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Horse Medicine - A Natural Way To Heal
8 Plays5 months ago
An interview with Margot Smith who is a registered counsellor trained in Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT), a specialised health and wellbeing modality that includes horses and nature to help people learn, grow and heal. Margot speaks about her own journey with loss, and how her horses offered a path to healing, that she could not have imagined possible. Margot offers on farm therapeutic sessions with connection with the horses in a way that feels safe and right. She says that people from all walks of life are drawn to EAT, sometimes through curiosity initially, but she says it can really help with issues like depression, anxiety, grief, loss, trauma, mental illness, neurodivergence, addiction, relationships and general self-improvement. If you want to check out Margots offerings or talk to her personally, you can contact her via www.pegasuswellbeing.com.au
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Transcript
Introduction to Margo Smith
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello, everyone. I'm very, very happy to introduce a very good friend of mine, Margo Smith. Margo and I have known each other for, well, actually a very long time. Isn't it, Margo? It is. I was kind of counting back the years and thought, wow. Yeah. Is it 20 million?
00:00:37
Speaker
It's nearly 20, I think it was 2006 when we were together on a course. So Margo and I did a Dru Yoga Teacher training course together in Sydney in King Cumberland. We travelled from the Aubrey area
00:00:55
Speaker
How many times a year was it? Two? Two times a year. I feel like it was more. Yeah. It was for six days at a time. I remember that. Yeah. And it was three. It was. Yeah. We used to live in. We had a living course. It was like a retreat.
Equine-assisted Therapy: A New Approach
00:01:15
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:01:17
Speaker
yeah so anyway so that's how we know each other and we traveled a couple of times up and down and we spent that time and we've been both been involved in drew yoga and we share the same friends in drew because we studied together but today margo is
00:01:34
Speaker
going to share with us, well I'm going to ask you lots of questions, about horse medicine that's what we're talking about because Margot is a horse woman and she is very well trained as an equine assisted therapist or doing equine assisted therapy and of course she's a counsellor. So I of course know very little about this and I'm extremely curious about, I've just heard some fantastic stories actually about how
00:02:03
Speaker
you know, doing the therapeutic work with clients and having the horses as part of that is just so incredibly transformative. Now, how does this work? So tell us about Econ-assisted therapy. Wow. Yeah, it's such a
00:02:22
Speaker
you know, a big field because in all the different countries, they kind of talk about it differently. And in Australia, it's a modality that's used as a, you know, therapeutic kind of model as part of a practice, maybe if you're a counsellor and occupational therapist, social worker, psychologist,
00:02:49
Speaker
or someone working in the mental health field and doing this training helps to integrate the horse presence and also nature. So just the fact that it's not room-based and it's outside in nature brings its own
00:03:11
Speaker
kind of therapeutic effect. Yeah. And that combined just provides such a rich source of, you know, like a resource for people to either build for themselves or just having that experiential learning.
Journey of Yoga and Horses
00:03:31
Speaker
It gets felt, you know, it's such a felt sense and
00:03:37
Speaker
all the senses are involved. It's more about coming into the body with an experience rather than talk therapy. So there's a lot of kind of different things that weave into the actual therapy sessions. And yeah, it's a very popular and growing field.
00:04:02
Speaker
and I remember when I was you know teaching yoga and meditation there was a part of me actually I went to a a horsey retreat and I was you know like we were sharing about stuff and I said I'm in a dilemma because I love my yoga and meditation I love teaching it
00:04:25
Speaker
But I love all the horse things that I do and creating relationships with horses and getting to understand them better and become the type of person that a horse
00:04:38
Speaker
wants to hang around. That's basically been my big goal because horses will tell you through their body language very easily whether they want you in their energy field or not. And I said, I just love both these areas.
00:04:56
Speaker
know I feel like I have to choose which one which one am I going to go into which field and then I remember a friend saying why do you have to choose just join them together like bring it together and I'm like oh oh my gosh yes and I hadn't really heard about the equinoxis the therapy field very much but that sort of sparked to see that
00:05:18
Speaker
grew and of course as the universe provides you know the information and books and this is kind of before podcasts before much social media or internet stuff so you know somewhere somewhere in my heart something was um growing towards that area yeah yeah
00:05:41
Speaker
So I guess you have to have horses, obviously, and you you've got a place, you've got your own place when you do the work with clients. Yeah, yeah, that that again has been just a dream come true, because it's not easy to own acreage now more than ever in the last few years with the property.
