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Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, and most importantly, find joy.
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 Live Free
Ride Free, where we talk to people who
have lived self-actualized lives on
their own terms, and find out how they
got there, what they do, how we can
get there, what we can learn from them.
How to live our best lives, find
our own definition of success,
and most importantly, find joy.
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.
welcome back to Live Free, ride
Free, where we talk to people who
live self-actualized lives and find
out how they got there, what they
do, what keeps them going, and what
their insights are for how the rest
of us can, live this way as well.
I'm a firm believer that this is the
birthright of everybody on the planet.
and so the more mentorship
all of us get, the better.
so without further ado, I'm going
to, introduce today's guest.
And today's guest is probably, if you
were to look up in the dictionary,
self-actualized, there'd be a picture of
this person or their ought to be anyway,
cuz I can't really think of anyone I
know, even though I know so many have
met, so many privileged to meet so many
people living self-actualized lives.
but Linda Tellington Jones is as
self-actualized as it gets, and you don't
have to be a horse person, even though.
She is a horse person to know about her.
There's many people who know about
Tillington Touch, through dogs.
There are people who know about
Tillington, touch through horses,
people who know about Linda Tillington
Jones through, healing Techniques.
people who just know about her because
she's a jolly, jolly interesting, human
being alive on planet Earth today.
and I've been, grateful and honored
to know Linda for well over a decade,
and even to work together on occasion.
and I've always been,
fascinated by the egolessness.
that's a, a tough act to follow, Linda,
where you're gonna come on in a minute
when I say your ego listeners, but I have
met a lot of, well-known people and it's
not easy to keep the ego out of the way.
We're only human.
and I've always been, a bit
intrigued about how you manage that.
So we're gonna, I'm gonna
be asking you about that.
And then also, if any of you are
ever lucky enough to actually
be in the same room as an
entertaining Jones, here is my tip.
Ask her to put her hands on you.
Tea touch is not just an idea.
It's, it's a real thing.
And, I remember the first
time, Linda put her hands on me.
the reaction was, As powerful as
with any shaman in the Kalahari I've
ever been with or anything like that.
There's something flowing
through Linda Tillington Jones.
but it also flows through in a way that
she can impart this knowledge to other
people and has been doing this for
about 30 years or more, 40 probably.
And so anyway, I've blabbered enough.
I'm just begging you up,
Linda, because you are big.
How come one not big you up.
So here we are, Linda.
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Linda TJ: Well, it's my pleasure
and I'm very excited when you say
there's something in my hands,
I tell you what's in my hands.
That's in all of your, potentially in
every, the hands on, every person on this
planet is the realization that this, that
this bodies that we have, we are miracles.
Rupert, and I say this because I the
realization that, wait a minute, do
you know how your blood flows, what
it is that makes your blood flow,
how you can move your arm, why your
lymph works, why the hormones work?
We are living miracles.
And it's so interesting because I, I'd
like to tell you my story and maybe
it will be inspiring to some of your
listeners who realize paying attention
to the what comes to us outta the
blue, so to speak, intuitively from.
The, as I see it today, the
quantum field there for everyone.
So you want to know how
I started on this path?
First of all, it's I keep this little
box for a reminder of what started me
on this path that I'm on right now.
And this, I'm gonna take this
outta here and show it to you.
I've kept it over all these years
and I, for my 30th birthday,
I'm now eight coming up to 86.
I'm 85, it's here.
And I saw an advertisement in the San
Francisco Chronicle that said for $5 you
can get, one of the first astrological
charts done on a computer and.
It was my understanding that
that particular computer was in
Stanford research in, in Stanford
basement, university basement.
I don't know if that's true, but
that's the story that I've been
telling myself all these years.
So I sent my $5 and I got this little book
and it says, your portrait in the stars,
an astrological psychoanalysis of you.
And it's all this beautiful
little book coming.
I say Beautiful, carefully done.
Like with a ribbon tied hole punch.
Remember how we did
these mimeograph things?
I mean, it's so interesting.
And this is 98 pages.
And what I got from those pages
has, has directed my life.
It's that in your lifetime you will f
you will develop a form of communication
that will spread around the world.
Huh, interesting.
And in order to do so, you must
learn to trust your intuition.
Huh.
It's interesting that I.
Read that.
That's only two sentences
in that, all of those pages.
But that's what I take away with
me and that's what I've carried
with me over all these years.
And so of course my question is,
first of all, what communication?
I was thinking it was just the year it,
within the time when we were starting
to get videos and I thought maybe it's a
way of getting my workout through video.
And then I thought, okay, intuition.
And my first husband went to West
Ellington, bless his soul because
I wouldn't be here without him.
he was really into science and
spirituality and we had a big library
and I just went to the library and
reached up and picked out a book,
not, I didn't know what it was.
I pulled it out and it happened
to be a Rosa Crucian book.
And I opened it and I looked
up the definition of intuition
and it was unlearned knowledge.
Today, Rupert, I know thanks to
quantum science, that unlearn
knowledge is available without
the library to all of us.
We just have to listen and it's all here.
Every thought that was ever thought
is here in the quantum field, and
we just have to listen and trust.
So what has led me and you, I want you
to interrupt me at any time because,
Rupert Isaacson: I do have two questions.
Okay.
Go.
Question number one, how old
were you when you, answered this
ad in San Francisco Chronicle
Linda TJ: third.
That was for my 30th birthday.
I gift your 30th
Rupert Isaacson: birthday Okay.
For my 30th birthday.
Second question, have you spoken to
anybody else who got, who, who did
a similar, astrological portrait?
It would be interesting to
know what was said to them.
I mean, that's in the church.
Yeah.
The third question is what
was the work that you were
considering videoing at that time?
What year are we talking here?
Linda TJ: we're talking 1967 and I
had a international school writing
school for instructors, Pacific Coast
Equestrian Research Farm and School of
Horseman Chip at Badger, California.
We had students who came to us
from, 36 states and eight and
nine countries around the world.
So
Rupert Isaacson: back up.
Long before you get this
thing for your 30th birthday.
30 is a young age to be running, a
riding and horsemanship academy that's
international with international clients
coming in As someone who's run such
things myself, I know what's entailed
and I don't think I could have done it
Linda TJ: at 30.
Well, I couldn't either.
I was the riding teacher with my
husband went for Killington, who
was 20 years older than I, and who
had, you know, he'd gone to Ann over
and and and he was a horseman too.
He was also a horseman.
And I have a, a, an a beautiful
picture of him riding and jumping,
which I just came about, on.
And then I realized it's
in this book Strike.
A long to trot, legendary
horsewoman, Linda Teton Jones.
It's the story of my school
written by Shannon Weel, who was
a student in 1967 for a year.
And she and I have stayed
in touch all these years.
She's an amazing human
being today in her own Rio.
Rupert Isaacson: So what work
were you doing at this writing
academy that you wanted to bring
out to the world at that point?
What was different about that than
any other writing school, even if it
was a very high level writing school?
What stood out?
What made you think this is
something we need to communicate?
Because
Linda TJ: we had a way of
teaching writing that was logical.
So we had 30 points of the balance sheet.
And you see, Rupert, we, in order
to come to our school, you had to
have 10 years of writing experience.
And they came from all over the
country and they came with many
different styles of writing.
And our writing was
based on the US cavalry.
American style of balance seat riding.
And so rather than our, and I,
I know this was the influence of
both my parents and of my husband.
And then as, rather than make
people wrong and saying, you're
doing it wrong, we showed what we
wanted instead of making them wrong.
Because some people came
from saddle feet riding.
You know, they came
from the jumping world.
They came from dressage, they came from,
in those days for many different styles.
And in the country, like western riding
was different on the East Coast or Texas.
And rather than say, you're not, this
is not the way we want you to ride.
We, we gave them this choice.
This is a way of you, all you have
to do is change your saddle and the
length of stir up and you can go into
these different seats that you want and
understand what seat it is that you're
actually wanting to do for this purpose.
Because of course, we also did
a hundred mile endurance riding.
So you have a different
seat for a jumper dressage.
And that's what we taught.
It was a, thanks to my husband Wentworth.
Tellington.
It was a logical way of riding.
Rupert Isaacson: So would you say that
you were teaching, you were taking
these writers from all these disciplines
with all these different seats?
And by the way, for those listeners
who are not, horse people, the seat
is your point of balance on the horse.
And it's not just your us it's,
it goes from your mid thigh up to
sort of just below your ribcage.
Really.
It's all the, everything that's.
Keeps you in balance on the horse.
But because there are all these
separate disciplines of riding
that are really quite radically
different, there are radically
different ways of sitting the horse.
And each one of them is, is correct
in its own discipline, but many
people do not cross disciplines.
So my question is, were you guys coming
up with a sort of a, a neutral on the gear
stick saying, okay, you've got all these
different gears you can ride in, but you
need to come back to n on the, on the gear
stick or so, so that you can be versatile
and branch out into all these things?
Or will you stick something different?
Linda TJ: Well, depending upon who, what,
who your student was, what, what the breed
of horse was, what the competition was.
Okay.
Western English, they had to, in
order to graduate, they had to,
compete in a western pleasure class.
They had to ride a 50 mile
endurance ride successfully.
They had to, compete in
dressage and in jumping.
It was, and that means you had to know
how to teach that those different styles
successfully, depending upon which part
of the country you were in or world.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And then what, when these people
graduated from your school at that
point in your life, what did they, what
advantage did they have professionally?
Did they have some sort of accredited,
qualification that helped them get
better paying jobs in the horse industry?
Or what was, what was the incentive?
Or was it just pure personal development?
Linda TJ: Well, first of all, it was
the intent for those who wanted to
be writing instructors or trainers to
turn out people who knew how to dress.
And we had a dress code, so you
had to come to dinner in a dress.
And I will tell you the first, even me,
Rupert Isaacson: would you have found
Linda TJ: a dress?
Not the guys, no, only the women.
And that was a real hazard for some woman.
The first year we put that out, one
woman didn't come to dinner for, I don't
know, it was probably, possibly a week.
She wanted to eat in a room
because she'd never worn a skirt.
A little interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: Why did
you have this dress code?
What was, what was the, what
was the objective with that?
Linda TJ: Well, that was the
objective, to turn out people
who had a, a level of respect.
And, not just come to dinner in your
barn clothes, because we had candlelight
dinners and my husband, Wentworth
played the classical grand piano.
And we had a, we have very large
grand piano in our dining room.
And one of the things we did, Ruby, in
our school, do you remember, there are
many famous teachers who are famous
because they throw rocks at their
students, or they yell and scream at them.
What we wanted to do was teach respect,
respect for the horse, and respect for
yourself and respect for other people.
So riding was not done from the p I
mean, teaching was not done from the
point of view of making someone wrong.
It was, how can we make them right?
How can we acknowledge that
they're doing the best they can?
And how can we, with logic, show them
how to come to these places of balance
and understand what they're doing?
Rupert Isaacson: So when
people, graduated from your.
Program, what did they go on to do?
What was to them was the objective of
Linda TJ: coming?
Well, actually, there, there
were, I think, two objectives.
One, I would say to people, the
horse world is a very hard business.
If you love horses, come
and spend a year with us.
Learn, do the, you know, really learn
how to ride, and if you wanna show,
you'll know how to be successful and
ch and go to university and choose
a career that will make you enough
money that you can afford to have your
horses and not have them as a business.
But for those who did want to go on and
teach, I have in the back of this book
are some of our successful teachers.
And, it's really lovely to hear
from some of 'em who went on and
ran very big writing programs.
And,
Rupert Isaacson: So you also taught
them how to run a business and make
it work for themselves professionally,
not just, here's the technique,
here's how to be a good technician.
Linda TJ: That's right.
Okay.
And also, like every fri we had
during the day, they would get up
in the morning, each person had two
horses to look after in this table.
And, then we would have
breakfast and have two hours of
writing lessons in the morning.
And then you'd have in the afternoon
they had a, a study period and, and
other free writing if they wanted.
Okay.
And then in, we had dinner, dressed
for dinner, and then after dinner
there was a study period and every
Friday there was a two hour test
on everything to do with horses.
And we still have those tests and they're
really interesting to look at them today.
I couldn't pass it today.
I have forgotten so much stuff.
Oh my God.
So it's really, it was, it
was an incredible school.
Rupert Isaacson: So let's just back
up a bit, because you are already
here in mid-career, and now, and
after running this school, you
decide, okay, we've got something
really good to communicate, about
horses and horsemanship to the world.
But your story starts way before that.
So let's back up.
Where are you born and when?
Linda TJ: I was born in 19, 37 in
Edmonton, Alberta at 7 39 in the morning.
It's actually on my
astrological chart here.
I have three grand tris in my chart.
Pretty interesting.
What
Rupert Isaacson: are those?
For those of us who are not as, as,
Linda TJ: I don't, I
dunno how to describe it.
Every astrologer who looks
at the thing says, oh my God,
you've got three grand prize.
I don't know what that means.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: It means,
it means, look out world.
Okay.
and your are born in Edmonton.
Are your parents horsey?
What are your, who, what
are you, your parents?
Linda TJ: Oh, my parents are so
incredible and I, I wish I'd have
could pull up quickly screen share
with you, some pictures here because,
I had to ride to school, Robert,
for the first six years of my life.
When I was six years old, we lived, my
dad, had gone to hel help my grandfather.
Well, first of all, when I was, we lived
in Edmonton, and then when I was three,
we moved to Yellowknife in the Northwest
Territory for my dad to help my mother's
dad with a gold mine that he had.
Ah, so I, one of the first pictures
that I have with me is, with me, with
a baby bear lying on my aunts lap.
And I'm standing there with my fingers
in the, in the, on the ear of the bear.
And it's so interesting, there's a German,
a German saying in German says, so began
the master because Eti touch is one of
the big things that we do to gain trust.
And, and so here I am with
my f my little tiny fingers.
I was 11 months old standing there
with my fingers on the baby bear's ear.
And my, my, my, my father had rescued
that bear because the mother had been
shot and the bear was left alone.
