#79 Nancy Zintsmaster: The Power of Presence and Authenticity

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Lynn, Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life and now here's your host, Lynn Carnes,

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Welcome to the Creative Spirits Unleash Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes your host. My guest for this episode is Nancy Zenzimaster who is co founder and master trainer in the Carolyn Resnick method, liberty, horsemanship. More on that in a minute. But first, I'm going to start this introduction with a question, what would your life and leadership look like if you are able to partner with others using connection and harmony rather than control force or fear. That is the core question.

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Nan and I explored in this conversation. We got into the deep corners of what it looks like to create connection in a frankly disconnected world with both humans and with horses. In this conversation, we got into the implications for our own self awareness and self realization, learning how to be congruent within ourselves, how to give up control, which ironically gives you more control and what it takes to get back in touch with our Natural Humanity. Imagine dancing with the others in your life through connection and harmony. Now more about Nancy. She's the co founder, certified instructor and master trainer in the Carolyn Resnick method, Liberty horsemanship. She embodies the transformational power of the Carolyn Resnick method, a lifelong horse enthusiast. Her love for these magnificent animals began in childhood, but it wasn't until she discovered Carolyn Resnick book naked liberty that she realized the profound connection possible between humans and horses. Her journey took a pivotal turn in Costa Rica, where she rescued seven horses in dire conditions, committed to earning their trust and respect, she embraced Carolyn's Liberty training approach. What started as a rescue mission, evolved into a deeply personal transformation, revealing that these sentient beings had as much to teach her as she had to teach them.

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Nancy's path eventually led her to Carolyn Resnick herself, forging a life changing partnership. Carolyn recognized Nancy's natural gift with horses and her passion for the Resnick method, this collaboration solidified Nancy's role as one of its most dedicated advocates.

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Today, as a master trainer, Nancy is committed to sharing the Resnick method with horse lovers worldwide. She teaches this compassionate and effective communication style to promote better relationships between humans and horses, ensuring both receive mutual rewards. Nancy resides at her ranch dance with horses, the Resnick methods Costa Rica, location, perched atop a mountain with breathtaking views of Lake Arenal and the Arenal Volcano.

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There, she continues her mission to inspire others through her work with horses. Now back to Lynn. I had the good fortune to be in a clinic with Nan this last September. Watching her work with horses at Liberty is truly a sight to behold. If you do happen to be interested in her clinic, she has several scheduled, both in Costa Rica and in the States next year.

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Now, the one I'm most interested in is the one being held just down the road from me at rain rescue, where I am on the board of directors. Dates for that clinic are july 22 through the 24th 2025 so I hope you enjoy this conversation with Nancy zensmester, well, Nan Zins master, welcome to the creative spirits unleash podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

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I'm been looking I've been looking forward to this in some ways, since I met you, which was over a year ago, but especially since we got a chance for me to come to one of your clinics in September, when we decided to we we just simply had to sit down and have a podcast conversation.

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So I, I'm actually going to start this morning. You said that you you live in Costa Rica.

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Tell me what's happening in Costa Rica right now. Give us a picture of where you are on this planet and what's happening there. Just to ground everybody to to you and your place, absolutely. Well, I moved here almost 20 years ago. We live in a small rural village outside of La Fortuna Costa Rica on Lake Arenal in the Arnall volcano. So when we got here, there were very few expats from any country, one of three. And we found this amazing hidden gem that we immediately bought as a retirement place to go for retirement. And it's truly magical. It's an energy vortex.

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It's borders that one of the five blue zones in the world.

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And it is spectacular.

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Her. It's a beautiful healing energy, and it was a big part of my journey with horses and how I got into what I'm doing now. So yeah, I have seven horses here, a husband, three dogs, one of my daughters, three grandchildren, all here with me.

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So it's a really special life.

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Oh my gosh. I think everybody's got to be thinking, I want to go there now. Tell Tell me. Tell me what. Tell me about the I want to dive in on the blue zone and the energy vortex of where you are. Because I'm going to, I'm going to say when I met you and your and your husband, who we call Z, right.

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Dan is Daniel. His real name, Dan, yeah, at the podcast Summit. And at first I didn't know who he was, but I was like, I need to know who that guy is, because both of you being near you is almost like having an energy vortex like you, you both have a grounded energy about you that is very distinct from the average person you pass on the street, not necessarily the average person at the podcast Summit, because we can talk about that, but that does attract a lot of people that have really great energy. But you guys really, even in that environment, stand out so it I know some of it comes from within, but some of it has to come from where you are and what you feel on a regular basis. So could you describe what that place is like? Absolutely, I think that that I have become more aware of that as the years have passed by, that the purity of life here has really helped balance us and help us grow spiritually and learn a lot of patience, right?

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One of the things I think that's so the blue zone is in the peninsula here, and our area borders that. And when I say it's an energy vortex, it's like when people come here, you can feel a shift in energy immediately. And when we first landed here, we came on a spontaneous trip. I think I've told this in other podcasts, but when I met my husband, and we were living in Key West, and on our first day, he said, I have a few things to tell you about myself. I was like, okay, didn't know him at all, really, you know, just a couple interactions before that, and he said, I have three children. I love unconditionally. I play poker on Wednesday nights, and I plan to retire in Costa Rica. Do you have a problem with it?

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That's called Full Disclosure up front,

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I was like, I don't even know if I like you yet, but no, it's all good. And then about five years in, he's like, hey, you know, I was really serious about that Costa Rica part, so let's go. And he had been here many, many years ago and many times, and I hadn't. So we just decided to wing it when we got here. We just wanted to travel and land wherever we landed. And when we got here, it was an extreme shift of energy that we felt when we got in front of this volcano. And I remember we drove to this little cabin we were staying at. When we got out of the car, the volcano was right in our face. We're on the lake, and we were like, wow, and we're staring, both of us, at this volcano. And I just got full body chills, and I started crying like I was tears down my face, and I was, I was kind of embarrassed. I don't know why.

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It was just so emotional, this energy. And I looked over at him, and he was the same, and I said, you know, I feel like I'm home, do you? And he goes, Yeah, it was really intense. And a lot of people feel that shift when they enter this area. And I think it's just, you know, it's like, it's the four elements, right? You know, there's the at that time, especially the volcano was erupting like beautifully erupting fireworks every night and day. And there's the Earth, the air, the clean water. And what makes a Blue Zone is the purity of those things, the purity of the water, the air, the clean life, the, you know, grown food. People live longer in blue zones. And there's people that have lived here 205 years old. So you know that's, that's what we're dealing with here. So when you get to this, especially this piece of property surrounded by the canu Negro river running into Lake far and all surrounding the lakes around the volcano. And it's, we're all, we're in the center on the top of a mountain around that. So the energy is there just such a beautiful ebb and flow, right?

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So I think that the purity of life here is it has really enhanced our well being. Not to say that it's not, you know, there's, there's a price to pay for Paradise, right? We live in the tropical rain forest, but it's, it's just been an amazing adventure for us and way of life.

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I.

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So I have, I have a couple of questions about that. I'm going to start with the volcano, and then I have a question about back when you were first dating Dan, but when you said you came and the volcano was erupting, and yet you're considering moving right next door to it.

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Help me reconcile, especially, I have to give a little context, because I'm living in a place that's epically beautiful in the mountains of North Carolina, and yet we are subject to because of the

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the mountainous terrain, floods, which we just had an epic flood here a couple of months ago that destroyed several towns, took away houses and so forth. And so people lived in paradise until it wasn't paradise. Absolutely. How is it living with a volcano? And is it? Are you worried about it being paradise until it's not paradise? No, when we had done some research, actually it was, it wasn't erupting that much when we first got here, when we first saw, you know, you could see the smoke, and they say, you know, lava was coming down. But shortly after that, it started erupting, and it attracted an enormous amount of tourism here, and it actually, they say it won't erupt for another 200 years. I can't remember the year it stopped erupting. I want to say it might have been like 2010 or something like that. I can't really remember, but anyway, it did erupt big in 1968 and killed like, I think it was 87 people.

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There's actually when the lake is really low. On the other side of the lake, in the this other area you can actually see, like graveyard and stuff like that.

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But what they did was they built the lake around the volcano. So it's a man made 26 mile lake to protect the village now that it's garrit, and so if it, if it, if it did erupt, it wouldn't hit the land of the people that are in it, right? And it is, I think it's like 85% of the country's electricity comes from that lake. So, yeah, so, so, yeah, I never felt threatened by it.

