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Here on Equine Assisted World. We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and, established in the equine assisted field. This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have that these lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com.
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome
to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling
author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning
Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs
and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
Here on Equine Assisted World.
We look at the cutting edge and the best
practices currently being developed and,
established in the equine assisted field.
This can be psychological, this
can be neuropsych, this can be
physical, this can be all of the
conditions that human beings have.
These lovely equines, these beautiful
horses that we work with, help us with.
Thank you for being part of the adventure
and we hope you enjoy today's show
welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
I've got Warwick Schiller on today.
Amazing Warwick Schiller.
Everybody knows who Warwick Schiller is.
And if you don't know who Warwick
Schiller is, go listen to Warwick
Schiller's Journey On podcast.
Why is it important?
Warwick is in my experience, limited
experience, but my experience, the
only person I've met within the world.
Who brings people together in
a way that isn't factional.
When I first went to the Warwick Schiller
Summit in San Antonio two years ago it
was my first experience of walking into a.
room full of big cheeses in the horse
world and in the healing world and not
have a bunch of little people over in this
corner saying bad things about a bunch
of little people over in that corner and
that weird sense that we always have so
often have so depressingly often have
of feeling kind of unsafe in but still
trying to give get the information across
this was different Warwick Schiller's
summit was completely different.
And he has another summit that's
coming up in England, in Birmingham
this August first weekend of August.
And a lot of us who work in the
equine assisted world, not only follow
Warwick Schiller's journey on podcast,
but have benefited a lot from his
approach to attuned horsemanship.
Not just how we relate to the
equines that we work with, but also
to the people that we work with.
So without further ado, Mr.
Warwick Schiller.
Thank you very much for coming
on Equine Assisted World.
Welcome.
Warwick Schiller: Good
to see you again, Rupert.
Rupert Isaacson: Always.
You've had a busy year.
Tell us what you've been up to.
Warwick Schiller: I've got, I got busy.
I, January I didn't do much
because I had threw a podcast
guest from a few years ago.
Opened my big mouth and, and
said that I would do the, I
think called the Gaucho Derby.
So the Gaucho Derby is billed as
the world's toughest horse race.
It's a 500 kilometer
adventure survival race.
Across the Patagonian region of
Argentina takes about, well, you've
got 10 days to complete the race.
You ride seven different horses in that
time, and you are limited to a 10 kilo
pack, which has got to have your tent,
your sleeping bag, your stove, your food,
your sleeping pad, and any emergency stuff
you may need as well as extra clothing.
So it's a, yeah, my, I spent
the last, pretty much year
and a half preparing for that.
And so it got that out of the
way in February and it was pretty
amazing experience actually.
Rupert Isaacson: How do
you prepare for that?
And when you said your food in
that 10 kilo pack, does that mean
all the food for 10 days in that?
No, you,
Warwick Schiller: you get resupply bags
every, I think we had three resupply bags.
And I finished the race in nine days.
So, you know, almost every.
Second day or so you can get a resupply
bag and that, that can weigh I think that
can weigh two kilos so you can put, you
can catch up with food there, but you
know, those, so your, your foods like
the, the freeze dried camping food that
you, you know, you just boil water and
add to it and they're about, you know,
between five and 700 calories a piece.
And I was only eating one of those a day.
So I was eating, you know, going about
nine days, riding horses, 12 hours a day,
riding on leading horses, 12 hours a day
and eating about five or 700 calories.
So it's a good weight loss program.
Are
Rupert Isaacson: you tempted to
eat your horse at a certain point?
Warwick Schiller: No,
Rupert Isaacson: that's
the correct answer.
When I was riding across Mongolia, I
was noticing people somewhat routinely
eating their horses, but they were
of course, eating their horses.
Recycling the older ones protein because
that's that's the economy and the
ecology of the region But of course you
were not doing that You were relying on
the horse to save your bacon as we all
do Tell us about the horses to do 500
kilometers across Patagonia, you know,
some people might think of Patagonia
as a sort of large flat scrubland.
We know it's not.
It's where the Andes come
down towards Tierra del Fuego.
It's incredibly tough terrain.
How are these horses selected?
And also, do you have to qualify?
Like, how do the people who are organizing
this know that a rider is going to be
up for this or capable of doing it?
What's that whole selection
process for horse and human?
Warwick Schiller: The selection
process for the humans, it was a
couple of years ago now, excuse me.
But I think they've got a, you know,
you've got to send a video of your
riding or whatever, things like that.
The horses Goucho's horses from
the areas that you ride through.
So you're basically riding through
these big, what they call a
stanzas, you know, like a ranch.
And the horses, the ranch that
you're riding through, the
horses basically come from that.
That area right there.
And so they're very used to the terrain,
but the horses are like a cross between
endurance horse and a mountain goat.
Like they will go like every day, our
perception of what a horse is, what sort
of terrain a horse is capable of crossing
with ease every day, our perception of
that was changed and, you know, by the.
By day six, you'd write across stuff
that on day two, you kind of think, Oh,
do you think we could write across this?
And you just wouldn't even bat an eyelid.
You're like, where are we going?
Can
Rupert Isaacson: you give
us a couple of examples?
Warwick Schiller: You know, just
rocky, like there's no such thing
as a stone bruise down there.
Rocks everywhere.
It's rocks all over the place.
But yeah, you can just climb up and
down like steep terrain and, and,
you know, like across like Shelly.
Cliff face things where the rocks
are just rolling away from you and
yeah, just so sure footed, amazing.
Rupert Isaacson: Have you got any kind
of guide on this or you have to find
your own way and make your own decisions
about what's crossable and what's not?
Warwick Schiller: You have.
So you have a G, you have GPS
points to get to, so it's like an
endurance ra endurance race to where
you've got vet checks to get to.
And there your GPS points.
So you have GPS points, you gotta
get to, so you've got a GPS and
then you have topographical maps.
And so you know, your next,
your next vet check might be 14
kilometers in that direction.
And you've gotta look at your
map and you go, well, there's a
mountain there and there's a river
there, and there's a swamp there.
Do I go over the mountain?
Do I go try and cross the river?
Do I go through the swamp?
So there's a lot of navigation
stuff to it as well.
And I think the better navigator you
are, the better you are at reading maps
and terrain, the better off you are.
But there's another thing is
there's fences everywhere.
It's these big branches.
And so you might have been struggling,
you know, through all this tough
terrain and you, you come over a hill
and you think that the Vetchak's only
two kilometers in front of me and you
come over a hill and there's a fence
in front of you and it stretches.
As far to your right as it does
to your left, and you look and you
can't see a gate, and then you've
got to go, Okay, which way am I
going to go and try and find a gate?
So you might ride an hour in one
direction and go, there's no gate.
We're going to turn around, go all the
way back and have to go the other way.
So the, the gates are quite a bit
of an equalizer there too, but.
Yeah, there's a lot of, there's
a lot of Navigate, there's
a lot of everything in it.
It's, it's quite the complex thing
to, and it's cool because, I mean, I
had some, I had some breakthroughs,
personal breakthroughs on it.
It's, it's so cool because it's
such a complex thing that it will,
it will poke the bear, you know,
it'll, it'll get to you some way.
If you're strong in, in one area, it'll
get to you somewhere else, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: So give
us an example of that.
Warwick Schiller: Well, for me, I
mean, the horses weren't a problem
for me, but they were for quite
a, quite a few people, you know.
One girl got bucked off and broke a leg.
One guy got bucked off
and punctured a lung.
One guy got bucked off several times
and got back slammed and ended up with
fluid on his lungs and had pneumonia.
The guy who punctured his lung actually
had to stay in Argentina for 28 days
afterwards because he couldn't fly because
of the, the air pressure would affect his.
You know, people got heat stroke all sorts
of things, but for me personally, the,
I thought the physical part of it would
be difficult, but the physical part was
quite easily, I was prepared for that.
It was more the, there was a bit of
emotional strain as far, you know,
you've got this tracker on you that tells
headquarters where you are and people
watching at home, tells where you are.
Anyway, my hand, mine was.
Playing up for about three days.
And I kept contacting headquarters,
telling me to get me a new one.
And I said, Oh yeah, it'll
be at the next vet check.
And I'd get to the next vet check.
And it wasn't there in the next vet check.
It wasn't there.
And then one day we're crossing a
part of the race called the plateau
of death and my tracker died.
Which didn't bother me.
And then I was riding along and I looked
at my phone and realized it was 6 a.
m.
in California.
And I could just picture my wife
waking up, looking at the computer to
see where I was, and my tracker not
being on there and knowing that I was
on the plateau of death somewhere.
And so I was, I got yeah, I got pretty
wound up about them not getting me a
new tracker, because my wife didn't
know whether I was alive or dead.
So, yeah, that was quite fun.
Rupert Isaacson: Why is it
called the Plateau of Death?
Warwick Schiller: It's this.
Very rugged.
Yeah.
I don't know why it's
called the plateau of death.
I don't think anything grows there.
It's a very rugged wind swept, basically
a mountain of basalt rock, but they
have these things up there called rock
bogs, and so that used to be the bottom
of an ocean at some point in time.
And it's all this sediment.
And so you're, you're riding along and
it just looks like really rocky ground
you're riding across, but you're right
along all of a sudden your horse will
just drop to their belly and sink in this
sediment that's underneath these rocks.
And so it looks like, you know, it
looks like a solid mountain and then
there's all these rock bogs in there.
Rupert Isaacson: Did you fall into one?
Warwick Schiller: No, not, not belly
deep, you know, had to get off and lead
the, lead the horses through parts to
where they're flat, you know, they're,
they're really floundering in, you
know, the, the race organizers are you
know, they say they're big on, on horse
welfare, but I personally believe it.
If they're that interested in
horse welfare, they wouldn't
have us do that part of the race.
And they say that the gauchos
ride across there all the time
or whatever, but it, yeah, it was
not, I didn't think it was cool.
It was quite the adventure,
but it wasn't cool.
