Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Horses Don't Lie to Veterans | Jane Strong | EAW 53

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Horses Don't Lie to Veterans | Jane Strong | EAW 53 · 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.
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  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.
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  Welcome back rockers.
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  I've got Jane Strong here from the EQU Effect in Connecticut in the USA and
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  those of you who know the work that we do with the program, which is, uh, a
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  ground-based program, um, where we use the principles of the old masters in hand
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  long reigning and lunging to work with veterans, um, people with trauma, adult
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  autism, and so on, helping them to sort of rebuild horses as part of a therapy.
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  Those of you who know that, um, will be very excited by what Jane does because
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  she's working also with veterans and first responders who I feel are a
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  massively underserved, uh, population.
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  They're the ones out there actually doing it all the time.
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  Um, as you know, veterans, you might or may not, might not have seen combat.
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  Just because you're a veteran doesn't mean you've seen combat.
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  If you've seen combat, it doesn't necessarily follow that you have
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  taken a wound or watched your friend die or come out of it with the same
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  trauma that somebody who was in the frontline with the bayonets Mike.
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  There's all kinds of ways, but what we can be sure of is that, um, that with
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  the first responders in our community, that it's relentless for them that the
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  tour of duty never ends and the threats to life and all of that never end.
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  Um, and the stress never ends.
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  It just goes on for 30, 40 years or whatever.
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  So I was really intrigued when, um, Jane popped up, um, and we became
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  aware of her and I want to her to share what she does and how she does
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  it and what can we learn from that.
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  Alright, so Jane, thank you for coming on the show.
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  Why do you do this?
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  What's the EQU effect and what does it do?
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  Jane Strong: Well, we serve, we're a nonprofit that serves
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  first we serve veterans.
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  That was our first go at this because, um, we saw the statistic.
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  My partner David and I saw the statistic in 2008 of 22 suicides a
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  day and deep inside of me, I just felt like there was more to it than.
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  These, those veterans with PTSD, I felt like there was a
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  whole lot more to the story.
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  And I also felt that horses could help where talk therapy, sitting in a situation
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  where you've got a person looking at you and asking you to talk about things, I
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  just had this sense that the, that the experience of being in harm's way and
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  coming home and trying to deal with not just what happened over there, wherever
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  there was, but also the transition from military to civilian life is a huge issue.
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  I don't care what they did.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  You know, that transition where you go from somebody tells you what to
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  wear, to eat, when to get up, when to exercise, and you don't have a choice.
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  It's not like, would you like to run up that hill?
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  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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  Jane Strong: You know, it's, uh, you're gonna do this.
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  And so I sort of intuitively knew that.
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  And I don't know why exactly except I had read Sebastian Young's book Tribe,
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  which was an extraordinary description of what happens when people go from a
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  community of interdependence to you're on your own and you go home to your family
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  and they have no idea what you're talking about and they don't really wanna know.
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  You know, they don't really want to know what you saw or did.
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  So I had this sense that a lot of this was really transition stress and
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  that, that talking about it wasn't where it lives, that it lives in
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  the body and the nervous system and the sensory based take on things.
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  Um, so, so we, David, my partner and I started to talk to the
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  VA about this great idea.
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  We had to bring vets to our place and, you know, work with them.
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  And it took us a mere four years to talk to them into it because, uh,
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  they're, they're kind of risk averse.
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  I don't know if you know that, but they're kind of risk averse.
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  And so we just kept talking and we kept going and going to meetings and
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  talking and finally got a meeting, actually a bunch of art therapists
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  and they were like, this is cool.
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  You know, 'cause it is kind of, you know, more experiential, it's
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  more right hemisphere dom, you know, it is a little more creative
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  than sitting and talking with the, trying to make sense out of things.
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  So they sent some vets out and they were blown away by the fact that not only
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  was the experience good for them to work with the horses and that was the other
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  thing we knew that they, with the veteran community, any military culture, same
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  with first responders, it's a due culture.
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  They do stuff, they don't just stand around.
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  So we created some exercises for them to do that were based on real
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  horsemanship skills, um, and talk, talk to them about how horses operate
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  first to build some resonance.
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  Um, and then, then had them make a connection with the horses, get their
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  hands on 'em, do that nice HeartMath stuff of in training to the horse's heart rate
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  and work with vulnerability around that.
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  Just respecting whatever came up and then move them into action with the horses,
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  um, you know, in a collaborative way.
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  So that's, that's what we did.
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  But it, it took us a while, obviously to get the VA to agree, and then
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  once they did, they saw that when these vets came home, they were able
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  to sit down and talk about what was going on with them and move forward.
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  And so our mission is really based on centered around relationships,
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  healthy, authentic relationships in real life at home and work.
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  So that's, that's sort of what we're after with them.
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  And we set up exercises, and I'm very much looking forward just to doing
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  more of your stuff where we make it more complex and more skill-based,
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  you know, and more, you know, just a, just a deeper dive into what can you
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  really do that's good for the horses.
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  Um mm-hmm.
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  And that's, so that's where we, where we started and then we added first
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  responders who, you're right about them.
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  You know, they are on the line every day.
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  They have no idea what they're gonna run into.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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  Jane Strong: And they're alone.
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  They're, a lot of times they're alone.
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  They're not with a unit.
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  Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's a very interesting, um,
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  thing I've always feel when people get into working with a
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  population that they are not necess necessarily necessarily themselves.
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  My brain are part of, um, you do or you don't have a military background
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  or a first responders background?
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  Jane Strong: No, I had my, my father was in World War ii,
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  but he was in the Pentagon.
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  Um, my brother was, went to West Point and was stationed in Stuttgart
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  after that, but in peace time.
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  So I know the rigidity.
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  I kind of get that, but I did not, I I was one of those people who,
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  when the, the mil, when the, um, the military people came home from
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  Vietnam, I was one of those people who conflated the war with the Warrior, so,
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  Rupert Isaacson: oh yes.
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  Well, you were younger then, and you know, that's forgivable and it was an
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  illegal war and, um, but it wasn't the fault of the poor bus that got drafted.
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  No, absolutely.
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  Um, however.
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  You know, you could have, if, if you were feeling a desire to work with a, you know,
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  a special needs community of one kind or another, you could have gone autism,
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  you could have gone a number of ways.
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  And I'm always intrigued at as to why people get into what they get into.
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  So, for example, as you know, with me, um, I wasn't in any way interested
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  in working in this field at all.
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  I had no such dreams.
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  Um, but I had a son who needed me and you've met him and, um, through hook
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  and by crook, the horses were away.
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  And, um, luckily I had the skills so I could follow.
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  And then I realized, oh, I see.
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  That's why I've acquired these skills so that clearly I can do this.
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  Um, and then it turned out to be replicable.
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  So then I felt, I felt a sort of obligation to make it available for other
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  parents in my position because it worked.
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  But you know, you didn't have have that kind of gun to your head that I did.
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  So why did you get involved?
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  What made you, and why did you pick veterans particularly, what
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  were you doing before, what was your life leading up to this?
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  Jane Strong: I was, um, that's a good question because people, you know, a lot
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  of times people wanna, they wanna think or they believe that you have to have that
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  in order to relate to this population.
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  Um, but my feeling is if someone is a veteran, that's fine, but
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  they have to have done some work.
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  They have to be out of the woods a bit.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  You know, to be able to serve anyone else, you have to walk the walk
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  before you can do anything like that.
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  And so, um, I think for me, what I was doing before was, um, I
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  was an ethnographic researcher for, uh, an independent person
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  who did market research, and my specialty was ethnographic research.
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  So I think in a broad sense, I think me walking into other cultures with
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  compassion and curiosity really helped me to learn about veterans.
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  And I have the sources that helped me do that.
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  I, I knew I had to find out about them.
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  Who are they?
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  So, um, I read some books that weren't about, um, going to, they were about
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  the experience and the impact of going to war and, um, they were extremely,
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  what's the word, compassionate views.
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  Of the distortions that happen when you go against your own values.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And, and you do things that in, in, when these guys come home
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  or women come home, the things they're really good at are illegal.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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  Jane Strong: So that's not a, that's not an option anymore.
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  And so to go work at Walmart or you know, is like, wow.
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  So
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  Rupert Isaacson: unless they go work for Blackwater or, you know, as a private,
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  Jane Strong: which they do, they do a lot.
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  And actually a lot of, yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Exactly.
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  And a lot of the people who are are first responders are also veterans.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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  ' Jane Strong: cause it's a skill they have.
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  So
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  Rupert Isaacson: when you say you were an ethnographic researcher,
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  that's quite a general ish sort of, can you be more specific?
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  What did you do?
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  Who were these, who were these ethnos that you graphed?
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  Um, 'cause when, you know, as you know, I have a background
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  in human rights, um, in Africa.
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  So you could say I was an ethno, uh, act, uh, advocate.
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  I advocated for a particular group, an ethnographic group who
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  happened to be called the COIs, sun Bushman of the Kalahari.
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  Um, in order to help them, uh, win land claims to prove their title to their
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  ancestral land and get their land back after having been evicted illegally.
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  So I know a little bit about the ethnographic field.
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  What do you mean when you say that you were an ethnographic researcher?
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  Jane Strong: I, um, well, what I did for a living was I, um, interviewed
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  people, mostly subcultures, I would say, within the United States
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  and some in, in, some in Europe.
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  So I interviewed, um, I did a big, and I was working in
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  the, in the corporate world.
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  So I did research for, let's say Chrysler.
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  They wanted to understand Hispanics, and in to them it's all one group, one blob.
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  But Cubans are very different from Mexicans.
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  They're very different from Puerto Ricans, they're very different from island people.
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  And I went into people's homes and sat with them for, you know, a day and spent
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  time talking to them about the roads not taken, or why did they do this,
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  or how did they, you know, certainly how they got here, but understanding
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  the nuances of their particular take on their lives and their goals and
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  their, um, their orientation to things.
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  And of course, the people who hired me were interested in how
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  can we sell 'em more products.
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  But I was interested in who are they and what, what's their, what makes them tick?
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  Rupert Isaacson: That's very interesting because when I was working in the human
• 14:04
  rights field, we, one of the things we did was field teams of lawyers,
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  and I always trusted the lawyers more who had worked for the enemy.
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  Jane Strong: Yeah.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Um, if, if a lawyer had worked for the diamond companies,
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  if a lawyer had worked for oil and then had decided to sort of do the
• 14:21
  right thing, then I knew that they knew how the opposition worked.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Um, so I can absolutely see the point of that when you were going in to talk
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  to these people, um, okay, you had to do a job and you were going in, I
• 14:38
  presume, wearing it on your sleeve.
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  I'm working for Chrysler here, you know?
• 14:41
  Jane Strong: Oh, yeah.
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  Rupert Isaacson: And of course everyone needs a car, so, I mean, it's not
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  like you're doing something wrong.
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  It's not like you're trying to sell 'em heroin, you know?
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  Um, although the people that created heroin thought
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  that everyone needed heroin.
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  Jane Strong: Yes.
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  Yeah.
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  Rupert Isaacson: You know, heroin, that the people always
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  think it was an illegal drug.
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  It wasn't an illegal drug at all.
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  It was created by Bayer who are the, um, big German
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  pharmaceutical company and heroin.
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  It was given that name because it was supposed to be the non,
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  uh, addictive form of laden them.
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  Another opiate.
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  And of course it turned out to be even worse, killed her.
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  But it was supposed to be the heroin, you know, that, that saved everybody ho ho.
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  Um, but you weren't doing anything like that.
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  So at the end of the day, to to, to sell somebody a car is
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  still, you know, a useful thing.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But when you were sitting and talking with them, did you find that there were
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  patterns to how people wanted to you to understand them when they knew that you
• 15:42
  were coming from outside their community?
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  And the reason I'm asking you to explain this on this podcast is a lot
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  of people are gonna be listening to this who are perhaps starting programs
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  Jane Strong: mm-hmm.
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  Rupert Isaacson: And are coming from a very compassionate place of saying, I
• 15:58
  would like to help this population and this population over here, but I may or
• 16:02
  may not have much understanding of them.
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  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
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  But
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  Rupert Isaacson: I want to help 'em.
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  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 16:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Talk to us about Yeah.
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  Outside the therapeutic context, maybe give us your, your work with
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  Hispanic communities, your work with other subcultures, and talk to us
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  about the patterns and what can we, as practitioners of equine assisted stuff
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  learn from your learning curve there?
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  Jane Strong: I think, um, I think that probably what I would say is to, when you
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  say help, there's, there's a bit of a.
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  There's a bit of a fixing in there.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  And then there's a bit of investment in the outcome.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Um, there's a bit of
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  Rupert Isaacson: evangelism.
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  Jane Strong: Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And there's a bit of I don't need the help you do.
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  Right.
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  And so for me, if I back rewind the tape back to or further back
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  in my personal history, is that I never felt that I was an insider.
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  I always felt that I was an outsider, and I felt like I hadn't, as you
• 17:14
  described in your book, the Long Ride Home, which I've started to read, I felt
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  like I wasn't living my dream, my life.
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  So I was trying to put together a life that would allow me to, in, in a way,
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  live into my outsider view of myself.
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  But I was very interested in people.
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  So in a, in a way it was like understanding these other cultures
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  helped me to appreciate differences and appreciate the fact that their lives
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  are actually fine without me in a way.
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  They, they're living their lives and I need to, I need to surrender.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 17:52
  Jane Strong: My values or my views not values my views in order to understand
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  them because it became a non-hierarchical.
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  Lens through which I saw people, but my own story was I was always
• 18:08
  just felt like an outsider.
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  So it was easy for me to walk into another culture, probably easier than,
• 18:14
  than living in my own homogeneous, you know, Anglo-Saxon background.
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  So that was sort of how I landed there.
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  But I, I truly believe that if we don't have the idea that we're fixing or better
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  than, or more together than the people we're working with, that, you know,
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  everybody has gifts and liabilities.
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  I think if we start there and learn about them without the
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  spin on the ball of helping them.
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  Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
• 18:46
  Um, obviously, you know, I wanted to help my son, for example, because he
• 18:51
  was clearly suffering, but by the time horse boy method became a thing, um, I
• 18:57
  wasn't in any way looking to cure or stop my son being autistic because by then
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  I could see the clear gifts involved.
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  Um, also, it's who he is, but
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  there was, there was suffering that I wanted to help alleviate.
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  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 19:13
  Rupert Isaacson: And that the suffering was, was, uh, connected to things, some of
• 19:17
  which were to do with the autism sensory issues, confusion, not understanding, you
• 19:23
  know, where your body is in the world, let alone your place in the world, but.
• 19:27
  Some of which didn't have anything to do with autism at all.
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  Um, were just to do with, um,
• 19:36
  standard unhappiness as you know, that any human can have.
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  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 19:40
  Rupert Isaacson: And, uh, but also, so what's the opposite of unhappiness?
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  It's joy.
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  So I realized that my job was to provide joy and then when I learned the
• 19:47
  neuroscience of joy, it's like, oh yes.
• 19:49
  Well that does indeed build the brain.
• 19:51
  And we can go into that later.
• 19:54
  When you were working with these, I'm, I'm gonna ask you why you, you felt
• 19:58
  like an outsider because I think a lot of listeners and viewers will have had
• 20:02
  that question as you said it, but let's just put that one for the next thing.
• 20:06
  I want you to tell us who a little bit more about these nuances in the
• 20:12
  Hispanic communities, how they taught you the differences between them.
• 20:17
  How did you learn to dance inside their own systems of prejudice?
• 20:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:22
  Which is something I had to do in Africa, for example.
• 20:24
  You know, you go in there thinking there's white and there's black
• 20:26
  and there's whites against blacks.
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  And then you realize, ah, dad, it's way more complex than that.
• 20:30
  All sorts of interest in Nissan racism and with between groups and so on
• 20:34
  and, and, and rivalries and so on.
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  Um, and.
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  This causes suffering.
• 20:40
  And then what other subcultures did you explore and what did you learn from them?
• 20:46
  I just wanna stay with that for a little bit, because I think anyone who's going
• 20:49
  into our field needs to know their people.
• 20:53
  Right.
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  And you did deep dives into getting to know subgroups of people
• 20:58
  before you went into this field.
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  Jane Strong: Yeah, I, yes.
• 21:02
  I think that for me, I, I would say for anyone is to really respect
• 21:09
  the differences, respect them, and, and appreciate it's, it's a more
• 21:15
  than respect, it's appreciate them.
• 21:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:17
  Rupert Isaacson: And,
• 21:18
  Jane Strong: um, engage with them on a level playing field.
• 21:23
  And I think the way to do that, the entree to that is genuine
• 21:27
  curiosity and compassion.
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  Um, because, because when we other, well, we, other, other people we are, I think
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  by nature or or by definition, we are diminishing in a, some, in some way or
• 21:46
  it's that not good form of tribalism.
• 21:50
  Um, there's a mistrust.
• 21:52
  There's a
• 21:53
  Rupert Isaacson: tribes that eat each other.
• 21:54
  Yes.
• 21:55
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 21:55
  Yeah.
• 21:56
  Right.
• 21:56
  And then, and also I think that there's a lot of, um, there's a
• 22:00
  lot of assumptions that get made.
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  Because when, because the mind likes certainty, our minds like certainty.
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  Mm.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And, and when we go in with some kind of certainty, we're closing some doors.
• 22:15
  And I can tell you, fast forward to my experience now, I learn every
• 22:20
  time I work with a group of vets, what is your experience of this?
• 22:24
  Because they're all nuanced, they're all different, and they're
• 22:27
  all genuinely true for them.
• 22:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:31
  And I don't have the answer for each person.
• 22:33
  I just have an ability from my experience doing this kind of research, and
• 22:38
  maybe some of it was sort of innate, is just a curiosity about people.
• 22:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:44
  Um, and particularly about differences.
• 22:46
  And I don't, I can't really tell you why I'll have to do a reading with,
• 22:49
  uh, Denise to find out why I have that.
• 22:53
  But I just do, I just have this son of curiosity about people.
• 22:56
  And I feel very incensed when the people I train to facilitate start to talk
• 23:03
  about these broken people or the people who donate to our organization, those
• 23:07
  veterans or, it's just not, it's not the way I see it, you know, everybody's stuck.
• 23:13
  So we're all stuck in different ways.
• 23:17
  And, and for me, the, the way, the way in is to not.
• 23:24
  Indulge that not not go there.
• 23:26
  Just to see people, see people as stuck like we all are.
• 23:31
  Mm.
• 23:31
  We're gonna include you.
• 23:32
  We're gonna include the horses, we're gonna include everybody in this community
• 23:37
  here, and we are gonna go somewhere.
• 23:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 23:43
  So you are sitting there and going back to your former self, uh, in somebody's room.
• 23:49
  In somebody's living room, asking them questions, which are car related, but you
• 23:53
  are totally curious about who they are.
• 23:57
  What patterns did you notice in the Hispanic community?
• 24:02
  'cause you mentioned that you were working there.
• 24:03
  First you realized, oh my gosh, it's so diverse, it's so different.
• 24:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:07
  All these different subgroups, but what patterns did you notice where you walked
• 24:11
  away from the Hispanic communities going, Hmm, I could use a bit more of that.
• 24:16
  Hmm.
• 24:17
  I could have a bit of that.
• 24:18
  Hmm.
• 24:19
  Didn't know about that.
• 24:20
  What were the things
• 24:23
  Jane Strong: I would say that what they are all across the board,
• 24:27
  they're very family oriented and they're very community oriented.
• 24:31
  In fact.
• 24:33
  Mexicans particularly, I mean, Cubans have a pipeline.
• 24:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:38
  They come into the United States, not speaking for political reasons,
• 24:41
  that's the other piece of it that's a little different among them.
• 24:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:44
  They come into the United States for political reasons.
• 24:47
  They get poured into a pipeline in Miami, that's where I was interviewing them.
• 24:53
  They get poured into a pipeline where they can get, somebody gets them a
• 24:57
  job, hands, gives them a job where they can stay speaking Spanish at first.
• 25:02
  Then they get taught English.
• 25:04
  Then they get moved up into, and these were all Hispanics by the
• 25:08
  way, doing ethnographic research.
• 25:10
  You're not just random.
• 25:11
  You're choosing, we have specs, we have people we wanna talk to.
• 25:15
  And these were people who were, wanted to be integrated into the American culture.
• 25:20
  They didn't wanna stay ghetto wise, they didn't wanna do that.
• 25:23
  They wanted to be a part of, and they were gonna buy a car in the next few years.
• 25:27
  That was the other one.
• 25:29
  So, um, so anyway, so they were, they come in as in this pipeline,
• 25:33
  and then they get a job and then they get into a higher level of society.
• 25:38
  They get educated.
• 25:40
  That was their track.
• 25:42
  You know, Mexicans tend to come over one at a time for economic reasons.
• 25:46
  Um, Puerto Ricans come in, you know, kind of in groups, but I
• 25:50
  would say it's partly economic and it's, you know, opportunity based.
• 25:55
  Um.
• 25:56
  So those were probably the three main groups that I, that I would
• 26:00
  say were distinct from one another.
• 26:02
  But I think what I appreciated about them was how strongly they held their values.
• 26:09
  Y you know, and, um, in, in a way what a model they were for this
• 26:16
  communal, um, approach to things.
• 26:21
  And one, a funny example would be that Chrysler makes Jeep, right?
• 26:26
  And the image of Jeep at the time was this lone person at the top of a cliff.
• 26:31
  You know, the, the rugged individual kind of American model
• 26:35
  of what freedom is supposed to be and to a person every Hispanic.
• 26:40
  I showed that, 'cause we showed some concepts for ads.
• 26:43
  Every Hispanic was like, why would I wanna be alone?
• 26:48
  Why would I, why would I ever wanna get in my car by myself and be alone?
• 26:52
  And it was really funny.
• 26:54
  It was very funny.
• 26:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
• 26:55
  Jane Strong: You know, and
• 26:56
  Rupert Isaacson: that's so interesting.
• 26:57
  Jane Strong: Yeah, it was very funny.
• 27:00
  And so it was like, okay, well scratch that one.
• 27:02
  You know?
• 27:04
  Plus the other thing was that as much as they, the, the other thing that really
• 27:08
  struck me was that they, the women were inclined to have children to satisfy their
• 27:16
  parents, who were usually non-English speaking people, satisfy their parents,
• 27:20
  that they were gonna have a family.
• 27:21
  'cause that was important to have children to the parents.
• 27:25
  And so a lot of times the, the, the mother, the, the wife would have children
• 27:31
  while the husband worked, and then the husband would back take a backseat to
• 27:36
  the wife while she got an education because they were upwardly mobile people.
• 27:41
  And they all, to a person had an idea of owning their own business.
