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Interview with Suzan Vaughn · The Horsehuman Connection Matrix

• 0:01
  This is the Horse Human Connection.
• 0:04
  A captivating podcast where we extend into the world of equine assisted learning.
• 0:09
  Horse Training.
• 0:10
  and gentleness in working with these magnificent creatures.
• 0:15
  Captivating stories from the leading professionals and ordinary people alike unravel novel ideas in being with horses.
• 0:24
  The horse human connection is an idea, a place, and a voice.
• 0:30
  The idea is to support the quiet revolution and recognize the intelligence and true nature of the horse.
• 0:37
  The place is a destination farm near the Umpqua Forest and River that slows down visitors and patrons enough to experience the shift.
• 0:47
  The Voice is this podcast.
• 0:50
  Welcome to today's episode.
• 0:54
  Today, we're jumping right in to an already in progress interview between myself.
• 1:01
  And Susan Vaughn animal communicator of more than 30 years.
• 1:07
  I love the way this interview has just taken a shape of a casual conversation.
• 1:14
  Here we go.
• 1:17
  We're in companionship, it's a more even thing.
• 1:21
  It's just not us dominating them.
• 1:24
  No.
• 1:25
  Right.
• 1:26
  Right.
• 1:26
  Cooperation is what I'm trying to say.
• 1:28
  What is the word you're using?
• 1:30
  Cooperation.
• 1:31
  Cooperation, absolutely.
• 1:32
  Yeah.
• 1:33
  Yeah, and having, having had the experience of having co created rides, I, I talked about those a little bit.
• 1:39
  They're just, they're magical when, when your horse is participating in where you go and having conversations with you about it.
• 1:48
  Even though I don't hear words very often the communication is still, is still there.
• 1:55
  And And even more action when you're on their back, you know?
• 1:59
  Yes, exactly.
• 2:02
  So it is, it is magical.
• 2:03
  So all of this opens up like more questions one of my friends who is not a full animal communicator, but she lived in Peru for a while.
• 2:15
  And she started every year for 10 years for six months.
• 2:19
  And she started noticing how people are in relationship with animals in Peru, even some of the animals that become their food, the relationship is quite different.
• 2:28
  And, and she of course knew what I was doing.
• 2:31
  And so she started combining and trying to communicate with any animals that she's with.
• 2:38
  And then she listened to the podcast with Ginny Patel Thompson, who is Listen to Your Horse.
• 2:43
  She has a website.
• 2:45
  And Ginny has accumulated a lot of horses because she gets like a psychic hit of one that wants to be with her.
• 2:53
  But then when she gets there, they're bringing their friends.
• 2:56
  And, you know, my friend says, that's a really different relationship.
• 3:00
  Now you're opening a door to just not like having light conversations, but you're in negotiations.
• 3:08
  That's right.
• 3:09
  Animal communication is often about negotiation.
• 3:13
  It's a highlight of the whole thing.
• 3:16
  You know, you want the cat to come in when it starts to get dark and the cat is telling you, Hey, I'm nocturnal, but I'll make the agreement.
• 3:25
  But the negotiation and agreement.
• 3:27
  It's a huge part of animal communication, that's for sure.
• 3:31
  Yeah, it is.
• 3:32
  It is.
• 3:33
  That's been some of my experience too, even though it's acted out, you know, like goats are only going to stay in an enclosed area because they can get out of anything if they want to, you know, as long as there's food and water and they're happy.
• 3:47
  The minute you don't give them fare ups, or you give the horses grain, and you don't give the goats grain, they're on the other side of the fence saying, hey, we had an agreement.
• 3:54
  That's right.
• 3:56
  That's right.
• 3:56
  They'll keep the agreement whether you do or not.
• 3:59
  I've noticed that about animals very much.
• 4:02
  You also have a degree in psychology.
• 4:04
  Can you tell me a little bit about that and how that fits into some of what you do?
• 4:09
  Sure.
• 4:10
  Well, I do have a BA in psychology.
• 4:12
  I started along those lines in terms of my education.
• 4:15
  I wondered for a long time, how is psychology and communication going to come together?
• 4:20
  But certainly it comes together in every session that I do.
• 4:23
  And I also started my profession in the psychic realm by reading for people.
• 4:31
  So I started with people and then I began to specialize in animals.
• 4:35
  And it fits in in the sense that by the time I was about 12 years old, people started coming to me for counsel and I just had a knack for it.
• 4:49
  And it's a calling.
• 4:51
  So the calling for communication of many different types.
• 4:56
  And the calling to give people good counsel came together in my current profession.
• 5:03
  The, the psychology that I had in terms of schooling it was, I guess, helpful to see, Oh, okay, this person seems to fit into that paradigm or this paradigm, but really the value was in my intuitive connection to the soul level guides and that sort of thing.
• 5:29
  And.
• 5:30
  Really feeling where the person is coming from.
• 5:32
  So the two things kind of came together like skill meeting opportunity type of thing or skill meeting the real world because the academic thing, it's pretty dry.
• 5:45
  It doesn't really tell you how to handle a person in crisis necessarily, or that you'll An intuitive feeling about where they're at or how to help them.
• 5:58
  So it's really a skill that's added to the academic portion of your education.
• 6:05
  It just shows you the path in a sense.
• 6:08
  So.
• 6:10
  I've always been about communication, and it's been written, spoken, broadcast, intuitive, telepathic, every form of communication.
• 6:21
  Do you feel like you see or experience some of that at a much deeper level than most people?
• 6:30
  Like, aside even from the psychic stuff, and maybe you can't separate it necessarily, but like, I'm just thinking about, like, from an early age, did you ever have the feeling that Yeah.
• 6:41
  What I'm experiencing isn't what most people are experiencing.
• 6:45
  And how did you reckon with that?
• 6:48
  It took me until I was an adult to figure that out.