So we raised it and then,
I mean, they raised it, but
rescued it and then released it.
So that was my first introduction to that.
So then we moved to, to ed, back
to, my, my father working with my.
Let's see, with his father James
Hood and on his wheat and pig farm,
because it was during the war and
there was a big war effort, you know,
f to raise food for the war effort.
And so at six years old, the school that
I would go to would a with a one room
schoolhouse and, you know, six rows.
And, I was a long walk
for a six year old.
So I, with my cousins,
rode our horses to school.
So my dad took me to a riding stable.
I remember this part, and the guy brought
out a horse and I got on the horses
back and that nobody told me what to do.
And the horse immediately took me back
into the barn at the walk, fortunately.
And so my dad bought this horse
named Trixie, and we have some
really, some very nice looking mayor.
And, I rode at a school, and you're
going to get a giggle out of this.
One day I was late and my
cousins didn't wait for me.
They were like a eighth of a mile
up the road on the way to school.
So, I headed out and when I got
to the gate, my horse wouldn't go
because she was, had to go alone.
And I gave her a whack with the
reins and she immediately turned
and dumped me on the ground.
I say that I'm shorter than my sister
Robin, because I landed on my head.
So anyway, I led her home.
I remember what I remember is marching
home, putting her in the stable,
walking to the house, getting a clothes
pin from my mother's clothes basket,
walking to the barn and clipping
the clothes pin on her ears to show
her that she couldn't do that to me.
Isn't that funniest thing?
So we say that's the first ear t touch
Rupert Isaacson: that was
a closed pin in your ear,
Linda TJ: A closed spin.
Like I'm sure
Rupert Isaacson: she And what did
Linda TJ: she think of that?
I didn't ask her.
I thought she thought, wow,
this kid really lost it.
Rupert Isaacson: Did you then remount
her and write to school or were you just
Linda TJ: making I don't remember.
Okay.
I'm sure I didn't because I couldn't have.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
So at what point do you go from just
purely, functional transport based horse,
you know, riding to discovering you are
gonna be doing this, as a vocation?
How, how does this play out in
your childhood and adolescence?
Linda TJ: Well, it's quite interesting
because, when I was nine, my dad
moved to, we moved to the outskirts of
Edmonton, Alberta, which was the capital
of Alberta, and he had, Rented a farm
from my uncle Alf and, for a dairy farm.
And so on the way we drove by a riding
stable, which was just a couple of miles
from where, from the farm, the dairy farm.
And, as we drove by, there was a quadri
of horses in a big arena practicing.
And I asked my dad if I could take
lessons because I'd never had a left name.
No one had ever showed me
what to do with horses.
I've been riding every
day for three years.
So, he said, yes, if you can get a job.
So the next Saturday, he dropped me off at
the gate and I marched in and I asked Mrs.
Metall, you know, I said who
I was, and I asked if I could
trade lessons for, working.
I thought I would be cleaning
stalls or equipment or something.
And so she asked me about,
you know, did I ride?
And I told her, and then she put me,
she had really, really good horses
and some lovely ponies for kids.
And besides, so she put me on a pony.
And then on a horse, and she saw that I
could ride and I never cleaned a stall.
I was one of those kids
that just got to ride.
So I would go home, like I'd ride to
school, I'd ride home, and then I'd
ride in the other direction to, to the
stable every day, rain or shine or snow.
And then I would ride two or three
horses and every Tuesday, Mrs.
Meall would have us in for dinner,
the students who were really active.
And we would have lessons on,
you know, bits and, and ailments
and illnesses and feeding.
She had an amazing feeding program
with so many huge bins of herbs.
And it was a really incredible
background that I had from this woman.
She was well known and, and she
had many good show horses and
many clients with show horses.
So you've got a question, so,
Rupert Isaacson: well you said herbs and
you, you are talking now in the forties.
People feeling herbs to horses.
I know having grown up in Lestershire
in the UK and horse country, that
there were certain old school horse
people who knew the herbs, but most
people, by the time I, arrived on the
horse scene, it was largely forgotten.
And people even, and the,
you know, small family feed.
Mills.
That one used to put together one zone
14 that was there when I was a small
boy, but that had basically gone by the
time my adolescence hit and everything
was mass produced at that point.
Tell me about the herbs and tell me
about, cuz I know this is gonna, this,
this must have, informed to some degree
your, later career in holistic healing.
So te tell me about the, her use of
herbs and what did you pick up from this?
Linda TJ: Well, what I picked up
is that she really knew what she
was doing, and that's something
that she did not teach us.
But where I picked it up from
your country, where you come
from is the Hilton herbs.
Because as soon as, first of all at our
research farm, Wentworth was, and we
have these wonderful pictures because
we had a newsletter that went out to
20 countries of the, from the research
farm, and he was drying, th kelp a
certain form of sea kelp drying it and
then free feeding it to our horses.
And then he also developed a form of
what he called vitamins and mineral mix
that he brewed from all kinds of stuff.
It was amazing and we sold that all over.
And the seek kelp was, when you look
at now, seek kelp is a really great
product that's out there, but we, yeah.
Not fashionable.
Yeah.
We were the first, we being my
husband, Wentworth was the first
to bring that up at our research
Rupert Isaacson: firm.
Okay.
I'm gonna, we're gonna get back
to Wentworth and your research
farm in a minute, but I still
feel we got a few years to cover.
So there you are, you're riding your, you
you're riding to school, you're riding
home, you're riding to the stables, you're
starting to ride horses professionally.
Now as a, as a pre-adolescent.
What happens then?
How do you, and you're still
way up in northern Canada.
You're a long way from California.
You're a long way from this international
career that you've had for the
last, you know, 45 or more years.
How does that evolve?
How do you drift self and
into this cosmopolitan world?
Linda TJ: Well, let's see where, well,
first of all, one of the things that
people marvel at is that the fact that
I'm willing at ecu, I don't know, perhaps
you'll see me get on many different horses
that I've never seen before and take the
bridal off and ride them with no bridal.
Rupert Isaacson: I will,
let me just jump in there.
Okay.
Please.
Just for the, just for the listeners.
All right.
So if the listeners who,
dunno what e quana is.
E quana is the German trade fair.
For the horse industry that
happens every couple of years,
in essence, world's largest.
It's, it's, it's, it's a monster.
It's, it's huge.
If, if you think horses are
a fringe thing, think again.
If you think, think like
Frankfurt book Fair as Frank
Foot book fair is for publishing.
This is for the horse industry
in it's international, global.
That's the first thing that's a big deal.
And Linda's always that.
But the second thing is she says, oh
yes, I, I just hop on up on people's
horses and, bridal us and so on.
I will attest to this.
I was, I dunno if you
remember this, Linda.
We were, me and Liliana were
helping you at one of your,
workshops in Texas a few years ago.
And if you, I dunno if you remember,
a really, really strong, northern
came in, which is a, a, a weather
front where the winds gust up to,
you know, 60 miles an hour or more,
and the temperature goes down, you
know, 30, 40 degrees in half an hour.
It's a Texas winter phenomenon.
And it goes from sort of subtropical
to subar really fast and it tends
to send horses absolutely nuts.
And there was this, very, very,
very flighty, Egyptian Arab mayor
who was there, not human but horse.
And for those in the horse world,
they know that's a, you know,
at, at, at best, it can be a
somewhat dangerous horse to get on.
This horse was going a little bit nuts.
The owner couldn't really control
it and we thought, oh, well, I'm
sure Linda would probably just take
that one out to go back to the box.
No, Linda aged.
Probably at that point, 78 or so, just
gets on, just gets on in this highway
in with this horse who's clearly losing
it and the horse ceases to lose it.
And I remember my wife IA and
I look at each other going,
oh, that's a horse woman.
Okay.
So that's, that's, it's not something
that's, for those of you who are not
horsey, that's not something people do.
Not if you wanna stay outta hospital.
So, okay, we rewind.
I just need to, so you're saying,
okay, people often remark on the fact
that it's remarkable that you get
up on these horses without a bridal.
Yes, it is true.
Go on.
Linda TJ: So my background
for that is this stable Mrs.
Alice Metall because she had many
people with really beautiful horses,
but they didn't have the confidence to
show on the Edmonton Spring Horse Show.
And the Edmonton Spring horse show
was like Madison Square Gardens.
Okay.
It started on a SAT one Saturday
and went every day from eight in the
morning till 11 at night with classes.
And in those days we had horses
like, oh, it wasn't unusual to
have 40 horses in a pleasure class.
And of course that many
in jumping and all that.
So, it was my job because I was a
kid who was there every day riding
like two or three horses after school.
In no arenas, you all, I mean, you had
to be, you know, I've been described as
tough as a boiled owl, and I think that
comes from riding in the dark in the snow.
We had a few lights out there, but it was
not pleasant, but it was really an amazing
thing riding the, all these different
horses from other, from, from the Metall
cl group of horses and from from clients.
And so I would, they'd take a horse
to a horse show and I would have
10 minutes to get on that horse and
get it ready to go in the class.
And I won way more than my share.
And I know why, Rupert, I didn't go
into win when I got on that horse, my
message to the horse and I realized
today we can talk about energy
because we know what energy is, and
I wanna talk about that in a minute.
But I would give the horse the impression,
what can we do together in this time that
we have that will make you, give you as
much joy as I am having of being with you?
That was my, that
Rupert Isaacson: was just repeat
that, that, that's a really, that's
a, not that I just did a double take.
Repeat that.
Your message to the horse.
Linda TJ: That I, I wanted this horse to
know, I wanted the horse to have as good a
time with me, whatever we were going to do
together as I would have with that horse.
So it wasn't about me.
That's where the eagerness comes in.
And I, that's a practice, Rupert.
It's not that I get on, I'm
gonna show this horse what to do.
No, we're going to go in and do something
here together in this group of horses.
And my mother was very important
because my mother would sit on the
edge of the arena, and I remember
her like, almost every time I
come around smile, dear smile.
And she had no idea that when you smile,
when you are on a horse or anytime you
smile, you activate the feel good hormone.
The serotonin, the horse feels that,
that's been shown through these, you know,
these, these, the, this research that's
been done with the mirror neurons, how
we mirror this feeling and it activates
that part of the brain that feels good.
So the horse feels good too.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, absolutely.
That's, it's actually my
standard go-to when I get on a
young horse that I'm afraid of.
Cause I secretly am quite
afraid, quite often when I get
on client's horses, I do that.
I plaster this big old grin
on my face and it works.
I'm like, suddenly my body relaxes.
And the horse is like,
oh, this isn't so bad.
And I'm like, exactly.
And then, and then it isn't.
Absolutely.
But where did you get this from?
So th this inner message that you're
saying to the horse, Let this be as joyful
for you as I would like it to be for me.
Was that a decision, was that
something you'd overheard?
Was that part of some system of
ethics that was, talked about by a
mentor or someone you looked up to?
Or was that something more intuitive
and innate, or was it some combo?
Linda TJ: What comes to my mind when
you ask me that question is my, my
great-uncle standing with me in the stable
when I was wor I, I was given a book
when, so first of all, go back to Mrs.
Meall and the way she started horses
was in the round pen, bucking them
out, and she had so many injuries and
she'd been, had so many broken bones
because the horse, they had like an
eight foot high round pants, small,
and she just saddled the horse, get
on it and bucket, bucket out, right.
So she was hurt a lot of times.
And one day I was riding home from
a stable and an old man walked out
on with a cane and a book in his
hand and he said his, his, porch.
Gave him a view of the, the riding arena
right behind him and the round band.
And he said he had seen me riding
by everyday rain, snow, or shine.
And he wanted me to have this book
and it was a book written by an
America cavalry officer on how to
start young horses without bucking.
And so I took that home and my
parents were boarding a 16 hand
two year old thoroughbred that
belonged to one of our friends.
And, they allo said that I could
start this horse under saddle.
So I just took the book and I went
through all the steps of ground driving.
How old were you at this point?
I was 11 or 12.
And it was really easy to follow it.
And she never boxed and was never afraid.
And it was an easy process
and that's the basis now.
I remember my grandfather in the stable
and we had adapted one, one end of
the barn that had been a cow stable.
We made big box stalls and I
remember him putting his hand on
the horse's neck and saying to me,
you know, whenever you connect with
a horse, connect with your heart.
Connect with kindness.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so this came
from within, from a family member,
Linda TJ: right?
Yep.
Rupert Isaacson: What was his story?
How did he, how did he come by this?
Linda TJ: Well, this is really,
I wish that I have been prepared.
I should pull together some pictures.
That'd be really fun to see it.
My grandfather Will, Kaywood was, an
American jockey and quite well known.
We have, we have our mother's
side or father's side?
Mother's.
Mother's side.
Kaywood.
Rupert Isaacson: The
horses were in the family?
Linda TJ: Yes.
Both sides.
Okay.
Both sides.
So I wanna tell you that, so my, my
grandfather Will Kaywood had been
approached by an Austrian count, through
an agent to be, to go to Moscow in
Russia from, from, this is from the us
and ride the horses of this Austrian who
sent the horses from Vienna to Moscow.
And then, so my grandfather
rode them in 1905.
He went there and rode them.
And, and he liked it so much in Russia.
He decided to stay on
and become a trainer.
And so in 1905, he won the
prestigious, sorry, Nicholas ii.
It was a, it was a Jeweled Kane
for the most winners of the
season and with 87 winners.
And he said he attributed because
he came to, actually, this is
a whole kind of call, difficult
story because I never met him.
It was my great uncle, his brother I met
and they were in business, in horses.
And I have a painting that I've
now given to my niece, Mandy.
I have a horse named
Illa that they imported.
And this horse, was very successful
and they, the Johnie did this painting.
But my grandfather said that his success
was because he never entered a horse
in a race in this, it told him he
was, it was feeling fit enough to win.
And the second thing is every horse
was rubbed with these short little
strokes over every inch of the
body for 30 minutes by the grooms.
And he learned that from a
Russian gypsy named Orloff.
Because in still today in Russia,
it's the gypsies that handle
all the horses on the racetrack.
