Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
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So now let's jump in.
Today again, I have a great hero of mine, Henrich Berkhoff from near
Munster in Germany, who has and still leads an extraordinary life,
both as a special needs father, as a politician, as a protector of
children's rights on the political level and on the practical level.
And as a farmer, the first organic farmer in his neighborhood.
And the person who was brought movement in learning into schools in Germany.
Extraordinary human being.
So, he's gonna come out of the forest right now because
that's where he likes to be.
So, berko, would you please come outta the forest?
Hey welcome to the show, Henrich.
Yeah, this looks an unusual place for a a podcast interview to happen.
You appear to be outside in the forest.
Why is that?
Yeah, that is
Henrich Berkhoff: easy.
The the nature and the forest is a big part of the nature.
It's a quite nice place to be.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: indeed.
Why is the forest a nice place to be?
Henrich Berkhoff: The simple answer is we are gathering and
hunting humans, and that means.
For everybody.
But for me it is, we are so similar with the nature, but
we forgot all these things.
And now we have the ation, globalization, and the digital
world that is not so good to us.
And if we honestly hearing what is the best place to be, we always
choose the nature at the beach, in the mountains or in the green.
And that is true easy.
If you feel if you're following, following your feeling, you stay
Rupert Isaacson: outside.
It's very true.
It's good for our brain.
It's where we're supposed to be.
Before we dive into the rest of the interview you mentioned that
you might have a little music for us, music from the Nature.
Do you want to show us what you mean?
Henrich Berkhoff: Yes, please.
I hope it works.
Not too loud.
Rupert Isaacson: So, Henrich tell us what you do, who are
you and how did you get here?
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah, thank you Ru for being here and to have this nice time with
you at the podcast and yeah, who I am.
Owner now with my wife from a farm here in the middle of Germany and
we managed this farm and we get this farm from my parents 25 years ago.
And then I worked here as a farmer, but no fully time.
And I study engineering in billing, construction also.
And I worked there for 15 years.
And then we thinking about what is the best way, but that is a special reason.
Yeah.
You ask me what I am and who I am now.
I am, I am a politician in this area also here.
I so useful to make something happened if you know the people with the
power of the, to make a decision.
And I make it for mainly children.
I am the chairman of the board and I'm the founder of this children
Protection thing here in this area.
We started in 2004, and that is yeah, a protection association for this district.
And also I'm I start this new association, the new trails for Germany.
That is another story we, we have to think about or talk about later.
Yes.
That is all I do here, and in the time it comes more and more other things.
In the addition to this, if you was in this world, you are, you, you will
be asked for, to help, for, to do this or to think about the next Yeah.
And, and le at least I start master studies at the University of Bon.
There's a special university, aos, they have a title that is
very interesting, researching pedagogic social and therapeutic
processes, initiating impulses.
That means what is work, good work in the practice every day.
To put it in the science world, and that is so cool to reframe things like this.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
So you, you basically, you, you're like me, you wear 20 different hats.
You, you're a farmer.
You were the first organic farmer in your area.
I think that's something we'd like to talk about.
You as you say, run the child protection group in your area and
founded that you work in special education and general education.
You work with nature and the mind with people at your farm and you
also go around Germany and the world educating people on all this.
And you go and speak to the scientists and the politicians because you
cleverly are a politician to get decisions made for the betterment of.
Let's say children's experiences in schools and the availability of nature.
This is an extraordinary endeavor.
Why do you do this?
And how did you get here?
You have a special reason that pushed you into this.
Tell us about it.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah, there's a good question.
Thank you for that.
If you start at the boy in the area like this, you are especially
in your, your father is a farmer.
You are in this world.
And, but it is a normal thing.
You have it every day and it is so, nice, but you don't recognize by yourself.
What a nice environment there.
Okay.
I grew up and then luckily, I, I met a nice woman that is my,
my wife now gi, you know her.
And we plan together to have a nice to nice place.
We have a nice place and we plant a nice family and a nice life.
Okay.
But in the time of ion pre pregnancy Of my pregnancy?
Yeah, pregnancy, sorry.
Of my, but they, they, they, they, in the 20 weeks of the 40 weeks my
wife called me and she explained me.
Our baby is not healthy.
It is it is in this spina bifida.
Rupert Isaacson: Spina bifida.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: Perhaps somebody knows that.
But in this time, I have no idea what this is.
We have a special word in German for this.
Okay.
I.
Remember that word?
And it was not nice, really, that you, if you are thinking of your
food future of your life, you are thinking, okay, this can be happening.
This can be happening, but this and this.
Please know.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And nobody wants to be a special needs parent.
Henrich Berkhoff: Nobody.
Nobody really.
And, but this comes and it, we have a situation here in Germany.
We have the rights to kill the baby at this time.
Rupert Isaacson: A, a late abortion.
Effectively.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
And
Rupert Isaacson: or to carry the baby, to kill the baby in the womb,
and then carry the baby to the end.
No, in the,
Henrich Berkhoff: in the, in, in inside.
The, and this is, every doctor said, Hey, it is your.
Think about your life.
Think about the life of this human.
It's not so nice here.
You, we have all the letters that can happen.
That can, this can happen.
This is not easy to handle.
That is, that means so many surgeries and we cannot say if he's healthy enough to
speak healthy enough to have normal life.
And how many disabilities they, they give it all this shitty news.
Rupert Isaacson: Right?
Because it wasn't just spina bifida, was it?
It was also hydrocephalus.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: Water on the brain.
Most, if you have this thing, mostly you have this hydrocephalus thing, and
that means your brain is under pressure.
Yeah, good things.
We have now this medicine, they can do something and that
is another podcast perhaps.
But first we have the information from the doctors, from the maybe society
say that, hey, that is not a good way.
Please choose the easy way, whatever that means.
What is the easy way?
Yeah.
Easy way is you have a house, you have a nice life, you have a nice woman.
And, and, and, and, but now we are asking directly and we have
to choose this way, the easy way.
I don't know.
We choose the other way.
And at it was a hard way.
Yes, of course.
It was not easy.
Julian, our oldest from the three boys.
Born is in 2002 and the first two years, maybe little breaks, but he lives in the
university clinic in nearby in this in Minster and my wife the first two years.
Yeah.
We have little breaks.
Wow.
We have little breaks with surgery
Rupert Isaacson: after surgery.
After surgery.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: 13 surgeries in this time.
Geez.
13.
Some, some human, some people have no one surgery in, in their whole life.
He is a little, little tiny baby, and he wants to live.
Mm-hmm.
He show us, Hey, I'm here.
Please give me a chance to discover the world.
That happened.
He's a strong boy.
He's fighting and there was many crisis.
