Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Healing Hidden Wounds and Trauma in Northern Ireland through Equine Assisted Services with Dr. Helen Sharp | EP 26 Equine Assisted World

Transcript

Healing Hidden Wounds and Trauma in Northern Ireland through Equine Assisted Services with Dr. Helen Sharp | EP 26 Equine Assisted World · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

0:00
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
0:02
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
0:05
author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
0:08
Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
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thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
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If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
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It really helps us get this work done.
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As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
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And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
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equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
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If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
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com.
0:41
So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
0:47
Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
0:50
Today I've got Helen Sharp.
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Helen writes for the Irish Field Farmers Weekly.
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She's a big fish in the Irish equestrian world, but she also runs
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Groundwork, which is a, an equine assisted charity up in Northern Ireland.
1:05
Those of you who listened to my podcast with Terry Brosnan know that the
1:11
work she does in Ireland is largely informed by her childhood in the
1:15
North and growing up in the troubles against that background of violence.
1:19
And I was very lucky through Terry to meet Helen who works in the North.
1:24
Not just in the equine assisted field, but in the art field and pulling the
1:30
therapeutic value of art and horses together in a rather extraordinary way.
1:35
And she of course, has her own story that has brought her to a point of
1:39
compassion where she can help the people that come in front of her.
1:44
So up in county firma, which is about as north as you can get
1:49
there she is doing amazing stuff and also helping Thoroughbreds.
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I think I'm right.
1:54
Coming off the track.
1:55
So she's helping in multiple fields and it's very easy to forget that Northern
2:01
Ireland is a bit like the Balkans in that the violence can erupt at any time.
2:08
And the tensions that have existed there for centuries, simmer below the surface.
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Even though we are in a peace process now, those old tribal divisions,
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those old cultural conflicts
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remain.
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And it takes a brave person to stand in that and offer love.
2:38
So Helen, welcome to Equine Assisted.
2:41
Well, thank you for coming on.
2:43
Tell us who you are and what you do.
2:45
Helen Sharp: Thank you very much for having me on it.
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It really is truly an honor.
2:50
So my, yeah, my name's Helen Sharp.
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I think I would say I'm fundamentally an equine journalist.
2:55
Horse, woman.
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And I founded alongside, and I have to say, whenever I'm talking about
3:01
groundwork, EQU assisted services, I'm also talking about Fiona
3:06
Butchart, who I set up groundwork with, and she's a horse woman.
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She's interested in actually western riding and training, and she would
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describe herself as the horse person, not the, not the person
3:19
person, not the people person.
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So, yeah, we set, we set that up together.
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And we are just on the border actually of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and
3:27
it puts us in a very unique place.
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Rupert Isaacson: Why do you do what you do and what do you do up there at groundwork?
3:38
Helen Sharp: So groundwork is quite specific.
3:40
I think in the grand scheme of equine assisted services, we're
3:44
quite specific because we very much.
3:47
Do cater for the Northern Irish community and the border community.
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I suppose there's a lot of shock, shock and statistics really in Northern Ireland.
3:56
39% of the, like, what 39% of the population have
4:00
recorded mental health issues.
4:03
There's a 25% higher rate of mental health disorders than
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there is in the rest of the uk.
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12.6
4:10
percent of kids and young people experience depression anxiety, which is a
4:14
25% higher rate than the rest of the uk.
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Police and military veterans remain a significant concern.
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Actually that's just been detailed in a very recent report
4:26
with the Royal College of.
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Psychiatrists in a report just in January there said Mental health crisis in
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Northern Ireland cannot be overstated.
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So that gives you a kind of vibe of how things are.
4:40
But groundwork really set up because I have a collection of my own horses and I
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breed a few horses, and my yard is part of an estate that is, there's two neighboring
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estates run by the Brook family.
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And Lord Brook Brooke set up a charity on his land called Brook House.
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Now, Brook House are a charity for veterans and military military
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and police veterans and serving police officers actually, and
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their family and their carers.
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And I was working away with my own horses and I've done you know, an equine
5:19
therapist and things and I, but I've got an interest in EQU assisted services too.
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And I've been working with a charity in France, which we'll
5:25
probably talk about later.
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And I was sitting having a cup of tea with Fiona one day and the power of the cup
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of tea and talking about her interests and she wasn't expressing an interest.
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And we literally just put together a proposal and pitched
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it to Brooke House and said.
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You are offering these guys already holistic sort of,
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services, massage and things.
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But the interesting thing about it is there's also a
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psych, a psychologist on site.
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There are wellbeing managers on site.
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They have a therapeutic garden, so there's a walled garden that's
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a working kitchen garden, but the head garden is the counselor.
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And I was kind of thinking, well, the only thing missing here is horses
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obviously, you know, so we just pitched an idea and thankfully that
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Brook house bit our handoff actually.
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So that gave us the incentive to build a program.
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So that would be about, I think it's about two and a half
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years ago to build a program.
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And then Brooke House funded some brilliant programs and that's
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how it kicked off actually.
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Rupert Isaacson: How long ago was that?
6:29
Helen Sharp: It was about probably three years that we started talks and then
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started about two and a half years ago.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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So it's relatively recent.
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Helen Sharp: Yeah.
6:36
Yeah, it is.
6:37
And
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Rupert Isaacson: talk us through the work you do now.
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Who do you work with mostly?
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What are your approaches?
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Helen Sharp: Yeah,
6:44
Rupert Isaacson: what are the successes you've seen?
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Helen Sharp: So I kind of describe it right.
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You're wrongly like a deconstructed eg.
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Gala model, I suppose, in that I have, you know, I've done a qualification
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for equine assisted learning.
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Fiona is a qualified, you know, BHS, everything and all those boxes ticked.
7:08
But then our clients also have their own wellness managers from behi.
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And then we also have the psychologist who talks to us as well as the clients.
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Okay.
7:18
So it's kind of a, it's kind of spread out over this thousand acres.
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We do mainly groundwork.
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So we do group sessions and 10 week group sessions.
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And they're really interesting because we get such a mix.
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So you might have in the same group, you might have someone who's can't
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see, you might have someone who's deaf, you might have someone who's
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had their heels blown off in action.
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You might have someone with Parkinson's and you have this group of people.
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But in the main, this group of people all have one thing in common, which
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is the Northern Irish troubles.
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So even if they're Northern Irish and they've gone and served in Afghanistan
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or whatever, everybody has a resonance of the Northern Irish troubles.
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So we kind of start from there.
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We are very bespoke in the way we work.
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So it just depends.
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We really gauge.
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We have a very specific way of working that revolves around a cup of tea.
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To start with, we always sit down space time, quietness, that
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magic of a nonclinical setting.
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And we talk, we always talk for half an hour or so.
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We'd check in how the week was, but a good half an hour, you know, at
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least sometimes it runs to an hour.
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And then we usually go into be very, very lucky.
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We've got a large indoor arena for our private use.
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So then we go in and, you know, some may, I mean, we're in Ireland, so
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a lot of people have had experience with horses when they were kids,
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you know, negatively or positively.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
8:55
Helen Sharp: Everyone's got story been bitten and we.
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We do the introductions.
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So we introdu, we introduce them to horses, we introduce
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them how to approach a horse.
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We in, you know, we, we do the circle in the quarter.
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We, you know, we we introduce them to the horses, how to approach them gently.
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We start, like, everybody probably starts, so we, so we do grooming.
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I'm a equine therapist, so I teach them as part of the 10 weeks massage.
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Because one of the things that we find a lot, especially with the
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men, the military and the police men, is tactile, soft touch.
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It's a huge thing.
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And the amount of times I've seen just men burst into tears when they, when
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they're touching an animal softly.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Helen Sharp: It's kind of, you know, it'll blow your mind.
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Blow your mind.
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And that can be from a first touch.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Helen Sharp: We go on to do a sort of we have a, a set of it's
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like an obstacle course and we have it set out at the start.
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Because at the start, I think most of them can't believe that they're gonna be able
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to do that with a 16 two horse by the end.
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And we're a great believer, as a friend once said to me about, you know, the
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hands can heal what the mind can't.
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And I've heard lots of negative talk within EAS about it shouldn't
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involve horsemanship skills, and I'm just completely disagree.
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You know, if they're being taught
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Rupert Isaacson: in a funny way, what else would it involve?
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Yeah.
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Helen Sharp: Yeah.
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Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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Helen Sharp: So the way you approach a horse is a horsemanship skill,
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you know, so we find that those those exercises and the achievement
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of those exercises along with.
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Other like reflective space and other maybe more equine
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assisted learning, if you like.
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The combination of the two is really working because we have chief, you
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know, chief constables, we have people that have had really high up jobs,
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you know, and it's not all about just, just rooming, like the challenges
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are really, really paid dividends.
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And I have so many stories to tell and I know everyone, everyone
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hears good stories all the time.
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But men in particular, I have to say like we've had incredible, you know, women too.
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It's, there's, there's very few, well, no negative stories so far, but the change
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in men and men with aggression, you know?
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Rupert Isaacson: Well, right.
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Because I mean the, the troubles Northern Ireland, it, it, it was war.
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Yeah.
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And it's still a cold war.
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But it was a hot war.
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Yeah.
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And a hot war involves men committing.
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Acts of violence and atrocity upon other men, and sometimes women and children too.
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And that's what war is.
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It's easy to forget.
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In Europe, you know, we, we think of war is something that happens elsewhere.
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I mean, now we're learning differently of course with Ukraine,
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but it's still a long way away.
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And World War II is now distant memory.
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I'm sitting here in Germany, you know, 80 years ago things were very different here.
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Mm-hmm.
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But my own childhood was set against, to some degree a background
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of colonial wars in Africa.
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And then my journalistic career, I encountered that firsthand.
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So I know what it is.
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So it's interesting that you say for men, because the men were the,
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in some ways, I don't wanna say it's easier, but if you're the victim of
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violence,
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it, it's very clear what the role is.
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You, something was done to you, but you were not the aggressor.
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Morally you are clear.
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The men who went in
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to war,
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the morality is not clear at all.
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Even if you perceived yourself as being on the side of the goodies.
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And in a situation like Northern Ireland, both sides did.
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It's as close to the Middle East as we've had really.
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So it's very interesting when you said, well, when men can touch
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gently with tenderness, then suddenly they break because for 45 to 60
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years of their lives, they've been required to be effectively vikings.
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Talk to us a bit more about that.
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Helen Sharp: I think, so maybe I should give you an example.
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Just one, one guy that sticks in my mind who had been an RECA police officer
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during the troubles had, without a doubt,
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Rupert Isaacson: but for, for those people who don't know the
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troubles, what does RUC mean?
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Helen Sharp: Well, lost a consta.
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Rupert Isaacson: Royal Alst constabulary, who were they?
14:06
Helen Sharp: So they were the police force in Northern Ireland, but I suppose
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in simple terms, they would've been.
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Against the nationalist,
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Rupert Isaacson: there would've been the Protestants on the British side.
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Helen Sharp: Yes.
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Rupert Isaacson: Defending the existing government against the IRA.
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Helen Sharp: Pretty much,
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Rupert Isaacson: right?
14:23
Pretty much,
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Helen Sharp: yeah.
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So the r so this guy he came and he basically told us that he'd been referred
14:33
by the psychologist to the program and he thought it was a pile of shit.
14:38
Okay.
14:39
Which I love actually.
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I love a bit of just straight talks.
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Yeah.
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Great.
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Brilliant.
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That gives me something to, you know, I think because of the experience I
14:48
had with doing 12 years of community arts in Northern Ireland, I came
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up against that a lot of times.
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Like a lot of people saying, we don't want a sculpture, we don't want a public
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sculpture, we want our bins emptied.
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You know, so there was a lot that I learned so much about.
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How to ask people, how to ask people what they don't want.
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But so yeah, so he, this one particular guy came in and, and he did tell us that
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he thought it was a pile of shit, but that he'd, he, he'd give it a go, which I
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thought, fair, fair play to you, you know?
15:21
So instead of week two, his daughters, I must add actually, his daughters
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his daughter rode horses, like at a decent level show jumping.
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So he also knew everything about horses, you know, which is fair enough.
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So he's, and by the way, he pulled the horse around, you know, he went straight
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into I'm a police officer and pulled the horse around the arena, you know.
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So then me and Fiona were definitely like, well, we've
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got something to work with here.
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You know, so like, so how do you start teaching about, about partnership?
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So really we had to sort of start at the beginning, and it started
15:54
with breathing, and it started with teaching him to ground himself and.
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He started to talk.
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So then he, he would be grooming the horse and in between telling
16:09
us what his daughter did and things, and you just get glimpses.
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He'd suddenly start to talk about how he was held at gunpoint at one stage.
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And what we do is with our groups, we always get one group
16:21
member to hold the horse and we get one of them to be grooming.
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And usually conversations happen over the withers.
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That's a really great, and we try not to interrupt those conversations if possible,
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if they're starting to happen naturally.
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But, so you get a lot of that sort of talk.
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Sometimes there's a, you have to get through a couple of weeks of bravado
16:41
and what I did in, in the police and what you did in the police.
