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Sarah Farris · Relatively Stable

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Relatively Stable.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kimberly Carter.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast was born from the meaningful conversations that I'm privileged to have
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: every day at my farm,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Bramblewood Stables in Taylor,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: South Carolina.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: we delve into the journeys of those who have faced challenges,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: uncovered their passions,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: and discovered resilience along the way.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're here for the stories,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: seeking inspiration,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: or simply love the wisdom we glean from the horses and life,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: you're in the right place.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive into the stories that remind us how to stay relatively stable, no matter what comes our way.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is our inaugural episode and the first of many conversations that I will have with Sarah Farris.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sarah is my enigmatic co-trainer at Bramblewood Stables.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Raised in the suburbs of Washington, DC, Sarah graduated from Virginia Tech.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: we will introduce you to the work we do together,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: and you have the privilege of hearing Sarah's words as she redefines what
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: connection means.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: As Sarah says, horses help me see myself differently.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sarah is a brilliant trainer with a fathomless mind that helps her students and me
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: see the larger picture.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: She helps us see where all the separate strands of life interconnect.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad to sit down and speak with her today and to share her wisdom with all of you.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I am so excited to welcome you to Relatively Stable.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is episode one of our podcast that we have been talking about forever.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I have with me the enigmatic Sarah Ferris, our very own Sarah Ferris.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And this podcast is going to be about lots of things,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: but we are really going to be focusing on our human ability of overcoming adversity,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: finding strength through passion.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the powerful bond between horses and humans.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I say with every new initiative we start out with that we are not going to just
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: necessarily focus on horses,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: but then we always will focus on the horses.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to not pretend like that isn't our focus because it is because horses
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: is what brings us together to begin with.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also always about so much more.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So Sarah has been with us for many years and we're going to get into your
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: background and how you came here and how you came to be working with horses with us
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: every day,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: which is amazing.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm going to ask you to share stories about your early life,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: too,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: because so many people know you,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm not sure if many people know you.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so this podcast serves a lot of purposes.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: But number one is I wanted to highlight just your beauty because you're such an amazing human being.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So can you tell me about the story of the first time you felt an actual deep connection with a horse?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because I didn't have horses in my life in my early years.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: So like the first deep connection I could say was probably the black stallion on the screen.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like so many of us.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's what everybody who grew up in the 70s and 80s wanted was the black stallion.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I met in a parking lot when I was little.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: He was, he was at a book signing or, I mean, I don't know if it was the actual Blacks.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: There were a few of them, I think.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: A couple of them that did this, the scene.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like if we're talking about in reality, it would have to be, of course, Matilda.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: If we're going to talk about me, we're going to talk about Matilda.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody knows it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: She's a big draft mayor.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: One of the first ones I worked with when I came to Bramblewood.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: But I think
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: The interesting thing,
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: just kind of in thinking about it really over the last couple of years,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: is that when I was working with Matilda,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: connection,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: deep connection wasn't really a thing.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like it wasn't a part of a process.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't anything we were looking for.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that came into our vocabulary probably about three or four years ago.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: We started talking about connection as something and what is it?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's something to lead with.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Something to lead with, a part of a process.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: It was a container for an idea, a word.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: And when we started talking about it,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: I was really frustrated and I was depressed because I was like,
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: dang,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: I had this great time with this horse and I missed out on all the things and we
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: didn't even try.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: And it was really frustrating because she had already passed.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then over the course,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: and then it became frustrating more because then I started looking for connection
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: with another horse and he was like...
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: He's just stoic.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's nothing wrong with him.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: He's just stoic.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: He wasn't giving me the feedback I wanted.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so in the frustration,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: when I went back and read my notes about the time I spent with Matilda,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: everything was there.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: It was all there.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: I just didn't have an idea about it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have a container for it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: It was,
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: but you know,
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: things like hanging out in the paddock with her and just watching her figuring out
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: how she learned the spirit of play and
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: walking her walking up to me voluntarily you know in my head it had all become this
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: work thing but there was a lot of beauty and stuff there that I just it was just us
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: hanging out together and it isn't that funny like without the label of connection
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: how that's what you were actively doing yeah and what led you to stumbling on that
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: being the solution with Matilda
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: You mean as far as getting to her or...
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: Getting to know her first before...
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know that I saw it as a solution.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: It was really like I was just doing things, trying to figure out what to do.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: And it just came.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: And it was, you know, when I read back through it, it's like, well...