It was not, not easy gi,
Rupert Isaacson: I can only imagine.
Yeah,
Henrich Berkhoff: yeah.
Git was most time there.
She lives nearby in the special rooms for parents.
And yeah, this was a hard time.
But you, what I'm wondering, and I never know it before, is what powerful
thing inside the parents to fight for this baby in the moment the baby
is on, on the world, you can see and you can hold the baby this moment.
You are the powerful person ever.
And you cannot imagine it before.
You have no chance.
But then you are.
Able to do everything for your baby.
And that happened.
You are in the process.
And today I have sometimes the photos from this time, this
little human baby lie in the bed.
Was this, what is heating and all the instruments, all the cables and what
everything you cannot, you on the picture is more technique than human things.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: If I saw a picture to Dave from this time that is
I'm say, look what happened there.
But in this you can handle it.
You can give a chance to a human life and that is what we have to do.
That is not our decision to do in it is in my opinion.
Or may we, it is not.
To say, oh, this is a good life, or That is not a good life.
Julian choose his way.
And he did it wonderful, but not easy.
Yeah.
It is so many crisis, so many things until today it's not easy.
But hey, what, what is important in your life?
And if you never go down, you have no idea how nice it is on the top of the hill.
Yeah.
And that is what we have to learn the most dreaming from everybody is you have
a street straight, nice and easy to go.
Mm-hmm.
And hey, what is.
The best learning in the world.
It's not happened on this road.
It is if you go upsides in the ditches or whatever, and you have to fight
and you have to climb out of this situation, that is a learning process.
And that is where we created as a human.
That is what we are talk about later, and that is the gr the ground of
the next decisions you are ask for.
And that is why we are today at this this farm.
And that is a re a reason of how we do this work now.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, I mean, your, your story is obviously.
Somewhat similar to mine but with my autistic son.
And that forced me to change the direction with my life, with my career.
And now that is what I do.
But there's a big difference in your experience, which is that my son
never had the medical, physical, medical complications that your
son has, has had, and still has.
And this takes even more strength and will to.
Handle because you are dealing with a very direct existential
threat to your own child.
Your child could die in those early phases.
And then with every surgery, and I've known you since 2017, and even
in that time I have known Julian going through these surgeries.
Some quite big ones.
And each time there is this question, will the person survive?
Will the surgery be successful?
And to deal with this kind of anxiety while still building,
working, and doing all the things that you do, this takes a special.
Personality, both.
I know Giddy your wife very well.
Obviously she's also a colleague of mine.
And for those listeners to my other podcast, equine Assisted
World, please go and listen to Giddy KO's podcast there because
she's an extraordinary human being.
She of course had a background as a nurse and not just as a hospital nurse, but
also a nurse dealing with dementia and psychological neuropsychological issues.
So it's very interesting.
People say you get given the challenge that you can handle by life annoyingly.
So your wife is there.
She already has this medical knowledge.
She already has this neuro.
Psychological knowledge and your son is born both with a physical condition
and with pressure on the brain.
Someone might look from the outside and say, well great,
but it's not quite so easy.
Yeah.
And then, and then there's you coming in and what do you think made you say,
when the doctors effectively said, Berko, I think you should terminate
your child's life before he's born.
And I'm sure they made a very strong case for this.
What made you look at the next 50 years and say, ah, if, fuck it.
Sure it'll be grand and do it.
Talk to us about this.
It's intriguing.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah, you are right for me was.
The answer of this question of the doctors only one way.
Mm-hmm.
I, my personality is, I'm always positive.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: And in every situation, yeah.
There may be thousand of bad situation for everybody, but you have the choice.
And in, I thought about, hey, we can handle this every day.
This shitty situation, there was a lot of, but we can handle it the
other way means that is the end.
Mm-hmm.
And that produce so many question.
Rupert Isaacson: That is true.
Henrich Berkhoff: What can, in, in, in special in this, you, you
in the future on this other way.
You, you have the me you.
Have the knowledge of other people, they are happy in the wheelchair and they
make their special Olympics or whatever.
Hey, on you end at the at the beginning, at the start.
Mm-hmm.
And that is not what I'm thinking in.
And I say, Hey, this other way, it is not the easiest way, but we can, we, every
day we have to choose what can we do?
And believe me, we can do more with our power, human power that
we ever, ever thinking about.
Mm-hmm.
And we, I have, and GI also, we have no idea, but we go, we we're on this
way with the life and not against.
Is our decision.
Some parents and especially some woman's mothers are not able to do this way.
Yeah, we have respect also, but this way was for GT and me the best, and we have
so many meetings with other families, they are in front of the same question.
We have meetings with this families.
This is same question, and we say, Hey, look here, we choose this way
because we can answer every day a question, whatever the question are.
The other way is you cannot answer every, not answer the.
One of the question you have
that is the different, what is,
Rupert Isaacson: what is so interesting to me is, as you say, not everybody
will make the same decision.
And there are people in life circumstances for whom, as you say,
we must respect that they would make a different decision to you and giddy.
You come from a farming background, you come from a farming family background
and you have quite a large family.
I know your mother very well, atti who's, you know, someone to whom we must
always give our gratitude and respect.
She's, you know, one of the most wonderful human beings that I know.
So you were fortunate, I suppose, that you lived in.
An environment where there was tribe, we could say, do you think
this affected your decision?
F for example, if you had been living in an apartment in the
middle of the city perhaps no family or maybe as a single parent.
Of course we can only speculate because this was not your circumstance, but
do you think that Julian's life also owes itself to some degree, to this
tribal culture that you come from?
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Well, that is a nice question.
I, I talk about this meetings with other families in the same situation.
Mm-hmm.
And there was one meeting with.
16 old year mother or becoming a mother.
This girl is such in the end of the school time and start in the profession.
And she was also pregnant and she was also the same think, concentrate.
And this girl says, no, I have to go this way.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Henrich Berkhoff: And you asking for, is it a tribe, a family, a social life thing?
But in my perspective now, I, I thought the tribe come to this point.
If you are in this situation, the the tribe come to you.
Right.
We, we have no idea, Hey, come, we can handle it easily with a
family, with blah, blah, blah.
No.
That, that, that was not, and in our thinking, we, we, we are not looking to
the family, to the round and what, uh mm.
We, we have the, to do this decision.
And in this decision you are alone.
But if you go this way, we think it's a, not, not, that is
obviously not the easiest way.
Maybe Yeah.
Is easier.
Yeah.
And that the tribe comes and that is how we developed this farm and
how we met this wonderful person in the horse boy tribe world.
And that is, comes all from this point.
To make it happen, to choose the way.
And in this thinking of our son Julian, he had no decision to do.
