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Here on Equine Assisted World. We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and, established in the equine assisted field. This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have that these lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com.
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome
to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson,
New York Times 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.
I've got Kira Julius here who is
German and Danish but speaks English
as you'll see with a slightly
Australian accent because she has
had a very varied career within the
equine and equine assisted world.
And we are talking today about resilience
resilience in horses, resilience in
people because I don't know if you
guys have noticed, but in the last few
years, the conversations around trauma
have reached a point where it leaves
many of us wondering, well, okay, but
what about what happens after trauma?
Because one cannot, of course,
spend some decades on planet Earth
without traumatic things happening.
But we also know that we're a resilient
species and that horses are resilient.
And of course that's the great miracle.
And that is of course the, the,
the world that we are involved in.
And I wanted to check in with Kira because
she has been working in the sort of rehab
and starting of horses as well as in the.
Human end of equine assisted stuff and
has been very much involved in this
conversation and has some interesting
insights to share I feel on this.
She was working in the, for quite a
long time in the Stewart's Care equine
therapy center outside of Dublin which
does excellent work and also was about
eight years with a rather legendary guy
called Will Rogers in Germany, who even
though he's Australian, who works with and
starts young and difficult, warm bloods,
and she has her own stories of course,
as we all do with the personal side and
also has worked with us here in Germany
with kids with autism and so on, and now
kind of has her own practice doing it.
So all round she's got interesting things
to say around this business of resilience.
So, Kira, thanks for coming on.
Can you give us a little bit
about who you are and how you
got involved in this whole thing?
And then we can kind of go from there.
Kira Julius: Yes.
Meaning how I got involved
in horses at all, or
Rupert Isaacson: in horses
at all and mental health.
And quite assisted.
Well, yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
So I would say horses at always is
my sister's fault because I have, I
have three sisters, but when I was
younger, I have one older sister and
I had to do whatever she was doing
obviously, and she started riding.
So I just started as well.
But then I got, I got very hooked even
though I was very scared of the horses.
And I think it was probably because
being with horses opens up, it
opens up another world for you.
You know, you get to be with another
species, you get to understand how
they operate, how they see the world.
You get to ride them, which means you
get to be taller and faster and do more
things that you couldn't do on your own.
And then there's a whole aspect of
building a relationship with an animal as
magnificent as a horse, and all the things
you learn about yourself on the way and
Rupert Isaacson: mm.
Kira Julius: So I think that's
probably what kept me there.
Even though I was, I was experiencing a
lot of fear, even as a child, but it was,
it was just never, never strong enough
that fear to keep me, keep me away.
Rupert Isaacson: So that's interesting
because, you know, for me, I remember
my early years with horses, there
was just this great desire to be
with them, this great desire to do
stuff and fear in certain moments.
Yes.
That was scary.
But I don't remember an overarching fear.
Were you always dealing
with that overarching fear?
Kira Julius: Yes, I'd say I'd say so.
And I mean it, it was sometimes
less and sometimes more depending on
the human environment and
the horses I was with.
You know, especially when you're
inexperienced, you want a secure horse.
And I didn't always have that
when I started to learn to write.
But I also realized later the human
environment also mattered so much Where
where, where I learned to write, there
was a lot of yelling going on and a bit of
shaming, and if something went wrong, it
was all your fault and all those things.
So I think if you already come in
and you're a bit cautious, then those
things might create a feeling in
you that it's just never quite safe.
Mm.
And that things going wrong or
things getting bit activated
or whatever is, is never.
All right.
Rupert Isaacson: So then why did you
decide to not just take a professional
track with this, but the professional
track of starting large dangerous bouncy,
overactive warm bloods for, an ultra
demanding German sport crowd who can
a, afford these hyper expensive horses.
And b have a sort, you know, are
coming out of that same shouty Shay
world that you were talking about.
It's like, if you have this overarching
fear, you, it's like you, you took all
the aspects of that and just said, okay, I
wanna spend the rest of my life with that.
What made you do that?
Kira Julius: Yeah, I mean, I think there,
there was an important step before that,
which was that when I was 16, I went
to Tanzania for six months and worked
on a horse farm where I was working a
lot with young horses and I was hacking
out a lot, riding along the beach a
lot, taking people on trail rides.
And in my time there I got the
experience that I was able to actually
do things and that I enjoyed the
process of figuring out what to do.
They, they had so many horse books, so
even though I didn't get a huge amount
of guidance there, I had all these
books and I would go and, you know,
when it was hot at lunchtime, I'd read
the books and then I'd go out and try
with the horses because I had a bunch
of horses I could just play with.
But the environment in
some way was so relaxed.
The horse were, they were all living out.
Most of them had grown up
in the environment, so.
I guess I just experienced, there's so
much growth in myself, so much joy also.
And I had this huge curiosity about
where one could take this because I felt
that I was only scratching the surface
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Of,
Kira Julius: you know, what
you could, what you could
learn in that life with horses.
And then I was always thinking, so I was
telling myself, well, I'm just gonna take
a year off after school and then I'll
go to uni and then, oh no, but I'll just
try this thing and then I'll go to uni.
You know?
So, but I, I took a job in a
professional dressage state, just
as a grim first because I felt that
I couldn't live with not trying it.
Mm-hmm.
I wanted to at least have tried
to know what it is like to
be in the professional world.
And then getting in there again, you
see so many things you don't know and
so many ways you can still develop.
And the man I was working for
there, Morton Thompson, who's
a very good Danish trainer and
gave me a really good foundation.
He then put me in touch with
Will because he could see I
was, I was just interested in.
Yeah, the, the understanding of the
horse, the horsemanship side of it.
I was always very interested in starting
young horses and really wanted to, I just
wanted to know how to do it in a way.
Yeah.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: so would you say,
would you say that the story of your
fear and overriding fear was that
curiosity overrides fear basically?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
I would, I would definitely say so.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That, see, I think that
informs where I want to go with this,
which is that, that there were two things
that stood out for me for what you said.
So you said three.
So first thing is he said, well, I'm,
I was very anxious, you know, I did, it
started 'cause it was my sister doing
it, and then I got into it and then I
was a bit scared the whole time, but my
curiosity, you know, made me keep going.
Yeah.
Then he very casually said, oh
no, when I was 16, I went off to
Tanzania after blah, blah, blah.
Now my family's African, I was
traveling around Africa from
my, yeah, mid, late teens.
I know what that entails.
And I was doing that as a young male.
As a young female going out there by
yourself, and I know that you were
going to a place where there was
some infrastructure and so forth,
but nonetheless, I mean, it's huge.
At 16 that doesn't sound
very anxious to me.
And then you say, well then, yeah, okay.
I thought I'd try to be in the
professional world, but it's one thing
to go into the professional world
in a sort of quote unquote, normal
riding school or to go get your exams.
You know, it it, whether it's the German
exams or the British exams or whatever.
And it's quite another thing to sort
of go straight to the very, very,
very demanding, very perfectionistic
world of those high level Sportage
places that you're talking about.
I know, I, I know the level
of modern that, you know, that
you were going into there,
Tanzania, that that doesn't sound like
anxiety, that sounds like something else.
Or how did you, as somebody riddled with
anxiety or fear, find that your curiosity
could override it to that degree?
And then when you were there in
those situations, did you not find
the super anxiety coming back in?
And if so, how did you deal with it?
Because I think that the, how did you
deal with it, I think informs the rest
of where this conversation is going.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
So I mean, I, I would say I wasn't,
at that point when I went to Tanzania
to do that, I wasn't with horses.
I wasn't as scared anymore because I had
had different experiences in between,
like I had moved on from the place where
I started to ride and I was riding other
people's ponies, just private people who
had their NY stable and needed some help.
So it was much more relaxed.
It was, I didn't get
in in trouble as much.
Rupert Isaacson: And you were by then
used to riding a variety of horses
and thinking, oh, I, I can do this.
I can,
Kira Julius: yeah.
So go to a
Rupert Isaacson: rose, be
strange horse and make it work.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
And I guess when you work
through things and you find
out, oh, that actually worked.
Oh, this actually was okay.
The more you are in situations where
things work out, then we're like, oh,
maybe the next one will work out as well.
But I think that is the big thing
with, if you're anxious about
something, we, we tend to want
to stop doing the thing at all.
And you go, oh, maybe I
have to heal this thing.
Maybe I have to look into this.
Maybe you kind of can easily get stuck
in a place where you think you have
to feel ready or you have to feel.
Not anxious at all before you can go out
and do something again, when in fact,
the doing of the thing is what helps
you with the anxiety because you kind
of allow yourself to have a different
storyline rather than staying in the
one that your anxious thoughts predicts.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Kira Julius: You know?
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Okay.
That I I, I, I think you're
dead right with that.
At the same time, there you are
16 in Africa by yourself and you
Oh
Kira Julius: yeah, I was, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, I, I, I
know what it is to be in Africa by
yourself as a teenager looking around
going, oh, it's a big place, isn't it?
And oh, that's a huge spider
on the back of my wall.
And you know, I hope these
people don't kill me.
And and, and, and and then of course,
going into that ultra demanding world
that you went into later with horses,
what you must have had the freakouts come.
And I also know from what you've told
me, you know, that there were some things
that happened within the family that
naturally was a big confidence shaker.
Yeah.
And all of that going on at the same time.
Can you talk to us about.
The confidence shaker
thing within the family.
'cause I think, I think, I think that's
something that gives you a kind of a, a
gravitas and a credibility within this
kind of work that says if you, if you
can face something like that at that
age, it does give you, well, it, it kind
of destroy you or give you strength.
But then also when the inevitable,
like, shit, what have I done?
Why am I here?
What have I let myself in for?
Moments happen and then it's kind
of relentless because you are
there and you've gotta do that job.
Yeah.
What are the tools that you drew on that?
So, so, so can you just
bring us to, if that's okay.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: What happened at home
and then maybe walk us through how
that affected what you then later did.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
So at home when I was, I was just 18.
My, my dad had a stroke.
And he was kind of, he was
the rock of our family.
He was the one who
held everything together,
organized everything.
He was a great, a great dad.
I also have a great and very loving
mom, you know, not to say that, but
he was the one who brought a lot of
stability and more so than I probably
realized before that happened.
And
Rupert Isaacson: that out.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: So yeah, it, it, it was
a little bit like a lot of things fell
apart and suddenly that dealing with
that situation was part of our lives.
And it meant,
yeah, a distribution of
tasks in another way.
It also meant, you know, of course
you're worried about your family member.
It also meant spending time.
I remember on weekends when
he was in rehab, just spending
weekends traveling to see him even.
And then there's this, all the
things, even when he got back home
to, he couldn't get around our house
in a wheelchair, so we had to move.
There was financial difficulties.
There were all sorts of things to sort out
that suddenly kind of ripped that stable
foundation I felt I had for my life away.
And suddenly we were like, oh
it can be quite vulnerable when
something like that happens.
And also, it, it really tests
the family bonds because you
get under a lot of strain.
And I mean, I'd say in some ways
it has brought my family closer,
which I am, like, I'm grateful
that we didn't fall apart over it,
you know, that we didn't lose the
connections we have with each other.
But yeah, for a while there I was,
I was worried about that too because
of course there's so much going on
and everyone is struggling a bit and
it, yeah, it, it was a lot to deal
with and it's, I mean, of course now
in the line of work where it goes
into the therapeutic context, it
gives you a lot of reverence for what
people are actually going through
when, when things like that happen.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Because your dad was never
quite right after he came back.
Right.
It's not like, well, okay, he came back
in a wheelchair, but could then say,
alright, I'm back at the helm lads, you
know, I am, things are back to normal.
And you, you had what,
three other sisters?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And, and perhaps
your mom's struggling with this
situation, so having to step
up into an early adult role.
Talk to us a little bit about the
changing relationship with your
dad, because I think that that's a,
a huge one for kids to go through.
