Interview with Josh Nichol - A Horseman's Pursuit

Interview with Josh Nichol - A Horseman's Pursuit
I was very pleased when Josh kindly agreed to do an interview with me.
Josh was recommended by one of my listeners to a previous interview I did, which I am very grateful for. 

As the interview progressed, it was very apparent that Josh has a slightly different way of connecting his clients to their horses.
 
In fact, I found it very hard to concentrate on being an interviewer, as all I wanted to do was sit back in a chair and listen to his explanation on how his work empowers the horse as well as the people he works with.

I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.
Josh speaks from the heart and has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to energy, horses and people. 
We only just scratched the surface.

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

Josh's Story:
Even from his younger years, it was readily apparent to those around him that Josh Nichol had a remarkable gift when it came to interacting with horses. Fortunate enough to have parents that noticed his affinity for the equine early on, much of Josh’s life has been spent developing his understanding and knowledge of horsemanship. Under the guidance of world-class mentors, Josh quickly learned his life’s calling: continually seeking and developing better methods of creating long-lasting relationships with one of God’s most fascinating and beautiful creatures. Driven by a passion for connecting with, and understanding the needs of horses, Josh has created a transformative approach to horsemanship: Relational Horsemanship.

Relational Horsemanship is built on a foundation of forming a deep connection with our horses by striving to understand their needs and empowering them to perform at peak capacity rather than dominating them. Refined over two decades of experience working with clients from across Canada and across multiple disciplines, Josh’s method has rapidly gained an international following among horse owners and equine professionals alike.

Josh’s students now span the globe, with a wide variety of services and training materials ensuring that his Relational Horsemanship method is easily accessible. What began as an interest in spreading a deeper understanding of these incredible creatures has evolved into a rich fountain of knowledge for everyone, from recreational enthusiasts all the way up to Olympic competitors.

https://joshnichol.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/JoshNicholAHorsemansPursuit
https://www.facebook.com/AHorsemansPursuit

Interview: Live Video Version
https://youtu.be/xGHfQI5AuHc

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

Transcript

Ronnie: 0:14

Hi and good evening my name is Ronnie from equine voices. And tonight's interview is with Josh nickel and I shall shortly bring him in so he can explain exactly what it is he does. So without further ado, I should introduce him and he can explain all about his work and his life. Hi, Josh and welcome.

Josh: 0:35

Well thank you for having me, it's great to be here with you.

Ronnie: 0:38

It's a pleasure, so off you go the floor is yours.

