Interview with Dr Susan Fay - www.drsusanfay.com

Interview with Dr. Susan Fay.
I'm excited to announce an interview with Dr Susan Fay.
It was lovely to hear all about Susan's adventures since our last chat when she attended a summit in San Antonio last year, as well as hear about her plans for the future.

It's always a pleasure to listen to Susie talk about her passion and her work.
So sit back, relax and I hope you enjoy this episode.

Dr Susan Fay.
Like many horse-crazy girls, I spent most of my youth pretending to be a horse, reading about horses, watching horse movies, wishing I could ride one, and hoping desperately that one day I would have a horse of my own. My dream came true at nine years old when my parents bought me a horse named Sox. He was old and had only two speeds left, slow and slower. Although they indulged me in my passion, my parents made sure I understood that a profession involving horses was not a realistic option. Therefore, I became an environmental scientist, a respectable and responsible career path. I tried to make it work and even got a master's degree in it, but I was completely miserable.

​In my late 20's, I married a man who agreed to let me pursue my horse passion full-time. We bought a ranch in northwestern Colorado and raised Morgan horses and Scottish Highland cattle. I spent my days doing ranch chores, starting young horses, refining my groundwork, and honing my western and dressage riding skills. I also spent a great deal of time observing how horses interact with each other in the herd.

​During my time on the ranch, I attended horse clinics and began showing my horses in dressage, carriage driving, and various western disciplines. I quickly realized that even though I achieved great results at home with my horses, shows were a totally different story. My inability to control my emotional state led to many disappointing outcomes in the show ring. I realized I was the problem, but there were few people or resources I could find that would help me gain control over my show nerves.

On my own, I began to explore spiritual practices and psychological techniques to improve my mental ability to handle stressful situations. I began to see enormous changes in both myself and my horses, even winning regional, national, and world championships. On Tank, my Morgan horse, I got my first real taste of riding in the Sacred Space.

​My journey to find the Sacred Space and teach it to others has not been easy. I have encountered rejections, frustration, and outright hostility. I have kept going because I know what is possible when you take this journey. When we improve ourselves, our horses reward us beyond our wildest dreams.
​

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Transcript

Ronnie: 0:12

Hello everybody and welcome to Equine Voices my name is Ronnie, I'm your host for today's interview and I'm so, so pleased to have dr. Susan Fay she's been on a few times, so I'm so excited to have her on again for a chat and it's like seeing an old trend and catching up. Susan's gonna talk about her work. She'll do a brief introduction and then we'll talk a about the summit that she went to in San Antonio, Texas, about her talk that she did. We'll also do a few questions but We'll answer the questions towards the later part of the chat so we don't interrupt, Susan. Okay. Hi, Susie

Susan: 0:50

Hello everybody thank you for coming on this beautiful Saturday, at least it's a beautiful day here in Colorado so thank you.

Ronnie: 0:59

Would you like to introduce yourself, just a brief introduction for the people that may not know who you are. There'll be lots of people that do know who you are and then we'll go into our conversation.

Susan: 1:09

Okay. For those of you who don't know me, where do you even start when you introduce yourself? I don't have the fancy introduction. I've been actually working with horses since I was nine years old and I've actually been studying energy and consciousness and psychology and all of those things from the time I was about 12 years old and having some experiences when I was younger and those really propelling me to find answers in different ways and not just looking at the science, which is what my background really is, is in the natural sciences and I also wanted to understand like how do humans work and how does our brain work and how do we access other realms of consciousness? And all of those things are just really fascinating to me. So I've, I've spent my lifetime really studying all of that and, and really how we interact with other beings and especially horses cuz that's my big love is how do we speak to them. But I speak maybe a little bit different than Ronnie. She does animal communication and I also do animal communication, but in a different way, that's about how I interact with the energy field and what information I'm gaining from the energy field as far as what is going on with that animal or that person. So everybody has their preferred method of doing things and, and mine is because I'm very kinesthetic. I like to connect at an energetic level and feel things in my body and interpret those. That information that I receive rather than verbal information. In fact, just a, a quick brief little thing. It's like when I was a kid, it's like, why do people use words? I mean, I didn't even think I needed to speak because why do we even need words? Because I'm feeling all these things and they're, to me, very rich and have a lot of information in'em. And those are the feelings we have that I love to interpret. And, and I'd love to speak to horses and other animals in that language too, because we both understand it. So Just that brief background. I, you know, went to school for quite a while. You know, my journey took me to environmental science and then to psychology and, and all the way around. All these different things kind of are fitting together into what I do now with horses and people. So, a brief introduction, maybe it made you more confused about who is she, what does she do? I don't really know. I do a lot of things. That's all I can say.

Ronnie: 3:39

That was perfect Susie, and if anybody wants to know any further information about Dr. Susan Faye, you can go to her website and find out more information but also we've done previous interviews so you can look at them and hear more about her background and her story. So we are just gonna touch on your summit, cuz that was one big thing that you did last year. Actually you've done lots of big things, but that was a big thing to go to. Do you want to explain a little of what you was doing there and how that came about?

Susan: 4:09

Yeah. And I think what's really interesting is not that many years ago, the horse world was still kind of in that dominance based training thing. And, and just in the past few years, there's started to be this big shift into what people are really looking at and, and they're getting more into the neuroscience and they're getting more into the psychology and about us working on ourselves and, and exploring all these other avenues which are really exciting. And I think that the Summit Work Sheller's podcast summit in San Antonio, Texas was the first, I wouldn't say maybe the first really big, it was really big international type of conference where people from around the world were coming to speak there and everybody was bringing in their perspectives on this new trend that we're seeing in the horse world. And so it was really exciting and it was one of those things where, You know, I, I said I've been working since I was 12, studying consciousness and all this stuff. So for me it felt like why weren't people jumping on board years ago, and why, why was this so long in the, the making? And But for me, when that summit happened, it was like, wow, this is something I didn't expect to happen in my lifetime. Maybe that there would be this group of people that, and such a large paradigm shift happening right now. And so that's what's really great and anytime there's a paradigm shift, there's a lot of people involved and there's a lot of different things that happen and there's a lot of information coming from a lot of different sources and, and that in itself can make people become quite confused. It's like, which way should I go? How should I do things? Wow. All this information, it's all new. I wanna learn everything I can. And in the process they kind of go through a period of time of great confusion and that's okay because if you take some time after that confusion and sit with it and be quiet in that quiet space, all of that information will start to integrate and it will come into your brain and, and start to work in a way that makes sense to you. But if you stay in that kind of just staying in all the, I need to get more information, more information, and you never give yourself time to integrate it, you just create more confusion in your brain. So that's one of the things I, I love all the information coming out, but just be gentle with yourself. Go take some time, go play with some things and see how they work for you, and then go gather some more information, integrate it, see how it works for you. And that's really, you know, I've had 60 some years to do that. So it's been the way that I've come to where my understanding of a lot of things is, yes, I went and, and studied a lot, but I would go home with that information and I would experiment with it. Does this work for the way I am or not, and then add more things if that worked, if it didn't, whatever. So I just encourage people to do that. But Ronnie, I wanna talk a little bit more. Oh my gosh, I just went dark Don't worry we can still see you and I can hear you. So this is so funny, I have a ring light behind me and it just went out. I just. Okay.

Ronnie: 7:33

We can still see you serious, so don't worry. Don't, don't worry.