• 27:46
  So extremely entrepreneurial, willing to play the game without the network,
• 27:52
  without the good old boy network.
• 27:53
  Their, their ticket was education.
• 27:57
  So
• 27:57
  Rupert Isaacson: they Right.
• 27:58
  And they might not have had a good old boy network, but they did have each other, um
• 28:02
  Jane Strong: Right.
• 28:03
  But there wasn't the, you know, the glee club at Harvard.
• 28:06
  There wasn't the, the frat boys stuff.
• 28:08
  They had, they knew
• 28:10
  Rupert Isaacson: they were not the ruling class.
• 28:11
  Yeah.
• 28:11
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 28:12
  They knew they had to do this through education, and so they would take turns
• 28:17
  doing that with an aim to having their own independence and autonomy through.
• 28:25
  In a, in a way against all lots.
• 28:26
  I mean, the parents were like, mm-hmm stay home, mother, stay home.
• 28:31
  They were very, they were very ambivalent in a certain way about
• 28:36
  taking the reins in their own lives and, and, you know, going outside
• 28:40
  the, the traditional culture model.
• 28:44
  Rupert Isaacson: What's interesting to me about that is when we started working
• 28:47
  in with Horse Boy, which then became movement method and tech, you know,
• 28:51
  three programs out of one program, we of course were based in Texas, Austin.
• 28:55
  And, um, I noticed very quickly that um, the outcomes for the kids that
• 29:03
  we worked with that came outta the Mexican families were often better,
• 29:07
  largely because of this tribal aspect.
• 29:10
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 29:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, and I am Southern African, born in the uk, but my
• 29:18
  entire family is Southern African and operates very tribally, always have.
• 29:23
  So that's second nature to me.
• 29:25
  You know, your cousins, you know, your second cousins, you
• 29:27
  know your third cousins, they're always coming through the house.
• 29:29
  And my house now, we always got two long-term guests right now.
• 29:33
  There'll be other, another ones coming in tonight.
• 29:34
  You know, it's just how it always is.
• 29:36
  And I know other people who say, how can you do that?
• 29:39
  How can you live like that?
• 29:39
  Ru's just got people coming in all the time.
• 29:41
  It's like, 'cause I always live that way and I can't conceive
• 29:43
  really of living any other way.
• 29:46
  And it's just a pattern that's formed.
• 29:47
  But what happens is, of course, all these people bring a story and
• 29:50
  all these people bring support.
• 29:52
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 29:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Um.
• 29:54
  And I noticed with the Hispanic communities when I was working in Texas,
• 29:59
  that they would rally around each other.
• 30:02
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 30:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, so if you had single moms, for example, and
• 30:06
  that was quite frequent, that the autism mom is a single mom, um, they
• 30:13
  would find more community support.
• 30:15
  They would be more likely also to have an abuela, you know, a a it,
• 30:20
  at least figure, if not relative.
• 30:23
  Um, there would be mechanisms within the community, like certain
• 30:30
  types of clubs like the Riata, the Mexican rodeo, or the, uh,
• 30:40
  stuff around the Cinco de Mayo, uh, parades, which of course operate
• 30:44
  all year, you know, for those big parties and things like that.
• 30:47
  They would, they would belong to these groups that would then, as you say, look
• 30:52
  at someone who clearly needed some help and organize that help for that person.
• 30:57
  Um, babysitting so that the woman could work.
• 31:01
  And I noticed that the outcomes for Anglo families were only good if they
• 31:07
  came from a very high economic bracket.
• 31:09
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 31:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Because then they could afford to hire
• 31:13
  that level of tribal support financially if they didn't have it.
• 31:19
  Around them as a family thing so that the middle income, low to middle income white
• 31:24
  people tended to have less good outcomes than the lower income Hispanic people.
• 31:30
  And to some degree black families because there was more community support.
• 31:35
  And that, for me was a big takeaway.
• 31:37
  It was like, okay, that makes a lot of sense.
• 31:41
  So,
• 31:42
  Jane Strong: yeah, I think you're right.
• 31:43
  I think you're right.
• 31:44
  And I also think that, um, this whole notion of in a certain way,
• 31:50
  um, let's say upwardly mobile.
• 31:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 31:52
  Jane Strong: Middle class whites are extremely, like my family
• 31:57
  was, was my father was very poor.
• 31:59
  He came from Virginia, moved up north and got a job in the city
• 32:04
  because it was during the depression.
• 32:06
  And he came north and then it was like, how can we become independent and, and,
• 32:12
  and image driven, that's the other thing.
• 32:14
  Very image driven of I don't wanna go back there, I wanna look good.
• 32:19
  And the whole thing was to be homogeneous.
• 32:23
  It was to fit in.
• 32:24
  Which is another thing, another thing that I think causes back to the vets
• 32:29
  and for, they want, how do they fit in?
• 32:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:32
  When, what do they have to give up to fit in with civilian culture?
• 32:37
  And I think that's a big, that's a big loss of, of, uh,
• 32:42
  parts of ourselves in order to.
• 32:45
  Feel like we belong, but fitting in is different from belonging.
• 32:49
  Rupert Isaacson: It is, and I'm just, as you say that, I'm wondering, um,
• 32:53
  there's a chunk of your life I want to go to before we dive into the EQU effect.
• 32:57
  But, um,
• 33:01
  do you find now that with the first responders and the veterans groups
• 33:04
  that you work with, if they're coming out of Hispanic communities,
• 33:07
  are they also doing better because they don't need to have to fit in?
• 33:10
  Perhaps there is an existing network.
• 33:13
  Um, is it again, does it tend to be the Anglos who seem to be the most lost?
• 33:19
  Jane Strong: I never thought of it that way, but yes, I would say
• 33:21
  there's this sort of, this sort of, what I would say the part, and, and
• 33:26
  I agree with you that it's not just a toxic masculine, there's, there is
• 33:31
  definitely toxic feminine energy too.
• 33:33
  And I think that what we're trying to do is to, to let these
• 33:38
  people let that down a little bit.
• 33:40
  And I think the, the, the white males come in like this.
• 33:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:45
  Up and back, you know, rigid, cynical, you know, this, this
• 33:50
  arm folded kind of energy.
• 33:52
  And I would say that the Hispanics are, if I could think of it that way,
• 33:56
  they're more like, what are we gonna do?
• 33:58
  Like mm-hmm.
• 33:58
  What are we gonna do?
• 33:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 34:00
  Jane Strong: You know, and they're very curious.
• 34:02
  Plus, I think Hispanics in general have a more, um, grounded kind of energy.
• 34:09
  It's more of an earth-based kind of energy, a bit and more, you know.
• 34:14
  Just down to earth.
• 34:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's interesting that, that, I guess you talked
• 34:19
  about the rugged American thing.
• 34:20
  You talked about that Jeep image.
• 34:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:22
  And of course, what Hollywood sold from, I suppose, the depression
• 34:31
  through, that's because golden age of Hollywood is really the depression.
• 34:35
  Right.
• 34:35
  And then through to now is this image of separation that this, it is a
• 34:45
  hero or a heroine against the world.
• 34:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:48
  Typically that was a white hero or heroine.
• 34:51
  Increasingly.
• 34:52
  Now with pressures in Hollywood, that could be someone of another color, but
• 34:56
  it's, it's still presented the same way.
• 34:59
  Um, and that's a culture of separation.
• 35:00
  We all know that the people who were did what sort of Clint East would
• 35:05
  pretended to do in his movies died.
• 35:08
  They tended to die.
• 35:09
  If you went out into back country of Utah, you know, just with yourself
• 35:16
  and your horse and your six gun and a cigar, you probably didn't
• 35:21
  last more than about six weeks.
• 35:23
  Um, if you didn't have a bunch of people, the people who made it across the planes,
• 35:28
  in the wagon trains stuck together.
• 35:30
  And of course, the people they encountered.
• 35:32
  And eventually dispossessed, the Native Americans stuck together because they
• 35:37
  knew that if you were out there in the Utah back country by yourself for, you
• 35:41
  know, X amount of time without some backup, you're gonna die because it's
• 35:45
  an extreme climate and food is gas.
• 35:48
  Yeah.
• 35:48
  So, um, this idea, and what was interesting to me is,
• 35:52
  is the, the Europeans that came over in different waves.
• 35:55
  You know, we talk now about Hispanics coming over in waves, but before
• 35:59
  that it was, um, long before that it was Italians and Russians and Poles
• 36:05
  and Irish and whoever, anyone who was poor, who wanted to get the hell
• 36:10
  outta Europe, um, when Europe was poor and oppressive pre-World War ii.
• 36:16
  And what did they do?
• 36:18
  They stuck together.
• 36:19
  They came over, they created their own ghettos.
• 36:21
  They, they did exactly the process that you described mm-hmm.
• 36:24
  Um, in Miami.
• 36:25
  But, you know, it was Irish groups doing it for each other in New York
• 36:28
  or Boston, or it was, uh, you know, um, Italian groups doing it for
• 36:33
  each other in New York, et cetera.
• 36:35
  And because every, everyone out of that European, um, bracket, including
• 36:40
  the Eastern European bracket, has now to some degree made it including
• 36:45
  the sort of post 1990 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians,
• 36:50
  Ukrainians, and so on, who came over.
• 36:52
  Also worked very, very hard and have now made it into a sort of a,
• 36:55
  a stratosphere of economic culture.
• 36:57
  That's one of the great things about the USAs.
• 36:59
  There is a lot of opportunity, um, but they do it collectively.
• 37:04
  Yet the white males and females were sold.
• 37:10
  I think we were all sold a notion of the Clint Eastwood type rugged
• 37:16
  individual, which goes back to all of the Celtic, um, and Norse mythologies.
• 37:25
  You always have a hero figure who stands against the world like Cullen
• 37:29
  in the, the hound of Ulster in the Irish myth cycle, or, uh, Siegfried
• 37:34
  out of the ring cycle in Germany.
• 37:37
  But what happens to all those dudes?
• 37:39
  They all die.
• 37:41
  They all die with their backs against the wall and their guts around their, um, uh,
• 37:47
  around their feet surrounded indeed by a pile of their slain upon which they then
• 37:53
  lie on top because they're slain too.
• 37:54
  And then their, their grieving goddess female figure comes along and beats
• 38:01
  her breast and says, this is terrible, and so on, and then goes off and has
• 38:04
  their son who repeats the process.
• 38:06
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 38:07
  Rupert Isaacson: But it doesn't seem to have served us particularly well, and I
• 38:11
  bet you that a lot of the veterans and first responders who you are dealing
• 38:17
  with have believed that particular myth
• 38:22
  Jane Strong: mm-hmm.
• 38:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Since they were old enough to imbibe it
• 38:26
  somewhere pre 10 years old.
• 38:28
  Now suddenly they need tribe and they actually found it
• 38:34
  when they were in their units.
• 38:35
  Jane Strong: Yes,
• 38:36
  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
• 38:36
  And as you say so, so talk to us about that.
• 38:39
  Do they, do you, do you find that there is a, uh,
• 38:46
  an observation, a sort of acknowledgement?
• 38:48
  Do they notice that this is going on, that, that this was a myth they were
• 38:51
  sold and now have to abandon and rethink?
• 38:53
  Or does this come as a great surprise or are they not getting
• 38:58
  it, or, or points in between?
• 39:00
  Jane Strong: I think that they, well, that's, that's actually, this
• 39:03
  is a, these are big topics, right?
• 39:05
  These are real cultural topics.
• 39:08
  And the subculture of veterans and first responders is, yes, they
• 39:13
  went in to serve a higher purpose.
• 39:16
  Uh, that is why they went in, they want mm-hmm.
• 39:18
  The, the, the first responders wanna protect, they wanna serve,
• 39:22
  they wanna keep people safe.
• 39:24
  That's really their orientation.
• 39:25
  And, but it's a collective, it's a, it's a social thing that they're going in for.
• 39:31
  Um, and then they get into a tribe when, when they're in,
• 39:35
  when they're in the service.
• 39:37
  You know, the firehouse guys all eat together.
• 39:39
  They've got a big kitchen table.
• 39:41
  They solve things at the kitchen table, but unfortunately,
• 39:44
  they also get really drunk.
• 39:46
  And they also, they don't go home, you know?
• 39:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 39:50
  Jane Strong: They stay in the firehouse.
• 39:51
  And so they live this life, this sort of tribal life or
• 39:55
  community life of interdependence.
• 39:58
  And that's a key thing, is interdependence.
• 40:00
  Like, you can go to the gym with a bunch of people, but that's
• 40:04
  not, your survival isn't at stake.
• 40:06
  You know, you can have a bunch of, this is the, the key is you're
• 40:09
  protecting one another from the lions, from the what's out there.
• 40:14
  And I think military people in the, if they go overseas or
• 40:19
  whatever, they're living together.
• 40:20
  They're sleeping together.
• 40:22
  With their weapons and they know that whether you like the other guy or not,
• 40:26
  or the woman or not, you're gonna go on watch with that person and you're gonna
• 40:30
  lay down your life for that person.
• 40:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:33
  To protect the tribe or the community or the country.
• 40:37
  And actually it doesn't even, it's not even the country.
• 40:40
  It's your buddy.
• 40:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 40:41
  Jane Strong: That's who they're fighting for.
• 40:43
  And so when they come home and people, well one thing when people come home
• 40:48
  and say one thing and do another, which civilians do, we all do this,
• 40:53
  we say one thing, we do another.
• 40:55
  They don't, that doesn't compute for them.
• 40:57
  'cause it Is this
• 40:58
  Rupert Isaacson: something that's often expressed to you
• 40:59
  by the people you're working
• 41:00
  Jane Strong: with?
• 41:00
  Absolutely.
• 41:01
  Absolutely.
• 41:02
  And, and I actually, now I say it to them when I come in, I'm like, you know what?
• 41:06
  I know that when you come home, this transition into civilian life, I never
• 41:10
  talk about post-traumatic stress.
• 41:12
  I just talk about the transition.
• 41:14
  When you come home, people are out for themselves.
• 41:17
  They say one thing, they do another.
• 41:19
  And everybody's like, yeah.
• 41:21
  And then I'm like, and you're kind of the only one looking
• 41:24
  around, you know, for what might be dangerous or what's happening.
• 41:27
  And these people are all just kind of BSing about their own selves.
• 41:32
  And it's exhausting.
• 41:34
  And I tell them, I say this literally, I say, this is very
• 41:38
  expensive to your nervous system.
• 41:40
  And they're like, oh my God.
• 41:43
  Like, you got it.
• 41:44
  It's exhausting because it's like, if you had to interpret all
• 41:48
  the time, what does this mean?
• 41:50
  What are they really gonna do?
• 41:52
  How, you know, it's a very, it's confusing, it's frustrating.
• 41:55
  That's
• 41:55
  Rupert Isaacson: very similar for people with autism.
• 41:57
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 41:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Dealing with constant irony.
• 42:00
  Yeah.
• 42:01
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 42:02
  And, and constant like, uh, playing at something versus the more concrete,
• 42:11
  um, what are we gonna do about this?
• 42:14
  And this, the enemy is clear.
• 42:16
  And for the first responder, the danger is clear.
• 42:19
  Let's say they don't know, it's not necessarily an enemy, but there's
• 42:22
  something going on that they, that the others can't handle or shouldn't be
• 42:26
  handling and that they have to step in.
• 42:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 42:32
  Jane Strong: So there's, yeah.
• 42:32
  So there's this, this, this lower this, this sort of instinctive
• 42:36
  center that they're trained to operate from, that goes into action.
• 42:41
  And so if you think about interrupting that when they come back to civilian
• 42:45
  life, it's like, no, don't say that.
• 42:47
  No, don't do that.
• 42:49
  No.
• 42:50
  You know, and it, and it's very confusing and it's exhausting.
• 42:55
  Rupert Isaacson: No, it's interesting to me too.
• 42:57
  I'm just thinking about the military life.
• 42:58
  Um,
• 43:01
  the army, the services are notoriously corrupt.
• 43:07
  What I mean by that is.
• 43:09
  They don't reward me.
• 43:10
  Uh, initiative, it's all about towing the line.
• 43:15
  And unless you're in certain areas of special forces, it's um, if you
• 43:22
  step outta line, you'll be punished.
• 43:26
  And sometimes stepping out of line is necessary to save your buddy.
• 43:30
  So there's the enemy isn't just, uh, the terrorist over there or, or, or whoever
• 43:38
  Jane Strong: mm-hmm.
• 43:39
  Rupert Isaacson: That are the nation national soldier.
• 43:41
  It is.
• 43:42
  Um, also your higher command.
• 43:44
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 43:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, that there is an instinctive mistrust of
• 43:49
  the upper echelons of command.
• 43:51
  They're the people sitting back there telling you to go and die.
• 43:55
  They're the ones who are not supplying you.
• 43:57
  They're the ones who are, but you can then, of course, complain and
• 44:02
  feel a certain degree of entitlement because you have a supply line.
• 44:09
  Okay?
• 44:10
  It's corrupted, but it's there.
• 44:12
  And although they are playing silly games up there with your life or with the things
• 44:22
  that you need to go get the job done, and if you complain, you get in trouble.
• 44:26
  At the same time that does exist.
• 44:28
  Whereas of course, in civilian life, you are out there on your own.
• 44:33
  Yeah.
• 44:33
  And if you are in the first responders unit, you are
• 44:36
  somewhere in the middle of that.
• 44:38
  Do you find that, how, how do you do it?
• 44:41
  So there's three, three questions come to mind.
• 44:43
  When people are coming back from the service who have been enlisted, uh,
• 44:51
  service men and women who have that sense of them and us with their higher
• 44:58
  command as well as whoever they're fighting, how do they become aware of
• 45:03
  that entitlement within themselves and deal with it in a way that actually
• 45:08
  allows them to then deal with society where there is no chain of supply?
• 45:16
  Um, and no one actually is holding your hand and wiping your as
• 45:21
  Jane Strong: You mean, you mean the entitlement of, of
• 45:22
  a support system around you?
• 45:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Indeed, indeed.
• 45:25
  Of saying, well, you know, I, I hate those guys up there in the staff officers at the
• 45:31
  same time, a hundred percent rely on them.
• 45:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:33
  And the food will arrive and the pay will arrive and the mail will arrive and da,
• 45:38
  but it, but maybe they didn't supply us with enough of blah by the time we had
• 45:44
  to go into, and so we suffered in this operation because the higher ups there
• 45:49
  didn't give a shit enough and so on.
• 45:51
  And so, yeah, this, you hear a lot, right.
• 45:53
  Then of course you come into society.
• 45:56
  Society, no one gives a shit about you at all.
• 45:58
  There is no supply line.
• 46:00
  Um, perhaps you join the corporate world and then you find, no, that's just
• 46:04
  the same thing as the military world, but with no common purpose, really.
• 46:08
  Jane Strong: Um, no common purpose.
• 46:09
  And it's about money.
• 46:11
  Whereas the military is, you're, nobody gets rich in the, in the military.
• 46:15
  Right.
• 46:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 46:15
  Jane Strong: Corporate stuff is constantly driven by end results.
• 46:19
  You know, you know, it's, it's driven by a, um, you know,
• 46:24
  self-serving kind of thing.
• 46:25
  Yeah.
• 46:26
  So I would say, to answer your question, I would say everybody goes in with some
• 46:31
  idealized idea, what it's gonna be like.
• 46:33
  They're gonna be safer in numbers.
• 46:35
  They're gonna have order, which a lot of people from come,
• 46:39
  come from chaotic backgrounds.
• 46:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 46:41
  Jane Strong: So that's good point.
• 46:42
  And it may be, that's part of it.
• 46:44
  Some, for some people, some people, it's a tradition in the family.
• 46:48
  Everybody serves, particularly in the south, southwest, you have this
• 46:53
  more, um, of the United States.
• 46:55
  You have this more cultural tradition of serving.
• 46:58
  And for some people, I know three people who went into the military because
• 47:02
  they wanted to go to medical school.
• 47:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 47:04
  Jane Strong: And they, their families could not have provided that.
• 47:06
  So they go into the military, they get, they become docs
• 47:09
  or psychiatrists or whatever.
• 47:11
  So there's opportunity, there's getting away from chaos.
• 47:14
  There is also this desire, let's say after nine 11, I want to, I
• 47:19
  need to go do something about this.
• 47:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 47:22
  Jane Strong: So you have different motivations.
• 47:24
  It's not just like the last resort.
• 47:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 47:27
  Jane Strong: It's not like that.
• 47:28
  But I think what happens is when they get in, they realize it's kind of
• 47:32
  really flawed and very inefficient.
• 47:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:36
  And it's you, you sometimes have a stupid commander, and I've talked
• 47:40
  to all, particularly Vietnam vets.
• 47:42
  They're funny.
• 47:42
  They'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:44
  We just would get outta sight and then go somewhere else, you know?
• 47:47
  Yeah.
• 47:48
  Jane Strong: Our CO would say to do this.
• 47:50
  And we'd be like, yeah, yeah.
• 47:51
  You know, whatever.
• 47:52
  Yes sir.
• 47:52
  And then they'd go off and do some, they just hide or they
• 47:55
  do something else, you know?
• 47:56
  Crazy.
• 47:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 47:58
  Jane Strong: Crazy rebellion within the system.
• 48:01
  Right.
• 48:01
  But, um, I would say, and this also Sebastian y said in Tribe, is that
• 48:07
  the reason that they take their own lives is because of a sense of
• 48:11
  alienation and isolation from when they get home, because they're on
• 48:18
  their own and there's no playbook.
• 48:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 48:21
  Jane Strong: At least in the military, there's a playbook.
• 48:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 48:24
  And I think the same for the first responders, right.
• 48:26
  Because yeah, they're in the middle of society all the time, but
• 48:28
  they can't really talk to anyone about what they do because No.
• 48:31
  Who the hell understands.
• 48:33
  And we went through this, uh, again, in Texas when we started working
• 48:35
  with our Tech Keen, uh, uh, program.
• 48:39
  Um, it started with, um, veterans, but the farm where we did it out of, after
• 48:47
  we moved to Germany, we sort of moved the operation to a friend's ranch.
• 48:51
  Her husband happened to be, uh, a firefighter in Austin, and I
• 48:57
  realized very quickly that he was scraping brains off the highway
• 49:02
  Jane Strong: mm-hmm.
• 49:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Every Friday night.
• 49:05
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 49:05
  Rupert Isaacson: And trying not to disappear into a vodka
• 49:07
  bottle and be a family man.
• 49:10
  And, and, and, and the only people he could talk to about this were his mates.
• 49:14
  Yeah.
• 49:14
  And he was at the same time, expected to be a fully integrated member
• 49:21
  of, so people were grateful to him.