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It was absolutely beautiful. And they it because it's venting all of the time. This particular volcano is venting constantly.

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That's why they say it will never erupt into that place of danger anymore. So the the erupting every day is the venting of it, right? The Love is coming out so it's not explode, but it was not building up, no. And it was absolutely beautiful. I used to just look at it and be like, Am I really sitting here watching this out of my front yard.

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That is so cool. So I've I'm thinking back when you and Dan first started dating, and he gave you the announcement about the poker and the Costa Rica and the children, of course. And I'm also thinking about like any, any time I've been in a, I'm going to call it an interview situation, you know, or the beginning of day.

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It's been a long time. I've been married over 30 years, so it's been a long time since I've been in the dating situation. But there's, like, this initial thing where it's like, somebody makes an announcement like that, and you go, yeah, sure. Because, like I said, I don't even know if I like you yet. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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I'm really curious. Did you have any hesitation five years in when he was like, Oh, he really meant it, like, did you go?

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Dang, I wish I hadn't said I was okay. Or were you thrilled to go, or somewhere in between? No, I was actually thrilled to go.

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And it's interesting, because I really have had an adventurous life, and I really, even though in my recent years, obviously, I've practiced a lot more presence, you know. I I think I always kind of had that open to everything, stay in the moment, you know. And so I was definitely willing to come and take a look. I mean, it wasn't mandatory. He wouldn't have done it if I didn't want to but yet at the same time, it was exciting. I like change, and so I was super excited about the opportunity to just be able to go and see Costa Rica. I really had no idea that I would fall in love with it like I did.

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And the deal was also that we would keep both our place in Key West, where I had raised my children, and have this place.

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And it didn't. It did not end up like that, but it was the original deal. So that felt really safe to me to have a vacation home in retirement and then have my place in Key West.

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So things took a shift, but that was, I think, the safe place, right? I didn't just commit to just hack up and move right away

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well, and that strikes me, like, from the beginning, you guys had a picture that you were working with, but you didn't, like instantly make it happen.

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It took a lot of different moves and frames and Like.

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You said it wasn't just turning it off and on, which I'm going to relate to working with horses in a few minutes. But you guys took it one step at a time.

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Yeah, we did. And then, you know,

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actually, speaking of hurricanes, Hurricane Wilma, when it came through Key West Florida, it was 2006 I believe, it totally wiped out our island. It was devastating, much like what you've experienced in Asheville, and it changed everything. I was a designer back then. I had a design center. I had the only Design Center in South Florida, and it was a very lucrative business. And I'd always been in business my whole life, and trying to rebuild after the hurricane was extremely difficult and very lucky, because we actually stayed during the hurricane, and a lot of people evacuated, and so for that reason, we could clean up fast, like we got all the water out of our house. It was actually not the hurricane that hit. It was a surge after the hurricane that flooded the island. It's that surge, yeah?

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And so, of course, Hurricane insurance didn't cover anything, right? Nobody had flood insurance back then because they'd never been a flood. And so it was just kind of like, wow, we're at zero sea level.

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Like, why wouldn't anybody have flood insurance? But anyway, their FEMA didn't help. There was a lot of woe in that, right?

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And so we stayed until we could my daughter was in 10th grade, my second daughter and the other one in college, and we had planned to start going back and forth to Costa Rica after the kids got out of school. And we stayed and tried to rebuild, and tried to rebuild during that period of time that my daughter would graduate from high school, and we just couldn't get back on our feet. It was really difficult. And in order to save the ship and keep her in school, we spent most of our retirement money getting our life back together, building the business again, which at the time, you know, you do what you have to do, but it wasn't the smartest move, because nobody was doing interior design. Think about it like they Yeah, didn't even have homes, right? So it became very difficult. And as I had said to you before, and I guess I told the story at the podcast summit about, you know, if that hadn't happened, I really wouldn't be here. And so we took that journey because we had to make a choice then, like after Danny graduated, we had to say, Okay, we can't do both. Which are we going to do? And we chose Costa Rica.

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Isn't it interesting how sometimes the devastating things of life are the kick in the pants, we need to just go ahead and do what we were supposed to do all along.

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Absolutely, I totally believe in Synchro destiny. I know now that that was meant to happen, and you know everything we did, and when I think back about how hard it was and how devastating it was, every single door slammed every single time we tried to stay there, like we kept trying to stay, trying to stay was just doors closing, and it was like the universe saying you need to go, like, wake up.

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When are you going to get the picture? And once we did make that move it. The whole trajectory of our lives changed.

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I mean, it pushed me on to the path that I'm supposed to be on, which is how I got to where I am with Carolyn Resnick and the horses well, and I, I'm going to jump ahead to a part of your story I'm familiar with, because it strikes me that you had another door slam in your face when COVID hit and you got stuck in the United States, absolutely, it's like natural disasters are just following us.

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Well, I mean, so you so.

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So tell that story. I know you were in America when things started shutting down. Yes. And so interesting, yeah. So tell that story, because I feel like, particularly my in my life, in my circle at this stage, I we, they just announced, for example, there's a company here.

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Several companies are not going to be able to reopen after the hurricane here. One was diamond brand Outfitters, that has been in existence for 143 No, yeah. And they just their their factory where they made tents and other things, is was completely decimated. And it's the surge here was not just, and I don't know how much mud there was in key, key west, but all of our surges came with inches, if not feet, of mud. Yeah. And so the mud is often even worse than the water, obviously, but, but they just couldn't recover, and they didn't have the resources to bring it back. They did. They said they did it, and I haven't dove in, and I'm not going to question them to make that call.

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The point being, all of those people are at that choice point of, okay, what do we go do now?

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And it looked.

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So devastating and, and I think is devastating, if the focus stays on the devastation, as opposed to, okay, what now, yeah, and exactly right, I'm hearing that in the way you approached Costa Rica is okay, the doors have slammed, okay.

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What? Now and then, you know, all these years later, because I think you've been in Costa Rica for a while COVID hits, and you're in America

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and you couldn't get home.

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So say a little bit about how that happened for you. Yeah, that was something. And you know, if that hadn't happened, I would have never met you, because I would have never met Warwick.

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And so, yeah, it's just so beautiful the way it all ended up. But I was actually in California at Caroline's, and we were preparing to teach in a three week internship program, and Caroline got sick and well, actually, to back up a little, I was actually up in Santa Cruz teaching a clinic, and I was supposed to come home, that was in the beginning of February, supposed to come home and go back at the beginning of March to Carolyn. And she got sick. We know now she got COVID, but we didn't know. And I said, to see I'm going to go to Carolyn, you know, because she needs me there, and I'm going to just there, if you're cool with it, and then you can come visit me when I get there and stay for a week. His sister lives 20 minutes from her, and you can visit. And then we won't be a part so long. And so I What did that? And then he came the first week of March, and he was there three days before they announced COVID 19 and locked the borders to Costa Rica.

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And a little back story on that my husband had developed is a very interesting story that I don't have to tell now, but he developed celiac disease from a very interesting path that he took anyway to get back on it, let me get back on it. So he developed celiac disease, but we didn't know it for a long time that that was what was making him sick, and immune system was super low, and he was recovering. We had found out by them, but he was recovering. So when we got locked down in the States, we could have gotten back because we own property here. We have a corporation here. But we were like, Okay, we're not going to go back, because the whole world was upside down. We didn't know what was happening. And this is our home country, the United States.

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Maybe we stay for medical what's going on in Costa Rica? We didn't know. Actually, Costa Rica was one of the top countries that had it under control, but nobody knew that.

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So no, we didn't know anything.

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No. So we're at Caroline's when it happened, and it was, you know, by then, I think we had just kind of gotten used to getting hit with things. It was just like, Okay, here's another, you know, turn that we need to take, and we're just going to go with it. And then, as I've said many times, I mean, who gets locked down with Carolyn Resnick, like, that's a gift, you know what I mean. And by then, I had been with Carolyn for, I don't know, like, five or six years and so, but the advancement of my education from living with her that long, and I had spent time with her months with her at one time, at times, you know? But this was just an inundation of like, everything that she could offer me, right? And so she got well.