• 6:53
  But in a sense, yes, because everything was so natural in that way for me.
• 6:59
  And that wasn't a lot of people's interest or proclivity, let's say.
• 7:05
  They weren't.
• 7:05
  I could have someone speak to me for five minutes and I kind of knew where they were coming from and what their life was like and what kind of challenges they were facing and what they needed.
• 7:17
  And part of that is they needed just an ear.
• 7:22
  A lot of times people just needed to be heard.
• 7:24
  They didn't need advice or things like what other people were giving them.
• 7:29
  They were annoyed by that and overwhelmed by that.
• 7:31
  What they needed was a listening ear.
• 7:34
  So some of those things came more naturally to me.
• 7:38
  And because I was a very profound listener, I came to understand what people's experiences were that were unlike mine.
• 7:49
  But in my household growing up.
• 7:54
  My mother was my biggest child, you know, she came to me for counseling very, very early.
• 8:04
  And she felt good doing that because I had no judgments.
• 8:10
  I really just had empathy for what she'd been through instead of judgments about how she conducted her life.
• 8:18
  And that's what most people had for her judgment.
• 8:22
  So for me, I just had empathy and thinking, wow, that must've been a very difficult situation for you.
• 8:27
  So that's where my intuitive practice began was with her and what she needed and how she was really so much more like my child.
• 8:41
  So it started with that.
• 8:43
  When you first started talking to animals, was there I guess because you had already worked with people, there probably wasn't like a feeling of disbelief, like is this real?
• 8:53
  Was it, did you, did you accept it immediately?
• 8:59
  Not at all.
• 9:00
  I thought it was wild, crazy.
• 9:03
  People were judging me about it.
• 9:04
  They thought I was a nutcase.
• 9:06
  My dad asked me, why would you want to defraud the public like that?
• 9:11
  Yeah, I did it for 10 years.
• 9:13
  I practiced without taking a dime because I needed to believe it was real.
• 9:18
  It took me a long time to find my mentor, Penelope Smith, to start reading all the books.
• 9:25
  I mean, I read all the books right away because academic.
• 9:28
  road was the natural road for me.
• 9:31
  So I read everything, and I thought, well, there really must be something to this.
• 9:37
  And then my own psychic counselor told me, wow, you, you come of good council, you could do this.
• 9:42
  So I began with little psychic fares on the weekends while I was a broadcast journalist.
• 9:48
  So I I was just enjoying doing that for people.
• 9:53
  They seemed to be served, they seemed to be helped.
• 9:56
  That's what I was all about.
• 9:57
  I wasn't making a big money on it or anything, but it was very fulfilling for me to help them out.
• 10:04
  And then people started coming through from the other side and, and the people sitting in my chair, there were validating it.
• 10:12
  So after that, I was, you know, I wasn't really serious about it, you know, it was just a thing I did on the weekends.
• 10:19
  And then some animals started coming through.
• 10:21
  And I was like, animals?
• 10:22
  So that's, that's different.
• 10:24
  I didn't grow up with animals.
• 10:25
  My mom was scared of animals.
• 10:28
  We didn't ever get to have any, you know, so that's what made it even more Interesting for me that and it also made it very objective, you know, I don't believe that every lab loves water I don't believe that Every cat doesn't want to get into the shower with you because some do Right, right, can I ask you a little bit about guides I recently came across something I was reading I'm not even sure where Or maybe I was listening to it and it talked about guides not always being ethical.
• 11:03
  Like that there are maybe entities out there that are guides with their own agendas and not just there to help.
• 11:10
  Do you have any comments, experiences with that type of thing?
• 11:15
  I'm very, very clear that I don't want any guides like that.
• 11:21
  And I believe the clarity of my intention guides that experience for me.
• 11:27
  I say soul level guides for the highest good of all concerned only.
• 11:33
  And I believe that because my intention is clear, that's all I get.
• 11:38
  Now, I do believe that there are guides who are here to guide you in the sense of Like, let's say you have, you need a lesson in discrimination.
• 11:52
  You might get an animal communicator to work with you that's not real, that's not good, and that's telling you not all animal communicators are the same.
• 12:04
  In my experience to be a good psychic counselor, counselor or animal communicator, you have to have handled your own psychological stuff.
• 12:15
  You have to have been self examined.
• 12:18
  You have to, in some ways have gone through some difficult things and resolved those things, maybe have had counseling yourself.
• 12:27
  So I, I feel like if you don't do your own personal psychological work, you're not going to be good at this.
• 12:34
  You're not going to have a clear lens to look through.
• 12:36
  It's going to be colored by your experiences.
• 12:40
  The stuff you haven't handled.
• 12:42
  Right.
• 12:43
  I guess to some degree, as we all experience things a little bit differently I know it's taken a long time for myself just with my intuition to be able to ask those questions.
• 12:53
  Is this like a divine thought?
• 12:55
  Is this a garbage thought that has arisen from some kind of fear?
• 12:59
  Or is this somebody else's thought that doesn't even belong to me?
• 13:02
  It can be very confusing to sift through what you, what you get.
• 13:08
  Well, I ask a lot, you know, is this the right thing?
• 13:12
  Is this the right thing?
• 13:13
  Is this the right thing?
• 13:13
  And then I get yes, yes, yes.
• 13:15
  Then I know, but I double check, triple check with my guides.
• 13:19
  I make sure I'm hooked up.
• 13:20
  I make sure my intention is clear, which is very, very powerful.
• 13:24
  I intend to be an instrument of help, healing, and peace for every client.
• 13:30
  And I set that intention.
• 13:32
  And I think that's super powerful.
• 13:36
  I agree with you.
• 13:37
  Intentions are incredibly powerful.
• 13:39
  And that's part of like with, with riding horses too, just being really clear with your intention because that's what they'll pick up.