• 49:23
  People honored him for what he did, but he couldn't talk to anyone about it.
• 49:28
  Jane Strong: Right.
• 49:28
  Rupert Isaacson: And, um, that's, we realized that that sense of
• 49:31
  isolation within the community, sense of loneliness, um,
• 49:36
  Jane Strong: yes.
• 49:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Was huge.
• 49:37
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 49:38
  And that's another reason why I would say to anyone trying to do this,
• 49:42
  don't let anyone tell you that you have to be a firefighter or a law
• 49:46
  enforcement person or a military person to do this work because they
• 49:51
  don't need more talking to each other.
• 49:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 49:54
  Jane Strong: Honestly, in my opinion, in my view, that's interesting.
• 49:57
  They don't need more of that because they lapse into, ah, what I've seen.
• 50:02
  They lapse into the complaining, they lapse into the, you know,
• 50:07
  they go down this spiral.
• 50:09
  That's a
• 50:09
  Rupert Isaacson: bit what I meant by the entitlement route.
• 50:11
  Yeah,
• 50:11
  Jane Strong: yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:12
  They get into these conversations and we have, our program is,
• 50:16
  is 16 hour curriculum, which is four sessions of four hours each.
• 50:21
  There's plenty of time.
• 50:22
  And we sit, we go out, work with the horses, we teach
• 50:25
  people how horses operate.
• 50:26
  We do a big intro, then we have lunch, and then we show them a presentation
• 50:32
  or a, and have a big discussion we call emotional agility about dealing
• 50:36
  with, um, dealing with uncomfortable emotions or like fear, anger, you
• 50:42
  know, frustration, um, vulnerability.
• 50:45
  That's a big one.
• 50:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 50:47
  Um.
• 50:47
  Depression and suicidal urge.
• 50:50
  We address all these emotions and we give them, we use movie clips to do it.
• 50:54
  And it's funny and it's very, it's very engaging so they don't feel singled out.
• 50:59
  But then we start a big discussion about a different way to handle these things.
• 51:02
  Like, this comes up for all of us, how do you gonna handle it?
• 51:05
  And we give them somatic body-based tools to handle things and bring the prefrontal
• 51:10
  cortex back online before they just react.
• 51:13
  But having these discussions, those are productive.
• 51:16
  But when they sit at the lunch table, if you got a bunch of first
• 51:19
  responders, they're gonna lapse into these, you know, conversations about
• 51:24
  unfairness and about how stupid the boss is, or how the CEO blah blah blah.
• 51:29
  And we don't let those go on too long 'cause we're interested in moving forward,
• 51:35
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 51:35
  Jane Strong: Not backwards.
• 51:37
  And the table at the firehouse is a nice table, but it's probably
• 51:41
  not gonna lend itself to really processing and integrating things.
• 51:49
  Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
• 51:51
  considering a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
• 51:55
  taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
• 52:00
  Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
• 52:06
  Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
• 52:12
  developed in conjunction with Dr.
• 52:15
  Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
• 52:18
  We work in the saddle with younger children.
• 52:22
  Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
• 52:27
  It works incredibly well.
• 52:29
  It's now in about 40 countries.
• 52:31
  Check it out.
• 52:33
  If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
• 52:37
  method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
• 52:40
  applied in schools, in homes.
• 52:42
  If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
• 52:47
  at home that will create neuroplasticity.
• 52:50
  when they're not with you.
• 52:52
  Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
• 52:56
  If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
• 52:58
  really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
• 53:02
  in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
• 53:07
  So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
• 53:10
  also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
• 53:15
  And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
• 53:19
  am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
• 53:22
  need, as well as Serving my clients.
• 53:26
  Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
• 53:31
  absolutely gives you this.
• 53:32
  Let's.
• 53:34
  Back up a bit now with your life again.
• 53:36
  So you did this ethnographic research.
• 53:39
  You said that your dad came out of some poverty in Virginia.
• 53:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:43
  Came up north, wanted to kind of wasp, well, I guess he was
• 53:47
  a wasp, just not a wealthy one.
• 53:49
  Um, and for those weh Americans, he
• 53:51
  Jane Strong: was welshman.
• 53:52
  Okay.
• 53:53
  Rupert Isaacson: We white Anglo-Saxon Protestant is what that means.
• 53:55
  Yeah.
• 53:56
  And that's within the North American, particularly East coast, north
• 53:59
  America, or coastal North American.
• 54:00
  Uh, parlance means, um, the white dudes in charge effectively.
• 54:06
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 54:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, the, so he, he identified with that.
• 54:11
  But you grew up, you, you clearly have a horse background.
• 54:14
  You grew up in Connecticut.
• 54:15
  Um, Connecticut is outside of New York.
• 54:19
  So, um, some parts of Connecticut are incredibly moneyed.
• 54:23
  Greenwich, Connecticut, these kinds of areas, you know, billionaire areas, other
• 54:26
  parts of Connecticut are blue collar.
• 54:28
  Other parts of Connecticut are very wild, almost wilderness.
• 54:32
  Um, other parts of Connecticut are like fishermen.
• 54:35
  So you, it's a very small state.
• 54:36
  So you've got kind of all of that going on.
• 54:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:39
  Um, you end up being a sort of horse woman in that Connecticut area, which
• 54:45
  is, you know, a moneyed area for this.
• 54:47
  What's the trajectory?
• 54:48
  How do you end up in that horse world there?
• 54:50
  What do you end up doing for a living that then prepares you further to do this?
• 54:55
  And then I want to jump much more deeply into equi effect.
• 54:58
  Jane Strong: Sure.
• 54:58
  So actually I did grow, I grew up in New Jersey.
• 55:02
  I live in Connecticut now, but it's got a similar, similar, yeah.
• 55:05
  You know, it's got similar suburban kind of thing.
• 55:08
  It's bedroom communities to New York.
• 55:10
  And my dad moved out to New Jersey after being um, in Long Island for a while.
• 55:16
  And he, he, he just lived, he wound up in Long Island 'cause he married
• 55:20
  my mom who lived in Long Island.
• 55:21
  So then we moved to New Jersey and I was in a suburban community and my dad
• 55:27
  had this, he went to Virginia Tech.
• 55:30
  I don't even know how he got there, I don't think.
• 55:32
  I had no idea because I wi and I wish I'd asked him, but I have no idea how
• 55:36
  he wound up at V Virginia Tech and he, um, got, came back, came up to New York.
• 55:44
  He was one of eight children and he's the only one of eight who had children.
• 55:49
  So that tells you a little bit about how strange that and how
• 55:53
  much the poverty was around him.
• 55:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Whereabouts in Virginia?
• 55:57
  What, what was he from?
• 55:58
  Jane Strong: Between Charlottesville and Richmond.
• 56:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 56:01
  Yeah.
• 56:01
  That's the poor, that's still to this day, a poor area of Virginia.
• 56:04
  Jane Strong: Very blink your eyes and you go past the town.
• 56:06
  Yeah,
• 56:06
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
• 56:07
  Jane Strong: yeah,
• 56:07
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 56:08
  Jane Strong: Um, I think he went to bed hungry.
• 56:10
  Um, I think it was abject and I think they barely made it, but he went up north.
• 56:15
  He's the only one who came up north during the depression.
• 56:18
  And when he got to, and he got a job in banking and so then we, we
• 56:24
  wound up moving to New Jersey and um.
• 56:28
  He, I was 13 years younger than my sister and 14 years younger than my brother.
• 56:33
  And my father was kind of like doing well, he was doing well in this bank.
• 56:37
  He was a loan officer, VP in the bank.
• 56:39
  And he, I think, had this idea he was gonna turn me into a southern bell, like
• 56:45
  I was gonna become his unfulfilled dream.
• 56:50
  And, um, so he, I had dancing lessons, my sister and brother did not.
• 56:56
  Um, I had, uh, piano lessons and I had, and then he asked
• 57:02
  me if I wanted to have a horse.
• 57:03
  And I was like, what?
• 57:05
  Are you kidding me?
• 57:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 57:06
  So I had gone to camp also.
• 57:08
  I'd gone to camp and that's when I first started riding.
• 57:10
  And, you know, we'd fall off and I'd laugh and get back on and other kids
• 57:14
  were like, you know, this is not for me.
• 57:17
  So I just loved it.
• 57:18
  And so when he said that, I was like this, I was over the moon.
• 57:21
  Um, and so, uh, I wound up keeping my horse.
• 57:26
  I had this horse that actually we bought in Virginia, and I don't even
• 57:29
  know, I don't even know what breed he was, but he was this coppery yellow
• 57:35
  Palomino that who was beautiful.
• 57:38
  Probably some combination of a Tennessee walking horse and something else.
• 57:42
  I don't even know.
• 57:43
  He was just big.
• 57:45
  He was big.
• 57:46
  And I, so he bought me this horse.
• 57:48
  We started, he was four.
• 57:50
  And um.
• 57:52
  I started to train him kind of on my own, you know?
• 57:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 57:56
  And, and he would jump over the moon, just jump over the moon.
• 57:59
  He was never hit a jump.
• 58:01
  He was wildly by himself.
• 58:03
  He'd go out and jump.
• 58:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 58:05
  Jane Strong: And I kind of chickened out at four feet.
• 58:08
  Rupert Isaacson: I didn't
• 58:08
  Jane Strong: really was big
• 58:09
  Rupert Isaacson: enough.
• 58:09
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 58:09
  That was big enough.
• 58:10
  So anyway, but he was terrific and, um, I had a great time and I did ride a
• 58:15
  little bit in on the, I talked to you a little about fox hunting, which I wish
• 58:19
  that we could have just kept it a sport.
• 58:21
  I wish that we could have.
• 58:22
  I rode as a guest rider out at Spring Valley, which I think is still operating.
• 58:26
  It's a hunting thing out in western New Jersey, but mm-hmm.
• 58:29
  We lived in the suburbs and I didn't have a way to get out there.
• 58:31
  So I showed him in, um, hunter jumper classes and I was, I was then an
• 58:41
  outsider, um, because I had a yellow horse and they all had grays and bays.
• 58:50
  Chestnuts and they hated pinning me.
• 58:53
  They hated it because, but he was so, pinning
• 58:56
  Rupert Isaacson: me is giving you a a a ribbon.
• 58:57
  A ribbon.
• 58:58
  Jane Strong: They hated it because I didn't fit with the
• 59:01
  norm and I had a plaid jacket.
• 59:04
  I didn't have a, you know, regular hunt color jacket, black or whatever.
• 59:09
  And I just was this sort of renegade kid who didn't really even have lessons.
• 59:13
  I just did this.
• 59:14
  And he would win because he would change leads perfectly.
• 59:18
  He would, he was fast and he would go over the center of the, I mean, he was
• 59:22
  so good that they couldn't not pin us.
• 59:25
  Um, and then, um, so I did that for three, four years.
• 59:30
  And then, um, I was very scrawny, very late to develop, and this makes me sort
• 59:37
  of sad to say, talk about this, but I've talked about it a million times
• 59:42
  on a therapist couch and other places.
• 59:44
  But anyway, I, I stole this ponytail, this $4 ponytail from a store with my
• 59:52
  sister drove me, and I stole this thing, and I got caught and it was a $4 item.
• 59:57
  And the guy who was the security guy in the store said, um, you could go to jail.
• 1:00:05
  And I mean, I never, I've never been so frightened in my life.
• 1:00:09
  How
• 1:00:09
  Rupert Isaacson: old were you?
• 1:00:10
  Jane Strong: 13.
• 1:00:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh.
• 1:00:12
  Jane Strong: So I, I was just, I can remember to this day that sensory
• 1:00:16
  memory stuff of sitting in this chair with this bright light on me
• 1:00:21
  and this guy telling me this stuff.
• 1:00:24
  Anyway, my sister took me home and they must have called
• 1:00:26
  my father when I got home.
• 1:00:27
  And I was his darling.
• 1:00:29
  You know, I was his, he was my only ally in the family.
• 1:00:33
  'cause everyone else was kind of jealous of this treatment I got.
• 1:00:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 1:00:37
  Jane Strong: And I went home and he just was so upset with me.
• 1:00:41
  And he was, I can remember his face like coming down close to me.
• 1:00:46
  He was six three dark eyes dark, that black Welsh, you know, dark
• 1:00:50
  color, um, coming down at me and just telling me that no one in our
• 1:00:56
  family had ever stolen anything and, um, ever hard to believe when you
• 1:01:02
  grew up with that kind of poverty.
• 1:01:04
  But he told me that.
• 1:01:05
  And then he said this thing, and I'd always had this sort of sense
• 1:01:08
  of like, you know, Jesus was a good guy and he was a renegade like me.
• 1:01:12
  And, you know, I'd be off galloping through the woods and, you know,
• 1:01:16
  just that I just had this great sense of being safe in a certain way.
• 1:01:21
  And I went to Sunday school, but I, I wouldn't say I was devout or
• 1:01:24
  anything, I just had a good feeling.
• 1:01:26
  And then he said, you know, Jesus has probably never forgive you for this.
• 1:01:31
  And I was like, oh my God.
• 1:01:33
  And he handed me a Bible and I just, I think I lost my footing.
• 1:01:40
  I lost my footing and I felt that I was just a thief.
• 1:01:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh.
• 1:01:48
  Jane Strong: So that,
• 1:01:49
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm so sorry.
• 1:01:50
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  That was a turning point.
• 1:01:53
  And I'm saying, so
• 1:01:54
  Rupert Isaacson: then what happened?
• 1:01:54
  Yeah.
• 1:01:54
  What, what, what did, what did that, what events did that kick off?
• 1:01:57
  Jane Strong: I just felt like it didn't matter what I did and that I would never
• 1:02:01
  be inside of anything or see or protected.
• 1:02:04
  Rupert Isaacson: So then despair effectively.
• 1:02:05
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:02:06
  De despair, depression, and, and a lot of rebellion, a lot of, a lot
• 1:02:10
  of envy at people who were inside.
• 1:02:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:13
  So the origin of the being outsider wasn't because I, I like being an
• 1:02:18
  individual and I was independent, but I didn't feel outside until then.
• 1:02:23
  And I think a lot of people, I'm telling you this because a lot of people, I think
• 1:02:27
  have a turning point where things drop out from under us that feel where we thought
• 1:02:36
  we were safe or we were protected or whatever, and then we weren't, you know?
• 1:02:40
  Or
• 1:02:41
  Rupert Isaacson: did your father's attitude to you change completely?
• 1:02:44
  Did he like withdraw love from that point and that, was
• 1:02:46
  this that, or did he actually.
• 1:02:48
  He forgot about it.
• 1:02:49
  Went straight back to being kind of your regular dad, but it
• 1:02:51
  was you who was carrying this?
• 1:02:53
  Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  Which one was it?
• 1:02:55
  Jane Strong: He thought that?
• 1:02:56
  He said to me 10 years later, he said to me, and he was crying, he
• 1:03:01
  said to me 10 years later, you know, I came to you the next morning and
• 1:03:05
  told you that things would be okay.
• 1:03:06
  And I looked at him and I said, I don't remember that.
• 1:03:10
  I was so, I was so gone that I
• 1:03:15
  Rupert Isaacson: didn't, well, cortisol, cortisol is a strong ass drug.
• 1:03:17
  Yes.
• 1:03:17
  I mean, you know, if you get it, enough of it flowing through
• 1:03:21
  you, your rational brain is gone.
• 1:03:24
  Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  You know,
• 1:03:24
  Jane Strong: I didn't hear anything.
• 1:03:25
  I never thought the sun would come up.
• 1:03:27
  That's what I felt like.
• 1:03:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:28
  So it was a very big turning point for me where I felt like at first,
• 1:03:33
  like the world was my oyster.
• 1:03:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:35
  Jane Strong: You know, and there was nothing but what I wanted to do, and
• 1:03:38
  I could do sort of whatever I wanted.
• 1:03:41
  And then all of a sudden it was like the doors closed and
• 1:03:43
  I felt like I was just a thief.
• 1:03:45
  So I went through the motions.
• 1:03:47
  I, I actually wound up losing my interest in riding in a way.
• 1:03:51
  I just didn't, I didn't, I just lost my life.
• 1:03:56
  Joy.
• 1:03:56
  Yeah.
• 1:03:57
  Joy.
• 1:03:57
  And, um, so I sold my horse and I wound up going to this girl's private
• 1:04:01
  school because a day school, because I just wasn't studying in school.
• 1:04:06
  I was so wrapped up in the horses and I never saw him again.
• 1:04:09
  Um, so then I started to live a life that was not my dream.
• 1:04:16
  Um, I think, like you said about your mom, it's like when you live a life
• 1:04:20
  that isn't really your dream, you know, that you kind of, it's expensive to your
• 1:04:25
  nervous system and it takes its toll.
• 1:04:27
  So I wound up going to school and I, you know, I went to college in Boston and
• 1:04:32
  then, um, went out to California for a while and then came back and got a job
• 1:04:36
  in advertising in the city, and then started to do this ethnographic research.
• 1:04:40
  And I think because I felt like I was an outsider, I could go into
• 1:04:44
  any other culture and feel Yeah, you know, what's up with you.
• 1:04:49
  Rupert Isaacson: It's really interesting that, um, some, if, if someone looked at
• 1:04:52
  your life, you know, from the outside and said, okay, look, white woman doing well
• 1:04:56
  lives in Connecticut, uh, has horses, has the time and leisure in her life to
• 1:05:03
  put together a therapeutic riding thing.
• 1:05:05
  Grew up with horses, dah, dah, dah, looks like a wasp.
• 1:05:10
  They would never think that you had any sort of outsider, um, energy.
• 1:05:16
  And I think this is an important point to make because compassion
• 1:05:22
  isn't always about what's obvious.
• 1:05:27
  And your story about that incident with your dad reminds me of a very
• 1:05:32
  dear friend of mine who had a not dissimilar run in with her father,
• 1:05:37
  um, at a similar age and felt that there was a huge withdrawal of love.
• 1:05:44
  And sent her down a path, um, which perhaps he might have
• 1:05:55
  thought when he looked back on it.
• 1:05:58
  Oh, well that was just an incident.
• 1:05:59
  That was just a, a moment of anger, you know, because no one was struck,
• 1:06:05
  no one was, you know, um, but the force of the anger and the emotion
• 1:06:10
  was strong enough, you know, and
• 1:06:15
  when one is dealing, say with, uh, veterans, one of the questions
• 1:06:21
  that comes up, you know, can be, well, did you see combat?
• 1:06:24
  And by only, only a very small number of veterans see combat, most people
• 1:06:31
  who serve don't serve in that way.
• 1:06:34
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:06:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, but it doesn't mean that when they come back, they don't feel
• 1:06:39
  the same sense of alienation because of a lot of the things that we just described.
• 1:06:44
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 1:06:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Or if someone is working for the police or the fire
• 1:06:47
  department and so on, and, and they have, uh, a good job and it's got lots
• 1:06:53
  of benefits and they have a steady income and they're doing quite well and they
• 1:06:57
  get a lot of respect in the community and they have all their buddies, how
• 1:07:00
  would they feel a sense of alienation?
• 1:07:02
  So something I, it's very interesting that when you tell your story of
• 1:07:07
  this sort of horsey girl in the New Jersey suburbs, who by all.
• 1:07:10
  Accounts is pretty privileged despite her father having made the money.
• 1:07:15
  You know, nonetheless, um, compassion requires us to see
• 1:07:22
  beyond those sorts of veneers.
• 1:07:23
  Yeah.
• 1:07:24
  Um, when it's, it's not so obvious because then we will be more likely to see when
• 1:07:29
  it's not so obvious in somebody else.
• 1:07:31
  And so maybe that having happened to you kind of qualified you in
• 1:07:35
  a, in a funny way for this job because you can see the nuances.
• 1:07:39
  Jane Strong: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:07:40
  Yeah.
• 1:07:40
  Rupert Isaacson: How did you return to horses?
• 1:07:43
  Jane Strong: Well, that was so I never could imagine.
• 1:07:46
  The thing is, I could never imagine.
• 1:07:48
  So the feeling was, and I think that this is really important, is that, you
• 1:07:52
  know, this back in a way to when we were talking about this perfectionism
• 1:07:57
  that you see now with people is that no one feels good enough, you know?
• 1:08:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:02
  In a certain way.
• 1:08:03
  And I think I can see that in people very easily because I remember it so well
• 1:08:09
  and I know that what it feels like to feel less than, or an outsider or, you
• 1:08:15
  know, I just know it, I know it in my bones and I have great compassion for it.
• 1:08:21
  And I think that, you know, I'm all for people becoming individuals truly
• 1:08:27
  following your passion or your dream.
• 1:08:30
  Um, and so anyway, but I, so we try to help.
• 1:08:35
  The folks we work with find that for themselves, whatever that means.
• 1:08:38
  Whatever it means, it's not what it means to me.
• 1:08:40
  What's what it means to them.
• 1:08:42
  Um, so I think for me, so I went into the, so I went to college, wound up in this
• 1:08:47
  New York City, married a guy who lived in Greenwich, who was not, he was, he
• 1:08:52
  couldn't wait to get back to California.
• 1:08:54
  So that marriage didn't last too long.
• 1:08:56
  We moved into the city and I thought the advertising business would be
• 1:08:59
  fun because the people were sort of renegades in the advertising business.
• 1:09:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:09:02
  They weren't, they were wearing cowboy boots to work.
• 1:09:05
  I mean, they were, they were sort of fun, different people, not corporate.
• 1:09:10
  So I got a job there and then realized that what I loved was to
• 1:09:13
  do research and find out what made people tick, you know, and, and that.
• 1:09:17
  And so I did that for a while and then went out on my own and had my
• 1:09:20
  own independent research company.
• 1:09:22
  And I did that for 30 years.
• 1:09:25
  Okay.
• 1:09:25
  Um, and, and I was always, I, you know, I also worked with eBay when
• 1:09:29
  they started, and those people were all these really fringy people who were
• 1:09:34
  at flea markets and they've suddenly got a computer and learned to write
• 1:09:38
  and learn to describe their products.
• 1:09:39
  So they, and they became the breadwinners sometimes 'cause of eBay.
• 1:09:43
  You know, I did, did all sorts of different kinds of research with lots of
• 1:09:47
  different kinds of people and always their stories were always really interesting
• 1:09:52
  to me of how did you get where you are, you know, that kind of thing.
• 1:09:55
  So anyway, I did that and I liked that part of the job.
• 1:09:59
  I didn't like the part of the job that was about selling things to
• 1:10:02
  people, like how can we manipulate this into something we can sell?
• 1:10:06
  But I love doing the, in the research.
• 1:10:08
  So I did that for a bunch of years.
