Ep 13: Jane Faulkner - Equine Assisted Therapy Australia

Jane Faulkner is a household name, at least in Equine Assisted circles, down in Australia.

And with good reason. Like many people who have come to the Equine Assisted world from an originally non horsy background, she has brought a therapist's perspective to our often overly horse-focussed field. Equine Assisted Therapy, Australia - Jane's organization - draws on her experience in nursing, and Gestalt therapy  - an approach to psychotherapy that helps clients concentrate on the present to understand what is actually happening in their lives at this moment and to help resolve conflicts both internally and with the world at large. She's also a yoga buff and discovered decades ago how movement and emotional and mental health are inextricably linked.

Though a latecomer to horses, Jane dived in thoroughly - becoming a certified riding instructor and trail guide in Australia and gradually acquiring her own herd on the Gold Coast of Queensland.

 But there is much, much more to her story than this - how travels in Europe and then into the dodgier areas of South America and further afield brought her face to face with conflict, how people from different cultures even within their own country often misunderstand each other, and how to bridge those gaps, and therefore how all of us often misunderstand ourselves and what to do about it.

And how the horse, as ever, lends itself as a healer,  a mirror, a helper. So listen on, there is much to learn from Jane's story and the methodologies she has helped create.

Find Jane's Programs: 

• Equine Assisted Australia: https://equineassistedtherapyaustralia.com.au/ 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/equineassistedtherapyaustralia
• Insta: https://www.instagram.com/equineassistedtherapyaustralia/

Find our other shows and programs:
https://rupertisaacson.com

What is Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson?

Here on Equine Assisted World. We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and, established in the equine assisted field. This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have that these lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.

Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.

 You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com.

Rupert Isaacson: Welcome
to Equine Assisted World.

I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.

New York Times 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.

Today, we've got Jane Faulkner.

Jane Faulkner is like everyone
who comes on Equine Assisted

World, jolly interesting.

She runs Equine Assisted
Therapy Australia.

For those of you who are familiar with
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy it's a

Fascinating tool for helping people get
to the bottom of their stuff and make

the necessary changes that they need
to to get to happier places in life.

And of course, because we're
doing, it's being done with horses.

This is not, you know, sitting
opposite somebody in a office on a

couch feeling terrible about yourself
and sort of compounding the trauma.

The equine assisted psychotherapy work
has been well studied for getting really

lasting outcomes and there seems to
be a magic with mixing this with not

just the horse, but the movement and
the environment that the horses create.

So, but what's interesting about Jane
is that she did not come into horses.

As many of us did as sort of initiated
cult members as children she came

in a little bit through the side
door in a slightly indirect way.

And those of you who listened to our
interview with Lynn Thomas, who founded

Igala might see a parallel there in
that when people seem to come into the

equine assisted world, From outside of
the equine world, often they can bring

with them insights that perhaps we horse
obsessed people might not see because

we sometimes can't see the wood for the
trees because we like ponies so much.

So, without further ado, I'm gonna
hand over to you, Jane, and I'm going

to ask you how you got there because
your, your, your story is fascinating.

And.

I think all of the adventures that
you've had give you the perspective

to be able to offer what you offer
to both clients and the people who

do your two year diploma in equine
assisted psychotherapy in Australia,

and this thing of life experience.

In general is so important rather
than just, I got a degree in therapy

and I like horses, so off, off we go.

Yeah it's, it's, it's very important that
one has this great variety of experience.

So, Jane, over to you.

Can you tell us where you began
in life and your early years?

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, sure.

So I grew up in a little town
called Waterford in Queensland

in Australia with three brothers
and on a river, the Logan River.

So it was kind of semi rural.

We were just on an acre, but
we were surrounded by acreage.

So I was outside all the time as a kid
swimming across the river playing soccer

and my neighbors actually had horses
and so I loved them from next door.

So I remember going over and they
used to put molasses in the feed.

I remember being excited about
having some of the molasses, but

not really having much interaction
apart from a pat other than that.

And I think I, yeah, I never really
entertained having horses cause

I just knew that we couldn't.

So, I grew up to an English
dad and an Australian mum.

And yeah, my childhood was.

I was quite a responsible kid and so
I looked after my brothers and yeah,

just felt really at home outside was
pretty bossy and it's true, it's true,

it was pretty bossy and had quite at
that age, had quite a strong sense of

self then as a teenager, so I guess.

My dad was quite a very stressed
out man and I think as kids,

we were quite scared of him.

So when I hit the teenage, so
I learned to suppress a lot and

kind of be a really good kid.

So I didn't really ever get in
trouble, did the right thing,

looked after my brothers.

But as I got into my teenage years,
I started developing acne and

I think a big part of that was.

My emotions erupting through my skin.

So that kind of led me to really get
curious about health and wellbeing.

And it made me, I think, think
differently to a lot of my peers.

So I felt really ugly and a lot
of shame around having the acne.

So.

I think I focused on I was focused
on a career and learning and

yeah, understanding why my body
was doing what it was doing.

So for me, I was lucky.

I had some amazing neighbors and
they were into meditation and

they were into naturopathy and
they kind of opened a door for me.

At 16 to kind of start looking into
myself and getting curious about how

my thoughts were creating my reality.

I guess.

And I used to go to meditations
with them at the time.

It was spiritual meditations, you know,
where you're kind of, you know, Opening

up to the spiritual world and getting
curious about all of that kind of stuff.

And I loved that.

I just, that was really kind of my jam.

From there as a teenager, I never really
feel felt like I fit in because I, I

was, I look back and I realized I was
a pretty deep kid and so, and I guess

feeling so ugly, I was never really into
the, the mating game or the party scene.

I was more into learning about
taking care of myself and my

health and understanding who I was.

So I was pretty not sure what I
wanted to do when I left school.

Mom, mom was a nurse.

She was like, why don't you do nursing?

I studied nursing, and that was a real
challenge for me because I could see how

the system wasn't really a health system.

It was kind of, it went against a lot of
what I was learning about what health is.

And again, I guess I felt like I didn't
really fit in and as a nurse as well, I

yeah, just worked, I think as a nurse,
you're taught to not really, if you're

a better nurse when you don't have
needs, so not having breaks and just

always kind of giving to your patients.

So, for me, I burnt out.

And because I loved, I loved the
people contact, I loved talking with

people, but I just didn't like how
people in the system were kind of a

number that people, the system wasn't
interested in that person or the

history or why they might've developed
the illness that they had developed.

So, after I studied nursing and
when I worked as a nurse here

in Australia, I worked in a
clinic in New Farm in Brisbane.

And we worked with so we worked
with the local prostitutes and the

local transgender populations that
were wanting to kind of transition.

So I loved that job and I loved
the different people I worked with.

And I guess it was around.

What did

Rupert Isaacson: you love?

What did you love about that particular
work in those particular populations?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Thanks for asking me that, you
know, I think it was their realness.

Their authenticity, they they were
surviving, you know, I remember

having a client who was 13 living
in a car, having to prostitute

herself and she was just so real.

There was no masks.

There was no bullshit.

There was, I need these drugs.

You know, she just kind of knew what
she wanted, knew what she needed.

Yeah.

And I think.

I really liked that there was no
having to work hard to work out

what she wanted or who she was.

It was just there in plain sight
and I really loved that about yeah,

working at that clinic and I guess
working with people as a nurse.

'cause you are seeing people at their most
vulnerable, you know, people sick, dying.

Mentally ill and yeah, it gets rid
of a lot of the pretense and the

superficial superficialities of life.

And I really liked that.

But as I said, so I liked the people
part, but I didn't like the system part.

So for me, I traveled, I went
overseas nursed over there.

And,

Rupert Isaacson: Overseas and over
there is quite a large sort of, Sorry.

Blanket.

Jane Faulkner: London.

Yeah, so I worked in London.

I worked in the London Clinic.

I worked in one of the big
hospitals in Northern London.

And then I worked as a private nurse.

Whittington.

Say, say again?

Rupert Isaacson:
Whittington, by any chance.

Jane Faulkner: No, it wasn't.

It started with an R.

I can't think what it was
called, huge hospital.

I just thought Whittington was the

Rupert Isaacson: one closest
to me in North London.

Ah,

Jane Faulkner: ah, ah, yeah.

I wondered if I might have

Rupert Isaacson: walked past you
accidentally on the street, perhaps.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah,

Rupert Isaacson: quite possibly.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah.

For me, going overseas was amazing
because it gave me a chance to really

work out who I was and being overseas.

Not I went with my brother, my
older brother, but we met a whole

new group of people over there.

And I remember having this realization
that I can be who I want over here.

Nobody knows who I am and
realizing how being at home.

I kind of.

Let myself be boxed into this persona
that people thought of as Jane.

So for me, being overseas
was really liberating.

I looked into a lot of different
natural therapies again.

I was trying to get to the
root cause of my health.

So I went and saw different
flower essence practitioners.

I worked with an amazing
shaman over there in London.

Rupert Isaacson: And what type of name

Jane Faulkner: was Yeah, her name was V.

Mascarelli and she was a French woman
and she'd worked with a lot of shamans

through Africa and South America.

So we did a lot of vision kind
of questing with the drum.

And yeah.

For me that work, I just felt like
I, I'd come home in that work.

It felt very just, I just felt
really comfortable in it when we

Rupert Isaacson: requested for
someone who's never done that.

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Rupert Isaacson: And, you know,
got to remember a lot of the

listeners are coming out of.

You know, perhaps not quite such
explorative yeah experiences.

When, what, describe how, what you
saw when you were vision questing

with a drum, how it helped you.

Can you be kind of a bit, just
specific briefly about that?

Yeah, sure.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah.

So for me I remember one particular.

It was like previous lives that
I'd had that I went back to.

So, I remember one of them
and I was like a crazy woman.

I remember had big hair and I was in a
cage and I was kind of being taunted.

And vision questing is kind of weird
because you're seeing things and

you're feeling things and you're having
ideas about what these things are.

And for me, it was like a realization
that I think I'd been a medicine woman

and I'd been kind of persecuted for that.

And that was super helpful for me to
understand because a lot of myself

before that time, I'd kind of, Kept under
wraps and not expressed to others and

yeah, just never dared share with people
or so a lot of my even investigating

into the different healing arts that
I investigated when I lived overseas,

I didn't share with my nursing friends
that I lived with in a flat in London.

I remember because I was seeing a
Chinese herbalist and I would cook the

herbs up in the flat in London and all
my friends thought I was crazy and the

herbs stunk so they're like oh my god.

And not just the herbs, all

Rupert Isaacson: the insect casings
and other stuff they give you.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

So So that was one of the vision,
but other vision quests that just

made feelings I have in this life
make sense or made decisions I make

or ways that I was in the world,
it made those ways make sense.

And so in that way, it really helped me
and also realizing that I experienced

that, which led me to do this.

I'm not experiencing that anymore,
so I don't need to do this anymore.

So I found it hugely helpful.

Rupert Isaacson: Was it largely
about letting go of things

that were unhelpful, basically?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And getting insights into
why I was doing those things.

Can I

Rupert Isaacson: ask you just
before you go to the next phase

of your, of your life, you said
your dad was very stressed out.

Why?

What was, what was stressing him?

Jane Faulkner: He was, so my dad
was he was English and he grew up.

Rupert Isaacson: Oh,
well that's right there.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Jane Faulkner: I didn't mean that.

I'm trying to.

So I think many things.

So when I think of his life now, like
he remembers being eight and hiding

under a table as the bombs were dropping

Rupert Isaacson: and then

Jane Faulkner: his father and then
his father died when he was 16.

And then as he kind of grew up,
he went through a divorce and then

moved out to Australia and kind
of had, I guess, four of us kids.

And I think it was his.

His stress of providing for us
and I also think he was a person

that struggled to let things go
struggled to yeah, struggled.

So he held a lot of emotion in,
he didn't really share his, his

challenges or anything like that.

He just kind of would come
home a ball of stress.

And I think he also had high
expectations of, of us kids

and how we wanted things to be.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

I was just going to say,
he's a beautiful man.

I think it was yeah, just him not
knowing how to process things.