Susan: 7:37

this is why I hesitate any kind of things with technology is because something happens every single time, even though I've got all sorts of contingency plans and all. Okay, so wow. Welcome to my world. Now maybe you all know why I'm not big on technology for getting feedback on where we are and who we are and what we're doing. You know, there's this big science thing that's about, well, we've gotta get this device to give us information on what's happening internally in us, and, and we can look at the graph and see where we're at and I'm about, let's just rely on ourselves. Let's teach ourselves to learn where we're at and what we're doing and how we are. And so I think this may be why when you work in the energy field, you may notice that. Sometimes you blow out energy things, I'm just gonna say. And so I'm always like, I've gotta have a plan that doesn't involve any high tech thing and just me, so just a little side note on the energy and if you guys need more information on that, you can contact me or something. Or you can put a post on my Facebook group and ask why the energy always blows out around me So anyway, we'll get back to where I was after this brief, like little segue out into my light going out. I hope that's not a metaphor or something. God, oh my gosh. Oh, it gets back to, you know, I'm going to this big summit and I'm a speaker at this big summit in Texas. You know, about the whole paradigm shift in the horse world and You know, we had quite a while to prepare for this and I, I kept worrying about what would I talk about, what, what would be the best thing to talk about? And, and I prepared lots of different things. And you know, one of the ways that I work generally is I read the audience and I read the energy of the situation, and then I do what speaks to me at that moment, or what I feel is the message that needs to be heard. And so this was one of those cases where, wow, I'm on a big stage and I should have something very prepared and very, you know, I practiced and all that. And, and at the same time I was thinking that when you do that, it doesn't ever come across quite as genuine. when you have the preparation and you have the fancy everything. And just for me, it just felt like that wouldn't be how I work, is to just come up there with a canned speech that I prepared and practiced a lot. And I thought, what if could I go up there and know some general topics I would talk about and then free form it and let it evolve from there and based on what I thought the audience might need to hear or might like to hear. And so one of the things up until last minute, I really didn't know like, what, what am I gonna share? What am I gonna talk about? And as I stepped on there, it came down to this is what you need to talk about is gratitude. So do something with gratitude and something about communion. and what does communion mean? And so those were the two main topics that I thought, okay, I'm gonna talk about those. And then here's what happens when you study the brain for a long time and you study your, your consciousness and, and you study psychology and all those things. And I thought, what if I give myself a directive? My subconscious is that you will talk for 20 minutes cuz that's what we were given is a 20 minute timeframe. Well, how do you make sure you end up with 20 minutes when you're gonna freeform something? So this is a one of those places you go practice, it's like, okay, I put the intention, I'm gonna talk for 20 minutes. My body has an internal clock. It's not on the outside, it's on the inside. 20 minutes after 60 some years, it knows what 20 minutes is. So I'm like, okay, 20 minutes you'll set the alarm and you'll go for that length of time. And so I spoke about some different things and, and. Again, it was very subdued or compared to some of the other talks. Maybe it wasn't as flashy or anything else. And I didn't have slides and I just spoke from my heart and I ended up telling a story about a horse and about what he taught me about gratitude. And it was really profound for me to get up there and really share a very vulnerable time about what this horse taught me. And I could feel myself choking up at one point during the, toward the end of the speech. And because I was reliving that moment with that horse and, and I was hoping that, that message would come across, not as, oh, she just told the story, but for people to go back and maybe listen to that and listen to the underlying messages that were in that speech, and they were pretty deep and profound. Even though I had humor in there, and even though I was just telling a story, there were some very deep things in that talk that came through, and one of them was what I talked about at the very beginning. Here, be quiet, take some time. Don't be doing so much around your horse, and you're gonna find that you have these profound experiences when you can do. And when we're busy, we never have time to notice a profound experience because we're onto the next one right away. And that's the problem with humans is we're always waiting to go to do the next thing and not enjoying the thing that we're doing right then. Right now. And you know, our horses want us to be in the present with them. And part of the thing that I'm seeing a lot of stuff happening right now is that people are so consumed with, I've gotta learn this thing and I've gotta do this new thing and I've gotta do that. And they go out in there with their horse and they're doing all this stuff and the horse is going, Ugh, I don't, I don't like how you are in this place. And when I tell them, just go out there and be with your horse. And they're like, well that's too easy. I can't, nothing's happening. Yes. If you wait and you're quiet, you're gonna be amazed at what does happen in that quiet space. So really that, that, I keep saying it in different ways, but the message seems to get lost. And you know, in our society we're so consumed with what is shiny, what is flashy? What's, what's the loudest, what's the most exciting thing out there? Guess what? Being quiet is not that exciting. You know, if you're looking for the dopamine hit, you're not gonna get it there, but you're gonna get something a whole lot better than the dopamine hit. So I think what my overall message is that, you know, if we're going to make it as humans and keep going on, we've gotta know who we. and we gotta not keep getting pulled in by all the flashy, the shiny, that those, those things. It seems so exotic and wonderful and we have to get back and know ourselves and who are we and what are we doing and what do we contribute to the energy of this world, you know? And that's kind of my, my message is be aware of what energy that you're bringing into this world every moment. As much as you can. We're all human and we have failings and we have times we can't keep it together. But when you're with a group of people, when you're with someone, when you're with a horse, know who you are, know where you're at, and know what you're contributing to that moment. So that was kind of my whole gist of the message from the, the podcast summit. And, you know, go out and learn the other stuff, but take time to integrate it. take time to just be, so anyway, that's, that's my podcast Summit Sum mention, so to speak. So.

Ronnie: 16:13

That was beautiful susie do you want to touch on if you don't want to to go there, that's fine, but do you want to touch on when you came back, cause we had a conversation, you realized, you was aware of it anyway, but it came to the forefront, how horses can feel when they're so overwhelmed. How that makes them shut off and shut down. You didn't shut down, but it was quite intense what you experienced. And as you are such a sensitive energetic person that affected you more than you realize, do you want to touch on that subject?

Susan: 16:47

And I think it gets to the, you know, I put a post on Facebook, it's like I was gonna talk about highly sensitive people and they use a word neurodivergent. People that aren't normally neurologically normal. What, what everybody else is like. And, and I can tell you going to a big conference like that when you are a highly sensitive person. is quite challenging. And I have lots of different techniques and skills that I've used over the years because I, I know I'm gonna have to be in those situations. And how do I regulate my nervous system in that space? And mostly I do it through breathing and, and I thought I was holding it together pretty well, but the time like, okay, this is a lot of external stimulation and I cannot process that much information in my nervous system. It's just not possible. And there wasn't anywhere to go where, like at home or most of the work I do is out in rural areas or, you know, you, you have nature out there to help you reregulate your nervous system. And, and I didn't have anything. It's like that area is all concrete. It's all, it's, it's just, A totally kind of unnatural world, and especially for somebody like me who comes from, you know, being a rancher and being outside most of your life and you're used to that environment and then you're stuck into this one and it's like, oh my gosh, I, I'm taxing my skillset to deal with this space. And as I was sitting there at the conference going, okay, I know I am totally at my limit here. And then I had the revelation sitting there of like, wow, what is it like for horses who are also highly sensitive, even more so than what I am? How is it for them to live in a human world, a humanly constructed world, and try to function in that and regulate themselves? And it just gave me, That inside of like, wow, I have so much more empathy for what horses have to deal with. And this is why it got back to, why did I talk about the quiet space? We've got to give our horses, those quiet times not being on all the time, they're having to process a lot of information and their nervous systems, were not designed to live in the environments we put'em in. And so they're doing their best. And so I'm always like, wow, now I come back with even more empathy for the horse. And especially when you think about we put a horse in a horse show. Can you imagine the amount of stimulus that's going on there that they've gotta deal with? And what are their choices? Check out or try to deal with explode, whatever they do. I can tell you when I sat there, I got all the feelings, like I think what a horse would experience, it's like, I wanna blow right now. I wanna blow. but I'm gonna keep it together cuz that's not socially okay. Like if I, my head explodes here in this deal. Okay. I'm regulating, I'm regulating and I'll get out of here. Okay. But wow. I got home from that and I had a big, you say I handled it. I didn't handle it. I got home and I plunged into a depression like I've never had before in my life. And then I thought, is this what happens to our horses when they got overwhelmed and then they shut down and they don't wanna be motivated to do anything? It's like I was reliving all the things I've seen horses do when they get over stimulated and overwhelmed and, you know, I, I kept thinking I can shut down. There were a couple days where I just sat and I like, I'm just gonna sit here and do nothing. And I just was. I don't know if I was doing crossword pu I was just sitting there like inert and it's like I can't even get my body to do something. And I was feeling down depressed things. If p somebody said, it's a nice day, Susie, and I thought, I wanna rip your head off. That's, and then I thought, how many horses have I seen where they've been overstimulated and then they're angry. And so, I mean, getting to experience all of these things that I've seen happen in horses and re really living'em from a human perspective and saying, wow, I now I've gotta do something different with these horses. I've got to have even more empathy toward what they're going through when they've been subjected to this human world that we're in. So I think everything that we do, I feel like is a lesson. There's a lesson to be. Learned within different situations. And I kind of knew before I went to the summit, I had reservations, should I do this? Should I go there and s subject myself to that knowing why I'm, I'm a highly sensitive person. And then I go, well, no, this is a test. Let me see what happens. But within that, I'm really glad I did because it gave me so many more insights into the work I do with the horses and how they react. And you know, I'm someone that's got a fairly decent skillset for dealing with life. And I was struggling, I was struggling. And so I just think, or horses don't necessarily have a skillset set to deal with it. How do they struggle? And so yeah, this, there was just so much in that, you know, I think, wow, that was really hard. And would I do it again? I don't know. Would I have to do it again? I don't think so. I don't know that I would, but I think that's the reason I went to that and that I said yes, is because there was a lesson to be learned within that for me to bring out and put into my work. And I think that's what I'm always doing is looking for these lessons in life and not avoiding a situation, but going into it going, okay, what am I gonna, what could I learn from that situation that might help me or give me more insight? So that was that was a long way around, but yeah, it, it took my nervous system probably a month to Reregulate after that.