00:06:03
Speaker
rising and we lived in a property for about 12 years and this is kind of when I was getting interested I still had little kids and I used to just dream about where I would put you know like a space to do yoga and the horses and and you know I just had it all kind of figured out but there was there were so many other limitations in that space where we were at the time and it wasn't until 20
00:06:35
Speaker
2016 and all that time over years I kind of just used to look at the real estate, look at everything and go oh how cool would it be but there's no way I was going to shift my husband from this kind of you know beautiful beef farm that he developed and it was kind of like a hobby farm for him.
00:06:54
Speaker
But unbelievably, we saw this place and unbelievably, he agreed to move, you know, to try it out because I just kept saying I can see my dream happening here. And it sounds funny, but when
00:07:14
Speaker
we first came towards the property, we had to cross a creek. And so I just fell in love with the creek, first of all. And then as we were climbing up the rise towards the property, I could see all these rocks in the paddock and then that just made me, you know, go, oh my God, look at all the rocks. And my husband being a farmer was like, rocks don't make money, you know.
00:07:38
Speaker
They take up room where you could row grass. And I guess you could see yourself doing the warrior pose or a crane or something on top of the row. That's it. Yeah, so wild. But anyway, as everything fell into place, we moved here in 2016, 2017. So you're at Wurundji, just outside of Beechworth, in close to Yak. Yes, that was another part with the location because it was
00:08:07
Speaker
via our other place was over an hour to get to kind of like the end of an area in the mid valley. And here there's, you know, there's
00:08:18
Speaker
you can just go either way Wang, Beechworth, Wodonga and Yak. There's just such a variety of places and people the population is much more available.
Setting Up Therapy Sessions
00:08:32
Speaker
Could you describe for me like if I was going to come and do equine assisted therapy with you?
00:08:39
Speaker
What would happen? Like, how does it work? Yeah, yeah. Well, we'd have a little intake and a discussion probably over the phone or a Zoom and get acquainted and kind of find out what
00:08:54
Speaker
what is drawing you to coming and you know, it could be a lot about curiosity. There could be something going on in your life, possibly relational or to do with mental health or physical health. It could be, you know, coping skills or there's so many things but whatever it is in your life that is perhaps
00:09:18
Speaker
you're feeling like you need some resources or ways to adapt. That's a great way to kind of look at coming for a session to make it available for
00:09:35
Speaker
what your specific needs are, because it is about a relational experience. So you're having a, and I set it up in a way that it's going to be a safe relational experience. So whether you've had horse experience or not, no horse experience, I can change the environment to suit you so that you, safety is the first kind of big important aspect.
00:10:03
Speaker
So I'm gonna come out to the property. You're gonna meet me. And we've already had a chat on the phone and I've sort of talked to you about whatever's going on for me just briefly. Cause you're not doing a phone counseling session. It's more a come and how do you take me from there to interaction in the space where the horses are? Like what happens there?
