Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
Here on Equine Assisted World.
We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
established in the equine assisted field.
This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
welcome back to Equine Assisted World, where we look at the, amazing mosaic
of, how horses help humans, and how it's evolved from its early days
with therapeutic riding and assisted riding into the super complex world
of neuropsych and, emotional, conditions and all points in between.
This week I've got a phenomenal guest.
This is Joy O'Neill, who runs Red Barn in Birmingham, Alabama.
And, if you live in the usa, you know, Alabama's always
one of the forgotten states.
And people often don't expect to see cutting edge work come out of there,
but often it does look at Huntsville, for example, the tech center and, you
know, the amazing work they do at the university in Tuscaloosa and so on.
And Red Barn is no exception.
I've been following the, the progress of that work there forever, a
decade now, and, where it really, excels and goes to the cutting edge.
he actually does this in many ways, but, there is a real, there were one of
the early pioneers in work with trauma.
And now of course it's a relatively common thing to find people working,
with horses and trauma and so on.
But really red, bam, were one of the first to get into it on a, on a really,
Deep level and their, work with, JC Dugard who I will let Joy talk about
if you don't know who she is and now their work with polyvagal theory and
the vagal nerve and all of this, it's, it's, it's gone from the, oh, let's
look at this thing and because we know that it works, to now knowing the
science behind it, and, it's really a, a beacon, within the American Southeast
and I'd say within the US in general for how this type of work should look.
And Joy is a really interesting, person to be doing this cuz she
didn't come from that background yet.
When you go out to Red Barn, it looks so beautiful.
It's one of these beautifully manicured places.
You think, oh, it's gonna be like a fancy hunter jumper barn.
And then you go in there and it's like, oh no, they do this really interesting work.
But.
They all ride really well.
That's interesting.
So they also have a showing background.
But Joy's background wasn't with horses originally at all,
nor really with neuropsych.
So, and then Joy also has her own work that she does, representing
women with, heart conditions, which she will let you know about because
that's another rather forgotten world.
We generally think about heart conditions as, a male preserve.
But of course it isn't.
So without further ado, joy, welcome.
Joy ONeil: Thank you so much for having me and for all your kind words.
I hope I can live up to them.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's that very modesty, which as you know,
makes you do all that amazing work.
So tell us who you are.
Where did you begin?
Where were you born?
Where'd you go to school and how'd you get into this funny old horse thing?
Oh
Joy ONeil: my goodness.
It's a, gosh, I'm not even sure where to start.
If I start rambling, you'll just have to tell me and tell me to move on.
Not to, not to go too much, but, I was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
I've lived here my entire life and, my mother was married to, in
a very abusive relationship and, it was a horrible relationship.
She left when I was very young and we moved in with my grandparents
and lived there for quite a while.
And then my mom remarried and we moved around a lot.
And so I went to eight different schools when I was growing up
and, never in any of that time had anything to do with horses.
Kind of fast forward many, many years.
Got married and my, my two children and I, got.
To be part of this blended family.
And we were, one, one spring break.
We were gonna take all the kids on a trip to Disney World, and we decided
that we just absolutely would not be strong enough to survive a trip,
even to the happiest place on Earth.
And so we canceled the trip and we let each of the five children pick
something that they wanted to do.
And so my oldest child, Alexis, decided that she wanted to go ride horses.
And so we all went as a family to go ride horses.
I.
And, while we were there, Emmett and I just kind of looked at each other
and noticed that all the kids were getting along and that that was very
unusual for them to, to all be together.
And it was something new for our entire family.
None of us really had a whole lot of experience for it.
And, just from that one, that one thing, we just started going back to the barn
for the kids to take riding lessons.
And one thing just kind of led to another and I saw firsthand how great horses
were for kids who had disabilities.
And, that was kind of what started at all was not going to.
So, okay.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: so the moral of the stories don't go to Izzy.
Well spend your dogs on horses.
Yes.
I think we can order on that one.
Yeah.
But so very interesting.
So right from the get go there you are in a difficult situation.
You have kids from another relationship.
You've now blended those kids.
Into a family, maybe it's a little rocky.
And the thing that Yeah.
Brings them together is horses.
Joy ONeil: Correct?
Yeah.
I mean, there was a lot of stuff that happened kind of in between,
you know, there, but no doubt.
Didn't know how long you, how much you wanted to get into.
Well, we,
Rupert Isaacson: we, we want to know the full story.
We, we want, we want, you know, the Game of Thrones version,
but obviously, oh my goodness.
You know, it's, it's whatever you feel comfortable sharing and, but the,
the, what stands out from that story is that in that difficult situation
and kids in blended families, you know, it's, it isn't all roses.
We know this.
It's wonderful what horses can do to unite people, I feel, and, help 'em find
their sort of tribe, their, you know, their, their, their functional family.
Because everyone.
Sort of concentrates on that job together.
But you say Alexis, your oldest daughter, so she was the one you felt who really
took to it initially the most, but the others also of the five kids.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
All five of our kids rode when, when they were little, when Emmett and I
were married, the kids were, he had a 10 year and eight old, this was six.
I had a four year old, and then he had a three year old,
so 5, 10, 8, 6, 4, and three.
And we all began to ride horses together and it just really was a great, just
a great way for us to be outside.
I feel lucky that at that, at that timeframe, kids didn't have
as much access to cell phones and iPads and so many electronics.
So we really were just out at the barn together, learning
together and, and I think.
You know, one, one of the things I know now, that I didn't know then
it just sort of happened, is that there's this concept that, Dr.
Rebecca Bailey from transitioning families in the Polyvagal Institute
talks about, and that is the, the therapeutic dose of a conversation.
And it's really just a few seconds.
And so as I was trying to get to know my stepchildren, and we were, you know,
just talking or kind of going through some, the, the difficult times of being
in a blended family, which I had also grown up in a blended family, so I, I
had an appreciation of what they were going through, but it's that therapeutic
dose of just a few seconds, you know?
So as we are maybe grooming a horse side by side, Not having
direct eye contact that can feel sort of like a lot of pressure.
You're just sort of doing something and learning something
together in a relaxed atmosphere.
When you're outdoors, you hear the birds chirping.
You have that support of the, the community around you, like you mentioned a
found family and the warmth of the horse.
And then also what we know about, now with people just slowing their
breathing to match the breaths of the horse and the electromagnetic field of
the horse's heart and its heartbeat, of which I'm certainly not an expert.
But, just all of those things combined just really helped us to develop
relationships and, to spend time together in a happy, in a happy place.
How long did
Rupert Isaacson: you find it took, for the harmony that you were finding when
you guys went together to the horses to transfer back to your life in the home?
Joy ONeil: Oh goodness.
Well, you know, that's a really complicated question because at the ages
that the kids were at that time, 10, 8, 6, 4, and three, if you think about the
eight, as they became older, those are just naturally more difficult ages, right?
Like, ask anybody with five teenagers in their home how much harmony there is.
So it's you, you know, I, I don't, I certainly don't wanna give the impression
that it's like, oh, we all went out and groomed horses and everything was fine.
Never had any problems.
Cuz we certainly had, you know, a lot of problems with five teenagers
in the house all at one time.
But I'll say that now that the youngest is in their thirties, It's really, I,
I think it's like just the other week we were, we were talking about it, you
know, they're, they're starting their own families and having children of their own.
And so now they're coming back and going, oh my gosh, I remember how
we used to do X, y, and Z together.
And I'm like, I think I vaguely remember that, but I thought that
you were like in the car throwing a fit cuz you didn't want to do that.
Or, you know, you were pouting or you didn't really like it.
And so I, I think one of the, the fun funner things about getting
older is being able to relate to your children on a new and different level.
And to look back and relive those times, and see that even things that you didn't
think really meant a lot to them at, in that moment, because maybe they
were like extra teenager at that time.
That it really does pay off and it help draws you together later in the
Rupert Isaacson: end.
Yeah, sure.
I think a lot of us when we're teenagers, While we're pouting and throwing
fits, we sort of assume that our parents know that underneath all that
we sort of actually do quite dig it.
And, and the parents, of course are, are completely mystified
thinking, no, actually I thought you were just a really terrible mood.
And there, there goes one of God's great jokes about how
humans misunderstand each other.
But how did you go from, I, I love this, term you used about, the, the
therapeutic dose of a conversation.
How, how did, how did you transition from that then into suddenly running?
Cause I'm sure it wasn't sudden this therapeutic barn.
Please talk us through that chronology.
Joy ONeil: Okay.
So the kids all started riding horses, and so of course we, I was
there with them in a part of it.