He is growing up, not in the best and healthiest thing, but
you want to go the way which is designed for every human being.
You know,
Rupert Isaacson: it's so interesting what you say.
The tribe will come to you because when my son was diagnosed, I was
living on a remote farm in Texas.
My ex-wife and I.
Had no extended family and actually relatively few friends because the
friends that we had, they all lived in the nearby city, which was Austin,
but not in the village out 45 minutes outside of Austin where we lived.
So we really found ourselves isolated.
And it's so interesting that you say the tribe will come to you
because that's exactly what happened.
When we began to work with my son and then somehow naturally with other
children with a similar condition in the area, the tribe just arrived.
And when I looked up three or four years after the diagnosis,
the diagnosis was 2004.
The, I was looking up in around 2000 and.
Seven or so.
And so there was already by then a tribe that had been created around him.
It's almost as if these special children create their own tribes.
They seem to bring out the best in people, and people seem to feel better
and perhaps even somewhat healed when they're in the presence of special needs.
Either that or they reject completely and they go the other way.
So I think you're right.
I, you know, but so, I mean,
you're right that the tribe will come, but this is of course something very
scary for people if they're facing this.
Oh, yes.
As an unknown.
So I think hearing you say that is, is of great use.
And now of course your son is doing incredibly well.
Please just tell us a little bit how Julian is doing now and then,
because there's, I want to ask you about where that experience
with Julian has brought you.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Ru how is he doing now?
Henrich Berkhoff: I will answer this question, but I have a thought.
The tribe comes to you and why it is this happened.
If you were before you were alone, maybe you have not easy
things and nothing happened.
There's nothing that you nobody comes.
You are foreign.
Your own idea of your life in this moment, you go the most people are following their
way straightly, and they are not able or not looking under this or this side, and.
We were bombed out of this straight way path.
And then we have to reorganize our life, our thinking, our pop, pop, pop.
In this moment, the new tribe is coming up and building up.
If we following the mainstream, maybe we, we have a nice life.
Perfect, but we never thinking about this things right on left,
on the straight, mainstream way.
And if you want to feel the right life and so many people are looking and searching
this, yeah, you have to go in this other.
Areas in this other thinkings, and we have no chance to do.
Nobody choose is by your own.
But we are bombed and we are landing in this other new world and the humans
can create a new life and new we, we have this brain here and we can do this.
Okay.
And that is what I thought if you asking me question about Julian
today, and he's a young boy.
He is 23 years.
And he goes to the school after he first he stand one year and the
special needs school, but that is too far away and that needs one hour to
bring him there and one hour back.
And I.
We thought, Hey, two hours from a whole day from this little 7-year-old
boy, it's only sitting in the car.
It's not so nice.
And then we ask the school here in the, in, in our village, but the, they said,
oh, you are one boy in the wheelchair.
Well, we are not cons.
Our construction is not so, is our barriers and pop up and
yeah, it's the special needs school is better for your son.
And then we, we, we talk to other people with other parents, with special needs
kiddos, otherwise me and, and all this.
And we make five parents together and we go to the school and say,
Hey, now you have five special needs students here at your school, please.
Can we start here?
And in Germany you can choose your cho school and then the
Rupert Isaacson: that's very interesting.
Yeah.
'cause in many countries that's not possible.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Yeah.
We, we, we, here in Germany, you have the choice and they have to organize this.
And they said, oh, we, our thinking is with every child in the school,
you have three hours a special needs teacher, and now we are five
in a class of 25 up to 30 people.
That means five, three hours for every child.
15 hours, you have an additional teacher in your class.
And that is cool.
Not only cool for the special needs kiddos.
Right.
Every student in the class is nice.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: And also with Julian, we bring a assistant
because it is, it's a wheelchair.
It's not so easy to handle all their stuff in the school.
And then is Yeah, then we, that, that means we have up to three
people, not every hour, but in the main school time, we have three
people in the primary school time.
And that was very cool.
And it was a, so successful the school become a ordinary perfect school and
other school direct direct send us teacher, Hey, have a look in this school.
There is inclusion happened in the school time and is successful too.
Yeah.
And this is a cool.
Time because it was nearby five minutes away and it is the social Yeah.
Perfect.
Circle from Julian.
Absolutely.
And that is what happened there.
And it's for everybody.
It's it, it was a great time.
But remember, remember please not easy.
The school rules are not so, perfectly fit to this disabled people and
they're what they need, but hey, we can create some nice ways and we did it.
Yeah.
For example, there is a sport event that is every year they have to do this in, in
the to jump running and throwing balls.
That is the main sports there and together.
And later you have your notes you have your points and yeah, that
means you have this and this note.
But a for the wheelchair driver, we have no idea.
Then we create a new competition there, 100 meter with a wheelchair.
Who is the fastest Perfect.
They, Julian wins the race.
He's best at the head.
He had the best practice.
But the other I have also fund with to do this.
Yeah.
And that especially especially the kiddos, the students, they have no question.
There was a newspaper man reporting, hey, how it works, and he asked the teacher,
he asked the principal, and he asked.
The other students.
And he asked to the other students in the class of Julian, Hey, how do you feel
with a disabled person in your classroom?
And the kiddos don't understand this question.
What do you mean disabled people who is disabled here in our class?
And Julian just crossed the corner with his wheelchair and they, ROS
don't understand this question.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Henrich Berkhoff: great.
And then later he luckily he comes up private, organized school with
the Montessori thinking and they say, yes, everybody is welcome here and.
We have to look, what is your potential?
What is your power?
What is to have a look?
What is that what you like to do?
And that is in this thinking, you are the best in, in, in, you
are the best in what do you like?
Rupert Isaacson: What's so interesting about this is you're talking about
advocacy and somewhere in your boyhood you must have learned some
skills about how to advocate for yourself and for other people.
Now, you have gone on with this because you've helped Julian to find a career.
He's now working.
It's wonderful.
He's driving.
It's.
Phenomenal.
Yeah.
And you have two other sons that we haven't talked about who are a great
success in, in, in, in their lives too.
But in each case with this, you have learned how to advocate first for
your own child and then for yourself.
Now for my own story, I, I, I'm, I'm a good advocate too.
So I advocated for Rowan for my son and then wanted to teach him and people
like him how to advocate for themselves.
But I, of course had a background in working in human
rights, working in journalism.
And so perhaps I had some training in this before the diagnosis happened.
So it was somewhat natural for me to fall into a role of.
An advocate, where does it come from with you many people in your position?
For example, with the school, when the school says, oh no, sorry, I don't think
so many people would say, oh, okay.
I guess, I guess not.
Then where did you learn how to say, Hmm, let me give you
plan B and C and D and E and F.
Where did this come from?