Josh: 0:40

You know, horses have always been a part of my life. When I was young, we lived kind of out in the middle of nowhere and that was a really neat stage for me to begin feeling of animals and horses in a more intuitive way. When I, when we started, I didn't really have any. Focused intention with the horses. It was just being with them and we didn't really have a lot in the beginning. And that opened up the doors for me to be in the woods and with animals and with the horses in a very organic way. We had horses all the time and I spent a lot of time with them, but it was never in a kind of a place of trying to get them to do any kind of discipline. It was just being with them. And I feel like that set a really neat stage for me to just know them, so to speak versus, you know, always trying to get them to do a thing, which I think is a lot of times where we bump up against another struggle that comes with the horses is that we're not necessarily always hearing or listening to them, but yet always trying to get from them what we would like. So that was kind of a neat thing. That was a neat beginning for me. So I was born in Northern Ontario, which is quite a ways east from where we are now. And then we moved to Alberta and it was when we came to Alberta. When I was 12 that we started to look at or we engaged in a different industry. Horses were much more common in Alberta. It's a very Western structure where horses are, you know, worked with and used in different manners and that opened up a lot of scope for me, but it never left from me the desire to just be with them and connect with them in a different way. And I think that my nature and that beginning set a stage for me to enjoy their presence and be with them in a different way. And I went through ups and downs in my own journey, trying to find my way and learning from different people and realized there were things that I didn't necessarily. Feel good about, and then there was other things I really resonated with and slowly over the years, that just started to become a way of working with the horses because that's really, the second phase is there was this beginning of understanding what it means to be around them. And then the next phase is how can you honor them inside of the work that needs to be done in certain situations? So whether that's working cattle or going on trail rides or asking them things that maybe the horses don't necessarily feel comfortable with, well, how can we honor them work with them and have them be a part of it and feel like their needs are met. So that really started to cause me to dive into, what did that mean? What does that look like? What does it mean to be able to be with the horses and, you know, develop relationships, but not necessarily not be able to do the work. I still want it to be able to figure out how to go and do the work and explore and experiment with the work. That really was what defined this idea of relational horsemanship and relational horsemanship is kind of the heartbeat of my approach and what relational horsemanship focuses on is it focuses on this idea that if a horse is struggling with something, it comes to an unmet need there's unmet needs in them that they are unable to then feel safe or feel comfortable to do a thing. So when they struggle, that should inspire in us a desire to meet their needs, rather than which I look at as the opposite is more of a reactive, emotional style of horsemanship, which then plays into this idea that if a horse isn't doing what you say, then they're being disobedient or disrespectful, or you know, they're just trying to be bad. And people have many names for the horses when they see or interpret the horses this way, and that insights an entirely different energy and insights, a different form of communication. Which always left me feeling with anxiety or negativity or a tension within me as I've tried to do my best to listen to the horses and learn from them in the process of asking questions and, and deepening my world with them. I've found that they're always trying to communicate and speak with us. They're always trying to help us understand what works for them and what doesn't and when they're ready and when they're not, and as we can meet their needs, it gets them into a place where they feel much more comfortable to give of themselves. I truly believe that that is essentially a principle-based idea and when I talk about principle-based ideas, I'm talking about ideas that resonate over the earth, and that means that it kind of works for anybody, inside of relationship, there's certain things that we have to kind of find for ourselves and then be inside of that relationship, which then creates a space where a vulnerability and giving of yourself, doesn't feel as risky. That's really what it is with horses is that we're trying to develop a relationship so that when we ask them to do a thing that they might struggle with, that they feel that we're there supporting and holding space for them, that we've set a tone where they can feel comfortable to give and not feel like we're taking. So that's kind of the horse side of how I've worked. This is all obviously very general, we're not diving into the details at this point, but that's really the idea. And what that also led me to was as I observed how sensitive and intuitive horses were, I observed that my horses were starting to teach me a lot about myself. I started to see a lot about my own ways and the way I was interacting and that my presentation and how I presented myself really mattered. So this drove me in even deeper into my own personal developments, because what I found is is how is it that I could ask my horse to do that? If I want my horses to think under pressure, I want them to be vulnerable, that they could do that. If on my side of it, I was not giving of myself. I was not putting myself into any kind of vulnerability and when pressures showed up in my life, I got guarded and defensive. So I found that what this does is it creates a resonance or an energy and I talk about this as energetic leadership. And I look at leadership in a unique way, I think. And from a perspective of leadership, I am looking at leadership on the ideas that a horse can feel the resonance of the things that I'm asking already happening within me, before I expected of them. Now there's going to be areas where we don't have that working and that's where we would look and desire our horses, grace. But what I desire is to the best of my ability is I want to be trying to have frequency or energy within me already happening of the things that I would be looking for from them. So how am I working through those things? How am I developing within myself to handle pressure in a different way to be open and vulnerable and to be doing it with the focus of excitement and joy and fun rather than have anxiety and fear and worry because the horses I have come to, I talk about the universal language and the universal language is the language that all things can communicate within. And that happens when we allow our thoughts and our energy to be inside of our own space. When our thoughts and our energy are not leaving our bodies, then nothing can really hear us and that comes because of guardedness and defensiveness. And this is the other beauty of great horsemanship is that it asks of us to learn how to be more whole where our thoughts, our energy and our space are all honoring the same thoughts that we're in the space, just as much as we're within ourselves. So that a horse never wonders what we think, they're never wondering what's going on inside of us because they can feel it and that creates a level of assurance and security and the challenge that that possesses is that horses, if they feel us hiding behind our walls, then we're setting a tone of self preservation and protection rather than relaxation, vulnerability, openness and that they can feel the frequency of us doing the thing that we're asking them. So this really sets a very cool tone for me of this deeper relationship or this relational horsemanship on one hand needs to more deeply understand what it is a horse needs, more deeply understand what it is that I need and how am I presenting myself with what depth am I showing up in this relationship? And what am I bringing and then how do we connect? How do horses and people connect? And the things that the horses care about are much different than the things we care about. Horses generally don't care about going down the trail or working cattle or going in circles in the arena. They just don't generally care too much about that. But what they care about are, are their needs met. They feel safe, and if they feel safe in any relationship, we feel like we can give of ourselves more. So the essence of relational horsemanship is to be able to provide and create that type of environment, to put our energies into what allows the horse to feel safe, to feel like their needs are met so that when it comes to asking them to do things and this is a lot of times what I end up helping people with is that often people are looking for the results of relationships where we're doing the things without the heartbeat of relationship. So my number one priority, and my number one goal in my work has become helping people under how to get to that place within yourself, that you're really showing up, what it is a horse needs, and then being able to interact with each other in such a way that the relationship goes deep. And I truly believe that very few people get into horses because we want to have another dysfunctional relationship. We get into horses because we love that connection. There's something deep within them that pulls us and it draws our soul, but the struggles and the experiences and the traumas that we experience cause us to shell up. So our soul desires that connection but yet what we have done with our selves causes us to get to a place where it actually rejects that connection, because we don't want to show up and expose ourselves, which is then that's where the beauty lies inside of kind of diving into this form from a more relational perspective is that working with horses will change you working with horses in a relational way. We'll start letting those walls fall, which allows soul connect. And for me, that's really the greatest step that horses have for humans. You know, we look at leadership a lot and we say that we're trying to get the horses to do things, and it's really about getting them to do things. But it's really a funny thing because leadership is actually a flow there's times when my horse is leading, when it comes down to an energetic connection, there's times where I'm allowing my horse to be the guide and they're helping me. And then there's other times where I'm helping them. And it's so honoring, I think it needs to be so honoring that in any one moment where we're able to Abbott and flow on who is able to kind of take the leader, needs to take the lead because they bring a greater quality to that moment. So that's a really big piece to it. And then once the horse feels safe, once our horses like, they are able to trust us and they give themselves this sets of the most beautiful tone for helping the horses shape and change and meld their bodies into their athletic form to support the rider. And a lot of times this is where riding can sometimes get a bad rep because I find that there's a space where, you know, we look and we see that the writing could have negative impacts on the horses, but oh, can it have such beautiful impacts? If their bodies are prepared in a relational way where their muscles can come up and carry the rider and that the horse is empowered to do so. So that's the other side of it is on one hand, we're trying to develop a relationship with our horses so that they feel safe. And on the other side, we're trying to develop a mind where the horses are being developed physically through their muscles and honoring their physiology. That they can come up and pick a person up and pick a rider up in a way where it's an empowerment. So those are the two kind of bigger premises that over the years I've come to develop and continuously learning. I feel like it's one of those crazy things about the more you learn the less, you know, because you just learn how big scope is. And so I've just find myself just trying to honor with as much intention as possible, the journey of this and I'm constantly learning. The more I engage the horses, the more I learn to listen to them and that sets a stage where there's less times when we're bumping into each other. But when we're bumping into each other, this is just another moment for us to be able to engage in a relational opportunity, to listen, to learn, to adjust, to communicate with each other, to hear each other. As soon as we do not see horsemanship from the perspective of disobedience, disrespect or negatively emotional interpretations. What starts to happen is, is that the voice of the horse can be heard and that's really what I'm after is that relationship is about two voices communicating and that fires up soul connections. When there's two beings totally being honored in a relationship, our soul's voice starts to brim and beam and light up and that really is what we all desire in deep relationships. Every one of us has this desire for relationships. What I find is is that through life, a lot of us protect that and hide that and get walled up, Horses can do that, people can do that, but the universal language is most satisfying when we get to a place where we are most. We're present in the moment that we're able to be present and feel without a guard and this sets the stage for our horses to be able to walk that path with us because we're leading it in our own lives. So I that's a quite a bit, but hopefully that gives a bit of a sense of what I'm after.

Ronnie: 14:26

That was absolutely amazing, that was so any elequent. I was sat here thinking I'm interviewing this guy and all I want to do is just sit here and listen to him, which is obviously what I'm doing, but it was so beautiful and I was just getting drawn into the words and wow yeah. I'm going to try and think of a question, cause I'm still digesting what you just said to me. So I understand everything that you said, but the way you said it with more depth, yeah so thank you for that, Josh that was brilliant. So can you go back to the beginning of your conversation, I think it was the beginning of your journey when you was asking them to be brave, to be strong and authentic, you wasn't feeling authentic within yourself. Can you expand a little bit more about that?

