
  part of it's all part of the work and.
• 1:48:38
  I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have the support from, from Spirit
• 1:48:42
  or the universe or, or what have you.
• 1:48:44
  So they, it has provided, I mean, it's not like we haven't gotten a
• 1:48:50
  lot of what we need to make something like this successful when starting
• 1:48:55
  it on a thin with absolutely no plan.
• 1:49:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:49:02
  Suzie Latchford: So, but thank you.
• 1:49:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:49:05
  Well, I'm grateful.
• 1:49:06
  I'm grateful that we had this conversation.
• 1:49:08
  I'm grateful to you not just for the work you do, but you know, for the, for the,
• 1:49:15
  for for, for putting a spotlight on this very, very real
• 1:49:22
  Suzie Latchford: Well, there's
• 1:49:23
  Rupert Isaacson: of what we do.
• 1:49:24
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:49:24
  A very big human aspect in what we do as humans and, and like that's so important
• 1:49:33
  to, to talk about what we did today.
• 1:49:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it is,
• 1:49:37
  Suzie Latchford: because it's not talked about enough.
• 1:49:39
  It's sometimes only talked about, you know, the good things and the positive
• 1:49:44
  things about all the lives you felt change and bring positivity to, but it does come
• 1:49:50
  as at an expense to yourself sometimes, you know, that's real and that's reality.
• 1:49:58
  Rupert Isaacson: I'd like the listeners and, and viewers, could
• 1:50:00
  you, if you, if you're gonna comment perhaps below, if you say watching
• 1:50:04
  this on YouTube or so, tell us.
• 1:50:08
  What your challenges have been with this work and what
• 1:50:12
  you've done to mitigate them.
• 1:50:14
  'cause I think we, we need a sort of technology bank of this.
• 1:50:19
  Suzie Latchford: Mm-hmm.
• 1:50:20
  Rupert Isaacson: And yeah, for sure.
• 1:50:21
  We want this feel to expand.
• 1:50:25
  It has to, the need has never been greater.
• 1:50:28
  So as the new generation come in, we need to prepare them.
• 1:50:33
  Suzie Latchford: Yes.
• 1:50:33
  Rupert Isaacson: So please do, do what Susie has done and,
• 1:50:36
  and share your experience.
• 1:50:38
  Susie, it's been so brave and honest of you.
• 1:50:41
  I have so much respect for you.
• 1:50:43
  Really.
• 1:50:43
  I, I, I, I, I cannot quite put into words how humbled I feel by your
• 1:50:52
  absolute candor here and, and, and yeah.
• 1:50:55
  The bravery it takes to come on a, a public forum and really talk
• 1:51:00
  completely real but from a place of love, you know, it, it's, I,
• 1:51:06
  I'm just very grateful to you.
• 1:51:07
  Thank you.
• 1:51:08
  Suzie Latchford: Well, thank you, Rupert.
• 1:51:10
  I'm, I'm glad we could share this.
• 1:51:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, likewise.
• 1:51:13
  And I, I hope we can cross paths also with Ron, you know, perhaps, you
• 1:51:19
  know, sooner than the next 15 years.
• 1:51:21
  Maybe we need to do a gig.
• 1:51:23
  Maybe we need to do a, a, a a clinic or a workshop or something at yours again.
• 1:51:28
  Yeah.
• 1:51:28
  Should, should we, should we figure that out for next year?
• 1:51:30
  Maybe.
• 1:51:31
  Suzie Latchford: Hundred percent.
• 1:51:31
  I would love that.
• 1:51:32
  Rupert Isaacson: It's been so long since I was in Canada.
• 1:51:34
  Yeah.
• 1:51:34
  Okay.
• 1:51:34
  I'd love to.
• 1:51:37
  Suzie Latchford: Okay.
• 1:51:37
  Rupert Isaacson: And again, my friend, just thank you so much.
• 1:51:41
  Truly, truly, truly you've, you've actually given me strength by
• 1:51:44
  talking about this, so thank you.
• 1:51:46
  Suzie Latchford: Gotten a lot myself.
• 1:51:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:51:50
  Suzie Latchford: From this.
• 1:51:51
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 1:51:52
  I'll let you go and introvert now.
• 1:51:54
  Okay.
• 1:51:55
  Oh, before we haven't even gone.
• 1:51:57
  Your, how do people find you on the web and all that stuff?
• 1:52:00
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:52:00
  Donate and all of that.
• 1:52:02
  Suzie Latchford: Yeah.
• 1:52:02
  Heal with horses.ca,
• 1:52:04
  Rupert Isaacson: heal with horses.ca
• 1:52:07
  Suzie Latchford: our website.
• 1:52:09
  We're on Facebook, Instagram what is our Instagram deal with Horses Farm.
• 1:52:16
  I think
• 1:52:17
  Rupert Isaacson: you, like me, you don't even know your Instagram.
• 1:52:19
  Is that I'm terrible that way.
• 1:52:22
  Suzie Latchford: Don't wanna do that part.
• 1:52:24
  Rupert Isaacson: And is there a donate button on the on, on the heel with horses?
• 1:52:28
  Suzie Latchford: There is, yeah.
• 1:52:29
  All right,
• 1:52:29
  Rupert Isaacson: lads, you heard that?
• 1:52:31
  Donate money Please.
• 1:52:32
  Now to heel with Horses.
• 1:52:34
  They're doing stellar work out there in Ontario.
• 1:52:38
  And design Need
• 1:52:41
  Suzie Latchford: as need.
• 1:52:41
  Thank you.
• 1:52:42
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 1:52:43
  Okay.
• 1:52:43
  Until the next time.
• 1:52:45
  Suzie Latchford: Yep.
• 1:52:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Bye.
• 1:52:49
  Suzie Latchford: Bye.
• 1:52:50
  Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
• 1:52:54
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• 1:52:59
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• 1:53:03
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• 1:53:05
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