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
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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.
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com.
So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
Welcome back.
I'm here with the amazing Chrissy McDonald and Mark Rashid.
Those of you who listened to our previous podcast know that we ended
with talking about really how to achieve softness and softness being
something that isn't just physical.
Of course that comes from within.
Mark was talking at some length about his relationship with
Aikido, for example, and music this way, not just with horsemanship.
Chrissy echoing many of these intimate
at the same time.
I became anxious and I thought, well, if I'm becoming anxious, probably
other people are anxious too.
And the anxiety was, what if I'm not soft enough?
And now we've gotta be soft?
Oh, now we've gotta be soft.
What if I'm not soft?
Ah, you know, and it brought to mind, I think we live in a particularly
anxious society where in some ways things have never been better, and
in some ways there's never been so much to cause us to feel anxious and.
We've never taken, I think this idea of fairness and ethics to heart,
particularly in the horse community, in the way that we have now, it's, it's
definitely, I think, unprecedented really.
And at the same time, and that's good and at the same time, it can
cause one to feel anxious, of course, that one's not living up to this.
And, you know, should we do anything at all?
Should we even go near a horse?
Should we even put our fingertips on a horse, let alone our butts?
You know?
And should we put anything in their mouths, let alone, you know,
anything on their noses or anything.
Or anything or anything.
And that spiral of anxiety, of course is not soft, but
we're in pursuit of softness.
So there's a paradox there.
And I'd like to explore that paradox.
'cause I think we're all, to some degree battling with this,
or at least dancing with this.
And when we have people like Chrissy and Mark who have good, incredible
things to say on these things, I think it's worth bringing this up.
'cause I do think it's a, it, it's a concern not just for horsemen, but for
people who are running programs at equine assisted programs, that sort of thing.
We, we want to, we want not just our horses, but the people
we're serving to have agency.
And at the same time, this can cause anxiety where we end up
trying to control that anxiety.
And so what do we do about that?
What do we do about that guys?
Mark Rashid: Well, I'll jump in.
Basically, the idea for, for us, when we talk to folks is
oftentimes, especially when we're working with horses and with people, is that the
idea is to be as soft as you can be, which may not be as soft as you want to be.
And you know, as, for instance, on a scale from zero to 10, with zero
being no pressure, you know, as soft as I wanna be is maybe a 0.5.
But given the circumstances of the day and the situation that I'm in, I might
have to go to a seven, but that's as soft as I can be on that day, in that
situation, the key to that is that we don't bring emotion into the situation.
We're just dealing with what's in front of us.
Without making up stories around what we're, what we're dealing with or what's
going on, just deal with the situation.
And then with, if you can, I mean, working on internal softness
is, is really important I think, and we can talk about that too.
But, but a big part of it for me is being able to control self, having self-control.
And I think that's where, where we get into trouble sometimes is that we we're
trying to be soft, but maybe things are escalating and, and now I am, I'm at a
seven and I'm outta control emotionally.
I'm angry or I'm scared, or, or whatever.
And, and it's difficult for situations like that to come back into control.
So for me, it's not so much about being, you know, we talk about being soft.
The goal might be to be at a 0.5
in everything that I do.
And I also have to understand that there may be times where I may have
to, because of the situation, I may have to bring that level up.
And so that's, you know, that's kind of the way that I would, I would, that's a,
I mean, for, to start the conversation.
That's, that's what I would, that's what I would offer.
Rupert Isaacson: That's it is quite intriguing to have a scale
that one could put a number to.
Is that an Aikido thing or is that something that you've just
come up with instinctively?
I.
Mark Rashid: I've pretty much come up with that just in our
teaching with horses and riders.
Mm.
Just so that we have some language and an idea to, you know, if we're using a scale
of pressure, for instance, on the reins with a rider, I can maybe get on one end
of the reins and the hor and the rider be on the other while they're on the horse.
And I could say, well, could you show me what a, what a one feels like to you?
And, and then on, you know, feeling what they do in the range.
I can say, well, that actually feels like about a three to me.
Let me show you what a, what a one feels like to me so that we can, we have a
jumping off point and so we, we can be speaking the same language instead of,
instead of some arbitrary, you know, speak that, you know, we, I may understand as
one thing and the rider might understand as something completely different.
So it's just a, just a way for us to kind of get on the same page
and have a jumping off point.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, that's helpful, Chrissy.
Softness and the anxieties around it.
Yes,
Crissi McDonald: yes.
So the first thing I thought about was because we're talking about softness
as an internal state, and we're talking about the paradox of also being anxious
and having that be an in internal state.
I completely agree with you that I think these times and our cultures
have a lot of anxiety right now, so it's really easy just to be anxious and
it takes practice to not live there.
One of the things I like to talk about is anytime we have something going on
inside of us, it's like a speed bump.
So I get up in the morning and I look at my email and there's someone
who's mad that's a bump, right?
And then I come out and I check on the dogs.
Maybe one of my dogs isn't doing good.
That's a bump.
And then I looked at my texts and then I look at social media and then, you know,
you can see how this starts to snowball.
Yeah.
And
Crissi McDonald: so by the time I get to my horse, I've maybe driven in traffic.
I have dealt with other drivers.
Maybe I listen to the news, which isn't that great right now.
Maybe I've seen an animal on the side of the road that got hit by a car.
I mean, it, it's just that this is life, right?
It's messy.
And so by the time we get to our horse.
We're not traveling along a smooth road anymore.
We are constantly going over these speed bumps internally.
So I think the practices is when you, when tho when that information, when life
hands you these things, is to be able to be aware of it, recognize it, and then
try to get yourself back into homeostasis.
So meaning you're not too, you're not in a panic attack, but you're
also not almost falling asleep.
Right?
Your nervous system, from what I understand, I'm not a therapist, but what
we're learning from a friend of ours is your nervous system is meant to do this.
Right?
We don't, I was under the misconception that I always had to be parasympathetic.
I always had to be calm.
And anytime I felt a blip of anxiety that was bad and I had
to do something to take it away.
And that's really not a complete picture.
So I'm learning more about the nervous system states, but before I started
learning about this, every, I would think about the inside of me as as
how many speed bumps have I gone over before I got to my horse, and
how can I smooth that road back out?
Because every time we have a speed bump, that's a, the horse
is trying to communicate right?
And it can't get over that.
So it hits this, this is my feeling, this is.
Is a feeling I have.
We're working with our horses.
We're maybe in a certain state, but we're so tight internally, maybe
we're trying to be soft and we just can't be soft and oh my God.
Now I'm not soft in my, I'm torturing my horse, right?
Rupert Isaacson: I'm torturing myself with this or torturing die for softness.
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Yeah.
But if we could take a breath and just let all of that go.
Just, just, we don't have to let it go in the sense of, I'm never gonna think
about it again, but can I just set that aside for 20 minutes and be with my horse?
You know, I'm not ignoring it, I'm not bearing it.
But can we kind of let that pass through us instead of sticking inside?
Can I let that information pass through me instead of getting stuck?
Rupert Isaacson: Now, let's say you
have a mechanism, and let's say it's breathing for that.
And you arrive at the place where you keep your horse because not everyone is
lucky enough to keep their horses at home.
And then you come in and perhaps you see a face that causes you some
anxiety or someone enters the arena that causes you some anxiety, perhaps.
Your horse is living in a box.
And has been stood there for a long time and is full of energy to be
expressed and can't be soft because just can't be soft at that moment.
So one's own desire for softness, of course, is unable to be met
by the horse in that moment.
And now I'm anxious about that and I'm anxious about these other people and
I'm anxious about, and I'm anxious about
breathing will certainly help me, but I suspect it probably
won't get me fully there.
When we are dealing with all these imperfect situations, we are assuming
that not everyone is living on their own private ranch in the Rockies
backing onto a national forest.
What are some really practical things?
Breathing for sure is one, but what are some really practical things we can
do to try and access that softness and particularly when the horse is not meeting
us with softness and can't in that moment?
Crissi McDonald: Well, I'll throw in my 2 cents, then we'll go to Mark.
I, I find a really helpful thing to do, especially if a horse is coming out of
a stall, is instead of having an agenda, I am gonna do these five things today.
As we bring the horse out of the stall and see what the horse needs
that may be to go for a walk.
Mm-hmm.
It may need if there's turnout.
Mm-hmm.
Crissi McDonald: It, part of softness is also awareness.
So we look at our horse and we say, okay, this, you know, whatever the situation
is, this is where my horse is right now.
Mm-hmm.
How about we, I'm a big fan of doing what you can do, not doing what you can't.
Mm-hmm.
That's good.
And I got
Crissi McDonald: that from a certain guy.
So what can we do on a day when a horse is much bigger than we would, you know,
we look at 'em and we think, I'm not ready to ride that, but what can we do?
We can go for a walk, we can lunge, we can find a round pen and explore some things.
We can turn out and let our horse great.
I mean, there's, so we get so focused on what we can't do.
I think, I think that's a survival bias or something Steve would know,
but we get so focused on what we can't do that we lose sight of what we can.
Mm-hmm.
And there's always something we can do.
Or I mean, even, even if we just spend an hour walking our horse around the property
and the horse ends up feeling softer, less worried, that's, that's a good day.
That's quality over quantity.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Crissi McDonald: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I agree.
Crissi McDonald: That's, that's my thought,
Rupert Isaacson: mark.
Mark Rashid: Well that's, I, I think the, the question really needs to be
how do I get into a state where that those things don't bother me so much?
And you know, for me, I, I, I try to live my life in a certain way to where,
to where I don't get anxious very often.
That doesn't say that I don't, but I, it doesn't happen very often and
most of the time it's just one of my practices is to look at things for
what they are and not worry so much about building stories around things.
And, and, you know, that's, for me, that's been a really important step
in not just horsemanship, but life in general, so that not everything has
the same level of importance, you know?
So, forgetting the milk at the grocery store.
For a lot of folks has the same importance as getting into a fender bender in
the parking lot of the grocery store.
You know, or, you know, it's, it's unbalanced.
It's an, for me it's an unbalanced way of being.
Hmm.
And going through the day.
So, you know, being able to see things for what they are instead of, you
know, taking everything so seriously.
There are some things that need to be taken seriously, but you can
still do that in, in a calm state of mind from, from an internal.