Josh: 15:18

When we first start asking horses questions, you know, we want them to do things and then I would be asking them to do things and challenging them to do things that they weren't comfortable with and then you're faced with, okay, what'd you do in that moment? And sometimes that quicks people into kind of training ideas okay how do I train the horse and do things with our staff to kind of get them to do it? What would happen for me is I would always get these twists in my guts. I would get these sensations of tension and twists and for myself, I find myself to be extremely sensitive to these types of things. And I have now come to understand that these twists are guides, they're good leads because they give us information and insight of any twist is written a code and that's the beautiful part about it. But what I find happens when we have a twist is we focus on the feeling of the twist, not the information that the twist grants. So in a situation, if I sit there and I say, oh, this feels so bad, it feels so. And I sit in that feeling, then that is the end point of that. And now I would be interacting with my horse from the perspective of the feeling of that twist, not necessarily hearing the information that the twist was going to provide me, so this is then where it kind of led me. You know, this didn't happen, like some apple falling on my head moment, it was something that came over time and it was this, this concept of, you know, what does that twist about and then feeling those similar twists in other areas of my life, which had nothing to do with horses and recognizing that this was actually something within myself, something that was in myself based on how I was interacting, cause I was the common factor. now. My goal now is just to be able to feel those twists and then find out what need is unmet in those moments or how is it that that's happening? And it became very clear in the beginning that there was a lot of things I was asking of the horses that was not happening in me. That's kind of where I touch on the ideas of, I'm asking my horse to be brave and go into pressures that they're not okay with but then I get into one of those situations and I disengage and I protect myself or I don't go there. So then what I'm doing is I'm not necessarily setting this wonderful tone of leadership, which is I am doing the thing I'm asking. So in as deeply, a heartfelt way is I'm always playing with that. I'm always asking myself am I leading my horse by doing the thing that I'm asking them to do and for a lot of us, we're not, we're not doing it in our lives, we're not being the change and I recognize that that became one of the most impacting changes. Because number one, When I am doing it, a new level of empathy develops within me because now I get it, I get it, that going into our vulnerabilities, it's not easy of going into things and walking into areas which was once held by fear but now doing it with trust, that's a big thing. So then I'll handle myself different a lot of times when we would bring a horse up to a situation and they're scared or worried and we lacked the feeling in ourselves of what that was. Then we would be rigid and sometimes even cruel about how we're asking them, because we don't own the appreciation of the challenge of what we're asking but the more I got to a place where I was able to appreciate and own it within myself, it created a empathy and then I could be there with my horse and it allowed me to be different in that moment that I would set a stage to support them and help them and learn what they needed to do the thing. And then it starts to help you build the backstory because what a horse does in the moment, one of our struggles with in a moment just informs you of how you have to prepare the backstory. So instead of getting caught up on, you know, I want my horse to do a or B or C, you ask that but then the worst gives you the information of what they need to then achieve that. And that really is where training comes in. And then, so what happens is, as you then build that backstory as you become, first of all, learning, what does it mean to do that in my own life and secondly, how do I build that base for my horse? Then by the time we get back to that thing, you have an entirely new base to bring to it and generally what ends up happening is that it's not as monumental to the horses because you've given them what they needed. So it always comes back to that for me, it's always comes back, how am I meeting my horse's needs in any one moment, how am I showing up with the authenticity of being able to understand and appreciate what it is I'm asking of them and set the tone so I build it for them without any mindfulness of the worst being disrespectful or disobedient, or many of the names that people give to our horses. Our horses are constantly trying their best, they're constantly trying their best but they weren't granted the ability to think logically about things that make them nervous. So if they're in that spot, they're going to go to what their nature is and that has nothing to do with me, it just has to do with that's what's kept horses alive for thousands of years. So the goal is then if they're going to be different, it has to be because I can lead them to something new, I must then be the answer, I must be a new rational perspective and to me that's the compass of great training is that it's my job then to become the change and then in those moments that I can lead them through that change because they can feel it, they can see it, they can sense in me the ability to hold space for them as I'm asking those questions. So then the, the intuitive part, as we're focusing on what's going on inside of us is I believe relationally the, as we listened to our soul voice more, it will often work off of, oh my goodness this feels so good to me. Or, ah something feels off or whoa this is not for me. The soul is constantly guiding us and when you look at what's happening within as a mere guide, and there's actually words written in those feelings and you change your perspective around the feelings you get, it will give you great insights because insight is trying to come to us. That's another thing for me is that the things that are for you are actually trying to come to you, you don't have to kind of like claw and work and try to force because if you're trying to force, you're generally outside of alinement so then when you get quiet and you just listen, it's like the information tries to come to you and I've kind of lived by that. That doesn't mean I'm not doing anything I'm working and doing, but I'm doing it with a mindfulness of listening for the information. Because in every feeling there is information and that to me is where intuition starts to give more guidance and is there to guide us in any situation. If we could change from using those feelings as a guide, rather than sitting in the emotion of those feelings and getting lost in the feeling and not necessarily being in the feeling, but then listening to the words that are written inside of that code. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but that's kind of where it takes me.

Ronnie: 21:58

It makes sense to me so if I say that I spent and I'm still spending a lot of time working on my own insecurities and my own moving forward in my blocks and you know what everybody has in life. So I listened to my gut most of the time. It doesn't mean to say that I get it right all the time but I'm listening and as you said we can get lost in that feeling and we can sometimes make it something that it isn't, it was said to show us something but we've interpreted it or we've allowed it to become something else. I remember a while ago, I mean quite a few years ago now I used to get quite low and I found it very hard to pick myself up, that was quite a few years but I still recognize the sign. So when I'm starting to dip I recognize the signs but now I don't think, oh God it's the black cloud coming, I think okay the energy is different. I could be tired or it's just a fluctuation because as seasons things ebb and flow. But I listen to me, and think, well, what's that telling me and the one day, you know, I was feeling fine and then all of a sudden I just felt this wave of emotion and I felt really low and I remember I was sat in the stable, I was doing something in this stable and thought, wow this is really heavy again. I thought but I thought I'd dealt with this because once we've dealt with something it's gone. And I sat there and I start with it, as you said, you can't run away from it and you can't get angry with it, you just have to sort of sit with it. And then as soon as I recognized what it was, it was almost like the clouds lifted and this sun came up but it was so intense and it was so deep that at that moment in time, it felt like it was happening again but it wasn't what it was showing me is this is residue that's ready to go. It's coming up, just recognize it. Yeah and it went as quick as it came. But the intense tense feeling of it was real but it wasn't real because it wasn't actually happening, but it felt like real.