As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm an autism dad and we have
a whole career before this podcast in helping people with neurodivergence,
either who are professionals in the field.
Are you a therapist?
Are you a caregiver?
Are you a parent?
Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
I really didn't know what to do.
So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
Temple Grandin.
And she told me what to do.
And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years.
That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped
countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal.
Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings.
If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed
approach, it's called Movement Method.
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Go to this website, newtrailslearning.
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Let us know how it goes for you.
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live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens.
Henrich Berkhoff: A lot of comes from to be a farmer, honestly.
Rupert Isaacson: I was wondering Yeah, go.
Go on.
Henrich Berkhoff: Because if you are working in nature with nature
with animals you are searching every day for solution in your work life.
And you are always thinking about, Hey,
is there another way to do or to get the target?
Yeah.
And that is always happened.
And if you in a family in a like this that every day is asking, Hey,
there's a rainy day, we want to harvest the corn, what can we do?
Now?
You have to deliver every day solution.
Bigger, smaller ones, but that is normal.
Yeah.
And also your responsibility for this decisions every day.
There is no question who is.
My my, my, my, my boss and who can I give this question away?
No, you have to do this.
And at, at the end of the day you can see, oh yeah, it works or it works not so good.
Or we try it again tomorrow.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Right.
Henrich Berkhoff: But you have to do this.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Henrich Berkhoff: That is think what you may be called Edward advocacy.
Advocacy.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: And in the relationship to Julian in his way,
this inclusion that was so helpful.
The UN have this disability convention.
They said this sent it out in the world and Germany put
it in their national rules.
Laws in 2009 and Julian is born in 2002.
And you'll see, hey, we are in the school and we have this paper from the
un and it is also here in German laws.
We can say at last, please have a look to this laws.
We, we are in our thinking, we are right.
But to have the right is a completely other thing to go this way.
That is not easy to have the rights and no power to make it happen.
And that means, oh, you have to create solution like a farmer every day.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it, it's interesting.
I like this analogy of.
You need to harvest the corn, but it's raining and so you
could lose the whole crop.
Yeah.
If one looks at a school or a boss or
someone with a decision making power saying, I'm going to make a decision
that is not in your interest or not in the interest of your child
to look at it like, oh, I see it's raining and I need to get the corn.
Okay, what would I do on the farm and how does that translate to this situation?
And I can imagine that that would happen almost subconsciously, that
you wouldn't necessarily think, okay, corn school, but it would naturally.
Follow and we started this podcast in nature.
You came walking outta the forest, you blew that horn.
You are not just a farmer, you are also a hunter.
Mm-hmm.
What is hunting other than following the trail?
Following the tracks and moment by moment, by moment by moment.
Having to make a decision that might or might not lead to food.
And that you also need to have a relationship with all of the dimensions of
that animal, the animal itself, the land, the habitat, and then the conditions of
the day, the weather, the, the health of the animal, how is your health as well?
So it's interesting.
Talk to me about hunting and how hunting and that particular type of
relationship with nature helps with this sort of advocacy and problem
solving career that you have.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
What is the connection to take responsibilities and to be a hunter?
And that means for me,
it comes as a child here always.
We have hunting session at our farm.
We are allowed to do this in our farm area here, but in the former
days, the humans always hunter and.
They are gathering and hunting and some scientists think about, hey, this
hunting thing to get meat, that means to get energy easier enough and easier
is then to gathering nuts and so on.
Mm-hmm.
And that makes that is one explanation for how to come the human brain
bigger and bigger and more and more the brain is, needs some much energy.
And with this hunting thing, it was easier to make, to bring the energy
in the shortest time to the humans.
That is interesting.
And yeah, we.
We are hunter and gatherer at more than 2.5
million years.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: This farming thing comes up maybe 10,000 years here in this region.
8,000 years.
And yeah, that was nice.
And the industry things is maybe 200 years.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: And the digital and the computer thing is maybe,
you know, the start of the iPhone.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And this is, or the first personal computer from IBM.
Yeah.
Where we have, yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm wearing the history here on my shirt, the digital world.
Very recent.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
And if we put all this time.
On the, on the line at 60 minutes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: That means we have 59 minutes time from this one
hour as we, we are in the world on a, at the hunter and gatherer.
15, nine minutes, maybe 30 seconds As a farmer.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: And the rest you cannot stop it.
It's less than one second.
Yeah.
We are created by the nature, for the nature and not for all these
other things we cannot handle.
Maybe in 2 million years we have an interface here,
whatever, but not in this time.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Henrich Berkhoff: And more and more people are have problems with
this, with this times, with this computer and with this big cities.
And with that is also thousand of information, thousand of
people are bombing your brain.
Mm.
We are not made for this.
We can handle it.
Yes, of course, but it is more and more people are struggling to do this.
You can manage your, your, your, your environment.
How in if you walk, can walk in a forest one day in this direction,
one day in this direction.
Yes.
You have all this knowledge.
You, you know exactly where can I, I have nice water to drink.
Where can I collect honey?
Where can I hope, luckily I can hunt deer.
That is what we created for not for this thousand of information every second.
Yeah.
And especially have a look to the kiddos.
This, they, they are in the age of four years, they get their first mobile phone.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: That it's not the, that is, I, I think you can start
with a mobile phone in the age of 14.
That makes sense.
But that is too much information to have good, healthy.
Developed for your brain,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
You know, what's interesting about what you say?
The million things coming in, in information, I would
say that nature does that.
Nature gives you 1 million things coming in all the time.
Let's say you, not even if you're hunting or gathering but even if you're
just walking between the temperature of the air, the direction of the wind,
the different senses, the all of the things coming through your sensors,
all the decisions you need to make with each place you put your feet.
Because each time you put your foot to the ground, if you make a
wrong decision, boom, down you go.
I would argue that nature actually does.
Do this thing of 1 million different things, but it does it in a way
that our brain is designed for and absolutely this other digital thing,
it's not designed for, but as you say, it can make a connection from one to
the other perhaps when the brain has reached a certain point of development.
This leads me to the next thing I want to ask you about.
You are now also a politician.
You are with the CDU in Germany, the Christian Democratic Union.
Yeah.
Obviously you have this background in advocacy, but why did you decide.
On top of your stuff with the child protection agency on top of
being a full-time farmer on top of running the therapeutic programs
with your wife, giddy that you currently run on the farm as well.
Why did you decide to add this because this is not a small thing
just to get elected, it's a big thing.
Why did you decide politics and why did you decide that
particular area of politics?
And for those who, that particular party for, for those listeners
or viewers who are not familiar with the German system, the CDU is
actually currently in government.
So.
Yeah.
Good position for everybody knows
Henrich Berkhoff: Mrs.