And then home being the place
where He could let out stress or

Rupert Isaacson: what did he do
for a living out of interest?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

He was a civil engineer,

Rupert Isaacson: so lots of
responsibility also standing on his

shoulders for the projects working
for the bridges, not falling down

after they're built, et cetera, which
is, which is not inconsiderable.

And as you, as you say, sort of growing
up with the war, the blitz happening

around them and then post war austerity.

And I think there was just as, as
someone who grew up you know, I'm not

obviously as old as he was, but I born
in the sixties central London what's

now the financial district of London
did not look then like it looks now.

A lot of it was still bombed flat when I
was a kid and we played on the bomb sites.

And we found all sorts of things because
of that archaeological stuff that have

been thrown up, you know, from the Iron
Age onwards, but also lots of fragments

of bombs and that sort of thing.

And lots of houses still
laid waste and shattered.

So I can also see how.

Kids that grew up sort of through the
depression and then through the war

and then the post war austerity perhaps
coming out to Australia and saying

well, you know you kids have it have
it made you're here in the golden land

and the high expectations You talk
about you know, you aren't hampered

by the things I was hampered with so
therefore my expectations of you are

perhaps Higher than is comfortable.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could see and I just wanted
to ask you this because you know As

you know, when any of us are working
in the equine assisted world, we

kind of want to know the picture.

We want to know the story.

I always feel the story
is where the healing is.

And if we don't know the background
story with our clients or the horses

we're working with, let alone ourselves.

It's very difficult.

Do you know what I mean?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

So thank you for just

Rupert Isaacson: sharing that
because I think that helps inform me

Jane Faulkner: of

Rupert Isaacson: where you get.

So you're in, you're in London and you're,
you're cooking up beetle casings and toad.

And you're also going to see a
show, but you're also working

in as a, as a nurse in clinics.

Yes.

What happens to you next?

Jane Faulkner: So from there, I go to
India and I so in, yeah, in London,

so I used to be a runner and I used to
run around Kensington park every day.

And then I got shin splints.

I couldn't run anymore.

And I was like, oh, man, I,
I, I'm a person that really

likes to move every day.

And there was a yoga sign and I was
like, Oh, I've heard about this yoga.

I might give it a go.

So I went to a yoga
class and it was awesome.

And I just loved it.

And so I started going to yoga every
day and yoga wasn't cool back then.

And the internet hadn't really started

old back in the old days.

And So I asked the teacher, you
know, where can I learn this and

they told me about a place in India.

So I went to India, studied yoga over
there which was a huge eye opener for me.

I really wasn't expecting
India to be like it was.

I'd been through Europe.

That's

Rupert Isaacson: another big
blanket statement as someone

who's lived in India myself.

I want you to go into some details.

Also, what kind of yoga?

Jane Faulkner: So back then to start with,
it was half the yoga back then at the

Shivananda ashram and I loved the ashram.

But for me, I remember arriving in India
and I hadn't planned anything because

my brother and I had backpacked and
we'd just arrived somewhere and pulled

out the Lonely Planet book and gone
and got a hostel and anyway, I remember

getting to India and getting out of
the plane and thinking in the plane,

thinking I'll just sit in the lounge.

And go through my lonely planet and
work out where I'm going to stay.

I remember arriving in India
and there was no lounge.

It was just literally.

Rupert Isaacson: And that
smell as you get off the plane.

Yes.

The smell of like urine
of 8 million people.

You can almost smell the plane comes down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jane Faulkner: And then all
these people, all these Indian

rickshaw drivers just around me.

And I, I.

Totally.

Yeah.

I was terrified.

So I went up to all these other Western
women and I was like, where are you going?

Can I come with you?

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

Very, very

Jane Faulkner: wise.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Luckily, one of the
women said, yep, you can come with me.

She was a medical student and she
was over there to work in hospital.

So I went with her and I
remember just the shock.

So it was about 3 a.

m.

in the morning over there.

The shock of

Rupert Isaacson: when the plane got in.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah,

Rupert Isaacson: dangerous time.

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and I remember, yeah, just driving
through the streets and seeing bodies

on the ground and you know, beggars on,
you know, that those wooden slats with

the wheels underneath and, and just
that the shock of that in my system.

And.

Yeah, so, and then we were in the
local YHA and I didn't leave the hotel

the next day I was so frightened.

I remember just eating like the
plainest biscuits and being very scared.

And then Was that in

Rupert Isaacson: Bombay,
now Mumbai, or was that No,

Jane Faulkner: it was Chennai.

Mumbai.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Madras.

Madras.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, not even a huge venue.

Hot, humid, crowded, crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then getting the, I think
I've got the train down to Kerala,

which was where the ashram was.

And I'm, I remember
arriving at the ashram.

I can't remember much
about the train trip.

I was probably terrified the whole time.

But I remember arriving at the
ashram and they were chanting.

And I remember thinking,
Oh my God, this is a cult.

And just being really worried
about what I'd shown up to.

And then I think the next day the
training started and I just loved it.

It was people from all over the world.

It was a huge group of
people in this training.

And yeah, just learning
all about yogic philosophy.

And.

just living in that ashram life.

I just, I loved it.

For

Rupert Isaacson: those people
who have never lived in an ashram

and don't know what that entails.

Can you tell us, walk us through a day
in an ashram and, and with the yoga

practice, when, what is it doing for you?

What's happening in your body?

What's happening in your brain?

Why is this good for you?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

So you would, we would
start the day early.

So with sunrise and we would go
into the big hall and meditate.

So we'd sit in silence for an hour.

And then we would chant.

So, we would chant all these
different mantras and kind of,

ah, they're not called songs.

What are they called?

My brain's Yeah.

Well, helping me.

Yeah.

But, but, but different,
different kind of, yeah, mantras

mostly and the mantras, old

Rupert Isaacson: Sanskrit language

Jane Faulkner: in the
old Sanskrit language.

Yeah.

So we would have a little, a chanting
book and we would chant straight

from that book and, and the different
mantras have different benefits.

So I know anytime we got in.

When we got into the bus to
travel, we would chant a mantra

before we kind of traveled.

But yeah, so we'd start
with that meditation.

Then we would.

Do the chanting for an hour and
a half, and then we would do

our practice, our yoga practice.

And that I think went for another hour and
a half, and then we would have breakfast.

Then we would have Karma
yoga, which is like jobs.

Mine was to clean the toilet
with a bit of coconut rusk.

That was interesting.

Yeah, it was pretty harsh.

And then we had yogic philosophy.

So we would learn about yogic philosophy.

Then I think we had a few
hours off in the afternoon.

Then we'd have another hour and a half
chant and then more meditation and

then more of a kind of yogic discourse
of an evening and then go to bed.

Rupert Isaacson: So, when people
are, the reason I'm wanting to pause

here in India at this ashram for a
moment is I think it can be difficult

for Westerners to understand.

That's for example, if you, but if
you, one replaces the word mantra

with the word Psalm or one replaces
the word chant with the word pray.

And as a kid who grew up somewhat
against my will as a chorister in the

temple church in, in London, you know,
the call and response of the Psalms

and, you know, God be with you and
with thy spirit and all of that stuff.

We can sort of assimilate.

Whether we like it or not
as Westerners because we're

familiar with it it's around us.

And then we go out to, we see people
in India, you know, with the shaved

head and a dot between their eyes and a
body that is different to ours because

they're they're sitting there in a,
in a, in a, Doty, you know, a cloth

instead of a pair of pants and, you
know, a string that we wonder what that

string means that's around their torso.

And so it all looks very, very different.

But in fact, they're praying, and
they're singing and, and, and,

of course, with even within the
Western traditions, meditation is a.

has been a thing forever.

To quiet the mind.

Okay, we could see the benefits of that.

One of the things which I think is
not talked about much is the benefits

of chanting and singing and mantras.

Why they work, whether it's people
talking about, say, law of attraction

and Uh, affirmations, you know, putting
an affirmation on your mirror, I am

worthy, or you are beautiful, or I
am a money magnet, or whatever it is.

But this other thing about chanting
peace into the world, and I know,

you know, like the, the Rastafarians
talk about chanting down Babylon,

you know, bring it, chanting.

Evil from the world and sort of putting
good into the world and then the

vibrations of within the body of these
ways of breathing that create the mantras

and the chants seem to have incredibly
beneficial effects on both our brainwaves.

They put EEGs on people's heads and
and the immune system and so on,

but this is often not talked about.

And that's why I just wanted to
pause here and say, you know,

it's not just navel gazing, right?

Jane Faulkner: No, no, not at all.

And I think of the wisdom
of these ancient cultures.

And so I know with the, in the Sanskrit
language, the different sounds have,

they believe have a different impact
on different parts of our body.

So different sounds correlate
to supporting different chakras.

And I guess for me back then, so I
was 22 I just know how I used to feel

at the end of chanting, like my mind
would clear, my heart would feel open.

I would just feel connected and free.

So, and when I think about it, I
thought the yoga asana would have

the biggest impact or the meditation,
but it was definitely the chanting

that had the biggest impact.

And especially, I think there
was a group of 200 of us.

And so all of us chanting
and it was powerful.

It was really, really powerful.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

And was it Nikola Tesla
who said, if you want to.

Understand the mysteries that the universe
think in terms of frequency and vibration.

And of course, what is that, but
frequency and vibration, I guess.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think I feel like I'm loving
actually that science feels like

it's catching up to a lot of
these beliefs and practices that

Indigenous cultures have had forever.

Yeah.

That kind of help us be whole humans.

And it kind of humors me a little bit that
Western culture needs to wait for this

to

Rupert Isaacson: yeah,

Jane Faulkner: believe it's real or okay.

Or.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, the Catholic
church was a powerful thing, Jane,

Jane Faulkner: wasn't it?

It really was.

Yeah.

I'm I'm realizing more and more each
day, just how powerful the systems

that have governed our lives are.

Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know, I don't know if you're aware
that in the, in the 11th century in

Europe, there was a huge surge of
mysticism within Christianity and figures

like Hildegard of Bingen who was the
first, you know, female gynecologist,

the first, she's still the most published
female composer, I think, of all time.

All her stuff is still out there in print.

She books on herbalism, but she also
had crusades sent against her and her

nunnery and managed to fight them off
because the local people were so reliant

on the medicine that she and her.

sisters were producing and then
she managed to make friends

with the Holy Roman Emperor and
sort of find safety this way.

But it in this sort of went on and then
in by the 16th century the church was

actually banning A lot of the chants

Jane Faulkner: that

Rupert Isaacson: were on a six note
scale that people like Hildegard Bingen

were using because people were saying,
well, with this we feel so connected to

God, we sort of don't need the church.

That was not good news for the church.

So, yes, as you say, the desire
for control before you even get

to things like witch burning, and
you know you're talking about.

a past life, you know, vision, experience
in your shamanic thing of perhaps being

a medicine woman who was persecuted.

And that must be in the ancestral lines
of so many women in our culture and men.

We live, we live where
I'm interviewing you here.

If I look to the North through the window,
I look towards a town called Itchstein.

I'm in Germany, which has a witch's tower.

where they were all kept.

There's a memorial with the names,
because they kept the names, of

all the people that were burned,
and half of them were men.

But yes, anyone, anyone with
any sort of connection to God.

So you're saying, you know, you find
it funny that we're having, science is

having to catch up in Western culture, but
of course we killed science, didn't we?

We killed science along with spirituality.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

The true science where you can think.

And it's interesting as I hear you
talking, I'm thinking of the First

Nations people here in Australia
and their ways and their connection

to country and their, their deep
spiritual connection and insight.

And.

How, when the white man came
over here, how threatened white

people were of those first night,
that first nation spirituality.

And I was working with
amazing first nations elder.

I did some of the, some training
with her just on how first nations

people view spirituality and how.

They work spiritually and she was
saying how, when the white man came and

started to kind of see the First Nations
magic and spirituality, how the First

Nations people actually made decisions
to shut down different aspects of their

spirituality to kind of keep themselves
safe because it was such a threat to.

Yeah, the white people that had come.

Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I think that's a, that's a, that's
a tale that could be told from any

Jane Faulkner: everywhere

Rupert Isaacson: culture that was
impacted by the colonial experience.

And the colonial experience,
of course, wasn't just white.

You know, it's happened from
Asian country to Asian country.

It's happened within Africa, from
African to African, it's happened.