16:45
But anyway, I suppose a long story short of, of this guy was through
16:48
Fiona's amazing teaching 'cause she's an incredible teacher.
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He learned to build a partnership with, with a horse.
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He slowed everything down.
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He learned, he was so quick, quick to get frustrated and things,
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you know, hypervigilant too.
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So he was never quite concentrating in things.
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One of the things we do at Gram work, because most people that
17:10
come through are hypervigilant.
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So we always have to explain who's on the yard, you know, if the, if the handyman's
17:16
there or if my husband's there mucking out or we always introduce everyone.
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So, that's just an aside.
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But eventually, anyway, we were teaching him this and he
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had horses at home, you see.
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So he came in on about, I think it was about week eight, and he
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pulled us to the side and he cried and he cried and he basically told
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us that he had s anger issues that always spilled out to his wife.
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And he said he, the horses at home, they would get wound up.
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He would get wound up, then the horses would get wound up,
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which would wind him up more.
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And then he would usually get so frustrated he'd go for his wife.
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Verbally, I presume.
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Or it'd be as in his words, he'd be screaming or shouting at his kids.
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But we, he said that we had taught him how to diffuse that situation by knowing
18:06
to slow his body down as he approached the horse by knowing how to come around
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and approach the horse by knowing not to do X, y, and z kept the whole thing
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calm, which he just said, kept the horse calm, kept him calm, and then would
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stop him from having a go at the family.
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It just kept his whole thing on the low down.
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And yeah, that was kind of his, and he was in floods of tears saying this.
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It was a revelation to him that slowing his body down could, the ripple
18:37
effect of that is he wouldn't go in and scream at his wife, you know?
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And it was beautiful actually.
18:43
It was really, really beautiful how that worked.
18:47
Rupert Isaacson: You know, it's interesting, I, I dunno if you
18:49
remember when I met you at cre, the agricultural college in Northern
18:54
Ireland a year or so ago with us was somebody called ke Sullivan.
19:00
Yeah, I know Kevin.
19:01
Yeah.
19:01
Right.
19:01
Who works at University of Bournemouth.
19:03
She's a researcher and she had done a, a research study into domestic
19:08
violence outcomes from an equine assisted program in the west of England.
19:14
And the outcome was extraordinary that a year after the program was
19:21
done, there was still a 51%, 51% decrease in domestic violence.
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Helen Sharp: I totally believe it.
19:33
We have another, if I can give another
19:35
Rupert Isaacson: please
19:36
Helen Sharp: example, it's not, it was actually from the
19:39
other perspective in that.
19:42
We had a woman who was the wife of, of a a military veteran actually.
19:48
And he battered her so badly that she'd had a stroke.
19:51
So she was having problems walking and her anxiety was just off the scale,
19:58
sort of, you know, this woman just, it was so tangible of her, you know.
20:04
She actually ended up, did something like, I think about 18 weeks.
20:08
She came as part of a group and then, and then got funding to,
20:13
for her to come for one-on-ones.
20:15
And she, she fell in love with this yearling of mine.
20:18
So I don't always, we don't always use the kind of quiet, I like
20:23
to use the young stock as well.
20:25
We actually involve pregnant mares sometimes as well.
20:28
You know, there's a couple on the yard or there was last year, and actually
20:31
that's sort of amazing one for some of the women because the immediately.
20:35
It became about family and discussion about family and
20:38
birth and pregnancy and things.
20:39
It was really interesting.
20:41
But yeah, this woman was just she was completely unpacked by this
20:45
relationship that she built with a couple of the horses actually.
20:49
And all she wanted to do was groom them and she, she would be
20:53
brushing their hair like a child.
20:55
She was holding it and brushing it and talking and talking
20:57
and talking to this horse.
20:59
And the more she was with us, the more we, we just left her, you know,
21:02
to a private time with the horse.
21:04
I mean, she really, that's what she wanted.
21:06
And the change around in her, more in her confidence, you know, I can't
21:10
presume to know what was going on at home necessarily, but her whole demeanor and
21:15
her softness, and it was as if there was some sort of outlet for love and affection
21:19
that she wasn't able to express at home.
21:22
And she would be, this was the thing that used to make me nearly well up, is that.
21:27
By the time she'd done sort of six weeks or so, this stick, she was so reliant
21:32
on, you know, she used to throw it, thankfully it was a quiet yearling,
21:37
you know, out of the stable door.
21:39
And there was something literally stabilizing in her body about
21:43
being around this horse that she just wasn't able to do before.
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Unbelievable.
21:48
Like, it was just, you know, the way, the way these things work with
21:54
violence, just that correlation that the things I'm seeing is just incredible.
21:58
It's, it blows my mind every, every week
22:03
Rupert Isaacson: you are there in Northern Ireland.
22:07
For those listeners who are not British the accent you're hearing is Scottish.
22:12
Which can be confusing because Scots and Northern Irish are not a
22:15
thousand miles away from each other, but they're somewhat distinct.
22:18
I know that you grew up in Scotland.
22:20
I know you grew up on the Heese.
22:22
Those listeners who don't know where the Hebrides is, if you look at a map of
22:25
the uk, you'll see a sort of a triangle.
22:28
That's the main bit.
22:30
You'll see Ireland off to the left, and then you'll see a bunch of sort of
22:34
fluttery things off to the northwest.
22:37
That a bit like the gills on a fish or something, or the, the crest
22:40
on a dragon that, that crest on the dragon is a series of islands
22:45
heading up towards sort of Iceland.
22:47
Getting towards the fringes of civilization and they're called the heide,
22:52
Helen Sharp: getting to the heart of civilization.
22:54
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, apologies.
22:55
I remember that when I was in Mongolia, and they would laugh at me
22:58
and say, oh, we know that you guys in the west say outta Mongolia to
23:03
mean you know, the end of the world.
23:04
And this is where we live.
23:05
This is home.
23:06
Yeah.
23:07
So where you guys live is out in Mongolia to us.
23:10
Fair.
23:11
Fair enough.
23:12
Yet it is remote and wildly beautiful.
23:16
And wild coastlines and amazingness.
23:21
That's where you grew up.
23:24
Not everybody grows up in the He Halen.
23:28
Why did you grow up there?
23:30
How did you grow up there and how did you get into horses there?
23:32
Because it's not exactly horse country, it's Viking country, but
23:35
it might not be horse country.
23:37
I think they actually have elves there too.
23:39
They've exported them subsequently to New Zealand, obviously since
23:42
the Lord of the Rings movies.
23:43
But, you know, original stock, you know, from the ties.
23:47
Talk us through that childhood and how that informed a little
23:53
bit of where you are now.
23:55
Helen Sharp: I think it definitely informed there's, there's something
23:57
about an island mentality that everything is because of the,
24:03
because of the, the circular horizon.
24:07
Everything's possible and everything's a threat.
24:10
Okay.
24:10
And that's something I think I've just, it's just stayed with me.
24:13
Fun.
24:13
I actually live on an island now in Ana with three houses on it.
24:17
So I live on an island which is never
24:20
Rupert Isaacson: an island in a sea or an island in a lake
24:21
Helen Sharp: in La Urn.
24:22
Yeah.
24:23
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
24:23
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
24:24
It's a source of never ending joy and humor to my mom that I've
24:28
tried, spent my life trying to get off an island and not back on one.
24:32
But yeah, but you can see the
24:33
Rupert Isaacson: enemy coming.
24:33
Yeah.
24:34
It's useful.
24:34
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
24:35
Yeah, completely.
24:36
Rupert Isaacson: Do you have cannons?
24:37
Sorry,
24:40
Helen Sharp: max out the back.
24:41
We're fine.
24:42
Yeah, it's the heberty was incredible.
24:45
I think the thing was, we, we moved there when I was, I think just before
24:48
my 10th birthday, and we had been in England and I had had a series of
24:52
really badly behaved ponies that my mom had got off some dodgy farmer.
24:57
And
24:59
Rupert Isaacson: where in England?
25:00
Helen Sharp: Comia.
25:00
So right on the border again.
25:02
Is that
25:02
Rupert Isaacson: where you were born?
25:03
Helen Sharp: I was born in Northumberland, but when I was six months old.
25:06
Okay.
25:06
So you're a
25:06
Rupert Isaacson: Northumbrian girl.
25:07
You're, you're a.
25:09
Helen Sharp: Jordy family actually.
25:10
Yeah.
25:10
So
25:10
Rupert Isaacson: you, okay, so Jordy across Te Cumbia Yeah.
25:13
Other side of the Pennines.
25:15
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
25:15
Wow.
25:15
Rupert Isaacson: For the Americans, you know.
25:17
Okay.
25:17
So you've got to look at, okay.
25:19
If you watch the series Vikings when Ragnar Brook does the eagle execution
25:26
where he opens the ribcage of, of the, the king who, no, actually, sorry.
25:31
He's put to death by the king of North Umbr in a pit of snakes.
25:34
It's his son who comes and kills the king of Northumbria above.
25:39
That's where it all goes on.
25:40
So you, you can understand that it's, it's hard country, but
25:43
it's very beautiful country.
25:44
Yeah.
25:45
That you're born up there, you go across the pens into Cambridge,
25:47
it's even more beautiful.
25:49
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
25:50
And you have some dodgy
25:51
Rupert Isaacson: ponies.
25:51
Helen Sharp: Pony, mad loads of dodgy ponies.
25:53
And then we went on, my dad was actually in the Merchant Navy.
25:56
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
25:57
So
25:57
Helen Sharp: we used to see him once or twice a year.
25:59
And my mom was a nurse and midwife, but we went, my mom organized a holiday,
26:03
a camping holiday to the Heberty sw.
26:05
We went and then I think at some sort of beach barbecue, my mom
26:10
met the head of nursing in the Hebrides who offered her a job.
26:14
So then that was it.
26:15
So we were all decamped up to the outer heide.
26:18
Rupert Isaacson: And which island was it?
26:19
As many islands in Heide.
26:21
Helen Sharp: Vater se, so we're actually not quite so north, the heide are more
26:25
west, but we were on the southerly, most inhabited island with 48 residents.
26:30
Okay.
26:32
Yeah, I remember waking up and I, and I went to bed and I woke up and I could
26:36
hear the sea and I didn't understand it.
26:38
And we'd arrived in the dark and I opened the skylight of my bedroom
26:41
and the sea was just at the front and it kind of blew my mind.
26:44
I remember, but I spent the rest of my life on that seashore actually.
26:47
But yes, we moved there, but of course, the thing, I was pony mad, but the
26:51
thing about the Heberty was there, there isn't, there's a few now, but
26:54
Air Escape ponies are very famous and they're just a few islands up.
26:57
But where I lived, there were no horses.
27:01
So obviously it took me 30 years to forgive my mother for, so in a way,
27:06
I became more obsessed with something I couldn't have, I think, you know,
27:12
and so always just remained because, because as everybody knows, when you
27:16
have ponies as a kid, it lights a fire.
27:19
And that's probably never extinguished if you're a horse lover, you know?
27:23
But yeah, the Berties was brilliant and I suppose I was kind of a wild kid and.
27:28
So that was great.
27:29
I spent a lot of time with like collecting sea urchins and razor
27:34
clams and you know, my dad was lobster fishing and all that kind of thing,
27:39
you know, so it was really beautiful.
27:41
But also the schools were really, really small.
27:44
So I think probably where I would've been naturally, badly behaved, but I was
27:50
actually the schools were small enough that it held my concentration and things.
27:54
So I, so I was, did very well in school.
27:57
I was loved learning so it was a good thing.
28:00
But there was enough, there was problems enough at home and I think I spent a lot
28:03
of time trying not to be in the house and just sitting, watching the rabbits,
28:07
I got really fascinated with the rabbits 'cause they had mixing mitosis in the
28:11
Hebert and it was a really mad landscape.
28:13
It was kind of the macker we call it, which is a kind of sandy grassy with
28:18
flowers in the summer Atlantic coast line.
28:21
But I would spend hours watching these rabbits kind of.
28:26
Toiling with mixed mitosis.
28:28
Strange, strange child.
28:30
But yeah, that was kind of what I did.
28:35
Rupert Isaacson: Feral childhood.
28:36
Yeah.
28:36
First to nature.
28:37
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
28:38
Rupert Isaacson: Resilience beauty, how, where do you go from the heide?
28:48
Helen Sharp: Well, despite my love of nature and everything,
28:51
I also just loved, like popular culture and fashion and music.
28:56
And I suppose if you're, if you're smart enough, you wanted to do your
28:59
A-levels in the heide you had to fly on Europe's only beach runway, so
29:08
it'd be you, the 16 seater twin Otter.
29:11
So you and your mates.
29:12
In this twin Otter flying up every weekend to the next island up to do a levels
29:17
Rupert Isaacson: fantastic.
29:18
Helen Sharp: And the geniuses that designed the school, they
29:21
called it the boarding school.
29:23
It, you know, put the boys on the bottom and the girls on
29:26
the top with the sloping roof.
29:28
And then you had like 12 miles of beach.
29:29
So we just used to slide down the roof, see?
29:32
And just, we had an amazing time doing a levels.