Angela Merkel.
Yeah.
And she also, and Ham would call all this great leaders of our party.
Yeah.
And they make decisions that brings Germany cool.
And powerful.
And the first counselor of Germany after the Second World War was also a anar.
Was that a Anar?
Yes, of course.
Yeah.
And he bring Germany back to the world break, and then he create this great thing
with France to make the y And Germany was not allowed at this time, but Germany
said, Hey, we have this shitty, wrong way.
It cost 60 million people their their lives.
And now it does it, it do not happened again.
Never, never.
And please, we are now in this way.
And, okay, how I decided to do this, it was easy if you have question
and I I'm thought, oh, this is not okay, and this is not okay.
And please do this in the other way to the courts, to the
cities, to the administration.
But yes, you have to do and put your thing in this your, this.
Mr.
Kennedy, he has a good speaking thing.
He don't ask what the government can give or can do for you.
You have to think about what can I give to your society, to
your to your tribe, to whatever.
Mm-hmm.
That is the question.
And if you say, Hey, this is I that is not okay.
Yeah, please.
You, you have to chance to do it in your way.
And that is one of the reason I decided to make this politician.
And yeah.
And it was, it, it, it is cool if you are you know, politician means not you
are in and everything has happened.
Like, thinking in, you have to handle out the best solution with
your own politicians, friends, and with other parties also.
And that is what we do every day.
It's.
A little step, but it's okay.
I think to do this, you need time and, but in, at the end, all the
people wants to have security.
They want to have quiet peace time.
That is all the same.
Yeah.
Some days the, the way is a little bit different, but in the main parties we have
here, not at the left or at the right.
That is not the best.
But mostly the people want to have this targets in, in their life.
Yeah.
And they can grow up.
And
Rupert Isaacson: you, you, the CDU that you are a, a member of,
this is a very, you could say it's a middle, middle way party.
Yeah.
You are a believer in nature.
You are a believer in the necessity of nature and movement in schools
in childhood for even for adults.
You, this has really become your life.
Tell me, what are you doing as a politician to try to get this
idea back into the mainstream?
'cause just before you begin, you could have gone to the green party.
Even though yes, you're a hunter, you're a farmer, but you're very much an ecologist
as well, you're an organic farmer.
So someone might say, oh, you could go to the greens.
Why the CDU with your environmental outlook?
Please explain,
Henrich Berkhoff: ah, that is, in the, in my party, there is
a conservative thinking way.
They not make decisions like so fast.
Mm-hmm.
And they're thinking, ah, please remember the old days and this, and yeah.
The, the agriculture thing is the same.
If there's something happened, it needs time and more and more other ideas come
up and they, sometimes they're cool.
Okay.
And that makes a different agriculture thinking and all this is same was
what I am thinking in my party.
Mm-hmm.
If with this ideas that is not the mainstream.
It's in the interesting, interesting thing to put this information in the discussion.
And if you come back with a reason, Hey, have a look what happened in nature.
What happened with a agriculture example for this.
My father was asked in 1900 seventies to make all the hedges and ditches plain
to make the best agriculture thing.
It is easier to have big fields, and it's for the economy, is it easier?
And he said, no, I have no, no interest.
And this idea come from the government, from the local government.
They, they give money for this.
They have.
And now in 2000, we have a plan to rewild to make, and they come here
and talk to me and say, Hey, you have this ditches and you have this hedges.
Thank you for the that you have this one.
I think, Hey, you guys, you come 40 years earlier to my father and make it plain.
And now you say thank you for me.
And hey, you have to think about other dimensions.
Yeah.
And that is what I bring in.
And it is nice.
It works.
And the, this other thinking and you, you, you speak about, frame everything you do.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Reframing, yeah.
Reframe everything and completely.
We
Henrich Berkhoff: have no time to do this, but Please.
Sometimes you have to do and you have to think.
Yeah.
And also if this Japanese people, if you had in a discussion with
the Japanese people in their culture, they are not directly to
you and bump you on at the nose.
They give you in every discussion, they give you a chance to
escape, to hold your face up.
They give you the chance to do this, and that is so cool.
And if you have this in, in, in your thinking.
You can be a politician with success.
Rupert Isaacson: What I know for example, you were just in Berlin with a
mutual friend of ours David Doyle Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: From
Rupert Isaacson: Ireland.
And you were,
so for those listeners, I wish we could get David Doyle to come on a podcast.
He's so shy, he won't come.
You have to do this, but maybe we can put him under pressure.
David Doyle, for those who do not know him is another autism dad in Ireland
who has pioneered equine therapy and therapies through movement and with
neuroscience to the point that in Ireland now, the government will back and pay
for these therapies starting last year.
He's an absolute force of nature, very kind, very unassuming man.
And you, and he just went to Berlin.
To government headquarters in, in, in Germany to talk about this sort of thing.
What, what are you trying to achieve there?
What would be your ideal goal?
What in terms of nature, agriculture, and special needs and equine therapies
in your perfect world in 20 years, what would the government there in
Germany be doing in these areas?
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah, thank you for David.
He, they makes a great job in Ireland.
And that is a European country too.
Yeah.
And we have some thoughts about, hey, how to put it in in other countries and
to make this idea from nature healing.
It's my word.
Okay.
It means why agriculture, animals, and nature.
Can do more than just a system of produce food.
There is so many healing spaces in this thinking.
Right.
And he, he did it in Ireland, successful.
And we we create our farm here and we call it now Green Care Farm.
Mm-hmm.
Because in the beginning with Julian, we start with a horse thing.
GI is, since she was a young lady in contact with horses and then we
create, make it healing with horses.
We started, we have three little ponies here and we started, and more and more
people are visiting us and say, Hey.
Looks very cool and can you do this for this our child?
And then it grows up more and more and the families called up to us three
weeks later and said, Hey, if we have bad times, now we are thinking about
the time at your farm in the nature.
And they are helping us.
They pick up the ps, they bring the feed to the animals and all the, they
are working here and gi and I asking each other, Hey, what, what happened?
They, they are so happy.
They, they give us money for, to, to make the work.
No, there is so much more.
They are, they, they feel useful.
They feel in the nice environment.
They feel the human environment and that gives them some cool
energy and so good thoughts.
And if they are remembering only remembering the time of
the farm here, they feel better.
And this is how we come on the way.
And yeah, we, we feel it, but we have no idea what happened
and why it happened, right?
And that's changed If we have I, I, I, I found clinic and
it called Horse Boy Method.
I think, Hey, what, what they are doing there and am read,
they go outside in nature, follow the child, blah, blah, blah.
Say, Hey
look here.
That is similar to what we do.
We have no idea.
We, we do it because we feel it.
