Dr. Susan Fay - Sacred Spaces - Communicating with the Horse through Science and Spirit - S1 E10

Hi, I'm Barbara O'Brien. I'm an animal trainer and photographer, and I'd like to welcome you to the empathetic trainer. Welcome, dr Susan Fay, to the Epithetic Trainer Podcast. We are so glad to have you here today. We appreciate you taking the time to join us.

Well, I am, as always, honored if somebody reaches out to me, and I'm really happy to get the word out to anybody that wants to listen.

Well, that's great because we have we have, you know, limited time, but we have a lot to cover, because you've got some wonderful information to share with horse owners, which I believe applies to all the animals in our lives and it applies also to the people. So I think this is a good message that we really want to spread to anyone that, like you say, is ready to receive it, because that's the whole thing we're going to talk about. But let me do let me do the formal introduction, so that people know, okay, what we're doing here?

Okay. Dr Susan Fay is an internationally known speaker, clinician, equine consultant and author of sacred spaces communion with the horse through science and spirit. She has an educational background in psychology and environmental science but believes she has learned the most valuable life lessons from her horses. I want to say that almost any any true lover of horses is going to agree with you on that point, that we learned everything, the most important things, from horses.

So yes, I have to agree through there. Absolutely absolutely.

Okay, well, what I like to start off with is kind of like how did this happen? Let me? What I mean happen is how did you fall in love with horses and why are horses your life? And we have to talk about Morgan horses because I have six of them and so, sorry, breed bias here. But we have to talk a little bit about Morgan's before we're done.

I just put a thing on Facebook. I asked I had a. I was wondering is it genetic or where does it come from that? Some of us are just born knowing we have to be around horses. Some of us don't even get that opportunity, but we are born knowing it. I didn't get to be around them till I was 12 or 13, when I was old enough to work for my lessons, but like my parents didn't have them, you know they weren't horse people. Did that happen to you? Are you exposed later? Were you exposed early? Were you just? How do people are reborn this way? This is just a question I have and I'd like to hear about how you started out with horses.

I believe we're born this way because I believe my first conscious thought as an infant wasn't horses. I had to speak in order to ask questions about horses but, like you, my parents did not have anything to do with them and nobody in my family did so I was the oddball and I was just obsessed. That's all I thought about for my entire childhood. And then I probably bugged my father enough that at nine years old, when we moved up to the mountains, we could have a horse and that's what I got. So that shut me up, at least for them. You know, I could just go out and spend time with my horse and be perfectly happy.

I understand that. I think horses and children are so good for each other. They benefit, of course, boys and girls equally, but especially young girls, I think. Learn to have a voice with horses, and we're going to talk more about that. So you were a horse kid, and then what happened?

Well then of course your parents tell you you have to have a real job and you have to have a real career because there's no money in horses.

And I believe that was more true back in the 60s, when I was growing up in the 70s, that you didn't see a whole lot of women, especially out there doing anything at quite in a big way, other than a few trainers out there.

But things were so different then and really I don't believe I would have been able to make a living in the horse world, or it would have been really difficult back then. So of course then I went into the other love, which was being outdoors and all that. So I decided to study environmental science and so that kept me connected to nature and outside and but it also put me more in the human world than I would have liked, in all the politics and everything that comes with participating in that type of profession. So I really missed the horses. I always kept them on the side. I'd have horses and I do riding whenever I could, but I didn't really get a chance to explore it in a big way until I got married and we moved to a ranch and then I could have my mork and horses and start doing a little bit of a breeding program and riding and all of that. So that was my progression.

Oh, sure, sure, I totally get that. I eloped with my husband so I could have a horse. So I was lucky to get my first horse, I mean when I was 19, so still same husband, still mork and horses, so pretty blessed there. But I get that it was like you had to have them in your life and you had to make it work somehow and by having the great relationship, I hope, and you got to do that when you were, you know, younger as opposed to a lot of women have to give up and wait and wait and wait until they decided it's too late which I think it's never too late or they get into them, which is great. But I wish everybody who wanted to, who was born with it, had the opportunity. I wish we could make that. So, absolutely okay. So you went to school for environmental studies.