29:35
So yeah, I decided I wanted to go off to art school.
29:39
So that's, I was studying towards art school and that's what my aim was.
29:43
And then, yeah, I got into Edinburgh Art school, which was fancy and
29:47
yeah, studied sculpture there.
29:49
So that was kind of my trajectory.
29:54
Rupert Isaacson: At what point do you rediscover ponies?
30:00
Helen Sharp: I, I sought them out a couple of times, I think in Edinburgh.
30:03
I.
30:04
But I think more in those university years it faded a bit.
30:08
I was far too interested in kind of clubbing and, you know, being
30:12
fantastic, you know, and fashion and high heels and stuff like that.
30:17
So, so horses didn't come back into my life until I went down
30:21
to study a master's in Devon.
30:24
So I went to a college called, a very famous college called Dartington College.
30:29
Rupert Isaacson: Oh
30:29
Helen Sharp: yeah, I know Dartington.
30:30
Yeah, so it's in Devon and it's in a beautiful area.
30:32
And that's when horses came back into my life just because they were around,
30:38
you know, so they started to creep into my work and stuff a bit actually then.
30:41
And yeah, but I didn't get seriously back at horses until I moved back to Ireland.
30:46
I moved to Belfast and I got an art residency at Belfast and I was
30:51
running away from DE at the time.
30:54
And,
30:54
Rupert Isaacson: so back to Ireland.
30:55
We haven't been to Ireland yet.
30:57
Helen Sharp: Yeah, I know.
30:58
It's funny to Edinburgh
31:00
Rupert Isaacson: to, apparently
31:01
Helen Sharp: I've got in the 17th century I've got relatives and me,
31:03
so it's always back to Ireland.
31:05
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
31:07
And why were you running away from Daven?
31:09
Helen Sharp: Oh, I had a terrible husband.
31:12
You got
31:13
Rupert Isaacson: married as an undergrad?
31:14
Helen Sharp: Yeah, I got married, yeah, I got married just after, yeah, I got
31:19
married between sort of graduating in my undergraduate and doing a master's
31:25
Rupert Isaacson: also in art.
31:27
Helen Sharp: Yes.
31:28
And I, and my husband at the time then used my undergraduate portfolio to get
31:33
himself into art college at darting.
31:36
Clever man.
31:37
Yeah, so like
31:40
Rupert Isaacson: Shameless.
31:40
Helen Sharp: Yeah, totally shameless.
31:42
Yeah, he wasn't a great guy.
31:43
Unfortunately, he wasn't a good guy, so I.
31:45
Yeah, I had to, had to find my way out of that one.
31:48
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
31:49
So, but why you could have gone any direction why did
31:52
that direction lead to Ireland?
31:55
Helen Sharp: I was on my way to, I was on my way to Glasgow.
31:57
Okay.
31:59
That was my escape plan.
32:00
And but actually I got, I got a residency, so I was doing a PhD in Devon actually.
32:05
But I started a PhD there and I just at
32:08
Rupert Isaacson: Daton College.
32:09
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
32:10
And I was teaching a little bit there and then I decided I want, didn't want
32:14
to stick around there any longer, so I got awarded a residency in an art
32:19
gallery in Belfast and I thought, great, I'll go for three months there.
32:24
24 years later, we're still here.
32:26
Yeah.
32:26
Rupert Isaacson: Perfect.
32:28
Alright, so you.
32:32
Have this wonderful if po list feral childhood in the heide, which are the
32:39
outer heide, which are extraordinary.
32:42
You then go to Edinburgh, which is amazing.
32:45
Then you go down to Devon.
32:46
Okay, there's a bad husband, but it's amazing and you've got horses there.
32:52
Then you end up in Belfast.
32:54
Now is Belfast where you do your PhD?
32:59
Helen Sharp: Hmm.
32:59
It is where I did, it's where I did the third and final PhD.
33:03
Okay.
33:03
So I was very lucky.
33:04
I, I had in between that time gone back to Edinburgh and started, I
33:08
had been offered a PhD at Edinburgh University which I started, but I
33:11
couldn't make it work financially.
33:14
But then Belfast offered me a scholarship, so that's like 45 grand over three years
33:21
to do a scholar to do a PhD with them.
33:23
So I.
33:24
I said yes.
33:25
Moved promptly to Forman and bought a horse.
33:28
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
33:28
What horse did you buy?
33:30
Helen Sharp: I bought a national Annette, a former National Hunt, thoroughbred
33:34
16 three with Ring Bone for a pound
33:37
Rupert Isaacson: as we all do.
33:38
Yeah.
33:38
Helen Sharp: Yes.
33:39
Rupert Isaacson: How do you work out the wrong horse?
33:45
Helen Sharp: And he told me everything about horses I ever need to know.
33:47
Rupert Isaacson: I am sure he did.
33:48
Yes.
33:49
Yeah.
33:49
My first horse was off the track and he, that's why I'm
33:53
able to do what I'm able to do.
33:55
'cause every horse after him was easy, so.
33:59
Okay.
34:00
I want to touch on something now that you've talked to me about which I
34:05
think gives you a real qualification for the work that you do in terms
34:09
of compassion and open-heartedness.
34:11
And it's one of my not beefs, but.
34:16
Queries Sometimes when people are getting into the equine assisted world,
34:20
particularly when they've come in from, you know, horsey backgrounds, okay,
34:24
everybody has their, their shit and every family has its shit, et cetera, et cetera.
34:29
Granted, and at the same time people that grew up in very horsey families
34:35
often are growing up in some degree of privilege and perhaps some
34:40
degree to some degree sheltered.
34:44
You went through a phase with heroin.
34:48
Yeah, and I think this is really important to talk about because those
34:54
of us who have checkered pasts, and I'm certainly one I think it allows
35:00
us a certain non judgmentalism and an ability to say that for the grace
35:06
of God, go I, or that I have gone or.
35:10
We're certainly not going to judge the person that comes in front of us and we're
35:14
not standing in front of people pretending to be the good boy or the good girl,
35:21
which means that when the person who's standing in front of us who's facing the
35:25
same thing, they're certainly not gonna
35:29
find judgment.
35:31
I think it's important that you have this background 'cause I think it
35:35
qualifies you, you know, for doing this work with trauma that you do.
35:40
Can you, do you feel comfortable talking to us about that and, and
35:43
how it evolved and what you learned?
35:46
Helen Sharp: I do.
35:46
Yeah.
35:46
And I'm comfortable about talking about it because I think that it is
35:50
exactly what it's about, what I learned.
35:53
And it's always one of those things when people ask, do you regret it?
35:57
Well, if sort of sensibly you think, yeah, I regret it 'cause I worried a
36:00
lot of people or I, but actually I.
36:03
I'm really glad to be alive because it did nearly kill me in all honesty.
36:07
So I'm very lucky that I didn't lose my life then, but it did.
36:13
I had gone down that route for a reason because I wasn't, despite all of the
36:18
bucolic kind of island life and all that stuff I wasn't happy, you know, I
36:23
was quite, a lot had gone on and I was quite sensitive and quite smart kid and
36:28
I just, it was, I just felt overwhelmed.
36:31
Actually looking back now as well, I realized I've gone from an island of 48
36:34
people to a really busy city and as a lot of people would say, you're sensitive
36:40
or an empath or whatever word you wanna use, like overwhelm is a real thing.
36:44
But there was I in the heart of sort of early nineties Edinburgh dancing
36:49
and clubbing and yeah, that was the
36:50
Rupert Isaacson: train spotting years for those people who saw that movie.
36:52
Yeah.
36:53
Yeah.
36:53
Helen Sharp: And it was kind of, actually, it didn't suit.
36:56
Me, me at all.
36:57
And so I can look back and see lots of reasons why it happened and yeah, I'm
37:02
sure I, part of me thought, you know, I was experimenting with all sorts of
37:05
drugs that I thought it was kind of cool and, you know, but it's, no, we all
37:09
Rupert Isaacson: did.
37:09
Helen Sharp: Yeah, yeah.
37:10
Very quickly became not that cool.
37:13
And but it did teach me what was important.
37:17
It taught me, I had a huge moment, which is gonna make me sound,
37:22
possibly, oh, I don't even know.
37:24
I can't presume to what listeners are gonna think, but I did overdose and
37:29
I had a bizarre incident when I was overdosing, whatever it was, whatever
37:34
you wanna believe it is, whether it's chemical or bigger than that.
37:38
But it was kind of an experience of like a million voices kind of
37:44
light and voices at the same time.
37:46
And it just kept saying, you've got a great brain.
37:48
You've got a great brain.
37:50
But that's what I remember.
37:51
And I remember coming round with everyone standing round me above.
37:54
Really, really clearly.
37:55
And something had come fundamentally changed in me from that moment.
37:59
It fell out of my control what had fundamentally changed, but
38:04
possibly it was, you know, I dunno, shock or I don't know.
38:08
But anyway, something fundamentally changed and I'll stand by that.
38:11
And then I changed everything.
38:14
Rupert Isaacson: What did you change?
38:15
And this was in Edinburgh, this happened?
38:17
Helen Sharp: Yes.
38:17
Well, I was actually in a brief saur in Liverpool, which,
38:20
which was a rough enough place.
38:22
Tiff was a rough place.
38:24
And yeah, I was with the said not great husband at the time.
38:29
And it changed everything because I was completely focused
38:32
on doing good with my brain.
38:36
If that doesn't sound bananas, I'm just telling you my truth
38:39
and that's what my truth was.
38:41
So, so then I.
38:43
That's when I sort of decided I was gonna go and do a master's.
38:46
That's when I decided I was gonna, and it wasn't easy.
38:48
I'm not gonna kind of go and, and then suddenly everything was lovely.
38:51
It wasn't, I had to come off heroin, you know, I had to spend a lot of
38:55
time being sick into a plastic bag.
38:56
How did
38:57
Rupert Isaacson: you come off heroin?
38:57
Talk to us about that process.
38:59
Helen Sharp: I watched a box set of I watched the 24 box set of friends in
39:04
a bed in Liverpool and was sick a lot.
39:07
And, you know, it was, it was proper movie stuff.
39:10
It was shake and illness and sick and laughing at friends at all the same time.
39:15
So it was, it was, and other dog, because I had, you know, things
39:19
had got a bit harder as well.
39:21
I'd started to try crack and all that kind of thing.
39:23
So it was a lot, it was a lot to get through physically.
39:28
I wasn't as robust obviously as I am now.
39:30
I'm quite sort of fit now.
39:32
But yeah, so, so it was, I did it myself basically is the story.
39:36
And then.
39:37
The clarity that came after that.
39:40
I just think, how long did that
39:41
Rupert Isaacson: take and how old were you?
39:42
Helen Sharp: It's funny when people ask me how old I was, 'cause it's so sort of
39:45
hazy, I think I was about 29, maybe 28.
39:49
And it took a couple of weeks for the, for the main bit to sort of
39:55
self, you know, self isolation and kind of getting through it.
39:58
But I was just so determined.
40:00
I just thought, this is not my trajectory.
40:02
You know, it was really, really powerful, not my trajectory.
40:06
And funnily enough, there was a few horses on the outskirts actually, of
40:10
Liverpool and I used to go down there.
40:12
Were just in kind of fields, you know, and I used to go down there and it's
40:16
funny, I'd forgotten that until just now.
40:18
And yeah, horses were always there, but it started a, a more positive trajectory
40:23
and back to that sort of clarity that I really enjoy now, like these days.
40:29
I don't drink a lot or anything.
40:30
Like I love clarity.
40:31
I really treasure clarity.
40:32
Rupert Isaacson: Clarity over claret.
40:34
Yeah.
40:34
Helen Sharp: Yeah, yeah.
40:37
Yeah.
40:38
So that was, that was that kind of episode, but I don't regret it and I
40:41
don't mind talking about it because as you say, lots of people have been there
40:44
and you know, I don't really care if it's an eyebrow razor for some, it's my job.
40:48
No, no.
40:48
I
40:49
Rupert Isaacson: think, I think it's a job qualification, honestly.
40:51
My feeling is that if you haven't gone through things like this,
40:54
what tools have you got for helping somebody else go through something?
41:01
When I'm doing trainings, for example, in Horse Boy Method or Movement Method or ta,
41:05
one of our programs sometimes what I will ask people is, look, you are asking these
41:14
kids or adults to make a major change.
41:19
From say, non-verbal to verbal or non-communicative
41:21
to communicative or whatever.
41:24
Or let's say it's a horse training thing.
41:26
You are asking this horse to learn this thing.
41:29
It could be a movement thing or it could be going into a
41:32
trailer, but this is a big deal.
41:36
What change are you making?
41:40
What fundamental fear are you facing?
41:44
Are you learning a new language?
41:45
Are you forcing yourself to go learn programming?
41:48
Are you, what, what, what are you doing?
41:51
And it's so interesting.
41:52
So often with horse people, it's like, well, I don't need
41:55
to do anything because I'm cool.
41:57
I'm a horsey person and I worked it all out, you know?
42:00
And I could do, even if that's not what they say, that's often the subtext.
42:03
It's like, well, oh man, you're gonna come across people and horses
42:07
that are gonna demand that you have tools personally that you've.