But obviously the big one was
what exploded out of Europe.

Jane Faulkner: Sorry,

Rupert Isaacson: what

Jane Faulkner: I, what I am loving is
in Australia I feel like there's an

awareness of that our systems are broken,
so our health school, and I'm loving

that we're getting more and more curious
about our first nations people's systems.

And so it's kind of in Australia,
we're starting to see this.

blossoming and this curiosity and
this an openness now, which, and, and

a respect for First Nations culture
and ways, which I'm really loving.

Rupert Isaacson: So, Well, I want to
return to this a little bit later because

I, I have a very profound experience
with my autistic son, with the cuckoo

langi or up in the Daintree rainforest.

Wow.

A very profound healing.

But, so yes, I'm absolutely with you.

So

Jane Faulkner: before you move on, yeah.

We have a cultural advisor
and they are people.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Then we, we, she probably knows
the healer that healed my son.

She

Jane Faulkner: probably does.

She's amazing.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

We'll talk

Jane Faulkner: about that.

Quite a

Rupert Isaacson: small world.

Yes, it is.

Okay.

So you're in India, you're, you're finding
that the chanting, that quieting the

mind, the cleansing of the body through
the chanting, that obviously the yoga

practice is good for your body as well as
your mind, you're, you're, but you're in

somewhat of a, ivory tower in an ashram.

One is protected from the seething, you
know, milestone of humanity that you saw

at three in the morning when you're coming
off that plane and had to humble yourself

to actually ask for help from a stranger.

I basically say, I don't
know what I'm doing.

Please help me out, which
must have been very humbling.

To a tough Aussie, you know, to
actually say, you know, look, sorry,

I'm lost, can you help me out?

I actually, I made a little note there
saying, you know, that was, that was,

that was a moment of humility, which
is, must have resonated with you.

But then, okay, so you're in
this ivory tower, you're having

this wonderful experience.

How do you parlay that then
into your next experience?

Jane Faulkner: Hmm.

So from that ashram where I went
to another ashram called Alma's.

I, have you heard of that?

Rupert Isaacson: Yes.

Jane Faulkner: So I went to her
ashram and that was very different.

It wasn't a protected ivory
tower and that was quite a shock.

And what shocked me around that was
how indoctrinated the people were.

And that sounded terrible, didn't it?

Yeah, so how how if Amma was somewhere
where a crowd just chased to get to

where she was and for me, it didn't,
it didn't feel good to see people doing

that, to see people not having their,
not in their own sovereignty, you

know, to kind of, and to, to kind of be
worshipping this other human, I couldn't.

I couldn't get my head around it.

Did you get to meet

Rupert Isaacson: her at all, Amma?

Jane Faulkner: I did.

I got to meet her and give her a hug.

And she asked me to, you know, she
asked people to sit behind her.

So I sat behind her and
yeah, and I could feel that.

I could feel that, um,
this, her beautiful spirit.

I could feel that.

I feel, I, I dunno, I just, um, what
I want to, I feel like I didn't, I,

I didn't feel blinded by it though.

And that's what I couldn't
understand with a lot of that.

The other people that were blinded to
the humanity around them and they would

do whatever they could to be near Amma.

And for me, I'm like, I was just like,
This isn't congruent, you know, you're

chanting and wanting to be like Ama and
yet you'll push people out of the road and

you, you won't care how you get near her.

So I couldn't kind of, I couldn't
understand how all of that was together

in, in this place, if that makes sense.

Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.

So how did you end up,

everyone in India goes through this.

How did, what was the way you
ended up coming to terms with

paradox and ambiguity, which India
shoves firmly into one's face?

Jane Faulkner: It really does.

Gosh, how did I,

I think I learned to just watch,
sit back, watch, get curious.

Get

Rupert Isaacson: curious
is a good, that's a good.

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

Get really curious and
kind of not overthink it.

So get curious.

Notice.

And then yeah, make it, make the next
decision that felt right for myself.

So I didn't stay in Amma's ashram long.

I, I struggled too much with that.

Yeah, that, how paradoxical it was.

I was just like, oh, this isn't,
it just didn't feel right for me.

Yeah, so after there, I went back to
London and nursed a little more and then

my brother and I went to South America
and we spent three months in South

America, just kind of, starting up in
Ecuador and then moving down through

Peru, across Bolivia and through Rio.

And that was another
eye opening experience.

I, I realized I'm, I
was very naive person.

Like, again, I remember being on
the plane, reading the Lonely Planet

and seeing all these warnings for
kidnappings and all of that kind of stuff.

But we arrived in Quito in Ecuador and.

I so we learned Spanish over there
because people weren't able to speak

English and we went to the very top
of Ecuador to the Ecuadorian Colombian

border and we went deep into the
Amazon with a guide and stayed in

the Amazon I think it was for a week.

And that was an amazing experience, just
kind of staying like really deep in.

Cause I remember it took us
two days to get where we went.

And I remember the water of the Amazon
river getting clearer and cleaner.

And yeah, and just kind of, there
was my brother and I and another

couple, and we stayed with a family
in, in deep in the jungle there.

And South America, again, for me, it was.

It was quite shocking and I think it
was in a different way to India, India.

Didn't, I think the spirituality of
India, I couldn't, it wasn't so much

evident in South America and life felt
cheap in South America, you know, people

had guns and I felt a bit like a walking
ATM machine, you know, like people would

kind of beg and and it just felt like.

You know, the different drug
mafia and stuff like that.

We, we kind of went,

yeah, a little bit off the beaten track.

And so, had a few frightening
encounters with different.

People dressed up as the army
with machine guns across their

chest and things like that.

And I look back now and, and think,
wow, that was an amazing, like

I tell my kids stories and it's
like, man, did I really do that?

Cause it was quite an amazing adventure.

I'm really grateful for the experience.

I remember at the time I was
reading a book called how to live

this year, as if it's your last.

And it was actually really helpful
because every day felt like.

I could have died today.

Like, I remember being on a bus again
in the middle of the night and there

was a massive landslide and we were
on a bus full of smugglers that had so

they were miners, but they had smuggled
a lot of birds into their pockets

and into bags and stuff like that.

And when we'd come to a checkpoint
and my brother and I had to get out

and they just had to check our papers.

And seeing the the police or whoever
it was getting on with the dog and

walking up and down through the
bus and you could hear the birds.

And then just getting off and us
keeping on going and apparently one

of our guides had dogged them in.

And so we had the rest of this
bus trip with all of these people

that had smuggled these birds.

And we got to this point where
there was a massive mudslide.

We had to all get off the bus
and walk across and around

where the rest of the road was.

And I just remember the whole time,
my senses being heightened, you know,

me really being aware of yeah, life
and how precious it was and not having

much else in my mind, but who's around
me, what am I doing, where am I going,

it's those basic kind of things.

Survival.

Rupert Isaacson: Yes, absolutely.

I can relate to that having
had a few of those myself.

Okay, so you're, you're in you're
in South America, you survive it.

Life is cheap but life is wonderful.

It's scary.

You realize that you were perhaps taking
some risks that you're a bit lucky you.

Didn't pay for.

Jane Faulkner: And

Rupert Isaacson: then I presume
you come back to London or back

to Australia at this point.

Jane Faulkner: No, I came back to London.

And, and then realized
I needed to go home.

I needed to feel anchored to something.

So I came back home went back to nursing.

It just didn't fit me anymore.

So I looked into other things.

Did studied Hawaiian massage
for a while and then did a two

year long yoga apprenticeship
and that was again, every day.

Two hours of yoga, meditation,
assisting teachers.

So it was a real life of yoga for two

Rupert Isaacson: years.

Jane Faulkner: And that
was life changing for me.

So in a really good way just helped me
really become aware of my thoughts and.

It's a process, I guess, of just
looking at yourself all the time.

Rupert Isaacson: And you're still making
your living at this point as a nurse?

That's how you're paying the bills?

Jane Faulkner: No, then I was massaging
while I was doing my yoga apprenticeship.

Okay, okay, so

Rupert Isaacson: you've actually now
switched to a full massage professional.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's

Rupert Isaacson: not inconsiderable.

And doing that in London.

Jane Faulkner: No, I'd
come back to Australia.

Okay.

Okay.

Right.

Rupert Isaacson: Nursing

Jane Faulkner: was London.

Yeah.

London

Rupert Isaacson: is so
expensive to live in.

It's not an easy place to pay the rent.

You know, if you're going to just
do massage and that sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Totally.

It was funny in London.

There was about 10 of us
Aussies in a hotel room.

In a flat in Bayeswater,

Rupert Isaacson: I remember those days.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's brilliant.

Fun.

Okay.

So you're back.

You're a massage therapist.

We still have not got a horse in sight.

Jane Faulkner: No, no horse in sight.

So massage therapist doing my yoga
apprenticeship in my yoga apprenticeship.

I started some of my relationship.

Familiar relationship issues kept
coming up and I think my skin, I still

had acne and I was like, man, I just
want to get to the bottom of this and

I went to a naturopath and he said,
Have you, do you ever get angry?

And I said, no.

And he said, oh, maybe you
should go and see this therapist.

So, and it was a Geal therapist, so I
went and saw this Gestalt therapist.

I feel sorry for that therapist
forever because I remember them

asking me, you know, what do you need?

And I was like, I don't know.

I had no real idea about myself.

Rupert Isaacson: Now not everyone
knows what Gestalt therapy is.

Can you tell us please?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, sure.

So it's a type of therapy that was
I guess put together by a man called

Fritz Perls and Gestalt is very much
about supporting someone to be in the

here and now with their experience.

So someone might be telling you a story
of their childhood as a Gestalt therapist.

I might say, what are you noticing
now as you tell me about being 8?

So it's very much about what's
happening in the here and now and it's.

A lot about getting curious
about how someone we call it

makes contact or shows up and how
they break contact or disappear.

And so as a Gestalt therapist, I'm
always supporting or trying to help

someone make contact with themselves
and with me and with their environment.

And I'm trying to support them to become
aware of how they break that contact or

how they move away from that experience.

You

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So you, you, you say when you
see clients now, so you went as

a client, but now you become.

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So from that, I studied Gestalt therapy.

Rupert Isaacson: I just want to
do a quick, a quick terms thing.

Gestalt is a German word, right?

So, but in English it tends to mean, I'm
looking here on my Oxford dictionary,

an organized whole that is perceived
as more than the sum of its parts.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: So are you
saying then that Gestalt therapy

is a quest for the full self?

Is that?

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, that's a way
nicer way to put it than I put it.

Yes.

That's exactly it.

It's like, who are you and how can
we help you let go of what you're How

can we uncover your full self and how can
we support you to become aware of how you

stop yourself from being your full self?

Rupert Isaacson: So by now, we're sort of
moving into the realm of psychotherapy.

No.

Jane Faulkner: Yep.

That's right.

So

Rupert Isaacson: ponies

Jane Faulkner: not yet, not yet,
though, for you to stop training.

In that time, I had my two children which
was huge for me because I was sitting

in a group of people talking about
how their parents had screwed them up.

And I was, you know, Entering
into parenting yeah, so I

did my gestalt training.

I had just finished that was
starting to study art therapy

Rupert Isaacson: and I

Jane Faulkner: was doing
my art therapy training.

That was a two year training.

Rupert Isaacson: Why art therapy?

Because you haven't talked about a love
of art or being an artist up until now.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, no, I think.

I think someone I knew was doing
it and I was curious and I liked

learning and I was like, sure, I, I
think I didn't want to stop learning.

I think that's, there's no greater,
there's no good reason behind it.

It was very powerful though, that
art therapy training, very powerful

work working with your hands.

Some kind of bypasses that

Rupert Isaacson: right.

And creating images that come
out of your subconscious.

Right.

So that

Jane Faulkner: what you

Rupert Isaacson: do or what you create.

Yeah.

Reflect something that you're
not actually expressing verbally.

Right.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

Or even aware of within yourself.

Yeah.

So it was when I had towards the end of
art therapy, a friend and I went to a

retreat center and she said, Oh, there's
this new therapy, equine assisted therapy.

Why don't we have a go?

Okay.

I was like, okay.

Yeah.

And I was like, Oh, radio.

And I had a session and.