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And while I was there, a horse named Pericles came into my life, which was really the horse that really changed my life and made me understand the power of connection with horses at that time in my growth with horses, and I met him at that clinic up in Santa Cruz that I was at before I got to Caroline's, and I was doing a fundraiser clinic for a pregnant Mayor rescue at this beautiful ranch that this woman owned, and it was her horse. And when I got to the clinic, she said, Will you work with this horse? He's XYZ, he's aggressive. He's too much for me. He's a Frisian, huge.

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He's spooky. He's young. He had been shipped from Holland, like at two years old, with a lot of dressage training on him. It was kind of like a lot of pow. Pow training is what I call it. And I said, Sure, sure, no problem.

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So I went into the arena with him, and within literally, like, 15 minutes of starting that clinic, he was so connected to me. He was like, in my pocket, and everyone was in tears. It was very beautiful. A lot of these people knew this horse.

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It's a small community, and she actually wanted me to have that horse. And I was kind of like, no, no, no, I can't. Like, I live in Costa Rica, would never bring him there. Wouldn't be fair. You know, he had never been with other horses. He was a stable kind of horse, and so a show horse type horse. So.

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So when I got locked down at Carolyn's, she offered to let him come down and put him in training with me and Carolyn and then gave me that horse, who was magnificent. And because Carolyn was sick and she still hadn't completely recovered, I and we wanted to train him together, to have like our the horse that we did together, because we live separately, so we've never had our horse together. So I waited, I waited for her to get well, and I sat with that horse, just sat in a chair and shared territory with that horse for about six weeks. And do you know that that horse was, like, trained from that, and literally everything that I've ever asked him to do after that, he was just yep, yep, yep, yep, that I can do that. He is our student horse, the biggest marshmallow horse you ever met. He has now been integrated into a herd of seven in North Carolina. As you know, he is a testament to this method and the beauty of it. And you know, if I hadn't gotten locked down there, I would have never gotten that horse.

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And the other beautiful part of the story that is memorable to how we met is that during that time I was with Carolyn. Now it was July, and I thought, you know, he is so amazing. I want to see if he could be an exhibition horse. I want to trailer him up to Santa Cruz. I asked Deborah adequate, who was the owner of him. I said, Hey, Ken. I bring him up there, and he could stay there, and then I could haul him into different places, different arenas of students that I have up there, see if he can handle it. She's like, Sure. So we get up there, and the wildfires broke out as soon as we got there, and Deborah got COVID, so she asked us to stay. We were only supposed to be gone two weeks. So she asked if we could stay and help. And I said, Yes, she was on the evacuation route.

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So Ava Jones and she and, I mean, my husband and I, we rescued 35 horses droop through the wildfires. And I got a call from Warren, and he said, Hey, you know, I would love to do a podcast with you in Carolyn, and I live up here in where is it? Holly Hollister.

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Hollister. Hollister, yeah, yes.

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And he said, where are you? And I said, Oh, I'm in Aptos. I'm staying at this beautiful ranch with you know. And I described the ranch, and he said, Are you on Pleasant Valley Road? And I'm like, Yeah. He goes, You are kidding. That used to be called divine ranch, and I was there when they were building it. He's like, the people who originally owned it, I was the trainer of their horses. He said, I watched them build that and bring in the marble and everything from Italy. And he's like, you've got to be kidding. I'm like, No, this is where I am. And I had a clinic coming up because I decided to do a clinic during COVID Because we were outside a lot of space to give people something to do. And he asked if he could come, and he did. And that's how I met Warwick. And then, of course, we proceeded to do the podcast shortly after, and then the summit invitation and met you. Yeah, wow.

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So for those who are listening that don't know who Carolyn Resnick is, by the way, quick, can you quickly say who she is, so that they have some context?

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Yes. So Carolyn Resnick is, she is the most amazing, talented horse trainer that you would ever want to meet. She is been, she's been transformational in the world of horses. And she developed Liberty training back in 1976 she coined the term Liberty training. It's actually registered to us, and she wrote a book, naked liberty, which is a beautiful memoir, and it is based on her observation of horses in the wild wild horses. She's a herd behavior specialist, and she's dedicated, like I don't know, 70 years to this work and sharing it with the world to give horses a better deal. And when I got to Costa Rica, I didn't mention this, but one of the deals I made with my husband is, if we go to Costa Rica, I'm going to have horses again, because I had had horses my whole life, but in Key West, it wasn't possible.

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So I rescued some horses, and I found Carolyn through those rescued horses, and I was really stuck on what to do with them, because they were so disconnected and shut down and had been abused, and I was reaching out to like minded trainers that I thought would be able to help. And she when I found her.

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Book. I knew that was the path that I needed to take. And then I met her and started studying under her. And then I just knew I had a very I had the only property management company in this area, my husband and I, he sold real estate, he did property management here, and but I knew immediately after working with Carolyn that this was going to be the path that I took for the rest of my life. I knew it was my destiny to share this method with the world, and a few years in, Carolyn asked me to be her business partner. So now we're business partners, and we both coach online and teach clinics, and we have a beautiful friendship and a beautiful partnership. But she is, I believe, the mentor that gave me the most knowledge, and then I think it was the most growth that I've ever had in my entire life into self realization, because the biggest program is self realization through the training of forces.

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And I feel like I owe everything to her for how I got to where I am today.

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Well, that right there is, like a very intriguing topic, because I feel like at least in my own experience, and what I think I witness in others when we bring our lives to horses, and frankly, if we bring bring ourselves to anything else, it could be in leadership or relationships. It's as if we want to believe that we know what to do, and that means that it's almost a one sided conversation. I'm going to bring my knowledge to you, and then you do what I tell you to do.

00:31:44.190 --> 00:32:24.509
Yeah, that is, that is not how this works for you and and if you have a two way street where there is a conversation with the other, then you have to discover a lot about yourself as something comes back that isn't what you expected Absolutely. So, yeah, so say a little bit about what self realization through horses means, and particularly around a word you used earlier, which you talked about it bringing you to presence. Yeah? So, big topics here, big, deep topics, but I'd love to hear you riff on those.

00:32:25.170 --> 00:34:44.860
Yeah. Well, you know, when I think back about the idea of sitting in a chair with horses, it was something that I never knew about. I I thought I knew a lot about horses. You know, my grandfather had a breeding farm, and I grew up with horses since I was old and I, he was a very sweet, gentle horse whisperer, whisper kind of guy, but he also it was obviously a more dominant way of, you know, training horses 60 years ago. And so I really had no idea what I would be doing, sitting in a chair with a horse. But half of this program that Carolyn teaches is about finding present moment awareness and learning more about ourselves so that we can be present to horses and in that they find a sense of safety and and this is how you build a very deep cross species bond with divorce. So the Self Realization part of this is about getting really in touch with your own emotions, being truly authentic to yourself and to the environment, being present to the environment, and allowing the energy of the environment and the presence to guide you in the decisions that you would make with the horse and waiting for the horse to connect with you and invite you into his world. And when you do that, it is miraculous how the relationship changes between you and the horse, and in that we do a lot of awareness exercises and journaling and meditating and reading. And when we do that, and we forget about the horse, and we ignore the horse and we have no agenda, that's the piece that brings the horse closer to us. So that's the part of, you know, what she teaches. I think that had the most impact on me, because I was always in what we call trainer's mind. You know, I got to do something with these horses. I have to fix these horses. These horses are shut down. These horses are x, y, z, whatever we all say about our horses. But what I quickly learned was those horses were not checked out and shut down.

00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:59.920
They were waiting for me to show up and to show up to be authentically me and not be an on agenda. And I think we go through our lives with agenda so much more than we do in.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:43.360
Presence. And so, you know, I always say, if I could, if I had to pick one thing that I learned from Carolyn Resnick, it would be awareness. And I think that awareness is what has guided me through these last, you know, 15 years of just staying, being aware of the miracles, being aware of everything that's going on around me, and I think it's the gift that she gave me, and the gift that the horses have given me in return, is this amazing ability to connect with them without an agenda, without an agenda, without tack, without having to fix it, because the horses don't need fixing.

00:35:43.360 --> 00:36:09.420
There's no problem horses. It's always the human. I have yet to meet one problem horse. So you know, the vices that horses have are created by the human and their lack of understanding how to communicate with a horse. So horses just can't speak our language, but we learn their language, and we're clear and intentional. We come with authenticity. They're there to show up and take us to a higher consciousness, for sure.

00:36:11.400 --> 00:36:23.000
Well, I just, in a very simple way, the idea of agenda is something I came to understand both in working with you in September and somewhat before, and even a lot since.

