Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Ep 13: Jane Faulkner - Equine Assisted Therapy Australia

Transcript

Ep 13: Jane Faulkner - Equine Assisted Therapy Australia · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
• 0:03
  New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
• 0:07
  Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
• 0:11
  You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
• 0:16
  Here on Equine Assisted World.
• 0:18
  We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
• 0:23
  established in the equine assisted field.
• 0:27
  This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
• 0:33
  physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
• 0:38
  These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
• 0:43
  Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
• 0:47
  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:50
  Today, we've got Jane Faulkner.
• 0:52
  Jane Faulkner is like everyone who comes on Equine Assisted
• 0:55
  World, jolly interesting.
• 0:57
  She runs Equine Assisted Therapy Australia.
• 1:01
  For those of you who are familiar with Equine Assisted Psychotherapy it's a
• 1:08
  Fascinating tool for helping people get to the bottom of their stuff and make
• 1:15
  the necessary changes that they need to to get to happier places in life.
• 1:21
  And of course, because we're doing, it's being done with horses.
• 1:24
  This is not, you know, sitting opposite somebody in a office on a
• 1:28
  couch feeling terrible about yourself and sort of compounding the trauma.
• 1:33
  The equine assisted psychotherapy work has been well studied for getting really
• 1:40
  lasting outcomes and there seems to be a magic with mixing this with not
• 1:45
  just the horse, but the movement and the environment that the horses create.
• 1:48
  So, but what's interesting about Jane is that she did not come into horses.
• 1:53
  As many of us did as sort of initiated cult members as children she came
• 1:58
  in a little bit through the side door in a slightly indirect way.
• 2:01
  And those of you who listened to our interview with Lynn Thomas, who founded
• 2:06
  Igala might see a parallel there in that when people seem to come into the
• 2:11
  equine assisted world, From outside of the equine world, often they can bring
• 2:15
  with them insights that perhaps we horse obsessed people might not see because
• 2:20
  we sometimes can't see the wood for the trees because we like ponies so much.
• 2:24
  So, without further ado, I'm gonna hand over to you, Jane, and I'm going
• 2:29
  to ask you how you got there because your, your, your story is fascinating.
• 2:34
  And.
• 2:35
  I think all of the adventures that you've had give you the perspective
• 2:39
  to be able to offer what you offer to both clients and the people who
• 2:44
  do your two year diploma in equine assisted psychotherapy in Australia,
• 2:49
  and this thing of life experience.
• 2:51
  In general is so important rather than just, I got a degree in therapy
• 2:56
  and I like horses, so off, off we go.
• 2:58
  Yeah it's, it's, it's very important that one has this great variety of experience.
• 3:02
  So, Jane, over to you.
• 3:05
  Can you tell us where you began in life and your early years?
• 3:09
  Yeah.
• 3:11
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, sure.
• 3:12
  So I grew up in a little town called Waterford in Queensland
• 3:16
  in Australia with three brothers and on a river, the Logan River.
• 3:21
  So it was kind of semi rural.
• 3:23
  We were just on an acre, but we were surrounded by acreage.
• 3:27
  So I was outside all the time as a kid swimming across the river playing soccer
• 3:34
  and my neighbors actually had horses and so I loved them from next door.
• 3:40
  So I remember going over and they used to put molasses in the feed.
• 3:44
  I remember being excited about having some of the molasses, but
• 3:48
  not really having much interaction apart from a pat other than that.
• 3:53
  And I think I, yeah, I never really entertained having horses cause
• 3:58
  I just knew that we couldn't.
• 4:00
  So, I grew up to an English dad and an Australian mum.
• 4:06
  And yeah, my childhood was.
• 4:10
  I was quite a responsible kid and so I looked after my brothers and yeah,
• 4:18
  just felt really at home outside was pretty bossy and it's true, it's true,
• 4:28
  it was pretty bossy and had quite at that age, had quite a strong sense of
• 4:33
  self then as a teenager, so I guess.
• 4:38
  My dad was quite a very stressed out man and I think as kids,
• 4:43
  we were quite scared of him.
• 4:45
  So when I hit the teenage, so I learned to suppress a lot and
• 4:49
  kind of be a really good kid.
• 4:51
  So I didn't really ever get in trouble, did the right thing,
• 4:54
  looked after my brothers.
• 4:56
  But as I got into my teenage years, I started developing acne and
• 5:01
  I think a big part of that was.
• 5:04
  My emotions erupting through my skin.
• 5:06
  So that kind of led me to really get curious about health and wellbeing.
• 5:11
  And it made me, I think, think differently to a lot of my peers.
• 5:16
  So I felt really ugly and a lot of shame around having the acne.
• 5:23
  So.
• 5:24
  I think I focused on I was focused on a career and learning and
• 5:30
  yeah, understanding why my body was doing what it was doing.
• 5:35
  So for me, I was lucky.
• 5:38
  I had some amazing neighbors and they were into meditation and
• 5:41
  they were into naturopathy and they kind of opened a door for me.
• 5:46
  At 16 to kind of start looking into myself and getting curious about how
• 5:52
  my thoughts were creating my reality.
• 5:57
  I guess.
• 5:58
  And I used to go to meditations with them at the time.
• 6:01
  It was spiritual meditations, you know, where you're kind of, you know, Opening
• 6:06
  up to the spiritual world and getting curious about all of that kind of stuff.
• 6:11
  And I loved that.
• 6:12
  I just, that was really kind of my jam.
• 6:15
  From there as a teenager, I never really feel felt like I fit in because I, I
• 6:21
  was, I look back and I realized I was a pretty deep kid and so, and I guess
• 6:27
  feeling so ugly, I was never really into the, the mating game or the party scene.
• 6:32
  I was more into learning about taking care of myself and my
• 6:37
  health and understanding who I was.
• 6:40
  So I was pretty not sure what I wanted to do when I left school.
• 6:45
  Mom, mom was a nurse.
• 6:46
  She was like, why don't you do nursing?
• 6:48
  I studied nursing, and that was a real challenge for me because I could see how
• 6:57
  the system wasn't really a health system.
• 6:59
  It was kind of, it went against a lot of what I was learning about what health is.
• 7:06
  And again, I guess I felt like I didn't really fit in and as a nurse as well, I
• 7:12
  yeah, just worked, I think as a nurse, you're taught to not really, if you're
• 7:18
  a better nurse when you don't have needs, so not having breaks and just
• 7:21
  always kind of giving to your patients.
• 7:25
  So, for me, I burnt out.
• 7:27
  And because I loved, I loved the people contact, I loved talking with
• 7:32
  people, but I just didn't like how people in the system were kind of a
• 7:37
  number that people, the system wasn't interested in that person or the
• 7:40
  history or why they might've developed the illness that they had developed.
• 7:46
  So, after I studied nursing and when I worked as a nurse here
• 7:50
  in Australia, I worked in a clinic in New Farm in Brisbane.
• 7:54
  And we worked with so we worked with the local prostitutes and the
• 7:58
  local transgender populations that were wanting to kind of transition.
• 8:04
  So I loved that job and I loved the different people I worked with.
• 8:08
  And I guess it was around.
• 8:10
  What did
• 8:10
  Rupert Isaacson: you love?
• 8:11
  What did you love about that particular work in those particular populations?
• 8:16
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 8:16
  Thanks for asking me that, you know, I think it was their realness.
• 8:21
  Their authenticity, they they were surviving, you know, I remember
• 8:26
  having a client who was 13 living in a car, having to prostitute
• 8:30
  herself and she was just so real.
• 8:34
  There was no masks.
• 8:35
  There was no bullshit.
• 8:37
  There was, I need these drugs.
• 8:39
  You know, she just kind of knew what she wanted, knew what she needed.
• 8:43
  Yeah.
• 8:44
  And I think.
• 8:45
  I really liked that there was no having to work hard to work out
• 8:49
  what she wanted or who she was.
• 8:51
  It was just there in plain sight and I really loved that about yeah,
• 8:57
  working at that clinic and I guess working with people as a nurse.
• 9:02
  'cause you are seeing people at their most vulnerable, you know, people sick, dying.
• 9:07
  Mentally ill and yeah, it gets rid of a lot of the pretense and the
• 9:12
  superficial superficialities of life.
• 9:15
  And I really liked that.
• 9:18
  But as I said, so I liked the people part, but I didn't like the system part.
• 9:23
  So for me, I traveled, I went overseas nursed over there.
• 9:26
  And,
• 9:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Overseas and over there is quite a large sort of, Sorry.
• 9:32
  Blanket.
• 9:32
  Jane Faulkner: London.
• 9:33
  Yeah, so I worked in London.
• 9:34
  I worked in the London Clinic.
• 9:36
  I worked in one of the big hospitals in Northern London.
• 9:40
  And then I worked as a private nurse.
• 9:42
  Whittington.
• 9:43
  Say, say again?
• 9:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Whittington, by any chance.
• 9:45
  Jane Faulkner: No, it wasn't.
• 9:47
  It started with an R.
• 9:49
  I can't think what it was called, huge hospital.
• 9:50
  I just thought Whittington was the
• 9:51
  Rupert Isaacson: one closest to me in North London.
• 9:53
  Ah,
• 9:53
  Jane Faulkner: ah, ah, yeah.
• 9:54
  I wondered if I might have
• 9:55
  Rupert Isaacson: walked past you accidentally on the street, perhaps.
• 9:57
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah,
• 9:58
  Rupert Isaacson: quite possibly.
• 10:00
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:02
  For me, going overseas was amazing because it gave me a chance to really
• 10:06
  work out who I was and being overseas.
• 10:09
  Not I went with my brother, my older brother, but we met a whole
• 10:13
  new group of people over there.
• 10:15
  And I remember having this realization that I can be who I want over here.
• 10:19
  Nobody knows who I am and realizing how being at home.
• 10:23
  I kind of.
• 10:25
  Let myself be boxed into this persona that people thought of as Jane.
• 10:31
  So for me, being overseas was really liberating.
• 10:34
  I looked into a lot of different natural therapies again.
• 10:38
  I was trying to get to the root cause of my health.
• 10:43
  So I went and saw different flower essence practitioners.
• 10:46
  I worked with an amazing shaman over there in London.
• 10:50
  Rupert Isaacson: And what type of name
• 10:51
  Jane Faulkner: was Yeah, her name was V.
• 10:52
  Mascarelli and she was a French woman and she'd worked with a lot of shamans
• 10:58
  through Africa and South America.
• 11:00
  So we did a lot of vision kind of questing with the drum.
• 11:05
  And yeah.
• 11:07
  For me that work, I just felt like I, I'd come home in that work.
• 11:11
  It felt very just, I just felt really comfortable in it when we
• 11:15
  Rupert Isaacson: requested for someone who's never done that.
• 11:17
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 11:18
  Rupert Isaacson: And, you know, got to remember a lot of the
• 11:19
  listeners are coming out of.
• 11:22
  You know, perhaps not quite such explorative yeah experiences.
• 11:27
  When, what, describe how, what you saw when you were vision questing
• 11:32
  with a drum, how it helped you.
• 11:34
  Can you be kind of a bit, just specific briefly about that?
• 11:36
  Yeah, sure.
• 11:38
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:39
  So for me I remember one particular.
• 11:44
  It was like previous lives that I'd had that I went back to.
• 11:49
  So, I remember one of them and I was like a crazy woman.
• 11:55
  I remember had big hair and I was in a cage and I was kind of being taunted.
• 12:01
  And vision questing is kind of weird because you're seeing things and
• 12:06
  you're feeling things and you're having ideas about what these things are.
• 12:12
  And for me, it was like a realization that I think I'd been a medicine woman
• 12:16
  and I'd been kind of persecuted for that.
• 12:21
  And that was super helpful for me to understand because a lot of myself
• 12:29
  before that time, I'd kind of, Kept under wraps and not expressed to others and
• 12:36
  yeah, just never dared share with people or so a lot of my even investigating
• 12:42
  into the different healing arts that I investigated when I lived overseas,
• 12:47
  I didn't share with my nursing friends that I lived with in a flat in London.
• 12:51
  I remember because I was seeing a Chinese herbalist and I would cook the
• 12:55
  herbs up in the flat in London and all my friends thought I was crazy and the
• 13:01
  herbs stunk so they're like oh my god.
• 13:04
  And not just the herbs, all
• 13:06
  Rupert Isaacson: the insect casings and other stuff they give you.
• 13:10
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 13:11
  So So that was one of the vision, but other vision quests that just
• 13:18
  made feelings I have in this life make sense or made decisions I make
• 13:24
  or ways that I was in the world, it made those ways make sense.
• 13:30
  And so in that way, it really helped me and also realizing that I experienced
• 13:38
  that, which led me to do this.
• 13:43
  I'm not experiencing that anymore, so I don't need to do this anymore.
• 13:47
  So I found it hugely helpful.
• 13:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Was it largely about letting go of things
• 13:54
  that were unhelpful, basically?
• 13:56
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 13:56
  Yeah.
• 13:57
  Yeah.
• 13:58
  And getting insights into why I was doing those things.
• 14:01
  Can I
• 14:01
  Rupert Isaacson: ask you just before you go to the next phase
• 14:03
  of your, of your life, you said your dad was very stressed out.
• 14:07
  Why?
• 14:07
  What was, what was stressing him?
• 14:09
  Jane Faulkner: He was, so my dad was he was English and he grew up.
• 14:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, well that's right there.
• 14:16
  Yeah.
• 14:17
  Sorry.
• 14:17
  Jane Faulkner: I didn't mean that.
• 14:19
  I'm trying to.
• 14:20
  So I think many things.
• 14:22
  So when I think of his life now, like he remembers being eight and hiding
• 14:27
  under a table as the bombs were dropping
• 14:30
  Rupert Isaacson: and then
• 14:30
  Jane Faulkner: his father and then his father died when he was 16.
• 14:34
  And then as he kind of grew up, he went through a divorce and then
• 14:43
  moved out to Australia and kind of had, I guess, four of us kids.
• 14:47
  And I think it was his.
• 14:51
  His stress of providing for us and I also think he was a person
• 14:57
  that struggled to let things go struggled to yeah, struggled.
• 15:03
  So he held a lot of emotion in, he didn't really share his, his
• 15:07
  challenges or anything like that.
• 15:09
  He just kind of would come home a ball of stress.
• 15:13
  And I think he also had high expectations of, of us kids
• 15:18
  and how we wanted things to be.
• 15:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 15:22
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 15:25
  I was just going to say, he's a beautiful man.
• 15:27
  I think it was yeah, just him not knowing how to process things.
• 15:30
  And then home being the place where He could let out stress or
• 15:36
  Rupert Isaacson: what did he do for a living out of interest?
• 15:39
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 15:39
  He was a civil engineer,
• 15:40
  Rupert Isaacson: so lots of responsibility also standing on his
• 15:46
  shoulders for the projects working for the bridges, not falling down
• 15:50
  after they're built, et cetera, which is, which is not inconsiderable.
• 15:56
  And as you, as you say, sort of growing up with the war, the blitz happening
• 16:00
  around them and then post war austerity.
• 16:04
  And I think there was just as, as someone who grew up you know, I'm not
• 16:07
  obviously as old as he was, but I born in the sixties central London what's
• 16:11
  now the financial district of London did not look then like it looks now.
• 16:15
  A lot of it was still bombed flat when I was a kid and we played on the bomb sites.
• 16:21
  And we found all sorts of things because of that archaeological stuff that have
• 16:25
  been thrown up, you know, from the Iron Age onwards, but also lots of fragments
• 16:30
  of bombs and that sort of thing.
• 16:31
  And lots of houses still laid waste and shattered.
• 16:35
  So I can also see how.
• 16:37
  Kids that grew up sort of through the depression and then through the war
• 16:42
  and then the post war austerity perhaps coming out to Australia and saying
• 16:46
  well, you know you kids have it have it made you're here in the golden land
• 16:49
  and the high expectations You talk about you know, you aren't hampered
• 16:53
  by the things I was hampered with so therefore my expectations of you are
• 16:56
  perhaps Higher than is comfortable.
• 17:01
  Yes.
• 17:01
  Yeah.
• 17:02
  Yeah, I could see and I just wanted to ask you this because you know As
• 17:06
  you know, when any of us are working in the equine assisted world, we
• 17:10
  kind of want to know the picture.
• 17:11
  We want to know the story.
• 17:13
  I always feel the story is where the healing is.
• 17:15
  And if we don't know the background story with our clients or the horses
• 17:18
  we're working with, let alone ourselves.
• 17:21
  It's very difficult.
• 17:22
  Do you know what I mean?
• 17:24
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 17:25
  So thank you for just
• 17:26
  Rupert Isaacson: sharing that because I think that helps inform me
• 17:29
  Jane Faulkner: of
• 17:31
  Rupert Isaacson: where you get.
• 17:32
  So you're in, you're in London and you're, you're cooking up beetle casings and toad.
• 17:38
  And you're also going to see a show, but you're also working
• 17:43
  in as a, as a nurse in clinics.
• 17:45
  Yes.
• 17:46
  What happens to you next?
• 17:48
  Jane Faulkner: So from there, I go to India and I so in, yeah, in London,
• 17:55
  so I used to be a runner and I used to run around Kensington park every day.
• 18:01
  And then I got shin splints.
• 18:02
  I couldn't run anymore.
• 18:04
  And I was like, oh, man, I, I, I'm a person that really
• 18:07
  likes to move every day.
• 18:10
  And there was a yoga sign and I was like, Oh, I've heard about this yoga.
• 18:14
  I might give it a go.