If you are lucky as a child, I think
you go through that when you are
in middle age or late middle age
yourself, and perhaps your parent
goes into decline in great old age.
And I think that's difficult enough,
but I, but to see somebody in their
prime who is, as you say, the rock get.
Knock down and then really have
to take that place for them.
I know there'll be some listeners
and some viewers who've probably been
through something similar or other people
who have not and can't imagine this.
But if we are all in this business
of compassion and the, the seeking
of the tools of resilience as what
we do professionally, I think this
gives us an awful lot of insight.
Can you just free flow,
like what it is at that age
to go through that process
just a little bit more?
Because I, I do think it would, I know
it certainly helped me listening to
your story reframe some of the ways in
which I look at families and parents and
so on that are coming to me, so, yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah, yeah.
I mean, for me, of course there was,
there was a lot of grief because it
felt like in some ways losing your
dad, even though he was still there.
But the, that role of maybe a father
figure I remember very distinctly
I had one situation where I had
driven myself out to stable and I was
participating in a jumping workshop
and I knocked my knee really hard
on a, on a jump as I passed it.
And then I remember getting in the car
and it just hurting so much to press down
the clutch and then being like, oh, maybe
like I can call dad and he can help me.
And then I was like, shit, I can't,
I have to actually get myself home here.
It, it puts you in a position where you
more so sometimes feel that at the
end of the day, you have to get
yourself out of trouble when you're in
trouble and you have to be responsible
for yourself in a bigger way.
And I think I at the time
also felt very responsible for
my younger sisters as well.
Which then funnily enough, because I
got so into managing mode, doing mode
in some ways kept me from connecting
with them on an emotional level during
that time, which now I wish I had done.
And at the same time, of course
I know that at that time I was
just doing the best I could to
kind of not fall apart myself.
'cause I felt like I had to keep myself
together to a point where I could deal
with all the practical things like
my mom wasn't driving at the time.
So anything that involved.
Driving, which is, you know, shopping
or my, one of my sisters was at boarding
school and needed to be picked up in
Denmark sometimes and things like that.
That was kind of, that was my role.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: And it was maybe
when I was 16, 17, not the role
I had envisioned for myself.
I had envisioned something that
felt more free and at the same
time, you just, I think at the
end of the day, it's, it's love.
You know, you, you have the love for
your family, so you do what you need
to do or you know, what to the best
of your ability, what you can do too.
Yeah.
And support.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
The, the, the financial side of
things must have been really worrying.
You know, when you're used to somebody
being a rock, the main earner, et cetera,
that's suddenly out of the picture.
There's a bunch of you, you
are young, not yet working.
It affects life decisions.
You know, do I work,
do I go to university?
What do I do?
Kira Julius: I, I do have to say though,
my parents were, they were still with
that, within that pretty good about,
at that time, I, I still felt I had
the freedom to say, I mean, I made
my own money to travel after school.
I worked so I could travel, but I,
I never felt like I couldn't go.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Kira Julius: Like I.
Rupert Isaacson: I got it.
I, I, I guess what I'm driving at
is there's a level of anxiety of
financial anxiety that comes in with
a situation like that and which I
think all special needs families have.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And also this idea
of being thrust into needing to take
responsibility for financial management
when you don't feel ready for it.
Did that, did, did you end
up to some degree becoming
the family financial manager?
Kira Julius: No, not at all.
Rupert Isaacson: Did that,
or were there skills that you had
to learn for organization around
that, that then have affected sort
of how you've worked subsequently?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
I mean, so I didn't, I didn't, my mom
did take care of that side of things
and once my dad was kind of mentally
able to, again, like they will talk
about it together and she, you know,
refer with him about things, but,
so I, I didn't feel that I had to
take responsibility for that, but I
did feel that I had to strongly take
responsibility for myself, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: I didn't know that if, if
I go out and set up my life in a way.
Where I can't support myself,
then I do not have family money
that will come up and kind of,
you know, do that, do that for me.
I, I did know that.
So the awareness became more acute
that you kind of have to, like, I,
at that point, my sisters also, we
kind of had to support ourselves.
And if there was, as I said, if I,
I wanted to travel so I worked so
I could travel and then I organized
the traveling so that it was cheap
and I'd see if I could combine it
with work and things like that.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
Kira Julius: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You then okay.
You go into this very, very
demanding end of the dressage world.
Yeah.
And I know enough about that
area, VA endorf in Germany partly
'cause we have a horse boy place.
If anyone who wants to hear a great
podcast, please go listen to Giddy
Berghoff's podcast on Yeah, she's
Kira Julius: amazing.
Rupert Isaacson: She's, you know,
one of the great geniuses of our work
and we interviewed her a few months
ago, so please go look at that.
But Varo, and she's in Varon dph,
but she's obviously an exception.
Ndor is a hard place.
Fend Orph is where the German
Olympic team have their headquarters.
It's where the fn, which is the.
Equivalent of the British Horse Society
or the US Equestrian Federation,
all that has their headquarters.
It's the sort of belly of the
beast of sports riding as we know
it really within Europe, I'd say.
And it comes with all of the
things attached to it that
one would expect with that.
And you go into that
Kira Julius: why?
Yeah.
Yes.
And
Rupert Isaacson: why, why you, you
have all this anxiety, you have
these other, you know, it's like
you couldn't have chosen a more rake
yourself over the coals type, Yeah.
Of environment to go into.
Kira Julius: Well, the thing is, I
kind of went into that, but not really
because I mean, first we were in the
Netherlands, actually, we, we were
only in Germany for the last five
or six years of my time with Will.
But so yes, it was in that sports work
that was a client base, but we kind
of had our own little niche within it.
Okay.
That meant that there was some rules
where we could write in a different way
because it, the, the, the work with the
horses was not about competing them.
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
Kira Julius: It was about solving
problems that our clients couldn't solve.
Oftentimes, or starting horse.
But even the horses we got into start
would often be the ones that were extra
sensitive or extra sharp or had already
had a bad experience with being started.
Things, things.
I
Rupert Isaacson: risk
my case about anxiety.
These are anxious, making horses
in anxious, making situations with
somewhat high anxiety clients.
Okay.
I like your, the thing about the
niche, finding your niche within
something, I think that's something
we should actually return to a
bit later in this conversation.
'Cause I think that's important, this idea
of how you find and carve out your niche.
But nonetheless, how did you end
up, do you think, to some degree you
wrote yourself that script to say,
because I feel so much anxiety, I'm
going to deliberately put myself
into situations like Tanzania or
this, that constantly trigger it.
Do you think if so, was that
conscious or subconscious?
And if so, was that because there was
another part of you that thought, well,
yeah, the triggering is the growth
and was that conscious or unconscious?
Kira Julius: Yeah, I mean I think
there might have been some of that.
I do remember that I often had
the feeling of not wanting to
get stuck in my comfort zone.
Okay.
And feeling that there was more.
And
Rupert Isaacson: but why?
Why?
Because, because, you
Kira Julius: know, well, it's the
growth, the growth thing, I think,
and I think we all come to earth
with our souls that kind of feel that
there is some journey they wanna take,
there's some growth they want to have.
Yeah.
And that we then in some ways,
subconsciously, but I mean, I think
the, the longer you go on, the
more conscious it becomes, choose
situations that put you Yeah.
Put you in line for kind of learning
experiences that will give you that
growth that you are actually craving.
Because yes, I was
craving that, that growth.
And I also felt, because you
said, why didn't you just go
to a riding school or whatever?
I felt, no, I wanted, if I was gonna
go into it professionally, I was
like, then I wanted to do like the top
tier thing because I felt, I always
felt I wanted to have the fullest,
deepest experience I can have of it.
Because, you know, it's, I
also feel it's, it's that sense
of wanting to feel aliveness
because don't we all want to feel
Rupert Isaacson: the sense of
Kira Julius: wanting
Rupert Isaacson: to feel aliveness?
I like
Kira Julius: that alive, you know?
And I always feel that.
The, the richer your experience is,
the more that life comes up in you,
and the more you are curious about
things, the more you dive deeply
into things and wonder about them and
just really live them, the more that
vitality is gonna flow through you.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Vitality.
Okay.
Can you talk, talk to us a bit about
the work that you did do there then
in the Netherlands and Germany.
I think that's quite fascinating
for us as horse people.
Can you just sort of take us through
the highlights of that and the approach
and where it got you and then how
that drifted into the therapeutic?
Kira Julius: Yeah, so I mean, I started
out as just in a, in a grooming position.
So I was just taking care of
wheels, horses and the horses
that he would have for training.
And then I would, every opportunity
I got, watch him work watch him teach
and just get as much as I could.
And then he gradually started teaching me,
so I had a couple of lessons on his horses
and then I said, what I'm, what I'm really
interested in is starting young horses.
And then what he did was he got,
did I, yeah, I think the first
time I helped with that, we got two
mares and from a breeder together.
And then we started them at
the same time where we'd take
them to the arena together.
He would work with one, I
would work with the other.
We'd swap in between.
He'd of course teach me and supervise
closely because these are valuable
horses from clients and Will has a high
standard for the work and the, the product
he puts out and the training he has.
So of course, if, if I was gonna
do it within that business,
it was closely supervised and
I learned, I learned so much.
But essentially the work was based around,
we would educate mainly dressage horses.
So with the aim of being dressage
horses that, you know, could
be ridden competitively if that
was what the owners wanted.
But we always started with an approach
that, well, you probably more see in
the, in the horsemanship world where it's
very much about understanding how horses
operate, how they perceive the world and
then using that knowledge and the feel of
that to explain the human world and the
job we expect them to do to the horses.
So you break it down, make the
communication really clear make
sure that they, that they understand
and that they feel safe within it.
So we wouldn't just slap a saddle on, for
example, we'd before teach them certain.
Groundwork patterns that we could use
to release tension in their bodies.
So that, and then we'd get them used
to being touched with different objects
and then get them used to pressure
around the belly and then saddle them.
And then you can use all
those tools that you have.
Because when you have the communication
with the horse, if they have a moment
where they tense up with a saddle or
they're unsure, you have a language
you can use to tell them, do this with
this tension, move it here, do this.
So
Rupert Isaacson: what are those?
I think people would are curious.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
What are those exercises
to release tension?
Kira Julius: I mean, so it, it starts
of course with being comfortable with a
human, that's where you have to start.
So you start with them being able
to be touched and feel safe with it.
And we kind of used a lot
with the touching things.
Something you call approach and retreat,
meaning you approach somewhere if the
horse is uncomfortable, you can retreat to
a, a spot on the body where the horse is
comfortable, you know, then you go further
against you, you listen to the horse's
signals and there's basic handling that
they could listen to our body language
for just walking with us going forward,
backing up, turning, just staying with us.
And then the main thing for, for
letting go of tension was to.
Be able to yield the shoulders out
and to yield the hindquarters out.
Mm-hmm.
And we'd also teach a lot of them to relax
in the neck, to lower the neck a bit.
But that one for me is, is kind of,
you don't wanna force 'em to do that.
And often it comes out of the movements.
So it's not just about doing the
movement, it's also the quality of
the movement, if that makes sense.
Right.
You know, it does, you can but it's
a conversation and you just, you look
for those places where the horse gets
closer to the posture or the softness
that you like, and you, if you release
in those moments, they gradually
always find, okay, in the softness
is where I find the, the release.
And then you, you build it.
But if you constantly keep that principle
in mind with whatever you do, then it
just becomes stronger and stronger.
Just become, becomes part of,
Rupert Isaacson: I think, I think some
people are familiar with the yielding
of the shoulders and the yielding of
the quarters, and some people are not.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then there are of
course, many different ways to do this.
And within the horsemanship
world, one sees people doing this
sometimes in a sort of a bossy way
and sometimes in a very sensitive
way and various points in between.
How did you guys do that and, and
what is the value of yielding the
shoulders in yielding the quarters?