• 13:48
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:49
  I actually have this like idea and I pose this to somebody who, who has a podcast, he's a horse trainer and he's actually was the one that motivated me in kind of a reverse way to start my own podcast.
• 14:05
  And I said to him at one point, if you know you can talk to horses, why are you doing all this training?
• 14:11
  Why can't you just ask them what you want?
• 14:15
  You know, and I think that behind that there might be a lot of reasons and everyone's perspective is going to be a little different in the amount of precision somebody might be trying to get from a horse for a particular reason may enter into that, but it does seem disrespectful and just full of dominance.
• 14:34
  What do you think about that?
• 14:38
  The training paradigm is often full of dominance.
• 14:41
  I don't think we've turned the corner on having it be a.
• 14:47
  Cooperative relationship in the way that we would like.
• 14:50
  We're not quite there yet.
• 14:52
  But it's a tight rope in a sense because for example, you can't continually reward an animal for the wrong thing and expect to just talk it out of that.
• 15:08
  For example, if I go into a home where the dog has been trained to protect in a vicious type way.
• 15:18
  I can't just walk in and say, Hey, let's not do it this way when the dog has been rewarded for that for years.
• 15:26
  So we all have that kind of operant conditioning type of thing where you can't just talk us out of it in five seconds, you know?
• 15:35
  You can go in there and talk to them and have a cooperative thing.
• 15:39
  But oftentimes when I'm having a conversation with an animal, they say, wow.
• 15:44
  I hadn't thought of that.
• 15:46
  For example, a horse that I talked to this week, I asked the horse, do you realize that we're very fragile?
• 15:54
  And this horse said to me, no, I had no idea of that because I've always been dominated.
• 16:01
  I've always been I don't know, subjugated.
• 16:04
  I've always been put down, held down, held back, held, you know, every rein, every saddle, every restraint, continually restrained.
• 16:14
  So I assumed.
• 16:16
  We were equal.
• 16:18
  It's a reasonable assumption.
• 16:20
  Yes.
• 16:20
  Right.
• 16:21
  Yeah.
• 16:21
  And, and just because of the way we by experienced horse people behave around horses without a lot of fear, they would make that assumption.
• 16:30
  In fact, you and I had a conversation with my horse, Charlie, who was nipping people a little bit kind of same thing.
• 16:36
  He's not had a lot of been under many saddles.
• 16:38
  He's only had like four rides on him, but yeah, he didn't seem to realize how fragile we were either.
• 16:45
  Have you had the opportunity or been asked to have conversations with feral horses or horses that really don't have much human contact?
• 16:56
  You know, I haven't been asked that very much because most of the people that come to me have a domestic relationship with their animal and they want to change something or fix something.
• 17:08
  Not many people are connected to the wild ones.
• 17:13
  But they certainly would be different.
• 17:16
  I'm, I'm very curious about that myself.
• 17:18
  I just, I have an idea that there's like a collective consciousness, if you will, of feral horses in different places that seem to maybe have a purpose.
• 17:30
  I don't know.
• 17:31
  When I, when I go into some deep meditation, I, I get that idea.
• 17:36
  I don't get direct contact or anything.
• 17:38
  It's just an idea.
• 17:42
  More like a group consciousness.
• 17:43
  Well, certainly there are animals and particularly insects and birds, you know, that have a group consciousness.
• 17:49
  And when you have animal communication with them, you speak to the leader and the leader speaks to the group.
• 17:56
  That would be the case with bees or different things like that.
• 17:58
  All insects function like that.
• 18:01
  And most birds do in a flock.
• 18:03
  You can speak to individual ones, but there are certainly animals like that.
• 18:06
  And I would expect the wild ones would be just like that.
• 18:09
  You would speak to the leader.
• 18:10
  In fact, I'm hearing, yes, that's how you would do it.
• 18:14
  But they do hold an energy in a place.
• 18:18
  Or they hold a particular vibration.
• 18:20
  Some of these are very lofty thoughts because they're non physical and we aren't really sure how that happens.
• 18:27
  But a spider in your bathroom can be doing the same thing, holding an energy there or holding a balance in your shower.
• 18:36
  And beyond my education to understand holding an energy in your shower.
• 18:46
  But sometimes when I ask them, do you have a particular message here?
• 18:50
  Yes, they say, we do have a message here.
• 18:53
  Particularly if somebody wants to have well, for example, I had this situation where a person had ants.
• 19:00
  They didn't want to kill the ants.
• 19:02
  They wanted the ants to live in a different place, but the ants had a particular message before they would move.
• 19:09
  They were trying to tell the people something.
• 19:12
  And once the message came through, then the ants moved.
• 19:16
  Wow, that's incredible.
• 19:17
  I don't often think about insects operating on that level.
• 19:21
  So, yeah, but I, I'm definitely aware of, you know, the earth and everything on it being connected in that way.
• 19:33
  I wanted to ask you about Theta State.
• 19:35
  I'm I'm reading another book about Theta healing and I don't know if, if you're familiar with much of it or if that's a place that you actually drop into or go on purpose when communication happens or if you have a sense that it happens in a different brain wave or, or, I mean, it may be completely foreign but I just thought I'd ask.
• 19:58
  I'm aware of that thinking and those waves of brain, but I'm not a real science.
• 20:07
  person.
• 20:09
  I don't really know if I drop into that or not.
• 20:11
  I'm not really sure.
• 20:13
  Is that a meditative state theta?
• 20:15
  It is.
• 20:16
  It's a, it's a deeper meditative state.
• 20:18
  I guess that I'm not, I'm not that familiar with it either, but I find it interesting.
• 20:23
  There's so much talk these days about the neuroscience and what happens to us when we're giving a speech.
• 20:30
  And the same things happen during horse training.
• 20:32
  And when you put an autistic child on a horse, like all these different neurochemicals getting released, that it seems to be like kind of the thing right now, you know that's really interesting because When you look at an autistic child on a horse, there are certain things you can look and feel and see and that kind of thing.