It just got straight to my core stuff
and I was like, wow, I want to learn

this and then there was a teacher
coming out from the States to teach it.

So I went to his training
and I just had a profound.

impact on me.

Okay.

So

Rupert Isaacson: just let's back up here.

What kind of equine
assisted therapy was this?

Who was the dude?

Tell us a bit.

Yeah,

Jane Faulkner: sure.

So his name was Dewey Freeman
and he, Dewey Freeman.

Yeah.

And he runs the Gestalt Equine
Institute of the Rockies.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

The Gestalt.

Is that something we
should be checking out?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, Dewey's amazing.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Jane Faulkner: Dewey and Joni
Riga, I think her name was.

Rupert Isaacson: Dewey
Freeman and Joni Riga.

Jane Faulkner: Riga, yeah.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I think
I'm mispronouncing her.

And

Rupert Isaacson: where are they?

Are they in the Rockies?

Are they Boulder, Colorado?

Where are they?

Jane Faulkner: I think

Rupert Isaacson: so.

Jane Faulkner: I'll look it

Rupert Isaacson: up
quickly as you tell us.

All right.

So you, you, you, you show up and now
suddenly for the first time since you're

a little girl looking at your neighbor's
horses, you've got a pony in the room.

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Yeah.

And it was

Rupert Isaacson: intense.

Jane Faulkner: So, I went and So it was
at a woman called Meg Kirby's place,

and I'm always grateful to Meg Kirby
for bringing Dewey out to Australia and

she had a, a large herd and there was
some mares and they had some yearlings.

I think that was, that were yearlings
and one of the first exercises Dewey

said, you know, kind of go out into the
paddock and let's just see what happens.

And these yearlings just kept coming up
to me and like nudging me in the chest.

And I, I got started getting really
overwhelmed, like, and I must have

looked way out of my depth because
he came and stood in front of me.

And he said, cause the mayor then
started coming towards me, not looking

very happy at what was happening.

And so he stood in front of me and he
said, you know, is this familiar that

people push past your boundaries and.

I think I was a bit out of
body, but I was like nodding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he invited me to go and stand
and put my hands on this beautiful

old gray mare called Stormy.

And he said, I want you to just feel into
Stormy and her energy and her connection.

Yes, that was a really powerful first
experience of, well, second, because

the first one had been at the retreat
center, but yeah, it was, it was.

had a massive impact on me.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so how did
that then develop into, I'm just,

by the way, looking, Dewey, it's D U
E Y, not Dewey, D E W E Y, so Dewey

Freeman, and I just looked up Gestalt.

At Quine Institute of the Rockies.

It's actually just south of Denver,
between Denver and Colorado Springs.

So for those, those listeners who are in
that area, you might want to check it out.

Okay, so he helps you with, with Stormy.

You, you feel suddenly grounded.

You feel he's he's pointed out to
you that perhaps you're someone

who doesn't make your boundaries as
effective as you might, because his

yearlings are stomping all over you.

And how does that get you
from, how do you go from that?

Insight as a sort of patient, if you like,
to where you are, to where you begin to

actually say, I'm going to offer this.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

So, from there, I asked the other
people at the course, you know,

like, what, how do I get a horse?

How do I know which horse?

And where should I start

Rupert Isaacson: like a rabbit hole?

Jane Faulkner: There was a a
man from Tasmania and he said,

your horse will come to you.

And I was like a radio.

I'll just, you know,
kind of see what happens.

And I knew I had to learn horsemanship
first because I didn't know anything.

So I came back Queensland and I found
a woman that taught horsemanship.

And I started learning horsemanship
from her and the horses terrified me.

Like I remember her horse,
Penny I was terrified.

I remember the first time being beside
Penny and her name was Eula and Penny

kind of pinning her ear and cocking
her leg and Eula saying, she's kind

of saying, don't bring that here
because I was terrified to touch her.

I was terrified to be in her space.

And EULA over time just kind of helped
me feel more comfortable around Penny.

And EULA got a second horse called
Phoenix, and it was really funny.

I knew as soon as I saw Phoenix, I
knew he was going to be my horse.

And I didn't like him.

Rupert Isaacson: I feel terrible

Jane Faulkner: saying that now.

He, he, I think he
already pushed my buttons.

And so we worked with Phoenix and
then Eula had to go away up to Darwin.

And she said, you know, do
you want to have Phoenix?

And I didn't even want
to make the decision.

I said to my husband, you know,
I've been offered this horse.

Can you go meet him?

And my husband went and
saw him and just loved him.

Interesting.

And Yeah, so we brought Phoenix
home and Phoenix, he really

scared the crap out of me.

Now, hold on, you say you bring

Rupert Isaacson: him home, but
that, we all know that those of us

who keep horses, that involves The
infrastructure of a horse type property.

You have not yet said that you
were living in any place where you

could keep horses or that even knew
how to keep horses or anyone had

mentored you and how to keep horses.

So,

Jane Faulkner: yeah,

Rupert Isaacson: go into
those details a little bit.

How did you jump over those hurdles?

Jane Faulkner: So I was lucky in that the
woman across so I do live in a rural area.

Now I'm on 13 acres.

We fenced our place off and
I was super lucky that the

woman across the road from us.

Laurel was a horse woman and she was
very kind and very supportive in teaching

me kind of how to be around horses.

What, what to, because I didn't
know what to feed or anything.

I remember you had a mentor,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so a mentor with feeding and caring
for, but not for, because Phoenix.

A really intimidated me, like he
was really sure of himself and I

just, yeah, he could just boss me
around with his ears and he did.

And so I went to a really cool
horse trainer called Angie Wicks,

and she really helped me kind of
learn to work and be around Phoenix

and how to earn his respect.

And that really helped that kind of.

Because I think before that, especially
coming through the equine assisted therapy

world, I was a bit a bit of that horses
as magical unicorns was a bit like, wow,

they're so powerful and wow, they're so, I
didn't kind of, and very much my pattern.

Of worrying about how me setting
boundaries would impact Phoenix

emotionally that came into play there.

So that's where learning
from Angie was really great

Rupert Isaacson: to actually be
around these these creatures.

Yes.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, and boundaries.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Yes.

And not anthropomorphize them, not kind
of project my human emotion onto them,

kind of just realize that I'm not going
to hurt Phoenix's feelings by asking

him to lunge to the right around me.

Yes.

It's embarrassing to.

Well, the

Rupert Isaacson: reason I chuckle
is because I just made a note here.

Do you feel.

Because I feel an insight that I'm getting
from this is that perhaps an advantage

if you're going into equine assisted work
without a horsey background, provided,

of course, you have good horsey mentors,
because for all the obvious reasons.

But starting as a quote unquote patient
in an equine assisted therapy gives,

do you think that gives you a better
insight Into the patient experience

for clients that don't know horses than
somebody like me, who, you know, I've

lived and breathed them for so long.

I can't remember life without them.

So there might be things I miss.

When someone comes in,
he doesn't know them.

I mean, yes, of course, I'm aware
that someone might be intimidated or

it's just, you know, unfamiliar, etc.

But it doesn't occur to me, for
example, to anthropomorphize in

those ways because I was taught.

Horsemanship from a very, very young age.

Do you feel that you're having come in as
a late comer like that and actually had to

sort of go up against making these quote
unquote mistakes of perception and so on?

Do you think that actually makes
you weirdly a more effective equine

assisted therapist because you can
empathize perhaps more with the client?

Jane Faulkner: I think it, I think it
definitely helps understand how a client's

coming to it and how vulnerable they
can feel and how powerful horses feel.

I think it definitely helps
teach basic horsemanship.

Cause I think, you know, when
you master something to then

teach the basics is challenging.

Whereas for me, I was so worried about
horses that, that I read everything.

I, I like did a study of horses and I, I.

Broke everything down
and to try to stay safe.

Like I, in my head, I was all
these scenarios and what do

I do and how do I do that?

And, and with the lady that taught
me horsemanship she was great.

'cause I remember her asking me,
you know, what do you wanna learn?

And I said, I want to learn from a horse
that's doesn't just know what to do.

I wanna learn how to work
with young horses or.

Horses that are frightened or and I
wanted to do that for my own confidence

because I felt like until I know what
to do when a horse is in this situation,

I'm not going to feel confident.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: And your, your, your
husband is in this equation too, right?

So is he working the horse with you?

You say that the horse loved
him and he loved the horse.

So was it the two of you going on this?

Journey together?

Jane Faulkner: Not really.

So my husband grew up on a massive sheep
farm out west, so he'd grown up on horses.

Ah, so he knew horses,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah, he
did, but not, so he'd never

had to really care for them.

Right.

He'd hopped on ridden them and And
that real old fashioned way of, so

didn't know groundwork only knew horses
of, you know, they just eat grass

and they need a dam kind of thing.

So, didn't need more than that.

So, and he wasn't really interested
in learning the groundwork.

He didn't have the fear I had.

He was just comfortable.

He would hop on any horse or be around
any horse where I had, I had a real fear.

So I wanted to really understand
their body language, understand how

to read it, understand how to kind of.

Support myself to feel safe around them
and because I really wanted to do this

work, but I think before you asked a
question around non horsey people coming

in compared to horsey people coming in,
I think non horsey people, the therapies,

you know, More powerful initially just
because of the size of the horse and

Rupert Isaacson: the
change of environment.

Yeah, yeah,

Jane Faulkner: yeah, definitely.

Definitely as a therapist I definitely
have to work harder with horse people

because they see horses in a certain way.

And I'm not as open to seeing how
they might impact the relationship

between them and the horse.

Yeah, I think you

Rupert Isaacson: described me.

Jane Faulkner: Well, I think I, I
really see this again in our Western

culture where we kind of Have this
arrogance of doing to something

rather than being curious of how we
might be impacting something and how

something might be impacting us back.

Yeah, so definitely as a therapist,
it's different work with someone that's

a horse person compared to someone
that's never been around horses.

Rupert Isaacson: Are the
majority of your clients?

non horsey people would you say?

Jane Faulkner: No, not, no, not at all.

I would say it's about half and half.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Interesting because when you get a horsey
person coming to you as a patient, yes,

they have their own horses and they
have their own relationships with their

horses and are getting to some degree
therapized simply by Being around horses,

which we all know is very healing.

Otherwise we wouldn't do what we do.

What makes them seek out then
something outside of that

relationship that they already have
with their horses to go to you?

What do they come with?

What do they say?

Jane Faulkner: So often they've hit some
kind of crisis in their relationship.

With

Rupert Isaacson: horses or just
in, in, with human relationships,

Jane Faulkner: human relationships.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Just something's not working in their
human life and they're drawn to the

equine assisted therapy because horses
have always been their safe place.

Rupert Isaacson: Mm hmm.

Jane Faulkner: And I remember
Dewey explaining this beautifully

that people that have had those
early relational ruptures or

difficulties relation, relationally.

So maybe it was child abuse or
abandonment or drug and alcohol abuse

by parents or their parents, you
know, being kind of just not great.

human experiences as children that
those people are more drawn to the

equine therapy because they are
able to trust and feel safer with an

animal than they are with a human.

And he spoke about that power of.

Those people that really struggled to
form connections with people, able to

make that connection with the horse
and then slowly over time transfer

that connection onto the therapist
that's working with the horse.

And so that's kind of what helps bridge,
I guess, working with the horses for

different people into healing their
relational experiences with humans.

There's that, but also horses.

Help reveal what we do in relationship
and give us an opportunity

to try something different.

Rupert Isaacson: I could see that.

It's interesting to think about
anthropomorphizing because, you know,

that's such a hot topic in what we do.

And there's a part of me that often
thinks, well, we have no choice but

to anthropomorphize because that's the
only, we're looking through monkey eyes,

you know, so we're going to monkey.

We got monkey what we see as a way.

Yes.

A monkey looking at us would see, and I
should imagine that horses e eifs us , you

know, because they have no choice, because
they are looking through pony eyes.

So I, I often think, well, that's
unavoidable and actually natural.

Mm-Hmm.

So presumably it could be helpful as
well as hindering depending on Yes.

How much awareness we
have that we are doing it.

Would you not, would you say when I, you
know, I've got horses, I love my horses.

Some of them, you know,
were born into my arms.

I've known them forever,
blah, blah, blah, blah.