Kira Julius: So, yeah, I mean the, the
aim is of course, obviously you wanna
use as subtle and aid as you can, but
we all know that when, when you're
working with a horse who doesn't know
much that, but it's more, it's not about
being tough, it's about being clear.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: And often if, if the horse
doesn't move off a small or smallish
aid, you can still break it down more.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: You know, 'cause
oftentimes if they, if they so
yielding the shoulders, we would
yield them backwards and across.
But the softness more comes
from forward and across, I feel.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kira Julius: So if you, if you imagine
a horse walking around, you're in
a small circle, if you can get the
nose a bit towards you and have them
reach the outside front leg out more.
Mm-hmm.
Open up through the shoulder there, they
will often find softness and a bend there
that releases quite a bit of tension.
But say a horse is really, really stuck,
you often have to start with just, can
I get lateral flexion while we stand?
Can you even soften through, through
that part in front of your shoulder?
You know?
Mm-hmm.
So, yeah.
And then the high quarter is usually,
I find easier actually to move across.
Especially once you can move the
shoulders, because if you just take
the nose around here a little bit
more, we would, and the, those early
stages do it with a lot of bend.
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
Kira Julius: And if you just take the nose
around you a bit more and you slow your
own feet down and pivot more often, the
headquarters will move out automatically.
Rupert Isaacson: Why do you
think those two movements really
release tension from a horse?
Just in your opinion, what
do you think is going on?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, for one it is because I think
you get the horse's energy moving
through the body in a way where
it doesn't get stuck any anywhere.
Mm-hmm.
Because you have, you
know, if you have them
Rupert Isaacson: because
they can't, they don't brace.
Yeah,
Kira Julius: yeah, exactly.
But it, but they can still move.
And that's for horses', it's often
important that they can still move.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: But, and you give
them way to move where there is
action or resistance and you're
not yanking on them or anything.
Mm.
And then there's, I mean, what
I've learned from you that all
the, the laterals when, or that
crossing of the midline produces
the, the PDNF and the brain
Rupert Isaacson: brain
derived neuro terrific factor.
Yes.
Neuroplasticity.
Exactly like martial arts and humans.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: We like it.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Kira Julius: But yeah, no, I
think, I think that definitely
does play a role there.
And also that the more aware they
become of their bodies, the more
secure they feel in their bodies
and where they are in space.
And I think all those
things tie in together.
Rupert Isaacson: Plus
it's leadership, isn't it?
You know?
Oh, I feel safe.
Yeah.
You know, I have a, I have a
Kira Julius: leader.
Yeah.
And it's also that thing, especially
young horses, often they will, if
they're unsure of something, they
will appreciate you saying, do this.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Kira Julius: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Like we do, honestly.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Mammalian, mammalian,
social mammal need for Yeah.
Kira Julius: Provided of course that
you have the trust and relationship,
you know, if they see you as a
threat, then that's not very helpful.
Yes.
They have to kind of see you as, as
someone who helps, not as someone who
kind of adds to the, to the stress.
So that's where the relationship
and trust is, is so important.
Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the
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absolutely gives you this..
It, it's interesting just staying on, on
these exercises of moving the shoulders
and moving, moving hindquarters out.
You know, this as you know, also is
the basis of, of all the classical
or the old classical horsemanship.
Yeah.
So it's all about the lateral movement,
creating the straightness and the
collection and the extension in a
way that then is relaxed and soft.
And then the horse can, like a
concertina go from a hard run to
a spin to a this, to a that, to
whatever he needs to do, whether
working cattle or fighting a bull or.
Playing sport or hunting or just having
fun, of course, themselves without a
human, without a monkey in the field.
And I've noticed too that when,
particularly with young horses, when
they are in their herds, they do a
lot of the lateral play themselves.
They do it less as they get older,
but they still do to some degree.
But it's all about circling each other.
Mm-hmm.
And I think people that don't breed
and therefore don't get to see a
lot of group play among adolescent
horses sometimes miss that behavior.
Just like if you don't keep
stallions there's, there's
behaviors you may not see.
I have, I've heard people say, oh, Spanish
walk, for example, it's not natural.
It's like, well, you haven't seen
two stallions circle each other
before they decide whether to engage.
Yeah.
And that's of course exactly what they do.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: All of these
things come from nature.
But we of course have artificially or
humanly affected horses by, you know, take
taking off the, the balls if the stallions
that changes the behavior massively, you
know, and then of course, anytime you are.
Adding a human to a horse.
It's, it's a very different ball game
to the, you know, the horse by itself.
But back to the, this lateral
movement and the shoulders
moving and the haunches moving.
The reason I sort of go on about that
is the great trainer, Nuno Olivera
Portuguese, 20th century guy who sort of
synthesized all the dressage approaches
into something very rational, said that
the shoulder in which is effectively
when the hindquarters go out 'cause it
brings the shoulders to the inside and
Kira Julius: mm-hmm
Rupert Isaacson: they cross that inside
and he says, it's the alpha and omega
of horse training and it's the aspirin.
He always said, it's the
aspirin of horse training.
It,
Kira Julius: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It seems
to solve every problem.
And I have definitely found that born
out that for some reason that particular
movement seems to bring both physical and
mental, emotional, balanced equilibrium
to a horse at the same moment, whether
it's shoulders in or counter shoulders in.
Both of them seem to work.
And of course, the, what you described
with take the shoulders away, that's kind
of counter shoulders in and or shoulders
out as people call it, and take the butt
to the outside that becomes shoulders in.
So it's just interesting how the, these
things seem to create equilibrium,
mental, physical, emotional in horses.
They do it in nature, they.
When we do it with them,
it, it seems to work.
I'm gonna ask you to talk a bit more
about the kind of some of the crazy
trust things you ended up doing with
those horses in a minute, which I
think puts it in context for listeners.
But do you feel, just while we're on
this subject, that people who are in
the equine assisted world, most of us
are getting donation horses in, right.
They come with the stories they come
with and to some degree we always restart
them because it's a different job.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: These essential
movements, do you feel that
they're actually kind of crucial
to the job in some way and Yeah.
Can you just talk a little
bit about why that is?
'cause I think for newcomers to the
field, that is useful information.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
I mean, I think for one, because of
the, just the gymnastic value of it.
'cause you wanna keep your
horses healthy and sound.
Especially if you take it into the more
classical and handwork then where you can
build it up to collection and you know,
you can build the top line like that
without putting a lot of strain on them.
Because sometimes, you know, especially
in therapeutic places, you might get
older, horses you might get horses with.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm
Kira Julius: Niles coming with
Rupert Isaacson: injuries.
Yeah, yeah,
Kira Julius: yeah.
But also from just a
connecting with a horse.
Also safety point of view I find,
because if you can reliably do
those exercises on the ground.
If you ever get in trouble, you
have something to work with,
you have something to go to.
Meaning say if you're with a horse
and they, you have a client on
your horse, I mean, you, we all
hope that's never gonna happen.
But there are horses you cannot
guarantee that is never gonna happen.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: But if you have that
established, say the horse gets a fright
from something behind him and you can
just say, go into your shoulder in
positioning or go into your soft bend
where you do your counter shoulder
in, or if that is really solid, that
can often get you out of trouble.
It has gotten me out of trouble
when, say, with young horses or
with more difficult as often horses
who have had bad experiences.
When you, you can make yeah, you can
misjudge a situation and get into
a position where the horse maybe
has a strong reaction to something
that you weren't anticipating.
But when you have these exercises, just
from a safety point of view, you can keep
yourself and the horse very safe actually.
Because when they get, especially into
that shoulder in position, you are out
of range of hind legs of also because
the hind quads are moving away from you.
Yeah, they're not, you
know, they're not gonna kick
Rupert Isaacson: you and the
shoulders are not moving.
Interestingly, even though the shoulders
come in, they move around you, so
you're not likely to get body slammed.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Also, you still want
that, that bend there.
Right.
So that means they're not walking
the shoulder on top of you.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
Kira Julius: You know, if
you've established that.
And so, yeah, I have definitely been
in situations where I was very grateful
that we had those tools, even though
as I say, you try to prepare so that
it doesn't happen that you need to kind
of really get yourself out of trouble.
But it does, it does happen.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: And yeah, I've just
felt if you can get a horse into that
shoulder in position, and they have
learned that, oh, usually when I get
to that position, then I soften my
body and then that feels really good.
They can learn to work
through that emotion almost.
And that situation.
And you allow them to move.
You're not saying to them, you can't
move, you're just saying, move like this.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
I think the, the, the, I just
wanna pick up on what you just
said there, the allow, allowing
them to work through the situation.
That of course is the process
of resilience, isn't it?
The, the, the, the saying,
okay, here I am in a freakout.
Here is a tool that leads
me through the freakout.
On the other side of that
freakout is resilience.
And then you have a horse that's
maturing emotionally that also finds that
growth and that fulfillment in growth.
'cause I think one, one often
forgets that horses have that
need just as much as humans do.
So do dogs, so do all intelligent mammals.
Right.
Boredom is a real problem.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So it's interesting
that these tools, which have clearly
been used universally since like
the Bronze Age, you know mm-hmm.
Are still not necessarily
universally adopted.
Because, you know, when I was a kid they
weren't really part of the conversation
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Of, of,
of young horse starting.
They weren't really, you know, it,
it's interesting that now of course
they are becoming more mainstream,
but even within the therapy world,
I think we, we don't see them being
used as systematically as they could
be for rehabbing, for maintaining.
'cause it's also like a yoga, you know?
Mm-hmm.
If you're an older horse, it keeps
you supple, it keeps you feeling
good and keeps the brain active.
Can you tell us a little
bit about some of the.
Somewhat extreme situations
you then got with trust.
I mean, I know you, you know, in front
of these big crowds that some of the
stuff you were doing with Will those
big breaches just give us an idea about
how far that work could go, because
I think that gives us some insights.
Kira Julius: Yeah, yeah.
I mean, so we'll have the, he had the
brilliant idea that you take a sensitive,
sharp, warm lot and then you put very big
plastic tarps in a big indoor arena and
you put wooden sticks like you do wooden.
Yeah.
You put wooden sticks on all the corners
and then you have a person and each
corner, and then these people can create
nice big waves with the plastic tubs and
Rupert Isaacson: why not?
Kira Julius: But, but, well, it, it was
for him because at that, at that time,
he was building his business around being
able to help horses who were reactive
or who had problems with feeling safe
and functioning in the human world.
So he was taking it to an extreme to
showcase that you can help them feel
safe enough with things that they can,
you know, do all these, because you,
you'd get it to a point where we'd bring
this tarp up behind them in this big
wave and it would land on their back.
Okay.
And he would get them well, because
eventually we would cover the horse,
so it'd have to land on the back first.
And he would get it to a point where.
The moment that top came down on the
horse spec, the horse would be like, ha.
Because they knew that,
Rupert Isaacson: okay,
Kira Julius: that was a moment of release
and reward and that was, that was good.
That was the, the top became the
safe zone, which means that Okay.
' Rupert Isaacson: cause
Kira Julius: they also, when they
go out, they have to deal with
the crowd as well and everything.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: And we did prepare them
for that, but it's very difficult to
prepare them for that kind of atmosphere.
But in a funny way that I think that
for a lot of them then the big tarps
helped because they were like, oh, this
thing, I know this thing I'm safe in.
I know exactly what happens.
And I would say it actually in some
way might have helped some of them
cope with everything else that was
going on because it was a clear,
clear task, a clear thing to engage
with that they were familiar with.
But I mean, getting, getting them
there was not always straightforward.
I mean, also Will, has, has
a knack for not choosing the
easiest horses to deal with.
I have to say.
I sometimes say we should have filmed
like the first time he introduced them to
the top and then the result because but
also again, it was about he figured out
a system of breaking it down, you know?
Mm-hmm.
You'd start with a smaller tab, obviously.
