Equine Voices Podcast

Interview with Betsy Vonda - Balanced with Betsy

May 02, 2022 Ronnie King Episode 41
Equine Voices Podcast
Interview with Betsy Vonda - Balanced with Betsy
Show Notes Transcript

Interview with Betsy Vonda - Balanced with Betsy
I was very pleased to interview Betsy from Ontario Canada.
I came across Betsy on a podcast I listened too, who was a guest alongside another fascinating lady, who we get to hear a little about during the interview.

It was great hear Betsy talk about her passion for horses and how her work has changed her life in so many ways.

She has a passion and desire to see beyond the signs, when horses are presented to her for an analysis of horse behaviour. 

Her skills as a paramedic (amongst other things) enable her to understand the physical and psychological aspects of horse training, as well as her clients too.
Afterall, as we all know, it's never just about the horses!

So sit back, relax and I hope you enjoy this episode.

Note: At the very end of this live interview, Betsy internet connection died but it was at the end so the only thing she didn't get to say , was thankyou and goodbye.

Betsy Vonda.
I’m fortunate to have never known a life without horses. I was raised on a small hobby farm in Ontario, Canada with my mother and older sister. My mother introduced me to the teachings of John Lyons and Monty Roberts as we restarted and trained our own ponies and horses for local multidisciplinary competitions. At an early age this process taught me that every horse has value and potential no matter their past experiences.

When it was time to choose my career path I reflected on my life experiences and the characteristics that I developed while working and living with horses and decided on becoming a paramedic. From my formal education, continued education and work experiences I began to see parallels between troubled people and horses. 

I’ve learned that people's actions and behaviors can be heavily influenced by their past experiences, living conditions and nutrition. It became quite clear that horses are also influenced by the same factors. I believe that by better understanding the factors that influence their behavior we have endless opportunities to overcome challenges and set horses up for a balanced and successful life.

Over my adult life I have been on my own journey to finding balance in how I live my life. Shift work presented many challenges that I was not prepared for such as disruptive sleep and eating patterns which had a negative effect on my mental health and well being. This led me to dive into fitness and yoga as well as studying nutrition to learn how to run my body as efficiently as possible. The fitness journey also led me to the practice of mindfulness and gave me the ability to be more aware and present in every moment of my life.

Now that I have personally experienced the benefits of having balance in all aspects of my life it is my intention to help guide owners and their horses to a more balanced and harmonious relationship.
For any further information on my guest please visit their website.
https://balancedwithbetsy.com
https://www.facebook.com/BalancedWithBetsy

Interview: video version
https://www.facebook.com/equinevoices.co.uk
https://youtu.be/KHVjAlWs00I

Video version (alongside applicable podcasts) can be viewed on facebook and YouTube.
https://www.facebook.com/equinevoices.co.uk
https://www.youtube.com/@equinevoicesuk
https://www.instagram.com/equinevoices.uk

Contact Ronnie.
mailto:equinevoicesronnie@gmail.com


Ronnie:

Hi my name is Ronnie from equine voices and today's special guest is Betsy Vonda from Canada. And I'm really excited to chat to her. Initially I heard about Betsy on a podcast that I was listening to and I thought I need to get this lady on for an interview. And she was with another lovely lady who I'm sure betsy will talk about during this interview, but let's bring her on so she can introduce herself and say what it is that she does and then we'll go from there. Okay. Hi Betsy so the floor is yours, go ahead and explain to everybody about yourself and who are.

Betsy:

Okay hi everyone yes. I'm Betsy Vonda. I'm here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. So about an hour north of Toronto, if anyone's familiar with that, I am a postural and performance consultant. So I like to come in and be an unbiased set of eyes to help owners see their horse and work on their relationship, but really more so now I help get to the root of some performance issues or chronic lameness or behaviors. So I've been competing in barrel racing and pole bending, western performance events since I was a small child and then through my own kind of mysterious lameness journey with my own performance horse, it led me into this world of rehab and behavior and relational horsemanship. So I know that you've had Josh Nicole on recently and he is definitely a huge piece to me, understanding horses and the way that we can communicate with them differently and work Schiller has also played a big role in that and then yes, when I met my now mentor Celeste, Lalaney Lazaridis in December, my world took a whole other shift and she has brought me this, what I feel has been this missing piece to really understanding correct biomechanics and correct movement patterns in horses. So now I am helping her with her work in the balanced or movement method. And along with my relational horsemanship and I'm also a paramedic. So I have a lot of I guess I don't want to say experienced in trauma, but dealing with people in a time of emergency and, you know, very high stress and very delicate situations. And I've met obviously a lot of people who deal with chronic pain and a lot of people just struggling emotionally and I see that in some of what I dealt with as a child and as a young adult, and it's just helped me come to the horse world with this, what I feel is somewhat of a unique perspective. And I'm definitely just overwhelmed and like so grateful for, all of the amazing people I've gotten to work with, especially in the last few years since I've stepped into behavior and rehabilitation with horses. So I guess not the shortest summary of it, what, I'm, what I'm currently currently doing a little bit on my background.

Ronnie:

So that's a lot of things that you're doing, are you still a paramedic then? Do you still work as a paramedic.

Betsy:

Yes. Yeah. So I'm actually 20 ish weeks pregnant. So I'm in the process of actually taking an early mat leave. And I do work for the county of Simcoe in an education coordinator role. So I am still a certified paramedic, but I haven't actually worked on the road consistently since 2018. And that was due to a series of head injuries. And that actually led me into osteopathy, which I also discovered was extremely helpful for the horses. But again, this is kind of the way my life unfolds that I have things happen. And then they actually lead me to some of the greatest, most, you know, eyeopening, beneficial, therapies or awareness. So I've been working in education with emergency responders since 2018. And then I've been, I've been really teaching, I taught a few clinics and I taught when I was younger. Since actually I think it was 2008 is when I taught my first clinic. So I've had teaching experience in both the professional and the horse education world. So it's cool to be able to bring those skills together now, as well as I'm helping people with their horses, because it's one thing for me to come in and do the work with the horse. But I really want the owners to feel empowered with, with knowledge and education, that when I leave that they have a better understanding of not only their horse and how their body works, but also their mind and their energy and how they can have a better relationship with.

Ronnie:

So on the energy side, is that where Josh came into it more?

Betsy:

Yeah, so I had already been doing a lot of like personal development, I would say from my early twenties. So when I was in shift work and trying to find this new balance in my adult job in my adult life I had kind of gone into the fitness realm and into the bodybuilding world. And I was introduced to mindset. And the way that we talked to ourselve and the way that that can affect your energy and the vibration you put out to the world, I would say that's when I first started to be introduced to that work. But then when I came across Josh, I listened to Josh's podcast with Warwick Schiller and realized he was in Alberta. So he's a few provinces over from me, but I was like, oh, I love the way that he, you know, talks about the owner's energy and also the way that he relates it to how we can communicate with our horses and started to raise the awareness in that world. But I was already starting to find layers of that before I met him. I just felt that I really connected with his work and the way that he was educating and helping people understand themselves with the layer of the horsemanship relationship. It really helped me be able to explain pressures like to people, right. And then changing out the word pressure for intention. And I was like, I love that because again, it just energetically related to me more so being like, you know, yes, we use pressure, but in society we almost have this like negative association to even that word. So when we even just change the word to intention, what's our intention when we're interacting with our horses, what do we want them to feel from us? I was like, yes, 100%. I totally relate to that. And he just really helped me, I think, become a better educator as well, by providing this other lens and other perspective on ways to communicate and to help people understand what we're actually doing and how we can communicate more efficiently with our horses. Brilliant and you mentioned, is it you're doing a course with animal communication? Yeah. I would like to I've I've been looking into a few different options because I definitely feel like I guess, cause at first was brought to my awareness by another friend and mentor in Germany, Nancy Heiber and she said, you know, it's, it's possible to pick things up from horses, like to feel what they're feeling. And I was like, oh, I didn't even like, again, it's just, it's funny how it's not. On your radar. And then someone just like, you know, raises your awareness to that. And then I experienced that with one of my training horses. So he was a restart and off the track thoroughbred and he was doing fantastic, but then I had started to introduce some lope work and he would occasionally kick out. And every time that I would ride him, once we went into the low work I started having some like left, lower back pain. And it was around that time that we had been talking about it, like about this possibility. And I remember getting on him and we were just walking and I remember like it starting to feel it. And then I got off of him and it would go away. And it was like, interesting. I wonder if this is what she was talking about and then at this point I was like, okay, I think there's still something, we should probably involve the vet at this point, because he'd been doing fantastic. He was a very explosive horse when I first met him, he was highly anxious and we'd done a lot of relationship and connection and just letting him, you know, tell me how he felt, but also showing him that, like you can tell me how you feel. It's okay I will respond, I will respect your no's and he had come so far so quickly, but then again, as we started to increase the workload, he started to kick out at Kantar and I was like, well, that's not quite right. And we'd been involving the osteopath cause I noticed that he kind of tracked off with his hips. And so there was a few things coming in that I was like, Hmm, I think we should maybe involve the vet. And then she ended up finding an old stifle injury in this horse. So it was like, oh, that explains a lot. You know? And then we kind of knew at that point, there was only so much he could do. There's only so many limitations to his career but through that, that explained why I was getting this back pain from him because it was coming up through his, back into my back. So it was just my first, I would say really obvious experience of wow I can pick things up from horses and I really started to feel into that. And then one day I actually had a horse call me into the paddock. And this is something that I was like, when it happened, I'm even just getting emotional, just thinking about it because she had come and she was living and just due to the barn dynamics, she'd been separated from her companion and she wasn't doing much. And my horse trailer, just back to her paddock. And I just noticed her one day, just like, kind of like sending this energy towards me, like basically inviting me into the field. And I was busy. I had three training horses at the time, but I just went and got my grooming glove on and I just went to her and I was just grooming her and I just started bawling my eyes out. And I was like, whoa, like I'm, I'm tearing up just talking about it. Cause all the motion's coming back. And I was like, whoa, like I have never had this happen before where I actually had a horse. Call to me, like call me to them and then have all of that come through. And like I'm literally just crying, thinking about it but it was just so profound and so undeniable and like, I was in a really good mood and you know, it was like going about my day and had already had a wonderful ride and one of my training horses. So then you just have all of this come up. It wasn't me. Like that was not inside of me. I was being the mirror for her and I could just feel all of that coming through. So I've had quite a few experiences like that since where I just I'm so dialed into the energy that the horse is presenting with that. I just want to dive in a little bit more and have someone kind of guide me and help me really develop that. The ability to listen that I do believe we all have, because we all have instincts, right? We all have this intuitive ability. It's just, again, if it's not on your level of awareness, you may not be totally in tune to it. And I've been living my life with this intuitive, like once I kind of found that I could listen and I guess function, like I remember if anyone knows who Bob Proctor is like, he's a Canadian, he's Canadian law of attraction. He teaches about the law of attraction. And he used to always say that he's, he's passed since, but he'd say, you know, don't worry so much about how just start living into the life and taking action in the direction of your goals and you know, when you raise your vibration, I remember watching one of his YouTube lectures and he would say, how things will start arriving to you in your life if you're functioning at that same vibration. And that has literally been the story of my life ever since I learned that. And it's been very profound because it's how probably we met. It's how I met Celeste. It's how I got my current position. It's how I met my husband. Like there's so many things that have happened in my life once I started just taking action in the direction. So I know there's that energetic level to life as well, that when you're vibrating on a different level. So I think I'm just at the point where I'm really looking forward to meeting someone and entering into the world of like, you know, you do some animal communication, right? So you know, you get it. But I'm arriving at that place where I'd love to find a course or find someone to help guide me to better tune into what is possible because I know several people now and I've spoken to, and we've used a few different animal communicators. And when you just have that much evidence of things, they tell you, and like, there is no way you could know that, right? Like there's no way you could know that. And even recently, We had one speak to a horse I have for rehab. And she was telling us all these things and my osteopath was coming that night and there was a couple of physical things and she was like, yep, for sure. Right here. Like that was this exact spot. And when she told us that we were like, oh my God, I got like goosebumps. And the horse was like, yeah, that's the spot. Like you could tell from his body language that she had zoomed in on this one little place on his spine where it's possible, his tail. He had showed her that his tail had been flipped up and he'd gotten this little impingement kind of between his like sacrum and his, and where his tail and, and sure enough, the osteopath was in there and was like, yeah, right here and he was like, that's a spot and I'm like, okay, again like, how could she know that? Right? Like there, there's no way. And that's just one example I have of many that the horses have communicated things to the humans, that there's no way that anyone would even know that. And I'll just share one more story. If there's any people out there who are like, oh, animal communication, I'm not sure about it. I had another horse come for training and she still like say she carries like a little piece of my heart. Cause she was such a, such a hot mess. I will say that when she came, you're like emotionally, physically there's so much going on. And we had an animal communicator talked to her and she told her and we suspect that she was suffering from sleep collapse among many of her other symptoms. And she told her that she was having this really bad upper right jaw pain and it was really bad. It was causing his headaches and it really made it hard for her to focus and made her very anxious. And she was like, please they need to know about this. So we'd already planned to have my performance fed out to do her teeth again so we didn't say anything to her. I didn't say anything. And I just, you know, had her. Go in there and have a look and look at her teeth. And she said, huh, interesting. And I'm like, what'd you find? She's like, well, she has this slab fracture in her upper right tooth. And I'm like, okay, which one? She's like eight kind of near the back, like upper right. Eight. This tooth is broken. And I was like, so guess what the communicator said? So it's not like I was testing my vet or anything, but I just wanted her to go in there unbiasedly right and see what she found. Sure enough. She's like, yeah, she's got to stop fracture right up there and it was missed by another vet and who had done her teeth before. So when she got her balanced and that was just another part of her rehab process and she left just incredible. I couldn't believe the transformation in this horse. And she was only with me, I think for, for less than 90 days, but we just did the teeth and the farrier and the osteo and the emotional work and helped her through a trauma and reconnected her to humans and just gave her you know, a voice and the way that horse just transformed will forever be with me. But it was just another little piece to the puzzle that it is worse sometimes being able to actually cause how many times have owners said that? I wish they could just tell me what was wrong. I would like to hold that ability and allow and be capable of horses, telling me what they feel is wrong. And I have talking to another communicator who told me as well though. She's like, we've had a couple of conversations. She's like, it's interesting though, because their perspective is very different than ours, because they don't have, and this is my perspective on it, but I think it's because they don't have as much as a developed frontal lobe, they're way more present, I think, than humans are that sometimes something like she was talking about one horse and she's like I know that he has this injury, but to him, he just feels all of this. Like, he doesn't realize that that's because he doesn't have this one sense anymore. So to him, he's experiencing that very differently than, you know, a human would be like, well, clearly you have all that because this has happened. But to the horse, like he wasn't associating that loss of a sense to all of his other senses changing but that was his experience. So I think as much as we think horses experiencing certain ways. I think it would be very beneficial to be able to communicate with them and hear it from their perspective. And then if we could communicate back and say, okay, well, this could potentially be what's actually going on are you open to this and helping them potentially change their perspective or be on board with the rehab, I just think there could be so many opportunities within that. And I think it would just be very beneficial to my very holistic practice I'm already employing. Yeah.

Ronnie:

Amazing and you are so right that everybody has the ability, I mean, you're probably doing it and you don't realize you're doing it in your work way. So it might be that you do something, you think it's your idea when actually it's resonating from the horse, what it feels like, it's your idea.

Betsy:

That is so funny you say that because that happened. The animal communicator, we just had talked to the buckskin horse she's like, he keeps showing me two to two and I was like, okay. The only thing I can think of is that we were working with him and it was two weeks from his diagnosis. So he was diagnosed with kissing spine and me and his owner were just standing in the arena and he happened to be standing in the exact same position that I had taken the very first photo of him. He was standing in that exact same position and all of a sudden it literally just popped in my mind. It's like, oh, we should take a progress photo. But we were having like a complete sidebar conversation but for whatever reason, again, at the time I was like, well maybe I noticed that he was standing like that, but he was saying to her two to two, and I'm like, the only two I can associate with is that we took this photo at two weeks and it was a very profound photo. Like that photo I shared with a lot of people because it was so just like, oh my God. Cause again, when you see your horse every day or in my case, you know, he's not my horse, but I see him every day in the training program. You don't necessarily see the changes. So when we took that photo and put them beside each other, we were just both like jaw on the floor. Oh my God. I can't believe how much he's changed in two weeks. So that was a very profound photo for us and for my involvement is less work because I'd just been about actually just about a week into her work at that point. And I was just like, oh my God, look at this. Like, and he had, he had been treated by the vet as well, but it was just wild to see how different that horse could look in two weeks time. And again, she told me, she's like, well, he probably told you to do that. It's like, oh, he can do that. She's like, yeah, it was probably his idea. And I was like, oh, well, that makes sense. Cause we were just chatting and then out of nowhere we're like, oh, we should take a photo. And it did feel very random and very kind of. Oh, oh yeah, we should do that, but it didn't really feel like my idea in the way that it just like, kind of popped in my head. So again, when she said that to me, I was like, interesting. I cause that's the way sometimes. And I was calling it more intuition. I was saying, well, I feel like we should do this right now. Or like, we should do that right now. That's a lot of my work is I just am with the horse and I'm just trying to feel what we need to do in the time. And it didn't really open my lens, even now, until you're saying it that the horse may be making some suggestions to me. Like that is amazing. But like I said, I have an example. It makes so much, that could be an option.

Ronnie:

Yeah to me, it doesn't matter where it comes from. It's important that you get the message. So sometimes messages come through the horses or it might come from somewhere else and sometimes you have other animals that talk on behalf of another animal. Different kinds of communicators and they'll have the way they work. But from my point of view, sometimes if you get a stoic horse, another horse will talk for them on their behalf, which is quite sweet. When I first used to go out and practice doing this, cause I'm self-taught I would go down livery yards and it was so funny and there'd be this bits of conversation coming up from all over. I would literally write down whatever came into my head and to me, I wouldn't be embarrassed because if it didn't mean anything, it didn't mean anything. But if somebody came back said, oh yeah, I can take that. It's like, okay. I don't know if I've said this story. Gone to see a client. And this was at the early stages and we was chatting away and I gave him most of the messages. And then I said, oh, she just wants you to, when you go out riding just to pay her attention, rather than people you're you're riding with especially one person in particular. So I said a little bit more. And then she says, no, that doesn't no, that doesn't mean anything to me. I went, okay. So we carried on talking and then I said, no, I'm sorry, she's coming back again and she wants me to say this again about you riding paying her attention, not the person you're riding with, you know, I'm sorry I don't know what that means when not. That's fine but in the meantime, there was these people walking past as we were doing this. And then the third time I said, do you know what she's, she's not letting this go. So I have to say again, whether you take it or not and then she went quiet and she just said, I couldn't say anything because the person you was talking about was right behind you It was just a comical thing. And then sometimes, I get quite a lot of messages in my car so when I sit in my car the information comes through. Once I've linked in, actually not even if I've linked in, horses I have seen will some times past messages on and I pass them onto the person. So, I'll start by writing it in my phone, sometimes it comes as one word or a feeling and it's only one acknowledge it that the rest flows. It's like having a conversation with your friend, if you're talking the person's not listening. You're not going to carry on chatting.

Betsy:

No, no. You're not going to. Yeah.

Ronnie:

If it's in the UK, I will say, I just picked up this does mean anything and then if they get back to me straight away, then I get the rest of the message. Whereas if it's somebody in another country, I record it now and I'll do the recording and as I start the rest of the information flows through and then I pass that 0n.

Betsy:

That is really interesting. Yeah. Cause that's what I've kind of from meeting different communicators. Everyone seems to have a different flow or a different way of communicating and yeah, it's amazing. It's just as individual as we are as individual people. And it's amazing how the information will find its best way to come through, I think for our best understanding, that's the way I'm starting to interpret it. Like some people use more signs and some people use more words. One communicator told me that she's had horses speak to her in other languages because that's just the language that they were around. So she'll have to write it all down and then have someone translate it after because it all comes whichever language or if they were imported, especially. So she said horses speak French her cause they were imported from, from France and I'm like, oh, that's and even in the language they use, like here in Canada we call them stalls but over in Europe, people call them boxes. So like they'll use that language, like the different delivery instead of the stable. She's like, they'll use those other terminology instead of the Canadian, again, it's where they came from and I'm like, oh, that's too funny. Even though, again, people like, but they don't speak English, they don't speak French, I'm like, but it's all the here. I've try to communicate with us in the way that they know, humans communicate, I guess that's the way I interpreted it.