And I got to meet them when
I was there as a citizen.
Diplomat.
Diplomat.
Rupert Isaacson: So did you, did
you notice, now we're jumping
ahead, but did you notice when you
did go, and meet these grooms on
the, Russian race track, did you,
n did you see a similarity between
the way they were touching the horse
Linda TJ: and Teta?
I didn't, I didn't see them
actually touching the horse.
I was with the directors and stuff,
intro, introducing myself and,
and the work that I was doing.
So I didn't get them actually
see them working on horses.
But there is a
Rupert Isaacson: chance that there could
be a, some sort of connection to what
your great-uncle learned out there, which
then begs the question, and it, this, we
can throw this one out to the ether, but
it begs the question, do you think that
if Te Touch has partially its origins in
what you witnessed from your great-uncle,
from what he learned in Russia from these
Russian gypsies who were probably also
of Cosack and central Asian, ancestry,
do you think that this way of touching
horses could possibly go back to the
origins of riding and training horses?
Because we all know that it comes
out of that area where Russia,
Ukraine, meets the sort of Black
Sea, Caspian Sea, that step there,
the origin of the modern thoroughbred,
we know that comes from there.
Do you think that.
Something in Tea Touch could possibly
go back 4,000 years to those first
people learning how to, I, I have
domesticate those riding horses.
Linda TJ: I have no question about it.
I think it comes from the Mongols I
come, I think it comes way before that
because, because of the, when we get
to that part of the story, because
what I brought in was a circular touch.
Mm-hmm.
There's nothing new in the universe.
I just pulled that out of
the quantum field, I'm sure.
And when you hear the story
of how it came, you think
you'll think the same thing.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
So there you are, you're riding horses
in successfully in the Edmonton show.
You are helping to prepare
horses for clients.
You've now, and you're, you've started
this young horse and you've found this
ground driving, by the way, for those
who are horsey, but don't use that term,
that means long reigning and long lining.
And it's still the sort of accepted
way you'd start a young horse,
particularly in Ireland today.
But it seems to have gone from
a lot of other traditions.
But it definitely, definitely, works for
allowing the horse to understand what
they're gonna do under saddle before
they put under saddle, which makes it
safer for them and for the, the rider.
okay.
But so you've started this
horse now, and you, you, you've.
Seen this way of touching a horse,
something is in you anywhere
because you've been touching
Bears Ears since you were little.
, and, now you are basically at age
12, 13 or so, a professional in the
horse world, albeit in Edmonton.
How do you end up drifting south?
Okay.
Linda TJ: So at the Edmonton Horse
Show for my 15th birthday, there is
one of the, the premier classes of the
whole week would be a, a jumper class.
You'd have to, you know,
you have to qualify to keep
jumping for the whole week.
So on the, the last day, a, a rider named
Ray Edgington broke his arm and he had one
of the top horses named Bouncing Buster.
And he was a, a 14 two-hand quarter horse.
And because I was known for catch riding,
he asked me if I'd ride the horse and I
had about 10 minutes to, you know, get on
and go over one little jump and we won it.
And there was a big article in the paper,
which I have about that still have.
But anyway, Wentworth Tellington, who
became my husband, was sitting next
in the grandsons next to my mother.
And you can imagine she went nuts when
I, you know, you know how moms are.
She was early when I won.
So Wentworth managed to talk her into
bringing him to the exhibitor party.
And at the exhibitor party, he, you
know, salaried up to me and said
he'd like to buy that horse from
me because the horse was for sale.
And I said, you know, it's not
worth the money they're asking.
I'm not interested.
Thank you very much.
Well, he managed to get
to my mother somehow.
And, oh, oh God.
Rupert, this is another whole long story.
You love story.
I should I tell you the story?
Rupert Isaacson: Please,
please tell me the story.
Linda TJ: Ah, so at the Calgary
Horse Show, which had been the month
before this show, I had just won
the third leg of the hell, Calgary
Herald Newspaper Challenge Cup.
I'd won it three years in a row.
And so, you know, we were, I was with
a friend, we were walking around in the
afternoon and I saw this cowboy, God, I'm
sure all you women have been there, or
many of you have, with a really big hat.
And I was really interested in Big Hat.
So he invited me to go out that night.
So here I am, a 15 year old
sneaking out of the hotel.
Rupert Isaacson: This is not
Wentworth, this is a somebody else,
Linda TJ: not Wentworth,
but it needs to Wentworth.
You'll see Cree Wentworth.
Well, you'll see how it
brought me Wentworth.
So, anyway, he wrote me a letter and
asked me to marry him for God's sake.
I was 15 and my mother read
the letter, I'm happy to say.
And, she didn't say anything to me.
Oh, she did say something to me.
Anyway, she invited him there.
And this is not a guy I was interested in.
Come on.
I was 15, but, so my mother thought
she would get me outta town for the
summer and get me away from this guy.
And, so went, invited
me to work the horses.
He was an engineer and he was
going out for the summer with a
magnetometer looking for oil anomalies
that he sold to big oil companies.
Okay.
And so this is the cowboy?
No, this is Wentworth my
Rupert Isaacson: husband.
It's Wentworth.
Okay, sorry.
Okay.
Linda TJ: So my mom to get me away
from the CO that she thought I would
be interested in this cowboy, which I
wasn't, but she got me out with Wentworth.
So anyway, I wound up eventually
three years later marrying
Wentworth Tellington when I was 18.
And it's thanks to him that we had this
wonderful school because of all his
amazing classical education and learning.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So tell me, yes.
Tell me about, tell us about Tellington.
He's a clearly a formative,
formative person.
He's half of your name.
and you go on to start this amazing.
Thing with him.
He's also interested in,
in, the Rosa Crucian.
He's interested in herbs and healing.
He's clearly a very fine horseman.
He's got clearly a cavalry connection.
Tell us, tell us about this man.
And what, what was he
doing up there in Calgary?
Linda TJ: he wasn't in Calgary.
That was where I met the cowboy
that made my mother wanna get
me out of town in Edmonton.
Okay.
So the cowboy, we can now let go.
He was just an instrument to get
me out in the woods with Wentworth.
Rupert Isaacson: But hold on, hold on.
I'm, I'm, now, I, now I'm confused.
I thought that you said that when
you won the class and your mom
went nuts, Wentworth was in the
stands next to your mother Yes.
And wanted to buy the horse?
Correct.
Okay.
but before that, there had been a cowboy.
So your mom, your mom had invited
this taton chap or your, he was still
unknown to your mom at that point?
Totally
Linda TJ: unknown.
Totally unknown.
It was one of those, you know,
accidents of the universe.
No accidents.
There are no accidents.
Correct.
Rupert Isaacson: And what was, what
was he doing up there if he was, he
was a California base at that point?
Was he he, no,
Linda TJ: he was an engineer.
Okay.
Ah, oil and gas.
Oil and gas in Edmonton, Alberta.
Yeah.
Got it.
Got it,
Rupert Isaacson: got it.
Yes.
That makes sense.
Okay, so then, okay.
So you meet Wentworth, met
Wentworth wants to buy the horse.
It's showing no interest in you, but yet
three years later, you married the man.
well wait a
Linda TJ: minute.
Of course the horse was
a, you know, a reason.
Mm-hmm.
And so he wound up actually buying
another horse for me that was a grandson
of a man of war and shipping it with a
handler from a Maryland Fast Tipton sale.
And I have pictures riding
this beautiful stallion.
He was a six year old stallion that,
had not been that successful in racing.
And he was, we bought this horse
and I did really well with him.
So it's just all is part of, you know,
being able to get on horses and manage
not to get in a fight with them.
Mm-hmm.
And one of the things I wanna say to
you, Rupert, that the reason, like,
I don't get on a horse if I'm afraid.
Yeah.
What makes it possible for me to
connect to them is taking them
in hand even for a few minutes
and getting them to just to walk.
Through the labyrinth because
it gives them boundaries.
And we make a, a connection there.
And I described this today.
It's not, Hey, I'm gonna take a
hold of you better listen to me.
It's not at all, it's really this heart
to heart connection because people say
to me like, I work with many different
zoo animal exotic animals in zoos, right?
And people say, how do you know?
How can you work with all
these different species?
Because I ask the person who knows
them about them, and I connect
with them at a cell to cell level.
We're going to get that to the cell,
to cell in a little while, what
that're about to do with all of us?
Because at this level of the cells
we're all the same and interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: Ok.
So can, but, but at that point
in your life, you're, you are not
aware of this in a conscious way.
Presumably you are,
you're some feeling it.
Linda TJ: But I absolutely.
you know, I made that
connection with any horse.
So before I get on them, I take
them in hand and walk them through.
You walk and stop and
just put my hands on them.
Like you said, you felt
Hmm, my hands on you.
So what my message is in my
hands too is feel your perfection
because we are miracles, as I said
before, and every cell in the body.
This is, this is.
I'll come to that in, in a little bit.
Cause I wanna tell you how I got to
this, where I am today, because it's
really interesting following, it's
following like a trail of breadcrumbs
that I listened for and followed.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, I'm listening.
I'm, I'm actually just writing
down, I'm making a note here.
I'm saying Linda's
message through her hands.
Feel your perfection.
I love that
Linda TJ: Through, through my
hands to the horse, to you.
Mm.
To any being that I put my hands on.
It's, it's, and today, I only in the last
six months finally understand really what
that means at the, at a whole other level.
And I've been searching
for this all these years.
Like Rupert, you've seen what I
could do with a horse is upset.
You know, afraid.
Because all that excitement is, it's all
about fear when they lose it like that.
Yeah.
And so we, what we've discovered with this
one and a quarter basic tea touch, which
I'll tell you in a bit how I came to that
because the story is really interesting.
The, the, the, the breadcrumb
trail, as I say, see it.
so this, this, I I I, I'm gonna take
it in, in its own order actually.
So, okay.
I wanna, I wanna stay on this
track where you are right now.
Rupert Isaacson: You are now
married to, this man, Tellington.
And he's American.
He is not Canadian.
he's in oil and gas.
He's up there.
He's in, you then end up running a farm
together down on, down in California.
Is he already there?
Does he already own this farm?
Do you start this together?
What's the story?
Linda TJ: Let me tell
you how he got there.
So, in Edmonton, Wentworth had a lot
of, in injuries from different accidents
and a lot of bones that were aching.
And so he decided that he, first of
all, he went to Reno, Nevada to get a
divorce and then to sell a gold mine to
Harold's Club, not a gold mine, sorry.
oil.
one of the oil leases that he found.
And then he decided he needed
some warm weather to recuperate.
So we went to Puerto Rico
for a year and a half.
Okay.
And for a year and a half
I was without horses.
It's the only year and a half.
Yikes.
And so, then after a year and a
half, he decided that he wanted to
give something back to the world
for all that he had through his
wonderful education at, these Andover.
So, he applied to us a private
prep school in, in, rolling
Hills, California Chadwick School.
It was a residential private prep school.
And I thought I would be going
there and be going to university.
But the second day that we
were on the property, cuz it's
a place where we had to live.
Mrs.
Metall, the head of the
school called, Mrs.
Chadwick called me in and sat me down
and said that I was going to be the
senior girl's dorm mother and, that I
would teach eighth grade social studies.
Okay.
This is what a, in those days
a private school could do.
So I got the book that they were,
I was going to be teaching and
I read through the book and I
started teaching social studies.
Okay.
And, how old are you at
Rupert Isaacson: this point?
20.
Linda TJ: Yeah, about 20.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I loved it.
It was really incredible because in,
in a private school like that, I had
eight kids in my class and, you know,
on the, when we were studying different
countries, we, I could take them on
field trips into Los Angeles and go to
different restaurants that represented
the food from the country and, okay.
Very creative.
Rupert Isaacson: So this is
Southern California by Los Angeles.
That's right.
But yes.
Where was just quickly, where
was Tellington from originally
he, was he in East coast or,
or West Coast, New Hampshire.
Okay.
Okay.
So this was a departure for him
as well to go to the west Coast?
Yes.
Okay.
And okay, so now you're
a social studies teacher?
Linda TJ: I'm a social studies
teacher and he's teaching math and,
and English and creative writing.
And I took his creative writing
classes, which, oh, I wish I had
those pieces that I wrote then.
It was really wonderful.
And he, what I learned from him
writing Rupert was so interesting.
Whenever you're telling a story,
hang the gun, gun on the wall.
If you're going to shoot someone,
you know, let them know from
the beginning in some way.
Right, right, right.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Leave a clue.
Linda TJ: Leave a clue.
But I like the way he said that.
Hang the gun on the wall.
And, so anyway, I was really excited
about creative writing and was
doing a lot of stuff at that time.
And, then in one of, RO Wentworth's
classes was a young man named Roland
Plager, ah, who is my current husband.
Rupert Isaacson: Of course he is.
Okay.
Linda TJ: How do we get there?
And he's been married four years.
Isn't that wild?
Rupert Isaacson: It is.
So, so sorry.
So your current husband was your pupil,
or was a co-teacher, or was somewhere
Linda TJ: No, he was, he was, he's
three years younger than I am.
He was in the senior class and
he had a football entry, and
so he couldn't play anymore.
And so he wanted to learn to ride.
And one, one of his friends father
had a big ranch, and so they sent a
horse up to the, there was a stable
at the, at the private prep school.
I, and I had horses there and was
giving lessons and, and buying horses
and selling them and, training.
Rupert Isaacson: So you are
back into riding at this school?
They have horses there, right?
That was, but you, okay.
And you, you are teaching a riding
or horsemanship class, or it's
purely recreational at this point?
Someone else is running that program?
Linda TJ: No, the i, there, there
was no program for the school itself.
It was just private students.
Okay.
Could bring their horses,
could bring their horse in.
Got it.
Yes.
And so I taught Roland to ride
and those of you, you know, he is
just an incredible human being.
I'm so blessed.
And the fact that, that when Ro when
we left the school and Roland got
married to his first wife, we sent
him a wedding present, which his first
wife, wife has said to still have.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay,
what was the present?
Do you know, do you remember?