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know what to do.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: I ran out of carrots because I was clicker training or so.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: I sat and I just watched her and or, you know, it just happened.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: It evolved.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost like I'm trying to get back to that because it seems so honest.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: It seems way more honest to me than trying to create connection as part of a
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: process that we hung out together.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, things like
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: I have pictures of her laying down in the paddock where I went to get her and she's laying down.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: And my thought wasn't like, Oh my God, my horse trusts me.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was what the hell I came down to work and you're just laying there.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: I can't get her up.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: She's too cute.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I would just sit and stare at her while she laid down.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it's,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that's just, it's so, yeah.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have this knee jerk revulsion that happens now to all of the catchy keywords that
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: we're using for everything.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Especially with human growth, with a lot of things that we do with the horses.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that just like this elusive concept of self-care
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: That it can be used, like the labels can be used as an excuse to not actually find the thing.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And just to give everybody a little bit of a background,
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: because it hasn't been that long since Matilda left us,
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: but Matilda was a Gypsy Banner Thoroughbred Cross that I had.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: She came into my life in really cool, weird ways when she was two years old.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So she was a super young horse when she came to be with me.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she had some humans,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: and we'll be getting into that more with Sarah's story and your history with
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Matilda and what brought you to her.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: She very early on had showed signs of having squamous cell cancer.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And before we moved into the facility that we're in now,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: that's Bramblewood,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: and we've been here for about 18 years,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: the last thing we did really before moving was do surgery to remove her third
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: eyelid right before we moved because her vision had become almost obscured from the cancer.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So throughout her time with us,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: and she lived very long,
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: she was extraordinarily healthy in all other ways up to the day she passed.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have no idea what was happening on the inside.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: But she was a horse that really struck people's imagination in a very, very, very deep way.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And she was big and she looked like a unicorn and she was amazing.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And she had this deep soulful, like just way about her.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: But tell me more about just Matilda and how she came into your life.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: Matilda came in when my ex-husband and I started riding here many, many years ago.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: And the first thing, he was a very tall man and we wanted to own horses.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: The first thing I knew of Matilda, we leased her.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: we, he and I leased her for him.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: And it was basically because we needed a horse big enough to carry him.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: We were trying to figure out how to do that.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: Long story short, she was just too much.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: She was too much.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: The economy failed.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: We couldn't, we ended up not getting the horses.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: Thank God.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to tell everybody when you say economy failed, that was the 2008 financial crisis, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: So we gave up the lease.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: We gave up the whole dream of owning horses and,
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't even afford to take lessons with Kim anymore.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: So I came to Kim and asked her for a project here at Bramblewood.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Bramblewood was really different at that point.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: She actually did have horses that were just out in a paddock kind of not being used.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: The training program here had changed.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: And there were some horses that were falling through the cracks.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I just asked her for something to do so that I would keep coming because I
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: didn't want to stop coming.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I knew if I didn't have something, I probably would just drop off.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we had stopped using Matilda because she was so powerful that she could be
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: intimidating to your average rider coming off the street.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: she was trained, but she also was so wily and so smart that I'm, and I think about a story with Matilda.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was, we have two rings here at Bramblewood and one is up a hill and it doesn't have a fence.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the other is near the barn and near where kind of with horses get free, that's where they go.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And in this case, I don't think it was one of those moments where your ex-husband had lost Matilda.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was when we were just,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: One of our apprentices at the time was riding,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: no,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: they were riding Matilda in the lower ring and she's going straight at a cancer
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: down the long side.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then horizontally, she leaps sideways out of the fence.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just this beautiful cancer and suddenly she's outside the arena and it
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: was the most effortless thing.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So she wasn't a horse that was a problem horse.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: She was a horse that was like, I just, we couldn't use her in lessons because she was, she was powerful.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: She was smart.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's big.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: She was big.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: And she did have like, as far as teaching people to ride.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to tell this one.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: There was a time when my ex-husband would be taking lessons in the top ring on
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: Matilda with her ex-husband.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: I was taking lessons in the lower ring with Kim.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: And Kim and I are talking and we're doing our thing.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden, Matilda comes running down to the barn and we both just watch her.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm without a human, without a human, without a human.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know which one of us said it, but one of us said, isn't my husband supposed to be?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it could have been, it could have been either one of our husbands at the time.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, just in the power and strength of her shoulders and getting away.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: She was in that one.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was in all the things that we can look back on now and be like, yeah, I know why she was doing it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know that like, she wasn't balanced in this way.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to say that my my friendship with Sarah,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: like you were a client,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: you and your ex-husband,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: and we would have dinners together with my ex-husband.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: But when I when my ex-husband left,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: that's when so much of our program and so much of what we do here changed.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we left.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: We stopped being a very traditional writing stable.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm using quote fingers here.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: and we started then the search of whatever it is that we became which is something
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: much more it is it's more esoteric it's more philosophizing it is more making
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: people really ask be able to to ask their own questions and answer their questions
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: through the inquiry that we do here and there is so much more that we do but i
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: remember being so devastated because i've got this farm and it really was hard for
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: two people to run it let alone one person running it
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it was my it was my life and it was my income and so much of my seed money had created this place.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I had somebody come to me and say and ask,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: when he knew that my ex-husband and I were splitting,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: he asked what we would be if we didn't have someone with a foreign like a man with
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: a foreign accent in tall boots teaching.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just be like everyone else.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I took that as a challenge.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, watch us not be like everybody else.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Game on.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I say all this because I was devastated.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was going through the motions.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was not able to function well.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I already was, was anorexic.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: I had anxiety disorder.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then everything just kind of fell apart.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Sarah, who I didn't know very well, she and her ex-husband came by.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I explained that my, my ex-husband and I were getting a divorce and she just kind of like went, ah, okay.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then a couple of days later, or it could have been that same afternoon there.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I found on my desk, a big bag of peanut M&Ms and fingernail polish.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: and when I found out that it came from you I mean that one I will never forget in
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: my weird desperation I knew I could eat peanut M&Ms I knew that there would be some
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: protein yeah
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew I could eat that.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for sustaining me.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then, and then the thought that I could possibly polish my nails.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just fun and silliness kind of cracked open this little, little cloud of doom that I was in.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I thank you for that.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's my first big memory of Sarah Ferris.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: I remember, I know we had lessons.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I remember specifics of it, but that's when, that's when you became Sarah Ferris, my friend.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So now that we have a little bit of a background with Matilda,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: tell me then about,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: the financial crisis has happened.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: You are on your way to figuring out what to do next to keep horses in your life.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So how then did that relationship with Matilda start?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: It started...