So naturally I, I, I relate to
them kind of as family members.

Which as we know, we're not always,
you know, wonderfully functional with

our family members and our family
members wonderfully functional with us.

And actually, of course, that's
part of feeling safe, right?

If you're, if you actually feel
safe with your mom and dad,

you can tell them to F off.

And if a horse feels safe with you.

So something I've realized over time
is allowing time just because the fact

my horses are working horses, they
need to be able to say F off sometimes.

And yes, that was a really interesting
dance for me to sort of get into say, Oh,

I see for you to have agency and choice,
but also be my colleague when I need you

to be my colleague and keep people safe.

You know, I to some degree have
to anthropomorphize because I know

that I certainly need that time.

of telling people to leave me alone or
showing up when I feel ready to work.

And then in the old school of
horsemanship, it would have been, well,

if you do that, the horse is going to run
all over you, which of course is true.

If you don't know horsemanship,
that's the paradox, right?

But once you do know horsemanship, you can
then begin to discern actually, you know,

in this situation, I should let him go.

He's turning his back
on me in the pasture.

I'm approaching with a halter.

What's the difference between when I say,
no, I actually need to get you today.

Or, you know what, you're right.

Just, it's not the day today.

In the same way that we would have
to do those things with people.

One could say, is that
not anthropomorphizing?

And then could one say, well, Yes, but
is that anthropomorphizing functionally?

And I'm not saying I have the
rights or the wrongs on this.

I'm just bringing them up as, as,
as talking points in questions.

But I mean, what do you think?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Well, it's, as you're talking, I'm
thinking of, there's a concept in

Gestalt called the field theory.

And it's, it talks about, it
acknowledges that we all come with

our own ground or our own experience.

And so we're all seeing the
world through the field theory.

And I think a horse, a dog, any being
in the planet comes with their own

ground, their own experiences, and
that shapes how they then interact

and how they are in the world.

And so, to me, this is where I can
get frustrated sometimes because I

think, I feel like we can get hung
up on some of these words, like,

oh, don't do this or don't do that.

And it's like, man, we're not in boxes.

You know, we're living beings and we're
having these different experiences.

So, and I think as a therapist,
I guess I work on or how a person

anthropomorphizes a horse gives me a
lot of information about the person.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

Jane Faulkner: And we work on that.

So if someone projects something
onto a horse, I get curious about.

That in the person, right?

I think I think that

Rupert Isaacson: that word
curious is the word, right?

Isn't it?

So not saying it's right or it's
wrong to project something to

somebody you have no choice.

Yes, we projected we just do.

And that's actually how we navigate or
antenna, I go out right, we must to some

degree, but how we to be curious rather
than to say it's right or it's wrong.

I like that.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

Well it's another term is transference
or countertransference so when as a.

Therapist will talk about a client will
transfer emotions onto you as a therapist.

So say I remind a client of their
auntie, they'll transfer their

emotions about their auntie onto
me and I'll counter transfer.

So say they remind me of my
son, then I'll counter transfer

emotions of my son onto them.

And when this gets unhealthy or, or.

And not good is when I'm not aware
of that process, I'm not aware of

that happening, and I feel this is
the same with anthropomorphizing.

If I'm aware of it, and I'm curious
about it, then I'm less likely to to

do it in a way that's not supportive
for the horse or the client.

Rupert Isaacson: Got it.

Yeah.

And of course this one isn't
always at the top of one's game.

Right.

You know,

Jane Faulkner: Ah, a hundred percent.

Yes.

We're human.

And my, so my account, my shit's
gonna, I'm, I think of, I am seeing

the world through my own muddy lenses.

You know, it's

Rupert Isaacson: really interesting.

When I went through this just yesterday,
actually, I was, I was working with a

kid who absolutely pushes my buttons
and is like super rude and you know,

but he loves My little dog and my
little dog brings out the best in him

and I was tired yesterday and We you
know got on a really magical thing.

We go exploring on the horse together So
we've gone down to a local a local stream.

He's waiting in the stream and we're
just discovering insects Annoyed

and irritated with the insects,
but he's also kind of curious about

them and the dog is doing his bit.

My horse is, you know, being there
and grazing and carrying him into

this, this beautiful world and so on.

And I remember, you know, finding
myself going, Oh yes, I can feel

myself feeling a bit negative here.

Why am I feeling a bit negative?

Well, it's all right if
someone presses your buttons.

You don't have to get
along with everybody.

But that's also not personal.

Also, you are tired.

I could see I was tired.

So what do I need to do?

And then also, well, hold on.

What about gratitude?

Can I be grateful to this person?

This young person who's brought me up?

Because here I am, nyeh in my head,
while standing next to this very

beautiful stream, listening to the
music of the stream, looking at

ladybugs flying, listening With my
horse and my dog, hold on Rupert,

perhaps a little bit of gratitude
might help you in this situation.

So I love what you say about awareness and
curiosity because if I, it's so easy to

either fall into a denial pattern, which
can make one not behave brilliantly, or

fall into an overgiving pattern, which can
make one not, you know, and sort of, you

go into a bit of martyr, you know, mind.

Yeah.

Or if I can just be aware that I'm
feeling this emotion, do I have a

chance to gain some perspective and
put some tools into play like gratitude

that I'm in this situation at all
with that this is what I'm complaining

about rather than something real.

Another, another moment like
that in Mongolia with my son.

When it was.

You're 40 degrees of Celsius and you know,
he didn't want to ride at that point.

So I had him on my shoulders.

I'm leading my horse and he's putting
the point of his chin at the top of

my skull and it's It's going on for
a long time and I, and I start to get

this negative loop and then it's like
from somewhere else, this voice says,

Rupert, Rupert, Rupert, Rupert, you're
in Mongolia with your son walking across

Mongolia to see shamans in Siberia.

And okay.

It is.

It does hurt.

Bone on your bone.

Okay.

But the situation is absolutely amazing.

You know, what are you complaining about?

And what's your, what's your strategy?

So I thought, well, really what he just
needs to know that if you put his hand

between his chin and my skull, that's
I came up with this thing of the chin

is actually, but the hand is nice.

And we still joke about this today, him
and I, you know, when we get into negative

thought loops of how long it can take one
just to say, The chin is out of the house.

And what, what's that, of course, but
asking for help and I suddenly flashback

to you in that in that airport in India.

Yeah.

Saying, I haven't got a clue.

Please tell me.

This is very difficult
as a therapist, isn't it?

Because in a therapist, you're,
you're sort of expected to be.

A figure that sort of provides answers
and of course, you're just a human.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

How do you deal with these moments?

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

As you're talking before and you're
talking about the negative or

the matter, and I was thinking,
wow, in the middle is the human.

And also just what you were saying
before about the, that wisdom of, you

know, when what's your son's name again?

Rupert Isaacson: Rowan.

Jane Faulkner: Rowan.

Yeah.

When his chin was pressing into
your head and how you realize

this, this pain isn't all of me.

Yeah.

You know, like the pains in my
head, but it's not all of me.

I think that's really powerful
for us to realize this pain here.

I can put my hand there.

I can change this.

But yeah, I think what helps me
is giving myself permission to be

human, giving myself permission
to not have the answers, giving

myself permission to to show up and.

Yeah, just kind of, just be
real, just kind of be like, yeah,

I don't know all the answers.

I don't, what I can offer you is, is my
presence and that I'll walk along beside

you on your journey and we'll work it out.

But I, I'd never pretend, I can't know
I can't have someone else's answers.

Okay.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So, so we're now sort of
talking you as you are now.

Where, before we digress there,
you were still going through your

education, really, in horsemanship.

And as we know, there's knowing a horse
and there's knowing horses and if you're

going to be professional in, by putting
people who don't know horses together

with horses, obviously we have to know
horses well enough to keep people safe.

So how, how long does it take you?

And how do you get there to graduate from
a know nothing, afraid of this horse on

your own property to Being in a position
where you actually can confidently keep

people safe around horses while doing
a job with a horse as your colleague.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Yeah.

So, with me, with Phoenix and with Angie
who taught me, I was really disciplined.

So I worked with him every
day doing groundwork and I

went and saw Angie every week.

And I think I started seeing clients.

It's about probably a year after I
had done that training with Dewey

and, and then I got offered a job.

That's quite quick.

It was pretty quick.

And I feel like it is very
quick when I think back.

I got offered a job and in that job,
I would see five people back to back.

Three or four days a week.

Always with this horse,

Rupert Isaacson: Phoenix?

Jane Faulkner: No, no.

With the new herd.

Okay.

And it was a herd of four horses.

And so to start with, it was a
lot for me to kind of manage.

And luckily they were well handled,
well handled horses generally had good

ground manners, except for Stevie.

Stevie would threaten
to bite and would nip.

So I learned so much from him.

And.

I learned a lot about how his behaviors
were often a response to the state of the

nervous system of me or the person he was
working with, because as the person and

I settled, the nipping would reduce Yeah,
so I worked there for a few years solidly,

and I learned so much from those horses
and kept working with Phoenix at home.

By then I'd got Java as well
and a little mini Sunny.

And I think I've been working
there maybe four years and people

started asking me to teach them.

And that's when I kind of
put my training together.

Yeah, and

Rupert Isaacson: okay,

Jane Faulkner: feel like I've been
learning it very, very cavalierly

Rupert Isaacson: said, and that's when
I started putting my training together.

Now, as someone who has this thing
called horseboy method and a couple of

other programs we do, you know, movement
method without horses and this thing

called TI, which is used to be called
Athena which is The groundwork and

the in hand work as its own therapy.

I know that putting together a
program is not something you just do.

Yes, it looks that way from the outside,
but it's, it's a torturous process.

And you know, a lot of us when
we, who've done that sort of

thing when we look back we go.

Wow, how did I think at the beginning
that I would be able to, you know, and

the learning curve you go through just
like how much is involved in this.

If you want it to be of use to people.

Yeah, talk us through that
learning curve, it must have been.

Somewhat steep and somewhat
of a somewhat exhausting

Jane Faulkner: it was, it was so for me
I hadn't even contemplated training and

then people were asking me to mentor them.

And then someone said, why, why
don't you do your own training?

And a decision I came
to was, I don't want it.

I want it to be government accredited.

So I looked into what that would, what was
involved in that, and I think I'm a very

rose colored glasses person, super naive.

So I thought, okay, I'll become an RTO.

So, what is that a registered
training organization?

So it's like a college.

Yeah, so it's, it's like the
government kind of says that.

You go through all these processes for
the government to approve what you tell us

Rupert Isaacson: in brief, what
it's summary, what are the processes

that someone has to go through
if they want to be that they

want to be government recognized.

Jane Faulkner: It's huge.

So, you have to have a lot of, lots
of policies and procedures in place.

And so you've gotta prove
the way you enroll people,

the way you market, the way.

Who do you have to

Rupert Isaacson: prove this to?

What's even the application process?

How do you even begin this?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, so in Australia,
we've got a governing body called ASQA,

the Australian Skills Quality Authority.

So you put together a training and even
to do that, so what I had to do was.

Put together a, an outline
of what I wanted to train.

Then I had to go to industry body.

So I had to go to the Australian
counseling association, the psychotherapy

and counseling federation of Australia and
equine Australia, equestrian Australia.

And I said, I had to say, Hey, I want to
do this equine assisted therapy training.

Will you.

Agree that we need it in Australia and
the Australian Counseling Association came

back to me and said, no, we won't agree.

We don't think a qualification of just
equine assisted therapy is enough.

And so I was like, gosh, what can I do?

And someone that was helping me at the
time said, why don't you add counseling?

So I added the Diploma of Counseling
and the equine handling, like,

And I went back to the Australian
counseling Association, and I said, would

you approve it if it looks like this?

And they said, yes, because then
your graduates can work in a room

base as a counselor or outside.

In the paddock with horses.

So that was the beginning of the process.

Then I had to, so in the
diploma of counseling, you've

got 17 units of competency.

And each of those units of competency
have all these assessment tasks that

you've got to kind of assess and teach.

And so I had to kind of go
through all of that and create

a curriculum and assessments and
do that for the equine handling.

And then for my own equine
assisted mental health.

stuff as well.

So that was kind of the
process and it was huge.