What I found so interesting, let's let's talk about your book, because this was, um, everyone can. Can you see if I get it in focus here? Uh, I don't know how to make it focus on the camera, but it's called sacred spaces communion with the horse through science and spirit, and this was a really deep and good and interesting read because it talks so much about how we can have the a brain science connection, almost, and a heart science connection, because there's a lot of people who are kind of like, oh, that's all what. Uh, warwick shiller, one of our favorite horse people, calls you know who, and it's like this is all supernatural, and but there, and he also agrees with you that there's definitely a science behind all of this. Now, how did you stumble oops, sorry, how did you come across like mixing what you felt intuitively, what we felt, with fact, because some people don't believe in just how things feel. They want hard, hard facts. How did you come across that? What happened, that that happened?

it was interesting because on the ranch and I was interacting with the horses, it was really natural and I just felt like I spoke to them and they did the things. And, um, when it came time and I, I was divorced and I thought you know what, in order to bring this to the world in a bigger way, I feel like it's very important to bring the science into it so that it doesn't just get put into a particular box and then perhaps people don't look in that box necessarily because it says woo or something like that on it and people go, oh, I don't want that box. And I thought, you know, we need to really look at what is really happening inside of us and why is this happening. And I I was always so curious about that, even since I was about 12 years old, studying the brain and and these kind of things about optimizing our brain function, and that's not usually a 12 year old deal, but for me it was fascinating.

And as I began to go out there and interact more in the horse world, I realized that people were struggling with things that could be fixed very simply by understanding your brain and your body and how you're really communicating energetically. So that really stuck me in to this place where I've got to know more. And can I teach that to somebody? Can I teach these same things to someone else? And when I wrote Sacred Spaces, the book, I was introducing people to this idea that there was something scientific to the woo, that we could actually use energy or have energy genic awareness and actually find better communication and connection to communion with our animals. So that was really really important to me, especially, I think, as an older woman going out there and trying to have your voice heard, it seemed real important to have the science and to go. You know, if I was at some gathering or and somebody confronted me, I was like I don't believe that it doesn't work. I could say exactly what I did internally to create the thing that presented in the horse. So okay.

Well, let's talk about that. When you say something you created internally to present to the horse, what does that mean for someone that does not have any background or understand? You know, understanding that like you could break it down yeah to the simplistic right and really what we're doing.

We are energetic beings, just like horses. That's why we can do this particular thing. But when we have a thought, when we have an emotion, we create a particular energy signature. It's like a frequency in our body that aligns with our thought, in our emotion, and then it broadcasts that information out into the space around us, a little bit like a radio station. If you dial to particular station, you know what you're going to get and that station is a frequency 97.3 FM. You go to that frequency and you always get that station and our bodies work the same way.

We can create different frequencies with an understanding of where am I going and what am I now broadcasting. So, in a kind of a simplistic way again, every thought, every emotion aligns to create our radio station that we're on at that moment, and having an awareness of what's going on gives us a lot more power in our lives to choose what station we're playing. So a lot of times I've noticed people are not aware of their internal life, what's going on inside their body, and so they may switch channels all the time and, if you think about it, in between each radio station is a whole lot of static, and so that's what the horses are hearing from people that are not aligned with their thoughts and their emotions, and they just go interact with the horse and maybe they're on a station for a while and then they get distracted and they go to some other station and in between there's a lot of static and the horse is trying to understand what they're saying but they can't, because it's a bad connection or an inconsistent connection.

Sorry, is it a form of being incongruent?

Absolutely.

I've gotten in a fight with my husband or something right, and then I go outside and I'm, you know, whatever, right, we haven't resolved it till later and I go, I'm going to go be with my horses now and I go out to my. I would go out to my horse and then go like I'm fine, you know, but I wasn't fine. And then that's confusing for the horse, correct? Because, like they say, leave it, leave it behind. You know, you out to the barn, you leave it behind, you go. Wouldn't it have been better if I went out and said, well, I just got into a fight and I'm still kind of crabby about it. I'm with you now and you know I'm. I'm sure we're going to work this out and whatever. But this is how I'm feeling and I can sort of identify the station, like you're saying that I'm on and then be like just being aware, instead of trying to cover up or push down or be different. Is that what you're kind of saying?

Absolutely, you coined it perfectly. Yes, and you know, like you say, horses know when we're not congruent and we can say something on the outside and not be meaning that on the inside, our body speaking a different language, then the same thing works for fear.

Then, because they'd say like, don't show me, you're afraid. You know this was the don't show me, you're afraid, because then they're going to what are you afraid of and you know? Or because horses don't realize we're afraid of them. You're right, exactly so. But if you can acknowledge, because I'm just learning, this is all new for me I'm, you know, the last couple of years, I don't know if you know, but I've been an animal actor trainer since the 80s, right, so I work with animal actors, but I've never given my horses the consideration that I've given the dogs, the cats, the chickens, you know, the things that I'm working with in, like understanding their brains and how they think and whatever.

I haven't taken the time because they don't work as much you know they're not modeling as much as the dog, and it has been mind blowing to discover people like you and Carrie Lake and Mary Corning Luckily we had them on the podcast as well, and it was wonderful and people like work Schiller and others who are really helping change how we view our relationships with horses, which I think is going to be so much better for horses, and so thank you for your part in that. So what is your suggestion then? Like, for instance, someone, is I run into this with this Morgan horse. I got like a three Morgan horses from out west. They hadn't been handled a whole lot.