Rupert Isaacson: You
Kira Julius: could in the
beginning just fold it together.
So they just had to step across.
They didn't even have to step on it.
Then you fold it out, you make
it gradually bigger, then you
move to the, to the big one.
In the beginning they just walk on it.
Then you get people on the corners
to just wave it a little bit.
But you can be strategic,
meaning you can wave it.
And then as the horse comes
towards it, you stop waving it.
So you are, the horse always feels,
oh, when I go towards it, it goes away.
And you just gradually,
gradually build it.
It's really, it's, it's like with
all horse training, it's about it.
Seeing how you can break it
down to make it achievable and
to explain it step by step.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, one
of the things which we use, you
know, this in horse Boy a lot
is effectively bomb proofing.
We, we haven't done it for a while 'cause
our horses are now so solid, but we
used to do a ton with tops and I'm just
sort of remembering we do exactly that.
I used to feed the horses on the tops.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then have people
exactly as you say, sort of crinkle
them, make little waves out of them.
And then eventually it would get to a
point where we could wrap a horse in
a top while he was eating and he would
be like, they'd hear the crinkle of
the top and they'd just come running.
And, also the training of tricks.
I remember, you know,
a horse that came in.
He became one of the most solid horse
boy horses we ever had, but he was
a wild court mustang, and I just
took him off the hands of one of my
son's ex babysitters just because she
couldn't deal with him and like he
really couldn't be dealt with at all.
And he just get up on his high
legs and box at you and what
am I gonna do with this horse?
Why did I get this horse?
And then it was one of the first horses
that Iliana and I ever collaborated on.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And I remember, so I
thought, well, like we can't get on him
because he just stands on his hind legs.
So I told him to bow and then I
would just get on him when he bowed.
And then it's funny, then he'd get up,
he'd be like, oh, well you are here.
You know?
And then with the, the hind leg
stuff with I, I remember thinking,
well, okay, you are there.
I don't want to stop you from
being, I don't wanna fight with you.
Why don't we do stuff while you are there?
And for me, that was all quite new.
So I just started doing all kinds
of behind leg tricks with him.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then after
a while he's like, well, this is
kind of work, you know, maybe I'm
losing my motivation to use this as
a, as a, as a, as a, an invasion.
And then he didn't much fancy
trailers, which wasn't surprising
'cause he probably had a terrible
time with them when he was caught.
So I remember teaching him Spanish walk
on a ramp and, and so that he could.
Get a treat when his feet made a certain
sound on the ramp and then he would,
you could Spanish walk him into trailers
when you couldn't walk, lead him.
And what was interesting for all of that
with me was that it was a way of sort of
thinking around problems and thinking,
well, this is where the behavior is.
How do I go with it?
Not against it.
How do I avoid a fight?
And what we often found was
that horses that seemed.
Not good prospects, interestingly,
became very good professionals because
somehow we engaged that curiosity.
So I then started a little bit of
work with a guy called Alan Pogue,
who listeners and viewers should check
out Alan Pogue, imagine a horse.com,
who's a master trick trainer.
And I realized that trick training
was just such a great thing because it
crossed the line with bomb proofing.
It constantly took the horses
into these new situations.
It engaged their curiosity.
It engaged perhaps parts of the body
they wouldn't normally be using.
Like picking up a pair of socks
and handing it to you or whatever.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And and then, you know,
a horse that's a bit mouthy suddenly
gets something to do with their mouth.
And then,
Kira Julius: yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: that stops being a
problem because you give it something
else to do and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it, it made me do a
sort of complete rethink.
Which I think really helped me, not
just oddly enough with the preparation
of horses, but with how I would then
relate to behaviors in the kids.
Because I would then say,
oh, okay, you are here.
Your teacher and your family naturally
want you there, but here is where you are.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So why don't we
meet you where you are and find
what's kind of cool about endlessly
splashing or spinning or spitting.
Yeah.
Or,
Kira Julius: yeah.
I think it's a bit, it's a
bit about seeing possibilities
rather than problems, right?
I think that's what you're describing.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kira Julius: That
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So, so you are, there you are, you are.
Presenting these sharp, warm bloods
at breed shows in front of tens of
thousands of people flapping huge
top pullins all over the place.
And the horses
Kira Julius: like that was
a professional top handler.
Rupert Isaacson: And, and this
is, you know, as you say, sort
of top tier industry stuff.
What makes you then want to shift
towards the therapeutic line?
Like what, how does your
curiosity take you that way?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, or were
you always curious about it?
Kira Julius: No, I don't
think I always was.
I was a bit with the horses.
I was als always interested
in helping horses feel better,
whether that be physically or
mentally or yeah, in whichever way.
But I think the interest in therapeutic
work with humans also came through my own.
I kind of got through, I had another
bout of bad anxiety when I was
working at Wills and I think caused
by, there is a lot of pressure
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
In that
Kira Julius: way to produce a good job
just, just by being in that industry.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kira Julius: And there's often a conflict,
especially when you're training horses
for clients between wanting to be.
Doing right by the horse.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: And at the same time,
meeting the client's ex expectations
of where the horse should be
after a certain amount of time.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: That I found
really difficult to deal with.
And then I think I really got into, and
I don't really know how or why, but a
thing that I think is, is also happening
a lot still today, where you feel that
the desired state for yourself and the
horse is calm, you know, that it has to be
calm, that no one can react to anything.
No one can have a reaction,
nothing can ever happen.
That it's a bit out of line.
And naturally in that line of
work, always something happens.
You know, it's just part of it.
But at that time I remember feeling
that if a horse had a spook at
something or which, you know,
they're horses, they will speak.
Or if say a young horse had an
initial negative reaction to the
saddle or whatever, that I would feel
that I had failed so massively and
that somehow it wasn't all right.
So I think those things combined, and we
can get back to how I view that now, or
I can tell you now how I view that now.
Mm-hmm.
But, I got into a spiral of being anxious.
But I also think, again, that
there was a certain growth I
wanted and I wasn't taking the
steps to go towards that growth.
And I know that for me, my body,
my system, everything then starts
speaking up and saying, hello, are
you, are you gonna do something?
And then if I don't, it, it
throws worse stuff at me.
Yeah.
But yeah, I got, I got to a point where
I, I stopped actively training horses.
I, I would almost like get
dizzy if I got on a horse.
I had huge trouble driving in a car, and
I don't, again, I don't think it's a car.
I think it's, it's that fear of
doing something wrong or failing or
letting myself down, you know, that
was, that was going on massively.
And yeah, I think just living through
that and looking for solutions for
that, I got into, you know, I, I, I
sought out healing for myself naturally
and going through that process.
Really.
Yeah.
Ignited some desire in me to pay that
forward and, you know, help people.
And also, again, chase that growth
that comes with engaging with those.
Things.
Rupert Isaacson: It's very
interesting what you said about calm.
Let's go with that.
And then before we go on with your
story, it, I've noticed this too, and
this has become, I say more and more
a conversation in the last five years.
I've noticed, maybe it's since COVID.
This idea that if you are triggered away
from calmness, it's like a disaster.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And there's
always been a part of me that,
well, not a part of me, a large,
maybe all of me that
says, no, no, no, hold on.
Triggering is what you're
on planet earth for.
I mean, we're hunter gatherers.
We face elephants, we face lions,
we face droughts, we face pandemics.
We face floods.
We face strong nature.
And also in the, you know, shamanic
traditions of the indigenous peoples
that I've spent, been lucky enough
to spend time with that kind of high
emotional and physical drama plays
out in the healing practices as well.
And, but it's the calm is what
comes on the other side of it.
But you don't try to defend the calm
because you are supposed to react
appropriately when there is a threat.
So that when there's a threat, you
don't freak out and get killed.
And you know, it's so interesting.
One really good example of that
would be I was walking once with
a man called Juman Lib, who was a
Bushman, who I was very close to.
And, but really interesting
man, because he also could fully
function in the western world and
was also a human rights advocate.
And somebody, he'd really
grown up in the bush.
And we were walking one day in the
Central Kalahari game reserve, which
very, very wild area of Botswana.
We ran into two big male lines.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Who
Rupert Isaacson: got up
and were like, who are you?
And there's, you know, no way we could
have run to a tree or, and I'm like,
all right, Jamanda, what do we do now?
And he's like, Rupert,
the lions are our cousins.
I will show you.
We will walk with them.
And he had this whole way of addressing
them and we walked parallel with them
and they walked parallel with us while
he talked to them and engaged with them
in a way that he'd been taught to do.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And at a certain
point they sort of probably got
bored with us and walked away.
And afterwards I said to
him, weren't you scared?
'cause I certainly was, you know, yeah.
I need to change my trousers now.
And he says, Rupert, we walk with fear.
But fear does not override.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Fear simply informs,
but you know, when you must react to
fight or flight, but it's not very often.
Mm-hmm.
And that, so therefore, when you
walk through the bush with a bushman
where there's just constantly stuff
out there that is thinking about
eating you you never get eaten because
all their reactions are appropriate
because they don't have an expectation
that fear should not be, or anxiety
should not be part of the equation.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But that it also nev it
doesn't negatively affect your quality of
life because you simply get good at it.
Yeah.
So you are aware, not freaked out.
And he showed me some really interesting
things to do and I, I think horse
people actually have a predisposition
for this because obviously when you're
up on a horse, you are constantly in
danger and at a certain point we just
kind of get okay with that, you know?
And where we can be scanning for should
we be reacting more or less to something.
But we're always aware, you know,
we know that if you let your
guard down completely, that's
when you end up on the floor.
So I think we do have a predisposition
for this, but he showed me some
really interesting exercises.
Like he said, Rupert,
always listen to your gut.
If there is you, you can, you
can try these as experiments
with dangerous animals and see.
Where your, where, where your safety
is and where your safety isn't.
So I probably did something a bit silly,
but I used to go for little walks at
night in Texas, barefoot knowing where
there were, there were snakes down there.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And I would take a very
short way and just feel in my body snake.
And he said, if you ever
feel that Rupert, it's there.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then he
said, make friends with it.
And then ask yourself, do I retreat?
Do I go round?
Do I stop?
Do I go forward?
And I played with that a little bit.
And two times, I think it really saved
my life One time I did something very
stupid, wandered away from the fire
thinking I knew my way to my tent
because I'd camped there before and the
guys at the, at the bushman at the fire
said, shall we walk you to your tent?
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
Of course, I totally got
lost within, because these
thickets, Kalahari is a thicket.
Yeah.
And you, you, there's no landmarks and
you know, so you, you get lost very fast.
And I blundered straight into a
big herd of elephant at night.
And if you, if you walk into them
physically, they'll kill you.
They'll yeah.
Walk you with the trunk.
Yeah.
So I, I just went into that thing
of after I beat myself up for being
so stupid what do I need to do here?
Making contact with them?
And the answer was, make yourself
small, sit on the ground and
say that you are no threat.
And wait.
So I did that and I was
surrounded for quite a while.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And then at a certain
point they moved off and I was like,
another time I was walking towards
a camp and I heard the banging and,
and shouting and banging of pots.
And, and that's often what
people do when there's a snake.
Yeah.
A bad snake.
And they want to scare it away.
As I'm walking towards that noise
thinking, I wonder if I should
be walking towards that noise.
This huge black mamba about 10
foot long, which is the only really
aggressive poisonous snake there.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And if it
bites you, kind of, that's it.
Comes shooting up the trail towards
me, and I like, what do I say?
It's, it's, don't run be a tree.
And I was like, I'm a tree.
I'm a tree and I'm a tree.
I'm not a, I'm not a warm blooded thing.
And the thing went over my foot.
Kira Julius: Oh.
Rupert Isaacson: And you know, later,
after, you know, 10 diaper changes later,
you know, I was very grateful for what
Jumanda had said, but I think horses
have taught me a lot of that earlier.
This thing about everything's
supposed to be calm, you're
never supposed to be triggered.