• 1:10:10
  And then, um, I met this guy when I, then I was living in Connecticut,
• 1:10:16
  in Westport, um, and I met this guy who had access to horses over in
• 1:10:20
  Westchester County, in Bedford, New York, big estates, big pieces of land.
• 1:10:26
  And I, and I was like, sure, I'll get back on a horse.
• 1:10:29
  But I just couldn't see how I would do that before, without competing.
• 1:10:33
  I just didn't know any other way.
• 1:10:35
  And, um, I knew I didn't wanna do that.
• 1:10:37
  And so anyway, so then I went to, uh, went riding with this guy and I was, my
• 1:10:43
  head was scared to death with stories.
• 1:10:46
  Oh, you're this old equestrian, you don't know what you're doing and you know,
• 1:10:50
  blah, blah, blah, going on in my head.
• 1:10:52
  But when I sat on the horse, my body just was like, you got this.
• 1:10:58
  I was like, isn't that interesting that my body is saying something
• 1:11:02
  different from my head?
• 1:11:04
  And so I get on this horse and he went off, you know, cheerfully.
• 1:11:09
  Um, and we went out on the trails.
• 1:11:11
  And then when I came back I just, I was so elated to be back on a horse and it felt
• 1:11:19
  so right, not just good, it felt right.
• 1:11:23
  And, um, I got this message, which I have no idea where it came from.
• 1:11:28
  I got this message, it's not just good for you, it's good for everyone.
• 1:11:33
  And I was like, okay, so what does that mean?
• 1:11:36
  Um, and he gave me a, uh, this guy I met.
• 1:11:40
  Unfortunately I wasn't interested in him, but I loved coming back to the horses.
• 1:11:45
  He kind of was a byproduct of this.
• 1:11:47
  But, um, he gave me this book, the Man Who Listens to Horses,
• 1:11:50
  which is the story of Mon Roberts.
• 1:11:52
  And, um.
• 1:11:54
  I devoured it because I had no idea about being anything, but
• 1:11:58
  you're, you know, I love my horse, but you're gonna do what I want.
• 1:12:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:12:01
  Jane Strong: You know, it was that kind of traditional thing.
• 1:12:05
  And, um, so anyway, I, um, read the book crying, you know, how
• 1:12:10
  could I have ever not known this?
• 1:12:12
  And, you know, very emotional.
• 1:12:14
  And then I went out to, to work with him in a clinic to work with Monty Roberts in
• 1:12:19
  California in a clinic, a five day clinic.
• 1:12:21
  And there's all these track people and trainers and, uh, you know, breeders and,
• 1:12:27
  you know, he's, he's a piece of work.
• 1:12:29
  Monty Roberts is.
• 1:12:30
  But anyway, so we're one day, and I haven't ridden except like this
• 1:12:35
  casual few times out on these trails.
• 1:12:38
  I, so I go to this clinic with him and he's, we, we had one day to
• 1:12:42
  learn how to do this join up thing.
• 1:12:44
  And, uh, I was like in a panic because I was this rusty old equestrian, right.
• 1:12:51
  And he's got us with these lines, those lines that, the
• 1:12:55
  web lines that are very light.
• 1:12:58
  And, um, and I was, by the time I, by the time I was halfway through, I was wrapped
• 1:13:04
  like a cocoon with this rope around me because I couldn't throw it properly.
• 1:13:08
  And the, and it was very crazy.
• 1:13:11
  But I did it.
• 1:13:13
  And in doing it, I was like, ah, I get this, you know?
• 1:13:18
  And so.
• 1:13:19
  I watched, so I tried, I did it myself.
• 1:13:22
  And you know, he did all sorts of things with us that shouldn't have been done
• 1:13:26
  with people who weren't experienced.
• 1:13:28
  And I was not, again, I was new.
• 1:13:30
  And so, um, but I, what I did notice when he was working with other people was that
• 1:13:36
  I could see what center of intelligence people were overusing or underusing.
• 1:13:42
  Like if your body is overusing the body center, the horse goes
• 1:13:47
  like this, if you're too much in the body, and I could see it.
• 1:13:53
  And he, he, these people would scare the horses, right?
• 1:13:56
  And, and he's yelling at them and I'm like, I can see why this is happening.
• 1:14:00
  They just need to tone that down.
• 1:14:03
  And then I could see when they were overusing their heart, like they wanted
• 1:14:07
  their horse to like them, you could see the energy coming out from their heart.
• 1:14:12
  And then if they were too much in their heads and not in their bodies
• 1:14:15
  at all, a horse was like, I don't know, you know, where are you?
• 1:14:18
  It's like a potato chip, chip act.
• 1:14:20
  Right?
• 1:14:20
  You know?
• 1:14:21
  And um, so I was like, well, what do I do with this?
• 1:14:26
  So I wrote him a long letter.
• 1:14:28
  They were very strange, the, the guarding, their sort of secrets and
• 1:14:33
  their way of doing things and said, so I said, look, I'm seeing some things
• 1:14:36
  here that I think might be useful.
• 1:14:38
  And they said, well, write us a letter.
• 1:14:39
  So I wrote this 12 page letter to them about seeing this, how good
• 1:14:44
  this was for people to recognize when they were over or underusing their
• 1:14:48
  bodies or their hearts or their minds.
• 1:14:50
  And I never heard back from them.
• 1:14:52
  So I was like, I was kind of crying again, like, what am I doing?
• 1:14:55
  And then I wound up getting this book, the Dao of EQU and
• 1:15:00
  Linda Hanoff work in Tucson.
• 1:15:02
  And I was like, this is what I wanna do.
• 1:15:05
  And so I went out there and I did her apprenticeship and I was
• 1:15:09
  rewired, I think from doing that.
• 1:15:12
  Um,
• 1:15:12
  Rupert Isaacson: what rewired you about her work?
• 1:15:13
  I mean, I, I know her and I know her work is very good and I know lots of
• 1:15:17
  people who benefited from it, but I'm always very interested to know what
• 1:15:20
  people's personal experiences, what, what felt, what was the rewiring process?
• 1:15:25
  Jane Strong: I think mostly it was the space she was in, the space
• 1:15:29
  where the horses were so respected.
• 1:15:31
  Um, I, you could feel it palpably feel that these horses hadn't had a
• 1:15:37
  say in things that we were asking, that we weren't dominating, that
• 1:15:43
  we were, um, using our intuition.
• 1:15:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:49
  Jane Strong: You know, when she would say, what's your heart's desire?
• 1:15:51
  I'd be like, I don't know.
• 1:15:53
  You know, and you kind of have to.
• 1:15:57
  Sink in to what was really going on inside and what do I want and where
• 1:16:04
  am, you know, but very internal because she's a very, um, she's a very
• 1:16:09
  sort of half horse kind of person.
• 1:16:11
  She's a very, but she's very, she's not like effusive,
• 1:16:16
  she's not overusing her heart.
• 1:16:17
  She uses her intuition a lot and trusts it and is very bright in her observations.
• 1:16:23
  Um, but she doesn't interfere.
• 1:16:25
  She really doesn't interfere with anything.
• 1:16:27
  And, um, so anyway, I, so I went out there and I was doing this work and
• 1:16:31
  watching other people work, and you watch some pretty wild stuff happen
• 1:16:34
  with the horses by their choice.
• 1:16:37
  Um, and I think that.
• 1:16:39
  Well, such as, well even with me, uh, she had this old Mustang
• 1:16:44
  called Noche who'd been running drugs between Mexico and Arizona.
• 1:16:48
  And, uh, that was her husband's horse.
• 1:16:50
  And he was this old 30 5-year-old Mustang.
• 1:16:53
  Couldn't pat him, couldn't touch him.
• 1:16:55
  He's like, no body work, you know, he walked like a mule
• 1:16:59
  because he was so stiff.
• 1:17:01
  But they, he didn't want anybody to do anything.
• 1:17:03
  But he was very wise.
• 1:17:05
  And I went into the round pen, and that was the other thing.
• 1:17:08
  We went in individually into the round pen, which we don't do really.
• 1:17:11
  Um, but he, I went in and I was feeling upset about the fact that I hadn't put
• 1:17:19
  this dog down soon enough that I had, and, you know, selling this horse when
• 1:17:23
  I was a kid and I never saw him again.
• 1:17:25
  And I just felt like full of guilt.
• 1:17:30
  And I, and he was standing there and he turned his back on me and walked away.
• 1:17:36
  And I was like, well, okay.
• 1:17:39
  And then he turned back to me and I heard, I don't know if he said this, I
• 1:17:44
  just heard it's not guilt that matters.
• 1:17:47
  It's ignorance.
• 1:17:49
  Guilt is a waste of time.
• 1:17:52
  Focus on ignorance.
• 1:17:54
  And I was like, okay.
• 1:17:57
  You know, so it was this strange vibe in that place of.
• 1:18:03
  Allowing nonverbal or beyond verbal communication to start to happen
• 1:18:08
  or being open to it, that I would never have said, but that's what
• 1:18:13
  he said to me, and he was right.
• 1:18:16
  Rupert Isaacson: What do you think it meant?
• 1:18:17
  What do you think it meant?
• 1:18:18
  That, that
• 1:18:20
  Jane Strong: I think that we do, I think when we waste time in guilt, um,
• 1:18:24
  versus like healthy remorse or making amends, you know, that's good to do that.
• 1:18:28
  Make amends be be honest about what you did and try to make it right.
• 1:18:34
  Living amends or verbal amends.
• 1:18:36
  I think what he was saying to me was, you're wasting your time.
• 1:18:40
  Like, all these regrets, that's then this is now and book.
• 1:18:46
  Yeah.
• 1:18:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Go, go ahead.
• 1:18:48
  Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
• 1:18:49
  Jane Strong: You know, just focus on, focus on learning
• 1:18:52
  more, focusing on getting wiser.
• 1:18:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, that, that was gonna be my question.
• 1:18:56
  What do you think he meant by ignorance?
• 1:18:58
  Jane Strong: I think he meant going through the motions of what other people
• 1:19:02
  are doing or, or, you know, um, just get, get wiser about how things really are.
• 1:19:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:19:12
  Okay.
• 1:19:12
  Jane Strong: I, I think that's really what I think he meant, and that's what
• 1:19:15
  I've been doing since, is like, okay,
• 1:19:16
  Rupert Isaacson: so then you, you, you came back from Tucson,
• 1:19:19
  from Linda's place, then what?
• 1:19:22
  Jane Strong: Well then I, then I went for a year.
• 1:19:24
  It was, it's a year long program.
• 1:19:25
  I went five days and in the second time we went down, we had to conduct a workshop.
• 1:19:30
  And I'm like, what?
• 1:19:31
  So they were right behind us, but we had to conduct a workshop and we did
• 1:19:34
  this thing with cancer survivors and I couldn't believe that the horses
• 1:19:38
  were hanging over the fence waiting to see these cancer survivors.
• 1:19:42
  And I was like, wow, these horses get it.
• 1:19:46
  They get that these people have been through stuff and that their
• 1:19:49
  priorities have changed and that the, the facade and the veneer is gone.
• 1:19:54
  And they were amazing with these people who thought about what they
• 1:20:00
  could do, not what they couldn't do, and they came back into their bodies.
• 1:20:03
  'cause you kinda have to leave your body when you've got cancer.
• 1:20:05
  You have to leave and let them do what they do to get
• 1:20:09
  rid of the disease, you know?
• 1:20:11
  And so they were very, very grateful to be invited back in.
• 1:20:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:20:20
  Jane Strong: Anyway, so I did that and then we learned about, we learned,
• 1:20:22
  she taught us about a whole bunch of different stuff, including somatic
• 1:20:25
  experiencing work with Peter Levine.
• 1:20:27
  She taught us about a lot of different opportunities for us to get
• 1:20:30
  Rupert Isaacson: quickly.
• 1:20:30
  For people who dunno what that is.
• 1:20:32
  Give us the quick skinny, what is somatic work?
• 1:20:34
  So
• 1:20:34
  Jane Strong: somatic experiencing is a training institute that where
• 1:20:37
  you can learn to work with the body and the nervous system work to work
• 1:20:41
  with trauma as opposed to the mind.
• 1:20:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:20:43
  You're working with the amygdala, with the, with the fear response
• 1:20:46
  fight or flight and freeze response.
• 1:20:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:20:49
  And so anyway, I wound up going to school to learn that and I became a certified
• 1:20:53
  somatic experiencing practitioner, which fits very well with the three
• 1:20:56
  centers that I'm talking about.
• 1:20:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:20:59
  And the, and the body-based reactions to trauma or whatever.
• 1:21:05
  Um, so anyway, what
• 1:21:07
  Rupert Isaacson: three centers are you talking about?
• 1:21:09
  Jane Strong: Body, the gut, let's say.
• 1:21:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:21:11
  The lower the bo the, this part of the body down here.
• 1:21:15
  The heart and the mind.
• 1:21:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, got it.
• 1:21:19
  Jane Strong: And so
• 1:21:19
  Rupert Isaacson: the three parts of the brain basically.
• 1:21:21
  Jane Strong: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:21
  Exactly.
• 1:21:22
  Exactly.
• 1:21:22
  So, so I came back and I thought, well, I'm gonna do some workshops and
• 1:21:26
  then I'm gonna quit my job and I'm gonna just do this and you know this.
• 1:21:30
  And then it turned out by
• 1:21:31
  Rupert Isaacson: then you had horses again.
• 1:21:33
  Jane Strong: I bought a horse.
• 1:21:34
  Yes.
• 1:21:34
  Because when I went in the training, I knew I needed to
• 1:21:37
  ha, I wanted to tackle a horse.
• 1:21:38
  So I did.
• 1:21:38
  And I came back and I started to try to do workshops, but nobody
• 1:21:42
  knew what I was talking about.
• 1:21:43
  This is 2005 six.
• 1:21:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:21:46
  Jane Strong: Nobody knew what I was talking about.
• 1:21:48
  And
• 1:21:48
  Rupert Isaacson: you were keeping this at a horse, at a
• 1:21:49
  farm of your own where you had
• 1:21:51
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:21:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Control of the environment or you
• 1:21:53
  were at a boarding barn?
• 1:21:55
  Jane Strong: I was at a boarding barn, but the woman was very
• 1:21:57
  much into re rescuing PMU Falls.
• 1:22:00
  Okay.
• 1:22:01
  So there were a lot of horses there who were,
• 1:22:03
  Rupert Isaacson: and again, for the British and other people who, dunno what
• 1:22:05
  that is, just say what that is please.
• 1:22:07
  Jane Strong: That's pregnant mares urine, which is pr the product
• 1:22:11
  of a, a drug company that's for, uh, menopause symptoms.
• 1:22:15
  It's pre Premarin, um, progesterone and estrogen.
• 1:22:20
  And they take, they harvest the urine from pregnant mares in Canada.
• 1:22:24
  And then they do, and then they get the urine and then the fos are the byproduct.
• 1:22:28
  So they destroy them or sell 'em to auction.
• 1:22:30
  They, Fred take 'em to auction.
• 1:22:32
  So she was taking those falls and raising them.
• 1:22:35
  And so there was, there was, it was a boarding barn, but she had her own horses
• 1:22:39
  and we would work with those horses and my horse and we did a few workshops.
• 1:22:44
  There was no quitting my day job.
• 1:22:46
  Um, that wasn't gonna happen.
• 1:22:48
  And um, so I did that.
• 1:22:50
  And then, um, in 2008.
• 1:22:54
  When the economy collapsed in the United States.
• 1:22:57
  Also, at the same time, my work had sort of ebbed because of that.
• 1:23:02
  And I saw that statistic of 22 suicides a day.
• 1:23:06
  And I said to the person who became my partner, David,
• 1:23:10
  this is what we're gonna do.
• 1:23:11
  We're gonna create a nonprofit and we're gonna do this because these people need
• 1:23:16
  to have their circuits rewired, not fixed.
• 1:23:21
  They need to have, they need, they need bigger access to more of themselves and
• 1:23:26
  to settle down and see what's possible.
• 1:23:30
  Rupert Isaacson: And then you started the EQU effect.
• 1:23:32
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:23:33
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 1:23:33
  So this is like part two.
• 1:23:36
  I want to know all about the program.
• 1:23:39
  Tell us what you do.
• 1:23:42
  Jane Strong: Well, what we do is we have groups of veterans, or in
• 1:23:46
  this case now first responders.
• 1:23:48
  And they can be mixed sometimes 'cause sometimes it's both.
• 1:23:51
  Um, but we have folks come out to the, to our farm.
• 1:23:54
  I, I then wound up with my, my life partner John, buying a place
• 1:23:59
  in Connecticut that's 65 acres.
• 1:24:02
  There was no doing this in the suburbs.
• 1:24:03
  That's, that wasn't gonna happen.
• 1:24:06
  I needed a dedicated space where it was confidential.
• 1:24:10
  Where people could feel safe.
• 1:24:12
  And the safety is the green and the privacy.
• 1:24:16
  Um, so doing it a, I tried starting it at a barn where I was boarding
• 1:24:20
  my horse, who I have now, who's up here before we fix this barn up.
• 1:24:24
  But it's very hard to do this work at a commercial barn.
• 1:24:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 1:24:27
  Absolutely.
• 1:24:28
  Jane Strong: People are walking by, oh, what are you doing?
• 1:24:30
  Rupert Isaacson: You've gotta have control of the environment.
• 1:24:32
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:24:32
  Yeah.
• 1:24:33
  So that would be number one for anyone thinking of doing this
• 1:24:36
  is to do it in a private space.
• 1:24:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:24:38
  Where it's dedicated.
• 1:24:40
  Um, if you can have control of the horses you work with, that's really important.
• 1:24:45
  'cause you're gonna, I teach people in a certain way to do things.
• 1:24:48
  And, um, so anyway, so I, um, when I started, when I be lived here, which
• 1:24:55
  was 2011, we bought this property and I started to fix it up and all that stuff.
• 1:25:00
  And now it's done.
• 1:25:01
  It's the way it's supposed to be.
• 1:25:03
  But we had folks come out, um, usually we get them, and this is another important
• 1:25:07
  thing, they don't just walk off the street, you know, they are either getting
• 1:25:12
  services from the VA or the, or vet centers, which was started in 1979 for
• 1:25:19
  vets, combat Vets and their families.
• 1:25:21
  Um, or they come
• 1:25:22
  Rupert Isaacson: VA's Veterans Association.
• 1:25:24
  Right.
• 1:25:24
  Yes.
• 1:25:25
  Jane Strong: Veterans Administration.
• 1:25:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Administration, sorry.
• 1:25:28
  Yeah.
• 1:25:28
  And that's part of, that's a government,
• 1:25:30
  Jane Strong: yes.
• 1:25:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, wing of government, ministry of Defense, I suppose.
• 1:25:35
  Jane Strong: No, unfortunately it's separate from administrative
• 1:25:37
  Rupert Isaacson: of Health Department.
• 1:25:38
  Jane Strong: It's the Department of Defense, and then it's the va.
• 1:25:41
  Okay.
• 1:25:41
  And, um, the VA is the Veterans Administration, and that's
• 1:25:44
  a medical model based place.
• 1:25:46
  Okay?
• 1:25:46
  So you go in there and you have a diagnosis, which is important because then
• 1:25:51
  the next, the next step is we're gonna give you meds and we're gonna talk to you.
• 1:25:56
  But we're gonna, it's a physical thing too.
• 1:25:57
  I mean, primary care and mental health counseling.
• 1:26:00
  And so, um, and the vet centers were started in 1979 by Vietnam vets who didn't
• 1:26:06
  want their records going back to the va.
• 1:26:09
  They were very squeamish about that.
• 1:26:12
  Um, so they, and they see, they see combat vets in their families.
• 1:26:16
  So I work with those two organizations.
• 1:26:20
  And I also work with a non-government organization called Guardian Revival.
• 1:26:25
  And I've done work with Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans of America.
• 1:26:29
  So non-government organizations, of course, have more
• 1:26:32
  fluidity, more flexibility.
• 1:26:35
  Um, but I always work with an organization that sort of vets
• 1:26:39
  the people before they come.
• 1:26:41
  Um, because the other thing to know is you can't work with veterans who are
• 1:26:45
  still in the war, you know, who still think that packing your weapon, you know,
• 1:26:50
  and, and you know, your head's swiveling around looking for danger all the time.
• 1:26:55
  That's hard to reach those people.
• 1:26:59
  It's very hard to reach them.
• 1:27:01
  And I have worked with some people like that, but it's, they're, I think
• 1:27:05
  they're running too much cortisol to be able to take things in.
• 1:27:12
  Um, so once somebody's been home for a little while and has started
• 1:27:16
  to say, I wanna change, you know, I wanna do something about this.
• 1:27:21
  I don't like the way I feel, I wanna do something.
• 1:27:24
  Rupert Isaacson: So, okay, talk us through the program.
• 1:27:27
  Somebody comes, it's me.
• 1:27:28
  Jane Strong: So they, they, you
• 1:27:29
  Rupert Isaacson: arrive, I, I arrive at your place.
• 1:27:31
  Right?
• 1:27:32
  Jane Strong: They
• 1:27:32
  Rupert Isaacson: come, have I arrived there because I wanted
• 1:27:34
  to, or someone sent me that?
• 1:27:36
  Jane Strong: No, I arrived because I wanted to.
• 1:27:38
  And sometimes some of the, some of the clinicians kinda strong
• 1:27:41
  arm the people and say, look,
• 1:27:42
  Rupert Isaacson: okay,
• 1:27:43
  Jane Strong: this is, this is therapy, but you don't have to talk.
• 1:27:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Alright.
• 1:27:47
  Jane Strong: And, or they'll have some, you know, temper tantrum or some
• 1:27:51
  explosion or something and they're like, you gotta go to this thing.
• 1:27:54
  Just try it.
• 1:27:55
  But it's always a sort of a try it, you know, see what you think.
• 1:27:58
  And most of them are very skeptical.
• 1:28:01
  Um, they can't imagine what a horse would have to do with relationships with people.
• 1:28:05
  Um, they're, they're not as cynical as the, as the first
• 1:28:09
  responders, but they're skeptical.
• 1:28:11
  Um,
• 1:28:12
  Rupert Isaacson: the first responders are more cynical.
• 1:28:14
  Uhhuh.
• 1:28:15
  Why?
• 1:28:15
  Jane Strong: I think 'cause they're still working and they, they've been around for
• 1:28:19
  a long time in a, in a system where they don't have, sometimes don't have great
• 1:28:25
  commanding officers and you know, it's a, it's a kind of a different system.
• 1:28:29
  It's a different, um, you know, they're more, they're kind of out on
• 1:28:35
  the street, you know, in their own communities and stuff and they see
• 1:28:38
  the darkest side of our own cultures.
• 1:28:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:28:41
  That makes sense.