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, it can look, it can kind of unfold differently for each person. But the main part is to kind of have an introduction to the space, to the environment. And what amazingly happens, which I'm so blessed and used to my environment that I live here. The first thing people notice is how peaceful it is, how quiet,
00:10:58
Speaker
there's no traffic, they can hear the birds, you know, they can feel the breeze. So before we even get anywhere near the back gate where the horses are, they've already started to notice and feel, yeah, feel the effects of the environment. Most people are coming from a busy place or, you know, a town or a busy family life. And so
00:11:23
Speaker
I think that that's one of the most precious things that the Donington Farm offers is that it's almost like stepping into a sanctuary or some kind of refuge. So we take notice of everything that is unfolding at the time. So it's kind of like a here and now process. And whatever is coming up for the person,
00:11:51
Speaker
is like what is the juice, you know, that's, that's kind of what we start to, to work with. So we might, we might be able to talk about what that's like for the person to notice the quietness and the peace and where, where that resonates in their body, and what, what they might usually feel, what's life
00:12:14
Speaker
like usually for them and you know so by the time we get to towards the back gate I usually have the horses in their own space and it's quite a big area and there's trees there's rocks
00:12:31
Speaker
And they're basically just doing their thing, you know, which is feeding. Yeah, they might be resting under the trees if it's a warm day or whatever. So I love to invite the participant to spend some time observing, observing what they can notice about the horses, the environment,
00:12:54
Speaker
the interaction between them. And sometimes I might even up the ante a bit, you know, and put some hay out in the paddock. And the participant will notice the interaction more about what's happening between the relationship with the beach horse, you know, like one that's kind of more food oriented or, you know, dominant in a way of wanting
00:13:24
Speaker
that pile of hay and uses his body to let the others know. Right from the get-go, there's this relational kind of
00:13:38
Speaker
experience happening in front of the person. And they can get to understand what's happening in their nervous system when this is going on. So we kind of go, oh, how is that for you? Like when you saw that horse, that brown horse kind of kick his back legs out to say, go away. And so even before we get
00:14:00
Speaker
in and and the session might even happen without going into the horses. Do you know what I mean? Like if someone is like at their window of tolerance for their for themselves and the thing is that awareness is what brings choice. So if we if we don't if we're not aware or we just kind of barge in and um beyond our own threshold. Yeah. Sometimes that's how we
00:14:27
Speaker
we walk through life. But because we do like a safety and wellbeing check, and I talk about awareness being a safety mechanism, so having to be aware of your environment, and we're on a farm there,
00:14:46
Speaker
there's other animals that are on the land and without trying to scare people about snakes and things like that. But it's actually just bringing people back into the reality of what our environment is like and what's happening in our environment. So it sounds like, correct me if I've got this wrong, it sounds like you're getting people
00:15:13
Speaker
through paying attention to all these details in the environment and with the horses and what's going on in their body and their reactions to what they're seeing and feeling is leading you or you're using that to invite them to explore their own personal stuff.
Healing Through Horses
00:15:37
Speaker
Yes, it's amazing because the more that I try to plan a session and think, oh, I think this person will, you know, they will benefit from grooming the horse or, you know, leading the horse or whatever it might be, that always goes out the window because the horses
00:15:56
Speaker
almost intuitively, you know, just dictate what's going to happen. And it can be because of the environment themselves, you know, safe is wind. It's a really windy day. And a lot of people know or if
00:16:14
Speaker
or have seen horses that are a little bit more flighty in the wind, you know, and things kind of blow up. They're more vigilant, they're more like what's going on. So even the way the horses are presenting themselves. So the way I like to look at it is your nervous system is meeting another being's nervous system.
00:16:33
Speaker
Now, in the world of humans, we get so good at masking our nervous system or kind of like, you know, putting, yeah, just being inauthentic or incongruent. And, but for a horse,
00:16:49
Speaker
they can feel the energetic field of of everything around them because for you know 6000 news that's kept them safe that's what they've had to survive with understanding what the environment is you know providing around them and with that tuned in sense they can also feel if we're pretending to be safe or you know brave or whatever because
00:17:19
Speaker
when there's an incongruence they don't feel safe and so when they don't feel safe safety is the number one thing they will do whatever it takes if you know they're healthy and they're free and able to move and that they will do whatever it takes to to remain safe now of course just like humans sometimes they've been
00:17:45
Speaker
in an environment where that safety isn't allowed or provided for them or they're not allowed to express themselves or, you know, like a lot of, like being a captive animal. So I'm talking about, yeah, really healthy horses. That's kind of the ethical
00:18:11
Speaker
way to work with the with this model as well that the horses are mostly free so they can choose to interact with a person and of course safety comes into that as well so it might be a matter of and and not every horse is
00:18:34
Speaker
is suited to this type of work. That horses can still be observed like in a paddock or something if they're not attuned to being with humans and things like that. But yeah, there's quite a process to go through to work out whether the horse is suitable and safe and also
00:18:57
Speaker
feels, you know, it's a two-way thing. It's really about the horse's wellbeing as well as the participant. Yeah, no, I don't know where we went there. That's all right. I remember hearing somebody say that the horses actually do healing on the participants by being close to them. What should take on that?
00:19:23
Speaker
I feel like we can project onto the horses a little about what we think might be happening or what we want or desire to be happening. But I definitely feel that they are just being themselves.