Ronnie: 23:25

And that's the thing when you're dealing with with other people or horses and they're learning something new or they're trying to understand what you are asking and reading your energy and reading their own energy, it can take a while for them to balance that out, to work through that and as humans, we get excited if we see something and we get a feeling and we think, oh my God, that was amazing. As humans, we get so excited, we want more of it and it's like you know, you see a cream cake in a shop and you think, oh, I'd really like to eat that. And you go and eat it and you taste it and it's like, oh, this is the best cake I've ever tasted. And then you go back an hour later, I want another one. And you eat it and you are like, yeah, that's, that's a lovely cake. Now if you went back about six times, by the time you'd have your six cake, you'd be like, actually I'm done now. Yeah and with horses they need that time to, to process or to do what they need to do. And we need the time to just sit back and understand what we've just done or what we've just felt, what we've experienced, rather than running away with our thoughts and letting that take us somewhere else when we haven't actually digested what's just happened. Does that make sense?

Susan: 24:43

Yeah absolutely and I think too sometimes it gets to what you were saying about the cake. It's like we, we, we keep wanting that same experience and that same experience, but maybe that's not the best thing. Like, take your time, experience that really wonderful high that you get from the cake, and then go back and be in your normal space and experience that space. And then when you take the next bite of cake, maybe another month later, that cake still has that same level of wonderfulness to it. But like you're saying, if you have it every day, it loses its flavor, it loses its impact on you. And the same thing with when I came back from the summit, I've had some little situational depression times in my life everybody has. But it was very interesting that when I got that and it hit, it was so heavy and it was so big and, and I thought, wow, I have never really experienced that. I wanna sit on the couch doing nothing and feel this, so I know what it is. So I recognize it because it has something to tell me here. And that depression was there to tell me, you know what, you kind of overdid it and here's what you'll feel like when you do that. And it's okay. To sit here cuz w this depression stopped me from doing more stuff. It made me be quiet so that I could actually integrate what happened to me. And you know, a lot of times we take depression and these things and go, oh, I hate that feeling and let me take something or do something to make that feeling go away. Cause I don't want it there. And it was, I was doing the opposite thing where, wow, I haven't had that. I wanna experience that because when I come out of it, I know I'm gonna appreciate where the normal space is. I'm gonna feel like that's my cake now. You know, just to feel normal again. And so I think, you know, everything I teach is about having that broad spectrum of feelings, like experiencing everything, not just going, oh, I love this wonderful, perfect, wonderful feeling and I wanna keep it going all the time. I don't want it ever go. That's not realistic. You can't maintain that because your body's gonna crash at some point. It's, you know, when I live in that sacred space, which is pretty much my normal space, it's so nice and it doesn't have a lot of highs and lows and it's just goes, but it, it's very peaceful there. But then one, when the highs come, they're like, wow, that's really cool. But I like to go back to my sacred space and then when the low comes, I go, Ooh, oh, that's interesting. And then I come back to the sacred space, that nice, peaceful place and I go, wow, now I appreciate that space even more. So that kind of got to a place where I wasn't thinking we were going today, But yeah, it's just everything, you know, we're, first of all, we're kind of disconnected from our emotions. A lot of people. And you know, somehow society told us to be afraid to express or feel emotions, and they're there for a reason and they're beautiful. I mean, even the deepest, darkest depression, in some ways it felt kind of interesting and good. Like, wow, this feeling is making me slow down. Take a breath, don't do anything. And I thought that was a beautiful message, and it was exactly what I needed to do.

Ronnie: 28:47

Thank you for sharing that. Susie, I think it's important for people to understand that not everything is sunshine and rainbows and we all have our moments, but I think the fluctuations of those moments show you where you want to be and where you don't want to be and it's not always necessary a negative. It's an experience. Now you can really allow that experience to overtake you and keep you there. Or you can observe it, feel it, and watch it and think, what is this showing me? What is this? And for you, that was a another big light bulb moment to instill deeply about horses, when they get flooded, you know, they have nowhere to go. What do they do? They either explode or they close off. Sometimes when you get a new horse and you do things, it is exciting and you think, oh my God, I've just do done that. I want to do it again. You know you have people sometimes that have a horse for jumping and they go out and they want to do jumping and they get excited and they get the adrenaline and the horse does that jump and they do that beautifully, the horse really gives their all. And then the next thing is, oh, let's hire this jump I wanna do that again. Let's do it bigger. And they do the next jump and it's a bigger jump. And the horse does it because they get excited about that. But sometimes, and this depends on the person and the horse, they're not all the same. I'm just doing a general example here. Sometimes it's higher, higher, higher. And the horse gets to a point where it's like, actually, I've given you my all. I'm not sure that I want to give any more on that level and if we don't hear that subtle change in excitement from the horse, we won't recognize that. And we push them to a point where a horse that may be loved doing something decides that it's not what they like anymore, it's a bit like the cream cakes. They've had their fill of cream cakes. They don't want any more cream cakes. And sometimes if you give them a choice and you let them have a break, do something different, see what they want to do, and then go back. They've almost got, yeah, now I wanna do that again. Mm-hmm. But it might be just once. It might be twice. It might be forever. Again, it depends on the person, it depends on the horse. But if you understand your own feel and listen to the feel of the horse, is that really excitement or is that I'll give you that. Then you've got more chance to have a fulfilling relationship and understand when it's time to change things or when it's time to just bring it down a notch. And sometimes if you pull back that, that pulling back, just that acknowledgement of something's changing, that the horse goes, okay, now I can give you it. Because as we get anxious and we have our own doubts, if we are pushed into something, if you give them a chance to say, well, you don't have to do that, they go, okay, let me think about it. Okay, I can do it, I know I can do it but it's fluid it's exactly that. Second, is what you are working with. And then the next second you are working with that. And then the next second, there's no timeframe, there's no plan as such. You just have to go with each moment of what's going on with you and what's going on with your friend or your horse. I don't know why I brought that into conversation but I've brought it in.