• 1:28:42
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:28:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:28:44
  Jane Strong: So, um, but anyway, so we start in the barn and
• 1:28:48
  the horses are in their stalls.
• 1:28:49
  We start there and then we talk about, we talk about what we're
• 1:28:54
  gonna do, not necessarily the exact schedule we talk about.
• 1:28:58
  Our aim is to help you settle down.
• 1:29:00
  And, and we are hoping, you know, our real mission is to help you
• 1:29:04
  rebuild healthy relationships.
• 1:29:05
  And we're gonna, we'll do that if we can.
• 1:29:08
  You'll have to see.
• 1:29:09
  And then we do what we, uh, somatic exercise where we do a joint warmup
• 1:29:14
  thing to get people in their bodies.
• 1:29:16
  We just say, you know, this is just so you can get on the horse's wavelength.
• 1:29:19
  'cause they're always in their bodies, so we wanna get you to do that.
• 1:29:22
  We're not selling an ideology and we're not trying to get them to meditate.
• 1:29:27
  We're not, we're not going there.
• 1:29:28
  There's, everything is very concrete.
• 1:29:32
  And then we do this joint warmup, and then we do this body scan to cultivate what
• 1:29:36
  we, what is called interceptive awareness, which is what is going on inside, not why.
• 1:29:43
  How do you feel?
• 1:29:44
  But it's sensory based, so what is going on inside?
• 1:29:47
  And we track through the body and say, you know, what did you note?
• 1:29:51
  You know, put your attention on your heart.
• 1:29:54
  Put your attention on your shoulders, put your attention on your hands.
• 1:29:57
  And as your temperature different, we cultivate sensory based awareness and
• 1:30:03
  we go through the whole body and then we tell them that we've got, you know,
• 1:30:06
  if you actually, when you get triggered, which we all do, we, we always say, we
• 1:30:11
  all, this is true for all of us, not you.
• 1:30:13
  And that when we get triggered, it's really good to take a nice breath and feel
• 1:30:18
  the bottoms of your feet and feel gravity.
• 1:30:21
  'cause it gives you more space to handle things.
• 1:30:24
  So it's kind of a literal thing.
• 1:30:27
  And it's kind of a concrete thing.
• 1:30:29
  And if somebody says, well I always feel like this.
• 1:30:32
  We say, well what about today?
• 1:30:34
  So we're always bringing it to right now.
• 1:30:38
  And then we, um, we do that and then we tell them about
• 1:30:41
  how the horses see the world.
• 1:30:43
  And I'm gonna add a lot of the stuff that you talk about with the history
• 1:30:47
  of horse training and dressage, and I'm gonna talk about that
• 1:30:51
  because they're fascinated to know
• 1:30:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, 'cause Yeah, it's all military basically.
• 1:30:56
  It's all
• 1:30:56
  Jane Strong: military.
• 1:30:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:30:58
  Jane Strong: And I just read a story about the Buddha, which was also
• 1:31:00
  a military story where he said.
• 1:31:03
  Right.
• 1:31:04
  He said, watching these people in battle ride in a pond, in a, I'm sorry.
• 1:31:11
  Looking at fish riding in a puddle is what he said.
• 1:31:15
  What an image.
• 1:31:16
  Right.
• 1:31:17
  So they know what that's like.
• 1:31:20
  Rupert Isaacson: He was a prince.
• 1:31:21
  He would've been Right.
• 1:31:22
  He was also a horseman.
• 1:31:24
  Sath.
• 1:31:24
  Yes.
• 1:31:24
  That Northern Indian culture is a, it's where dressage
• 1:31:29
  went before it went to Europe.
• 1:31:32
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:31:32
  Rupert Isaacson: He would've been raised in it.
• 1:31:34
  Absolutely.
• 1:31:35
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 1:31:35
  And his father, and it, the, the myth goes, the story goes that he, he took
• 1:31:40
  that horse, and I forgot the horse's name.
• 1:31:43
  Um, he took that horse, the horse carried him out of the palace and to where he
• 1:31:49
  was gonna leave, and then the horse was sent back to the palace and died
• 1:31:53
  of a broken heart because he lost him.
• 1:31:56
  I mean, it's a beautiful story and whether it's actually true or not, it will ma,
• 1:32:00
  it matters to these people because they see themselves as part of a lineage
• 1:32:07
  and they see themselves as that the horses are part of a lineage that that
• 1:32:12
  took them wherever they went, right?
• 1:32:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:14
  Until the last, till World War I, or start maybe the start of World War ii,
• 1:32:19
  but pretty much World War I, that's how we got around and that's who accompanied us.
• 1:32:24
  And so I think that makes them feel like the horses are not foreign objects.
• 1:32:30
  And because they are to most of these people, one vet
• 1:32:34
  came and said, you know what?
• 1:32:35
  I never even thought about a horse before today.
• 1:32:37
  It's kind of funny.
• 1:32:38
  Yeah.
• 1:32:38
  So we say that they, it's only been in the last 120 years that we
• 1:32:42
  weren't dependent on them or that we didn't see them around all the time.
• 1:32:46
  And so we say to them, you're, we're teaching you to remember
• 1:32:49
  something that's in your DNA.
• 1:32:52
  It's already there.
• 1:32:53
  Um, so we're trying to make the bridge through what we
• 1:32:56
  call resonance to the horses.
• 1:32:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:59
  Um, and then they go, we take them out to the round pen.
• 1:33:04
  We've got this big 70 foot diameter round pen, and we take the horses out there and
• 1:33:08
  usually we take them first, um, and they go out there and then we, we ask them if
• 1:33:14
  they wanna put their hands on 'em, which one would they like to with who are, so
• 1:33:18
  we're cultivating a little intuition, not airy fairy intuition, but like, who
• 1:33:23
  are you drawn to, you know, and they'll pick a horse, you know, and sometimes
• 1:33:27
  they don't pick the right horse for them.
• 1:33:29
  And so we'll kind of guide them, why don't you start with this one?
• 1:33:33
  You know, and then we'll move over to other ones and you're gonna have
• 1:33:36
  a chance to work with all of them.
• 1:33:37
  And, um, so they get their hands on 'em and then the heart
• 1:33:40
  rate stuff starts happening.
• 1:33:42
  Um, or if they're afraid, which some of them are really
• 1:33:45
  afraid, but they don't say it.
• 1:33:47
  And I'm, I can see it in their eyes.
• 1:33:49
  I can see it in their body that they're afraid.
• 1:33:51
  'cause there's, we track, we track the rigidity and so I'll
• 1:33:55
  say, are you okay with this?
• 1:33:57
  Well.
• 1:33:58
  Yeah, I'm okay.
• 1:33:59
  And it's like, let's, how about we back up until you feel comfortable?
• 1:34:04
  Because if it's real fear, when you move away from the source, it goes away.
• 1:34:09
  So we back up, I put if I can, if they let me, I put my hand on their
• 1:34:13
  shoulder and I, I'll just say, let's just stand here for a minute.
• 1:34:16
  We'll just stay here as long as you want.
• 1:34:19
  And then they, a lot of 'em will start to cry because no one has
• 1:34:23
  respected fear in their culture.
• 1:34:28
  So it's a very telling, moving thing to be respected for your
• 1:34:34
  fear, because we as predators and prey do not like the prey part of
• 1:34:39
  ourselves, especially military people.
• 1:34:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
• 1:34:45
  Um, yeah.
• 1:34:49
  And it's so interesting, particularly the enlisted, um, men and women
• 1:34:56
  because if you go into combat in that way, your job is to follow orders.
• 1:35:01
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 1:35:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, and it's very interesting how when people
• 1:35:06
  become special forces, weirdly, they're more allowed to be afraid.
• 1:35:10
  Yeah.
• 1:35:10
  Because they're supposed to use their judgment like, should I engage with
• 1:35:13
  this or should I not engage with this?
• 1:35:16
  Yeah.
• 1:35:16
  And it therefore, it's all right to be afraid because that's telling me that.
• 1:35:22
  I may not succeed in this situation.
• 1:35:25
  Perhaps this is not, you shouldn't just go blindly in with bayonets, but if you
• 1:35:29
  are, if you are rank hand file, your job is to go blindly in with bayonets.
• 1:35:34
  And if you get killed, you get killed.
• 1:35:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:35:36
  Jane Strong: yeah.
• 1:35:37
  And I work with a lot of Navy Seals, that's, I work with them and they
• 1:35:41
  have techniques to deal with the fear.
• 1:35:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm mm-hmm.
• 1:35:44
  Jane Strong: Because they're on more on their own.
• 1:35:46
  You're right.
• 1:35:46
  They're more on their own.
• 1:35:47
  They make more decisions.
• 1:35:48
  They have to make very strategic,
• 1:35:50
  Rupert Isaacson: they've got to listen to fear.
• 1:35:51
  But they've gone into another sphere of the military.
• 1:35:55
  Yes.
• 1:35:55
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:35:56
  Yeah.
• 1:35:56
  And they have, and there's the, the, the biochemical or whatever
• 1:36:00
  you call it, they have a particular form of lack of reaction to fear.
• 1:36:06
  And also, I mean, there's a, there's a test and they, they don't, they honestly
• 1:36:11
  don't feel it as much as we can tell
• 1:36:13
  Rupert Isaacson: us about that test.
• 1:36:14
  That's quite interesting.
• 1:36:15
  I think for people to,
• 1:36:15
  Jane Strong: I have to find out what the name of it is, but it's
• 1:36:17
  something to measure your cortisol.
• 1:36:20
  It's a measure of adrenaline, cortisol response to fear.
• 1:36:24
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm, I'm looking it up as you just keep talking.
• 1:36:26
  Yeah.
• 1:36:26
  if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
• 1:36:32
  you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
• 1:36:37
  of dressage training.
• 1:36:38
  If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
• 1:36:47
  exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
• 1:36:53
  of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
• 1:37:00
  well being of the horse and the rider.
• 1:37:03
  Intrigued?
• 1:37:04
  Like to know more?
• 1:37:05
  Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
• 1:37:10
  Check out the free introduction course.
• 1:37:12
  Take it from there.
• 1:37:13
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:37:14
  So they have something that they do that's lower, they have a much
• 1:37:17
  higher threshold of fear toward fear.
• 1:37:21
  Um, so if you can't find it, I can, I was told this by someone in my somatic
• 1:37:27
  experiencing course, and I can find out what it is, but they de, they
• 1:37:30
  generally have a higher threshold of reaction to fear, to danger.
• 1:37:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Um,
• 1:37:37
  can,
• 1:37:37
  Rupert Isaacson: can I read you what, what, um,
• 1:37:40
  Jane Strong: AI says?
• 1:37:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:37:41
  Yeah, it's, it's interesting just because I think that this, this is a,
• 1:37:45
  okay, just gonna quickly read this.
• 1:37:48
  The Navy SEAL training, particularly during basic underwater demolition
• 1:37:51
  slash seal, BDS Bud school tests for fear and mental fortitude by
• 1:37:56
  systematically exposing candidates to high stress, dangerous scenarios
• 1:37:59
  designed to trigger panic.
• 1:38:01
  Okay.
• 1:38:01
  That you could, that seems logical.
• 1:38:04
  The goal is not to eliminate fear, but to measure a candidate's ability
• 1:38:09
  to operate rationally under it and to develop habitation, reducing the fear
• 1:38:15
  response through repeated exposure.
• 1:38:17
  So, um, down proofing candidates are tied up hands and feet bound in a nine
• 1:38:22
  foot pool to perform complex maneuvers such as somersaults and swimming testing.
• 1:38:26
  If they can stay calm while struggling to breathe underwater
• 1:38:30
  pool competence, instructors actively disrupt students underwater ripping
• 1:38:34
  off masks or regulators, you know, forcing that life or death scenarios.
• 1:38:38
  Training, including combat diving where fear of injury or failure as
• 1:38:44
  I, and then cold water and pressure exposure, the surf torture and constant
• 1:38:49
  exposure to or immersion in cold ocean water test, the ability to focus
• 1:38:53
  through intense physical discomfort.
• 1:38:55
  And then they say techniques for managing fear.
• 1:38:59
  They use four key techniques to manage fear.
• 1:39:01
  And past training.
• 1:39:02
  One box.
• 1:39:03
  Breathing a tactical breathing technique.
• 1:39:05
  Inhale fours.
• 1:39:06
  Hold fours.
• 1:39:07
  Exhale Fours.
• 1:39:08
  Hold.
• 1:39:09
  Fours used to move from a state of panic to calm alertness.
• 1:39:13
  Okay.
• 1:39:13
  This we know actually brings you into, uh, an alpha, actually.
• 1:39:16
  Alpha state of alpha brainwave, EEG Visualization.
• 1:39:21
  Mentally rehearsing scenarios, dirt diving.
• 1:39:24
  A mission to familiarize themselves with potential dangers.
• 1:39:28
  They don't seem as scary when they happen.
• 1:39:30
  Goal setting.
• 1:39:30
  Tiny goals.
• 1:39:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:39:32
  Breaking training down into small, manageable goals.
• 1:39:35
  Eeg, getting to the next meal or task rather than focusing on
• 1:39:38
  the entire six month program.
• 1:39:40
  What's the worst that happens?
• 1:39:43
  A three second mental trick that forces the brain to confront the
• 1:39:46
  worst case scenario, which reduces anxiety by eliminating the unknown.
• 1:39:51
  Um, and then there's something called the 40% rule popular
• 1:39:54
  popularized in seal training.
• 1:39:56
  This rule states that when you put, when your mind tells you that you
• 1:39:59
  are done exhausted and cannot go any further, you are only actually 40% done.
• 1:40:06
  The remaining 60% is found through mental fortitude.
• 1:40:09
  And then final thing is own your own three foot space.
• 1:40:13
  Focusing strictly on what is within immediate control, actions, attitude,
• 1:40:18
  and effort to prevent becoming overwhelmed by chaotic environments.
• 1:40:25
  Jane Strong: You ready to sign up?
• 1:40:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, what's so interesting about that is of
• 1:40:29
  course that is not basic training.
• 1:40:30
  That's not basic military training.
• 1:40:33
  Jane Strong: Uhuh,
• 1:40:34
  Rupert Isaacson: that's a different level.
• 1:40:36
  Because if you go through something like that that I just described,
• 1:40:40
  you might say no to your sergeant.
• 1:40:42
  Jane Strong: You might,
• 1:40:43
  Rupert Isaacson: you know, you, you might make a decision that's more rational
• 1:40:46
  other than take that hill at all costs.
• 1:40:50
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:50
  Yeah.
• 1:40:50
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:50
  Yeah.
• 1:40:51
  Um, and the 40% one is very interesting, isn't it?
• 1:40:55
  Um, that actually your bo, your body's telling you to not
• 1:41:01
  go into that 60% of reserves.
• 1:41:05
  Jane Strong: Right.
• 1:41:05
  Rupert Isaacson: If you can avoid it very wise of the body to do that.
• 1:41:10
  So interestingly, when you're dealing with those people, do you
• 1:41:13
  find that they're easier to reach?
• 1:41:15
  Do you, do you, do you find that the special forces people are easier
• 1:41:20
  to work with un reach and because they're so used to having to think
• 1:41:22
  around complex things than the people who've been regular enlisted?
• 1:41:28
  Or do they actually come with just a more complex set of problems?
• 1:41:33
  Jane Strong: I say I think that what they, because they are not just a
• 1:41:37
  do part of the military, there can do part of the military, they have
• 1:41:43
  a very hard time with vulnerability.
• 1:41:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:41:47
  Jane Strong: Very hard time.
• 1:41:48
  And I mean, I mean the looking in a way, looking incompetent or looking, you know,
• 1:41:58
  fear, we separate fear and vulnerability.
• 1:42:01
  So fear we, as we describe it, is not entirely the way it is, but the way we
• 1:42:06
  describe it, it's a physical threat.
• 1:42:08
  So if you're afraid of horses, a horse is a threat, I'm afraid we back up.
• 1:42:13
  That goes down, right?
• 1:42:15
  You go away from the source.
• 1:42:16
  Vulnerability is, I don't know if I can do this.
• 1:42:20
  I don't know if I'll be look good at it.
• 1:42:21
  I don't know if I'll succeed.
• 1:42:23
  People
• 1:42:24
  Rupert Isaacson: might laugh at me.
• 1:42:25
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:42:25
  It's a more, and, and Brene Brown, I'm sure who, you know who she is.
• 1:42:29
  She did this whole study, which she didn't wanna find out that vulnerability
• 1:42:33
  actually makes for better relationships.
• 1:42:35
  You know, that makes for real relationships.
• 1:42:38
  'cause you're a more authentic, so the seals have a real
• 1:42:42
  hard time with vulnerability,
• 1:42:44
  Rupert Isaacson: authenticity.
• 1:42:44
  Okay.
• 1:42:44
  Jane Strong: Because they're like, I got this kind of,
• 1:42:46
  Rupert Isaacson: they've gotta be like cartoon heroes.
• 1:42:48
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:42:49
  And that's, yes.
• 1:42:50
  And so, so they are, uh, they wanna control it and they don't wanna go there
• 1:42:58
  if they, if they're gonna be vulnerable or look stupid or look incompetent.
• 1:43:02
  But the, but the other folks, you know, you might have an
• 1:43:06
  officer who's more like that.
• 1:43:07
  But by the way, the other thing I would say to anybody doing this is do not
• 1:43:12
  have people know each other's ranks.
• 1:43:15
  When they come in the group do not, because what happens is then
• 1:43:18
  they fall back into the hierarchy
• 1:43:21
  Rupert Isaacson: naturally.
• 1:43:21
  Yeah.
• 1:43:22
  Yeah.
• 1:43:22
  Jane Strong: And then as the facilitator, I can't coach the E eight, the
• 1:43:26
  sergeant, I can't because he's gonna look stupid or she's gonna look stupid
• 1:43:31
  in front of their, I can't do it.
• 1:43:33
  I can't operate.
• 1:43:34
  They can't operate.
• 1:43:36
  They just boom, they just stack up again.
• 1:43:38
  So we don't do it.
• 1:43:40
  We get it on the, um, we don't even, we take Did
• 1:43:43
  Rupert Isaacson: you find that out the hard way, by the way?
• 1:43:44
  Jane Strong: Yes, very much the hard way.
• 1:43:47
  I was like, okay, that's the last time we're doing that.
• 1:43:50
  Um, and so we don't, and we asked them where they were,
• 1:43:56
  um, what's branch of service?
• 1:43:58
  We asked this on the, on the waiver, what branch of service, where did you serve?
• 1:44:02
  And, um, how long.
• 1:44:04
  And that's, we have that information.
• 1:44:06
  But they don't, they don't, if they wanna talk about it at lunch, they
• 1:44:09
  can, but they wouldn't talk about rank.
• 1:44:11
  That wouldn't be what they would talk about.
• 1:44:13
  But if we, if they find out that's not cool, um, and you can mix men
• 1:44:18
  and women, it doesn't really matter.
• 1:44:19
  That's not a problem.
• 1:44:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Is it not painfully obvious?
• 1:44:21
  Like if you, if you are in the British Army, it's very
• 1:44:26
  obvious there's a class system.
• 1:44:28
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:44:29
  Well, I think it is obvious.
• 1:44:30
  And you know who's really obvious to the horses.
• 1:44:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:44:33
  Jane Strong: Because they,
• 1:44:34
  Rupert Isaacson: that's interesting.
• 1:44:35
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:44:35
  Because they pick up the internal organization that an officer has.
• 1:44:42
  I have a Arab Pinto who asks a lot of questions.
• 1:44:45
  You know, he asks a lot of questions.
• 1:44:46
  He's a sharp dude.
• 1:44:47
  He's a very smart horse.
• 1:44:49
  And he asks, you know, if you don't ask him the right way, he's gonna
• 1:44:52
  be like, I don't know what you're talking about, but when an officer
• 1:44:55
  works with him, he's like, yes, sir.
• 1:44:57
  He's so good.
• 1:44:59
  Because he likes that.
• 1:45:00
  There's, there is an internal organization that an officer has through that
• 1:45:04
  training, and I think I can tell, um, and it's just funny, it's funny to
• 1:45:11
  me, but, um, yeah, they, they, horses like clarity and an officer's kind of
• 1:45:17
  gonna be more clear in certain ways.
• 1:45:20
  Um, so, you know, but when they come to us, they're wearing t-shirts and caps.
• 1:45:25
  You know, we don't, we don't, they don't come any kind of external
• 1:45:30
  signal, but I think the internal signal is self-possession and what
• 1:45:35
  I would call internal organization.
• 1:45:38
  Um, so.
• 1:45:41
  So we then go, they get their hands on the horses.
• 1:45:44
  We don't want that.
• 1:45:45
  If we ask them to groom the horses, which we used to do,
• 1:45:48
  they'll get them really clean.
• 1:45:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Bet they will.
• 1:45:53
  Jane Strong: Like, I'm not done yet.
• 1:45:54
  You know, don't worry about it, man.
• 1:45:57
  You know,
• 1:46:01
  Rupert Isaacson: don't bring me that horse until I can see myself in its face.
• 1:46:03
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:46:06
  Jane Strong: It's very funny.
• 1:46:07
  But what happens with that, when we do have them get their hands
• 1:46:11
  on them and they can groom them if they want to, that's a thing to do.
• 1:46:14
  Like, it's a way to connect.
• 1:46:15
  And what happens with them is that they've, they've, they get out of
• 1:46:19
  themselves and into caring for another and watching, and they'll say, well,
• 1:46:25
  does he like this or does she like this?
• 1:46:27
  And I'm like, well, what do you think?
• 1:46:29
  How does, what are you reading from what the horse is doing?
• 1:46:33
  And they'll, oh, okay, I can read the nonverbal as well.
• 1:46:38
  And I can, I think he likes this.
• 1:46:39
  And I'm like, okay, good.
• 1:46:41
  And then if the horse puts her head up or, um, you know, fidgets
• 1:46:45
  or something like that, we know that that's not a good thing.
• 1:46:47
  And where do they like to be?
• 1:46:49
  Where do they like to be touched?
• 1:46:50
  And I'm like, do an experiment.
• 1:46:53
  You know, we, it's very open-ended.
• 1:46:55
  It's not controlling, we're facilitating, we're not teaching.
• 1:47:00
  Um, so people have the opportunity to sense into their vulnerability or
• 1:47:05
  sense into their fear, or usually not.
• 1:47:08
  It's not so much fear, but sometimes it is vulnerability and they'll jump
• 1:47:12
  if the horse jumps, you know, and we're like, how, what's, what's happening?
• 1:47:15
  Rupert Isaacson: I do.
• 1:47:16
  And I have lots of horses.
• 1:47:17
  I jump when they jump.
