Steve Halfpenny:
Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Talking Horses. A little while ago, Ronnie King interviewed me and she mentioned Dr. Susan Fay and sacred spaces and I'd never heard of it. So I downloaded the book and went through it. Couldn't stop. And it was interesting to me how, you know, I was working with horses all my life, how many of those ingredients were in my life or not in my life. So we're very lucky today. to have Dr Susan Faye join us, Welcome Susan
Dr. Susan Fay:
thank you so much for having me here. It's such an honor to think that that little book that I didn't think would go anywhere found its way to Australia and some other places in the world. So it's great.
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah. It's really fascinating, you know, because there's a As a lifelong student of the horse, I suppose, I'm always looking for what's the next step, you know, where's the next piece of the puzzle. And when I run into any problems with the horse of any kind, it's like, what am I doing wrong? What am I missing? And I think you've hit a huge part of that, you know, for the people that I know anyway. So could you just, how did you come across this idea of sacred spaces?
Dr. Susan Fay:
it's kind of a long journey, but just like you, I'd kind of been the student of the horse for my whole life and just obsessed with them and always trying to find that better way or a better way to do things. And I went down the natural horsemanship route and the dressage and all that. And I kept feeling like something was missing in my instruction from whoever I went to. It's like they, I kept feeling that it had more to do with me than they were leading me to believe. And I wasn't sure what to do because I knew my horse had some anxiety issues when I was showing and I thought, well, he's okay at home. He's okay in these other places. It's got to be me. It's got to be something that I'm doing different when I'm at the show than when I'm riding him on the ranch. And it really took me into a whole different realm of looking at how our brains work and how our physiology. is a reflection of what we're thinking and feeling. And I went down the road of psychology because I thought that that would give me a whole lot of answers. And it gave me some, but then not all of the answers that I wanted, because I thought, wait a minute, there's something beyond just the psychology here and just the fact that I think or feel something. What is it that's happening? And I watched really good horsemen around the world and I would go and just study them and say, what are they doing? I can't see what they're doing. And that's because it was happening inside and it was energetic. And when I went in after my, I got my PhD in psychology, went and studied hypnosis and I went into mental training and all sorts of different avenues to go, okay, I know all of these pieces somehow fit together. And I began to see that, wow, we were affecting animals through our thoughts and emotions, but in a, an electric. magnetic way. Like we, when we had a different thought, we'd create a different energy wave and that would affect the horse. And because they were prey animals who are very attuned to their environment and what's going on and what is the intention of a predator, they were picking up those subtle signals and translating them. And when I became aware of that, then I could play with specific energy frequency that then could be picked up by the horse. And so now I work in that field of like, can we create frequencies that communicate relaxation, for example, or confidence or something else to the horse or joy. And so, you know, that was the big aha moment for me when I started playing with my own horses and then I thought, okay, does this work for other people? because that's a scientist in me. It's got to work for other people or it's not scientific. And so I went out and started doing that. And it's like, oh my gosh, it's working for other people. This is so cool. So that's kind of in the short version of how I kind of came into all of this.
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah, that's really interesting, isn't it? Uh, somebody that I really admire,from the States is into the science as well, but into equine behavior and how equine behavior works. And he was trying to explain the training system with a horse and I would, and I'd just come back and go, well, how come when I let somebody else work with my horse, he behaves totally differently. You know, if he's fully trained and I've worked with him for 16 years and I give him to somebody else, why
Dr. Susan Fay:
Mm-hmm.
Steve Halfpenny:
is he a different, like almost instantly? And he was trying to say that you are part of the science, you know, because I was thinking the training method is the science. He said, no, no, the human and the horse together makes the science. And I think what you're saying sort of refers that's correct. Yeah. Your own mindset changes everything.
Dr. Susan Fay:
Absolutely. And just like you, I can go, once I know what it is and how to do it, I can go and it applies to any horse that I interact with. So I don't have to actually have a relationship with another horse. I can go in cold, probably like you do and a lot of people, and take the horse and say, okay, now here's where I'm at. And the horse reads that through my physiology changes and, and they immediately act differently. And so when I think about teaching this, it's a very difficult thing because it's not real straightforward because you don't know all the variables of what is that person's thinking and what is that person doing and how are they internally reacting to the horse and what is that horse internally reacting to. You know, there's so many factors that it's almost impossible to try to do a training program of here's how to do this. So what I try to do is go, okay, here's our part of it. And we can, we can do these things and having trained horses myself, it's like, I know the, how horses react. And so I can kind of go into both worlds and say, okay, you do this. And then the horse should do this in return. And if the horse is doing this thing, here's what you can do to do different to help support the horse or help them learn something. So I love that. back and forth, but I think you have to have both ends of it, the knowledge of the training of horses and the behavior of horses and the knowledge of humans and the behavior of humans.