• 20:53
  But you feel the horse body become very relaxed.
• 20:57
  And it brings the child or the autistic person down that way too.
• 21:02
  Like in a more relaxed state.
• 21:04
  Things feel more relaxed.
• 21:06
  Yeah.
• 21:07
  You're describing Changed too.
• 21:10
  Yeah.
• 21:10
  You're describing the regulation that, that happens that I'm familiar with for sure.
• 21:15
  There's a, an emotional regulation that happens when we're with horses and in a way it's, it feels a little bit like entering their culture, which is much slower than ours much more present.
• 21:27
  Yes.
• 21:27
  That's a very good point because animals are very present and they're often being instead of doing.
• 21:39
  So when The chatter, chatter, chatter of how people are come in and they say, Well, what are these chickens saying?
• 21:46
  What are these roosters saying?
• 21:48
  Well, they're just being, they're just being here with us.
• 21:51
  They're not having major conversations or huge paragraphs of things.
• 21:56
  They're just being together and they're just being with us.
• 21:59
  So if we want to know something, we have to ask them a question.
• 22:02
  And then they're like, Oh, Hey there, you talking to me?
• 22:06
  You know, I mean, they're supposed to be being and they're very good at being and at the end of life, they often say, you know, there are people like, what can I do for him?
• 22:16
  Can I take him to the beach?
• 22:18
  Can I do?
• 22:18
  They're like, no, just sit with me on the grass.
• 22:21
  Just be with me.
• 22:22
  Don't do with me now.
• 22:24
  Just be with me.
• 22:25
  And this is very hard for people to you.
• 22:29
  First of all, accept that they don't want to see the world in their last few moments.
• 22:35
  You know, I guess that's right.
• 22:38
  Kick everything off the bucket list quick.
• 22:40
  I know that's like where people come from, but it's sometimes a foreign idea for them.
• 22:47
  And, and yet to me, the basis of spirituality is just being and being present.
• 22:53
  That's right.
• 22:54
  And they really are so much more advanced at that than humans.
• 22:59
  They really are.
• 23:00
  Now I have the utmost respect for them to be able to do that.
• 23:05
  Not to mention, I mean, because I mentioned that I didn't really grow up with animals.
• 23:09
  The most amazing thing to me when I first began was how incredible they are.
• 23:15
  You know, I just didn't have a real sense of how incredible they really are, how benevolent, how forgiving, how willing to learn, how willing to participate with us, how willing to cooperate.
• 23:28
  And to me, it's amazing that they get anything we want them to do, or we, you know, because our minds are so scattered oftentimes or general people.
• 23:39
  You know, they they, they have this push pull relationship.
• 23:43
  I had a, an interesting session this week with a person who had this really wise little dog.
• 23:51
  And this really wise little dog spent a lot of time being, just watching their person, being grounded, being careful, being present.
• 24:02
  And the person was like, I just hate it when he stares at me like that.
• 24:06
  So then in her next thing, she said, I don't understand why he doesn't comfort me and hug on me and love on me when I'm distressed.
• 24:17
  So she had this push pull thing.
• 24:19
  I don't want him near me.
• 24:21
  I want him near me.
• 24:22
  And the dog was just bare, very present.
• 24:26
  So, it's that kind of thing that I have, that I have often in my practice where they aren't clear what it is they want.
• 24:35
  And it's surprising to me that the animal can figure out anything at all about how they should be in that kind of situation.
• 24:43
  I want the dog near.
• 24:44
  I'm annoyed by this dog being a Velcro dog.
• 24:48
  She also said that in the same session.
• 24:51
  Yeah, it's not congruent.
• 24:54
  And I don't know why he doesn't comfort me.
• 24:56
  Right.
• 25:00
  I mean, I, I have a dog.
• 25:02
  I haven't experienced a whole lot of, of objection to incongruence from my dog, but I certainly do from the horses.
• 25:09
  If you are incongruent in any ways, they have no tolerance for it.
• 25:13
  So how do they deal with that?
• 25:15
  Well, mine seem to point it out.
• 25:17
  Or they avoid you or, or they work on regulating you like I see, I see them doing these big yawns and I rolls are sometimes just like we do horse meditation coming over and like they're moving energy off of people so that they can tolerate how we are in order to be with us.
• 25:42
  Believe it.
• 25:43
  That's, you know, that's my experience.
• 25:46
  In one of my podcasts, I talk at some length about how they condition us.
• 25:50
  Like people think, Oh, it's so relaxing to go to the barn and see my horse.
• 25:54
  That's how I decompress from work.
• 25:56
  And the minute they walk through the barn doors where they've stalled their horse they begin to relax like a Pavlovian effect.
• 26:03
  But my, my theory is actually what's happened is as they come to see their horse and they're tense from work or their day or.
• 26:11
  emotional, that spending time with the horse, the horse has helped them to regulate.
• 26:16
  And so now, so often that now all they have to do is to walk into the barn and they fall into that space.
• 26:23
  But that's my opinion, my theory.
• 26:26
  I agree.
• 26:27
  Cause I once had this little miniature horse friend and just to go out and brush him was such a relaxing experience.
• 26:36
  And we didn't have a lot of major conversation.
• 26:39
  He was just there eating stuff and hanging around while I groomed him.
• 26:43
  And it was like, wow, that was really nice.
• 26:48
  It is.
• 26:49
  It is completely relaxing.
• 26:51
  And sometimes that's, sometimes that's all it takes is a grooming session.
• 26:55
  And it's so helpful to people.
• 26:57
  Absolutely.
• 26:59
  Definitely.
• 27:00
  They help us in unseen ways, don't they?
• 27:03
  They do.
• 27:04
  Yeah.
• 27:05
  They do so much.