Like it's when I look back
now, I'm just like, my God.

Rupert Isaacson: Another question.

Thank God I

Jane Faulkner: didn't know.

Yes.

Rupert Isaacson: You've also got to
put yourself forward, presumably,

as someone who can have judgment and
discernment as to whether or not someone

can, is, is, is jumping these hurdles.

So what do you have to prove to
the government bodies and the

governing bodies about yourself?

Because you're not a psychiatrist, for
example, or, or whatever you might say,

well, I have this qualification here
and I have that qualification there.

But yeah, what what hoops do
they want you to jump through.

Jane Faulkner: So they needed
to see my qualifications.

That I needed to see my experience and
then I needed to get different people.

So other psychologists, other people
in the industry to kind of sign off

that I was, yeah, yeah, pretty much.

Rupert Isaacson: Did it help that
you had the background as a nurse?

That, that, that I think it

Jane Faulkner: definitely,

Rupert Isaacson: yeah, that underneath it
all, there was this solid, I went and got.

My qualifications in medicine in this way.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, definitely that.

And, and I'd worked in the mental health.

So I'd worked in mental health units,
adolescent and adult mental health.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that really helped

Rupert Isaacson: in retrospect that
those skills that you learned early,

despite the fact that you didn't like
the system ended up being the foundation

from what you could build another system.

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Definitely, and when
I look back, like the learning, so,

because where I was a nurse in the
adolescent and adult mental health unit

is a very low socioeconomic area in
Queensland and I learned a lot about

mental health, about keeping myself safe,
about supporting people to deescalate.

I learned a lot of skills.

Yeah, that still helped me today.

And I think it's really helpful
to actually be in the system and

see the system so that you can
understand what people go through.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, I would agree.

I would agree.

So how long did this whole
accreditation process takes you?

How long?

Jane Faulkner: I think it
took about a year and a half

Rupert Isaacson: again.

That's not very long.

I was expecting you to say five years.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Well, it took a year and a half for
me to be approved and up and running.

I feel like.

It's taken till now to get it
to a point that I'm happy with.

And I feel like, okay, it's
finally written and done.

And that's I started in 2016.

So that's 8 years.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

That sounds more likely.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And do you, what do you have to do
to prove to your accrediting bodies?

Sort of year to year that you're
still that you're not bullshit

that you're still standards are
kept up, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What do you need to do?

Jane Faulkner: So they come in
and they go over everything.

So, they go over the assessments,
they go for student answers,

they go over what I'm teaching.

They ask students for feedback.

So they have a record of who my students
are, so they can go directly to those

students and ask them for feedback.

That's pretty much.

Rupert Isaacson: If they get feedback
that isn't positive, how does that affect

what, what do they come to you with?

Because I mean, not everyone's going to
always say something positive, right?

So are they coming back to you with
every single nitpick and saying,

you've got to address this, or are
they just looking for patterns?

And they also have
manpower problems, right?

How deeply can they?

Yes,

Jane Faulkner: totally.

No, they more look for patterns and
they'll say, hey, can you show us this?

And then they'll say, okay,
you need to rectify this.

And you've got this
amount of time to do it.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: And the way it's
rectified would be, you would have

to then say, I've put these policies
in place and then they would come

in again and do another assessment
and see is the feedback better.

Okay.

Okay.

So there's a fair amount
of stress involved.

I mean, you know, it's possible to lose
the accreditation too, I should imagine.

Jane Faulkner: Definitely.

Definitely.

And I know it's probably only been the
last year or two that I've learnt not let

that feel like a massive weight before
then it felt like a massive weight.

It felt like they could
swoop in at any time.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

I think I think what's
helped is seeing students.

I really see students.

Change and grow over the
time they do the training.

So the training's now two years and
seeing them be practitioners, and

I think I've learnt to believe in
it and stand strong in it myself.

And I think that has changed.

So I'm not as fearful.

I, I know that I can stand up for
decisions I've made and why we

do things the way we do things.

with that accrediting body now,
whereas before then, I don't

think I felt so strong in it.

Rupert Isaacson: And at the end of the
two years, someone who's gone through

the program with you is an equine
assisted psychotherapist effectively, is

what they are, or what do you call it?

Jane Faulkner: We say they're an equine
assisted mental health practitioner.

Okay,

Rupert Isaacson: an equine assisted
mental health practitioner.

Are you doing all the teaching
and the mentorship yourself?

Are you now a team?

Do you have other campuses?

Is it all in one?

In one place that you do this.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

How

Rupert Isaacson: has it grown?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

So, we're in Gold Coast where I am
and Melbourne and Sydney, and we have

other trainers that have come in,
which has been, I think that's really

helped me stand stronger in it as well.

I think other people to ask
questions, other people looking

at the material, other people kind
of, giving feedback and adding the.

pieces to it has been really helpful.

Rupert Isaacson: What's your process?

So if someone becomes this, this
equine assisted mental health

practitioner from them to go for that,
from that was first qualification up

to say, becoming a trainer in what
you do, what do they have to do?

Jane Faulkner: Lots of
experience in the field.

So see lots of clients.

And I guess generally the people
that are trainers now work

with me as a support person.

So they kind of are with me
in the training, supporting

me to do the trainings as well
as seeing their own clients.

And then there's that transition
into them being so it's

Rupert Isaacson: not it's not
necessarily a structured series

of courses that they have to do.

It's more that you monitor their
work over a set number of years and

see that the results they're getting
and it's more an assessment by you.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, competency

Rupert Isaacson: or

Jane Faulkner: yeah, yeah, more
a feeling into whether they fit.

My business, I guess, and the way
that I want to deliver this work and

the way that I want to kind of, yeah,
support people to learn this work.

So,

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

I know that you've, you, I'm, I'm
probably impinging on your time here.

'cause you have a lot.

No, not at all.

You have an evening , but there's,
there's some other questions that I'm,

I'm curious about, you said at the out
outset that you were moving to, from

Unmounted work towards mounted work.

Mm.

Jane Faulkner: Tell us

Rupert Isaacson: about that.

A y and the, and how?

Yes.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah.

So for me, this is where I'd love
to do your training, Rupert, but

for me, I work very semantically.

So I've done, I was a yoga
teacher for five years, full time.

And that massage therapy on top
of that, I've always been a person

that is in, it needs to move
their body and values the body.

And I see that with certain
clients, especially people with.

Those early relational traumas, so
complex PTSD, I see that being on

the horse has more of an impact on
them than being beside the horse and

being held, learning to be held by
the horse, feeling that movement,

you know, just that rocking movement.

So, I'm not sure how.

I'm going to do it yet.

I just know that that's
what I'm really drawn to

Rupert Isaacson: really drawn to

Jane Faulkner: that, to that mountain
work from a, that real somatic lens.

So before I became an RTO,
I had to do some training in

being a writing instructor.

And I had very little of my own
experience as Riding horses or

being a riding instructor, but I
had a lot of experience with yoga.

And so I taught my writing
lessons from a yogic perspective.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Jane Faulkner: And it was amazing.

Rupert Isaacson: Give us an example.

Jane Faulkner: So, there's this old
cowboy and he was on a horse and the

horse was stressed and uptight and he
was pulling on the reins really hard.

And the cowboy's shoulders
were up near his ears and.

I just kind of, I guess
ask him to change his body.

Like I would say in a yoga class.

So I was like, okay, I want you
to deepen your breath, relax your

shoulders, relax your hands kind of
become more aware of your pelvis.

Relax your legs.

And as he did that, the horse relaxed.

And I remember this other old horseman
guy goes, wow, who taught you that?

And I said to him, Oh, it's yoga.

And he just looked at
me as if I was crazy,

Rupert Isaacson: but

Jane Faulkner: there's just,
I, I'm, I just feel that.

Humans have much more of an
impact on a horse than we realize,

Rupert Isaacson: and

Jane Faulkner: we're so out of aware,
we're so out of awareness of our

body and how, how we're holding a
body impacts the being beneath us.

And for me as a therapist, when I'm
working with someone on a horse.

The horse tells me about state shifts
within the person sometimes before I

can recognize those state shifts in the
person and I see that when someone's

on a horse as the horse relaxes, as
their stride lengthens, it reflects

what's happening inside that person.

And so.

I can kind of observe the horse
and support the person to change

things within their body and then
the horse reflects the change.

Rupert Isaacson: Yes.

Yes, no, absolutely.

That makes all makes perfect sense.

One of the interesting things
about the old master system of.

Dressage, I'm not talking about dressage
as stressage for a judge, I'm talking

about, you know, the, the art of dressing
a horse, which is to help it put the

hind legs under the point of gravity.

And that's what collection is.

And the humor and the horse
become a unit at that point, and

can move in three dimensions.

And that's evolved over
thousands of years.

It acts as whether it's working on
the ground or whether it's working

from the saddle it acts as both
a yoga and a martial art, because

it's it's designed for both so it
can train, but it can also rehab.

It can maintain.

It can also develop.

And I think that if you're coming
from a yoga perspective, I think

that's a very easy concept to get.

Whereas I think if one's coming
from just a straight up horse

training, I am a monkey that tells
a horse what to do perspective.

It is not so easy to get the martial
arts perspective might be easier to get.

I'm training this horse to go to war.

I'm training this horse to catch a cow.

I'm training this horse
to go for this jump.

Yes.

But of course, as we
know, that's only one.

Part of a very big hole and it
may not even be part of of it.

So I'm rather intrigued.

I'd love to collaborate with you because I
think coming from those two perspectives.

that perspective that you have, again,
offers interesting insights to people

when they're having to rethink how they
approach horses and horse training.

Which is difficult if you grew up
with it because you're, you're just,

you're, you're synapses in your brain
are fairly hardwired at that point.

One has an, and your body
to unlearn certain things.

When I, when I was learning classical
dressage, which I had to do when I

realized that it was soft collection
that created the oxytocin in the

child or the adult that calmed
down the amygdala, the stress

hormone, cortisol canceled that out.

And of course, it's a
communication hormone, oxytocin.

So makes them communicate.

And I realized, Oh, I need to learn
more about this and do my deep dive.

And of course, at that point, I was
very much more of a sort of jumping

rider, lots of tension in the leg,
lots of tension in the body, which you

actually sort of need for that job.

And then I realized,
Oh, I had to neutralize.

And that took me about five years.

You know, so when I'm, when I'm
approaching and then I realized I

could actually, but all the training
has to be done from the ground so that

there can be a neutral rider up there
who can just flow with the horse.

When I'm working with people who are
coming out of a lifetime of horses.

This can be tricky because no one likes
to be a beginner again, obviously.

And also there are, as you said,
just these sort of synapses.

Mental pathways that are very
hardwired that need to be.

So, so something, the way you just
explained it there, I think could

be very useful for someone that is
needing to go to that next phase

with horses, but doesn't quite
know how that sort of glassy feel.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

And what's really cool is, you know,
you're talking about needing to check you

needing to change the body, bringing your
body back into neutral and you doing that.

Through working with the body has
an impact on who you are as a human,

on how you do relationships on how
you think on everything about you.

And that's what I love to like,
Deb Dana who writes a lot of,

yeah, talks about, you know,
change the state, change the story.

And this is what I love
about working with the body.

You know, when you bring a sense
of ease to the body and a sense of

relaxation and openness the whole
way our mind sees the world changes,

Rupert Isaacson: which is difficult
to do when you're an anxious monkey

sitting on a moving barrel that has
a mind of it and a sense of humor

and you are the butt of the joke.

Yes,

Jane Faulkner: very, very totally.

I, I wanted to share.

I went to Mongolia to my husband and I.

Yeah, we went there.

We did a 19 day.

Horse riding, we went up
to the reindeer people.

Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

And so it was amazing.

Gosh.

You may well have met

Rupert Isaacson: the same people
that I was with, with my son.

Jane Faulkner: What a magical country.

I just loved Mongolia.

Intact ecosystem.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Ah, that.

And, and their people.

Rupert Isaacson: Yes.

Jane Faulkner: Like that.

The people that live in intact

Rupert Isaacson: ecosystems, you know.

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Rupert Isaacson: Yes.

Tend to be cool, right?

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: They blew me away.

Just how authentic they were, how even I
took kind real, I loved their realness.