Steve Halfpenny:
Yes. I mean, I started with natural horsemanship too, and it was really based on dominance, that's what I got into to start with. And I don't really believe in dominance at all anymore. But I think there's a side between, you've got the spiritual side, which I guess I try and live in, but somehow you've got to have the safety side as well,
Dr. Susan Fay:
Oh, absolutely.
Steve Halfpenny:
you know, like some physical skills. How'd you go about integrating, how do you integrate those two when you are training?
Dr. Susan Fay:
and I spoke to a client today about this very topic about, this isn't something you could just use your energy and do everything and have the horse react properly and be safe, because I really credit the fact that I learned those natural horsemanship skills because I have a skill set that I can go back to for safety, for knowledge of how is the horse reacting, am I reacting, you know, and can protect myself and all that. That's a really important part of this and a part that some people are missing about, oh, I can just do energy and everything will be perfect. No, not really, because part of the energy is having the ability to have confidence in yourself and your ability to handle whatever situation comes up. And that can only be attained through physical training with horses, you know, and learning how horses react. And so you can't... diminished that piece of it at all. And I'm very thankful I had that and really studied that end of it. But I realized it wasn't the whole picture either. Now with that skillset that I have behind me, I know I can go in and safely go, okay, what if I really tone down my physical set, skillset and see how much can then actually happen without any physical contact with the horse or. a very minor amount. But I know that if something does go wrong, I've got a skill set to handle that. And that's important.
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah. And then just as a educator myself, it's really hard to tell somebody what to do. Isn't that because they'll, they'll go, that's a rule
Dr. Susan Fay:
Yeah.
Steve Halfpenny:
now. It was not a rule. It changes depending on what the horse offers. But I had a, what's your one of us students and instructor. And we just had a little dressage test that we have going at home. It's just like a benchmark thing. It's not a real competition and one test you've been struggling with. And it's affecting the rider and the horse, you know, because it's an emotional issue then. And yesterday we did another test and I'd just been reading your site, you know, and I said, what are you thinking, you know, when you get out there, what do you, and I just sort of switched from the trainer, how you, how you control the horse to, and getting your mindset in the right place. And she did a wonderful test, you know, and we came in and I said, what were you doing? I think I tried to get into the sacred space and I thought wow. And that was huge. So I'd like to integrate that into what I teach, but
Dr. Susan Fay:
Wow.
Steve Halfpenny:
I don't know enough about it myself yet.
Dr. Susan Fay:
I'm trying to break it down, you know, as a researcher and scientist, I spent a lot of time in academia and they like to make things really, really complicated and use big words. And what I found when I was in that space, I didn't want to stay there in academia because it was like, well, yeah, you know all this stuff, but you can't apply it in any practical manner. You can't make it simple enough for people to implement in through their lives and make something happen that they wanna have happen. And that's what I feel like I'm trying to do is take and translate that complex information from neurology, psychology, physiology, all of that into, okay, here's how easy it can be. You just need to do these three things. Usually most of my little techniques that I do are maybe three things, because what I wanna do is not get people into their intellectual mind and... thinking about a whole lot of stuff when they're with a horse. I want them in their feeling body and their right brain, because that's where horses understand us. And so that's why my, my little techniques, if I hate to even call them techniques, things that I have you do or practice on are, are so simple. Not easy to do necessarily, but they're simple in concept, but they take practice because you have to you
Steve Halfpenny:
Mmm.
Dr. Susan Fay:
have to first be able to communicate with your own body and figure out what you are feeling and what you're experiencing and what your energy might be. And so, yeah, it's, it's that piece of, um, again, the challenge for me is teaching something that, um, you can't see, you can't see the energy and a lot of people are kind of out of touch with their own thoughts, emotions, and body. And so. then they've got to get that piece put in there. But when they do, what I find is just they blossom and they find these ways of interacting, not just with horses, but with other people and other animals in a very different way, because then they have awareness of what they're bringing into the world and how they're being interpreted by other people, animals.