Linda TJ: It was a double-headed ax
because they were pioneering in Northern
British Columbia and they had to chop
wood, believe it or not, you know, and
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
That's funny.
So you, you, you give a nearly
married couple of double-headed ax,
so they could each take a swing,
Linda TJ: a double-headed,
I, I don't know.
Dunno why.
Rupert Isaacson: Hilarious.
Okay, so, so, presumably you getting
married to Roland happens sometime later.
What?
So how long, how long do you remain
married to, to, Huntington and given
that you create this, this rather cutting
edge writing academy, what, what becomes
Linda TJ: of all that?
So it was 16 years I was married.
Okay.
And, it's kind of a interesting story.
It's too long to tell here.
It's quite fascinating actually.
Okay.
But, we split on amenable terms.
We never had a lawyer.
We just, I bought him out and, Kept
the school and the name and all
the equipment and all the horses.
And I continued to run it with, I
had really good riding teachers Okay.
Who had gone to our school
and were really excellent.
And we, I also had Wentworth's,
son Jay was there helping me and
interestingly enough, Roland and
his family were there helping Okay.
Went to develop a program.
So, so, so after I ran the school,
maybe, I don't know, a few months, you
see, I also had in training like many
horses from Countess, Margaret, Bethany.
That's the story in
this book is her story.
Amazing story.
And who was she?
She was a Hungarian Countess who,
whose, grandfather was Marcus Dailey.
And he owned this huge Bitterroot
ranch in, in, in Montana.
Okay.
And which, she inherited.
And, she was a wonderful horse
woman and she had seen our
articles because we had articles in
Western Horseman called Let's Go.
And we had them at monthly columns
and so she would be reading our
columns and then called us and
asked if she could come to visit.
And she brought a couple of her
horses down and wanted me to
work with them, which I did.
And I wound up having
usually 10 of her horses.
And I took them not in training
for two months, but for two
years, and we campaigned them.
So she was
Rupert Isaacson: in, in what discipline
did she or were they in all disciplines
Linda TJ: with me?
They were in endurance, riding,
jumping and, three day of ending.
Okay.
Yep.
So, and you'll see that in some of
my books, and it's so interesting,
you know, when you, when I had that
astrological reading thing that
my work would spread around the
world, behind me on this bookshelf.
I have books, my books
in, 22 books in 16 languages.
So from that point, it really has
spread thanks to my publishers.
Rupert Isaacson: Amazing.
Absolutely amazing.
It is.
So, so, so, okay.
You are running this writing.
So your creative writing, workshops
have clearly paid off because
you're now publishing articles
about what you're doing in Western
Horseman Magazine and so on.
People are, taking notice of this to the
point that they want to come check out
your school, bring their horses to you.
You're training horses for aristocrats.
You are, you are training these, these,
people who are gonna go on to be very
well known in the horse business.
Why not just stay with that
for the rest of your life?
Why go on into the healing arts.
Boy that that's like You did.
Linda TJ: Really good question.
So
interesting story, because I know
you love the nitty gritty, right?
Mm-hmm.
So, what happened with our school at
Badger is, we had, wonderful connections
with different organizations and one of
them was Prescott College in Prescott,
Arizona, and I was asked to go and do,
I can't remember how this happened.
I must have met the
director of Outward Bound.
And so I was asked to go and give a
workshop to students about endurance
writing and what it takes to, you
know, go into another discipline.
And so after that class, we invited
the head of the Outward Bound Roy
Smith and eight of the students to
come for a weekend to us and learn
to ride in a weekend, jumping and
riding in a weekend, these athletes.
And that's what we could do in our
school, Rupert, because it was logical
way of specifically riding and balance.
So it was easy for these athletes to do.
Rupert Isaacson: And I presume you
were putting them on school master
horses that were not gonna kill 'em.
Yeah.
Linda TJ: We have really great horses.
That's a whole other thing in this book.
I was, we just translated this to German.
And, one of the reasons that our, our
horses were so good is the fact that
I never allowed a person to ride a
horse unless they liked the horse.
And if they didn't like that
horse, they would not get on them.
Because horses know when you don't like
them and they want to work for you.
If you do like them, it's
makes a huge, huge difference.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So you, you, you've got this
incredible program going and
you've got these athletes coming
from Prescott College, right.
Linda TJ: And now I'm trying to forget.
Oh yeah.
So, oh my God.
Okay, this, so we have this
group of students there.
We're sitting at the dining room table,
and we have people learn in the class.
They learn to be hostess and help people.
And so we were serving dessert.
And the dessert that was brought out
to, to my table, we have many, like four
or five different tables of students.
our table were, were peaches for dessert.
And my and Wentworth said I ordered
pears and he got up and stomped into
the kitchen and I thought, oh, oh.
And he came back out and he
said, well, she may quit.
And I said, quietly.
I wouldn't blame her.
And you have to understand, Rupert,
I had never in my all 16 years with
him, never dared to open my mouth to
oppose him because he was very violent.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So there was a light side and
a dark side to this ma'am.
Linda TJ: There was a dark
side due to I think alcohol.
Yes.
And so, I don't know, you
know, it was, it was, it was
meant to be that I said that.
And he said to me, step outside.
And I said, okay.
So I walked out and thank God
there was a solid door so people
couldn't see what happened.
So he stood in front of me, and I'm
telling this cuz some of you may have had
experiences that were really terrible and
you've lived through them, which I did.
So he said, say that again.
And I said, I wouldn't
blame her if she quit.
And he punched me and knocked me down.
And how much bigger than you was he?
Oh, he was only five eight.
But he was on the boxing team
at, you know, in his prep school.
Rupert Isaacson: So yeah.
He must have known the damage.
He could do What, what, what
possessed him do you think?
I mean, what, what do think any,
do you think anything went through
his mind thinking, oh, what if
I, what if I accidentally kill.
I'm a box.
I'm a trained boxer.
Linda TJ: No, no.
He wouldn't think that.
You know, this is something
that happens, I think to people.
He, anyway, he lost his rational mind.
But I want, what I want you to tell
you about it that's so interesting is
that, did you ever, do you remember
those years where used to, there
used to be a little glass and there
was a, something called a dodo bird.
And you, the dodo bird, if you
tipped it down, tipped right back up.
What came in my mind, I just jumped up and
stood in front of him like a dodo bird.
I didn't cry, I didn't feel anything.
And he said, say that again.
And I did.
And he punched me again.
And when I sit up and just looked
at him, I didn't say anything,
or I just stood and looked at him
and he said, I think we better go.
I think we better talk.
And I said, yes, I think we better.
So we went for a walk and I, I told
him some of the ridiculous things that
he had done, which I, it's way too
long a story for that about, again,
punching out, our lawyer and, You
know, he couldn't think, and this
is a, that's the dark side of him.
Mm-hmm.
The bright side is I wouldn't be
sitting here with you without, if
I hadn't been with him those years.
Right.
Because the big, one of the biggest
things I learned, Rupert, that has
made a huge difference to my life is
if I don't know something, I say, oh.
Interesting.
I don't know that instead of trying
to fake that, you know something
if a student asks you a question.
Mm-hmm.
And the other thing is to share
information because in the
horse world, you know, all the
trainers had their secrets.
Right.
And that's what our indicate column
was about, sharing secrets of
how we managed to get along with
horses in this way without, with
safety, without getting hurt, with
appreciation, you know, with a smile.
And, for that I honor this man.
So the punch Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: It was it light
his dark, dark to his light.
Yeah.
I mean, but, but then he
punches you out like this.
You can't come back from
there at that point.
Do you leave him?
No, no, no,
Linda TJ: no.
That wasn't it.
That was okay.
We, we went for a walk and then he
said, I think you need time to think.
And so he said, I'm going to go.
We had an apartment in San Francisco,
that we would sometimes go to
on weekends and he said, I think
I'm going to go to the apartment
and let you think about this.
So he did.
And I was so relieved when
he walked out the door.
And the big thing that I can be
here and sit and talk to like this
is that I completely forgive him.
And I, I can understand how
such an intelligent person
is what we're telling him.
He was running a school for mostly women.
We had a few men, but not many.
And, and certainly no one of his
intellectual level to, to talk, to
talk with what a terrible thing.
So after three o'clock each day,
he would never sign anything.
He would never agree to anything
after three o'clock, cuz that's
when, you know, he'd start
drinking these glasses of whiskey.
So, big gift here for me is forgiveness.
Mm-hmm.
Of myself, whatever role I played.
And for, for what?
That I.
Take resp, you know,
responsibility for that.
Rupert Isaacson: So then, you,
you go off to the apartment in San
Francisco, you have a think, no.
He goes off.
No, he goes off.
You're on the ranch, he goes off.
You relieved.
He's gone out of the door.
Linda TJ: Very relieved.
Rupert Isaacson: Does he come back
at the end of the weekend saying
perhaps we should get divorced?
Do you say that or
Linda TJ: no?
No.
What happened was every morning I would
have like a 30 to 50 minute talk with
Countess, Bethany about the different
horses and how they were doing.
And she knew this going on
with went, she knew how he was.
Mm-hmm.
And so she said, Linda, why
don't you get a divorce?
It never crossed my mind, Rupert.
Okay.
Never ever crossed my mind.
You just didn't do that in those days.
Mm-hmm.
And so I said, oh, and so I
remember calling my mother in horror
thinking, what is she going to say?
And when I told her, she said, oh dear,
thank God finally, because she had
never said anything ever about, she
just, she never talked about people.
She wasn't her gossip.
And so, that was how that, so we, and
then, so I told him then, and they said he
knew at some point, you know, he being 20
years old, that, that that would happen.
And, you know, so we just worked it out.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
He didn't, he didn't then become
violent again or anything like that?
Linda TJ: Not at all.
No, because he wasn't drinking.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And, and, but you must have
still been around him when he
was drinking a bit after that.
So what, what prevented him from
Linda TJ: he, he didn't come back.
We made it from a distance.
Okay.
Okay.
Yep.
And then what happened?
How I then got it then count counts.
Bethany said, Linda, it's
too much work for you.
Why don't you just close the school,
sell your school horses and Okay.
And find a place where that you
really like near San Francisco.
Because I was a member of the Los Alto
Summit Club and we were there and and
so, and then, you know, it's a much better
place to promote my horses from there.
So we found a beautiful
place and that's what I did.
I moved over and I had a huge fancy tipped
in a very fancy sale and sold all our
school horses to a really good school that
one of our students actually went on and
knew the horses and was the teacher there.
Okay.
And it's in the book some of how our
students went on to be successful.
Rupert Isaacson: So then now you're
running a new place, you're solo act.
Yes.
You're still a long way from Teta.
Well, no, but, but
Linda TJ: hold on, hold on.
I forgot.
There is another thing.
Okay.
I had a.
relationship with his students.
And Margaret was much younger, 11 years
younger and Mar and he played Polo.
And, and Margaret said,
why don't you marry him?
He can be your concert.
You can't be in the horse business
in 1970 without a husband.
You can't be, you can't be sick.
You know, it wasn't allowed in the
Hunt Club or any of those clubs.
So I married him and, that's
a whole other story that
lasted two and a half years.
And we had a, a happy
disconnect at that point.
And, he went off with ex-girlfriend
who was working for me at
the time, and I was so happy.
You cannot believe it, but
I couldn't tell her that.
Of course.
Thank you very much.
This is a nice shift.
okay then.
So I had, I had, and how that happened, I
had the school, it was really a beautiful
school over in, in Los Alto Hills.
We had rented a house next to us
that had six bedrooms and a pool.
Rupert Isaacson: Los Altos Hills.
That is now Silicon
Linda TJ: Valley.
No.
Silicon Valley.
Well, yeah, I guess that's part of it.
Perhaps that's part, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Sort of what is now.
Yeah.
Okay.
But different back then.
Okay.
So you've got this
Linda TJ: wonderful place.
And we were, we did a lot of
showing with our horses and we
had students from all over again.
But I only took students for
six months at that point.
Okay.
And then I got the feeling, wait a
minute, Rupert, I was so disillusioned
of what was going on in the horse world
because, it was no better than before.
There was no more in like,
recognition of the horse's,
heart right, of their feelings.
It was just the same old,
dominant thing that was going on.
And so I, yeah, and I decided that
I had to go around the world and
find out what I was supposed to do.
Okay.
And, so I was invited, in, I started
in Germany to visit Mar , Ursula Bruns,
who is responsible for my first book.
She's the one that sat me down and
said, Linda, you have to start, you
have to, make a method of this work.
And it's thanks to her.
I have my first of these 22 books
now, so, Anyway, I went to visit
her and she said, you have to
give a presentation for e quana.
And I was planning to continue around the
world to go spend some time with a student
in Africa who was filming gorillas.
But anyway, I didn't get there.
And I stayed in Germany.
And then I developed this, this whole
system, and thanks to Ursula Bruns with
her camera and sitting me down at the,
those old standard wasn't a typewriter,
it was, I forget what you call this, in
between the typewriter and the computer.
Rupert Isaacson: So you had been
using this way to, of empathetic
touch with horses through this whole,
successful career in, California.
Yes.
and now there you are, you've
come to Germany thinking, oh,
I'm gonna be a student again.
I, I need to, need to find out more.
But now someone's looking at
you going, oh, no, no, no.
You are the one who's
gotta be the teacher.
Or is that, is that how it plays out?
Linda TJ: How it played out?
First of all, I wanted to learn because
I've been teaching so much in my life.
And so when I, I got there and I,
Ursula said, you have to make this
performance, this presentation for Equa.
And it was that year, there
were 136,000 people who visited
Equa over those nine days.
And, So I took my partner at the
time, Roger Russell and four, three,
two other young men and four horses.
And we trained them to do a quad
drill of four jumping with no bridals.
And it was sensation of e quana.
It was in all the magazine.
And what the magazines wrote
is, oh my gosh, so many
people are going to be killed.
You know, this is such a terrible idea.
And now this last time, Rupert, you've
seen in every discipline at Equa across
the board, English, western dressage.
Yeah.
Everybody's riding with
nothing on their horse's head.
