Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
I have a request.
If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
It really helps us get this work done.
As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
com.
So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
Most of us who work in this field either work with kids or who might
have a variety of neurocognitive conditions, sometimes mixed with
physical or young adults with anxiety.
I, you know, young adult autism, that sort of thing, or, you know, perhaps
trauma and also perhaps veterans, you know, but there's a whole other
group out there that I think a lot of us don't work with because it's,
it's really a specialized thing.
And so we're very lucky to have Leanna Tank here who's an occupational therapist
from Grand Rapids, Michigan, but also a very accomplished horse, woman and works
in the equine assisted field as well.
And she works with a population that I think most of us would
feel intimidated to work with, let's say and takes it in her stride.
And so I want to delve into Leanna's Toolbox and.
What, what makes her able to do this and to do it so well.
I'm gonna let her explain what she does.
So without further ado big drummer of the amazing Leanna Tank, one
of my great heroes, actually.
You are one of my great heroes.
Leanna, can you, can you talk to us about who you are and what you do?
Leana Tank: Sure.
Yeah.
So, yeah, thank you for having me here.
It's quite an honor to be included.
You've had many, like brilliant, amazing people on this podcast,
so it's great to be here.
Yeah, I mean, I, I'll say first off that the population I work with does struggle
with some pretty extreme the extreme end of the mental health continuum and
the challenges that people can can face, you know, in the course of their lives.
And that can be a little bit shocking to hear about as, as
just like a regular person.
So I just wanna validate that and just give people a little
bit of a warning or a heads up.
Like, like the, the challenges of the people that I work with are quite extreme.
I work in.
Residential behavioral health.
So these are programs for people who need 24 7 support in
the community, staff support.
They come to us from the state psychiatric hospitals, the prison
system, criminal justice system.
They have different diagnoses like schizophrenia, many on the
autism spectrum, personality disorders, cognitive impairments.
Many, many, you know, a lot of they might have dual diagnoses, so they
might have schizophrenia and a cognitive impairment and things like that.
Many
have committed crimes and so they're part of part of their, part of their
treatment because they have been found not guilty by reason of insanity is
to come and work in our programs.
So those are, that's the population of people that I'm working with,
and they really are people who are on the margins of society.
They really don't have a voice.
They're really not talked about something I find.
Quite often when I'm meeting people and they're asking
me like, oh, what do you do?
Who do you work with?
And I I tell them people are often not very curious.
I don't get a lot of other questions.
I think it it, they make people uncomfortable.
I think in our culture we are not great at looking at that like darker side
of our natures in ourselves or in, in, just like the culture in the, in
the, in our society, we want to kinda label them as other and as monsters
and we want to send them off to jail.
We wanna punish 'em.
We want to stick them in the state hospitals or say that they're
evil and send them to hell.
And they really get defined, I think, by the things that they've done because
they, that it can be pretty extreme.
But in my experience, like they are not what they've done.
They're, they're honestly, they're like the most sensitive
and vulnerable of all of us.
They're they're kind of the, the part of our society that is.
Hearing the burden or paying the cost of like the breakdown of
our, our care systems and our kind of social support network.
And they are the ones who are growing up in the foster care system.
They're the ones born to families that maybe they were exposed to drugs
and alcohol and utero, and they were born with a nervous system and a brain
that's just wired really differently.
And then from the get go, they're already in these institutions and systems.
There are really, really sensitive neurodivergent folks that just
get taken advantage of or put in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And really they, they, they could be any of us, you know, like any of
us are capable of those extremes.
If we're put in the right set of circumstances or we're one
calamity away from a brain injury or a serious condition, that
dismantles our ability to regulate ourselves and control our behavior.
And I think it is hard for somebody with a, a brain that is fully in control
and, and, and capable of managing.
Fight and flight reactions to understand what it's like to be
someone living in the world that doesn't have that same capability.
So, so yeah, like I, I really want to be able to do them justice and be able to
kind of express what's, you know, very, very human, fully human, fully unique,
creative, interesting, you know, people, they are, and I absolutely love working
with 'em, and I find it to be incredibly fulfilling and interesting every day.
So, so yeah, I'm glad to be able to be here and try to
be a good advocate for them.
Try to be a good voice for them because more and more I see actually less and
less of a place for them in our culture.
Our culture kind of wants to, to pretend that they're not there.
So
Rupert Isaacson: let me play devil's advocate then.
I mean, you, you, you let slip two words, I think, which were good clues.
One was monsters and the other was extreme.
Just to be clear, I don't want to trigger people.
Are these people who have done things that society would de
monstrous or that we would.
With good reason, say that's monstrous and it and extreme.
And then if that's the case, how does the act of doing something monstrous,
which perhaps cost somebody else their life and perhaps cost somebody else their
life in a horrible way, how does that not define the person who committed the act?
I think that's a fair question that many people would ask in that.
So whether or not one should ask that question, I think
it's a natural question to us.
What, what do you say to that?
Because your perspective is so unique.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
You know, and I've worked with a number of people who have you know,
committed crimes of that level of severity who have done things like that.
You know, for the folks that I'm working with, with their mental health
conditions, often they're in a state of like psychosis or extreme distress
when something like that happens and and then they're left really you know,
dealing with the trauma of that event.
I will say, you know, humanity is extremely, adaptable
and extremely resilient.
I have worked with people who have been through things, you know, either
things they've done or things that they themselves have experienced that are just
kind of beyond imagining and they move on.
I think that a big part of, of healing the, the trauma of something like that,
that has happened and I've, I've been able to like witness this process.
Like it's been such a privilege to like, be part of it and witness
it is moving from being defined by that thing that happened and kind
of being always hypervigilant to reminders of what happened or, you
know, per, you know, that that guilt or that having that self-perception
colored by those events and through through kind of that healing process.
And a lot of it is relationships with somebody who can be very nonjudgmental,
who can help them see themselves in different ways and, and also.
Organize those events and organize kind of what happened and understand
it through the lens of how their mental illness affected them.
And, and you know, just, just trying to find a different perspective on it.
See people be able to integrate those events, kind of figure out the lessons
that they've learned figure out how to kind of come into alignment with
what happened and how they, what, how they are going to use those things
to come forward and help others.
And honestly, something I've seen several different times, and this is
how I know that a person is kind of on that, on that path towards more
integration and more healing, is that they will tell me that they want to
help others and they want to use what's happened to them to support other people.
And they will kind of even take those other people under their wing.
They'll be.
A positive impact on the other people that live in those programs.
They'll kind of be a mentor.
They will take on that role.
So that's something I've seen several times.
It's really something.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: I guess what, so that people can get their
head around it because it's outside most people's experience.
Most of us, if we think of someone has done something monstrous and
they're locked up the first, you know, it's, it's, it is usually a
Hollywood type of idea that comes in.
So I think the first picture that a lot of people would
have would be Hannibal Lecter.
Mm-hmm.
And so the Hannibal Elector explains in great clarity and detail and with
a sense of vindication that he's right for having done what he did
and to do what he still wants to do.
Which of course is what makes him scary.
'cause he's not just that he does these things, but he thinks them
through and he plans them and, you know, executes them as well.
I think it's very difficult for people not to have that idea.
And however, as you pointed out, these are people who were actually found not
guilty because of their mental conditions
in, in the English.
Lexicon English, English lexicon of British English lexicon
of sort of criminal justice.
I think what we call that is if someone, it's premeditated,
it's malice, a forethought, you know, that's the difference
between murder and manslaughter.
I think for example if somewhat it was planned out, it was done in cold blood,
it was rather than in the heat of the moment somehow, or blah, blah, blah, blah.
Of course adding psychosis to this is a whole other thing.
And
is that something, which I think there needs to be a greater understanding of
that psychosis can sort of happen to people and that when someone is in that
psychotic period, they're not who they were when they were not in that thing.
And then you also said something which made me prick up my ears, which is
that one might be just one calamity away from something that happens to
you that, an injury that causes that.
And I think you put your finger on something there, because I,
I do know people who sustained head injuries, who then went on
to do really quite crazy things.
And that seemed cruel and uncaring.
Because some part of their brain had been damaged and, and, and this could
actually be sort of traced and traumatic brain injury and criminal behavior.
Actually it's one of these areas that's getting more studied now,
but I don't think there's a lot of understanding of wider society.
But this of course is your bread and butter.
Can you just talk to us a little bit about this difference between
premeditation and non premeditation psychosis and nons psychosis?
How you can be one person in one moment and another person and
another traumatic brain injury.
I think this is really useful for, particularly for people in our field.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think it's important to point out that people with mental illness are much
more likely to be victims of violence than to actually be violent themselves.
That's very true.
They are like three, I just saw these stats like three times more likely
to be victims of a serious assault.
Mm-hmm.
And then more than half, I think of like police killings in the
US are towards people with a mental illness or, or disability.
And that's a lot of the folks that I know that have gotten wrapped
up in the criminal justice system.
It's altercations with police.
They were, you know, being unusual in public or something, you know, and I.
The police were called and the police don't understand the mental illness
and they escalate and, and, and this happens all the time, all the time.
There's just not a good understanding.
But I think to go to what you were asking about, you know, with something
like psychosis which many people with schizophrenia may experience but also, you
know, people can have psychotic episodes.
When you have bipolar disorder, certain medications can induce psychosis.
People, older adults, when they are in the beginning stages of like Alzheimer's
and dementia, can be pushed very easily into psychosis, just with a little bit
of a change in their body chemistry.
They get a urinary tract infection and they start experience psychosis.
And psychosis is really a disconnect from like a shared reality.
So, there's different like chemical processes that go on in
the brain and it can be different depending on that diagnosis.
But people will develop delusions.
So ideas that.
Are not like logical or what we would deem logical.
They might, sorry.
They might have hallucinations.
So they might see things that other people don't see,
Rupert Isaacson: hear voices in their head.
Leana Tank: Yep.
They might hear voices in their head that seem very, very real.
And I've worked with people who are extremely distressed by the
voices they hear in their head and can barely maintain a conversation
because they're so distressing.
And then I've worked with people who really enjoy their, the voices that
they hear or might perceive people around them that they see as like
their family or like their friends, and they find them very comforting.
There's different levels of insight.
Some people can kind of be a little bit aware that they are not experiencing
like the same reality as other people.
And then some people have absolutely no insight at all and there's no arguing.
So there, there's different shades and levels to it.
I think when it becomes an actual dangerous situation is
when it is really fed by fear.
So when the person is in an extremely fearful state, when the
delusions or the hallucinations are terrifying and scary, sometimes they.
Present as like demonic or they present as they're being persecuted.
That's when you worry a little bit about violence because the person feels
like they have to defend themselves.
So it's usually pretty.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And if they you a demon, then all bets are off in that moment.
Yes.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
And any person, if you can kind of like for an empathy experiment,
you know, imagine if you truly, truly believed that a demon was
coming for you and, and saw it.