• 18:15
  So I went to a yoga class and it was awesome.
• 18:18
  And I just loved it.
• 18:20
  And so I started going to yoga every day and yoga wasn't cool back then.
• 18:24
  And the internet hadn't really started
• 18:29
  old back in the old days.
• 18:31
  And So I asked the teacher, you know, where can I learn this and
• 18:35
  they told me about a place in India.
• 18:38
  So I went to India, studied yoga over there which was a huge eye opener for me.
• 18:44
  I really wasn't expecting India to be like it was.
• 18:49
  I'd been through Europe.
• 18:50
  That's
• 18:50
  Rupert Isaacson: another big blanket statement as someone
• 18:51
  who's lived in India myself.
• 18:53
  I want you to go into some details.
• 18:55
  Also, what kind of yoga?
• 18:57
  Jane Faulkner: So back then to start with, it was half the yoga back then at the
• 19:02
  Shivananda ashram and I loved the ashram.
• 19:04
  But for me, I remember arriving in India and I hadn't planned anything because
• 19:10
  my brother and I had backpacked and we'd just arrived somewhere and pulled
• 19:13
  out the Lonely Planet book and gone and got a hostel and anyway, I remember
• 19:19
  getting to India and getting out of the plane and thinking in the plane,
• 19:24
  thinking I'll just sit in the lounge.
• 19:26
  And go through my lonely planet and work out where I'm going to stay.
• 19:30
  I remember arriving in India and there was no lounge.
• 19:33
  It was just literally.
• 19:37
  Rupert Isaacson: And that smell as you get off the plane.
• 19:40
  Yes.
• 19:41
  The smell of like urine of 8 million people.
• 19:45
  You can almost smell the plane comes down.
• 19:47
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:48
  Jane Faulkner: And then all these people, all these Indian
• 19:51
  rickshaw drivers just around me.
• 19:54
  And I, I.
• 19:55
  Totally.
• 19:56
  Yeah.
• 19:57
  I was terrified.
• 19:58
  So I went up to all these other Western women and I was like, where are you going?
• 20:04
  Can I come with you?
• 20:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 20:06
  Very, very
• 20:07
  Jane Faulkner: wise.
• 20:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 20:09
  Jane Faulkner: Luckily, one of the women said, yep, you can come with me.
• 20:12
  She was a medical student and she was over there to work in hospital.
• 20:15
  So I went with her and I remember just the shock.
• 20:19
  So it was about 3 a.
• 20:20
  m.
• 20:20
  in the morning over there.
• 20:22
  The shock of
• 20:23
  Rupert Isaacson: when the plane got in.
• 20:24
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah,
• 20:27
  Rupert Isaacson: dangerous time.
• 20:27
  Yeah.
• 20:28
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Yeah.
• 20:30
  So, and I remember, yeah, just driving through the streets and seeing bodies
• 20:35
  on the ground and you know, beggars on, you know, that those wooden slats with
• 20:41
  the wheels underneath and, and just that the shock of that in my system.
• 20:47
  And.
• 20:48
  Yeah, so, and then we were in the local YHA and I didn't leave the hotel
• 20:56
  the next day I was so frightened.
• 20:59
  I remember just eating like the plainest biscuits and being very scared.
• 21:06
  And then Was that in
• 21:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Bombay, now Mumbai, or was that No,
• 21:10
  Jane Faulkner: it was Chennai.
• 21:12
  Mumbai.
• 21:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 21:14
  Madras.
• 21:14
  Madras.
• 21:15
  Yeah.
• 21:15
  Yeah.
• 21:15
  Yeah.
• 21:16
  Yeah.
• 21:16
  So, not even a huge venue.
• 21:17
  Hot, humid, crowded, crazy.
• 21:19
  Yeah.
• 21:19
  Yeah.
• 21:20
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 21:21
  Yeah.
• 21:21
  Yeah.
• 21:22
  And then getting the, I think I've got the train down to Kerala,
• 21:26
  which was where the ashram was.
• 21:29
  And I'm, I remember arriving at the ashram.
• 21:32
  I can't remember much about the train trip.
• 21:35
  I was probably terrified the whole time.
• 21:37
  But I remember arriving at the ashram and they were chanting.
• 21:40
  And I remember thinking, Oh my God, this is a cult.
• 21:43
  And just being really worried about what I'd shown up to.
• 21:48
  And then I think the next day the training started and I just loved it.
• 21:53
  It was people from all over the world.
• 21:55
  It was a huge group of people in this training.
• 21:58
  And yeah, just learning all about yogic philosophy.
• 22:02
  And.
• 22:04
  just living in that ashram life.
• 22:06
  I just, I loved it.
• 22:07
  For
• 22:08
  Rupert Isaacson: those people who have never lived in an ashram
• 22:11
  and don't know what that entails.
• 22:13
  Can you tell us, walk us through a day in an ashram and, and with the yoga
• 22:23
  practice, when, what is it doing for you?
• 22:24
  What's happening in your body?
• 22:25
  What's happening in your brain?
• 22:26
  Why is this good for you?
• 22:28
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 22:29
  So you would, we would start the day early.
• 22:34
  So with sunrise and we would go into the big hall and meditate.
• 22:39
  So we'd sit in silence for an hour.
• 22:42
  And then we would chant.
• 22:45
  So, we would chant all these different mantras and kind of,
• 22:56
  ah, they're not called songs.
• 22:57
  What are they called?
• 22:58
  My brain's Yeah.
• 22:59
  Well, helping me.
• 23:00
  Yeah.
• 23:01
  But, but, but different, different kind of, yeah, mantras
• 23:05
  mostly and the mantras, old
• 23:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Sanskrit language
• 23:09
  Jane Faulkner: in the old Sanskrit language.
• 23:10
  Yeah.
• 23:11
  So we would have a little, a chanting book and we would chant straight
• 23:15
  from that book and, and the different mantras have different benefits.
• 23:22
  So I know anytime we got in.
• 23:26
  When we got into the bus to travel, we would chant a mantra
• 23:29
  before we kind of traveled.
• 23:31
  But yeah, so we'd start with that meditation.
• 23:34
  Then we would.
• 23:35
  Do the chanting for an hour and a half, and then we would do
• 23:39
  our practice, our yoga practice.
• 23:40
  And that I think went for another hour and a half, and then we would have breakfast.
• 23:44
  Then we would have Karma yoga, which is like jobs.
• 23:48
  Mine was to clean the toilet with a bit of coconut rusk.
• 23:52
  That was interesting.
• 23:53
  Yeah, it was pretty harsh.
• 23:55
  And then we had yogic philosophy.
• 23:58
  So we would learn about yogic philosophy.
• 24:01
  Then I think we had a few hours off in the afternoon.
• 24:04
  Then we'd have another hour and a half chant and then more meditation and
• 24:09
  then more of a kind of yogic discourse of an evening and then go to bed.
• 24:16
  Rupert Isaacson: So, when people are, the reason I'm wanting to pause
• 24:20
  here in India at this ashram for a moment is I think it can be difficult
• 24:24
  for Westerners to understand.
• 24:26
  That's for example, if you, but if you, one replaces the word mantra
• 24:32
  with the word Psalm or one replaces the word chant with the word pray.
• 24:39
  And as a kid who grew up somewhat against my will as a chorister in the
• 24:45
  temple church in, in London, you know, the call and response of the Psalms
• 24:49
  and, you know, God be with you and with thy spirit and all of that stuff.
• 24:54
  We can sort of assimilate.
• 24:55
  Whether we like it or not as Westerners because we're
• 24:58
  familiar with it it's around us.
• 24:59
  And then we go out to, we see people in India, you know, with the shaved
• 25:03
  head and a dot between their eyes and a body that is different to ours because
• 25:11
  they're they're sitting there in a, in a, in a, Doty, you know, a cloth
• 25:18
  instead of a pair of pants and, you know, a string that we wonder what that
• 25:23
  string means that's around their torso.
• 25:24
  And so it all looks very, very different.
• 25:27
  But in fact, they're praying, and they're singing and, and, and,
• 25:32
  of course, with even within the Western traditions, meditation is a.
• 25:36
  has been a thing forever.
• 25:38
  To quiet the mind.
• 25:39
  Okay, we could see the benefits of that.
• 25:41
  One of the things which I think is not talked about much is the benefits
• 25:45
  of chanting and singing and mantras.
• 25:47
  Why they work, whether it's people talking about, say, law of attraction
• 25:52
  and Uh, affirmations, you know, putting an affirmation on your mirror, I am
• 25:57
  worthy, or you are beautiful, or I am a money magnet, or whatever it is.
• 26:02
  But this other thing about chanting peace into the world, and I know,
• 26:07
  you know, like the, the Rastafarians talk about chanting down Babylon,
• 26:11
  you know, bring it, chanting.
• 26:14
  Evil from the world and sort of putting good into the world and then the
• 26:19
  vibrations of within the body of these ways of breathing that create the mantras
• 26:26
  and the chants seem to have incredibly beneficial effects on both our brainwaves.
• 26:31
  They put EEGs on people's heads and and the immune system and so on,
• 26:34
  but this is often not talked about.
• 26:36
  And that's why I just wanted to pause here and say, you know,
• 26:38
  it's not just navel gazing, right?
• 26:41
  Jane Faulkner: No, no, not at all.
• 26:43
  And I think of the wisdom of these ancient cultures.
• 26:47
  And so I know with the, in the Sanskrit language, the different sounds have,
• 26:54
  they believe have a different impact on different parts of our body.
• 26:57
  So different sounds correlate to supporting different chakras.
• 27:03
  And I guess for me back then, so I was 22 I just know how I used to feel
• 27:09
  at the end of chanting, like my mind would clear, my heart would feel open.
• 27:15
  I would just feel connected and free.
• 27:18
  So, and when I think about it, I thought the yoga asana would have
• 27:23
  the biggest impact or the meditation, but it was definitely the chanting
• 27:28
  that had the biggest impact.
• 27:29
  And especially, I think there was a group of 200 of us.
• 27:34
  And so all of us chanting and it was powerful.
• 27:39
  It was really, really powerful.
• 27:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 27:41
  And was it Nikola Tesla who said, if you want to.
• 27:45
  Understand the mysteries that the universe think in terms of frequency and vibration.
• 27:50
  And of course, what is that, but frequency and vibration, I guess.
• 27:54
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 27:54
  Yeah.
• 27:55
  And I think I feel like I'm loving actually that science feels like
• 28:01
  it's catching up to a lot of these beliefs and practices that
• 28:09
  Indigenous cultures have had forever.
• 28:11
  Yeah.
• 28:12
  That kind of help us be whole humans.
• 28:15
  And it kind of humors me a little bit that Western culture needs to wait for this
• 28:23
  to
• 28:25
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
• 28:26
  Jane Faulkner: believe it's real or okay.
• 28:28
  Or.
• 28:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, the Catholic church was a powerful thing, Jane,
• 28:33
  Jane Faulkner: wasn't it?
• 28:34
  It really was.
• 28:36
  Yeah.
• 28:37
  I'm I'm realizing more and more each day, just how powerful the systems
• 28:43
  that have governed our lives are.
• 28:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 28:46
  Absolutely.
• 28:48
  You know, I don't know if you're aware that in the, in the 11th century in
• 28:53
  Europe, there was a huge surge of mysticism within Christianity and figures
• 29:00
  like Hildegard of Bingen who was the first, you know, female gynecologist,
• 29:06
  the first, she's still the most published female composer, I think, of all time.
• 29:13
  All her stuff is still out there in print.
• 29:15
  She books on herbalism, but she also had crusades sent against her and her
• 29:20
  nunnery and managed to fight them off because the local people were so reliant
• 29:25
  on the medicine that she and her.
• 29:28
  sisters were producing and then she managed to make friends
• 29:31
  with the Holy Roman Emperor and sort of find safety this way.
• 29:34
  But it in this sort of went on and then in by the 16th century the church was
• 29:39
  actually banning A lot of the chants
• 29:43
  Jane Faulkner: that
• 29:44
  Rupert Isaacson: were on a six note scale that people like Hildegard Bingen
• 29:47
  were using because people were saying, well, with this we feel so connected to
• 29:50
  God, we sort of don't need the church.
• 29:53
  That was not good news for the church.
• 29:55
  So, yes, as you say, the desire for control before you even get
• 29:58
  to things like witch burning, and you know you're talking about.
• 30:02
  a past life, you know, vision, experience in your shamanic thing of perhaps being
• 30:07
  a medicine woman who was persecuted.
• 30:09
  And that must be in the ancestral lines of so many women in our culture and men.
• 30:14
  We live, we live where I'm interviewing you here.
• 30:18
  If I look to the North through the window, I look towards a town called Itchstein.
• 30:21
  I'm in Germany, which has a witch's tower.
• 30:24
  where they were all kept.
• 30:25
  There's a memorial with the names, because they kept the names, of
• 30:28
  all the people that were burned, and half of them were men.
• 30:31
  But yes, anyone, anyone with any sort of connection to God.
• 30:34
  So you're saying, you know, you find it funny that we're having, science is
• 30:37
  having to catch up in Western culture, but of course we killed science, didn't we?
• 30:43
  We killed science along with spirituality.
• 30:46
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 30:46
  Yeah.
• 30:46
  The true science where you can think.
• 30:49
  And it's interesting as I hear you talking, I'm thinking of the First
• 30:54
  Nations people here in Australia and their ways and their connection
• 30:59
  to country and their, their deep spiritual connection and insight.
• 31:06
  And.
• 31:07
  How, when the white man came over here, how threatened white
• 31:13
  people were of those first night, that first nation spirituality.
• 31:18
  And I was working with amazing first nations elder.
• 31:21
  I did some of the, some training with her just on how first nations
• 31:26
  people view spirituality and how.
• 31:29
  They work spiritually and she was saying how, when the white man came and
• 31:36
  started to kind of see the First Nations magic and spirituality, how the First
• 31:43
  Nations people actually made decisions to shut down different aspects of their
• 31:52
  spirituality to kind of keep themselves safe because it was such a threat to.
• 32:00
  Yeah, the white people that had come.
• 32:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 32:06
  Absolutely.
• 32:07
  And I think that's a, that's a, that's a tale that could be told from any
• 32:12
  Jane Faulkner: everywhere
• 32:13
  Rupert Isaacson: culture that was impacted by the colonial experience.
• 32:17
  And the colonial experience, of course, wasn't just white.
• 32:19
  You know, it's happened from Asian country to Asian country.
• 32:23
  It's happened within Africa, from African to African, it's happened.
• 32:26
  But obviously the big one was what exploded out of Europe.
• 32:30
  Jane Faulkner: Sorry,
• 32:33
  Rupert Isaacson: what
• 32:34
  Jane Faulkner: I, what I am loving is in Australia I feel like there's an
• 32:39
  awareness of that our systems are broken, so our health school, and I'm loving
• 32:47
  that we're getting more and more curious about our first nations people's systems.
• 32:52
  And so it's kind of in Australia, we're starting to see this.
• 32:57
  blossoming and this curiosity and this an openness now, which, and, and
• 33:03
  a respect for First Nations culture and ways, which I'm really loving.
• 33:12
  Rupert Isaacson: So, Well, I want to return to this a little bit later because
• 33:16
  I, I have a very profound experience with my autistic son, with the cuckoo
• 33:21
  langi or up in the Daintree rainforest.
• 33:25
  Wow.
• 33:25
  A very profound healing.
• 33:26
  But, so yes, I'm absolutely with you.
• 33:28
  So
• 33:29
  Jane Faulkner: before you move on, yeah.
• 33:30
  We have a cultural advisor and they are people.
• 33:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 33:35
  Then we, we, she probably knows the healer that healed my son.
• 33:39
  She
• 33:39
  Jane Faulkner: probably does.
• 33:40
  She's amazing.
• 33:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 33:41
  We'll talk
• 33:42
  Jane Faulkner: about that.
• 33:42
  Quite a
• 33:43
  Rupert Isaacson: small world.
• 33:43
  Yes, it is.
• 33:44
  Okay.
• 33:45
  So you're in India, you're, you're finding that the chanting, that quieting the
• 33:50
  mind, the cleansing of the body through the chanting, that obviously the yoga
• 33:54
  practice is good for your body as well as your mind, you're, you're, but you're in
• 33:58
  somewhat of a, ivory tower in an ashram.
• 34:02
  One is protected from the seething, you know, milestone of humanity that you saw
• 34:08
  at three in the morning when you're coming off that plane and had to humble yourself
• 34:12
  to actually ask for help from a stranger.
• 34:15
  I basically say, I don't know what I'm doing.
• 34:17
  Please help me out, which must have been very humbling.
• 34:19
  To a tough Aussie, you know, to actually say, you know, look, sorry,
• 34:23
  I'm lost, can you help me out?
• 34:25
  I actually, I made a little note there saying, you know, that was, that was,
• 34:28
  that was a moment of humility, which is, must have resonated with you.
• 34:32
  But then, okay, so you're in this ivory tower, you're having
• 34:35
  this wonderful experience.
• 34:36
  How do you parlay that then into your next experience?
• 34:40
  Jane Faulkner: Hmm.
• 34:41
  So from that ashram where I went to another ashram called Alma's.
• 34:46
  I, have you heard of that?
• 34:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 34:51
  Jane Faulkner: So I went to her ashram and that was very different.
• 34:55
  It wasn't a protected ivory tower and that was quite a shock.
• 34:59
  And what shocked me around that was how indoctrinated the people were.
• 35:04
  And that sounded terrible, didn't it?