And it was something like I mentioned all five of the kids.
They were, they picked, they got involved in other activities and
just one thing kinda led to another.
And, but when we were really in the thick of it, we decided that
we wanted to purchase some land and keep horses there ourselves.
And, and the more that we learned about horses, the more that we
realized that the place where we were taking the kids to have the riding
lessons wasn't in the best of shape.
And they were very hardworking.
And we really wanted to do something to, to make it possible
for more and more people to, to experience what we had discovered.
And so the, the person who I considered kind of my, one of my main
mentors, her name was Anita Coward.
And, I was talking to Ms.
Coward about it and I said like, you know, we found this land.
Would you go with us to look at it?
And we're thinking about buying it to keep horses there and, you know, if you
wanted to operate out of this, you could.
And so we met Ms.
Coward and we were driving down to look at the barn at the property here.
And Ms.
Cower just began to cry, and I couldn't figure out what was going on or about her.
And then she backed up a little bit, told me the, the story about, many,
many, many years in the sixties ago when her daughter was killed in a car wreck.
And Ms.
Cower was just devastated because her daughter was her, her best friend,
her, you know, her only daughter.
She had three sons.
But there was just something special about having a daughter, and she was, Ms.
Cower was.
Just upset and angry with the Lord.
And so she stopped on this very property where we were
located and, stopped and prayed.
There's a really peaceful spot down by the river.
And so she stopped and prayed there and she asked God to take the hurt away
from her so that her anger wouldn't be seen as a lack of faith, but that
she would still be able to find a way to, to show everyone that she trusted
the Lord even in this hard times.
And so she remembered the Bible verse that said, when things are given up
to and still glorify the Lord, that they can be returned a hundred fold.
And so she writes in her journal about, kind of having this argument
with God and she describes it to like wrestling with them.
And she's like, okay, I don't want just a hundred fold more daughters.
I want a thousand fold more daughters.
And so more and more her daughter's friends kept coming
to their house to ride horses.
And of course the boys will tell you it's because they were handsome
and charming and, and they are.
But if you talk to the girls, they say it's mainly because of the horses.
And so one by one, all those, all those families just kept coming to ride with Ms.
Coward.
And of course, Ms.
Coward moved at several times throughout that until one day that was our family.
And so,
Rupert Isaacson: and Ms.
Cart was the person you'd been riding with all this time with your kids?
Joy ONeil: Right.
She had owned the, the barn.
She was the founder of the, the barn where they had ridden.
And so, as she got older, she sold the barn to someone else who, who ran it.
And, my kids got older and they had other interests.
And Ms.
Cower and I would walk around the property and just talk about how much it had meant.
And our family went through a really, really difficult time.
And I, you know, I told Ms.
Coward, I felt like the barn saved, saved my life.
You know, just having that sense of peace and, being there and the
relationship that I had with our children, I felt like it wouldn't have
been possible and how lucky I had felt because horses are very expensive.
And through some course of volunteer work that I had done, you know, I really
realized that it, like if there were so many people who wouldn't ordinarily
have access to this, And so Ms.
Coward and I talked about using the back half of the property to
set up a therapeutic program for people who would not otherwise be
able to afford to work with horses.
And but it was always just kind of a dream, sort of like this, this thought.
And so, but, and nothing really happened about it.
And then, I was, went through a really difficult time physically
and the doctors could not figure out what was going on with me.
And, they started mentioning something, this little disease called Lou
Gehrig's Disease and I was terrified.
Cause the thought of being diagnosed with Lou Gehrigs was,
just, oh, it was just awful.
Rupert Isaacson: Talk us to Lou Gehrigs, for those of those
of us who dunno what it is.
What is Luke Ericks?
Joy ONeil: It is, a l s so your body sort of shuts down and you
become like a prisoner in your own body, even though your mind is fine.
It's, what Stephen Hawking has
Rupert Isaacson: the motor neuron, wasting.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, I was just terrified.
And so I have this big old scar on the arm right here where they did
a, muscle biopsy and I had to wait to get the results of that biopsy.
And it, while I was waiting, I was like, oh, dear God, please, please, please
don't let this be what they think it is.
If it's not what they think it is.
Like, if it's not Lou Gehrigs, I promise I will, I will start the barn that Ms.
Coward and I dreamed about before she died.
Like, I'll do anything.
Just like, please don't let this be, please don't let this be.
And sure enough, it ended up that's not what it was.
And so I felt like I had needed to keep my end of the.
Keep my end of the promise.
And so that's what prompted me to, to live out Ms.
Coward's, vision that she and I had walked, talked about as
we walked around the property.
There's a, a little red barn on the backside of the property
that wasn't used very much.
And, she had this vision that children who had afflictions as she called it, being
from her generation, that they would walk through this barn and that they would
be healed as they worked with horses.
And she kind of compared it to a car wash that they would like, walk through the
barn like it was a car wash, be healed and come out on the other side dancing
and happy and just, just full of life.
And so that's what.
That's what I set out to do after that when I found out that I did
not have Lou Gehrig's disease.
And so I went back to school and got a degree in nonprofit, administration,
and we opened up in 2011 and then got our nonprofit certification in 2012.
Rupert Isaacson: Now, up until that point, you've been keeping horses.
Your, your kids have been showing.
Right.
Alexis became a show rider.
Joy ONeil: All of the, all of the children showed for a while.
She was the one who has, continued to do it for the longest, but
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And still does it to this day.
It still does.
Yeah, she does.
Right.
So you'd gone through this thing, so you, you'd had, you'd found
family healing through it then.
Your kids found, you know, their, their sport world through it.
Some moved on, some kept going, but you still retained this vision
that you'd had, with Anita Coward.
When you decided to open, had you limbed up by doing like some volunteer work here
and there, had you sort of tested out your, your therapeutic biceps at all?
Did you just jump in cold?
How'd it happen?
Joy ONeil: Well, I had been a barn mom, you know, with all five of the kids
showing horses and riding and doing all sort, you know, all of that kind of stuff.
So I, I was, I thought I'll put it that way, at least I thought I was
pretty, new, knew more, at least than I had ever known at that point,
up until then in my life about it.
I felt like I had a good education at uav.
Just sort of teach me the ins and outs of it.
I had volunteered for many, many years, at different places,
particularly a homeless shelter, which of course makes you infinitely
qualified to go start a barn, right?
So I volunteered at a homeless shelter.
I'd done a lot of programs with kids.
You know, I, I really did though feel like everything in my life was
leading me to that point, you know?
And of course I, I wouldn't say I knew exactly what I was getting myself
into because then I might not have done it cuz it was a whole lot harder
and a whole lot more work and a whole lot more difficult than anything I,
that I ever thought that I would do.
So I was sort of very, blessed with the gift of ignorance in some ways.
But I think it's, I.
I, I just do, I just feel like every single thing in my life, even all
of the hard parts in the difficult childhood that I had, and some difficult
experiences that I had been through, that they had prepared me for that.
And, and I feel like one of the greatest gifts that I had
was, the support of my family.
And I, I certainly don't mean to my extended family, and I, I don't mean
to say that our, that my extended family hasn't been through some
difficult times because we have.
But I think what makes it unique is that we have all stuck by each other through
those difficult times, and that I have never doubted that I was loved and I've
never doubted that they would support me.
And whether that was when I had kind of this crazy idea of starting
this therapeutic barn, you know, my cousins brought their kids out and
we practiced on them to, to, to let them ride horses and practice some of
the different activities that we did.
And, It just all, it's just all worked out.
Rupert Isaacson: So you dive in cold and you feel okay, I sort of know
kind of what I'm doing, then what happens, but not really who, who,
who, who are the, you know, have you had much experience with, kids, with
physical and, and mental challenges?
Do you know how to get 'em on a horse?
Have you, have you had any formal training or do you just kind of
go, well, we'll give it a go.
How does it go?
Joy ONeil: I'll give it a go.
I would say some of yes and no.
Some of, no.
So when I was growing up, there were a lot of people in my life who
had disabilities and I never really thought of them as any different.
And, you know, just, here's a, a little story.
So I grew up in this really small town way out in the middle of
nowhere in the middle of the country.
And the biggest thing to do was to go to the baseball field and
watch the youth sports baseball.
And this field was named Billy Joe Field.
Billy Joe Young Field.
And so Billy Joe Young was a guy who, when he was in high school, in
a freak football accident, became paralyzed from the neck down.
And, but he still loves sports.