Rupert Isaacson: I should imagine that
if you're a gaucho from the area, you
also probably can read the terrain in
certain ways and stay out of those.
I mean, I remember when I was a boy
young man hunting in places like
Dartmoor in the UK, which had rock scree.
He's bogs and the bogs
can swallow a horse.
You wouldn't think of riding that at
that speed without a guide, you know,
you would have someone in front of you
cause otherwise, so I could imagine that
if, you know, if gauchos are riding that
all the time, they, and we're sort of
grown up to and brought up to that type
of terrain, they could probably read it
better than we could just going in there.
Now some people might think, I
mean, listening to this Here we are
on Equine Assisted World, and here
we are talking about, you know,
a sort of epic adventure trip.
What has that got to do
with Equine Assisted stuff?
As a lot of people know who know
my story, I did ride across a big
chunk of Mongolia with my son, and we
came back, both of us, very changed.
From that experience and I had all
sorts of self doubt all the way as to
whether or not I should be doing this
or perhaps I needed to abandon it or
whatever But at the end of the day when
we were about a third of the way in,
I don't think either of us would have
wanted to abandon the experience of being
in that kind of unchanged ecosystem and
the effect that that sort of nature and
the deep reliance one has with one's
horse in a place like that and with
the community of people around you.
That that in itself was extremely healing,
and I think that that's kind of what we're
all trying to touch to some degree when
we're working with equine assisted stuff.
We're trying to touch that
irrational, shamanic heart of what
horses do for humans in nature.
And it's going to happen better in
nature than it will in an arena, just
because an arena is a human environment,
a slightly sterile environment
designed for a particular purpose.
But planet Earth and an adventure
across planet Earth with a horse, of
course, is a whole other adventure.
What would you say psychologically,
emotionally changed in you
at the end of that trip?
And at what point in the trip did
you sense those changes happening?
Warwick Schiller: Well, I, you know,
I was raised to be very obedient.
And follow the rules.
And so I'm a, I'm a rule follower and
they had a lot of rules and regulations.
And, you know, one of the things
was you've got to have your
tracker on headquarters needs to
know where you are at all times.
Very, very important, you know?
And then when my tracker was playing up.
And they said they were going to
replace it, but it didn't seem like
it was a big deal to replace it.
Like every VetCheck I got to, no one knew,
you know, I'd been talking to headquarters
about getting this tracker replaced.
And every time I got to another one
of the race organizers at a VetCheck
or something or other, they didn't
seem to know anything about it.
And so I was getting rather disillusioned
in the fact that the, the people running
the race telling you, they've got to have,
you know, you've got to follow the rules.
But then they didn't, they kind of
didn't, weren't following the rules
and, and it kind of, you know, there
must, there must be a small child part
of me that, that kind of offended.
And so I, I I had some anger at some
people and, and had a few, had a few
outbursts, which I don't normally do.
And I feel like I actually shed a heavy
weight that had been carrying most
of my life, which was some sort of.
Unexpressed anger and you know, I've
been, I've been on quite a journey
trying to get back into my body, you
know, being shut down most of my life
and stuck in my head and not in my body.
And I've done, you know, I've done
some, a lot of therapy, I've done
quite a few plant medicine journeys and
they've helped a little bit, but nothing
made as big a change as actually this
outward expression of anger on this.
On this ride.
So it was actually quite good.
And at the time I was, you know,
the, the, the organization of it was,
their communication was not good.
And it was quite frustrating for
me and quite a few other people.
And I was quite bitter almost to the,
actually till the end of the race.
And then I started looking at it
differently and I started thinking about.
I've just had this big emotional
breakthrough that I've been
trying to find for years.
Why would I be bitter at the people
that, that actually caused it to happen?
You know, so I was actually quite thankful
that their, their organization was a bit
In shambles because of it, you know, I
was thinking this race was going to break
me, but I thought it was going to break me
physically and I held up physically great.
And so by the end of the race, I
got to thinking, well, if these
people, you know, had their act
together, as far as organizing.
I wouldn't have got anything out of the
race except an adventure, but because of,
you know, all this, this organizational
mess ups, there was a lot of them.
It wasn't just that one I was
talking about, but there was one
after another, after another, that
just caused me a lot of frustration.
If they hadn't, you know, if they
hadn't been disorganized like
that, I wouldn't have actually had
this emotional breakthrough that
I've been looking for for years.
So yeah, it was, it was quite interesting.
It was, it was almost like having a,
like a 10 year perspective change.
Every second day, it was,
it was, it was quite cool
Rupert Isaacson: in terms of, you
know, outbursts of anger, of course,
you know, can be destructive and
outbursts of anger can be cathartic.
Bitterness, as we know, is usually
destructive and self destructive.
We carry bitterness.
It's usually destroys us.
Do you think you've
been carrying bitterness
for some decades?
And what was it about the outbursts,
these particular outbursts?
that allowed them to be cathartic
and not self destructive or
destructive to the people around you?
Like, what was the difference?
Warwick Schiller: From
my end or from their end?
Rupert Isaacson: Start with yourself, you
can only see things for your own lens.
Warwick Schiller: Well, one of the, one
of the organizers that I, that I was
quite angry with was, You've met her,
Stevie Della Hunt, you would have met
her at the podcast summit last year.
So she's a, she's a friend of mine.
She's the one that got me into
the race in the first place.
And she now crews for the race.
And one of the things I've always,
you know, I've always had problems
with boundaries with friends.
So if a friend of mine did something
that I wasn't terribly happy with,
instead of actually having a boundary
and saying, Hey, that's not cool.
I'd probably kind of withdraw
from the friendship and, you
know, basically not say anything.
So for me to actually.
Have an outburst to a friend and
not really care what, how they not
really care if I offended them.
So this is not a screw you sort of an
outburst, but it's a, I have a boundary.
And.
I don't care if you're a friend of
mine, I'm going to tell you about it.
For me, that was, that's something
I've never, never really done before.
So, you know, I was kind of
like, who the hell are you?
Like talking to myself sort of thing.
And then Stevie, because she understands
the nature of these races, how it
actually, how they affect people.
Cause she cruised the Mongol
Derby and the Gaucho Derby.
She's raced both of them.
Now she cruised both of them.
And she's seen it all before.
So while I was going off at her, she just
looked at me and she goes, you know what,
when you've crewed these races enough, you
just let all this stuff bounce off you.
You know, like she, and we talked about it
afterwards and she was totally good with
it, but she totally gets that, that these
races will, these adventure races will
push your buttons a little bit.
And she realizes that it's
got nothing to do with her.
And, and so, yeah, she was cool with it.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, it's
interesting what it makes me sound like is
you sound in a, in a macrocosmically way.
In that moment, a bit like many of
the autistic children that I would
work with who might melt down in the
course of playdates that we might be
doing in nature or camps that we might
do because their nervous systems are
jangled and their amygdala is overactive.
And we, because we expect it,
because we're ready for it,
because we are empathetic with
it, we know why it's happening.
We hang with it and we
don't withdraw love.
And we understand and we get it
and we'll change something if,
if we get a clear enough message
that we need to change something.
But what that seems to breed, of course,
is a lot of trust and then it seems that
the child or the person that we're working
with, who perhaps has not been heard
before, who's been over, over directed,
over therapised, over bossed about.
You know, as happens to special
needs kids a lot, suddenly goes, Oh
my gosh, like if I, if I communicate
something to these people, they
will listen, they will hear me.
And they also won't be freaked
out by my outburst and they will
go with me to the next phase.
Do you feel that something
like that happened within you?
And was that a you to you
thing, like you and your inner
child kind of thing together?
You say things change for you and
obviously your friend Stevie heard
you and said what she said But still
the process for you is mostly internal
Can you
do you feel you matured
in some way emotionally?
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, I feel like I
let go of some stuck energy that has
been there since childhood You know, we
were raised to be quite emotionless, you
know, you can't be You certainly can't be
sad, but you almost can't be too happy.
And you can't be too loud
and don't slam the door.
And, and that especially you
can't talk back to your parents.
You can't say, you know, you
can't really have boundaries.
You got to do what you're
told sort of thing.
And I, I just feel like
there was some stuck.
There was some stuck anger in there at,
you know, maybe some injustices sort of
thing that, you know, That yeah, it's
no, they're no longer there anymore.
And it's interesting.
I rode the race with Kansas Carradine.
So you met Kansas at the
podcast summit last year.
Kansas is on the race with me.
And she was, she did a zoom call, I
think maybe before the, after the race,
I think, nothing to do with the race.
It was about heart math stuff, but
something she said in there is, is.
Unexpressed anger or anger turned
inward lodges in the body is depression.
I never thought of that, you know,
I've suffered from depression in the
past and I never thought of that.
And, you know, one part of depression is
you have a suppressed, emotional range.
And I feel like I have a lot of access,
a lot more access to emotions than
I ever did since, since the race.
And so it's, it's almost like
that unexpressed anger has
been dampening my emotions.
And after I basically got it off my
chest, now the things can actually work.
So it's, it was, It was,
it was really interesting.
Like I said, because I thought that the, I
thought my breaking point on the race was
going to be at some point in time, like
I'm just so sore or tired or whatever.
I just can't ride another
step or take another step.
And I'm going to throw myself on
the ground and scream and cry.
Say I can't do it.
And then I'm going to sit up and look
around and I'm going to go, well,
I'm in the middle of Patagonia and
no one's going to come rescue me.
I just got to get my ass up
off the ground and go again.
That didn't happen.
I mean, I wasn't sore.
I wasn't tired.
By about day four or something or
other, I would wake up in the morning.
I kind of look at myself
like you're not sore.
You're not tired.
You know, you're not rubbed all, all
the, all the physical things that
I thought Was going to be an issue.
We're not, we're not an issue
Rupert Isaacson: since you
got back and you had that
cathartic Series of outbursts.
Are you expressing anger more?
Are you having more outbursts
or do you feel that's something
that's moved through you?
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, well, it
wasn't just the it wasn't just anger.