• 27:08
  So I wanted to ask you a little bit, this may be something you're not terribly familiar with, but I have recently discovered that I'm on the autism spectrum.
• 27:17
  And so I have all of these questions about, cause now I know my brain works differently than a lot of people's, but there's a lot of people that are being discovering that they are neurodivergent.
• 27:27
  Oh wow.
• 27:27
  Oh my gosh.
• 27:28
  It's like a trendy thing.
• 27:31
  Yeah, and a lot of people I talk to are saying, well, yeah, me too, you know but I have curiosity about psychic abilities and how our brains work and animal communication and And what's available because I have a sense that my experience of the world, I mean, I knew I was sensitive for a long time, like being in nature, like just the beauty is so striking.
• 27:55
  It will take me to a different zone.
• 27:57
  You know, listening to music or looking at art or even a harsh comment from someone probably lands 10 times stronger on me than it does on, on other people.
• 28:07
  So I'm, I'm constantly trying to negotiate that.
• 28:11
  And.
• 28:14
  Obviously that makes me more sensitive to animals.
• 28:18
  Do you have any experience, opinion, even thoughts as we're talking if you hadn't thought about it before, about autism and ESP and kind of a deeper connection?
• 28:31
  Well, for one thing, It seems that people on the spectrum are more able to have a deeper sensitivity in terms of a communication coming through.
• 28:41
  I don't know if you're familiar with Temple Grandin's work.
• 28:45
  Yes.
• 28:45
  But Temple could understand that.
• 28:48
  These little fluttering things on the fence were very disturbing to the cow.
• 28:53
  So she was able to really put herself into the cow's perspective and see that these little distractions were very upsetting.
• 29:01
  They were these little metal things to keep crows away.
• 29:06
  And the cows were very kind of annoyed and discombobled by that.
• 29:11
  And so her ease of getting into the cow perspective is one thing that I could see that could be beneficial by a very sensitive person.
• 29:20
  And I'm sure autism is the same as the highly sensitive person that we used to say, highly sensitive people.
• 29:27
  Well, then you can easily.
• 29:30
  Perhaps get into a different perspective and feel it from that perspective and that was her talent and I expect that's one of people who consider themselves autistic or who are diagnosed in that sense to they experience the world through perhaps more pictures than words.
• 29:51
  And pictures is where our animals go.
• 29:54
  They go to the picture in your head.
• 29:56
  So, for example, if you're telling the dog, don't jump on me, while having pictures in your head of the dog jumping on you, the dog will most likely go to the picture that's in your head.
• 30:07
  And this is one of the places where I find it amazing they understand what we're trying to do at all, because sometimes our pictures are so incongruous with what it is we're saying we want.
• 30:19
  Right.
• 30:19
  It's like, it's like because there's a negative, but they're not getting the negative.
• 30:23
  They're just getting the picture.
• 30:24
  Don't jump.
• 30:24
  Yeah.
• 30:25
  I've, I've, I've seen that myself.
• 30:27
  Yeah.
• 30:28
  So the words and the pictures have to match to get a good result.
• 30:33
  My dog just took a really deep sigh when you said that.
• 30:39
  He's like the humans.
• 30:40
  Oh, thank goodness they're getting it.
• 30:43
  Yeah.
• 30:44
  Yeah.
• 30:46
  Well let me think.
• 30:49
  Do I have, what other questions do I have?
• 30:51
  It's been a great conversation so far.
• 30:54
  Thank you.
• 30:56
  So can you tell me just a little bit about the Horse Human Connection work that you do?
• 31:01
  Yeah.
• 31:02
  I, I, so in 2016, I went to a place called Equinicity, which you might be familiar with up in Canada.
• 31:09
  And that really changed things.
• 31:10
  I came home and started doing case studies about staying out of the way and watching my horses work on people.
• 31:16
  And They were all on board for that and some pretty amazing things happened.
• 31:21
  And I documented it all with like an intake form and an exit form.
• 31:25
  And, and taking notes helped me stay out of it.
• 31:27
  Like my job, the mantra was trust and allow and stay out of it.
• 31:32
  And if I erred my, if I erred on staying out of it, undoubtedly a horse would come over and step on my foot.
• 31:41
  Oh my.
• 31:42
  They talk in, they talk in metaphor, you know, like you're stepping on our toes.
• 31:46
  It's just it is just quite, quite obvious.
• 31:49
  And then I studied a little bit with Sharice Rudolph, who wrote the book on 28 experiential exercises with horses.
• 31:57
  And that's leading people through a little bit more.
• 32:00
  I did a brief weekend with Greg Kirsten, who was part of EGALA at one point.
• 32:06
  And and just started doing things a lot differently.
• 32:09
  And then I had this amazing.
• 32:12
  A mentor who came once a month for about three years, and she's an amazing horse person and a human trauma therapist.
• 32:20
  So, riding lessons were about regulation, they were about is the horse triggered or you triggered, and it wasn't like she was doing therapy, because I knew enough to be able to.
• 32:32
  help myself through the triggers at that point with the horse, but it was like this examination and, and that's when the co created ride started happening and all of that.
• 32:42
  So I have wanted to offer these things and I have at different times.
• 32:46
  I created a mentorship for one woman.
• 32:49
  I did the case studies and then I went into working in more of a young Ian fashion with a box of, of toys as a coach, because I'm not a, I'm not a therapist.
• 32:58
  I don't have that degree.
• 33:00
  And having people come and doing, doing sessions with them, with coaching.
• 33:05
  I live in a very rural area that is not necessarily full of open minded people.
• 33:13
  And so I don't have a huge thriving business.
• 33:16
  And I think as I reflect on, cause I did an awful lot of advertising for a long time on, on Facebook, on social media, had people doing that for me and just hadn't had a website, did not.