And so Billy Joe's mama would, drive him up to Billy Joe Young Field that was
named in his, in his honor and behind home plate, they had this big concrete block
rectangle, and she had this big old yellow suburban and he lived in a hospital bed.
And so she would back up to that, roll his hospital bed out behind home
plate and a microphone was hanging from the ceiling and he would.
Call and announce the games.
Now he, I wish, I know this is a podcast so people can't see it,
but he had very little motion with his arms that he could talk.
He was a talker, a talker, a talker.
And so when I was little, some of my very first memories were going to sit and
watch those baseball games while Billy Joe called him out and feed him a hotdog.
And if you were a really, like, if you got, you felt lucky if you were the
chosen person to get to go feed Billy Jo a hotdog and learn how to, keep
the scorebook for the baseball field.
Like I never thought of Billy Joe as anything other than.
A great, a great person and, and like I was not ever raised to think
that just because somebody was in a wheelchair or paralyzed from the neck
down or, or different, and, you know, there were certainly people that now
I look back and I'm like, oh, I bet if autism diagnosis had been around
or more known, then that's what, you know, uncle so-and-so would've been.
Or that's what so-and-so like, like, it just never occurred to us that
somebody that was different was less than, my uncle, David's sister had
polio and so she was, you know, in a wheelchair and sort of bent over.
And my, my grandmother's Aunt Cora, you know, came over to her house
and she was also in a wheelchair.
My, all of my family worked on the coal mines and at that time, safety
wasn't as, common maybe as it is now.
And so there were lots of people who were missing fingers and parts of their legs
or arms, and it just never occurred to me.
That they were less than or that they couldn't do, anything that
they really set their mind to.
You know, if it was possible to do it without a leg or without three of your
fingers or something, you know, like it was just So who were your first,
it was just a great way to be raised.
Rupert Isaacson: Who, who were your first clients when they
came in through your door?
You opened the doors of Red Barn.
Who comes in?
Joy ONeil: So, when I was first talking about, about opening up the barn, Alexis
was going to school at Birmingham Southern or to college at Birmingham Southern.
And she had had a speaker come to her class and talk about autism.
And so when, Alexis and I were talking about the barn and my
vision, she said, I think you should start by going to meet this person.
Her name was Sandy Nemore and she was the executive director at a
place called Mitchell's Place.
And she said, I think you should go talk to her and see about having some
of their students come out and be.
Like the first groups that you work with?
So it was actually someone, with autism, whose name was Reid.
Okay.
And he, I, you know, I went and met with Sandy.
She's like, sure, I'll put up some posters.
And so Reid's mom saw it and, and she brought Reid one day.
And, I had hired someone who was going to be a, who was a therapeutic
horseback riding instructor.
But she left the week before, like we had made the appointment with Reid
and then she, she decided to leave.
And I didn't know how to get in touch with Reed's mom.
So like I, I just like talked to her on the phone.
I had not written down her phone number, so I did know
how to cancel the appointment.
Because the instructor had left.
And so I called Alexis and I was like, Hey, I like, I'm gonna feel really bad.
Will you come be here with me?
This lady's coming, you know, I'll explain to her that we're probably gonna
have to close because the employee that we hired isn't gonna be able to do it.
Will you like, you know, so we'll just come.
So I had every intention of closing that very first day, cuz I just
felt like I'd already failed.
And so Reid's mom gets here and Reid gets out of the car and I look at his
precious face and he is just so excited.
And all he wants to do is just pet and touch the horse.
And I, I just look at him and I just, I couldn't tell her that we were closing.
And it, that's what really gave me at, like, I tear up even just thinking
about it, but it was, it was like in that moment I thought even though I
don't have a clue what to do next.
I know that I've got to do whatever the next step is because this
little kid is worth it and all he wants to do is pet a horse.
And I know enough to let him do that.
I'll figure the rest out as we go along.
Rupert Isaacson: Now, as you know, then one begins to look
into all the methodologies and trainings and go, oh my gosh.
It's, you know, it's, it's a confusing world there.
Do I, do I choose this one?
Do I choose that one?
They all seem to say that they're the right one or the only one.
So how do I make that choice?
So did you then decide, okay, I'm gonna look for some sort of
more formalized training, and if so, what did you choose and why?
Or did you just feel your way or was it a mixture of both?
How did it evolve?
Joy ONeil: It's a mixture of both.
I would say that I'm not very, a very impulsive person, but I do.
And I do like to do a lot of research, like look things and, analyze it.
But I, I'm also though very intuitive, so I may spend weeks researching things
and then go, but I feel like doing this.
So, like I, I just wanna make an informed intuitive decision.
And, so I just began to learn as much about autism as I could after going to
to talk with sanity and meeting Reid.
And, one day my Uncle David called me and he, he knew that I was learning more about
autism and he actually saw an interview by you on one of the Sunday night TV shows.
And he called me up.
He's like, quick, quick turn on your tv.
There's this guy and he's talking about autism.
And he went all the way to Mongolia and like he's doing stuff with horses.
You need to learn more about him.
And so I did from that very beginning, and I know it's kind of weird to think about,
but that was way back in, I guess like 2010, 2011, you know, within those years.
And, it's not like it is today where you can just Google everything
and you know, everybody's got a website, you know, it was much harder
to learn about things back then.
And so, and then you came and spoke at like, just a few months later you came
and spoke at something in Birmingham and I recognized your name and that
was the first time that we met.
And, and so I, I immediately learned about Horse Boy and there was a lot in it
that I felt like was just common sense.
It just really resonated with me that you find something
that somebody is interested in.
And you tie that together with being outdoors and with, with
mainly love in them, which was Ms.
Cowart's, I guess kind of her, her theme in her life was that love,
like if you love somebody, you will do what is the best for them.
Even that may sometimes be a hard thing to do, but if you love somebody, you
will do what's best and, and you'll help them in whatever ways you could.
And just that sense of giving somebody that felt like they didn't
belong a place where they belonged.
And because I went to so many different schools and we moved so
much when I was growing up, you know, I always had that sense of
going back to my grandmother's house.
That was that one place where I felt like, This is where I belong.
This is, you know, like, like this is, this is it.
No matter where I was, I loved the little house on the furry books.
But when I was growing up, because those were the things, no matter
where Laura moved, she always had, you know, her family with
her no matter what was going on.
And I really wanted to provide that for kids who felt like they
didn't fit in because for so much of my life I had felt like I didn't
really have a place where I fit in.
Where it was easy, it was always hard for me to make friends cuz we moved so much.
It was, our, our family was, I would say very poor and a lot of the time.
And, you know, not having the things that everybody else had or
not being able to afford to go.
Sometimes even on school field trips, like there might be times I
couldn't even afford to go on that.
And you know, you're the one kid who doesn't get to go.
Do those other things.
Everybody else is, and they're like, why didn't you go?
It's like, oh, I didn't wanna go.
Like, well, I wouldn't, I'd never wanna go do that.
But, deep inside you're going, oh my gosh, I wish I could afford to do those things.
But, it, it's like, I mean, I know it sounds kind of hokey or like a, like
silly or whatever, but I just felt this desire to do it, even though it made
no logical sense whatsoever at all.
It was just something that I could not let go of.
I just did not have any peace within my soul unless I was planning to do this.
And I'm so grateful to my wonderful husband, who had the resources to
help me make that dream come true.
Because in doing that, I feel like it healed a lot of the things inside of
me to be able to, to make that happen.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, let's, let's talk about how that
side of the work has evolved.
You, you've become, one of the places that people look to in the American Southeast
when it comes to autism for sure.
How you also have this other really interesting, side to the work at Red Barn.
And, you know, through your partnerships with JC Dugard and now, Rebecca at
the, poly Equine Polyvagal Institute.
I wonder if you could talk to us about that.
Not every, not every, listener here is gonna know who JC Dugard is.
So could you start with her story and then how you got into
doing the work you do with her?
Sure.
Joy ONeil: So, gosh, I was trying to remember the year.
It might have been like 2013 or 14.
We had a very freak snowstorm in Alabama, we don't get a whole lot of snow, so
there was snow and ice and everybody at the barn, like the roads went from
perfectly fine to being undrivable within just a matter of two hours.
Kids were unable to get outta school.
School teachers had to spend the night with children in their classrooms.
It was like a once a century freak thing that happened where
the roads were impassable.
Everybody just had to kind of hunker down where they were.
So there were about 12 of us at the barn that day, and we had to
end up all spending the night here and for a couple of days becau like
that's how long that it lasted.
Although I, I joke sometimes that, I think it was more like a month, but
it was really just an, a few nights.