Does this actually serve us?
Is this actually weakening
us, not strengthening us?
What.
You've been treading this path
with anxiety, quite heavy anxiety,
looking for solutions.
What are your thoughts?
Kira Julius: I don't think it serves us
at all because it's not our natural state.
And as you say, we are supposed to
be, but we are supposed to be in
different nervous system states.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Heart rate variability basically.
Right.
Up and
Kira Julius: down.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kira Julius: And, and also though, we are
supposed to be able to, as you say, walk
with fear because what I feel is now just
because I feel anxious about something
doesn't mean I can't do it and doesn't
necessarily mean I shouldn't do it.
But that's where the gut
feeling also comes in.
'cause I use that to, because there's
fear that is there to keep you from
doing the thing that will harm you.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Kira Julius: And there's fear,
especially in modern society.
There's fear that is just loopy thoughts
and stories that are not actually true.
And I guess my gut feeling is what
helps me discern between them.
Because often there's lots
of things where I feel that I
like to do that I want to do.
So I, I love traveling.
I, when I lived in Ireland, I went
for quite a few road trips and stuff.
Every morning when I was about to go
for that road trip that I had planned
and that I was really looking forward
to, I would be so scared and I'd feel
like, no, I'm just gonna stay in bed.
But then by that time, I, I know
myself well enough to go, that's fine.
You just move.
That's, that's what helps me
because I know that there's
Rupert Isaacson: like
the horse Move your feet.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: You move.
So I have to just physically, I
say put my feet on the ground.
I get up, I walk over here.
I, you know, and, and that's the thing.
To not get frozen.
Rupert Isaacson: To not get frozen.
Interesting.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
But, but you have to in that
situ, and that's a hard thing.
The hard thing is to learn to move with
that fear, because we've been taught in
some ways that when you feel that fear,
that means you shouldn't do the thing.
But that's not always true.
Yeah.
That's not always true.
Rupert Isaacson: No,
it's frequently not true.
I mean,
Kira Julius: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Let's bring it
back to, you know, jumping horses.
As, you know, when you're on
a horse going into a jump,
there's that moment of commitment
Kira Julius: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Where you have up
until a certain point where you can say,
it's a bad idea, I'm gonna pull out.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then there's
a, a certain point where it,
it's a very bad idea to do that.
Yeah.
And that would probably result in an
injury more so than if you took a fall.
So there have been, there are times
when you jump and you realize at
the moment of commitment that it's
perhaps not gonna be good, but then
you can hopefully not resist the fall
tumble, bounce and pop up rather than
resist it land
harder.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Or at that last
moment of commitment as the horse
is giving that great rush into the
air, try to oppose it and end up
bringing your horse down or whatever.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, so
Kira Julius: I would also say actually
the most trouble I've gotten in when
riding or whatever, is when I've,
something has happened, but it wasn't
necessarily the thing happening that
was a problem, but it was me resisting
the horse doing what they were doing.
So rather than following the
horse through what they were going
through, I would resist it and
try to, you know, jam up on it.
And that's where they're not you,
you make it worse doing that.
Also, I wanna actually bring this back
to, to the horses briefly, because,
you know, I was saying, I, I was, I
was feeling like they couldn't have.
A reaction, and we talked about this
yesterday, where I now feel that I,
a horse is going to spook a horse
is going to react to things, and
that in itself is not a problem.
And that the, the moment that
determines whether you're gonna be
right or not is when, when they meet.
Because often when you're with them,
they will meet your aide in some way.
They will meet, if you're walking them,
they'll meet the halter or they'll meet
the rain or they'll meet, if you sit on
them, maybe your leg that closes up around
them for you to stay on and balance.
And that's again the thing where
if they see you as a threat, then
that's where you get in trouble.
But if they see you as helpful
when they meet your aides, then
you can come back in harmony.
So I, I feel now it's not
about being calm all the time.
It's like, can we keep our connection?
And that's whether that's your
connection with the horse or whether
that's a connection with yourself.
Can I keep that connection through
whatever's going on, you know, through
the triggering thing or the reaction Yeah.
Or whatever it is.
You know, I think that is a, is a
thing I've more moved towards because
then you can go through all kinds of
situations, all kinds of states and yeah.
Still be, still be all right.
And.
And it's part of life.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking about also
having more, having a larger repertoire of
AIDS can, so, you know, when I was younger
there was no in hand work, for example.
Yeah.
So when one was faced with say the horse,
what they would call in England, napping.
I don't want to go forward and I'm
going to either say, either I am
afraid of the rubbish bins or I'm
gonna pretend I'm afraid of the
rubbish bins, but whatever it is, I'm
bracing here and I'm not going forward.
Mm-hmm.
And the only tool we were given
was to try and use force and
sometimes it would quote unquote work, but
that behavior would never really go away.
Yeah.
Or it wouldn't work.
And in the not working, it could sometimes
result in you or the horse getting hurt.
And the prevailing wisdom at
the time was if you got off
the horse, the horse had won.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
That failed.
Rupert Isaacson: Which was so interesting
to me because I'm, there was this little
part of me even back then thinking, yeah,
but horses don't think like us, right?
I mean, they, they don't sit there
at night planning how to mess us
up like a human might, you know?
It's not, they don't have strategies,
but I dunno if they have that
strategy they're more in the moment.
Right.
So surely if I get off and lead the horse.
Around, through somehow in
that situation, reassure him.
Isn't that a win?
But I assume No, no, it's not Rupert.
You've got, you gotta, and and you'd
have people really barking at you.
Make him do it.
Yeah.
Sometimes three or four
people like that at a time.
Now I know with, you
know, lovely in hand work.
Back to again, what you were talking
about, moving the shoulders away,
moving the haunches away, shoulder
in whatever we're gonna call it.
Shoulders out.
My first reaction is dismount
and change the subject.
Let's, oh, good idea.
Let's stay here and do
these in-hand patents.
Mm-hmm.
And let's gradually move closer
in these in hand patents to Mr.
Rubbish bin.
And then, oh, hello Mr.
Rubbish bin.
This is my friend Mr.
Horen.
Yeah.
Pleased to meet you.
And yeah.
Would you like to exchange
WhatsApp numbers and maybe chat
about your mutual anxiety and you
know, pretty soon we're just doing
our patterns around the thing or
something.
But there, there's a, as you say,
there's a range of tools and a range of
aids where the aids can be reassuring
rather than meeting your leg to kick
or meeting the stick to drive forward.
The stick can then be just, oh, well
let's play with these in hand things just
to teach you how to have the stick on
your shoulder to stop and how to, yeah.
Have a,
Kira Julius: and also again,
it softens the body, you know?
And we always know the mind and the body.
They work together so much.
So, and it gives them something to do.
And somewhere, you know, when, when they
tense up, that energy goes into the body
and then it gives them somewhere to move.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Kira Julius: That energy.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And if you,
yourself are scared, you know,
and, and tensing then to dismount
is to make yourself safe or safer.
Rightly, surely.
That's a good idea.
You know?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think at the end of the day,
a horse cares about whether they
feel good around you, whether they
feel safe with you, whether you
make sense, whether you're helpful.
They do not care whether
you dismounted or not.
You know, they just know, oh, I was in
this situation, I got worried and then
I worked with my human and I was okay.
That is takeaway.
We'd like them to have, you know, it's
also when I work with horses in workshops,
I always say, because sometimes you wanna
show a lot and stuff, but I always say to
the audience, look, what I want to get to
with this horse is that if I approached
them tomorrow and said, would you like
to come out and play with me again?
That they say yes.
I would.
So giving them that experience.
Right.
And
Rupert Isaacson: also do that.
Are you someone that they
want to hang out with?
Yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Ultimately that's the same
when working with people.
Right.
That's a feeling we want to give.
Say if it's, if it's a child
with autism or whatever.
If, if I'm working with
them, it's the same.
I want to at the end of the session
feel that when they come again the
next time and they get out of the
car and they see me there that they
think, cool, I wanna do this thing.
Yeah.
And I'm gonna be alright here.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And it, it's true
that the safety thing is the first
prerequisite, but the fun and
curiosity it makes one want to return.
But of course, fun and curiosity
will lead us into situations where
we no longer feel quite so safe.
But if we, let's say, I'm just
thinking like a, a standard horse
boy play date where the kid wants
to dismount and go in the creek.
Mm-hmm.
And then suddenly he's in
the creek wants to go in the
creek, we make sure it's safe.
We're obviously not gonna let him
go in the creek unless we, we're
not even gonna be near the creek.
Unless we know the creek is safe.
Yeah.
But nonetheless, it's a new situation.
Am I safe?
Am I not?
And now we have to go through a another
series of of things, but because I
feel a base safety, if I'm the kid,
I feel okay, I could explore here.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And now deal
with my soft, am I safe again?
Trigger to now learn.
Yeah.
What do I do with water?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
But like ultimately you want that safety.
You don't want it to be like, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Immobilize,
Kira Julius: I'm safe and coddled in
every situation you want it to be.
That even when I go out and explore
with my curiosity, even if maybe I
do have a meltdown, I am still safe.
That emotional safety is still there.
You know what I mean?
That's,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
My people, more people will see me.
Right?
Yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
And I think that's also with
the horses, the same thing.
I want to feel that the horse knows, even
if I make a mistake or if my human makes a
mistake, that we are still gonna be okay.
Like the bottom line is okay, but
within that container, a lot can happen.
That's not come, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Kira Julius: It's, it's
again that, that conversation
Rupert Isaacson: right.
And the acts of God, I mean, things
that you just can't see coming.
I I, I'm thinking about a particular
situation I had where we were in a
part of England where there are army
training grounds in the vicinity.
Yeah.
With, with a young horse.
And what were the odds?
Two huge military helicopters came
up over the ridge of an area that
we were used to working a lot.
Never seen anything like that before.
And it had to happen right
there and right then.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: We have
no control over that.
And the.
Fact is that's what life does.
So are our tools then going to bring
us, like when we meet those lines with
Jamanda, we meet those helicopters,
is there enough learned resilience to
think even though that's happening, I
can be optimistic about the outcome?
Yeah.
And yeah, the horses leapt around a
little bit, but because we were ourselves
not panicking and okay, we could go
through the disruption back to calm.
'cause it's not that we
don't want calm as well.
It's just more, I suppose to, to
my mind the dance of life feels
like and the dance of life is what
we're talking about here, isn't it?
Whether, whether it's with
horses or people or both.
When one's a toddler and one is learning
to walk that's why they call it toddling.
We face plant a lot, you know?
And but it doesn't stop us.
Yeah.
Each face plant does not stop
us from toddling more because
we know we need to toddle.
Yeah.
And eventually we know we need to run
dance, climb and do the whole thing.
So the face plants are okay, but
we hope that mom and dad don't
say you stupid little da da da.
You know?
And they kick you when you fall down.
We, we hope that mom and
dad give you support.
Lift you up.
Yeah.
Dust you down, give you a kiss and a
hug and help you along your way again.
And so of course then you see somebody who
knows how to walk and it appears that they
are constantly in balance and they're not.
What they're doing is they're giving away
balance and retrieving balance and giving
away balance and retrieving balance,
but they're now just efficient at it.
However, if there's one little paving
stone that is even a quarter of an inch
higher than the other one because of
the commitment to weight, that one has
to make the commitment to the loss of
balance one still has to make in any
given footfall walking, we will face
plant, and once in a while we will.
Yeah.
But we've, we learned from way
back in Toddlerdom that you, even
though you can really seriously
hurt yourself with a face bump
mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: You land on
your elbow or something, you
know, you could break your nose.
You could do lots of things,
but you'll probably won't.
And you'll probably mostly
just have bruised pride.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
And it doesn't stop you walking.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: It's not gonna stop.
You still stop if it stops you walking.
Yeah.
Then you can say, well, I'm
never gonna leave my house.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That's gonna
be a greater set of problems.