• 1:47:18
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:47:22
  Yeah.
• 1:47:22
  It's like, oh, what are we doing?
• 1:47:24
  But, um, yeah, so, so there are a lot of things that go on in that sort of quieter
• 1:47:30
  time that we give them to get familiar and to get tuned in attuned to the horses.
• 1:47:36
  So it's connection and attunement.
• 1:47:37
  And then we ask, you know, what do you notice?
• 1:47:40
  And I will notice also we have, we, we just lost this one horse who was
• 1:47:45
  amazing, blue eyed with eyeliner medicine hat, you know, gorgeous guy
• 1:47:50
  with these big blue eyes that you know, you can really see in what's
• 1:47:53
  Rupert Isaacson: a medicine hat?
• 1:47:55
  Jane Strong: Oh, it's a marking on a pinto or a paint horse.
• 1:47:59
  That's one ear Is brown.
• 1:48:01
  Usually a big cap over one ear.
• 1:48:04
  That would be called a medicine horse.
• 1:48:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:48:07
  What if it's both with a cap?
• 1:48:09
  Jane Strong: That's different.
• 1:48:10
  That's not the same.
• 1:48:11
  It's a, it's a, um, I don't think so, but it's all, it's a horse who had
• 1:48:15
  been ridden by a shaman or a woman.
• 1:48:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
• 1:48:17
  Okay.
• 1:48:18
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:48:19
  And it's, you know, it's a gift
• 1:48:21
  Rupert Isaacson: we put looking it up on, uh, Google as we speak.
• 1:48:24
  Yeah.
• 1:48:25
  I just learned something I didn't know.
• 1:48:26
  That's really cool.
• 1:48:27
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:48:27
  So he had these blue eyes with eyeliners, so he didn't look like that.
• 1:48:31
  Watch eye spooky kind of look.
• 1:48:33
  Right.
• 1:48:33
  He just looked beautiful.
• 1:48:35
  And he would, his eyes would get like pinwheels if somebody
• 1:48:39
  wasn't being congruent.
• 1:48:40
  If they were acting okay, but they weren't, he would raise his
• 1:48:44
  head and fidget, you know, and, uh, be look like looking at me
• 1:48:49
  like help, you know, do something.
• 1:48:51
  And so I would come over and this is the real key role that the horses play.
• 1:48:55
  One of them is I would ask the person, what are you noticing?
• 1:49:01
  And they'd be like, nothing, I'm fine.
• 1:49:04
  And the horse would be fidgeting with his head up in the air
• 1:49:07
  and I would say, are you sure?
• 1:49:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm fine.
• 1:49:10
  And I'd be like, well, the horse is kind of fidgeting here.
• 1:49:13
  He's looking a little worried.
• 1:49:15
  Are you sure?
• 1:49:16
  And then they would be, no, I'm actually really anxious.
• 1:49:19
  I've been anxious for so long, I don't even notice it.
• 1:49:22
  Rupert Isaacson: I presume not everyone's gonna admit to it though.
• 1:49:25
  What, what do you do when people just absolutely stubbornly
• 1:49:29
  hang on to their thing.
• 1:49:30
  Jane Strong: I, hang on.
• 1:49:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:49:32
  Jane Strong: I hang on and I stay there.
• 1:49:34
  Rupert Isaacson: So you just become a, a bit of a terrier at that point?
• 1:49:37
  Jane Strong: I become curiouser.
• 1:49:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:49:42
  Jane Strong: And curiouser and.
• 1:49:45
  I keep going back to the horse, like, well, he's kind
• 1:49:47
  of fidgeting, he's worried.
• 1:49:49
  He's, he's seeming to feel anxious.
• 1:49:51
  Do you notice that in your, like, I've got probes from my experience
• 1:49:55
  as an ethnographic researcher.
• 1:49:56
  I can, I'm good at probes without being, staying in the That's
• 1:50:01
  Rupert Isaacson: what she said.
• 1:50:02
  Sorry.
• 1:50:05
  Jane Strong: That's what he said.
• 1:50:11
  Anyway.
• 1:50:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Sorry.
• 1:50:12
  Maybe three.
• 1:50:13
  Yeah.
• 1:50:13
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:50:14
  But, but you know, you can, you can work your, that, and this is
• 1:50:17
  another thing where facilitating is different from fixing.
• 1:50:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:50:22
  Jane Strong: Or insisting.
• 1:50:24
  It's like you, you stay in the role of curious and Wow,
• 1:50:29
  this is kind of interesting,
• 1:50:30
  Rupert Isaacson: I suppose to, I suppose to that somebody who is ego
• 1:50:33
  defended, which most of us are, but obviously the military promotes, if it's
• 1:50:40
  about an animal, it's so much easier to come off your quote unquote high
• 1:50:45
  horse, no pun intended, than it if, if it's about another person, right?
• 1:50:49
  Jane Strong: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:50:49
  Absolutely.
• 1:50:51
  That's why trauma, that's why this work works so well, because usually
• 1:50:54
  it's not a horse or who's hurt you.
• 1:50:57
  It's a person.
• 1:50:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:50:59
  Jane Strong: It's not a horse.
• 1:51:00
  And it's,
• 1:51:00
  Rupert Isaacson: and nobody wants to look like an asshole who's shitty to animals.
• 1:51:05
  Um, yes.
• 1:51:05
  Because you know, most of
• 1:51:06
  Jane Strong: them
• 1:51:06
  Rupert Isaacson: really.
• 1:51:07
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:51:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:51:08
  Jane Strong: They usually like animals because they trust them, because we do
• 1:51:11
  trust animals because of their, they're operating on their instincts and they
• 1:51:15
  have a horses, a horse, and dogs.
• 1:51:17
  They're
• 1:51:17
  Rupert Isaacson: authentic.
• 1:51:17
  Yeah,
• 1:51:18
  Jane Strong: authentic.
• 1:51:19
  And so congruence horses are how they feel is what they do.
• 1:51:23
  They're a hundred percent congruent unless they're hiding an injury.
• 1:51:26
  You know, they can be of course, as, you know, stoic, but really,
• 1:51:30
  if they're afraid, they can't help but move their feet.
• 1:51:35
  Rupert Isaacson: They can shove it.
• 1:51:35
  Yeah.
• 1:51:36
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:51:36
  Jane Strong: So we use that.
• 1:51:38
  That's our way in.
• 1:51:39
  That's our way in.
• 1:51:42
  And they give us the entree.
• 1:51:44
  Whereas if I was just a person saying,
• 1:51:48
  Rupert Isaacson: this animal is not a shame to, to show its fear.
• 1:51:51
  And
• 1:51:51
  Jane Strong: so, right.
• 1:51:52
  So what a great model.
• 1:51:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:51:53
  Jane Strong: What a great model for authenticity.
• 1:51:55
  And we, we take advantage of that because that's our entree.
• 1:51:59
  'cause these people don't know us.
• 1:52:01
  I mean, if I said, are you anxious?
• 1:52:02
  They'd be f you.
• 1:52:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:05
  I'm
• 1:52:05
  Jane Strong: fine.
• 1:52:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm, mm-hmm.
• 1:52:08
  Jane Strong: So the horses,
• 1:52:10
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 1:52:11
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:52:11
  So that's,
• 1:52:12
  Rupert Isaacson: and, and then, then when you get them actually
• 1:52:13
  quote unquote, working with the horses, what do you, what do you do?
• 1:52:16
  Jane Strong: Well, we ask them to take them, to lead them around.
• 1:52:19
  We have a particular way of asking 'em to lead.
• 1:52:21
  We use rope halters and we use mm-hmm.
• 1:52:22
  You know, a loop in the line and they can't pull them.
• 1:52:25
  If they need to push them, they can a little bit, but we mostly
• 1:52:29
  want them to use their body energy.
• 1:52:31
  They're all three centers.
• 1:52:32
  Your head is where you're gonna go.
• 1:52:34
  Your heart is your connection to the horse.
• 1:52:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:36
  And your body is, how are we gonna go?
• 1:52:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:39
  Jane Strong: And where, you know, and how fast it's the impulsion part of it.
• 1:52:43
  So we get, we start to get them integrating.
• 1:52:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:46
  The three centers through the moving the horses around.
• 1:52:49
  And then we have, and they don't, they can't hold them in
• 1:52:51
  the knot, in the, in the line.
• 1:52:53
  They have to hold, give them some space, and they have to use their
• 1:52:57
  body energy to move with the horses.
• 1:52:59
  And usually they do.
• 1:53:00
  They, they're they and, you know, but some people are afraid.
• 1:53:03
  They don't want to ask the horse to do something.
• 1:53:06
  So we work with that.
• 1:53:07
  Or they ask them too much.
• 1:53:08
  They're like, come on, let's go.
• 1:53:09
  We're like, Nope.
• 1:53:11
  So we, we are precise in how for the horses benefit mostly, you know,
• 1:53:18
  how are you moving with this horse?
• 1:53:20
  Are you inviting, like asking 'em to dance?
• 1:53:24
  Or are you demanding?
• 1:53:26
  That's not a collaboration.
• 1:53:27
  We want you collaborating.
• 1:53:29
  And so,
• 1:53:31
  Rupert Isaacson: and are they, are they leading them, say through labyrinth or
• 1:53:37
  Jane Strong: Not at first?
• 1:53:38
  Not at first.
• 1:53:39
  Rupert Isaacson: We're, are you building things that represent
• 1:53:41
  life's obstacles that they want, you know, that they're gonna.
• 1:53:45
  Lead the horse through or Yeah.
• 1:53:48
  Those sorts of metaphors or,
• 1:53:50
  Jane Strong: no, we're not using metaphors.
• 1:53:51
  We don't do that.
• 1:53:52
  We don't like that because these are real things and they, the, and also we
• 1:53:56
  find that, you know, if you say to a, a first responder or a veteran, that horse
• 1:54:03
  over there represents your isolation.
• 1:54:06
  Rupert Isaacson: You
• 1:54:06
  Jane Strong: know, this horse behind this thing represents your barriers.
• 1:54:10
  You know, a veteran is gonna say, and I've heard them say it.
• 1:54:12
  No, that's a horse behind a barrier.
• 1:54:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:54:16
  Jane Strong: Don't tell me what this means.
• 1:54:18
  You don't, we don't tell 'em what things mean.
• 1:54:20
  What we do is we get 'em to do stuff and then when they finish
• 1:54:24
  we ask them, how was that for you?
• 1:54:26
  What did you notice?
• 1:54:27
  And then they're full of metaphors.
• 1:54:29
  Okay.
• 1:54:31
  Or life-based situations like, wow, I can see how I push too hard.
• 1:54:37
  I can see where I stand back too much.
• 1:54:39
  I can see where I don't, where I'm not sure or clear, mostly clear.
• 1:54:46
  Um, I learned so much because I, and, and the main thing they say is,
• 1:54:51
  I can't believe I got this animal.
• 1:54:54
  I don't even know.
• 1:54:55
  'cause they're used to dogs.
• 1:54:56
  Right?
• 1:54:57
  You'd have to know a dog for get to get the dog to come with you.
• 1:55:00
  Unless the dog is one of those, you know, dogs that jumps into anybody's car.
• 1:55:05
  But they're used to the loyalty thing.
• 1:55:08
  They're not used to in the moment, response to who I
• 1:55:11
  am and how I am right now.
• 1:55:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:55:17
  I have seen good work done with, actually not so much with veterans,
• 1:55:21
  actually with, um, so we, we work, our organization works as you know, many
• 1:55:25
  countries and we work in Germany with the Bundes fair, with the German army,
• 1:55:29
  with, um, people who are still serving.
• 1:55:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:55:32
  Um, quite often Special Forces families.
• 1:55:35
  And the difficulty with the special forces in Germany is
• 1:55:37
  they're not supposed to have 'em.
• 1:55:39
  So I'm not even supposed to say that they exist, but everyone knows that they do.
• 1:55:42
  So, but because they're not supposed to exist or until recently, they weren't
• 1:55:45
  supposed to exist because of the post World War ii, you know, agreements
• 1:55:49
  that were, um, when they come back from the deployment, they're really
• 1:55:52
  not allowed to talk about it at all.
• 1:55:54
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 1:55:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, and uh, black bylaw not so even if they wanted
• 1:55:59
  to, they're sort of not allowed to.
• 1:56:00
  And I've seen in the, every year we do a sort of two week, um, thing
• 1:56:07
  for those guys and their families.
• 1:56:09
  Um, we work in different ways with the, so anyway, but I've seen very good work
• 1:56:13
  done with them, actually, not by me, but by some others where they did get
• 1:56:16
  them to, particularly as a couple, if they're there with their wife, um, we
• 1:56:23
  might have their kids off playing, doing all sorts of other stuff that we do.
• 1:56:27
  We do.
• 1:56:27
  And then there's a couple of people working with the couple, and they
• 1:56:33
  might build a sort of obstacle course
• 1:56:36
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:56:37
  Rupert Isaacson: And go through it together, but they're not being told that.
• 1:56:41
  Yoga ball is your dad, um, or anything, um, right.
• 1:56:46
  They're just, I suppose, being invited to create some obstacles together.
• 1:56:52
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 1:56:52
  Well that would be, that would be collaboration.
• 1:56:54
  That would be collaboration between humans, which is great.
• 1:56:57
  We could, we, we work, we did some work with couples, which I'd like to do more
• 1:57:00
  of this year with first responder couples.
• 1:57:03
  They were blown away by what they saw about each other.
• 1:57:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:57:07
  ' Jane Strong: cause they come home and they don't talk as, you know.
• 1:57:09
  Um, yes.
• 1:57:10
  So I think it's fine to do those things.
• 1:57:13
  I think, uh, anyway, we walk around, then we ask them to do, you
• 1:57:17
  know, like a circle with inviting the horse forward in a circle.
• 1:57:21
  And that's a big thing.
• 1:57:22
  I had a vet do that with one of our horses.
• 1:57:24
  And when he got finished, he was like, oh my God.
• 1:57:27
  And I said, what?
• 1:57:28
  And he said, I was so focused on that horse that I had no
• 1:57:34
  idea what else was going around.
• 1:57:36
  And he said, my whole life is about all this distraction and attention.
• 1:57:40
  And he said, the last time I felt like this, I, I saw a bullet leaving
• 1:57:45
  the chamber of my gun in a firefight.
• 1:57:48
  That's the last time I was this focused.
• 1:57:51
  And he said, and I said to him, yes, and this time you were safe.
• 1:57:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:57:57
  Jane Strong: And he was like, oh my God.
• 1:57:59
  I did what I didn't think I could ever do again.
• 1:58:02
  And this time I was safe.
• 1:58:03
  That's called uncoupling.
• 1:58:05
  That's a lot of what we do.
• 1:58:06
  You can bring up your energy and not be in danger.
• 1:58:09
  Okay.
• 1:58:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Rupert gets his phone out, looks up uncoupling.
• 1:58:13
  This is great.
• 1:58:13
  I learning so much.
• 1:58:15
  Jane Strong: That's a great, it's a great term.
• 1:58:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:58:20
  Do you do all this in round pens and arenas?
• 1:58:24
  Do you go out into the forest?
• 1:58:26
  Jane Strong: Yeah, we go out.
• 1:58:27
  So after they're comfortable, we wanna make sure people are safe and comfortable.
• 1:58:30
  You know, we don't want to just throw them out somewhere.
• 1:58:33
  Although we, I suppose we could, but we go out, um, we stay in
• 1:58:37
  the round pen the first session.
• 1:58:38
  So we do the morning with the horses, then we have lunch and do this,
• 1:58:41
  this, uh, emotional agility thing.
• 1:58:44
  And we talk about fear and vulnerability, the first one.
• 1:58:46
  And um, the second, and these are very funny.
• 1:58:49
  They're use movie clips that are all about emotions, of course.
• 1:58:53
  So we use the Princess bride for fear, you know, Ingo Montoya, you know,
• 1:58:58
  you kill my father, prepare to die, and then Christopher guest runs off.
• 1:59:03
  And so that's our fear thing, you know?
• 1:59:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:59:06
  Jane Strong: We used very entertaining movie clips 'cause we're not pointing
• 1:59:10
  it out as a bad thing, we're just saying it's, it's what happens.
• 1:59:13
  So we do fear and vulnerability, have lunch, a really healthy,
• 1:59:17
  good lunch, and then, uh, go back out and work with the horses.
• 1:59:20
  So we brought them to that place as which you call BDNF.
• 1:59:25
  Right.
• 1:59:25
  So they're ready to learn.
• 1:59:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:59:27
  And for those people who dunno what BDNF is 'cause brain derived neurotrophic
• 1:59:34
  factor, which is just a sciencey way of.
• 1:59:37
  Identifying a protein.
• 1:59:39
  It's a protein that is a building block that becomes a stem cell that
• 1:59:42
  becomes a neuron, billions of them.
• 1:59:45
  And you get them when you move and problem solve at the same time.
• 1:59:48
  So think dance, think sport, think play, think riding a horse, think
• 1:59:52
  walking across uneven ground even.
• 1:59:54
  Um, all of these things will make your brain get smarter.
• 1:59:59
  Pretty similar speed, right?
• 2:00:02
  Jane Strong: So the movement is there.
• 2:00:03
  The movement is there in the morning.
• 2:00:05
  So they are settled, they feel safe, they feel actually they've done something
• 2:00:09
  they didn't think they could do, which is probably another part of this.
• 2:00:12
  Like they've done something they never thought of or they
• 2:00:15
  didn't think they could do.
• 2:00:16
  And the brain, just like basic training, you know, when they almost kill you
• 2:00:20
  every day, then the next day you wake up and your body goes, oh, I didn't die.
• 2:00:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:00:26
  Jane Strong: I guess I could do something else.
• 2:00:28
  You know?
• 2:00:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:00:29
  And so it's that sort of it experiential learning that helps
• 2:00:33
  people settle down and feel surprised and happy with themselves, you know?
• 2:00:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:00:39
  Joyful about, wow, I never thought I could do this.
• 2:00:42
  And that animal followed me without me knowing who that is.
• 2:00:47
  And I didn't demand it.
• 2:00:48
  I asked, it's all these things that go against the, the yes no
• 2:00:53
  black, white, military type stuff.
• 2:00:56
  So,
• 2:00:57
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 2:00:58
  So then people are with you for how long, roughly?
• 2:01:00
  Jane Strong: Well, they're there for, then we go back out, work
• 2:01:02
  with the horses in the afternoon.
• 2:01:03
  Then the next time they come up, same thing.
• 2:01:05
  We, we check in how, what did you notice based on the work?
• 2:01:09
  Do the body scan, the joint warmup, go out.
• 2:01:12
  They let that, we let them take the horses out, start a little bit in
• 2:01:15
  the morning with the connection.
• 2:01:16
  Then we go out, down the road into the fields, um, asking them to do the stop
• 2:01:22
  start thing with their body and breath.
• 2:01:24
  That's a big part of it.
• 2:01:26
  Not demanding and pulling, like, you know, drop your energy down, use your breath.
• 2:01:31
  And then we go out, down the road and across to a field, and
• 2:01:35
  then the next time they come, we go out to an obstacle course.
• 2:01:38
  So if they're fit and they want to, they can jump over the jumps in hand
• 2:01:42
  with the horses, which the horses love.
• 2:01:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:01:45
  Jane Strong: Um, go around the trees, do figure eights around the
• 2:01:48
  trees, but it's all on the ground, you know, and we, and we do that.
• 2:01:51
  And then the last time we do liberty work with them.
• 2:01:54
  So we have the horses going around and then coming back in, um, by choice, you
• 2:01:59
  know, so the horses are free to choose, which blows people away that they choose
• 2:02:04
  to walk with them if they invite them in the way a horse, they understand.
• 2:02:10
  So
• 2:02:10
  Rupert Isaacson: we work with that.
• 2:02:11
  All of these sessions, uh, unfold over how long, how, uh, weeks,
• 2:02:17
  Jane Strong: four weeks.
• 2:02:17
  If they can.
• 2:02:19
  Um, sometimes we do them once every two weeks, depending
• 2:02:22
  on if they're still working.
• 2:02:23
  They can't just get once a week off.
• 2:02:25
  Yeah.
• 2:02:25
  You know, we do it according to their schedules or there could
• 2:02:28
  be a whole over a whole weekend.
• 2:02:30
  But that's a lot to take in.
• 2:02:31
  And I love the soak time.
• 2:02:33
  Yeah.
• 2:02:33
  I love soak time for them and the practice in their real lives.
• 2:02:37
  You know, like how did you do, what was fear?
• 2:02:40
  What was vulnerability to you this week?
• 2:02:42
  How did you do it?
• 2:02:43
  Rupert Isaacson: And do you see them again after the four weeks
• 2:02:45
  that they've spent with you?
• 2:02:46
  Jane Strong: Sure.
• 2:02:46
  If they want to, if they wanna come back and they wanna, they, if they
• 2:02:49
  wanna volunteer or they wanna, if they're good with the handy with
• 2:02:52
  the horses and they get really handy with the horses in four weeks.
• 2:02:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:02:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:02:56
  Bet they do.
• 2:02:57
  Jane Strong: They can come back if they wanna do that.
• 2:02:59
  And, um, we're thinking this year of doing more of a graduate thing and adding more,
• 2:03:04
  I wanna add more of the stuff in anyway.
• 2:03:07
  For sure.
• 2:03:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:03:08
  Because I think, because one of my first responders is my ambassadors said to me,
• 2:03:13
  I think these guys are ready to do more.
• 2:03:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 2:03:16
  Jane Strong: I think they wanna do more complicated stuff.
• 2:03:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 2:03:19
  Absolutely.
• 2:03:20
  Jane Strong: So then I meet you, then I meet
• 2:03:21
  Rupert Isaacson: you.
• 2:03:21
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:03:23
  Rupert Isaacson: It's, no, you'll turn them all into wonderful
• 2:03:24
  classical trainers very fast.
• 2:03:26
  Yeah.
• 2:03:26
  And, um, then you'll see your horses turn into meta horses
• 2:03:29
  because that's more BDNF for them.
• 2:03:31
  Right.
• 2:03:32
  And the whole thing's just a positive
• 2:03:35
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:03:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Thing.
• 2:03:36
  But that's why we all need to meet each other because all of these ways that we
• 2:03:40
  have of working are very complimentary.
• 2:03:42
  Yes.
• 2:03:42
  I'm busy.
• 2:03:43
  I've been taking notes from you.
• 2:03:44
  I've been like, Ooh, I can have a bit of that, you know, from Jane.
• 2:03:47
  Yeah.
• 2:03:48
  Um.
• 2:03:49
  That's the whole point that we, we shouldn't sit in silos.
• 2:03:52
  And, um, yeah.