• 35:09
  Yeah, so how how if Amma was somewhere where a crowd just chased to get to
• 35:16
  where she was and for me, it didn't, it didn't feel good to see people doing
• 35:22
  that, to see people not having their, not in their own sovereignty, you
• 35:27
  know, to kind of, and to, to kind of be worshipping this other human, I couldn't.
• 35:33
  I couldn't get my head around it.
• 35:35
  Did you get to meet
• 35:36
  Rupert Isaacson: her at all, Amma?
• 35:37
  Jane Faulkner: I did.
• 35:38
  I got to meet her and give her a hug.
• 35:41
  And she asked me to, you know, she asked people to sit behind her.
• 35:44
  So I sat behind her and yeah, and I could feel that.
• 35:48
  I could feel that, um, this, her beautiful spirit.
• 35:52
  I could feel that.
• 35:55
  I feel, I, I dunno, I just, um, what I want to, I feel like I didn't, I,
• 36:01
  I didn't feel blinded by it though.
• 36:03
  And that's what I couldn't understand with a lot of that.
• 36:07
  The other people that were blinded to the humanity around them and they would
• 36:15
  do whatever they could to be near Amma.
• 36:18
  And for me, I'm like, I was just like, This isn't congruent, you know, you're
• 36:24
  chanting and wanting to be like Ama and yet you'll push people out of the road and
• 36:29
  you, you won't care how you get near her.
• 36:32
  So I couldn't kind of, I couldn't understand how all of that was together
• 36:39
  in, in this place, if that makes sense.
• 36:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 36:43
  So how did you end up,
• 36:47
  everyone in India goes through this.
• 36:49
  How did, what was the way you ended up coming to terms with
• 36:53
  paradox and ambiguity, which India shoves firmly into one's face?
• 36:58
  Jane Faulkner: It really does.
• 37:00
  Gosh, how did I,
• 37:04
  I think I learned to just watch, sit back, watch, get curious.
• 37:12
  Get
• 37:12
  Rupert Isaacson: curious is a good, that's a good.
• 37:15
  Yeah.
• 37:15
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 37:16
  Yeah.
• 37:16
  Get really curious and kind of not overthink it.
• 37:24
  So get curious.
• 37:26
  Notice.
• 37:27
  And then yeah, make it, make the next decision that felt right for myself.
• 37:32
  So I didn't stay in Amma's ashram long.
• 37:36
  I, I struggled too much with that.
• 37:39
  Yeah, that, how paradoxical it was.
• 37:43
  I was just like, oh, this isn't, it just didn't feel right for me.
• 37:48
  Yeah, so after there, I went back to London and nursed a little more and then
• 37:55
  my brother and I went to South America and we spent three months in South
• 37:59
  America, just kind of, starting up in Ecuador and then moving down through
• 38:03
  Peru, across Bolivia and through Rio.
• 38:08
  And that was another eye opening experience.
• 38:11
  I, I realized I'm, I was very naive person.
• 38:15
  Like, again, I remember being on the plane, reading the Lonely Planet
• 38:18
  and seeing all these warnings for kidnappings and all of that kind of stuff.
• 38:25
  But we arrived in Quito in Ecuador and.
• 38:31
  I so we learned Spanish over there because people weren't able to speak
• 38:36
  English and we went to the very top of Ecuador to the Ecuadorian Colombian
• 38:44
  border and we went deep into the Amazon with a guide and stayed in
• 38:51
  the Amazon I think it was for a week.
• 38:54
  And that was an amazing experience, just kind of staying like really deep in.
• 39:01
  Cause I remember it took us two days to get where we went.
• 39:05
  And I remember the water of the Amazon river getting clearer and cleaner.
• 39:09
  And yeah, and just kind of, there was my brother and I and another
• 39:13
  couple, and we stayed with a family in, in deep in the jungle there.
• 39:20
  And South America, again, for me, it was.
• 39:23
  It was quite shocking and I think it was in a different way to India, India.
• 39:30
  Didn't, I think the spirituality of India, I couldn't, it wasn't so much
• 39:36
  evident in South America and life felt cheap in South America, you know, people
• 39:41
  had guns and I felt a bit like a walking ATM machine, you know, like people would
• 39:47
  kind of beg and and it just felt like.
• 39:50
  You know, the different drug mafia and stuff like that.
• 39:52
  We, we kind of went,
• 39:56
  yeah, a little bit off the beaten track.
• 39:58
  And so, had a few frightening encounters with different.
• 40:05
  People dressed up as the army with machine guns across their
• 40:07
  chest and things like that.
• 40:09
  And I look back now and, and think, wow, that was an amazing, like
• 40:14
  I tell my kids stories and it's like, man, did I really do that?
• 40:18
  Cause it was quite an amazing adventure.
• 40:20
  I'm really grateful for the experience.
• 40:22
  I remember at the time I was reading a book called how to live
• 40:26
  this year, as if it's your last.
• 40:29
  And it was actually really helpful because every day felt like.
• 40:33
  I could have died today.
• 40:35
  Like, I remember being on a bus again in the middle of the night and there
• 40:38
  was a massive landslide and we were on a bus full of smugglers that had so
• 40:44
  they were miners, but they had smuggled a lot of birds into their pockets
• 40:48
  and into bags and stuff like that.
• 40:51
  And when we'd come to a checkpoint and my brother and I had to get out
• 40:55
  and they just had to check our papers.
• 40:57
  And seeing the the police or whoever it was getting on with the dog and
• 41:02
  walking up and down through the bus and you could hear the birds.
• 41:05
  And then just getting off and us keeping on going and apparently one
• 41:10
  of our guides had dogged them in.
• 41:12
  And so we had the rest of this bus trip with all of these people
• 41:16
  that had smuggled these birds.
• 41:19
  And we got to this point where there was a massive mudslide.
• 41:22
  We had to all get off the bus and walk across and around
• 41:26
  where the rest of the road was.
• 41:29
  And I just remember the whole time, my senses being heightened, you know,
• 41:34
  me really being aware of yeah, life and how precious it was and not having
• 41:41
  much else in my mind, but who's around me, what am I doing, where am I going,
• 41:46
  it's those basic kind of things.
• 41:49
  Survival.
• 41:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, absolutely.
• 41:52
  I can relate to that having had a few of those myself.
• 41:56
  Okay, so you're, you're in you're in South America, you survive it.
• 42:00
  Life is cheap but life is wonderful.
• 42:02
  It's scary.
• 42:03
  You realize that you were perhaps taking some risks that you're a bit lucky you.
• 42:09
  Didn't pay for.
• 42:11
  Jane Faulkner: And
• 42:11
  Rupert Isaacson: then I presume you come back to London or back
• 42:14
  to Australia at this point.
• 42:16
  Jane Faulkner: No, I came back to London.
• 42:18
  And, and then realized I needed to go home.
• 42:21
  I needed to feel anchored to something.
• 42:24
  So I came back home went back to nursing.
• 42:26
  It just didn't fit me anymore.
• 42:29
  So I looked into other things.
• 42:31
  Did studied Hawaiian massage for a while and then did a two
• 42:36
  year long yoga apprenticeship and that was again, every day.
• 42:44
  Two hours of yoga, meditation, assisting teachers.
• 42:47
  So it was a real life of yoga for two
• 42:50
  Rupert Isaacson: years.
• 42:50
  Jane Faulkner: And that was life changing for me.
• 42:54
  So in a really good way just helped me really become aware of my thoughts and.
• 43:03
  It's a process, I guess, of just looking at yourself all the time.
• 43:06
  Rupert Isaacson: And you're still making your living at this point as a nurse?
• 43:08
  That's how you're paying the bills?
• 43:10
  Jane Faulkner: No, then I was massaging while I was doing my yoga apprenticeship.
• 43:13
  Okay, okay, so
• 43:14
  Rupert Isaacson: you've actually now switched to a full massage professional.
• 43:18
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 43:18
  Yeah.
• 43:19
  Yeah.
• 43:19
  That's
• 43:20
  Rupert Isaacson: not inconsiderable.
• 43:21
  And doing that in London.
• 43:23
  Jane Faulkner: No, I'd come back to Australia.
• 43:25
  Okay.
• 43:25
  Okay.
• 43:25
  Right.
• 43:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Nursing
• 43:27
  Jane Faulkner: was London.
• 43:29
  Yeah.
• 43:30
  London
• 43:30
  Rupert Isaacson: is so expensive to live in.
• 43:31
  It's not an easy place to pay the rent.
• 43:34
  You know, if you're going to just do massage and that sort of thing.
• 43:37
  Yeah.
• 43:37
  Yeah.
• 43:37
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 43:39
  Totally.
• 43:39
  It was funny in London.
• 43:41
  There was about 10 of us Aussies in a hotel room.
• 43:44
  In a flat in Bayeswater,
• 43:46
  Rupert Isaacson: I remember those days.
• 43:49
  Yeah.
• 43:49
  Yeah.
• 43:50
  It's brilliant.
• 43:50
  Fun.
• 43:51
  Okay.
• 43:51
  So you're back.
• 43:52
  You're a massage therapist.
• 43:53
  We still have not got a horse in sight.
• 43:56
  Jane Faulkner: No, no horse in sight.
• 43:59
  So massage therapist doing my yoga apprenticeship in my yoga apprenticeship.
• 44:04
  I started some of my relationship.
• 44:06
  Familiar relationship issues kept coming up and I think my skin, I still
• 44:12
  had acne and I was like, man, I just want to get to the bottom of this and
• 44:17
  I went to a naturopath and he said, Have you, do you ever get angry?
• 44:23
  And I said, no.
• 44:24
  And he said, oh, maybe you should go and see this therapist.
• 44:28
  So, and it was a Geal therapist, so I went and saw this Gestalt therapist.
• 44:32
  I feel sorry for that therapist forever because I remember them
• 44:36
  asking me, you know, what do you need?
• 44:38
  And I was like, I don't know.
• 44:39
  I had no real idea about myself.
• 44:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Now not everyone knows what Gestalt therapy is.
• 44:46
  Can you tell us please?
• 44:48
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, sure.
• 44:49
  So it's a type of therapy that was I guess put together by a man called
• 44:54
  Fritz Perls and Gestalt is very much about supporting someone to be in the
• 45:00
  here and now with their experience.
• 45:02
  So someone might be telling you a story of their childhood as a Gestalt therapist.
• 45:07
  I might say, what are you noticing now as you tell me about being 8?
• 45:12
  So it's very much about what's happening in the here and now and it's.
• 45:16
  A lot about getting curious about how someone we call it
• 45:21
  makes contact or shows up and how they break contact or disappear.
• 45:27
  And so as a Gestalt therapist, I'm always supporting or trying to help
• 45:31
  someone make contact with themselves and with me and with their environment.
• 45:36
  And I'm trying to support them to become aware of how they break that contact or
• 45:42
  how they move away from that experience.
• 45:44
  You
• 45:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 45:47
  So you, you, you say when you see clients now, so you went as
• 45:50
  a client, but now you become.
• 45:52
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 45:53
  Yes.
• 45:53
  Yeah.
• 45:55
  Yeah.
• 45:56
  Yeah.
• 45:56
  So from that, I studied Gestalt therapy.
• 45:59
  Rupert Isaacson: I just want to do a quick, a quick terms thing.
• 46:02
  Gestalt is a German word, right?
• 46:03
  So, but in English it tends to mean, I'm looking here on my Oxford dictionary,
• 46:08
  an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.
• 46:15
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 46:17
  Rupert Isaacson: So are you saying then that Gestalt therapy
• 46:20
  is a quest for the full self?
• 46:22
  Is that?
• 46:23
  Yeah.
• 46:24
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, that's a way nicer way to put it than I put it.
• 46:26
  Yes.
• 46:28
  That's exactly it.
• 46:30
  It's like, who are you and how can we help you let go of what you're How
• 46:41
  can we uncover your full self and how can we support you to become aware of how you
• 46:47
  stop yourself from being your full self?
• 46:50
  Rupert Isaacson: So by now, we're sort of moving into the realm of psychotherapy.
• 46:52
  No.
• 46:54
  Jane Faulkner: Yep.
• 46:54
  That's right.
• 46:57
  So
• 46:58
  Rupert Isaacson: ponies
• 47:00
  Jane Faulkner: not yet, not yet, though, for you to stop training.
• 47:06
  In that time, I had my two children which was huge for me because I was sitting
• 47:10
  in a group of people talking about how their parents had screwed them up.
• 47:15
  And I was, you know, Entering into parenting yeah, so I
• 47:22
  did my gestalt training.
• 47:24
  I had just finished that was starting to study art therapy
• 47:28
  Rupert Isaacson: and I
• 47:28
  Jane Faulkner: was doing my art therapy training.
• 47:30
  That was a two year training.
• 47:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Why art therapy?
• 47:33
  Because you haven't talked about a love of art or being an artist up until now.
• 47:36
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, no, I think.
• 47:40
  I think someone I knew was doing it and I was curious and I liked
• 47:45
  learning and I was like, sure, I, I think I didn't want to stop learning.
• 47:49
  I think that's, there's no greater, there's no good reason behind it.
• 47:55
  It was very powerful though, that art therapy training, very powerful
• 47:59
  work working with your hands.
• 48:02
  Some kind of bypasses that
• 48:04
  Rupert Isaacson: right.
• 48:05
  And creating images that come out of your subconscious.
• 48:07
  Right.
• 48:07
  So that
• 48:08
  Jane Faulkner: what you
• 48:09
  Rupert Isaacson: do or what you create.
• 48:11
  Yeah.
• 48:11
  Reflect something that you're not actually expressing verbally.
• 48:14
  Right.
• 48:15
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 48:15
  Yeah.
• 48:15
  Or even aware of within yourself.
• 48:19
  Yeah.
• 48:19
  So it was when I had towards the end of art therapy, a friend and I went to a
• 48:24
  retreat center and she said, Oh, there's this new therapy, equine assisted therapy.
• 48:29
  Why don't we have a go?
• 48:30
  Okay.
• 48:30
  I was like, okay.
• 48:32
  Yeah.
• 48:32
  And I was like, Oh, radio.
• 48:35
  And I had a session and.
• 48:38
  It just got straight to my core stuff and I was like, wow, I want to learn
• 48:44
  this and then there was a teacher coming out from the States to teach it.
• 48:50
  So I went to his training and I just had a profound.
• 48:55
  impact on me.
• 48:57
  Okay.
• 48:57
  So
• 48:58
  Rupert Isaacson: just let's back up here.
• 48:59
  What kind of equine assisted therapy was this?
• 49:02
  Who was the dude?
• 49:04
  Tell us a bit.
• 49:04
  Yeah,
• 49:05
  Jane Faulkner: sure.
• 49:06
  So his name was Dewey Freeman and he, Dewey Freeman.
• 49:10
  Yeah.
• 49:11
  And he runs the Gestalt Equine Institute of the Rockies.
• 49:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 49:15
  The Gestalt.
• 49:17
  Is that something we should be checking out?
• 49:19
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, Dewey's amazing.
• 49:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 49:22
  Jane Faulkner: Dewey and Joni Riga, I think her name was.
• 49:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Dewey Freeman and Joni Riga.
• 49:32
  Jane Faulkner: Riga, yeah.
• 49:33
  I'm, I'm, I'm, I think I'm mispronouncing her.
• 49:36
  And
• 49:36
  Rupert Isaacson: where are they?
• 49:37
  Are they in the Rockies?
• 49:38
  Are they Boulder, Colorado?
• 49:39
  Where are they?
• 49:39
  Jane Faulkner: I think
• 49:41
  Rupert Isaacson: so.
• 49:42
  Jane Faulkner: I'll look it
• 49:42
  Rupert Isaacson: up quickly as you tell us.
• 49:43
  All right.
• 49:44
  So you, you, you, you show up and now suddenly for the first time since you're
• 49:48
  a little girl looking at your neighbor's horses, you've got a pony in the room.
• 49:53
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 49:54
  Yeah.
• 49:54
  And it was
• 49:55
  Rupert Isaacson: intense.
• 49:57
  Jane Faulkner: So, I went and So it was at a woman called Meg Kirby's place,
• 50:04
  and I'm always grateful to Meg Kirby for bringing Dewey out to Australia and
• 50:08
  she had a, a large herd and there was some mares and they had some yearlings.
• 50:14
  I think that was, that were yearlings and one of the first exercises Dewey
• 50:19
  said, you know, kind of go out into the paddock and let's just see what happens.
• 50:25
  And these yearlings just kept coming up to me and like nudging me in the chest.
• 50:31
  And I, I got started getting really overwhelmed, like, and I must have
• 50:35
  looked way out of my depth because he came and stood in front of me.
• 50:40
  And he said, cause the mayor then started coming towards me, not looking
• 50:45
  very happy at what was happening.
• 50:48
  And so he stood in front of me and he said, you know, is this familiar that
• 50:54
  people push past your boundaries and.
• 50:57
  I think I was a bit out of body, but I was like nodding.
• 51:02
  Yeah.
• 51:04
  Yeah.
• 51:04
  And he invited me to go and stand and put my hands on this beautiful
• 51:09
  old gray mare called Stormy.
• 51:12
  And he said, I want you to just feel into Stormy and her energy and her connection.
• 51:20
  Yes, that was a really powerful first experience of, well, second, because
• 51:25
  the first one had been at the retreat center, but yeah, it was, it was.
• 51:29
  had a massive impact on me.
• 51:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so how did that then develop into, I'm just,
• 51:35
  by the way, looking, Dewey, it's D U E Y, not Dewey, D E W E Y, so Dewey
• 51:42
  Freeman, and I just looked up Gestalt.