I mean, it, it's, it's a very multisensory experience.
So your entire body's sensations will perceive this as reality.
And the parts of your brain that are gonna check that and say, maybe this
isn't happening, they are just offline.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I think, I think it's, it's easy to underestimate the power of the amygdala.
Yeah.
It perceives that a threat has gone beyond a certain point.
It's, yeah.
Well, its job is to tell the body to produce cortisol to shut off thought
so that one acts and doesn't think.
Yeah.
It's, it's interesting.
Well, obviously it's fascinating, but.
I know, I think a lot of people have known friends or family members, or close people
close to than us who've gone through psychosis and this feeling of helplessness
that this person is unreachable
and yet you reach them.
So there they are.
Whatever has happened has happened, and they find themselves in the
situation now living where they live.
And Leanna Tank walks into their life.
What's your objective?
You know, a lot of people, again, it's very natural.
It might not be right, but it's very natural.
Think, well, they've done these terrible things, they should just be locked
up and the key should be thrown away.
That's just it.
Die in a dungeon somewhere.
But of course
actually life goes on and somebody has to be there to make
that a life that has meaning.
Again, you can hear the devil's advocacy.
No, they've lost the right, you know, they've forfeited that, right?
They should suffer and they should live in a situation of unpleasantness
and suffering as punishment for what they've done, even if they.
Were not themselves or didn't know what they were doing or whatever.
You then arrive, actually, let's back up a bit.
You weren't, you didn't come out of your mother's womb doing this job,
so how did you end up doing this job?
And then let's get to what happens when, when you arrive in that world.
So how, yeah, where does it begin for you?
How did you get into this?
Leana Tank: Oh gosh.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: 'cause stay us way back because, you know, there must be stuff in
your childhood that prepared you for this kind of, this kind of work that had to be.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
I'm like, trying to think how far back to go.
Rupert Isaacson: Because it's interesting when, you know, often when I'm asking
people about childhood in this, in this type of work, it's often about, well,
you know, some sort of trauma or that, but I, but we often overlook actually
the things that set one up really advantageously in one's childhood.
And so you, you do such extraordinary work.
It must have its roots in some deep sort of sense of security or something.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
You know, I mean, I think that at my core I'm, I'm very, very curious
and very interested in kind of that full breadth of the human experience.
And I was very drawn.
Occupational therapy.
I, I studied in, in college, I studied psychology and literature
and philosophy, and I, I've been like a big reader all my life.
And I was drawn to OT because it is very, very broad.
Occupational therapy is at its core, just about using what people love to do as a
way to promote, like healing and meaning to help people do more of the things
that they love and are important to them.
And then to also use meaningful, what we call occupations are really like
anything that somebody might find meaningful whether it's, you know,
playing chess or, or taking a walk outside or riding a horse or whatever.
It can be anything.
Using those things to promote healing.
So it's, it's really broad and you can apply it across just about any kind of
population, you know, from kids to older adults, to people recovering from a hip
replacement to people with schizophrenia, you know, in a locked institution.
I really like that because I don't like being kind of pigeonholed and
siloed to one dogma or one set of beliefs or one kind of approach.
I grew up in a pretty like fundamentalist home
Rupert Isaacson: fundamentalist criticism.
Leana Tank: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that never, how did that prepare
Rupert Isaacson: you for, for seeing the breadth of the human experience?
'cause that's presumably about narrowing the human experience, is it not?
Leana Tank: Yeah, and it, yeah.
And I, I feel like growing up in that kind of a, it was a
very, very, like, loving home.
And, and, you know, just like a great family good community.
But it was the, when you grow up in a very fundamentalist Christian
home, it's really about molding you to be the person that, that that
belief system wants you to be and not really supporting you in expressing
who you really are or really like,
it's more about.
You figuring out what's the right thing to feel, what's the right way
to behave, what's the right emotion to have, and not like tapping in and
understanding what you actually do feel and what you actually do believe.
So I feel like that whole process and being able to figure out how to do
that came like really late for me.
So I almost how get them was really, gosh, like, like college
and even beyond, you know?
And I think as I have like worked through figuring out, you know, how to actually
engage with that it really motivated me to like help other people do that.
And also to work in a way that is like, how can I help these people who
are not acknowledged, are not seen, are not valued for who they are?
How can I help them figure out who they are and, and be accepted for who they are?
And when you are coming in to work with somebody in these settings, you
have to walk in very nonjudgmentally.
You have to, to the, to the extremes, dismantle your judgment about what
they deserve and what they've done.
You have to be pretty radical in in accepting kind of who this person
is and, and who they've been in the world and be ready to meet that
person exactly where they're at.
So it's always really interesting.
I will do a little chart review and read like what is, you
know, what has this person done?
What's their history?
And it always reads pretty rough.
It's always a little scary and a little shocking.
It's like, I mean, how would you like it if before I met you, I read the
rap sheet of every terrible thing you've ever done in your life, right?
Like all probably the worst moments are all in these people's charts for
everyone to read before they meet them.
And then almost always the person I meet is like completely different.
Like you would never imagine that that was their history.
It's very, very rare that I meet anyone that.
Actually like, wants to hurt people or, you know, has any intention of doing that.
It's all these things that have happened when they were really
pushed into their survival state.
But I do meet people that like, don't really wanna work with me or maybe
don't, maybe they're pretty disconnected from reality and they're hard to
reach or they've been therapized and in, in institutions for so long that
they're just kind of like, get lost.
I don't want, you know, I don't want anything to do with you.
But I feel like I have developed three different ways, like a, a way
of kind of approaching people without an expectation, without an agenda
and being just very, very open to meet them exactly where they're, they are.
And where they are is completely fine.
And often when I am asked to go meet with someone, it's because
the team has an idea of where they.
What they should be working on.
Maybe they haven't showered in a year and they want me to help them do that.
Maybe they struggle with managing their emotions and they want me to
work with 'em on that or whatever.
But I kind of have to put all that to the side and just meet
this person and be like, well, what do they think is important?
What's like,
Rupert Isaacson: established relationship effectively?
Leana Tank: Yes, yes.
And there's people, and I have the luxury of doing this, where I can sit
down and what they wanna do is like, talk about the rings and the jewelry
that I have on and rocks and stones, or what they wanna do is, you know, just
listen to music, you know, on my phone.
And I can do that with 'em for weeks and weeks and weeks to kind of
establish that relationship and then figure out like what's important to
them and where do, where do they want to grow, where do they wanna develop?
And a lot of times those other things just kind of fall into place when
they feel like they have like a safe relationship when they feel like they
have more meaning in their lives when they feel like they, you know, are actually
Rupert Isaacson: heard.
Leana Tank: Heard.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
How do, okay, you as growing up as a young fundamentalist Christian,
were not probably schooled in this type of non judgmentalism, right?
Because any dogmatic religion has pretty clear judgements.
You're either in or you're out.
You either follow the rules or you don't.
You're either saved or you're gonna hell.
And it's also a punishment based punishment and reward
based culture, right?
If you do these quote unquote bad things, you're going to hell and you're
probably be ostracized and perhaps even physically punished, you know, here.
And that includes if you just don't toe the line we'll,
you know, won't support you.
How did you get from that to what I think is, and I guess, I guess
what I'm, what comes to mind here is what you are actually talking about
is what Christianity is supposed to be, which is love thy neighbor.
Don't be an asshole.
If you are an asshole.
It's entirely forgivable forgiveness.
Redemption.
Do you think that some really discerning part of you as a child thought?
Yeah.
All that punishment stuff, that's all shame, but all that love
thy neighbor, redemption stuff.
That's good shit.
And what made you able to discern that?
Because I don't think everybody who grows up in that can
go back to your young self.
Yeah,
Leana Tank: yeah.
You know, I mean, I think part of it was, part of it was just baked in me.
Mm-hmm.
I can remember being very, very young.
I was a very like, magically minded animal loving, you know,
kindergartner, first grader.
And even, even in elementary school hearing that was the
big, like environmentalism was like a big burgeoning thing.
And I remember hearing about it and being like, that sounds cool.
And then in.
Church or wherever, and the dog mutt was like, oh no, we don't believe
in environmentalism and we don't, you know, this is, it's all about
supporting people and humanity and we don't, you know, we're, we want Man has
Rupert Isaacson: dominion.
Yeah.
Man has
Leana Tank: dominion.
Yeah.
And, and that never really made sense to me.
I remember just being kind of like, oh, I don't know about that.
And I think I, I read a lot.
I, I, when I went to college, I studied philosophy.
My, I had a really deep interest in like other cultures and traveling.
My grandparents were missionaries in Africa and South America.
So I grew up with all these stories about my dad growing up in these
other places that I thought were really fascinating and intriguing.
And my mom's side of the family, my grandfather was like a magician.
And so I grew up with all these, like, you know, my, my mom and my
uncle had all these like sleight of hand magician tricks and, and
stories about his life as a magician.
I mean, he was a lawyer, but he was like a big time magician.
He was like the president of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
I, yeah.
So I think I grew up with all these different ideas and when I went to
college and studied theology I, not theology, but philosophy, when I
actually started reading and thinking about the concept of hell and trying
to make it make sense how all of these, like other cultures of the world, like
90% of like the world's population would be just kind of resigned to hell.
And somehow the Americans with all of our, like, you know, our money and our
comfort also happened to be correct in our beliefs and, and we'll go to heaven.
To me I was like, yeah, that makes absolutely no sense.
The American.
Yeah.
But I did I, I did like and believe in that idea of caring
for like the least of these.
And, and when I was just starting to look at like where to invest my, like my work
and my energy and my time I, it was like, well, that seems like a worthy place.
You know, to put my, to invest my, like, work life.
I, I really loved, I read Oliver Sacks is a, I read his work in
college and it was really, really, it really like connected with me and I'm
actually reading his letters right now
Rupert Isaacson: for a hat.
Leana Tank: Yeah, he was a neurologist and he, but he was a very like,
human kind of poet, neurologist that, like, he wrote these case histories
of these really extreme cases of people, people's experiences with like
different neurological conditions.
But it was all about how they, how they kind of lost all foundation of like who
they are, who they were in the world, how they experienced life, and then
how they kind of remade it and, and adapted and, and kind of found their
humanity and worked those conditions into their, into an another form of meaning.
And I just found it to be really, really beautiful and interesting and
I'd never, I didn't, wasn't even aware of, you know, it's just like beyond this
imaginable experience, what, how people can wind up living and still having, I.
A very full, meaningful, rich life.
And that just really fascinated me.
So yeah, I feel like I'm kind of like wandering away from the question.
I don't even remember where we started.
No, I, I think, I think you got that.
And
Rupert Isaacson: so, and it leads me to a, a triple question, which is this one.
So how does one develop the ability to approach without agenda?
And then my devil's advocate questions, is there actually no agenda?