42:14
Developed, you know, and that you can't just say, well, I did that one thing
42:18
and now I don't need to let you know.
42:21
We, we know that we don't get off that easily, sadly.
42:24
We gotta be continually doing this.
42:27
But I, I think this is often not really addressed in the horse
42:29
and in the equine assisted world.
42:31
That said, an awful lot of people that do come into it, like you actually
42:35
do have these very solid stories.
42:37
But I think we need, we need to talk about them and celebrate them because
42:42
those are the job qualifications.
42:45
When that person or that horse comes in front of you to say, I accept you.
42:50
I see who you are without judgment, and absolutely have your back and help you,
42:54
you know, get where you want to go.
42:56
So, whether you raise eyebrows or not isn't the, isn't the
43:00
question what the question is.
43:02
What do you do?
43:02
What do you do with that skillset?
43:04
And it's interesting you talk about heroin, 'cause I never got into heroin.
43:10
Except I overdosed on morphine and died.
43:13
So, and it happened in a hospital and it happened because I smashed my leg up, my
43:19
left leg, which is a, if you ever see me ride, you'll notice that my left heel,
43:24
when I think it's down often isn't down.
43:27
If you look at pictures of me jumping, I think, oh, I've got great form.
43:29
And I look at the picture, I was like, my, he's like, way up.
43:32
I, I just don't have a lot of feeling in it.
43:34
And so I smashed that leg in six places, but the horse came on top of me over
43:39
a cross country jump and he rolled over my body and I remember thinking,
43:46
you know, big horse, big warm blood, and he rolled off and I could feel
43:53
everything breaking like twigs down there.
43:55
And this feeling of relief of going, oh, thank God it's only my leg.
43:59
And passing out and then thinking, oh, no problem.
44:02
I'll just get up.
44:02
And I couldn't get up and, you know, but anyway.
44:05
After they put metal rods in my leg and things like that.
44:09
In the recovery room, in this hospital in Texas, the morphine machine, they
44:15
give you this morphine machine to manage your own pain so you can give yourself a
44:19
little shot with your thumb malfunctioned.
44:24
And I died.
44:25
Oh my God.
44:26
I overdosed.
44:27
I overdosed myself, and I can thoroughly recommend it, by the way.
44:30
It's like, great way to go.
44:31
And I, I was down the tunnel talking to God.
44:34
I was talking to the light and yeah, okay.
44:37
I, I had the most beautiful experience.
44:39
So, and then
44:43
I could go into this, but I, when I saw my body there, I'm, you know, over there.
44:49
And then I see my body there, and then there's this sense of, okay,
44:53
I'm being allowed to, to go back.
44:55
In fact, I'm being sent back.
44:57
And there's even a, this feeling of, oh, God, really?
45:00
Because I felt like I just came home.
45:02
But Rowan, my son, scrubbed shit.
45:05
Okay, fuck, gotta gotta go back.
45:06
And it was this feeling of wading through viscous ectoplasm
45:11
almost to get back into my body.
45:13
And then I was there, and then as my wife Ia, who's German looking at me like this,
45:19
and she had noticed that I'd gone blue.
45:21
Luckily thank, I owe her my life.
45:23
She had called the emergency services.
45:25
Wow.
45:25
And I tried to talk to her.
45:28
I went, I thought, oh my God, I'm brain darn.
45:32
You know?
45:33
And then luckily I managed to get it because I said, am I okay?
45:37
And of course, she's German, she can't lie.
45:38
So she went,
45:41
I'm like, couldn't you just like one time, like just this one time,
45:44
just like one time just maybe go back because I didn't say this.
45:47
That's what was going on in my brain.
45:48
So, okay.
45:49
My sense of humor's intact.
45:50
That's good.
45:51
And then I down the thing.
45:52
But it's, it's a very interesting way to go.
45:56
I, I, in that moment.
45:59
Absolutely understood why people get into heroin.
46:02
Hmm.
46:03
Because it takes away that little voice in your head that tells you you are shit
46:10
Helen Sharp: that a hundred percent.
46:11
It's a, I used to call it, you know, it was just a, it was warmth
46:16
where a daily feeling was cold.
46:18
You know, it was always a warmth.
46:20
And yeah.
46:22
It's funny, I, when I talk about it, it's like I'm talking about somebody else.
46:25
Like, I had no connection.
46:28
It, it's so far away, you know?
46:30
So I think that's why it's, it's easy to talk about, you know, I think I
46:34
was embarrassed for so many years and I'm so not embarrassed now.
46:39
You know?
46:40
It, it was a big experience.
46:43
Yeah.
46:43
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
46:43
And if you, if you've grown up with this inner critic, which was
46:47
put into all of us very early and.
46:51
People jump off bridges because of this voice.
46:54
Helen Sharp: Mockingbird,
46:56
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46:58
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47:03
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48:15
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48:22
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48:40
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48:46
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48:49
I'm like, dude, that's no holy grail.
48:52
You know, people are topping themselves every day who are neurotypical
48:57
because of this voice in your head telling you your shit all the time.
49:00
That's the curse of being neurotypical.
49:03
And if we ramp, if we amplify that voice, something like heroin
49:08
becomes incredibly attractive.
49:11
And it's interesting too, I've met heroine addicts who are long-term heroine
49:16
addicts, like 30 year, 40 year heroin
49:17
Helen Sharp: addicts.
49:18
Yeah.
49:18
Functioning as they function.
49:19
Right.
49:19
And they
49:19
Rupert Isaacson: would say, honestly, Rupe, it made me a better person.
49:22
Yeah.
49:22
You know, if I could survive to I have now and I'm not having to
49:27
resort to criminality to get my fix.
49:31
I'm a better person than I would be without it.
49:35
And I think that what is has entered the conversation luckily since COVID,
49:44
you know, is, is mental health, right?
49:45
Hmm.
49:46
Which means that the value of altered of consciousness is suddenly a
49:54
conversation where it was not before suddenly like every, everyone in
49:58
generation Z or whatever they are right now is doing ayahuasca or whatever.
50:02
But that was not the case before even about 2020.
50:07
So
50:10
if something like ayahuasca with a decent shaman had been available to you and you'd
50:16
been living out there on the Celtic Fringe with a good healer with plant medicines.
50:27
I would hazard that maybe you would've found some of that sanctuary, that
50:33
spiritual sanctuary without the need for the other shit that went along with it.
50:40
But you must be able to look back at that and, and
50:45
give value and validation and respect in a funny way to the sanctuary that the poppy,
50:56
which is it's just a plant heroin, it's poppy provided the red poppy provided,
51:02
but sadly it was without guidance.
51:03
Right.
51:04
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
51:05
I think that's really beautifully put actually.
51:07
Yeah, it's, I mean, I mean, you know, I suppose my psychologist,
51:13
my former psychologist would've said, you know, it was, it was an
51:17
intelligent self-medicating strategy.
51:21
You know, it was.
51:23
It wasn't really because it was cool, it was because I was a really, I was
51:26
quite a damaged young person because, you know, there had been things in my
51:30
earlier life that had been a problem and, you know, I was, I just wasn't very well,
51:34
you know, and it, it did, it served its purpose, but it also, at the same time,
51:40
I wouldn't advocate for it be no, you know, for what it, for for the upset.
51:45
I suppose.
51:45
It caused my loved ones, my friends and things and my, my
51:48
family that did know at the time.
51:50
And and I saw a lot of really awful things that actually still want me.
51:54
And funnily enough, full circle actually, you know, when, when you're in that,
51:59
in those sort of depths, you in, in Liverpool there, there was quite a lot of
52:04
veterans who were, who were using drugs.
52:07
And one in particular who I would give all my money in the world
52:10
to go and find was a, was a was a, was a, a Falcon's veteran who.
52:16
Obviously just saw this young girl in this kind of situation.
52:21
She shouldn't be in, in a shooting gallery in wherever I was, you know, on the
52:25
Outskirt Chester or somewhere, you know?
52:27
And, and this guy lived not too far from me, and he just used to, he just
52:31
kept, he just, he'd be so much more upset from me than himself, you know?
52:35
But he was hiding too.
52:36
He was, he was dealing with his PTSD through heroin and,
52:39
and he stayed with me forever.
52:41
And truth be told, there's a bit of him in everything I'm doing now.
52:45
I think when I really put it together, because it was so sad to see this man
52:50
who'd done so much, and he'd done tours of Northern Ireland as well, and he
52:55
was a really beautiful human being.
52:57
But he was just, that was his only, you know, that was his escape.
53:00
And, and I hope he is around still, but you know.
53:05
Of course we see, we see veterans with substance abuse problems now here, you
53:10
know, and there's definitely echoes of, of that in the work I'm doing now.
53:16
Rupert Isaacson: And you remember a particular conversation with this man?
53:19
Something that he said to you at a particular moment?
53:25
Helen Sharp: I think he said, don't lose yourself.
53:30
You know, I mean, he said, you know, he'd sort of, and it wasn't in a sleazy
53:33
way because I was there with my partner at the time, or you know, my husband
53:36
at the time, whatever, you know, we'd be all, but, you know, he was very much
53:39
like, you're a beautiful young girl.
53:40
You know, you're, you're, you've got, you've got everything
53:44
Rupert Isaacson: ahead of
53:44
Helen Sharp: you.
53:44
You know, don't get caught in, don't get trapped in this, you know?
53:48
And I think that was, it was that don't lose yourself, I think was the thing.
53:53
Where
53:53
Rupert Isaacson: was your partner in this, at that time?
53:55
Helen Sharp: Well, he was there, but he was a, he was.
53:58
18, 18 years older than me.
54:01
I thought I was marrying Sge Gainsborough.
54:04
Rupert Isaacson: Well, perhaps you were, but
54:07
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
54:07
You know, bad poets, good snake skin shoes, you know, one of them guys.
54:12
Right.
54:12
And yeah, so like we met on the first night and decided to get married, you
54:16
know, on these ridiculous kind of like, isn't it romantic nonsense really.
54:20
But so he was there, but obviously he was part and parcel of it.
54:23
And he, he, although I was old enough to know better, I suppose, he
54:27
introduced me to intravenous drug use and sort of started a trajectory that
54:31
I, I found it very hard to get off.
54:33
So he was around, but you know, I had to get clarity before I
54:38
could make him not be around.
54:42
Rupert Isaacson: I want to just, okay.
54:44
Intravenous drug use is an interesting one.
54:46
I.
54:46
Most of us have a fear of needles and
54:49
Helen Sharp: I'm terrible now.
54:49
Oh my God.
54:50
I can't, oh,
54:51
Rupert Isaacson: it, it, it's so, it's so interesting what
54:53
we choose to be afraid of.
54:54
Like, I'll hurt myself at a big cross country jump and, you know, do what I
55:00
did with my leg or whatever and think that that's perfectly reasonable.
55:04
But if you come near me with a needle, I'll, I'll, you
55:07
know, hide under the chair.
55:09
Or if you try to make me eat an egg, you know, I'll throw myself out.
55:13
Well,
55:13
Helen Sharp: me too.
55:13
I hate eggs.
55:14
Rupert Isaacson: Oh God.
55:14
I can't remember.
55:15
My mom said I spit them out when I was 18 months old.
55:19
I always think that the people that can inject themselves, and I'm not
55:25
just saying that the heroin users also like the people with diabetes and so
55:28
on, it's an act of massive bravery.
55:31
And I always remember thinking, you know, when I was living in squats in Montreal
55:36
and Toronto and London, when I was.
55:40
500 years ago a young man, and there was a lot of it going on around me.
55:44
I remember always thinking about the people that stuck the needles
55:47
and going, man, you're so brave.
55:49
I, I couldn't do that.
55:51
What gave you the bravery?
55:53
Because there's so many way other ways.
55:54
You could do heroin, you could smoke it, you could, there's
55:58
lots of ways to get fucked up.
55:59
Why that and, and what gave you the courage to, to go through the pain?
56:04
Helen Sharp: I think it,
56:08
I just keep laughing about people listening to this, but actually I, I
56:11
think it's my natural inquisitive nature, you know, cut to the journalist today.
56:18
But like, I have never really seen a limit to what I want to know and experience.
56:24
And
56:24
Rupert Isaacson: unless it's eggs
56:26
Helen Sharp: fucking, sorry.
56:27
Keep your eggs.
56:28
Oh, I can't do eggs.
56:30
No.
56:31
Yeah.
56:31
I think that's partly it.
56:33
Was partly also, if I'm really, really honest, I was really deeply unhappy
56:41
and overwhelmed by every life universe.
56:45
Like the, the scale of everything.
56:47
I just couldn't, I remember
56:49
Rupert Isaacson: that feeling.
56:49
Yeah.
56:49
Yeah.
56:50
Had it today.
56:51
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
56:52
And then actually it becomes a lot more practical.
56:54
'cause I'm already quite a pragmatic, I'm also a pragmatic person.
56:57
And as most junkies would tell you quite often, routine is what it gives you.
57:02
And ritual routine.
57:04
And ritual.
57:05
So that just becomes the thing.