But, and so like, all these people are here and what are we gonna do?
So I began to just research things, try to find some videos or movies that
we could watch, to make the best use of that time because everybody was
getting really anxious and worried.
And I felt like if I could do something that would keep everybody busy, they would
be able to, to cope a little bit better.
So I came across a story of JC Dugard because, she was being
interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.
And so I watched, watched that video and one day I hope you'll
interview her and she can tell you much more about her own story.
But just the highlights would be that she was, or I guess maybe the low lights, she
was kidnapped when she was 11 years old and held for 18 years in a guy's backyard.
And endured it just unthinkable traumatic experiences during that time.
And when she was reunited with her family, she met Dr.
Rebecca Bailey and they did, econ assisted therapy together as a way
to help JC and her family reunite.
And that really resonated with me because I felt like working with
horses had helped my own blended family to come together and unite.
And so I really kind of understood that.
And so in the interview, JC mentioned that she was gonna start a foundation
to provide a curriculum to help people that wanted to do that.
And so during the middle of the night of this snow freak snowstorm, I
just have hours and hours to Google.
And so I just Google track down the foundation, it has a contact page.
I sent in information and said, I'd like to learn more.
And a little bit later I received a message from them saying, we're
looking for an agency to work with.
You're down in the middle of nowhere.
Nobody would ever think of us being there, so we'll be glad to come.
And that's, that's how we met.
And it was just, I think, an instant connection, of just
being really like-minded.
And, and the more that I have worked with them and, gotten to know them, I really
realized that a lot of the things that were just good old common sense, you
know, being, being sent outside to play, not having a lot of electronics, always
being surrounded by people who love you and care for you, and, just, just all
of those things that they kind of helped me understand why those things worked.
Like bilateral repetitive motion, which is also a big tenant in natural lifeman.
You know, like all of those things kind of work together and it's like,
Rupert Isaacson: talk us through that.
That's why Bilateral, just repeat that again, bilateral.
Joy ONeil: Oh.
It's based on the work of Dr.
Bruce Perry and it's bilateral repetitive motion.
Okay.
Talk to us about that.
Which is, I'm certainly not an expert.
I don't wanna, I, I encourage people to go to go look up, look up those, the works
of Bruce Perry and Natural Life Manship and the Polyvagal Equine Institute, but
they are, it's when it's like, why you feel better when you go take a walk or
when you ride a horse, it's the left and the right side of your brain moving.
Like, think of it like mdr, you know, as the, the tapping left and right sides.
Rupert Isaacson: Just not everyone's gonna know these acronyms.
Joy, what is emdr?
Joy ONeil: It's just, it is just movement on the left and the right side that helps.
I, this is how I think of it.
This may be totally wrong, but it just helps your brain to organize what you're
thinking and to come up with a way to work through it, through difficult situations.
It's that bilateral motion of the horse.
And I think, you know, you put, you, you put all of the, all that
language that you have behind it.
I'm sure everybody's familiar with all the things that you, that you advocate.
The, the rocking of the hips, the moving back and forth, the
up and down, the concentrating, the, the repetitiveness of it.
it's almost like, like even a chant or a meditation.
It, even though
like horses provide it, you can find it in walking, biking, swimming, anything
that you can just do that helps your, helps your brain develop neuroplasticity,
it helps your brain relax.
It can maybe even distract your brain a little bit so that you're focused on
something else and you're not always telling yourself that same story over and
over and over, and like digging yourself deeper and deeper and deeper into a hole.
And so, I just, just, the more that I've learned, the more that I realized.
Even just breathing, I was in the band, all throughout high school.
So thinking about how you were taught to breathe in deeply and to exhale,
I was like, oh, that may have helped if I came into band really upset or,
anxious or had lots of things going on.
Even just doing that to be able to play my instrument.
Was helping me to overcome some difficult experiences.
Rupert Isaacson: So, so tell us about how does this work now happen at Red Barn?
So specifically the work that you're doing, with JC Dugard and
the Equine Polyvagal Institute.
Describe to us how a session might go and who the client might be.
Joy ONeil: our average student is someone who has a physical or a
cognitive or an emotional disability.
a Google or Ransom reports.
And, the average age is about 10 years old, but if, chronologically, but a
lot of those students have a cognitive impairment, so they may be operating
on more of a six or seven year old.
Or, you know, like whatever their chronological age is, they're
usually several years, below that.
And, we take those, we take what we've learned about the importance of
being outside, about the importance of hard work and heavy lifting.
We have two occupational therapists who work here that really influence the
programs and, and the things that we do.
And we hold them to a high standard.
We don't expect less from them just because they have a disability we
expect the most that they can do.
And I would say that that's one of the things that our parents tell us that they
love the most, is that we do not have lowered expectations for their child.
We have high expectations, and we give them the, the support that
they need to be able to meet that.
Because as, as high as the expectations can be, that gives them a greater
chance of being able to live independently or as independently as
possible and to not be taken advantage of and to have a fulfilling life.
And so, we just incorporate all of that into everything we do, whether
that's riding a horse, participating in our job skills program, doing some of
our equine assisted learning classes.
We have one called, pencils and Ponies where they do things around the
property that help them with their fine motor skills so that they can hold a
pencil and improve their handwriting.
We do one, that encourages children to read through the
Horse-powered reading program.
We do a class called Brain Builders, which takes a book once
a that meets three days a week.
We take a book for the entire week.
The children read the book.
It's like usually a storybook, a children's storybook.
They'll read the storybook and then do different activities around
the property that, Reinforce some of the concepts in the b book.
Some of the words like sight words, some of the activities, if it's a
hungry caterpillar, we might talk about what, what are good foods
to eat and what are foods that give you a tummy ache at the end?
And, you know, how do you, how do you plan all those things out?
We might talk about, just the different animals.
They might learn their colors, their letters, their numbers.
It just, whatever it takes, it's just a really integrated
Rupert Isaacson: So you're combining, you're combining education with,
with academics, with your, yeah.
With your sessions.
With the horses.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
There's, well, the horseback riding lessons are horseback riding lessons,
and then there are unmounted lessons that can incorporate horses, but they can
also just incorporate the environment.
They can go down to the creek and, Look at, listen to the water and listen to the
birds and, dig up worms and talk about the kind of worms that are in the dirt.
Like, it's just, I mean, it sounds silly, but it's really just play.
Like, I, like, I mean, the, the difference is we just now know how good play is.
Yeah.
But it's not like we're doing, top level play or, you know, a plus play.
It's just play.
It's just letting them be kids, you know, making, taking pieces of,
clover and making little clover chains and putting it around their head.
And, it's fi you know, that's improving fine motor skills.
They're learning to take turns.
They're learning their colors and their numbers.
They're learning how to get along and resolve conflict.
It, they're, I,
Rupert Isaacson: my case walking.
You're, you're doing education and academics.
Tell us about the horse-powered learning.
What's the horse-powered learning program?
It sounds
Joy ONeil: interesting.
So it is meant to encourage children to read.
So it can be anything from, children read books to the horses.
Okay.
See, so that they can practice their fluency.
So they'll bring their favorite book and read it to the horse.
What a great idea if, yeah.
You know, we can read books about horses.
We can read to the children, they can read to the horses,
they can read to each other.
They can just go sit in a peaceful spot and read.
They can.
If we're talking about how do you make different words?
They can lead a horse from, like one letter to another letter to
make a compound word or one word to another word to make a compound word.
They can lead.
Like we might have the word, we might have the letters up on an index card somewhere.
And then maybe there's the letter C and the letter P and you know,
other letters on index cards on the other side of the arena.
And they can walk over, get the first letter, take it to the up
on the other side, and they can, say, well, does this make a word
or does it make a nonsense word?
And if it's a nonsense word, like what do you think that word might mean?
You know, like they're just all kinds of different ways.
It's, ex experiential learning.
But the main point is just to encourage them to
Rupert Isaacson: read, yeah.
To make friends with the concept of reading.
Make friends with a concept rather than, oh yeah, this is a stressful
thing that you have to do, but this is a playful thing you can do.
Yeah.
I, I love it.
Yeah.
Joy ONeil: and, and if you can read, you can learn anything.
Yeah, that's true.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, do you, do you have, as well as the, the.
Kids with autism, and related conditions, do you have also a
particular population with the types of trauma that JC went through?
Or is it more that you are using, J C's, insights to serve, an autistic population?
Or is it both?
Joy ONeil: It's both.
You know, there are, we have some children who do not have a
physical or a cognitive disability.