00:19:42
Speaker
like the horse isn't going, oh, I wanna heal this person. Yeah, but their presence and the fact that they are an energetic being with a huge heart field, electromagnetic field, much bigger. I can't remember whether it's six times bigger than a human, something like that. So they have this heart field that when they feel safe, when they feel,
00:20:13
Speaker
connected when they feel calm that's their healthy well-being life and they know how to get themselves back into that place so if they're in that space they might just
00:20:28
Speaker
feel drawn to somebody, like an example is my beautiful Brumby who's not here with us anymore, but he was very sceptical and very reserved about interacting with humans. He's been like that all his life nearly, but something would happen to him when somebody was vulnerable.
00:20:53
Speaker
when somebody wasn't trying to tell him what to do or forcing a connection with him if he was just left to be himself and for this example I'm thinking it was quite amazing actually I was
00:21:09
Speaker
sitting outside under the trees and the horses were in the area but they were just you know further away and this lady was telling me about her grief story and she was actually grieving for her parent that was going through dementia and you know it was kind of that the type of grief of
00:21:32
Speaker
of the future and and the grief of the past that was no longer and anyway she was she was talking quite a lot but she was opening up and she was able to kind of articulate
00:21:46
Speaker
And then I looked over and I saw Mr. Tits, my Brumby's name was, and he kind of like just turned his head and looked a little bit interested. And just on his own volition, he walked over.
00:22:04
Speaker
And this lady wasn't scared, but she has horses. So, you know, it wasn't like she was, yeah, getting scared or unsafe. And he walked in front of her and put his muzzle towards her chest, just like that, and kind of looked a bit sleepy. And then he put, she had her hands in her lap and then he put his muzzle just so gently in her hands.
00:22:32
Speaker
and then kind of moved his head back a little bit and just like, just stood there, holding space, just silent, beautiful. Now, I can't talk for myself, but this beautiful lady just, she got really emotional about that. It was a release for her. And afterwards she said that was so healing. And it was like,
00:23:01
Speaker
like I was being heard, like I was listening to her, I was presence, but some being that, you know, that didn't need to come near her or show anything came towards her and just stood there and held space. Wow. So to me, that's the way the healing happens. And it happens kind of on their own terms. Sometimes the healing
00:23:29
Speaker
might be like a kick up the butt. Literally. Literally. Yeah, because one beautiful participant was really trying to get very smoochy with one of the horses and he has boundaries about smoochiness. It's not a really smoochy, rootchy horse. And so she was kind of a bit shocked and she's like, oh,
00:23:55
Speaker
What's he doing, you know, and and we were talking about boundaries. And so for her, the healing came that she realized how she doesn't have good boundaries and how she needed to be a little bit more like this horse and create some boundaries in her life where it was OK to say no. So the boundaries are just about saying, you know, no, that's not OK. Or yes.
00:24:25
Speaker
I allow, you know, it's so much about consent, you know, consent as a human consent as a horse. It's all, yeah, all that is really important to bring in this part of the process. Wow, that sounds quite incredible, actually. And I'm just thinking,
00:24:52
Speaker
about a process I'm familiar with where you have a little bit of distance. So almost with the horses, it's kind of like a third person is in the space, so to speak. And
00:25:08
Speaker
So you can see things from that distance. It's sort of just dropped in for me. No, you're exactly right. Because through our training, we were taught that it's a triad. It's like you've got two co-facilitators. So the relationship is not only, and sometimes it takes the heat off.
00:25:33
Speaker
having a relationship just with this you know person that's asking questions and that and and then there's the horse as well so sometimes my job is just to be present and observe and then share back what I saw and then see what you know the participant felt or
00:25:56
Speaker
or experienced from it. So there's so much in that triad interaction. And it really helps with rapport building as well, having the equine partner. And there's a lot of trust involved. Also, the participant is learning and watching how I interact
00:26:20
Speaker
with my horse. So then there's like kind of modeling consent perhaps or modeling a boundary, modeling healthy relationships, healthy expressions. You know, there's so much that can happen in that space. That sounds amazing because a lot of the time we want X, but we have no data to get X.
00:26:46
Speaker
So what you're saying about modelling for the client to observe your interaction with the horse, that's, I mean, that's golden. Margot, what got you on this journey of, you know, what took you into this sort of work?