00:36:23.000 --> 00:37:53.320
Because, as you know, I'm I work with rain rescue, and we have, now, we have six Mustangs. We before that, we had feral horses, which would be considered domestic horses, but untouched, both super simple, super super sensitive to humans, and especially humans minds. And what has been really telling for me is the way, when I work with those horses, when I shift into what I think you called it trainer's mind, and I call it my agenda mind, that having an agenda in your mind actually creates an energy that they can feel, yeah. And we we talk when joy and I are working in in our group, we often talk about blue energy versus red energy. Blue energy meaning we're letting the horse tell us what to do, when to do, how to do, versus red energy, which means we think we know what to do. Yeah. And the horses respond dramatically different from each energy. And then you have to find a way to actually move in the world without an agenda like, Okay, now we're going to fill in the blank, put on a halter, or ask the horse to move, or whatever, and do it in a way that doesn't interfere with the movement, especially with these sensitive horses. So I know you know, you could write a dissertation on what I just said, but I'd love to hear what you think or what your experience.

00:37:54.699 --> 00:38:26.239
The beautiful thing about Carolyn Resnick work and her her method of communicating with horses. She named it the water hole rituals, because she witnessed a lot of the interactions that horses, how they communicate with one another at the water hole. And she named it because this is how horses, this whole entire way of being with horses, is how they actually communicate with one another, to eliminate pecking order, to bring harmony leadership. You know, they're leaders of leaders, and they're how they have stayed safe for over 50 million years, you know?

00:38:24.260 --> 00:38:50.739
So one of the things that I think is so important, and what we can witness in the waterhole rituals with Pharaoh horses or wild horses, is they're very much in touch with their natural instincts. Where horses in captivity, horses that have never been with other horses their whole lives may be taken away from their mothers too young and imprinted by humans, all of those things we do to horses. It's not their choice.

00:38:50.800 --> 00:39:32.480
They don't have a choice. We have done good by rescuing a lot of these horses and taking care of them when they had nowhere to go, but at the same time, they don't get to be horses. So this method actually brings an understanding to the horse that they have a choice, they have a voice. And it's about congruency. It's about not just being, you know, let's say present, but also how we do one thing is how we do everything. We talked about this yesterday, Q and A, you know, being able when you just go to halter the horse. How do you do that? How do you feed all of the little things that we take for granted, but we go, okay, now I'm going to go train my horse.

00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:59.920
I have to be in prison like, No, it has to start when you're putting on your boots, in your house, in your house. How are you yourself to the horse. What is the energy that you want to bring to your life? And I think it would, you know, if we could use this, which is what we're hoping for everyone in our everyday lives, like just to start our day. How do we do that, to bring the harmony that we all seek in community with our spouse?

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:33.079
This and their friends. So it's, you know, when you're working with feral and wild horses like you are, the reason you're seeing this dramatic shift, even though you all have been practicing a lot of amazing things with those horses, is now you're bringing clarity. You're bringing this understanding of I know how to communicate with you, and I'm always going to find my entry point of connection. I'm never going to make you do anything you do to and when you bring that to the horse, the horses want to be with us. They want to connect with us. They want community.

00:40:28.579 --> 00:40:58.119
But don't want to be put in a box and told what to do, especially if they don't understand it, and then they start to blow up. That's when you start to see the vices, right? So I think that you're witnessing now that is so beautiful. And I love the blue energy, red energy, yeah, because it's, it's super helpful, I think, for people to understand where they are in that dynamic, right?

00:40:59.320 --> 00:41:23.179
Well, and when I'm unconsciously in red energy, and we help each other. We notice it, but I'm usually incongruent in some way, and so we often call that being double tonguing, meaning I'm asking for two contradictory things at the same time, or maybe feeling differently inside than I am outside. For example, I'm trying to show calm when I'm not feeling calm.

00:41:26.300 --> 00:41:44.619
That's, you know, one of the things that's been really eye opening is to recognize that if you can just feel what you're feeling, the horse is really like that, whereas if you try to hide what you're feeling, they go, Oh, you are getting a little bit nervous. You're making me a little nervous there.

00:41:46.360 --> 00:42:06.059
And we're conditioned to hide what we feel, though, because I think as humans, we're not living with our natural instincts. We've been conditioned to fit into a box of society. And so in some ways, we're living in the in the dysfunction that we're bringing the horses in as into as well.

00:42:07.380 --> 00:42:09.900
Yeah, that's, that's exactly what I was going to say.

00:42:10.199 --> 00:43:05.340
We're just not in touch with our true nature. You know, if we got to grow up in the jungle, right, like mound leaf, you know, we could speak, you know, who we are and not conditioned, we wouldn't have all the problems that we have, obviously, but especially with horses. You know, I can always tell in a clinic environment when someone goes out to be with the horses and And mind you, in this liberty training method Carolyn put together, we're not training the horses. The horses are getting trained, but we're not training the horses to do these things. So someone comes here to work with my horses, they're not going to do everything you ask, because they're just well trained horses. They're waiting for you to show up. And I can always tell when someone goes out with the horses and they're not congruent, like they are showing up, and they're showing up with no fear, and they're showing up like they know or whatever their feelings are, and they're hiding it, because this aren't going anywhere near them.

00:43:05.460 --> 00:43:20.400
And I'm like, this is interesting. My horses are super connected to people. So, you know, then I can walk them through a scenario and get them to to share what's going on inside, but the moment they do, those horses are like magnets.

00:43:20.699 --> 00:43:57.820
You know, it proves itself over and over that coming in authentically, the horses can read that, and they don't have any fear of that. When we're inauthentic and we are in our head space, that's scary for horses. They're like that doesn't feel comfortable, that doesn't feel congruent, and so I just think I'll stay away from that. And I think that's one of the biggest problems, if I had to choose one that people have with horses, is that think their horses don't want to connect, or their horse is just not a connecting horse, or horse doesn't like them, not at all.

00:43:58.300 --> 00:44:01.380
The minute that they shift that consciousness the horse show up

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:43.119
well. And I honestly think it was one of the scariest things for me when I was in corporate America. And it's something I work with, with my clients today, which is there's a lot of saying one thing and meaning another. And you're, you're as much on the defensive, trying to figure out what's really going on. You know the old Well, we're not, we just had a merger, but we're not going to have layoffs. Well, none of us believe that, or we just had a merger, and nothing's going to change. Nobody believes that either. You know. So the those kind of things that we do to each other, we also do to horses. It's just that they show us in a much clearer way, because they're not in on the game like we are.

00:44:44.139 --> 00:44:59.920
Yeah, and there's such a mirror to our souls, you know, you really get to see who you are if you're paying attention to your horse, and when you become present enough to observe that and to be aware of that, that's where we can make change.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:24.260
That's where we can shift into being, you know, in going into our higher selves, our spiritual selves, and I think that is the spirituality piece that I find so intriguing about working and being with horses, is that we just have to show up and be aware and be clear, clarity.

00:45:18.719 --> 00:45:29.960
What was the saying that you said at the clinic, that I kept saying to ask, can you to repeat? Do you remember? Oh, goodness, oh, I don't remember.

00:45:30.019 --> 00:45:34.699
What was it? Oh? Was it clarity?

00:45:30.019 --> 00:46:48.639
Is kindness? No, it was something about that. It was something about in intentional and oh, gosh, anyway, gosh, I wrote it down. I don't have it with me. I actually wrote it down too, but it was, yeah, yeah, it was. And it was so perfect, the way you described what you you rephrase what I was teaching in the moment at that clinic. And it was perfect. And I think that that's where we can use forces as our healers and guides. And I don't like the word use, but work with horses as our healers and guides, right? So Well, yeah, I think that, yeah, you use has a has a dominant sort of tone to it, even though I think it can be a neutral word as well, which is, you know, it's all when things are coming at you, you've got to use what's coming for you. You know, like it has been told to be able to to mirror ourselves. Oh, I see what you're what, where I am right now, in this moment with this horse. And if you're able to do that, I think that people try so hard to in this method is extremely hard, as you know, to articulate. There's so much to it. It's so much nuance in it.

00:46:48.820 --> 00:47:09.599
Every horse and human is different. But I think that the tools that we give students to be able to do this, if they don't get in their head and try to make it a step by step thing and really read what's going on each moment. I think that they just need to listen to their intuition.

00:47:06.179 --> 00:47:21.559
That's the key. And I think that's where we that's one of the things that takes us away from our true selves, right? Not listening to our gut instinct, to our intuition, and Oh, thank goodness, yes. Did more of that?