Because okay, maybe they haven't showered or they're not communicating.
So presumably you're brought in there for some sort of healing.
Is healing an agenda?
And is th that an okay agenda?
You know what I mean?
So just
Leana Tank: mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Your thoughts on this, really?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I, okay.
Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
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Leana Tank: A couple of things to say on that.
I'll start with in, in my experience, the most powerful real healing has
always come from that person themselves.
So I really don't, and I've gotten more and more and more to where I feel like.
My role is really just to help remove whatever barriers
are there for that person to,
you know, find what healing is for them.
And it can just be these really small shifts in like greater, greater
participation, greater connection to themselves, greater connection to others.
It's for a lot of the people that I work with, like they're not going to whatever,
what it, what even is healing, you know, like what is healing isn't like they're
fixed or they're cured or they're healed.
It's like, well, it's difference between healing.
And
Rupert Isaacson: it's a good question.
I think in my mind there is a big difference between healing and cure.
Like people often think knowing when I went off to Mongolia with
Roman, for example, oh, you were looking for a cure for autism.
No, I wasn't, but I was looking for healing because we were all suffering
and we did find it, but the autism wasn't what was causing the suffering.
It was reactions to other things.
But yeah, so I, I think that is just worth drawing attention to that.
Healing and cure are two slightly different things.
And so, but, so Go on.
Yeah.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that is definitely the, the way I am operating and the way I
am looking at things like a lot of the people I work with are always going to
need some degree of like, support just, just to be safe and to live in the world.
But often they are really, really disconnected from themselves.
They're disconnected from other people.
They're not, they don't have a lot of meaning or purpose in their lives.
There's, their days are kind of full of like
nothing avoid.
So if I'm able to even shift that a little bit and, and bring in some purpose,
bring in some movement, bring in some energy, some vitality, some, you know,
just yeah, any kind of like change in that I see as as progress as healing.
And I've seen small shifts and I've seen really big shifts and I've seen,
I've worked with people that I've been like, I didn't do anything for them.
And then a year later I, I will hear a story that, you know, actually there
was an impact or there was a big change.
So, but generally I.
If I come in with some kind of preconceived notion or idea of like,
what that's going to look like and what's gonna help them, it doesn't go very well.
And so coming in with no agenda and just really, really radically listening to
that person and where they are and what's important to them and what they feel could
be, you know, would, what that would mean for them is, is always the way to go.
And then my job is just to be like, yes, great idea.
How are we gonna do that?
You know?
And honestly, the systems that we're working in are so
dysfunctional and so broken.
It's, it's really basic stuff for a lot of people.
You know, in, in, in the program where our probably most intense, it's like
locked all men mostly in that like not guilty by reason of insanity.
So they have, you know, all part of the criminal justice system.
It sounds really gnarly.
Most of the time what they wanna do is take a walk outside.
You know, I take people if it's safe for me to do so.
And, and most of the time it is, I'll just take them walking.
We live by.
They're about 15 minutes from Lake Michigan, which is beautiful.
And I'll just take them out to the lake and we'll walk on the beach.
And I'm like one of the only ones that does that kind of thing, you know, like
it's just not really part of the medical, healthcare system frame of reference
to see that as like a healing activity.
But for me it's like a no brainer.
Like let's go see some beautiful nature.
And I just did that recently and had this young man who was really struggling
and it, it's been like a cold winter and there was, we went out to the lake shore
and there's just this little patch of blue sky and he like pointed at it and he
was like, that, that's telling me that, that God's telling me he's got my back.
You know?
And and that led to a really, you know, beautiful conversation about like,
yeah, like that, that's beautiful.
That's such a, like what a lovely way of like, nature showing you
that like it's there for you, it's showing up for you and like what else,
what else tells you that, you know?
And he's like, well, sometimes I see birds and that, you know, that
tells me everything's gonna be okay.
You know, and like, and just conversations like that that help give people a sense
of connection, a sense of like, insight and get them thinking, thinking along
those lines I think is like, really healing and letting, you know, bringing
people into nature and then letting nature show up and do what it's gonna do, and
then be just prepared to frame that and organize it and kind of like give them
a way to synthesize it is, is one of the most powerful and easiest ways I think.
And then the other thing in that program that everyone wants to do is cook.
That's interesting.
Why?
Yeah.
A lot of them have been in prison or institutions a lot of their lives
and they never, ever got to cook.
They don't know how even in that facility,
Rupert Isaacson: do they tell you, or is this something that you suggest?
Leana Tank: A lot of times it's like, the only thing they wanna do with me.
So it'll, it'll be like, what do you wanna do?
Nothing.
And then maybe I'll give options and they'll be like, actually,
yes, I would love to make brownies.
People love food.
Cooking is a really, really just foundational functional skill.
Like, if they're gonna like, move on from there and, and everyone wants to be more
independent, you know, for, you know.
The day-to-day life of most of us of like driving a car, having a home, having a job
is like beyond the wildest dreams of like most of the people that I'm working with.
So if they feel like they can like work towards skills that will give them
some level of independence, they're a little more motivated for that too.
And so I'll do whatever I can to, like, I'll, I've like rigged up
little hot plates so we can like, make burgers or pancakes or I'll take 'em
to another, there's other programs that have kitchens where we have
kitchen access and we'll cook things.
And if you think about like promoting a sense of safety and
like community and connection like cooking is, is just great for that.
You know, if you think about like,
Rupert Isaacson: it's wellbeing, I guess, isn't it?
Yeah.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
And like if you are like cooking in the kitchen with a friend or something,
or making dinner with a friend or, you know, it's just a very like,
safe, connected, enjoyable, ancient, ancient thing to, to be engaged in.
And I, that's, so many of them wanna do that with me.
So I try to do that as much as I can.
Rupert Isaacson: This was actually, you've sort of partly answered, but I, I
still want to pose the question because I think it bears more discussion, is,
you know, I, I would imagine that quite a few of the people are in a fairly
profound state of despair, and when you're in despair, you lose motivation.
So if you were to say, well, I'm, I, I, I do what they like the way they love
music, or they want, but I should imagine that a lot of people have lost a sense
of what they like and what they love.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But what you've just described is effectively nature, because
I would put cooking in that category too, because you're using natural elements,
natural processes for a natural process.
When you are encountering that nihilistic despair that people have given up,
is, is nature always the key?
Leana Tank: That is usually the easiest, most effective,
most powerful thing to access?
Yeah, I would say.
Rupert Isaacson: So.
Why is that not prescribed?
Leana Tank: That's a very good question.
Rupert Isaacson: What do you seriously, why given that, I think
deep down we all know this, right?
And that mental health started with the Quakers and asylums
and asylums were supposed to be, asylum means sanctuary, right?
That's its actual meaning that the, that they created gar effectively
gardens that people could rest in and come back to themselves in and so on.
And so, and we've known this forever
and you are now getting some physicians prescribing nature, but just begun
to happen, I think, post covid.
Why do you think that
given that, you know, intelligent people are
helping to create the policies that affect people in mental
health institutions, what, yeah.
Why isn't it just a fundamental, what's blocking it?
What,
Leana Tank: yeah.
I mean, I think a lot of it is just the state of our medical systems is very,
the, the perspective is very mechanized.
It's very reductionistic.
So the focus is much more on medications behavior management, behavior plans
and you know, things like that.
More focused on diagnosing, prescribing and there's just not as much
thought put into the environment.
The indoor environment, the outdoor environment things are pretty siloed.
There's, you know, lawn care people that take care of the outside and then there's
maintenance for the inside and yeah, it's just that whole picture isn't considered.
Even just the consideration of like, the impact and power of like the culture and
the community in of a program can have such a powerful, powerful influence on
that person's progress and their healing.
Because, I mean, our neurobiology is not to be like in this vacuum, like
our brains and nervous systems are.
Designed to be always engaging with and connecting with and resonating with the
other people around us and the nature around us and the environment around us.
And that is like the number one most powerful de determinant of kind of
like where someone is gonna be, you know, what they're gonna be doing
with their time, you know, what kind of state they're gonna be in.
But that's just, it's, it's a very complex, dynamic
system that is not linear.
And I think that the medical system wants everything to be very linear.
Linear and very, like A plus B equals C, and let's just change this one thing,
or let's just look at it this one way.
Or they look at that person in a vacuum and they don't look at the
whole web of every determinant that is contributing to that person's health.
Rupert Isaacson: I guess there's also presumably a desire both
negative and positive for control.
Mm-hmm.
To say these people are outta control, not safe.
They're not safe to be out in the community.
Mm-hmm.
So therefore a walk in nature is.
Out in the community.
We can't risk people.
We can't risk these people.
You know, the service user, if you like, losing control, having a psychotic, you
know, and while one can understand that you seem to some degree to be putting the
lie to that, which is interesting to me.
Are you ever afraid, let's say you take them out to Michi late Michigan, that
they're gonna do something crazy that you yourself are in danger or that other
people on that beach could be in danger?
I mean, admittedly I've been out to the late Michigan beaches, unless you're
going to a hotspot, it's a lot of, you know, it's wild what, you know?
Mm-hmm.
So it's not like there's a ton of people around, but nonetheless is it
irresponsible to take them out like that?
It's, you know, just, just talk, talk through all these complexities
that I could see going through the heads of policy makers.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
You know, I mean, I'm always mindful of who I'm working with and I know them well
and there are safety measures in place.
There's assessments, there's safety plans, and there, there's all of this
structure in place to kind of determine.
Levels of safety for people going in the community if
they need, I presume sometimes
Rupert Isaacson: minders, you know?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Extra people.
Some will say you need two staff, some can't go with a female,
some have to go with a male.
Like there's, there's a lot of structure of safety in place
around working with these people.
And I'm very, very mindful.
There are certain people that I will totally go for a hike in the woods
alone with and feel completely safe.
And there's people I would never do that with.
And you know, for most of the folks, when you know them, you know, it's,
you know, when they're in their own, they're, they're, they're connected
to themselves, they have a good sense of themselves, they're in control,
whatever, you know, whatever that means.
They're, they're aware of their actions and they're in a good head space.
And you know, when someone is struggling, when someone's activated,
when someone is when they're so higher risk of, you know, them.
Getting triggered into some kind of distress.
And that wouldn't be a time when I'm, you know, taking somebody out or maybe
I would have someone else come with me if I'm trying to take them out to
like help them manage their stress.
But for the most part, when I'm working with people, they're in a good head space.
They're pretty centered.
They're, you know, not in crisis.
There's a really, really big difference between when someone is in active crisis.
And that is when you see a lot of those like really distressing,
challenging behaviors.
And it does happen, but it's, there's a completely different
difference, you know, when someone is in crisis and when they're not.
And you're not
Rupert Isaacson: worried that a, a crisis could be triggered by
something outside of your control.
Leana Tank: It can happen, but you kind of know your person and you know what
kind of things are gonna trigger that.