But they have been through adoption and foster care or foster care and
adoption and they have endured some horrendous experiences in their young
life, lived in four or five different foster care homes, you know, are finally
in a loving home permanent adoption.
But there's always kind of that, is this really gonna last?
Can I really let my guard down?
Can I be myself?
Is, is this gonna happen?
We have a great.
Partnership with an, an organization called apac, which is the Alabama
Pre and Post Adoption Coalition.
And they have counselors who come out to, to the barn and work with the parents.
And then we are able to do different activities with the children,
and then sometimes the parents and the children work together.
a lot of children who have disabilities can be easy targets for someone to
molest, because maybe they can't tell or they don't know that it's
wrong or, or they can't run away.
Like they, yeah, they don't know.
Yeah.
They can't run away.
Like there's, there's a lot, unfortunately, a lot of, children
who have all of those experiences.
So I think we just kind of take, a lot of what we learn.
From several different places and are able to sort of synthesize that
like it's a recipe or ingredients to, to cook something up that's
specifically what that child needs.
Rupert Isaacson: One of the other, names you just brought
up in the course of conversation, you talked about natural lifeman.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Joy ONeil: Sure.
That was started by Tim and Betina Joe and , I think one, the very first time that we
ever came out to Austin, we went out for a beer with Tim and Betina and, so it
is there, it's just natural lifeman the.
I think they're kind of like the quote, I, it's been a while since
I've been in their website, but it was, you know, a good theory is a good
theory regardless of how it's applied.
So whether that's with how you treat your horse or how you treat a a
person, just being a good, decent human being is, is really important.
And it, there's a lot about pressure and release in that.
And so I think like we just kind of take all of those things and just
internalize 'em and then synthesize 'em and come up with whatever is
the best way to help that child.
And it's often very slow paced.
Yeah.
And very
Rupert Isaacson: complicated.
When you talk about the pressure and release, are you talking about
that, from human to human as well as obviously from human to horse?
And if so, how, how might that play out?
The way in which that could be addressed or looked at?
Joy ONeil: So just like a recent example of that has been with an adopted
family where, you know, a lot of times parents don't always get good advice
from people, or sometimes maybe the way that you're raised, you think,
oh, that's how I have to discipline a child or to be able to do something.
And so, we had an adoptive family out and the instructor was working with
them, and the, the parent never gave the child a chance to do what was asked.
And the child that they had, had a pretty slow processing time.
And so the, the parent didn't, like, just thought I told you to do it.
Why didn't you do it?
Like, they just kept, kept, kept, kept, kept.
And then the child would melt down.
Rather than giving them a little bit of a moment to process, catch their
breath, figure out what they were gonna do, and then go, and then take action.
Like there was not, they weren't waiting long enough.
And so the parent was interpreting that as defiance.
And so what the instructor did is have the parent then work
with the horse and watch them.
If you just keep asking the horse, like you just keep, like whatever you're
doing, whether you're kicking your legs or you're, you're just nudging
it along, or you're trying to lead it and get it to walk, if you just keep
on, even the horses trying to do it, they're gonna just, it's just gonna be
too much and they're gonna melt down.
And so the instructor was able, and then what, like to take that further, what Dr.
Bailey would, would say with the Polyvagal Equine Institute would
be, you know, thinking about how that goes from your amygdala.
Like where you're just sort of in this panic all the way up to the executive
function of, can you think this through?
Like, you know, from your brainstem all the way up to this prefrontal cortex.
Like you've got to give people time, especially when they have a cognitive
disability, to be able to figure that out.
And so once the parent realized what that felt like and saw it in the horse,
they were then able to realize, oh, I've got to just step back and wait a
second and see do I see forward movement.
And I, the other day I listened, to your, podcast with Joelle.
And when she talked about how she was telling the kid, just your left hand,
just your left hand, you know, and.
And little girl goes, I'm trying, like, I'm doing the best I can.
Like, oh, I just burst into tears.
Right?
Yeah.
Just like so many times people are doing the best that they can.
Yeah.
And can you just wait it out and let them, you know, support them
through it and give them what they need and, like in considering all
the other things that are going on.
So.
Yeah.
That fascinating.
I hope I answered your question.
Yeah, you
Rupert Isaacson: did really good answers it.
Questions.
So, I think, you know, obviously we've all made that mistake with pressurizing
our children, our horses, and so on, largely because we were raised that way.
And you, it's, it is very difficult for somebody to, any of us, to, rethink and
readjust and slow down unless we're put in a position where we're forced to,
It's fascinating to me listening that yes, that makes perfect sense to then
pair the parent up in a, in a safe way where they're not gonna end up feeling
shame, but still to pair them up with feedback where that isn't going to work.
And then to see how a different approach it will work, could
really breed good results.
And, I think that's one of the great strengths of Red
Barn is one often sees places.
So we do this one thing, we do, we do this thing and this is how we do it.
You are having gone out to all these, methodologies and then drawing
from all of them means that, you know, perhaps if you hadn't say,
gone to the natural life manship or something, you wouldn't have the.
Particular resources or methodology to seamlessly incorporate something like
that into a session where you maybe are actually working on something else
with a kid, you know, to, to be able to say, oh, okay, so in, in this moment
we need a bit of natural license in this, we need to go more over here.
Are we doing the reading, the horsepower reading?
But actually right now we need to use this more neuroscience approach in
this one here, we need to go more play.
And I think it's a real strength to be able to learn and incorporate so
many meth methodologies and see how they actually connect rather than
falling into the trap of saying, no, no, these are all separate worlds.
And I'm either a, if it's in the sport horse world, I'm either hunter jumper,
I'm a rider, or you know, I'm either doing, you know, assisted adaptive
riding or I'm, you know, working for the.
Paralympics or I'm doing this one kind of, you know, trauma therapy or something
like, I think it's, it can be hard.
We horse people are often a little bit, in the box thinkers rather
than out the box think thinkers.
, Joy ONeil: but that was one of the things that I loved about meeting
you is I felt like movement method incorporates like all of that.
It's like the umbrella for all of it in some ways because you have the
brain and then the neuro piece, and you have the horse and the horse's
movement and how important that is.
You know, a lot of times in our programs we focus on it for
strengthening a child who can't.
Her body because she can't walk because she's in a wheelchair or to, to help
her move and regain as much, motion as she can because she's using, she's in
a walker or she has an assisted device or because they can't talk, you know,
like we're, we are using the horse a lot of times to strengthen their bodies.
But, but you talk about that and that's why it's so important that the horses be
fit, because I would not give someone a wheelchair that was uneven or, or rickety.
Right.
Like, you know, we want the horses to have that good movement.
So movement method and the things that you, in all of the things that
you promote are about fit horses.
And we want to treat the horses the same way that we would want to treat a person.
We want them to be happy and healthy and well taken care of as well.
And, it like movement to me, movement method and all of your programs.
Encompass all of that in together.
Well, you are, you are kind.
So if I had to pick one, that would be, that would be the one
I encourage people to start with because it, it includes everything.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, that is high praise indeed.
Coming from someone who does work that's as effective as yours.
There's another area of your work which I'd like to ask you about, which
is your work with Rebecca, and the Polyvagal, equine Polyvagal Institute.
Can you talk us through, it's still to, to a large degree in unknown world,
I think for quite a lot of people.
So can you give us the skinny, like give us a little seminar 1
0 1 on what is polyvagal theory?
It's what you hear this a lot these days, but it's can be hard
to get people to actually explain what it is and, then how your.
You've, you've started working with the Equine Polyvagal Institute and again,
how, how it affects and informs the work that you've got going on at Red Bar.
-----check if this makes sense-------
What is polyvagal theory?
Why the vagal nerve?
What's the importance of the vagal?
How, how, well rather, how does the vagal nerve help us in this safe feeling that
we can then be in the learning brain?
Joy ONeil: It goes from your brain to your gut, and it conducts the
oxytocin that gets you in the spot where you're able to learn.
Go ahead.
And so, and you cannot learn until you feel safe.
And so it is all about creating an environment where you feel safe and
where you feel relaxed and you are just able to pull everything together
in your brain, in your body, feel the oxy to all the hormones and everything
that you talk about, you're able to get that and make your life better,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
So yeah.
Oxytocin, we know is a feelgood hormone.
We know it's a communication hormone.
it's why polyvagal and not just simply vagal.
Why not just vagal nerve theory?
What's the poly in there?
------------------- Joy ONeil: Okay, so I know just enough to be dangerous in this.
And you have to keep in mind that my primary, role in the organization
is on the administrative side.
Like I love the organizational theory.