Josh: 24:11

Yeah it's an interesting thing about how feel desires to be honored and from a soul perspective, I've come to look at it now that it's like when a feeling comes it's part of the way the soul vocalizes itself and can communicate with us because if something is needing attention our soul, for me, the soul speaks through feeling it speaks through frequency and resonance, and it guides us in moments. So a lot of times when certain feelings come, if we are able to honor the feeling and sense the words and the feeling, it will move quickly but if we don't, then the feeling will stay because it's not necessarily being honored or because we're missing kind of what it was there for. So the beauty of it is I find is that as we get more connected to being able to just be with that feeling listened to it and then honor what it's there for. It can move very quickly and if we don't it gets to where it's like that feeling isn't processed. So then it hangs around and it hangs around and then almost gets to a point where it's like, we can't even exist without living inside of that feeling. So that's part of this intuitiveness and we see that with our horses is that horses can get to a place where when they get so caught in those feelings, that they're just scared all the time. They're scared of everything now, because it's like they've almost defined themselves by that feeling, because there was something there where there was a need unmetor a piece that they weren't able to kind of find peace in and then it creates this tumultuous sense where we're not necessarily able to just be. So I think it's such a beautiful thing and I tried to do that now because there's some feelings that I like more than others. I like the feelings that make me feel good and I don't like the feelings that don't but a lot of times those feelings that don't feel are often just as helpful as the ones that do, because they're all guiding me. And when we can sense that it's like, they're all guides, they're all just guiding me to making decisions and waiting through what I call the universal scope, it's like a universal language, it speaks through field. It speaks to pictures and energy. It's all the subtle senses rather than just the verbal sense, when we hear each other and we can process that with our logical minds, the soul seems to speak through the subtle senses which then kind of asks of us to feel into a thing and listen to it and then process what we hear, not necessarily just focused on that feeling. Yeah, it's a, it's a beautifully thick kind of conversation points because it has so many facets but from the horses perspective, horses are such feelers and if they don't feel good, then they have a hard time doing anything, but if they feel good it's amazing how much they'll give of themselves and that really again is the root of relational horsemanship. It's like, how do we get to a place where we can within ourselves and within the horses set that stage so that there is a level of safety and that they feel, again, me doing the things that I'm asking them to do.

Ronnie: 27:07

So I know there's going to be a short version and there's whole different ways of doing it but if somebody said to you, look, you know, I've got an anxious horse and what's the first thing that I should do regarding myself and the horse, what's the first thing, not training, what's the first thing that I should do to help me open a doorway to open a window, what could you give to somebody?

Josh: 27:32

A couple of things and the first thing is breathe. A lot of times what happens is when our horses are not in a state where they're relaxed. I talk a lot about the law of intensity and this really focuses on generally the idea is, is the most concentrated energy will generally lead. So, you know, if you and I get. To this conversation and you're super happy and I'm a little bit grumpy. If your happiness is greater than my grumpy, then pretty soon I'll start to relinquish my grumpiness and I'll start to become happy. But if it's the opposite and I'm really grumpy and critical, and you're only a little bit happy, pretty soon, it would be hard for you to stay in your happiness because my grumpy or my negativity was greater than your happiness, so you would have to really work at that. So with our horses, if we feel our horses anxious, the goal is are you able to be more centered in your calmness than they are in their anxiousness? So if you do not feel you are able to do that, then what I ask people to do is to lessen the distance from where they were okay to where you are right now. So what I mean by that is if you're at the barn and the horse is fine, but then you start taking them down the trail or down the road or into the arena and by the time you get to the arena, the horse is totally wired. Lessen the distance to a point where you're able to be grounded and the horse is not jumping around and making you nervous. But where is the spot where they're a little bit nervous that you, it's not so heavy at concentration, that you are able to retain your composure because that's the place where you will be able to lead. So it's always being able to first breathe through that moment so that you're not necessarily exuding your anxiety onto the horse and asking them to do a thing, but doing it in the anxiety, that's also part of the problem. Breathe through that moment, bring yourself to a state of calmness and then analyze where is the distance that you have to make a shift so that you can bring yourself back to calm states where you're not kind of lying to the horse? You know you're, trying to do things with the horse but you're totally anxious within yourself. So then once you find that point in the horse is a little bit more calm, they're still a little bit worried. Now, can you get to a place where the calmness with, from the law of intensity is greater than the anxiety in them, so that you can lead them back to a regulated states. And this isn't necessarily about really doing anything. It doesn't mean you're training them or you're moving their feet, but it's just about taking stock of where you're at. It's also a matter of taking stock of where it is that you can lead. Where is that point? For some people, it might be taking them almost all the way back to their pen because you didn't realize when you pass the threshold because most people are so used to living in a state of anxiety. Most people are constantly in a state of tense anxiety, so then you didn't realize that you lost it because it was something you were actually very connected to. The more you breathe and I encourage people to do this, as often as it comes to you, take a full breath, because then what you're doing is you're turning off your parasympathetic and you're activating your sympathetic system and it brings you to a state of calm. And only in that state, can we connections relationships, body awareness newness in our body because we're not running an old system. If we're running an old system, we're in a sympathetic state. So again, I'm kind of getting off track there, but the first thing is breath. The second thing is find the distance between where you started, where they were okay and where you can get to, to a point where they can hear you and then I also try to analyze in that moment, what is the missing need? When I ask a horse a question, what is the need that's missing? So when they were struggling, listened to them, where are they calling for their buddies? Where are they engaging you, spatially, where they becoming so mindful of everything else or was something causing them to be spooky regarding relational horsemanship. This is something we haven't discussed yet, but the three needs that I focus on our mind, space and pressure. Mentally a horse needs to know where their security is, where their buddies are, are they safe, what's on the horizon. You know, these are all mined tendencies and that needs to be settled for them. From a spacial perspective this is where horses want to engage us to feel us and we would often call a space horses, rude or pushy but a space horse is one that's desiring to feel you. So they're coming to you to feel you and it just so happens that most people's energy is so close to their body, that the horse has to almost get right on top of you to feel you well, that's not really a horse issue. That's kind of a people thing. So when you recognize your horse engaging you, this is because they want to feel you. So it's even more important to let the energy out of your body so that they can, and then pressure horses are horses that are spooky or anxious, and they need to learn how to deal with pressure differently. Okay. So the first thing is in the moment is to be calm, take a breath, find where you can be settled again, that your mind comes back online and you're giving an energy that the horse can feel safe with and that the horse calms to the point where you can work with. And the second thing is study specifically what it was that the horse did. How are they reaching out for you, what need are they demonstrating to you that is unmet. And generally it's going to be one of those three. You're going to see the horse got worried about things, they started getting anxious, they could have started reaching into your space looking for security or they could have started calling for their buddies. Any one of those is going to then lead us to the first steps of the training that I want to work on with that horse, because the first key from a relational perspective is to meet the most vocal need because the horse will be trying to tell me what it is that they need to feel safe in that moment. So instead of trying to focus on the obedience in that moment, we back up and we regroup from a calm space, how to empower a horse with that need and I go into more training specific things. But this idea of what does it mean to meet each need? How do we actually go about that? I spend a lot of time with each of those pieces to give people more and more information about what that looks like.