There was some anger but You know,
the first, I'd been trying to get
a new tracker for several days and
headquarters had said, Oh yeah.
And the next vet check
there'll be a tracker.
And I get there and they go,
have you got a tracker for me?
I'm like, no.
And so I was getting frustrated with that.
But then when I was crossing the plateau
of death and my tracker went off, I
wasn't worried about having a tracker.
I was worried about having a tracker
because the rules say I'm supposed to
have a tracker, you know, but then when
I realized that my wife at home tracking
me didn't know if I was alive or dead,
then I was pretty worried about that.
So the next vet check I got to, I said,
you guys have got a tracker for me?
And they said, no.
And so then I had like an angry outburst,
but I was crying at the same time.
And something I, Don't
typically do is cry.
I've had therapists trying
to get me to cry for years
and it doesn't really happen.
I was crying like, you know, so I
was, I was angry, but it wasn't just
vengeance and behemoth, that was emotion.
And then, yeah.
And when we got to the end of
the race, cause you know, there's
40 people on the race, I think
22 actually finished the race.
But when you get to the end of the race,
you're at finish camp for a day or so.
And a lot of times you haven't
seen these people since the start
because the race gets all spread out.
And anybody I talk to about that,
when I would tell them the story
about, you know, I was worried my wife
didn't know if I was alive or dead,
I'd be crying while I was doing it.
So I was crying four or five times a
day, if not five or six times a day.
And I don't cry.
And so, yeah, it just seemed like
it, it's not an anger thing as in,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
Warwick Schiller: I'm now angry.
It's just, I'm now, I, I now
am quite a bit more emotional.
Which is good because I've been, you know,
trying to get that stuff working for, for
quite a long time and it just, you know,
like I said, it made me think when Kansas
said that thing that unexpressed anger
turned inward, turns into depression.
And so, yeah, so it's, yeah, it
was, it was a, it was a great
kickstart to get me to go on.
And then my wife and I.
Our 30th wedding anniversary was just
after that, and we actually were, had
planned to go to Bali to this yoga
retreat for our 30th wedding anniversary.
And then it turned out that Robin
said, well, you don't want to fly back
to America from South America because
then you're going to fly all the
way to, to Australia to get to Bali.
So I actually flew from South America
to Australia, Robin met me there,
and then we went to Bali for a week.
And the yoga retreat there.
You know, we had these circles every
morning where you sit around and talk
about things and you know, I think outta
the five days we were there, I think
three of the days when I shared in that
sharing circle, I bawled my eyes out too,
which was, you know, it was something
that I've been trying to get that stuff
to work for quite a while and now, and
now, now the real work begins because
now I actually have these emotions.
Now I've gotta to, to
learn to work with 'em.
You know, first of it's getting the
first part's, getting the unstuck
happening and now, and that's been.
Quite a long time, but now that I'm
unstuck, now I've got things to work on.
Rupert Isaacson: You're doing
retreats at your place now
this must be informing those.
Tell us about the retreats you're doing.
Warwick Schiller: Well, the
retreats we're doing here are
called connection and attunement,
connection and attunement retreats.
And they you know, they're for people
who follow what I do with the horses, but
it's, it's basically a horseless clinic.
And it's really about the, the
details of connection and attunement.
Related to horses and
also related to self.
So Robin does a lot of work on
nervous system regulation with the
people and I do a lot of stuff about
the small details about how attunement
And connection helps with the horses,
you know, a lot, most behavioral
issues with a horse are because the
horse is in a dysregulated nervous
system while someone's trying to teach
them something and it's, it's about
how that connection and attunement
regulates that nervous system.
So they're in that ventral vagal state.
And,
you know, and then they're open to,
open to suggestion, but it's also
when you, when you go through that
sort of process with a horse and you
start to see that, Oh, the reason they
were doing these things is not because
they were being a butthead, like I
thought in the past, but it's because.
I wasn't paying attention
to the little things.
I wasn't letting them know,
I see these little things.
I wasn't attuned to them.
Once you see that, then once people see
that, then they tend to be able to take
that mindset into their training as well.
So the, you know, it almost, it's almost
like a mental reset about, about horses.
And what I've been talking about
a lot is, I've been quoting you
actually, you know, when you first
came to my podcast and you're talking
about hunter gatherers, how they.
You know, we come from a hierarchy type
society where you have kings and queens
and popes and bishops and prime ministers
and presidents and all that sort of thing.
And you were saying that if a, you know,
if a documentary film crew goes to film,
you know, some hunter gatherers, one guy
comes out of the tribe and he talks to
the documentary film crew and we tend
to think that he's the chief, whereas
he's just the best person for the job.
So then I go on and explain
that horses are the same,
horses are the same way.
It's not the hierarchy
that we thought it was.
It's, it's a collaborative.
And I had a a lady on the
podcast named Kelly Wendorf.
So she has a place in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, and she's known as the CEO shaman,
and she does a lot of equine assisted.
learning stuff with a lot of times
with, with like the C suite type
people, CEO type things, and she uses
indigenous wisdom and horse wisdom to
teach the lesson she's trying to teach.
And she talks about horse herds, things
being, you know, like she says that the
horses are always testing the leader.
Always testing the leader to see do
you still, she talks about care a lot.
She says that they're not testing because
I want to overthrow the government.
They're testing to see, do you still care?
Do you still, do you still have what it
takes to be the best person for that job?
And if you're not the best horse for that
job, we will remove you, but not remove
you as in, we're trying to overthrow you.
We're trying to help everybody out.
And if you need care, we will remove
you from that leadership position
and we will provide care for you.
And she talks about, it's not
about power over, it's care for.
And so I've been talking about that quite
a bit in these retreats, because if you,
if an, if you have an interaction with
a horse and you think that interaction
is about power over that horse, like
being the boss, rather than expressing
care for that horse, you could do
the same thing physically, but have
a different internal energy about it.
If you think you're
doing it to be the boss.
Or if you think, or if you're doing
it because you're, you care and you're
trying to help, it can come across
completely differently, posturally
and energetically, even though you're,
you're kind of doing the same thing.
It's, it's your perspective on
why you're doing that thing.
You're, you're trying to help.
You're not trying to, you're
not trying to control the horse.
You're not trying to subdue behavior.
You're trying to help.
And I think when you have that, that
come from that position of care.
It makes things, makes everything
you do totally different.
Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
I mean, I think, I think that, you know,
back to your experience on the Derby or
my experiences growing up with hunting,
but, you know, it's an extreme way to ride
where you, you actually start relying on
the horse to look after you and if you
don't have that relationship with the
horse, you can have very bad accidents.
I mean, you can have them anyway, but
you're going to certainly much more
likely to, if you don't have that, what
you would call attunement That this
is something which, of course, used
to be built in, to some degree, with
traditional schools of horsemanship,
just because we lived on horses.
for long periods of our lives.
And now we don't.
Now we go and either use them
in our minds or work with them
or train them or something.
But if you break that down to actual
hours per month that you know, one is
spending with the horse, it's not that
many compared to how it used to be.
And yeah, if you're.
Crossing Patagonia routinely living
on your horse or Mongolia, or even in
the old English fox hunting world or
whatever you're spending, you know,
significant chunks of your life on
individual horses with individual horses.
And that attunement, unless you
actively block it, is going to
happen because nervous system to
nervous system is going to happen.
And this, of course, has been very
helpful for me with the work that
I do with autism and other things.
And that I.
Do you have the mindset of I'm
really relying on the horse and my
when I'm telling someone like dude,
you know, I need you now and but I
know that that's a contract where
I must take care of him or her.
And if the horse doesn't regard me in
that light that they they have that
innate sense of fairness, as you know,
you know, well, no, why would I I
don't have that relationship with you.
And it's interesting when
you were talking about the.
anger outbursts that you were having in
and getting unstuck that way in Patagonia.
What came into my mind instinctively
listening to you was a little
boy saying, it's unfair.
And I have that, it's unfair
little boy inside me too.
I also, you know, grew up with quite a
lot of sit down and shut up and, you know,
and I often didn't shut up and then I
paid the price for it which wasn't fair.
And so I have this.
Big thing is happy.
It's not fair, you know, and if
I'm been drinking or something
like that that can come out of me.
So
Dysfunctionally, but what it really comes
down to I think it's a kind of grief yeah,
the you know, you're you're a small child
and you come into the world with an open
heart and you're suddenly treated in a
way that's both brutal and unfair and
You cannot not be happy react to that.
And then over decades, this
builds and builds and builds.
But the anger and the desire to rebel and
is partly to restore a broken self
respect, which is really a sort of grief
for that child being robbed of love.
I think, I think sort of, it
really comes down to this.
And I think most of us in our
culture to some degree suffer from
this male or female, no matter
what generation we come from.
So.
What you are talking about there in
those retreats that you're doing, you
know, post this un unstuck unsticking
experience, which is very therapeutic and
cathartic is what you call attunement.
Now, here's a question.
If you have been shut down for
so long in your life, what has
allowed you to become the Mr.
Attuned horsemanship dude?
How can you attune to anything?
If you're emotionally shut down, grieving,
it's only what allows you to attune to
either a horse or anyone, anything else?
Warwick Schiller: Well, I don't think I've
been the best at attuning to people, but
with the horses, I think it's really good.
Become obvious to me just recently,
you know, it's been 20 years coming,
but I've just recently realized
that horse is not being listened to.
I realized I have the chance.
And this is just recently come to
me, I have the chance to listen
to them like I wasn't listened to.
And it's, it's almost like you get
to, you do that for another sentient
being to which wasn't done for you.
And this has been like post post gaucho
derby thoughts, but the, you know, talking
about the, the out, outbursts, I just want
to make sure that they, they weren't just
anger, they were anger and, and emotion.
Like I was.
I was mostly crying while I was angry.
It wasn't like, it wasn't
furious rage anger.
It was kind of frustration, but there's
a lot of crying that went along with it.
But as far as the attunement
thing, I, I think.