Susan: 32:33

I think that's interesting too and I'll just relate it first to my experience. I love to speak in front of people, you know but it's in the chunks of it, you know, it's kind of going back to what you're talking about with the horses I love to jump, but not that much or that high. And we don't wanna take away that desire and that. Inner motivation, internal motivation is the highest. It's like, because I love to do it, I'm gonna do it on my own, whether you asked me for it or not. But yeah, I kept thinking too, it's like when you're talking about. Horses and in the moment you're dealing with every moment with that horse. And, and when I'm with a horse and I'm there, I, it's a very fluid thing. It's not like I'm gonna stay at that one space all the time. I'm gonna be monitoring that horse, oh, looks like he's getting a little discouraged. Or it's something, how do I motivate him to do that? Or does he need a break from it for a minute and we go do something else that he enjoys doing? So it's, it's this play that has not been in the horse world in the old way of training where, you know, you just get the horse in and you push it, push it till it does what you want, and you keep pushing it past that place and you make sure you've got it. And now with this new way of looking at things, it's like we've gotta be a lot more intuitive and a lot more observant about, where's my horse at? Is he enjoying that? What could I do to help him? Why did he say no to me? What could I do to. encourage him to say yes instead. And, you know, there's all this interplay that's happening now, and it it causes us to be a whole lot more obs again, observant and empathetic to what's going on with that horse and how do we encourage him and how do we work as a partnership rather than as a dictatorship, which has been kind of in the past, it's like, you do this or else. And now it's like, well, you know, I'm gonna go back to when I was on the ranch. It's like, well, we have to do certain things, you know, the cows are out, we've gotta go get'em. But how do I encourage that horse to wanna do that when the time is I need to have you do that you know, and this is where that need comes in. It's like as humans, like, I need you to do this and you better do it now. And the horse goes, no, I don't wanna do it. Well, it was interesting on the ranch because I would, I would have maybe five or six horses and they'd see me come out and they'd line up on the gate and it's like, oh, I gotta go get the cows today. And they're out on the field and like, who wants to go? And they'd all like, push their way up to like, pick me, pick me. And it's like, why are they asking to be picked? Why are they asking be chosen? Because they know they're gonna go do a hard job, but it's the relationship. That's why they wanna spend the time with me. And that's what's I think missing sometimes is like horses will do just about anything for you. If you can hold the right energy and make it fun for them because they're seeking the relationship and you know, like they don't care what that is. As long as they're feeling good about your relationship with them, they'll work their heart out for you. They'll do more than you would ever ask them for. But that's where my horses were at, where they knew like, wow, it's fun to be with you and we're gonna go do this adventure and yeah, it's gonna be hard, but we're gonna have fun and we're gonna feel good about ourselves because we accomplished something afterwards. So, you know, it's, it's, I see kind of as we're making this switch that people are saying, well, my horse doesn't wanna do that, so I didn't ask him to do it. And so they go out the next day, well, my horse still doesn't wanna do that, so I'm not gonna ask him. And so there's, there's never any, anything that ever happens. It's like the horse is gonna say no every time you go out there from now until eternity. Unless you do something to change that No. Into a yes. And that's where I'm working at. It's like, how do we get that horse to say yes in a very enthusiastic way? Yes, I'd love to do that with you. What do you wanna do? Oh, some hard stuff. Okay, we can go do that. And. what the horse wants to feel is good in his body, in his mind. When he is with you, he wants that relationship just as much as you do. And I think what, what we as humans do is we've got a task to do and then we make it icky. We make it heavy and hard. We're gonna have to do this, you better do this. And then your energy changes and then the horse like, wow, you're no fun. And so you could do the exact same job, but have a different energy about it. And the horse says, yeah, wanna do some more? Would you like to do some more? And that's where I wanna teach people. I wanna help them to find that place. Like, how do you have the horse say yes? What do you do to change yourself? To encourage that horse to say, yeah, I'd love to be with. and I think we make it too hard. We make it into all these different things you have to do or these different things. Well, oh, he, I can't ask him to do that. That's too much. Oh, well what about, you know, taking it into your life? Do you go to work? Do you do a job? Do you feel good about your job? Do you accomplish something? Every being on this earth came for a purpose and they want to feel good about themselves through doing some kind of giving back. I mean, that's the way it is. It's like you just sit as a lo bump on a log and you do nothing. You have no motivation. You don't, but you have no inner pride or any, anything that ever motivates you. But when you do a job well and it's recognized, you're encouraged to do that job. and give it your all. And that's what I wanna do with the horses is here, we're gonna do this hard job and I'm gonna give you so much encouragement and praise, and I'm gonna recognize that you did that. And I'm gonna appreciate and be grateful for what you did for me. And then the next time they go, what would you like me to do? I want it, it builds in that inner motivation form. Like, I wanna please you because I like the feeling you get that feeling you give me when I do something that you recognize that makes me feel good about myself. And you know it's simple. It's just simple stuff. It's all about recognizing and understanding when somebody's struggling, how can I help them? And when somebody says, no, I don't wanna do that job, how could I help you say yes? And not in a manipulative way, but in a, a fun, fun way.

Ronnie: 39:24

That was perfect. Susie as ever. I love listening to you speaking. I forget actually I should be paying attention more.

Susan: 39:31

You're talking. I'm like, oh and this is where we go back to that awareness thing. It's like Ronnie was talking for a minute I felt like, oh, I left for a second, but why did I leave? Because something you said made me think about another thing in my life, right? And it's like, no bring me back to the focus on what is she saying? I wanna know what she's saying, in this moment and see, that's where learning, that inner awareness is like we're with our horse and we're doing something, and then all of a sudden we're thinking of something else and to recognize that we went and started thinking of something else, and we bring our attention back to our horse or the person that we're with. And boy you know, we are so destructible as, as as people, we're all over the place and then we're so bad at our horse because they're flighty or they're looking at this and that it's like, well, guess what honey? So are we You know, don't ask them to do something you can't do yourself. That's always my thing. It's like, wow, I can't criticize a horse for that. Cause I kind of disconnected for a minute there.

Ronnie: 40:31

Yeah. But that's what we do we're human, but it's being aware of it and not beating yourself up, not getting cross with yourself. Cuz again, that's a different energy but just being aware of it. And when you notice that you do that, you can come back, but this is a different scenario because you are fo focusing on lots of different things, as am I. I just want to say, I know we've got lots of people that have joined us, which is absolutely amazing. So thank you so much for everybody that's joining us, and to make you aware that Susie can see your comments, so although I've not put them on screen, she can see who's here.

Susan: 41:02

Hello everybody that I missed.

Ronnie: 41:04

There's lots of people here that, you know, and there's a few people that I know too. So thank you so much for joining us. If you've got any questions we'll try and answer a few of those. Yeah. So you are working on your online course, aren't you?

Susan: 41:19

It is so funny cuz I've been promising this thing and people are probably like, oh my God, is she ever gonna do it? You get going on one thing and then things get bigger or things change and you're going, oh, well I can't put it out yet cuz look at all this stuff. And I'm kind of glad I waited till now because it's actually a whole lot more that's gonna be in this first course I do. Which for some people it's just gonna be about breathing and some self-awareness things. But it is the foundational piece for every single thing that I do. And it's also the thing that I emphasize the most at my clinics and it's the thing that people disregard the most. And so it's like, it's kind of funny and I'm thinking, well, how do I Get, get people to understand how profound these very simple things are, that if we practice on these very simple foundational things, we can do a whole lot more and if you cannot do the breathing and some of the scanning the other things that you do later with the energy are not gonna work as well. So I'm always like, you know, take some time and learn this one thing and get it really good. And if it's the only thing you ever do and you just go I'm not gonna do any of the other stuff that she talks about, it's gonna make the biggest impact on your life you could ever know. And, and when I'm writing this, I've got a little handbook that I'm doing and it probably be in the course and I'm not sure how that will all transpire, but I just went through and it's like some of the stories that I remember doing when I experimented with this breathing around people or animals, and I have these stories in there, it's like, these are profound, these are, these are things that, you know if you just do that, your life is gonna change significantly for the better. So again having people, first of all realized that something can be very profound and work really well and be very, very simple in design. And what we've been taught is that something isn't valuable unless it's really, really complicated and as a scientist, as somebody that's worked as a researcher, yeah, there's a lot of complicated stuff there. And it never makes it down into any practical application in the world because it's so complicated. Nobody could do it. And I feel like my job is to take the really complex narrow it down, make it into something like, here's a couple steps you can do to accomplish those things that they're talking about that they made really complicated. And you can make'em very simple and enjoy the benefits of that research. Okay. So that's kind of where I'm going. I just saw Judy, Judy role was like, can you tell me what you did for yourself to get out of the slump you experienced after the summit? And that's a really good question. And the first thing I did was I decided that I wanted to immerse myself in the feeling of the depression. That heavy feeling, like I looked at where in my body was I feeling that, what did it feel like in that space? And I just really sat with that. And then I made a decision about how long I would do that okay. So the fact that I knew it wasn't gonna last forever was one of those psychological things that helped me go, okay, I'm not gonna like go get medication to get out of this, because I've already made an intention that this feeling will last I think I even said it was, it went for most of November. So I'm like, it'll be done around the 1st of December. So that was my first step. My second was to just embrace it and say, what is the reason that this feeling is here? What is it trying to teach me? What message is it trying to give me? And in that, I could then go, okay, what can I do with that message I got? And it was a message about, you know what? You overdid it. Guess what the other message was? See how horses feel when they get flooded. You need to take that information and do something with that. As far as teaching people about, you know, this is a similar thing that happens in horses. So there were all these things that I really just looked at individually, like, okay, there's another message. There's another thing I'm supposed to learn from this, and here's another one. And what I did was, instead of trying to push it away, I just sat with it and, and then when I thought, wow, it's weird not to have any motivation whatsoever. And then I told myself, well, maybe you don't need any right now. Maybe you could just take a break because maybe you just need a. And so again, it was just looking at all of those messages and really sitting with them and, and thinking about'em deeply in a quiet space. That's the other thing I did. I didn't do a lot of stuff. I didn't go out and try to be happy with my friends or you know, go eat a lot of cake I didn't go do a lot of cake and none of those things, but I just made that decision to again, experience it to its greatest degree and embrace it. So I hope that helped a little. And, and, you know, situational depression is a little different than other types of depression, and I could see that this was, there was some other family things that happened that were really, really bad at that same time. And I'm like, okay you know, I just need to not be doing anything and everything is telling me don't do more stuff. So again, I think it's just that piece of listening to yourself and what your body is saying.