When you then encountered this slightly
immobilizing anxiety, despite having
learned resilience with the family
situation with your dad, despite
having, you know, gone to Tanzania
as a teenager and done that thing,
despite all of this work with.
High level work with the horses.
I think this is really interesting
because this can, it can creep up on one.
Mm-hmm.
These little nervous breakdowns.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Where
you're like, you're grand.
Your grand, your grand,
your grand and won.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: There must
have been a part of you that
was like, hold on a second.
I'm the person that
went to Tanzania at 16.
I'm the person that can like, go
under top Paul in front of big crowds
with, with sharp, warm bloods and be
okay, but I'm, what is going on here?
Yeah.
And why are my tools not working?
Can you just give us a
little insight into that?
Because I think a lot of people that
are coming as clients in the equine
assisted world, particularly as adults
Kira Julius: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Are
dealing with exactly that.
It's like, hold on a second.
I've been going through life and
then, then there's o another group
who are sort of adolescents who I
think are less, perhaps resilient
today than they have been in previous
generations, and we could go into maybe
why that might be saying, I, I don't
seem to be able to mobilize at all.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: 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.
Talk to us about that.
How did you deal with that
process of, but I know how to
walk, why do I feel I can't walk?
You know?
Yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Initially that was actually something
that made it worse, I'd say, because
I was beating myself up very badly and
you, you can get to feeling that there's.
Something so seriously wrong with you.
I was like, why am I this messed up?
You know?
And I just felt that I was in
some ways beyond repair, you know?
Which is not true.
But it was there.
And I think it's just important to say
that, that that can be the state that
you, you find someone in, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: I mean, I guess what
what helped me is I, I, I sought,
I started actively seeking help.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kira Julius: From other humans.
I was like, because I think from the
situation that happened with my dad,
I had built a bit of a belief that
I had to be able to do it myself.
Mm.
And of course, we're not
designed to do everything No.
With tribal
Rupert Isaacson: people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And
Kira Julius: so I was like, okay.
I found Jane Pike brilliant.
Jane Pike, who is an expert in nervous
system work and supports, especially
horse people, but all kinds of people
now, also does a lot of creative work.
Rupert Isaacson: And, and again,
for listeners and viewers, there's
a very, very good interview we did
with Jane Pike on our other podcast.
Live Free, ride Free,
go have a listen to her.
'cause she, she is very
good on this subject.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
And from her, I got.
I got lots of knowledge about
what was going on for me and why
I was feeling the way I was from
a nervous system perspective.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: But I think what helped
me even more was that she's got this
in her program, when you're in your
program, you get into a Facebook group.
And in there I started reading the
conversations that were going on in
there and then eventually started
putting questions in myself or
just things I was struggling with.
And I found, even though it was just an
online community, the fact that people
were not shaming me for it, they were not
saying there was anything wrong with me.
Everyone was kind, helpful, uplifting.
There was also a lot of banter,
joking, joy, you know, it's,
there was also a seeking of joy,
which I hadn't really considered.
Rupert Isaacson: And And humor
is perspective, isn't it?
When you have humor, you see
a situation from the outside.
Yeah, yeah,
Kira Julius: yeah.
Because Jane also, she has a
brilliant sense of humor also.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: she does.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: So, and, and the
lightheartedness, even though you talk
about very serious topics sometimes, and
I think that for me was the first step
to getting better, to realizing, okay,
I do, I do need community for this.
And then
I guess.
I gradually started, actually it was
before that even I, I went to kind of a
shamanic healing intensive for two weeks.
That was a bit of a, that was a
bit of a, a really cry for help.
I was like, I don't know what
to do anymore, so I'll just go
away and work with Shamans for
two weeks because I felt Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And that's,
that's kind of back to you say
about you moving your feet.
I think that the Sacred
Journey pilgrimage, this is
as old as humanity as well.
Yeah.
This idea is I will physically not just
mentally get off my butt and go and seek,
'cause we're hunting gatherers, right?
Mm-hmm.
I would go and seek
Kira Julius: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: A solution.
This is something I think is not often
really talked about, about how, how vital
that physical movement towards a solution.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Because
Kira Julius: I think
Rupert Isaacson: myself, yeah,
Kira Julius: there was, there was
always a spark of I want to feel
different to what I'm feeling now.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: And I, I guess there
must have been some belief that
I could feel different if I just
moved enough in some ways, you know?
Mm-hmm.
So, and then I think it just, those two
things combined got me starting to, to
look into chasing joy more and things
that gave me a sense of aliveness.
Because it, it can be such a paradox
that you feel so anxious and at the
same time you feel a bit dead inside.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kira Julius: There, so there's
a lot of emotion and a lot
of activity in your body.
And at the same time you do not feel
Rupert Isaacson: there's a sort of
Kira Julius: stagnation a lot.
Yeah.
And that, that can be
a hard one to sit with.
'cause often you feel, oh, but I'm tired
from all this stuff moving in my body.
And then you feel I don't have
the energy to go out and do this
thing that will bring me joy.
But you, in that situation, I would
say it's crucial that you move and
do that thing that brings you joy.
'cause that's what's
gonna give you the energy.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And of course what does, what's the
first sign of depression is it's
lack of physical movement usually.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The, and what's
interesting too is you said you
found that Facebook group with Jane's
program, 'cause as, as you know,
Facebook can be all sorts of trickiness.
Kira Julius: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
And one can on social media
find all kinds of reasons to not
move to wallow, to go deeper.
In fact, if you put those sorts of posts
out, you really dive into the pmi, you'll
get so much positive feedback on that.
Mm-hmm.
That it will actually feed quite
a lot of dopamine within one's
brain to say, oh, well if I.
I really concentrate on my suffering
here and effectively celebrate that.
I'm gonna get a lot of positive feedback.
So this validates me.
So I'll keep doing that.
But of course all that's gonna mean
is that I just stay where I am.
And of course we know that this is one
of the issues of social media, I think
particularly with the younger generation
because it's, it's definitely something
which is an unavoidable conversation right
now, which is that why is your average
late adolescent, early adult person
today seemingly so much less resilient
Kira Julius: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Than
Kira Julius: mm-hmm in
Rupert Isaacson: the previous generation.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: That maybe COVID has
something to do with it as well,
because there was a timeframe where
we were constantly being fed that
other people are dangerous, you know,
because the way, you know, there was
kind of lockdown and all the things.
Yeah.
And you, you weren't allowed within
a certain space of other people.
You always had to have, what is it, one
and a half meters distance or whatever.
Mm-hmm.
So subconsciously you're starting
to tell your body, you have to fear
other human beings that's not safe
to be close to other human beings.
I think when,
Rupert Isaacson: of course, the mammalian
caregiving system is all about proximity,
Kira Julius: I think
that has really rattled.
The, the nervous system of
all of us in a way because,
Rupert Isaacson: but especially the
ones who were kids during that time.
Kira Julius: Yes.
Yeah.
'cause we, we already in modern
society, lack that feeling of
community so often lack that tribe.
You know, that that's also
where we're talking about.
Yeah.
You have to move and you
have to do all those things.
But in saying that, I also do
realize that that is so much harder
when you do not feel that you
have a community who supports you.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: For me, that was
really the first step to being
able to actually move that.
I felt I had some sort of community
even that I felt safely held within
unconditionally and that many people
like, and I do think that that got
worse during COVID because the way
we were moving around the world and
the information we were being fed all
the time was just wiring us to think.
Yeah.
As I said, that we have to fear in some
way or the people and being close to other
Rupert Isaacson: humans.
I think, I think there's
a lot of truth in that.
It's, so, okay.
Let's, let's just go on a little bit with
your bio that, that's some other things
I'd like to talk to around these subjects,
but I think it, if we go forward in.
Your story.
I think it will help.
Mm-hmm.
So you then end up working in Ireland
with, at Stewart's Care, which
is, you know, a large organization
that does art methods, it does
horse boy, it does move a method.
It does, but it also
does other things too.
Yeah.
And it's not, there's an equine unit,
but it's obviously a much bigger
organization than just the equine.
Kira Julius: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: How, talk to us about
your experience there, how your experience
up until that point helped and informed
your therapeutic practice there.
Mm-hmm.
And then,
yeah, give us some situations
with clients and horses.
'cause you also were responsible
for helping from the ground up.
Prepare all the horses for
this organization as well.
'cause it had to happen in a hurry.
It, you know, that they, they they got
the green light and suddenly, okay, we
need all these horses and we need to
get moving and we need to get serving.
And suddenly you were in there
getting all these horses together
and then boom, you're in serving not
a small client base, but an almost
overwhelming tsunami client base.
Yeah.
Once again, Kira style,
you go in at the deep end.
So Yeah.
Talk us through that.
Tell us about that.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
I mean, I, I have to say that
they had already, by the time I
got there, Don a really good job
with the horses that were there.
Rupert Isaacson: And Ke our mutual
friend, ke Sullivan had been a big part
Kira Julius: of that.
Exactly.
She had already done a lot so.
Rupert Isaacson: Note two viewers
and listeners go back to the Ke
Sullivan and Anne Hemingway podcast
that we did a year or two ago.
Very, very good people.
You need to, okay, so yeah.
Yeah.
So Ke had
Kira Julius: brilliant.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kes and Terry had been
Kira Julius: exactly, they had,
they had been doing a lot already.
And then of course, again,
it's, it, it was an interesting
task, but I especially enjoyed
working with so many clients
'cause it was the first time for
me being really exposed to that.
And funnily enough, I found that the
skills I'd gotten from working with
very sensitive horses really helped
because it, it is so much, especially
when you're dealing with nonverbal
clients, becomes about reading the
body language, the state they're in,
and responding to that in a way that
signals to them that you hear them and
that you are a safe person for them.
Because you're, you're trying to,
even though like we would have half
an hour with each client only, but
you're trying to build relationship
also because we know that in order for
them to really get the benefit of the
session and to learn, they need to.
Feel safe enough because when
they're amygdala it's too triggered.
They will not be able to, to learn.
I mean, that's a whole
neuroscience behind horse boy.
Right.
So, but I also learned, learned a lot
from these kids, I feel, and I feel
that sometimes they, they view the world
in such wondrous ways that in a lot
of ways helped me with my own stuff.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Can you give us a couple of examples?
Kira Julius: I, well, there there's one,
well, a beautiful example I felt was I
was, I was out with a girl and we were, we
were chatting and she was active and she
started blowing kisses to the environment.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Kira Julius: And I was like,
oh, that's, that's so nice.
You're blowing.
Are you blowing kisses to the air?
And she's like, oh, I'm
blowing kisses to the grass.
I was like, oh, that's, that's nice.
Why are you doing that?
And then she told me how
her grandpa had passed away.
She said, well, yeah, my
grandpa passed away and, but
now that means he's everywhere.
He's in everything.
So when I blow kisses to the grass,
I also blow kisses to my grandpa.
And I like, you got it kid.
You know, you wish it'd be listening
to you because that can, sometimes
you can have parents come in and say.
She lives in her fantasy world a lot,
or can you bring her more into reality
when in some ways I felt with things
like that she was closer to reality than
Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: Many of us maybe, maybe are.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
She should have been the
therapist in that situation.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Actually, another interesting one
I had, this is a lot about kind
of the, how expectations also can
shape things and how helpful joy is.
Because there was a boy who came with
a school and we'd often, we'd get so
many kids, and especially when they
came with a school, you wouldn't
know who you were paired up with.
You often didn't really know much about
the child at that time that, that you were
meeting, you know, we'd have a general
plan, and of course there were teachers
present and there were assistants present.
But this boy, he was just
really keen and he was positive.
And I had a pony already, so I just
got him up on the pony and we just
started chatting and I could tell
he, he liked a lot of movement and
stuff, so I got him trotting right
away and we did funny things and it
was very playful and joyful and he
was just talking to me the whole time.