So for me, the, the, it starts with how are we living our life?
Because, you know, you made a really good point in that we basically
live in a low level state of panic.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Mark Rashid: You know, I'd say that's true
Rupert Isaacson: for most people and
Mark Rashid: be, and that's, we allow that, that's a choice we make.
So, yeah.
I mean, the world is what the world is and our, you know, it's like,
like Chrissy mentioned, you know, the news, watching the news, well, there's
nothing I can do about any of that.
You know, I, I can't, there, I have no influence on any of that.
Yeah.
At all.
And so, you know, I can't let it bother me too much.
I.
You know, I have, I have influence in the, in the three foot
space around me more or less.
And so I feel like that's a good place to start.
Rupert Isaacson: That's stoic philosophy basically.
Mark Rashid: Hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Which interestingly they say was started by a man called
Han who happened to be a horseman.
Hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And a student of Socrates and the best mate of Plato.
And also a mercenary.
Just,
Mark Rashid: you know, it's funny, it's funny because, you know, in
the dojo we spend a lot of time, in fact I'm, I'm doing a an upper belt
class that, that meets once a month.
And in that class, what we are working on is being able to stay in a calm state
of mind, regardless of the situation, regardless of the type of attack that's
coming, regardless of the weapon that the person is holding, regardless of, of
how many people are, are surrounding you.
And again, it's a practice and we just don't practice those things
and we get good at what we practice.
And so if we practice being in a, in a worried state of mind all the
time, this low level state of panic, then we're gonna get good at that.
And if we choose not to do that and we choose to practice something else, then
you know, then we'll get good at that.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I mean, I think many of us grow up being trained to be anxious.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Because, yeah, that makes us controllable.
If you're anxious about your grades, if you're anxious about not getting punished,
if you're anxious about going to hell, then you could be manipulated quite well.
And of course, I think many of us did grow up to some degree that way.
So the unlearning of that is tricky, particularly when you are being bombarded
with anxiety in, you know, amygdala triggering media that deliberately is
there to trigger you because it makes you keep watching and keep clicking.
And of course, what could be a better partner to help us with that than a horse.
But we found, I, I, here's an interesting thing.
When I moved to Germany back in 2018 it was the first time that
I had not kept my horses at home.
And because I arrived with six horses and I didn't want to kind of, and I
couldn't just like arrive and buy a farm.
And I had to wind things up in Texas and so on.
That takes, took a while.
And anyway, it was would've been, you know, a massive schlep.
So I thought, well, let's just keep, let's just downsize, let's just keep
the horses, you know, at a boarding barn for a while while we find
our feet and look around and Yeah.
You know, be less stressful.
And so you got there, you gotta look around.
And so, okay, well where do I go?
Where I can arrive with six now?
I don't wanna spread 'em out all over the countryside.
That's, yeah.
So that narrowed the choices.
And then we ended up at a place and not too far away and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
So that narrowed the choices again.
And then we ended up at a place where, well, they're gonna live in boxes.
And when I was a kid growing up, our horses at home, we did
have 'em in boxes overnight.
In the winter you'd bring them in, 'cause the weather's pretty rough in that part
of England and I, but you'd let 'em out again in the morning right away.
And these were horses that were in either high competition work
or hunting horses or whatever.
So it's not like they were not clipped and not doing, but they were clipped.
But you put rugs on them, you kicked 'em out for the whole day.
You brought 'em back and it's just what you did.
And then I was like, oh, well no, we can't do that here.
Even though there's all these fields, because the German
farmers don't like muddy fields.
They don't like to see the mud.
Like, oh, oh, that's old coming from the uk because we like assume
everything's gonna be a mud bath.
Alright.
Okay.
And then I rose, wow.
My horses are not gonna get out in the winter.
Like, yeah, they have like a place they put 'em where they can
stand around for a couple hours.
It's not the same, right?
And these horses have to now give wellbeing to these autistic kids
who are coming and so on and so on.
And they're just gonna be standing there going stir crazy.
What can I do?
And so I thought, well, crazy, that's the word.
If the horses are going crazy, then they need to express that craziness.
So we came up with this thing called crazy time, where I would take them up
to four of them into the covered arena at one time and just set up obstacle courses
for them of any kind I could think of.
They liked to jump, so that included jumps, but it wasn't just about jumps.
And I'd let 'em go and they'd go bananas in a, in a group and for a while and do
it all and kind of then turn and look at me like, and now, and I go, oh, I see.
They want that interaction.
So then I would change it and then I'd say, off you go.
And they go banana for a bit and then they'd turn around, look at me.
And then that all you got.
And then I, we, so we evolved this pattern and then I was thinking,
yeah, but how do I, they science me quite a lot at this crazy time.
And then after that they got so many endorphins.
They're actually quite happy to stand and chill for a bit.
But then of course the regular work starts.
But this is time consuming.
And I thought anxious again, right Time conflict.
And that's said, well, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Why don't I get my kids to do the crazy time?
Why don't the clients come and do the crazy time with the horses and, oh, this
is good horsemanship and you know, team building, gotta build the thing and so on.
And then, oh, but now I'm under pressure because I'm also supposed
to be teaching these kids stuff like maths and things like anxiety.
I'm like, well, hold on, hold on, hold on.
How long is the wall of the arena?
Let's walk it out.
Oh, it's 60 meters long.
Okay.
And how long does it take that horse or that kid or that dog to
make it from one side to the other?
And can we do distance over time?
And that gets you speed.
And suddenly I realized I'd stumbled into this massive teaching tool
that everyone's needs got met.
And it happened because I had ended up in this really imperfect
situation, got very anxious about it,
the horses kind of showing me what they needed.
What was interesting was
after I then left there and went back to keeping my horses in a more
naturalistic way, which I do now again, I realized that I should have
been doing crazy time the whole time.
That they really, really dug it like I had been of the, of the opinion that, well,
if they turned out, that's kind of enough.
But, but actually horses are so playful and they love this
interaction with their monkeys.
That had I not been in that position of anxiety, I wouldn't have, you know,
stumbled into this thing that, so I, I do feel that anxiety can sometimes
be an aid if it's a temporary state.
And it's also interesting, there's a slight contrast
between what you guys said.
You know, Chrissy, you were saying, well, we're often taught that we gotta be calm
all the time, but actually we gotta let our nervous systems fluctuate because
sometimes we're actually supposed to react, you know, appropriately to things.
Jane Pike's work, I think is really good at showing us that sort of,
for listeners who haven't gone and checked out Jane Pike, go check out
Jane Pike and her nervous system work.
It's top notch.
But then Mark, there you are talking about, yes, but I
need to be cool under fire.
I need to be able to think, I need to be, not lose my ability to assess,
control myself, et cetera, et cetera.
Discern even under anxiety, producing pressure.
Mark Rashid: Well, but those are two different things.
Rupert Isaacson: Let's starts with that paradox a little.
Mark Rashid: Those are two different things.
Anxiety and pressure.
Okay.
Mark Rashid: So pressure will cause us to.
Caused our seek system to kick in.
So while you were, while you were talking, I was thinking, was that anxiety or was
that pressure that he was feeling Anxiety a lot of times doesn't allow us to think.
It, it true.
It puts us in a different state of mind.
Rupert Isaacson: That's the amygdala and cortisol, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: And so, but pressure's a different thing.
Pressure causes the seek system to kick in so that we search for answers.
So we look for a release.
So we, that's a different, it's kind of a different ball game.
Anxiety.
I'm not, but pressure can produce anxiety enough.
Enough, yeah.
Enough of it.
Yeah.
And without us being able to deal with it in some kind of
positive and productive way.
So, for instance, you know, Dr.
Peters talks about, you know, in the fifties they had a an experiment
where they put a dog on a, on a metal floor in a little cage.
And the cage was split in two by a, by a little wall that the,
that the dog could jump over.
And so they electrified the floor.
I guess a little light went on and then they electrified the floor and
then the dog jumped over to the other side where it wasn't electrified,
so it was able to get away from it.
And then they electrified turned the light on, and that side electrified the floor.
The, the dog jumped over to the other side and was safe.
And then eventually what they did was they electrified both sides of the floor.
Okay.
And it, it, it was basically ended up being learned helplessness.
So the dog just sat in the corner and peed on itself and shook.
And, you know, which is one of the reasons they don't do
experiments like that anymore.
But, but that's to, that's pressure to the point where we can't deal with it anymore.
And the vast majority of situations that we are in day to day don't
have that level of pressure.
We, we allow ourselves to feel that much pressure.
But they, and that's kind of what I was talking about before, is, does this situa,
is this, a friend of ours talks about it in terms of, is it, is this a situation
or is this an, is this an emergency?
Crissi McDonald: Yeah.
Is it an event or an emergency?
An event or an emergency event.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: And the problem is, is that we see too many things as, as emergencies
when they're actually just events.
Hmm.
So that's very true.
So that's why while you were talking I was, I was thinking, I wonder if
that was actually anxiety or if it was, or if it was pressure because you
were able to come up with solutions pretty quickly it sounds like.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it is interesting that what you were
talking about with which I said, well, that's stoicism stoic philosophy.
One of the things that actually helped me come up with that and it's, it's,
it's stoic saying, and I, I, I dunno whether it's Epictetus or whether
it's Marcus Aurelius or both or what or what, but it's one of them.
I think and I've often found this one is really helpful when I'm freaking out,
is this doesn't have to be something.
It's only something if I make it something
mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Which I think could be qualified with.
This could appear to be something.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But it may not be something if I take a second look,
it's fair to say I think that many.
Horse owners and people in general have been trained into over amygdala, you
know, anxiety, good work, where, as you say, events are seen as emergencies.
Reading the stoics is helpful, and of course meditation is helpful and so on.
But in people's day-to-day lives and their day-to-day interactions with their horses,
what are some of the things that you found have really helped you guys?
Because there must have been times in your lives when you were a bit
more amygdala than you are now.
And what were the exercises that you set yourself to go through that you found
cumulatively over the years have helped you unlearn that way of looking at things?
Do you want, do you wanna kick off with that, Chrissy?
'cause I know you've, you, you, you've had your relationship with anxiety and so
on, so do you wanna lead with that one?