Ronnie: 47:36

Exactly if you'd ignored that, it might have had ramifications further down the line, like keeping yourself busy you might have suppressed some of that feeling or buried some of that feeling. Mm-hmm. and then that's when it comes out later. That's when you have triggers. So what you did, At that time, you sat with it, you acknowledged it, you recognized it, and you felt it and you came through that. So that particular experience has been dealt with. If we layer things and we don't acknowledge it and we try and push it aside, that's when you get a stack in, in humans and that's what you're getting in horses too. Mm-hmm. you have that stack in experience and it can be a small thing that makes you explode or has the opposite effect where as you did, you wanna just sit there, you are not motivated, you just don't feel like doing anything. But we all have those moments and sometimes when you have something exciting happens or a big thing like this summit. So I'm not gonna talk forever about the summit, but we'll just mention that again. That experience is so powerful. Lots of different frequencies, lots of different energies bouncing off each other that you have to go away and just deal with whatever that is and balance yourself out because I believe that your body will start to let go of things when it feels it needs to or when there's an opportunity and if something is pushing you and it's fluctuating and it's saying, okay I recognize that feel. It's time to let this go. It comes up for you to work through and again, I don't know why I'm talking about that so maybe somebody listening might be experiencing something that we've talked about, so it might resonate with them.

Susan: 49:34

Comment if I could on that about, you know, we always go, oh, I need to let that go. I need to let that go. And, and you know, I've done a lot of studying, like, how, how do we let it go? And when does it let go? It let, goes when you're in that quiet space. It doesn't let go when you're trying and you're doing and you're seeking all these things, how do I let it go? No, you gotta get to that quiet place. And that's kind of where I went to with the depression too, is that I just went into that sacred space and sat in that because everything that's ready to let go will come up to the surface when you're quiet and it may be uncomfortable as it comes up and it bubbles up to the surface, but it's coming up and it may come to your mind. It's like, yeah, I could let that go now. Yeah, let me look at that and let it go. But you know, all the healing that takes place, and that's why it's a sacred space. You don't have to do a lot If you could get yourself to that space, and that's what I'm gonna be teaching in the breathing class too. It's like when you get to that space, the need to do a whole lot of extra stuff to make something happen goes away. Okay. And you, you just you hold that energy of like, everything's safe. Everything's okay to be let go of when it's and one of the problems with the sacred space too, I don't take people there right away. It's like let's just say you went and did Ayahuasca or something like that, which I don't advocate necessarily because I'm like, we can get to all of those states without any drugs, without any medicinal or plant-based. Help because you can do it all naturally without that. And when you do it naturally, the dose is right when you do it medicinally, you may or may not get the right dose. You may or may not have a really bad experience. So I'm always about, let's just do it the natural way. Cause the energy knows how much you need and you can monitor that and your body knows what you need. So again why I'm not a big technology kind of person to make things happen or make things let go and nor am I a big one on using different medicinal things to make things let go. I like to do it naturally cuz then you're safer. Cuz I take people to the sacred space in increments because just like any drug you can get kind of high on it, I can tell you it, it can be addictive. Or it can cause you to have, just like you've seen, people have a good drug experience and people have a bad one. And the same thing with, if you go too fast with bringing yourself into that lower brain waves and being conscious and all that, you can have a pretty profound experience. Cuz a lot of your stuff might come up all of the sudden and you may not be ready for it. So that's just a cautionary note and that, that may be why, like when I work with clients, it's like, yes, this is a very powerful tool, but. if it's in the wrong hands, it can be misused. So you're always, I'm always monitoring both the horses and the people about how deep I'm taking them into the sacred space because I've gotta titrate them like you, you can go this farther and come back out, get your body used to that one and then come back out. Okay. You don't just go there immediately and experience it without some practice is all I'm gonna say. So

Ronnie: 53:03

Holly's asked a question so I'll pop that on actually. There you go.

Susan: 53:06

Oh, that's pretty cool. He doesn't wanna go back home once finally back, he stops prior to going to the pasture gate. No grass in his pasture. Here's where when we are doing stuff with the horses, we're always trying to sort of control what they're feeling, like, oh, I'm going to make it happy what ever is happy for this horse so I'm kind of different in the way that I do energy. I kind of evaluate what would motivate that horse and then I create it in my body and then I take responsibility for that and I don't send it to the horse. So I become happy, like, I'm just going back here and I don't worry about whether they're coming with me or not coming with me. I just go do it. And this is a hard one for people cuz they're always looking back. It's like, I gotta make my horse come. And they're all about the control of like, the horse has to be here, the horse has to do this. I'm gonna change myself and I'm gonna walk off. And if the horse didn't come with me, I'm gonna think of something else to walk off as an energy until I find the one that motivates that horse. But I'm not going to micromanage his life for him. He's gonna figure out, yeah, I should come with her yeah, I want to come with her. So this is something, you know, it's hard for me to say when we're talking like this you know, it's easier to see when I'm actually doing it with a horse or, or a person. It's like finding that, that place that motivates a horse and not worrying about where their feet are or what they're gonna do, but only worrying about what am I gonna do? Where am I gonna go? Because if you think about it, if you have a friend and you're close with that friend you don't have to keep turning around. Like, come on, come on, come on. You just walk off together and you're doing something together and you're doing things together because you're like, well, let's go do this thing now and you just walk off and you take care of yourself and you don't keep worrying about is she lagging behind a little bit or is she right at my shoulder? Is she up in front? No, that's her responsibility. Okay. We already know what we're gonna go do and I'm just gonna take responsibility for myself. So this is a hard one for me to explain to people, cuz it seems so different than what we've been taught in the horse world. It's like we've gotta micromanage that horse's feet and tell'em where to put him every moment. No, I want that horse to learn where to put his feet. And I want to monitor our relationship by whether or not he's following me or he's not. And if he's not following me, what do I need to change in myself? Why is he not motivated? So and food isn't necessarily the biggest motivator either. You know, people are always telling me that. It's like, well the energy's not gonna be stronger than food as a motivator. I'm like, oh yeah, it is. It's far more. I've had mayors in heat leave gildings because I changed my energy. It's far more, if you pick the right one that that horse likes, it's far more powerful than any other thing that you could do. So, and that's just picking the thing that's the biggest motivator for that horse. So.

Ronnie: 56:17

Thank you, Susie. I'm just gonna see if we've got any more questions. There are so many people it's lovely and once again Susie can see these comments so I'm not going to read them all because this is gonna be a podcast and for people that are listening to afterwards that might not make sense in certain areas. I think somebody asked about if you are doing a mini workshop regarding the breathing exercises. Now it's in your book, isn't it?