And then when we were done with the
sessions, the teachers were like,
yeah, he doesn't talk to strangers.
Usually, and to me in that
situation, I was kind of grateful.
I didn't know that before.
Mm-hmm.
Because I didn't treat him in any
like, different way to, to a kid.
You know, you feel out where
the kid is, but I might, I might
not have clogged onto that.
He was open and ready to have fun.
If I would've thought, Ooh,
he doesn't like strangers.
I have to be really careful because
that's, that could have been told
to me by the people around him, but
that's not what he was telling me.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: And I think that's,
that's a thing that can happen with
people, but also with horses that
we have to be careful not to project
a story or limitations onto them.
Allow them to tell us where they're
at and equally allow them to tell us
when they're not ready for something.
You know, you might also have a situation
the other way around where, where people
tell you, oh, but he's fine with that.
But the kid is clearly telling
you they're not fine with that
in this particular situation.
So I guess it taught me for one,
really to listen to the person, be
that a person in horse shape, a person
in human shape, really to listen to
the person in front of me and allow
them to say yes and no to things.
Because if you.
Offer something, should we do this?
And you pause, you will often be
able to see, are they into it or not?
You know, most of the time
you'll get some indication.
And at the same time it also
taught me that thing of how
important joy and play is.
And because often if you could
make things funny, if it was
engaging, if it was humorous,
everything became so much easier.
And that's actually something
I've also taken on from you as a
horse trainer because when I see
you work with horses I'm gonna
inflate your ego a little bit here.
Now there's always a
sense of humor about it.
So if the horse does something, you
see the brilliance in it and maybe how
it was funny or it's, it's not made
into a bigger deal than what it was.
And I think nowadays we humans can
often get into doing the opposite.
You know, taking a little thing and
being like, well, but that was not
what I wanted and that was wrong.
And then you're in this negative spiral,
rather than saying, that's kind of funny.
And that was quite a creative
response I got there.
And what are the possibilities
with this and or how do I need
to adjust to move closer to.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Kira Julius: Where I wanna go.
Rupert Isaacson: The listening thing
is really thank you for the compliment.
The, the, the listening
thing is to me the key.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I think that my son
uncompromisingly trained by being
nonverbal that there was no option.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But to train oneself
into different ways of listening.
Listen with the body, listen, you
know, and I, I can think back to the
training with the bushman that I went
through and that was the same really?
Mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: Even again,
listen with your gut, right.
Sometimes you get a gut
feeling about, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then sometimes
when there's a, a negative reaction
isn't always a refusal, like a
negative reaction is like a brace in
a human or a horse I often find is not
necessarily a refusal or a rejection.
It is sometimes a
frequently a, I dunno, yet.
And in this moment, I need to pause
because I need to sort of find out, my
brain needs to know if I'm safe or not.
And in my early horse training
or horse life, you didn't wait
for horses when they braced.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It seems so
obvious to just pause and wait.
Mm-hmm.
And say, take a moment.
Kira Julius: You
Rupert Isaacson: know, and by the
way, if you do want to retreat
from this thing, that's also, okay.
You've got choice, you've got agency here.
But here we are.
So, and we are both curious, so
we might go and have a look at it,
but by all means, take some time.
And then of course, in the School
of Human upbringing that I was
brought up with impatience was just
impatience, backed up with corporal
punishment was just what it was.
Yeah.
So, you learned
that that type of school I went to
was designed to train young army
officers in World War I to be the
first over the top of the trench
and first into the machine gunfire.
The average life expectancy of
a young officer was six weeks.
But you were expect that, that, that the
whole, they thought they were training a
kind of resilience of an override of fear.
So we were all trained by the
military and there were certain
things that were good about it.
Yeah.
And certain things of
course, that weren't.
And but what we weren't given was weight
because you're supposed to follow orders.
Of course.
If you are in a different situation,
let's say you're not the regular
Army, but you're the Special forces.
They then go into a different
form of training where they
say, learn to trust your gut.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Don't go die
unnecessarily because then
you can't fulfill the mission.
Yeah.
Actually, then you do wait and say,
well, what should we do or not do here?
So it's quite interesting when I talk
to my friends who went through the
kind of follow orders, follow orders,
follow orders, and then got drafted
into special forces and then Yeah.
All that stuff we told you about following
orders, forget all that now, you know.
And I often feel that with the work
with autism and horses, we are a
bit like special horses people.
Mm-hmm.
But instead of going to war
with our fellow man, we're going
to war with human unhappiness.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And, and
I feel to a large degree,
we're often winning that war.
Partly 'cause we understand about
oxytocin, but also because that idea
of learning to be resilient, learning
to dance with danger and loss of
balance, emotional whatever, but by all
means take the time that is natural.
Yeah, yeah.
To need for that process.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Including, I also think
retreat from it if necessary is okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kira Julius: But it's important also
to mention that when you're talking
about resilience, that a feeling of
safety is part of the equation there.
That indeed that is part
of building resilience.
Because I know we've been
talking a lot about, you know,
moving and doing things and.
Going through situations, and
that is all part of it too.
But that equally is having the option to
go back to safety that will often hugely
Rupert Isaacson: Oh no, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, if you,
Kira Julius: for building
Rupert Isaacson: it, come out from
behind the bush and find that you
shouldn't be there, then you should
probably retreat back behind the bush.
Yeah.
And have a think, you know,
and that is called survival.
That can lead to thriving, to be
whipped out from behind the bush into
the danger may or may not end well.
And but so what you talked about,
about human environment, this is
of course the only, the only real
safety at the end of the day.
I, I feel that if one, we are tribal
social apes, and when we're in a hunter
gatherer situation, when we are middle
of the food chain, not top of the food
chain, we know that conflict, if conflict
is allowed to go beyond a certain point,
will fragment the community to the point
where everybody will end up on their own
and get eaten by the larger predators.
Because we can only thrive and survive
when we operate as a, as a group.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
So
Rupert Isaacson: it's all about all
those true human societies, all about
conflict resolution, not about fueling.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And
Kira Julius: And also what I think is
part of it, when you talk about hunter
gatherers and part of the survival
was also having a relationship with
the land and nature around them.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Kira Julius: And I think that's also a pa
a piece that has gotten a little bit lost.
And that absolutely also takes away
from that bottom line feeling of
safety because when you feel you
can't properly relate to the land,
it's hard to feel that you belong.
And it's also hard to, to read
the situation and to assess
whether am I safe or not.
So I
Rupert Isaacson: think think I I I so
agree it, this is really interesting.
As you know, within Horse Boy, one of
the things which we encourage people
to do is learn all the edible plants.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Because kids are
gonna put stuff in their mouth.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: It may be that what
they're putting in their mouth is
actually necessary for their health.
That, that the gut biome
is, is really wise.
When they go for dandelion,
they probably do need dandelion.
Mm-hmm.
But you also don't want
them to eat something toxic.
Yeah.
So you need to know, and you
need to be able to discern.
And just like with your horses,
you want them to eat the good
stuff and not the bad stuff.
But the horse to a large degree does
make that, that the gut biome of
the horse does direct the horse's
nervous system and brain and Yeah.
To a large degree humans.
It's so interesting you talked about
the break viewing humans as a threat,
you know, with COVID and of course.
Just with the feuds within society.
But I, we also know that
since the kind of,
it goes before the industrial
revolution, it goes back to a kind
of Judeo-Christian outlook, I think,
of being a man at war with nature
and man in dominion over nature.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: This idea
of nature as an adversary
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Rather than that
must be conquered or neutralized.
Yes.
Rather than of course your principle ally.
Mm-hmm.
Because you are of it and it is of you.
And you know, it's so interesting
when you hear people say, oh, I
don't like nature as a Yeah, but
you're breathing oxygen, aren't you?
That's nature.
You know?
Well, I don't like nature.
Yeah, but you're wearing
clothes, aren't you?
That even if they're synthetic, come from
fossil forests, whate, however you wanna
put it, you are part of it whether you
like, whether you think you are or not.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Eating plants, I mean Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And we nature.
Yeah.
Even this zoom con conversation
we're on is, is is driven by
electricity, which is nature, silica,
you know, which is the, a natural,
it's, it's, it's, it's all nature.
We know this.
Alright?
But it's not an obvious forest or meadow.
Okay.
But I think that this has been driven
into people, this fear of the very
thing that we rely upon each other
and the environment that sustains us.
Could it be more dysfunctional?
Could it be more of a
recipe for unhappiness?
No, I don't think it could.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: How interesting that
we've arrived at this point, and then
when we're dealing with our fellow humans
who are suffering, because as you know,
when we're doing our autism trainings,
which the problem is not autism, you can
be super successful in life with autism.
The problem is suffering that might
be associated with certain symptoms
or disorientation or nervous system
over oversensitivity or whatever.
Sure.
Those things we can address.
But the autism itself
is a series of gifts.
Same with any human state.
Now that you've been working in that
world for a while and you, you now
have your own practice, um mm-hmm.
And particularly with this little boy
Donatello, who's so interesting, who,
who I also know who's becoming verbal.
And you're sort of
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I've watched
you go through that process with
him and helping the whole family.
Helping.
Yes.
Layla, shout out to Layla, his
excellent mother and, and so on.
As we move towards the sort of two hour
mark here, we, I think we all know that.
Humans think in extremes.
And one of the extremes that we seem
to have come to both in the horse
world and the human world now is that
rather than resilience, this idea of
trauma being so celebrated that as a
place where you stay, 'cause it almost
validates you, you can get a lot of
validation on social media, for example.
Why would I move through and say, well,
I no longer feel traumatized because
then all of that peer likes that I'm
getting for my, you know, I feel so
sad, posts will go away and I won't, I
feel I won't have that support anymore.
Mm-hmm.
And it's gotten to the point in
the horse world where there's a
growing section of saying, well,
you, you can't even touch them.
You, you, you can't put a bridle
and you shouldn't ride them.
You shouldn't touch them with a stick.
You shouldn't this, you shouldn't that.
And
these are very, very extreme
positions that are gaining traction,
but don't seem to marry up with
the way life actually rolls.
Yeah.
And nature actually rolls.
You are developing your career at
this point, so that conversation
is going to get louder.
Mm-hmm.
Where do you, what, what's
the evolution of this?
Is this just a, a fad?
Is this just a phase and we'll get
through it and come out on the other
side of it to something more mature?
Or are we going down a plug hole here?
Or is it a bit of both?
I think.
'cause I think this is a conversation
a lot of us are asking, you know?
Yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And I don't
think you need to give us a
hard and fast answer, but Yeah.
You know, just, just what are your,
what are your thoughts on this?
Kira Julius: I think it is closely
connected to how will people
deal with, as you say, that thing
of going into trauma, going into
dysfunctions and staying there.
I actually, I, I had an, I've had an
interesting couple of sessions with
a medicine woman who's helped me.
She, she specializes in grief work.
Hmm.
And a big part of her work is
she has a big emphasis on yes,
you go down, you meet the grief.
She says, it's like a spiral.
It's like you, you might spiral down and
you meet it there and you process it.
You sit with it.
You allow it to be, because the
grieving process is the healing
process, rather than I have to get
through my grief in order to heal.
It is the healing process.
And then she says, but then there's the
second half of it that many people forget.
It's that you spiral up again.
You then take what you learn.
And you say, what do I build from here?
How will this experience fertilize what
I'm building or the life I want to live or
Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
Kira Julius: Kind of the most beautiful
vision I have for what, how I could
be feeling and what I could be doing.
And, and I think you could apply
that principle to fear, to trauma,
to whatever you're going through,
is that the process of going
through it is the healing process.
But don't forget the second part.
And I think
when you talk about, you know, people
getting very over careful with, with
the horses, 'cause I've been there too.
I've been so frozen where I
felt I couldn't touch my horse
'cause I was inevitably gonna do
something that was not all right.
And I think those are connected.
I think it's that same thing where
yes, we, we want to, we want to
of course think about welfare.