They were treated well but just not handled all young and the four year old that came was really defensive and anxious when she first arrived, which caused me to be afraid of her, and I had to have a whole mind shift and some help with what you're talking about telling her. I'm afraid, you know, and it really changed things because I visualized differently how I want the relationship to be and gave her all the time she needed to feel safe, with no agenda, and now now she's discovered that scratching her butt is like the most favorite thing in the whole world and so she'll tell me please do that, and we have this, we can do things. You say something about how going slower is going faster. You have it phrased really beautifully, but I'm talking too much. I need to get back to you, but I'm so much.

Your book helps so much with me telling her I feel and then working through the feelings with her. Does that make sense?

It does. And I'm really about us having awareness again of where is our body, where is our mind, and can we get incongruence and can we actually choose how we want to feel in the moment. So it's okay to go in if you're a little bit upset and tell your horse, yes, here's why I'm at today. But then what can you do to switch that Exactly and that's what I focus on is like we're going to choose which radio station we're going to play at each moment to support the horse and what they're going through, or support our interaction. And so again, I have to get into a little bit more explanation about this, because in this energy field, a lot of people are what they're doing is sending a horse and energy they're they go. Oh, I think that horse is afraid I'm going to send him relaxation.

No, we don't need to do any of that we are a model for our horses.

I keep all of my energy right next to my body and I switch my channel. And just remember back in the analogy of the radio station. I don't have to go blast that out to the horse, but if that horse were interested in the radio station that I'm playing, they will come and come closer or they will come and go. Oh, I'm going to listen to that one and just like music when it plays. You play music and then all of a sudden you're captured by the music and you're in the feel of that music. Same way that this energy is working. I just have to switch myself. I don't have to worry about it. I just look at the horse, go, wow, I think you're struggling and you're a little anxious. Let me model for you what the opposite of that is Safe, comfortable, relaxed, grounded, and that's all I have to do. And then the horse will copy or entrain to that feeling that I've just modeled.

It's a whole different concept of what a lot of people are doing with energy, and what is really good is that we want to keep our energy within ourselves. I don't send my energy out. I don't take any on. Therefore, I'm a closed system in terms of my energy field and I don't get depleted, and it's like I said, it's a very different concept than a lot of people are teaching out there. As far as the energy work goes, I don't even call it energy work because I'm not working. I am just aware so I'm changing it to, instead of energy work, energy awareness that I'm going to know what to do to support that animal.

Okay. So for someone who's new to this, then and it's this energy awareness. So how do we? I mean some people that came to them and they are just natural with the horses and like they get it and they can't even explain it, like you're good at explaining it. They've been there doing it, but you're really good at explaining it. You know, besides having the science behind it, how does the average person who doesn't know, like you know, for instance, me, I'm going to go out there. What would you recommend? I'd like to learn. How do I learn how to do this? Because this is fascinating, you know.

Right and this is part of my program that the sacred spaces book was where I'm working from. It's the overview of what I'm doing. But now when I go and do a change of mind from clinics to gatherings to give it a different feel, I teach the people the ways that we communicate energetically and get them in touch with that. And one of my foundational things that I do is breathing. There's a very specific way that I breathe to communicate things to the horse and to actually provide myself with a quick reset of my entire system. So let's say I get anxious or this horse did something and all of a sudden I feel anxious and I feel that anxiety in my chest and my body tightens and all these things. Well, this breathing that I do will reset you back to your relaxation place. So it is also when I teach people the breathing it's to actually be able to hold and maintain a particular energy frequency. That you're doing and it goes along with a body scan, which is super important, of knowing what does my body feel like when I'm playing a particular radio station. That's all you need to know. What does my body feel like and would the feeling that I have in myself be what I would want my horse to experience. Would that be helpful? So, for example, we'll go back to safety and comfort.

I'm breathing, first of all, consistently, regularly, smoothly, full body breathing, not just breathing from my stomach or my heart or some other place. I'm breathing fully through my entire body because my breath is my energy field and so I want to know where it's at every moment and what it's saying. And then I become aware of where my energy is by scanning my body internally every time. I take a breath and go okay, oh, some tension just came up here, I need to breathe that out. And then, when we create a frequency, say we're going to go for an anxious horse, safety and comfort as my energy, then I'm going to try.

I go through my body and go okay, I'm scanning my body. Yes, my feet feel grounded. Yes, I feel complete relaxation in my fully throughout my body. Yes, I feel warm here. I feel like my brain has stopped moving. I feel present. All of these things are things that we're doing somatically to notice. Okay, good, I'm set, now I can be a, communicate this to my horse with clarity, and I stay in that and I just breathe, and I stay in that feeling of the safety and comfort and pretty soon you see the horse releasing and relaxing. And it's a little more complicated not too complicated, but I walk people through the ability to create these different frequencies that will support the horse and you will get instant feedback from the horse on whether or not that's something that's helpful or not helpful for them. So that's the great thing it's an instant feedback mechanism to right.