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: Basically, I asked you if I could have a project.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: You said Matilda.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: I said no.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then I went away and thought about it.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: I said, I'll do Matilda, but I didn't want to be attached to her.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I would basically go down into her paddock because she was out 24-7 at that point.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: With a book of groundwork exercises, a clicker and a bucket of carrots.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: And you said I could try it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: I said, can I try clicker training her?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: Because I don't want to be attached to her because she's going to rip my arms out of the socket.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: I know this for a fact.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: What I found was she really liked learning.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: She was really down for it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: Once she figured out what was going on and there was a try that needed to happen and stuff, she was...
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: so cool with it and and that's where she and i started was just clicker training
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: and going through this book of exercises and adapting it for clicker work for
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: non-lead work and just started working on like backing up and moving shoulders and
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: that's what we did and we just made it up as we went along do you have a background
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: with clicker training before you came to matilda
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: Not yes and no.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: I had done some dog training before I came to Matilda, just spent a couple of years in it.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: And clicker training had been up for understanding the process of it had been a part of that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: I had used it some with my dog Penny, but it's not like I had clicker training work.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: I just knew it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: I was kind of familiar with the timing of it.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: but it wasn't, it was, it just seemed like a good idea.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: I read somewhere that someone's doing it.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: Clicker training?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: Oh God.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: She's, she's so got it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, and I used it all the way up.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: I would, when I started riding her, I clicker trained off her back.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I would get on her back with a little thing of carrots and the clicker and
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: It helps just, and I think it was very comforting for me.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: And by that time we had enough of a rapport that we would work on starts and stops
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: and moving off of a leg or standing still at the mounting block.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: I used it all the way through until I think we started into more longer trot work.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: I might've even used it into the trot work.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: Just figuring out how to do transitions and helping her understand when she
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: understood what I was trying to do.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that this is a really broad question,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: but has there been a time when horses have helped you through difficult transitions
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: in your life or a difficult transition?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to go sideways on this question a little bit.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: The thing that horses help me with the most,
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: if we're talking about transitions,
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: they really help me see myself differently.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: Coming to horses as an adult, and I had very specific... I was in a box.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this is who I am.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: This is who I am.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: And when you find yourself all of a sudden at the other end of a lunch line,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: and you guys might be wrestling it out,
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: or we're coming together,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: and all of a sudden she's something I can handle,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: it really...
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: flipped everything on its head really as far as who I was and how I saw myself and
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: how I started identifying myself yeah can you give us a little bit of a history of
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: the health challenges that you had growing up yes growing up when I was a teenager
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis it's it was I had it in both my shoulders
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: and my knee and some issues in my hip
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: It kind of defined my high school and my college and my early working years.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: It was incredibly difficult, which I think it's probably hard for people who know me now to imagine.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: So just...