00:47:21.559 --> 00:47:41.980
You know, then it helps us be more authentic in our lives and resources. Well, I spend a lot of time with my left brain clients, helping them get back in touch with their natural senses, which is where their intuition lives. Yes, and again, back to the conditioning that's been done to us. There's many things that need a lot of steps.

00:47:43.539 --> 00:48:04.559
Flying airplanes is a great example, because I've done that off and on through my life, and it's something that you would say is a very rule, bound step bound, rigid, procedural thing to do for safety, sure and and yet, there's a lot of intuition, if you'll allow yourself to also feel.

00:48:05.820 --> 00:48:59.559
And there's a big difference between the way you take a, you know, an approach, let's say, in high wind, in a small, little airplane, like I flew, with intuition and with not. And I've told the story before, but what really was stunning for me was when I handed the controls over as I was just taking my flying lessons, most recently, my flying instructor was like 40 years younger than me, and she said, I've got the controls. And I had been correcting for the it was a bouncy day, and I'd been correcting you're constantly correcting if you're not on autopilot, for altitude and for heading and for the bounce, and, you know, it was bumpy, and so there was quite a bit of bumping going on in the plane anyway, and I expected it to be the same when she took the controls, and the plane immediately settled down, and I commented on it, and she said, That's because you were over and under correcting.

00:49:01.659 --> 00:49:06.840
And I thought, how interesting, because the same thing happens.

00:49:06.840 --> 00:49:53.679
Sometimes on horses, I'm over and under correcting because my senses are too numb to catch the oftenness quickly enough to back, go back into balance, like my correction. You know, if you were to put it on a ruler, My correction was like, call it two or three inches, and hers was maybe two or three centimeters or even less, because it took my senses that long to tune in. And what I noticed in working with your method is it helps you, if you can trust your intuition, and that's a personal journey, because you've got a light. Get rid of the layers of people telling you what your rules were and what you're supposed to do, or how to navigate, as we do with flying. Yes, I'm following the rules, but I'm also following my feel

00:49:55.059 --> 00:49:59.920
absolutely and you know, they there's a saying, you know, you can't teach feel. Well, that's exactly what.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:32.239
We teach. It's about being in soft feel like pretty much with everything. And you know the water hole rituals, you know you work with those five heartfelt strings of connection, and it is the way to live life. Carolyn always says the water hole rituals can save the world, and it's the truth. I use it with my relationships, with my husband, with my children. I wish that I had known all of this back when I was raising children. But, you know, right to lead a horse to willingness. And I it's a practice, just like meditation.

00:50:28.880 --> 00:51:00.400
It's it's a practice. And then once you like riding a bike, once you how to ride a bike, you never forget you could not be on a bike for 20 years because it's about y'all right, and so it's the same with the horses. Once you learn this and you embody this practice, it then becomes so effortless when you're with the horse. But it takes practice. And I think we come from a society of such quick results, and people want that, like, just give me the steps.

00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:17.940
Let me do it. Let me get it done, you know, and with good horsemanship, you know, top tier horsemanship is what this method builds. And you can't do it that way. You know, you have to learn to stay in soft deal and listen to your intuition

00:51:19.559 --> 00:51:27.019
and even though you are letting go of your agenda, you're much more likely to accomplish more this way.

00:51:28.340 --> 00:52:00.719
Absolutely. And isn't that true with everything? Probably, especially what you're teaching, right it? We need an agenda. We need like, we go out and we say, Okay, today I'm going to so let's just say, a student in our class, we're going to practice this exercise. Well, when you get out there and you see that, just because you study that exercise and you want to practice it, it is not going to happen. You have to be able to shift right and go back into what would bring the most connection. What's you know?

00:51:56.500 --> 00:52:20.960
What do you feel in the moment you could do that's what Carolyn calls the entry point of connection. What can you do that would bring connection in the moment? It might just be go back and sit in your chair and get out of your head and write down your monkey mind in your journal, you know? But if we really do the practice like anything, I think that the results are amazing.

00:52:22.280 --> 00:53:33.440
Well, you know, I'm just thinking of a specific example right now, when you talked about sending people out to go do something, and what you pictured isn't going to be the thing that creates connection. And in my corporate world, you know, we, we call it a vision. I call it a picture now, because I think pictures a little more descriptive, but we you know, the leaders often feel like they're responsible to create the vision and to tell people how to do the vision, and that's a lot of burden to carry as a leader, but it's also completely abjectly impossible, because once people go out in the field, they have to find out all the things the leader doesn't know right now. And things are constantly moving. You know, horses shift and it you know, like you said, there's five entry points of connection, not 12345, it could be any one of them at any given moment, and it's the same, you know, out in the field. You know, when you're sending people out to do whatever the vision might be, we're going to change to this new software. We're going to we're buying this new company.

00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:37.039
We're transforming to, you know, not, not die like Kodak did, whatever that vision might be.

00:53:37.699 --> 00:54:12.420
But what I love is, if you let the horse tell you in your method, or if you let the people tell you who had their feet on the ground how to do the vision, then you're in partnership and harmony, because you each have a role, absolutely. But if it's one way, then you just got a bunch of people trying to be robots and trying to be perfect, and then, frankly, they start beating themselves up because I can't figure out how to do it. And I don't think there's anything noisier in our heads than beating ourselves up exactly, and that's one of the biggest things. That's why we have a big mindset piece, you know, we have

00:54:13.500 --> 00:54:59.920
a coach who actually coaches our students once a month in that we call it the authentic self coaching meeting, you know, because we tend to do that, we'll we'll go out, and things won't work. So we beat ourselves up. We say we're not good enough. Our horse doesn't like us. You know, we'll never do this. And you know, that's a lot of the work is just finding that one little thing that you can do and being able to accomplish that. It's huge for a lot of people, and it takes us back to presence, right? And there's pressure, like you don't have to do anything with your horse. That's another thing, I think, in the horse world, you know, people are starting the awareness is becoming so, so grand. And I think people are starting to realize that they don't have.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:41.440
To do anything with their horses, they can enjoy that relationship just like they do with their dog. And this work that they do and that I teach is about working with a horse like you would a dog, and treating this animal like a family member, and if you live your horse like you lived with your dog. Your horse would be like your dog. That's the power of sharing territory, and why? When I sat with Pericles for those six weeks, he ended up being my best friend. He followed me everywhere. He wanted to be with me all the time because I spent so much time with him, you know?

00:55:36.079 --> 00:55:58.360
And so, yeah, I didn't have anything else to do during COVID, right? Like everything was kind of shut down, so I spent almost every hour of every day down there with him. And so yeah, and that's what we need to do to build all relationships, right, spending time with one another and listening and being present

00:55:59.380 --> 00:56:03.360
and being present well.

00:55:59.380 --> 00:56:28.579
And you know, back to kind of where we were talking, you know about the disasters that you turned into gold mines, from the hurricane and from COVID, getting you stuck, and then being present to what is and making your choices, rather than diving into the resentment of it, or the trying to, like, make the impossible happen when it's showing you it isn't going to happen anymore.

00:56:29.840 --> 00:57:13.139
Yes, yeah, that was interesting, because I remember when it first happened, I just kind of looked at my husband and was like, You have got to be kidding. And I panicked for a minute, because, you know, I have seven horses a farm here, we have beautiful caretakers who we couldn't live without. But, you know, we ended up being gone almost a year, and we that reason for that was again, because we ended up in Santa Cruz, and it ended up being a safe haven, and we didn't know what was happening here, but I so I was in my head about it at first, and then I just thought back about Synchro, Destiny. What is the trying to tell me? What is the moment?

00:57:10.019 --> 00:57:25.519
What is the path that I need to take now? And it was, I was quickly, due to this work, able to go out of the panic and back into okay. I'm just going to focus on, what can I do today?

00:57:21.800 --> 00:57:31.760
And what can I, you know, to live today? And it really helped us through that.

00:57:33.079 --> 00:57:51.820
It's kind of difficult time. I mean, you know, oh yeah, it, and it was, looking back on it, we had the best of everything going for us there, but it was still there was some worry in it, right? Well, there, the thing is, you can't help but have some worry. That's life.

00:57:46.780 --> 00:57:55.719
And you know, when your nervous system gets triggered, just like a horse, like they worry, right?