Ronnie:

So if one is communicating with me and the timid, I will get the feeling of or I'll get this softness with that personality. It's more the sense of who they are and sometimes you can have a gelding it's quite feminine and you can have a mare that's quite masculine. All I asked for is the name, the sex and the age, because that goes with what I'm picking up some times and I'll say, well the masculinity to me is they're showing me that they can be strong but it depends what goes with the words as well.

Betsy:

Very interesting.

Ronnie:

I wanted to say to you, because I was picking up something. So your communication will be relevant to where you are in your life and what you're doing. Communication to me, if I'm not in a place to be able to help them physically, they will give me the information I need to go to somewhere else or to point the owner to go to a chiropractor or a vet or whatever. Whereas, because you've got quite a varied type of work that you do, your communication, the horses that come come to you are going to be lined up to be in your place to help them. So there's no timescale, there's no such thing as time. I mean, I can't go into that because that's not my area but it's all fitted in and they're with you for reason. It's like there's no point in me getting a message for somebody in China. If I can't link some way to China, it's not impossible because I can get messages to all over but there has to be a thread connection somehow. Even if it's through five different people to get the message there, it's like lightening, it will find the easiest route to get to where it needs to go to.

Betsy:

It's so like, amazing that you say that because that's what I've been feeling. I even say to people it's like, when you start moving in a direction, things start arriving. And I just felt like the next horse and the next horse and the next person and the next experience. I've just felt this, like, I don't want to call it a trickle but this trickle of people and experiences and horses and that's what I've really felt is like each horse arrives to me because I'm in the place to help them. But also I know enough or not enough but I'm in the right position to then also almost prompt me to learn the next thing to help them, that will also then help the rest of the horses. I would say with each horse that has come to me for a restart or a rehab or just training in the last four years, since I started to step into this different way of seeing and working with horses that it's just, each horse keeps arriving. And even now, like a lot of the people that are reaching out to me and now that I'm doing virtual consults, it's been amazing because I can help horses all over the world. In a lot of cases, I've only had to refer cause I will refer out. So if I feel like, yes you need to see the vet or you need a body worker involved or you need someone else beyond me. But a lot of what I've just been asking for more recently or referring to is for farrier x-rays there's a lot of people that I'm working with already have Bodyworkers are already using chiropractors, already have everyone in their wheelhouse, I'll say, so a lot of these horses have already been through or seen multiple practitioners and they're still not okay. And the owner still feels like there's still something there. And in some cases that everyone's telling them their horses okay. And I take one, look at them and I'm like, oh my God, they are not okay. I see this, this, this, and this. And they're like, thank you. I felt like a crazy person because everyone keeps telling me my horse is okay. And I'm there to validate them and tell them, no, your horse is not okay. And this is why you're feeling what you're feeling and like I said, it's been pretty cool that you say that because that's what I'm still feeling now on a much bigger scale as horses are coming to me, they've like, they're truly meant to like, come to me and obviously I still have Celeste is my mentor. So if I do kind of like, Hmm, I'm not feeling a hundred percent sure on this one, she's been amazing that all, you know, reach out and consult with her. But I definitely feel like I'm in this neat place where horses are arriving to me. And it is for me to help them. I used to say all the time, like even in the ambulance, I used to get patients and I was like, you were meant to get me today. You were meant to get me. I'm the paramedic of all the paramedics in the service today, you were meant to get me for us to have a conversation about your nutrition or for us to have a conversation about, you know, how you're living your life or your relationships, or the energy. I've had a few patients that their chronic illness suffers and they've fallen into the cracks of the healthcare system. And I remember one in particular. This person had been having excruciating abdominal pain and issues for five plus years had many invasive investigated for seizures. And I remember getting her and my partner at the time too, he was actually lactose intolerant. So he loved it when I have these conversations with people. And I was like, has anyone ever told you to do an elimination diet? And she just looked at me like, I'm sorry, what? And I'm like, stop eating, dairy, processed foods, you know, corn, sugar, gluten, all these things and see if that's why you're having abdominal pain. And she just looked at me like I had foreheads. She's like, are you kidding me? It's just like, it could be as simple as that. I said, absolutely, you could be lactose intolerant. Right. And she's like, I've seen so many professionals and I just got endoscopies and colonoscopies and no one told me to stop drinking milk. And I'm like, oh, you sweet thing like, I'm so sorry but it was just like, she was meant to get, that particular day, both of us, but really like me. Like, I felt that, and I've had several patients. It's funny now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like actually had several people arrive in the back of my truck and you know, you were totally meant to get me so we could talk about your nutrition or lifestyle or whatever, cause I was one of those paramedics. I wasn't just one doing red pillar blue pill, I was like, okay. So how are your stress factors? How's your lifestyle, how are your relationships? If I had someone with chest pain, I wouldn't just ask them specifically about their chest pain. I'd basically do like a risk factor assessment of their entire life because if we know there's lots of different causes of chest pain and looking at all areas of your life helps me determine if this is actually ischemic, chest pain. If it's potentially a panic attack, if you've had a physical trauma, where it just helped me narrow it down. And it's funny because like I said, it would get, these patients arrived to me. And now the horses are arriving to me or the humans or with the horses or having to me. So this is what I mean, like when you step into, I think who you're meant to be and what you're starting to feel like. I'm definitely feel like I'm stepping into my purpose. Very much so these days, and like I said, the universe just keeps bringing me the next people, the next thing, but I never thought about it that way as well. So thank you for that. That's very, very interesting.

Ronnie:

You're welcome. The old saying like attracts like and what you give out, you get back, but actually I'm discovering more and more that if your, we all know about being present, which is great for horses, cause that's what they do. If you're present in your, in that moment, that's when you you have clarity or peace and calm and you have those light bulb moments, but it's also what's attracting other things to you. We all know about manifestation, if you want to manifest it, you draw a picture of it. You focus on what you want, that sort of thing. But actually I'm discovering more and more that yes you can do that. A dear friend of mine says is it intention, attention, no tension and I've been listening to Abreham Hicks videos that pop up. So things come along when you're in the right vibration and you can listen to something and you can see something and you go, yeah, I get that. But then you can hear it. Maybe a few weeks later, a few months later and you get it again from a different perspective and you feel it stronger. I've seen these videos pop up often but for some reason I clicked on one and I listened and I was laughing because I thought this is where I am now, this is it, it's as simple as that. We make it so difficult and I'm finding that things are coming along very quickly. Yeah, I'm trying to think of example because it's not always things, it's hard to put into words, but yeah I just know, as you said earlier that the right people, the right vibration, because you're at this certain vibration and you're attracting similar for whatever reason for how long? As you were talking earlier about horse so you are very intuitive. I I'm sure you're aware of that anyway. And it's been there from day one and the communication for you will be based around what you're doing, because that's when it's going to be most beneficial. That wouldn't be so much for me because I would have to Look for external sources to help me go beyond that. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as you were talking, so when I say I see, it's not like I'm seeing you it's my sense is, so you have lots of animals that are waiting to connect to you. But they're all waiting, they're fine, this no panic, because they know that actually in their time frame, you're already there, but you hadn't come to that place yet. So. Again, it's hard to describe, but as you were talking, it's almost like behind you.

Betsy:

Like a whole field of horses and dogs.

Ronnie:

But it's not them the physical horses, it's their energetic, their life force that's there. And they all communicate with each other as well. But on A different frequency. So to me the horse that is the physical as we are and you have that side and then you can communicate with the the deeper part of the horse. And then it's almost like a collective of horse is to collective energy and they speak on behalf of each other, but they don't just speak about horse related things because they want us to feel what your understanding and many people are realizing that we all have an ability and there'll be different ranges and different skill sets because if we all had exactly the same thing, we wouldn't be reaching out to other people and learn and experience life, yeah they know where to be. Have you ever heard of an English lady called Julie Decker. She's no longer with us in physical. I think it's called what horse say, I'll have to send you a link to it and I read it with a literally in a couple of days and it's the story from the communicator and from the animal's perspective. There was the one story about this poor horse was at a it was a two fare. And Julie was walking down through the sale and there was all these horses in these little stalls and she'd pass this one horse, she was aiming for somewhere else. She got this feeling that she needed to go back and look at this horse. It was just then looks so tired, but was trying to stand up. Cause he'd got no energy, anyway I think she ended up buying this horse and when she communicated with it, it was its last chance and the horse recognized the energy of this woman. He trying to get her attention and when she come back again, he was tugging at her clothes, literally tugging at her clothes so that's when she started to listen. But there've been stories where horses had been tied up with a heads to the tails and left in a store to teach them a lesson. There was one horse with a Pitchfork that put through its body. There was all these scars and these animals were relaying what happened to them through their lives. But there was funny stories. There were stories about a horse that didn't want to be riden so it would go lame. I've told people this and they go, no, they don't do that. Yes they do but it's not to be awkward. It's because actually they know that you can't hear what's going on when you're ridding them. So rather than do something that they don't want to do, like dump you, they just go lame. Yeah.