I do not necessarily anymore do any of the direct programming because we
have great employees who have been through much more training than I have.
But from what I understand, and I know just enough to be dangerous, is that
poly means several or more than one.
So there's the sympathetic nervous system and then that
parasympathetic nervous system.
And so that you're constantly, the, the metaphor that they use in the
Polyvagal equine Institute is that of a carousel in that we are all sort of
riding up and down, up and down in that.
And so you're going between your sympathetic and your parasympathetic
nervous system in that you're learning, Like, suppose that you
think that, suppose that a snake jumps out at you and that makes you
scared, you immediately get to that.
But then you go like, oh wait, it's just a snake.
Like it's fine.
It wasn't really a snake, it was just a rubber hose left on the road.
So the, the faster that you can kind of travel up and down between those
two states or those two sy, those two, systems, the better that you are.
And that when you can reframe how you feel in those situations, if it's
something where you have an intentional decision to do, like if, say that
you're about to go, I don't know, like on a podcast or something, and you're
really nervous, instead of thinking, I'm so nervous, I'm so nervous.
You can reframe that and think, I'm so excited I get to do this.
I get to share something.
I, you know, like when you can reframe those experiences and look back and see,
just see them in a more positive light.
That, that is also good for you.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, it might to even look back at past events in that way.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
Like to look back and say, well, like interesting man, that was a
really rough time, but I can see that I've learned this and so I'll be
better in the future because of it.
It's not, it's not always looking back and living in those difficult moments,
but if you can find even one, like silver lining or one good thing out of that, you
can clinging onto that and change the way that your brain is thinking about those
experiences and that that's not meaning that what happened to you was okay.
It's not saying that what somebody else did to you wasn't wrong to me, it's just
saying I now have a tool that in spite of those things, I'm gonna come out.
Okay.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And to, to thrive rather than just survive.
Yeah.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
And I think that is like really, really important.
And you know, you mentioned earlier that, in 2016 I was diagnosed with advanced
heart failure, and that was a really difficult thing for me to go through.
I was, for several years before the diagnosis, I had been, telling my
doctor that I didn't feel well, that like all these things were going on
and I had just been totally ignored.
And then by the time I found out it was an advanced stage and I was
so mad, like angry, angry, angry, mad, like that all that this had
happened and I just felt cheated.
And, you know, the more I learned about what the, future could look like for
somebody with my diagnosis, it was really, it was really a tough time.
But, Now I look back at that, you know, 2016 to now, and I think, man, what
that did to change my outlook on life and the things that I thought were
maybe important back then, you know, now I realize, oh, I'm gonna enjoy
every single moment, every single day.
I had, just a chance to like, almost like a second chance at
life to go back and say, okay, well what's really important to me?
What do I really wanna do?
So even just in something like that, being able to, to look back
and, and count the blessings in it.
No, it really matters.
Rupert Isaacson: You are, I'm, the listeners can't see you,
but I can cause we're on Zoom.
You are a vibrant and healthy looking person.
You are not somebody who one would look at and say, oh yes, they look
like they had advanced heart failure.
So how come, how come you look so vital?
How, what, what's the process and how bad did it get?
Like were you actually, did you collapse and they carted you off
in, in, in the, ambulance or, where was the point of crisis and
how have you come back from that?
Joy ONeil: Gosh.
You know what it, I think it's interesting that you were
actually with me during that time.
You were here in Birmingham and, you had, you came down for a clinic and we were
at the clinic and I just remember being absolutely exhausted and I had gained
so much weight and I was just so tired.
And, I really felt like maybe I was burned out.
Like I just, it was just so hard.
Every day was an effort to get up and to go do something.
And I had been going to the doctor and each time he would tell me, you just
start, aren't as young as you used to be.
You're working with these younger girls, you need to, you know, walk more, eat,
drink more Gatorade, you're dehydrated.
Just like all of these things.
I was so upset.
Oh, that's, that's
Rupert Isaacson: gonna make you healthy.
Drinking Gatorade.
Joy ONeil: Yeah, right.
Like, you're just dehydrated working outside, you know, just, it was
very demeaning, very like, oh, we're not as young as we used to be.
Like very dismissive.
And, I was just cranky and, it was just a really rough time.
And I had been driving to the barn and a truck pulled out in front
of me and it was like one of those near accident kind of things.
And.
And I thought, oh my gosh, I could have died.
And for a split moment, I had the thought, well, if at least if I
had, I wouldn't be so tired anymore.
Like I was that tired, I was just exhausted.
I just didn't feel like myself.
I felt like it was just exhausting.
And so the next week we had a meeting at the barn and I, you
know, I talked about how maybe I felt like I should, should leave.
And part of our advisory council, one of the members said, like, if that's
what you wanna do, that's fine, but because you work without pay thinking
of if you had died, like how would we come up with the money to have paid
you to pay somebody to replace you?
And so that's an perspective.
His suggestion was, get a life insurance exam.
So that if something like that would've happened, you know, while we don't have
time to, to plan ahead for how we would pay for this, get a life insurance
exam, and get a life insurance policy that would be payable to the barn.
What a very be a couple hundred dollars.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's like, it'd just be a couple of hundred dollars, you know, but like, wow.
Thinking about how you could have died, like, like that was, which tells
you, I guess how cranky I had been, if that's what people were thinking of.
It's like, oh wait, we get the money to replace you.
So we, so I went and got a life insurance exam, and it was during
that exam that they did an E K G.
Okay.
And now I had been going to the doctor for years complaining of
gaining weight, hot, sweaty, unable to breathe, just all kinds of things.
Gain unex, unexplainably, gaining weight.
And they did an ekg and then
I got a letter and the letter said that they were gonna have to increase the rate
because my EKG had come back abnormal and I had not disclosed my heart condition.
And I was like, what are you talking about?
What?
Heart condition?
A heart condition.
Okay.
I've been going to the doctor for two years, there's nothing wrong with me.
Everything is fine.
So I called the insurance company and they said, if you'll go get a, go, go
to a cardiologist and get them to say that maybe the technician the insurance
company had used had made a mistake, like one of the little electrodes wasn't
on right, or something like that, that they would honor the original rate.
So you were in town and I had to leave the clinic early, and you're
like, oh, I'm sure it's fine.
I'm sure it's fine.
Everything will be fine.
And so I go to this and I find out that it's not fine.
I have something called the complete left bundle branch block, which meant
that the right side of my heart's electrical system did not work.
I mean, the left side of my heart's electrical system didn't work.
So the right side was having to do all of that, and so it was just wearing down.
And I was just stunned.
And you, and you had brought a couple of friends with you to do this clinic.
We just all sat there and y'all were so supportive and, and you weren't like
giving me falses support, like, oh, everything is fine, everything is fine.
Like, you just sat with me in that disbelief and helped me come up with
how am I gonna go home and tell this to my husband and what am I gonna
tell my children and what are the next steps and what's gonna happen?
And so, just all of these, all of these emotions that were
going on and, and I was so angry.
Like I just was so mad.
So one thing kind of led to another and I got involved in with a great
doctor at uab and she really has helped me to know how to take care of
myself and, and so I'm doing great.
So
Rupert Isaacson: has, has that electrical blockage exercise.
Unblocked.
Is your heart now working equally on both sides?
Joy ONeil: No, I will have that complete left bundle ranch
block for the rest of my life.
Like it will, it will always be there.
And it may have actually back in the early times, like before, as I mentioned
earlier, starting the barn when I just didn't feel right and they kept thinking
that maybe it was Lou Gehrigs, they, it was some sort of autoimmune, something
going on like that could have been
Rupert Isaacson: the early symptoms.
Joy ONeil: So something, and it attacked my heart there.
Also, because of this, I kind of reconnected with a half
sister and discovered that she has something very similar.
So it could be a genetic component to it.
I have a full biological system sister who does not have exactly what I
have, but she also has a heart defect.
That kind of came out of some of this.
So it was really a strange, a strange experience, and it affected not
just me, but then also my children.
Sure.
Because knowing that this is something that I have that could
be genetic affects them as well.
Right, right, right.
So the main thing if, if your visitor viewers or listeners don't get anything
else out of it, is that women's heart disease is so often misdiagnosed.
People think that we are just like these frail little wilting flowers.
Like, oh, you're just worried, or it's anxiety, or, it's just menopause.
It's just, you know, it's very often dismissed.
And if my doctor had just done a simple blood test, the enzymes would've shown
up to show that I was in heart failure.
Okay.
So, So my ejection fraction was 25 to 30 when I was first diagnosed.