00:57:55.719 --> 00:58:13.380
You know, we watched the other day, I was working with the Mustang that's been the slowest, he's coming around a lot, but his he was the most frightened because he spent a lot of time in holding, and we're pretty sure that his experience in holding was worse than most horses, so for whatever reasons.

00:58:13.679 --> 00:58:47.139
And so as as he noticed a motorcycle go by on the road, I could see that he was worried, and I just looked at the motorcycle with him and said, Yeah, I see that you're worried, but see we're fine. And he came back to me, but horse is worried, like we do. And in that moment, we addressed it, and then he came right back. And, you know, so you addressed it each day, and I you said this word a couple of times, and I'm, I'm really interested to hear you riff a little bit on tell me about Synchro destiny, because that's not a term I think is very common and that I've heard very often.

00:58:48.159 --> 00:59:40.880
Yeah, well, I don't know. I guess it was about 10 years ago my sister in law, who is an amazing woman and has studied many, many things, she shared with z and I about this course she was taking with Deepak Chopra, and it was called the spontaneous fulfillment of desire, and it teaches about Synchro destiny, and how, if we become present and aware of every moment of our lives, we begin to be able to see the miracle in The coincidences. So when I say, and I didn't mention coincidences before, but there was no coincidence in the fact that that hurricane hit and everything just kept every door kept closing, and that, you know, I wasn't aware of this stuff back then, so my left brain stuff, and I, you know, business stuff kept going.

00:59:40.880 --> 00:59:59.920
I gotta get back in business. I gotta make money. I gotta I can't other route, like, I've never been unsuccessful. I'm not going to go live in Costa Rica, broke, you know, like how and and I didn't know this. So when I finally learned about it, and I was doing that course, I started to see every coincidence.

01:00:00.059 --> 01:01:05.280
Confidence as a miracle, and then you start to see things that way. Your life just completely shifts. And you know, every time you start to think about it, when you say, well, that's a coincidence. No, it's not a coincidence at all. It's a miracle. And so far since then, since I learned about this, there's never been anything that was a coincidence that I couldn't find the miracle in that was going to guide me to where I was supposed to be. So there was no coincidence in that hurricane. There was no coincidence that I found those rescued horses. I wasn't looking for them. I rescued them to save them because I happened upon them. There's no coincidence I picked up Carolyn's book. You know, there was no coincidence that I got locked down with her and I, during COVID, happened to be there, because it really elevated my education in this method, to be able to take the work to a different level. And no coincidence that I got the wildfires locked me down, up at where work was at all others.

01:01:00.900 --> 01:01:10.260
You know, we can look at those as miracles, or we could go, God, everywhere I go, there's a natural disaster at first.

01:01:08.159 --> 01:03:16.800
There's a hurricane. Now, there's COVID Now there's a wildfire. You know, this every single moment, even here in Costa Rica, the very first clinic I was ever going to host, before I was even doing this method, or even met Carolyn. I had planned to do these retreats and clinics to be able to make money to take care of these rescued horses as a side thing on top of my property management company. And the very first one I put together, there was a woman coming to teach here, a trainer. And there was an earth an earthquake here, and I didn't have an arena yet or anything. I just had pasture land for for the horses, but a friend of ours had this beautiful stable and Arena in the village, and he said, you can use it. So I said, that's great. So about four months went by after the earth earthquake, and I asked this trainer. I said, What is the most important thing to the to make this clinic successful? For you? What? What do I need to do to make it successful? And I had never hosted a clinic. She said, my footing is extremely important. So I go, Oh, okay. So I went over to this beautiful stable property. All I had was a stable in an arena, and it was this most beautiful green grass in the arena. They didn't use it as a like a sand arena. And I thought, oh, it's gorgeous. I started walking it. There were like two foot poles in it from the earthquake. There are earthquake up there in the village. It didn't hit where I am, where my house is, and it's very close distance. But I was like, Oh my gosh, I can't have that clinic here. This arena is full of holes. It just looked pretty because the grass was even, and immediately we had to come and make and makeshift arena up here. Now I had, like, two weeks to go, or I had to cancel the clinic. So Z said, get some bamboo and we'll go get it out of the jungle and we'll build a temporary arena. And if I had not done that and that miracle slash coincidence had not happened, I would have not been able to be up here on my property with an arena going.

01:03:13.800 --> 01:03:32.059
People came and they were like, blown away. Like, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And it inspired me then to start doing more clinics. And then I met Carolyn. So, you know, every little thing that we look at as something that, oh gosh, like this is a disaster.

01:03:32.300 --> 01:03:35.239
Where can we find the miracle in it? And

01:03:37.699 --> 01:03:59.079
I'm laughing, because through the storm that we just came through. There was about 10 days where everything was really uncertain, and I had regular little miracles and coincidences, like one day and this one was probably this is the most meaningful, because it was so out of character for me.

01:03:59.079 --> 01:04:25.039
But this is the hurricane hit on Friday and on Sunday, Jennifer and I were going out in the old, battered truck because the roads were, you know, not good. Trees were down, wires were down, you know. So we were taking the truck out to try to find a signal to get in touch with people, and also maybe to get some supplies, you know, and see where we were, what was open.

01:04:26.539 --> 01:04:29.239
We had food, but we just wanted to know what where we could go.

01:04:29.239 --> 01:04:34.159
So I needed my billfold in my phone. Well, guess what? I left my house without my billfold and my phone.

01:04:35.599 --> 01:04:50.440
And as we got up to the top of the road, I just, I had to laugh at it. I said, I don't know how Jen, but I don't have my billfold or my phone. We have to go back home. So she turned around and we went back home.

01:04:45.940 --> 01:04:59.920
And then when I walked back up the stairs after getting those two things, there was a car on my street, which was really unusual. By this time, we figured out nobody needs to be here, and I kind of got my hackles on.

01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:20.780
A little bit until I realized it was our friend coming to find us. They had flooded, and couldn't get a hold of us, and they didn't know what was going on with us, and we couldn't get to that. We weren't even worried about them, because we didn't realize they were flooding, you know, we didn't think they were in a place that would flood. So if I hadn't forgotten those things, I wouldn't have run into him?

01:05:22.519 --> 01:05:47.260
Yeah, we would have passed each other, and then later on that very same outing they were closing down the road, but we didn't know they were going to close it, and if we had been one minute sooner and gotten past this roadblock where they had decided to basically not let anybody back into town where we had left our dog in a crate, we would have gotten out and not been able to get back to my dog.

01:05:48.679 --> 01:06:03.469
And again, I was, I was, like, so upset that they wouldn't let me through until I figured that out. And so these little things that were quote, unquote bad things. I had hundreds of those things that came out. Okay, yep, but it's how you see it

01:06:04.190 --> 01:06:50.719
Yes, and it's a goes back to listening to our gut instinct, our intuition, and when you see that forgetting your phone was an absolute miracle, you shift that one thing that you just talked about it out loud, is a shift in our consciousness that can create more and more and more miracles until everything is just a miracle. Yeah, you know, it's, it's really, it goes right back to intuitiveness and listening to ourselves, right? So Well, listening to our true selves, not to the voices, yes, that we have created, that we think are somebody else that are judgmental and telling us we're we're doing it all wrong. Those voices aren't useful.

01:06:51.889 --> 01:07:39.469
Oh, absolutely, it's true. Yeah, yeah. The work is to discover the true signals from that noise, absolutely and in that you have Synchro destiny. It's where everything gets synchronized. Your Destiny becomes clear. You can see, you know, you can see the light like all of a sudden, you just get clarity behind so many more things, because the energetic pull of universe always giving us information, right? But we tend to go outside of it into our, you know, left brain thinking side of everything, to figure it out. But if we can get quiet enough and be a noticer, that's when we can see the miracles.

01:07:40.849 --> 01:08:14.690
So when I would imagine that you have experienced people getting pretty stuck at times when they're first trying to work with this way of being, if they're not used to living from this field place, from being able to listen to their intuition, do you have some ways that help them get in touch fairly quickly? Because I know for me, it's been a lifetime journey, and it would have been worse than watching paint dry trying to see me get through all my crap. So I'm just curious.

01:08:16.100 --> 01:08:32.119
I was I'm curious, how you help people who might be just coming into this way of being, get there in a, you know, a little faster. I'm not trying to hurry things along, but because things do happen in their time. But what, what have you found that works?