• 2:03:53
  When people do my programs or our programs, I don't really mind whether they
• 2:03:57
  do them this much or this much, because really what they are is a set of tools.
• 2:04:02
  It's up to you to decide how relevant are the tools in what context.
• 2:04:08
  You know, only you can make that ch that call.
• 2:04:10
  Yeah.
• 2:04:10
  It's not some rigid thing.
• 2:04:12
  Um, but you've mentioned a couple of things now.
• 2:04:17
  Um, you talked about, we, so talk about your team.
• 2:04:20
  How have you built your team?
• 2:04:21
  Who is your team and how big are your groups and what's your structure there?
• 2:04:25
  Yeah.
• 2:04:25
  Jane Strong: Um, my first, well my partner is David, who is a, um, he's an LCSW.
• 2:04:32
  What's that?
• 2:04:33
  And what's that?
• 2:04:33
  Came in.
• 2:04:33
  A licensed clinical social worker.
• 2:04:35
  Okay.
• 2:04:36
  But he came into this, he, he became a social worker after he
• 2:04:39
  started the work with the horses.
• 2:04:40
  I met him training in Tucson.
• 2:04:43
  We were in two different classes, but he was from the East coast.
• 2:04:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Ah, he was also doing Linda Koff thing?
• 2:04:46
  Jane Strong: Yeah, he did.
• 2:04:47
  Okay.
• 2:04:47
  And he was out working in Montana with some horses in this person,
• 2:04:51
  Leslie Desmond, I don't know if you know who she is, but she's, I do
• 2:04:54
  Rupert Isaacson: know Lizzie Desmond.
• 2:04:55
  Yeah,
• 2:04:55
  Jane Strong: yeah,
• 2:04:55
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
• 2:04:55
  Jane Strong: yeah.
• 2:04:56
  So she was working with him and she was going, I don't know, you've got something
• 2:05:00
  with horses that's really good, but I don't think you're supposed to ride them.
• 2:05:04
  I don't think that's what this is.
• 2:05:05
  And somebody else said, oh yeah, that's that Linda Hanno shit that he's doing.
• 2:05:08
  So he was like, well, who's, who's that?
• 2:05:11
  So he met, he called up to Tucson and Linda answered the phone, and
• 2:05:15
  then he got into an apprenticeship.
• 2:05:17
  Okay.
• 2:05:18
  So I met him through that.
• 2:05:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Got
• 2:05:20
  Jane Strong: it.
• 2:05:20
  And, um, that's, he lived in Brooklyn, of course.
• 2:05:22
  No horses.
• 2:05:23
  And so we just stayed in touch.
• 2:05:25
  And um, then in 2008 I said, this is what we're gonna do.
• 2:05:29
  All right.
• 2:05:29
  We to move up here.
• 2:05:30
  And he was gonna move up here anyway 'cause he was having a family.
• 2:05:33
  So he moved up and then we started this and we created a curriculum.
• 2:05:37
  Um, we manualized the curriculum and we created it and we, you know, we've tweaked
• 2:05:44
  it and made it actually more robust because people can handle learning more.
• 2:05:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:05:49
  Jane Strong: Um, and we really wanna be transparent with
• 2:05:51
  people about what are we up to?
• 2:05:52
  What are we doing?
• 2:05:53
  And so
• 2:05:54
  Rupert Isaacson: can people access your curriculum?
• 2:05:55
  Like if someone's listening to this now, can they contact you and can
• 2:05:58
  they get your curriculum on online?
• 2:06:00
  Do they have to sign up for a course?
• 2:06:02
  How, how would someone find your curriculum?
• 2:06:04
  Jane Strong: You would sign up for the training or you would sign up?
• 2:06:06
  Actually what you would do is sign up for what we call an inside the EQU
• 2:06:10
  effect, which is in a weekend thing.
• 2:06:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:06:12
  That's learning, doing it yourself.
• 2:06:15
  So we want all of our facilitators to have walked the walk.
• 2:06:18
  Right.
• 2:06:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:06:19
  You
• 2:06:19
  Jane Strong: can't just read it and do it.
• 2:06:20
  It's like,
• 2:06:21
  Rupert Isaacson: how many facilitators do you have?
• 2:06:23
  Jane Strong: Um, I think we have about 40 so far.
• 2:06:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Not necessarily working with you people that
• 2:06:30
  you've trained who work in other
• 2:06:32
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:06:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:06:32
  Jane Strong: I've got somebody coming in October from North Carolina.
• 2:06:36
  Got it.
• 2:06:36
  Um, somebody coming from Maine.
• 2:06:37
  Somebody coming from Massachusetts.
• 2:06:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:06:40
  So somebody can come to you, learn this, take it back to their
• 2:06:44
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 2:06:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Thing.
• 2:06:44
  Imp and implement it.
• 2:06:46
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 2:06:46
  Yes.
• 2:06:46
  Got it.
• 2:06:47
  And it's a, it's a pretty rigorous course because we really want people
• 2:06:51
  to be able to know what their triggers are, you know, 'cause you, you know,
• 2:06:58
  we like people to work in pairs if we can, but we also really want people
• 2:07:02
  to know what gets you, when do you, when are you putting more effort
• 2:07:05
  into this person than the person is?
• 2:07:07
  How do you know you are?
• 2:07:09
  I'm sure you know about that.
• 2:07:10
  You know,
• 2:07:11
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I I totally do.
• 2:07:12
  I'm just looking at your website here.
• 2:07:13
  It's, it's very good.
• 2:07:14
  So, just for people that are intrigued, um, I see that
• 2:07:18
  you've got workshops coming up.
• 2:07:20
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 2:07:20
  Rupert Isaacson: We are in, uh, what are we in, uh, April, 2026, but it's
• 2:07:26
  more up to date than our website is.
• 2:07:27
  You've got, you know, your stuff from May, uh,
• 2:07:32
  Jane Strong: July,
• 2:07:32
  Rupert Isaacson: July, uh, October, um, courses that people can come
• 2:07:40
  and do, and lads, I've, I've hung out with Jane for a weekend.
• 2:07:43
  Um, we, she came and did a workshop with me down in Texas, and I know the quality
• 2:07:49
  of her work with horses and so on.
• 2:07:51
  So I, I would actually heartily recommend, um, picking up one of these,
• 2:07:55
  uh, one of these workshops that they're offering there at the EQU Effect.
• 2:08:01
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:08:01
  I think the one in May is gonna be about somatic.
• 2:08:04
  I, I talked to you a little bit about the Enneagram.
• 2:08:06
  Yeah.
• 2:08:07
  Which I'll, I'll talk to you more about that in October.
• 2:08:10
  But the Enneagram is a system that also uses the three centers
• 2:08:13
  of intelligence, how we overuse it and underuse it, and I'll, can
• 2:08:16
  Rupert Isaacson: you just talk to us a bit about it now?
• 2:08:18
  Jane Strong: It's, yes.
• 2:08:19
  It's a very, very old, old system that was designed to teach people who were
• 2:08:27
  meditating and, you know, doing whatever they were doing in the desert to.
• 2:08:33
  Um, learn about their blind spots.
• 2:08:36
  Okay.
• 2:08:36
  What gets in the way of presence?
• 2:08:39
  What gets in the way of God?
• 2:08:41
  What gets in the way of whatever tradition you come from?
• 2:08:44
  And so I started to study it in 1996 and it's been a centerpiece of
• 2:08:49
  the things, the way I see things.
• 2:08:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:08:51
  And it helps me ask good questions, really good questions of people
• 2:08:56
  because I can see sort of what type they are, but mostly I can see
• 2:08:59
  what center they operate from more.
• 2:09:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:09:02
  And so I can tailor questions to them, whether it's clients or
• 2:09:06
  facilitators, um, helps me track.
• 2:09:09
  And I also teach it, I teach it in the corporate world.
• 2:09:12
  I do that, uh, on the side, so.
• 2:09:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:09:15
  Jane Strong: Anyway, it's a very cool system and this person is coming in in
• 2:09:19
  May who's a somatic Enneagram person who uses the body to track defense mechanisms.
• 2:09:25
  And so the people coming in that are usually Enneagram people who know,
• 2:09:29
  who are interested in this, and then we're gonna add the horses to it.
• 2:09:31
  Got it.
• 2:09:32
  So I'm starting.
• 2:09:32
  Got it.
• 2:09:33
  I'm starting to collaborate and pepper in the horses to everything else you
• 2:09:37
  do because it's good for everybody.
• 2:09:39
  Right.
• 2:09:39
  That was the message.
• 2:09:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 2:09:41
  Absolutely.
• 2:09:41
  Absolutely.
• 2:09:43
  Um, okay.
• 2:09:44
  And I'm, I'm sort of looking, you, you've got a fairly good team there.
• 2:09:50
  Yeah.
• 2:09:50
  Um, how do you fund it?
• 2:09:53
  People always wanna know.
• 2:09:54
  Everyone funds their things differently.
• 2:09:59
  Jane Strong: I get dressed up when I go to the S market.
• 2:10:02
  I, I cultivate donors.
• 2:10:05
  My partner John, is a, um, is a, uh, a at the country club.
• 2:10:10
  He's got a lot.
• 2:10:11
  He, he's a really good golfer and he's got a lot of local, a lot of friends
• 2:10:15
  around here who are, you know, people with money who have the wherewithal to donate.
• 2:10:20
  And, um, they're in the, they're not, they're not in the learning
• 2:10:23
  or earning part of their lives.
• 2:10:24
  They're in the returning part of their lives.
• 2:10:26
  So
• 2:10:27
  Rupert Isaacson: philanthropy.
• 2:10:28
  Yeah,
• 2:10:28
  Jane Strong: philanthropy.
• 2:10:29
  So we do that.
• 2:10:30
  And I also have a grant from the VA for the first time.
• 2:10:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, that was gonna be my question because I, when, when we
• 2:10:37
  were first working, I don't know, 500 years ago in Texas, um, people said,
• 2:10:43
  oh, you should apply for a grant from the va, you know, and because we were
• 2:10:47
  already actually working with veterans and first responders, we just weren't
• 2:10:50
  Jane Strong: Yeah,
• 2:10:51
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 2:10:52
  Getting funded for it.
• 2:10:53
  And, um, we looked into it and I kind of like fell at the first fence.
• 2:10:59
  I was like, how, how am I gonna, I'd have to devote, you know, 25 years to figuring
• 2:11:07
  out how you go through this grant process.
• 2:11:10
  Um, but then I would find, meet some people who seem randomly
• 2:11:13
  seem to get it, like my neighbor.
• 2:11:15
  Who had a, a small therapeutic practice, got like the 70 5K grant from the va.
• 2:11:21
  I was like, how did you even do that?
• 2:11:22
  And she said, Aaron sub Rupa.
• 2:11:23
  I don't quite know.
• 2:11:24
  We just sort of got a bit lucky.
• 2:11:25
  But then they, so this is a notoriously opaque organization to deal with.
• 2:11:32
  I, I know there's gonna be people listening and watching who are trying to
• 2:11:38
  Jane Strong: navigate.
• 2:11:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:11:39
  Talk to us a little bit about that process, if you can.
• 2:11:42
  Well,
• 2:11:42
  Jane Strong: yes.
• 2:11:43
  The process is a nightmare.
• 2:11:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 2:11:46
  Jane Strong: A nightmare.
• 2:11:47
  But I hired a grant writer and I sicked her on it.
• 2:11:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:11:53
  Jane Strong: And I said, I can help with the narrative.
• 2:11:56
  I can help with the narrative.
• 2:11:57
  'cause I'm a good writer.
• 2:11:58
  I know what I'm talking about.
• 2:11:59
  I know this program inside out.
• 2:12:01
  We've been doing it for 12 years.
• 2:12:02
  I know what I'm doing.
• 2:12:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:12:03
  I know how to explain it.
• 2:12:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:12:05
  So I wrote, I helped a lot with the narrative.
• 2:12:09
  She did all of the work on the budget, the allocations,
• 2:12:14
  it's endless, endless details.
• 2:12:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:12:17
  Jane Strong: And the accounting for it is also endless.
• 2:12:20
  So,
• 2:12:21
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 2:12:21
  Jane Strong: It's a lot of work, but it's, if you want it, um, they,
• 2:12:26
  and they, what they're good at, what they're really good at is, we
• 2:12:29
  were granted it for this last year.
• 2:12:32
  Then the second year is easier.
• 2:12:33
  Then they're like, okay, time to,
• 2:12:35
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 2:12:36
  Jane Strong: Time to reapply.
• 2:12:37
  And then they actually give you all this feedback on what took
• 2:12:40
  away points from the first thing.
• 2:12:42
  Rupert Isaacson: I see.
• 2:12:42
  So it's the first foot in the door.
• 2:12:44
  That's the hard
• 2:12:44
  Jane Strong: It is the very hardest.
• 2:12:46
  And if anybody wants help, I can help.
• 2:12:48
  I can help because I know how to, okay.
• 2:12:50
  I don't, I can tell you what you need to do and I can tell you that it's hard and
• 2:12:57
  I can tell you it's complex and stupid.
• 2:13:00
  But if there, if you're, but the deal is once you're in, you're in.
• 2:13:04
  Rupert Isaacson: I see.
• 2:13:06
  Jane Strong: And
• 2:13:06
  Rupert Isaacson: that is good to know.
• 2:13:08
  That is good to know.
• 2:13:08
  So it's worth people while to go through that painful
• 2:13:15
  transitional stage.
• 2:13:16
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:13:17
  I mean, I was so mad because of the rules.
• 2:13:19
  I don't like the rules.
• 2:13:20
  That's part of the fun of being an outsider is I don't like the rules.
• 2:13:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:13:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:13:23
  And I don't, I don't do the rules unless it's really worth it.
• 2:13:27
  And in this case, because I had the help of this grant
• 2:13:29
  writer who was like, calm down.
• 2:13:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:13:32
  Just calm down.
• 2:13:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:13:34
  Jane Strong: We can do this.
• 2:13:36
  And I gave her all the data.
• 2:13:37
  You have to have a budget, you know, you have to have all this detail stuff.
• 2:13:40
  That's the foundation, that's the basement part of it.
• 2:13:43
  You have to have those ducks in a row.
• 2:13:44
  'cause that's how they operate.
• 2:13:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:13:47
  Jane Strong: And they gave us a grant and they said, but
• 2:13:49
  we're not paying for lunches.
• 2:13:51
  Take that out of there.
• 2:13:52
  I was like, okay.
• 2:13:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:13:56
  Okay.
• 2:13:57
  So people do want a little bit of guidance.
• 2:13:59
  You can give them that.
• 2:14:00
  Jane Strong: Absolutely.
• 2:14:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:14:02
  Absolutely.
• 2:14:02
  Okay.
• 2:14:02
  That's very valuable.
• 2:14:03
  So did you hear that lads,
• 2:14:06
  as Jane gets 300 emails
• 2:14:11
  suddenly, Rupert, why do you, why'd you put that out there on the internet?
• 2:14:15
  But it, I guess the point with that, and what I respect about that, Jane,
• 2:14:19
  is that, you know, and I know that, um, in this equine consisted world
• 2:14:25
  that we are part of, there is a lot of factionalism and a lot of mistrust
• 2:14:31
  from one organization to another.
• 2:14:34
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:14:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, to our detriment.
• 2:14:37
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:14:37
  Rupert Isaacson: With a scarcity mindset, which perhaps might have been
• 2:14:42
  true in the early days, I don't know.
• 2:14:44
  Um, but or true were, um, but I've never found it actually to be true,
• 2:14:52
  but nonetheless, that people won't work together because they feel that, you know,
• 2:14:55
  there's a limited pot of money and if you get something, they don't get something.
• 2:14:58
  And although I, I fundamentally disagree with that mindset, you
• 2:15:04
  can't, that's like arguing with fear.
• 2:15:06
  You can't argue with fear.
• 2:15:07
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:15:07
  Rupert Isaacson: But there's relatively few people who will offer to mentor
• 2:15:12
  people from quote unquote competitors or potential competitors that are coming up.
• 2:15:18
  But my my feeling is that you have to, and you must, because even if we had.
• 2:15:24
  A center, an equine assisted center every five kilometers, which would be great.
• 2:15:29
  Uh, we wouldn't even scratch the surface of the need.
• 2:15:33
  Jane Strong: No, I think that's right.
• 2:15:35
  Rupert Isaacson: And not everybody can have a big operation anyway.
• 2:15:38
  Like some of our horse boy centers see hundreds of kids a week.
• 2:15:45
  They use tools that we've given them.
• 2:15:47
  But I, I couldn't do that.
• 2:15:48
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 2:15:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, that's not me.
• 2:15:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:15:52
  But I totally respect that.
• 2:15:54
  Others can, but it means that there's room there for everybody and if we
• 2:15:58
  don't mentor each other, so, you know, if, if you will mentor people and how
• 2:16:01
  to get money, that is the single most important thing for an organization.
• 2:16:05
  Otherwise, it just doesn't function.
• 2:16:07
  Yeah.
• 2:16:07
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:16:07
  And I think there's a, there's a, there's another thing that goes on in our field.
• 2:16:12
  Part of it is, well, the competitiveness is exactly the same thing that you
• 2:16:15
  talked about in the dressage world or in any horse training world.
• 2:16:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Any competitive,
• 2:16:21
  Jane Strong: everybody has a, everybody has a religion that becomes a cult.
• 2:16:25
  And that's on the, that's on the trainers.
• 2:16:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:16:28
  Jane Strong: That's on the trainers.
• 2:16:29
  And you're not like that.
• 2:16:30
  And I think that's really important.
• 2:16:32
  And I could go down that road 'cause I don't like what some people do.
• 2:16:36
  I don't like clamping down on the horses and making everybody wear helmets and
• 2:16:41
  making it all about insurance and safety.
• 2:16:44
  Hmm.
• 2:16:44
  I don't like people saying, personally, I don't like it when somebody
• 2:16:48
  says we're doing equine assisted psychotherapy so they can get insurance.
• 2:16:52
  Yeah.
• 2:16:52
  You know, and you're not, and I was gonna say that about my partner David.
• 2:16:56
  He's an, he's an licensed clinical social worker.
• 2:16:59
  When he came here to first with armed with his information and knowledge,
• 2:17:03
  it's kind of not his nature.
• 2:17:05
  He's not a very, uh, fixer.
• 2:17:08
  He's not a fixer.
• 2:17:09
  But, um, he came in and started to talk to some of these vets about their personal
• 2:17:14
  history, which is the psychological part.
• 2:17:16
  Right.
• 2:17:17
  Your personal history and all that stuff.
• 2:17:19
  And it just didn't fit because the horses don't see the stories.
• 2:17:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:17:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:17:23
  Jane Strong: They never see the stories they see, how are you with me right now?
• 2:17:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:17:28
  Jane Strong: And what you brought, the things you carried into this place.
• 2:17:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:17:34
  Jane Strong: Those are your things and your stories and your ideas about who
• 2:17:38
  you're supposed to be or who you can't be.
• 2:17:40
  But the horses only see who you are.
• 2:17:43
  And if you come in thinking that's all there is without, that keeps us, I think,
• 2:17:49
  all of us from trying something new.
• 2:17:51
  From being a beginner.
• 2:17:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:17:54
  Jane Strong: And from being a
• 2:17:55
  Rupert Isaacson: back to vulnerability again.
• 2:17:57
  Yeah.
• 2:17:57
  Jane Strong: And curiosity.
• 2:17:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:17:58
  If you don't, if you come with a bunch of baggage about who you think you are and
• 2:18:03
  all that stuff, it's really not helpful.
• 2:18:05
  The horses kind of don't see it.
• 2:18:06
  And, and so we work with what's happening now.
• 2:18:09
  What do you notice now?
• 2:18:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:18:11
  And I think that's the biggest part of our training is we teach people
• 2:18:14
  how to get there, how to be present.
• 2:18:18
  I
• 2:18:18
  Rupert Isaacson: think you Go ahead.
• 2:18:19
  Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you
• 2:18:21
  Jane Strong: just to track.
• 2:18:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:18:23
  You, you talked at the very beginning of this conversation, um, about
• 2:18:28
  curiosity and, you know, we've now sort of reached the two hour mark and
• 2:18:31
  it's really good that it's come back to that because, so as, as we head into
• 2:18:36
  the sort of final stretch here, um, I wrote down a question which I think
• 2:18:43
  I'm gonna ask you when you said that, because curiosity is to some degree, um,
• 2:18:54
  overridden or, uh, canceled out or, uh, eclipsed in
• 2:19:02
  organizations like the military.
• 2:19:04
  Um, not entirely, not always, not in every, but as a culture,
• 2:19:08
  you're supposed to follow orders.
• 2:19:09
  It's not questioned.
• 2:19:11
  Um, then you are, if, if, if we accept that our society is largely militarized,
• 2:19:17
  that's what the corporate world is.
• 2:19:18
  It's just a parallel reflection of the military, really.
• 2:19:21
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 2:19:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Um, we are told, you know, from school age to be
• 2:19:26
  less curious, not more curious.
• 2:19:28
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 2:19:29
  Okay.
• 2:19:31
  Rupert Isaacson: I think this makes us uncompassionate.
• 2:19:35
  Jane Strong: Mm-hmm.
• 2:19:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Here's my question to you.
• 2:19:36
  Can you have compassion without curiosity?
• 2:19:44
  Jane Strong: Well, you certainly cannot have resonance.
• 2:19:48
  You can't have, you can't have resonance with that, which is an emergent quality,
• 2:19:53
  that en gate, that involves curiosity.
• 2:19:56
  It involves stepping into the unknown, like, Ooh, what is that?
• 2:20:00
  Oh, wow.
• 2:20:01
  And there's appreciation, curiosity,
• 2:20:04
  Rupert Isaacson: wonder, awe,
• 2:20:05
  Jane Strong: wonder.
• 2:20:05
  Awe.
• 2:20:06
  I talk about awe a lot.
• 2:20:08
  You know, I talk about a lot of stuff I haven't said here.
• 2:20:10
  Yeah.
• 2:20:11
  But I talk about awe because you're in this presence of this
• 2:20:13
  big creature who you don't know.
• 2:20:16
  How could you not be when you see that power and strength
• 2:20:20
  and the danger and the right
• 2:20:22
  Rupert Isaacson: kindness and Or is vulnerability, isn't it?
• 2:20:23
  Yeah.
• 2:20:23
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 2:20:24
  It's linked to vulnerability.
• 2:20:25
  Exactly.
• 2:20:26
  And so I think you, it's very hard to have compassion without curiosity because how
• 2:20:33
  do we know what matters to someone else?
• 2:20:36
  How do we know?