You know, I've been quite empathetic to
horses plights for quite a long time.
And, and, you know, the more you
understand the nervous system
and stuff, the better you get
at helping them with that.
But I do think that, well, one of
the, you know, one of the things about
being shut down is you can be quite
emotionless about training horses.
So it's, it, it can be, it can be helpful.
Like you don't get mad, you don't
get sad, you don't get happy.
You just.
You, you can kind of
be that, that baseline.
But I do think looking back, the reason
I've pursued the, the path I have with
horses all the way along is because
I think I understand what
it's like to not be heard.
And I have the chance to,
you know, like I said, help
another sentient being be heard.
You know, it's almost like with, like
if you've ever done any, like in a child
work, it's, it's go back and you go back
and you, you get to be the parent that you
never had or the adult that you never had.
And it's almost like the, with the
horses, you, you, if you're working
with horses with some trauma, which
most have, you're kind of going back
and being the human they should, you
wish they'd had in the first place.
Rupert Isaacson: I could get that.
It's interesting.
I think when I'm working with
kids like my son,
I think for me, there's
a lot of that going on.
Oh, I I would like them to feel heard
in a way that I wasn't I would like for
them to have experiences with adults
that are empathetic like I didn't
have, you know, I would like them to
feel free to express joy in magic
and wonder without being laughed at.
In fact, being, you know, celebrated
and encouraged to do that, all of these
things, which people who went through
the sorts of childhood that your I
would have gone through didn't have.
And I yeah, so I think it's useful
sometimes to have that grieving in a child
inside one to say, well, I don't want to,
I don't want you to have to have that.
So now I know what that is.
I know what the opposite of that is.
So let's go to the opposite of that.
And of course this does.
help our own inner child immensely.
To be able to give that
to somebody else in the retreats
that you're doing I'm going to
go to your attunement and how
actually it does cross over quite
interestingly into the horse boy.
And movement method work that we do.
And, and it's come, come
clear actually quite recently
in the last couple of weeks.
I want to talk to this
about this in a minute.
But the work that you're doing
in the Retreats you're talking
about nervous system work.
What do you think is the bottom line?
Nervous system intel
that anybody who's working in a training
or educational Sphere so that could
be therapeutic writing that could
be equine assisted stuff that could
just be straight up course training
That could just be a school teacher
What's the bottom line one two three?
In your opinion, from the nervous system
point of view, that we should all know,
Warwick Schiller: I would say that
attunement I would say that, you
know, getting the horse or the
human you're working with into
that, that ventral vagal state.
So that feeling of connection
and safety, that's the big thing
is feeling safe, feeling safe.
I really, it all comes down to feeling
safe when you're in that ventral
vagal tone, you, you, you, you.
You feel, you feel safe, but it's,
you know, it's not, it's not that
you're trying to get them in that
ventral vagal tone because you've
got to be in ventral vagal tone.
Really.
I think it's really about safety.
And the other day I was just at a
horse expo in Minnesota on the weekend
presenting there, and I was talking
about, you know, when you, when you
work with people who have horses.
90 percent of the people
you're working with are women.
And I'm always trying to think
of analogies to get them to
understand things better.
Excuse me.
And I was saying the other day, I
said, you know, try to put, trying to
put yourself in your horse's shoes.
And I said, all you women here, women have
it, have it different than men because
men don't go through life every second
of the day, worried about their safety.
Whereas women do.
And I said, horses do too.
And so that You know, I think that feeling
of safety is the most important part.
Then you're able to take in,
you know, you're able to take in
information, whether it's a horse,
you know, you're trying to teach a
horse something, or it's a teacher
trying to teach kids something.
So not only do they feel safe,
but they feel safe with the
teacher, not just they feel safe.
And then there's this person over there
who's trying to tell me something, but
that person makes them feel safe.
Rupert Isaacson: How do we make
the horse or the person feel safe?
Warwick Schiller: I'm not so good with the
people I can tell you about the horses.
Well, if you think about a horse's,
a horse's sense of safety comes from
being with their herd mates, but
it's not a physical sense of safety.
It's not the herd mates, you know,
two of the herd mates go to martial
arts classes on a Wednesday night.
And if, if danger comes along,
they're going to karate kick
him in the side of the head.
It's the group awareness of the herd.
So that they can, you
know, be relaxed and alert.
But you know, if I miss something, one
of these other guys will alert me and
they will alert me through changes in
energy and posture, you know, all the
horses are grazing, their heads are down.
So their, their posture's relaxed and
their energy's low and they're grazing.
And one pops his head up to look
at something in case it's a danger.
His posture changes
and his energy changes.
And that.
Postural and energy change
ripples through the whole herd.
And pretty soon they're
all got their heads up.
Like what's that thing over there.
And then the one who looked at that thing,
if he goes, Oh no, I think it's okay.
And his posture and energy changes again.
So his head goes down, his body,
his energy gets relaxed again.
That'll ripple through the herd too.
So that's, for me, that's the, that's
sentient being who can provide that.
And I really feel that helping
people be aware of their energy and
their posture while they're around.
Four or five hundred kilo
animal that's for me, that's,
that's the equine assisted work.
I'm not trying to do
equine assisted therapy.
You know, with equine assisted
therapy, people come to a therapist
and the therapist says, your
therapy is going to include a horse.
I come in from the back end.
People come to me, they want help
with their horses, but in order to
get help with their horses, they
need to start being more self aware.
More aware of their posture, more
aware of their energy so they can
communicate that awareness to a horse.
That's what makes a horse feel safe is,
is when you can communicate your awareness
both of self and of the environment
and, and subtle changes in the horses.
I really feel like that's the, that's
the beginning point right there.
But a lot of times people cannot,
you know, they're not, they're
not very aware of their energy.
All their posture while
they're around the horse.
And so the first step is they've
got to get to where they,
they're a bit more self aware.
And so that's where, you know, that's,
that's where the, the people really
get quite a bit of benefit out of
it, even though I'm just trying
to help them train their horse.
Rupert Isaacson: You know,
it's, it's an interesting thing.
One of the
things about horse environments, horsey
environments that I hadn't really
noticed until I began working with.
autism and other vulnerable
communities was the body
language of most horsey people.
And I was brought up to walk quickly on
the yard to brush briskly the horse to
brush the concrete with the broom briskly
to kind of go double speed everywhere.
I didn't do that.
I was going to get yelled at.
And this is just within a normal context.
And then of course, when you're being
taught to ride, you're voiceless.
You mustn't talk to the
teacher, but you also don't not
supposed to talk to your horse.
And
of course, horsey people and horse
yards are quite intimidating places
for non horsey people to be in.
And often I would hear people
say, well, you know, you guys are
all just so harsh all the time.
And I think, are we?
I don't know.
And only when I started
seeing it through the lens of.
An autistic person did I realize?
Oh, my gosh.
Yes.
It's not safe environment at all, unless
you kind of are motivated to be there.
And even if you are, it's still not safe.
It's just that you're willing to put up
with the unsafeness in order to scratch
your horsey itch or gain the information
that you want to gain from this trainer.
And you'll endure, you know, it.
Being mistreated to some degree.
And I thought, well,
where does this come from?
Like, why?
Why do we have this in, in
horsey culture in the West?
And then I read, well, of
course, it's from the military.
That pretty much all of the horse
culture that we've inherited through
our associations, through the pony
clubs, well, this is all being run from,
by ex cavalry officers through the,
sort of, 1849 military light cavalry
manuals that, you know, circulated.
And they're basically the same, no
matter what country you look at.
And what you were trying to do, of
course, was to create young recruits who
would be drilled to be inured to a large
degree of stress and being shouted at so
that they would follow orders in battle.
And when there were explosions going
off and people shouting everywhere and
screaming, they could keep their focus
on, you know, what was in front of them.
Because I went to a military school
where of course people were drilled
and screamed at all the time.
And when the sergeant gets right
in your face and screams at you and
you mustn't flinch and you mustn't
cry, why are they doing that?
Well, they're doing that because
the idea is one of these days you're
going to have to go running into
enemy fire and you've got to be
the emotionless person doing that.
But of course it's a miracle really
that horses have put up with this.
Over the years, but they have.
But for really, really vulnerable
people, they just can't.
And so for a lot of our trainings,
when I'm trying to get people
to create an environment that
will work for special needs.
It's like, well, it's not just the.
It's the physical environment, it's
the human environment, it's that body
language, that shoulders forward, brisk
walking, bop bop bop barking voice,
it's got to go while those people are in
the yard because otherwise you're just
going to make them feel unsafe and the
amygdala's going to get depressed and they
can't, the nervous system's going to shut
down, they won't be able to do anything.
But it was only when I had to
see through that lens of sort
of my son that it really hit me.
I haven't noticed, I
was so ignorant to it.
Do you find that there is self
awareness about this unsafe way of
being permeating sort of through
the horse people that you work with?
And do you feel that
there's a change in that culture?
What do you observe?
Because you're sort of
at the forefront of it.
You're getting quite a lot of
conscious riders and horse people
coming to your clinics, people who
get attracted to the Warwick Schiller.
Thing they're not you know,
they're not trying to use force.
That's why they come That's why they're
attracted to what you do in the first
place But I'm sure for a lot of people
there's still it's still a journey
into how to make The environment safe.
What are like the five
tips that you give people?
Physical environment emotional
environment body posture to say look
here's some easy rules to follow
do this do this do this and do this
Warwick Schiller: I'll answer that in a
second, but I was thinking about something
a minute ago when you were talking about
Rowan, and there's an old Ray Hunt saying
that says, you, about mules, and it says
you have to treat a mule like you should
treat a horse, and you were talking about
the way you, the way you were raised.
And then that wouldn't
work for an autistic kid.
It's almost like you have to
treat an autistic child like you
should treat every other child.
Rupert Isaacson: That's very, very,
Warwick Schiller: very,
that's very good, Warwick.
But the every other child
will put up with it.
Like horses will, but mules won't.
