What does it mean to love horses, but struggle to have the same empathy and love for people? Today’s episode touches on a challenge that many in the horse profession face. People who love animals and care so deeply for the environment and the land have a tendency to grapple with conflicting feelings toward humanity, often seeing the very best and the very worst of people in the same day.

Is it enough to truly and deeply love horses without feeling the same love for their human partners? Can we genuinely affect healing and change without falling deeply in love with the wholeness of the partnership as well as the individuals involved? When we step back from the separation of me from you, we put a crack in our armor to allow light to flow in (and out) - we connect.

What would happen if we created a community of reciprocal care and balance - one without linear, transactional relationships, one where we buoy one another up? What does it mean to truly care? Presence. Orienting to the wisdom of the body instead of the busyness of our minds. Expanding our focus to resilience and regeneration instead of destruction and disdain. Embracing the wholeness of what’s healthy, good, and right instead of fixating on what’s wrong. Dropping the disempowering stories and the pity. If we could manage all of this, or even any of this, what would change?

Join us as we explore these challenging and inspiring topics together.

Podcast Guests:
Shea Stewart - www.equinebalance.net
Chris Adderson - www.forthehorse.com
Suzi Cloutier - www.zebswish.org
Gray Kyle-Graves - www.wholehearthorsemanship.com
Carla Bauchmueller - www.theintuitiverider.com
Kerri Lake - www.generateharmony.com

Music by Mark Rashid - www.markrashid.com

This episode wanders and flows gently through two interconnected topics: risk and relationship.

Do connection and relationship alter our perception of risk? When you truly know another being for who they genuinely are, beyond their labels, can you have more trust in that person or animal? Would you put your child on a “dangerous” off-the-track thoroughbred? Sleep outside in an area known to have mountain lions? Choose to live in an area constantly being reborn and reshaped by active volcanoes? Living in fear means always seeing risk; living in attunement means seeing truth.

Our culture makes it difficult to open up - to find those tender places inside of us where we let ourselves explore our intuition, awareness, energy, and connection. More and more people are exploring these sides of themselves; however, even some of the most attuned humans still have an energetic governor that stops them from going too far when discomfort arises.

For instance, many empathic individuals connect strongly with nature - animals, plants, the land. We tend to have difficulty managing our feelings about the way humanity treats the land, the way humanity treats animals (horses!). If we dig into this tendency to judge other humans, what do we find? Will we allow ourselves to see what’s underneath? Anger? Pain? Sadness? Grief? Guilt for being human ourselves? What is the risk in rejecting others this way?

Be sure to listen to this one all the way through - there is a beautiful and vulnerable epiphany toward the end that ties together the entire episode on risk and relationship with others and with the land.

Podcast Guests

Chris Adderson - www.forthehorse.com

Jillian Kreinbring - www.jillinakreinbringinspire.com

Jessica White Plume - @jessica.white.plume.5

Greta Matos - www.kurakuda.com

Joell Dunlap - www.squarepegfoundation.org

Kerri Lake - www.generateharmony.com

Music by Mark Rashid - www.markrashid.com

What is your spontaneous reaction to the word, “Joy”? Does it evoke emotions within you? Where in your body do you feel it? What words come to the forefront to describe it? How do you know it?

In this episode, our guests endeavor to articulate the essence of Joy, while also pinpointing aspects of our humanity and culture that impede our ability to embrace it. Joy is found through a way of being - with ourselves, with the earth, with others. It’s part of our innate wisdom, something we seek and find and know within ourselves; We find joy in our ability to connect, rather than in external achievements and accolades.

If joy always resides within us, why do some of us struggle to feel it in our lives, and how do we uncover it? The gateway to joy is through getting out of our thinking brain to discover our wholeness. When we strip away the noise, self-doubt, and anxiety, we rediscover a way of being that is in alignment with our true selves and with all of nature.

This is how our horses live, where they want us to be, and where they can relate to us best. If we are perceptive to their subtle cues, we’ll discover that our equine partners (and everyone else!) will seek our presence when we’ve arrived in this space

To get there, though, we have become more content in the being of a way rather than in the doing of a thing. This journey of becoming ok with ourselves is one of the toughest and most rewarding challenges in life. Joy is the signal that we’re on the right track.

Podcast Guests:

Carla Bauchmueller - www.theintuitiverider.com
Chris Adderson - www.forthehorse.com
Crissi McDonald - www.crissimcdonald.com
Mark Rashid - www.markrashid.com
Shea Stewart - www.equinebalance.net
Josh Nichol - www.joshnichol.com