That is good feeling.
And that is, they're laughing.
They, they like it to do and they come back.
And now we have the chance to visit this clinic in 2070.
And I sent GI there because hey, horse, horse things is more GIS things, but
they now, I I am, we, we, we create an active stable for the horses in 2015.
And I you
Rupert Isaacson: where the horses live outside in a natural way.
Yeah, that is right.
Henrich Berkhoff: And we have 35 horses here on our farm.
And so we, I ask how is the best environment for the horses?
And the easiest thing is let them outside.
That makes.
Reduce all the problems they have.
I asked the VE veterans here at the ecu and he said, Hey, if the
outside, we have this, this, and this problems, we have solved this.
Okay?
And then more and more I am in the horse world and hey, GI starts with a normal
stuff of riding if everybody here in the area starts for the competition and so on.
I'm not interested.
Interesting in this competition thing.
Maybe in the evening, they have a nice parties after competition that, that
was nice, but not this competition.
It's not for me.
But GI starts to make this ground the work from the ground with the horses and
makes all the horsemen stuff and so on.
And then, then I recognize, hey, that is cool.
How is the way the horse knows where they had to go without the rope
Come this from then I start, okay?
We, we, we change our farm to this green care farm because we have the idea what
is the science behind happiness in nature?
What is the science behind the movement?
And that is starts in this, time in 2017, we have this course here, and Giddy
called me up, Hey, after one hour or one and a half hours, she called me up and
said, Hey Henry, that is so cool here.
Now I have an idea what is working in the human, what is the hormone
thing we, and what is the reason that people are so yeah, so lucky
and that people are so powerful now.
And then she comes back and yeah, we can make this online course on the n tls.com.
Co.
Sorry.
And on the trainer said, or you can visit this farm in Austin, Texas.
And I said, gi, you have to go there.
That is there, there come the idea from, please have a look there.
That is really it says, yeah, please, you have to go there.
And two days later, I thought, a 14 days in Austin to have all
this horse boy movement stuff.
And then she had to explain me this later.
It cost another week.
And so we decided to go both to the, in January, nobody has this idea to
go in January to Austin and Texas,
Rupert Isaacson: one of the nicest months,
Henrich Berkhoff: but.
That was so cool.
And they opened all this signs behind and how to handle and all this tribe.
And then we are back and we changed the farm in the green care farm thing.
And this two, two weeks later in 2018, in January, we make a, a
little path in our forest here.
Mm.
And somebody says, Hey, no, they are very stupid.
They come back from wherever there was were, wherever there was, and
now they make a trail here in the Forest Park what has happened.
And yeah, we, we, we start with to do this and.
The humans, the people, the families there come here.
They say, they say thank you to us.
That is a good feeling.
Hey, we, we make this service sometimes for not so easy people
because they have some problems.
They have so many disabled things.
But the nature give us the answer.
They come down, they feel better and they feel good.
And that comes from the nature.
And we offered the way to the nature because we know yes,
the nature is the answer.
Rupert Isaacson: If you made it this far into the podcast, then I'm
guessing you're somebody that, like me, loves to read books about not
just how people have achieved self actualization, but particularly
about the relationship with nature.
Spirituality, life, the universe, and everything.
And I'd like to draw your attention to my books.
If you would like to read the story of how we even arrived here, perhaps
you'd like to check out the two New York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy
and The Long Ride Home, and come on an adventure with us and see what engendered,
what started Live Free Ride Free.
And before we go back to the podcast, also check out The Healing
Land, which tells the story of.
My years spent in the Kalahari with the Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people
there, and all that they taught me, and mentored me in, and all that I learned.
Come on that adventure with me.
So in 20 years, in your perfect world, or even sooner in five years
does the government, not just in Germany, but perhaps in the eu.
Begin to give money for people to use nature for mental health
in a way that becomes universal and that we can see countryside being
rewild as well as farmed both but with
government policies on how to use this nature for the benefit
of society, not just food.
Is that kind of the end goal really?
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
That is one of the reasons we visit this politicians in Berlin and.
We have the meeting there and we open this
reframe thing.
Mm.
Because there is a, this politician is a circle of the horse world, the
business, the sports, the Olympic sports also, and they have all this
breeding things and they have not discovered what is a big, big advantage
to use the horse for other people.
Yeah.
And that works not only for disabled people, that works for every people.
The, the, the per, for example, the AU autism people, they have the best,
feelings to know what is good for them.
And if the autism people, we love it.
They come to our farm and they so honest to our, to, to, to everybody.
Yeah.
And they say, Hey, that is cool.
That is not cool.
Easy.
And they go to the next but that they have the feeling what is good for the humans?
What is the They have no ego.
Yeah.
They, they said That is okay.
That's not okay.
And they ended up with the animals and with the nature mostly.
And that was a ta one of the targets to show how fits agriculture.
That means all the horse stuff, health and also education.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Henrich Berkhoff: Together.
And that is a big, big universe we open.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It's so interesting, isn't it?
When you live the sort of life that you live or I live, it's so obvious that
all of these points connect education, mental health, physical health.
That was so crazy.
But it's so bizarre that one has to convince any of your body office.
Yeah,
Henrich Berkhoff: I, they, they, they, they're listening to us in this
conference room and they asking our all this question and we say, yeah,
the solution is movement, nature.
Oh, this problem.
Yeah.
Solution is movement.
Nature, animals, perhaps they bring it you in the nature.
And that is a the universe.
Ah, that was so funny.
Yeah, they, they are politicians.
That's an interesting point.
They talk about the economy from this.
So, this system we have the health system in Germany and the system
for socialization, all this, you get money for, to have your own
flat, you have to, all this costs are growing more and more and more.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
If you have this line on the chart, it's the same line.
More and more becomes people on the world.
More and more becomes digitalization.
Yeah.
There's the same rates.
They go higher.
And more and more cost is for the health industries.
They give your this Americans and, and, and, but we, we, Germany is a, a rich
country, but we come at the end to make this happen, we have to solve money.
And then they ask, Hey, we have to discuss discuss in this future in Berlin.
They have to discuss all the systems, bring it down on the other level that is
next they, we can we have money for this.
Rupert Isaacson: Right?
And this is where David Doyle has been so amazing.
So he proved, just for listeners who don't know of this, he proved
to the Irish government who have a ministry of disability that's, it's
quite enlightened that with autistic adult males who had a history.
Habit of violence and many of whom would need maybe four people with
them, which is costing the government more than 1 million euros, closer to
2 million euros per year per person.
He showed that with movement method, he could bring that down to one person,
which was saving the government more than a million euros per person per year.
And he gathered the data on this over five years and made his case.
And what happened in 2024 with the Irish government then saying, okay, we will
support this movement in nature thing.