01:08:32.479 --> 01:09:43.609
Yeah, well, the whole program that Carolyn put together is for that purpose, the sharing territory portion of the program and the work that that that we do in sitting in the chair, reading, meditating and journaling is what can really help us. And Carolyn always says, like, when we're coaching people and they're focused on the exercises, she'll say, How much time have you spent sharing territory with your horse this week? And it always goes back to that. And normally, when people come to us and they're having so called trouble problems, they're focused on the problem. So I usually try to to share with people. We do not try to fix problems in this method. We go back to what works. We try to, if you, if you come across that, and you write it down. We know journaling is a powerful tool. A lot of people don't like to do it. So I think that the people that are struggling in this work don't want to do that work. They want to get they're doing actionable things with the horse. You know, that was me, believe right? Me too, at one time for sure. You know, when you say, I doing less is more.

01:09:39.170 --> 01:09:48.039
It is 100% with horses short increments.

01:09:43.720 --> 01:09:59.920
Just do short increments of training, so called training, right? Working with these exercises. And when you get a successful moment, you stop, you know, yes, ma'am, information, like you go out and you're, you know.

01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:38.539
Know, feeling Constantine. And then you're like, I don't really know you know what to do. And you sit down and you really journal about it, you will find, if you look back in your journals, you'll find that those things were blocking you from being able to connect to the course. So putting them down on paper is kind of like, you know, you you had an argument, let's say, with your husband or a friend, or something happens, and you brush it off to get through it, and you go out to the horse, and you think that you're present, because you're going to be present, but it's in you. But if you upload it on the paper, it's still there. You got it, but it's out of your head, you know? So you just write, we call it monkey mind, you know.

01:10:38.539 --> 01:10:41.619
You write all the monkey mind until you can't write anymore.

01:10:42.279 --> 01:11:51.100
And then you write, how would you like it to be, if all of that stuff wasn't there? How would you like it to be? And you focus on that, I would like to just be out here on a beautiful day, being able to be present quickly. You know, I would like to be able to connect to my horse, or for my horse to be able to to understand what I'm asking and you write all these things, it's visual, right? And so you're starting to now reprogram your brain into thinking about how you would like it to be, instead of all of the problems that you see that are coming up for you. It's really powerful work, but it's important that that people do it well, and it's very underestimated, what a difference it is what we focus on. Because if we focus on the lack, we get more of that. And if we focus on what we would like to have, or what we already have, gratitude, for example, for that we get more of that whatever we focus on is what we get. And there's science to prove that even even when theoretically, you've

01:11:52.239 --> 01:11:56.199
there's no difference other than the the belief around whether something's good for you or not.

01:11:57.460 --> 01:12:00.220
Absolutely. You know, what we focus on becomes our reality.

01:12:00.220 --> 01:12:07.680
Again, go back to the universal law of energy, right? Science, that proves it. You know, what we focus on becomes our reality.

01:12:07.920 --> 01:12:18.539
And so many people are teaching this now, I just feel like we have so many resources that we didn't used to have for to live that in this reality, right?

01:12:20.039 --> 01:12:36.319
So yeah, and that is also a big part of Synchro destiny, being able to focus on the miracle to create a reality that we that we want in our lives. And as we were starting this conversation, you were talking about how much gratitude you have,

01:12:38.720 --> 01:12:48.520
I feel like, if there are any two superpowers in working with people with horses and just life, it's probably gratitude and curiosity.

01:12:49.960 --> 01:13:14.279
I agree. That's great gratitude and curiosity. Yeah. I mean, that's a powerful pair. I liked things to be in threes, but so I have, I don't have anything in my mind right now about what the third might be, although I might say it's courage. If I had to have another one, it would probably be courage. And I like that. I think that, I think, yeah, because having the courage for to be open to change

01:13:15.479 --> 01:13:27.979
is the biggest thing, like one of the things that my nephew said to me, actually, right after that COVID thing, he said, You know, I just admire you so much. You have so much courage.

01:13:28.279 --> 01:13:49.899
You just have, you prayed to go on the adventure. And I thought about it a little, and I was like, you know, I guess, yeah, I I do have. It doesn't mean I don't have fear, you know. But if we can't, if we have tools that we can get out of that fear based thinking, you know, and find the courage within us to be able to focus on a different reality, find the miracle in it.

01:13:50.560 --> 01:13:53.619
I think it's just so it's a fluent way of living,

01:13:54.880 --> 01:14:06.119
yes, and you know, a lot of people come to me and ask for me to help them with their confidence. And what I say is, that's a rear view mirror thing.

01:14:01.979 --> 01:14:07.619
Confidence happens when you have exercised courage.

01:14:08.939 --> 01:14:28.880
I love that. So courage is, is the is more at the root. And, of course, the root of the word courage is heart. And you know, being able to, I feel like operating from feel, operating through intuition, is a heart based way to be, as opposed to a brain based way to be.

01:14:30.319 --> 01:14:33.020
Absolutely not that there's anything wrong with our brain,

01:14:34.220 --> 01:14:59.380
but the heart is oftentimes the source of the wisdom, yeah, and I think that it's important for people to understand, like, this all doesn't happen overnight, like you me, like we've worked a lot on it, like it comes from the practice, right? So if we're not confident, we kind of do need a math we need a coach. We need someone to be able to walk us through the steps.

01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:48.760
Beginning, but still pay attention to what it makes. What does it feel like in our our world, you know, but I think that you're right. I think that having confidence is also from learning how, because maybe people don't feel confident when they go out with horses. I have a student who is very confident in the saddle and not confident at all on the ground, at Liberty, and I found that really interesting, because I would have more fear of being in the saddle and having something happen than on the ground, right? So everybody's you know, view of it is, is different, right? So that is interesting, yeah, and then you have to find the courage to figure out, like, how are you going to get over that obstacle?

01:15:45.520 --> 01:15:54.579
And find the confidence to be able to feel safe and not be in a fear based mentality?

01:15:55.840 --> 01:16:01.319
Yeah? Because that, especially if you can't get through it, that can be quite detrimental.

01:16:02.640 --> 01:16:12.840
Yeah. These are the tools, the things that you're teaching, the things that you know Carolyn has put together for us, that I teach is they're tools to be able to learn a different way.

01:16:13.079 --> 01:16:22.520
Because when we've, you know, are at our age now, you know, we've been kind of doctrinated into this other way of being.

01:16:22.520 --> 01:16:45.220
It's kind of hard to make the shift without help. And I think that with horses, it really comes out because, you know, like I said, now, people are starting to there's so much awareness about giving horses a better deal and how we can do that, but there didn't used to be. So all the women that I meet that are anywhere from 40 to 70, they learned a different way.

01:16:45.399 --> 01:16:56.739
The young people today have so much more information about this to be able to start with horses differently. You know that it's really beautiful, and I'm happy about that.

01:16:57.880 --> 01:17:29.600
You know, it's funny using that language give the horses a better deal because we you mentioned that we both met through Warwick Schiller, and we're both on his podcast. And spoke at his podcast summit last year. One of his guests, I believe, was Ty Murray, who is a rodeo guy, yeah, and I remember he was the first person. I think I heard him use that exact sentence, I'm just trying to give the horses a better deal after having seen where they were not given a better deal.

01:17:30.859 --> 01:17:58.300
And you know, so I love it does feel like it's a bit of a movement to help the horses help themselves in this world that we live in, but also it's hard for us to do because there is a conditioning in this world, as we've alluded to, that gets us stuck. If we don't have a coach, as you mentioned, if we don't have a way to see something else, it's almost like we can't see our way out of it.

01:17:59.680 --> 01:19:38.840
Yeah, and there's, it's almost like there's too much information. Now, it's kind of like people, when they call us about, you know, wanting to know more about this way working with horses, it's like they don't even know there's so much out there. Now, with social media, they don't know which is the right thing. Everybody's teaching something. But, you know, I I have to give like, I almost want to say all the credit to Carolyn from she pioneered this. I mean, she started this way, way, way back, right, and before, and people thought she was crazy. I remember when she put together this program called the chair challenge that we have, people were like, people can think you're nuts, like sitting in a chair, and everybody's sitting in chairs with horses now, you know, call her the mother of liberty because she really brought a different way of being with horses to the world. And I love that so many people are sharing that work. Rick shares that now in his work. And you know, so many other trainers are bringing this into their training programs, even though they're not doing exactly what we're doing, but it inevitably is giving horses a better deal, for sure. Yeah, and, and we have to do it in our, you know, in a safe way too. That's the thing, you know. Where we start, especially at the rescue, with joy, at rain rescue. And when people want to come and work, we start with safety, safety, safety, because there are so many unconscious things that we can do, not being aware that we've just put ourselves in danger. And even the most docile horse can, you know, hurt you accidentally or on purpose, you know, step on your foot. Go to the hospital,

01:19:39.859 --> 01:19:59.920
you know, so just learning how to be there and be conscious and be aware, I think, is also just so important and respecting them for who they are and what they you know, the power they bring. I think that's actually what makes writing both so thrilling and sometimes scary, is when you actually feel the power when you're on them. Of.