Betsy:

Yeah, cause people have said, oh, they just fake it, some of them just fake it. And for the most part, I think horses don't fake it, but some are smart enough that they will and they learn very quickly. They're absolutely brilliant animals and that's why it really hurts me a little bit when I hear people talk about them as if they're not intelligent or if they're doing something on purpose and I'm like, for the most part, they don't really have that capability. Like they're just so authentic unless they've learned or they're living from a past experience but also I will say just saying that, the more I know, the more, I don't know, you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm constantly second guessing everything. I thought that I knew the more I learn and I think that's, what's so amazing about horses. And why I love being on this jury because even the person I was six months ago is not the same horse person I am now. Since I met Celeste and like you said, in these moments, you have this continual light bulb moments, but it is just amazing when we start to listen to them. And some people will say like my horse, his personality changes so much. And I'm like, well, once they know they can tell you things like they do, they change a lot. They come out of their shell or some horses that have appeared to be very quiet. I have a few clients who have bought these super quiet, dead broke horses. And they've just been so internal about everything. And then when we start to help them feel better and help them have a voice, all of a sudden, they're this funky athletic super personable, like tons of personality. And they're like, but I kind of liked them when they were really quiet. I'm like, sorry for your luck. This is just who they actually are. And you know, it's not anything to not want I say to them sometimes it's like, it's forcing you to level up. Like it's a challenge in a way, the horses asking you to meet them where they are now. Right. And to become a better rider or to become more empathetic or to have more patients, like that's the way I kind of view things is that. A horse has arrived to us to help us evolve and to teach us and for us to also learn, that's totally what I believe and horses, like I said, I've just even like my own personal horses, the, the ones that have arrived to me, even since I went through the whole lameness journey, it's like, they were just here to teach me more about lameness and teach me more about before I had raised my horse. He'd never had a lame step. He'd never had some of the behavior I saw it, but he'd also never had an abscess. Like I didn't know about ulcers. I didn't know about a lot of the stuff because he was just a healthy, pretty chill dude. And he only worked for a short amount of time and and then you have horses coming. You're like, well, what does that behavior mean? Or what does that mean? And it was funny having these horses arrive and then. It's like, oh, because I need to learn about this or because I need to learn about this or because I need to learn about this and they just continue to, and that's the way I kind of view it. And even when I decided to retire him, I'm like, this is an opportunity. This isn't a, oh I'm retiring him. I think he was actually 17 at the time. He and my sister were just doing the math. He was 17, I think coming 18 when I retired him. And I knew there were other people competing on horses older than him and that they had kept them running. You know, it's an opportunity for a new start. I've had this horse since I was well, I was 12 when he was born and I was, how old was I at the time 20 something? And I was like it's an opportunity for a new horse and new lessons and new opportunities. And old me from five years ago probably wouldn't have thought that way. Cause he was a champion. I knew I could take him in and he would win, but it wasn't about winning anymore. It was. The process and having that whole shift in mindset that when one thing appears to be ending, like I say to people all the time, like there was another coach I was talking to and she's like, oh, these clients fired me and blah, blah, blah. And they were people that were really challenging clients and she would complain, she would complain to me. And I'm like, girl, this is an opportunity. This isn't a firing, I'm like, they just created space for you to get to more clients that are actually in alignment with who you are and what you want. And yeah, sure you know, she's younger. So she was like but I did so much for them and I'm, I can appreciate that. That still says everything about you and nothing about them. Right? Like you did so much for them. And if they didn't appreciate it, that's not anything about you. That is them and their perspective. And again, it just created an opportunity for new clients that are more in alignment. And that's the way when I shifted my mind to that, if something leaves or you lose a friendship or if you're in business and you lose a client, well, was that client really aligned with you in the first place? You know, or clearly not, or they wouldn't have left. Right. Or, you know, it's just creating an opportunity. So I kind of see I'll call it loss, but yeah, like loss or partying ways, whichever it's all just opportunity. And I think some people they feel like, oh, the horse, isn't a match for them. And they feel guilty about helping them find a new partner, but I'm like, but it's an opportunity for you and the horse. I'm the type of person that I don't give up on horses. I do absolutely everything to help owners but then realistically, if we get all the information, we get to a point and the owner's like I just don't think we connect or I don't think this horse be everything that I want it to be. And I'm like, okay, well then that may be our sign. That it's an opportunity for both. Right, because if you also don't love this horse and feel like it is everything you ever wanted, are you going to show up with that energy every day when you want to ride them or work with them? So it's also an opportunity for the horse to go find someone who will absolutely adore them and worship them but you know what I mean? Like who will really love them with their whole heart and feel like they are the most special, amazing horse in their entire world. Instead of being with an owner who, the horse and their horse that I have, and they're okay. And as an individual, you want the best for the horses too. I saw a little Facebook post today and it was like, don't shame people for selling horses. And I was like, yeah, exactly. Don't like, cause some people just don't connect and again, I see everything as an opportunity. So I'm like, that's an opportunity for the horse and for the rider to make new connections and to be appreciated and to feel that fulfillment and joy that they can bring to other people or a new horse will bring to that owner. Like I said we do everything we can, but at the end of the day, I'm also very realistic that if it's not a good match or if they're energetically not in it or feeling that connection, then it's not fair to the horse to keep them either at that point. And that's interesting part of our journey, but I think that if we change and look at all of our life like that, it makes you a lot happier a person. It makes life a heck of a lot more enjoyable than focusing on what you've lost. And instead, focusing on what you've just created a space for, or an opportunity for, for that thing, that'll be even more in alignment to arrive. This really helped me through a lot of hard decisions as well. Because I'm just like, well, yes, you can wait what you're going to lose, but I think you should always weigh what you can potentially gain, anytime you're making a hard decision.

Ronnie:

Absolutely. Absolutely. So would you like to talk about Celeste I know you've mentioned a few times and how you two met and what it is you're actually doing together.

Betsy:

Yeah so again, this is the universe arriving to me. So this buckskin horse had come to me and we'd done a bunch of connection work and he was making leaps and bounds because when the owner reached out, she had purchased him at the end of may and brought them home. And she went to ride him and he exploded and backed her off. And then she had gone back to some groundwork and she knew he was green, but like definitely had not seen that behavior. But then it had just kind of deteriorated into this point where she couldn't. And he was cared for by her mom. And he had a couple of just these huge explosive moments of flight and fright and had gotten away from her. And she's like, I just need help. So when I met her, I went to see him and it took us like, cause I tried for about an hour and he was not having anything to do with me. And even when we removed his herd mate from the paddock, he was still not having anything to do with us. So it took us about an hour and a half just to catch him. And then we brought him in the barn and he was just not okay. So he came to me and I just do a lot of like connection work initially and he had gotten to the point, cause I train out of a boarding burn. So he was being kept on himself. And we had gotten to the point where I would call him and he would come and we were definitely getting connected. And then as I started to go through some work with him and my eye was not what it is today. And that it's funny saying that, it's only been about five months, but I was like, see, you just doesn't look proportionate and just doesn't look quite right. Yeah. And you know very on edge. And I'm like, he's got pain behavior. Like the first day I met them. I was like, he's got a lot of pain behavior here, all of this behavior, he's in pain and we need to figure out why, because there's no acute injury on this horse. And so we had the osteopathic she comes every third week, so she had treated him and we had the PMF practitioner. Oh, I have an amazing PMF practitioner and she treated him and we saw some improvement, but also. When we'd gotten to the point where I was having him move around me, I noticed an inconsistent right foot head, Bob. And then I just had the tack in the arena and I picked up the saddle pad and he like left. Like he got to the end of my 12 foot line and was like, don't even bring that near me lady. And I'm like, that's not normal. And when I went to check his back, he was still back sore. And I was like, okay, this horse hasn't had a rider on him in six months. He was with me. Just about a month at that point. Like, I do not work these horses, like he hadn't been doing any work and I'm like, okay, this is strange. So I did reach out to my performance vet and said I really need you to come take a look at this horse cause I'm not sure, I've done having osteopath PMF. And just around that same time that I'd reached out to them. I saw one of Celeste posts come out. So sometimes when I'm on Instagram, I'll go to like the search thing and it'll just show me random things and I know the algorithm thinks I'll be interested in. But for whatever reason, I was just drawn to this photo. And it was just Celeste, I think, in hand on the ground with horse. But I clicked on it and I read her post and I was like, oh, who is this lady? And then I started going through and reading some of her posts. I was like, oh my God, I got to reach out to her about this horse. And again, I can't remember what specifically it was, but I was like, I need to reach out to her, I need to connect with her. We actually connected and she told me her initial consult fee and I told the owner and we're like, well, let's wait and see what the vet says because the vet was already coming. Not that she's expensive. Right. But at the time, for her initial full workup, it's$300 you asked that's public knowledge. So we have the vet coming already and we've just done all these other treatments. We're like, okay, well, let's see what the vet says. But then in our communication, she said, oh, by the way if you're a trainer, I'm just about to do this masterclass so I think you'd be interested. At that same time, I started diving more into her posts and reading her things and then signed up for the masterclass right away. Cause it was like, okay, well this makes a lot of sense that I come in and learn, what she's sharing. And then I can't remember exactly how it evolved, but it was along the lines of, we energetically just connected instantly. We've had a lot of things happen that were very similar. In our lives, like the head injuries and unhealthy relationships with men. And we both did a nurse assist at some point. We're both indigenous, so I am I'm not full indigenous, but I'm a quarter Huron and she is from Hawaiian has some indigenous in her as well. So we connected on multiple levels and then I can't even remember, but for some reason shortly after the masterclass, I think I just started messaging her a couple of things and like sharing in the group and then I offered to help cause I was already doing at that time it was behavior and performance assessments. So basically, people could send me photos and I would, we call it market out. So I would put some lines on and just really to help an owner see what I'm seeing. So I had a color coding and so I was like, well, Hey, like if you want, like I'll make a video and put it in the group. And I just kind of offered to start helping. And then we just started chatting more and more in the background and just really clearly. got each other, and like really just connected energetically. And we have very similar life experiences. We started chatting and I started to explain to her some of the work I had been doing and how I felt I had gotten to the point, like I said, where I feel like I'm going to have to go be a bodyworker. I also was getting to that point where I don't want to depend on other people to help the horses that come to me. And I just felt like I need this whole other realm of knowledge. And then she arrived and just taught me how to see, that's how I say I'm like, she taught me how to see in a whole other perspective, like how to look at the horse. These are the layers of my paramedic, anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology background coming in. And the way I think my brain works is I can literally look at a horse and almost like see inside of them, if that makes sense, like I can look at the outside and kind of see what's going on structurally on the inside. And then going through her class and listening to, and seeing her anatomy and having her explain all these connections to me, I could just see it. Like I could just see it. I could just totally understand it. And we were joking that basically I'd done all the prerequisites to this course. Like I I'd done the personal work, the holding space and time. Right. So allowing processing, having the conversations with horses, energetically physically in real time, like I say, I really listened to the horse and through my body language, I communicate to them that I can see, like I acknowledge them. I can see what they're telling me. And so I done a lot of the work and was already doing rehab and was already in this realm. And she just gave me, I felt like the kind of missing piece to understand what I was seeing, because there were things I was asking, my vet about, or my osteo about. And I'm like, but what is this? And why is this happening? And people couldn't really give me a great answer. And now in hindsight, I understand that it's the developmental, it's the compensation patterns. It's what unique to horses that I was seeing. And I was picking up that it's not right, but no one could really tell me why until I met Celeste. And now I'm like, oh my God, it makes so much sense. And we've just connected. And then yes, Celeste just had a baby, like less than think we're still under two months ago. Yeah. Maybe just, just coming up on two months and then we were just chatting and it was so funny. Cause I was actually about to ask her if I could start incorporating this work in what I was doing. And I think literally the next day she messaged me and said, Hey, like I know you get it. Can we start working together? Can I start referring people to you? But obviously I'm your mentor and I'm going to still be here as your mentor and basically you'll be apprenticing under me. We'll remain in constant communication, but she's like you get it. But she also felt that with the work I was already doing, I had all of these pieces and a big piece of it is also helping the humans and being able to read the human energy and having sometimes difficult conversations because I'm very empathetic to owners, but also professionals. And like I said, when I'm dealing with owners who have they're trusted trainers, they're trusted veterinarians, they're trusted farriers and I look at the horse and I say the horse's body doesn't lie. So even if your trainer is saying that they're doing this, and they're doing that, and your farrier says a feet are fine, and your vet can't find anything wrong with your horse. These are all the things I'm seeing in your horses body. And that's not always an easy conversation to have, right and I always try and hold space for that and say, listen, they're doing the best they can with what they know and if they're a good professional to admit, they don't know everything. Right. And I don't know everything and no one knows everything. So it's not wrong based on what they know or what they've been taught through generationally or through their education, it's not the most up-to-date or it may be actually means a little bit more than they're giving credit to, to this whole picture and to be able to have that conversation and then the owner not get super mad and go and remote everyone that for not knowing this right because I'm like, I don't want that to happen. I really try and hold space for other professionals, we don't know what we don't know until we know it. And like I said, until six months ago, I could tell there were some things going on with horses, but like the way I look at them now is a completely different set of eyes than I had six months ago. So I hold a lot of space and have that ability to have difficult conversations with owners or with some of my clients, it's more about me coaching them than it is about how to even do the balance removement method. Like it's about helping them explore, what are their personal boundaries? How are they energetically? Are they holding enough space? Are the patient enough? And sometimes it's more about helping the owner than it is to actually help the horse. Do you know what I mean? So when we started talking and she said to me, like, I know I can trust you with this work. I tell her, literally I tell her almost every single day, how grateful and how appreciative and how much I love her for trusting me and allowing me to help with this work and help to. Educate, literally the entire horse industry on what we're doing, because like I said, it's just a whole other way of seeing. And the biggest thing that I think I've taken from this too, is like, I knew that in some cases, because I work with a lot of air quotes, traumatized horses, right. And like, we've done the work and we've done some stuff, but they still have, and I was getting to this point where I'm like, well, does this horse have PTSD or are they still in pain? But in my mind, I've kind of gone through my differential diagnosis list. So in medicine we say like, when you're presented with a set of complaints or like symptoms, signs, and symptoms, there's all of these different causes that could be potentially at the root of it. And then we do test and we do questioning and diagnostics. And we try and rule things in and real things. And with a lot of these horses, the vets have gone through their entire diagnostic list. I had gone through my entire diagnosis list, so I'm like, okay, well it must be behavior. And then I meet Celeste and she's like, or it could be nerve impingement. And I'm like, well, duh, like humans get nerve impingement of like, I've had so many patients in the back of my ambulance with sciatica or with a slipped disc in their back or thoracic outlet syndrome. Like I know one of my medic coworkers, he came up in the office when I first met him because he was dealing with thoracic Ellis syndrome in his own chest causing all this numbness and weakness and weird sensations in his arm. So I'm like, I've met tons of people. And then when I started looking at horses, You know, the fact that they don't have collarbones, like to people appreciate that. I don't think we do. In the industry at the weight that we should. And when I met her and I was like, oh my God, nerve impingement, like, oh, I didn't even, I'm like, why aren't people? And now we're on this mission to help people, see the horse in this other way, understand like, cause we do talk about the thoracic slang quite a bit and it's not a buzzword to us. It's crucial that people understand this is where the horses core starts. I'll give you my little, my little talk that people have about the spine and the pelvis, because I've added this since the last podcast. I've realized how many times do we look at the horses skeleton? And we see the spine. Does everyone appreciate that? The spine at the bottom is actually flat and that the vertebrae processes come up from basically the flat spine, right? There's not like a human spine that naturally has a curve. When you're looking at your horse. The back is curved because of the different lengths of vertebrae process. But just about half and in some cases more than half of the thoracic vertebrae, that again is not supported by a collarbone in a horizontal animal is from the back of the wither to the base of the neck. So when people are thinking about the horses core as just the abdomen and the back you're missing, literally the most important part of the. Because the spine is literally from the sacrum from forward, just dangling between the front legs. Essentially. There's nothing there, but muscle. And if you think about how long, like I have, I have my little textbooks here but basically the spine and I have this one taught view and this is a$6 coloring book from Amazon that I highly recommend everyone get it's called horse anatomy. It's just amazing, but I just recommend everyone get it because there's this really great shot of the horse from above. And it's really great to show clients and I'm like, like from seeing it from above, you can really appreciate how much force is ahead of the sacrum and how much weight that is. And I think a lot of us think, okay, well we know horses are grazing animals, some people have heard that, you know, 55 to 65 to 70% of their weight is on the forehand, but what does that mean for their spinal integrity and for their development and for what their core actually is, you know, when we're talking about the horse and then you think, okay, well, some people will say a horse is not meant to be ridden. Well, why do people say that? Well, because their spine is not meant to have extra weight on it, but the cool part is, as if we develop their core properly, starting with the thoracic slang and sorry I don't know if you can hear my dog, the he's making funny noises. But when we do start and look at the thoracic spine, because again, it's super important. But at the end of the day, I kind of view this work now as like prerequisite, to ever wanting to sit on a horse because we need to make sure that they can activate that sling and actually support the spine and not just depend on the abdominals and the back muscles to hold us up as riders and when it's not properly developed. And like someone just shared in the group this morning, her he was, I think a year lane coming two year old has had no work, like no actual work. She's done the first step of the method and very inconsistently because of her own health things. And he's her baby horse and the photo she posted and we were all just like jaw on the floor because she has developed this horse. It's not like she spent all this time taking him through gymnastics exercises, but you look at him and you're like, he looks like he's been at work, but he hasn't, she's just showed him a different way of standing and moving and that it might be a good idea. Like it might feel better to do this instead of that. So it just goes to show that a lot of horses before we even start training them may be in compensation, may be in dysfunction and this is what, when we talk about this work and it me and Celeste are going to get on that other podcast again and do some follow-up. But we talk a lot about the thoracic sling, but this whole program is about the whole horse and about, developing the entire being, yes, we start with the thoracic sling, but it's more their mind, their body, their energy. Being able to move all their limbs and all four Cardinal directions and to be able to carry us and carry us for, the longevity of their life, without falling apart or developing these compensation patterns that will lead to lameness. And it's just, it's just been amazing. Cause I'm like, it just makes so much sense. You know, now that I've started to, like, I bought my two, I have two anatomy books sitting right here. But when I started to see it this way, I was like, oh, so this is just a prerequisite to ever riding a horse, basically. Like, you know what I thought was important when starting a horse, I'm like, we'll add this in there, it's probably the most important because it's cool because they are so receptive to it too, because it feels better and they have this ability, but instinctually, they won't necessarily tap into it until we show them how and then once we showed them how they're like, oh, well this feels better so I think I'll just do this now. I went to see a client, like, just as an example, I went to see her and you know, she's like, I've been really busy. Haven't done anything with him in three weeks. And we're both like, well, clearly he's been doing the work himself because he looked completely different and like his chest and his back and his trapezius in his thoracic thing would look so much better. And she's like, I honestly, haven't been here much. Like he's just doing it on his own. And that's the other part of what I love about this work is, in the rehab world, it's very structured. I think we try and almost mirror it like physiotherapy. Sometimes, I think things get over complicated. And I like to leave owners feeling empowered, like, they can really do this and it's not complicated. And the horse is going to feel better after the work. And I'm a big piece of this is getting them out of compensation first. And I think this is a huge, huge hole in kind of training and rehab. Like, again, I'm still very new to kind of the rehab world, but there's a lot of recommendations to strengthen a horse. Like from the get go, a lot of people think, oh, your horse is weak, pull work, he'll work like doing all these things, but I'm like, but you have to first look at, does the horse even have access to their body to do those things properly? And that's also where we start in this program is. The horse doesn't have access and they're in a deep compensation pattern. You can't go to strengthening that. And this makes sense to me from my bodybuilding background. Especially when I was in a car accident and I was being told at physio, I need to strengthen you know, my back is weak. My back is weak. Well, I couldn't engage my back because my chest was so constricted and everyone missed that. So until I opened my chest, I couldn't properly engage my back. Yeah. I was trying and I was doing it, but I was doing it in compensation. So I can empathize with the horses in that I can be like, okay, well, forget it and they're so amazing that they will do whatever we ask them to. But I say they borrow from Peter to pay Paul. And a lot of the cases, they will figure out a new way to do what we're asking them to do. It just may cost them somewhere else in their body. So I'm the type of person too. Once I now to the new better I have to do better. I can't really skirt around it. Part of the hard conversations is no, you can't take your horse to that barrel race. That that would be detrimental for all of these reasons or some people ask, what can I still ride and do this work? And I said, well, honestly, like you could, but based on this, this, this, and this, it's probably better that you don't, obviously, I'm not telling you what to do with your own horse, but my recommendation would be to not ride them cause they can't even hold themselves up. So if you sit on them, they really can't hold you up. And then they're going to be deeper and compensation and you're just going to strengthen dysfunction. And I want, you know, to continue to share this message of, if someone tells you your horse is weak, Don't just get it the ground poles like make sure they can actually. Walk correctly. And a lot of people just don't know what that looks like. I don't even really know what that looks like until recently. So again we're trying to share this information because there's so much more to it, but that's I guess I could go on and on. That's a, that's a big piece of how I think my perspective has changed a lot. And I'd say the most rewarding to help horses that have been kind of like they're at the I don't wanna say the end of the rope, but like no one else has been able to help them because it's not an acute injury. It's not, that they need injections. It's not that they have a fracture. It's not that, they need more massage anymore. Cairo it's truly developmental. It's like, it's a training. Like we need to teach them how to change their posture. And that can't come from an injection. Like massage definitely helps, cairo definitely helps, but. We have a ton of body workers in this class as well, because if they go in and release everything, but the horse doesn't then change how they move themselves through space, they just get tight again, or they just go back into their old patterns. So a lot of these Bodyworkers are starting to understand that it's just kind of putting a bandaid on. And that's why when I met Celeste, I was like, oh, you've been through this. Like she was a trainer was introduced to bodywork, became a bodyworker herself and then quit training because she realized that however, she was riding these horses as successful as she was, it was creating dysfunction in the body. And then she went to figure out why. And so I thank her all the time for doing the extra steps. So I didn't have to in a way, because I was on that path, I was like, well I'm going to have to become a bodyworker and I would have just probably followed a very similar path to her, but now I'm like, oh, I can help people see differently. And that's a big part of like, if you do a consult with me, I literally get the textbooks. So like, I educate as much as I look at your horse and tell you what I'm seeing, I'd make sure that you have that base understanding and that you can start to see what I see. Because again it's so important that we don't just do the balanced movement method. You understand why you're doing it, what the goals. And that's why it's so different than a lot of other programs that are okay, you're gonna do five minutes. They're going to be 10 minutes and you're going to do this. It's like, yeah, we want to pay attention to how much the horse can do, but it's more so about how they feel about the work and that it feels good for them. We're reaching goals within it, more so than, okay, you've done this amount of time. Now we're going to do this amount of time that we do this another time. It's very different in that respect. But I think that's what I like about it. Because as an athlete, yes, it's good to have measures, but it's also good that, I say we change from the inside out. We want the horses to feel good in this and to change the way they move and the way they stand, because it feels better. And then they go out and they do that in the field for the other 23 hours of the day. Not just when they're with us for the half an hour to an hour. We want them to literally feel it from the inside out and change. And that's also why, like some of the photos I share on my social media, it still blows my mind when people send me photos cause it'll be like, I even have photos within 15 minutes versus look completely different. But again, it's like, well, when you understand what we're doing, And how we're helping the horses find the sense of relief there. Their fascia, their whole body will take a sigh of relief and you just see this like exhalation in their whole body soften. And in some cases that happens incredibly quickly, because it's just been how they've been holding themselves, but they won't necessarily realize that, oh, if I just maybe, you know, well, the comparison is us. So if you start to get tense and your shoulders start to kind of creep up and your neck gets tight and you maybe get a headache or you start to have postural pain, we know that. But that can be from how we're sitting or how we're standing. So we'll drop our shoulders, roll them back. We'll sit up straight or we'll self-correct but the horses just go deeper into compensation. They don't, they don't know how to self-correct. And with this work, we show them how they could stand and they could move and then they're like, oh wait, this feels better and then you start to see them adopt it and that's what I say to the owners too. It's not about, yes, this is what we're doing, but you have to then test the work you have to then allow the horse show you what they're gonna do or where they're gonna put their head or how they're going to walk and you need to let them show you and let them have the opportunity to adopt it on their own as well. So it's very cool because it's also a degree, like I said, of kind of stepping back and helping owners not micromanage their horses. We're truly trying to develop athletes that have the ability, but also the responsibility to move themselves through space and us not have to constantly manage them, micromanage them, hold them in positions, constantly correct them. We show them, we offer to them and then we kind of step back. And say, how does that feel? What do you think about that? How does that feel? And, you know, it is different for some people because like, wait, I correct them, not correct them. Like hold them there, not hold them in there. And it's like, no now that we've shown them, like let them explore it. Right and it is different. And some people are like, wait, so I'm not just doing this so many times. And I'm like, not in the beginning, like, it's more about the goal. It's not so much about the number of reps initially and et cetera. So it's been, it's been pretty cool, but it definitely aligns with like how I would train myself in the gym too. Like I would track what I was doing, but I would know when to push myself and when I've had enough for the day. It is a lot of feel but I think that's also good. Cause we're helping owners develop. Feel and awareness and being present and holding space and yeah. Obviously I can go on and on. Yeah. It's been pretty, pretty amazing work. And like I said, I'm so grateful to be a part of it, but I also still feel like I've got so much to learn, like so much to learn from her and from other people in the group as well. But it's been amazing to be helping horses and helping owners. And like I said, when I get some of the photos, I'm just like, I can't even believe that's the same horse. Sometimes we just are, you can't even really see it. And then you put the photos beside each other and you're just like, is this real life, is this real life? It's funny, like we send little mind blown emojis to each other, all the time. But it just happens over and over and I'm going to keep being surprised and love every minute of it because it's just, it's amazing. It's amazing.