Absolutely.
Yeah, because it's the truss.
So I wanna, I wanna get outta this
long story and take you to the
story of how Te Touch developed.
Okay.
So I'm, I'm in Germany.
After Eton, I'm asked to teach a
writing class, because they wanted
to know how I did this stuff, right?
So we sent up, , A class and the
advertisement, you had to either be
a, an adult writer with fear from
accidents, but an experienced rider, or
you had to have a horse who's fearful.
And so my organizer said,
you don't need a translator.
Every German speaks English.
Not true, as you may
have found out indeed.
So I went in there and I got there and
not one person spoke one word of English.
So I, growing up in Canada, had
had four years of French and Latin.
And so I knew how to conjugate, so I just
wrote down 10 words I needed for teaching.
And I thought, this is
great, this is really fun.
So I started using those words and we
had an amazing time on that weekend.
And so, the Ursula Bruns who had
organized that and had already sold
books with three quarters of a million
readers, sh everybody knew her.
She was amazing human being.
And she's the one who took me under her
wing and said, you have to make a method.
When she saw what I was doing.
And so my partner who was with me
traveling with me, Roger Russell,
he, I was asked to form this
writing school that would be head
set up by these, you know, really.
Organized Germans and
I would be the teacher.
And Roger wanted to have something to
teach, and he, we had been doing the
Felden Christ work one time, one lesson
at Essel and Institute the year before.
And it had made such a difference to
the movement, my movement as a writer,
because in the classical way of getting
into writing, you write in one position
depending on your discipline, right?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So this gave me the movement in my pelvis,
thanks to this Feld in Christ, awareness
for movement like I had never had.
And it was incredible.
So Roger decided he wanted to
bring that and implement it in
the writing that we were doing.
So he signed up for a class in San
Francisco, and I took one look at
the brochure because it was Dr.
Moshe Feld Rice from Israel teaching
at the Humanistic Psychology
Institute in San Francisco.
And it was to be a three year course,
which turned out to be actually four
years, because you felt we weren't ready.
So I took one look at it and I said, I,
I know I have to do this for my students.
Never crossed my mind rippert
that it would make such a
difference for me or for the work.
And so I, it was a 12 week course,
four days a week from 10 till four.
And then all year you did the
studying and moving and practicing
and, So the second day in the class,
we're lying on the floor, and he
is, he's making this statement, Dr.
Moe Felden Christ made this statement
that it's possible for a human to learn
in one experience using these gentle,
non habitual movements that activate
new neural pathways to the brain, that
give us more potential for learning.
And I'm lying on the floor
doing these movements.
He's leading it through.
And I felt my, my ears
prick up like a horse.
And I thought, wait a minute,
if this is true for a human,
it's gotta be true for a horse.
So I, after class that
day, I called a man.
I had just met who had brought a group of
Arabian th br Mayors down from Montana.
And I had been interested
in buying one of them.
And so I called him and I said, do you
have any of the horses have any issue
that habit, that you'd like to be changed?
And he said, well, I have this one
horse that, every day to catch her, to
bring her into the stable for her food.
You know, for the night
I had to chase her.
It's not logical.
So he chased her up and brought her to me.
I, I came out after class and I did about
30 minutes of what I call exploring.
And we had already, I wanna show you this.
Two books here.
We had already written this book.
This is Belvin Christ.
This is, no, this is
just a booklet we had,
Rupert Isaacson: but you've had
written that you guys have put out
Linda TJ: Yes.
15 years before we wrote
this booklet called Physical
Therapy for the Athletic Horse.
Okay.
Using these gypsy movements Ah, okay.
To help our horses recover
after hard athletic endeavor.
And, but it never crossed my mind
that you could change the habit of
a horse or change their behavior.
And so, I started working on this
horse as we had done, you know, moving
the legs and diff moving different
parts of the body in ways that
horses would not move themselves.
And
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Novel movement in,
Linda TJ: but yes, with a new thought.
And the new thought was, wait
a minute, what are the neural
pathways that will be activated?
Because I'm moving this with
awareness in a way that this
horse could not do it herself.
And so I moved the legs with
that in mind, what are the neural
connections that are happening?
Will this horse be able
to learn new behaviors?
So, I was simply what I
call exploring Rupert.
And so, I did this thing and
people watched me and they
thought I'd hypnotize the horse.
She was so quiet.
This is a horse that
had never been ridden.
So I, I moved her head in
different ways and took her
ears and her legs and her tail.
And then he, I went home and didn't
think anymore, and he turned her loose.
And he called me the next day and
he said, you won't believe this.
When I went to catch her, to put her
back in this table, she came to the gate.
And when I put her in this stall,
instead of diving for the food, she stood
there next to me, like, do something.
And I thought, holy mackerel.
Okay, now how did I get
to where I am here today?
The next level of this is this book.
So at the end of the first summer
in San Francisco at the Humanistic
Psychology Institute, Dr.
Moshe Felden Christ recommended
this book, it's called Man on His
Nature, by Sir Charles Sherington.
Sherington was a Nobel Prize winner who,
who won the Nobel Prize for the, talking
about futons a light in the cells.
And when I read that book, I was
sitting in Marvin Pic restaurant in
Stuttgart, Germany, in a February
cold rainy day reading this book.
And sh Dr.
She, Charles Sherington, made
the statement that the, that the.
Every cell in the body knows
its function in the body.
And he told the story in such
fascinating description of how if we
cut ourselves talking about how the,
how the cell, how the body knows which
fluids to send to that for healing.
And I suddenly realized, wait a minute.
If every cell in the body knows it's
function in this body, then all I
have to do, if I am working on a
horse or a person who has a problem,
all I have to do is say, cells remind
this body, remind these cells of
their potential for ideal function.
And it's just a thought that I had.
And so I, I would have that thought.
And what I found is, wow, I could, this
is way before the circles, I could really
make a difference in how a horse felt and
how they behaved by just having this sense
of giving new information in the body by
these gentle movements and the next level.
So I was very successful with
this and we found that we
could really change behavior.
And one of the stories you might
appreciate, and you've gotta jump
in and stop me cuz once I get on
a roll with this, I just, it's so,
it takes me back to those days.
So, We're looking for other
horses to try these theory on.
Right?
So another day I go out to a polo
barn, belong to a polo player I
knew and he had also school horses
and he had one horse, , si another
older mayor that he played Polo one.
But they couldn't use her in the jumping
program for students because she would
not step over a line in the sand.
So of course she wouldn't jump
a pole or step over a pole.
So I'm kind of scratching my head
and thinking, Hmm, interesting.
So we're standing out in the arena
and they're a bunch of poles lying
around cuz it was a jumping arena.
And , I'm at her tail and Racher,
my partner at the time is today, my
good friend always, he was at her
head and , I was doing something
with her tail and suddenly this horse
was standing there with her head up.
She just dropped her head and
walked forward over a pole.
I thought, holy mackerel.
That's interesting.
So we drew some lines in the sand,
first of all, just with our foot and
I would work her tail and he could
lower her head and she'd step over it.
Then we got her working over pole and
Rupert, my God, when I think about.
The re relationship of the
tail and the cranial sacral
fluid that we understand today.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and the ears with all of that.
It's fascinating.
Okay.
So another discovery.
So we started working with the different,
continuing to work on different parts
of the body and was very successful.
My whole next book that's still in
print, the introduction to the work
was 2020 horses for, four weeks that
we took them horses with big, big
problems like runaways or really
dangerous spook, spooky horses.
And so the next miracle that happened
in my life, this was, I was giving
a workshop at the Delaware Equine
Veterinary Clinic and Matthew McKay Smith.
Did you ever meet Matthew?
He was,
Rupert Isaacson: I did.
I actually met, I knew the McKay Smiths
because I, worked in Middleburg,
Virginia for my first ever horse
training job in America when I was
very, very young, 500 years ago.
And, I, I knew them and I knew they,
they were the top people for producing,
endurance horses at that time, as well
as all sorts of other disciplines.
Yeah.
And Dr.
McKay Smith was the go-to guru?
Absolutely.
As a, as a vet too.
Linda TJ: Oh, well, he and his wife were
really good friends and I knew him from
the time he was almost out of vet school.
Thank you.
And he was a veterinary editor
for Equi Magazine for years.
I remember that, yes.
Yep.
And, he loved what I did, and
his mother had a bunch of, I can't
remember the breed right now, one
of the canons I think she bred.
And I remember him, wanting
to tube one of them.
And he wanted me to work with this horse
to try it because the horse was really
wild and basically unhandled and he
hadn't, hadn't been able to tube her.
So what I did was do some of the work
we do and then I took the nostrils
and I just moved the nostrils
in all different directions, you
know, with and around the mouth.
That's how all of that
really was influence.
And then he could put a tube
up her nose, just like that.
Rupert Isaacson: And by the way, again,
for those listeners who, dunno why you
would put a tube up, a horse's nose,
you do it to save a horse's life.
When a horse is colicking and the CO is
impacted, the horse can die very quickly.
and one way you can help with
this is to put oil through
the, through the digestive cann.
You don't do it through the
mouth, you do it through the
nose, and it's called intubating.
and if you can't intubate the
horse, in crisis, you may well
may very well lose the horse.
So it's, it's quite crucial.
And some horses accept it, no problem.
They just sort of stand there.
Other horses.
Clearly not.
So this is really interesting cuz I've
seen one, one of my first, exposures to
your work, Linda, was, you remember when
you were in Texas with us and we had our
three stallions, and you were showing
us how to put our, our fingers inside
the mouth and massage the gums and so on.
And so that was the first time
anyone had said, oh, stick your
finger in the stallion's mouth.
I'm like, well, if Linda's telling
me to do it, it must be good.
So we did.
And we found indeed, our
horses all became little puppies.
So I that's very interesting
that, I guess necessity's always
the mother of invention, right?
How else would one discover something like
this, but in some sort of crisis where
you've got to draw upon what the resources
of what you've learned and see what works.
And that's interesting.
Linda TJ: Well, actually, the way I
came about it is a longer trip and I,
sorry to go on so long, but it's fa hey.
No,
Rupert Isaacson: no, it's fascinating.
As long as you want.
Linda TJ: So that with, with Dr.
McKay Smith and the nostrils, that
was, that came as a result of a
lecture that I had in my, advanced
training of the Peda Krest work we had.
We had a neurologist, an Israeli
neurologist talking to us about watching
the mouth movements of a newborn infant,
a human, and that if they were abnormal,
there was some dysfunction neurologically.
And so like two weeks after I was in
San Francisco having that lecture, I
was back in Germany working with a horse
at someone that sent to me for a week.
They wanted to know if I could work
with her to make her friendlier
because she didn't like to be caught.
And she, she wasn't particularly friendly,
so, and she was really hard to bridle.
So what I noticed that her
mouth was really tight.
And so I thought, oh, that's interesting.
I'll just play around.
You know, this thing I call exploring.
This is before the circles.
I play around with her mouth and her chin.
And now today we do circles on
it, but that's what we did then.
And I found out and I put my mouth, my
fingers up here, up on the gums, right.
And I found out that in a very short
time, she would relax and then I
could, was able to open the mouth
and get her to open her teeth.
And bridle her and her
attitude really changed.
And then I started talking
about that and teaching it.
And then I found another book that's
here on my shelf and it's called,
emotional intelligence by Daniel Goldman.
And in the second it's about humans.
And in the second chapter, he talks
about the fact that around the mouth
and the nose, our taste in the smell
affect our, our brain in a way
that overcomes fear, that it affects
the emotional centers of our brain.
Rupert Isaacson: Makes, makes perfect
sense since we were infants, right?
Yes.
Linda TJ: Yeah.
All this sucking stuff, you
know, that we do to mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Self-sooth.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Linda TJ: So that's how I got there.
And with the, the nostrils, it was, it
was just, I don't know how I went, man.
I can't remember the first time I did
the nostrils, but maybe after reading
that chapter that it wasn't just the
mouth, that was the nostrils also.
So as a result of that Rupert, that
Matthew McKay Smith was fascinated,
and, but he always say it was me.
You know, it wasn't the method
because he hadn't seen my students
be able to do the same thing.
And so, he, did you ever meet Dr.
Dan, Daniel, Dan, Dan
Daniel Marks, no, I did not.
Well, he was the friend of Matthew
McKay Smith, and he was the, the
vet for the American Jumping Team.
Okay.
And he had also seen me work cuz I
had done, I had gone with them to
work on a horse at the King Ranch.
And so they invited me to do a
workshop at their center and they had
a bunch of the three day adventures
and different people come in and I
worked with their horses showing them
how they could improve performance
with the work, the Darlington work.
And so one of the horses belonged
to one of the other vets and they
didn't know what was wrong with
her because in those days all you
did was measure from the knee.
I mean X-ray from the
knees in the hawks down.
For those of you not in the horse world
today, veterinarians look at every aspect
of the horse with, the back, the hips,
the neck, none of that with the jaw.
Our x-rayed and their have ultrasound,
they have everything we humans have.
It was not available then.
So they wanted me to put my
hands on this horse and figure
out why was she so aggressive.
Like she'd pin her ears and snap
her teeth and move, threaten to kick
when you just approached her with
a grooming thing or with a saddle.
And so I just went up to her
quietly like this and, and just
put my hands on her rib area.
And I didn't recognize what
I was doing in those days.
Today, what I absolutely know, Rupert,
is I'm just giving her this message.
Feel yourself.
And I see the horse not as
aggressive or not as a problem,
but just feel yourself feel.
And today all I have to do is
add to that you're a miracle.
I mean, we are miracles, okay?
And the horse got really quiet.
She didn't pin her ears.
She didn't move aside.
And the, her, the wife of her, of her
owner said, Linda, what are you doing?
Why is my horse not aggressive?
Why is she not trying to, you
know, bite you or kick you?
And I said, intuitively.
And now we get back to
this word, intuition.
You must learn to trust
your intuition intuitively.
I said, don't worry what I'm doing,
just walk up, put your hands on the
shoulder and move the skin in a circle.
I didn't say a circle in
a quarter in those days.