57:07
So you, you are balancing yourself, you know, around, you know, your,
57:10
your, it's your compass for the day.
57:13
It's your compass.
57:14
I was actually listening to Nick Cave did an interview recently.
57:17
And he touched on that, that it's sort of, it's your job
57:21
if you are lost in the world.
57:24
Intravenous drug u drug use can become your job.
57:27
Now, funnily enough, you ground it's, it
57:29
Rupert Isaacson: grounds you.
57:29
Yeah, I could see that.
57:30
Yeah.
57:31
Helen Sharp: It's a central thing.
57:32
But,
57:32
Rupert Isaacson: but I, I could, but it's the intravenous thing that
57:35
I'm intrigued by, because again, you could chase the dragon, right?
57:38
You could smoke heroin off a piece of aluminum foil.
57:44
So it's,
57:45
Helen Sharp: it's self, it's har it's harmful in a way as well, isn't it?
57:47
It's a bit like the
57:47
Rupert Isaacson: cutting in a way.
57:48
Yeah.
57:49
Helen Sharp: So it's not, it's not dissimilar to that.
57:51
And there, and there's a kind of, you know, there, there's
57:53
something that comes with it.
57:55
It's, it is funny now though, the minute I've got, I've had this diagnosis of
57:58
rheumatoid arthritis this year and it I've had to start this medication, but you
58:02
have to have bloods taken every two weeks.
58:05
And I just, every time, every two weeks I go in, it's like, I just
58:08
think, God, if only they knew because I'm about to pass out.
58:10
I can't bear it.
58:11
I just can't bear it, you know?
58:12
And I just, my mind is always racing, thinking.
58:15
If this nurse only knew, yeah, those things actually, funnily
58:21
enough, is I suppose this is what's coming out from talking to you.
58:24
It's, those things remain really important for me, which is a sort of exploratory
58:28
nature, but also routine and ritual.
58:32
I'm really, I have a lot of, suppose my beautiful husband that I have
58:37
now would testify that I have ways that have to be the way they are.
58:43
Rupert Isaacson: Little bit OCD.
58:45
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
58:46
Yeah.
58:46
It was di it was given the title selective OCD.
58:51
So like the cups are all going the same way in the kitchen, but my
58:54
desk is a tip, you know, like, it's
58:56
Rupert Isaacson: like, could we call that Priestess syndrome?
58:59
Helen Sharp: Oh, just give it, yeah.
59:00
That's great.
59:04
Rupert Isaacson: Temple Guardian.
59:05
Helen Sharp: Love it.
59:06
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so where does journalism come in?
59:10
Helen Sharp: So writing was always my thing.
59:12
I should never have gone to art college.
59:13
Okay.
59:13
I wasn't even that good at drawing, as my dad pointed out
59:16
in one of my school meetings.
59:18
But writing
59:21
Rupert Isaacson: mind you, you don't need to be good at
59:22
drawing anymore at art college.
59:23
No,
59:23
Helen Sharp: exactly.
59:24
I got into, I got into performance art, so you definitely didn't need to.
59:27
But yeah, so I always wrote, well, I wrote well as a kid.
59:31
I wrote well through college.
59:33
I did a PhD in art because I didn't want to do the art bit.
59:36
I wanted to do the writing bit.
59:37
You know, writing has just always been there, so why
59:41
Rupert Isaacson: not do a creative writing?
59:41
Why, why do what?
59:43
Helen Sharp: Oh, because at 15 I decided it was cool to go to art college.
59:46
Okay, fair enough.
59:47
It's like you're more likely to
59:48
Rupert Isaacson: end up in a band.
59:48
That's true.
59:49
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
59:50
I did then,
59:50
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
59:51
Helen Sharp: I did end up in a band, of course.
59:53
But yeah, writing, I suppose, and I didn't have confidence in writing
59:56
it in some sort of ways, but it always came really, really naturally.
59:59
And even the artworks I was making quite often involve text and words and.
1:00:06
I'm not a good speaker, but I'm a better writer than I am speaker.
1:00:09
So I just fell in love with writing.
1:00:12
And then in my, yeah, I just, at one point I decided just I was, I was traveling.
1:00:18
I traveled all over the world making artworks and performance art.
1:00:21
I was in Belarus, I was in Boston, and I was everywhere as a
1:00:24
performance artist, you know, kind of
1:00:26
Rupert Isaacson: when, when, oh God, in this story.
1:00:29
Helen Sharp: So we're in my early thirties now.
1:00:31
Rupert Isaacson: You've kicked the heroin?
1:00:32
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:00:33
Rupert Isaacson: You've moved to Belfast.
1:00:34
You got yourself this job.
1:00:36
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:00:36
Yeah.
1:00:36
Rupert Isaacson: As a, well no, you're doing your PhD.
1:00:39
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:00:39
And
1:00:39
Rupert Isaacson: now you're getting jobs, doing installations or something.
1:00:42
Well, it was
1:00:43
Helen Sharp: before, it was actually before the PhD.
1:00:44
It was sort of, it was in my early thirties, so my, the final PhD
1:00:49
was a little bit, it was a bit closer to my mid to late thirties.
1:00:53
But yeah, I was doing performance art and, and I did performance art because
1:00:57
I saw, when I did my undergraduate, I saw a very beautiful, tall.
1:01:02
A woman from Hungary, I think she was, and she did a performance art piece and I
1:01:07
didn't really know about performance art.
1:01:08
And she did this piece and she got her first class honors
1:01:11
and she had her boobs out.
1:01:13
And I remember kind of getting really annoyed just going, yeah,
1:01:15
Rupert Isaacson: I could do that.
1:01:16
Helen Sharp: All those, all those tutors, you know, but it kind of intrigued me.
1:01:21
I was sort of jealous and intrigued and kind of like,
1:01:25
what is that that she's doing?
1:01:26
Mm-hmm.
1:01:27
So I decided that's why I decided to go and study a master's in it.
1:01:29
'cause it annoy, it had annoyed me so much.
1:01:31
Mm-hmm.
1:01:32
So I went and studied it and then I realized, oh, you
1:01:34
can do whatever you want.
1:01:35
And then I sort of learned how to do it and, but it did take me,
1:01:38
it did take me to lots of places
1:01:40
Rupert Isaacson: so that this was performance art at
1:01:42
this point, not sculpture.
1:01:43
Helen Sharp: Yeah, I did sculptures my undergraduate and my
1:01:45
master's was in performance art.
1:01:47
Rupert Isaacson: So what performance art were you doing in Belarus in Boston?
1:01:50
Helen Sharp: Oh, I did some great one.
1:01:51
Rupert Isaacson: Tell me.
1:01:52
Helen Sharp: Well, I did a piece where I act, I accidentally got knocked
1:01:55
out, which was not supposed to happen.
1:01:57
And it wasn't like for cool points.
1:01:59
I was doing a piece where I would wear a motorbike helmet and
1:02:04
there'd be so I'd suspend a bot.
1:02:05
This was in Belarus, actually.
1:02:07
Rupert Isaacson: Good place to get knocked out.
1:02:08
Yeah,
1:02:09
Helen Sharp: it's not a lot of horses in this podcast for me, is it?
1:02:12
But yeah, anyway, it was the place where I was doing this piece, and
1:02:15
obviously it was about mental health actually, obviously when I was looking
1:02:17
back, it was expressing therefore
1:02:19
Rupert Isaacson: taking a big bang on the head.
1:02:21
Absolutely.
1:02:21
But I
1:02:21
Helen Sharp: kept, but I was using the reference of the image of
1:02:23
launching the ship with a bottle of champagne, so when someone wax flings
1:02:27
it at the, at the bow of a ship.
1:02:29
But I was the bow of the ship, basically.
1:02:32
Rupert Isaacson: Why?
1:02:32
To
1:02:33
Helen Sharp: get someone in the, in the audience to, to, to fling this bottle.
1:02:37
Anyway, the Belarusian.
1:02:39
The be the Belarusian helmet wasn't great and it gave me such a clunk,
1:02:43
Rupert Isaacson: but the Belarusian person entered into the spirit of the thing.
1:02:46
Helen Sharp: Yeah, it wasn't great.
1:02:47
But anyway, that was the one.
1:02:48
But yeah.
1:02:50
Why?
1:02:51
I dunno, I swung off an anchor.
1:02:53
I, I hadn't anchored suspended from the ceiling in a gallery of Find contemporary
1:02:58
art gallery in Boston and I swung off that and used to have big slides, a
1:03:02
lot of horses in the imagery actually.
1:03:04
And why the long face kind of written and spray paint across, you know, kind
1:03:11
of, I dunno, madness, but really fun.
1:03:14
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, A lot of fun getting paid to have a laugh.
1:03:16
I mean,
1:03:17
Helen Sharp: yeah, people and ultimately I do frivolity really well, but actually
1:03:21
I really mean it like frivolity is, you know, frivolity you talk about joy a lot,
1:03:26
but like frivolity and laughter frivolity
1:03:30
Rupert Isaacson: is, is a form of joy.
1:03:31
Absolutely.
1:03:32
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:03:34
Rupert Isaacson: In fact, there's, there's a, there's a
1:03:38
there's a great quote on Folly.
1:03:40
I'm looking it up on my cell phone right now.
1:03:43
If I can't find it, I'll paraphrase it.
1:03:54
I don't want to hold the thing up.
1:03:56
But basically it's that there's no great endeavor that humans undertake that does
1:04:04
not involve a large degree of folly.
1:04:08
Mm-hmm.
1:04:09
And Folly is this idea of, it's not the crack, you know, in, in
1:04:16
Ireland or joy for the sake of itself, almost like a divine mania.
1:04:23
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:04:23
Rupert Isaacson: In order to access certain treat, or
1:04:26
again, back to altered state of consciousness, I think shamanic joy.
1:04:32
Hmm.
1:04:32
Where you will make yourself the fool, you'll make yourself the butt of the joke.
1:04:37
I think I always have the utmost respect for people who make themselves
1:04:41
vulnerable, especially to judgment.
1:04:45
Knowing that there's a sort of job to be done with it in a funny way.
1:04:52
And it's something I, I can spot in people and it's like, oh, you have
1:04:57
that courage and it's fun, you know?
1:05:00
Yeah.
1:05:01
But I always have massive respect for those people because
1:05:04
life is so short, you know?
1:05:05
And to not occasionally stick your neck out when somebody could take a swing
1:05:12
with the ax is also not to be alive.
1:05:15
Yeah.
1:05:15
Yeah.
1:05:16
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:05:17
A hundred percent.
1:05:18
I remember actually just briefly, I suppose there was one performance I did
1:05:21
and I, I was sitting for about three hours in a gallery and I was just twisting
1:05:26
Marino cherries onto the end of my nose
1:05:28
Rupert Isaacson: As you do.
1:05:29
Yeah.
1:05:30
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:05:30
But of course forward in the pub, the clown's nose, it was just the
1:05:33
clown's nose, but it never would stick.
1:05:35
So it was just continuously the clown's and it was falling off.
1:05:37
And I remember, I thought it was kind of funny and a little bit melancholy, but I
1:05:41
remember kind of looking up and floods.
1:05:43
People were in floods of tears.
1:05:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:05:45
Helen Sharp: In the gallery.
1:05:46
It was incredibly sad.
1:05:49
I an image of this g you know, and of
1:05:51
Rupert Isaacson: this, it sounds sad to me actually.
1:05:53
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:05:53
It was kind of, failing and failing and failing and failing
1:05:56
kind of thing, you know?
1:05:57
Rupert Isaacson: And trying to be happy.
1:05:59
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:06:00
Rupert Isaacson: So why did you stop doing that stuff and
1:06:03
why did you go into journalism?
1:06:04
It sounds like you're quite good at that stuff.
1:06:07
Helen Sharp: Yeah, I just had enough.
1:06:08
I just had had, you know, it was everyone.
1:06:10
People say it's brave all the time to sort of suddenly go.
1:06:14
I just, I was working in galleries as well and I was curating other people's
1:06:18
work and things and I just, you'd
1:06:20
Rupert Isaacson: enter the industry, right?
1:06:22
Helen Sharp: Yeah, exactly.
1:06:23
Right.
1:06:23
So I, but I just had enough, but I've never been scared to, to make changes
1:06:27
where I required and I just thought, I really love, I bought this horse,
1:06:32
obviously for a pound king, and I, and I loved him and I thought, like horses,
1:06:38
I love horses because as I said it to my husband recently, I feel like when
1:06:42
I'm on my deathbed and taking my final breath, I'll never know everything
1:06:46
about horses that there is to know.
1:06:49
And I can't really say that about that much else that I've,
1:06:53
Rupert Isaacson: well except everything in life.
1:06:54
I mean,
1:06:55
Helen Sharp: yeah, I don't know.
1:06:57
I feel like I've gotten to
1:06:57
Rupert Isaacson: the heart of some stuff
1:07:01
Helen Sharp: collectively, selectively o cd
1:07:03
Rupert Isaacson: we clearly dunno about, but I agree with you.
1:07:04
Horses are definitely one that
1:07:06
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:07:07
Is the
1:07:07
Rupert Isaacson: lifetime many lifetimes of study?