• 33:30
  Did not build a big clientele and I realize now that some of that was probably being on the spectrum like I'm kind of in my own way but in such a way that I'm not sure I can get out of my way like I think maybe what I do now is about as much as I can and do a good job at it.
• 33:47
  So you have horses there and you invite people to come and.
• 33:50
  And have the experience with the horses.
• 33:53
  Yeah.
• 33:54
  In, in, in some ways it's just like whoever shows up, like sometimes I meet people, I have business cards, they come a lot of it's just by donation, what people want to experience.
• 34:04
  And it's more just attraction at this point, not promotion, but yeah.
• 34:10
  What they expect to learn a certain thing.
• 34:13
  So I, I, I've created different programs.
• 34:16
  I had a, a program for teaching horse ship.
• 34:21
  six weeks for, for kids or adults.
• 34:25
  And it's just very specific about how to interact, how to read them, how to, we, we start with heart math, like how to enter their space in a different way.
• 34:36
  And it really makes things very, very safe.
• 34:38
  You know, when you build trust from the beginning, that's mutual and respect, people are not going to get hurt because horses are not responding to dominance.
• 34:49
  I see.
• 34:50
  Yes.
• 34:50
  That's, that's my experience for sure.
• 34:53
  Yes, I'll often approach a horse.
• 34:56
  I, you know, I approach first of all, with respect.
• 35:00
  And secondly, I don't go up and touch the horse.
• 35:04
  I allow them to come to me when they're ready and people will say, Oh, it's okay.
• 35:09
  And they'll try to drag the horse over and I'll say, just hold on for a minute, please.
• 35:15
  Please let the horse decide when the horse is ready to.
• 35:19
  You know, have a whiff of me if a horse comes over and takes a little whiff.
• 35:24
  I'm good, you know I'm, okay I can I can now go but I then I asked may I touch you?
• 35:30
  And the people are like, yeah, you can go ahead and say just a moment, you know You didn't ask them you're asking the horse And then, you know the one that I met recently who had been really handled all of his life It took him a minute to say.
• 35:46
  Oh Wow, you're different And so then he said, Okay, you can touch me.
• 35:53
  And then during the session, he said, My ears are very sensitive.
• 35:57
  I said, I would like to touch your ears.
• 36:00
  And he said, No, not now or not yet.
• 36:04
  And so the person came over and said, Oh, yeah, it's okay, touch, touch, touch on the ear.
• 36:09
  You can see that it was very uncomfortable.
• 36:12
  And I said, you know, no, I'm not going to go there.
• 36:15
  I'm not just going to do that right now.
• 36:16
  He's had some trauma with that.
• 36:19
  It looks like roping trauma, and I'm just not going to go there.
• 36:23
  But when I left, I had such a bad earache that I called and told the woman, you might smell in that ear to see if you smell any infection, because as soon as I left, I had a bad earache and then it disappeared right away.
• 36:36
  So I know it wasn't mine.
• 36:38
  And but anyway, the people.
• 36:42
  You have to be kind of regulated like that.
• 36:44
  And it sounds like that's kind of what you're doing, you know, allow the animal to decide when you're OK.
• 36:52
  Yeah, there's actually a technique for approaching a horse in in a pasture.
• 36:57
  And I think it's becoming more popular because somebody who's in a natural horsemanship that I spoke with recently knew about it.
• 37:04
  And that surprised me a little bit.
• 37:06
  But, you know, horses have an energy bubble.
• 37:09
  You know, like 5, 15, 30 and 60 feet and can easily read our heart rate at over 60 feet away and our emotional state.
• 37:18
  So approaching slowly from the side, never from the front or the back.
• 37:23
  And when you, when you reach these bubbles, you know, I, I teach people how to practice feeling the bubbles with other people.
• 37:31
  And so as you come to the bubble, you stop, you take a step back, you exhale, and shift your weight back and wait, and the horse will inevitably flick an ear, turn its head slightly towards you, maybe take a step towards you, in Charlie's case, probably come right over to you, but they're giving you a signal that yes, it's okay to come a little closer, so then I will go forward to that maybe 30 foot line, and again, rock back and exhale and wait, and this is a way of asking permission to approach.
• 38:01
  And if you're focused on the micro movements, the horse will give you permission, or maybe they'll leave because they don't want to be near you at all if they're in a big enough area.
• 38:12
  But it's through a succession like that, because I may not have a clear voice in my head from the horse.
• 38:19
  And a lot of people don't saying, yes, now you can approach.
• 38:23
  They'll tell you in other ways.
• 38:26
  So what was your experience of the animal communication session when we talked about Charlie and then when you saw Charlie again was there a result or how did that work for you?
• 38:39
  Yeah, he's been, he's been a lot better.
• 38:41
  He did, he did pinch somebody again and I had to remind him but he has been, He's been better and some of the, one of the women I'm working with is on vacation right now.
• 38:54
  And then I was on vacation and it's super muddy.
• 38:56
  So we've had less interaction than we were having a very regular you know, weekly by weekly time when I had someone here that would have more opportunity like that with him.
• 39:10
  But your point was to have him not nip at people and it's having the communication session.
• 39:17
  Yeah, it's pinching.
• 39:18
  So during those case studies that I told you about I had this other gelding named Pi.
• 39:24
  It was shortened from hulakai to hulapai to Pi and he was an Appaloosa BLM Mustang and he was a magnificent being and very willing to teach people how to trust and very stallion esque in some ways.
• 39:40
  And geldings are always mouthier in my experience than mares.
• 39:44
  And Pi, Pi nipped somebody.
• 39:48
  It was a whole sequence.
• 39:49
  I talked about it on another podcast and I'll tell you more about it if you like.
• 39:53
  If you're interested, I'll go through the whole thing.
• 39:56
  So A horse woman who'd had a horse for a very long time came and she was a, also a massage therapist and a master cement worker of all things.