Normal is like 55 to 70.
I'm right at that 50 to 55 mark now with medication and eating a low sodium
diet and doing the, the proper kind of exercise for, for what my heart needs.
But women should always insist that their doctors check their hearts
because it is, or at least in the United States, I guess I can't speak.
Rupert Isaacson: It's a blood test.
All they have to do is ask for a particular type of blood test.
What is that blood test?
Does it have a name
Joy ONeil: b P?
In my situation, in my situation, it would've been a blood test.
Could have shown it an E.
An e kg could have shown it.
And now remember, I went to get a life insurance exam.
And a technician gave me this EKG in the middle of a life insurance
company's conference room.
So it's not even something that has to be ordered specialty like that.
Only a doctor
Rupert Isaacson: specialty or anything like,
Joy ONeil: no.
Yeah.
It's just a simple E k G or a simple blood test would've shown this.
So, and what I have discovered is that unfortunately my story is not unique.
That there are women all, all the time, every single day across the world whose
doctors are dismissing things, that if a man went to an emergency room or
went to the doctor and said, my heart is racing, I'm out of breath every
time I bend over, like I get dizzy.
I wake up at night with my heart pounding, I've gained weight.
You know, sometimes I have a pain in my chest, you know,
you would be immediately taken.
To have your heart looked at.
But in women, and there have been research studies that have shown
this, women pr women and men both go into a hospital er with exactly
the same script of what's going on.
And the women are usually told that they're just being, overly emotional
or anxiety or having a panic attack.
And the men are taken back immediately to be tested for a heart attack.
Rupert Isaacson: And what proportion of those women die?
Do we know what proportion of those women die?
Joy ONeil: It, heart disease is the number one killer of women.
Okay.
And, you know, if you could ask me before my own diagnosis, I probably
would've guessed that it was cancer, but, that it's heart disease.
Rupert Isaacson: So you are now, an advocate for women with
heart disease and, and just.
Women to be represented in this.
You're very, very, very, very busy running red barn.
You've got a massive clientele.
I, when, when I've, I've come down to be like, how do you guys manage it?
How do you see all these people?
I said, how do you do it?
But you do.
Where do you get time to go and advocate as well?
It's not easy.
And I also know you're a, a grandmother, although you, I dunno
how you can be a grandmother at 25, but you seem to have achieved it.
Joy ONeil: Oh, aren't you sweet?
But the, I think you and I are the same
Rupert Isaacson: age Indeed.
And I'm looking, I'm looking at us on the zoom screens and I, I, I see a difference.
, Joy ONeil: whatever.
I have grandchildren.
The age of your children.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Ok.
Rub it in.
Yeah.
But yeah.
So how do you find the time?
You're, you're, you are, you're rushed off your feet, you're busy.
And I presume, do, do you still feel sometimes, even,
even now, with your self-care.
Regime and so on.
Do you still sometimes feel close to burnout or has that gone away?
There's really two separate questions.
One is, how do you find the time for this advocacy work?
And B, what do you do about burnout?
Joy ONeil: I guess I find the time because I tend to generally be pretty organized.
So, and I think you, you just have to prioritize things
and try to, to make the time.
I would say one of the things that I starting to have our grandchildren, you
know, I really began to think about how lucky I was and how grateful I was to, to
still be alive, to be able to see them, and so to be able to spend time with them.
Is my first priority.
And I think that is also good for the organization because without them, I
think I could have been in danger of becoming a founder who stayed around
and in control for a little bit too long, you know, could have stayed in.
And so one of the good things about intentionally stepping back is that
other people in the organization have stepped up to lead it more.
I don't do anything.
I, and I haven't done anything in direct programs in probably
at least six or seven years.
Like it's, I
Rupert Isaacson: just have all that unstressful
fundraising to do, for example.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
Yeah.
I do the fundraising and the, the human resources and the administrative
things, but we have a great team and that's really very important to me.
So I don't know, and I think it just kind of comes naturally.
It's very integrated into everything that I do.
What do you know, whether it's talking about the barn or talking
about heart disease, it just
Rupert Isaacson: right naturally comes up.
You're, you're now, you've gone from being a, a technician to being a, an
advocate really for the programs and what you do while still, you know,
providing all these programming.
Do you still sometimes feel close to burnout and do you have tips for people?
I know an awful lot of listeners, are constantly dealing with this.
They're either been running programs for years, you know, and are exhausted by it.
Or they're, you know, trying to get programs up and feeling that pressure.
Yeah.
And, you know, juggling their lives with it.
What's your tip?
How do you manage burnout?
Joy ONeil: I would say anybody who says that they aren't on the verge at times,
Of burnout is probably just unaware that they're on the verge of that.
And I think for me, I received my diagnosis in 2016.
Most people with my diagnosis, if you search it, have like
a five year life expectancy.
So I spent those first, you know, couple of years, like 16, 17, 18, really
thinking about my life, who I was, what I wanted to be, my legacy, my children,
just all of those kind of things.
I felt like I had just kind of gotten back in a groove in 2019
with everything kind of going.
And then of course 2020 hit the pandemic and that was like
being knocked back down again.
Feel like we've just, you know, are kind of getting, getting
back on our feet after that.
I mean, not just us personally, but us as the world at least, or
at least the world in Alabama.
But what I find is when I, when I get close to burnout is, and this was one
of the things that I kept trying to tell my doctor, is I've always been able to,
when I get close to burnout, I have sort of like a little system that I can do.
And none of that was working back before my diagnosis.
And that was, I just take some time.
And I have, I'm so blessed to have amazing friends and family and I just
ask them honestly, and they are always great to give me honest feedback about
myself and my ideas and my thoughts.
And if I'm being cranky and, you know, need to take a break, I
would go do things with my friends.
I would spend time with my family.
I would really spend time, In prayer and just being alone, being quiet.
Mm-hmm.
Just spend a whole day in bed, you know, just, just quiet thinking, praying.
Give yourself permission
Rupert Isaacson: to do that.
Yeah.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
Just like reconnecting with God.
Cuz I do feel like when I, when I don't have that strong relationship is
when I can start to feel burned out.
But when I feel that I am living my life the way that, he built and
designed and equipped me to be able to do that, I have extra energy and
extra time to be able to, to go do and take care of all those things.
And so, Like being able to do that.
I love to crochet and watch Star Trek, so, you know, I can at the same
time, crochet or watch Star Trek.
Yeah.
And then, you know, just finding ways to reconnect with, with watching, the
kid, if I'm, if I feel like it's burned out at work, I could go watch a lesson.
Mm.
Read, read an email from a parent, you know, look at our program evaluations.
I know most organizations do program evaluations, to be able
to show the work that they do.
I feel like we do program evaluations because it helps to
prevent burnout among our staff.
That's good.
To be able, able to see, you know, like the things, like, you may think,
oh, this child isn't getting anywhere.
You know, like they're, they barely speak three words.
They only held their head up for five seconds while they were riding.
You know, all, all these things that seem incredibly slow to you, but
then you read it in writing from the parent who says, When they see me turn
down Bailey Road, they start smiling.
When they recognize where they're going, they wake up and
say, oh, today is Wednesday.
I get to go to the barn.
You know, like all of those things, when you get to see it and read it and you
realize that your work is meaningful and it's changing lives, even if it's
at a snails pace sometimes, the, the breakthroughs are great, but they're not
as often as the snail pace kind of things.
Or a, a former student comes back and tells you, you know, oh, remember
that time all those years ago that you did so and so, and you're like,
no, I don't even remember that.
And they say, that meant so much to me.
That was just so amazing.
That was a turning point in my life.
Like mm-hmm.
Like that is really, Like, those are the things, at least for me, that that help.
But, but I also think just having a reasonable expectation
and being willing to say no.
Or, or even if it's not no, it's like I can't do it yet.
Like, you know, I've got to fix myself.
That's a good answer.
I can't do it right now.
But it's not that I'm not interested, it's not that this won't work out, it's
just I can't do everything all at once.
And that's
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Let me put it on the list to be done.
Yeah.
Joy ONeil: Like, it, it can happen.
You know, some, some other things have got to align and some other things
have got to work out, but just keep in mind what's really important.
Yeah.
So how do you do it?
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, I gotta ride my ponies.
And I do actually increasingly, yeah, I meditate and, prayer, meditation.
You know, my, my earliest, all my earliest memories are conversations with God.
And it's true that, you know, someone's listening and they think, oh, Ru but
I didn't know you were Christian.
It's like, well, I'm actually not really.
but it doesn't mean that I don't believe in God.
and it doesn't mean that I don't have a sense of the divine.
but you can call it by different names.