And you can take precautions and I'm pretty proactive.
Like I know how to assess the situation and I know my person and
I know what might be distressing to them and I avoid that or I.
Maybe sometimes we're like, I have people that going out in the
community does trigger some anxiety triggers some hallucinations.
They might hear people saying mean things to them that are not like really real.
And that might be something that we talk about.
Maybe we practice like some grounding tools.
You know, I, I go, I have a lot of tools in my little trauma toolkit,
sensory toolkit for helping people manage that kind of distress.
So that would be something that we are like building awareness
of and we're working on.
And I can very intentionally kind of push their window of tolerance
without them going over the edge.
So, yeah, talk to us.
Rupert Isaacson: Take us through your toolkit.
That's fascinating.
I think a lot of us would like to have access to those sorts of tools.
Leana Tank: Oh, you know, a lot of it is, I, I use a lot of
body-based sensory strategies.
So as an OT I did a lot of training on like sensory integration.
I.
And understanding how we, how our senses kind of shape our reality,
Rupert Isaacson: our nervous systems, in fact.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's, it's so fascinating that it's one of my areas I'm so
fascinated by and, and it really is a growing area in mental health.
I think people are understanding more and more that like mind and body connection
and that it's not just that mental health is this like disembodied thing that just
happens in our brains, but it's really
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
A
Leana Tank: whole bodies, you know,
Rupert Isaacson: it started to, okay, we understand, okay, let's
take into account the nervous system.
And nature presumably has fewer bad sensory triggers because we
are organisms, you know, therefore.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But for avoiding crisis or for dealing with crisis.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Can you be specific about some tools that you think might be,
'cause we all go through crisis, right?
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And we
Rupert Isaacson: all crises in our families and we have crises in ourselves.
This's gonna happen several times a day just in the most normal situations.
So, because you work on the cutting edge of this, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
There are some
Rupert Isaacson: tools.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Well, first is I.
I'm very, very aware of myself and where my system is at.
I, you know, have a lot, have developed a lot of tools just
to keep myself like grounded.
Keep myself in kind of that calm, regulated nervous system state, being
able to use my voice, my body language my breathing to take advantage of
the, that like mirroring, reflection, resonance with the other person's system.
You use these tools to kind of become that like safe anchor for that person.
And it, a lot of it is in like, the language that you use and
just the way that you show up.
And then I'm always going to try to organize so using things like rhythm,
so music, offering to play music offering to you know, seeing like what
kind of music do you wanna listen to?
Let's put it on, let's rock to the music, let's walk to the
music, let's try to sing along.
I have done a lot of training to, in like the different nerve nervous system states.
So being able to observe if somebody is edging into more of a fight response
or a flight response or a freeze, I, you have to really train your eye to
see those very subtle shifts in that person's physiology that tell you that
they are starting to become activated.
And it can be as small as like they're holding their breath.
And being able to, in a very curious, nonjudgmental way, notice those things.
A lot of times if somebody feels like you are that aware and noticing that kind of
a shift in their state that alone will bring about a lot of safety for them.
And
so, so being able to see that and kind of.
Headed off before things escalate really higher, because once somebody
has really shifted into an activated fight or flight state, it's a
lot harder to to bring them down.
But,
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Quick question about the music.
So what if they want to listen to music that, you know, is gonna
dysregulate them even further?
Leana Tank: I, you know, I'd give some options.
No, let's listen to Moza.
No, I wanna
Rupert Isaacson: listen to, you know, whatever and
Leana Tank: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You don't wanna then get into it.
No, you can't.
And right time you're trying to follow them and, but you also know
it's gonna trigger them, so, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Like how would you, how'd you deal with that?
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It's tricky.
I mean, it, I would maybe give some choices within that like, area
that they're looking at and I have like a Spotify account that I can,
like, pick just about anything.
And even if, you know, there's music that is gonna trigger them, you know, and
it's hard to say like how much it would, even if something is really, really like
Ragey we might be able to put that on.
And I might still be able, within that, I'm going to try to organize a rhythm.
I'm gonna try to organize like maybe we.
Get out a drum or we get something out and we try to like, go along to the beat
with that, you know, to try to like build a rhythm, build an organization within
like, the music that they wanna listen to.
Or maybe we're gonna go and like power walk to it, or maybe we're gonna try
to sing along as a way to kind of like get that energy out in a positive way.
Rupert Isaacson: I'll to it.
That's cool.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
I mean, a lot of times, like I, I mean I use music all the time.
Rupert Isaacson: And, and I'm just thinking even let's say that's
what I'm think these tools are so useful in more mundane situations.
I remember when I was a, a kid and wanting to listen to lots and lots and
lots of metal and, you know, there was always in the house that kind of, no,
this is go away from your horrible metal.
I hate your metal.
And that, so of course, you know, metal became a point of rebellion, but at
no point, for example, did anyone say, actually, why don't we just clean the
house really, really hard to this metal to this day, it's my house cleaning music.
Like if you put on metal mm-hmm.
You're gonna get a clean house, you know, if I'm mm-hmm.
I'm just gonna start cleaning, you know.
So it's interesting that you say that the idea of sort of taking
even a ragy energy and channeling
Leana Tank: it.
Channeling it,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
You have to be, you have to have some sort of inner security to be able to do that.
What do you do then?
If they are, if they have gone over the edge?
Leana Tank: Then it's really just about safety, you know?
And that's when you have to be aware of like who else is around, who can
have your back, how working together just to like keep the situation safe.
And, and, and the folks that I work with, like when they do go over the edge
and when they are their, their systems can be so sensitive that that's when
things can get pretty extreme and unsafe.
So honestly, in my nearly 10 years of working there, I really haven't
experienced much of that myself, honestly.
I have certainly worked with people who then I hear about like, you know, oh, I
worked, I, you know, made cookies with this person this morning, and then last
night they destroyed the whole entire program and destroyed, you know, went and,
you know, threw rocks at the staff's car.
And I'm like, oh dang, they had a bad night.
What'd you put in those cookies?
Right?
The cookies did not create the happiness I was hoping for.
But I think because, and some of it is just my, the nature of my
position, I'm kind of the good guy.
I'm kind of the safe.
Friendly, fun person that is doing the things that the person wants to do.
And I am, pretty skilled at where that person's zone of tolerance is
and not to push them over that edge.
Yeah.
And honestly, the things that really push people into that fight or flight are those
more author authoritarian, controlling dominance based ways of engagement.
And, and, and we struggle with that, you know, with like, with our staff and, and
those kinds of interactions because that can be like the go-to for a lot of people.
That's how a lot of people were raised.
That's how a lot of people feel like they need to keep things safe and keep
things locked down and in control.
And those are the kinds of ways of interacting that really escalate people.
And so I have found that if you're not meeting people with that kind of energy,
like most of the time, that I just don't, I just don't see that side of them.
Rupert Isaacson: And it's interesting because, yeah, I,
I obviously in my line of work, your line of work, you know, ones.
Meeting a lot of people who are dealing with people struggling with mental
health and getting attacked, punched, kicked, bitten, can be part of the game.
And one of the things I find really interesting about talking to you is that
I'm not hearing those stories from you.
Even though you are in there with people who certainly could
and perhaps do with others,
I don't wanna jinx you, but why do you think beyond the fact that you don't adopt
an authoritarian escalating approach?
As you say, if they do flip over the edge, it has to be about safety
and therefore a certain amount of coercion is going to come in.
You could end up on the end of a flying fist.
Why don't you, do you think,
Leana Tank: I mean, I think that's, that's a big part of it, is not coming
in with that mindset of trying to control people, trying to dominate, trying to,
Rupert Isaacson: there's so much of it about intention.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
I think, I think the energy that you bring to it is a huge part of it.
And then I'm also just really, really attuned to where they're
at and, and listening to them and kind of me, you know.
Using myself as a way to help them connect more to themselves.
And I think when you show up to work people with people in that way, like
you're really a lot less likely to run into those kinds of challenges.
I'm not saying it can't happen and, and honestly, if somebody's in active
crisis, I'm not gonna go and try to work with 'em because that's not really
the time that that's not the time where I'm gonna really be effective.
Right.
That's not the time when people are learning and growing,
Rupert Isaacson: that the people are like, sorry Leanna, they're
just, you know, busy Yeah.
Kicking the doors in.
Yeah.
Would, would you say, okay, I'll see you tomorrow in that case?
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
When, okay.
I'm, I'm torn between going further into nature or into art
and aesthetics here, because which actually is perhaps the same thing.
Let's just talk a bit about indoor environments.
So taking people out into nature.
Fantastic.
Okay.
The indoor environment.
What do you feel is the importance of art and aesthetics in mental health,
including our everyday mental health?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
I mean, I think it's enormously important.
And it's, that's an area.
Yeah, I mean that's an area that I've been really trying to like,
think outside the box and in our programs, because they do tend to
look pretty institutional just because things get ripped up and destroyed.
And so everything has to be really, really durable.
But I know, like I, I I read this book called Healing Spaces that just goes
into so much detail and research about the importance of the environment on
people's mental health and their healing.
And there was even, I recall a steady, like done in hospitals that if somebody
is in a room with a window where they can see outside and they can see
like trees that they heal faster from medical conditions, then a room with
a window facing like a brick wall.
And there's so many different aspects of like the indoor and the outdoor
environment, you know, just lighting and color and the furniture, you
know, and like the sounds and the smells and even just like the space,
how the space is laid out itself.
And I do a lot of evaluating that when I.
I, I help a lot on the teams that are deciding like, okay,
this person should go here.
This person should go here.
And we have homes that are specifically for like autistic adults who have really,
really intense, challenging behaviors and trying to make sure that they have
environments that are optimal for them.
And it, it can be a challenge to advocate even for like, let's make sure
they have some rocking chairs, right?
Like, and when you're talking adults, it's, even with autism, it's even more
challenging because like, you can have a little swing for a little kid or
whatever, and that's easy, but I've got like 300 pound dudes that also could
use a swing, but it's a lot harder to find a swing that's gonna hold up.
And even our rocking chairs, like we will buy recliners that rock and they
get destroyed within a few months.
So really like trying to figure out what is gonna do the job, what's gonna
hold up, what's not gonna get destroyed, what's gonna be cost effective.
It can be really challenging and the same, you know, putting
art and things on the walls.
It's finding things that are.
Aesthetically pleasing that are not gonna get ripped down and destroyed.
There was also like research on even putting up like nature, like fractals,
like, nature art that has like, those, like repeating patterns and things in
it reduces like anxiety and depression.
I found a research study about that.
I thought it was so interesting to
Rupert Isaacson: me that would make sense because of course it,
it mimics the environment that our organism is designed for.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting.
As you were talking, it made me remember a guy I had a very fascinating
conversation with once, who his job was to, it's in England to take pubs that
had a, he worked for the brewery and his specialty was to take pubs that had
a real problem with violent culture.