Crissi McDonald: Sure.
So the practices that I have mostly have nothing to do with horses.
It is,
you know, I read all these articles and it, and it always basically
comes back to good diet, good sleep, good exercise, and good connection.
Hmm.
Crissi McDonald: So shaping my life to prepare for myself in a way
that I can receive those each day.
You know, good connection, good sleep, good nutrition good movement.
And, you know, I really enjoy reading your books because they talk about
things as they used to be, you know, people as they used to be.
You introduce us to people in societies who aren't ours, and it's
a different way of looking at life.
But I feel that it's all fundamental to all of us, you know?
Sure.
Wherever we live, wherever we're born, whatever language we speak, we
need connection, movement, good food, and you know, a way of looking at
the world that is more seeing it as a whole, not just our little slice.
So I'm also interested in stoicism.
I like, I've read Marcus Aurelius and Tic, I can never say his name
Rupert Isaacson: because I think there's no one right way to pronounce it.
That's because none of us really to pronounce that.
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: So, so what that looks like on a day-to-day basis is, you know,
I, I try to get as good sleep as I can.
I tailor my diet to my body's needs, and we move a lot.
And then Mark and I are together a lot.
So that's the connection.
I keep in touch with friends.
This is a good connection we're having today.
So this really is very nourishing.
Mm-hmm.
Crissi McDonald: And then by the time we get to the horses, I'm already
so well resourced that if something goes hap, you know, if something goes
sideways that I feel like I can manage it, there are days when that is not the
case and I still have to go to work.
So on those days, the bar gets really low, you know, can I be of service to people?
I may not be able to really work with my horse in the way I want to, but can
I show up just for this eight hours?
Can I show up for myself and for the people who are here?
So it, yeah.
Most of the practices have nothing to do with horses.
It's, it's like what Mark was saying before is how do we live our lives and
then how do we take that to our horse?
And I'm, you know, I'm saying this in about five minutes, but act in actuality
it's been about 20 years that I have put together this way of going or
this way of being that works for me.
And, and it's not as though it got rid of anxiety.
I just have a less contentious relationship with it now.
Right.
Crissi McDonald: Yeah.
And now, right now what I'm doing is exploring creativity.
So I just ordered watercolors and paints and paper and I've been
drawing and, i've been reading about how creativity can actually
take, take us out of our amygdala.
So, and, and you know, all this too, from your work with the
Rupert Isaacson: kids as Kima said, for happiness, practice the arts.
Crissi McDonald: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Yes.
So that's, I think that's yeah, 20 years distill down into
10 minutes before we, we, we
Rupert Isaacson: go to to, to Mark's thoughts on this though, when you, you,
you run these intensives where people, you know, come to you for 10 days
and so on, and these are horsemanship things as well as life things.
So a lot of these people, of course, are coming with anxiety because they're
coming outta the world that we live in.
So what are your, when, when you meet them, you say, okay, for this eight
hours, here I am, I'm available.
What's your,
do you have some starting rituals?
Crissi McDonald: Well, the first thing we do is we start in the dojo.
So there's movement and breathing.
And the major component of our time with people is verbally and non-verbally
reassuring them that they're safe.
I mean, as safe as you can be with horses, but it's creating an environment where
they are safe to express themselves.
It's the same thing we want for horses.
Hmm.
So there's joking and laughter and.
Reassurance and, you know, letting people know that everything's
okay, that it's gonna be fine.
And then we have a meeting in the afternoon and we've had several
meetings like this recently where we, we'll go around and ask people what
we do like to do while you're here.
Mm-hmm.
And
Crissi McDonald: you can, you can feel the anxiety, you know, my horse doesn't
do this thing and I didn't do this thing.
Or my horse, when he goes to canner, he bucks and I've come
off six times and I broke.
You know, you go around, but genuine
Rupert Isaacson: concerns, right?
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Yeah.
And there's, you know, 12 people there and, and you can just feel the
anxiety churning through the room.
Mm-hmm.
Crissi McDonald: And it's really interesting because then when it's
our turn to talk, you know, either Mark or I'll say, you don't have to
ride today and you don't even have to ride the whole 10 days you're here.
If you feel safe on the ground and you and your horse are doing great, stay on
the ground it and, and the whole, you can feel a whole room go, oh, thank God.
It's really, really interesting how it's the pressure, right?
The pressure that then we take into anxiety.
I have to, I'm here for 10 days.
I made the space, I paid the money, and I need to get stuff done.
And what we come in and say is, is it doesn't have to be that way.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Of course you have that little bit of anxiety in the back of your
mind going, well, gosh, I hope I give these people value for money.
And you know, if they come here, you know, am I going to give them what they need?
And you know, and I certainly go through that Yes.
Clinic.
Yes.
I do
Crissi McDonald: too.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
How do, what, what do you do about that?
So every do my best.
You say to somebody look, you don't have to ride, but you know,
they really, really want to.
And you know that if they go away without having ridden
up, they will be disappointed.
And,
but it might be the right thing for them not to not easy.
Not easy.
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: But there are lots of things we can do that lead up to
riding and it may end with them riding.
Yeah.
Right.
So we're not gonna, we're not gonna say, oh, you have to work.
You know, you have to lead your horse for 10 days.
Right.
Crissi McDonald: Let's lead your horse and see how they do tacking up.
Let's see if, how you feel after you've been breathing for a couple days.
Let's see.
I, I find in our 10 day clinics, it takes about four to five
days for people to unwind.
Yeah.
And then the second week is when a lot of the work that they're
wanting to do comes through.
It's, it's really interesting to watch the dynamic of each group and
to watch that unwinding process.
Rupert Isaacson: I could see how much of what you're doing.
I love the fact that you started in the Dojo.
How much of what you, you guys are doing is done out in nature?
And if so, what sort of nature?
Crissi McDonald: All, all of it.
We're outside majority of the time,
Rupert Isaacson: but there's outside.
There's outside, you know what I mean?
There's ki and you are there in Colorado, so there's a lot of outside yeah.
For you to make, take advantage of.
Like how do you use the nature?
Mark Rashid: We that's an interesting thing because the ranch that we work
off of, or we work out of is 115 acres.
And some of it's developed and some of it isn't.
And so when I say developed, you know, there's, you know, fenced
pastures and things are cross fenced and, and but there's a ton
of trails on the, on the grounds.
And a lot of the folks that come to us are struggling with
fear issues or some kind of.
Anxiety issues or their horses are, Hmm.
Or both?
We, I mean, we've had people whose horses were really struggling and
the people weren't really that much.
They just kind of accepted that this is how my horses and, and, and other
people whose horses were fine and they were struggling and, you know, and
kind of everything in, in between.
And we just, we basically tell folks from the get go two things.
One of the things that we say is that misery is optional.
Okay,
Mark Rashid: that's cool.
So if you wanna be miserable, that's fine, but you don't have to be so that we give
them permission on the very first day.
You know, if you wanna, if you want to take the afternoon
off, take the afternoon off.
If you, if you're, if you need to use the restroom, use the restroom.
If you're hungry, get something to eat.
Take care of yourself.
You wanna sit in the shade, sit in the shade, whatever it does, that part of
it, you know, it's, it's your time.
It's bought and paid for.
You take care of yourself.
So we give them permission right off the bat to, to just be okay being there.
There is, we don't have any there's no structure to what we do in
other, well, there's a structure if you want to call it that, but.
We, we work with each, everybody as an individual.
We don't do anything as a group other than ride together.
And we have a, a huge arena and the arena's, I don't know,
maybe an acre or a half acre.
It's a huge arena.
And so one end of the arena is for people who wanna, you know, do trot and canner.
The other end of the arena is for folks who wanna do just walk and trot,
there's a round pen in the arena.
So ev you know, we, we can keep our eyes on everybody.
And we tell 'em that you can ride out if you want.
There's trails and a lot of the folks will go out and hike the trails first.
Mm.
Mark Rashid: And then eventually they might go out and ride the trails.
Mm-hmm.
Depending on how they feel.
There's a big loop around the, the arena.
It's on a road, but it's, you know, it's kind of in the forest.
And a lot of the ri, a lot of the people that show up who didn't think
that they would be able to ride out of a, an arena, and by the way, the, the
arena doesn't have a fence around it, so they end up going out and riding
that big loop either by themselves or with other, with other folks.
So we, you know, kind of let people get comfortable with the
things that they want to do.
In their own time with our guidance, basically.
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Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
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Quick thought, is being of service to people itself a cure for anxiety?
Crissi McDonald: Oh, yes.
Mark Rashid: I would say so.
Crissi McDonald: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: And therefore, presumably back to your point to one's horse as
well, showing up and okay, maybe I can't do that thing I was planning
to do, but what does my horse need?
And if
Mark Rashid: a big, a big part of what we do is that people will come in
with an agenda and we will help them understand where their horse actually is.
And you know, these are, these are maybe the limitations that
your horse has physically or emotionally or whatever it is.
And then they learn how to deal with those things, either with other professionals
that are on the ranch at the time.
We have a, an amazing holistic vet that is there mm-hmm.
Most of the time when we're there.
And, is able to step in and help people with their horses.
Rupert Isaacson: Is that is just living there or comes in
specifically for your workshops or,
Mark Rashid: I don't know.
She's magical, so I don't, she doesn't live there.
She
Rupert Isaacson: manifests out of the birch trees, you know.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's,
Mark Rashid: she's amazing.
She is truly amazing.
She's just this little, she tries to
Crissi McDonald: schedule her.
Yeah.
She tries to schedule her visits when, when we're there,
what's name, but she lives
what, should we be aware of her?
Crissi McDonald: Yes.
Her name is Dr.
Janet Varus.
How do you spell Far Hus?
Crissi McDonald: V-A-R-H-U-S-V-A-R-H-U-S.
Okay.
Crissi McDonald: Yeah.
I can give you her email if you're interested.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I'd love to.
Sounds like someone I should be interviewing on the on the show here.
Mark Rashid: She's pretty incredible.
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
Mark Rashid: But anyway, she does have a tendency to schedule while
we're there and she rides with us.
She works on our horses and we, and we trade out time.
So she comes to 10 day clinics, you know, having worked on our horses.
We trade out the time.
And but yeah, she's, she's just this little woman that
goes around and fixes things.