Like, cause I, I talked to students
a lot about boundaries and how

in Mongolia, there's no fences.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

But

Jane Faulkner: they have a
deep respect for boundaries.

Yeah.

So they don't need the physical fences.

Like we don't respect boundaries
and we need the fences.

Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.

And fences can be broken and
climbed over and jumped over.

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I loved their Buddhism shamanism.

That was just like, Oh, and not the, not
the in doctrine, not the dogma of it.

The living of it.

That's what I loved.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I'm so with you.

And actually, you know, you were
talking about working with First

Nations elder there in Queensland
the, the, the, this thing of informing

oneself through indigenous wisdom.

One of the things one forgets
is that horses don't come when

you're a white person from Europe.

Horsemanship is not European.

It comes out of what it comes.

It's a bit European.

It comes out of the mixed, mixed
liminal space between Europe and Asia.

And, but it went more into Asia first
before it came into Europe proper,

it was, it was in Asia for thousands
of years because that's where the

civilizations were, you know, people in
Europe, Western Europe, particularly,

were just sort of living in forests
for quite a while at that point.

And so it doesn't really creep in.

It are like you with a name like
Falcon or me with a name like Isaacson.

It doesn't come into the culture of
our ancestors until quite a lot later.

And, but it's still an
indigenous thing and one of the.

The conclusions that my wife and I came to
a while ago, because we obviously we teach

people a lot of dressage as well as the
therapeutic stuff is you actually can't

do it unless you do it in a tribal way.

Because it's a tribal system.

It came out of people living in tents
who were families who collaborated.

And when you go to.

The Spanish Riding School of Vienna
or the Royal School of Jerez in Spain.

What, what do you observe?

You see groups of people collaborating
two to three at a time with a horse

to help it understand as quickly
and as easily with as much, not

pressure, but moral support as it can.

That's a tribal thing.

So we have this program
called Riots Clubs.

We show people how to form Riding
is a tribal sport and the difficulty

is doing things in isolation.

It's almost impossible, right?

But of course, this is a
message for life, right?

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: I love have you heard about
you know, how we, we kind of swallowed the

Darwin theory of survival of the fittest.

And you've heard of the Russian
researcher that actually

kind of debunked that theory.

Tell us all about it.

Yeah.

Tell us

Rupert Isaacson: about this.

Jane Faulkner: I can't think of names,
but so around the time that, that Darwin

came to that conclusion of, you know,
survival of the fittest the strongest

conquers everything, the strongest wins.

So, a Russian researcher around
the same time did the same kind of

research and he found the opposite.

He found that the people that survived
or the communities that survived and

prospered were the people that could form
relationships, the, the people that could

form collaborations, the people that could
be part of communities and the people that

weren't able to make those relationships
or sustain those relationships.

And same as the animals, the people
or the animals that weren't able

to do that were the ones that died.

Absolutely.

It's just fascinating that we grabbed the
Charles Darwin instead of the other one.

Well,

Rupert Isaacson: it suited our world
view at the time, right, which was Yeah,

Jane Faulkner: so true.

Rupert Isaacson: But of
course, what was colonialism?

Colonialism was groups of people.

Not single con We talk about Cortez,
you know, he conquered Mexico.

No, he didn't.

Cortez was in charge of a very, very large
group of people, all working cooperatively

to do something psychopathic and horrible.

But nonetheless, it was, you
know, the people that conquered,

in inverted commas, the American
West were not John Wayne types.

They tended to dive first in the desert.

The John Wayne types who actually sort of
made it were the ones who led and helped.

groups of settlers come together.

And of course, outside of the colonial
experience, you know, I work a lot

with hunting and gathering tribes,
it's those are entirely, and those

are the original human blueprints.

Those are entirely cultures of conflict
resolution, because if you have Conflict

within your community, beyond a certain
level, your community will fragment

and if your community fragments, guess
what you're a mid level predator.

You're not top predator.

So the lions will absolutely eat you.

The only thing we've got is this ability
oxytocin connection to strategize.

with a speaking ape, we have the larynx.

So we're very, very good at strategizing,
but only if we feel connecting, connection

and feel safe with our community.

That is the only security we have.

And I agree with you yet.

We're sold a myth of
the lone warrior hero.

Like say it's Cú Chulainn, you know,
the great Irish hero, the hound of us.

Well, what happens to
Cú Chulainn in the end?

He gets killed gloriously.

What happens to Hercules in the end?

He gets killed.

Okay.

They put him in the staff, but
you know, they're glorious deaths.

Perhaps maybe they even think
they go to Valhalla, die sword

in hand, but fact is they die.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

And not only that, like, I feel like I
think of even our industry where we have

this thing of who's the best or be the

Rupert Isaacson: best

Jane Faulkner: and it drives me nuts.

It's like, why does
there need to be a best?

Well, if we all came
together, The backbiting

Rupert Isaacson: within, within the
horse industry in general, within

therapy industry in general, within
academia, within therapeutic writing.

We all know that it can be very toxic
and the, the, the, the nastiness with

which people treat each other is bizarre.

Always to me, given that
we're supposed to be in.

a modality of healing.

You don't have to like everybody
working against people.

How, how is that us doing our job?

Jane Faulkner: To me,
it slows us all down.

You know, if our whole goal is
to help people and to kind of

make the world a better place.

And I don't know, I just think,
but if you think about it

Rupert Isaacson: in a weird way.

And we come by these dysfunctions and
actually honestly, because we all get

put through a school system where we're
supposed to be in competition with our

classmates, and then with other wider
people out there in exams that will

say, well, were your exams good enough.

Against all these other people that
you've never met to then get to this

university and then at this university
are your grades good enough, you know

that you will get this level of degree.

And then when you go out into the
workplace, you've got to quote unquote

prove yourself against your peers.

And then if you add horses
to that, and then academia.

It's all about defending a position or
you lose your job, you lose your funding.

So you got to be right all the time,
which means you must attack those who,

you know, who take an opposing view.

Because there's an economic
imperative to that.

And then horse people,
well, what's the horse?

What's the horse
tradition we've inherited.

Most of us that grew up with the sort
of pony club, even though there were

so many wonderful things with that.

It's a military thing.

It came out of the 1845, you know,
military manuals that were in the

cavalry schools and the people that
ran riding schools in the old days

were ex cavalry officers because
that's what they did when they retired.

So this whole sort of military industrial
thing permeates and someone pops up at

the end out of all that and says, well,
now I'd like to use this modality of this

thing I learned through academia to heal.

And this thing I learned with the horse
deal, but I've learned them through a

sort of slightly sociopathic process.

How can that not rub off on us?

So I do have compassion for that and I do
understand it, but it makes me sad because

as you say, I feel it slows us down.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

And I love that now we can at least talk
about it and there's an awareness of it.

I just have a question for you, Rupert,

Rupert Isaacson: for

Jane Faulkner: me, I'm the one doing

Rupert Isaacson: the interviewing here.

Jane Faulkner: The horses in Mongolia,
there was just something so different

about them to our domesticated horses.

Like, I'm curious about that.

And I'm, I just wonder what you all.

So for me, what was different is they
seem to, so even for me, the Mongolian

people not naming their horses, but
it was like the horse knew their role.

The human knew their role.

And there was a real cleanness to it.

There wasn't this kind of.

Merging or gray zone.

It was kind of the
horse has its job to do.

I have my job to do.

Cause there was, you could see the
love for the horse and it was amazing

to watch the Mongolian people ride.

I just.

Well, my husband and
I were both like, wow,

Rupert Isaacson: right.

I mean, what, what you're looking
at there is of course, one of the

original versions of horsemanship.

And so there's bad and good
and there's everything.

Jane Faulkner: I mean, people

Rupert Isaacson: can be incredibly
brutal and rough with their horses there.

Jane Faulkner: But at the

Rupert Isaacson: same time, the horses
are also largely left alone to be horses.

There are people who
absolutely named their horses.

And for example, there's a whole, there's
a whole subculture of horse racing there.

And, you know, very, very, a lot of
money changes hands and it's not horse

racing as we know, it's, it's, it's,
it's the 30 mile races across country

with eight year old jockeys, but
nonetheless, it's, it's, it's a very

Jane Faulkner: festival

Rupert Isaacson: festival.

Yeah.

And then when it gets competitive the
mounted archery amounted wrestling the

nomad games cock Peru, which is the sort
of rugby on horseback that they play.

So, there's like in our culture
there's working horsemanship.

Yeah.

Practical horsemanship and then
the sport horsemanship and of

course all the interplays between.

But I think what's different there is
that it's still a place where people

genuinely rely, like truly, truly, truly
rely on horses for their livelihood.

It's not, it's not, it's not a, you can
make a sport out of your culture, but

the culture is the culture of the horse.

I mean, to the point that they're
wearing them, that they're eating

them, that they're drinking them.

That's so true.

You know, the, the horse
is everything in life.

It's not just a thing you ride or
it's not just transport or it's not

just winning you money in a race.

It's you, you are drinking it's milk,
you're, you know, the whole lot.

Mm.

So the, the, and then of course what
I, one thing I really liked about

Mongolia was that they still revere.

the original wild horse.

So their horses are not wild.

They are domestic horses.

They just live very naturalistically.

But there's still the Przewalski's horse
and their name for the Przewalski's

horse is Takin, which means honored one.

That one you leave alone.

It's really interesting.

You, you respect, you absolutely
respect its independence.

So our, our program that we have,
which is doing all the groundwork and

the in hand dressage work as its own
therapy, we call TEI, Taquine Equine

Integration, because I liked that word
of the Honored One of coming to the

horse and saying, I do revere you.

You, I'm going to anthropomorphize
the shit out of this, but I

do, I just have to, you know.

Because horses do represent a big thing
in our mythology and in our spirit and

they represent freedom and they represent
power and they represent beauty and they

represent transformation and journey.

And they just flat out do.

And that is sort of because that
is sort of what they do for us.

So what can we do for them.

We can honor them, we can honor them.

In the same way that we
can honor each other.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

And I think that's so important
because we miss that, don't we?

We do.

Just that I think that's a
great thing to bring back in.

But as you were talking and you spoke
about their independence, and I think

that's what stood out for me in the
Mongolian horses, that I don't see so

much in the domesticated horses here
is this independence, this, almost this

sovereignty, this kind of, I can, I mean,
they're out living kind of wild and free

for five months of the year over there.

And I remember just really feeling this
difference in the horses and in their

kind of just the way their beingness.

Absolutely.

Rupert Isaacson: And there's, there's
pros and cons with that because

some of them die in the winter,
some of them get eaten by wolves.

You know, some of them,

Dying childbirth or whatever.

And, but one thing I think, I think you're
right, that I took from it was, I've kept

my horses in all sorts of different ways.

Yeah.

I've kept them in boxes, I've
kept them not in boxes, I've

kept them outside all the time.

And what I've realized over time is
my preference is to have horses that

live out all the time, and that can
come into a shelter, and in the winter

here in Northern Europe, yes, you have
to rug them, and that sort of thing.

But you can have horses working
at a very high performance level,

living very naturalistically like
that in a herd, moving in and out,

eating at will, moving at will.

And then if you are in a situation
where you have to have a horse that's

convenient and clean, like some of our
horse boy centers, we have a lot of

those places we'll put them out at night.

And then in the day they might stand in
so that you don't have to groom the horse

from mud every single time you're going
to put someone on it, which, okay, fine.

So that's the working time of day and
they're there and they're available,

but they're also moving a lot.

They're not bored.

They're not standing
hour after hour in a box.

They're, they're, they're
just kind of chilling.

In between sessions, but then
they're outside at night and they

go back to being horses again.

That's my preferred method.

However, you know, I work in so
many environments where people

don't necessarily have that choice.

And I've been around a lot of
horsemanship clinics and symposiums

where people shame each other and
say, well, you shouldn't keep your

horse in a box and you shouldn't.

And someone says, well, I haven't
got any choice because, you know, I

bought my horse at this livery stable
and these are the rules and I'm

sorry, but I haven't got the money
to buy myself, you know, 20 acres.

And so, and what I realized with that
is, yeah, what you need to do is kind of.

do it the best you can while honoring
the horse's need for independence,

movement, choice, agency, and so on.