Those British listeners know what violent pub culture can truly be in the uk.
They can be murderous places, the wrong pubs and turning, turning them around.
And he was this really small expert.
You expect a bloke like that to be, you know, huge shave and head, you know,
tattoos everywhere, mouth intimidating.
He was this little hippie and I said, how are you so successful at this
that they pay you the big bucks?
He said, Ru, it's so easy when people wanna fight, they want a fighting space.
So the first thing we do is we take that space away.
So almost all violent pubs will have a big open area with all the seating
Leana Tank: around the walls
Rupert Isaacson: effectively.
Mm-hmm.
So that there's a place for people to do this.
They might call it a dance floor, but it's, it's not, it's
a, it's a gladiatorial arena.
The first thing, the first thing we do ru, is we put nice big
comfy sofas and armchairs in there that are sort of deep and comfy.
He said mm-hmm.
People sit in them and they chill out and they sort of don't much feel
like getting up and throwing punches.
That's so
Leana Tank: interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: And he said, and then we put all sorts of nice
art on the walls, and he said, and then we play classical music.
We pipe classical music.
And there was another place I knew of this happening in a bad shopping
mall in another area of England that can be quite violent, where local
youth were coming and, you know, smashing up and looting and things.
And it, there was one of the shopkeepers who'd, who'd read something similar
and he started piping classical music from speakers that no one could get to.
And apparently he said it was amazing, Rupert, that, that people just evaporated.
They, they just wouldn't hang out there because they could be hungry.
Had to take their anchor somewhere else.
And it's, it's so interesting how in these really practical situations.
What we know chills us out.
A comfy armchair, nice art on the walls, nice lighting, classical music.
So why on earth again, wouldn't that be an institutional staple?
Yeah, you know, again, maybe it comes down to this idea that, well, they,
they've done wrong, they should suffer.
But of course it's, that's not just in punitive, you know, criminal
justice places that's in schools, and that's in places where people
are actually supposed to be nurtured.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
And I, yeah.
Yeah.
And I don't think it's, it's that matter that like, oh, they don't deserve it or
they shouldn't have something comfortable.
I think it's just there's not a lot of thought and intention given to it.
You know, when I, or the furniture that is initially bought that will actually
hold up is not comfortable at all.
And, and that just is kind of what sticks around.
And it's, it's just a cost thing.
You know, our, it's, there's not much money for these folks at all.
There's not a lot of resources for them to have a very
aesthetically pleasing environment.
And it is hard that, I mean, they, when they are struggling.
The behaviors can be very destructive.
So there's holes in the walls, there's the furniture gets destroyed.
You know, I've had a guy struggle with autism when he would throw all
the furniture outside of the house when he was struggling, you know?
So it's hard to have nice things when that's the situation.
But
Rupert Isaacson: unless I suppose you make the sofa and furniture so
heavy that it's just so difficult to pick up that you, and that's Yeah.
We have now.
Yeah.
Leana Tank: Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And that's what we have in a lot of the places now.
But it's that, that kind of furniture isn't super comfy.
You know?
It's not, and it's not very aesthetically pleasing.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
No, fair enough.
Maybe, maybe we need to start enlisting designers for this.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So now I would like to talk a little bit about how you maintain your own
resilience and one of the things that I think everyone is struck by when they
know you and know what you do is how you seem to retain this likeness of heart.
That there isn't a, you know, I, I know quite a few people who work in
difficult situations with difficult populations that there can be a
certain bitterness that can creep in.
I've never seen that in you.
I also happen to know, of course, that you are an accomplished and avid horse woman.
And we have a mutual friend Warwick Schiller.
That's how we know each other.
And those listeners who know Warwick know that he's a horse
trainer, but also a podcaster.
And his thing is a attunement.
And that if you can attune to your horse your hor your relationship with
your horse will change so radically that things that seemed really, really
difficult for impossible suddenly just become kind of every day.
And he, I think he's been born out in this and that's why he's as popular as he is.
And I know that you followed his attunement mm-hmm.
Stuff with horses.
Mm-hmm.
And I, you told me once in a, a conversation that this had actually
helped you, this attunement thing had actually mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Work.
Can you talk to us about how you understand what, first, what's
your relationship with horses?
How does that impact your resilience?
And then talk to us about this attunement thing and how one can
transfer sort of species to species.
Just wrap on that.
I, I, I'd like to know your thoughts.
Leana Tank: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Working with warwick's, like attunement practices absolutely radically
changed the way I was able to work with the people I worked with.
And I saw so many parallels.
So I'll talk about that in a minute here.
I.
Like I, yeah, I do.
I have my older two, I had two horses, my older mare, Sonny, who is just my heart.
And I think that having that practice and working with horses really, really is a
way for me to like, take care of myself.
And I think that to do this kind of work with other people, you
have to very radically take care of yourself and be really mindful of
your own mental and emotional health.
And people, our culture, like really loves a martyr and really
perpetuates that kind of mindset that you're supposed to just kind of
like sacrifice yourself to your job.
Any job.
Not, not even necessarily a job in the human services field.
Like, it's just a culture of kind of burnout.
And so I think for me, having a horse really helps me keep
my own mental health level.
But I got involved in, in Warwick's work when I got a young horse.
I got, I had this six month old Norwegian fjord pony kind of fall into my lap.
And I had never, I.
Trained a horse before, like started a horse as a baby.
And she was really challenging.
My older mare is very easy, very, just like a joy to work with.
And this young horse was puff like she, I would, she was, she was just like on you
all the time, kind of like nipping and biting and you would try to like, create
space or like, I would read different things like use a whip to back them
up and things, and she would just like bite the whip and try to run me over.
And like she did not hair like what I did.
And that I somehow kind of like stumbled upon warwick's approaches.
And his really connected, I think with with me and like what I felt was possible
for me because I just don't, I don't have a lot of that like really like
aggressive, intense energy, I think.
And I think my, that young horse saw that in me and was just like,
I'm just gonna run all over her.
And I think I didn't have a really good sense of, even
Rupert Isaacson: you, you say that though, Leanna, but I, I know you well enough to
know, I've seen you in situations where it is true, you don't get aggressive, but you
do very clearly express your boundaries.
If you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
of dressage training.
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
well being of the horse and the rider.
Intrigued?
Like to know more?
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
Check out the free introduction course.
Take it from there.
Leana Tank: And that I learned from my young horse.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
So it was not always so,
Leana Tank: no, I don't, not at all.
No.
That was a massive thing I learned from, from that horse that she taught me.
But yet you must have been how to do that,
Rupert Isaacson: setting your boundaries in, in, in the work that you do?
Leana Tank: I think, yes, but it, it's gotten much, much more
intentional and much better.
Okay.
And I, this was maybe, gosh, this was like four years ago that I started
working with this young horse and started kind of down that path.
So, you know, it's been something I've been developing for a little while now.
But yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting how those horses, that
kind of horse will just kind of like find your weaknesses and,
and like really show them to you.
And Warwick's work is very, very like, trauma based, trauma informed,
you know, his work on, you know, kind of built on this understanding
of the nervous system and polyvagal theory and all of these things.
And these were all things that I was a little bit aware of in the
periphery like through, through the mental health work that I was doing.
And then, you know, kind of in the horse world.
But I hadn't really.
He was the first one that kind of like put it all together into one
place that really made sense to me.
And I also just really, really connected.
He would talk about being a little bit emotionally shut down and kind of in his
head and not really in touch with his own emotional life and, and experiences.
And I think that I was a little bit in that place too.
Like I think through my upbringing and through, through that kind of like
lack of emotional awareness or like validation I just had never really
learned how to like actually feel those feelings and, and connect with them and
let them process in a way that wasn't just like intellectually in my head.
And so I think for me, I started practicing his attunement
practices and he with my young horse as a way to work with her.
Give us some examples of tools.
Yeah, I'll, because what he does, and I think what it really is, is like a way to.
Physically embody the practice of becoming an attuned person, which is something that
I don't think you can just read about and learn about and understand it and do it.
You have to experience it and embody it and practice it.
So he had, he has a flow chart that he has videos on, and it's an actual
flow chart that you do with your horse before you ask it to do anything.
So you show up without judgment, without an expectation depending on what the
horse does, your whole intention is to respond in a way that shows the
horse that you see them, that you get them, that you kind of like, are
aware of what's going on with them.
That's the intention of the flow chart.
And it's, it's where you start before you ask the horse to do anything.
And it, the intention is to get the horse kind of in a calm, open, receptive state.
So you start, and like if the horse is just kind of walking, you
just match steps with the horse.
And you literally just, wherever they go in the arena, you just kind of match
their steps and follow along with 'em.
And if they stop, you stop.
And if they kind of look into the distance, you just kind of like.
What are you looking at?
You look at them and if they seem like they're kind of just tuning you out
there's a scratching for connection tool that I also will use a lot on its
own, where you just kind of give them a scratch and you wait and really watch and
see like for a little acknowledgement, like a little ear flick or a blink or
for them to kind of turn and look at you and then you stop scratching to show.
Like, I saw that and it's so interesting because you'll see if
you do this with a horse, they'll kind of like give you a double take.
When you do that a couple times they'll kind of turn around and look at you
like, oh, are you listening to me?
Like, like it's, I've had this experience with so many horses now
'cause I just kind of do it naturally.
And I'll have the same experience with autistic people.
Like, if I am working with someone who is not speaking or kind of in their own
little world and I do something that kind of mirrors them or this, like, am am
using my, even like, sometimes I'll give them little scratches or something and
I'll, I'll know I've made a connection when they, I get the same look from them.
Like, oh, are you actually paying attention to me?
Like, are you actually on my wavelength?
It's really interesting, but.
Anyway, so, so yeah, there's just this whole very, very, very kind of
like organized thing that you do.
And I did it a lot with my young horse and I kind of practiced it too with
like other horses I was taking care of.
And it just kind of like puts you in this meditative flow centered space and
you, I would start to kind of find myself going into that space, like working
with the people that I worked with too.
You know, being able to show up very nonjudgmentally without expectation
and also really watching them for their little signals of like when they were
getting upset or activated or anything.
To be able to kind of reflect that back to them.
Like, oh, hey, I see you.
That's the intention.
And that really helps people connect to themselves too.
So
Rupert Isaacson: is what we're talking about here, really listening, but
listening on a cellular level, not just on a kind of auditory processing level.
Leana Tank: It's kind of listening with your whole body, but it is like you
kind of become that, you kind of become.
Safety.
Because for people like that sense that somebody is really like seeing them and
hearing them is like safety for them.
Rupert Isaacson: And I guess with horses it's a fight flight prey animal.
So if you can become safety, then you're going to be able to
bridge the predator prey divide.
And I suppose when people are living very much from the amygdala, then
they are effectively behaving like a prey animal, which also might
have to fight for its life if that's what it perceives it has to do.