Ronnie: 33:24

So when you was talking about a horse walking into you or getting close to you, I never looked at it in that way. I work with horses and I communicate but I'm not a horse trainer. My background with the horses came very late in life. I was one of these kids that used to look out the window when you heard a horse going past the window. And I used to bike for miles to go for a lesson on a horse, so mine came latter. My communication came through my own house, trying to help her, trying to hear her and that's why I'm doing this. So I never thought about that, about horse coming into your space, as soon as you started to talk about that. I thought, well that makes total sense but I haven't heard that or I've not been in a position to really focus and hear that, so that was really interesting. You said you take a step back. So the horse is getting anxious. If he was walking a horse out to an arena or somewhere and it was getting anxious, you'd say, well let's go back. If I'm with a client and they've got an anxious horse. I point a few things out and say, actually, that's been showing signs way before you've noticed, there'll be more subtle signs. So I will get them to do what they normally do and watch them and then say, well I could see the signs before then, so I want you to just watch what's happening now. My works mainly communication but because we're like sponges and we learn and the information flows to us the knowledge that's coming is from what I see, what I feel and as you, it's not the apple fell out of the tree and you know it all, it's as you go along. To get to the point where that horse isn't showing any signs of anxiety. So whatever you're asking, if you was asking to put the head collar on and the fine, and then you get your head collar over in the fine, but then you get the rope and then lift the head up slightly. Your breathing changes that's start from there. It's about being authentic, they recognize authenticity in you. Most people, at some point would have been scared, myself included, especially if you're worried about an animal and they're doing something and you're getting worried and anxious because you're worried, then that becomes a fear base and you start working on youradrenaline and then that matches the horses. Then the horse is getting higher and you're thinking I'm trying to stay calm but they know you're not calm. So for me it's not that you're saying things that I'm not aware of and a lots of people won't be aware of but it's almost grounding it and giving it more clarity and deeper understanding, so I'm finding this fascinating Yeah. This piece on space is generally the area I see the most misconception, from my perspective, because so often people look at space as it's just normal, if a horse is pushing into your space, then they're pushy or they're being disrespectful. But this again, plays into this whole idea of are we showing up, are we allowing the horse to feel something? And when you recognize that the horse is actually just reaching for connection, space horses need to feel you and if they can't feel you, they're going to look for it and you would recognize that most of the time they come looking for it the most, is when they're somewhat worried. And I for myself personally feel like the outside of me is just as much me as the inside of me. And a lot of times people are not necessarily aware of they're outside. They're not aware of the energy that they exist within. And when you take two beings, they have a center and then they have an energy resonance and those resonance will need to interact to create trust and connection. When we say oh man, I just resonate with that person. But really what that means is our energies have such a compatibility, such a connection. We can feel them but as soon as you take one that's resonating and one that's not. They need to engage, to have communication, you have to find them and that's really what these space horses are doing is they so desire that connection. So that's another beautiful opportunity for us to say, oh my goodness. Yes my apologies. It's now an opportunity for me to reconnect. So what you'll notice with the space horse is when you're not authentically connected to your own space, they'll be trying to draw you out. And a lot of times people are drawn out the most in what I call the very states, very happy, very mad, very sad when our insides and our outsides so authentically connected but the goal degrade horsemanship to me is to get to a place where the authenticity of my thoughts exist outside of my body. And my goal would be to feel what I am before I speak it or before I act it, but I can feel the interaction. I can feel the thoughts, I can feel the energy and the sense of it and my words illuminated the same with my actions and space with horses should be in my mind, calling that out of us, calling that desire to reach out and be heard and be felt. The challenge of that is that there's a vulnerability to showing up authentically in the space and being myself, releasing my thoughts to the world and with the worry that that might be judged, or it might be ridiculed or whatever it makes us want to talk back inside. But again that's exactly how a horse feels when they go and you ask them something new, they get a little bit defensive. So the more we can sense every time that space horse that they are giving you greater opportunity to show up. They're helping you recognize where you're at and can almost encourage you to become more authentically spaceil that you learn to be inside of your own space. You are as much your resonance as you are your skin. You are as much your resonance, the space around you as you are your soul, because there is a currency that flows through that, that desires to flow through that that when we are there, that's where we can breathe. And it's when, if we really want to own deep breath, it needs to be within resonance because if our energy is compressed like that, it's almost like we're pushed into a box and it's hard to expand our lungs but resonance is when we own our own space and we can feel it. And a lot of times when we say ownership, people believe that that's more of a defensive thing like you've got to own your space, you got to really make the horse understands to stay out of your space. For me I don't want my horses out of my space. I want to have a communion and a connection that they can feel me and they just don't need to get right on top of me to break me out of my pattern. They can feel me at a distance. So then there's really no need for me to move them because there isn't a danger. There's not a negativity. I'm not sure if that makes sense but that's kind of encompassing the idea. Wow I'm just so drawn into what you're saying it's beautiful and yeah, I'm really enjoying this. So it's funny. I was watching something online and a video came up and it was Brenne brown and she was doing an interview with Ellen and she was talking about, which is not the first time I've heard this but she was talking about the power of the words. And she said one person would call it anxiety, and another person would call that excitement and I did an interview with the lady, NLP coach and she said the same thing. When she was suffering with anxiety, her coach, her teacher said well, I prefer to call it excitement. It's the same emotion but I call it excitement and the excitement is the word that generates the energy that I'm wanting. When you say anxiety, that's generating different but it's actually coming from the same, the same place and then Brenne brown said it and I thought that's twice and then you've just said that as well so. Quite often we know things but it hasn't lodged in our psyche, hasn't lodged in our brain. Sometimes you just need to hear that quite a few times for the penny to drop and think, okay I'm going to look into that a little bit more, so that was fascinating that bit. Is it harder when you're in professional riders when it's the big competitions, is it bigger pressure, do you find it's harder to deal in that scenario?

Josh: 41:35

Good question. You know I've recognized this and this was a conviction that I had right at the beginning of my teaching and my work was that I trusted that whomever came to me, whoever it was, was the most important person for me to be looking at and it's to look at their soul and to help them grow their connections and then honor the horse's body. So the awesome part of that is, is that I do everything within my power that no matter where a person's whether they're an advanced rider or right at the beginning. In the human version, we would tend to want to change that, so it's more important. What I'm trying to do with myself is to say, I entrust that whoever comes to me, is coming to me for that perfect reason and they are there right now and I'm going to be with them. So I do my best to just show up and if there's a lot of people involved, whether that's an expo or whatever, that I just honor that everyone's there to hear me being me. What I found is the pressure comes when I'm not being authentic. When I'm trying to play a game of give what I think they might want to hear or act different because maybe it's a rider or a number of people. I've just gotten to a place now where I just feel so liberated to realize that I'm not here for everybody, I'm here to touch the people that I am on earth for. Those people that I'm here for will not be released without me being authentic, which is so liberating. So then I just try to do that in every way. Now it's the best of my ability when I start to teach, I'm just going to identically show up and be myself and fully embody my own space. And just give what I feel is important in that moment and try to stay a conduit to a greater knowledge. The more I do that, the more I'm channeling, then what I feel so compelled to bring in that moment. So I try to live by that philosophy more than the individual environments, if that makes sense. And the more philosophical I can stay on that, the better I feel like I can honor the moments, because that is a challenge when we're faced with a certain environments that seem more intimidating or more bigger than others but I've just found that the more I can just so stay authentic to my calling and who I am and why I'm in a moment, then the value that I had the opportunity to bring is more expressed.