• 51:45
  At Quine Institute of the Rockies.
• 51:46
  It's actually just south of Denver, between Denver and Colorado Springs.
• 51:49
  So for those, those listeners who are in that area, you might want to check it out.
• 51:55
  Okay, so he helps you with, with Stormy.
• 51:57
  You, you feel suddenly grounded.
• 52:01
  You feel he's he's pointed out to you that perhaps you're someone
• 52:05
  who doesn't make your boundaries as effective as you might, because his
• 52:10
  yearlings are stomping all over you.
• 52:12
  And how does that get you from, how do you go from that?
• 52:18
  Insight as a sort of patient, if you like, to where you are, to where you begin to
• 52:23
  actually say, I'm going to offer this.
• 52:25
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 52:27
  So, from there, I asked the other people at the course, you know,
• 52:31
  like, what, how do I get a horse?
• 52:33
  How do I know which horse?
• 52:34
  And where should I start
• 52:38
  Rupert Isaacson: like a rabbit hole?
• 52:39
  Jane Faulkner: There was a a man from Tasmania and he said,
• 52:45
  your horse will come to you.
• 52:47
  And I was like a radio.
• 52:48
  I'll just, you know, kind of see what happens.
• 52:50
  And I knew I had to learn horsemanship first because I didn't know anything.
• 52:55
  So I came back Queensland and I found a woman that taught horsemanship.
• 53:02
  And I started learning horsemanship from her and the horses terrified me.
• 53:08
  Like I remember her horse, Penny I was terrified.
• 53:11
  I remember the first time being beside Penny and her name was Eula and Penny
• 53:17
  kind of pinning her ear and cocking her leg and Eula saying, she's kind
• 53:22
  of saying, don't bring that here because I was terrified to touch her.
• 53:26
  I was terrified to be in her space.
• 53:28
  And EULA over time just kind of helped me feel more comfortable around Penny.
• 53:33
  And EULA got a second horse called Phoenix, and it was really funny.
• 53:38
  I knew as soon as I saw Phoenix, I knew he was going to be my horse.
• 53:43
  And I didn't like him.
• 53:45
  Rupert Isaacson: I feel terrible
• 53:46
  Jane Faulkner: saying that now.
• 53:47
  He, he, I think he already pushed my buttons.
• 53:50
  And so we worked with Phoenix and then Eula had to go away up to Darwin.
• 53:56
  And she said, you know, do you want to have Phoenix?
• 53:59
  And I didn't even want to make the decision.
• 54:01
  I said to my husband, you know, I've been offered this horse.
• 54:05
  Can you go meet him?
• 54:06
  And my husband went and saw him and just loved him.
• 54:09
  Interesting.
• 54:10
  And Yeah, so we brought Phoenix home and Phoenix, he really
• 54:15
  scared the crap out of me.
• 54:16
  Now, hold on, you say you bring
• 54:17
  Rupert Isaacson: him home, but that, we all know that those of us
• 54:20
  who keep horses, that involves The infrastructure of a horse type property.
• 54:24
  You have not yet said that you were living in any place where you
• 54:27
  could keep horses or that even knew how to keep horses or anyone had
• 54:31
  mentored you and how to keep horses.
• 54:33
  So,
• 54:33
  Jane Faulkner: yeah,
• 54:34
  Rupert Isaacson: go into those details a little bit.
• 54:35
  How did you jump over those hurdles?
• 54:38
  Jane Faulkner: So I was lucky in that the woman across so I do live in a rural area.
• 54:42
  Now I'm on 13 acres.
• 54:44
  We fenced our place off and I was super lucky that the
• 54:47
  woman across the road from us.
• 54:49
  Laurel was a horse woman and she was very kind and very supportive in teaching
• 54:55
  me kind of how to be around horses.
• 54:58
  What, what to, because I didn't know what to feed or anything.
• 55:02
  I remember you had a mentor,
• 55:03
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 55:04
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 55:04
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:05
  Yeah.
• 55:06
  Yeah.
• 55:07
  And so a mentor with feeding and caring for, but not for, because Phoenix.
• 55:13
  A really intimidated me, like he was really sure of himself and I
• 55:17
  just, yeah, he could just boss me around with his ears and he did.
• 55:23
  And so I went to a really cool horse trainer called Angie Wicks,
• 55:28
  and she really helped me kind of learn to work and be around Phoenix
• 55:34
  and how to earn his respect.
• 55:36
  And that really helped that kind of.
• 55:39
  Because I think before that, especially coming through the equine assisted therapy
• 55:44
  world, I was a bit a bit of that horses as magical unicorns was a bit like, wow,
• 55:50
  they're so powerful and wow, they're so, I didn't kind of, and very much my pattern.
• 55:57
  Of worrying about how me setting boundaries would impact Phoenix
• 56:02
  emotionally that came into play there.
• 56:06
  So that's where learning from Angie was really great
• 56:10
  Rupert Isaacson: to actually be around these these creatures.
• 56:13
  Yes.
• 56:14
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, and boundaries.
• 56:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 56:16
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 56:17
  Yes.
• 56:17
  And not anthropomorphize them, not kind of project my human emotion onto them,
• 56:23
  kind of just realize that I'm not going to hurt Phoenix's feelings by asking
• 56:29
  him to lunge to the right around me.
• 56:31
  Yes.
• 56:34
  It's embarrassing to.
• 56:35
  Well, the
• 56:36
  Rupert Isaacson: reason I chuckle is because I just made a note here.
• 56:41
  Do you feel.
• 56:43
  Because I feel an insight that I'm getting from this is that perhaps an advantage
• 56:47
  if you're going into equine assisted work without a horsey background, provided,
• 56:51
  of course, you have good horsey mentors, because for all the obvious reasons.
• 56:56
  But starting as a quote unquote patient in an equine assisted therapy gives,
• 57:03
  do you think that gives you a better insight Into the patient experience
• 57:08
  for clients that don't know horses than somebody like me, who, you know, I've
• 57:13
  lived and breathed them for so long.
• 57:14
  I can't remember life without them.
• 57:16
  So there might be things I miss.
• 57:20
  When someone comes in, he doesn't know them.
• 57:22
  I mean, yes, of course, I'm aware that someone might be intimidated or
• 57:26
  it's just, you know, unfamiliar, etc.
• 57:29
  But it doesn't occur to me, for example, to anthropomorphize in
• 57:33
  those ways because I was taught.
• 57:35
  Horsemanship from a very, very young age.
• 57:37
  Do you feel that you're having come in as a late comer like that and actually had to
• 57:42
  sort of go up against making these quote unquote mistakes of perception and so on?
• 57:47
  Do you think that actually makes you weirdly a more effective equine
• 57:52
  assisted therapist because you can empathize perhaps more with the client?
• 57:57
  Jane Faulkner: I think it, I think it definitely helps understand how a client's
• 58:01
  coming to it and how vulnerable they can feel and how powerful horses feel.
• 58:06
  I think it definitely helps teach basic horsemanship.
• 58:10
  Cause I think, you know, when you master something to then
• 58:13
  teach the basics is challenging.
• 58:16
  Whereas for me, I was so worried about horses that, that I read everything.
• 58:22
  I, I like did a study of horses and I, I.
• 58:26
  Broke everything down and to try to stay safe.
• 58:30
  Like I, in my head, I was all these scenarios and what do
• 58:33
  I do and how do I do that?
• 58:34
  And, and with the lady that taught me horsemanship she was great.
• 58:39
  'cause I remember her asking me, you know, what do you wanna learn?
• 58:42
  And I said, I want to learn from a horse that's doesn't just know what to do.
• 58:46
  I wanna learn how to work with young horses or.
• 58:51
  Horses that are frightened or and I wanted to do that for my own confidence
• 58:55
  because I felt like until I know what to do when a horse is in this situation,
• 58:59
  I'm not going to feel confident.
• 59:03
  Yeah.
• 59:03
  Rupert Isaacson: And your, your, your husband is in this equation too, right?
• 59:06
  So is he working the horse with you?
• 59:08
  You say that the horse loved him and he loved the horse.
• 59:10
  So was it the two of you going on this?
• 59:12
  Journey together?
• 59:14
  Jane Faulkner: Not really.
• 59:15
  So my husband grew up on a massive sheep farm out west, so he'd grown up on horses.
• 59:21
  Ah, so he knew horses,
• 59:23
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 59:23
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah, he did, but not, so he'd never
• 59:26
  had to really care for them.
• 59:28
  Right.
• 59:28
  He'd hopped on ridden them and And that real old fashioned way of, so
• 59:34
  didn't know groundwork only knew horses of, you know, they just eat grass
• 59:38
  and they need a dam kind of thing.
• 59:40
  So, didn't need more than that.
• 59:43
  So, and he wasn't really interested in learning the groundwork.
• 59:46
  He didn't have the fear I had.
• 59:48
  He was just comfortable.
• 59:49
  He would hop on any horse or be around any horse where I had, I had a real fear.
• 59:54
  So I wanted to really understand their body language, understand how
• 1:00:00
  to read it, understand how to kind of.
• 1:00:04
  Support myself to feel safe around them and because I really wanted to do this
• 1:00:08
  work, but I think before you asked a question around non horsey people coming
• 1:00:15
  in compared to horsey people coming in, I think non horsey people, the therapies,
• 1:00:22
  you know, More powerful initially just because of the size of the horse and
• 1:00:28
  Rupert Isaacson: the change of environment.
• 1:00:29
  Yeah, yeah,
• 1:00:30
  Jane Faulkner: yeah, definitely.
• 1:00:31
  Definitely as a therapist I definitely have to work harder with horse people
• 1:00:37
  because they see horses in a certain way.
• 1:00:40
  And I'm not as open to seeing how they might impact the relationship
• 1:00:47
  between them and the horse.
• 1:00:49
  Yeah, I think you
• 1:00:50
  Rupert Isaacson: described me.
• 1:00:52
  Jane Faulkner: Well, I think I, I really see this again in our Western
• 1:00:57
  culture where we kind of Have this arrogance of doing to something
• 1:01:02
  rather than being curious of how we might be impacting something and how
• 1:01:06
  something might be impacting us back.
• 1:01:08
  Yeah, so definitely as a therapist, it's different work with someone that's
• 1:01:17
  a horse person compared to someone that's never been around horses.
• 1:01:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Are the majority of your clients?
• 1:01:22
  non horsey people would you say?
• 1:01:26
  Jane Faulkner: No, not, no, not at all.
• 1:01:28
  I would say it's about half and half.
• 1:01:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:01:31
  Interesting because when you get a horsey person coming to you as a patient, yes,
• 1:01:37
  they have their own horses and they have their own relationships with their
• 1:01:40
  horses and are getting to some degree therapized simply by Being around horses,
• 1:01:45
  which we all know is very healing.
• 1:01:48
  Otherwise we wouldn't do what we do.
• 1:01:50
  What makes them seek out then something outside of that
• 1:01:54
  relationship that they already have with their horses to go to you?
• 1:01:57
  What do they come with?
• 1:01:58
  What do they say?
• 1:02:00
  Jane Faulkner: So often they've hit some kind of crisis in their relationship.
• 1:02:06
  With
• 1:02:07
  Rupert Isaacson: horses or just in, in, with human relationships,
• 1:02:09
  Jane Faulkner: human relationships.
• 1:02:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:02:11
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:02:12
  Just something's not working in their human life and they're drawn to the
• 1:02:17
  equine assisted therapy because horses have always been their safe place.
• 1:02:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm hmm.
• 1:02:23
  Jane Faulkner: And I remember Dewey explaining this beautifully
• 1:02:26
  that people that have had those early relational ruptures or
• 1:02:32
  difficulties relation, relationally.
• 1:02:35
  So maybe it was child abuse or abandonment or drug and alcohol abuse
• 1:02:42
  by parents or their parents, you know, being kind of just not great.
• 1:02:47
  human experiences as children that those people are more drawn to the
• 1:02:52
  equine therapy because they are able to trust and feel safer with an
• 1:02:56
  animal than they are with a human.
• 1:02:59
  And he spoke about that power of.
• 1:03:02
  Those people that really struggled to form connections with people, able to
• 1:03:07
  make that connection with the horse and then slowly over time transfer
• 1:03:12
  that connection onto the therapist that's working with the horse.
• 1:03:16
  And so that's kind of what helps bridge, I guess, working with the horses for
• 1:03:23
  different people into healing their relational experiences with humans.
• 1:03:28
  There's that, but also horses.
• 1:03:32
  Help reveal what we do in relationship and give us an opportunity
• 1:03:39
  to try something different.
• 1:03:42
  Rupert Isaacson: I could see that.
• 1:03:44
  It's interesting to think about anthropomorphizing because, you know,
• 1:03:46
  that's such a hot topic in what we do.
• 1:03:51
  And there's a part of me that often thinks, well, we have no choice but
• 1:03:53
  to anthropomorphize because that's the only, we're looking through monkey eyes,
• 1:03:57
  you know, so we're going to monkey.
• 1:03:59
  We got monkey what we see as a way.
• 1:04:01
  Yes.
• 1:04:01
  A monkey looking at us would see, and I should imagine that horses e eifs us , you
• 1:04:09
  know, because they have no choice, because they are looking through pony eyes.
• 1:04:13
  So I, I often think, well, that's unavoidable and actually natural.
• 1:04:18
  Mm-Hmm.
• 1:04:19
  So presumably it could be helpful as well as hindering depending on Yes.
• 1:04:26
  How much awareness we have that we are doing it.
• 1:04:30
  Would you not, would you say when I, you know, I've got horses, I love my horses.
• 1:04:34
  Some of them, you know, were born into my arms.
• 1:04:36
  I've known them forever, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:04:39
  So naturally I, I, I relate to them kind of as family members.
• 1:04:43
  Which as we know, we're not always, you know, wonderfully functional with
• 1:04:46
  our family members and our family members wonderfully functional with us.
• 1:04:49
  And actually, of course, that's part of feeling safe, right?
• 1:04:52
  If you're, if you actually feel safe with your mom and dad,
• 1:04:54
  you can tell them to F off.
• 1:04:56
  And if a horse feels safe with you.
• 1:04:58
  So something I've realized over time is allowing time just because the fact
• 1:05:04
  my horses are working horses, they need to be able to say F off sometimes.
• 1:05:08
  And yes, that was a really interesting dance for me to sort of get into say, Oh,
• 1:05:12
  I see for you to have agency and choice, but also be my colleague when I need you
• 1:05:16
  to be my colleague and keep people safe.
• 1:05:19
  You know, I to some degree have to anthropomorphize because I know
• 1:05:23
  that I certainly need that time.
• 1:05:26
  of telling people to leave me alone or showing up when I feel ready to work.
• 1:05:31
  And then in the old school of horsemanship, it would have been, well,
• 1:05:34
  if you do that, the horse is going to run all over you, which of course is true.
• 1:05:38
  If you don't know horsemanship, that's the paradox, right?
• 1:05:41
  But once you do know horsemanship, you can then begin to discern actually, you know,
• 1:05:45
  in this situation, I should let him go.
• 1:05:48
  He's turning his back on me in the pasture.
• 1:05:49
  I'm approaching with a halter.
• 1:05:51
  What's the difference between when I say, no, I actually need to get you today.
• 1:05:54
  Or, you know what, you're right.
• 1:05:57
  Just, it's not the day today.
• 1:06:00
  In the same way that we would have to do those things with people.
• 1:06:03
  One could say, is that not anthropomorphizing?
• 1:06:06
  And then could one say, well, Yes, but is that anthropomorphizing functionally?
• 1:06:12
  And I'm not saying I have the rights or the wrongs on this.
• 1:06:14
  I'm just bringing them up as, as, as talking points in questions.
• 1:06:18
  But I mean, what do you think?
• 1:06:19
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:06:20
  Well, it's, as you're talking, I'm thinking of, there's a concept in
• 1:06:23
  Gestalt called the field theory.
• 1:06:26
  And it's, it talks about, it acknowledges that we all come with
• 1:06:30
  our own ground or our own experience.
• 1:06:33
  And so we're all seeing the world through the field theory.
• 1:06:37
  And I think a horse, a dog, any being in the planet comes with their own
• 1:06:42
  ground, their own experiences, and that shapes how they then interact
• 1:06:46
  and how they are in the world.
• 1:06:48
  And so, to me, this is where I can get frustrated sometimes because I
• 1:06:54
  think, I feel like we can get hung up on some of these words, like,
• 1:06:57
  oh, don't do this or don't do that.
• 1:06:59
  And it's like, man, we're not in boxes.
• 1:07:01
  You know, we're living beings and we're having these different experiences.
• 1:07:06
  So, and I think as a therapist, I guess I work on or how a person
• 1:07:13
  anthropomorphizes a horse gives me a lot of information about the person.
• 1:07:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:07:19
  Jane Faulkner: And we work on that.
• 1:07:21
  So if someone projects something onto a horse, I get curious about.
• 1:07:27
  That in the person, right?
• 1:07:28
  I think I think that
• 1:07:30
  Rupert Isaacson: that word curious is the word, right?
• 1:07:32
  Isn't it?
• 1:07:33
  So not saying it's right or it's wrong to project something to
• 1:07:36
  somebody you have no choice.
• 1:07:38
  Yes, we projected we just do.
• 1:07:40
  And that's actually how we navigate or antenna, I go out right, we must to some
• 1:07:44
  degree, but how we to be curious rather than to say it's right or it's wrong.
• 1:07:49
  I like that.
• 1:07:49
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:07:50
  Yeah.