• 40:06
  And it was winter time.
• 40:07
  She came bundled up.
• 40:08
  She had very long hair.
• 40:09
  She had her hair twisted up with a clip.
• 40:12
  And the first thing he did was he came over and he took the clip out of her hair with his mouth.
• 40:16
  And she twisted her hair back up and put the clip back.
• 40:19
  And then she had this little beaded bracelet with elastic and he took his teeth.
• 40:23
  And he snapped the bracelet and she took the bracelet off.
• 40:26
  He went back to her hair and, and took the clip out of her hair.
• 40:30
  So she put the clip in her pocket.
• 40:32
  Then he came up with his teeth and he pulled her zipper down on her jacket.
• 40:37
  So she said, okay, I know the drill.
• 40:38
  Taking off my jacket.
• 40:39
  She stood there and he ran his nose down her body, down her back and on her leg, he pinched her.
• 40:49
  And she We just let him remember the mantras trust and allow and it is really difficult after all the conditioning I've received to just let my horse bite people, but that's what they told you at equinicity and I was bitten at equinicity and it was a good thing.
• 41:04
  So I'm just doing this.
• 41:06
  So.
• 41:07
  He pinched her down her leg in various spots.
• 41:09
  She did the outtake form.
• 41:10
  She said, you know what, let me get back to you.
• 41:12
  I really want to do a good job and write this out for you.
• 41:14
  So I want to give you my experience in a couple of weeks.
• 41:18
  So during that couple of weeks, she had an appointment with an Ayurvedic another massage, person who apparently the technique there she described to me was that when you have sciatica on the right, they work on your left.
• 41:30
  So she had sciatica on the opposite side.
• 41:33
  So when she got on the table, this massage therapist said, what are these bruises?
• 41:38
  They're exactly at the points that I need to work.
• 41:44
  The horse had left the bruises.
• 41:47
  Was her sciatica relieved?
• 41:51
  I don't remember that part from, from her from her description, so I'm not sure.
• 41:57
  Wow, interesting.
• 41:59
  He was an unusual horse.
• 42:01
  He would run his nose over the clipboard.
• 42:04
  You know, it was at a clipboard, and he'd come over like he was reading it with his nose.
• 42:08
  To see who was coming that day.
• 42:11
  All right.
• 42:13
  So is Charlie your main horse for the, for how you use with people or?
• 42:19
  No, he is my newest horse.
• 42:21
  Firefly and Sipsi are the mares that have been with me the longest.
• 42:26
  Firefly for over 10 years and she is just, she started talking to me right away.
• 42:31
  She was just, you know, I've heard, I've actually heard words from her occasionally, but she's more fond of, I get the feeling she thinks I'm, it's not stupid human, but like her, she's just sometimes gets frustrated because I don't understand as quickly as other people.
• 42:49
  I'm not really frustrated, but, but sometimes.
• 42:55
  So she, she acts stuff out for me.
• 42:58
  Okay.
• 43:00
  So do you feel that Charlie's nipping is purposeful then?
• 43:04
  Yeah, that's kind of been the question all along.
• 43:07
  Is it, you know, should we allow Charlie to nip during therapy?
• 43:10
  It goes against trust and allow, but it, it, there is a measure of discomfort with people and.
• 43:18
  I don't think I fully trust him the way I did Pi.
• 43:23
  Of course, Pi, when I got back from Aquinicity and I had a conversation with the horses about if we're going to do this, you guys can't be kicking each other and, and squishing and being aggressive around people.
• 43:33
  And he laid down, he'd never done that.
• 43:34
  He just lay down next to me and said, trust me.
• 43:37
  I said, okay.
• 43:40
  And I don't have full trust.
• 43:42
  I don't feel like I have full trust from Charlie.
• 43:44
  And I'm, I'd like to ride Charlie.
• 43:46
  But I had back surgery this year and I feel like our relationship is there, but I'm hesitant.
• 43:55
  I can understand why.
• 43:58
  Maybe Charlie would be able to do his work just with his lips.
• 44:02
  Yeah, that's what we've tried to talk to him about, that you can just use your lips.
• 44:06
  And like the girls do that and I trust them a hundred percent.
• 44:09
  They've, they've never nipped.
• 44:11
  Okay.
• 44:14
  All right.
• 44:16
  Interesting.
• 44:18
  Yeah.
• 44:21
  Yeah.
• 44:21
  You can ask him if he'll show you a sign that He's safe to ride the questions that I ask, and sometimes animal communication is the experience and asking the question you're getting an answer back, but you would need to know the right questions.
• 44:37
  So I would ask a horse like Charlie, do you know that your first obligation to having a person in a saddle on your back is to keep them on there?
• 44:48
  Do you understand that that's your first job when a person is on your back?
• 44:52
  That would be my first question.
• 44:54
  That's a great question.
• 44:55
  Yeah.
• 44:56
  My second question was, would you be willing to make sure that you do everything you can to keep me up here?
• 45:04
  I'm going to assume that you will do everything you can to keep me on your back if you let me get up there.
• 45:11
  Aside from that, don't let me get on.
• 45:13
  I'll respect you.
• 45:15
  If you respect me in that way, and I won't get on your back if you don't present yourself at the block where you get on or at the, you know, you won't allow me to put a saddle on you if you don't agree to this, for example, that would be a good negotiation for Charlie if you don't agree to keep the people safe that I bring in here.
• 45:38
  Just let me know, and I won't bring them in.
• 45:42
  If I bring them in, I'm going to assume that you understand that we need you to just use your lips to do this work.
• 45:52
  Okay, I can, I can definitely use those, those questions in that way with him.
• 45:59
  Those would be some negotiations I would use for such a horse.
• 46:02
  Okay, that's great insight.
• 46:05
  Thank you so much.
• 46:06
  Thank you.
• 46:07
  And he may be wanting to work a different way.