Leana Tank: Yeah, I mean, I, I take a lot of the, the big trauma courses
with the big trauma people like the Peter Levine of Somatic Experiencing
and all of these, you know, different names and like everyone's talking about
attunement as like the number one basis for that, like relational healing of
trauma because that we as a species feel safety with other people, you know.
Rupert Isaacson: And is, is attunement something you think we should actually
all do in no matter what walk of life to get along better and have less drama?
Leana Tank: Yeah, I mean, I think it, it's.
It can go beyond just, you know, attuning with other people.
I think that it, it's, you can attune with other species of animals.
You can walk out in nature and experience everything as kind of a communication.
You know, you're really looking, you're looking to listen, you're looking for
like, okay, what is this saying to me?
What is, you know, what am I taking from this?
So I think that it, it really is like kind of a state of being you can get into.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So makes me think of a recent conversation I had
with Craig Foster, who made that amazing film, my octopus teacher.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
But you
Rupert Isaacson: know, where if, if one wants to see a tuning
and crossing a species divide, you know, that's it, I think.
Mm-hmm.
But one of the things that he points out, which I think is in line with
what you're saying, is that one's relationship with one's environment,
IE the planet, IE, other people, IE the weather, IE vegetation, IE,
the noticing the slug trails on.
Paving stones in London and noticing that there are these little tooth marks
where they're actually eating the algae.
And that if you begin to attune to this level, whether it's with
individuals or with something like that, as you say, I think you, you put
it there that it's actually, that the environment is communicating with you.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And that, that is actually the natural human condition.
And I think to be divorced from that leads to, well, let's say poor mental health.
We know that we've got a loneliness epidemic and particularly in men, young
men, and this is something we could maybe go into in another podcast because I
think that's, its, I'm actually thinking about doing a whole series on this
because I think it's one, become one of the sort of epidemics of our time.
You are dealing with severely lonely people.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Most
Rupert Isaacson: of the, many of them are, but this attunement and being able
to help people attune with the environment back to you say, or take them into nature,
how do you help them without it being like, do you notice the tree and how
it's moving, you know, without, without sounding kind of like, this is forced
fun now, or something where people just gonna automatically rebel against that.
Mm-hmm.
How do you, how do you help people with this kind of despair and loneliness?
Find this attunement and what effects do you notice?
Leana Tank: Yeah, I mean, so how we learn attunement, like how we learn to
be connected to ourselves and to feel our emotions and express 'em in all of
these, like, we're supposed to learn that from our parents and childhood, right?
And so we start learning it in, in infancy when our parents kind
of like respond to our needs.
Sure.
And, and, and, you know, show us even kind of like that back and forth, like
smiling back and forth with your child.
Kind of kickstarts that part of your brain.
It's like the right frontal lobe.
That is where we do a lot of that connection.
And so when I am practicing in a very intentional way that attunement
with the people I work with, they are like learning it from me.
Just, they're just absorbing it.
And I will often kind of narrate what I see, so I'm not like teaching
them or telling them something.
But I am maybe observing like.
Oh, I just notice that you are like holding your breath and
you seem really tense right now.
Are you feeling a little anxious about something?
You know, I might, you have to stay more in like, curiosity than telling.
So I might just like very curiously observe like, you know, are you
a little worried about this?
Or I noticed, oh, hey, like, I remember working with one guy who was totally in
his own world staring into space and I was just kind of like, what's he looking at?
You know?
And I noticed, oh, he is looking at like the clouds over there.
So I was just like, is there's some interesting clouds kind of dark.
Maybe it's gonna rain, you know?
And he is like, yeah, I think it might rain.
And that was actually a reality based response to me that he gave that
he was actually before that it was like there was nothing, you know?
And that was kind of my in, right?
So you're kind of just looking for your way in to further that connection.
And I've had these experiences, you know, like, like walking in nature.
And things will just kind of come up, you know, like, we'll run into a little.
Wooly bear Caterpillar, and it'll turn into this whole conversation about their
childhood and, and their mother who had different superstitions about, you know,
the Caterpillar bands and what that means.
And I've even had like how you know, just like really beautiful moments of
like, I was walking with a this man who also very disconnected from reality
and we're walking and like all of a sudden these little butterflies come
and just kind of like spiral around us and it's just like this little moment of
joy that then I can kind of like refer back to at different times to kind of
like build that sense of connection.
But you're really just
really trying to stay present and in the moment and ready for like
whatever opportunities come up to help them connect to themselves and
connect to the environment outside of them and like connect to me
because a lot of these mental health con conditions are really just like
problems of like connect disconnection.
They're disconnected from their own emotional experiences, are
disconnected from other people.
They're disconnected from the world around them.
And.
Using like movement in nature and you can, you know, if you think about,
like, I've learned a little bit about even like EMDR and processing
trauma just through eyes moving from left to right to left to right.
It's like integrating the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
And I can incorporate that if we're walking outside in nature just by being
like, oh look, there's a bird over there.
Or look, there's the cloud over there.
Let's look at the colors of the trees.
And I can guide that to look to the right and look to the left.
And they don't even know that's what I'm doing.
You know,
Rupert Isaacson: not everyone who's listening will know what E MDR R is.
And I, I think it's fascinating.
I've had a little bit of it myself and it absolutely healed a trauma
that I had in about 10 minutes.
It was mm-hmm.
It was extraordinary.
Mm-hmm.
Talk to, just for the listeners that aren't familiar with it, can you
just walk us through what that is?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
It's, it's a, it's a trauma tool.
It's like very, very well established for healing, especially kind of
those, like, especially at the shock traumas or like if you've had
like a one traumatic event mm-hmm.
That gets the, gets kinda lodged in the, in the brain and the body and.
It started with a psych psychologist.
I think noticing that when someone was processing something, their
eyes were kind of moving from right to left and right to left.
And from that developed this whole modality where someone can be kind
of, even, they don't necessarily even have to be talking about the trauma.
They can just be kind of thinking about it internally, but shifting
their eyes from left to right.
And now there's even tapping the left side and right side of the body that
people will do, or there's even like a musical modality where they listen
to headphones, a tone left and right.
But there's something about the activation of the different hemispheres and the
different sides of the brain with the trauma processing that just speeds along
the ability of the brain to like integrate that trauma and process it through.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Eye movement desensitization.
Mm-hmm.
Processing EMD.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
So you can sort of in, you can incorporate that into a nature walk by guiding.
Mm-hmm.
The movement of their eyes.
Mm-hmm.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
And even, you know, when somebody is in a little bit more of like a freeze state,
their eyes just naturally kind of lock.
Mm-hmm.
And they don't really scan their environment much.
Like everything is just kind of rigid and stiff.
And I can see it in the way they move and I can see it in their posture.
And in just kind of a playful, fun way, I can shift them outta that
state by looking around or even, like, I will loosen up the way I walk
and maybe I'll say like, Ooh, you're like not looking where you're going.
Like, let's look out for trees.
Let's look out for what we're doing.
You know, and then that might kind of create a little bit of
a shift in their nervous system.
And I've actually seen really, really massive powerful shifts in
people's engagement and in their, in their posture and the way they move.
And then in the way they kind of are able to do lots of other things.
There's this like reciprocal.
Mirroring between people's kind of emotional states and then their
bodies, the way their bodies present.
And you can kind of like come from, it's like there's this idea of like
top down processing and bottom up.
And the top down would be trying to like, manage the thoughts and
manage the ideas like in their head.
And there's like different therapy modalities that do that, like that, sit
in an office and like talk about it, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy
or you can come from the bottom up and you can try to facilitate more space in
their system through like movement, you know, and that sometimes shifts things
more powerfully emotionally than trying to come in through the, the intellect.
And for a lot of the people that I work with, they don't have, the intellect
isn't there, that foundation isn't really there to begin with because
they have an intellectual disability.
Or, you know, they're just not in a space because of their trauma
or their ABD being activated where they're gonna like be able to like
cognitively process through things.
And so you have to come at it from a different angle.
Rupert Isaacson: It's it's interesting.
There seem to be quite a lot of studies at the moment coming out that cognitive
behavioral therapy talk therapy works.
Perhaps quite well for certain populations, but not for others.
And it seems that men and particularly young men do not
really respond to it that well.
And this is now, it is just interesting.
It seems a number of studies are coming out.
And I certainly know from my own point of view that when I had anything
like that, it just felt awful.
It just felt like I was, I was a dog that had done a do-do on the floor, and it was
having my nose rubbed in it, you know, it made me wanna jump off a bridge, you know?
But, and of course, as, as we now know with the science of, of movement, you
know, this protein in the brain, brain derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF as the
neuroscientists call it which sort of changes your brain chemistry, your brain
structure opens up your intellect, makes you, you know, it's cognitively optimal.
Movement is key for this.
And of course, men, young men in particular, very physical creatures.
I'm not saying all genders are not, but it, it seems to be particularly
acute with that population.
Do you, was there a moment when you realized, oh my gosh, yes.
Movement's the key, and
I mean, obviously you're an occupational therapist, so it comes
a little bit with the territory.
But obviously you must have also tried to talk with people,
in that more top down way.
At what point do you think it really became clear to
you that Yeah, it's movement.
Leana Tank: I mean, I think I've always been really fascinated with movement
and I think that when I came into the mental health world, I started more
in the physical disability world.
I, the first six years of my career was more in like rehabilitation and I
did a lot with neuro rehabilitation for people who'd had strokes and things.
So I did neurodevelopmental training, which is a lot of facilitating movement
and, and getting muscles to move that haven't moved before and things like that.
And then sensory integration, which that is all about movement.
Like when you think about the sensory systems, when we learn
sensory integration, when you're actually doing it it's foundational
that you are moving and activating like deep pressure, the vestibular
system, like the sense of balance.
And I.
Proprioception, which is your sense of body awareness and space.
And it's not sensory integration if you're not integrating some other sense
with those foundational senses because they give you a sense of security,
safety and who you are in the world.
And that was a little bit my background coming into mental health.
So I was already really fascinated with how those concepts played into
mental health and the psychiatric conditions that I was seeing.
And then when I was working with people, I just saw movement
challenges everywhere, you know?
And I think that as an ot, I was a little uniquely positioned to know what I was
looking at because I would see somebody as being very challenged with their
coordination and their motor planning.
And like, you know, they're spilling their food and they're having
trouble like holding their spoon and they're kind of slouched.
And I asked the staff like, what, you know, what do you think's
going on with this person?
And they were like, well, I just thought they were lazy.
And, you know, for me, I'm like, they are dyspraxic, which is like
somebody who just can't, doesn't have an awareness of their body and space.
Or people are labeled as having like boundary issues because they are walking
up and talking to you really close and getting in your personal space.
But what I would see was that they just don't have a good sense of
like their body's position in space.
I would see a lot of like asymmetries and posture or just collapsed postures,
low muscle tone and, and through.