Personal Tragedy and Healing
00:27:04
Speaker
Oh, gosh.
00:27:07
Speaker
Well, I've been blessed to have horses for nearly 40 years. I kind of realise that they've just been out my windows, whatever places we've lived. Yeah, I grew up in the city. So I don't know, figure that. Funnily enough, when I was young, I used to pretend that my
00:27:30
Speaker
drag star bike or those bikes back in the day was my horse. Yeah. And I just would just be free. Like we lived in caravan parks and we lived in so many different places, but I was able to be free and ride wherever I wanted to on my bike and that was my horse. So even from this kind of city kid life, I associated horses with freedom.
00:27:57
Speaker
And fortunately I met a beautiful man that was a horse lover and, you know, owned horses and I don't know whether the attraction was the horses or him. Don't tell him that. Now, I've met your husband, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the horses. Well, you know, as a young, how old was I, 18, 19 year old, you know,
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, I became pretty smitten because he was a little bit like the man from Snowy River to me. And he's dry as a bone. And anyway, we both kind of developed a love for horses. I used to just want to go to trail rides or go on the places where you can hire horses for an hour. And I spent my teenage years doing that.
00:28:53
Speaker
and even kind of just riding. I was friends with his sisters, my husband's sisters, and I'd do anything, go for a ride with them. And one day, actually, my husband, unbeknown to me, was milking cows with his brother, and I was riding down the road thinking I was pretty good, and I promptly fell off.
00:29:20
Speaker
And that night there was some social thing on and you know, that was kind of our first meeting and he said, oh, you know, how's the ground? So I actually learned to ride by hanging around him and his sisters in a little while, just developed such a love for
00:29:42
Speaker
for horses and yeah, they've been in our life and with our children as well. But one of the big, huge turning points, I guess, was I say turning points because it was something that I never would have thought would happen to us as a family. And we had three daughters aged eight,
00:30:11
Speaker
six and three at the time and we're involved in a freak accident where our middle daughter Georgia was killed suddenly by a falling tree.
00:30:23
Speaker
And, you know, that just, there were other people injured. I was injured. There was just this mixture of grief and disbelief and despair. Just, you know, our whole lives were changed forever in that single moment. And amazingly enough, I was supposed to be going with my horse to a clinic that
00:30:47
Speaker
that day, that very day the accident happened. And the weather was so atrocious that the instructor called it all off.
00:30:56
Speaker
And instead of going to that clinic, we took the kids to look at the snow with another couple of families. And yeah, that's when the accident happened. So I feel like I was just in a grief and trauma place for years after that. And one of my solace
00:31:25
Speaker
times was to just go out to where my horse was.
00:31:30
Speaker
And at first it was like, you know, I'm never gonna be able to ride you again. I'm never gonna be able to do anything that feels good anymore. Like life is over basically for me. But then eventually I felt like just being with him was enough and, you know, just kind of being in his presence. And eventually I noticed that I think it might've even been 18 months after, it was a long time after,
00:31:58
Speaker
that 5, 10, 15 minutes would go by where I was involved with say grooming him or brushing him and I had a moment of
00:32:11
Speaker
relief from my grief, you know, like where I wasn't thinking or having flashbacks or whatever, I was totally in the present moment. And about the same time I started reading Eckhart Tolley books, you know, The Power of Now, and really starting to understand how healing the present moment is. And the horses are always living in the present moment. So they became kind of my mentors and my guides for being in the present moment.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of how I got interested in, I read some books about relationships with horses rather than, you know, developing relationships rather than a dominating kind of a you're the slave on the master kind of a relationship with horses. And I became so interested in that, especially after everything that I felt like they'd given me. Yeah.
00:33:10
Speaker
Can I ask you is this an area like so the horses have been really a journey for healing really for you and teachers to come into the now.
Universal Lessons from Horses
00:33:21
Speaker
Do you find that people who've experienced loss of some kind are the people who tend to come to you or come for equine assisted therapy or is it people from all walks of life with all backgrounds and and challenges?