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: For reference,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: when I was in high school,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: I would sleep sitting up because it was hard for me to get out of bed.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: I still, to this day, drink with straws because at that time, this, I couldn't do it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of times.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: So just lifting the glass to your lips.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: It was too,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: I drink like this and my mom watched me doing this enough that she finally just
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: started getting me straws.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: And it was hit or miss because we had a lot of painkillers and stuff like that.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: So there were good days and bad days.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: But,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: things like walking upstairs,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: incredibly difficult to the point that some days I just crawled.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't want to put the weight on my knee.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: It was too much trouble.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd just crawl up the stairs, crawl to the shower, whatever I needed to do.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: How old were you when you first crawled?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: started experiencing that type of,
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: not that type of pain,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: but when you realized that it was something other than just normal aches and pains?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was just after my freshman year of high school.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: And we had done a theater show that had a weird dance number where there was a lot
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: of jumping and we thought I had damaged my knee.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: By the end of my sophomore summer, I was in bed.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: pretty much.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when, when did you start to find relief from it?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: As far as, well, there are a couple of things.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: One, it took us a little while to figure out what was wrong.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I had every diagnosis.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: We looked at bone cancer.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: One doctor said I was just lazy and sedentary and it was giving me problems with
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: But we started when we got the diagnosis,
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: I think in my junior year of high school,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: and we were starting to get on regular pain medication that kind of helped me
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: manage it a little bit more.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: There was definitely a rhythm to it.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: There were cycles when finals,
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: when school started,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: when I had finals,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: any kind of stress would ramp it up along with some other things we were able to identify.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: So we were able to manage it through painkillers and anti-inflammatories and stuff.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: My mom and I had a ritual with it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: and then through college and I,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: it's weird when you're like this,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: when you've got these kinds of things and then all of a sudden you decide I'm going
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: to be normal and you throw all your pain killers away.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: And then three months later, you're like, mom, I need to go to the doctor.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: I made a mistake.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: So you just decided cold Turkey.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like, Oh yeah, I'm not going to feel bad.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be like, I'm not doing this.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to identify.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I just throw it all away.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then it'd be like,
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do this.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do this.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: But then I moved down here in 2000.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: And a few years after that, the symptoms started rolling back.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know why.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: The doctors had told me if it didn't go into remission by 21, this was going to be my life.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: But in 2000, I was in my mid twenties.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: It started rolling back.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then when I met you,
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: we were kind of coming to the end of it where I still had bad days,
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: but it was really dialing back.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what year, what year did you come?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: What year did you come to Bramblewood?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to say it's 2008, but the math doesn't add up.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I know that's what I was thinking.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: 2006, something like that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: We moved into this facility on April fool's day, 2006.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: So it might have been October 2006, something like that.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: You were here.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so during the transition, as my ex-husband was leaving, the financial crisis had just occurred.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: You guys were no longer able to do lessons and to have horses here.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you had taken over the rehabilitation of Matilda.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the goal with that was that Matilda become a full fledged member of the lesson program.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: That she that she pulled her weight, that she she was able to pay for her feed bill.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point in that process, I came to you and I was like, I need you to teach.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't really give you an option.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, OK, now teach.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now is the time.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: So what was it like going from that role of of student to teacher?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's surreal.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure it was completely surreal and overwhelming.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: But I think we were smart.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: We came up with it or I came up with a timeline because I don't dive into anything.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: I don't.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: so it's like you asked and sat and I thought,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: and I'm like,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: okay,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'll start taking on students on this date.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: And in,
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think I started in May,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: but up until then I just came and I'd work with Matilda and then I'd sit and I'd
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: watch and I'd ask questions and I'd come to you and be like,
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: I think I saw this.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: Would that be the correct thing to say?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I read.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so by the time we did it, it was so nerve wracking.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: Cause it was just, yeah.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: But then you just,
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: in my head,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: it was just,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: you just kind of organically flowed into you,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: like you as the trainer,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: you as the teacher.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that it's been important for people who,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: who have just shown up at Bramblewood or people who are just learning our story to
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: realize that I don't think anybody feels comfortable becoming a horse professional.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: as that is happening.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like you just wake up one day and say,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be a horse professional and you're comfortable with it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's such a teacher heavy environment that when you're making that switch
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: over to becoming the teacher,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: it's hard.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: In 13 years,
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: whatever,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: however many years later it is,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: I still,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: if somebody said you're a horse professional,
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be like,
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: no.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, no, I'm not going to do, no, that's not what I do.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's silly.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I've hit it from my own mentors.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: When I first started teaching,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: at least for the first four or five years,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I did it because I needed to make money and I had a horse and I had to pay for him
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: to live.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I hit it from my teachers.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't talk to them about the fact that, you know, luckily they were in a different state.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So where you live now, like around the try on the try on North Carolina area.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: which is about an hour, an hour and a half from the Greenville area, but it's worlds away.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it was real easy for me not to have to pretend that I was a teacher when I was with my mentors.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: But there was a lot I had to work through in myself to be able to call myself an instructor or a trainer.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot of what I go through now with,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the word life coach for the work that I do,
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: but-
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it feels wrong.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it needs a better word, but it's hard to step into those roles.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I came, I've come to the conclusion and I remember telling someone this several years ago,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: I said,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: it's easier if I don't think of myself as a trainer or a teacher,
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_03: but as a guide,
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: like I have no power or authority to tell you what to do.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: I barely know myself, but I am on a path.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: And if my path, what I'm doing interests you, you are welcome to come alongside and figure out what I do.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: And when I figured that out,
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: that helped me because I do teach people who actually they've been writing a lot
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: longer than me.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: They know way more.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: They have way more experience.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: But there's something that I've tapped into that they're interested in.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, yeah, I'll show you.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Come on.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: No problem.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: We'll talk it out.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: We'll figure this out.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: And that I think that makes it a little bit more easy to wrap my head around being able to do this.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a beautifully honest place that most of us probably need to be
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: starting with horses because,
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: or with everything in life.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think it's really easy in this industry and every industry in the world
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: to get caught up so much in the identity and the cult of personality of the major
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: figures who are leading the way that we're not actually looking at what the process
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: is anymore.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's just this kind of platform that's built around a character.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And without trying, there is a platform that is built around the Sarah Farris character.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what I love is that her name given to her by Brooke Chapman in the barn is Mother Chapman.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: whenever we reach a stump point,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: and I say it,
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: go ask mother,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: go ask mother what her thoughts on this is.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I have so many more questions for you,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sarah,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: but just to give a short history of how Sarah and I work together,
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: but we also...