Does it the average person? This is something they'd have to practice, right? We can't just walk out there and it doesn't come. I mean, because doesn't our brain get distracted and it's really hard to like get into that space to yes, and that's learned, though.

Right, you can learn it Absolutely and that's what the breathing is. That I do is for. It's to get us into Alpha Brainwave, which I talk about in my book, which is a relaxed and focused, it's a waking meditation that you can do Once you get into this breathing and you can be in a waking meditation and you can go about your life and you can switch channels and you can do all of this stuff and that waking meditation will keep you in that state that we all do. Where we sit for hours and meditate, we can do in about two minutes with this or less. You can train your body, once you get the breathing down, to stay in a waking meditation all of the time.

That's what people ask me well, when do you do this breathing? All of the time? It has changed my life, okay, because I can stay present, focus, relaxed and have alpha brainwaves, which are optimal for the horse, and I can have awareness. All of the things that you know we're trying to do through hours of meditation we can do if we practice this breathing through just a few minutes and it becomes our life so this can apply to how we're dealing with our other animals, obviously absolutely.

I know that when I work with cats I mean there has to be a regulation of my emotions.

Is dogs put up with an awful lot, you know they'll let their dogs and then used to be really awful hit your dog. You know things like that, right dog would come back. A cat would never tolerate, right? So of course, I'm kind to dogs and, you know, regulated with dogs, but cats are very sensitive as well and there's no pushing them around or forcing anything, and so it has to be this quiet energy and expectation that of course, in my case, of course, you're gonna want to sit there and have your picture taken and wear this Halloween costume and smile because you're gonna get turkey and you love turkey and we're gonna pet you and you're gonna feel, because we all are like you're looking how wonderful you are and the cat feels that you know and so measure.

It's like adding my energy of both holding that space, I guess of energy with the cat, that you're gonna enjoy this and you know because I don't force animals to do something I don't want to do. We choose them for the tournament. I don't put a cat up there, that's not happy. I wouldn't take long. Why do that? So we don't. But the ones that love it love it and they love, they can feel all the. However, one around them is like, wow, that's really cool. And then he feels even better. Does that make sense?

and then he sets in a taller and even prouder, and you know so. No negative people on set the same, yeah, is that why a horse can be very comfortable with you, but somebody else walks up, and that that energy directed out of you. Know you're gonna do this and grab them. You know right right so people need to practice this place that you're talking about, of being, I guess, regulated and calm and meditative. And put your phone away, because the minute your phone does something.

You've lost your right, you've lost your breathing and concentration. That's when the horse goes. I think I'll step on your foot or whatever. Right, right, you know, because you're not present, because we want to be present. And same thing with children or people were talking to. So it's a good life lesson, not just for horses. It sounds like absolutely and I believe. I.

I came at this because I went and study human psychology, because I felt like that might be at my age, might be the direction I need to go, that maybe horses we're not going to be my final destination yeah, right, but in that, everything that I do and everything that I teach people has something for the horse to learn, and the person and every technique, if you want to call that or thing that I show somebody, there's a place that, okay, you're gonna practice your breathing, you're gonna practice your meditation, and the horse is going to practice this other thing. So everything I developed has something for the horse and something for the human and the. The goal is to bring us all closer to communion through those simple exercises or techniques that I use and after you master them, it's not like you have to go out and do this long drawn-out thing with every single animal you come to. If you practice these things as a human and you get good at these energy frequencies and the energy, knowing and awareness place, you would not have to. You can walk up to any horse, any cat, any and it's different any person, and I wanted to expand this kind of in behind the scenes.

It's. It's an attempt, maybe to get people to be more empathetic and to have more awareness of how they're dealing with other humans. So this is not just a horse program or a horse thing over here that I'm doing sacred spaces is not called some kind of horse training. It's an all-encompassing kind of a thing where, as we change, everything in our life begins to change, to align with the energy, and we're starting to be able to choose how we want to feel in a moment. And if we don't feel that way, we have a mechanism or method to get back to ourselves, into what we want to be experiencing. So that's, that's kind of I know it's wonderful.

You say that we need to be in this world in a more meaningful way, and I think that's what you're talking about presenting ourselves in a more meaningful way, where we can be, you know, be helpful. I think it was Victor Frankel who the meaning of, or man's search for meaning in his book, the. The idea part of it was our job is to end suffering whenever possible. But if we can't end it, don't add to it. And it seems to me that there's so much anger and separation and negativity and like grabbing at people in traffic or being mean to a clerk. Wherever we could, we all could work so much more on having more empathy, kindness, being present, and and you know it's not about us they might just be having a bad day. Let's not make their day worse.