That came way later, move
the skin in a circle.
And when I said that, I
thought, oh, that's interesting.
I don't know what that's about.
So I didn't tell her, I didn't
know what I was talking about.
So she went up and she just gently.
Pushed the skin, not with a, just
lightly pushed the skin in a circle
and the horse let her do this.
Like all over her ribcage, didn't
move to the side, didn't pin her
ears, didn't like threaten to bite.
And she said she couldn't believe it.
And when I saw that, I
couldn't believe it either.
And I thought, wait a minute.
It takes years to learn this
beautiful feld in Christ method.
Anybody can move the skin in a circle.
And that's when I started
following the circles.
And that's what we do today.
And for years now for
humans and horses and dogs.
We can relieve fear or pain, reduce
pain just for this, what we now
know is a one and a quarter circle.
And it's taken years to come to that.
This is a long story, as you can see with
a lot of influence from a lot of people.
Rupert Isaacson: So when I first, was
exposed to your method, I remember
wondering why circle in a quarter?
So for those listeners, who aren't
familiar, and hopefully there's lots
of you because, then you can all
have the treat of learning te touch,
because it works for people too.
it basically the, the, the basic pattern.
Which gets communicated when you're a
rookie is there is this way of moving
the skin gently in a pattern that
is basically a circle and a quarter.
Not a lot of pressure, but not too little
pressure, but it's a circle and a quarter.
And, the quarter, if I'm, correct
me if I'm wrong, the, the, the, the
quarter circle at the end that you end
with seems usually to, if I'm not wrong
to be an upstroke, is that correct?
Correct.
and I've been using it, thank
God I just checked using it.
But, it, it works, it works on my horses,
it works on my dogs, it works on my kids.
It works on me.
the moment you, Linda showed this to
us, because we were also running a large
facility with horses trained at a very
high level with lots of clients coming
in from all over the world, and a lot
of pressure on us to, you know, have
horses that would show up, in a good
mood, to do what they needed to do.
And so we were always obviously interested
in anything, anything we could learn
to make it nicer for our horses.
And we still, so I remember
when you first showed up, Linda,
and you showed us this and.
I remember thinking, ah, yes.
Like all genius things.
It's something simple.
But one of these days I'm gonna get
to ask you when there's not a million
of your students around and other
people, and I haven't got my hands on
a horse and I'm trying to figure out
what to do, what's the quarter bit?
Why the circle and the quarter.
Linda TJ: This is where I wish we,
we, we had the, I could draw it here.
You see, I first said
push the skin in a circle.
Mm-hmm.
And then I, I changed the push cuz it
could it, see, I can move it in a circle.
Sometimes it's feather
light, so you can't push.
Right.
So move it in a circle.
And then I realized if you do it, all of
you watching this, if, if you just imagine
a circle here and catch the skin, and
actually I'm going to give you, I'm going
to have you imagine up there on the wall
there's a clock, you know, the kind that
we used to have in schools where you had
numbers, not, not this digital things, but
where you've got a round thing like I have
above me and you have the numbers on it.
So there's a reason for doing this
and you'll see it in a moment.
So I imagine take that clock and I
put it here on my chest, which is
considered to be your heart chakra.
Mm-hmm.
Right here.
And, and I put imaginary numbers on it.
I put six toward the ground.
And I put up here, I put my, toward
my right shoulder, I put my nine.
Just imagine it from the outside.
12 up towards the chin and
three towards the left shoulder.
Now there's a real purpose that I say
that direction and now I'm gonna make a
tiny circle so you can see how actually
small it is, it is not this big thing.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
I put one hand over the other, I
move from six with a big breast,
try it six up to your nine.
And I do it lightly.
Don't press hard just enough to catch
the skin and move it so it can be, I'm
using the heel of my hand there, there,
and I go 6, 9, 12, 3, 6 up to nine and I
stop and I just release, I just did it.
Try the, yeah, yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: go ahead.
Okay, so let, let's just get, let's
just get the, the listeners to do it.
So if you're, if you're driving
a car right now, love view will
be, you're gonna need two hands.
So if you're not on the freeway,
pull over cuz this is worth a shot.
It does work.
Okay.
So we gotta just give people a
chance to pull over, da da da da.
They're looking in their rear
and mirrors, they're on around
we, oh, can I park the car here?
Put the car in park, or slide it into
Gear Engine off or run Running Park.
Okay.
Now I think they're ready.
Tell us now.
We're all gonna do it together, Linda.
Linda TJ: Okay.
So we take this imaginary clock
and we place it there looking and
so we're looking at it from the
Rupert Isaacson: outside.
So this, so this is over our heart on the
more or less the left side of our chest.
Linda TJ: Actually, let's go
in the middle, in the heart.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So we're right in the middle of our chest.
Yep.
Yep.
Okay.
And two hands, one hand over there.
Does it matter which hand is in
contact with the body left or right?
Linda TJ: Whatever you like.
Okay.
It is natural.
And, and the reason you do both, I started
calling this a te touch heart hug when
I was teaching this to orphans in Swo in
South Africa, because it's like a hug,
you know, for those who are orphans or
it's like a hug to protect yourself.
So one hand, you start at six, however,
just like make a little connection.
Oh yeah.
There's a six, nine, up to 12.
Deep breath, round to six and up and
stop at, at your, at your nine o'clock.
Now you did that once in
the clockwise direction.
Let's try it and see how it is
for you in the other direction.
Start at your imaginary six and
go up to the left, up to the 3 12,
9, 6, and back up to the three.
Now if you just now start
from six and go to six.
How does that feel?
And then go into the other direction.
Do six to the right
and just around to six.
Does it make you hold your breath?
Rupert Isaacson: I, I inhaled through
my nose on, as I, as my hands went
up from six to 12 and I exhaled as
my hands went down back to six again.
However, I would posit
that I need to do that.
Cause I've been looking at you in
a camera and I watch you do it.
So I don't know if I would've,
I might've held my breath.
Hold on.
It's okay.
Linda TJ: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Because actually if you take a deep
breath, it's true that I just did that
now I just did a six to six and I took
a deep breath and I , it took me all the
way from six to six to make that inhale.
So yes, I've been, he
holding my breath now at the
Linda TJ: back at six.
So, so the reason that I'm, I'm just
telling you cuz we normally, what I,
what I didn't say like, I breathe in
through my nose, as you mentioned before.
Mm-hmm.
And out, out through the mouth.
Yep.
And so there's a reason for all
of this out through the nose
activates the nitric oxid oxide.
So, ah, yeah.
So now when, what I found
is, wait a minute, it didn't
feel finished at six to six.
Mm-hmm.
So then we start, what happens
if I go a little beyond six?
That's how in the first days in my first
books, it was just a little beyond six.
So it went to about eight o'clock.
And then what changed that years
later of doing this very successfully,
and publishing several books.
A young man who's a savan came
into one of our classes in Germany,
a weekend class for self-help.
And he said, you know, that basic circle
of the, and a little more that you're
doing, if you just go to circle on a
quarter, that's that golden cut or golden
spiral that's in all of nature and ah,
Rupert Isaacson: the fractal pattern.
Yes.
Linda TJ: And so the thing that was so
interesting with that is that it's five.
We, we've now discovered it's
five degrees short of one in
a quarter that is in our dna.
It actually can affect our dna.
N it is in all of nature.
It's everywhere.
It's mm
Rupert Isaacson: hmm.
Right.
It's a pattern of three, six,
and nine, which is Tesla's,
key to the universe, right?
That all numbers are everything
in creation that's creative is.
3, 6 0 9 somehow.
Interesting.
Linda TJ: So now what
I, oh, this is, yeah.
So when, so I, I'd started already
because it's so hard when we went to
computers and writing so much, it's hard
to write, go to six and a little beyond.
Mm-hmm.
So I started saying six and a quarter
and I've been writing that for some time.
Oh yeah.
It's just natural to start
a stop at that quarter.
Now what it does, I, I sort of got
off a 72 minute try it a few times.
If you have these looping thoughts
and you can't focus just two, a few of
these, one in a quarter circle while,
Rupert Isaacson: while people
have still got their cars stopped.
Yes.
And if you drove off again, now
you've gotta pull over again.
Sorry.
Okay.
So pull over again and let's do what
should, can you guide us through Yes.
Three of these perhaps?
Would you think that's good?
Yes.
Linda TJ: Okay.
Sit and in through the nostril.
Rupert Isaacson: So, so hold on.
So, so two hands in the
center of the heart.
Yes.
One hand in connection with
through one's T-shirt to one skin.
Okay.
Yes.
Linda TJ: In through the nostrils and
one in around the face of the clock
and out through your purse lips.
And back up to the quarter.
And stop.
take another neck.
Just release your hands a little bit.
Take another deep breath.
And do this in the direction
that you prefer and like,
and think of now as you go the last
time around, think of something
for which you're very grateful,
something that makes you
feel really good and stop.
And what that does from the studies
that we've been doing for years,
you can be having these looping
thoughts that you can't stop or
you're agitated, something's really
bugging you and you can't slow down.
Do this one in a quarter smile
because that activates your serotonin.
Yeah.
Just the stretching of your lips.
That's your feel.
Good hormone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And light contact has been shown
in a 2000 person study by the
American Massage Association.
It's been the light contact, not deep
pressure activates the most trust hormone.
The ar what?
Oxytocin.
Yeah.
Oxytocin.
Exactly.
And so just the light move and, and
it doesn't have to be on your heart.
The reason we started calling it a
heart hug was be when I taught it to
these orphans who are alone, living
alone, often getting only a lunch meal.
And we were there during the serving
of the lunch meal to teach them this.
So when they're afraid you can do this
yourself, or, or how many of you get
the things where you have the same few
words go over and over, around, through
your head and you can't stop it, right?
That will stop it.
Like, like
now why is it important?
Rut, I wanna give you this.
What the heck?
Why is that useful to us?
Because I imagine the face of the,
this clock here, anytime I imagine
anything that activates my right
brain and when I put the numbers on
or I have a method, that's why I say
toward the shoulder, toward the chin.
That's a method that we do.
And when we have those methods,
that activates our logical part
of the brain, and we can't be
here together without that logic.
The left side of the brain.
Right on the left side of the brain.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So what you're
talking then about is, is, is,
hemispheric coherence Exactly.
Getting the both sides
of the brain to Exactly.
Instead of one taking over from the
Linda TJ: other.
Yeah.
But, and I mean, the logic is so
important, but the right brain is
it, this is what I believe makes us
human because it's responsible for
our creativity, for our feeling.
And during covid, I mean, so
this feeling deficit syndrome was
recognized that we don't feel it.
So many people don't feel anymore.
And so when you ah, do this hard
hug and give thanks, give gratitude
for the fact that you can do it,
or even that you can imagine it.
And it activates that whole,
that it's the intuition, the, the
compassion that we have for others,
for ourselves, for the planet, for
our animals, creativity, feeling.
Mm-hmm.
So that's why we do it.
That's part of, and before you, if
you're working with an animal, a dog or
a horse, if you do this before you go
to do some exercise you wanna do with
them, that puts you in heart coherence.
It gives you the activity, activity
of the fore brain so you can
actually think and feel and heal.
And instead of being under the
control of the amygdala, the emotional
part of our brain, which you know,
is where we have our, our fear.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The, the, we can't
for, for, for those listeners who are
unfamiliar with that, the amygdala
named after an ormond in Greek, cuz
it's shaped up an ormond, is the part
of the brain that governs, fight,
fight and freeze and signals to the
body to produce cortisol, which is the
stress hormone as well as adrenaline.
So that you act, you don't
think when there's a threat.
But the problem is cortisol
is a neurotoxin and it.
Cuts momentarily.
The cord between the back part of
the brain and the fore brain, the
prefrontal cortex and the prefrontal
cortex is what gives us logic reason,
but also emotional regulation.
So figuring shit out and
handling your shit, which are
jolly useful survival tools.
Right.
so what you've done, I think Linda, there
has given us a way when we're in our
funk, when we're in our dysfunctional
funk, not when we're in the George
Clinton having fun type of funk.
Right.
the, the dysfunction, a way back to brain
coherence through serotonin and oxytocin
that is pretty much instantaneous.
I can attest to this, you know, whenever
I've tried it on myself, I'd say that
I can get from the dis funk back to
the, we want the funk type funk in
approximately five to 15 seconds.
sometimes it might take me three
to six repetitions or sometimes
it might happen right away.
But, it's very interesting that your
circle and a quarter, your circle and
a bit, there's so many, as you say,
the golden ratio, pie is like that.
It's, you know, something and a
bit or these irrational numbers
that seem to sequence and have.
effects on our DNA and get,
get, repeated all through.
We see it at every level
in, in, in, in cosmology.
We see it, we see it everywhere.
and there you are stumbling into
it, from having been an 11 month
old girl in yellow knife with her
hand on a bear's ear instinctively.
but, and seeing your great-uncle
who'd been out to Russia, putting
his hands on the horses with kindness
and explaining that however briefly,
and then having this horse gene.
Anyway, of course, you,
you, that was a gift.
and then bringing that through, from
functional horseman, horsemanship to
refined horsemanship, to then a way of
looking at the world and a way of looking
at the horse that didn't just serve
you, in your professional career then
with horses, but also helped you, for
example, survive a very, very difficult
situation like the one you described
with, Tellington, where you could not
only survive it, but you could actually
forgive him and love him afterwards,
and then therefore not negate all of the
gifts and benefits of that relationship.
not thinking extremes like that, which is.
That would've been understandable, but
would not have been as helpful to you.
And then you go on to run this
school yourself, and then you end
up in, in Germany and people are
watching you touch the horses like
this, and then you discover Feldon
Christ and there's a method to it.
But as you say, Feldon
crisis, it's quite complex.
and takes quite a long time to learn.
And then realizing that it can be
brought down to something simpler
and more direct, through intuition.
I love it.
and here you are giving
it to the rest of us.
So you say it's 22 books now in
Linda TJ: 22 books, 16 languages now.
Rupert Isaacson: 22
books and 16 languages.