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: thought we were doing something entirely separate, but not.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: We both continued to keep our traditional writing students while we've gone off
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: into our separate lines of inquiry.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Around the time we were going into lockdown, I was launching my mindset coaching practice.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I had taken this deep dive into human growth and my practice was supposed to
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: launch the day everything shuts down.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: So then I'm like, what are we gonna do then?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know, this is my plan.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like what am I gonna do if we don't have clients?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it ended up being the best timing that could have possibly happened to me.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you were going into a deep dive with horse training.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so all of this was converging around 2020 when the world just was on pause.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that gave us a chance to listen to what other people were producing out there
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: because there were more horse trainers that weren't on the road doing clinics.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So they were at home creating podcasts.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: People were talking more.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Social media within the horse industry started to be used suddenly more than it's
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: ever been,
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: had ever been before.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So in the midst of all of this,
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at horses as these amazing creatures that can help us learn to be human better.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you are looking at this as from,
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm paraphrasing,
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: becoming a better trainer that better understands to have a better conversation
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: with a horse.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: And somewhere along the way, then we both realized we're doing the same thing.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Would you talk about your process with deep diving more into classical horsemanship
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: and figuring stuff out from your perspective?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, during COVID, it was interesting.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: There was so much talk about the nervous system that came up, first of all.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's where you and I,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: I would say,
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: oh my gosh,
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: I heard this thing about the parasympathetic and
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: Kim and I had done the coaching.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: I had been her guinea pig and her test subject.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: She'd been my practice client while I was getting my certification.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: She's like, yeah, that's what I told you about on lesson three in our coaching.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh, but they're using different words and I understand these words.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's where we started putting things together.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Just listening to different people in podcasts and stuff like that.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: They would open the door into books and
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: Stuff that I really hadn't gone into, um,
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: the classical side of stuff,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: but I,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: I found Bochet and like,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: and yeah,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: and now I've got all these books on my shelf and my Amazon bill got big and I just,
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: I explore it and I love to explore it and play with it.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: And we're really fortunate here that we don't have a destination.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: No, we're not going to a show.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: We're not a dressage barn.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: We're not a hunt barn.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: So our object is to keep the horses as,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: healthy as possible, which is everybody's objective.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: But not having destination means that if one day I want to do flexions for a day
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: because I want to see what it feels like on this horse,
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not necessarily putting a pause on something else that's going on.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: It just becomes incorporated.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think subconsciously,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: no matter what,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: if we had a major event that we were planning to be at in two weeks,
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: even if we have every intention to be as pure as possible and to just take what the
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: horse does in front of us,
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that subconsciously you're always guided by, I've got to be prepared for this thing.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so taking out that we've got to be prepared for this thing really has changed
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: the way we approach everything that we do at this farm.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: What have you found?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Has there been a difference at all in the teacher that you were before COVID and
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: the teacher that you are now?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think I'm much more flexible.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: The way we've done things in the coaching and the respite sessions kind of opened doors for all of us.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: And let me say, there's so much background that we're doing.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: She and I are picking up a conversation that we started this morning, or we started 16 years ago.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Respite sessions are the place where everybody coming into the barn starts.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it began as a place for people to decompress without riding horses during lockdown,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: particularly first responders and people that were frontline medical workers.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: But then we realized that we should have been doing it with everybody who came.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's an introduction to the barn.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: You get to meet all the horses.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then we show you the bare bones of the groundwork that we do with the horses.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a lot of people who remain with me in respite sessions.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a place where we just study groundwork.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're not even pretending that we're there to ride.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're there for the peace and to get to know the horses better.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we start now,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: everybody who comes to the farm,
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: even if you've ridden for 30 years and the goal is to take riding lessons,
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: you start there with us.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it gives us an immense amount of freedom.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas strictly in the beginning, it was strictly riding school.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone was riding.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: And now we have the flexibility and we see people don't realize that you don't have to ride.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then they find out and they're like, well, maybe I don't want to.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Or they find out that if they're afraid or they don't feel well, there are other things we can do.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just, there's a fluidity to it.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a really meeting people where they are.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: And we've always done that,
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: but it's just on a bigger scope of meeting people where they are and saying,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: how can I help you feel better today?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: And learning how to we meet people where they are.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we used to cater to to cater to that idea so much that meeting people where
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: they are didn't mean meeting them with the energy or emotionally where they were at
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: that day.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: but it was meeting them with the demands they were placing on the horse.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so as a public riding school, that's something I think that we always battle.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting better language for it every single day,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: but it's hard life for a horse bringing in a constant stream of people that maybe
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: see them once a week,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: may see them once and never leave,
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: never see them again.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: But as you and I both adapted to not cave to people's expectations of what they
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: think being with horses should be.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's very frequent for any sort of public riding facility to have people
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: come in very much leading from their egos
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: trying to relive this horse glory day that they may have experienced 30,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: 40 years ago,
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: riding on a trail ride in Mexico with this one horse or their friend's horse,
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: or I jumped this horse once and they want to go back and they want to recreate that
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: sense of freedom that they felt
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that in the early days of our program,
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: we didn't have language to explain to them that they were chasing a dream that
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: wasn't real.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: That it's all the expectation,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: all the failures in their life,
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: all the things they never thought they accomplished gets collected into the one
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: symbol of the horse.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the horse feels like this thing that's going to reconnect you back with your vitality,
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: like with who you your real self.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we have so much better language and techniques and programs now to gently help
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: people see that the horse can't carry all of that weight.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it's, you know, it's finding that balance too.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it's, you know, I still, I still teach a lot of writing lessons.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: I, that's what I enjoy.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so a lot of the, a lot of them end up falling with me, but, um,
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: But I do have that flexibility.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because if somebody comes in and they're like,
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: I have saved up for four lessons and my dream is to ride a horse.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to be like,
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: you have to take,
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry,
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: you have to go through our three-week emotional program and then you have to do six
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: weeks of groundwork.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be like, yeah, come on, I'll find you a horse and we're going to make your dream come true.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I think if we could explain it to the horses, they'd be down with that.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, yeah, I'll do that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then there are people that I'm like, you really need groundwork.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: We need to do this.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: They want it.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: They want all the horsey things.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: So we can do that stuff.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's do it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: Let's explore this.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: And there are people who think they want the groundwork.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: And after three weeks, you can see them just starting to shut down.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, you really just want to ride.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: This is a hobby for you.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: You're not going to own horses.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: You just want to have this experience.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: I can do that for you.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of a cool to be able to just...