So right about being in this world in a more meaningful way is a wonderful message, because then everything benefits from it, and ourselves included, because we don't want to run around hurting people. That makes us feel terrible. So you also, we talked about or you talk about. I just want to quote. Although I would like the sacred space principles to reach a broader audience, I understand that not everyone is ready, and that's so sad in a way, isn't it?

and if you could expand that force, please.

I think, especially within the horse world, it's almost in the mass consciousness maybe of horse people that we have to deal with these animals in a particular way, that we have to show dominance, that we have to do these particular training this way and that way. And and I, as I've gone around, I know there's some people that they say I want a different way and they can't really do it. Or you see that they're not really invested in it because maybe it's too much work or they don't think they can do it, and so they, they fall by the wayside and then go back to that. What's known is okay, we can get this horse to do this thing through dominance. Yes, that will always work. But what if you didn't have to? But what if that required that you had to work a whole lot on yourself to get there? And that's, I think, when I say not everybody's ready, because when they realize, even though the things that I show you are simplified and you can get to these, they take work. They're simple but they're not easy and it takes some practice and a lot of people were so used to this idea of instant results.

I want to see that trainer come out and instantly change that horse and that's what we've been shown. And so that's again in our mass consciousness that it's going to happen overnight. And as I study the brain and the people's emotions and horses' emotions, we don't just get over something that fast. There's more time and there has to be consistency in our environment to support the change we're trying to make. And this is true with the horses.

If you decide, oh, I want to be nice sometimes, and then you put the horse back with other people that are abusing it or that go back to dominant stuff with it, it's going to be really confusing for that horse. So I always think too in this place are we ready, is our environment ready, to support a change to a different way of doing things? And I think this is one of my biggest, I would say I don't want to use a word frustrations of going. Ok, humans they're just so set in their ways sometimes and they don't take two new ideas very readily. Sometimes there's a small group that usually jump on right away, but then there's the people going well, yeah, I don't know, I got to stick to my old way of doing things, and they refer it back. So, yeah, that's a big challenge, I think for all of us, because we think everything's supposed to be easy and instant and the things that are really meaningful take attention and time and dedication.

Oh, absolutely true. When I first started this journey before I got my three little Morgan Phillies from Montana I'm over in Wisconsin, so it was a journey. I own other podcasts on Montana Morgans, but anyway, I had lost my hard horse. We all have our hard horse and he died of old age and so I had sought out this other, another horse, during the pandemic, when horses were hard to come by and very, very expensive, and I found this mare that I could get in a range, a price range, but she had a lot of anxiety and issues and stuff that she brought to the table and I was following, learning some of these new things. But I was going way too fast, like, well, this will work, this will work, I'll skip that, this will work. And I made a lot of mistakes on not really listening to her anxiety and understanding. I think, well, I can swing a leg over you and I can do this and I can, you know, I can climb on you from the fence, so that means you're ready for this next step. And she wasn't at all in the underlying anxiety and I wasn't. I thought I was only half hearing what was being taught, half understanding what you're talking about, because I was in a hurry. My horse died. I want to ride a horse. No, no, no, no, no right. And I got.

She was riding with Bearback, with a halter in the paddock, just to you know, because we always start out just going to start with the. She was broke, but it was like restarting right and either she was in pain or the anxiety level threshold was too high. Whatever she bucked and everything, and not being a kid anymore, I landed on my pelvis, broke it in three places. You know, had a helmet, so I didn't get a bad concussion, but it just shook me to the core because I never blamed the horse, I blamed myself and I had to go back and go.

Wait a minute, you're, you're not really doing what you think you're doing. You know you think you're doing this, this understanding this, this connection, da da da. Obviously you're not listening. She said no, you're not going to ride me right now. She said it is the only way she could, you know. So it was a. It had to really go back, because even it takes a lot longer, like you said. So, with the new Montana mayors, completely different mindset about how I was going to approach them and it is transformative because I'm finally taking the time, whatever time they need. The anxious horse took seven, eight months to get to where we could, you know, get a relaxed about picking up her feet or simple things like that where the trust got built. And it's amazing because by going slow I'm going fast, exactly what you talk about.

So right, and once you understand the frequencies and what you're broadcasting and how you can I hate to use the word speed up that process, but you can get through that anxiety and stuff in a very short amount of time.

But part of what this is is the ability to identify trauma and in the horse and know what to do when you see that. And again, a lot of the slowness in the process is having to go back and address the trauma places and have the horse release those and that takes more time than if you started out all good at the beginning. But this is what people are not understanding. Sometimes they go well, we would like to do your process but it takes too long and I'm saying no, it actually goes much faster. But the reason it looks like it takes a long time is because when I go do a clinic or a gathering and these horses come in, they have such volumes of trauma stored in their body that we need to have a mechanism to help to let that go before we can communicate anything to that horse or teach them anything right Right.