Absolutely.
It's great to see that you guys are now taking it into into Germany because
of course if something happens there, then it goes to the rest of the eu.
It's amazing work.
And you were talking about the other, I think.
As we sort of move towards the two hour mark, the last thing I would like to
ask you about is the work that you're doing to bring this into education.
So you have started for some years now doing what you call Bienhoff Pedagogic.
We are meaning farm, farm school effectively farm teaching.
So where the local schools to your, in your town bring their kids out.
Not just to experience the farm, but actually to have academics on the farm.
This is fantastic and I know that you are now training other people in
Germany how to do this and going out to other places and even now making an
initiative across the border with the Netherlands to start doing the same thing.
Can you just tell us a little bit about that work?
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah, the thank you.
To bring it in school.
We have in Germany a nice, quite section that called dra mm-hmm.
To learn outside.
And they have the idea, and that is based in Munich.
They have the university technical University Munich.
They, they are just started a big data based program there.
And we are in four years, we, we visit this first meetings and they say, Hey, we,
we know if you if you have movement and learning together, you get better results.
That is not a secret also, that is now.
Everywhere.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
All the neuroscientists agree on this.
Yeah, yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: But the question is, hey, why the schools hold to the old
Rupert Isaacson: system?
Mm.
Yeah.
It's a good question, isn't it?
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah, it's a good question.
I have no answer, but I have some 1, 2, 3 thoughts about this.
And then one question, if you are reframing this, where come school from?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
The first schools, the first reading and writing things was in the church.
In the religion, religion thing.
They, they not allowed everybody to make this reading and writing stuff.
It is only in the church to do and also later.
The military comes on this because they have to organize the army and the
soldiers, and especially the officers how to make this war or what, whatever
that is, where the school system is in, in later in the industry relations
time begins 1,870, maybe the first big fabrics come to make all the big
Rupert Isaacson: factories.
Yeah,
Henrich Berkhoff: yeah, yeah.
They come up and they need this reading and writing stuff for normal workers.
Oh yeah.
That is useful to make more cars, make trains, and whatever we need in this time.
Yeah.
And then they created codes, not.
From the thinking and the iCal thing they created, Hey, there's we
have the soldiers in, in quarters to turn and we make it the same.
And all kiddos burn in the age of seven have to go there.
That is, they not asking how to learn is the best way and it, they have
to organize and, but industrialized.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: Absolutely.
Some school buildings today, if you saw all the classrooms behind and the long
floor in the middle and underside the next, that comes from this thinking.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Henrich Berkhoff: And the teachers have to teach this.
And the, remember if you have child.
Until they go to school, they ask you many, many questions to the parents
every day, every second, every hour.
Mm.
Sometimes it is not easy to handle for parents.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Henrich Berkhoff: The kiddos have question.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: How is that and how is that and blah blah and this.
And with the beginning of the school time then.
Yeah.
It's so true.
They were asked by the teacher, Hey, is that the best way to learn?
No.
Please have this picture in your head.
And yeah.
That is how school systems today are working.
They have no idea to trust the kiddos.
The kiddos are designed for learning normally.
But the teachers mostly have no trust to do, to give them the free well, right.
Because
Rupert Isaacson: freedom, free freedom of learning or, or Yeah.
Yeah.
Self-directed learning.
Henrich Berkhoff: And the teachers have to look
Rupert Isaacson: means you can't control, and then if you can't control, you can't
put them in the factory and you can't put them in the army to go and die.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Because maybe they will have another idea.
Henrich Berkhoff: All these thinkings are coming here.
Yeah.
And yeah.
And this is we have to create another learning environment mm-hmm.
Because we have so many things to solve in this future.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And economics has changed.
We're not doing factories anymore.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: And that is where we now, in this time, we have changed more
and more in this direction, but, mm-hmm.
Remember for the teacher they, that that is not the, the discuss
the decision of every teacher.
Yeah.
The, the system gives the teacher how to work.
Mm-hmm.
But they, this time is for the, the, the, the students sitting in the
school and they have to find their own way and the teacher have to
become more and more to go with them.
Not forward, but they have to give the tools for this
students to find their best way.
Yeah.
That is what I am want, I want to create things like this.
And if you go in the nature, if you have the move movement, you, you feel good.
Can create good.
So solution for the future.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And you are, you are, you are bringing nature into the classroom.
Not just saying, because it's so easy for a school to say, sorry,
we can't take the kids into the forest because there's no time.
That's the first thing they'll always say.
Yeah.
And of course you are saying, well, that's not a problem.
We can recreate this nature right here in the classroom.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
We have nature also in the cities.
Yeah.
Go, go to the green parks.
Okay, go to the cemeteries.
Absolutely.
They're green.
Rupert Isaacson: And canals ask the people there, the land along the railways.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: You, you can find.
But you have to trust in the kiddos.
They want to be a problem solver.
Mm.
But for this, you have to explore everything.
If you have a mistake, yes, it is good to know.
This is not the best way.
Please choose this way.
And this is what we have to learn.
If you make a mistake, especially in Germany, you are out, you
have a mark in a red color.
It my, my my school papers.
There is more in red on the side as I wrote in my blue color.
That is, and that mean I never go at home and read this red marks on the right side.
Never.
I closed it
Rupert Isaacson: straight on the fire.
Henrich Berkhoff: And that is, Hey, that is stupid.
Rupert Isaacson: You know what's so interesting?
I just did my German exam Ah, yeah.
Germany for my B one German level, and it was a six hour exam.
And I haven't done anything like this since I was,
I don't know, for 500 years or something like that.
And I'm sitting in this room.
That's completely not the way I would teach, not the way I would learn
and say, okay, I must do this now.
And just to make it that little bit more difficult, you couldn't
answer your proofing your exam, your exam questions on the exam paper,
which in England you can do ah,
mm-hmm.
You had to have a separate, what they called un book and an answer
key sheet where you had to make sure that your answers, you filled
it in on this separate sheet.
Oh, and.
You had to answer with a little X inside a circle.
Mm-hmm.
Not, not bigger than the circle.
Mm-hmm.
Not next to the circle.
Mm-hmm.
Not a
tick this special way.
Or if it was like a little lozenge shape, you had to fill it in like that with your
pencil, but not to put a circle around it.
Nothing like that.
Oh.
And if you're like me, I have a little bit of numerical dyslexia, so sometimes
I will put, let numbers, oh shit.
The wrong way round.
So 17 becomes S one or something like this.
Yeah.
So
I am immediately paranoid as I go into this exam.
Not so much will I get the questions right.
Okay.
That is a worry too.
But will I answer them in this industrialized way that causes
an extra level of stress?