• 1:07:51
  Well it's another term is transference or countertransference so when as a.
• 1:07:57
  Therapist will talk about a client will transfer emotions onto you as a therapist.
• 1:08:03
  So say I remind a client of their auntie, they'll transfer their
• 1:08:09
  emotions about their auntie onto me and I'll counter transfer.
• 1:08:13
  So say they remind me of my son, then I'll counter transfer
• 1:08:18
  emotions of my son onto them.
• 1:08:22
  And when this gets unhealthy or, or.
• 1:08:28
  And not good is when I'm not aware of that process, I'm not aware of
• 1:08:32
  that happening, and I feel this is the same with anthropomorphizing.
• 1:08:36
  If I'm aware of it, and I'm curious about it, then I'm less likely to to
• 1:08:43
  do it in a way that's not supportive for the horse or the client.
• 1:08:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Got it.
• 1:08:47
  Yeah.
• 1:08:48
  And of course this one isn't always at the top of one's game.
• 1:08:50
  Right.
• 1:08:50
  You know,
• 1:08:51
  Jane Faulkner: Ah, a hundred percent.
• 1:08:53
  Yes.
• 1:08:54
  We're human.
• 1:08:56
  And my, so my account, my shit's gonna, I'm, I think of, I am seeing
• 1:09:01
  the world through my own muddy lenses.
• 1:09:03
  You know, it's
• 1:09:03
  Rupert Isaacson: really interesting.
• 1:09:04
  When I went through this just yesterday, actually, I was, I was working with a
• 1:09:06
  kid who absolutely pushes my buttons and is like super rude and you know,
• 1:09:12
  but he loves My little dog and my little dog brings out the best in him
• 1:09:19
  and I was tired yesterday and We you know got on a really magical thing.
• 1:09:25
  We go exploring on the horse together So we've gone down to a local a local stream.
• 1:09:31
  He's waiting in the stream and we're just discovering insects Annoyed
• 1:09:37
  and irritated with the insects, but he's also kind of curious about
• 1:09:39
  them and the dog is doing his bit.
• 1:09:41
  My horse is, you know, being there and grazing and carrying him into
• 1:09:47
  this, this beautiful world and so on.
• 1:09:50
  And I remember, you know, finding myself going, Oh yes, I can feel
• 1:09:53
  myself feeling a bit negative here.
• 1:09:55
  Why am I feeling a bit negative?
• 1:09:56
  Well, it's all right if someone presses your buttons.
• 1:10:00
  You don't have to get along with everybody.
• 1:10:02
  But that's also not personal.
• 1:10:03
  Also, you are tired.
• 1:10:05
  I could see I was tired.
• 1:10:07
  So what do I need to do?
• 1:10:08
  And then also, well, hold on.
• 1:10:10
  What about gratitude?
• 1:10:12
  Can I be grateful to this person?
• 1:10:14
  This young person who's brought me up?
• 1:10:16
  Because here I am, nyeh in my head, while standing next to this very
• 1:10:21
  beautiful stream, listening to the music of the stream, looking at
• 1:10:25
  ladybugs flying, listening With my horse and my dog, hold on Rupert,
• 1:10:30
  perhaps a little bit of gratitude might help you in this situation.
• 1:10:34
  So I love what you say about awareness and curiosity because if I, it's so easy to
• 1:10:39
  either fall into a denial pattern, which can make one not behave brilliantly, or
• 1:10:46
  fall into an overgiving pattern, which can make one not, you know, and sort of, you
• 1:10:53
  go into a bit of martyr, you know, mind.
• 1:10:55
  Yeah.
• 1:10:56
  Or if I can just be aware that I'm feeling this emotion, do I have a
• 1:11:04
  chance to gain some perspective and put some tools into play like gratitude
• 1:11:11
  that I'm in this situation at all with that this is what I'm complaining
• 1:11:15
  about rather than something real.
• 1:11:19
  Another, another moment like that in Mongolia with my son.
• 1:11:22
  When it was.
• 1:11:24
  You're 40 degrees of Celsius and you know, he didn't want to ride at that point.
• 1:11:28
  So I had him on my shoulders.
• 1:11:30
  I'm leading my horse and he's putting the point of his chin at the top of
• 1:11:34
  my skull and it's It's going on for a long time and I, and I start to get
• 1:11:40
  this negative loop and then it's like from somewhere else, this voice says,
• 1:11:44
  Rupert, Rupert, Rupert, Rupert, you're in Mongolia with your son walking across
• 1:11:50
  Mongolia to see shamans in Siberia.
• 1:11:56
  And okay.
• 1:11:58
  It is.
• 1:11:59
  It does hurt.
• 1:12:01
  Bone on your bone.
• 1:12:02
  Okay.
• 1:12:03
  But the situation is absolutely amazing.
• 1:12:08
  You know, what are you complaining about?
• 1:12:10
  And what's your, what's your strategy?
• 1:12:12
  So I thought, well, really what he just needs to know that if you put his hand
• 1:12:16
  between his chin and my skull, that's I came up with this thing of the chin
• 1:12:21
  is actually, but the hand is nice.
• 1:12:23
  And we still joke about this today, him and I, you know, when we get into negative
• 1:12:28
  thought loops of how long it can take one just to say, The chin is out of the house.
• 1:12:33
  And what, what's that, of course, but asking for help and I suddenly flashback
• 1:12:37
  to you in that in that airport in India.
• 1:12:40
  Yeah.
• 1:12:41
  Saying, I haven't got a clue.
• 1:12:43
  Please tell me.
• 1:12:43
  This is very difficult as a therapist, isn't it?
• 1:12:45
  Because in a therapist, you're, you're sort of expected to be.
• 1:12:49
  A figure that sort of provides answers and of course, you're just a human.
• 1:12:53
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:12:54
  How do you deal with these moments?
• 1:12:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:12:56
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:12:57
  As you're talking before and you're talking about the negative or
• 1:13:00
  the matter, and I was thinking, wow, in the middle is the human.
• 1:13:04
  And also just what you were saying before about the, that wisdom of, you
• 1:13:08
  know, when what's your son's name again?
• 1:13:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Rowan.
• 1:13:11
  Jane Faulkner: Rowan.
• 1:13:12
  Yeah.
• 1:13:12
  When his chin was pressing into your head and how you realize
• 1:13:16
  this, this pain isn't all of me.
• 1:13:18
  Yeah.
• 1:13:19
  You know, like the pains in my head, but it's not all of me.
• 1:13:21
  I think that's really powerful for us to realize this pain here.
• 1:13:25
  I can put my hand there.
• 1:13:26
  I can change this.
• 1:13:28
  But yeah, I think what helps me is giving myself permission to be
• 1:13:32
  human, giving myself permission to not have the answers, giving
• 1:13:36
  myself permission to to show up and.
• 1:13:40
  Yeah, just kind of, just be real, just kind of be like, yeah,
• 1:13:48
  I don't know all the answers.
• 1:13:49
  I don't, what I can offer you is, is my presence and that I'll walk along beside
• 1:13:56
  you on your journey and we'll work it out.
• 1:13:59
  But I, I'd never pretend, I can't know I can't have someone else's answers.
• 1:14:03
  Okay.
• 1:14:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:14:05
  So, so we're now sort of talking you as you are now.
• 1:14:11
  Where, before we digress there, you were still going through your
• 1:14:15
  education, really, in horsemanship.
• 1:14:18
  And as we know, there's knowing a horse and there's knowing horses and if you're
• 1:14:23
  going to be professional in, by putting people who don't know horses together
• 1:14:28
  with horses, obviously we have to know horses well enough to keep people safe.
• 1:14:33
  So how, how long does it take you?
• 1:14:38
  And how do you get there to graduate from a know nothing, afraid of this horse on
• 1:14:43
  your own property to Being in a position where you actually can confidently keep
• 1:14:48
  people safe around horses while doing a job with a horse as your colleague.
• 1:14:52
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:14:53
  Yeah.
• 1:14:54
  So, with me, with Phoenix and with Angie who taught me, I was really disciplined.
• 1:15:00
  So I worked with him every day doing groundwork and I
• 1:15:04
  went and saw Angie every week.
• 1:15:06
  And I think I started seeing clients.
• 1:15:09
  It's about probably a year after I had done that training with Dewey
• 1:15:16
  and, and then I got offered a job.
• 1:15:18
  That's quite quick.
• 1:15:19
  It was pretty quick.
• 1:15:22
  And I feel like it is very quick when I think back.
• 1:15:27
  I got offered a job and in that job, I would see five people back to back.
• 1:15:33
  Three or four days a week.
• 1:15:34
  Always with this horse,
• 1:15:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Phoenix?
• 1:15:36
  Jane Faulkner: No, no.
• 1:15:37
  With the new herd.
• 1:15:38
  Okay.
• 1:15:38
  And it was a herd of four horses.
• 1:15:42
  And so to start with, it was a lot for me to kind of manage.
• 1:15:47
  And luckily they were well handled, well handled horses generally had good
• 1:15:54
  ground manners, except for Stevie.
• 1:15:56
  Stevie would threaten to bite and would nip.
• 1:15:58
  So I learned so much from him.
• 1:16:01
  And.
• 1:16:01
  I learned a lot about how his behaviors were often a response to the state of the
• 1:16:09
  nervous system of me or the person he was working with, because as the person and
• 1:16:14
  I settled, the nipping would reduce Yeah, so I worked there for a few years solidly,
• 1:16:21
  and I learned so much from those horses and kept working with Phoenix at home.
• 1:16:26
  By then I'd got Java as well and a little mini Sunny.
• 1:16:30
  And I think I've been working there maybe four years and people
• 1:16:35
  started asking me to teach them.
• 1:16:37
  And that's when I kind of put my training together.
• 1:16:40
  Yeah, and
• 1:16:42
  Rupert Isaacson: okay,
• 1:16:42
  Jane Faulkner: feel like I've been learning it very, very cavalierly
• 1:16:48
  Rupert Isaacson: said, and that's when I started putting my training together.
• 1:16:51
  Now, as someone who has this thing called horseboy method and a couple of
• 1:16:56
  other programs we do, you know, movement method without horses and this thing
• 1:17:00
  called TI, which is used to be called Athena which is The groundwork and
• 1:17:04
  the in hand work as its own therapy.
• 1:17:07
  I know that putting together a program is not something you just do.
• 1:17:14
  Yes, it looks that way from the outside, but it's, it's a torturous process.
• 1:17:18
  And you know, a lot of us when we, who've done that sort of
• 1:17:21
  thing when we look back we go.
• 1:17:23
  Wow, how did I think at the beginning that I would be able to, you know, and
• 1:17:29
  the learning curve you go through just like how much is involved in this.
• 1:17:33
  If you want it to be of use to people.
• 1:17:36
  Yeah, talk us through that learning curve, it must have been.
• 1:17:40
  Somewhat steep and somewhat of a somewhat exhausting
• 1:17:45
  Jane Faulkner: it was, it was so for me I hadn't even contemplated training and
• 1:17:50
  then people were asking me to mentor them.
• 1:17:52
  And then someone said, why, why don't you do your own training?
• 1:17:56
  And a decision I came to was, I don't want it.
• 1:17:59
  I want it to be government accredited.
• 1:18:01
  So I looked into what that would, what was involved in that, and I think I'm a very
• 1:18:07
  rose colored glasses person, super naive.
• 1:18:10
  So I thought, okay, I'll become an RTO.
• 1:18:13
  So, what is that a registered training organization?
• 1:18:18
  So it's like a college.
• 1:18:20
  Yeah, so it's, it's like the government kind of says that.
• 1:18:24
  You go through all these processes for the government to approve what you tell us
• 1:18:28
  Rupert Isaacson: in brief, what it's summary, what are the processes
• 1:18:30
  that someone has to go through if they want to be that they
• 1:18:33
  want to be government recognized.
• 1:18:35
  Jane Faulkner: It's huge.
• 1:18:36
  So, you have to have a lot of, lots of policies and procedures in place.
• 1:18:43
  And so you've gotta prove the way you enroll people,
• 1:18:46
  the way you market, the way.
• 1:18:47
  Who do you have to
• 1:18:48
  Rupert Isaacson: prove this to?
• 1:18:50
  What's even the application process?
• 1:18:51
  How do you even begin this?
• 1:18:53
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, so in Australia, we've got a governing body called ASQA,
• 1:18:58
  the Australian Skills Quality Authority.
• 1:19:01
  So you put together a training and even to do that, so what I had to do was.
• 1:19:07
  Put together a, an outline of what I wanted to train.
• 1:19:12
  Then I had to go to industry body.
• 1:19:13
  So I had to go to the Australian counseling association, the psychotherapy
• 1:19:17
  and counseling federation of Australia and equine Australia, equestrian Australia.
• 1:19:22
  And I said, I had to say, Hey, I want to do this equine assisted therapy training.
• 1:19:26
  Will you.
• 1:19:28
  Agree that we need it in Australia and the Australian Counseling Association came
• 1:19:34
  back to me and said, no, we won't agree.
• 1:19:36
  We don't think a qualification of just equine assisted therapy is enough.
• 1:19:42
  And so I was like, gosh, what can I do?
• 1:19:44
  And someone that was helping me at the time said, why don't you add counseling?
• 1:19:50
  So I added the Diploma of Counseling and the equine handling, like,
• 1:19:57
  And I went back to the Australian counseling Association, and I said, would
• 1:20:01
  you approve it if it looks like this?
• 1:20:03
  And they said, yes, because then your graduates can work in a room
• 1:20:07
  base as a counselor or outside.
• 1:20:09
  In the paddock with horses.
• 1:20:11
  So that was the beginning of the process.
• 1:20:13
  Then I had to, so in the diploma of counseling, you've
• 1:20:17
  got 17 units of competency.
• 1:20:20
  And each of those units of competency have all these assessment tasks that
• 1:20:24
  you've got to kind of assess and teach.
• 1:20:28
  And so I had to kind of go through all of that and create
• 1:20:32
  a curriculum and assessments and do that for the equine handling.
• 1:20:36
  And then for my own equine assisted mental health.
• 1:20:40
  stuff as well.
• 1:20:41
  So that was kind of the process and it was huge.
• 1:20:45
  Like it's when I look back now, I'm just like, my God.
• 1:20:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Another question.
• 1:20:49
  Thank God I
• 1:20:49
  Jane Faulkner: didn't know.
• 1:20:50
  Yes.
• 1:20:51
  Rupert Isaacson: You've also got to put yourself forward, presumably,
• 1:20:54
  as someone who can have judgment and discernment as to whether or not someone
• 1:21:00
  can, is, is, is jumping these hurdles.
• 1:21:04
  So what do you have to prove to the government bodies and the
• 1:21:07
  governing bodies about yourself?
• 1:21:11
  Because you're not a psychiatrist, for example, or, or whatever you might say,
• 1:21:15
  well, I have this qualification here and I have that qualification there.
• 1:21:18
  But yeah, what what hoops do they want you to jump through.
• 1:21:22
  Jane Faulkner: So they needed to see my qualifications.
• 1:21:25
  That I needed to see my experience and then I needed to get different people.
• 1:21:31
  So other psychologists, other people in the industry to kind of sign off
• 1:21:38
  that I was, yeah, yeah, pretty much.
• 1:21:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Did it help that you had the background as a nurse?
• 1:21:45
  That, that, that I think it
• 1:21:46
  Jane Faulkner: definitely,
• 1:21:47
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah, that underneath it all, there was this solid, I went and got.
• 1:21:51
  My qualifications in medicine in this way.
• 1:21:55
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, definitely that.
• 1:21:57
  And, and I'd worked in the mental health.
• 1:21:59
  So I'd worked in mental health units, adolescent and adult mental health.
• 1:22:03
  So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:08
  So that really helped
• 1:22:10
  Rupert Isaacson: in retrospect that those skills that you learned early,
• 1:22:13
  despite the fact that you didn't like the system ended up being the foundation
• 1:22:19
  from what you could build another system.
• 1:22:21
  Yeah.
• 1:22:22
  Jane Faulkner: Definitely, and when I look back, like the learning, so,
• 1:22:25
  because where I was a nurse in the adolescent and adult mental health unit
• 1:22:30
  is a very low socioeconomic area in Queensland and I learned a lot about
• 1:22:37
  mental health, about keeping myself safe, about supporting people to deescalate.
• 1:22:44
  I learned a lot of skills.
• 1:22:47
  Yeah, that still helped me today.
• 1:22:49
  And I think it's really helpful to actually be in the system and
• 1:22:54
  see the system so that you can understand what people go through.
• 1:22:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, I would agree.
• 1:23:00
  I would agree.
• 1:23:01
  So how long did this whole accreditation process takes you?
• 1:23:05
  How long?
• 1:23:05
  Jane Faulkner: I think it took about a year and a half
• 1:23:08
  Rupert Isaacson: again.
• 1:23:08
  That's not very long.
• 1:23:09
  I was expecting you to say five years.
• 1:23:11
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:23:12
  Well, it took a year and a half for me to be approved and up and running.
• 1:23:17
  I feel like.
• 1:23:18
  It's taken till now to get it to a point that I'm happy with.
• 1:23:22
  And I feel like, okay, it's finally written and done.
• 1:23:25
  And that's I started in 2016.
• 1:23:28
  So that's 8 years.
• 1:23:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:23:29
  That sounds more likely.
• 1:23:30
  Yes.
• 1:23:32
  Yeah.
• 1:23:33
  Okay.
• 1:23:33
  Yeah.
• 1:23:34
  And do you, what do you have to do to prove to your accrediting bodies?