Because, when they're anxious, no, because they've got a distraction there. My anxiety is making me shut down my brain and I can't focus on what you're saying, and so that's what I've been developing over the years is these techniques or ways that we can ask the horse certain questions and have them start to release their trauma in a faster way? And again, our breathing it goes back to our ability to hold the breath, excuse me, the breath that we are doing, that we hold a safe space for them to release their trauma, and this is super important, and so a lot of times I can go in. I've narrowed it down to asking the horses for main questions when I come in with them, and it's like the four agreements, it's like four questions.

I'm going to ask this horse and when I come into that space I'm going to ask him those and they're going to tell me where their trauma stored and they're going to show me all of the stuff and I'm going to show them how to align their body and connect their mind to their body, because a lot of horses are not connected through their body to their mind and, especially if they get stressed, they disconnect their mind from their body and then they become reactive.

So I'm going to go through with some questions that I asked the horse before I get on, and it's going to show me where the trauma is, if they need anything to release. And if you go through those questions on a regular basis you can streamline that connection and trust issue almost instantaneously. I mean, I've seen go in and ask these horse questions and they're like I'm with you, I'm on you, I'm good, and so this has been my goal over the last few years is just first of all, how do I identify trauma in a horse? Do I know what to do with that? Can I identify what's going on and what am I going to do with that? And so that was what I was really glad that I did is study psychology, and actually my dissertation was on trauma, and so I wasn't interested in going in that field with humans at all. But I realize now in retrospect that that was part of my preparation, for what I'm doing now is that I had to understand trauma.

Well, doesn't trauma manifest itself the same way in most mammals? Absolutely, because we worked with young people especially who've had adverse childhood experiences and trauma, the right horse could be found to be so healing for them to be able to learn to even identify emotions. So that's kind of a different purpose. But it's just the opposite when we're helping the horse with their trauma and I find that because we're animals as well- we're mammals.

So the things work and I find that the ways of regulating ourselves affect all the animals that are around. I have a flock of sheep there's like six or seven, so a small little flock and I adore them beyond words. It's not even I just love them so much, but once I started learning about how horses handle trauma, I could see the same signals in sheep, because they're animals that get chased. Sheep do not have as much.

And so I found ways of regulating my although I got along with my sheep really well, I could go into a strange flock and because I can stay in the place you talk about, the sheep will approach me where they normally would never do. That, because human beings can be. You know you're pushing us around. Whatever they're. More they're not tame like mine and it blew me away that that it works, that you can do that with other mammals, and I love that, and so I'm going to keep practicing that so that I can be better with with all the animals I get to meet, because certainly works with children. I mean, why would a child approach you if you're giving off that horrible energy? If I'm going to grab you and smother you?

or I don't like to stay away from me. They're pretty intuitive, they know.

Absolutely Wow, absolutely Cool, okay I want to, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I was just going to add on to that. My dissertation was all about adverse childhood experiences and its effect on our health and adulthood, and you could look at that in terms of horses. They have adverse full experiences yes, that affect them throughout their life and affect their mental and physical health. So that's really my where I'm coming from. A lot of what I do is coming from that place. And how can we build in resiliency? How can we change that trajectory? And I find it easier in horses than it is in people. I just want to add that.

No, this is true. Well gosh, this has been so informative, and we're going to talk about how people can get in touch with you and come to your workshops, find your website, which is a wealth of information. We'll have all this on the show notes as well. Where to get your book? I recommend it to everybody. But now we're to the part of the show where we do. I sent you some questions, but I got to hold these up because we call this the cookie break or snack break. So there's chocolate chip cookies here. It's from my crew. They won't work, otherwise, if you were here, we'd be feeding you, okay, okay. Well, this is Wisconsin. That's what we do.

I noticed that. That's why I love going to the midwest. I don't know what you do. Are you considered Midwest? Oh, yes, I always get good food. It's lovely.

Yeah, and heavy rich, good butter food.

Yeah, Good, good like comfort food.

Exactly what's cold here, just like there in the mountains it's cold, so it's supposed to snow today. But we're going to. We're going to. I sent five questions and I borrowed those questions from Tim Ferriss's book a tribe of mentors, because they're wonderful questions to ask during an interview and so you got to pick out from a list of 20 questions that you'd like to ask. So we're just going to jump right into those, okay.

All right. Well, I guess I didn't. Did I get that? I don't know.

You did, you sent it. You were like so efficient because you sent it right away.

Did I. Oh well then, tell me which one I asked.

There you go.

All right.

So the first question is what is the most valuable thing that you put your time into that has changed the course of your life?

It was understanding myself and who I am inside and out, and really I think, through all the struggles that we go through, but to have that awareness of wow, I just got triggered by that, or this is what I'm feeling in this moment, and have the ability to think about it and change it if I want to. It's been one of the biggest things and I do that all through the breathing and, yeah, so imagine that we've been breathing our whole lives and breathing in the proper way, and the full body has changed my life immensely and that of horses and animals that I interact with.