Susan: 56:40

I haven't done the breathing in my Sacred Spaces book, the one that I did in there. I briefly described it, you know, when I wrote Sacreds faces, I didn't think people are actually gonna read it and I'm like, how many exercises should I put in this book if nobody's going to be interested in, it's kind of nice after it comes out to see where, where as I'm going around doing this work, where are the things and what are the things that people need to work on so that I can focus on that first and actually going to do all of that, I don't think that I knew the level of importance of my breathing until I was actually doing a whole lot more stuff. And then I realized, Oh, here's this subconscious thing that I'm doing that I really didn't put a lot of value on, but it really is the most foundational piece of everything I do. And so therefore I need to go and teach it. And, and what my intention is, is I hopefully getting everything done this month is like, I've got the workbook almost hopefully next week, and then I'll be able to put together a class unteachable and be able to walk you through it. I wanna make that available. The problem you know Lisa, it's like I'll have all of this out here a again pretty soon. The problem that I've encountered with giving people the mini version of it, especially at clinics and stuff, is they disregarded. because I'll go back and they'll go, well, the thing you taught, it's not working. And I go, were you breathing? Well, no, I don't do that. And it's like, well, it doesn't seem like it was impactful enough. Like I wasn't making it clear that this is foundational. This is the thing you go back to, whatever is going wrong you go back and check this thing, you check your breathing and your body scan and do that first. And most of the time that will solve a whole lot of the things that you see going on that are a problem. And for some reason the, the mini version of it just never seem to. get people to do it. And I'm not sure that a longer class will do it, but as I've written this handbook and you know, things got in more in depth, it's like, oh, I could make it this and then I'm like, oh no, I've gotta put this information and perhaps when people read why I chose this breathing method, what 24 different things it's doing benefit wise for your health, your social life, your everything that is there, they may take it a little more seriously. Like I probably should change when it gets down to like, how are you breathing and is it creating sleep apnea and you go, why does my doctor not tell my significant. That maybe they should change their breathing. No, the first thing they go to is here's your new big CPAC machine, and that'll solve your oh no, it won't solve your sleep apnea, but it will manage your sleep apnea for you. Well, how about you could do something really super simple and maybe not develop sleep apnea in the first place, but do they go there and see? Now I'm on my soapbox. I feel like I'm kind of lecturing, but it gets me because, you know, I was a health researcher and all of this information is there, but why isn't the medical profession? Why aren't they saying, here's some simple things you could do that might prevent you for having to go on that drug or having to have this machine breathe for you at night so you don't die. Why do we do the low tech things first and then supplement'em if we need to with the other stuff. But let's just stop going directly to the most complicated, expensive solution. And I think this is why, you know, as I got into the breathing classes, it's like, I think I need to put more of this in there and this breathing class is not just for people with horses. This is gonna be for people you know, just in your daily life so yeah, again I tried the cliff note version of the breathing and people just kind of blew it off.

Ronnie: 1:00:45

I think sometimes because everybody talks about breathing, you know it's the in thing slow your breathing down, do your meditation and people think, oh yeah, but I don't have the time to do that. I'm too busy. Yeah. And I was smiling as you were talking earlier because I was cooking something and I don't cook that often, so it's a big thing for me. I was cooking something and I was very much aware that I was in it a rush, not a mega rush, but I was wanting to do things. I was thinking about something else. And as I was cooking and because I don't cook very often, it was like, this is gonna be nice actually. But my mindset and my energy was quite fast and I I'm not giving the love and attention this cooking deserves. And it was just a little moment like that. And I was aware that my stomach was tense and I thought, for God's sake, breathe, breathe into your tummy. And I just took this big breath and I was smiling, thinking, this deserves my attention because this is going to go into my body and I'm going to eat this. And the energy that I am expelling doing this needs to be the energy that I want to absorb. Yeah. And that moment that it was literally a 30 second conversation in my head helped me to slow my breathing down, but I was smiling because we do it all the time. There's lots of things we'll be doing. We won't be breathing properly, I mean, my breathing is not on your scale. Susie It's breathing but it's you know, it's my own awareness of my breathing, right? So I'm gauging my gauge of where I was and where I am now. But it's funny because once you start to see yourself and feel yourself doing things and change it, there's a change in you, even if it's just a few seconds, there's a slight change. Yeah. And that energy that you are working with, when you slow yourself down, when you breathe, when you slow your heart rate down, when you just get into that moment, that energy is flowing through you, into whatever you are doing, whether it's cooking, whether it's writing, whether it's speaking. It means that your knowledge, your guidance, your all-knowing part of you can flow through and say what it needs to say, do what it needs to do, because you are connecting to that part of you. Yeah, so I thought you share that. But somebody I think it was Gail, so Gail had a thread. Yeah. Gail asked a question, to what extent does heart energy come into play with breathing when you are with your horses? So I'll let you answer that, Susie.

Susan: 1:03:26

Okay so you know, the Heart Math Institute and I wrote about heart math in my book. And, you know, they have a lot of different techniques and what I wanted to do with my breathing technique that I do is to incorporate all those different things and you'll see when the, the book comes out. You know, I wrote it a little bit about, oh, this breathing helps you align with your heart energy and all this kind of stuff and when I do energies, it's like I'm breathing them through my entire body, meaning my heart, everything else. So I don't have to think intentionally, like I'm gonna breathe it into my heart. I'm breathing full body, I'm breathing full body. Everything is going everywhere. I don't have to intentionally send it there. Because if I have a certain emotion, my heart is the biggest electromagnetic instrument in the body. It's more so than the brain is as far as the amount of electrical activity. And it's magnetic too, that it sends and receives electrical information. If I'm in alignment with my emotion and with my breath, and I'm breathing that emotion through my body, I don't have to worry about my heart because it's gonna already be transmitting that information so you can make it more complicated. That's, that's always where I'm like, well, heart math is great, but you know, maybe it's not that complicated, that's why I designed this breathing method, because it incorporates all these things. You don't have to do other stuff. It takes care of all of that for you. It takes care of whatever energy, and you just have to worry about your own breathing. And the great thing is you can do it and it takes you a minute to reregulate your body back into that space. Once you learn how to do it, you, I mean, I'll, I'll walk people through the exercise and they can change their breath in a minute and feel completely different and go, okay, so if you can do that, anytime you're feeling stressed, you can take one minute and reset yourself, and it's just awareness. One minute you're feeling something, something's starting to go bad. You reset yourself, you're back in, your body's in homeostasis again, and you've released the stress. And believe me, that when I was at the. I had a full on body scan and breathing, running the whole time, like, and I'm barely regulating the amount of, because there was so much sensory information coming in. I'm having a hard time like, you know, even though I'm good at it, I'm like wow, I'm just barely holding it together on this. And I'm just gonna tell you my thing that I used to do all the time when I got over stimulated was that I would check out, I would dissociate and it's a beautiful place. I learned to do it really well and I could feel myself sitting there sometimes and going, wow, I could just go there. And nobody would know it cuz I could still talk and everything. I could seem like I was okay, but I wouldn't be present in my body. I wouldn't be fully there. but I could be at my happy place and my body would still be there and it would still be talking. And it people wouldn't think I was, I was there, but I knew I wasn't. And I'm going, wait, I don't like that old mechanism that I had, that old strategy that I used when I became overwhelmed because it's not functional to always dissociate when you get overwhelmed. And how many horses do we see do that same thing? They become dissociative because they, that's their strategy to deal with all of the stuff we do. So that was just a little side note.

Ronnie: 1:07:03

So Gail says, thank you for the great answer to the heart breathing question. You're very welcome, Gail. And it's lovely to have you here again, your name pops up. It's lovely. I'm just seeing if you've got any more questions.

Susan: 1:07:15

Catherine says, lately I've been struggling when Remi is having a rough, spooky day. I've been taking it as a criticism of not being strong enough to mentally support him. Any thoughts or advice? Last time this happened? I found all the horses on the ranch were spooky too. Not just my Gil. So you know, it's always hard to go, oh man, I'm not enough. I'm not supporting my horse. But just know there's outside horses and all we're trying to do when we. Do these different things with the breathing, I'm modeling for the horse's strategy to use in a spooky situation, in a different situation. So all you'll have to do Catherine is be responsible for yourself. Am I just maintaining? Don't worry about am I being the role model for him? Don't worry about all that. Don't worry about am I strong enough? You just go in your space and take care of yourself. And it's like, I always say, what's mine is mine is what's yours is yours. You got this with the horses. Sometimes those things are out of our control. And you know, we can do our best and they still are outta control. So if you're saying maybe all the horses there that day were just outta control. We don't know what other factors may be influencing them. And I can just say there was a day a couple days ago where I Could feel a level of anxiety all day that I couldn't seem to actually let go of. And, and I knew it wasn't my anxiety, but it was picking up some kind of global event, I was just thinking it may have been the earthquake in Turkey. And just think about how much energy was released, not only from the earth itself, but through all the suffering of the people that that happened to. That's a lot of energy in the field. And what if you're picking that up? I mean, you're gonna pick it up at some level and so just know there's some times when the best laid effort, you, you can't seem to get it to release, but, you know just be gentle on yourself. And I know Catherine you've done a lot of work and so yeah, don't be hard on yourself for sure and we're all working at this, you know, and I thought I'm so good at this. I can go to that summit and I'm gonna be fine and them like, it's all.