• 1:23:38
  Sort of year to year that you're still that you're not bullshit
• 1:23:41
  that you're still standards are kept up, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:23:44
  What do you need to do?
• 1:23:46
  Jane Faulkner: So they come in and they go over everything.
• 1:23:49
  So, they go over the assessments, they go for student answers,
• 1:23:52
  they go over what I'm teaching.
• 1:23:55
  They ask students for feedback.
• 1:23:57
  So they have a record of who my students are, so they can go directly to those
• 1:24:02
  students and ask them for feedback.
• 1:24:05
  That's pretty much.
• 1:24:06
  Rupert Isaacson: If they get feedback that isn't positive, how does that affect
• 1:24:10
  what, what do they come to you with?
• 1:24:12
  Because I mean, not everyone's going to always say something positive, right?
• 1:24:14
  So are they coming back to you with every single nitpick and saying,
• 1:24:19
  you've got to address this, or are they just looking for patterns?
• 1:24:22
  And they also have manpower problems, right?
• 1:24:25
  How deeply can they?
• 1:24:26
  Yes,
• 1:24:27
  Jane Faulkner: totally.
• 1:24:27
  No, they more look for patterns and they'll say, hey, can you show us this?
• 1:24:32
  And then they'll say, okay, you need to rectify this.
• 1:24:35
  And you've got this amount of time to do it.
• 1:24:38
  Yeah.
• 1:24:39
  Rupert Isaacson: And the way it's rectified would be, you would have
• 1:24:42
  to then say, I've put these policies in place and then they would come
• 1:24:45
  in again and do another assessment and see is the feedback better.
• 1:24:50
  Okay.
• 1:24:51
  Okay.
• 1:24:51
  So there's a fair amount of stress involved.
• 1:24:53
  I mean, you know, it's possible to lose the accreditation too, I should imagine.
• 1:24:58
  Jane Faulkner: Definitely.
• 1:24:59
  Definitely.
• 1:24:59
  And I know it's probably only been the last year or two that I've learnt not let
• 1:25:05
  that feel like a massive weight before then it felt like a massive weight.
• 1:25:09
  It felt like they could swoop in at any time.
• 1:25:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:25:13
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:25:14
  I think I think what's helped is seeing students.
• 1:25:18
  I really see students.
• 1:25:19
  Change and grow over the time they do the training.
• 1:25:22
  So the training's now two years and seeing them be practitioners, and
• 1:25:28
  I think I've learnt to believe in it and stand strong in it myself.
• 1:25:32
  And I think that has changed.
• 1:25:34
  So I'm not as fearful.
• 1:25:35
  I, I know that I can stand up for decisions I've made and why we
• 1:25:39
  do things the way we do things.
• 1:25:41
  with that accrediting body now, whereas before then, I don't
• 1:25:45
  think I felt so strong in it.
• 1:25:48
  Rupert Isaacson: And at the end of the two years, someone who's gone through
• 1:25:50
  the program with you is an equine assisted psychotherapist effectively, is
• 1:25:55
  what they are, or what do you call it?
• 1:25:57
  Jane Faulkner: We say they're an equine assisted mental health practitioner.
• 1:26:01
  Okay,
• 1:26:01
  Rupert Isaacson: an equine assisted mental health practitioner.
• 1:26:03
  Are you doing all the teaching and the mentorship yourself?
• 1:26:07
  Are you now a team?
• 1:26:08
  Do you have other campuses?
• 1:26:09
  Is it all in one?
• 1:26:10
  In one place that you do this.
• 1:26:13
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:26:13
  How
• 1:26:13
  Rupert Isaacson: has it grown?
• 1:26:14
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:26:15
  So, we're in Gold Coast where I am and Melbourne and Sydney, and we have
• 1:26:21
  other trainers that have come in, which has been, I think that's really
• 1:26:24
  helped me stand stronger in it as well.
• 1:26:27
  I think other people to ask questions, other people looking
• 1:26:30
  at the material, other people kind of, giving feedback and adding the.
• 1:26:36
  pieces to it has been really helpful.
• 1:26:40
  Rupert Isaacson: What's your process?
• 1:26:41
  So if someone becomes this, this equine assisted mental health
• 1:26:45
  practitioner from them to go for that, from that was first qualification up
• 1:26:50
  to say, becoming a trainer in what you do, what do they have to do?
• 1:26:54
  Jane Faulkner: Lots of experience in the field.
• 1:26:57
  So see lots of clients.
• 1:27:00
  And I guess generally the people that are trainers now work
• 1:27:04
  with me as a support person.
• 1:27:06
  So they kind of are with me in the training, supporting
• 1:27:10
  me to do the trainings as well as seeing their own clients.
• 1:27:14
  And then there's that transition into them being so it's
• 1:27:17
  Rupert Isaacson: not it's not necessarily a structured series
• 1:27:19
  of courses that they have to do.
• 1:27:21
  It's more that you monitor their work over a set number of years and
• 1:27:26
  see that the results they're getting and it's more an assessment by you.
• 1:27:32
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, competency
• 1:27:34
  Rupert Isaacson: or
• 1:27:35
  Jane Faulkner: yeah, yeah, more a feeling into whether they fit.
• 1:27:40
  My business, I guess, and the way that I want to deliver this work and
• 1:27:46
  the way that I want to kind of, yeah, support people to learn this work.
• 1:27:50
  So,
• 1:27:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:27:52
  I know that you've, you, I'm, I'm probably impinging on your time here.
• 1:27:56
  'cause you have a lot.
• 1:27:57
  No, not at all.
• 1:27:57
  You have an evening , but there's, there's some other questions that I'm,
• 1:28:00
  I'm curious about, you said at the out outset that you were moving to, from
• 1:28:06
  Unmounted work towards mounted work.
• 1:28:07
  Mm.
• 1:28:09
  Jane Faulkner: Tell us
• 1:28:09
  Rupert Isaacson: about that.
• 1:28:09
  A y and the, and how?
• 1:28:11
  Yes.
• 1:28:13
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:14
  So for me, this is where I'd love to do your training, Rupert, but
• 1:28:17
  for me, I work very semantically.
• 1:28:23
  So I've done, I was a yoga teacher for five years, full time.
• 1:28:28
  And that massage therapy on top of that, I've always been a person
• 1:28:31
  that is in, it needs to move their body and values the body.
• 1:28:38
  And I see that with certain clients, especially people with.
• 1:28:44
  Those early relational traumas, so complex PTSD, I see that being on
• 1:28:50
  the horse has more of an impact on them than being beside the horse and
• 1:28:55
  being held, learning to be held by the horse, feeling that movement,
• 1:28:59
  you know, just that rocking movement.
• 1:29:02
  So, I'm not sure how.
• 1:29:05
  I'm going to do it yet.
• 1:29:06
  I just know that that's what I'm really drawn to
• 1:29:09
  Rupert Isaacson: really drawn to
• 1:29:10
  Jane Faulkner: that, to that mountain work from a, that real somatic lens.
• 1:29:15
  So before I became an RTO, I had to do some training in
• 1:29:21
  being a writing instructor.
• 1:29:22
  And I had very little of my own experience as Riding horses or
• 1:29:28
  being a riding instructor, but I had a lot of experience with yoga.
• 1:29:32
  And so I taught my writing lessons from a yogic perspective.
• 1:29:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:29:38
  Jane Faulkner: And it was amazing.
• 1:29:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Give us an example.
• 1:29:42
  Jane Faulkner: So, there's this old cowboy and he was on a horse and the
• 1:29:46
  horse was stressed and uptight and he was pulling on the reins really hard.
• 1:29:51
  And the cowboy's shoulders were up near his ears and.
• 1:29:56
  I just kind of, I guess ask him to change his body.
• 1:30:00
  Like I would say in a yoga class.
• 1:30:02
  So I was like, okay, I want you to deepen your breath, relax your
• 1:30:05
  shoulders, relax your hands kind of become more aware of your pelvis.
• 1:30:10
  Relax your legs.
• 1:30:11
  And as he did that, the horse relaxed.
• 1:30:13
  And I remember this other old horseman guy goes, wow, who taught you that?
• 1:30:19
  And I said to him, Oh, it's yoga.
• 1:30:21
  And he just looked at me as if I was crazy,
• 1:30:23
  Rupert Isaacson: but
• 1:30:25
  Jane Faulkner: there's just, I, I'm, I just feel that.
• 1:30:30
  Humans have much more of an impact on a horse than we realize,
• 1:30:34
  Rupert Isaacson: and
• 1:30:34
  Jane Faulkner: we're so out of aware, we're so out of awareness of our
• 1:30:39
  body and how, how we're holding a body impacts the being beneath us.
• 1:30:46
  And for me as a therapist, when I'm working with someone on a horse.
• 1:30:51
  The horse tells me about state shifts within the person sometimes before I
• 1:30:55
  can recognize those state shifts in the person and I see that when someone's
• 1:31:00
  on a horse as the horse relaxes, as their stride lengthens, it reflects
• 1:31:06
  what's happening inside that person.
• 1:31:08
  And so.
• 1:31:10
  I can kind of observe the horse and support the person to change
• 1:31:14
  things within their body and then the horse reflects the change.
• 1:31:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:31:19
  Yes, no, absolutely.
• 1:31:20
  That makes all makes perfect sense.
• 1:31:22
  One of the interesting things about the old master system of.
• 1:31:26
  Dressage, I'm not talking about dressage as stressage for a judge, I'm talking
• 1:31:30
  about, you know, the, the art of dressing a horse, which is to help it put the
• 1:31:35
  hind legs under the point of gravity.
• 1:31:37
  And that's what collection is.
• 1:31:38
  And the humor and the horse become a unit at that point, and
• 1:31:42
  can move in three dimensions.
• 1:31:43
  And that's evolved over thousands of years.
• 1:31:47
  It acts as whether it's working on the ground or whether it's working
• 1:31:50
  from the saddle it acts as both a yoga and a martial art, because
• 1:31:52
  it's it's designed for both so it can train, but it can also rehab.
• 1:31:58
  It can maintain.
• 1:32:00
  It can also develop.
• 1:32:02
  And I think that if you're coming from a yoga perspective, I think
• 1:32:06
  that's a very easy concept to get.
• 1:32:09
  Whereas I think if one's coming from just a straight up horse
• 1:32:12
  training, I am a monkey that tells a horse what to do perspective.
• 1:32:15
  It is not so easy to get the martial arts perspective might be easier to get.
• 1:32:19
  I'm training this horse to go to war.
• 1:32:21
  I'm training this horse to catch a cow.
• 1:32:22
  I'm training this horse to go for this jump.
• 1:32:24
  Yes.
• 1:32:25
  But of course, as we know, that's only one.
• 1:32:29
  Part of a very big hole and it may not even be part of of it.
• 1:32:33
  So I'm rather intrigued.
• 1:32:34
  I'd love to collaborate with you because I think coming from those two perspectives.
• 1:32:38
  that perspective that you have, again, offers interesting insights to people
• 1:32:43
  when they're having to rethink how they approach horses and horse training.
• 1:32:46
  Which is difficult if you grew up with it because you're, you're just,
• 1:32:50
  you're, you're synapses in your brain are fairly hardwired at that point.
• 1:32:54
  One has an, and your body to unlearn certain things.
• 1:32:57
  When I, when I was learning classical dressage, which I had to do when I
• 1:33:02
  realized that it was soft collection that created the oxytocin in the
• 1:33:06
  child or the adult that calmed down the amygdala, the stress
• 1:33:11
  hormone, cortisol canceled that out.
• 1:33:13
  And of course, it's a communication hormone, oxytocin.
• 1:33:16
  So makes them communicate.
• 1:33:18
  And I realized, Oh, I need to learn more about this and do my deep dive.
• 1:33:21
  And of course, at that point, I was very much more of a sort of jumping
• 1:33:23
  rider, lots of tension in the leg, lots of tension in the body, which you
• 1:33:27
  actually sort of need for that job.
• 1:33:29
  And then I realized, Oh, I had to neutralize.
• 1:33:31
  And that took me about five years.
• 1:33:34
  You know, so when I'm, when I'm approaching and then I realized I
• 1:33:37
  could actually, but all the training has to be done from the ground so that
• 1:33:41
  there can be a neutral rider up there who can just flow with the horse.
• 1:33:45
  When I'm working with people who are coming out of a lifetime of horses.
• 1:33:51
  This can be tricky because no one likes to be a beginner again, obviously.
• 1:33:56
  And also there are, as you said, just these sort of synapses.
• 1:33:59
  Mental pathways that are very hardwired that need to be.
• 1:34:02
  So, so something, the way you just explained it there, I think could
• 1:34:05
  be very useful for someone that is needing to go to that next phase
• 1:34:09
  with horses, but doesn't quite know how that sort of glassy feel.
• 1:34:15
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:34:15
  And what's really cool is, you know, you're talking about needing to check you
• 1:34:20
  needing to change the body, bringing your body back into neutral and you doing that.
• 1:34:27
  Through working with the body has an impact on who you are as a human,
• 1:34:33
  on how you do relationships on how you think on everything about you.
• 1:34:38
  And that's what I love to like, Deb Dana who writes a lot of,
• 1:34:42
  yeah, talks about, you know, change the state, change the story.
• 1:34:46
  And this is what I love about working with the body.
• 1:34:49
  You know, when you bring a sense of ease to the body and a sense of
• 1:34:52
  relaxation and openness the whole way our mind sees the world changes,
• 1:34:58
  Rupert Isaacson: which is difficult to do when you're an anxious monkey
• 1:35:01
  sitting on a moving barrel that has a mind of it and a sense of humor
• 1:35:04
  and you are the butt of the joke.
• 1:35:06
  Yes,
• 1:35:07
  Jane Faulkner: very, very totally.
• 1:35:09
  I, I wanted to share.
• 1:35:12
  I went to Mongolia to my husband and I.
• 1:35:15
  Yeah, we went there.
• 1:35:16
  We did a 19 day.
• 1:35:18
  Horse riding, we went up to the reindeer people.
• 1:35:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.
• 1:35:21
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:35:22
  And so it was amazing.
• 1:35:24
  Gosh.
• 1:35:25
  You may well have met
• 1:35:26
  Rupert Isaacson: the same people that I was with, with my son.
• 1:35:28
  Jane Faulkner: What a magical country.
• 1:35:31
  I just loved Mongolia.
• 1:35:33
  Intact ecosystem.
• 1:35:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:35:34
  Jane Faulkner: Ah, that.
• 1:35:36
  And, and their people.
• 1:35:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:35:38
  Jane Faulkner: Like that.
• 1:35:39
  The people that live in intact
• 1:35:41
  Rupert Isaacson: ecosystems, you know.
• 1:35:42
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 1:35:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:35:43
  Tend to be cool, right?
• 1:35:44
  Yeah.
• 1:35:45
  Jane Faulkner: They blew me away.
• 1:35:47
  Just how authentic they were, how even I took kind real, I loved their realness.
• 1:35:54
  Like, cause I, I talked to students a lot about boundaries and how
• 1:35:58
  in Mongolia, there's no fences.
• 1:36:00
  Yeah.
• 1:36:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:36:01
  But
• 1:36:01
  Jane Faulkner: they have a deep respect for boundaries.
• 1:36:03
  Yeah.
• 1:36:03
  So they don't need the physical fences.
• 1:36:05
  Like we don't respect boundaries and we need the fences.
• 1:36:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:36:10
  And fences can be broken and climbed over and jumped over.
• 1:36:13
  Yeah.
• 1:36:14
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 1:36:15
  Yeah.
• 1:36:15
  Yeah.
• 1:36:16
  But I loved their Buddhism shamanism.
• 1:36:18
  That was just like, Oh, and not the, not the in doctrine, not the dogma of it.
• 1:36:26
  The living of it.
• 1:36:27
  That's what I loved.
• 1:36:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I'm so with you.
• 1:36:30
  And actually, you know, you were talking about working with First
• 1:36:34
  Nations elder there in Queensland the, the, the, this thing of informing
• 1:36:39
  oneself through indigenous wisdom.
• 1:36:42
  One of the things one forgets is that horses don't come when
• 1:36:46
  you're a white person from Europe.
• 1:36:48
  Horsemanship is not European.
• 1:36:50
  It comes out of what it comes.
• 1:36:51
  It's a bit European.
• 1:36:52
  It comes out of the mixed, mixed liminal space between Europe and Asia.
• 1:36:57
  And, but it went more into Asia first before it came into Europe proper,
• 1:37:02
  it was, it was in Asia for thousands of years because that's where the
• 1:37:06
  civilizations were, you know, people in Europe, Western Europe, particularly,
• 1:37:11
  were just sort of living in forests for quite a while at that point.
• 1:37:14
  And so it doesn't really creep in.
• 1:37:17
  It are like you with a name like Falcon or me with a name like Isaacson.
• 1:37:21
  It doesn't come into the culture of our ancestors until quite a lot later.
• 1:37:26
  And, but it's still an indigenous thing and one of the.
• 1:37:30
  The conclusions that my wife and I came to a while ago, because we obviously we teach
• 1:37:35
  people a lot of dressage as well as the therapeutic stuff is you actually can't
• 1:37:40
  do it unless you do it in a tribal way.
• 1:37:42
  Because it's a tribal system.
• 1:37:44
  It came out of people living in tents who were families who collaborated.
• 1:37:48
  And when you go to.
• 1:37:50
  The Spanish Riding School of Vienna or the Royal School of Jerez in Spain.
• 1:37:54
  What, what do you observe?