• 46:09
  For example, Bye.
• 46:10
  Bye.
• 46:11
  He may be saying, I only want to work with the person standing on the ground and interacting with me as opposed to getting on my back.
• 46:19
  If that's how you would like to work, then when we talk about the saddle, You know, walk away.
• 46:29
  Yeah, a lot of times it's just gonna be a bare backpack, but there is some equipment, so that's a good one.
• 46:33
  We went on a horse hike, and he, it was time to turn around and go, and, and the woman I'm working with was with him, and they're really bonding nicely.
• 46:42
  And, so there was a moment where everyone else had turned around, and he, they were looking up the mountain.
• 46:48
  And I know he wanted to see what was up there.
• 46:50
  He's very curious.
• 46:51
  And, you know, at that point, like, I think there's a way to bring that into like, we couldn't walk any further.
• 46:57
  But if you really want to see that, then there's these agreements, you know, like there's advantages to having a person on your back.
• 47:04
  It means we get to go explore, but what you just said about taking care of who's on your back and making sure the first job is to keep them on your back.
• 47:13
  Yeah, that's right.
• 47:15
  Yeah.
• 47:16
  In furthering a discussion like that with the horse, then I say and do you understand what would make us go off your back, you know, rearing, bucking, those are the things that we can't deal with.
• 47:27
  These are the things that, and then I ask him, do you recognize that we're very fragile?
• 47:32
  Do you recognize that if we fall from your back to the ground, we could be hurt for our entire life.
• 47:38
  So those are some of the things that I would chat about with Charlie.
• 47:44
  Okay.
• 47:45
  His level of understanding.
• 47:47
  I don't think your deal is getting the answer back.
• 47:50
  I think you're just fine with that.
• 47:54
  Yeah, I think, well, if I don't hear a clear answer, I feel like their behavior, if I can listen to their behavior.
• 48:02
  Exactly.
• 48:03
  And, and get answers.
• 48:04
  Answers come in many ways and you can set it up a lot of ways.
• 48:08
  Okay, Charlie, when you do that, it means this to me.
• 48:14
  This is also the agreement that you make with your soul level guides.
• 48:17
  You know, if you, Send me this picture.
• 48:20
  That's what it means to me and telepathic language is different for every single person.
• 48:24
  And so it's good to, you know, spell out those agreements.
• 48:29
  I do that all the time.
• 48:30
  Like I say, if you show me a yellow rose, I'm not going to think friendship.
• 48:34
  I'm going to think Texas.
• 48:38
  Symbols have to, you have to agree on the meaning, it's just the language, we have to agree on the meaning, but breaking it down into little steps like that is is really important.
• 48:47
  Sometimes we forget that.
• 48:49
  Yeah.
• 48:50
  So we, we want to be very clear.
• 48:51
  This means that when you send me that picture, okay, the person's language of symbolism, not necessarily the horse, but it's a more soul level agreement that this is what for this person that means.
• 49:07
  And it's kind of interesting on that show called Long Island Medium, which is now called Raising Spirits.
• 49:12
  She goes through her life and she reads people who have passed on.
• 49:18
  So she says, they're sending me this image, which to me, she, when she gets a hit on the back of the head, she says, they're sending me this hit on the back of the head, which means to me that the person passed traumatically and unexpectedly, for example.
• 49:34
  So she, she just shows you in this show.
• 49:37
  And she speaks it right out, okay, I'm getting this and that means to me.
• 49:40
  So it just shows how that works, essentially, and how one needs to be clear, because I'd rather have a different signal than a hit on the back of my head.
• 49:51
  It could be more pleasant than that.
• 49:54
  Sure.
• 49:55
  I mean, the same thing.
• 49:56
  Yeah.
• 49:58
  That makes a lot of sense.
• 50:01
  Yeah.
• 50:03
  Well, I think I think soon I may, I may contact you again about Sipsi.
• 50:07
  She's got, she's healing from an abscess, hurt leg, and possibly laminitis.
• 50:14
  And she seems to be doing better, but like, maybe I can get ahold of you soon and do a little check in with that too.
• 50:21
  Sure, no problem.
• 50:22
  Yeah, I can ask her how she feels and, if there's some kind of purpose behind it.
• 50:28
  Yeah, I get the feeling that there may be, there may be a pattern the last time she did this there.
• 50:33
  I don't know.
• 50:34
  Yeah.
• 50:35
  Like I needed some time off or this was the only way I could show that I needed that or who knows what.
• 50:40
  I wanted to do some groundwork for a while.
• 50:44
  She's not been written heavily, especially since the surgery.
• 50:46
  And when I do write, it's like 15 or 20 minutes and seems pretty enjoyable for both of us.
• 50:52
  But yeah.
• 50:54
  Yeah, that may be the perfect amount of time for both of you and that's how How she worked that out.
• 51:01
  Yeah.
• 51:04
  Well, this has been so wonderful.
• 51:06
  Thank you so much for meeting with me and doing all the zoom things.
• 51:11
  I I've, I've loved this.
• 51:13
  I've loved getting to know you a little bit better.
• 51:14
  And I think it's some really good information for people to hear on the podcast.
• 51:21
  It was my pleasure.
• 51:22
  And I so honored the work that you're doing with the horse human connection.
• 51:26
  It's very inspiring and this kind of cooperation with our animal friends is what I'm all about too.
• 51:32
  So high five, sister.
• 51:34
  Thank you so much.
• 51:35
  So I normally ask this question, but you just answered it.
• 51:38
  And that is, are you part of the Quiet Revolution?
• 51:41
  Yes.
• 51:43
  Right.
• 51:44
  A little bit louder.
• 51:48
  All right.
• 51:48
  Thanks so much again, Susan.
• 51:50
  Thank you.
• 51:51
  Have a great day.
• 51:52
  Okay.
• 51:53
  Bye.