1:07:09
Yeah,
1:07:09
Helen Sharp: it just, yeah, the interest just took me over and
1:07:12
so I was with, I was kind of.
1:07:14
And I was obviously trying to learn about horses more and more and more as well.
1:07:17
'cause it had been a long time since I'd been around them and, and then I'm good
1:07:21
at research and I'm, you know, when I was putting all together and then I just got
1:07:24
an opportunity, I was writing for free for people for a while, for a few magazines
1:07:27
and then, and then actually it was Hos and Hound was my first actually paid gig.
1:07:31
So I was That's hilarious
1:07:32
Rupert Isaacson: that you go from being knocked out in BEUs in a motorcycle
1:07:37
helmet as performance art to Orson hard.
1:07:40
Helen Sharp: It seems normal to me.
1:07:43
Yeah, yeah.
1:07:45
Like, yeah.
1:07:46
And that then from there, then it kind of went on and then I, I am.
1:07:50
Eternally and forever.
1:07:52
The Irish field, to me, was the pinnacle of great journalism in, in
1:07:56
horse, in, in equestrian writing.
1:07:57
And why?
1:07:59
I think they're brilliantly talented.
1:08:01
I think the racing writers whether you like racing or not,
1:08:04
they're incredible writers.
1:08:05
I think the editors have been fantastic.
1:08:08
I think the quality of what's put out on a small team of eight, a hundred and
1:08:12
twenty five pages a week covering every single aspect of Equestrianism, you know,
1:08:17
I just always thought it was fantastic.
1:08:19
And it's the absolute.
1:08:20
And I, and I wrote for them for five years, once a month, and
1:08:24
then a job came up and I didn't get it, you know, full-time.
1:08:28
And then I went for the job again a year later.
1:08:30
And I did get it.
1:08:31
And it's the privilege of my life, I have to say, to write for the Irish field.
1:08:34
I went freelance this year because I wanted to grow the charity,
1:08:38
but I was full-time with them for four, nearly four years.
1:08:42
And.
1:08:43
I just, and I, and I still, I just, I love them as human beings
1:08:47
and I love the publication.
1:08:48
And I still get a kick of, like, tonight we went to print five minutes
1:08:52
before we started, and tomorrow morning I'll go into town and I'll
1:08:55
be able to pick it up in the shop.
1:08:57
And I still love to read it.
1:08:58
I've read half of it.
1:08:59
I've written some of it.
1:09:00
Yeah.
1:09:00
Cup of tea in the Irish field.
1:09:03
Pleasure.
1:09:05
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:09:06
So you get over to Belfast, you're doing performance art, and people are showing
1:09:15
up saying, what's all this bollocks?
1:09:18
You know, we want, as you said, we want the bins changed and
1:09:22
we want people to stop dying.
1:09:24
And here are you swinging from anchors or whatever you're doing.
1:09:28
Mm-hmm.
1:09:28
Fuck you.
1:09:29
Probably that was a little bit there.
1:09:31
And at the same time, I can also imagine that they were
1:09:33
like, but also welcome because.
1:09:37
The Irish North or south value, art value divine Madness.
1:09:43
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:09:44
Well, if I learned very soon from, from a, an example that I love sharing
1:09:48
is that because it shows there's different ways, there's always something
1:09:54
can always come from something.
1:09:55
So a sculptor whose name I, I can't remember now, but he had, he had,
1:10:00
in the very early days of the peace process, he had made a sculpture in a
1:10:04
place called Carlisle Circus, which is right on an interface in North Belfast.
1:10:08
And he had done a great big dove of peace.
1:10:11
And I'll never not laugh at the fact that, that the community,
1:10:16
the two communities from each side came out in unison to destroy it
1:10:21
Rupert Isaacson: on that one thing.
1:10:22
They could agree.
1:10:23
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:10:24
So that was, so to me that was like an aha moment kind of thing
1:10:28
of, you know, ways and means.
1:10:29
But yeah, you.
1:10:32
I look, I'm a di, I'm quite direct and I'm quite sort of adventurous and
1:10:38
I'm not, I'm perhaps not as floaty.
1:10:42
Well, I'm gonna off fend loads of people, but I, I just always
1:10:44
came in with a very kind of open and, and real way of discussing
1:10:50
things and I was told to fuck off.
1:10:53
And at times when I went in to try and pitch a sculpture that the
1:10:56
council had employed me to go in and said, look, here's 50,000 pounds.
1:11:00
Can you make a sculpture or a piece of artwork with this community?
1:11:03
You know, here's, here's a quarter of a, you know, here's a
1:11:07
quarter of the side of a pavement.
1:11:10
Can you design something with the community that means something to them?
1:11:13
And, you know, you have, you have to learn to do things differently and to look
1:11:19
at the truth of what's in front of you.
1:11:20
So the.
1:11:21
One of the brilliant projects we did with a community that said no to, to
1:11:26
what the council wanted us to build.
1:11:27
So I got in a really good friend of mine who's an art.
1:11:30
What
1:11:30
Rupert Isaacson: did the council want you to build?
1:11:32
Helen Sharp: They wanted, we used to call 'em community lumps, you know,
1:11:34
something no one could hang themselves on or a kid couldn't, you know, nothing
1:11:38
connect, nothing can, like nothing.
1:11:40
They could be used as
1:11:41
Rupert Isaacson: a weapon
1:11:43
Helen Sharp: and like nobody could, you know, climb it and nobody, so there was
1:11:46
like, the options were always just, so I remember having a brainstorm with a
1:11:51
friend of mine who's an artist, Nikki Q.
1:11:53
And what we did instead was we gave the kids loads of cameras
1:11:59
and the site where the artwork was supposed to be was a piece wall.
1:12:03
So this had like, you know, bits where mortar bombs had been in it
1:12:06
and sort of gunshot marks on it.
1:12:08
And we took the kids down there and we were like, right, we're
1:12:12
gonna photograph what's here.
1:12:13
And they were like, well, there's nothing here.
1:12:15
And we're kind of like, you know, are you sure?
1:12:18
And we'd given them micro lenses on the cameras.
1:12:20
So we went on a wildlife hunt on this wall, and of course
1:12:24
we got 'em to take pictures.
1:12:25
So there's like centipedes, snails, you know, we found a frog.
1:12:28
We found all this stuff on the verge by this long piece wall.
1:12:32
And then we blew where we blew their photographs up massive and
1:12:36
put them onto the peace walls.
1:12:38
So it became alive with the wildlife of this dead space.
1:12:42
And I remember just watching the kids, just their minds just kind
1:12:46
of going, what this thing had represented before to what it became.
1:12:51
It was just wonderful.
1:12:52
Like it was brilliant, you know, but just teaches you a way of you don't
1:12:57
have to do things A to B, you know?
1:12:59
Mm-hmm.
1:12:59
You can go a ZB, you know,
1:13:04
it's okay.
1:13:05
So
1:13:06
Rupert Isaacson: you, you, you find yourself in the community there.
1:13:10
And obviously it's a troubled community because it's the troubles and.
1:13:16
At the same time, you're rediscovering horses and you're discovering riding.
1:13:21
How do you go from there to where you are now with groundwork?
1:13:26
Helen Sharp: Actually, I, so I went and did a, I went as a mature student to cre.
1:13:32
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:13:32
Who, I just, what is CRE for those, those people who are
1:13:35
listening from Montana or Dubai?
1:13:37
If you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
1:13:42
you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
1:13:48
of dressage training.
1:13:49
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
1:13:58
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
1:14:04
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
1:14:11
well being of the horse and the rider.
1:14:14
Intrigued?
1:14:14
Like to know more?
1:14:16
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
1:14:21
Check out the free introduction course.
1:14:23
Take it from there.
1:14:24
Helen Sharp: It's the College of Agriculture in there's, there's two,
1:14:28
but this is the equine department and handily for me, it's 12 miles
1:14:31
down the road from where I live.
1:14:33
It's a fantastic college, amazing props to them.
1:14:37
So I just.
1:14:38
Wasn't afraid to be humiliated, and it was really humiliating because you're in
1:14:42
a class of 16 and 17-year-old girls who just think, you're like, oh God, what is
1:14:46
this fat middle-aged woman doing here?
1:14:48
You know, who was really keen and wanted to ask loads of questions
1:14:52
and they just wanted to kill you.
1:14:53
Enthusiastic.
1:14:53
All the attack.
1:14:54
Yeah, like
1:14:55
Rupert Isaacson: a cardinal sin.
1:14:55
Helen Sharp: The worst, you know?
1:14:57
So I did that just as a kind of, you know, it was just a, it was
1:15:01
just to do something differently.
1:15:03
Anyway, I did that and I kept writing.
1:15:05
Then I decided I was really interested in muscles and horses.
1:15:08
So I went off to the College of Physiotherapy in England and
1:15:13
learned to be a massage therapist.
1:15:16
Before, or before.
1:15:18
It was kind of, there wasn't a lot of it about, it was like selling voodoo
1:15:21
when I came back and was trying to, but I actually did that for three
1:15:25
years and I ended up treating.
1:15:28
Olympic horses right down to pony school.
1:15:31
And I loved it.
1:15:32
But what I learned doing that this is, this is a roundabout way of seeing what
1:15:36
I learned most about, that I learned about energy and I learned about owners
1:15:41
and people and people around horses.
1:15:45
And I had to stop doing, my hands actually gave out with this rheumatism,
1:15:49
so I, my hands kind of gave out 'cause it's really hardcore doing the massage.
1:15:53
And so then I had to find something else to do and I took a bit of time out
1:15:58
and then just wrote and wrote and wrote and then just decided three years ago.
1:16:03
But I was gonna put everything together.
1:16:05
That's genuinely how I felt it was.
1:16:07
I put everything together, the community work, the equine therapy work, my
1:16:12
own experiences, and it just all felt like the river had run to that point.
1:16:18
And it felt natural in the right thing to do.
1:16:24
Rupert Isaacson: So now there you are, you're working with, you've
1:16:27
told us about veterans and police who've come up through the troubles.
1:16:33
These are the people who are carrying the shoulders of that violence or carrying
1:16:38
that violence on their shoulders rather.
1:16:39
Mm-hmm.
1:16:40
You also work with teens.
1:16:41
Mm-hmm.
1:16:42
Who, okay, it's a bit of a cold war there, but it's not the hot war that
1:16:48
those 60 year olds grew up with.
1:16:51
Talk to us about them.
1:16:52
What are they facing and what are you doing with them?
1:16:56
Helen Sharp: Yeah, it's a little bit of a different approach and I think this
1:16:59
is actually where I think I probably am a little bit more delicate around them.
1:17:05
I mean, intergenerational trauma, right?
1:17:07
It's huge here.
1:17:08
I.
1:17:10
There's a lot of, as I was saying, there's, it's a 25% higher rate for,
1:17:15
for kids and young people in than the, here, than than the rest of
1:17:19
the UK for mental health problems.
1:17:24
We laugh a lot.
1:17:26
I mean, I do, I laugh a lot with the adults anyway, but we laugh a
1:17:29
lot and you know, we've got one kid that's been with us a long time now
1:17:33
who doesn't, hasn't been to school in a year and a half, I think this is
1:17:37
skateboarding and this is pretty much the thing that is the only thing we
1:17:41
can get her parents can get her to do.
1:17:45
And they've written a couple of letters to us to say they just can't
1:17:47
believe because she was really non, almost nonverbal when she came to us.
1:17:52
And just through making her kind of laugh while we go along,
1:17:56
it's been really different.
1:17:57
But watching her use our voice.
1:17:59
So to create partnership and as you know, and to, and to ask horses to
1:18:05
work with you, sometimes you have to.
1:18:08
Give voice.
1:18:09
Voice, you know, and, and it helps.
1:18:11
Yeah.
1:18:12
Yeah, it does.
1:18:14
Really helps.
1:18:15
But actually, if you're not used to being loud or using your voice
1:18:19
or you've been timid, or you've been bullied, you've been silenced.
1:18:22
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:18:22
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:18:22
Really hard thing to do too.
1:18:24
To learn to do.
1:18:25
We always tell her it's her death, metal voice.
1:18:28
She likes heavy metal, you know?
1:18:29
So it's kind of like she's, she's asking her stop.
1:18:31
Yeah, she's going stop.
1:18:33
But she needs to, you know, but actually her family were telling us that now she,
1:18:38
she has started to use authority with a really badly behaved dog they have
1:18:43
at home, which she'd never done before.
1:18:45
But the dog is responding because she's learned to use her voice.
1:18:51
And the parents, it's kind of blowing their parents' mind and also her
1:18:55
obviously where, where we are based.
1:18:56
It's very beautiful.
1:18:57
It's an estate and it's green and it's gorgeous.
1:18:59
And part of what we do with a lot of the kids is they just take
1:19:03
the horse for the, for a walk.
1:19:06
Suddenly the, the, the kid starts commenting on the light, like
1:19:10
on the way home, in the car.
1:19:11
Yeah.
1:19:12
And the parents can't leave it because she's been in her room for the last five
1:19:15
days, but she's coming back in that hour.