Ronnie:

When you passionate about something, it's just lovely. You want to share it with the whole world don't you and it can be your thing, whatever it is, but you just want to share it because it makes you feel, you just feel different and it can be to do with horses it, with yourself to do with something you did at work or, it's just that feeling of excitement and the adrenaline. You want to know what a difference, whatever this thing is, how it makes you feel. It's very much about teaching the person because Most of the things we deal with. It's a symptom, it's not the cause, more than we realize. And a lot of people are looking for the answer and they get so far and they have a feeling that it's still not quite right, but they don't know where else to go. But now there is more knowledge and I think a lot of people are coming into their own with their own intuition, with their own inner guidance. And as you said earlier, when you look at the horse, you see like x-ray vision, I believe that your intuition is giving you that anyway. It's almost like a sense, you know it and then you see it. The guidance is there but as humans, we have to explain it in a way that somebody else can understand and learn from that. If we just said, oh this is going on, I'll fix your horse and I'll do this. Then you send them away, that's lovely, but if they don't change what they do or how they perceive something, then it's going to come back, it's not going to change a huge amount. And it starts with us, it starts with a human to change how they see things, how they interpret something, but also not being afraid to trust their gut. We all know about guidance and your gut feeling, but it's not taught to such a degree that where you trust that. Even if somebody in a professional manner says something, but your gut says, no, you need to look at something else or you need to look further. You have to have the courage to say thank you but actually I'm sensing something else. And it's not a reflection on the vets, on the Bodyworkers because they're trying their best with what they know but it will only take you so far.

Betsy:

And I think that's what I always try and say to the owners, it's that they're doing the best they can with what they know and not everyone knows everything. And like vets will tell you if you talk to vets, yes, they then specialize in horses, but they had to learn everything about so many different animals, there's just so much to being a doctor and sometimes developmental and biomechanics and seeing the horse in this way, it's not taught. I've talked to several vets and some know about nerve impingement, but don't know what to do about it or some don't even know about nerve impingement. There was a vet that shared with Celeste and like i'll share now, but they brought up sciatica. Like they asked when they were in school. Can horses get sciatica? And she said that she was laughed at of the lecture and people were like, what are you talking about? I show people the horses, sciatic nerve all the time. And my textbook it's bigger than a garden hose basically. And it runs along their glutes just like ours does. Then I have videos from clients of their horses getting a sciatic nerve impingement, and it looks like someone hit their horse in the boat with a cattle prod out of nowhere. And I'm like, Celeste is this. She's like, that is a fantastic example of what a sciatic nerve fire looks like. And again, it's not their fault, but also my perspective when you're building a vet curriculum and you have so many things to cover and how do you cover everything? You can't, you can't, but I think there are a lot of good vets out there that will say, yeah I've gone through everything. I've looked at everything I can look at and I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you. Right. And that's all that we ask of them, is that maybe we we don't dismiss the owner's concerns. We acknowledged that. Yeah. Okay. We just tell them, well, I've been through everything that I can think to look at, or, you know, within your budget or whatever. And if you still think that there is something then maybe continue to look and explore different practitioners or different things. But don't Gaslight owners. We don't want that. We don't want people being dismissed for their concerns and belittled and feeling like, it's not real because also some lamenesses, and this is why I love Dr. Audrey to clue if anyone hasn't stumbled upon her podcast yet I highly recommend it. But she came to veterinary later in life and she says like, there are things that she was never taught in vet school, but one of her first podcasts was, like it's not normal when your horse pins are ears and threatens to bite, you when you're putting a saddle on it. It's not normal if you're walking down the aisle and you hear inconsistent hoof beats, it's not normal. If your horse pushes all the wood shavings the back of the stall, like there's all of these things. And then she talks about postural versus limb versus positional lameness or like positional versus body versus limb lameness story. And she's like, I wasn't taught that in school. I was taught the zero to five limb lameness scale. She's like I had to figure out positional lameness and body lameness, basically on my own. And she was very open about this in her podcast. And I was like, it's true because some lamenesses or some dysfunctions will only feel when we're riding the horse and they will walk straight and they will trot straight and they will flex fine. Doesn't mean that, that lameness isn't it. Right or that unsound us. So that dysfunction isn't there. It just means that you can only feel it when you actually ride the horse. So unless your vets getting on and riding your horse, right. They may not feel what you're feeling. So it's not right to dismiss that owner and say, no it can't be because I flex them and I nerve block them and they're fine. Even with palpations some horses, they won't necessarily palpate it sore, but you can see it in their movement. You can see that they don't have full range of motion in their pelvis, or they don't have a nice swing through their head and neck when they're walking. It's very stationary. Well, it shouldn't be, so it may not palpate up just cause you can't palpate that doesn't mean that there's not dysfunction there, but at the end of the day, it's not the vet's job to treat it, if it's a developmental issue, right. If it's not an acute or chronic. Illness. It's also not necessarily the vet's job to treat something that needs to be developed, right? Like here in Canada, vets are not physios, we don't even have, like, I think we're starting to get more equine physiotherapists. I know they're very much so present in the United Kingdom and starting to become more present in the us, but like, that's not something that I grew up with knowing was even an option right. So the vets do their best with creating rehab plans. But it's not like they've gone to school like they have in the UK or somewhere else in the world where you go and you, you can go to university, can't you to be a university or college in the UK and that's not a thing here. That's why I'm a consultant because. I can't go to school to be a rehab specialist for horses, well, maybe not in my area, but something people ask me are you yet certified specifically in anything and right now, no, because I don't want to be biased and I want to know as much as I can about all the different factors I look at when I'm looking at a horse, but I don't want to just become a bodyworker cause if I become certified at hand I'd say it like this, but I'm a little bit handcuffed and what I can say, or if I become a veterinarian let's say, I would obviously have more free speech, but when you're more educated in a certain area, you will also think that those things are more so the problem. So when I say I try and remain unbiased is I try to just have information. I know what a balanced foot should look like, my sister's a farrier. So when I need a console, I send her the photos and images cause she is the expert. If I'm not sure, about body thing, they'll send it to Celeste. I have people that I consult with, but when you post a horse, I see this all the time in the groups, someone will post a horse, the farriers think it's in the foot, the body workers think it's in the body and the chiropractors think it's somewhere else but like what your modality is, of course, you're going to think that obviously that is the cause, because that's what you've learned could be the cause. But I want to come in and know about all the causes and be able to kind of weigh them out against each other and be like, okay, well, the feet aren't great, but they're not bad enough to cause that posture right. Or the pelvis isn't moving. But if you look at the front end, like they're completely crookid completely sideways, so I know that will affect the pelvis. So I want to be able to come in, when I look at a horse and like I said, have this kind of unbiased holistic view, like I know enough about relatively the majority of the areas that I can look at your horse and be this unbiased set of eyes to help maybe see something that all the other professionals haven't seen yet, or maybe they've tried to correct, but it hasn't fixed the problem. Right? Like I had horses where they were negative planter angle, right? So in the hind feet, the coffin bone had dropped. So the farrier wedge, the horse will now the horses worse didn't fix the problem. Well, because in some cases that's a symptom of the postural dysfunction. It's not the cause. So if we go and take away that compensation, sometimes the horses will vail in other places, because now you've taken away a compensation mechanism without fixing the reason why they need to compensate in the first place. So that's where I like to come in with this kind open mind, and I want to definitely learn more about nerve and pinch. When I want to learn more about bodywork, I want to learn more about correct farrier. I want to learn more about diagnostic testing that vets can and cannot do. Like I want to learn more and that's why I'm not going to lie. I'm looking forward to being on my mat, leave with my baby so I can do all this studying and learn more. But right now I'm not going to take a full multi-year in depth course in any one of these places cause as I said, I don't want to become biased. I don't want to get, an inherent bias to one thing or the other. I just want to be able to come in and help you as an owner look at the entire picture and weigh it out. And like I said, yeah, I'm definitely got the eye for the posture and felt it now. Then having the behavior knowledge and having a farrier sister and having all these people, I do have resources to also help me in that process, but that's where I kind of see myself right now. And like I said, I can't wait. So I have this amazing vet textbook. This is my anatomy of the horse. And I haven't had time to read it. Like I have all these great diagrams and I've been able to scan it, but I can't wait to actually have the time to just sit down and actually read this textbook. It's a vet textbook. And there's a whole section on the back about diagnostics. So I can't wait to read this because it's like the more I know, the more I can help, but I want to really extend my list of what could possibly be wrong and have more of an appreciation for the different factors and how they. Play into the horse and the presentation, because even with the developmental stuff, like I've looked at some horses, like I said, that's why I'm recommending x-rays because I'm like, we could do the work, but those feet they're standing in the way of the posture changing. This is where I'm also not just like, oh, this is the answer to everything. No, I still look at the whole horse when I look at them it's not just like automatic balance or movement method. It's definitely like, okay, let's look at the whole horse, the behavior of their nutrition, their living environment, everything. When I asked for a history, I asked for everything and people are like, I'm sorry, it's so long, I'm like the more, the better send me all the things. The more information you can give me. Cause I may read something. And correlate that, but it may not be significant to the owner, but then in correlation with the other, maybe a couple of things I'm going to read in the history, I'm like, no, that actually correlates to this, this and this. And when I do look at horses too, I actually look at them first. I try not to read the history. I try not to read human perspective. In all honesty, I tell clients is too. I'm like I don't actually read the history. I look at the movement videos, and I look at the photos and I look at the feet and I look at the horse first and I let the horses body tell me what I'm seeing. Then I go back and I read the history they sent me. And I see if things connect or what connects and based on what I'm seeing in the body, could this explain some of the behaviors or what they're feeling under saddle or whichever, but that's how I kind of approach things is I actually look at the horse first without any of the human perspective on it. Because people do perceive things differently than me. So I look at the horse and then I read the history and then I'm like, oh, okay that makes sense, this makes sense, this makes sense, this is probably why this, and I kind of like connect all the dots for them and then we meet and see, and it helps me determine where to start with the horse cause I also may say, well, actually, before we can even get started you know, what's in your budget, can you have this? Or can you have that done? Or, you know, maybe actually you do need to have the vet back out. We really should reevaluate these feet, so I do still look at the horse before we get in the in-person as well, or like the virtual, depending on what to make sure that I am the right person to help the horse. In some cases it is like, well, actually, no, you need to go talk to this person or that person. Yeah, I will, I will say that I'm like, I can go on and on.

Ronnie:

I'm conscious that you've got an appointment soon. Are you still okay for a little bit more time? Are you okay? Yeah.

Betsy:

Let's do a couple more questions. Warned her that I was here and I would be in touch once I was done. Yeah.

Ronnie:

So if somebody wanted to contact you Betsy what would it consultation consist of it and then how does it go on from there?

Betsy:

Yes, for sure. So right now you can reach out to me via Facebook. Instagram or my website and we are going to be updating that. Cause right now, if you're looking for a virtual constant, you'll find it's under performance and behavior assessments. And when someone reaches out to me, I do have a wait list right now, I will warn people at that but when people reach out to. I get their email and I'll give them a list in some cases, unless it's quite far out than I say, okay, when it's closer to your turn I'll reach out with my list. So basically I have a whole set of photographs that I asked them to take with descriptions cause even if you're taking photos for someone to look at your horse, I'll just say this because this is good to know if someone asks you to share anything. So confirmation style photos, the horse should be fairly neutral. I don't want owners to actually square their horses up. Because a lot of horses can't square up when they're in pastural dysfunction. So I just want them to stand in the most neutral, common position that they commonly see their horse standing in. And sometimes that may be the mountain goat. I call it where, you know, the front feet are way underneath and hind feet are coming under and they kind of look like they're a mountain goats standing on a rock. I want to see that posture cause it tells me a lot of information. So I'll tell them, take photos from either side, from directly in front of the horse, from directly behind the horse. Try and be right in the middle as you can have them from tops and all the sides. Because when I put all my lines on, I don't want any distortion. I asked for movement videos, your classic, what you would consider lameness this ones, the walking towards and away from the camera. Also watching the horse walk from the side and at whatever gates the horse is currently doing. So if your horse is only walking, I just need to see walk. Don't take your horse, who isn't cantering and go out and do trot and canter videos. I just need to see them at walk and literally 10 seconds is usually enough for me to see how their bodies moving through space. Then I asked for a full history. I mean, everything you can tell me about your horse, so where they live. If they're indoor out there, or if they're turnout, what they eat from. So does your horse eat from around bale feeder with a slow feed net in a raised box? Do they eat from the ground? Do they graze? What does their pasture look like? What are you currently feeding them? What are you personally feeling if it's like under saddle or if it's behavior or what are you seeing your horse? What are your concerns? What have other practitioners found? So if every time your massage therapist comes and they're sensitive in the pole, the weather in the sacrum or the low back, like what are some of the common findings. If they would like to share, obviously I'm not fully trained in reading x-rays or anything like that, but I can recognize kissing spine on an x-ray. I can look at basic hoof x-rays and tell you if they're in proper alignment or not. So I basically asked for as much history as they can give me. So what do you know about how this horse was raised? And sometimes I say, well, I don't know anything. I bought them at a sale. Well, that's fine. Like, it is what it is. Right. But if you know of any previous traumas, if you know of any previous injuries, if you bought them from a barn where they were never turned out and now you've brought them home and they're living on 10 acres. Like if they spent the first six years of their life in a box stall, like that's important for me to know. So I basically asked owners to give me as much nutrition, riding, environment, friends lifestyle behavior, what they're feeling under saddle, like give me a complete history and your horse as detailed as you would like and I would rather have more information than less information. Even the things that you may notice that you don't think are significant. Does your horse, when you tie them, do they stand still or do they flip their head up and down? Do they move back and forth? Are they irritated? Can you brush them? Like basically any information you can give me about your horses behavior, how they live, what you're feeling under saddle, how you've been training them, what type of workload they're under, what you'd like to do also like for goals, if it's a competition where it's like, do you want to barrel races first? Do you want to jump this horse, do you want to invent this force? Give me everything you can think of. Basically. I want to know all the things and then once it's your turn with me. Cause right now working my other job as well I do. Go horse by horse down my list so I will look at everything. Like I said, I looked at the photos and videos. I mark up the photos. So I selected the photo's I think will give me the best education back to you. And I draw my lines and then what I do is actually use Facebook quite a bit because I can send voice memos. So then I will send each photo back and explain everything I'm seeing and how it correlates with the behavior potentially or what they're feeling under saddle. And sometimes horses move and that's why it's actually great. If owners send me a few photos from the same kind of perspective, because we all know horses will swing their head back and forth or move around. And I do take the photos with a grain of salt, but I can usually with the way my mind works is if I see something here in the back and then when I'm looking at the front of the horse and I see more rib cage out to the right. And that correlates with what I saw from the back photo. Again, that's all information that I tied together and then I basically send all those photos, explain everything I'm seeing. If any other questions come up, I'll ask those. Or if I suggest any other investigations, and then once we've kind of had a bit of a back and forth discussion, then we would book a virtual and even that as well, I do mostly through Facebook because it doesn't matter, FaceTime doesn't work for everyone. Everyone doesn't have zoom. Everyone doesn't have Skype, doesn't have the latest thing, but most people have Facebook messenger and through there I can send, we can basically keep a full record of everything and it's very accessible. So all the photos and videos the time we had the FaceTime I can do the video through there. And then when you send me progress photos, I just go into previous media files. I can have a look at that horses when you first sent me the photos to what you just said. Sometimes I'll put them together for you and send them back to you with what I'm seeing in the difference. So this is how my process has been so far. Then once I go on mat leave. I'm hoping to be able to like have a calendar that people can book into, et cetera, once I'm all caught up, but that's how I'm doing things right now. It's it's been really amazing. So my initial console is 200 Canadian right now. That's the console and the first session and then for follow ups, it's a hundred dollars Canadian. For everyone who's not in Canada, there's no tax, which is a nice little bonus that some people love to hear about. So that's a, that's my process right now. And I am starting to offer in-person days. So I have a few barns here just locally at the moment where I do go for the day and I have multiple horses and we do follow up sessions. And then once I'm on mat leave, I'm sure I'll have more flexibility to go and spend time in other barns and I'm going out a couple of provinces away to do clinics. And so I'm really looking forward to being able to spend more time in person with people as well. Like virtual is still very, very effective, but it is always great when I can go there in real time because some people are very like hands-on learners, right? So. I am hoping to have more time to be able to travel within Ontario for sure. And maybe other parts of the world eventually, but right now just sticking to Ontario and Canada for now. But yeah, that's, that's the process.