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: Play with people,
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: engage it,
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: and just help them figure out what they actually want because a lot of times they
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: don't know.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: How would you describe your training philosophy?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: For people?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: The whole shebang.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: in a word, haphazard.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: I do like to follow rabbit holes and read books.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think if anybody's honest, it would be haphazard.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: My students,
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: it used to be that you could see their,
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: kind of roll their eyes because I'd come into the room,
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like,
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm reading a book.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to do an exercise.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: This is going to be amazing.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, oh God, here we go.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, it's with people, like I said, it's mostly just
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: guiding them they have a vision what do you want from this that's what I like to
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_03: ask like once a year what do you want we're going into fall is there something you
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: want is there an experience we're missing so that I can kind of shape their
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: experience into what they're looking that we're meeting a mutual goal but I like to
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: collaborate with my students I don't want to sit in the ring and tell them
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: what I think they need to do.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: Cause I do think like, I think the world does not need a whole bunch of mini Sarah's running around.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: They need, you know, we need a Brooke, we need a Michelle and Lacey and shout out guys.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: Abby, Katie, we need all of them.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: So to help them
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: there's a basic safety rules that we have to follow,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: but there's a whole lot of play within those rules,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: depending on who you are and help them kind of hopefully find their own voice that
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: works between them and the horse.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: when,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: when I've got,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: especially people who are really want the horse thing,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: they really want it,
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: but,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: If you're reading a book, bring the book.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_03: Come on, we'll talk about it.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_03: We'll go through it.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: I've sat there with a book and we're reading the exercise and we're trying to
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: figure out how it works on the horse.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: Does it work between this horse and you and stuff like that?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: So to really be collaborative is part of, but it does make some crazy lessons.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_03: They do not go in a fluid line.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_03: They are, we are,
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: playing with horses,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: trying to figure out who we all are and what works,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: what,
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: what's a voice in my body that this horse can feel?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: What, how strong, where am I too strong?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: Where am I too soft?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: And we just try and find all this stuff together.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's, it's so interesting that without even trying how we ended up with a place where
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: where we have the freedom to be able to explore things and to change tracks.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And would you say that your training philosophy is that the training is actually of the human?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it becomes that, but kind of in a sideways backwards fashion.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: Because there is, you know, the horse is...
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: the horse is asking questions and they're usually,
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of these guys are asking questions about leadership.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so you're looking at a horse that doesn't want to go left on the lunge line.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: Then we'll go left.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it's about the horse,
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: but the person has to find something inside themselves in order to figure that out.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's not like I'm going into it.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_03: We always joke.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_03: I say, I don't care about you guys.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_03: You guys find what you want.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: I care about the horses.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: I just want to work with the horses and I'm not going to help you guys find out who you are.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: But it does happen because you have to figure some things out in order to face the
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: challenge when you are challenged.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And what makes,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: and horses have just been remarkable partners for my own self and growing as a
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: human and figuring out next steps and overcoming challenges.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the part that really just intrigues me.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm obsessed.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm obsessed.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so when Sarah and I talk about like,
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: we were taking two different roads and then we realized it's the same road.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: What you bring to the training side
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: and helping me put together concepts that I didn't really have that,
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: that I might have heard,
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: or I might have wanted to explore,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: but seeing how it fits into the bigger picture.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is just as much as you saw,
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: like the human growth part can't be avoided no matter what we do when we're working
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: with horses.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: The same thing I discovered was that the,
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: the horse training side can't be avoided no matter how much I want to do the human
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: growth part.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: that it's to be able to have a horse that we can keep healthy within working with
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: that many humans over and over and over different humans coming on and being with
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: them and working with the public or a horse that we can keep
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: happy and healthy and for longevity and a horse that just about any horse that we
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: get is going to have some sort of mental,
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: emotional or physical trauma that they're bringing with them.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so the same is true for humans.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't talk about that enough.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: to be able to have tools that we're not going,
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: that we can without creating any more damage with the horse.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that,
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: first do no harm is really like the number one thing with any sort of thing that we
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: do within our program here with the horses.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: But as we help them feel like they have the safety to be able to be who they are
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: and express themselves as horses,
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: we have to also keep them safe within the boundaries that we create with them.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just, we have found so much better language.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have found so much better language working alongside you for that.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what that huge idea of what boundary setting is.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's so hard because we...