• 1:37:55
  You see groups of people collaborating two to three at a time with a horse
• 1:37:59
  to help it understand as quickly and as easily with as much, not
• 1:38:03
  pressure, but moral support as it can.
• 1:38:06
  That's a tribal thing.
• 1:38:07
  So we have this program called Riots Clubs.
• 1:38:09
  We show people how to form Riding is a tribal sport and the difficulty
• 1:38:15
  is doing things in isolation.
• 1:38:17
  It's almost impossible, right?
• 1:38:19
  But of course, this is a message for life, right?
• 1:38:20
  Yeah.
• 1:38:23
  Jane Faulkner: I love have you heard about you know, how we, we kind of swallowed the
• 1:38:27
  Darwin theory of survival of the fittest.
• 1:38:30
  And you've heard of the Russian researcher that actually
• 1:38:33
  kind of debunked that theory.
• 1:38:35
  Tell us all about it.
• 1:38:35
  Yeah.
• 1:38:36
  Tell us
• 1:38:36
  Rupert Isaacson: about this.
• 1:38:37
  Jane Faulkner: I can't think of names, but so around the time that, that Darwin
• 1:38:42
  came to that conclusion of, you know, survival of the fittest the strongest
• 1:38:46
  conquers everything, the strongest wins.
• 1:38:48
  So, a Russian researcher around the same time did the same kind of
• 1:38:53
  research and he found the opposite.
• 1:38:55
  He found that the people that survived or the communities that survived and
• 1:39:00
  prospered were the people that could form relationships, the, the people that could
• 1:39:06
  form collaborations, the people that could be part of communities and the people that
• 1:39:11
  weren't able to make those relationships or sustain those relationships.
• 1:39:16
  And same as the animals, the people or the animals that weren't able
• 1:39:19
  to do that were the ones that died.
• 1:39:21
  Absolutely.
• 1:39:23
  It's just fascinating that we grabbed the Charles Darwin instead of the other one.
• 1:39:28
  Well,
• 1:39:28
  Rupert Isaacson: it suited our world view at the time, right, which was Yeah,
• 1:39:31
  Jane Faulkner: so true.
• 1:39:32
  Rupert Isaacson: But of course, what was colonialism?
• 1:39:34
  Colonialism was groups of people.
• 1:39:36
  Not single con We talk about Cortez, you know, he conquered Mexico.
• 1:39:42
  No, he didn't.
• 1:39:43
  Cortez was in charge of a very, very large group of people, all working cooperatively
• 1:39:49
  to do something psychopathic and horrible.
• 1:39:52
  But nonetheless, it was, you know, the people that conquered,
• 1:39:56
  in inverted commas, the American West were not John Wayne types.
• 1:40:00
  They tended to dive first in the desert.
• 1:40:02
  The John Wayne types who actually sort of made it were the ones who led and helped.
• 1:40:08
  groups of settlers come together.
• 1:40:11
  And of course, outside of the colonial experience, you know, I work a lot
• 1:40:15
  with hunting and gathering tribes, it's those are entirely, and those
• 1:40:20
  are the original human blueprints.
• 1:40:22
  Those are entirely cultures of conflict resolution, because if you have Conflict
• 1:40:27
  within your community, beyond a certain level, your community will fragment
• 1:40:31
  and if your community fragments, guess what you're a mid level predator.
• 1:40:35
  You're not top predator.
• 1:40:36
  So the lions will absolutely eat you.
• 1:40:38
  The only thing we've got is this ability oxytocin connection to strategize.
• 1:40:45
  with a speaking ape, we have the larynx.
• 1:40:47
  So we're very, very good at strategizing, but only if we feel connecting, connection
• 1:40:53
  and feel safe with our community.
• 1:40:56
  That is the only security we have.
• 1:40:59
  And I agree with you yet.
• 1:41:00
  We're sold a myth of the lone warrior hero.
• 1:41:04
  Like say it's Cú Chulainn, you know, the great Irish hero, the hound of us.
• 1:41:08
  Well, what happens to Cú Chulainn in the end?
• 1:41:10
  He gets killed gloriously.
• 1:41:14
  What happens to Hercules in the end?
• 1:41:15
  He gets killed.
• 1:41:16
  Okay.
• 1:41:16
  They put him in the staff, but you know, they're glorious deaths.
• 1:41:19
  Perhaps maybe they even think they go to Valhalla, die sword
• 1:41:22
  in hand, but fact is they die.
• 1:41:25
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:41:26
  And not only that, like, I feel like I think of even our industry where we have
• 1:41:32
  this thing of who's the best or be the
• 1:41:35
  Rupert Isaacson: best
• 1:41:35
  Jane Faulkner: and it drives me nuts.
• 1:41:37
  It's like, why does there need to be a best?
• 1:41:39
  Well, if we all came together, The backbiting
• 1:41:44
  Rupert Isaacson: within, within the horse industry in general, within
• 1:41:47
  therapy industry in general, within academia, within therapeutic writing.
• 1:41:51
  We all know that it can be very toxic and the, the, the, the nastiness with
• 1:41:58
  which people treat each other is bizarre.
• 1:42:00
  Always to me, given that we're supposed to be in.
• 1:42:04
  a modality of healing.
• 1:42:05
  You don't have to like everybody working against people.
• 1:42:10
  How, how is that us doing our job?
• 1:42:14
  Jane Faulkner: To me, it slows us all down.
• 1:42:16
  You know, if our whole goal is to help people and to kind of
• 1:42:21
  make the world a better place.
• 1:42:23
  And I don't know, I just think, but if you think about it
• 1:42:27
  Rupert Isaacson: in a weird way.
• 1:42:28
  And we come by these dysfunctions and actually honestly, because we all get
• 1:42:33
  put through a school system where we're supposed to be in competition with our
• 1:42:36
  classmates, and then with other wider people out there in exams that will
• 1:42:43
  say, well, were your exams good enough.
• 1:42:45
  Against all these other people that you've never met to then get to this
• 1:42:48
  university and then at this university are your grades good enough, you know
• 1:42:52
  that you will get this level of degree.
• 1:42:54
  And then when you go out into the workplace, you've got to quote unquote
• 1:42:57
  prove yourself against your peers.
• 1:43:00
  And then if you add horses to that, and then academia.
• 1:43:03
  It's all about defending a position or you lose your job, you lose your funding.
• 1:43:08
  So you got to be right all the time, which means you must attack those who,
• 1:43:11
  you know, who take an opposing view.
• 1:43:15
  Because there's an economic imperative to that.
• 1:43:17
  And then horse people, well, what's the horse?
• 1:43:20
  What's the horse tradition we've inherited.
• 1:43:23
  Most of us that grew up with the sort of pony club, even though there were
• 1:43:26
  so many wonderful things with that.
• 1:43:28
  It's a military thing.
• 1:43:29
  It came out of the 1845, you know, military manuals that were in the
• 1:43:34
  cavalry schools and the people that ran riding schools in the old days
• 1:43:37
  were ex cavalry officers because that's what they did when they retired.
• 1:43:41
  So this whole sort of military industrial thing permeates and someone pops up at
• 1:43:45
  the end out of all that and says, well, now I'd like to use this modality of this
• 1:43:50
  thing I learned through academia to heal.
• 1:43:53
  And this thing I learned with the horse deal, but I've learned them through a
• 1:43:56
  sort of slightly sociopathic process.
• 1:43:58
  How can that not rub off on us?
• 1:44:01
  So I do have compassion for that and I do understand it, but it makes me sad because
• 1:44:07
  as you say, I feel it slows us down.
• 1:44:09
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:44:10
  And I love that now we can at least talk about it and there's an awareness of it.
• 1:44:16
  I just have a question for you, Rupert,
• 1:44:19
  Rupert Isaacson: for
• 1:44:19
  Jane Faulkner: me, I'm the one doing
• 1:44:20
  Rupert Isaacson: the interviewing here.
• 1:44:25
  Jane Faulkner: The horses in Mongolia, there was just something so different
• 1:44:30
  about them to our domesticated horses.
• 1:44:33
  Like, I'm curious about that.
• 1:44:35
  And I'm, I just wonder what you all.
• 1:44:37
  So for me, what was different is they seem to, so even for me, the Mongolian
• 1:44:43
  people not naming their horses, but it was like the horse knew their role.
• 1:44:47
  The human knew their role.
• 1:44:49
  And there was a real cleanness to it.
• 1:44:51
  There wasn't this kind of.
• 1:44:54
  Merging or gray zone.
• 1:44:56
  It was kind of the horse has its job to do.
• 1:44:58
  I have my job to do.
• 1:45:00
  Cause there was, you could see the love for the horse and it was amazing
• 1:45:04
  to watch the Mongolian people ride.
• 1:45:06
  I just.
• 1:45:08
  Well, my husband and I were both like, wow,
• 1:45:13
  Rupert Isaacson: right.
• 1:45:13
  I mean, what, what you're looking at there is of course, one of the
• 1:45:15
  original versions of horsemanship.
• 1:45:17
  And so there's bad and good and there's everything.
• 1:45:19
  Jane Faulkner: I mean, people
• 1:45:21
  Rupert Isaacson: can be incredibly brutal and rough with their horses there.
• 1:45:24
  Jane Faulkner: But at the
• 1:45:24
  Rupert Isaacson: same time, the horses are also largely left alone to be horses.
• 1:45:28
  There are people who absolutely named their horses.
• 1:45:30
  And for example, there's a whole, there's a whole subculture of horse racing there.
• 1:45:36
  And, you know, very, very, a lot of money changes hands and it's not horse
• 1:45:40
  racing as we know, it's, it's, it's, it's the 30 mile races across country
• 1:45:45
  with eight year old jockeys, but nonetheless, it's, it's, it's a very
• 1:45:48
  Jane Faulkner: festival
• 1:45:50
  Rupert Isaacson: festival.
• 1:45:50
  Yeah.
• 1:45:51
  And then when it gets competitive the mounted archery amounted wrestling the
• 1:45:55
  nomad games cock Peru, which is the sort of rugby on horseback that they play.
• 1:45:59
  So, there's like in our culture there's working horsemanship.
• 1:46:03
  Yeah.
• 1:46:04
  Practical horsemanship and then the sport horsemanship and of
• 1:46:06
  course all the interplays between.
• 1:46:08
  But I think what's different there is that it's still a place where people
• 1:46:12
  genuinely rely, like truly, truly, truly rely on horses for their livelihood.
• 1:46:17
  It's not, it's not, it's not a, you can make a sport out of your culture, but
• 1:46:21
  the culture is the culture of the horse.
• 1:46:23
  I mean, to the point that they're wearing them, that they're eating
• 1:46:26
  them, that they're drinking them.
• 1:46:28
  That's so true.
• 1:46:29
  You know, the, the horse is everything in life.
• 1:46:32
  It's not just a thing you ride or it's not just transport or it's not
• 1:46:36
  just winning you money in a race.
• 1:46:38
  It's you, you are drinking it's milk, you're, you know, the whole lot.
• 1:46:41
  Mm.
• 1:46:41
  So the, the, and then of course what I, one thing I really liked about
• 1:46:47
  Mongolia was that they still revere.
• 1:46:50
  the original wild horse.
• 1:46:52
  So their horses are not wild.
• 1:46:54
  They are domestic horses.
• 1:46:55
  They just live very naturalistically.
• 1:46:58
  But there's still the Przewalski's horse and their name for the Przewalski's
• 1:47:02
  horse is Takin, which means honored one.
• 1:47:05
  That one you leave alone.
• 1:47:07
  It's really interesting.
• 1:47:07
  You, you respect, you absolutely respect its independence.
• 1:47:11
  So our, our program that we have, which is doing all the groundwork and
• 1:47:15
  the in hand dressage work as its own therapy, we call TEI, Taquine Equine
• 1:47:21
  Integration, because I liked that word of the Honored One of coming to the
• 1:47:26
  horse and saying, I do revere you.
• 1:47:30
  You, I'm going to anthropomorphize the shit out of this, but I
• 1:47:34
  do, I just have to, you know.
• 1:47:35
  Because horses do represent a big thing in our mythology and in our spirit and
• 1:47:39
  they represent freedom and they represent power and they represent beauty and they
• 1:47:43
  represent transformation and journey.
• 1:47:46
  And they just flat out do.
• 1:47:48
  And that is sort of because that is sort of what they do for us.
• 1:47:51
  So what can we do for them.
• 1:47:53
  We can honor them, we can honor them.
• 1:47:55
  In the same way that we can honor each other.
• 1:47:57
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:47:58
  And I think that's so important because we miss that, don't we?
• 1:48:01
  We do.
• 1:48:02
  Just that I think that's a great thing to bring back in.
• 1:48:05
  But as you were talking and you spoke about their independence, and I think
• 1:48:09
  that's what stood out for me in the Mongolian horses, that I don't see so
• 1:48:15
  much in the domesticated horses here is this independence, this, almost this
• 1:48:21
  sovereignty, this kind of, I can, I mean, they're out living kind of wild and free
• 1:48:27
  for five months of the year over there.
• 1:48:29
  And I remember just really feeling this difference in the horses and in their
• 1:48:34
  kind of just the way their beingness.
• 1:48:36
  Absolutely.
• 1:48:36
  Rupert Isaacson: And there's, there's pros and cons with that because
• 1:48:39
  some of them die in the winter, some of them get eaten by wolves.
• 1:48:42
  You know, some of them,
• 1:48:46
  Dying childbirth or whatever.
• 1:48:48
  And, but one thing I think, I think you're right, that I took from it was, I've kept
• 1:48:56
  my horses in all sorts of different ways.
• 1:48:59
  Yeah.
• 1:48:59
  I've kept them in boxes, I've kept them not in boxes, I've
• 1:49:01
  kept them outside all the time.
• 1:49:03
  And what I've realized over time is my preference is to have horses that
• 1:49:08
  live out all the time, and that can come into a shelter, and in the winter
• 1:49:12
  here in Northern Europe, yes, you have to rug them, and that sort of thing.
• 1:49:15
  But you can have horses working at a very high performance level,
• 1:49:19
  living very naturalistically like that in a herd, moving in and out,
• 1:49:23
  eating at will, moving at will.
• 1:49:24
  And then if you are in a situation where you have to have a horse that's
• 1:49:29
  convenient and clean, like some of our horse boy centers, we have a lot of
• 1:49:32
  those places we'll put them out at night.
• 1:49:35
  And then in the day they might stand in so that you don't have to groom the horse
• 1:49:38
  from mud every single time you're going to put someone on it, which, okay, fine.
• 1:49:41
  So that's the working time of day and they're there and they're available,
• 1:49:44
  but they're also moving a lot.
• 1:49:45
  They're not bored.
• 1:49:46
  They're not standing hour after hour in a box.
• 1:49:49
  They're, they're, they're just kind of chilling.
• 1:49:51
  In between sessions, but then they're outside at night and they
• 1:49:53
  go back to being horses again.
• 1:49:55
  That's my preferred method.
• 1:49:56
  However, you know, I work in so many environments where people
• 1:50:01
  don't necessarily have that choice.
• 1:50:03
  And I've been around a lot of horsemanship clinics and symposiums
• 1:50:08
  where people shame each other and say, well, you shouldn't keep your
• 1:50:10
  horse in a box and you shouldn't.
• 1:50:11
  And someone says, well, I haven't got any choice because, you know, I
• 1:50:14
  bought my horse at this livery stable and these are the rules and I'm
• 1:50:17
  sorry, but I haven't got the money to buy myself, you know, 20 acres.
• 1:50:21
  And so, and what I realized with that is, yeah, what you need to do is kind of.
• 1:50:26
  do it the best you can while honoring the horse's need for independence,
• 1:50:31
  movement, choice, agency, and so on.
• 1:50:33
  But that can look quite different from horse owner to horse owner or
• 1:50:37
  barn to barn or local horse culture to local horse culture because
• 1:50:41
  depending on certain constraints.
• 1:50:44
  And that we have to have some compassion for this and work with people where
• 1:50:50
  they are versus where they are, right?
• 1:50:52
  But I do think you're absolutely right that if you're taking as a sort of a
• 1:50:56
  baseline, well, we would like to be as close to this Mongolian model as we can.
• 1:51:03
  How do we do that?
• 1:51:04
  Does that mean that I have to let my horses free run in the arena for
• 1:51:07
  a certain number of hours in the day or, or what or what, but are we
• 1:51:12
  at least thinking in these times?
• 1:51:14
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 1:51:14
  And for me, it's not, it wasn't even, I was just curious about, because I could
• 1:51:19
  feel the difference and I was just curious about it and what created the difference.
• 1:51:23
  And then I guess, as you were talking, I was like, Oh, that's what it is.
• 1:51:26
  Cause for me, I totally agree.
• 1:51:28
  Everyone does the best with what they have, with what they
• 1:51:31
  know, with where they're at.
• 1:51:32
  Yeah.
• 1:51:33
  And I would love it if we could all have more generous assumptions and
• 1:51:37
  ask questions and be curious rather than kind of judge one another.
• 1:51:42
  Yeah.
• 1:51:43
  Rupert Isaacson: I feel that we're slowly getting there, you know, I think,
• 1:51:46
  Jane Faulkner: yeah, I agree.
• 1:51:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Organizations like yours are a part of that.
• 1:51:49
  And I think again, that is a, that is a, perhaps an advantage that you have
• 1:51:55
  from coming in from outside the horse.
• 1:51:57
  Culture is that you can bring a sudden lack of judgment which helps we horse
• 1:52:04
  people to be less judgmental because let's forget the humans that we're serving.
• 1:52:09
  You know, the big question is horse welfare.