Rupert Isaacson: And
Warwick Schiller: so like the saying says,
or the other saying about mules is mules
are like, just like horses, only more so.
And, but I was thinking of when
you're talking about Rowan and about
how you grew up, I was thinking,
yeah, horses will put up with a
lot of stuff, but mules won't and
the neurotypical people will put up a
lot of stuff, but autistic people won't,
you really, it, it, that obedience.
Thing won't work for them.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Warwick Schiller: it will
be extremely problematic
And so you have to, you
have to attune to them.
You don't have to attune to,
and you're a typical kid.
We can, we can kind of get by until
later on in life when you realize,
boy, I got some messed up stuff.
Where did it come from?
But I think with.
You know,
autistic children, you probably
have to, you have to be attuned.
And I remember telling you after
watching the, after watching the
Horseboy movie, I said, you get father
of the year award, like wherever
Rowan went, you just went with him.
You know, there's a, there's a thing I'll
do with horses that are not when they're
anxious, but if they kind of had enough
of people and they kind of rejecting you
a little bit and they kind of walk away
where you just match steps and you just,
you just go, you, you act like you're
another horse and you're a herd of horses
and they're, they're leading the thing and
you just kind of match steps with them.
And it's almost like you did that with,
with, with Rowan, you know, I think he
said that, that Temple Grandin told you
just follow him wherever he goes, just
follow him as long as he's not going to.
fall off a cliff or something
or other just follow him.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Is that, is that the advice that you give?
Warwick Schiller: Well, the, the, probably
the, the first advice I give is try
to get people to understand that any
behavioral problem you have with your
horse is because they don't feel safe.
You know, it's, it's always because they
don't feel safe, whether they don't feel
safe in the environment, or they don't
feel safe with you, or they don't feel
safe with you asking them to think, to do
the thing that you're asking them to do.
But if you look at it from a different
perspective, you know, if you don't
look at it as in they're objectionable
or they're being belligerent or
whatever, but you look at it from a,
they don't feel safe, then you get a
bit of a different perspective on the.
on the whole thing.
And, you know, that's usually
when I'll talk about that care
for versus power over dynamic.
I think, and then the other
thing I talk about is trying
to communicate your awareness.
As much as you can, you know, like
even, even brushing a horse, if you
are aware of their eyes and their ears
and their muzzle, and as you start
brushing, if their thoughts change one
way or the other, it doesn't matter,
up, down, left, right, towards you,
away from you, it doesn't matter.
You can pause each time there's
a change in their focus.
After a while they get to realize,
You are noticing my changes in focus.
So it's just a really,
really communicate your awareness.
I mean, that's their stock in trade.
And then, and communicating that
awareness is what's makes, what
makes them feel safe around you.
They're like, Oh, you noticed that
you noticed that you noticed that.
And that's something that they're really
simple little things to do, but they,
they make a huge difference on the
nervous system of a horse that's wired
to keep an eye out for danger, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Right.
Because by you noticing what they notice.
But not reacting to it as if
it is danger, you behave like
a caring member of the herd.
Warwick Schiller: Right.
Got it.
And, you know, and, and sometimes just
doing those things are very helpful for
the people, for the human, you know,
like just, you know, I remember when
I first started going to therapy, I
was doing this group therapy and, and
that we would have homework each week.
And one of the homeworks was.
Mindfulness practices, but one of the
mindfulness practices was sit and observe
an animal, whether you, your dog or your
cat, let's say your cat's laying on the
windowsill and the sun is shining through
the window, look at the sun illuminating
each of those individual hairs of the cat,
Rupert Isaacson: you
Warwick Schiller: know, just
something like that, when you're that
aware of little things your horse
is doing when you're around them.
It's a mindfulness practice in
itself, as long as you can observe
it, but not judge it, you know,
like, Oh, he's looking over there.
One, if it scares him and he jumps
on my toe and then, Oh my God,
I've already got an ingrown toenail
and I'll have to go to the doctor.
Which doctor will I go to?
Oh, you know what?
Is that one really good one?
My friend has, and he's really good
with ingrown toenails and broken toes
from, you know, like your mind can
just get carried away with things.
So being able to observe
things without judging.
necessarily creating a story about what
you're observing is a skill too, because
as soon as started creating that story, I
mean, horses can basically read your mind.
They know when you're present,
they know when you're not.
And as soon as you start down
that, all those, what ifs, they
can tell you're not present.
And that, you know, I think they're
just so good at reading energy.
And there's an, I think there's an
energy that comes off us when we're
not present, when we're in our head.
I think they can really
detect all of that stuff.
And when you, You know, when you
help people to be able to get
present around their horses and they
see the difference it makes in the
horse, they kind of, you know, and,
and yeah, it's a real eye opener.
And the thing I'm trying to
do these days is like at horse
expos or whatever, is try to
try to get the people watching
the demonstration or whatever to
have one of those moments to where
there's a truth that they've had.
About horses in their mind all their life
and you can you can bust that truth You
can have them go and see that thing with a
completely different perspective And then,
then you just set them free and let them
go home because I tell you what happens
is once, once you have that perspective
change about a deeply held, long held
truth, and then it gets busted and you
can see it completely differently, then
you start to question, well, what else
do I think is a truth that might not be?
And then, so the horses is the, for
me, the horses is the place to get
those people to have a different
perspective on a long held truth.
And once they see that one and see how
different the horses are, then they
start to question other aspects of their
life, whether it's their, you know,
some of their societal conditioning
or cultural conditioning or religious
conditioning or whatever it is, then
they start to, it almost puts them
on the path of being a bit of a truth
seeker or a different truth seeker.
Rupert Isaacson: It's an interesting
one for me because horses can bring up
obviously the best in us in so many ways.
And obviously it can be so
therapeutic, but it's also a fact that
psychopathic human atrocity has
been perpetuated through horses
for many thousands of years.
Most of the histories of conquest,
genocide, think of Genghis
Khan, Tamerlane, think of the
conquest of the American West.
Think of the great wrong, many of
the great wrongs have been done,
you know, conquistadors and so on,
crusades, all on the back of a horse.
And.
The horse being this kind of innocent
in the thing he will lend you it will
lend you its power you can use it for
good or ill that you can get in your
car and you can drive into a crowd
of people or you could be the person
driving up in your car after someone
has done that and put those people in
your car and drive them to hospital.
That's up to you how you use your car,
but the car will allow itself to be used
in a relatively innocent way either way.
And I think this has certainly been true
of horses and horses give us power, right?
They make us bigger,
smarter, more beautiful.
When we just get off them, we
go back to being monkeys again.
But while we're joined to a horse, we
get lent this power and this beauty.
And we can obviously fall into
the illusion that this is our
own power and beauty rather than
something that's been lent to us.
And we know what power
does to the human mind.
So it's interesting to me that I've
often thought about this that, you
know, for example, with the way we're
training horses with horseboy work
is we have, the horse has to be able
to collect softly because otherwise
the person on their back can't relax
their psoas muscle inside their hip.
And if they can't relax their
psoas muscle, they can't
rock their hips in rhythm.
With the horse's rhythm and get
this oxytocin effect that will
not only calm the nervous system,
but is the communication hormone.
So that's why we train
the horses to do this.
So the, the system that we're using
is of course, the age old, old
master system, which has been used
over the centuries for this cavalry.
thing, which has of course been
used to harm our fellow man, but we
can use it to heal our fellow man.
If that's just up to us, your
attunement thing carries into
this in a really interesting way.
So I was in the last week in Ireland and
we have some projects happening there.
And I was with an occupational therapist
and Warwick Schiller, a attuned
horsemanship person called Liana Tank,
who I met at The Longing and Belonging
Workshop that I did with Jane Pike at
your place last year in California.
And I don't know if you remember
because we were all sitting under
the tree when we were going around
with our stories about what we did.
And she said, well, I work with
the criminally insane schizophrenic
and also people with autism
who've sort of fallen into.
That part of the system and perhaps
shouldn't and really people who've done
really, really, really, really gruesome
things and that you would think that
this would not allow you to be able to
empathize with somebody like this, but in
fact where their brain had gone in that.
moment they were not themselves.
They come around afterwards and
they're shocked at what they've done.
They're not psychopaths.
They're, it's just another
personality that took them over.
And what do you do with
somebody like this?
You know, do you just withdraw love
forever and stick them in a hole
or there they are, they've got to
go through the rest of their lives.
And somebody like her is
in the front line of this.
And there I am at your place Warwick,
you know, and So, she's helping us now
getting some of these new projects,
some of which have some very, very
difficult clientele going in Ireland.
And I said what, what is it, Leanna,
that has allowed you to take this
ultra empathetic and actually
very effective approach with this
population that you're working with?
Because she's been having really
great success as these people are
rehabilitating into to some degree
and able to produce art and, you know,
find, find meaning and, and so on.
And she said, Oh, it's the attuned
horsemanship of Warwick Schuller.
And I said, go on.
And she said, well, when I was
doing Warwick Schuller's stuff,
I had to quiet my mind and quiet
my judgment to follow the horse.
mentally and emotionally in the
same way that you, Rupert, talk
about following the child, you know,
with the, with the autism work.
And she said, you know,
I, I, after a while I got
good at it because I started
getting feedback from my horse
that was more and more positive.
So I kept doing it more and more.
She said, I wasn't really aware of it
at the time, but I started doing this
with the people I was working with.
I started attuning to them.
And then I'd find myself with people who
are often violent or, often acting out in
some way or other and they just weren't
and suddenly we were painting together
or able to go into nature together and
notice the stars or notice the trees
or and begin with this and then piece
together conversation and healing starts
to take place and she attributes quite
a lot of that to learning the attuned
horsemanship and then that coming back
to her relationship with people and then
it went a step further And she said,
you know, one of the difficulties is
that, you know, we're working in these
institutions where people are underpaid,
people are undervalued the work is
incredibly difficult and quite scary.
The environment is depressing and
she's supposed to keep these people,
you know, professionally up to par.