Well, we all breathe, so it's something we can work on. I mean, what is simple to start with, right, it's kind of you know that's the whole thing. Okay, do you have a mentor and what did that person or what did that person do that helped you, I'm sorry. Do you have a mentor and what did that person help you discover about yourself?

When I talked about earlier my mentors. I had many, and really my greatest mentors were my horses, because they taught me everything I need to know and the same thing with being out in nature. Those were all my mentors and if I had a question I could ask them, and it's interesting that we I did have some human mentors that showed me things like how to ride, but really the important life lessons came from my horses. And I was writing I just finished a handbook on my breathing and I'm putting it together and somebody asked well, where are your references? Which scientific study are you quoting and why are you doing this? Well, I think in my reference list it's going to be the names of the horses that influenced me, because they taught me that and it was that they gave me the validation, not that I have to be validated by someone else did a study and they said the same thing. Oh, then you're validated. How about? I practice this thing and it worked on my horse and he validated it for me. Sure.

I love that. I think we all have horses like that in our lives. What inspires and motivates you to do what you do and what is your true purpose in the world?

What inspires me to do what I do is the horses, and a lot of times people think, well, you're probably pretty extroverted if you're out in this world, but I'm super introverted and I'd be happy to be on my ranch doing just horses. So I'm inspired to go out because I'm doing it on behalf of the horses. I can put my pants on and I my big girl pants on and take a lot of criticism or a lot of negative feedback because I go, well, yeah, but I'm doing this for the horses and their best interest at heart, and I can take a lot for the team and I will go out there and, to the best of my ability, help people learn what the horses are trying to teach us, and so they are my inspiration. There was a second part to that question, was there?

I think you answered too what is your true purpose in the world? Which is make things better.

And I think that's it. And it's interesting that throughout my life, till I was about 60, I had no idea what my purpose was and I struggled with that a lot, and maybe some women go through their lives and you've done things for other people and you end up at a place where you go. Well, what was my purpose? And really it is just to go out and speak what the horses want me to say on their behalf, and that is my purpose, because in the process, I believe they're trying to help us as humans to evolve.

Oh, I love that. That's a really great thought. I mean, that's really beautiful thinking about that, because they're so giving and so horses and all of us are lucky that you are doing this and we're grateful for you. Appreciate that, thank you. That was the luckiest thing that ever happened to you.

The luckiest thing and you know that's an interesting question Would it be about me or would it be about beyond me? So the luckiest thing for me was when Warwick Schillers found my book on his kitchen table and then started speaking about it. That's wonderful, but really the luckiest thing was that people would listen then and then I could have a voice for the horses. That was the luckiest day and it opened up my heart because I'm thinking, wow, I had so many things to say on their behalf and I wasn't being heard before he opened up those doors, and so I'll be internally grateful.

That's funny that you mentioned Warwick Schillers, because that was the first horse person in this vein that I started following and I would listen to his podcast and learned about all of you wonderful people. He has a great podcast and the reason I have a podcast is I really want to be on Warwick's podcast to tell him how my whole view of training animals and animal actors and horse, how everything has changed and shifted based on what I started learning through him and now others, and I thought, well, warwick doesn't know me, he's not going to have me on his podcast, I'll just start my own podcast. See, that's exactly how it happened, because I wanted to get this message out and share it with others and by having people like you, hopefully we can keep growing and get this message out. And if one horse's life is better for it, one dog, one cat and, in my heart, one child, I think we're doing something good. So, again, grateful that you're here and grateful for your message and that's funny how it work, if you're listening we both say thank you.

I know, yeah, I mean, I'll always be so indebted and thankful and grateful for the opportunities Probably not just for me but for all of the horses and all of the people that get to go on that and speak their truth and open up people's minds and hearts to a different way, exactly.

Wow, there you go. That's our testimony for Warwick. He won't mind.

No, probably you'll be okay.

You have to send him a note. Hey, we talked about you.

He probably can hear there you go.

There you go, all right. Last question what did you want to be as a child and how close did you get to that dream?

Well, I actually wanted to be a jockey. Well, the first thing I wanted to be a cowboy, or cowboy, oh me too, cowboy.

Yeah, and you know, you go through your life and they tell you, no, those boxes aren't available to you. So here's your boxes you can choose from. It cracks me up that I'm finally living, actually a dream I couldn't have even have imagined as a child, like there was not even a box that said someday you'll be working energetically with horses and do you want to check that box? Oh, yes, please. No, that wasn't even in my consciousness anywhere. But to be able to spend every day with horses or speaking with horse people or doing something in that thing, oh my God, what more can you ask for in your life? That's as close to my dream that I can get.