So, but anyway, that's part of the thing.
It's, it's, you know, it's not.
I think people come in, like Chrissy said earlier, assuming that
these things are gonna happen and then they're gonna feel better.
And what they actually do is they find out that there are this whole other
set of things that don't have, don't seem to have anything to do with the
things that they wanted to do, but by the time they leave, they're doing
the things they wanted to by having addressed all of these other issues.
Yeah.
So, you know, that's, that's kind of our focus is, okay, what's
the, what's the real issue here?
You know?
And then is there some way we can address that?
Rupert Isaacson: Is everyone coming, coming with a quote
unquote dilemma or problem?
Or are some people just coming for the crack?
Mark Rashid: Well, I go, I come for the crack.
I know that.
No, I would say I would say there's probably a majority of, I would say
if we have 10 riders, I would say maybe eight of the 10 might have
some kind of an issue that they're have, that they're struggling with.
Rupert Isaacson: That has brought them to you, that they've made the
decision to come to you because of this.
Right.
So interesting.
A lot of anxiety to some degree has brought them to you.
Mark Rashid: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
And,
Mark Rashid: and, and a lot of folks come from overseas or they come
from the other end of the country
mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: And they don't bring their horses, so they ride ranch horses.
And so they're trying to figure out maybe regaining confidence or
figuring out how to do transitions cleaner or just improving their
horsemanship, that kind of thing.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
It's, it's, it's interesting I just wrote down as you were saying that, that
we get into horses in the first place
because we feel they'll, they'll make us feel better.
Right.
As, as children we have this, this, this will answer a dream,
a need will make me feel better.
Mark Rashid: Or you don't even, like in my case, I didn't
even know why I liked horses.
Exactly.
I just did.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
But you do, but you think this makes me feel better, the
presence of this Absolutely.
Visually there in the landscape.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Then of course we get into riding and training and
this and that and, and then we, my God, that's sort of anxious.
It's good enough, it's not good enough.
And then, and suddenly this thing that we got into in order to feel
better is making us feel worse.
And then you are there in service to help 'em to feel better again.
In, in, in my position.
I do have that to some degree as well with horse training, so on.
But with the, the work we do with autism and anxiety and trauma, it's definitely
people coming in not feeling good.
And us saying, this horse and this nature will help you feel good.
And then in the background, having to work out yes.
But what aspects of it will, and it's really interesting.
The, the reason I asked about trails in nature was in another, another
thing that I was slightly forced into.
When I began doing the whole horse boy thing, the property I
did it on had no infrastructure.
So there was no arena, there was no nothing.
It was, it was just me with my kid in front of me riding around.
And then later as the program grew and we had to train quite a
few horses to do it, it's okay.
Arenas are useful there,
convenient when you have to do a lot of things with a lot of horses because
that footing will be good even when the footing outside is not good.
Okay.
So we can agree that an arena can be a good thing, but an arena
also, I feel carries a certain innate spirit of pressure with it.
And because you think about what goes on in arenas, it's, it's
focused attention, isn't it?
And you also think the arena, like the Roman Arena, gladiatorial combat people
being put to death, eaten by lions, you know, highly stressful events.
And although I suppose if you're the public eating popcorn
watching it, perhaps not.
And they butchered to make a Roman holiday, you know, that
Lord Byron Bower, the dying Gore.
But I think inevitably, as soon as you enter an arena, you feel this.
So we deliberately built our arena, our covered arena in Texas.
'cause we needed shade, man.
'cause it was, you know what Texas is like?
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So we built a cover, but it was only a cover and it was open
at the side, so you could see into the woods and the kids could like hop off
the horse and go off into the woods.
And then we realized we needed to build trails that were circular loops because
we had kids that were runners and they wouldn't run into a wall of ve vegetation.
They'd sort of would, but they'd look back.
And so you could like position someone there and, oh hey, how's it going?
And the kid would just run back to you.
Then when we came here, the amazing thing about Germany was access.
If you see it, you can ride it and walk it.
No one's gonna come with a gun and run you off.
It's absolutely amazing.
I've never experienced trail riding like this before.
Sometimes the weather can be quite bad in the winter.
So, there I'm in the arena, but now I'm sharing the arena with sometimes
rather grumpy German people who, and then I'm thinking, oh gosh, now how am
I gonna keep this kid emotionally safe?
Well, I gotta get back out on the trail.
And then coming to the realization, oh my gosh, well if autism is,
you know, the difficulty with the relationship with the exterior world
auto, the Greek word for the self autom selfism locked within the self.
What am I doing in this arena?
You know, I need to be out there where planet earth is, where all the things
that this exterior world to the point that now even with the dressage,
our entire thing is done in nature.
It's just like, we call it dressage in nature.
It's like, I'm not saying we'll never go into an arena, but it will
be this much of the time, everything else that we'll do, even if it's
like the Pifi P pii, Tempe Changey stuff, we're gonna do it out there.
And why are we gonna do it out there?
'cause it's gonna chill us out.
And the horses have a tendency to go forward out there anyway.
But they're happy, we're happy, we're engaged.
But without even as naturey as I am, you know, without the kids kind of almost
forcing me into that position, I wouldn't have come to the obvious conclusion.
I.
That, well, maybe it feels better out there.
And then things like dressage, which can sometimes make people feel worse
because of some anxieties that can come along with them, you can allay that by
just going where you feel better and and that, that's even allowed, you know?
So the fact that you're working like that and you, you mentioned, I was intrigued,
mark as you were talking because you gave this mental picture of the geography of
the place really well, of how the arena's laid out, and then this loop around
it, and then these trails off from it.
And then how people might walk the trails first and again, lay anxiety
so there's no nasty surprises.
You know, where you're gonna go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah bum.
But we know that many horse programs are not done like this in, in, in
fact I'd say that because of the convenience of arenas a lot of
ings, I would say leaves one feeling more anxious than one went went in.
And I've certainly had that experience.
Do you teach people, you guys, how to clinic, do you teach people
how to use nature in these ways?
Do you send them home with like a prescription saying, okay, lads, when you
get home, get outta that fucking arena.
You know, do this, do this, do this, do this.
Like.
Have you put weirdly a sort of a structure on that yet?
Because I, I, I think from what you just described,
some of those people coming to your clinics may not have that experience
at home, and they may not take that back necessarily unless someone kind of
grants them permission to in a weird way.
Do you know what I mean?
So, yeah.
Do you make that explicit to them for the homework when they, when they go back?
Perhaps?
Crissi McDonald: We don't have anything specific like that.
I think that's a fabulous idea what we, because of the nature of the property,
you know, it's, it's set within, we have fields and we have forests, and we have,
there's a creek that runs through it.
Mm-hmm.
Crissi McDonald: And it's very long so people can walk from one end to the other.
I, from my point of view, what my hope is, is that by experiencing that and
making that a practice for 10 days, that they will seek that out where they are.
And sometimes we have discussions that, that elaborate on that, you
know, just, they'll say, oh, I have to go back to the real world now.
Right.
Crissi McDonald: Well, this.
Isn't any less real than the one you're in.
It's just there's been a space created for you to explore different things,
and it was your choice to explore different things that doesn't leave
just because you leave the property.
Hmm.
Crissi McDonald: So, we'll, sometimes our discussions get into that realm, but I
really, I really appreciate what you're saying about nature and I, I agree.
We don't spend enough time in it.
I, I, I feel very fortunate because Mark and I get to spend a lot of time outside.
If you're with horses, it's what you do so
Rupert Isaacson: Well, if you are getting out of the arena.
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Yes.
Yes.
I'll let Mark chime in now.
Mark Rashid: Well, like Chris, you said we don't, we don't really do,
we don't really give people homework.
Generally speaking, it's a pretty transformative experience for people.
Hmm.
Mark Rashid: That is not our goal.
Our goal basically is to help where we can and, and hopefully then things are
better when they, when they go away.
So, so for me, the.
That is always my, that's always the thing that's in, in the, in the
front of my mind is how can we help here and what can we do to help you?
And we have assistant instructors and every day we get together with
them at the end of the day and we talk about, okay, who did we get to?
Who did, who did we get to today?
So, you know, we wanna make sure that everybody gets, gets some
time with at least one of us.
But we, we basically just go from one student to the next student.
We just rotate all of us through.
And so folks are getting maybe the same information in a different way.
And so something that I might say might not resonate, but somebody, something
that Chrissy says basically going in the same direction might resonate instead.
And so, you know, and we, we basically, we, we very seldom will
spend more than about 10 or 15 minutes at a time with any one student.
Sometimes it'll be more than that if they really need it.
But before we can then we'll move off of them and go to another student.
And so they make it 15 minutes of instruction.
Then maybe another 20 minutes to work on it by themselves where there's no
pressure from any, nobody's watching 'em.
They can just work on it on their own.
And then just maybe just as they start feeling a little overwhelmed, somebody
shows up, one of the instructors will show up, give 'em another 10 minutes,
and then they get to do, and so that's kind of how it works with us.
It's very low pressure of any kind really, other than the
pressure that folks are feeling.
But even that starts to dissipate within the first few days usually, you know, plus
we spend the first three mornings in the dojo and that just getting people back
in their bodies makes a big difference.
Rupert Isaacson: You said we don't really have a structure, and then you said,
well actually we do have a structure.
And then you've, what you've described actually does sound quite structured,
but what I think perhaps I'm getting from that is what you're saying
is the structure is not presented
in a pressure full way.
Can you talk to me about structure, how you got, because
without structure one is lost.
You know, everything does have structures.
Nature has structures.
How do you, what structures do you have and how do you, have you
evolved them and how have you evolved them not to feel pressure full
Mark Rashid: well, it's interesting 'cause one of the things we tell
folks is that softness without structure is not softness.
Hmm.
I'm not sure what it is, but it's not softness.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: So there has to be, even with softness, there has to be structure.
So, you know, we can just say, you know, how many, how many muscles
are you using to do to pick your, your coffee cup off the table?
You know, if you're using more muscle than it, than you need to use to
pick that cup up, you're not soft.
Right.
But you're, but there's, even if you're, if you're only using the muscles you
need, there's still structure there so that you can pick the coffee cup up.
Mm-hmm.