Ronnie:

I think you've got quite a lot and especially with their baby, how exciting is that?

Betsy:

Yeah, we're, we're so excited and we're very fortunate that things happened. We literally got married, built a house and got pregnant all in 2021. So, wow. We definitely didn't keep us down. Fortunate that everything kept rolling and we were not really held back in any way from COVID abviously keeping very safe. And yeah, we're just looking forward to expanding the brood and having a baby, like I'm 33 in my husbands 37 I'm like, I didn't think about that for a second. So we've definitely develop our careers and spend a lot of time on ourselves and traveling but we also have really great friends who also have kids and still barrel race and still show us, you know, that life goes on. It doesn't just totally stop because you have a child and we have some really great support systems. So I'm looking forward to yeah to having a baby. And everyone tells me it's, you know, it's crazy. I'm like I did shift work. I worked night shifts. I lived on three hours of sleep for many years. I'm like, it doesn't scare me so much because I did several years of shift work and there was nights where you'd get to a base and 20 minutes later you'd have to go to another base and then another basement and other base. So I'm like, I have functions like deprived and saved lives while doing it. So I am not as panicked about being tired, I think. Cause again, I've experienced it before, so I can kind of mentally prepare a little bit for what that time is going to be like yeah.

Ronnie:

And of course, you're going to give yourself time because having a baby is a big thing on your body and your hormones and everything, but you're very intuitive so you're allowing yourself time. Horse is a great grounding, you'll have that, so you can go okay.

Betsy:

Yes and my husband's going to compete on my horse this year. I have still three training courses as well. Two of them are going home next week and the other one cowboy, the one who had kissing spine, he'll be with me for another couple of weeks. But yeah, not really showing much right now. People just keep laughing and had a big dinner. So I've been pretty fortunate in that respect that I haven't really felt very pregnant which has been a good thing. And baby's starting to kick now, but haven't been tired, I haven't had terrible morning sickness. I've been very, very productive, but I'm definitely looking forward to slowing down because my memory, I say I've had baby brains since about week eight and yeah, it's probably the most stressful part about being pregnant is how much I forget. So that's why I take people's emails and I have my little system set up because I'm way more forgetful than I was prior to being pregnant. So yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to kind of slowing down and just enjoying the horses and it's nice cause I'm able to do a lot of this from the ground. I don't have get on and ride horses. And obviously I won't be able to do that soon. I won't be getting on strange unknown horses. That's for sure. Once I'm, well, I did it on the weekend, but it's like, it's all risk evaluation. Right. But you know, I'm a good judge of the horse's energy and I know that they'll like you said, they know I'm pregnant, so they're going to take care of me, but I can just feel my pelvis is getting to the point where it's like, yeah, Betsy, we don't need to be riding all day every day. So yeah, I'm looking forward to just having more time for self care and slowing down. I basically worked from six till eight or nine every day and yeah, I'm ready to just take a breath.

Ronnie:

Yeah I bet you are.

Betsy:

Thank you. Yeah honestly though, it's funny because I do notice how I lose some other things. If I'm not using them, I guess it's all connecting, right? So like when you connect things to other things, it helps you remember them more. But yeah I think, because I do that, I relate a lot of things as I learn them to other things and then I think it helps.

Ronnie:

My memory is not that brilliant. My sons, over 30, that's still got baby brain.

Betsy:

That's what people are saying. You're like, oh, just wait until you have the baby. So my friends used to laugh at me, when communication comes, I have a different, it's almost like my posture changes as well. It's self-assured if that's the right word without sounding egotistical and my friends, because if you're intuitive you're intuitve, it's not down to just horses, but that's where my horse let me and when I give messages to my friend, they'll go, that's not you talking cause you're so scatty. Thank you. That's funny, they can feel that from you. Yeah.

Ronnie:

Listen, it's been absolutely fascinating, I hope you've enjoyed this chat. Yes. I'd let go bit more into how working with the client and the horse afterwards, when you've done your session because you said you allow the horse just to go off and to figure out how their body moves.

Betsy:

Yeah I don't want to say it like it's allowing them to. A mistake, but it's kind of like how you have to let your kids stumble, you know what I mean? To walk, it's learning when to help them and when to guide them. But then you reached that point where you have to allow them to try on their own. Because like one of the things we do is we do help the horses in some cases, lower their head and in some cases we do kind of guide them then to walk forward from that place. But you can't stay there forever. Right? So you have to then release the horse and ask them to walk. And often we'll see them kind of go back to that space. But if you're holding them there, how do they go they're on their own. So a lot of the the guiding and the coaching I give owners is yes, we're going to do this. But as I said, this is what you're looking for in the goals. And as they start to feel better, you'll start to see them take on these postures, but you have to allow that you have to allow them to try. You have to allow them to explore. And I helped them balance within the virtual session. What that looks like, or when the horse is just disassociating, because we see that a lot too, right? Where they're so uncomfortable in their body, that they just try and eat, or they want to, to the leader, or they want to go with their places because they're not comfortable being in their own, in their own body. When we can maybe draw their attention back to the present moment instead of that or in some cases I'm like, no, like let them just process that. But when I leave them to the work, I leave them with kind of, for that individual horse, this is what you're going to look for. And these are going to be kind of your goals and your benchmarks. But remember this is your outline, but within that, this is what you're watching for from the horse. So when the horse stops, like don't just drag them to a stop per se, right? Like you stop and see if they match you or not. Right. And I kind of say to them make it a bit of a game, right? Like when when you're walking and you're stopping or you're doing it. Don't be super organized about it. Like play with your energy, bring it up, bring it down, stop here, stop there. Like make it a bit of a game and see how the horse does. Yeah like test the work and see what they do with that, so that they start to explore what we're offering to them. And not just constantly you telling them what to do. Right. So initially yes. It's like when you're teaching someone, they need more guidance, but then we start watching like as a coach, I'd be like, okay, they're doing this, let's just see if they notice right. That's part of the learning process and if they don't notice and then you leave it for a couple of seconds or depending on what it is and then you say and they're like, oh and maybe it's a less of a cue right. It's just me a direction with your hand instead of a full contact. And I do coach the owners into how you need to allow the horse to make the mistake. You need to allow the horse to show you where they're at, basically and then this is when you guide them and this is when you don't and I do my best to coach them through that. Some people definitely need more support than others. But some are like, okay, I totally get it. I've got it. I've already have, you know, some relational horsemanship background, et cetera. And they go from there and then some others, I have some clients that are extremely detail oriented and I have to break it down for them, like step by step but I'm happy to do that. Right? Because each individual human also has their own way of learning and their own way of applying. And I totally get that as an educator. So I will help you in any way, shape or form that I can. I'll put on my little detective cap to make sure that you fully understand what the goals are and how to achieve them. And if my first explanation doesn't work, we'll find another way to explain it to you or to help you understand or ask you more questions or I will do my best, I always say, we want to set the horse and the human up for success. So I'll even talk about environment, like with some of these horses, we're asking them into vulnerable positions. So going into the arena where they're most anxious might not be the best decision. So we'll talk about that. Like sometimes during the live call, we have to do it where the best services are, where the safest to do it. Then I say, you know, I'm not there and I'm not on the phone. Can you do this in your pasture? Is your pasture flat? Where's the horse feel the calm and most safe, right? So maybe you should start there instead of in the arena. So we have a lot of conversations to inbed environment and skill and comfort level and things like that as well. Because in some cases we're asking the horses to go into a vulnerable position and to be present and if they're in the arena and that's a really stressful place for them and it makes them very anxious and uncomfortable, that's not the place to do the work. A couple of horses lately I've said, don't do it in the arena because the sand, it's too much work for them to walk through sand. They need to walk on a firm dirt, or soft gravel surface instead of in the sand, because it's too much for them, they can't do it. It's going to keep them in compensation. So you need to do it in their pasture, or you need to do it up and down the lane or you need to do the work somewhere where it's not going to put the horse at risk of going back into compensation. FairWarning my computer, I still have 6% say my computer's dying. Oh no.

Ronnie:

Oh, I think we've lost her. Nevermind, it doesn't matter yeah, I think your internet's died, at the perfect time, so that's fine, she has another appointment. That was fascinating. I hope that you found that of interest and if you want to message, the details of her website on linked to this. So thank you for your comments, thank you. And I'm sorry, I didn't put them up until the end, but I didn't want to disturb Betsy because I like to listen to as you do and and find out what she has to share with us, which is fascinating. So take care everybody, from myself and Betsy thank you for listening and your comments and I shall speak to you soon. Take care and bye for now. Thank you.