It doesn't matter.
I don't think God minds particularly, doesn't wake up
going, well, you call me wrong.
I somehow don't think that's how divine thought process goes.
But, but that, that feeling of being gra a lot of it for me is often about gratitude.
Yeah, to turn my mind.
And, and so if I meditate, it's easier for me to do that.
And I've, I can use a ride, a trail ride as a meditation.
I can use that as an opportunity for gratitude.
Really just look around me, at nature.
And be so thankful that I'm in it, you know?
So I think, I think like you say, it's, you know, obviously one's children,
but it's, it's these simple things.
And of course we're also very lucky cuz we get to work and live with horses
and, you know, that just going down to the barn, out to the field, and even
just looking at them, you know, and just thinking, gosh, you know, how, how
lucky am I to, to be able to do this?
But yeah, I, I think as you say, reasonable expectations.
I, I think I've learned to allow myself to burn out.
I've learned, I've learned to not be freaked out and to know that
that is a cycle that everybody goes through, like animals go through
winter sleep and that actually it's cyclical in the course of a day.
You know, one, one tends to dip.
In the later afternoon, that might be a good time to meditate, a good
time to take a nap if you can.
And, he's, I never nap.
I never do.
But then well, well why not?
Because then maybe I'll, I'll work better when I come back and, and watching my dad.
My dad is 90 and, still going pretty strong, but I see when he lets himself
not go strong, and I've been watching him that way, for years and thinking,
you know, there's a lot to learn from, from just the way you organize your day.
To let yourself go up and come down and go up and come down
and not always push through.
You are a push through most of us, I'm sure most listeners here are.
And it, so the burnout factor, I think is, it's important just
for us to think about because.
Just given the demands of this kind of work.
It's inevitable, I think.
and
Joy ONeil: then never ending.
Like, it, it never ends.
Yeah.
It's 365 days a year, seven days a week.
And if you don't carve out time and pace yourself, you're, you're
not really doing right by anybody.
And even when I watch, of course I'm not a horse person.
I, I wouldn't pretend to be, but even watching your videos where
you're training with a horse, you say, okay, I got to where I wanted.
That's enough.
We're gonna end right now and we'll come back later and pick back up where this is.
So like, we have to treat ourselves in the same way that we would treat our horses.
That's a very good point.
Like, like you wouldn't, you wouldn't just keep pushing and
pushing and pushing a horse.
Because you know that if you give them time, that time to rest, or at least
that's what you say in your videos, right?
Like if you give them that time to rest Yeah.
That the next time you go back, they're gonna get there
and they're gonna be better.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So yeah, less is more.
Always.
Joy ONeil: Yeah.
Less.
Yeah.
Like so treat yourself like you would your own horse.
How's that?
For the best advice?
Rupert Isaacson: That's brilliant advice.
Well, listen how you would A good horse.
Yeah.
Oh, watch
Joy ONeil: if, if you're good at horses, like if you're good at horses, treat
them how you would treat your horse.
If you're a jerk that's not good with horses, don't treat
them how you would treat that,
Rupert Isaacson: but very good point.
Yes.
I was once told by a stump man who got me into writing in movies when I was in my
early twenties at college, and he said to, he was an Irish guy called Bronco Mcla.
He said, You can't love your horse.
You must hate your horse.
You must hate yours.
I'm like thinking, God, Bronco, I never want to hate my horse.
It's like, it's funny hearing you say that and it will make a great
story, but that's not how I wanna go.
No, no.
and it's hilarious you saying that you're not a horse person.
So for, for, for the listeners, you've probably gathered, that, joy is modest.
The program that she runs also with her daughter Alexis, who is
a very accomplished horsewoman and of course all the, the employees,
it's, it's exemplary what they do.
The lunging programs, the in-hand programs, the musing programs, the
mental wellbeing for the horse.
It's, it's, it's gold standard.
And I would recommend people to go down there.
So with that, I think.
I'd like to let people know, or have you let people know, how can
they get with you and learn more?
There's a lot going on down at Rev Barn.
There's, you've got, the polyvagal stuff.
You've got the lifeman ship stuff.
Obviously there's Horse Boy, but there's, there's more than that too.
And the work that you do with, JC Dugard and her foundation, and
there's, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of education and information
available to people down there.
How can they get in touch with you, joy?
Joy ONeil: Our website is the best way to, to, I guess, email me if you
just go to the red barn.org and if you fill out pretty much any of those
forms on the, the website, there's, at the bottom of each page, there's
a Join our database or learn more.
So it's Red
Rupert Isaacson: barn org.
Red Barn.
The
Joy ONeil: red barn,
Rupert Isaacson: t
Joy ONeil: h e, red Barn.
I know my southern accent comes out.
The red barn.org.
T h e r e d B A R
Rupert Isaacson: NT org.
Org Great.
And can they come down seminars, learn stuff, be in touch
with you guys educationally?
Sure.
Mentoring?
Joy ONeil: Yeah, absolutely.
We, I would, I always love to help anybody in any way that we can because so many
people have helped us and I just feel like it's a great way to pay it forward.
And, you know, when we, when we first started the barn, it was, I feel like just
something that helped our own children.
And I felt so fortunate and so lucky to have that opportunity.
And I want to make my life goal or, you know, and I've thought about this
a lot, especially after my diagnosis, like, what do you want to be known for?
And I think.
I mean, there are lots of things, but just professionally, I want to
be known as someone that helped make it possible for children, especially
with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities, to have the chance to
work with horses to improve their lives.
And people are more than welcome to come and, and see what we have learned.
But the first advice I always give people is to go to your website and
to go through, and, and look at it because I, I really do believe that
a, a good foundation or a knowledge in movement method and how the horses are
treated and how people learn and their brains like, sets the tone and for all
the other things that they can learn.
And, you know, they might have a.
A special interest and want to learn, learn also some
other tools to have in that.
But, they're welcome to call me, but I'm just gonna tell 'em to go back to
Rupert Isaacson: you so well, we'll back, we'll them back and forth.
That is very kind.
For those who do wanna contact us, yes, remember, it's if you Movement Method
Horse by Method, Athena, it's ntls.co, not.com, the other one, co ntls.co.
And if people are interested in the horse training and personal development
programs, that's long ride home.com.
However, do go to the red barn.org, and do contact, joy and her team.
There's a ton to learn and there's not many people, not many places that
bring it together so holistically.
While maintaining this level of service, it's a lot of clients.
It's also very physically beautiful.
I think a lot of people don't realize how beautiful Alabama is till they
get down there and those foothills are the Appalachians that are up
there in that Birmingham area.
So it's a very special landscape.
And you mentioned that place down by the water where, an cow would go and pray.
I've been to that place.
I know, I know exactly that river crossing it is sublime.
So yeah.
I would recommend going there to learn.
They're very, very modest, but they have an awful lot to teach.
So Joy, I can't wait till the next time I'm down there.
Hopefully November.
Thank you.
I would love it.
And you know, thank you so much for coming on.
Well thank,
Joy ONeil: we've learned a lot.
Thank you for giving the chance and thank you for being such an important
part of everything that happens here at the Barn and then also to me personally.
Thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: You are sweet.
Well, likewise.
And, good.
I will do a follow up.
So what Joy doesn't know is that this is actually, she just gotta come on again.
So, everyone send in your questions to her, your questions about polyvagal,
your questions about life, manship your questions about the heart
stuff, your questions about how all these things relate together.
And I will give them to joy, and Joy will answer them and we'll pull
her back on kicking and screaming.
Put her back up here and she'll answer your questions directly.
Alright.
Joy ONeil: May I'll be better for next time, cuz I'll
know what the questions are.
How's that happen?
Exactly,
Rupert Isaacson: exactly.
Maybe if we, if we're good to you.
Okay.
Yeah.
Alright.
Joy ONeil: The deer in the headlights, like, oh my gosh.
Rupert Isaacson: Give you a paramount.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, joy.
I've, I've enjoyed it immensely as always, and we'll see you again soon.
Joy ONeil: Y'all later.
Bye-bye.
Okay, bye.
Rupert Isaacson: thank you for joining us.
We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
Join our website, new trails learning.com, to check out our online
courses and live workshops in Horse Boy Method, movement Method, and Athena.
These evidence-based programs have helped children, veterans, and people
dealing with trauma around the world.
We also offer a horse training program and self-care program
for riders on long ride home.com.
These include easy to do online courses and tutorials that
bring you and your horse joy.
For an overview of all shows and programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
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