So that's the first thing is that I, I couldn't agree more
that ev their structure and everything, including softness.
Rupert Isaacson: Ooh.
And so, okay.
The structure of softness.
Mark Rashid: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Talk Yeah,
please.
More.
Mark Rashid: Well,
when we very first started this conversation, one of the things that
you mentioned was, am I soft enough?
Mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: And so people will have a tendency to take that to
the extreme where they're not, for instance, even picking their reins up.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: Because they feel that's being, that they're having, that's, you
know, so they put a big loop in their reins, and that's them having soft hands.
But it's not, it's just they're having a big loop in their reins.
Soft hands is, is the ability to pick up the reins and feel all the way
through the horse, through the reins.
To me, the problem I think that a lot of folks have is that
they either use too much tension pressure, or they don't use enough.
And so instead of, instead of saying to somebody, just turn your reins
loose, and then that's soft, that's.
Well, you might be soft, but there's no structure there, there's no connection.
And then of
Rupert Isaacson: course, if you do move your hand, it's like an amplifying wave.
Yeah.
By the time it does actually hit the horse's mouth, it's
Mark Rashid: a big Oh yeah.
I mean, you've got so much momentum picked up.
Yeah.
You know, you've got three feet of rain there.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: You gotta take up three feet of slack.
You, it's gonna, you're just gonna magnify the issue.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: So, you know, there are times where we'll say,
let's, let's shorten your reins.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: I'm not saying get in your horse's mouth, I'm just saying get closer.
And then, like we talked about earlier, we'll spend time with them
feeling each other through the reigns with my, myself, maybe
on one side, them on the other.
And I can't tell you how many times I've heard somebody say
that was, that was so subtle.
I I never knew that It could be that subtle, you know, when, when we're
talking about a release mm-hmm.
For instance, and a release, a lot of folks have been taught
to just throw the reins away.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And in fact, that's effectively what the word in English means.
Almost a complete letting go.
It's a deceptive word release, really.
Mark Rashid: Right.
But the release can be something as small as feeling Mm.
The tension in a muscle.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: Relaxing a little bit.
Hmm.
Mark Rashid: And, but you can't do that.
You can't feel that if you aren't there.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: You can't feel that ever so slightly, that horse trying to relax
that muscle, just that little bit.
You can't feel it.
So that's when we're talking about softness with structure, it's about
actually stepping in and, and becoming part of the, part of the situation.
And that's why I think one of the, the problems that, I wouldn't say
it's a problem, but it's one of the things I think that folks struggle
with is that they, I think that, you know, you're in a situation and what
you wanna do is you wanna keep the situation at arms length and you're
outside of the situation, you're putting yourself outside of the situation.
But by stepping into the situation now you can become part of it.
And now you have some, you know, you can offer some direction, you can, you
can help when you're in, it's really difficult to do when you're outside.
Not sure if that answered your question or not, but
Rupert Isaacson: it does.
It just raises some more questions, which I'm gonna, yeah.
Chrisy.
Crissi McDonald: So I'll, I'll go to the, I'll start with the.
Mundane, if you will, structure.
So breakfast is at eight, dojo is nine to 12.
I was gonna ask
Rupert Isaacson: because I'm, you know, I need to know what, yeah,
Crissi McDonald: here's, here's, this is like the structure, right, of the
10 day clinic, and then we have lunch from 12 to one, and then we're with
our horses from about one to three 30.
And then we have a meeting at the end of the day and we talk to
everybody about what they learned and what they like to work on the
next day, and we answer questions.
So that's the structure.
And Mark and I are pretty good at keeping that.
The structure of the structure, we don't often run over.
We keep things flowing through the day so people can have the
experience they need to have.
But within that, there are a billion permutations of what can happen.
You know, people could be in the dojo for an hour, but then they need a break.
They could be in the dojo all morning, but then they don't wanna
start riding right at one o'clock.
They wanna let their lunch settle.
So within the structure, you know, like Mark was saying, desire is optional.
What that means is, is yes, we have this schedule, but you are in no
way or shape or form required to do every second of every minute
of every day of that schedule.
You know, the, we have 10 to 12 different people, 10 to 12 different horses.
And so to me it's a lot like art.
You know, you.
Paint a picture and you have the structure of the, the frame, right?
Or photography.
But you can put anything you want on that canvas.
You can throw paint at it, you can paint something like Monet.
So I think structure in some sense allows us to be unstructured.
It's, I think Picasso said learn the rules like an, like a pro.
So you can break them like an artist.
Mm.
I think that's the quote.
I really like that.
Mm, I do too.
We
Crissi McDonald: learn the rules first so we can break them.
That's the, ah, that I don't know.
That's the joy in life really.
Rupert Isaacson: W when we we're training people to do the work with
autism, say what, you know, what we're saying often is, look, some this
kid frequent is coming in without an understanding of top-down instruction
without, and feeling somewhat lost in the world, including in their own body.
So if we impose structures on them that make no sense, all that's going
to do is cause amygdala, explosions and not gonna get us anything.
Right.
With someone who's already amygdala's, already really active.
And then in the early years with what we were doing, people often criticized us
saying, well, you guys have no structure.
And I was like, no, we do, we have a lot of structure, but it's invisible.
Meaning that
my structure shouldn't be the kid's problem.
Like you are coming to have a therapy session.
Now, that's not a nice message for a kid because that's saying
to the kid, you need therapy.
There's something wrong with you.
I've never yet met a kid that said, I want therapy.
You know, I've met kids that say they'd like to play.
So we call them play dates.
Mm-hmm.
So there's a, a structure right there, which is to choose a different
language that sounds less shaming, I don't know, or less shit, you know.
And then within that structure we have these guidelines and the
first one is follow the child.
And there's kind of three main ways of doing this, but
without that, you have nothing.
But that is a guideline that is a structure that is a compass.
So, but of course, you know, following the child might mean, say the kid gets
up on the horse 10 seconds and wants down again, or takes three months to
get on a horse or never gets on a horse.
Doesn't matter.
What we're after is neuroplasticity.
We can do more than horses, but if we use the horse, it's good
to use it in a certain way.
That seems to optimize it.
So here's the structure.
So I'm often trying to get the message across that a
structure should be invisible.
Like for example, let's look at Mark.
Mark has a structure.
He's got a skeleton and he's also got these muscles and he's got
these arteries and veins and nervous system and a lymphatic system.
And things are moving around in very kind of an ordered way.
But you're not really aware of that.
You're aware of Mark and, and you have a sort of an emotional aesthetic
reaction to the entity of Mark.
But if you look at him again, you notice, oh, he's got, look, he's got cheekbones.
'cause I can see a little shadow under there and I can see that, you
know, his, he's got these two eyes with a brow here and I become a
bit more aware of his structure but
only in sofar as it allows me to interact with this thing called
Mark who can walk around and show me what to do with a horse.
'cause if he didn't have this structure, he'd be sort of weird.
Blobby Mark, who was sort of organs displaced here and there.
Boneless chicken.
Mark Rashid: Boneless chicken mark.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed, indeed.
Which, you know, maybe after a long hot bath, I don't know,
bottle of whiskey, but yeah.
But the, then they also say, well they need boundaries.
And I say, yeah, but people so often forget that or, or seem to assume
that a boundary means a barrier.
Mm-hmm.
And
Rupert Isaacson: the problem with barriers I've always found
is that they, they don't work.
I mean, you shut the door.
I can kick it down.
You get behind a wall, I can blow it up.
You build a fence, I can jump it or, that's quite fun actually.
Or, and I can certainly.
Break it a window.
Mm.
Break that and probably hurt myself at the same time.
So barriers almost invite the challenge of, I wanna bust that because we have
this innate desire for freedom, but I feel like a, a boundary is like, say an
epidermis, like this thing I've got, if as I drink more beer, it expands with me.
When I go on the dry for a little bit, it sort of contracts with me a bit.
If I cut it, it heals itself.
If I go out on a hot day, it will let enough moisture through to cool me,
but if I go out on a cold day, it will close off enough to keep my heating.
But it's very porous and cell membrane, you know, and elastic to cope with things.
And
of course, in the horse world as well as in the therapy world, we're often told no,
there are these very, very rigid rules.
And even within dressage, you know, the, the first, they've got the training
scale, six point training scale.
The first one is rhythm.
Everyone agrees on that, blah, blah.
And then everyone forgets the second one.
The second one is relaxation.
It's like, where did that go?
You know?
Yes.
Where did that go?
Yeah, well, I can find it more easily in the forest than I can in the arena.
So maybe,
maybe
Rupert Isaacson: it's there, but it's certainly not there
without someone yelling at me.
So it's, it's, it's intriguing to me that you seem to have come to a
somewhat similar conclusion where you, you, you give a framework,
but within that framework you are endlessly flexible and at the same
time you want to be of service.
So if somebody does come in saying, I'm really having problems with my cancer
transition or something like that, you, you do feel that sense of okay, well I
want to honor that need and desire and I would like for you to leave after 10 days
feeling that you have the tool for that.
Dance me through.
I think, 'cause I think a lot of people when they're trainers beginning in
this, what field as well as therapists, they fe put a lot of pressure on
themselves to give that value.
And again, that comes from a good place that comes from an honorable place.
But of course it puts on more anxiety and more stress.
And so when you are giving people stuff to work on and then going away, of course
as we know, sometimes they can work on it in a way that can compound the problem.
And then you maybe come back to them 20 minutes later.
You could find them in a state of disorder or you could find them in a
state of, oh yes, I've achieved it.
You made it sound very easy.
It's not easy.
We know it's not easy.
So how do you, how do you do that?
How do you, how do you show somebody something per perhaps, quite
complex, leave them alone for a bit and come back and have faith that
Yeah, they've probably, they're probably on a positive trajectory.
It's quite intriguing.
Please talk us through it, how you do that.
Mark Rashid: For myself, I don't let people get off the track.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Mark Rashid: So if I, for instance, if I'm, I work with somebody for 10, 15
minutes during that time, I may explain something and I will ask them if they
understand what I, what I explained.
They may say that they understand they wanna please you, and the
their face says, I don't get it.
Yeah.
And I will oftentimes, I'll say that,
okay,
Mark Rashid: you know, in a, kind of, in a, in a joking way, I'll say, well, I, I
heard you say yes, but your face says no.