Mm.
That prevents learning.
And it's so interesting knowing the neuroscience that we know about cortisol,
the stress hormone blocking learning.
I looked at this and said, this is designed for cortisol.
Mm.
So this is designed to make you fail.
That is not teaching, that is elitism.
That is different.
And so I came up, but congratulations.
A special, a special way of coping with this.
But yeah, it, I had stress from this, and this is me having gone through
that system and rejected it, and then knowing what I know now, but yeah,
for young kids, it's not the way.
Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: But congratulations.
You did it.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I, I passed.
Yeah.
Thank God.
Henrich Berkhoff: Otherwise you can sit in some of our schools
here and you can learn it.
Yeah.
And this schools ask to visit the farm.
Yeah.
And that is one of our business today.
We have schools, they come here and also we have the healthy
and horse thing together.
They come there's a next pillow.
No, what is it, Zoe?
Pillar.
Pillar
Rupert Isaacson: the next, yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: A part of our business here is children and kiddos
from the hosp psychology hospital.
Yeah.
From the
Rupert Isaacson: psychiatric hospitals.
And also you've, you've been taking kids from the local refugee.
Population as well.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
And then they come here more and more the, the doctors from the ology hospital
say, Hey, it is so easier with our therapeutic, therapeutic thinking.
And after the kiddos stay on your farm, and the next two days
it is easier to do our work.
And sometimes they're wondering, Hey, this boy crash every door
here in our hospital room.
And he's so in freedom in in the time at your farm.
Yeah.
Where come this from and say, Hey, I, I, I, I'm I giving the opportunity.
To get in contact with nature and visit animals.
And believe me, the, the kiddos, they have an idea what is right and what is wrong.
They have an idea what is nice.
And if they are in the other world and they, they destroy
themselves or other things that is crying, that is shouting, help me.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: That is they cannot describe it in the other way.
Absolutely.
They crash the door up or box to the staff there and whatever happened,
but he, nothing really giddy said to me, please do not say nothing.
Sometimes it happens.
Yeah, maybe.
But 99, 9% they have an idea of what is good and what is not so good
and give them the responsibilities.
They do their right way.
But yeah, of course you have to look after, you have to design how to go in
the nature and how to handle the, the, the animals, they have to know this.
Mm-hmm.
They have children, they have no idea that is a cow or this is a horse.
They have no idea.
And also nice story, there was the mother, we have a chicken with little chicken.
They come two days old.
Little, little tiny chicken.
And the mother comes with this, two kiddos from this clinic and ask, Hey,
how do you feed the little chicken with.
Sorry.
This is how far away from nature we are.
Yeah.
And if the, the problems reducing is bring the people back in nature.
And if you use a horse is a powerful thing.
If you have dogs, if you have other animals, if you have, and ask the local
farmers, they are a little bit mind open.
Hey, can I visit your place and give them the money for this to do?
And they are thinking, Hey, we, we cannot, we can do more than
produce the the, the, the meat.
And
Rupert Isaacson: this is so true.
It's interesting because we're now looking at the end of.
The era of big subsidies probably for farmers.
And I know many farmers are asking themselves, okay, how do we, how do
we stay alive in the next generation?
And if people like you at the political level are able to lobby
government to say, okay, maybe we don't need to pay the subsidy here.
Maybe the subsidy now goes to mental health.
Because if we pay the farmers, the foresters, the custodians of the land,
if we can train them and pay them to help look after the mental health of
the people in the cities, our costs will go down as David Doyle proved.
And it's people like you and people like David who do it.
On their place, they do it on their farm, you do it on a farm and you go
out to the political level and advocate.
And I would suggest that your early years as a parent with Julian prepared
you for this because just as the advocacy work that I do, it was all
the early years with Rowan that prepare me now for some of the political
outreach and so on that I have to do.
I imagine at the end of your life when you are looking back, you'll look to
those early years with Julian and say, ah, yes, that was the training ground.
That was where I learned my skills.
Yeah, how to do it at home, how to do it in my community,
and then how to take it wider.
Yeah.
I think we ly can thank our special needs children for this.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
I'm also so grateful to have the opportunity to go this way.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Henrich Berkhoff: It's not the easiest way, but,
Rupert Isaacson: but it's the most meaningful way.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
It's a meaningful, powerful way.
And that is the reason we, we, we know each other, we, we are talking about
this and not to search the mental thing in India, you, you, you stay India.
Yeah.
You can, maybe you can find it.
But it's also not easy.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, if we're gonna take something like this to India, we
better prove it here where we live first.
Yeah.
Okay.
Henrich Berkhoff: Okay.
But if we, if we stand together and have a look to the disabled
people to this not normal humans.
Yeah, yeah.
It, there is more than someone expected.
Yeah.
And there is, they are the
Rupert Isaacson: shamans.
They are the healers.
They are the people who make the magic.
Henrich Berkhoff: They give us the answers to our questions.
Rupert Isaacson: They do.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Henrich, thank you.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Thank you Ru.
So it was a nice talk here about everything and nothing.
And I think, hopefully I answer all the question.
You, you, you did very, very well.
Rupert Isaacson: I look forward to following where this
next bit of work in Berlin.
Henrich Berkhoff: Ah, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And in the Netherlands as well.
I'm, I'm, oh yeah.
I'm really interested to see how this goes.
So maybe in a few months we have you back and you can give us a report.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yes, I, I will do.
Thank you.
It, it is my pleasure.
Rupert Isaacson: Perhaps with Julian, maybe he would like
to come on the podcast too.
Henrich Berkhoff: That is a cool idea.
Y that is, that makes sense.
Rupert Isaacson: Maybe.
And his brothers actually.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Give, ask them.
Is it true what Gia and Henry are talking about?
Rupert Isaacson: That's right.
Henrich Berkhoff: Or is it, is it they say, oh, that my, my parents, yeah.
Please do this.
Okay.
Yeah, that's good idea.
Let's,
Rupert Isaacson: let's, let's reconvene with that.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
Well, my friend, thank you again so much.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And I just look forward to the next, not just the next
conversation, but hearing the results.
I want to know.
Henrich Berkhoff: Okay.
That is important too.
Yes.
No pressure, but if you feel, eh, at your don't, if you feel it
is good, please follow this one.
Don't follow this.
What your brain, pre, pre put the, the
pre for cortex.
Prefrontal cortex.
Please don't follow your feelings
Rupert Isaacson: for that big principal cortex.
No.
So it gets things wrong.
Henrich Berkhoff: Yeah, that is, that is right.
Rupert Isaacson: The stomach and the heart too.
Henrich Berkhoff: Cool.
Rupert Isaacson: Alright, well, until next time my friend.
Bye-bye.
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