But that can look quite different
from horse owner to horse owner or

barn to barn or local horse culture
to local horse culture because

depending on certain constraints.

And that we have to have some compassion
for this and work with people where

they are versus where they are, right?

But I do think you're absolutely right
that if you're taking as a sort of a

baseline, well, we would like to be as
close to this Mongolian model as we can.

How do we do that?

Does that mean that I have to let
my horses free run in the arena for

a certain number of hours in the
day or, or what or what, but are we

at least thinking in these times?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

And for me, it's not, it wasn't even, I
was just curious about, because I could

feel the difference and I was just curious
about it and what created the difference.

And then I guess, as you were talking,
I was like, Oh, that's what it is.

Cause for me, I totally agree.

Everyone does the best with
what they have, with what they

know, with where they're at.

Yeah.

And I would love it if we could all
have more generous assumptions and

ask questions and be curious rather
than kind of judge one another.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: I feel that we're
slowly getting there, you know, I think,

Jane Faulkner: yeah, I agree.

Rupert Isaacson: Organizations
like yours are a part of that.

And I think again, that is a, that is
a, perhaps an advantage that you have

from coming in from outside the horse.

Culture is that you can bring a sudden
lack of judgment which helps we horse

people to be less judgmental because let's
forget the humans that we're serving.

You know, the big
question is horse welfare.

And.

So my horses need to be happy, and
they need to have well being, because

how can they possibly impart happiness
and well being to a human if they

don't have that to give, right?

So this is the big conversation, I
think, of our time as horse people

is, given the constraints that we have
how, how do we ensure that well being?

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: And I love
that we are working that out.

Like more and more like, and for
me, clients help me see that.

Like clients in the early days,
were really, were right on to

the horse doesn't wanna do that.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.

Jane Faulkner: And so I had to
kind of think, all right, what's,

how, how can I do this differently?

How can I support this horse to
still be in the conversation in a

way that it feels comfortable to?

Can

Rupert Isaacson: you give us,
can you give us the example

that stands out in your mind?

Most of that where, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: So for me I was
working with the herd of horses at

the retreat that I worked in and
there was one horse that was just

lovely and very giving and would
kind of always come forward for work.

And I was quite early on in my
practice, so, relied on a lot

of work with the horses halted.

And I remember going to this horse
Jack, his name was, and going to

put the halter on, and he obviously
did not want the halter on.

And I put it on anyway.

And I felt like shit.

The whole session, and I remember
promising him, I'll never do that to

you again and realizing it meant I was
going to look, I was going to let people

down because these people paid a big
amount of money for these sessions.

And it meant that I needed to work out a
different way to, to work to give people

insights and awareness into what was
happening for them without making Jack do

all the work on the halter or with that.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: So what did you
work out given that you have to dance

between honoring what the client Is
showing up and paying money to do,

which is a real thing, the need for the
horse as a colleague, which is a real

thing and the need to recognize their
horse's agency, which is a real thing.

What did you do?

Jane Faulkner: So for me, I
learned to get really curious about

everything the horses did in relation
to what the person said and did.

And I learned to support the person
to get curious about that too.

And.

I started to notice like more and
more that the horses did give really

clear indicators of and support the
person to become really aware of

themselves in a way that was much more
profound than if the horse was halted.

So, for example, if the person
was really dysregulated and really

Thinking things or had a lot of
emotion, generally, the horses

wouldn't want to be near that person.

But then as the person got in touch with
their feelings and became congruent, so

became authentic and maybe even spoke to
me or the horse about their feelings, the

horses turned in and wanted to engage.

And so the person, the people realize
like, because something I'll ask somebody

when a horse does something like if a
horse or four horses move away, I might

say to that person, is that familiar?

And the person will go, yeah,
it feels like my family.

And then it's like, what's that like?

Can you tell the horses
what's that like for you?

And as they tell the horses, something
in the person shifts and the horses

respond to that state, state shift.

Often it means the person needs to
become more vulnerable or more real

and that's what the horses respond to.

And then the person can join the
dogs and they, they realize like,

oh, gosh, when I'm uptight and
stressed, it pushes my family away.

But when I own what I'm feeling and
I'm honest about what's happening for

me, my family want to come closer.

So they kind of, that's where
horses I find are amazing.

They, they give a really tangible
indication of where that person's at.

And they give the person an opportunity to
try something different and they respond.

And the person feels it in their body.

Rupert Isaacson: I would agree.

And I would agree with that.

Right across every human interaction
with horses, you know, whether it's

therapeutic or whether it's Work, you
know, working equitation with cow work

or whether it's a sport or whatever.

For sure.

And I think, I think everyone at
the, who's serious about any of the

interactions with horses to some degree
comes to this realization that you

have to change something in yourself
often and frequently, not just once.

Because you're dealing with
organisms that reflect.

where you are.

So as you say, if, if it took me a long
time, for example, when I am going to do

a dressage type thing to be really okay
with it, feeling where the horse is at.

And sometimes they're like,
no, it's not what I want.

All right.

You know what?

No problem.

Let's just go in the forest.

And then frequently when we've gone in
the forest, they're like, you know what,

actually that dressage thing, I kind of
feel like doing a little bit of that.

And that's exactly how I would be, you
know, I would be like, look, I want

to just, you know, go chill first.

And then when I've had a little bit of
a run around and explore, then yeah,

I'm kind of want to engage in this
kind of absorbing thing, you know, but

that totally reflects my personality.

Why would they not?

Jane Faulkner: Exactly.

And it deepens the
relationship, doesn't it?

Like for me, it just creates
a much more profound, deep

relationship, but it takes humility.

It takes willing to, like for me
in front of clients or students

being willing to go, look, I
don't know what's going to happen.

They're walking away.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, this is the
thing I think what, what people fear.

very, very, for very real and good reasons
is that if you know, you're, you're

a horse professional or whatever and
your horse doesn't want to participate,

well, you know, you're letting people
down and you're not delivering the

service that you said you would.

Or if you're not doing it professionally,
but you've just been told you've

got to tell the horse what to do.

You've got to be boss of the horse
or the horse won't respect you.

And although there's truths in that,
that's not the whole truth, but

there are certain truths in that.

What I found, and I'm sure you've found.

But perhaps this might be useful for
listeners is just to inform people up

front, you know, so for example, if
I am giving a quote unquote dressage

thing in just the same way as if
I'm giving a quote unquote therapy

thing, I'll often say to the clients,
look, it could go like this and it

could go like that for these reasons.

If it goes like this, then my
suggestion is we go blah, blah, blah.

And if it goes like that, my
suggestion, and, or it might just,

we might just go straight to the
thing, but are you okay with that?

Flexibility before we begin, and you
sort of give them a chance to say to

understand and then to say, well, okay,
you know, or no, actually, I'm not

okay with that, you know, in which case
we can say, well, perhaps we're not,

we're not the right fit for each other.

That's all right, too.

But I find with most with most
people it's it's more about just

giving giving the information if you
give the information, give people a

chance to understand I'm the same.

If you give me a chance to
understand I'm probably okay with it.

You know what I mean?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I agree.

Yeah, that transparency.

Rupert Isaacson: So I've got a
last, I've got a question for you.

Jane Faulkner: I

Rupert Isaacson: would like to, I
would like to have you on again.

There's lots of other
questions I've got for you.

So if you're up for it, I'd like to do a
part two or even a part three with you.

And I'm sure that the
listeners feel the same.

I, yeah.

I'm thinking back to that girl, the
young girl who was living in her car

in Brisbane, who you saw when she was
13 years old living in her car, having

to do whatever she could do to survive.

If she was your client now,
how would you help her?

Jane Faulkner: Great question.

So, I would help her

just by being a, an
equal human beside her.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Jane Faulkner: And keeping it that simple,
just by being an equal human that valued

her and that saw the gold within her,

Rupert Isaacson: that

Jane Faulkner: didn't see what she did
or, cause she would bring a lot of shame.

I imagine.

I'm so sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, to honor that shame and to
support her to see her light and

to let her know that's what I see.

Rupert Isaacson: To perhaps honor the
courage that it takes to go into something

that is going to cause that shame.

That takes great courage, right?

Jane Faulkner: Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And more just to let her know her shame
is welcome and it makes sense that

it's there and that there's nothing
wrong with that shame being there.

Rupert Isaacson: Oh, okay.

And that she's much

Jane Faulkner: more than

Rupert Isaacson: What does that mean?

That's intriguing.

Okay.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

So, I mean, we all Okay, because normally

Rupert Isaacson: we think shame is
something that isn't so welcome, you know,

because it has negative associations.

So why is shame welcome?

Tell us about that.

Jane Faulkner: Because shame is
trying to protect us in some way.

Shame is trying to reveal
something to us in some way.

Shame's part of being human.

And so if I reject it or push it away,
I reject or push away a part of myself.

And I don't want a client to do that.

And, and they'll be pushing away the
most vulnerable part of themselves.

And I'm more one to say, Hey, I see that
vulnerable part and it is so welcome here.

And thank you for showing
me that part of you.

And can you let that part of,
you know, I'm so grateful it's

shown up that takes courage.

So I never, ever want anyone to reject
their shame, but that's healing for me

is learning to pick your shame up and
hold it and say, Hey, I've got you.

Yeah.

And accept it, bring it close.

We learned to push it away and reject it

Rupert Isaacson: like, like in
a child healing effectively.

Yes.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.

Okay.

I think we need another
conversation about that

if you're up for later.

Jane Faulkner: Yeah.

I'd love to.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: I think
everyone, everyone, everyone.

And

it, it,

I think whether you're, whether you're
the person suffering from it, which is

everyone on the planet, or whether you're
the first to help somebody with it.

I thought is really from the conversation
is, well, what's it, what are the

positive sides of it and why might
it be welcome and what might be doing

for you that's helping you and how
is it, how is it, how is it helping

you to acquire wisdom and how is it
helping you to acquire compassion.

And how has it helped, you know,
looking through that the lens of the

heart as if, you know, Kansas Caridine
and her work with HeartMath Institute,

but she's, she would say, you know, I
feel terrible speaking for Caridine.

Sorry, Kansas.

But, you know, she, she might
say, she might say, looking

through the lens of the heart.

And one of the, the, you know, when she
said that to me, it hit home immediately.

That is exactly what we
are trained to not to do.

Jane Faulkner: Yes, and
it's what we all need.

Yes, to see one another
through the lens of the heart.

That's such a beautiful
saying, the lens of the heart.

Rupert Isaacson: Because it renders
us uncontrollable and we're not

going to go off and fight and die
on foreign battlefields if we're

looking through the lens of the heart.

Jane Faulkner: It's so true.

And we want to support each
other and build one another up.

So governments and

Rupert Isaacson: churches don't have much.

Jane Faulkner: They don't

Rupert Isaacson: have much incentive
to help us to see that way.

Jane Faulkner: So true.

And yet we crave it, eh?

Rupert Isaacson: Like, like oxygen.

Jane Faulkner: Mm.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Like love.

Whoa, Jane Faulkner, thank you.

Jane Faulkner: Thank you.

Brilliant.

Thanks so much.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So, so with the knowledge that we're
going to explore some more things

for those, I think we should sign off
and let people digest this so far.

What are the resources?

Just give us the web stuff, books,
whatever, the way people can find you,

YouTube, the lot, just how do we, how do
they find their way to you and your stuff?

Jane Faulkner: Sure.

Website is equine assisted
therapy, australia.

com.

au and Facebook is the same
equine assisted therapy,

Australia and same as Instagram.

And that's, that's about it.

No books yet.

But the website

Rupert Isaacson: is com.

au chaps.

Those of us outside of Australia, remember
it's an AU on the end after the com.

Jane Faulkner: Yes.

Thank you.

But

Rupert Isaacson: I presume if they
type equine assisted Australia into

Google, it'll still come up to you.

Jane Faulkner: I, hopefully.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Okay.

Jane Faulkner: Awesome.

Thank you so much, Rupert.

I've loved this conversation.

Thank

Rupert Isaacson: you.

Likewise.

Likewise.

I learned a lot.

So thank you for mentoring me.

And I look forward to the next one.

Jane Faulkner: Awesome.

Thanks, Rupert..

Rupert Isaacson: thank you for joining us.

We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.

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