So which one of these is, well, I don't really get that one part.
Okay, all right, well, let's go over it.
Right.
And, and we explain to people that it's important that if you're
not getting something, make sure to let one of us know, because.
It doesn't help for you to be a little bit lost, then get off track
and then, you know, and then we spend three days trying to get you back.
But in general, what I will do is I will usually we're either horseback
or on foot, depending on the day.
And so what we might work with somebody, they say, they get it, looks
like they get it, they'll go off.
And while I'm working with the next person, I will be
keeping an eye on that person.
Okay.
Mark Rashid: And if it looks like we're getting off track, I will excuse
myself from this person and go back.
Or if there's somebody closer that isn't doing something, I might, you
know, say their name, one of the instructors, and then I will say the name
of the person and that's all I'll say.
And then that person will go directly to that, that rider.
So, we have ways that we kind of work around those things so that, so that
people never really get off track too far.
We try not to let that happen too much if we can help it.
Yeah.
No, that's fair.
Chrissy.
Crissi McDonald: For me it comes down to the
innate belief that we are all capable.
Hmm.
Crissi McDonald: And we can all learn.
Hmm.
I, I, I just, I have such faith, especially people
who show up to our clinics.
They, for the most part, are so open.
They come, they wanna learn something.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe they have an issue, maybe they don't, but that desire to improve
themselves so that they can have a better relationship with their horse, Rupert.
That, that's what keeps me going.
Mm-hmm.
That
Crissi McDonald: is people showing up saying, you know, I'm doing this
thing and I know I'm doing this thing and, but I don't know how to not do
this thing and I'm hoping for some ideas, or I'm hoping for some help.
And so, you know, when you, you work a lot, it sounds, I you probably work
with adults too, but you also work.
I do.
You probably work with more kids?
Way more kids.
I, I'd say
Rupert Isaacson: honestly, it's, it's half and half because we
have this other program called ta, which is all adults, so, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Yeah.
Adult learning is very different.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: We have so much more internal baggage, you know, like
anxiety and what comparing ourselves and
Rupert Isaacson: why is a thumb not coming on my screen.
As you said, we all have baggage.
It's just, yeah.
It's, we have all these speed bumps in
Crissi McDonald: ourselves, right?
We're like, oh, I've been riding for 20 years, but I can't do X or whatever it is.
It's, it's a lot of what Mark and I do is just tell people, you know, you're okay.
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Your horse is fine.
Here's some things that we can tweak.
Yeah.
You
Crissi McDonald: know, maybe get your horse some body work.
Maybe you get some body work.
You know, when it, when it comes right down to it, we create an atmosphere
of it, it's going to be fine.
It's, we'll, we'll figure it out.
Whatever it is, we're here to help.
And I, I have a lot of faith in that.
Does that mean that sometimes after I'm teaching I go, I don't think I made a
damn bit of difference that I, I will, I will have days when I give my best
and it doesn't feel like it's enough.
Hmm.
And those are the days when I really have to practice.
If they didn't get it from me, they will have gotten it from one
another instructor or mark that it is not solely my job to give them
the perfect piece of information.
It's my job to show up.
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.
That does help, I guess that.
Brings us to the question of tribe.
You know, one of the things when I'm, when I'm teaching the horse
training stuff, the dressy stuff, is I point out to people that that
whole system was evolved by tribes.
Tribes on the step.
And it was families, you know, grand and granddad are directing it.
Mom and dad are sort of doing it and the kids are helping.
And it's a cyclical thing, gen intergenerational.
Mm-hmm.
And if one goes to, so we now have this, this, this program called riots
and, and, and creating a riots club.
Our IATS riding is a team slash tribal sport.
And that all of the fancy stuff, if you go to any of the sort of famous
dressage schools in the world, what you'll see is a bunch of blokes
now also women working together.
It's usually two to three per horse at a time with the young horses.
Because one person can take the front part, one person can take the back
part, one person can take the middle, and it helps the horse to understand
more fluidly and quick, quicker.
But that's just simply the old way off, the step now being done in fancy clothes.
And when I realized that I say, oh my gosh, of course.
So if you, if someone comes to my say, well, I can't say who
trained any one of our horses.
I, I, I know that we did, but there is a conception as you know, I.
Within the horse world that it, the responsibility is
on you as the horse trainer.
It's a lot of pressure to somehow train your horse when in the ancient
world, no, no, no one did it like that.
It just didn't happen that way.
And that the more effective you get at it where you're like,
well, I guess I could do that.
Yeah.
If I had to.
You realize that's a last resort, not a first resort.
But it's very difficult because people are in isolation and even if they're
in a, a, a boarding barn, they might be in isolation, one can be in isolation
and still be surrounded by people.
It seems that what you are doing is actually giving people that tribal context
and where we began, I'm not saying it's the only thing you're doing, but one
of the great things you're doing is that where we began this conversation
with softness, it's easier to feel soft when you're getting oxytocin and
support from a good group of community.
You, you mentioned community, you know, and connection again, is this
explicit in, in the teachings when pe I know you say don't wanna give people
homework, but they are gonna go away, you know, back to that real world.
And often that real world is somewhat isolated.
Right.
And what they found with you is that connection.
I.
Do you talk about that and, and, and how to find that?
Mark do you wanna wanna kick off with that?
Because a lot of people do feel they're on their own and
that sort of are on their own.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: Well,
yeah.
I mean, the, a lot of the folks that come to us
do feel that way.
And, you know, when they come, they come in and everybody's perfect strangers.
Well, nobody's perfect, but they're, you know, they're, nobody knows
the, any, anybody else when they come in and, you know, and I'm, I'm
sure that you experience this too, but by the time they leave, you
know, they've got lifelong friends.
Yeah.
And they stay connected that way.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, they'll be, at lunchtime, we all have lunch together
and, you know, they'll be, they'll be putting, you know, their emails in
a group thing, you know, and Right.
So the tribe
Rupert Isaacson: finds itself basically.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: Yeah.
That is, that is not something that we even think about doing when they come
in and it's just organically happens.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: And I think it helps that, you know, it's, we're talking about
like-minded people that are coming in.
These are folks that maybe, like you say, felt isolated and then.
You know, it reminds me a lot of the, the summit that we were all at Yeah.
With Warwick Summit where we, we all came in as individuals and we left as friends.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, and we've stayed in contact and, and that kind of thing.
And, and, you know, I, I know for myself, I kind of felt isolated in what I was
doing and how we, how I was doing it, and have felt that way for a long time.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: But after that, it felt like, you know, I, I don't
feel that way so much anymore.
Hmm.
And so on a, you know, it happens even at that level, you know, the
kind of, the level that we are at, if you want to call it that.
And, but it's that, it's that connection.
It's that want or, or need to be around like-minded people.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: Even though they may be, somebody might be isolated, may be
living, we had a gal at one of the clinics that was living on a little
piece of property on the Mexico border by herself, nobody around for miles.
And she came in and, and she felt so much better because there
were people she could talk to.
Yeah.
You know, so I.
It's, I think it's a byproduct of, you know, I know for us, you
know, we're just trying to offer some kindness to people and Mm.
And hope that you know that it makes a difference.
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting that you say that, and you say that
with a shrug of your shoulders as if, well, you know, that's all we do.
It should be sort of obvious, but that is not the norm.
Horse training, the, the world of it, it, it, kindness is not an explicit
ethic on the training scale.
People would say, it might say, oh, well, that, that should be implicit, but
of course it's not because we inherit the whole thing from the military model
where of course he screamed at people and made them fall off because that's how
you prepare them for stress in battle.
So your sergeant gets in your face and screams at you.
If you're an infant in infantry and your sergeant yells at you and makes you fall
off if you're in the cavalry because they're trying to train you for that.
We've inherited it and e and it's, it's subtly there through so much of
the, and not just through the horse world, through the therapy world too,
I feel, because it's, because the hierarchies of hospitals, medicine,
psychiatry there's a power structure.
And
so the fact that you say
we are just off trying to offer some kindness that's
actually quite revolutionary.
Sort of a bit of an act of rebellion, really
seriously.
Mark Rashid: Well, it's, it's what I grew up with.
You know, I, since I was a kid working with horses, that's what I grew up with.
I grew up with somebody offering kindness, not just to the horses, but
to the people and, you know, so that is what I've endeavored to, to do Yeah.
In, in my career.
And, um Hmm.
You know, and it, I've found that it works.
So,
Chrisy, did you have anything?
Yeah,
Crissi McDonald: I love this.
Talk about tribe and community because it's not in my consciousness
what little I know about it.
I've probably read in your books, Rupert, but I like the idea.
I.
That because I know as people, we are community connection.
Tribal
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Beings, no matter how we insist.
Yeah.
Even if we live in a high rise in New York, we're, we
can't escape our evolution.
Yeah.
And, and how we're put together.
And I'm really enjoying this discussion about how, you know, we
create community or we create this tribe even if it's only for 10 days.
Well, sometimes those connections last for years between people and, you know,
mark and I have nothing to do with that.
That's the, the people coming together and finding each other.
And that is another favorite part of my job is watching friendships form from
people who never would've met otherwise.
You know, you have someone from California and someone from
Vermont, and now they're friends.
I mean, we need that.
We need that in the world.
And so to me, yes, it's a horse clinic and it's also more than that.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
It's interesting you were talking earlier about showing up and saying, well,
what, what does my horse need today?
You know, can I do that?
And now we're at what does the human need today?
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And maybe
for the people who are not currently at a Mark and Chrissy clinic or sitting
around the transfers in the Kalahari.
Perhaps the question then is,
how can the horse and this equestrian life serve you?
You know, this thing of what do you need today?
So, for example, I often think I need, well, I used to often think that I
needed to go and work on something with my horse, but I always knew in
the back of my mind that if I went out for a trail ride and popped a fence
or two, I would feel really good.
And if I did this difficult technical thing, I might or might not.
And I made a separation in my mind between those two things.
And then I realized that's stupid.
Why can't I do the technical thing on the trail?
And why can't I bring a sense of the trail into the arena?
So, and again, it was autism that helped me with this.
We were working in Ireland in with this amazing man called David
Doyle, who I hope you meet one day, who is also an autism dad, who's,
I, I feel he's the modern incarnation of the Wizard.