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's so unclear when you start talking about connection,
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: relationship,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: and people do immediately go to that black stallion imagery where you're living on
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: the beach and you're eating together and everything,
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: and that's not reality.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: So to be able to think about having a connection with a horse
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: to even know what that means because I think a lot of us too have kind of a romantic invitation to it.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: There's not a practical side to it and there needs to be a practical connection of working together.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when you say the same is true in our human relationship.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, yeah.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same sort of like the, oh, I can't even think of the word I want to use.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we fall in love with love.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: We fall in love with love and we're doing that with the horses too.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: So,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: being able to establish boundaries and helping people understand,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: what you're seeing is connection actually ends up being a spoiled horse.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then we have a problem.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of times that's what ends up happening.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: And a horse that's going to take advantage and try to bite you for treats.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: So finding that language where we're really doing that.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it's,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: you can see how hard it is for people because they want connection,
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: but it's a romanticized version.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's not, it's a, it's a fake thing.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: And you and I have talked about like a lot of people when they're talking about
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: connection with the horse and I love this horse and trying to create the connection
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: and love,
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: they just end up really doing manipulation.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: It does more harm.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: It does more harm.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it's more of a manipulative thing.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: If I give you this, you'll give me this.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's not.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, it's all, we can watch the, the victim.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: the victim triangle play out daily yeah like you can just you can sit back and
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: watch like where where the switch happens where you become you go from the victim
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: to the manipulator where you're exactly and in that cycle just keeps going on
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: around and around in the most benign kind ways like people did everyone that works
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: with you know comes to us within our programs we're not going to bring on somebody
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: who is being purposely vindictive to the horses no they they genuinely love
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: the horses and you're trying to,
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: and I don't want to hear again,
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to come in and be like,
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_03: you need to do this.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: Don't do that for anything.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: I want them to see the bigger picture to understand as best I can,
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: as best I know now,
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: which is how the horse thinks and functions that
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: this doesn't work.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's not going to work.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: The horse takes the treat, but they don't love you later.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_03: They just take the treat and they're like, okay, now I'm still going to be me.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_03: They don't change for that.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's been the longest process.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: I used to say as a riding instructor that the longest process for me was teaching
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: people to put their heels down,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: how to steer and trot at the same time.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: And how to post the trot, like those three things.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my mentors back in the day said that it takes three years of weekly
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: lessons for someone to begin to scratch the surface of the basics,
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: which I found play out over and over in my career with those three biomechanical
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: things on the horse.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm finding is that teaching people
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: to actually pay attention to the signs that the horses are giving them.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Say somebody who's visiting the farm, who was just gushing gooey in love with the horses.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're going to melt into a puddle in front of us because there's an actual
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: freaking horse standing there in front of them with a head coming out of a stall
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: when you first get here.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's so wonderful to see.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's so wonderful to see.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: But then I immediately have to come in and break their heart of stand back from the horse.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Don't let the horse...
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: bash you with its head, come back.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: The horse is going to bite you if you don't stop petting it.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like the horse is giving all these signals,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: all these signals,
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: like physical signals of,
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to give me some space now,
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: give me some space.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: And teaching that how to,
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: to begin to scratch the surface of the horse's body language and gestures is so
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: much slower to me than teaching somebody to put their heels down.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, cause you don't want to
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: there again, you don't want to break the joy.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: You don't want to just strip them down to the point where it becomes like joyless.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's the only word I can come up with.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_03: There's another word there, but that's the only one I can come up with.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_03: And that's always the risk.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_03: You put so many rules and so many regulations on things that it becomes a
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: mechanical relationship and the joy is gone.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't want, you know,
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_03: everyone's you seeing it so much now,
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: all the rules and we need to do this and we need to be taking care of the horse.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I think about like back in the day when kids had ponies in their backyard and
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: they throw a rope around it and they get on and they go on adventures together.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: And that was how I grew up.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I hope we're not losing that.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: I hope we're not working.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_03: I hope we're not losing that.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: I hope we're not.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: That feel of just being able to do.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, you're bouncing on the horse's back.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, some of them are not going to be down for it.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: Some of them are going to be totally like, yeah, we're going on an adventure.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I hope we're not policing ourself into a space where there's no joy expression and spontaneity.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: Because that matters to the horses too.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: It matters.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: Having fun matters.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that itself,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: and so seeing that moment of the joy of I'm going to melt into a puddle of goo
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: because there's an actual horse in front of me.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: When we have a visitor who's just long to be with the horses for so long,
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: it's so rare for us to experience pure joy like that.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: So just like you said, I enjoy watching it vicariously.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm about to go in and burst their bubble and be like,
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to stand back,
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: stand back from the horse,
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: ma'am.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it is like that joy is the whole point.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you inspire confidence in your students,
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: especially those who are struggling or facing fears or they want the joy so much,