00:33:37
Speaker
Yeah it's interesting because I really feel like that's the area grief and loss that mostly coming from my own lived experience that I can offer support and you know give that kind of place for people to
00:33:57
Speaker
to hear with grief or navigate what's going on for them. But the universe works in funny ways. And I'm actually just getting a beautiful variety of different people, clients that are coming through from children with autism and mental health issues, young adults, and then people my age or women
00:34:27
Speaker
I think I've only I've only had one gentleman at the moment and yeah I'm really like just learning from people and participants and being open to that the horses don't care who we are and you know what we do for a living or what
00:34:55
Speaker
what illness we have or what, you know, there's no labels for horses. So when people just show up, it's about being a human and it's about, you know, finding those ways to discover what calmness is to them, to discover what connection is, discover what compassion and self-compassion is.
00:35:20
Speaker
I call these kind of my seeds, these beautiful words and then collaboration. It just evolves like that because we're there without the labels. Sometimes the labels can help give us a little bit of a guide to what we might need or whatever, but nature,
00:35:46
Speaker
and the horses. It's like none of that matters. None of that matters. It sounds, just sitting here as you speak about the process that you're using, it sounds so, I don't want to say it sounds magical. It doesn't sound magical. It sounds deeply respectful and
00:36:09
Speaker
gentle. Sounds beautiful. Yeah, yeah that's, I like that Karen, I've never kind of thought of it in those terms as gentle and respectful, but it is actually, because so much of our world is about harshness and the doing, achieving,
00:36:31
Speaker
And really, I think we step into this place of what's it like to just be? What's it like to be a human being instead of the human doing? Yeah, exactly. Now, I apologize in advance. This is a TikTokism. I was, I was
00:36:51
Speaker
flicking through on my phone last night, just having a bit of downtime. And I think it was, is it Susan Sarandon or Sarah Sarandon? Some famous actress. Anyway, beautiful, beautiful, fabulous actress. And it was just like this little clip. And I don't know if it was an interview or a piece out of a movie that she was in, but it landed and it feels quite relevant to, you know, the conversation here.
00:37:19
Speaker
And she said to this, this fellow, she said, why do you think people get married? And, and he went, passion. And she said, no, it's to be witnessed. Oh, wow. I just got cold shivers. Yeah. And it really touched me. She, she said, and that's why, you know, that's why it's popped into my mind because of
00:37:43
Speaker
what you've been talking about with the way you get your clients to really tune in to what's happening and the feedback loop that is being provided. Yeah, she was saying, you actually make a commitment to be present for the little moments with that person and they witness and are present for yours.
00:38:07
Speaker
And it's, that's what leaves us isolated and stumbling, isn't it? When we've... Yep. We're missing out on that. Yeah.
00:38:19
Speaker
It brings to mind about Dan Siegel. I don't know whether you've heard of his kind of explanation of attunement, and it's being seen, being heard, being felt, kind of getting gotten. Like, I get you, I get you. And who can get you more than somebody that you develop an intimate relationship with? And it's kind of like,
00:38:44
Speaker
despite whatever personality traits we have, that commitment, like you said, to say, I'm going to be here. I'm going to hear you. And things might change as the years go by. But ultimately, that's the place. And we're social mammals. Horses are social mammals. So actually, in some countries, it's illegal to have a horse on its own, live on its own.
00:39:15
Speaker
It's so bad for their health and mental health. And we're the same, aren't we? We're not meant to kind of be isolated and live on our own. And so for a healthy horse, they have their horsey partners and relationships with each other. And they're all different relationships and kind of that bonding. Yeah, there's so much they
00:39:44
Speaker
they teach us just about through the way that they live.
Horse Enrichment and Wellbeing
00:39:48
Speaker
What does an enrichment mean to a horse? Enrichment means like having a variety of
00:39:58
Speaker
environment so maybe some trees maybe some rocks maybe some hills and creeks or you know not a flat square paddock with a fence around it and nothing in it that's you know that tour horse isn't in Richmond it's like living in suburbia isn't it with a little row of pansies
00:40:23
Speaker
I won't say picket fence because I lived with a little picket fence for a while, but looking at your soulful and wild, that's exactly the essence of a horse and that we have that essence within us as well, that kind of
00:40:43
Speaker
yeah, animal part of us that wants to be soulful and wild and we've domesticated the horses so much and taken so much of their kind of wild, wildness and soulful, you know, out of it, but there's nothing better than seeing the horses just going for it and galloping down the paddocks. Oh wow, yeah. Makes me think of
00:41:13
Speaker
I used to live in Cancunha and I remember my neighbors and all these boys. And I remember watching, it's as clear as day right now, seeing this teenage young, young man.