Merlin basically does amazing things.
Mm-hmm.
And he started this place called Li Skin at Farm based first around his daughter.
And it's grown into a huge, wonderful thing.
And, we, the arena got built and we began to fantasize about how we
could make the arena over to bring nature inside on days where the
weather was just really, really rough.
And okay, we're gonna work inside.
So we came up with the idea of buying trees and having forest that you
could set up in the arena, you could bring it in on hand carts and the
kids could even, or the adults could create the forest as they wished.
And then you could ride in this forest and if it was Christmas, you could
Christmas trees, you know, whatever.
And then you could dismantle it just like you would your jumps,
you know, and take 'em outside.
And there they are.
They sit along the side of the arena, so they look quite nice along the wall.
And we thought, oh, this is a no brainer.
And then we went from there to, oh, but what if the arena was a beach, you
know, and setting up couches and throw, throw down a rug and having a little
cast iron thing we could put a fire in and did it, you know, while horsey
stuff or therapy stuff is going on around and, oh, this is a no brainer.
And then we went out to teach it and it was amazing the
resistance we got with that one.
It was really interesting.
It's like, wow, here is like, it is guaranteed happiness.
It's gonna make you feel good.
It's just gonna make you feel good to get some trees and put them in the arena.
Just try it.
It's, it makes you happy.
It's hard not to or to put a couch in there and lounge around on it, you
know, while someone else is lunging up there or helping a kid down there.
Just try it.
So it was very interesting and what I realized was that we do actually
stand in the way of our own happiness.
A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.
And when you, so you create tribe, you do this tribe in nature.
There you are, as you say, explicitly in your own mind offering kindness.
When you find people arguing against their own happiness, which I'm sure
they do, despite the framework that they've come into, how can they not?
Because it's, it's a, how do you help people to not talk
against their own happiness?
Mark Rashid: Misery is optional.
Rupert Isaacson: Misery is optional.
But you, what if someone's taking that option?
Mark Rashid: Misery is optional.
That's the thing is that we're, we're here to help.
And some people.
Aren't in a place where they can accept it.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: So we might let them
do what they need to do.
It's 10 days, so we aren't in any rush.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
You have time for an evolution, I guess.
Yeah.
Mark Rashid: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Mark Rashid: And if we don't push on it a lot more times than not, I don't,
I can't really think of anybody.
Chrissy might be able to think of somebody where they, where they
went away, not in a better place.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Rashid: I can't think of anybody.
I'm sure there is, but I can't think of anybody right off hand.
Most of the people we see are return people, you know, either coming back
to improve what they've already done or they're bringing another horse that
they're struggling with or whatever.
So in situations, oftentimes we just, and we kind of make light of it, you know?
We might even say that to somebody if they're, if they're really struggling
and they're kind of bumping up against their, their themselves, you know, we
might even just, you know, like in a meeting or something, somebody might
just say, well, mis misery's optional, you know, it's whatever, you know.
We, and by making light of it, a lot of times people come to their
own decision that I'm, you know, maybe I'm being a little, maybe
I'm getting in my own way here.
And then they're able to kind of open up and feel a little better.
And we've, that doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's, it's
usually seems to just smooth itself out.
I don't know.
Chrissy, do you have anything to that you would say about that?
Crissi McDonald: I think that, I think the same thing that most of the
people who come to us leave in a, in a lighter place than when they arrived.
You know, and we do watch a fair amount of people beat themselves
up or be hard on themselves.
This is so interesting that you mentioned the military background and
that, you know, we have to be mean and bullying in order to prepare for war.
And we've taken part of that and injected it into training people
who will probably never go to war.
Horses who will never go to war.
But that war still comes with some people.
They, they come at war with themselves.
And so it's hard, it's hard not to be at war with their horse.
I think a lot of what we do because we're not therapists and we don't have
a therapy arm we're all horse trainers.
Yeah.
So we have a, a line that we don't cross because we're not qualified.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
Crissi McDonald: So we can, I'm not a
Rupert Isaacson: therapist by the way, but it doesn't mean that, it doesn't
mean that what you do is not therapeutic.
Crissi McDonald: Correct.
So, I, like Mark was saying, I think kindness goes a long way.
Yeah.
I think, you know, not laughing at them, but maybe laughing with them
is helpful and it's, it really is.
Mark and I are always saying, you know, it's gonna be okay.
Yeah.
We'll, we'll figure this out.
It's going to be okay.
And so having someone in this case with the 10 day clinic, maybe
four or five, someone saying, you know, we'll, we'll figure it out.
That alone, I think takes away some of that dynamic.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
That sort of feeling of, look, I, I absolutely believe in you and I.
Mark Rashid: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
Mark Rashid: yeah.
And just, just by saying we, it's an inclusive thing, you know?
Mm-hmm.
It's, you're not in this by yourself here.
You know, we're, we're all in it together.
So
Rupert Isaacson: one of the things which I found was massively useful
for me so that's now what I.
Do is I create school master horses that people can sit on.
So if you wanna understand these fancy, dressy things, here's a horse.
He's gonna do it for you, happily give you the feel.
So you can't now tell me that you can't do that thing you because you just did it.
Look, there, there it is now.
Okay.
And they'll say, you know, but you created it.
It's not, it's cheating.
It's like, well, no, it's not cheating.
It's like, it's a, you're allowed to have a learning curve, you know,
you're allowed to start somewhere.
And I didn't come out of my mother's womb knowing this stuff.
I, you know, and it was sitting on horses that knew it, that I realized,
you know, and then working on the ground with horses that knew it.
And then little by little, and of course all the old masters say, you
know, whether it's, or Stein or any of these people said, take your beginner
student and put them on your best horse on the first day in PFA so that they
can feel it, and then gradually bring them up to the level of that horse.
And that it's quite rational.
Do you have horses that people can sit on and feel out?
Like, do you have some, some absolute reliables, like, I've got a couple
of horses that were like old married couples, you know, and it's like,
okay, you know, please work with this.
You know, he, he, he, he's gonna show you, don't, don't listen to me.
Just let zag show you, you know.
Or does it work in a different dynamic where you show people how to
bring that side of their horse out?
Or both Just intrigued.
'cause everyone has their own ways of doing things.
Each tribe has its own culture, I guess.
Hmm.
Mark Rashid: Chrissy, you wanna go?
Crissi McDonald: I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go, but I can go.
Some of the horses at the ranch that we have are really good at
being clinic horses for people, and they will figure out who that
person is and respond accordingly.
So they're not Yeah, they're not horses that you, you put someone
on and, and they just mindlessly go through the motions, right?
Yeah.
They will adapt to who, whoever they're working with.
Some of those horses are braier than others.
Some are softer than others.
Mm-hmm.
And so depending on the student and what they're wanting to learn, we can say,
okay, this, this is how it feels if a horse is soft and that that's, yeah.
Not just through the reins, but also how does it feel when you're.
Around the horse or sitting on the horse?
How do they, what, what resonance are, you know, what, what are
you getting inside your own body?
Hmm.
Sometimes we'll let them ride our horses.
That, that's a rare occurrence.
Mm-hmm.
Especially now because we're bringing horses along to get to that point.
Mm-hmm.
Crissi McDonald: But yes, we do have some horses where we can say, all right,
here's, here's a horse who's bracey, maybe similar to your horse, and we can
show you how to help soften that brace or, you know, kind on this horse and
then you can take it back to your horse.
So, yeah.
We have something, we have something similar.
Mark Rashid: Yeah.
They,
what I say is that they just won't, they won't give it away.
Yeah.
So there's some horses there.
Like Christie said, that when you get on 'em, you know, horses are really
good at teaching people how to ride the way that the horses always been ridden.
And so they will, you'll get on a specific horse that has been ridden with some heavy
hands, and that'll be the first thing that they offer when the rider gets on.
Mm-hmm.
Now, but they also know the other thing.
They also know how to soften and.
Carry themselves nicely.
And, but a, a lot of those horses on the ranch are horses that have been rehabbed.
Okay.
Mark Rashid: And so, our
our basic, basically our, our head assistant instructor is our
senior assistant instructor is the trainer there at the ranch.
So she's, she spends a lot of time working with these horses.
So anyway, they will, somebody might get on and if the horse offers a brace, now
the person's, you know, backing the brace up, you know, so now the two of them.
And so that's when we can step in and go, okay, so somebody has to be the
adult here and that's gonna be you.
So here's how we're gonna do this.
And that's when we talk about, you know, one of us getting on one end of the reins
and the rider being on the other, showing them what the feel to get there, what
it feels like, and then put the two of them together so that they can come to
an understanding between the two of them.
And then there's other horses that you could put anybody on and
they will be soft and com, you know, and fine to be able to go.
And so usually with folks who are struggling with anxiety.
Kind of things.
You know, those are the horses that they might get right off the bat.
People who are are more interested in developing more skill, we might give them
a different horse to work towards the end goal, whatever it is that they want.
Rupert Isaacson: Again, it sounds to me what you're describing as tribe,
horse Tribe, it's a horse tribe.
Mark Rashid: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: That will welcome you in and will that the horse
tribe is not just the people.
Right.
It's the equines within that tribe who will help you.
And it's so interesting to me how generous horses are that way.
Mm-hmm.
And as you say, with rehabbing, you know, in the therapy horse
world, as you know, people donate horses for a reason frequently.
'cause they've messed them up physically.
Well, you know, and
Mark Rashid: they do, they do a lot of therapy work there.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
They,
Mark Rashid: yeah.
In fact, the owners came to see you in Texas, the owners of the ranch.
Where did they
Mark Rashid: Yeah.
How long ago?
Oh, it's a while.
It's been a while.
Yeah, it's been a while.
I think it was right
Crissi McDonald: after Horse Boy came out.
Mark Rashid: Okay.
Okay.
But they, yeah, they came down specifically because they
were getting into therapy work with the, with the horses, so,
Rupert Isaacson: got it.
Mark Rashid: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's a thing.
I mean, when your average therapy horse, you donation horse mm-hmm.
You have to rehab them.
And then after a while we realized that the rehabbing of
the horse was its own therapy.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And and then we got caught in what we thought it
was a, you know, a time conflict of, oh my gosh, well how are we gonna
find the time to rehab these horses because we, God serve these kids.