And she, again, she said that the
attunement work that she got through
working with your attuned horsemanship
was helping her to attune to the people,
the groups of people she was training.
Empathize better and lead
them to better results.
And that was interesting.
I didn't, I didn't expect her to say that.
And I want, I just wanted you to know
that, that there's someone taking
what you've been showing with horses
and your quest for your own self
attainment, perhaps through horses.
So yeah, you're shut down towards
people, but not towards horses.
And then that maybe helps you get
less shut down towards people,
but that's definitely spreading.
And the work that.
I hope we're going to get her
on the show, actually, because
she's, she's, she's phenomenal.
So from a listener point of view to
those of you who tuning in now you might
want to go check out Warwick Schiller's
stuff with horses, not just because
it's good with horses, but you might
be thinking, well, this is supposed to
be the equine assisted world podcast.
But yes, if you're taking this
kind of approach to your horse,
it's very likely to have a knock
on effect back to the humans.
That we work with them, but maybe
it's even easier because we're
taking the judgment out of it.
You know, it's interesting what
you said there about judgment.
Have you, have you found
that your judgments towards
other people have gotten,
oh, less?
Less harsh through working
this way with horses.
What has it improved that,
Warwick Schiller: you know, it seems, I
just want to comment on the end before we
lean a tank before we go any further, you
think about, so Liana is a dressage writer
and I'd say in at least some part of the
dressage community, you know, The damn
horse is not doing what I want him to do.
And, you know, certain bloodlines
have certain problems and
all those sorts of things.
And I think Leanna, when she started
following my, my stuff was, she wasn't
after dressage stuff, she was after horse
behavioral stuff, but I think in the doing
the work and seeing the change in the
horses, she had one of those aha moments.
I was talking about where you, the
truth that you have gets shattered.
And I think.
She started to understand that, you know,
behind every behavior is an unmet need.
And when you meet the need, the,
the undesirable behavior goes away.
And I think she started to see
Rupert Isaacson: that.
Behind every behavior is an unmet need.
Okay, that's good.
I like that.
Warwick Schiller: Behind every, every
undesirable behavior is an unmet need.
And when you meet the need, the
undesirable behavior goes away.
Rupert Isaacson: And when you meet the
need, the undesirable behavior goes away.
Warwick Schiller: Right, so I think
she possibly saw changes in her horses
when she started to
work with them differently and attune
to them, and then she started to realize
that, oh, the reason they were behaving
like that is because I was interpreting
what they were doing in a certain way.
And when I, when I
changed my interpretation.
And realize there was an unmet need,
the behavior was completely different.
And I feel like she's probably taken that
into her work with the criminally insane.
And
now to answer your question about, about
the judgment thing, you know, for me,
Like I said, I've been, you know, senior
therapist for a number of years and
it was all brought about by a horse, a
horse made me realize I was shut down.
So that took me to the therapy,
but what I learned in the therapy,
I brought back to the horses.
But what I learned from the horses, I
take to the therapy in back and forth.
And one of the exercises we
had to do, remember I said, I
was doing some group therapy.
One of the exercises we had to
do a number of years ago was, so
your homework for this week is to
count your judgmental thoughts.
And so, you know, maybe put some
rocks in one pocket or something.
And I'll get one of those little
clicker things that the train
conductors have to count people
and count your judgmental thoughts.
And I thought, okay, well,
I'll, I'll probably have three
judgmental thoughts a day.
So I'll get three little
rocks, put them in my pocket.
And then sometimes during the day they'll
end up, three rocks will go from one side
and they'll end up on the other side.
And when I started counting my
judgmental thoughts, I had like
20 before breakfast sort of thing.
And once you start to be aware of
judgmental thoughts, and how many you
have, then you become aware of how
many you actually have about yourself.
And then you, then you get
to reframe those things.
You know, I'm a big fan of Brene Brown
and she talks about, you know, the
difference between shame and guilt.
You know, guilt is a focus on the action.
Shame is a focus on the self.
So guilt would be, Oh,
I did something stupid.
Shame would be, I am stupid.
And I think, A good place to start with
these judgmental thoughts is being aware
of the ones you have about yourself.
But then you get to where you really
start to be aware of judgmental
thoughts you have about other people.
And this was probably five years ago.
I hadn't been doing any clinics all
year, so I hadn't been traveling much.
I kind of took the year off from clinics.
And when I went back to traveling, I'd
been doing this therapy and the first
airport I went to, I'm walking along
and I, you know, I'm a people watcher,
I realize I'm a people watcher, but what
I realized at that airport was I'm a
people watcher, but I'm not just watching
them, I'm judging them, I'm not looking
for the best thing about them, I'm
looking for the worst thing about them.
I'm walking along and I'm
thinking, you know, you need to
stay away from the hamburgers.
You need to brush your hair.
Did you not have a mirror at your house?
You've got too many clothes on.
You don't have enough clothes
on, you know, blah, blah, blah.
This whole story going
through your head, you know?
And so then I, I realized I was doing it.
So I stopped and thought to myself,
every person that walks past me,
I'm just going to look at them and
think to myself, may you be happy.
May you be happy, may you
be happy, may you be happy.
So it takes away the judgment stuff.
And when I got to the, my gate at the
airport, I had this light, airy feeling
inside me instead of the, the dark, dull
feeling that I used to have inside me.
But the thing about the dark, dull
feeling is if it's always been
there, you don't know it's there.
And when it felt, when I felt
different, I'm like, Wow.
And you know, that was five years ago and
I still always have to remind myself cause
I'll get in an airport and I'll be walking
along and like, what are you doing?
Who are you, you know, and then hang
on, may you be happy, may you be happy.
So I do it, people walking the
other way, you know, I'm walking
one way, they're walking towards me.
I looked him in the eye, I give
him a little bit of an eye smile.
And I think to myself, may you be happy.
For the most part, they don't notice you.
Sometimes people will.
Look at you and as you look them in
the eye, they look the other way and
every once in a while someone looks
at you, you look at them and you give
them a little eye smile and they give
you a little eye smile back and it's
a, this very cool exchange of energy.
But yeah,
I think changing your judgments of
other people, actually, it's a bit like
the old saying about holding a grudge.
They say, you know, holding a
grudge is like drinking poison and
expecting to kill someone else.
And so, you know, that kind of holding
a grudge just eats away at you.
It doesn't necessarily
affect the other person.
So I think judgments, when
you're judging everybody else,
it just, it eats away at you.
It doesn't eat away at them.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And of course we're raised to do it.
We're trained to do it.
And we're, we're, we're even
trained that we must do it.
And then if we don't do it, you know,
we'll somehow betray our clan, our
caste, our family this set of values.
Back to the hunter gatherer thing.
It's so interesting there because
everyone relentlessly takes the piss
out of everyone else all the time.
But when push comes to shove,
everybody feels safe
with everybody else now.
And they have to, otherwise
they're not going to survive.
But what they have, of course,
at the center of the group.
is a healer, is a shaman, who's
there to not just react to crises of
healing that come up, also to create
regular healing ceremonies that are
cathartic, that sort of, if you like,
wash the psychic dirty laundry of
the group to prevent this judgmental
darkness from coming up too strong.
And this has been something that
humans have done for 190 odd thousand
years or 290 odd thousand years.
They now think Homo sapiens
sapiens might be 300, 000
rather than 200, 000 years old.
Who knows, but, you know, certainly
longer than we've been living as
farmers, warfarers, and living
people living in cities and so on.
But now, of course, we don't
have that mechanism anymore.
Or at least we have to try to recreate it.
And.
I think your point there about
saying to someone what you can't
say, I must share judgment because
that's just another judgment.
And then, of course, you're
just going to judge yourself.
For having a judgmental thought and so I
like this idea of stopping that momentum
with something completely different, like,
well, what's the opposite of a judgment?
It's a blessing.
So go to a blessing.
I have one that I do too, which
is sometimes I look at someone
and say, you are my favorite.
You are my favorite, and you are my
favorite, and you are my favorite, and
after a while I start beginning to see
really cool things in all of the, I do
this in airports too, because like you
I'm in airports a lot, and it's such
an easy one to, you are my favorite,
you are my favorite, and it's funny
I find myself sometimes approaching
like the customer service desk, you
know, and There's a problem to solve
and I'm walking up to the person, I
can see I'm the 5, 000th person coming
up to them that day to piss them off.
And I'm, and what's projecting
at me is you are my favorite and
changes the dynamic.
It's so interesting, but
I'm not trying to not judge.
I'm trying to bless.
I have another game that I
play with car license plates.
I use in Germany where I live.
It's often two or even three letters, and
then some other letters, and you end up
spelling words in English through them.
And sometimes they're quite funny
and sometimes they're quite rude.
And I was always going for those,
and I was going for the rude
ones, and then sometimes I was
going for quite negative ones.
I noticed that I was creating
quite negative little ironic,
little sarcastic phrases.
And I started noticing this as
I was driving, I'm like, okay,
how many times have I done that?
on the course of like
one drive to the barn.
I might have done that 10
times and not even noticed.
So now what I try to do is with each
letter that I see, I assign a very
good word to it, M could be miracle
or money or H could be happiness or,
you know, O could be omnipotence or
U could be unlimited or something.
And I, you see, R U D is one that
we often have around here because
it's rude assignments, receiving
unlimited delights, this sort of thing.
And there's no doubt it
changes my, the way I relate.
And I think one has to chip away
at this all the time because that's
what a shaman would do, right?
That's what a healer would do in
the community, would be the person
to keep us back on track with that.
But we now have to rely on ourselves
to be those internal shamans
and it's, it's, it's not easy.
You've been taking a lot
of journeys down this path.
Some with conventional therapies,
others with plant medicines.
And also with sort of extreme experiences
and challenges like the Gaucho Derby.
What would be your advice to an
average Joe, a Warwick Schiller 10
years ago, going through life in that
normal way, with lots of judgment,
low level depression, the dark stuff
that we're taught to think is just
our lot in life and how it has to be.