That's wonderful and, like I said, we're glad to have you. Would you like to share with us now how we can find you? We're going to have these notes there too, but we may as well say them and what this podcast? You know they live forever, so we could put a current event but it may pass by the time. But you do hold, you do hold. Did you call them that? Not workshops, but you had a word gathered.

I'm getting gatherings.

Yeah, yeah, and you are coming back to Wisconsin. You were in Madison last year, right? So are you coming back to Wisconsin?

I believe I'll probably be back.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to make that trip to come see you. Oh good, so please just go ahead and share, like how we find you and where we can find your book and all this, this good stuff.

Okay and you can find me. It's the easiest to go to Dr Susan Faye FAY. It's D R S U S A N FAYcom and that's my website, and there'll be ways you can contact me through my website. You can email me on there. You could set up a session if you're interested in doing that. Okay, so let up a session.

I'm sorry, let's talk about your sessions. Go ahead. Yeah, you tell us about your sessions, please.

Oh, I do some virtual sessions online and it's funny because it works sometimes better than in person. I don't know what it is about the energy, or maybe it's singularly focused, but I can walk through some of the four questions. I asked the horse. We can address some trauma issues. We can address communion, connection, all sorts of different things, even writing, if you wanted to, on the virtual session, and they're usually about an hour. If it's a lot of trauma stuff, I may break it up into doing shorter session, maybe two half hours or something like that, and they're really focused specifically on the person. The horse team you know your relationship with your horse, okay, and really teaching you some of these principles is start with the breathing, of course, and then I'll teach you about how to create different energy frequencies and we'll play with your horse on those you know and see which one is going to help.

That's amazing, because now you've opened it up to people that you know, for whatever reason, can't get to a gathering, or you know if it's the middle of winter and you can't be, you know, or they live in another part of the world. I mean, how wonderful is that technology, how cool is that.

It is cool, so that's on your website if people want more information about that. And I should mention, on your website there's a lot of videos where you're talking about all kinds of behaviors and things and things we can do, we can learn from you. So you've got really a nice website with lots of information that's out there for people. So appreciate that. And then I see you have a. There's a Facebook group if people want to follow that, and so that's all great Right.

And you can go to my Facebook group. It's sacred spaces, forward slash, sacred wisdom. And if you go on there, just answer all the questions they ask in the administrative or else the administrator won't let you on if you don't agree to some of the I just I made sure to join it today because I want to, I want to like, keep following this, so I'm sure you'll, I'm sure you'll let me in. Oh, I pretty sure I think I'll go look and make sure I'll behave myself, I promise.

Okay, cool, this has been really, really wonderful. All it makes me want to do is go out and start talking to my horses, like right now, and practice the things I've been learning and reading and try to get this word out. So again, I recommend oh, where can we find your book? Where can we find your book?

You can find it link to it is on my website, but you can also go to Amazon and just look it up there. And it's available in the print version, and then I have a audio book also.

Trying to get it in focus there.

That looks good, there you go.

Okay.

I'm going to try to get the audio.

Okay, before we go, because I wanted to ask because Morgan horses. Okay, just tell us about your Morgan horses. Do you still have a Morgan horse by any chance, or?

I still have four of my original horses that I bred. So I two, well three of three of them are morgans. And then I've got a friend's horse here, that's a Azteca, that stays on my ranch. But really sad news, I just last month lost my tank horse that I write about in my book. So he just passed and he was really the inspiration for everything I do. He was so humble and he was so wonderful. You know about everything he could do and I have to say that about all of my horses. When you do this kind of awareness of yourself that every relationship it's different but it's the same, it's the ease of the have, the relationship. You know, once we learn these relationships principles with horses. So you know, when I think of people say a hard horse, and I think I wrote about that as a quote at the end, about your hard horse, it's like all of my work. They were special in their own unique ways but they were all hard horses.

Oh, exactly, it's like children, you don't love one more than the other, you love them differently, you know. I get that? Yeah, and I think that I had to put an old mare down. She was 29. So she didn't. She was, her cushions had gotten to the point where it was time and I think they make room, and it was like she was ready to go and she's just made room for whatever else needed to be in that space. That makes any sense at all.

It's always hard to say why, but they all mean something. They all came. You know she was a rescue mare from Forevermoregans out of New York and we had her 12, 12, 13 years in her retirement. She had a very happy life, but I get that. So just a shout out to all the Morgan people out there. We love all the other breeds too, but we're just going to, we're just going to, you know, sisters, morgans, exactly, exactly, all right. Well, this has been such a pleasure and such a joy and we're so grateful that you took the time for us today. I want everyone to go get her book, listen to her website, sign up for a session, join me in Wisconsin when I go, or you find out where she's going to be and go see her in person, because I think you and your horse will benefit from it. So thank you, dr Susan Faye, for coming. We really appreciate it.

Well, thank you so much for having me. It was great.