• 1:52:12
  And.
• 1:52:13
  So my horses need to be happy, and they need to have well being, because
• 1:52:16
  how can they possibly impart happiness and well being to a human if they
• 1:52:20
  don't have that to give, right?
• 1:52:22
  So this is the big conversation, I think, of our time as horse people
• 1:52:25
  is, given the constraints that we have how, how do we ensure that well being?
• 1:52:32
  Yeah.
• 1:52:33
  Jane Faulkner: And I love that we are working that out.
• 1:52:36
  Like more and more like, and for me, clients help me see that.
• 1:52:40
  Like clients in the early days, were really, were right on to
• 1:52:44
  the horse doesn't wanna do that.
• 1:52:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:52:46
  Jane Faulkner: And so I had to kind of think, all right, what's,
• 1:52:49
  how, how can I do this differently?
• 1:52:51
  How can I support this horse to still be in the conversation in a
• 1:52:55
  way that it feels comfortable to?
• 1:52:56
  Can
• 1:52:57
  Rupert Isaacson: you give us, can you give us the example
• 1:52:57
  that stands out in your mind?
• 1:52:58
  Most of that where, yeah.
• 1:53:00
  Yeah.
• 1:53:00
  Yeah.
• 1:53:01
  Jane Faulkner: So for me I was working with the herd of horses at
• 1:53:05
  the retreat that I worked in and there was one horse that was just
• 1:53:08
  lovely and very giving and would kind of always come forward for work.
• 1:53:15
  And I was quite early on in my practice, so, relied on a lot
• 1:53:21
  of work with the horses halted.
• 1:53:23
  And I remember going to this horse Jack, his name was, and going to
• 1:53:27
  put the halter on, and he obviously did not want the halter on.
• 1:53:32
  And I put it on anyway.
• 1:53:34
  And I felt like shit.
• 1:53:37
  The whole session, and I remember promising him, I'll never do that to
• 1:53:40
  you again and realizing it meant I was going to look, I was going to let people
• 1:53:46
  down because these people paid a big amount of money for these sessions.
• 1:53:49
  And it meant that I needed to work out a different way to, to work to give people
• 1:53:57
  insights and awareness into what was happening for them without making Jack do
• 1:54:02
  all the work on the halter or with that.
• 1:54:05
  Yeah.
• 1:54:05
  Rupert Isaacson: So what did you work out given that you have to dance
• 1:54:08
  between honoring what the client Is showing up and paying money to do,
• 1:54:15
  which is a real thing, the need for the horse as a colleague, which is a real
• 1:54:19
  thing and the need to recognize their horse's agency, which is a real thing.
• 1:54:25
  What did you do?
• 1:54:27
  Jane Faulkner: So for me, I learned to get really curious about
• 1:54:32
  everything the horses did in relation to what the person said and did.
• 1:54:37
  And I learned to support the person to get curious about that too.
• 1:54:44
  And.
• 1:54:45
  I started to notice like more and more that the horses did give really
• 1:54:49
  clear indicators of and support the person to become really aware of
• 1:54:56
  themselves in a way that was much more profound than if the horse was halted.
• 1:55:01
  So, for example, if the person was really dysregulated and really
• 1:55:07
  Thinking things or had a lot of emotion, generally, the horses
• 1:55:11
  wouldn't want to be near that person.
• 1:55:13
  But then as the person got in touch with their feelings and became congruent, so
• 1:55:20
  became authentic and maybe even spoke to me or the horse about their feelings, the
• 1:55:25
  horses turned in and wanted to engage.
• 1:55:28
  And so the person, the people realize like, because something I'll ask somebody
• 1:55:34
  when a horse does something like if a horse or four horses move away, I might
• 1:55:38
  say to that person, is that familiar?
• 1:55:41
  And the person will go, yeah, it feels like my family.
• 1:55:44
  And then it's like, what's that like?
• 1:55:46
  Can you tell the horses what's that like for you?
• 1:55:50
  And as they tell the horses, something in the person shifts and the horses
• 1:55:54
  respond to that state, state shift.
• 1:55:57
  Often it means the person needs to become more vulnerable or more real
• 1:56:01
  and that's what the horses respond to.
• 1:56:03
  And then the person can join the dogs and they, they realize like,
• 1:56:07
  oh, gosh, when I'm uptight and stressed, it pushes my family away.
• 1:56:13
  But when I own what I'm feeling and I'm honest about what's happening for
• 1:56:19
  me, my family want to come closer.
• 1:56:22
  So they kind of, that's where horses I find are amazing.
• 1:56:25
  They, they give a really tangible indication of where that person's at.
• 1:56:30
  And they give the person an opportunity to try something different and they respond.
• 1:56:35
  And the person feels it in their body.
• 1:56:38
  Rupert Isaacson: I would agree.
• 1:56:40
  And I would agree with that.
• 1:56:41
  Right across every human interaction with horses, you know, whether it's
• 1:56:46
  therapeutic or whether it's Work, you know, working equitation with cow work
• 1:56:51
  or whether it's a sport or whatever.
• 1:56:54
  For sure.
• 1:56:55
  And I think, I think everyone at the, who's serious about any of the
• 1:56:59
  interactions with horses to some degree comes to this realization that you
• 1:57:03
  have to change something in yourself often and frequently, not just once.
• 1:57:07
  Because you're dealing with organisms that reflect.
• 1:57:12
  where you are.
• 1:57:12
  So as you say, if, if it took me a long time, for example, when I am going to do
• 1:57:17
  a dressage type thing to be really okay with it, feeling where the horse is at.
• 1:57:21
  And sometimes they're like, no, it's not what I want.
• 1:57:24
  All right.
• 1:57:24
  You know what?
• 1:57:25
  No problem.
• 1:57:25
  Let's just go in the forest.
• 1:57:28
  And then frequently when we've gone in the forest, they're like, you know what,
• 1:57:30
  actually that dressage thing, I kind of feel like doing a little bit of that.
• 1:57:33
  And that's exactly how I would be, you know, I would be like, look, I want
• 1:57:37
  to just, you know, go chill first.
• 1:57:38
  And then when I've had a little bit of a run around and explore, then yeah,
• 1:57:41
  I'm kind of want to engage in this kind of absorbing thing, you know, but
• 1:57:47
  that totally reflects my personality.
• 1:57:49
  Why would they not?
• 1:57:51
  Jane Faulkner: Exactly.
• 1:57:52
  And it deepens the relationship, doesn't it?
• 1:57:55
  Like for me, it just creates a much more profound, deep
• 1:57:58
  relationship, but it takes humility.
• 1:58:01
  It takes willing to, like for me in front of clients or students
• 1:58:06
  being willing to go, look, I don't know what's going to happen.
• 1:58:11
  They're walking away.
• 1:58:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, this is the thing I think what, what people fear.
• 1:58:17
  very, very, for very real and good reasons is that if you know, you're, you're
• 1:58:22
  a horse professional or whatever and your horse doesn't want to participate,
• 1:58:25
  well, you know, you're letting people down and you're not delivering the
• 1:58:28
  service that you said you would.
• 1:58:30
  Or if you're not doing it professionally, but you've just been told you've
• 1:58:33
  got to tell the horse what to do.
• 1:58:34
  You've got to be boss of the horse or the horse won't respect you.
• 1:58:37
  And although there's truths in that, that's not the whole truth, but
• 1:58:41
  there are certain truths in that.
• 1:58:44
  What I found, and I'm sure you've found.
• 1:58:45
  But perhaps this might be useful for listeners is just to inform people up
• 1:58:49
  front, you know, so for example, if I am giving a quote unquote dressage
• 1:58:54
  thing in just the same way as if I'm giving a quote unquote therapy
• 1:58:57
  thing, I'll often say to the clients, look, it could go like this and it
• 1:59:00
  could go like that for these reasons.
• 1:59:03
  If it goes like this, then my suggestion is we go blah, blah, blah.
• 1:59:07
  And if it goes like that, my suggestion, and, or it might just,
• 1:59:10
  we might just go straight to the thing, but are you okay with that?
• 1:59:15
  Flexibility before we begin, and you sort of give them a chance to say to
• 1:59:20
  understand and then to say, well, okay, you know, or no, actually, I'm not
• 1:59:26
  okay with that, you know, in which case we can say, well, perhaps we're not,
• 1:59:29
  we're not the right fit for each other.
• 1:59:30
  That's all right, too.
• 1:59:32
  But I find with most with most people it's it's more about just
• 1:59:34
  giving giving the information if you give the information, give people a
• 1:59:37
  chance to understand I'm the same.
• 1:59:39
  If you give me a chance to understand I'm probably okay with it.
• 1:59:41
  You know what I mean?
• 1:59:42
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 1:59:44
  I agree.
• 1:59:45
  Yeah, that transparency.
• 1:59:47
  Rupert Isaacson: So I've got a last, I've got a question for you.
• 1:59:49
  Jane Faulkner: I
• 1:59:49
  Rupert Isaacson: would like to, I would like to have you on again.
• 1:59:51
  There's lots of other questions I've got for you.
• 1:59:52
  So if you're up for it, I'd like to do a part two or even a part three with you.
• 1:59:57
  And I'm sure that the listeners feel the same.
• 1:59:59
  I, yeah.
• 2:00:00
  I'm thinking back to that girl, the young girl who was living in her car
• 2:00:06
  in Brisbane, who you saw when she was 13 years old living in her car, having
• 2:00:12
  to do whatever she could do to survive.
• 2:00:14
  If she was your client now, how would you help her?
• 2:00:22
  Jane Faulkner: Great question.
• 2:00:24
  So, I would help her
• 2:00:30
  just by being a, an equal human beside her.
• 2:00:37
  Yeah.
• 2:00:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:00:39
  Jane Faulkner: And keeping it that simple, just by being an equal human that valued
• 2:00:45
  her and that saw the gold within her,
• 2:00:48
  Rupert Isaacson: that
• 2:00:50
  Jane Faulkner: didn't see what she did or, cause she would bring a lot of shame.
• 2:00:56
  I imagine.
• 2:00:57
  I'm so sure.
• 2:00:58
  Yeah.
• 2:00:58
  Yeah.
• 2:00:59
  Yeah, to honor that shame and to support her to see her light and
• 2:01:06
  to let her know that's what I see.
• 2:01:09
  Rupert Isaacson: To perhaps honor the courage that it takes to go into something
• 2:01:15
  that is going to cause that shame.
• 2:01:18
  That takes great courage, right?
• 2:01:20
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah, 100%.
• 2:01:24
  And more just to let her know her shame is welcome and it makes sense that
• 2:01:29
  it's there and that there's nothing wrong with that shame being there.
• 2:01:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, okay.
• 2:01:34
  And that she's much
• 2:01:35
  Jane Faulkner: more than
• 2:01:36
  Rupert Isaacson: What does that mean?
• 2:01:37
  That's intriguing.
• 2:01:38
  Okay.
• 2:01:39
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 2:01:40
  So, I mean, we all Okay, because normally
• 2:01:42
  Rupert Isaacson: we think shame is something that isn't so welcome, you know,
• 2:01:45
  because it has negative associations.
• 2:01:47
  So why is shame welcome?
• 2:01:48
  Tell us about that.
• 2:01:50
  Jane Faulkner: Because shame is trying to protect us in some way.
• 2:01:53
  Shame is trying to reveal something to us in some way.
• 2:01:56
  Shame's part of being human.
• 2:01:59
  And so if I reject it or push it away, I reject or push away a part of myself.
• 2:02:05
  And I don't want a client to do that.
• 2:02:08
  And, and they'll be pushing away the most vulnerable part of themselves.
• 2:02:13
  And I'm more one to say, Hey, I see that vulnerable part and it is so welcome here.
• 2:02:19
  And thank you for showing me that part of you.
• 2:02:23
  And can you let that part of, you know, I'm so grateful it's
• 2:02:26
  shown up that takes courage.
• 2:02:30
  So I never, ever want anyone to reject their shame, but that's healing for me
• 2:02:36
  is learning to pick your shame up and hold it and say, Hey, I've got you.
• 2:02:41
  Yeah.
• 2:02:41
  And accept it, bring it close.
• 2:02:44
  We learned to push it away and reject it
• 2:02:48
  Rupert Isaacson: like, like in a child healing effectively.
• 2:02:51
  Yes.
• 2:02:52
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 2:02:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
• 2:02:55
  Okay.
• 2:02:55
  I think we need another conversation about that
• 2:02:59
  if you're up for later.
• 2:03:01
  Jane Faulkner: Yeah.
• 2:03:01
  I'd love to.
• 2:03:02
  Yeah.
• 2:03:03
  Rupert Isaacson: I think everyone, everyone, everyone.
• 2:03:06
  And
• 2:03:07
  it, it,
• 2:03:10
  I think whether you're, whether you're the person suffering from it, which is
• 2:03:15
  everyone on the planet, or whether you're the first to help somebody with it.
• 2:03:21
  I thought is really from the conversation is, well, what's it, what are the
• 2:03:26
  positive sides of it and why might it be welcome and what might be doing
• 2:03:31
  for you that's helping you and how is it, how is it, how is it helping
• 2:03:36
  you to acquire wisdom and how is it helping you to acquire compassion.
• 2:03:40
  And how has it helped, you know, looking through that the lens of the
• 2:03:43
  heart as if, you know, Kansas Caridine and her work with HeartMath Institute,
• 2:03:47
  but she's, she would say, you know, I feel terrible speaking for Caridine.
• 2:03:52
  Sorry, Kansas.
• 2:03:53
  But, you know, she, she might say, she might say, looking
• 2:03:55
  through the lens of the heart.
• 2:03:58
  And one of the, the, you know, when she said that to me, it hit home immediately.
• 2:04:04
  That is exactly what we are trained to not to do.
• 2:04:08
  Jane Faulkner: Yes, and it's what we all need.
• 2:04:10
  Yes, to see one another through the lens of the heart.
• 2:04:14
  That's such a beautiful saying, the lens of the heart.
• 2:04:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Because it renders us uncontrollable and we're not
• 2:04:20
  going to go off and fight and die on foreign battlefields if we're
• 2:04:23
  looking through the lens of the heart.
• 2:04:24
  Jane Faulkner: It's so true.
• 2:04:26
  And we want to support each other and build one another up.
• 2:04:28
  So governments and
• 2:04:29
  Rupert Isaacson: churches don't have much.
• 2:04:31
  Jane Faulkner: They don't
• 2:04:32
  Rupert Isaacson: have much incentive to help us to see that way.
• 2:04:35
  Jane Faulkner: So true.
• 2:04:36
  And yet we crave it, eh?
• 2:04:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Like, like oxygen.
• 2:04:42
  Jane Faulkner: Mm.
• 2:04:43
  Yeah.
• 2:04:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Like love.
• 2:04:49
  Whoa, Jane Faulkner, thank you.
• 2:04:52
  Jane Faulkner: Thank you.
• 2:04:53
  Brilliant.
• 2:04:53
  Thanks so much.
• 2:04:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 2:04:54
  So, so with the knowledge that we're going to explore some more things
• 2:04:58
  for those, I think we should sign off and let people digest this so far.
• 2:05:04
  What are the resources?
• 2:05:05
  Just give us the web stuff, books, whatever, the way people can find you,
• 2:05:08
  YouTube, the lot, just how do we, how do they find their way to you and your stuff?
• 2:05:12
  Jane Faulkner: Sure.
• 2:05:13
  Website is equine assisted therapy, australia.
• 2:05:17
  com.
• 2:05:17
  au and Facebook is the same equine assisted therapy,
• 2:05:21
  Australia and same as Instagram.
• 2:05:23
  And that's, that's about it.
• 2:05:26
  No books yet.
• 2:05:26
  But the website
• 2:05:27
  Rupert Isaacson: is com.
• 2:05:29
  au chaps.
• 2:05:31
  Those of us outside of Australia, remember it's an AU on the end after the com.
• 2:05:36
  Jane Faulkner: Yes.
• 2:05:37
  Thank you.
• 2:05:37
  But
• 2:05:37
  Rupert Isaacson: I presume if they type equine assisted Australia into
• 2:05:40
  Google, it'll still come up to you.
• 2:05:42
  Jane Faulkner: I, hopefully.
• 2:05:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:05:45
  Okay.
• 2:05:45
  Jane Faulkner: Awesome.
• 2:05:46
  Thank you so much, Rupert.
• 2:05:47
  I've loved this conversation.
• 2:05:49
  Thank
• 2:05:49
  Rupert Isaacson: you.
• 2:05:51
  Likewise.
• 2:05:51
  Likewise.
• 2:05:52
  I learned a lot.
• 2:05:53
  So thank you for mentoring me.
• 2:05:55
  And I look forward to the next one.
• 2:05:58
  Jane Faulkner: Awesome.
• 2:05:59
  Thanks, Rupert..
• 2:05:59
  Rupert Isaacson: thank you for joining us.
• 2:06:01
  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
• 2:06:03
  Join our website, new trails learning.com, to check out our online
• 2:06:08
  courses and live workshops in Horse Boy Method, movement Method, and Athena.
• 2:06:14
  These evidence-based programs have helped children, veterans, and people
• 2:06:18
  dealing with trauma around the world.
• 2:06:21
  We also offer a horse training program and self-care program
• 2:06:24
  for riders on long ride home.com.
• 2:06:28
  These include easy to do online courses and tutorials that
• 2:06:32
  bring you and your horse joy.
• 2:06:34
  For an overview of all shows and programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
• 2:06:39
  See you on the next show.
• 2:06:41
  And please remember to press, subscribe and share.