You're on the other side of quite a
journey, and of course, people who've
been on these journeys, as you know,
Just realize how little they know and
how much further there is to journey,
but it's now fun and interesting rather
than oh my god I got a conquer this
mountain, but you were not always there.
May you be happy as you see
someone walking along the street.
Well, that's a really good starting
point What would be your advice?
For those who are suffering because
most people are most of us are to begin
to break that pattern of suffering
Warwick Schiller: Well, that's a big
question you know, it, well, it's
almost like if someone said, well,
where do you start with a horse?
I'd have to ask, well,
where's your horse at?
You know what I mean?
Cause there's, there's no
blanket answer for anything.
It's What's, what's your starting point?
I don't know if I would have advice,
cause like I said, you don't
know where someone's starting
point is, but the, the piece of
information I would share is that,
well, I can share my
discovery was that the person that
you are societally and culturally
raised to be, that's not who you are.
So you might not, you might
think you are a certain person
and that's not who you are.
That's, that's you with all
the cultural conditioning on
it and underneath that you are.
Someone totally different, the, the
path, the unraveling that stuff.
I think it's, it can be
a, it can be a long one.
And it's, and it's, I think
it's a never ending one.
And like you said, I'm Indigo, like
I could maybe from the outside world,
it looks like I'm a long way on along
my path, but for me, it's like, I now
realize how far I have to go, you know?
So you got to realize, I think it's
almost like levels of consciousness.
You only see as far ahead as you.
are capable of seeing.
And if, if,
if you can only see a certain distance
for the last five years, and you're
getting closer and closer and closer
to the end of that, you're starting to
think, Hey, I kind of know a lot of stuff.
But when you go a bit further and
you get into the next level of
consciousness, and now you're aware
of, How much farther there is to go.
I can't go there yet, but you're
aware of how far there is to go.
You can think at that time
that I'm not getting anywhere.
I don't know anything.
Whereas six months ago, maybe you
thought I'm getting along, but I'm
getting, I'm getting a lot of stuff done
and I know a lot of stuff and I think
it just becomes what you're aware of.
But as far as advice I don't know if I
have one good piece of advice, but I would
say on your journey, go easy on yourself.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
yeah, I would agree.
Treat yourself as a good friend would
treat you, which is the hardest thing
because we are taught to self flagellate,
but go easy on yourself is a good thing.
Now you are to some degree taking
the, you're going to hate that I'm
saying this, but you are to some
degree taking on the role of group
Sherman because by doing the podcast
and by putting these summits together.
I remember where we started in the intro
of this conversation and I said, when
I walked into the summit in San Antonio
it was my first experience of going
to a thing full of big, big cheeses
in the horse world where it wasn't
factional and it wasn't bitchy and it
wasn't dark and it was such a relief.
And you've been doing these now,
you've done another one in America,
you've done one in Australia.
And I think everyone
has had this reaction.
Everyone.
I know everyone I've spoken to
everyone who's been at these
things has had this reaction.
You've got one coming up in England.
August, August.
The what are the dates on the UK
summit that's coming up and tell us
where it is because I think a lot
of, a lot of listeners, particularly
ones in the UK will probably want to
go and may not know it's happening.
Warwick Schiller: So it's in, it's in
Birmingham at the Birmingham theater and
it's the second, third and fourth August.
And the reason we decided to have it in
a theater is in Australia last year, we
had it in a theater and, and it was the
atmosphere is just that much better.
So if you think about
the one in San Antonio.
You know, it's in a big room.
There's a bit of a stage and
the first year we had it, we
didn't have any extra lighting.
So if you turn the house lights down,
you also turn the stage lights down.
So, you know, that was
just a brightly lit room.
But after we had the one in Australia
last year, you know, stage style
seating, you can dim the house
lights, have the stage lights lit up.
It was, it added, you know, you
were there the first year and the
atmosphere was amazing, but it.
Probably the aesthetics
lacked a little bit.
And so the, when we had the
one in Australia last year,
it's like, Oh, that's perfect.
So then in San Antonio, again,
last year, we, we bought in extra
lighting so we could turn the room
lights down, have the stage lit
up and it made a huge difference.
But this one in Birmingham is
going to be in a real theater.
So, I think the, the aesthetics will
be amazing because the, as you know,
you've been to two of them now,
the atmosphere is always amazing.
Rupert Isaacson: So that first
weekend of August I'll be there.
Who else is going to be there?
Who else?
Might we be able to learn from,
Warwick Schiller: well, let's, let's talk
about previous podcast summit guests.
So Jane Pike, I think Jane
Pike has been to everyone.
She's been to the, the two in the U
S she's been to the one in Australia.
So Jane's from New Zealand.
She is amazing.
One of my most, one of my favorite
human beings on the planet.
Kathy Price will be coming from Wales.
She has been to those Christine Dixon is
coming from the U S Christine presented
last year at our podcast summit.
Another couple from the U.
S.
that are coming over for
it Denise Elizabeth Byron.
Everybody's favorite astrologer.
And then Chantal Pratt.
So Chantal Pratt's a neuroscientist
and should be a stand up comedian,
but she's a neuroscientist.
So she's, she talks about neuroscience
in a way that, that makes you
just fall off your seat laughing.
So there's some of the ones who've been.
Before as far as ones who haven't
been probably the biggest name
for anybody who listened to the
podcast is Emily Case daughter.
So Emily is from Sweden and she is a she's
a holistic animal practitioner is one of
the things she does holistic medicine,
but she's also a animal communicator.
And she's an animal communicator in the
way that that shape shifting shamans are.
So she doesn't.
He get messages from animals.
She actually inhabits the
consciousness of animals.
And so horses a lot, but she, you
know, she's talked about inhabiting
the consciousness of a gnat.
But she also gets messages from the, the
horse collective, like
collective horse wisdom.
She's amazing.
We've got an Aussie guy that trained
dressage horses in I think he's in
Germany, Will Rogers Ben Atkinson.
So a lot of you.
People from England would know of Ben.
Ben does lots of amazing Liberty
demonstrations around the UK and Europe.
And he, he's amazing with horses.
Also does quite a bit of stunt work.
So he's done stunt horse stuff on
say, Peaky blinders, things like that.
Tanya Kindersley is
coming down from Scotland.
So Tanya is a Sunday
Times bestselling author.
She's also a wonderful horse lady.
The end.
She could read me at the phone book and I
would, I would, you know, she could write
a shopping list and it would sound poetic.
She's amazing.
Jennifer Zellig's is going to be there.
So Jennifer was a a marine
animal trainer here in the U.
S.
that has done, you know, she's an
expert in training marine mammals,
dolphins, things like that.
But she has moved to the UK
to become a Buddhist nun.
And so she has a very, very
amazing outlook on life.
So she's got the animal training, but she
also has this strongly Buddhist influence.
She's amazing.
Catriona McDonald from Wales is coming in.
Catriona McDonald is she's as,
I think she's as close to a,
White shaman that I've ever seen.
She's amazing.
We've got a guy named Gareth Marie
from South Africa who's coming in.
Gareth, such an interesting dude.
The day I did the podcast with him
he was a little bit late getting on.
I said, He said, Oh, sorry, I'm late.
He says, I had to, had to
take care of something.
I said, Oh, what'd you
have to take care of?
He goes, Oh, the, the, the caretaker, the
caretaker's wife, she hung the washing out
and she went back to go into a cottage.
And there was a, there was a
King Cobra on her doorstep and
had to go catch it for her.
And I said, you had to go catch it.
What'd you do with it?
And he goes, well, it's
here in a box beside me.
And he turns the camera and in
this plastic storage container
beside him with the lid on it
is this bloody great King Cobra.
And I said, what are
you gonna do with this?
He said, well, I didn't have, I was
going to take it out in the bush
and turn it loose, but I didn't have
time to, I had to get in the podcast.
So it's just sitting here with me.
And while I was talking to him, a, I
think it was a Thompson's gazelle walked
in and lay down over in the corner.
He's like Dr.
Doolittle.
Yeah.
So, Gail's going to be there.
And then I just had my wife told
me this morning Kelly Wilson.
So one of the famous Wilson
sisters from New Zealand, she's
going to be in the UK at the time.
So she's going to present at the
summit to Kelly does some amazing
stuff with like energy and horses.
And then Helen Spencer.
Is going to be presenting to, and Helen
is a vet from the UK and I met her.
In Mongolia a few years ago when
I rode camels across the Goby
Desert in the middle of winter.
She was on the same trip as me,
and she is one of the most widely
traveled people I've ever met.
She's been to 70, well, when I met
her she'd been to 79 countries, but I
know she's been to several since then.
And just has the most
amazing adventure stories.
I think she said she is possibly one
of the few women in the world who's
ever played the, the game with the
dead goat on horseback in Kazakhstan.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, yeah.
Warwick Schiller: Yes.
He's actually brutal.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, then there's a couple of
sisters from Croatia who are crazy
world adventurers with horses.
And so they're going to be
presenting there as well.
So yeah, there's, it's going to
be, it's going to be amazing.
You know, you've been there, you know,
what the, the energy is like you get.
Not only those presenters, but usually
everybody in the audience could be up
on the stage, you know what I mean?
They all have an amazing story
and they all come with this
amazing open hearted energy.
That is just, it's unusual to have
that many in people in one place
that are, that are like that.
And you've, you've felt it.
It's, there's, it's a palpable energy
that, that's like nothing I've ever felt.
Rupert Isaacson: And it's interesting
you talk about Jane Pike being there,
you know, Jane, obviously, as you know,
and I know, and I think a lot of people
listening know, is sort of one of the
authorities on nervous system stuff.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And you can't, and I've
worked with Jane now four or five times,
and I've been able to sit through when
we co present, listening to her, give
the one, two, three on the nervous system
is, as you say, it starts with, am I
safe, and she goes into creating that.
But.
Every time I hear it, I hear more.
So for those people who are really
wanting to get really solid, solid,
solid info on the nervous system and how
to work with it in the most functional
way whether for horses or humans, she,
and you also, Jane Pike is unmissable.