Ronnie: 43:56

That's brilliant I am really struggling just to ask you a question, because you're basically just answering the questions that I'm thinking of. So when you say honor the horse's body, explain what you mean about allowing the horse to come up and be a part of you, explain what you mean by that. That's a really good question. When a horse's body is being honored, there's a spiritual piece to that, there's an emotional piece to that. There's a mental and there's a physical piece and the leadership honors the energetic and the spiritual and the athletic work really focuses on honoring that physical side. You see the muscles and the bones and the ligaments and the tendons in a horse will do certain things out of fear and they'll do other things out of calmness and empowerment. And the goal is to understand this is why for myself personally, I don't necessarily have a discipline that I follow. My discipline is freeing each body, freeing each horse that I'm with has some horses feel like they want to be higher and others want to be lower. So I don't necessarily focus on a specific frame or look, I want all the muscles and all the bones to be honored in their highest form of use. So then if they're going to get under themselves, and this is the other beautiful thing about riding, which is why I love the riding with horses. When a horse uses themselves in the most empowered way, it's almost like they want to kind of pick up their back. It's like they get under themselves and they pick themselves up and there's a pride in it. So I feel like we are not horse people that have horse blood are not full without being with the horses and I feel like the horses are not fully empowered without us, that we have this beautiful synergistic connection where we become our fullest self together. I don't know if that's history or DNA or lineage or just energetic craziness but there's some intertwining that as we honor the horse, we empower them mentally. We allow them to use and learn their body in their most empowered way. They get to a place where they move with such pride and beauty and brilliance and that to me is the training, is that I want to get to a place where I understand what that means. I'm constantly trying to learn more about what that means but I'm trying to get my horses to feel like they can use their body in their finest form, because what happens is when a horse is in fear, they use their body in a defensive fashion. That's so often where lameness or tension or anxieties or problems that we see develop. But when a horse is working in a calm, relaxed state, then we develop the body in a certain way. They become empowered. And that is the most brilliant element of great horsemanship is that we first meet the needs, the horse becomes calm, makes themselves available, and then we can shape them into their most empowered element and that really is the beauty of a great relationship is that we add such value to each other. I want my horse to feel like I can empower them, and I want them to feel like they can empower me. And in any given moment that transition is happening at one moment. It's my horse empowering me and the next moment I am empowering them. But when it comes to allowing them to use their bodies right there are things the horses body will do that create ease and there's things their bodies will do that do not create ease. So it's then about us understanding what does it feel like when a horse's body is moving right and I truly do believe that intuitively when we go into this, there is a sense within us that doesn't feel right when a horse's body is not moving right. When there's something not right, it will give you the feels, you will sense it okay and so for myself, I want to use that again as a diagnosis. And then if I follow that feel you can start sensing what's going on. Now for myself personally I have kind of a process I go through with the horses to produce calmness, to get the back to relax, to feel them give an open themselves laterally so that they can start using their hindquarters for power instead of for fear. Most horses that people struggle with. You say I want my horse to stop bucking or bolting or running. This really has nothing to do with the training necessarily, it has everything to do with a horse not feeling safe but then the worst also learning what else they can do with their power. Most people and horses will generally use their power to save themselves but we are not the most enlightened when our power is for protection, but when our power is for enlightenment and when we use our power to illuminates the freedom of our being, that's when we find our fullest self. So that's really the embodiments of a horse moving in their most honorable way, where the bones, the muscles and the ligaments, the energy, and the spirit, all align, man, that's riding. As you say that, if you think about it without any other thoughts that want to flow into your head, that would make sense. It's the same for us if we are tense and we are working and we're doing something we're not using our body to the best of our ability and nobody's symmetrical. So you adapt and you move in a certain way and one side can compensate for another and then later on that's when you get a breakdown. But if you're listening to your body and you recognize, that actually, I need to focus on that and pay that attention, then you can start to change that. And I know it's changing cause it has to change but why isn't that the focus on, I'm talking generally now, why isn't that taught, that's the basic, why is it not taught to people that have riding lessons, that want to do dressers that want to do show jumping. That is the biggest block that's missed out on a lot. Sometimes I think there's a struggle because if you have to teach that, then people can feel threatened or it means that you have to change a lot of things or you have to go back to basics and re-evaluate what it is you're doing. That's a big thing, so I've sort of answered my own question but it is changing.

Josh: 50:01

I feel sorry.

Ronnie: 50:03

Oh, I was just gonna, just gonna say, getting back to that feeling so years and years, years ago I had a horse her name was called ferry and I'd gone from limited riding, to a little pony, to an X race horse and she was sold because she didn't make the cut because she would catch up to the last horse but she wouldn't want to overtake. I had her for six months and she could go from walk to Gallup. So what we had to do was just go out and walk and trot, before we even counted, so for six months it was about can't know each other and just going out for hacks. I remember one day it was, it must've been. Mid-summer cause the fields had just been all cut and we was going down the track and with coming into this field and I just said, oh ferry what'd you reckon shall we have a canter. And this is my first canter and her ears flicked and I can feel that motion now, I'm feeling as if I'm there and she just went back onto her haunches and we went and you know what, it was just awesome and I felt part of her and I could feel her flowing through me but it was the trust, I trusted that she would stop. I knew that she would stop when I asked her and so we canted and I could see the hedge coming and I just thought, right, I need to slow down now and I could feel her. And I remember that was years and years ago but that is still with me that feeling, but it was just trust knowing that we were both on the same page and we both trusted each other.