1:19:18
They always say the hour after in the car, when they're on the way home,
1:19:21
when she's, when after the thing.
1:19:23
She's noticing the world in a way that she never did.
1:19:27
And is so those two things, I always still say that the, the nonclinical
1:19:30
setting is hugely important to us.
1:19:33
And one of the things I must just put in there is that the, the feedback
1:19:36
we are getting from the psychologist at Brook House that we work in
1:19:40
partnership with, he is saying to us he actually wants to run a pilot.
1:19:44
But he is saying to us that what he is finding with the, with the veterans is
1:19:50
that any of the veterans that he, that, that are closed to talk therapy, once
1:19:56
they've done the horse program, they become a lot more open to talk therapy.
1:20:01
It's quite funny because they usually land down to us and don't want to talk.
1:20:04
That's one of the things a lot of them admit to.
1:20:06
I've talked it all out, you know, anybody who's been through a lot
1:20:09
of therapy knows how that feels.
1:20:10
It's like, I just don't wanna talk about it anymore.
1:20:13
I wanna groom this horse and just not say anything.
1:20:16
You know?
1:20:17
But it's really interesting that it's that this psychologist feeding back that,
1:20:21
and he's, he's to be convinced, you know, he's not like necessarily on a on side.
1:20:27
He's becoming that way.
1:20:28
Thankfully.
1:20:28
We're proving him that it's, you know, it's worth his attention.
1:20:31
But he is saying it's, it's becoming a definite pathway.
1:20:35
And then I have a friend who runs the, the Castle Re Prison Project,
1:20:38
which was the first horse project in Europe, in the prison in Ross Common.
1:20:43
He was up visiting us the other day, but I've been down to see him and he has said
1:20:46
the prison have reported the same thing.
1:20:48
So prison prisoners that refuse talk therapy in the prison, if they do
1:20:54
the 12 week horse course, they're more open to doing it after it.
1:20:59
Interesting.
1:21:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, it is.
1:21:02
I mean, as you might know with Horse Boy Method what we stumbled into was
1:21:08
the production of oxytocin in the body.
1:21:11
And so with my son, for example, who's nonverbal, suddenly he was verbal and
1:21:19
we were like, oh, well why is this?
1:21:21
And then little by little with working with other kids, then going back to the
1:21:24
neuroscientists and having them explain to us what was going on, they're like,
1:21:28
ah, when you're working with the horse in these rhythms, you're getting oxytocin.
1:21:33
This is with small kids mounted in front of us.
1:21:36
But of course, oxytocin comes in many ways.
1:21:38
And it can come with empathetic touch and mammal to mammal, mammalian caregiving
1:21:45
system, stroking your dog, having a hug getting a smile from somebody.
1:21:52
That.
1:21:53
Okay.
1:21:53
We know that's gonna open the doors to communication because oxytocin
1:21:57
is the hormone of communication.
1:21:59
Yeah.
1:22:00
It's interesting though that you, you said nonclinical setting.
1:22:03
Hmm.
1:22:04
As much as possible, we train people to work in nature.
1:22:08
We say get out of the arena because the arena is sterile.
1:22:12
If you have to be in the arena, the weather's terrible, whatever.
1:22:16
Yeah.
1:22:16
Or you have to be inside, bring the outside inside.
1:22:20
Can you get a bunch, a hundred little trees from the nursery and
1:22:24
create a forest in your arena?
1:22:26
Can you paint a forest on the walls of your arena?
1:22:28
Can you be imaginative this way?
1:22:31
The answer is of course, yes.
1:22:32
If you wanna be, not if you don't want to be.
1:22:35
And can you create within your indoor therapy setting the feeling
1:22:40
of nature plants, even if they're.
1:22:43
Fake plants, you know, whatever you are on this beautiful estate.
1:22:49
Mm-hmm.
1:22:50
So you are on, you are, you are in a position to observe
1:22:56
the agency that nature gives.
1:22:58
Mm-hmm.
1:22:58
Can you talk to us about that?
1:23:03
Helen Sharp: Yeah, I think it's a bit like space and air and kind
1:23:09
of fundamental elemental stuff.
1:23:11
I suppose we've gone a little bit of a step further than bringing it
1:23:15
inside necessarily in those forms, although it is a brilliant idea.
1:23:19
I know you do that, but we've actually just devised and we've just had the
1:23:23
go ahead that it's gonna be funded.
1:23:24
So we've got together with the head gardener, who's counselor,
1:23:28
and we've devised a 10 week program where clients do we meet in the
1:23:35
walled garden, we do garden nature therapy, and in the forest one week.
1:23:40
Then we go down to the yard the next week.
1:23:42
But we carry the themes through.
1:23:45
So we do five weeks of garden and five weeks of horse basically intertwined.
1:23:50
We're really interested to see that, how, how, how that goes, how that goes.
1:23:54
But it just seemed like a really natural collaboration.
1:23:57
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:23:58
Helen Sharp: Do gold dormant is the counselor and he is absolutely fantastic
1:24:02
and very knowledgeable and he's actually going through his paces now with
1:24:05
horses 'cause he wasn't a horseman.
1:24:07
So we're, we thought that Fiona's teaching him because it's important
1:24:11
that he knows what's going on, you know?
1:24:14
So we're trying to sort of like do it on a macro level of let's take the
1:24:20
horses up to the wall, up to the wall garden and let's bring the gardeners
1:24:23
down into the arena, you know?
1:24:25
So, yeah, it's a cool program.
1:24:28
It's a summer program, you know, but also we do hard work.
1:24:32
I was telling you about the young stock and mine have, you know, I know
1:24:36
how to raise a, a, you know, a, a good, a good full and a youngster.
1:24:41
And I quite often, I really like the brood mares to work with, with, with people.
1:24:46
Women in particular actually, because they're quite, you know,
1:24:50
breed mares can be difficult and opinionated and brilliant in that way.
1:24:54
And once you start teaching 'em about to watch their ears and how they're
1:24:57
managing the whole household, as we call it, the herd with the ears.
1:25:01
And you can have great discussions standing in the fields with some
1:25:03
breed mares, you know, and I've seen it, I've seen a lot of good
1:25:07
work that we've done there with,
1:25:08
Rupert Isaacson: with
1:25:09
Helen Sharp: women as well.
1:25:10
So you're, so you're doing that in the field?
1:25:12
The horses are in the natural environment, you know, people
1:25:15
do hard work all the time.
1:25:16
But I find the Brime herd really interesting because they're so
1:25:18
opinion, you know, they're so, I.
1:25:20
The alpha female is, is pretty obvious usually, or the, the current, the
1:25:25
whoever's, whoever's managing the herd.
1:25:27
But women open up a lot about the burdens of managing a family
1:25:33
in that situation, you know?
1:25:35
I can
1:25:35
Rupert Isaacson: imagine.
1:25:36
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:25:36
It's cool.
1:25:36
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:25:37
And for, for for a large herbivore life or death, right.
1:25:41
I mean also for carnivore, honestly, if you, but it just as for a human
1:25:47
mother, once you've got kids, that's it.
1:25:50
Yeah.
1:25:51
It's life or death.
1:25:52
To see that reflected, I could absolutely see the value.
1:25:56
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:25:57
Or, or like at the minute, I've got a couple of, they're at that age and
1:26:01
a quite cheeky cults, you know, a thoroughbred cult and a sports horse cult.
1:26:04
But like, how many women are coming through this course with teenage boys?
1:26:08
Loads?
1:26:10
And it's not about, you don't have to, you know, I'm.
1:26:13
Absolute master of the clean question.
1:26:15
I know my place, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a, but as soon as you put
1:26:19
someone who's got an unruly son, you know, even it's outside the stable door
1:26:25
with these, we have huge triple size stables, you know, all our horses have,
1:26:28
or big pens, and they can stand there and watch them interact in them, you
1:26:32
know, and, and it'll be so quick that they start talking about their son.
1:26:35
Mm-hmm.
1:26:35
Or the problems that they're having with their son or their son's on
1:26:38
drugs or their son is, and these concerns that these women had.
1:26:40
So I think using different stock is, is something that I'm quite proud of.
1:26:46
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
1:26:47
Helen Sharp: In our program.
1:26:48
Rupert Isaacson: I, I would agree.
1:26:49
When we were in Texas, we had three stallions and initially we
1:26:55
thought, oh, we'll never use those, you know, in the therapy program.
1:26:58
We totally ended up using them in the therapy program.
1:27:01
And what was so interesting about them was they absolutely had the
1:27:07
discernment to have one set of rules.
1:27:10
For the kids and the clients and a whole other set of rules for us.
1:27:12
We were fair game, you know?
1:27:14
Totally.
1:27:14
As we should be because they, their attitude was, oh, I see you want us
1:27:18
to be your professional partners here.
1:27:22
We can do that.
1:27:23
And we'll show some balance.
1:27:26
We'll push a little bit, we'll trigger a little bit, but we'll also, you know,
1:27:29
validate and we'll do all of that.
1:27:31
And you'd watch them come out.
1:27:32
You're like, dude, that was awesome.
1:27:34
And they'd be like, gimme some food, bitch.
1:27:37
You know, it was, it was so interesting.
1:27:40
And we also worked with young stock.
1:27:42
I so agree with you.
1:27:43
Of course, the difficulty is that that's a hard, that's a tall order.
1:27:47
Yeah.
1:27:47
For most therapeutic places, it's, it's not possible because there isn't
1:27:53
the manpower, there isn't perhaps the space and there isn't perhaps
1:27:57
the intellectual capital among the people who know how to handle.
1:28:00
That kind of stuff.
1:28:01
Yeah, it's definitely not,
1:28:02
Helen Sharp: yeah, it's definitely not.
1:28:03
I can't, you know, I can't necessarily advocate for that.
1:28:06
I just know that with Fiona's horsemanship and my own experience,
1:28:11
we're never gonna put anyone in danger.
1:28:12
Like, no one's going past the door.
1:28:14
But you can watch two Colts for 20 minutes.
1:28:16
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
1:28:17
Absolutely.
1:28:18
You can.
1:28:18
And I think to see, to, to, to be able to have the luxury to be able to expose
1:28:23
people to the full range of authentic, her behavior is going to absolutely
1:28:33
serve as an allegory for the monkeys.
1:28:37
Helen Sharp: That's it.
1:28:38
Like, if I was gonna write, if you asked me to write down, you know, what's
1:28:42
your model like, I just couldn't do it without a ra, without an age range.
1:28:46
You know, we've got a 27-year-old deaf, former international show jumper who's
1:28:51
does his, who's the most incredible, and we've got these young cults and we've got,
1:28:55
you know, and a little baby, she like.
1:28:58
The variety is incredible, but it serves.
1:29:01
It's so powerful.
1:29:02
It's so useful.
1:29:06
Rupert Isaacson: Where are you going with this?
1:29:08
In your perfect world, let's project forward a little bit.
1:29:11
Five years, 10 years, where do you wanna bring it and where would you like to
1:29:15
see the equine assisted world get to?
1:29:19
Helen Sharp: Probably the same answer that most people have in terms of, I would
1:29:23
love it in Ireland, the island of Ireland.
1:29:26
I suppose it, for it to be prescribable from every possible angle that it can
1:29:32
be prescribable from, you know, and I keep making the argument as well.
1:29:37
It's not just for people in crisis, you know?
1:29:40
Sure, sure.
1:29:41
I.
1:29:42
I ended up here also because horses were really helpful for me too.
1:29:47
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes.
1:29:48
Helen Sharp: 12 years of horses.
1:29:50
If you ask me what they did for me, well they probably changed everything, you
1:29:53
know, I'm just trying to share that, I suppose in a lot of ways, like most of,
1:29:57
a lot of people in EAS have gone into it because horses have helped them, but
1:30:02
access to horses, you know, access to access to these animals that we have such
1:30:09
a long standing and basically make it part
1:30:11
Rupert Isaacson: of the national health system.
1:30:12
Helen Sharp: A hundred percent.
1:30:13
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:30:14
Helen Sharp: It's a no brainer to me, but you know, also I'm very realistic
1:30:19
in terms of is, is this business model that we have in terms of, it's a
1:30:24
charity like, can I not do another job?
1:30:27
Well, no, I have to have another job, which means that I'm restricted
1:30:32
because the money that we do get for will pay for the horses.
1:30:38
You know, but I'm always gonna have to have another job at the
1:30:41
minute because I can't afford to.
1:30:44
And I think there's a lot of pressure and really getting really high horsey
1:30:48
about the pressure that the equine assisted services practitioners are
1:30:53
putting, almost putting on themselves.
1:30:55
It's like, don't eat yourself as a sector.
1:30:57
Like, you know, social license is not your responsibility because you're doing EAS.
1:31:02
We can all try our best, but like, and be nicer to each other.
1:31:08
It's a bit like you said in cre, I think your talk, it resonated with me so much.
1:31:12
I just thought, God, that's the first time I've heard someone say,
1:31:16
you know, let's not be competitive.
1:31:17
Like, let's work together and let's not be shitty with each other.
1:31:21
You know?
1:31:23
But also we have to, we have to look out for the mental health
1:31:25
of the ES EAS practitioners because they're not all great.