That's, that's not too shabby.
Linda TJ: I just got my latest
one in, Korean, the dog book in
Korean because we've had Korean,
people come to us in Hawaii for,
to do our tradings before covid.
I
Rupert Isaacson: have to joke cuz a dog
book in Korean could of course be a, a
Kari book as well, but, in North Korean.
But, I'm assuming it's not that.
the, this brings me to
where I'd like to go now.
So for those of you who are
just discovering Linda, today,
you should go out and you have
nothing to do with horses or dogs.
Go anyway and look up
tea touch, on Google.
and start to practice some of the basic
exercises on yourself, on your loved
ones, because it will, you're gonna
find like the rest of us have done that.
It helps an awful lot.
And then from there, you might want to,
to go onto a website, which I'll be giving
to you at the end of this, this podcast.
And so, you know, you've been,
to say you've been massively
successful is, an understatement.
And also miss, I feel distract from
the point of this conversation,
which is again, self-actualization.
I would posit that when you were a girl
riding to school in Alberta, or when you
were running this, school withington,
or when you were beginning to do your
first writings and explorations, and I,
I would very much doubt that you went
into it going, I'm gonna do this cuz
this is gonna make me rich and famous.
I would posit that you did it
because it was what was in front
of you and inside you to do.
literally.
And the, and the success of it is purely
down to its practicality that when
people try it, they go, oh, this works.
I remember hearing, It's a quote
from Klaus Balcon Hall, who again,
if, if those people who are not horse
people, he was an Olympic dressage
rider from Germany when Germany
really began to dominate in the sport
in the late seventies and eighties.
And he, I know, brought you in to
his Olympic horses, at a time when
nobody was doing anything like that.
And all the people said, well,
it's this new age shit, you know,
da, and he would, I remember him
saying, well, she's a white witch.
but I think you would say,
no, I'm not a white witch.
what I've, what I've stumbled into
is purely something that works on a
cellular level, which anybody can do.
If, if, if, if it relied upon Linda
being a white witch, well then it
would only, it would die with Linda.
And it also wouldn't be
transferrable from Linda.
But clearly, clearly it is.
and here you are now.
Where do you want to go?
What, what's next?
What, what's, what's on the agenda?
Linda TJ: Well, thanks to Covid, I
am so blessed to finally have what I
believe is the answer to how is it with
this simple one in a quarter circle.
Anywhere we have a pain, we can reduce
that pain in a matter of minutes
or, if we are fearful, we can.
Overcome our fear just with
these tea touches around the
outside of the mouth for humans.
You don't have to go inside just
around, I mean, this is, think about
this, without this mouth, unless
we're in a hospital, we can't survive.
Yeah.
So you can actually reduce your fear.
Just, and, and look, this is a guys
with beards, they're so lucky because
this helps you think Yeah, it does.
Rupert Isaacson: We all do
this when we think so I'm, I'm,
I'm, I'm stroking my beard.
And what I do when I want to sell
sooth is I run, I I massage my jaw.
I've realized, yeah, I scratch
my butt, but I can't do that
when I'm in the chair, so,
Linda TJ: alright.
Yeah.
So it, it's all, it's all logic.
It's not, it's, it's the
science and spirituality.
That's what gets me.
And finally, thanks to Covid,
I've been doing a lot of teaching
online for self self-help.
You can join me for like
every Tuesday for two hours.
We havet touch for self-care and,
learning how, when you've got a
pain here, like, oh, my husband had
a real pain in his neck, like an
eight level out of 10 pain yesterday.
And I just started having him guide me.
Not that I'm telling him.
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fix this.
No, no.
What, where exactly does it hurt?
And what pressure can I use?
Is it very light that you like a
little bit more and have him guide
me and in 15 minutes and pain that
was on eight level was down to a two
and then it was gone after he got up.
And that's what you can do to yourself.
That's so cool because we have
these ways of working with it.
And thanks to Covid Rupert, I now know
why this one in the quarter works.
So tell us.
I'm going to tell you, and it's thanks to
the influence of this book and all, all
this, these books behind me is the Code of
Rupert Isaacson: Authentic
Living, cellular Wisdom
Linda TJ: by Right, and
it's written by Joan C.
King.
And what's interesting, she was, for
20 years, she was a cell biologist at
Tufts University of Medicine and she
heard a legend that, caused her to quit.
Being a professor and take
it into authentic living.
And this book is about
exactly how the cells work.
And what's so interesting, I had
the great honor and pleasure of
co-teaching a workshop with Dr.
Bruce Lipton in Vienna
about six years ago.
I brought T Touch and
he brought his magic.
And
Rupert Isaacson: who is Dr.
Bruce Lip Lipton for those who dunno.
Linda TJ: Oh, he was, he is one
of our visionaries in bringing
science to, to the rest of us.
and he was, he taught bio cell biology
at, Stanford University for years.
And then he, he found in his first book,
the bi biology of Belief, he found,
he wrote that what was being taught
was so old and so out of date that he
had to leave that and become vision.
What we now know him as a
visionary, doing these wonderful,
you can go online and find him.
You do yourself a favor and look up Dr.
Lipton.
And, so he's interested in animals too.
So he knew what I did with,
with, of course, with dogs
and horses and he loves dogs.
And so he showed me on his computer, he
showed me that every cell in the body
has a huge number of known functions.
Like I, the number I remember
is a hundred thousand.
I've gotta check again to
make sure this is correct.
But in this book, she describes all of
the amazing functions that are known.
But what's not known is what causes,
what's behind all these functions.
And on the back of this
book is the answer to that.
And I'm, it's, it's, it's
a Hindu legend, and I'm just
going to tell you for time sake.
So the legend goes, and at one
time on this planet, every human
could had the power of a God.
They could do anything.
And then human can kind
began to abuse that power.
And the head Brahman, Hindu
Brahman, said, we have to stop this.
We cannot allow the world
to be damaged in this way.
And so I said, we're going to take
away this power from humankind.
And so they had this big powwow
and they got together and they
said, okay, who has an idea?
How can we get, how can we hide
this power that everyone has?
And one said, I know we'll take it
to the highest mountain and we'll
climb up there and we'll leave it.
Nobody will find it.
No head.
Brahman said.
Of course, humankind
is very, intelligent.
They'll find it.
Another one said, we'll go to the
deepest ocean, part of the ocean.
We'll drop it there.
No, no, no.
They'll find it.
Then another said, I know we'll go to
the deepest cave known on the planet
and dig deeper and hide it there.
No, no, they'll find it.
He sat for a long time
quietly just listening.
And then he said, I know
where we'll hide it inside.
They'll never find it.
And so the legend goes that since that
time, humankind has been running up the
mountains, digging in the dirt, diving in
the ocean, looking for this power that's
always right here and why this is so.
When I read that, I thought my Christian
friends are not going to be interested
in a human, in, in, in a Brahman legend.
And so I called a friend of mine who knows
the Bible really well and is a minister.
And I said, where does
it say that in the Bible?
And he said, in the new King
James version, Luke 17 lines 20
and 21, the kingdom of of God is
within you and all around you.
And it depends which version
you read, exactly how that said.
But what I've since found, Rupert,
it's in every religion it's in.
It's not just, it's everywhere.
It's this understanding
that the God was within.
But in some places of Bible, we don't
wanna be given that power because we are.
We're living manifestations of
the divine universal intelligence.
And so I realized with this one in a
quarter circle that's in all of nature.
It's like, turning a key to enter into
this amazing body that we have where every
cell knows its dysfunction in the body.
And when we have fear or dysfunction,
the communication between the
cells is inhibited, which is
so beautifully discussed in Dr.
Bruce Lipton's book,
spon, spontaneous evolution.
So this communication between the cells,
and that's what started me on this
whole thing, you're going to develop
a form of communication itself that
that's, that goes around the world.
And this is the communication between
us here, between us and ourselves,
you know, between ourselves.
It's, that's all communication.
And when we realize, wait a minute, we
can just open ourselves to this phenomenal
information that is in the quantum field.
And if you don't know that,
find one of the books by Dr.
not by, by Greg Grayden in his book,
the Divine Matrix or the Field.
It's you will get a whole
other understanding of who
you are and what your life is.
What you're hear about when
you, when you read his books,
Rupert Isaacson: it's so, yeah.
I've listened to some of his podcasts
that he, he's, he's quite extraordinary.
Amazing.
Linda TJ: Yeah.
And those two, Bruce and Bruce Lipton
and Greg Braden do a lot of things
together, which are life changing.
I'd love to meet you and go
there with you and IA one day.
Let's do it.
It'll be really fun.
so you see where I am, I'm
totally inspired about this.
You know, we're all miracles and that's
how I see our animals and ourselves.
And when we have something
wrong with us, instead of seeing
what's wrong, wait a minute.
We can visualize the light in
ourselves and we can actually either
do it with our mind as you get
from, you know, so many of these.
Wonderful, we've got so many visionaries
out there talking about how you can
affect yourself just from what you think.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Where does Covid come into this for you?
Linda TJ: Covid was a life game
changer for me because, during that
time when we couldn't teach and
couldn't be traveling around the world.
My sister Robin Hood, who's 14
years younger than I am, of course
you have a sister called Robinhood.
Yeah, yeah, I do.
Because our family name is
Hood and I got to name her.
She and my niece, Mandy, pretty,
they put together our work online.
So you can go to learn.detach.ca
for Canada and you can get a
free introduction to this Learn,
Rupert Isaacson: sorry, www dot
Yeah, learn, learn l e r n dot tto.
T two Ts is it, and then
o u c h TTouch, right?
C a ca for Canada.
Got it.
Okay.
Linda TJ: And my sister and Mandy have
been putting out these wonderful courses,
short courses that you can take online.
So besides having practitioners all
around where you can, you can see if
you can get a, a teacher practitioner,
you can read one of my books, which
are all on Amazon, or you can go to
that website and get an introduction.
And Rupert, you are always my inspiration.
I have to tell you this, the time that I
have spent with you and Liliana and the
amazing work you do with your horses,
it's just been life changing for me.
I, I can't tell you how much I appreciate
and how much I love coming on and hearing
your thinking and your questions and what
you bring to the world and your books.
If anybody has not read your
books, like I, every book of you,
I start and I can't put it down.
And I just thank you for gifting the world
with your thinking and what you've done.
Rupert Isaacson: That's.
Extraordinarily high praise,
and I wasn't expecting that.
And thank you.
thank you.
Thank you very much.
I remember the first time, I heard that
you were even interested in our work.
We were in Wales, me and ia, intensively
learning the old master system of dressage
and go bopping between there and Portugal
and other places on our apprenticeship.
And she came and she said, Linda
Tanton Jones has just contacted us and
is sort of interest, sort of vaguely
interested in the horse boy stuff.
And I, that's extraordinary,
because she's in the stratosphere
and we are these people grubbing
about on their hippie margins.
and I've always felt e extremely,
honored and grateful, I have to say.
just to, just to know you let alone, to be
introduced to the healing methodologies.
If somebody wants to become, to do
more than, learn some techniques for
themselves and their horses and they
actually want to become a practitioner
of TE Touch, what do they need to do?
Linda TJ: Well, we're just getting
to that point that you, you
can do a lot of it online now.
That's a beautiful part.
And then we have these workshops and
they're all listed on our websites, so,
And I am dropping back and just doing
mostly, like this online because it's so
much fun for me to share and to have so
many of, we have wonderful practitioners
out there who can teach this.
And, and for me, getting to spend time
with you and getting to spend time
online where we can even reach out, you
know, to people who are in Iceland and
parts of Africa where they can never
get the chance to get to a practitioner.
Rupert Isaacson: Linda,
you yourself got Covid.
how did that inform your practice?
How did, how did Te Touch help you,
phy, you know, physician heal thyself,
that old adage, what insights did you
gain from your own experience with it?
Linda TJ: Well, what Covid brought
to me when I went into Covid,
I have videos of me doing this.
It's a, it's an exercise
where you, practice your,
your ability to be flexible.
And I was really good.
I could get up and down on the
floor, I could do all this stuff.
And then what I began to discover is I
was getting stiffer from not getting out
and being with people and doing things.
Okay.
And, then I, I've, for years, I've
been really careful about checking
my blood levels and my, the, making
sure that I don't have stuff in
my body that I shouldn't have.
So I wound up about four years
ago being diagnosed with Epstein
Bar and with, Hashimotos.
And 25 years ago I got rid of
chronic fatigue using the, radionics
machine and just working with
a, a doctor who just had me on a
vegetable diet and worming medicine.
Okay.
Which is really important for all of us.
Anybody who eats vegetables or, or
is around animals should be wormed.
Like we were more animals.
And so, anyway, through Covid,
I found out I was, you know,
getting stiffer and slower.
That was the downside.
And so, i, what I have to say
more the gift that, that it's
brought to me because, because we
were doing so much online every
Tuesday and one Sunday a month.
We practicing taking care of each other.
Like people would say, oh my
gosh, this, this arm is in spasm.
I can't get to a doctor,
I can't get outta spasm.
So I could have everybody in the
class do this, just try this.
Just put one hand on your arm, make, move,
like cup your hand and move the tissue and
just do a slow lift up, ah, and just lift
your shoulder a little bit and hold it.
And then slowly, slowly, slowly release
it and feel the, like some of you'll
feel it just this little release in
it because we get so tight sitting
at our computers and, not having
the you with, because you had horses.
So you never went through
that isolation, did you?
Rupert Isaacson: No.
In fact, weirdly, covid ended up
being one of the busiest times for
us because you could still go to
the barn to exercise your horses.
And then everyone we knew got
bored and wanted to buy a horse.
And then suddenly all the
other work we did dried up.
But suddenly we were riding
instructors because, Right.
Wanted to do, yeah.
So we were in the, in the
forest the whole time.
Yeah.
cause you know, being in the arena was
sometimes allowed, sometimes not allowed.
So it was a strange, the.
Functional time for us, but I do know that
that was not everyone else's, experience.
Linda TJ: Yeah.