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: but they're also terrified of looking for it?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: I go with the route of suck it up.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's how she inspires confidence.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I inspire confidence.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_03: I just tell them to suck it up and keep going.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's her version of consent.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_03: Just go.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: I said, do it.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: Stop.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_03: Just stop.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: Stop it.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's a hard one.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_03: Because I am a generation of suck it up.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I was raised in a suck it up house.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're afraid, you just keep trying until it stops being scary.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: There is a little bit of that side to me.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: I hear you.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not the person I watch in the ring with a very devoted, devoted mind.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: past of long-term clients that adore you yeah i mean a lot of it's just taking a
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: step back and well i'll tell you one of the things i love to do is i tell stories
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: because done enough that a lot of the things i see i can identify with i can i can
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: and i can tell them stories and i can tell them about when i was there yeah i i
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_03: know what you're i see what you're feeling i know what you're feeling and
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it means pushing through.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it means, hey, let's get off the horse for a while.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: Let's do something else.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: Let's take that step back.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_03: And let me tell you about what happened to me when I took that step back so that
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not just abandoning them or totally changing course.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: Again, always saying, hey, I'm taking you.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to get you on a path that I've been down.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I see you.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's one of...
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: this immense gift that you have as a teacher that you do it from a sense of humility.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think you understand how like gifted you are in your ability to do this,
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: but it's not,
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that a lot of people,
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of horse professionals,
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: which I'm going to call you that,
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: whether you like it or not,
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of horse professionals have built up that facade of,
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am the God of this.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: that it's hard.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't often find an instructor or a trainer with as much skill that you have to
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: be able to humbly connect with people about the hardships.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: So your ability, despite your wisdom, to humbly connect is really amazing to watch.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: The thank yous are from Michelle.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_03: I say thank you.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_03: Can you explain why?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_03: One of our friends,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_03: Michelle,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_03: she was saying the other day that she was learned to just say thank you when
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_03: somebody compliments and not digress or deflect or anything.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_03: Good job.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: I learned that from Michelle.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_03: Excellent work.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Where, what, what do you see?
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: And when we're going to be cutting this short in just a little bit, what do you see?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: What is,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: and I,
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: when I say future,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean like,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: two years from now,
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: what,
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: what are you playing with now?
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like what, like, what are you going to be playing with in the next few weeks with your horses?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right now,
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_03: my focus is getting back into riding after a lot of exploring this connection work,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: exploring some in hand work.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to get back on them and incorporate all the things into the ridden work.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: So things like the flexions,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: especially the in-hand work where a lot of our horses have started to learn side
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: pass on the ground and playing around with that stuff and seeing how it's going to
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_03: translate with the work that we've done.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_03: And just making riding normal again, because it really, I have spent
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: a few years with my feet almost glued to the floor.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it's time to get back into it and start gaining some skill.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_03: Cause I,
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'm an okay rider.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'm passable.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be better.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I can't do that standing there watching the horses be pretty.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: You are immensely gifted.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I am excited to be able to be a part of and to journey along with you in this
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: next and where it's taking you next.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's such a gift to be able to work beside you and to do this.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been one of the bigger gifts of my life.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I am so thankful for you.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I love you.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: I just love you.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: And my long-term project right now from the writing side is to write about love.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I am obsessed with having little Sarah cameos pop up in each week's chapter.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: So Sarah's the writer.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the writer.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we put these things together.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just so immensely fun to come to work when you're here.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so thankful for you.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: We do have a good time.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: We do.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we accomplish a lot while also being able to be silly.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: So this is not the only time Sarah is going to be on this podcast.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: We had to launch this inaugural one.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know if people are just picking up on this and you don't know us and you don't
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: know our work,
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of words that we're throwing around here and we're kind of all over
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: the place today,
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: but also linear.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I really love the subjects that we're able to touch on.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: This week, as I finish up getting this ready to present to the public, this podcast, I
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Before I do that, I'm going to be putting out
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: just questions for people,
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm going to be putting out questions that you guys specifically have for Sarah,
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: like send them to me.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: I would love us to sit down again next week and,
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: and just kind of riff on our themes and see,
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: see where this takes us.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I thank you so much for your time today, Sarah.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any words of wisdom to leave us?
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: Dang it.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_03: I love putting her on the spot.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: Open-ended questions are not my strength.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Please state wisdom.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's cheating.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's cheating.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_03: Do your best.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Sarah.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: Just do your best and don't worry about it.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you all for joining us for the inaugural episode of Relatively Stable.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Sarah, I know, and I will be back very soon.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed today's episode and want to dive deeper into stories of resilience
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: and passion,
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: be sure to join my community on Substack at Stable Roots.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: There you'll find more insights, behind the scenes content,
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, take care and keep moving forward.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Love, Kim.