Ronnie: 1:09:40

But that's the thing, you can do something and even if you think you are doing it identical, there is no way it's always gonna be identical because if there's a slight change in you, a slight change in the horse, it's something different. So even if you think you're doing something identical, there's lots of things that are out of our control. And that's the thing, it's not for us to control. The only thing we can work with is ourselves, right? And sometimes it's maybe not the right day, not the right time you know, it doesn't mean, oh my God, what is it, what have I done wrong? Cuz again, that's like pulling it yourself. It's attacking yourself, attacking your own energy. Just say, okay, today's not the day or this moment's not the moment. You know? You sometimes get a feel anyway. You go out and you just get like a feeling that you're going through the motions sometimes cuz you can sense something's coming or something's not gonna go the way you want it to go. And then lo and behold, that's what happens. But you've almost predicted what's gonna happen. You've already got there.

Susan: 1:10:46

Yeah, yeah. I'm just looking and Jackie Whitman has a good comment. It's not a question. She's saying, in my humble opinion, folks want it to be fixed and find it challenging to take the time to care for themselves and I think that's true. You know, I hate to say we as humans are kind of lazy. Like we could just sit there and fix it for me. I mean, I'd love if somebody fixed my life for me, especially my technology. But you know there's always gonna be those people that go, oh, I want the quick fix. And they're gonna find the people that offer the quick fix. And I'm gonna say, not that many people come to me because they're gonna have to work hard on themselves and they're going to have to commit to something that might be uncomfortable sometimes. And they say, well, how long is this gonna take? I don't know. We can't predict that. All I can tell you is what I've done in my life and I've done these different things and they've made a difference for me, and I wanna share them because getting back to that, being a highly sensitive person, man, I mean, as a kid it was, and there wasn't anybody to tell you how to deal with all the incoming information and sensory information. And they'd tell me things like, you're just too sensitive. You just have to let it roll off your back. Well, guess what? It doesn't roll off my back. I need another strategy and then they go, well, well just put up this block and do all this and just don't notice it. And I'm like, okay, you keep your eyes open and don't see, tell me how that works for you. That's what is equivalent of telling me not to sense something. I'm sorry it's gonna happen. It's on all the time. I've gotta have a strategy to how to deal with all that information, and that's that I've done through this breathing method that I use and I think at the summit work said, well, what do you do? And I think it came across kind of arrogant because you know, you're in the summit and you're kind of like deer in the headlight thing. Like he's asking me a question and you're supposed to come up with the answer at the moment. And I think it came off like, well, I don't do anything anymore. And it's like, no, that's not true. I do the breathing all the time with the body skin, trying to figure out where I'm at and what do I need to do. And it's like a self-regulation thing that's going all the time. And it, it's like that's what I do as my strategy to get through the world as a highly sensitive person. And then notice those times where, yes, I got completely flooded and take the time to get away from all the sensory input and be in a quiet space and reregulate your nervous system. And so that Again, I, I'm, a lot of the things that I've developed are coming from the place of a highly sensitive person. But think about it, isn't that the same thing? Horses are highly sensitive. So I'm kind of in that same boat. They are like, this world is a lot for me. How can I deal with it? Okay. And then I'm gonna teach the horse the things, strategies that I learned and see if I can help them navigate this human world a little better so.

Ronnie: 1:13:49

One of the things that you talked about that was lovely, is you started to talk about doing little with horses, and then you went into the story about Dr. Dolittle and as you were saying that you could see Dr. Du Little, the name du little but you could see your face as it was flowing through you this Yeah. Ah-huh. Because he talked to the animals. He listened. Right. He felt the animals and was driving somewhere, I think I was going to see some clients and I passed a road, I don't pass it every day, but I have passed it before and I saw the sign, Dr. Dolittle avenue or Dr. Dolittle Road so I sent you a picture cuz that was just so funny.

Susan: 1:14:33

It was funny and for those that don't know, it's like a lot of times when. Doing a talk. It's a little bit like I'm connected to that thing I call the internet of intuition. So it's like information is flowing from a higher source and that's what happened I'm in the middle of my talk at the summit and there's a download coming in. Like, don't forget to talk about Dr. Doolittle. I'm like, shut up can't you see I'm talking to all these people and so it's like this thing coming in and then I go, oh, wait. Yeah, that's a great one. To add to the final few seconds that I have left, which I'm gonna get back to, how long did I go? 20 minutes, 19 seconds and did I put an intention out to talk for 20 minutes and it was unscripted and it still managed to say within the 20 minute time thing. So I thought that was kind of cool. It's like the download was like cut and probably I lost those extra 19 seconds going, shut up, doctor Dolittle, what does that have to do with what I'm talking about right now? And yeah, if anybody does channeling. Kind of interesting to have that connection going all the time and information flowing in from another source and kind of giving you insights into what's happening in the moment and whether you listen to him. So I thought the internet of intuition was brilliant at that moment. Like, Hey, Su don't forget to talk about Dr. Doolittle. Maybe it was Hugh lofting himself, who was like from the other side. He was saying, yeah, yeah, talk about why I actually came up with that name for my character in the book that I wrote for kids, Dr. Du Little So, yeah.

Ronnie: 1:16:08

Yeah that was funny. So the reason you explain to people and try and get'em to understand about the breathing, about quieting themselves down and getting into that zone is because That is possible for everybody to connect to that flow. It's there, but we can't hear it if we are busy, if we're doing too much, if we're trying to occupy our mind. So it's not about living on a mountain in a hott and not interacting with people. You can do this, but you have to start somewhere. And what Susie's trying to to show people, to guide people is there is a way and it is not complicated. You can get all the books in the world, you can listen to all the podcasts, to all the audio. But the only way you're gonna know and understand this is by practice it, by doing it. And it doesn't have to be for long. And that is the hardest thing for a human to do, is to sit and do nothing because we're not used to it. No. It's something that we don't do, you know, we have the tv, we have the internet, which is amazing cuz we are doing this. So I find this amazing to me. You know you can see it one way or the other but you can do that and your horses or animals are the greatest draw for you to do that. Listening to a horse munch on hay, sitting next to the stall in the evening when it's dark and just sitting with them, listening to them breathing and relaxing is such a tranquil place. And even if you just did that, you will get benefits. So only have to be a tiny thing that you do once you start to do something like that then you become more aware, but you have to play around with it. Gotta start with you you have to do it. Where you start is up to you, but you have to take that first step because you won't get there unless you do.

Susan: 1:18:17

Yeah. And I think, you know, just expanding a little on, why don't people wanna sit with themselves? Why don't they wanna be in quiet? Because for some people it's incredibly uncomfortable because all their stuff is coming up and they've gotta look at themselves and they've gotta feel their body talking to them and it's uncomfortable. And when we think about why do people distract by watching TV and actually over intellectualizing is another form of distraction. Well I'm busy, I'm searching for the answer. No, you're distracting sometimes by just doing that. You know, that constant search for the answer is a form of distraction. So it's, it's complicated when you think about how do you feel? And it's like, as I was sitting on that couch and feeling depression, it was like, wow this is really intense. Like, you know, in the quiet of my house without anybody talking to me, this is pretty intense. It would be so much easier to go to Dairy Queen and eat a Dairy Queen something and distract myself or binge watch some show or do something like that. And that would make this feeling not be so intense and it's like, yeah we're just so good at those strategies of distraction. And so when you, when or if you are sitting there and it feels uncomfortable, ask yourself, do I wanna go be distracted? Does this too much, you know, and, and maybe sit through that uncomfortableness and just see what happens, you know? And, and our society has taught us to be disconnected from our body. So it can be very unnerving to feel your body and what your body is saying to you. It can be very odd, and I've seen it in horses that come out of being dissociated. And you can see the uncomfortableness as they are in their body. It's like, wow, this is hard. So I'm gonna give them a safe place when they come out of that. So when you're feeling uncomfortable, make sure you're in a safe place and that maybe there's, you know, safe person around. They don't have to be doing anything, but just having somebody hold the space is really nice and a horse is great at holding space.

Ronnie: 1:20:35

Susan, we've been going for about an hour and a half now. I'm just gonna see if some more questions quickly. Jackie the only way out is through trust the process. Yeah.

Susan: 1:20:43

Sarah we're taught Just take a pill. Isn't that true,

Ronnie: 1:20:48

Yes. Yeah.

Susan: 1:20:48

For heaven's sakes, don't feel something. I would say that everything I do with horses is because I feel so intensely, and that's a double-edged sword because you feel everything but I would not trade it for anything. I would not get rid of that if they offered me something like a million dollars for not feeling. No, I wanna feel.