So what I learned by doing this, just
like you and I are a person that could
have like, like one thing with a knee,
for instance, bone on bone, couldn't
get the surgery, had no one to take care
of her when she could have gotten it.
And so I just guided her with these little
tiny, what we call raccoon touches and
to find out, she was just thinking it
was her knee, but it was actually, if you
just feel gently, where is it painful?
And I would fall, I just had her follow
it down and in, and then she found out, oh
wow, that's sore all the way down my leg.
And then you go off the area.
That's, so, that's sore.
And just with the gentleness movements
of whatever part of your fingers
you can use, it's just like moving
the tissue as lightly as possible
in this one and a quarter movement.
And it's like connecting into this
intelligence, this, whatever you wanna
call it, divine sourced, universal God
intelligence, that we are every cell.
That's been science.
That's the science behind
that is totally proven.
Rupert Isaacson: So it's
interesting that, you know, yeah.
You're not, you're not saying,
okay, well I'm, I'm, I'm
superhuman because of all this.
You, you've gone through chronic
fatigue, you've gone through
Epstein Bar, you've gone through.
Hashimotos and Hashimotos, as
we know, is a thyroid thing.
It something one lives with rather than
gets rid of, but some people, present
it, rather obviously some people do not.
I would, I would never have thought that
to, to know you and look at you and see
how active and vital you, you always are.
I'm always astonished that you are
getting off planes and dealing with jet
lag and, and, and, and doing all this
stuff When you got Covid, you, like
quite a lot of people who got covid
ended up with a sort of a long covid.
but you have also managed
to keep traveling.
I just met you in, now I'm talking to
you in, in, Jusa, Florida, but I not so
long ago was talking to you in Germany.
how has Te touch allowed you to deal
with that long covid and what of
the long covid do you suffer from?
How much of the TTouch do you use
to alleviate suffering and how much
do you use for general maintenance?
And what's, what's the equation?
Linda TJ: Well, the equation
here is looking from all sides.
What can I do with TTouch, with my,
you know, when I get anxious that I'm
foggy-headed, I can do the heart hug.
And breathe and bring
myself into calmness.
But what's really important,
because I'm 85 and this covid has
affected many people, much younger
than I am in ways that would be
later, it affects the hearing.
So I'm really paying attention, Rupert,
to, you know, what's being said now is
that our, our hearing or if you have
tinnitus, which I've had for about
seven years, that affects our memory.
And I was getting really anxious
because my memory, I am so usually
names and times and places are at my
fingertips that I was losing them and
that was making me really anxious.
So, it's through this light, oxytocin,
light contact to activate the oxytocin.
And this one in a quarter circle thing.
Wait a minute, I can connect into
this divine intelligence in my body.
And then, but I need way
more than that, you all.
I am.
I went to Costco and I got my hearing
tested and everybody said, oh, come
on Linda, why are you doing that?
Because you're, you don't
have a problem with hearing.
Well, I wasn't aware of it, but
when I went and did the covid
testing, which I really recommend,
they give you re amazing, everybody
says it's the best you can get.
I had a mild to extreme hearing
loss, and they say that's what
causes us to lose our memory.
Okay, so I'm, so I'm
wrestling with that, you all.
And also, I'm, I did a sleep apnea
test because who would ever think
that you wouldn't get enough oxygen at
night unless you're paying attention?
So that can have to do
with my Epstein bar.
So, and I go to integrative doctors and I
use whatever, all kinds of different ways.
I get IV glutathione, which,
ah, how often do you do that?
Oh, a couple of times.
At least once a month, sometimes twice.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
I'm just, I, I have a, a bit of
a knowledge of glutathione only
because, for those of us who've lived
with, children with autism, there
can be, when we had Rowan, my oldest
son, who was autistic, tested in
the early days for various things,
it turned out that he did lack, a
gene, that produced, glutathione.
And we gave him glutathione, which is some
people may know, is a collating agent.
It washes, it's, it's a natural product
that your body produces to wash toxins
and other bad things out of your system.
so you, and so we would give him
glutathione and then at a certain
point it, it seemed that we could stop.
How long have you been taking glutathione?
That's interesting.
Linda TJ: Well, I started taking it in
the liquid form three years ago, and I'm
going to test for it again because I just
found, a place where I can get it iv.
So I've done six of those.
And that's the question
is how much you need?
I don't know.
I mean, I think that when your body's
suffering from, you know, Epstein Bar
and this, and long covid, which we
don't know, but I'm, I'm, today I'm
going to be in touch with my, I have
a friend, in Germany who's a really
wonderful integrative doctor, and I,
she has two horses and I trade her
support with her horses and she gives
me support with all our blood work.
And, you know, the thinking of of, how
do you affect your body without the drugs?
Rupert Isaacson: You know, what I,
what I love about this, Linda, is,
is so often when one is, talking with
people who are, practitioners of,
let's say alternative health, there's
often a feeling I think, among them
that they have to present themselves
as shiny examples of perfect health.
Otherwise, people won't.
Believe in what they do.
They'll be like, well, you're
sick, so how can your stuff?
But what I love is that you can wear
this on your sleeve and say, no,
no, I, I get sick like anybody else.
Mm-hmm.
I get, I get the same
things that other people do.
but I've got this busy work schedule.
I kind of have to keep going.
I have to keep getting on planes.
when I, you know, up until a couple
of years ago, listeners, Linda was
living in Hawaii, but, you know,
spending half the year touring
Europe, I, I dunno how you did the
jet lag and the, and the exhaustion.
Linda TJ: love flying.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
but yet there you are, sort of
showing, look, if, if you manage
yourself, yes, you can get these things.
These things are sort of natural
things to get, but it doesn't have
to stop you and it doesn't have
to impair your quality of life.
Linda TJ: Well, that is the question
and that I think it's why we need
to talk about these because there
are days when I'm really foggy
and I'm what they've discovered.
Now recently there have been
big, conferences in Germany
with the integrative, doctors
finding out that there are.
Protein strands apparently in the
blood of people with long covid.
So I want to know if I can be tested for
that, cuz I'd love to know, because if
you know that, then you can start using
the energy and talking about how we can
affect, you know, the light in ourselves,
bringing light into the fogginess in
the head and talking to other friends
who have it and managed to keep going.
Yeah, that's my, that's my question.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, it's
interesting, what springs to mind is,
I, I forget where they did this study.
You know, you read these studies, but it
was a study on, monks and nuns, I think
Christian monks and nuns, who didn't
appear, who were very old, who didn't
appear to be suffering the effects of
dementia or, Alzheimer's, et cetera.
But when they looked at their brains,
the, the same brain shrinkage and the
same, apparent brain degradation had
happened, yet they were not really
showing much that was symptomatic.
But yet there they were engaging with
nature, working in the gardens, leading
a very spiritual life, leading a very
actualized life, at least on their terms.
connected in a, in a community,
strong, connection with the
divine, strong intellectual life.
And what was interesting is that on
paper they had the same issues to
the same extent that people with a
grossly deteriorated, quality of
iPad, yet they did not have this
grossly deteriorated quality of life.
And I find this fascinating and I,
there's, there seems to be a parallel
there with what you're talking about
that you can have, no one would look
at you, I'm looking at you right
now, the listeners can't see you.
But I do not see somebody, or nor
am I hearing somebody who I would
describe in any degree as foggy.
But there you are saying Maru, you
know, there are days when I am.
I love this honesty because it gives us
faith that we could manage ourselves to,
Linda TJ: well, I think, and for me,
having, having this concept that I
can put my own hands, melt my hands
on my body, and we didn't talk about
the how we've named the different
parts of the hands that we use to
make this one in a quarter circle.
we've given them animal names.
But you see during Covid, there were two
interesting things that came up for me.
It was said that there's a
real, happening of what's
called feeling deficit syndrome.
That people weren't feeling themselves,
weren't feeling their bodies.
Hmm.
Because we don't shake hands
and hugging all that mingling.
And the other thing it said was,
The nature deficit syndrome.
Yeah.
For those who weren't having horses,
they could go out or couldn't
walk their dog or didn't walk.
Their dog stuck inside.
But for me it's also, I don't
know what you just said about
the nuns being in a community.
I've had, I had, I had what they call
a mini-stroke, which is actually a t i
a I had it on, what does t I stand for?
Oh, I forget.
I forget the word.
It's, I dunno.
We'll look it up.
Yeah, don't mind.
Yeah.
It, it's a word I should memorize and
I, I can't remember it, but it's, it
just, it's a warning for a stroke.
And the thing is, I had no.
I had, there was no
clotting and no bleeding.
They don't know what caused
it, which is it to me.
It was a wake up call.
So that's when I said, okay,
man, I'm getting my ears tested.
I'm getting my, sleep
apnea, and I'm just waiting.
And I've been talking to
me, quite a few friends.
I found out who have these dap things,
and, and because when they tested me,
Rupert, I told you this before, I was
found during the night to have like
many episodes of only 68% oxygen.
And the thing it is so wild is
that I woke up with dreams like
five, six years ago in Hawaii.
I kept waking up and I said to
Roland, I have to get more oxygen.
And I tried to rent an oxygen machine,
but you know, you have to have a doctor
and you have to know what you're doing.
And it's very expensive if you don't have
insurance or have a doctor's prescription.
So finally, I'm waiting
here for this cpap.
When I say foggy, I don't
know what that means.
It's sometimes I feel like I'm not in my
body and that's when I can use TTouch.
But as soon as I start talking to
you and I think of all the people
that we're reaching, talking, then
I get clear and I'm connected.
It's like I'm connected
into that oneness of all.
So I, I have the.
Feeling of the community and
this connection to all of us.
Mm-hmm.
And so I, I, my sister came for
two weeks and I have another sister
here now for another two weeks.
And I need friends around me because
this is one of the things that they
say is you get isolated, you know, when
you have a stroke or you have something
like this and you're not as useful.
Oh, good.
Does
Rupert Isaacson: that mean I can
invite myself with my, rambunctious
children to, come and disrupt
your life in Duke of Florida?
Linda TJ: Well, I'd love to have
you when we get our, guest house
built, but with you, can you and
Liliana, we have room prayer.
You without the children.
When we get the guest house built,
now they can come down our slide
cuz we have a pool with a slide.
Ooh.
That was built for two children.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: I can supply.
listen, Linda, here's my, my request.
we're, we're, you know, right
at a two and a half hours here.
And, there's so much more
I want to talk to you about.
As I said at the before, when we're
doing our preamble, we have another
podcast, which is Equine Assisted World.
And obviously you have been
in this world and a pioneer in
this world for the longest time.
Now we, we have sort of the history
of how you became you and what you do.
Would you do us the honor of coming on.
To equine assisted world, in
the next week or two.
Absolutely.
It's in more depth.
We can re Cause as you say, we didn't
get into the different parts of the hand.
There's, we've, we've barely
touched on what TTouch is.
We've really just said that it exists.
and given some people an
idea of a first contact.
but I think we'd be doing listeners
a disservice if we didn't.
you know, when, when I'm out
there training Horse Boy Method,
for example, I'm always saying,
have you discovered Te Touch?
You know, and there's always a
percentage of people that go, oh yes,
absolutely then, and then there's people
of course who say, oh, what's that?
And it's always my great pleasure to
say, it's a thing you should know, . So,
would you, would you please come on
again and we can go into more depth?
Linda TJ: Rupert is such an honor and a
pleasure for me to spend time with you.
I, and I love your questions always, but
I, I just, I have to tell you, I have
a lot of books here and so many people
have influenced my books, but the books
that stand out in my mind that cannot
put this book down were your books.
You are, and the the Long
Ride Home, holy moly.
All of your experiences.
But it's the way you express yourself.
Listeners, you have to get those books.
I mean, your courage, but your, your,
your Wordman Smith, I'm, I'm a wordsmith.
I just love words and the way you use it.
Like nobody.
Nobody I know, Robert, thank you.
You get a, a motion in in
these words that you put.
It just jumps out of the page at me.
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
speaking of books, if people were
to pick up a book by you, you got
22 of them, where should they start?
What's the book that they should
pick up to understand you and your
work at at least as a beginning step?
Linda TJ: Well, maybe my latest, it
depends if they're in the horses or dogs.
My latest horse book, I
wrote with my new Mandy
what is this one?
This is called training and
retraining the Tellington Way.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Training and retraining
horses the tellington way.
Very good.
And people can find that on Amazon.
Amazon, right.
And then if they're into dogs, What should
they, what should they read your dogs?
Linda TJ: where's my dog book?
Get the exact title.
I've got so many books here.
so it's getting in tea, touch
with your dog, tea touch with
Rupert Isaacson: your dog,
Linda TJ: getting, getting
in tea, touch with your dog,
Rupert Isaacson: getting int touch with
your dog, getting int touch with your dog.
Linda TJ: Right.
Okay.
And if they're, if they're
into human, it's tea.
Touch for Healthcare.
Tea
Rupert Isaacson: Touch for healthcare.
So if you're, just enter this
for a human point of view.
T touch for healthcare.
Right.
Perfect.
And let's just give people your u r
url again, your website again to Yes.
Linda TJ: To get the classes
you go to learn.ttouch.ca.
Rupert Isaacson: Www dot learn dot TTouch.
Yes.
Ca got it.
Right.
Okay.
Alright, Linda, thank you.
I must go.
I have someone who's in the saddle who'll
be expecting me there in 15 minutes.
I just jump in the car and go,
otherwise, I'll be crossed.
enjoy.
I cannot thank you enough for this.
It's been such a treat.
I know our listeners will feel the same
and I can't wait to have you back on,
but equine assisted world to go deeper
into Tito Touch and how it works,
Linda TJ: I look forward to it
and I look forward to sharing
the stuff I did for years before
there was ever an association.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
Let's do it.
See you soon.
Okay.
Okay.
Much, much love.
Bye.
Bye-Bye.
Linda TJ: Aloha
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for joining us.
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for riders on long ride home.com.
These include easy to do online
courses and tutorials that
bring you and your horse joy.
For an overview of all shows and
programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
See you on the next show.
And please remember to
press, subscribe and share.