And you also talked about Kathy Price.
, she's Welsh, but again, for those
listeners who are not aware of Kathy,
she's very, very interesting because
she, she's an energy healer with horse.
She's a great horse
woman in her own right.
But obviously in the work that I do
because I've worked with a lot of
shamans and so on, you sometimes get
people come and say, well, I'm a shaman.
And you think, well, I don't know.
Maybe you are, maybe you aren't,
you know, who knows Kathy put her
hands on me in Wales one time and
I was jet lagged and exhausted and.
And I wasn't after that.
And the person she reminded me of
in terms of the transmission through
the hands was Linda Tallington Jones.
If you, if you know T Touch, if you've
ever had Linda, been lucky enough to have
Linda put her hands on you, it's the same.
She can pull things out
of you, out of horses.
Kathy's there.
She's got that.
She's the real deal.
And what's nice is about someone like
Kathy is that you know, a lot of us feel
well, we might have to go to the Amazon
or the Kalahari or Mongolia or wherever
to be with someone who can heal like that.
But actually, no, it's it's still
alive and well in our own culture.
And one of the.
classic hallmarks of a good healer is they
don't take themselves seriously at all.
There's no sense of, I am a shaman.
It's not like that in the
least, you know, it never is.
And Kathy couldn't be more down to earth.
So again, if, if, if any listeners
are thinking of, of coming, please do
make sure that you get to connect with
her and hear her, because it will open
doors to healing and it will also do
it in a way that, removes a lot of that
feeling of, Oh, it's some other thing.
It isn't, it's, it's, it's in us all.
Warwick Schiller: You know,
the other thing about the
podcast summit too, is that.
You know, we've had two in America
now, and the first group of, it
seems to bring people together.
The first group of presenters that we
had that first year, they have all gone
on and collaborated and, you know, they
probably didn't know each other beforehand
and they've all gone and collaborated
and done amazing things together.
But the other thing is we've heard
that, you know, there's been lifelong
friendships made at the, at the summit
itself from the, from the people.
spectating because It's like, this is
their tribe, like, these are the, these
are the people I've been looking for.
And it's, yeah, it's
something about just having
this certain mindset of
people all in one place.
And it's interesting.
You were talking about horses before and
how, you know, we used them to conquer
the world, Genghis Khan, all that sort
of thing, last year at the Australian
summit, I only wrote down two things on
my phone that I have to remember these.
And one was by Nishan Cook.
And he said.
He's talking about horses and he said
they are helping to heal the world.
We use them to conquer.
That was one thing I wrote down.
The other thing I wrote down was from
Jane Pike was just one short sentence.
It was, there is no balance,
but there is only balancing.
Rupert Isaacson: Very true.
Warwick Schiller: And I love that
because that means you've never made it.
Whatever it is.
And the other thing is it takes
away your judgment of why isn't it
working, whatever it is you're doing,
because you, there is no balance.
There's only balancing.
There is only, you know, you're, you're
always moving towards that optimal state,
but you're never in that optimal state.
So there's, there's no
there to get to you.
Just, it's always a little more of this,
a little less of this, a little more of
that, you know, whether you're training
horses or working on your nervous
system or working on a relationship.
It's not ever just done, it's always
this fluid thing that's moving around.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Or the, the done thing often I
think is the life of living that
itself, the culture of living that.
So, you know, I might be up there
trying to, trying to balance on a horse.
My internal process might be, I'm
balancing and maybe I'm, better
or less good in that balance in
this moment or that moment and my
emotional status here on my emotional
status that somebody looking from
the outside would say that man is
living an equestrian life lucky him.
And We're both right, of course, but the
from time to time when I'm and it's back
to Jane actually Jane makes a really
good point about horsemanship isn't
training horses or teaching horses how
to do this or having horses teach you
how to do this emotionally yourself or
it, of course, includes those things, but
it's It's the life you lead with them.
It's, it's the walking
through the mud with them.
It's the being with them in the winter.
It's the figuring out their food.
It's the wondering what to do.
Why are they itching and coughing this
summer, but they weren't last summer.
It's the, it's the Pleasure of just
watching the light fall on them.
As they graze in the paddock.
It's the, it's the stupid funny
moments when they, you know, when
you're up to your elbows and shit.
And, but it's also the sublime and
the amazing and the exciting and all
of these things is this equestrian
life that we are so fortunate.
To participate in period at all, and we
get involved in these minutiae of well,
I, you know, my half bus isn't quite up
to scratch or I've been jumping one meter
30 to jump one meter 40, or I don't feel
attuned to my horse, or I don't feel
confident with my horse or, well, at least
you've got a fucking horse, you know,
at least you're out there with a horse.
This
Warwick Schiller: is good.
A few years ago in Australia I was at
a clinic and someone had a, so some
of the throwaway horses in Australia
are off the track standard breds.
So not thoroughbreds
but the standard breds.
And they have a, they have a branding
system on their neck that it looks
a bit like a Mustang brand but
different, but you can tell them they
got this big brand on their neck.
And someone had one at
a clinic and I, I went.
I hopped on to ride it around to
help her out with something or other.
And someone took a picture of me.
And so from the picture, you can
tell that this horse is a, what
we call a trotter in Australia.
That's the general term for him.
And so I made a meme out of it and it
said, if you are lucky enough to be
riding a horse, you are lucky enough,
you know, because a lot of people
think, Oh, he's only a trotter.
You know what I mean?
Like,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
Warwick Schiller: that's,
that's only a trotter.
Like it's a horse.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Warwick Schiller: You know, he's a
horse first, he's a trotter second, and
if you're lucky enough to be riding a
trotter, you're lucky enough, even though
most people wouldn't give two cents
for a trotter, you know what I mean?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, absolutely.
We are
ridiculously blessed to live this
life with horses, and we often take
it somewhat for granted, and we
often take each other for granted.
in our tribe, our equestrian tribe,
somewhat for granted, and we can often
be downright awful to each other,
but it doesn't need to be like that.
And so in the equine assisted world, and
in this podcast, you know, what we are
trying to do is be a part of a culture
that is about healing with horses.
Okay.
And part of that is acknowledging
how fortunate we are to
even participate in this.
And I do think that If we do that, then
we can transmit well being through horses.
And if we don't do that kind of hard
and I think that what you're doing
with the summit and what you're doing
with the podcast and what you're
doing with attuned horsemanship
is one of the larger contributions
to equestrian culture now
becoming part of the healing and
conscious culture on the planet.
So thank you Warwick for doing
that work that we all benefit from.
I hope that some of the.
Listeners will, we will
see you at the summit.
Please do come and talk to us.
One of the nice things about the
summit is there isn't this like,
Oh, these are the presenters and
you guys are just the punters.
It's not like that at all.
You'll see everyone is
hanging with everybody.
If there's people that you have
wanted to go and talk to and connect
with for a long time, who are those
presenters, just go talk to them.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, that's, that's
one of the cool things about the, the,
the podcast summit is people have listened
to the podcast and they've heard these
amazing people and not only do you get to
go and see them actually present on stage,
but you get to hang with them afterwards.
And that's, you know, that
that's probably one of the.
The most amazing parts for a lot of people
is, is these are, you know, sometimes
people listen to one podcast Like I
just love what this person has to say.
Like, like Jane Pike, you can't
listen to Jane Pike and not want
to know more about Jane Pike.
But yeah, getting to hang with them and
you can ask them questions and yeah,
it's, it's, it's a very intimate setting
and we only have limited tickets for it.
So it's, they're not, it's
not a huge gathering to where
it's, it loses that intimacy.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
How many people, how
many tickets are there?
Warwick Schiller: I think
Birmingham can hold 300.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So only 300.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
And it's, you know, so it's not
only, it's not only intimate that
way, but what we've found is the,
what's really cool is the presenters.
Are all fans of each other.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Warwick Schiller: And there's
that camaraderie there too.
I remember last year, Dr.
Rebecca Bailey, I think it was Dr.
Rebecca Bailey.
She said, normally at these sorts of
things, when I speak, I speak, and
then I go back up to the hotel room.
She said, I've been sitting
here on the edge of my seat,
just listening to everybody.
And so, you know, she
lives in that, that space.
She's a.
She's a bit of a famous person in that
world, you know, I don't know if you
Rupert Isaacson: did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No the the the Enquine
Polyvagal Institute.
Absolutely.
Warwick Schiller: And so yeah, it
was really interesting to hear her
say that that normally she goes back
to a room But she just wanted to to
Hang out and watch everybody else.
So yeah, it's pretty special.
It's pretty special
energy in the whole thing.
And I just, you know, I'm lucky enough.
I'm the, I'm the, I'm the compare.
So I get to be up the front, but the
thing is, even if I wasn't, I would
go just to experience that energy.
I love it.
Rupert Isaacson: So how
do people get a ticket?
How do they find out?
Warwick Schiller: You would go to
summit dot warwick schiller.com.
Rupert Isaacson: Summit
dot warwick schiller.com.
Dot com.
And Warwick is of course,
Warwick and Schiller is s in
the German, S-C-H-I-L-L-E-R,
like the poet Warwick Schill.
So, summit at warwickshiller.
com.
Warwick Schiller: Nope, dot
Rupert Isaacson: warwickshiller.
com.
One more time.
Warwick Schiller: Summit dot
Rupert Isaacson: warwickshiller dot com.
Dot warwickshiller dot com.
Summit dot warwickshiller dot com.
Okay, we hope we'll see you there.
Warwick Schiller: I know
I'll be seeing you there.
Rupert Isaacson: I will indeed.
Can't wait.
Thank you for coming on.
Warwick Schiller: Thanks for having me.
It's always great to chat about
all this stuff, and great to chat
with you about anything, really.
Likewise.
Rupert Isaacson: Alright, my friend.
Okay, well then, we'll see you,
and hopefully we see some of these.
Listeners at the summit till then
journey on journey on my friends.
.
thank you for joining us.
We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
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