Ronnie: 1:21:09

Is there anything that you Would like to share. So we were having a little quick chat last night, wasn't we? But something that I was prompted to say to you was, what was you do when you was five years old and you had talked about you went fishing but it was more to do with about your senses. What was you feeling with that memory? And you talked about the memory of going fishing and what you saw and what you felt all around you. So it was very much about your awareness of your senses when you was that young.

Susan: 1:21:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I think I had the opportunity, unlike some people to be able to be in environments that were very quiet. I mean when I was fishing, it was at my grandparents' cabin at 10,000 feet. It wasn't, it used to be a Native American campground. It was so magical on this lake, and it was just the most beautiful, serene place. And it was, there were no tv, there was nothing other than family that would come, you know, and visit. And we'd go fishing all day and, and I would clean the fish and I would immerse in the, like what's inside this fish? I mean you can imagine a 10,000 feet elevation. The water is very cold when it comes up from hundreds of feet down, it's like, it's freezing. And I would be cleaning the fish and my hands would be freezing. But I was immersing in all those sensations. the environment and this being and thanking this being like, I'm gonna eat you, I'm sorry you know, back, we were, hey fish then I don't eat fish anymore very often cuz I really clean too many. But yeah, it was just so immersive in all the feeling and I'm so thankful for that experience and what I just wanna suggest to people is like, when you are doing something, immerse in all the feelings of it. Like really pay attention to what it is you're doing. What am I experiencing? What are the feelings? What are the thoughts, what's going on? And that's how you start to reconnect to your body. It's like really being present in the activity you're doing and noticing what's going on in your body. So I think that's, that's my thing. You know, there's a thing called I forget who wrote the book, and he talked about Nature deficit disorder. And I really think that's the crux of all of our problems now, is that we've gotten so far away from being connected to ourselves, into nature and to the whole thing and some of us are trying to find our way back. Some of us are trying to find the other way through technology. And clearly technology hates me because it does something really evil. Every time I try to do something, like today my light went out So it was trying to steal my light.

Ronnie: 1:23:53

Yes. But it didn't work. And we're still live, Suzy, so that's okay.

Susan: 1:23:57

Yes. Yeah, we manage well that's cuz Ronnie is running the thing. It's not mine. So she's taking care of that

Ronnie: 1:24:03

So I'm just gonna give a little thing that anybody can do. Oh, sorry. go on, Susie.

Susan: 1:24:08

I just saw Deedee came up with Richard Lo was the guy.

Ronnie: 1:24:11

Ah, the book. Okay. Yeah. There you go last Child in the Woods. Cool. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, Deedee. Yeah, you know, sometimes you're just daydreaming, when you start to daydream, you're quiet in yourself down a little bit, you are focusing on something, it's not heavy focus. So if you watch your butterfly floating past, or you see a bee or an ant crawl across your knee which was that mean to me. And I was just watching this ant and looking thinking. Wow, that's such a tiny, tiny creature going about its day, doing an amazing thing. And living in a community and it's a tiny, tiny, ant and you almost let your attention just drift and absorbing, and you can feel your senses a bit more heightened and you can feel yourself calmed down. And to me that's a sort of meditated state. And again, sometimes that's when information comes through. But it can be, when I say information, it can just be a nice. Warm feeling of euphoria and euphoria doesn't have to be, oh my God, I feel euphoric. It's just this nice feeling and it's not all singing and it's not all dancing and sometimes we think that's what it should look like, but it doesn't. It's how it makes you feel. And if you get into your car and drive home and you have a smile on your face and you've no idea why, it's because you've connected to your source, your energy, and sometimes that's all it is. Mm-hmm. So I'm sure that you've had lots of moments like that, but you probably don't realize it because as quickly as you drift into that, you drift out of. If you start to think that was a moment and acknowledge it, what you are doing to your psyche, to your brain is acknowledging something. Recognizing something. So the next time that happens, ooh, that feels familiar, that looks familiar, now I dunno if that's the right terminology because I'm not Susie, I'm not Dr. Susie, but that's just me explaining. You can have moments and they are just as special as when you sat with your horse and your horse comes to you and rest the head on your shoulder. And you feel that love. That is connection. And that is a lovely special moment and worth the wait in gold.

Susan: 1:26:43

Yep. Thank you, Ronnie.

Ronnie: 1:26:45

You're welcome. Is there anything else you want to say, Susie?

Susan: 1:26:49

I don't know, like I told Ronnie I'm gonna be on there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I don't know.

Ronnie: 1:26:54

Warren has just said with curiosity where in my body, I feel those moments. Yeah. Yeah. If you've almost gotta be like a child. Mm-hmm. I mean, we are a, you know, and what's wrong with that? Yeah. You are in a child. You can be silly, you can be excited, for no reason, be excited for no reason. Trust me, that lifts you. It's like, I have no idea why I'm excited. I dunno what's around the corner, but I'm excited about it and that does lift you. And it's like a muscle. Even if you don't feel that way, an exercise I did a while ago is I smiled every time I got in my car. Now I didn't feel like smiling sometimes, but I thought I'm gonna do this. So I got in my car and I smiled and it became habit because my body knew as soon as you got in the car, smile and before I knew it, I was smiling all the time and I thought, I've got the biggest smile on my face. I have no idea why, but it made me feel better. It was a knock on effect the rest of my body and my mind. And it's a little simple exercise you can do, but it does make a difference. And you smile because you notice you're smiling and you thinking, I dunno why I'm smiling and then you get a bigger smile. It's contagious. So play around with your child, your playfulness, play around with your emotions and your feelings and just see where it takes you because you won't know unless you try. And it can take you to some amazing places that aren't always seen thier just felt.

Susan: 1:28:32

Yeah. Thank you.

Ronnie: 1:28:34

Gayle's just said many thanks. I love that you aren't scripted. I tried a script and it doesn't work, I forget where I am.

Susan: 1:28:40

Yeah for me, I think for all the work that I do and what I'm trying to convey is that it's about real life. It's about having real conversations. And even this, I consider a conversation with everybody here and you know, when somebody scripted their conversation or they got their canned responses and it doesn't feel genuine. And I always wanna just be genuine, even though I may stutter through some things or I'm not as articulate as I could be. I just feel like that's real life and we're so used to editing everything, everything that's not perfect out of our life. You know, if we're doing some kind of audio thing or something, we're editing out all the parts where we look bad or we don't look the way we think we should. And, and maybe that's part of my message is that why don't we just stop worrying about getting rid of all those things we see as imperfections and just be, just be our real self.

Ronnie: 1:29:50

That's a perfect note to end on, Susie just be yourself. And as you said earlier in this conversation, it's not just about the horses cuz what you teach and there's a lot of people that are doing lots of good work. It's about connecting, understanding, feeling yourself. Because when you do that, it's not just your relationship with your animals, it changes, it's with people. It's how you see things, there can be lots of things going on in the world that maybe would overwhelm you but when you take the time to just be with yourself. You can see those things, but realize and understand that that's not the whole world. It's just a glimpse that somebody shows us. It doesn't mean to say it's not happening, but there is a whole beautiful world out there if we just take the time and horses, animals want us to be our authentic self and to feel ourself because that's who they truly see. They see the real part of you. They scared you, they worried you, the fearful of you. So as long as you are honest with yourself and present yourself as you are at that moment in time, your horses and your friends will guide you into what to do next, what to feel next. So thank you so much, Susie. Thank you for everybody that's comment. Like I said, Susie can see those and I couldn't read them all out we just spent all night just reading the comments out. Susie has given a lots of information and she has lots of knowledge that she wants to share. Her online course will be coming up soon, which will be exciting for Susie and for the people that want to join that and her book is out, so you can read her book. It's also on Audible. She's an amazing lady. She got wealth of knowledge under her belt life experiences, and if you just take a fraction of what she's given today and start doing something for yourself, that's a start. And don't underestimate it. It doesn't have to be huge. It's just a willingness to do something for yourself, to change your view and your outcome. Thank you very much, Susie it's been a real pleasure. Say bye.

Susan: 1:32:17

Goodbye everybody. Thank you so much.

Ronnie: 1:32:20

An amazing lady and although technology does hamper sometimes that we've managed to get through today, so you know, the conversation was meant to be heard. I hope that you got something from this. Once again, thank you to everybody. Spend time with your horses, with your friends, but spend time with you cuz you are so important. It starts with you. Take care and bye for now.