Josh: 51:37

Awesome, so great. When you mentioned earlier you know, why is that not common, why is that not taught and I would say that there's kind of two parts to it. One is that generally we're not taught to trust our intuition, we're not taught to feel the words that are spoken. We're taught that if they're the professional and they know more than us than we're supposed to do what we're told and that can be way back to school training or whatever that we're not necessarily inspired to listen to our souls. We're taught to just do what the textbook says or do whatever. So then the prevalent conversations in horsemanship are that don't let the horse get away with that, they need to do what you say. The frequency of energy in regards to how people work with horses would primarily be based on obedience and making the horse listen that the horse is generally maybe trying to get away with things and if you're not careful they'll do those kinds of things and it's your job to not let them be that way. So with this conversation of people generally not trusting your intuition and then listening to the instruction and when basically the instruction is mostly around respect and obedience or disrespect and obedience, Becomes very apparent that then people would fall into that pattern, it's changing like you say but it is a very common principle that people would believe that that's why the horses are doing what they're doing. This is why then I encourage people to listen to their feelings, listen to their guts because anybody can transport themselves back into a moment when someone was telling them to do a thing with their horse and it didn't feel good whatsoever but they did it because they were being inspired by the one who knows to do the thing and it made them feel bad, made them feel off but they still did it. I think that the more we can get to a place where we are more intuitively guided, we're more intuitively building words and approaches and I feel that's what I'm trying to do with my approach of horses and it's growing all the time. There's things I'm changing all the time and I tell my students, if you come back next year and I'm the same, then I encourage you to go find somebody else because this program is going to continuously evolve as I learn more. So that sends a tone that when people come and they're listening to their intuition, then that empowers people to make better decisions and different thoughts around information they're given based on what works for them, because what works for one person might not work for you and that's totally okay. Because to me it's not even really about gaining all the students in the world, it's just about being able to provide information that allow people to be successful and sometimes that means helping people work with me and sometimes it means helping find another coach for somebody that isn't me but it's more about finding the answer for them, that's so speaks to their soul. So when information shifts from a more logical trained perspective, what do you mean is what we've learned that we're supposed to just listen, we're supposed to do what we're told we're supposed to do at the textbook says and not necessarily listen to our soul, not be led by the frequency within us. It will create tension and anxiety but when we get to a place where we are, and we're listening to our intuition, we're feeling the words and we're feeling the information and we can get confidence about it, where it's like, thank you for that, it might not work for me. I'm going to keep seeking where words and frequency align and those are the places you will find your home is when your frequency and the words and the actions all align. So you have this beautiful circular flow. You can feel it, then you can feel actions and you can feel an approach that then has a great feel and it just continues to circle. That is what will create peace in your soul about your approach to the horse. And what I find is the more we have people promoting that, the more it changes the general culture of the horse community.

Ronnie: 55:20

Yeah sometimes it feels like an uphill battle. It is changing and there's lots of different people feeling a similar way and maybe describing slightly different or finding their own words to describe it. There may be more understanding, we can only go from the knowledge that we have and feeling we don't see the whole picture but we've got to trust that what we feeling. And that's sometimes a brave thing to do for somebody that's not aware of their emotions or they've been taught to be strong, not to cry and if you're in the army, you've got to have a certain process to obviously protect yourself and to change that it's really difficult and as the horses to feel safe that they can do that. Yeah. Amazing. So for somebody that comes to your clinics, just give us an example of what one of your clinics is like.

Josh: 56:08

My work is very organic. I have a progression that I take horses through that I generally start with, but the first thing that I do is I want to listen to people. I love to hear their story and kind of get a sense of where they're coming from. And then I want to observe their horse and sometimes that means we work loose and sometimes it means we're on the line but I want to get a sense from both the horse and the person about how they feel. I look at it often like a bit of a marriage where there there's two very important opinions that need to be because a person will say one thing, but a horse might say something entirely different. So then the first thing is that I want to be able to hear. So I take people individually, I don't do groups much. Sometimes I'll do small groups, groups of three but mostly I do individual work because I really want to get down to the heart of what's going on for each person. Then slowly, once we've got a sense of what's going on, I get a sense of where the person is at and then where the horse is. That first step is to find success and to build connection based on met needs and then from there we begin the journey and then I just start to move people forward. I have built a online membership site which focuses on my whole progression. So that's been a really important piece to my process, as I'm working with people because I only generally go one place a year. So I have a full clinic season but I can only get to each place once. That's then really developed a process where I can really analyze and I can sense what's going on and then I can give people homework, which I find is really valuable is to keep the movement going and not be see people once a year and expect that the changes are gonna happen. Yeah then we take that through, I generally do four day clinics, sometimes they'll do three but mostly it's four and they're individual sessions and then I encourage people to watch and then go and practice and that's really the key to me cause when you're with me you'll get a certain thing but then when you go and try it on your own, it might look different. So I encourage people to do that every day, work with me, then go try it and you might find that, oh yeah, that works really good and I'm ready for the next thing and sometimes what happens is people go and try it on their own and they can't remember a thing that happens. So it's really important to be trying that before you leave the clinic and recognize that if you were always working with me and never on your own, that you don't really know how much you took in. So I try to find a really important balance of people being able to observe, to listen in lessons that are not yours to come and watch, soak it in, then try it on your own and then come back and work with me and it kind of developed this sequential progression of success. But I really love working with people individually because that allows us to really dive in, in as authentic way as I possibly can. I know for others in group sessions work really well, but for myself I really need that personal time with each person to really kind of hit home the points.

Ronnie: 58:42

And when you say you work in a one-to-one, so you have one person, one horse but there are the people watching, is that what you mean? Yeah. So you're giving all your attention, your focus, that person. It could be similar but when I'm with a client and I'm listening to the horse as I'm relaying back to the client, sometimes you break that communication because you're translating and passing it to the client. So sometimes I'll just say, I'm really sorry but I'm just going to go quiet because they're actually still talking to me. So I stopped what I'm saying now, whereas before I felt like I had to fill in, you know, just, just keep talking. The horses were saying, you're here for me actually. So I'd pay attention to them but they would give signs that the clients knew there was communication going on because they could see the responses by their eyes and their ears, so that's quite nice and that's that's more of my work now. I highlight the subtleties that are going on with the communication and say, so when you're riding or when you're asking for something and you're feeling not yourself, can you see why that can make a big difference. And it's funny because I can explain that but when it's my horse, it's my emotion and I am aware of it but sometimes I get in the way, not sometimes quite often I get the way. So for people in the UK, if they saw this and thought I really liked this guy I'm really interested in what you says, how would they get to interact with you, how could you help them from a distance?

Josh: 1:00:20

The first thing is, is that I would just encourage everyone to my YouTube. We've tried to load that up with content that we've found valuable to give people a sense of my work. We did an expo in Saskatchewan a couple of years ago now, and the way we formatted the content was to give a really great breakdown of my work, so I think it's a six part series and that's just a way people can really kind of get a sense of what I do and what I prioraties. There is a couple of demos there that I do with horses and then I also have some lectures and then there's specific questions that I deal with. So certain horses doing certain things. So the YouTube channel is a great way for people to kind of testing the water, to see if my work even interests them. Then from there, you can go to my online learning platform. There's an introduction that people can kind of get involved in, which is a bit more about understanding yourself, understanding the horses and then understanding how we can interact in a need meeting way. And then what that looks like in life. Then I have my master course, which really just gives all the content that I've put on there for over four years, which is a ton of information and from there, what I've found super valuable is that people can actually have an instructor. One of my students can work with them because that's really the struggle with all the online learning platforms is are you able to have somebody help you when you get stuck? So from a relational perspective, I wanted to make sure we're not missing that and it's not just turning into, throwing the information out there and leaving people. So then there's that option and then there's another option, which is full and has been full for a while but it's to work with me personally. But really what we're trying to do is we're trying to just develop ways that you can learn the work and then that you can also have help with the work when you don't understand it. So you can go and try it and then these lessons are similar to what you and I are doing here but you would show your footage and then someone that has a knowledge would give you insight and guidance to really try to help people move forward.