1:31:31
You know, they're not all.
1:31:34
Big organizations.
1:31:35
It's mainly in Ireland.
1:31:36
Anyway, one person, honestly, that's, that's everywhere.
1:31:40
Rupert Isaacson: It's it, it, it's the, it's only very recently, certainly
1:31:45
in my work that we've started to work with larger organizations.
1:31:50
It was all Backyard.
1:31:52
Yeah.
1:31:53
Things like You, like Me, you know, that may change in 20 years, but you're right.
1:31:59
It does need to be part of Standard Healthcare.
1:32:03
Yeah.
1:32:04
I dunno if you've listened to the podcast that we did with
1:32:07
Nor On, nor on Cota from Norway.
1:32:11
Helen Sharp: Not yet.
1:32:12
Rupert Isaacson: It is part of it up there.
1:32:14
Helen Sharp: Wow.
1:32:14
Cool.
1:32:14
And it's really
1:32:15
Rupert Isaacson: interesting to talk to her.
1:32:16
She's a, she's a, a physician, but she's also a psychiatrist and she
1:32:19
runs this amazing program up there.
1:32:22
And it's interesting to talk to her about the history of why
1:32:26
it evolved that way in Norway.
1:32:28
Why they value nature's therapy and sort of have a tradition of that.
1:32:32
I guess they weren't under the thumb of the church in quite the same way.
1:32:37
And interestingly away from the church in western culture, science
1:32:44
has replaced religious zealotry.
1:32:47
Hmm.
1:32:48
So now that we can begin to prove, now that the neuroscientists are behind us,
1:32:55
you know, we, we had this extraordinary experience last September in America
1:33:00
where for the first time a medical school asked us to come in and as new trails,
1:33:06
learning systems, movement method, horse by method to put on a neuroscience
1:33:11
conference at the medical school.
1:33:13
I.
1:33:14
Only because Dr.
1:33:16
Meghan McGovern, a well-respected physician and autism mum in that
1:33:22
area of Virginia, has been running an amazing program now with
1:33:28
autism and horses for some years.
1:33:32
Amazing.
1:33:32
And kind of word gets round and so I, I do see the thing moving forward, but
1:33:36
I love that you're saying yes, it needs to be part of standard healthcare.
1:33:41
It needs to be preventative, not just crisis.
1:33:44
And we, practitioners of it
1:33:48
need to stop nipping at each other's heels.
1:33:53
Whether or not that will happen is another.
1:33:58
Helen Sharp: Oh yeah.
1:33:58
Go on.
1:33:59
Also to be, also to be brutal and I'm gonna be brutal.
1:34:02
I think it is like also think about.
1:34:08
It's like, think about yourself as a business too.
1:34:11
Like don't think,
1:34:12
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, it's a little bit, don't Marty yourself hand.
1:34:14
Helen Sharp: Like don't Marty yourself.
1:34:15
Exactly.
1:34:16
And I think that's something that we could talk about more.
1:34:19
I think everybody could talk about more.
1:34:21
It's a subject for a symposium or it's a, it's like why are you putting
1:34:25
yourself in this kind of luer position?
1:34:27
Oh, I've got, is it because you've got an old discard pony?
1:34:30
I'm always thinking about can we, how would you breed?
1:34:33
How would you breed an equine assisted horse?
1:34:36
Like what, what were the traits?
1:34:38
It's a bit of a side discussion, but it's kind of, you know, a lot of people
1:34:41
just because they're, they're horse is secondhand, if you like, or discarded
1:34:45
that they're already, you know, oh, I'm just doing this thing here with, well,
1:34:49
Rupert Isaacson: and also, yeah, I think, I think when you're involved
1:34:51
in equine assisted work if you've been in it for many years, you are used to
1:34:57
that approach from people saying, oh.
1:35:00
Either.
1:35:00
Oh, that's nice.
1:35:01
You play with ponies or kind of arms folded.
1:35:04
Explain to me why this doesn't suck.
1:35:07
Yeah.
1:35:07
Well now the neuroscience is pretty clear on why it doesn't suck.
1:35:10
But nonetheless, I think we've all had to run that gauntlet and come up through that
1:35:17
thing of trying to ask for attention for what we all know works and is necessary.
1:35:28
Probably we'll look at the, we'll all be, you know, 85 looking at the
1:35:31
next generation, coming up going, oh, you guys have it so easy.
1:35:34
You have no idea what we went through.
1:35:35
Helen Sharp: I've just gonna say, oh yeah, you guys have all paved the way.
1:35:38
So it's all very well me sitting here going like, you know, you
1:35:41
know, but yeah, confidence.
1:35:43
Yeah, confidence comes because of the foundation that you guys have all set, but
1:35:46
it's like, I still just see a lot of it.
1:35:49
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:35:50
Yeah, no, for sure.
1:35:51
And you know, also, 'cause it's female led, it's, it's a female driven
1:35:55
Helen Sharp: estrogen assisted services.
1:35:57
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:35:57
So, you know, the medical establishment is still largely male.
1:36:04
Yeah.
1:36:04
I'm not saying that when it's no longer male, it will be any easier for equine
1:36:08
assisted services, but it might be and certainly it's interesting to me,
1:36:13
for example, what happened to us at Eastern Virginia Medical School there.
1:36:17
Well that was through a female doctor talking to another female
1:36:21
administrator in that college.
1:36:25
Would that have happened 15 years ago?
1:36:27
I dunno dunno.
1:36:30
Different generation, different genders.
1:36:33
Maybe, maybe not, but I don't think so because it, it, it didn't Right.
1:36:36
Happened now.
1:36:38
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:36:40
I think the respect for equine assisted services kind of has to go hand in hand.
1:36:46
The equine assisted services has to have respected itself.
1:36:49
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:36:50
You know
1:36:50
Helen Sharp: what I mean?
1:36:50
And that's, some have it and, and, and, but I'd say the majority
1:36:54
are still a little bit tentative.
1:36:56
And I suppose that's my more bold, almost
1:36:59
Rupert Isaacson: apologetic for what we do.
1:37:00
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:37:01
Like, let's stop doing that.
1:37:03
Yeah.
1:37:03
You know?
1:37:04
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:37:06
Yeah.
1:37:09
Brilliant.
1:37:10
Okay.
1:37:11
If people wanna find out more, how do they contact you?
1:37:15
Helen Sharp: Well, we don't really do social media.
1:37:17
I do have a thing, but probably the website is the best.
1:37:20
So it's www dot grand work.
1:37:23
E s.org.
1:37:25
Rupert Isaacson: Grand work or ground?
1:37:27
Helen Sharp: Ground.
1:37:27
That's my accent ground.
1:37:29
I was gonna
1:37:30
Rupert Isaacson: say, I, I thought you fe grand.
1:37:32
So, groundwork.
1:37:33
Groundwork,
1:37:35
Helen Sharp: Groundwork, EAS org
1:37:38
Rupert Isaacson: groundwork.
1:37:40
EAS
1:37:41
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:37:42
Rupert Isaacson: Dot org.
1:37:43
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:37:45
Rupert Isaacson: They can contact you there.
1:37:46
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:37:47
Rupert Isaacson: Alright, now we are making this we are making this podcast
1:37:51
in March of 2025 in May of 2025.
1:37:59
That is the first European gig of something called Seen Through Horses,
1:38:05
which is the work of Lynn Thomas who used to run EG gala and is now running horses
1:38:10
for mental health and arenas for change.
1:38:13
Talk to us a little bit about that.
1:38:14
She selected you guys to tell your story.
1:38:17
Why, how and how can we help?
1:38:21
Helen Sharp: Well, I, I, we, I followed the campaign last year
1:38:24
and I followed horses for mental health in the beginning and.
1:38:29
Being an athlete, I really, it was beautifully put together, so it caught
1:38:33
my attention and I had joined Arenas for Change failed miserably in keeping up
1:38:38
with what I was supposed to be doing.
1:38:40
But had chatted to Lynn then, and Lynn had been recommended to
1:38:43
me by my friend Jennifer Barker that runs Racing To Relate.
1:38:47
Also you'd mentioned her as well, that she'd be a good person to
1:38:50
talk to, but I, I sort of hadn't put those two things together.
1:38:53
And then I saw that they'd done the call out for the scene through Horses campaign
1:38:56
this year, and I just kind of thought,
1:38:59
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm,
1:38:59
Helen Sharp: that's all in America, but is it all in America and does
1:39:02
it have to all be in America?
1:39:03
So I just emailed them.
1:39:05
I wrote them a letter and said, you know, I'd really love to be involved
1:39:10
and, and I dunno how, and maybe it won't be until next year, or maybe I
1:39:14
can just follow along or, and they got back in touch and we talked a bit and
1:39:21
yeah, then they said that, they were gonna go ahead and, and we were gonna
1:39:25
be the pilot project for the scene through horses for the global campaign.
1:39:29
So we'd be the first European one, as you said.
1:39:32
And really on the back of that, I suppose if we do well in our fundraising, which
1:39:37
is part of the scene through horses project, everyone raises money, it goes
1:39:41
into a pot, and then it's divided by the, I think it's 106 EAS things this year.
1:39:47
Then, then I'm hoping that the, then seeing through horses
1:39:51
will become a thing in Europe.
1:39:53
So it's kind of, I feel like I, I've gotta do a really good job because if
1:39:57
I do well for groundwork and me and Fiona managed to raise the money and
1:40:02
then hopefully it'll open the door for everybody else in Europe to be part of
1:40:06
the project or be able to be selected for the project and everybody wins, you know?
1:40:13
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:40:14
It's, I think, I think what I'd like people to take from what
1:40:17
you just said is don't be afraid.
1:40:20
To send an email, send a letter, even if you think you haven't got a
1:40:25
chance or it's not relevant to you.
1:40:28
If you, back to what you were saying about don't be timid that
1:40:32
you just thought, you know, sold it.
1:40:33
I'm just gonna contact them and well, boom.
1:40:37
And I've, I've spent my life doing that and I've also had people say no to me
1:40:41
a bunch of times, and that's all right.
1:40:43
Sometimes though there's same people that said no, said yes later.
1:40:47
Yeah.
1:40:47
Then at least you're on the radar and then at least you're having a conversation.
1:40:51
Don't worry if people say no, don't worry.
1:40:54
If the first contact is not the ideal Hmm.
1:41:01
Take it from there.
1:41:02
So, okay.
1:41:04
I suggest that we come and do a fundraiser of some sort at groundwork
1:41:10
and we'll be talking about that.
1:41:12
So any of you lad's listening, why don't we give it a go and come.
1:41:17
Have a little fun in the north of Ireland now also, because this is
1:41:20
2025, the Horse Boy Tribe Day will be happening actually at Kil Coon.
1:41:27
Our mutual friend Terry Brosnan's place Stewart's Care, the equine unit there
1:41:33
outside of Dublin, August 9th to 11th.
1:41:36
So maybe we should tag something onto that and come on up and so Cool.
1:41:42
Do something.
1:41:43
All right.
1:41:44
Really cool.
1:41:44
And any of you people listening who might want to come to Tribe Day and then come
1:41:48
on up to Helen's place in county Firma.
1:41:51
I mean, we might have fun if we go to Ireland.
1:41:54
I mean, you know, it's possible I suppose, you know,
1:41:57
Helen Sharp: any of probity,
1:41:58
Rupert Isaacson: you know, if
1:41:59
Helen Sharp: we,
1:42:00
Rupert Isaacson: I think, I think you could not have fun in Ireland, but
1:42:03
you'd have to put some effort into it.
1:42:05
Why don't we, let's go up there.
1:42:06
So that's my challenge, throwing it out there to all y'all.
1:42:10
Okay.
1:42:10
So give us the website one more time, then we'll sign off.
1:42:14
And I'm gonna have you back on in a few months.
1:42:16
We're gonna talk about where, where the scene through Horses campaign went.
1:42:20
Helen Sharp: Cool.
1:42:21
Rupert Isaacson: So yeah,
1:42:22
Helen Sharp: you can get, so you can have a look at what we do at www dot
1:42:27
groundwork, all one word, EA s.org.
1:42:33
Rupert Isaacson: Perfect.
1:42:34
Helen Sharp: Yeah.
1:42:35
Rupert Isaacson: Helen, thank you.
1:42:36
It's been brilliant.
1:42:38
Helen Sharp: Thank you so much.
1:42:39
Less horses than other people possibly, but a fantastic chat.
1:42:42
I've enjoyed it.
1:42:43
So thank you so much.
1:42:44
Rupert Isaacson: It's all about getting the job done.
1:42:49
We all do it in the different ways that we do.
1:42:52
The important thing is that we do it and we help each other out.
1:42:57
Okay.
1:42:58
It's been an honor.
1:42:58
Thank you.
1:43:02
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1:43:05
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1:44:01
And if you're looking for a way to spend time until the next podcast, you might
1:44:06
want to consider reading the books that kicked all this off The Horse Boy, the
1:44:10
Long Ride Home and The Healing Land.
1:44:13
So see you next time on Equine Assistant.
1:44:15
world.
1:44:16
Join us for the adventure.