We want to do the best by our horses.
We want to look at all those things
and consider them, but we don't
wanna get stuck there in a way that
keeps us from seeking something
that is joyful together, you know?
Yeah.
And I think.
A lot of that.
It depends on whether humans can
find a way to, to have that second
part of, okay, we're gonna spiral
down, but then we're gonna spiral up.
It's, it's that dynamic because
that brings it back into life.
Can and
Rupert Isaacson: can we
Kira Julius: do that
Rupert Isaacson: with our horses as well?
Yeah.
If we find
Kira Julius: ourselves Exactly.
It brings it back into action.
It brings you, 'cause there's
nothing wrong with stepping back
and considering what you're doing
and assessing, do I need to change
something and listening to your horse.
Of course.
But there's that thing, I, I felt
that I was not there for my horse in
a good way when I was stuck there.
Meaning when I didn't dare to move,
when I didn't dare to try anything.
Because it kind of became that thing
where everything had to be regulated,
calm, and perfect at all times.
That also puts pressure on your horse.
Absolutely.
That's a lot of, of pressure,
you know, and it's not, it's
not a great state to be.
And I do know that the horse
I was having at times, she
always had a really tense jaw.
Even though she was well trained, I
was kind to her, it was harmonious
and stuff, but she was never
allowed to be anything other than.
In some ways perfect.
But meaning that she was, I
never allowed her to be anything
other than regulated and calm.
You know?
She always had to be in that place.
And in some ways I feel that
that also put tension into her.
Whereas if I had allowed for more
play for more fun from a movement,
because so many times the thing that
people nowadays call dysregulated is
the thing that is actually regulating.
It's a process of process
getting regulated.
Exactly.
So not to take that.
And I think that's where people get
afraid when they see a horse do that.
'cause they're like,
something must be wrong.
Meaning they could be, if you turn them
loose in an arena, they could be running
and bucking and, you know, doing things
and be looking quite wild and people
think, whoa, something must be wrong.
But it could actually just be the
process of this horse has energy.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Kira Julius: And move
that energy somewhere.
And this is the process of getting back
to a state where they are available
Rupert Isaacson: the road.
It's the road, it's
the road to regulation.
Absolutely.
Kira Julius: Yes.
Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: And, and what's so
interesting too, is I, what, what you're
saying makes me realize that of course
the over desire to keep everything
regulated all the time is none other than.
The desire to control.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And it's the same
desire to control that was directed at
say Me when I was a boy at that type
of school where wild behavior would
be instantly just physically punished.
Mm-hmm.
Unless you were doing it in a way that
they wanted you to do it as in stick
your bayonet into this sandbag or
Kira Julius: Yeah.
And it can be the same
Rupert Isaacson: tackle
this guy on the rugby field.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: It can be the same thing
that you put on yourself when you're
dealing with your mental health.
Absolutely.
You know, you say, I have to be regulated
and it becomes this thing, it's another
means of control and it, it's not helpful,
Rupert Isaacson: but I also don't
want to impose my dysregulation
on somebody else because mm-hmm.
That, that is another danger.
Say, well, okay, so I, I have the
right to be dysregulated, but that
doesn't mean that, that I can then
smash a bottle over your head.
Yeah.
Whether that's actually doing it
or doing it in some emotional way.
Yeah.
Kira Julius: But that's, that's
where we need, I think we probably
in society, need a broader knowledge
base of what tools help you.
Because I learned a lot of that from
working with people with autism because
they have a much lower tolerance
for not having the human needs met.
So that it means now I know
when I'm not feeling so great.
Anything that will help Donatello.
I can do for myself
and I will feel better.
So they have taught me that, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I, I
think what you've, you've, you've
touched on there is this feeling
of taking responsibility for, so
Kira Julius: yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: if I'm feeling
dysregulated, I have to ask
myself, even if I desire, my
desire is to blame somebody else
or take it out on somebody else.
'cause you know, we're
humans and we do that.
There's that little part of me
deep down that cries bullshit
on myself and goes, nah, ru it's
not that other person's fault.
You're just projecting that.
I mean, occasionally someone has
actually done something, but it's, that's
actually the minority of times really.
It's, it's much
more.
Kira Julius: But still, you
can still within that take
responsibility for yourself.
Yeah.
Which is actually an empowering thing.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
So
Kira Julius: I, in any case, it's
a good thing to be able to do
Rupert Isaacson: a hundred percent.
And then that allows one
to see a, a way through.
Because also if I blame somebody else,
then what I've done is I'm giving
the solution over to that person.
Yeah.
So if I say you've, I feel this
way because of you, then really the
only way I can feel better is if
you make someone unspecified change.
That might be a complete surprise to
you and that you may or may not do.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But if I say,
no, no, no, it lies with me, then
I can go and do what I need to do
for me regardless of somebody else.
And that.
Yeah.
Could not be more
Kira Julius: empowering.
Right?
Yeah.
And that does not mean that other
people cannot help you then do the
things that will make you feel better.
But then you're coming from a place rather
than, I'm gonna take this out on you.
You're coming from a place of saying,
would you help me do this thing?
Yes.
That will get me to a better place.
Which is a very different
thing to come with,
Rupert Isaacson: which
involves love, right?
Yeah.
Which involves gratitude, which involves
Kira Julius: exactly
Rupert Isaacson: good emotions.
Yes.
Yes.
It's so interesting.
Kira Julius: It doesn't, so not, not
meaning that it has to be a thing
just because you take responsibility
for it, that that isolates you and
means you have to do it yourself.
But it just puts you in a position
where engaging with people is Yeah.
As you say, coming from a loving place
rather than from this place of I now
have to use you so that I feel better.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
It's, it's, it's what's gone
from our culture currently.
I mean, there's aspects of it in certain
subcultures within our culture, but we
don't really have spiritual guidance.
Yeah.
In the, when you're with, as you know,
when you're within nature all the time.
And I think that's a lovely
thing about horses is they are
the living embodiment of nature.
Mm-hmm.
And we're dealing with an actual
environment all the time, because
that's what they need to thrive.
Just being in nature is
regulating, but also.
Healing.
It is its own spirituality.
It is dah, dah, dah, dah.
But it's still, there needs to
be kind of a human focus to it.
I feel each species probably
has to have its own focus.
So of course, within an indigenous human
situation in nature, you have a shaman.
You have a healer.
Yeah.
I have groups of them, those of us
who have sought that out in our lives.
And of course I have, I know you have,
have found it immensely helpful because
go figure is what humans have always done.
But it's of course not really.
And I guess where pilgrimage comes in and
all, but it, it's, it's not really offered
on the list of options usually these days.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Because despite the fact
that we're in nature, whether we like
it or not, we have a perception that we
are not, and one of the great tools of
that is to not have, what that's missing
is that person who takes on that role
within a community, the medicine person.
And so in the absence
of that, I often feel.
We're quite lucky with those of us who
work with autism because I often feel
that I'm working kind of with a shaman
when I'm next to an autistic person.
Mm-hmm.
And that they provide me often with
those insights and those perspectives.
Kira Julius: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
And because they're not competing
with me in any way, there's,
there's no ego involved.
Yeah.
And so I can, I can really
learn from them in a way that
my ego might defend itself from.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: If I was trying
to learn from someone neurotypical
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Even with a young child, just following
and engaging with what they are
engaging with will teach you so much
because you're like, oh, they pay
a lot of attention to this thing.
And they were really in depth engaged
with something natural out in the forest
that you might've just walked past.
And I think it just helps us rebuild
that relationship with nature also.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
And, and you watch them, you
really watch them face their fears.
Kira Julius: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And it's, I
find it's really inspirational.
One, one of the questions I often ask in
trainings is, whether it's horse trainings
or, or trainings on the therapeutic line
with humans is you, the person who are at
this training are wanting this horse or
this human to make a change, a big change.
You want this per kid to become
verbal or you want this horse to learn
how to go in a trailer or whatever.
These are, this is a big deal.
This is a big deal.
Things you're asking big, huge changes.
Yeah.
What changes are you making?
What changes are you engaged in?
Are you currently
learning another language?
Are you currently doing something
you currently don't want to do?
Mm-hmm.
But really in depth, engaging with it.
And if the answer is no, then what tools
have you got to help that other person
with two legs or four to make a change?
Because you are not making a change.
They're gonna look to you for leadership.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
Rupert Isaacson: So I know that you
are now helping families and also
helping people with their horses in
quite a few locations that you, you
know, you obviously you do it in
Germany, you do it up in Denmark, you
do it in the uk, you do it in Ireland.
You, you help families, you
help people, you have horses.
You're about shortly about to start
working a bit down in Spain as well.
So you are mobile and you, you
are available if people, can you
also do stuff with people online?
How do people.
Get hold of you.
Whether it's they want insights in
starting their horse, if they want help
with their kid, if they want help with
themselves or some combo of the above.
How do they get in touch
with Kira and engage you?
Kira Julius: Yeah, I mean, the best
way is probably, I have a website.
It's a, it's it's horse training focused.
But if anyone is out there having,
you know, questions about work with
children, work with special needs,
work with mental health, you can,
you can still reach out even though
the, the website at this point.
'cause I'm still, I'm still
building everything, you know.
So, at this point there's just horse
training information on there, but there's
even, there's even a contact form on
the other email addresses there, and
you can just get in touch with me there.
And that website is, or horse realms.com.
Rupert Isaacson: Horse realms?
Yeah.
R-E-A-L-M-S-R-E-A-L-M-S,
Kira Julius: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Dot com.
Horse realms.com.
And there's an, there'll
be an email link to you?
Yeah.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
So you can, you can find me that
if you, if you are a social media
person, I am also on Instagram with.
Varying activity though, but you know,
my name there is very creatively Kira
horses, so that's also easy if you wanna,
you know, you can also kera horses on
Rupert Isaacson: Instagram
Kira Julius: cira.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: So
Kira Julius: those would
probably be the easiest.
Rupert Isaacson: There.
There were some things we didn't have
time to, to, to touch on, but I'm sure
you'll be able to talk with people
about privately as they need to.
I mean, you, you, you
yourself use a lot of art in
Kira Julius: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Your own process.
And you, you were talking about, you
know, finding things that are about
joy, which might not be, which might
be parallel with, but not directly
associated with the, the problem that
you're looking to solve, whether it's
with a human or yourself or a horse.
And also, you know, the, the
journeys you've made into the
shamanic as and the natural as well.
Yeah.
But I think what I would say to
people who might be considering is,
you know, a Kira's really put her
money where her mouth is with that
and has sort of delved quite deep.
So I know that the insights that
she's got are of, of great value.
Having gone through similar things myself.
But also, you know, I can vouch for if
you, if it's something really simple
like you are starting a cult or you are
running into some issue with your horse.
This person really has got
solutions for you as well as, as
well as on the therapeutic end.
Any last thoughts?
Burning desires things people you'd
like to be aware of go away with
thinking about before we wrap?
Kira Julius: Yeah.
I'd just, I'd just say because there's
such a big focus on healing these
days, and I think that is great.
I would encourage people to just
take the perspective of the healing
process is there in service of your
life, not the other way around.
You know what I mean?
So do the healing in order to live.
Don't spend your life healing
because the, the living is also
healing, but you know what I mean?
Yeah.
The kind of thing, the thing you
consider the, the work you do to heal
have that be in service of your life.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Love that.
Yeah.
Get out there and live.
Kira Julius: Yes.
Yes.
And you will find that, that, for me,
that was, that was a truly healing thing.
Writing in your storyline for your life.
Yeah.
Which only happens as you live it
Rupert Isaacson: with all its
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Varying things.
Yes.
Well, thank you.
Thanks for coming on.
Kira Julius: My pleasure.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me on.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so horse realms.com
and yeah, hopefully you'll come
back on the show and we'll be
able to see what you've done next.
Kira Julius: Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
See you on the next one.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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