And so I was just like really, really fascinated about like, what's
going on with all that because they don't have a physical disability,
they have a psychiatric diagnosis, and how is this, like, what, what's
being mirrored in their neurobiology?
And I, you know, so I've, in different like learnings and research and courses
I've taken, like, you know, I feel like I have really, really evolved
in my understanding of like how all of those things interplay and, and
what's showing up for people and how to kind of read it and work with it.
But I think it's kind of a newer growing area of understanding because when I
first started in this field 10 years ago, I couldn't find anything like I.
I could, I, every, all the research and everything was just with kids like kids
with autism and not adults and not adults with other neuropsychiatric conditions.
So that, you know, I mean, that's part of why I was like so fascinated with
like, things like movement method.
I was fascinated with anything that would talk about movement with autism
or other mental health conditions because I, I feel like it's an area
that's still not very well understood.
Rupert Isaacson: We touch on your relationship with your horse and how you
use that for your own resilience, how it's also helped you with attunement to attune
to the populations that you work with.
We've also talked about nature, we've talked about movement, obviously
working with animals, obviously working with large animals, obviously
particularly working something like a horse presumably brings all of
these things together, synthesizing.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Have you had a chance, and obviously these facilities
are not equine, but have you had a chance to bring that into the
work with some of your population?
If so, could you talk just about how and
your ideas for developing this a little bit?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yeah.
So we do have a partnership with a therapy barn where we could create a little group.
I'll bring a group from one of the programs I go to, which
is a pretty cool program.
It it's, it's one of our more intensive programs men and women.
A lot of them have a pretty significant cognitive impairments,
but also psychiatric conditions challenging behaviors and really high
staffing ratios, really small homes.
So a lot of support.
And so I will bring a group of them out to this farm, and they will do a little
bit of work for about a half an hour.
So they'll help clean the pastures, or maybe they'll give
a horse a bath or clean tack.
And then they get to ride the, they have these great big draft horses
and, you know, really, really calm.
And they kind of just give them like a pony ride, you know, or like, take 'em on.
They have some trails, so they'll take 'em on the trails and they
don't, it's nothing too elaborate, but it is, has been great for them.
You know, we I never have any behavioral challenges when we take them there.
They, that's interesting.
Feel.
Yeah.
Why,
Rupert Isaacson: why do, why,
Leana Tank: you know.
I think they're all just so engaged and interested in what they're doing, and they
feel like they have this like, sense of purpose and they're excited to be there.
And yeah, they're just like, there's, there's nothing going on that is gonna
like trigger their particular challenge.
And, and you know, I'll have people that need more support and I certainly
dot have to be proactive, won't have
Rupert Isaacson: example, like, I don't think this horse likes me, or the crows
over there are saying bad things about me.
I, I use that one because I actually know someone who has that
particular psychosis about Crohn.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you find that that actually quietens
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That EQU therapy?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I do, I have brought people there who do struggle with those kinds of
challenges and that's not really, they have like the best time there.
Rupert Isaacson: So what's going on?
What's special about the horse?
Leana Tank: Well, I mean, I think we know like that the horses do like project kind
of calm and they have their, you know, large electromagnetic field from their
heart, you know, that is very regulating.
I think they elicit a kind of respect from a lot of our people.
I think that they.
Will are more apt to actually be motivated to like, follow safety rules and,
and, and policies and things like that because they actually, it's clearly a
large, there's this really large animal.
Yeah.
And it's so funny, we had one guy we would bring who's like a pretty big dude,
pretty like rough and tumble, big guy.
And he was really scared, like really scared of the horses.
He actually didn't come back and he was even the mini, we'd get
out a mini horse and that was act.
He was just intimidated and scared.
Some of like the biggest, most heavy hitting people have,
like the most fear honestly.
But yeah.
Yeah.
I think I have people, it's like the middle of winter right now and we're
not really going for like a month while it's, you know, five degrees outside.
And everyone's still bugging me about wanting to go because I think
they don't often get to feel like they are productive or giving back,
or that they are, you know, like really contributing to something.
And I think that's something that is really lacking for this group of people.
It's, you know, they, the, the, in the mental health lingo, they're labeled as
consumers is like what they get called.
Because they consume mental health resources.
And I just, I really hate that term because it just kind of puts them in
this position that they just take, take, take and they have nothing to give.
And I think it's really important for people to feel
like they have something to give.
And so having them come and like, feel like they're taking care of the
horses and then they get to ride.
And I've seen like wild, I had another person with this
very like, strange posture.
They were like very, very crooked and for like, there's no medical reason,
but when they got on the horse, they're just completely straight and aligned.
And I could use that body sensation later on.
We could talk about it and be like, Hey, remember what it felt like, you
know, when you were on the horse?
Can you kind of like find that feeling again?
And they could kind of straighten up and like we could kind of use
that new sense in their body of like what straight felt like to like
bring that forward into their life.
And now they're straight actually.
Rupert Isaacson: That's so interesting.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: You know,
obviously my story might work, you know, with horses it's time and time again.
We've seen things that one regards as miraculous, but happen so often that.
We have to then start saying, well, is it a miracle or is it actually just the
product of, as you say, electromagnetic resonance of the heart, you know,
production of certain hormones, oxytocin, et cetera, BDNF in the brain, but all
coming together in a perfect cocktail, in the right sensory environment.
A lot of studies have also shown that when people engage in animal assisted
therapies, they tend to finish the program because they have a relationship with the
animal and they want to keep coming back.
Can also be with dogs, for example.
But particularly with equine, it seems that horses, I guess they're so beautiful
aesthetically, they make us feel good in a way that I think very few other
animals in this idea that they carry us.
Maybe y you know, ke Sullivan university of Bournemouth, she's
affiliated there, you know, researcher.
They did a study that in domestic violence, people who mm-hmm.
Had been perpetrators of domestic violence going to equine assisted programs.
Not only finishing the program, but apparently a 51% reduction
in domestic violence, even one year after the program had ended.
So it does seem that there's a, a massively
still to be properly explored
Leana Tank: mm-hmm.
In here within
Rupert Isaacson: mental health.
Can you yourself, I mean, you, you have a certain amount
of autonomy in, in your job.
You, you are looking after quite a few facilities, you're
traveling between them people are listening to you to some degree.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Have you got plans to develop more the
nature, the art, the equine?
Where's it going?
Leana Tank: Yeah, you know, I, I feel like I've been doing this long enough now that
I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what you get the most bang for your buck.
You know, in terms of like programming and like implementing and, and scaling things.
'cause I'm always thinking about how to be as effective as I can.
'cause I do cover like a lot of programs and I can only do so much
like working one-on-one with people.
And I really find like trying to support the staff in these programs
is really, really important.
The.
They are the ones that are, that like source of relationship for the people
in the programs and they really create a lot of the culture and I've seen really
good staff be the source of like so much progress and healing for people.
And then I've seen staff just completely torpedo people's progress.
And I, I do like, I have a really, really a lot of compassion and care for the
people that I work with, but also for like, the people that are supporting them.
'cause it's a really, really hard job and they're not given a lot of resources.
They're, they're kind of expected to be the bandaid on a really broken system
and they're kind of like sandwiched in the middle of these really, really
challenging you know, residents.
And that a system that is like always more and more demanding.
So like finding ways to support the staff so that they can support
the people that they work with, I think is like something I really,
really would like to develop and do.
I ideally, I would love all the staff to be able to like.
Go do an attunement workshop, you know, and like learn like how to like really
embody it because I think that it if you can kinda work from that kind of a space,
it actually like prevents burnout too.
'cause you're not always like controlling and resisting and it's,
you know, I think it just I think, I think that would be a really nice
thing to be able to give people.
And yeah, like being able to really look at the environments,
look at bringing in more nature.
Look at, I think a lot of the groups and things still tend to be very cognitive.
And I would love to see more intentionality in the programs around
designing groups and activities for the residents that are more like humanity
building, like more music groups, more just group dancing, more drumming, more
just things that we know, like promote a good, healthy nervous system and
connection and, and all of that stuff without it feeling like a therapy group.
So I'm, I'm kind of working to try to build those into different
programs that are open to it.
So stuff like that.
More, more awareness for staff, more training.
A lot of them come in from like a high school diploma.
You know, or it's their first job, or maybe they worked in like a factory
and it's kind of a, a low bar of entry.
And not the highest paying and not it's just not a very valued job in our economy.
But it's actually highly, requires a high degree of skill.
I mean, if you think about it,
Rupert Isaacson: well undervalued Well, people looking after
other undervalued people.
Leana Tank: Exactly.
Yeah.
Yep.
Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: W what, you know, as you talk, and it's interesting
'cause we, we we're approaching now, I think we've probably just
over the two hour mark and mm-hmm.
I could keep going and I think I, I'm gonna have ask you to come back on
actually, and there's a, a number of things I think listeners and myself
would like to go into more detail on, but what springs to mind as you begin
to, as you're talking now about those systems, is those communities and
the staff there and the people living in them, it sounds like families.
And oftentimes our family dynamics are not as functional as they could be.
What can, let's say you switch hats and you became a family therapist having
brought in the insights of working.
At this high stakes type, human community environment, what are like
the five count 'em on your fingers type things that all of us who are
parents, who are spouses, who are kids ourselves to older parents, what are the
things that you feel if everybody did
it, would just ease
everybody's life?
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Well, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is that idea of
really radical acceptance and just letting people be who they are.
And I think that is something I think about that a lot as a parent and thinking
about how I was parented to kind of be molded in a certain direction.
But instead to look at it as I'm an apparent, as a way to kind of
just discover who this person is and help them be more of who they
are and just celebrate, celebrate what we all discover together.
Taking that.
Attitude of like, or I guess looking at what your expectations are and what
your judgments are about what this person should be, who they are, what
their life should look like, and being able to just really radically let go
of that and just see who this person is that's kind of creating themselves in
front of you is something that I think, you know, will feel very, very, very
freeing and validating to the person that is like on the receiving end of that.
Something I wish I would've had.
And I think, you know, and, and I do try to do that for
the people I'm working with.
I try not to bring my judgments and my notions about who they are and who they
should be and where they should be at.
You know, I think when you get into that mindset of where you should be,
that kind of puts you in this like frozen state of immobility, like you
can't really move forward from there.
You have to be totally accepting of where things are before you can take
those next steps of moving on from there.
So I think a lot of it is looking at your judgments, looking at your expectations,
and being very, very accepting of where things are and knowing that.
If you can get to that space, things can actually change really, really
fast and really radically in ways that you don't even realize it.
I think looking at, always trying to look at what's going on underneath the
problem or the behavior that you're seeing that when you're seeing a
behavior that's not so, nice, you know, or challenging or not so constructive,
like getting curious about it, you know, before you just go right to like
shaming it or trying to shut it down.
Looking at it with curiosity and trying to figure out now what's
really going on underneath, you know, is there an underlying stressor and
anxiety, a lack of safety, a lack of connection, you know, there's always
something going on under the surface.