Ronnie: 1:02:15

Do you have anybody in the UK that works for you? Do you have any teachers in the UK?

Josh: 1:02:21

I don't at the moment, you know some of the restrictions of lessons the growth of certain spaces, you know for me, it's more about as people get more engaged and are willing to put in the efforts to really learn the work and hold a heartfelt connection to the work. Then where I've just added various instructors that have had the chance to work with me. Most of the people that have worked with me that are actually online as teachers the great part is, is that's the beauty of the internet is that they don't have to be necessarily local is you can work with somebody anywhere. So that's been a real great privilege to the internet access that people have.

Ronnie: 1:02:56

Yes we've obviously met through the internet otherwise I'd never be sat here talking to you now. So what have you got planned coming up? So you've got your YouTube channel and is it a subscription, so it a subscribe. Yeah so the YouTube, it's not just to get an idea of what you're like.

Josh: 1:03:15

Yeah that's really the idea, were trying to just pile content onto the YouTube channel. So they can learn tons on the YouTube channel and if that helps them, I'm just happy but if they want to dive in, then they have the access to do so through the membership site but really, the goal is just to get people the help they need. What I find happens is, I want people to get onto the YouTube channel to find if they like me or not, I don't want people to purchase a membership to figure out if they like my work. I want people to have a chance to figure out if you like it and have free access to that and then we also have a seven day trial on the membership, so people can give it a try and see if they like it. You know I love clean, pure exchange. So if they really want to dive into the work, that's beautiful. But if they just want to figure it out, then you have access to that too and we're just trying to allow people the opportunity yeah.

Ronnie: 1:04:05

Brilliant so what else have you got coming up, what's the next.

Josh: 1:04:09

Right now this actually is the last thing that I'm doing before just taking some holiday downtime, so I'm excited about that. We're going to just get into taking some time through the Christmas holidays to spend with family. And then in the new year, I've got two things that I'm doing. I have a a virtual clinic that I'm doing which is with students all over the world. And that's kind of a four session process where I work with people online, and then they go and do some homework and then they come back and we do that four times. So I have students all over the world doing that which is pretty cool and then I also have a winter series, which is an intensive session where I work with a group three times throughout the winter and then from there I also have my instructors program, which is something I'm doing in the winter, which has me just training other people to kind of do the work and develop the programs that they're working on and just empower them into the spaces that they're doing. So it's not necessarily that I'm trying to build. My goal is that I want to empower every individual's authenticity of why they're here and what they're doing but off of this relational principle. So with my instructors, I am trying to just build some kind of parameter around really understanding the heart of horses and the heart of connection and then build up in them the uniqueness of what they want to do in the industry. So some people are therapists and others are, trainers but it's really not so much about just doing exactly what I do but just honoring the sense of and then as the summer comes back, I will be getting back into my clinic schedule but trying to spend a little bit more time doing a little bit less being so intense. The clinic schedule is very demanding and we go pretty hard. So I'm really looking forward to a bit of time in the winter to regroup and get ready for next year.

Ronnie: 1:05:52

So what do you do to relax, so when you're with your horses do you decide to go off trail riding, what's your favorite thing.

Josh: 1:05:58

I work for a couple of different ranches and I love training dogs. Also I have four collies and my horses, and so I generally love to just get out and have jobs to do so there's lots of work to do so I just out and that's something that I spend a lot of my time doing. And yes trail riding my daughter is very much so into the writing as well, so spending time with her and helping her and we'll go out on trail rides as well. I generally love the interaction of the work, so I generally am drawn to that. When I can as of late, just the last little while, because everything has been so busy, I've just been finding myself just spending time. So I'll bring in one of my horses while I'm helping my daughter and I'll just sit with them or sit on them while we're working. And just work on just connecting, sometimes it's just about grounding for me. So I generally try to just honor what I feel for that day rather than kind of have too much of a plan and just allow it to be more organic.

Ronnie: 1:06:51

As you was just talking then what I was getting Is about ridden horses and you can take this or not take this, it's up to you, get information sometimes when I'm talking and what was coming through, so this might be something that you may think of or a future venture, but it was about the ridden horses. So to go and show people that they can have a horse that they can't ride for whatever reason but they can still have that special bond and also have fun. So it might not be riding, it might be something else but that's coming in pretty strong for you. Yeah so you'd have to let me know if that's something that I was thinking about or a future thing. Yeah, yeah. Cool. I don't feel, I know we're just scratching the surface and I cannot think of questions because as you've been talking, you've answered them as you were speaking it was resonating with my soul. So it's been absorbed and it's for me to listen and to take note, for myself and my journey and my horse. It's there because the emotion is just there and I'm sensing that now and the in fact, as I'm saying the ridden horse, that's why it's important to and I can't put it into words but I know, does that make sense to you?

Josh: 1:08:11

Just let that sink in, keep that in my mind, yeah you bet. Okay is there anything else you want to mention before you go but before we go you've got to promise me to come back for another interview cause I think that it's just been a taste but the taste of that is like, wow, I want to hear more about this and I want to understand more. And a lot of people will hear this, they know this, but it's almost like it's floating above and we need to absorb it more. You could bring your wife if you want to, that we'll have to meet both together. Yeah well I'll ask her,

Ronnie: 1:08:49

is there anything else you'd like to mention?

Josh: 1:08:52

I think it's been great, I love intuitive conversations. You say like I was feeling that and then you're answered it. I just love that because I feel like those are heartfelt, intuitive conversations and I feel like that's really what we're trying to look for with our horses too, is to feel and let our feelings draw our words, which then mean we end up communicating a little bit deeper than just words to words but more so speaking to feel. So then for me that's a great piece because that's kind of what we're after. So no I've enjoyed the time and thank you for having me and I look forward to next time. You're welcome because, there's a lot of people that won't know that's what they want but deep down that's what they want and it comes out in other ways and they're maybe not even aware of it.

Ronnie: 1:09:31

So thank you so much josh, it's been yeah a real pleasure chatting and have a wonderful Christmas, enjoy your break with your dogs and your horses and your family. And definitely would love to have you back sometime in the new year. And we can touch a bit more deeper and I'll promise I'll have questions but my mind is just like, okay, just let him speak.

Josh: 1:09:53

No it's been great, I appreciated your questions and I thank you for having me and being interested in my work.

Ronnie: 1:10:00

It's a pleasure and I'll put links onto your site at the end of this. Wow what a lovely guy, lovely guy. I hope you enjoy the interview. Yeah I was spellbound, I was spell bound and I've got questions that I want to ask but actually I think that'll happen at the end of the time. If you want to speak to Josh, I'll send the link and then you can contact him directly and I'm sure I'll get back to you as soon as he can. Have a lovely evening and have a lovely Christmas. Thank you very much and bye for now.