And they're like, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
The clients can absolutely do the rehabbing.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: In hand work lunging, long reigning, yes, yes, yes.
Rebuilding.
Why can't, of course they can do this.
And then we started, and not only could they do it, they did it incredibly well.
The horses loved them because they were coming with so much less ego.
And then suddenly that became, oh, we were people with trauma or, and
then we started working with the German Army and the US Air Force
and just sort of found it something.
But it's also, it all arose actually out of a time conflict of going,
how are we gonna rehab these horses?
You know, there's only three or four of us thinking about this.
Wrong.
But again, tribe,
this might be, I know I would like to continue the conversation.
Right.
And it seems to me that where we started with softness and you, I think
you guys have given some really good.
Insights into how to find softness internally.
And I think, I think it really comes down to kindness.
I think you guys have actually made explicit that you, you do have a
structure of kindness because it's kind to bring people into the doja
and let them get together and start with that kind of getting comfortable
in their bodies and in their minds.
And it's kind to do it over 10 days so that people can have an evolution
and it's kind to set them up so that they can sometimes work alone
and sometimes have that support.
And it's kind to set up a community, a tribe of these other instructors
and so on and so forth, where actually everyone does get the support they need.
'cause there's only one mark and only one Chrissy and 10 people.
And so, yes, of course you need more people and blah, blah.
And you provide all the structure and support that is kindness.
And because people are coming in with anxiety and often
unkindness to themselves, that's a learned thing in our society.
And because tribe has come up in this conversation, what I'd like
to address with your permission in the next one is loneliness.
Hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, I think it's pretty clear that
there's an epidemic of that.
Those of us who are in the horse world, I think have a, an unusual
solution for that
because horses are things that do bring people to together.
Yes.
Hopefully for better, sometimes not.
And how to begin to address that.
And I think that putting this in the mind, I think making that conversation
front and center again, this, this podcast is equine assisted world.
We are being assisted by our equines.
You don't have to be an autistic child or a
returning veteran with PTSD to be suffering.
And so you, you, you seem to have actually talked about giving people a way out of
loneliness, perhaps without knowing it.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: As you said, it's a byproduct,
but maybe it's time for it to be the product.
Hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Because I think the need is is is there.
'cause you know, the horses, they don't care that much at the end of the day.
You know?
I mean, if their can transition is clunky, I mean Yeah, it's nicer.
It feels nicer for the horse, I suppose.
Yeah.
But that's more of a monkey thing, isn't it?
You know, really, at the end of the day than a you, but we're monkey so Yeah.
We want a nicer Yeah.
But it was never the horse's idea to put a monkey on.
Its back in the first place.
Right?
That's right.
And then we put then we put our own monkeys on our own back.
So, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm kidding.
And the horse was like, man, it's a lot of monkeys.
Yeah.
We're like monkey, monkey, monkey.
Yeah.
Horses are saying, oh my
Rupert Isaacson: God, I got some, I got some letters of
apology to write to some horses.
All those monkeys I brought.
Yeah.
Ruper.
I wanted to
Crissi McDonald: remark before I forget I wanted to remark on, you said that
when you would go to barns and you would say, take a tree and put it in the arena.
You know, make this a place where you can explore different things and
different textures and sight and, and how much resistance there was to that.
It is so indicative to me that we've lost the spirit of play and curiosity.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
And the resistance to happiness at all.
Yeah.
'cause it's unfamiliar, it's become Yeah.
Unfamiliar.
And we, well, it's like
Crissi McDonald: the curiosity goes, goes out the window and curiosity and play.
And that, that's also endemic to us.
You know, we're talking about loneliness and these, and how we block ourselves from
happiness, but we have things that, that.
Our factory installed, you know, we come into the world with curiosity in play.
And to hear that that is actively pushed against is really, you know, what a,
what a remark on how we are not only as a assess as a society, but as horse people.
You know, it's gotta be serious and we've gotta learn the right way.
Like you said it, this canter to bar, it has to be within 0.5
strides and the horse is going,
you know, so it, it's very interesting to me that you, that you mention
that story that it's so clear
Mark Rashid: about Well, we get, we get good, we get good at what we practice.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Crissi McDonald: yeah.
We're gonna be serious with horses, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, and I've been so, I've been so guilty of that, you know?
Crissi McDonald: Oh, I have too.
Absolutely.
I, I'm,
Rupert Isaacson: and not just with what, I mean, everything in my
life, you know, I've done that.
Crissi McDonald: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Of course.
We've all done that thing.
When you do it to your horses after a certain time, you ha, you kind of
have to notice that they're not happy and you're pissing them off, you know?
And when you've got that, when you've noticed that you
can't unnoticed it, you know?
Um mm-hmm.
I think, I think for a, well one can actually be happily blind.
I think I was for a long time.
And then I went through a period of.
Really not wanting to admit that I ever did anything wrong, you know?
And then finally going, oh man, I think I'm, I think I'm pissing this.
Oh fuck
Crissi McDonald: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
Alright, what do I do?
Crissi McDonald: Yes, I did that too.
I went from joyful and curious and loving horses into, it's very serious and they've
gotta carry their head a certain way.
And you use this equipment and you do this to make them go.
It got very serious for a while.
And then I started looking at the horses and my heart was breaking.
'cause this was, this is not the vision I imagined in my head.
You know, ha ringing and ears back and everything tight.
And then you go the other way and you're like, okay, I'm not, we
were talking about this earlier.
I'm not gonna do anything.
Yeah.
Crissi McDonald: Well that, that's an option.
I don't know that that it, but it's an extreme.
Rupert Isaacson: It's an extreme.
Crissi McDonald: It's an extreme.
Right.
And how often do we find happiness or joy at extremes?
Rupert Isaacson: I think too, we might
Crissi McDonald: find control.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, there can be, there can be a misdiagnosis of effort as stress.
So now one thinks of, well, any effort is stress.
And that's, well, yeah.
Yeah, I suppose.
But I mean, if I walked to the top of the mountain, 'cause I chose to
walk to the top of the mountain, there's some stress I go through
to get to the top of the mountain.
But there's, I guess, agency in that and it also there
endorphins and it feels good.
So, you know.
When one then gets into the conversation, you know, I've, I'm often in this
conversation, for example, about side res, I use them because I need to build muscle.
I use 'em for about 15 minutes to build muscle.
So when I, when I go and lift some weights or something, or do some,
not as often as I should, but yeah, I, I, I accept that there'll be
some effort there for a short time.
And then not, or I could sort of do that until I drop or keep that thing on that
horse for an hour and a half, you know?
No, okay.
There's a reasonable thing as, as one, my, my biggest teacher is Luis Za.
He always pointed out, I said, Rupert, no one ever invented a
so-called gadget to mess a horse up.
People actually only invented those things to help matters out.
However, one can use anything in an abusive way.
I could take this t-shirt off and strangle myself with it.
You know, I could drive my car into a crowd of people, or I could yes,
drive somebody to the hospital.
You know, that how you use the, the bit can be objective torture, or it
can be something that actually releases the jaw if someone shows you how to.
That's great.
Right.
So all of these, so, you know, increasingly, however,
polarization and extremism.
Is something we see everywhere.
It's not just in the horse world.
And I think we certainly can see it happening in the world.
And what does that do, but breed isolation and loneliness.
You know, I'm now in the against side res group.
I'm in the pro side res group.
I'm in the, you know, I'm the blue, I'm the red, I'm the this, I'm the, that.
I'm a, you guys suck.
And, and
you know, and you've got a bunch of horses going, whoa.
Look at the monkeys.
Just like ch
they us in
the field.
Yeah.
Ove.
Yeah.
We would, we would love to chat with you again.
'cause I feel like there now there's a whole different
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Well I do think topic to discuss loneliness though.
And, and because there's, as you say mark misery is optional, but you don't
always know that you're taking that option because that you, you may be so
conditioned into that option that you don't know that there's another option.
Or you might not even recognize misery as misery.
Again,
Mark Rashid: it, it becomes the way you go.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Mark Rashid: Yeah.
So, you know, it goes back to you get good at what you practice.
Rupert Isaacson: As Jane Pike would say, you know, like you, you pick up the
nervous system of your parents, and if your, if your parents walk around like
that looking a bit defeated, you will.
If your parents walk around like that, you will.
Mm-hmm.
You know, because you, you're just gonna observe.
Your nervous system will follow what it sees.
However, it's malleable and one can recreate it.
And I would say that that's the business that you all are in and you
happen to use ponies for that as well as aikido and art and music and tribe.
Mm-hmm.
So indeed, can we come back and talk about loneliness and kindness?
Yes, we'd love to.
Okay.
Yeah,
Crissi McDonald: absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: So listeners, for those of you who have not yet listened to the
previous conversation that we've had, you will not know necessarily Mark and
Chrissy's website and how to get in them.
So please, will you tell people how to get in contact with you and
how to come and do your workshops?
Crissi McDonald: Yes.
So my website is chrissy mcdonald.com.
C-R-I-S-S-I-M-C-D-O-N-A-L-D.
And marks is mark rashid.com.
M-A-R-K-R-A-S-H-I-D.
Our clinic schedule is on Mark site, so if you click on the
link at the top, you'll see that.
We also have other resources such as a online classroom, and
we have a monthly teeny tiny little newsletter that goes out.
So
Rupert Isaacson: super.
Crissi McDonald: That's how you can get in touch with us.
Rupert Isaacson: And if they go to one of your web marks or yours, they could end
up with both of you in the same place.
Crissi McDonald: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And the name, no Package
Crissi McDonald: Deal.
Rupert Isaacson: And the name of the ranch where you are doing the workshops.
Happy Dog Ranch is Happy Dog Ranch.
Yeah.
Such a beautiful, and it's
Crissi McDonald: in Sedalia, Colorado.
Rupert Isaacson: Not a bad place to go.
Mark Rashid: Yeah, indeed.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
All right, my friends.
Well, thank you.
Thank you again.
Thank you,
Crissi McDonald: Ru.
Thank you
Rupert Isaacson: being brilliant again.
It's
Crissi McDonald: been a wonderful conversation.
Thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, likewise.
Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
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