01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:04.260
I'm carrying those forward.

01:20:00.000 --> 01:21:00.600
Oh my gosh, horsepower is a real thing. It's already that came to be for a reason. Horsepower on engines, right? Yeah, yeah. I think keeping people safe is is the biggest challenge, especially when we're distance coaching, like in our master class, with distance coaching, so we focus a lot on, you know, people being able to move their horse and being able to keep their their their boundaries, you know, around it. And I think that that's another thing that coincides with like leadership and just well being, is being able to set boundaries for people and so they can get hurt that way, but not just with with horses in life. And I think that's one of the beautiful things that we teach in our leadership with through the method, is setting flexible boundaries, you know, and being able to be flexible in that, which is what makes a great leader. Well, you you're one of the language things that you mentioned was putting the gas pedal on the horse, in other words, being able to move him and going,

01:21:01.979 --> 01:21:09.119
that's one of the biggest safety things we've had, and it's actually one of the greatest connectors. It's amazing how much more they want to connect.

01:21:10.260 --> 01:22:28.819
Ironically, so it's so interesting. You know, when I first started teaching this work, I remember, you know, people, so many more people, were feeling devastated to ask their horses to leave their space, and it was so interesting. Still happens, but you know, not as is. I don't notice it as much because there's more awareness around it. But when you said that, it brings more connection, it does bring more connection because you're tapping into the horse's natural instincts to move. It's not normal for a horse to not move, but in traditional training, people are taught to keep the horse close. The horse is on a 12 foot rope or the they want connection, so their horse starts to become pushy, right and take over leadership while they're close to the person, and because the person feels like we use our human emotions in a horse world and, and that doesn't work. So with humans, we want connection. We don't want to I would never say to you, I need you to go, you know. But with horses, they go, Oh, thank God there's a leader, yes. And I get to go well and, and we may not say I need you to go in that way. But you know, I one of the biggest breakthroughs in my corporate career. I will never forget this. I was,

01:22:29.840 --> 01:23:14.279
I was working with a boss two levels up for me, negotiating something around how we were running the training program that I was running credit training and helping send training students out into his organization. And I don't even remember what we were negotiating, but he was fighting it, and what he was what he was fighting, we had already decided. So I what, you know, I was, like, sort of puzzled, and it was, it was a lot like a pushy horse, you know, he was up in my space and saying, This is the way it's going to work. And it just wasn't going to work that way. And I will never forget, because there was this moment where I said his name and I said, and I said, we're going to do this, this and this, that's how it's going to be. And he goes, Oh, okay, great.

01:23:16.380 --> 01:24:29.960
Bucha. Horse was so cool. Yeah, I mean, I kid you not, he after that, had we were so much closer than we had been before, before that, I think he just pushed as long as he could. But when I basically said, this is the way it's going to work, he and and gave him that clear boundary, everything became okay. And my fear until that moment was that was going to be the end of my career. Yeah, and unless we have done our own personal work to understand those boundaries and understand that actually creates connection, as opposed to breaks connection that I I don't feel like we can be truly safe with horses, because no, and you have to do it. You handled it with that guy, you know? Well, I can handle it. And what I had to own, and what I've had to own over and over again was my fear was that I was going to do to him what had been done to me, sure, and that is absolutely not the case, because somehow I dropped into the space where he told me how strong I had to be.

01:24:31.159 --> 01:24:39.500
He was the, actually, the one guiding that the reason I had to be that firm, because he wasn't going to hear it if it wasn't clear.

01:24:41.060 --> 01:24:46.539
And then I then, if that's the case, it can't be wrong, right?

01:24:46.539 --> 01:24:59.739
It can't be disconnecting. And it was just amazing. I I will never forget it, and it took me a long time to make sense of it, especially the part where I was afraid of my own.

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:11.939
My own fear about being a way I tell myself I would never be, which put me at a tremendous disadvantage, because it made me softer than I needed to be. It made me a pushover,

01:25:13.500 --> 01:25:21.319
absolutely. Yeah, I think there's a lot of correlation to that with the horses. You know?

01:25:17.640 --> 01:25:51.939
It's like when you're sitting in a chair and you have a shy horse, you know you wouldn't have to be as strong to ask the horse to give you some space as you might want a more Bucha dominant horse. And I think it's about finding the the balance in that. And you know, when I talk about why, you know, moving a horse and why it brings so much connection? It is because horses are born with the Natural Instincts right to move away from coming toward them and to follow anything leaving them.

01:25:49.420 --> 01:26:59.140
That's how they stay together in magnetic connection. And when we tap into that with a horse, not only does it demonstrate our leadership and set boundaries and bring the horse a sense of peace, that they have leadership, but it taps them into their their natural instincts to move, and they understand that language, that communication, I think, with women, especially in in this work, it's harder, because, you know, we all have trauma, and we all have things that have happened To us, and, you know, with a particular person who might have never felt like they fit in, or they've always been pushed away, or, you know, that could be a really uncomfortable thing to do with a horse, because it triggers their emotion, you know, and the response to that. But when we can look at it and say, Okay, this is different, how we speak the language of horse is different than how we do with humans. It's isn't it? Isn't I mean, it's one of the same in a lot of ways. But I think that that's the beauty of that's the moment that the horse goes, Okay, she speaks my language.

01:26:53.439 --> 01:27:00.399
You know? It is the moment. You know what it's done for me.

01:27:01.840 --> 01:27:07.380
When you mentioned being triggered, because there's no question. That's what happens, and that's all of us.

01:27:07.979 --> 01:27:32.479
Ironically. You know, the neurology is that once something is fired, twice it wires. And so when you in the moment, even though triggered do it differently, you create a new neural pathway. Yes, and that's what this work has done for me.

01:27:32.539 --> 01:27:44.979
And it's not necessary to to literally go there's a lot of ways to create new neural pathways to but, but this is one of the most profound, because you're doing it live in real time.

01:27:46.300 --> 01:28:21.260
Yes, and I saw the way you were able to move horses, there was absolutely no there was so much clarity when I watched you work with horses. You are, you know you're not. You're not a huge person, but you do know how to create huge energy to move a horse, if that's what they're asking for to be moved. Because we had a couple at our workshop together. We had one horse that just wasn't going to move. You had to come in and help me, because I couldn't get him to move. And you did, yeah, and I think that's where the practice comes in, when we can learn to embody the energy that we need.

01:28:17.880 --> 01:28:53.739
It doesn't have to be aggressive it. That's where you come up with that saying, if we can remember it, but it's kind of like it doesn't have to be aggressive, and it comes from within us first, and then we can bring in an aid, like a Liberty stick or something if we need it. But I think it's that internal energy, if we can project that with confidence and intention and direct the horse to do what we want them to do with clarity. I think that all of those little puzzle pieces fit together. And I think people in general just don't, you know.

01:28:54.880 --> 01:29:37.520
I think that not only this work brings well being to horses, it obviously brings well being to humans too. Because once you're able to do this work with a horse, you start to gain a lot of confidence and communication skills that you take into your everyday life. And I think that might be what you were saying, you know, like even in that instance, with that, that person you were dealing with, you know, it's kind of like firm, clear and intentional. I'm not doing this to start a fight. I'm not going to get angry, I'm just going to come back. This is how it's going to be, with clarity, and there isn't really any discussing it. And if you don't do that with a horse, the horse is going to push you around for the rest of your life. He needs that leadership. Yes,

01:29:38.840 --> 01:29:47.140
that's a beautiful thing for people to remember is, I do think clarity is kindness.

01:29:44.500 --> 01:29:53.199
That's a different saying than what I was saying. But I do too.

01:29:47.140 --> 01:29:59.920
I what I'm what I'm feeling that could be in people's minds right now is, well, they're going to want to come do a workshop with you so they can learn some of these things. Yeah, and.