00:41:29
Speaker
on this very feisty horse, an Arab actually, and just charging up this really steep hill, mangoing, and it was full on, the whole hat, the whole deal. And I remember looking and going, holy shit, I'd love to be able to do that. Like you could just, it was emanating this power, you know? And
00:41:54
Speaker
It was, it was beautiful. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm just thinking, um, now I love, I love your website. I've got to say I had a read of, um, some of your blogs actually. And, um, I wonder Pegasus wellbeing. Where did you, I mean, I get the wellbeing Pegasus. What prompted you to use that name?
00:42:24
Speaker
Oh, wow. It was funny because I'd just been so drawn to it. And when we moved here, I printed out a picture of a Pegasus and I just stuck it in my office, you know, not having any ideas before I did the training or anything.
00:42:41
Speaker
So then when I was coming, trying to sort out a name, I remember seeing that picture and going, oh my gosh, is there a way I can bring Pegasus in? And the whole beautiful mythical horse that symbolizes that wild freedom.
00:43:02
Speaker
but also with the wings, you know, like a horse has got freedom when they run and use their legs, but add some wings onto a horse, you know, they can go to any heights. Like that's kind of like the, the, that possibilities, you know, like what, what, what is possible and our limited mind or our limiting belief system or conditioning is
00:43:28
Speaker
stopping us to discover the wings like Pegasus and to fly above those limitations. I just felt like that that's what I wanted to offer.
00:43:40
Speaker
participants away because I feel like that's where my journey has been. There is no, no, no way that you could have convinced me that life was going to come okay again. That I would find something that I'd love to do and be passionate
Healing Beyond Trauma
00:44:01
Speaker
about. That I would want to live. That I love life. I love my life. I love everything.
00:44:09
Speaker
that there is about, that challenges or whatever it may be, you know. And I've also got a meaningful spiritual relationship with my daughter now. And she's kind of like riding Pegasus up there, you know, and she's saying, go mom. And yeah, I feel like so many of us just stay stuck because
00:44:37
Speaker
we don't dare to imagine, we don't dare to create another vision in, you know, starts with our thoughts and our minds about what could be open and possible for us. And even, you know, the most traumatic history and pain and whatever we've gone through in life, it doesn't mean we have to be a prisoner to that forever.
00:45:04
Speaker
and I feel the horses, I feel Pegasus is leading the way. That is beautiful. We should finish on that note. Thank you so much Karen. Yes, thank you for talking about this. I'm
00:45:25
Speaker
I think I'm going to end up on Donington Farm and try out a session actually. I was just going to invite you. I just thought, you know, it's just one of those things that you can't explain it until you've experienced it. Yeah. So I'd love you to come out one day. That's a thing. I'm definitely going to do it. Have you ever had people actually cry when they are aware of that connection, when they've
00:45:55
Speaker
feel or perceive that connection when they show up in their body. Have you ever had anyone move to tears, I wonder? Yeah, it's like it's very precious to be, it's almost sacred to be in the space with somebody that can feel that depth of connection and emotion.
00:46:18
Speaker
And, you know, sometimes it's tears of release. And, you know, sometimes it's tears of joy or recognition, you know, it's whatever it is to that person. And yeah, I feel like a lot of people kind of write to me later because they need time to process what's happened. And they go away and, you know, send me an email and go,
00:46:47
Speaker
I really thought about it later and it just kind of connects the dots. Yeah, but at the time it's so much, it's happening in that present moment. Yeah. Oh my God. All right. So Margo Smith, thank you very much for your time. You're welcome.
00:47:11
Speaker
jump in and experience this for yourself, I will be, www.pegassistwellbeing.com.au. It's just got the inner, Pegasus inner wellbeing. Pegasus inner wellbeing. Yeah, because somebody else had taken that one, so I had to put it in there.
00:47:29
Speaker
in wellbeing. I'm pretty sure that wellbeing happens on every level though, eh? Oh, that's right. Yeah, in that outer, up and down, all around us. All right, Margot, thank you so much. I'm sure we'll be talking again.