There's always a reason for it.
And sometimes the answer isn't this direct addressing of the behavior,
but it's more something else that needs more support or is lacking.
Rupert Isaacson: It's funny, one often thinks of family as.
One's relationship with one's kids.
So often we don't do this with our spouses either.
You know, we have this kind of, well, you should, you know.
Mm-hmm.
You're an intelligent person and you should blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, with our kids, you know, we, hopefully anyway we
can give them a bit more leeway.
But it's so interesting, isn't it, how little we let each other off the hook
Leana Tank: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: As spouses, when we're actually on this boat together and mm-hmm.
Supposedly pulling on the same ropes and manning the same rudder and
down in the engine room trying to figure out what's up with the boiler.
But what I think what you said about radical acceptance is, is really useful.
And I think I would like you to come back on and I'd like to
explore that in greater depth.
And I'm hoping that you will begin to run some workshops and some retreats
on this concept of radical acceptance.
And I will absolutely put my money down and come because I think you
have an unusual set of qualifications to give you those insights, which
I think are, are, are, are rare.
And I'm going to read you something that you wrote to me.
Leana Tank: Gosh.
Oh no.
Rupert Isaacson: Which I felt, that's why I asked you to come
really on, on, on the show.
I mean, obviously you're awesome and why would one not want you on the show?
But it was particularly, it was back on the 21st of December actually, and
I had been introducing you to a group of people and said, you know, wow.
The work she does and the population she works with, it's, it's so extreme.
I, you know, I dunno if I could do it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And, you know, I'd meant that as a compliment.
And this is what I mean by how well you handle boundaries.
It's very elegant.
I, it made me, it made me sit up and I, I just want listeners to hear this
and say, so with your permission, I'm gonna read this 'cause we, okay.
Leana Tank: Okay.
Anyway,
Rupert Isaacson: but I'm gonna pretend I'm asking you permission.
Okay.
So you wrote, the way you ask me to explain the folk I work with never quite
sits right with me, and I haven't been sure why, but I think I can articulate it.
So I'm gonna try not to make you feel bad at all.
More just for my own clarity.
I feel like they're being made out to be these monsters and
they're not, they're like the most sensitive, vulnerable of all.
And the ones that are paying the cost of an inhumane culture,
they're, they're the shadow side and we are all capable.
Of any of the things they've done, which is why I think they make
people really uncomfortable and they get stuck into the margins.
Beautiful things can be dangerous and outta control, like a poison
plant, but like a poison plant.
They still have a place in the world.
They just need to be treated with extra care and respect, but they're not
monsters totally just as human as anyone.
And we all have these parts in us.
People have a hard time facing that.
So the ones who can't hide it get labeled monsters and completely othered.
I want to find a way to talk about them that doesn't make them so othered.
Same, doesn't make them seem so othered, if that makes sense.
I think that was one of the most insightful things anyone has ever
written to me and that I've ever read.
And this idea of the poison plant resonated because it's what are
poison plants often, but medicine?
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
So many
Rupert Isaacson: of the medicines that we take are extracted from plants where
if we didn't get the dosage right.
It could kill us or knock us out or have some very severe effect.
But if we can get the dosage right, it's incredibly ameliorative.
And in fact, the entire drug industry is based around those plant compounds.
So anything that you can think of that's been used as a poison, like hemlock or
nightshade or any of these things are also medicines.
Very powerful, very good medicines.
Things that have strong psychoactive effects on us, like dacher or ayahuasca
or peyote or these strong, strong hallucinogens that could induce
psychosis in the wrong setting, in the wrong environment, if misused
also are incredibly healing.
And I think that you are
bringing our attention to these, to this population of people
that can actually heal us.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Because it
Rupert Isaacson: can make us accept those parts of ourself
and not have to other ourselves.
I think there's a, there's a real merit in that.
But, but it's not talked about because it's outside of our can.
I've also noticed that in the hunter gatherer communities I've lived
in, although you do definitely see psychosis, that psychosis is almost
always channeled into healing.
Mm-hmm.
So the person with schizophrenia or whatever tends not to do.
Something destructive to the community.
Often that person is the shaman.
Whenever I saw things happening that were destructive to the community,
it had always been where people have been displaced and put in,
you know, marginal environments and dispossessed and traumatized and
given alcohol and, you know, okay.
But in the, in the, you know, any of us in that situation do the same
thing, but in the right environment know that the psychosis was
actually a, a mechanism for healing.
As we close, can you just give us your thoughts on that?
Psychosis and healing?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of what you just said definitely resonates, and I feel
like in a lot of ways this group of people have been my teachers.
You know, I've never had the chance to work with a shaman,
you know, or learned from really.
I haven't had these really strong like mentors in this, in this field.
I feel like all my learning has been from these people themselves.
And they've taught me a lot.
I think there's a lot to learn from them.
If you are.
In a space where you can hear, hear what they have to teach.
And, and in my experience too, that sensitivity, you know, they,
they are the most sensitive of us.
And, and when I am working with them in a way that honors that and sees
that and acknowledges that and I have this awareness a little bit of like,
when you're working more from, from the heart and from understanding like
people's energy and connection and connection to the earth, like they
really, really resonate with that.
I, I work with people who they're very sensitive to if the lights are on or off
or where's the furniture in the room, and they'll talk about things in terms of like
good energy and bad energy and their qi and, and, and it's perceived as part of
their mental illness and their psychosis.
But when I'm looking at it, I'm like, but it kind of makes sense, you know,
like, I know what they're trying to say.
I think that there is even in the most like, out of touch, you know, kind of
like, psychotic sounding statements.
There's an underlying sense to it, emotional sense, symbolic sense.
And, and like, I'm not the arbiter of like, reality, you know, like I
think it's important that we're not always thinking like, I'm the one who's
right about reality and they're wrong.
I think there's these shared realities.
There's kind of the general consensus of what reality is, and then there's
people that are perceiving things on a very different level and, and
expressing it in a different way.
And who's to say that they're not perceiving something
that we just can't perceive?
You know, there's, there's a lot out there that we don't understand.
So, so yeah, I mean, I, it, it's honestly a really beautiful, interesting,
you know, lovely group of people to work with and know, and I'm act I'm
really sad that the general population doesn't get to know these people.
And I, and because of confidentiality and privacy and things, I can't give a
lot of specific stories because they're such characters and they're such unique
human, real fabulous people that like.
Any one of you would enjoy.
So it's hard for me to be able to explain that without getting
into a lot of specific details.
But yeah, I think, listen, it's
Rupert Isaacson: just to hear that you say, well, I, I work
with this population every day.
That what they weren't expecting, what none of us would expect to hear
is, and they're fabulous people.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Which
Rupert Isaacson: we must all be fabulous people because if they're
fabulous by nature, by by, by, by definition, by extension, surely,
therefore, the rest of us must be, and we all go around beating ourselves up.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But thank you.
Also, you know, we get into this conversation a lot here
about self-actualization.
And I think there's no question, you, you know, you, you, your working
life, your, how it's brought into your own personal life and so on.
It's, I think you are a shining example of someone who's in the
process of constant self-actualization.
But what's interesting is the people that you're working with, you know,
I think we, we do actually, funnily enough, have a place for the psychotic
in our culture, for self recognizing self-actualization, if we call it genius.
Mm-hmm.
And then you can have someone who's insane.
You can have, you know, a Vincent Van Gogh, or you can have mm-hmm.
I can never remember the name of the, a high selling Japanese
artist who, who lives in a shut in a lockdown, but she mm-hmm.
You know, amazing stuff, you know, or a musician or something in the
arts, or a mad scientist or something.
We can, but what's interesting to me here is that we sort of reserve
that respect for those ones that are so clearly productive in that way.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
But
Rupert Isaacson: of course, not everyone can go around being a genius.
And not every type of genius is obvious, and not every genius is
necessarily productive in that way.
Perhaps it might
be of comfort to, and part of a self-actualization process for the
people that you work with to know that they help us, perhaps to heal ourselves.
Might that be worth communicating?
And if you are, if you are the advocate, if you are the person who can relay
that message both to us and to them, when are you gonna write a book?
Because we, because I, I haven't read any, anything.
Yeah.
Like this.
And it's, it's, I think this is, this is.
Necessary is, you know, well what's necessary, you know,
an apple tree is necessary.
Mm-hmm.
You know, growing a wheat.
But I think it is necessary in terms of, because I, I I, I also believe
that in the culture that we're in, none of us is meant, is not mentally ill
because none of us are living in the environment that we we're designed for.
So how can we not go mad on the stress?
It's just that some forms of madness are
more,
Leana Tank: more, more acceptable.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
You know, can, can be, let's say more easily assimilated.
Leana Tank: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But I think
Rupert Isaacson: we all know bonkers, you know, and umhmm that
therefore the grace of God go.
I feeling
closing words also.
You don't yet, you're not at the point, you know, a lot of people I interview,
you know, they have websites or, you know
Leana Tank: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Contacting to my knowledge you don't, and I, no, don't
think you probably wanna be giving out your email on the, in the thing,
but if people were to contact me
Leana Tank: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Questions
Leana Tank: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Including when is Leanna gonna run a retreat
Leana Tank: mm-hmm.
And a
Rupert Isaacson: training.
I will be very happy to relay those.
And I think.
If you would put together some sort of initial retreat or training.
Here we are, I should date this.
We are in February, 2025.
If you're listening to this, five years from now, she's probably already a me
mega celebrity in mental health instead of Leanna, but we got here first.
So
is that how we should do it, do you think?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
That, that might be the best.
Yeah.
I'm still kind of like in the process of figuring out what
that all might look like.
You know, I get very torn because I feel very committed to the group of people I
work with, and I very much feel like I am always gonna work with that population.
Like, I just would be sad not to.
But I also do feel very, a very strong sense of wanting to share like, the
things that I've learned, you know, and, and, and, and support the people who
are supporting these people and kind of like spread a better understanding
and awareness for them story.
I'm sure he wanted both.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: What we hope is that what that looks like?
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Or at least an advisor to lawmakers.
Leana Tank: Yeah.
Yep.
I would love to support a better world for, for them, for sure.
In any way I can.
So, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, Leanna, it's been brilliant.
Thank you.
Leana Tank: Yeah, thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: I look forward to the conversation.
Alright, my friend.
Leana Tank: All right,
Rupert Isaacson: so bye.
So anyone listening, if you wanna get in touch with her, contact us.
You've got all the email links and website links, and if you want to put
your name down for a retreat and training with this clear genius send it to us.
We'll get a group of you together and we'll figure out where to do it.
Could be stateside, could be Europe side.
Could be both.
Why not?
Okay.
All right.
We'll come sit at your feet.
Okay.
Till next time.
Leana Tank: All right,
Rupert Isaacson: bye.
Thank you.
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