• 2:20:37
  How do we lump these people together, those veterans with PTSD, those people,
• 2:20:43
  those first responders, you know, defund the police, you know, all this
• 2:20:46
  stupid stuff as if they're monolithic and not individuals trying to sort out.
• 2:20:54
  And they do have psychological stuff, and they do see therapists.
• 2:20:57
  We see ourselves as compliments.
• 2:20:59
  And we do see ourselves as compliments to psychotherapy.
• 2:21:03
  But our role isn't that, our role is what's happening now.
• 2:21:07
  What surprised you?
• 2:21:08
  We always say that.
• 2:21:09
  What surprised you?
• 2:21:11
  You know, and people go, I can't believe that horse did what I asked.
• 2:21:15
  I can't now that's curiosity.
• 2:21:17
  Right?
• 2:21:18
  Wow.
• 2:21:20
  How did that happen?
• 2:21:23
  I didn't even know him.
• 2:21:25
  Rupert Isaacson: He made me think of, uh, CS Lewis.
• 2:21:28
  Uh, surprised by joy.
• 2:21:30
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 2:21:31
  Yes.
• 2:21:32
  That's another one is surprise, right?
• 2:21:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:21:36
  Mm mm Because that also makes you vulnerable.
• 2:21:39
  Joy, weirdly enough, makes you vulnerable.
• 2:21:41
  Yeah.
• 2:21:41
  And the, the, the finding of the child within
• 2:21:44
  Jane Strong: Yes.
• 2:21:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Which of course has never gone away, but instead of
• 2:21:46
  just being the hurt, defended child
• 2:21:48
  Jane Strong: Right.
• 2:21:49
  Rupert Isaacson: You know, that that joyful child.
• 2:21:52
  The, the, the, the pre ponytail, uh, shoplifting incident.
• 2:21:57
  Yeah.
• 2:21:57
  Version of Jane.
• 2:21:58
  Jane Strong: Yeah,
• 2:21:58
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah, yeah,
• 2:21:59
  Jane Strong: yeah.
• 2:22:00
  Totally.
• 2:22:01
  Totally.
• 2:22:01
  I was always curious.
• 2:22:02
  I was always trying something new.
• 2:22:04
  I was always doing whatever, you know, riding the worst horse in the barn
• 2:22:08
  and you know, just doing whatever.
• 2:22:10
  And then all of a sudden it just clamped down.
• 2:22:12
  And I think that's where we all get stuck.
• 2:22:15
  At some point, in some way in our lives, we get told this isn't okay.
• 2:22:19
  You can't be like that.
• 2:22:21
  You have to do this, or whatever.
• 2:22:22
  All the versions of it that happened in a million different ways.
• 2:22:26
  I'm sure a million different ways.
• 2:22:27
  And the cost of being rebellious, the cost of going against is expensive.
• 2:22:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh yes.
• 2:22:35
  Jane Strong: To our, to our nervous systems, to our ability to relate
• 2:22:37
  to our ability to be vulnerable.
• 2:22:41
  Rupert Isaacson: And the irony is the, the cost of not
• 2:22:43
  rebelling is equally expensive.
• 2:22:46
  Jane Strong: I totally agree.
• 2:22:47
  I
• 2:22:47
  Rupert Isaacson: totally damned if you do, damned if you don't.
• 2:22:49
  Jane Strong: I know I had this woman come to see us and she was really curious.
• 2:22:53
  She was really curious.
• 2:22:55
  She was really open to the work.
• 2:22:56
  She really did it.
• 2:22:57
  And when she left she said, you know what, I'm gonna go home and get a divorce.
• 2:23:01
  And I was like, what?
• 2:23:04
  That wasn't,
• 2:23:07
  Rupert Isaacson: here's the way of saying I'm not responsible.
• 2:23:10
  Jane Strong: Right.
• 2:23:10
  So I said, well, that really wasn't the aim of this session.
• 2:23:13
  And she said, yeah, but you know what?
• 2:23:14
  I realize I've had enough of going along to get along.
• 2:23:18
  I've had enough.
• 2:23:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:23:19
  Yeah.
• 2:23:19
  Jane Strong: So you never know what's gonna matter to people, but I, no,
• 2:23:22
  Rupert Isaacson: I never do.
• 2:23:22
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:23:23
  I think that, yes, I think having both, both curiosity and compassion, because
• 2:23:28
  you can have curiosity that's dry.
• 2:23:30
  You know, that's like an experiment.
• 2:23:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Intellectual, purely intellectual.
• 2:23:33
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:23:34
  Yeah,
• 2:23:34
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 2:23:34
  That's true.
• 2:23:36
  Yes, indeed.
• 2:23:37
  You could have like uncompassionate curiosity, like, I wonder what happens
• 2:23:41
  if I pull this insect apart or do this horrible thing to a person.
• 2:23:46
  Right.
• 2:23:46
  You know, we know that that exists as well.
• 2:23:48
  But that I think is a for, you know, thankfully a.
• 2:23:54
  An anomaly.
• 2:23:55
  Um, you, you notice it if you see it.
• 2:23:58
  Put it that
• 2:23:58
  Jane Strong: way.
• 2:23:58
  Yeah.
• 2:23:59
  And the other thing that happens I think just really quickly is that we
• 2:24:02
  are so, uh, tied to licenses, licenses, degrees, evidence based, you know,
• 2:24:11
  Rupert Isaacson: insurance,
• 2:24:13
  Jane Strong: stupid.
• 2:24:13
  It's all this stuff that's, that keeps us both siloed and dependent.
• 2:24:18
  Silent.
• 2:24:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:24:18
  Jane Strong: Silent.
• 2:24:19
  And to keep us dependent on those things for credibility when actually what I'm
• 2:24:24
  looking for in facilitators is emotional maturity and flexibility and willingness
• 2:24:30
  to try, willingness to experiment.
• 2:24:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Curiosity.
• 2:24:33
  Absolutely.
• 2:24:34
  Curiosity.
• 2:24:34
  A hundred percent And not Yeah.
• 2:24:36
  Not playing the God role.
• 2:24:37
  Um,
• 2:24:38
  Jane Strong: yeah.
• 2:24:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Which 'cause be being a therapist gives you a certain power.
• 2:24:42
  Power for us.
• 2:24:43
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:24:43
  It's not an equal play.
• 2:24:44
  It's not a level playing field and a facilitator walks with you like a guide.
• 2:24:48
  That's our people are guides.
• 2:24:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:24:52
  Interesting.
• 2:24:54
  Yes.
• 2:24:56
  Well, I I'm very grateful that you had that shoplifting
• 2:25:00
  incident when you were 13.
• 2:25:01
  Yeah.
• 2:25:02
  Because if you hadn't, I don't think you'd be doing this.
• 2:25:04
  And, uh, I, or, or you wouldn't be doing it so well.
• 2:25:08
  Um, so, you know, we, we all benefit, uh, from
• 2:25:14
  Jane Strong: that's why I wanted to, I thought that, you know, it's a
• 2:25:17
  very interesting, um, terrible, but.
• 2:25:22
  Evocative and provocative, you know, getting cast out
• 2:25:27
  of the garden kind of thing.
• 2:25:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 2:25:29
  Um, absolutely.
• 2:25:31
  You know, and it's happened to us all.
• 2:25:33
  Jane Strong: Yes,
• 2:25:34
  Rupert Isaacson: falls from grace have happened to us all, and, um,
• 2:25:41
  they're not, they're not safe to talk about.
• 2:25:44
  Um, so if you make yourself vulnerable to talk about them, um, you do actually do a
• 2:25:51
  great service and you take a great risk.
• 2:25:53
  Um, you risk being judged.
• 2:25:55
  You risk, you risk all the things we know you risk, but if you take
• 2:25:59
  the risk, you, you get the job done.
• 2:26:02
  Um, so hats off and respect for you for being so open.
• 2:26:07
  And Thank you.
• 2:26:08
  I'm grateful.
• 2:26:09
  Um, interestingly, as you were talking, you know, I've spent, as
• 2:26:14
  you know, a lot of time with shamans.
• 2:26:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:26:16
  And, um, some of them have been from horse cultures, and if you
• 2:26:21
  are in Mongolia, you talked about the medicine hat on the horse.
• 2:26:25
  I quickly went and looked that up.
• 2:26:27
  Oh, that's interesting.
• 2:26:28
  Jane Strong: Did you, did you find it?
• 2:26:29
  Rupert Isaacson: I did, I did.
• 2:26:29
  In fact, apparently it is, it is both ears, apparently.
• 2:26:31
  It
• 2:26:31
  Jane Strong: could be both.
• 2:26:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:26:32
  And, and sometimes a thing here shield and says a warrior horse as well.
• 2:26:37
  Um, or that's just what Google told.
• 2:26:39
  Just, just 'cause I got that.
• 2:26:41
  Jane Strong: I'm
• 2:26:41
  Rupert Isaacson: sure they're
• 2:26:42
  Jane Strong: right.
• 2:26:42
  I'm sure they're right.
• 2:26:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
• 2:26:43
  Jane Strong: I'm sure they're right,
• 2:26:44
  Rupert Isaacson: you know.
• 2:26:44
  Um, but.
• 2:26:48
  The, there is this concept, um, with Mongo in Mongolia, and actually that's why we
• 2:26:55
  have the name for our, uh, on the ground trauma program, which is teaching the art
• 2:27:02
  of classical training from the ground, the in hand work, the long res, the lunging,
• 2:27:08
  um, to people to rebuild horses that have been broken as part of a therapy program.
• 2:27:12
  Um, the therapeutic aspect sort of speaks for itself, you know, um, the,
• 2:27:18
  we called it takin because takin in Mongo, in Mongolia, it's the word
• 2:27:22
  that they have for what we call the prosky horse, the wild horse.
• 2:27:25
  Oh, so the horse, it was never tamed.
• 2:27:27
  Um, largely 'cause it doesn't have a wither and, um, so it's, it's not, it's
• 2:27:32
  not really, you can't put equipment.
• 2:27:34
  So for whatever reason people never are a bit like zebras.
• 2:27:37
  They never, um, tamed them.
• 2:27:40
  And in Mongolia where they have all their horses kind of live semi wild,
• 2:27:45
  um, or they domesticated horses, they reserve this name takin for the
• 2:27:50
  horse that was never domesticated.
• 2:27:52
  And it means honored one or revered one.
• 2:27:55
  And I always liked that, given that this was a culture that literally
• 2:27:59
  eats, sleeps, drinks, horses, wears them, you know, everything, everything.
• 2:28:05
  Horse, they nourish you, they carry you the lot, they the shelter over
• 2:28:09
  your head, uh, the leather and um.
• 2:28:14
  So that they had this still this essential, um, respect for
• 2:28:18
  the wild nature of the horse.
• 2:28:19
  Um, I like that.
• 2:28:21
  And then of course, they have a shamanic concept called the wind
• 2:28:28
  horse, which is your luck, your mojo, your, your, uh, life force really.
• 2:28:35
  Um, and that can wane or wax and the intercession of a shaman.
• 2:28:41
  Tibetan Buddhism has this too.
• 2:28:43
  And there's a big correlation between Tibetan Buddhism and,
• 2:28:46
  and uh, Mongolian shamanism.
• 2:28:48
  Um, because Tibetan Buddhism is very shamanic.
• 2:28:50
  Um, and uh, that's sort of why everyone in Mongolia is Buddhist.
• 2:28:55
  'cause Tibetan monks wandered over the al Plateau in the 16 hundreds and said to
• 2:29:00
  the most violent culture on the planet, Hey, what about this Buddhism thing?
• 2:29:03
  And everyone kind of went, oh yeah, that's a good idea.
• 2:29:05
  And like stopped killing everybody in life's generation, you know?
• 2:29:09
  It's amazing.
• 2:29:09
  Jane Strong: When, when was that?
• 2:29:11
  Rupert Isaacson: It was in about the 16 hundreds.
• 2:29:12
  It was one of the great, it's one of the great unsung, um, achievements of humanity
• 2:29:17
  is that the most violent culture on the planet, which every couple of generations
• 2:29:22
  would explode out of the central step and kill everybody, would kill everybody
• 2:29:27
  from the Pacific to the Mediterranean.
• 2:29:29
  Right?
• 2:29:30
  And then, oh, that's a bit tiring.
• 2:29:31
  So then you sort of go back to your, your homeland, you know, and then.
• 2:29:38
  Two generations later, do we kill everybody?
• 2:29:40
  And this just went on and on and on.
• 2:29:42
  You, you know, the Huns and the Geis, Kahan and Kla Khan and Tamerlan.
• 2:29:47
  And these are just the ones whose names we can remember.
• 2:29:49
  And somewhere in the 17th century, these blokes from over the Al Plateau kind of
• 2:29:55
  went wandering in there, went all lad's.
• 2:29:57
  Anyway, there's this thing called, uh, Buddhism and you kind of
• 2:30:00
  gotta be nice to each other.
• 2:30:01
  And everyone kinda went, yeah, like that.
• 2:30:07
  It's a little bit like our post World War ii, um, world order, which flawed
• 2:30:12
  as it is, has managed to maintain a piece that is unusual on the planet,
• 2:30:18
  which we are now tampering with.
• 2:30:20
  However, yeah, we'll miss it when it's gone.
• 2:30:23
  Um, but these were great.
• 2:30:26
  These are great achievements of humanity.
• 2:30:28
  And anyway, so the wind horse is very much a, a living concept when
• 2:30:35
  you, uh, are consulting with a horse shaman, a shaman from the
• 2:30:39
  horse tribes on the Mongolian step.
• 2:30:42
  I feel that that's kind of what you are doing, Jane.
• 2:30:45
  Um, I feel that you are restoring people's windhorse.
• 2:30:48
  Hmm.
• 2:30:49
  And I think that that work that you did with Linda Kahan
• 2:30:52
  of, um, birthed that in you.
• 2:30:57
  But I think the suffering that you had with that sense of rejection and
• 2:31:03
  the withdrawal of that parental love after being set on the pedestal.
• 2:31:08
  And, um, all of these things sort of qualify you, you know, in this weird
• 2:31:13
  way to have this compassion, but to help alleviate suffering, but really to
• 2:31:19
  restore people's self-respect, self-worth, um, their wind horse, their mojo.
• 2:31:30
  Jane Strong: And their curiosity.
• 2:31:31
  Rupert Isaacson: And their curiosity.
• 2:31:32
  So I don't have a hat, but in the absence of a hat, I'm going to use
• 2:31:37
  this coffee mug with a fox on it.
• 2:31:41
  I'm gonna take my hat off to you because I Medicine hat.
• 2:31:45
  That's my medicine hat.
• 2:31:46
  Yeah.
• 2:31:46
  It's got, got a fox on it.
• 2:31:48
  Um, because seriously, um, all flippancy aside, it's important
• 2:31:55
  work and those people that you're working with, um, particularly the
• 2:31:58
  first responders, we rely on them.
• 2:32:04
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:32:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Easy to take 'em for granted.
• 2:32:05
  Easy to denigrate them.
• 2:32:07
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:32:07
  Think
• 2:32:07
  Rupert Isaacson: easy to say, oh, the local police department's corrupt.
• 2:32:10
  What are you gonna do if they're not there?
• 2:32:11
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:32:12
  That's what we said at our, an event we had two years ago.
• 2:32:15
  My, one of my board members whose son is a Navy Seal, said, why
• 2:32:18
  don't you talk about real impact?
• 2:32:20
  So I looked up the number of 9 1 1 calls in Litchfield County, which is a quiet
• 2:32:25
  county in Connecticut, 80,000 a year.
• 2:32:30
  120,000 in Dutchess County.
• 2:32:32
  Right.
• 2:32:32
  Over in New York State.
• 2:32:34
  These aren't even urban areas.
• 2:32:36
  Rupert Isaacson: No.
• 2:32:36
  And these are quite wealthy areas too.
• 2:32:38
  Yeah.
• 2:32:39
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:32:39
  Right.
• 2:32:39
  So that's 80,000 calls that these folks get up and go to not
• 2:32:44
  knowing what's gonna be there.
• 2:32:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 2:32:47
  Jane Strong: Sometimes alone.
• 2:32:48
  And guess what?
• 2:32:50
  Guess who benefits?
• 2:32:51
  Not just them?
• 2:32:52
  Us.
• 2:32:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
• 2:32:54
  Jane Strong: From this work, from if you're on the floor, you can't
• 2:32:56
  get up if your house burnt down.
• 2:32:58
  Who, who do you want that person to have had a good night's sleep.
• 2:33:01
  Yeah.
• 2:33:01
  You want them to have a good relationship with their family.
• 2:33:04
  You bet.
• 2:33:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:33:05
  Jane Strong: So it's that kind of impact that we're also talking about.
• 2:33:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:33:10
  Yeah.
• 2:33:11
  Happiness and joy.
• 2:33:12
  If, if they haven't got wellbeing, how they, how can they transmit it to you?
• 2:33:16
  Yes.
• 2:33:16
  In your time of need.
• 2:33:17
  Yeah,
• 2:33:17
  Jane Strong: that's right.
• 2:33:18
  Just like you said about the, the therapy horses, if they've got two sidewalks
• 2:33:22
  and somebody at their head, and one of one of our board members was involved
• 2:33:26
  with PATH for a long time, and she said if a horse pinned his or her ears,
• 2:33:30
  we'd go knock it off, not what's up.
• 2:33:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 2:33:35
  Yeah.
• 2:33:36
  And certainly no work in between the clients to say, how can I help you?
• 2:33:40
  Or making sure that the work with the client is actually helping the horse.
• 2:33:44
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:33:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Which isn't that hard to do, honestly.
• 2:33:47
  Jane Strong: No.
• 2:33:47
  And I have a good friend
• 2:33:49
  Rupert Isaacson: who's have to kind of want to Yeah,
• 2:33:50
  Jane Strong: yeah.
• 2:33:50
  I know.
• 2:33:50
  I have a good friend who's an animal communicator who just wrote a whole
• 2:33:54
  guide for this, for the volunteers and staff, uh, which I'll send to you.
• 2:33:59
  I'll send this to you because it's for any and all therapeutic riding
• 2:34:03
  places where or therapeutic places with horses, how to be with them mm-hmm.
• 2:34:09
  In between, right From the time you walk into their stall.
• 2:34:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:34:12
  How to be with them and how to make their job easier by make, giving
• 2:34:16
  them a connection with someone who, because they see so many people.
• 2:34:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm mm
• 2:34:24
  Jane Strong: And they're, instead of the centerpiece, they're the object.
• 2:34:27
  They're the means by which, as opposed to the centerpiece.
• 2:34:31
  And that's not right for those horses.
• 2:34:33
  And I think this needs to, there's another thing that needs to change, you know?
• 2:34:37
  I
• 2:34:37
  Rupert Isaacson: couldn't agree more.
• 2:34:39
  Jane Strong: Yeah.
• 2:34:39
  I'll send you the, I'll send you this thing to you.
• 2:34:41
  'cause she's just finishing the final touches on it and it's great.
• 2:34:44
  I read the whole
• 2:34:45
  Rupert Isaacson: thing.
• 2:34:45
  What's
• 2:34:46
  Jane Strong: her name?
• 2:34:47
  Her name is Nicole Bur Holzer.
• 2:34:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Bur, that's
• 2:34:52
  Jane Strong: another German girl.
• 2:34:53
  You can speak
• 2:34:53
  Rupert Isaacson: here.
• 2:34:53
  That's, well that's, that's wood.
• 2:34:55
  Uh, Birchwood, uh, Burke is birch and Holz is wood.
• 2:35:01
  And maybe the person who works the birch B holz at LLZ.
• 2:35:07
  Yeah, that sounds like something we might wanna get on the, on the show and chat to.
• 2:35:11
  Jane Strong: Absolutely.
• 2:35:12
  Yeah, she's wonderful.
• 2:35:13
  She's terrific.
• 2:35:13
  And she just wrote this whole thing and I helped her, I did a
• 2:35:17
  little bit of editing on it, but it's a really good piece of work.
• 2:35:19
  She did.
• 2:35:20
  Really good piece.
• 2:35:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, cool.
• 2:35:24
  Thank you.
• 2:35:26
  Alright, Jane,
• 2:35:28
  Jane Strong: thank you.
• 2:35:29
  Rupert Isaacson: I think, I think we'll wrap it up.
• 2:35:30
  It's been brilliant.
• 2:35:32
  Um, people know where to find you.
• 2:35:35
  Just tell them your website.
• 2:35:38
  Jane Strong: Yes, it's, um, the THE Equi, E-Q-U-U-S, the
• 2:35:43
  Latin word for horse effect.
• 2:35:46
  EFFE ct.org.
• 2:35:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Perfect.
• 2:35:51
  Okay.
• 2:35:51
  And they can reach you there, email, all of that?
• 2:35:53
  Jane Strong: Yes,
• 2:35:53
  Rupert Isaacson: yes.
• 2:35:54
  I've been looking at the website's.
• 2:35:55
  Great.
• 2:35:56
  Jane Strong: Yeah,
• 2:35:56
  Rupert Isaacson: thanks.
• 2:35:57
  Jane Strong: It's new.
• 2:35:57
  It's brand new, so
• 2:35:59
  Rupert Isaacson: yes, it's, it's makes me realize that I'm maybe
• 2:36:01
  need to update mine a little bit.
• 2:36:03
  Jane Strong: Well maybe consolidate a few of your 3000 websites into one.
• 2:36:08
  Rupert Isaacson: We grew organically, what can I say?
• 2:36:10
  But no, it's, it's definitely it's time.
• 2:36:11
  It's, it's, you're not the first one to say, uh, you we need
• 2:36:16
  to consolidate a little bit.
• 2:36:17
  Yes, we can.
• 2:36:18
  It's
• 2:36:18
  Jane Strong: like, where do I go
• 2:36:22
  touch?
• 2:36:22
  No.
• 2:36:22
  Anyway, thank you.
• 2:36:23
  Thank you very much.
• 2:36:24
  It was terrific to see.
• 2:36:26
  Talk to you and
• 2:36:27
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 2:36:28
  All right, I'll see you and I'm gonna go up there in
• 2:36:30
  October and we'll see you then.
• 2:36:32
  Um, and, um, maybe in a few months let's come have come back on the
• 2:36:36
  show and let's talk a bit more
• 2:36:39
  Jane Strong: for sure.
• 2:36:39
  Thank you so much.
• 2:36:41
  Rupert Isaacson: All right, my friend.
• 2:36:42
  Okay.
• 2:36:42
  I
• 2:36:42
  Jane Strong: don't have any balloons
• 2:36:44
  Rupert Isaacson: till then.
• 2:36:45
  Yes,
• 2:36:47
  Jane Strong: bye.
• 2:36:48
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 2:36:49
  Bye bye.
• 2:36:50
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• 2:36:53
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