Steve Halfpenny:
Wow. So how can you help people around the world then? Like you're based in the States, so like people in Australia, how can they learn from you?
Dr. Susan Fay:
I do a lot of virtual sessions with people. And so they can call me and I work one on one and I usually have the horse there and so I can kind of walk them through different things and they can see things that happen. I can say okay I'm going to change this in me and now watch what the horse does and believe it or not it happens over distance it doesn't matter how far it is. change my thoughts, emotions, and say, here's what the horse is gonna do in response. And they usually will do that unless there's a lot of trauma in the horse or something is, you know, interrupting with that. But that way they can get to a place where they can feel it, they can experience, they can see it. And I can walk them through exactly what I did to get the result. Like, because I'm, you know, checking in with myself, what did I just do? And again, I try to make it. pretty simple as far as you only have to do these things, but you're going to have to practice on them. But if you do those same things, you'll get the same result. And that's what I think is really fun.
Steve Halfpenny:
So are you talking about a result with their horse or your horse?
Dr. Susan Fay:
their horse, any horse, any horse actually,
Steve Halfpenny:
Right.
Dr. Susan Fay:
you know, if they practice these things that I teach it. And the great thing about the horse is it will tell you whether you got it or not, because of the reactions that you'll see from the horse. So I can tell them watch for this thing, watch for that. And that'll give you instant feedback about whether you got to that place or you didn't
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah. Is there any connection between what you're doing and like the shamanic
Dr. Susan Fay:
You know, I don't know the shamanic, but I would think so because there's so much of the spiritual that's brought into it. I don't think you can get away from that when you're doing this type of connection work, when you're connecting with yourself, when you're connecting with another animal. And I've seen just a recent clinic that I had where we put the intention out and it was very spiritual. And the horses. came around and the one lay down right, he didn't know the people that were there and we were in a round pen and there were probably six or seven strangers there. And this horse lay down right next to everybody. And then he went through a release of some, this sounds really out there, but a release of a lot of his trauma that we all experienced and two other horses stood on with the people and were. in that space. And it's like, that's the only thing I can think of. This is, this is a shamanic type of experience here where we're holding space for a healing to happen. And that horse was different, fundamentally different after that experience. And he was doing, his connection to his owner was exponentially increased. And to the point where she could go out to a field and jump and just think about standing on a little trough. And he came over and she got on with the Justin Necronin and rode him around in the field. And it's like, that was not a horse we saw before that. So I think that's when I was trying to, when I wrote this book and I thought, yes, it's all practical, it's all science, but there's so much more than that. There's this deep thing that happens that you can't put any... words on and that's why it got called the sacred space because I had somebody come over and experience something and I said what do what is it that I'm doing what would you call this and she said the only thing I can think of is the sacred space and you know so I I treat it as that my my interactions with horses because I've seen this stuff happen and I've done these things with purpose that I cannot look at horses in the same way I might have looked at him 20 or 30 years ago even.
Steve Halfpenny:
Right, it seems like another one of those forks in the road for me. You know, which direction do you take your horsemanship from now on when you hear these things?
Dr. Susan Fay:
And I think it's the story in my book when I talked about my horse tank at the show. And that was my first real deep dive into the sacred space. And I came out of that experience fundamentally changed because I could never again do certain things, think certain things about horses. that I did in the past, because it was such a magical experience. And that's what I would... I love for people to experience that, because then they fundamentally change too, in the way they look. A lot of times they'll say, I can't do the old stuff anymore. It just doesn't feel right. And I never tell people, do this or do that. It's up to you, but... I know I fundamentally changed and what I wanted was for, after I experienced that, I wanted to figure out why I experienced that and how to help replicate that for other people. Because what I thought was once they felt that, they'd never go back to some of the things they did. And maybe horses wouldn't be abused in the same way they had been in the past.
Steve Halfpenny:
Yes. I really would love to somehow get people to follow this and understand it a lot more. I've got a horse of my own. Like us, Thalian, we've bred a few horses from him. And three of the foals are all pretty emotional animals. You know, my own is 11 now. And if I take him out of his yard and just do anything with him, it takes very, very little for him to not be able to cope. So it'd be really interesting if we could set it up sometime. Maybe I'll have a lesson from you and we could record it and see if we can get through to him.
Dr. Susan Fay:
That would be smooth.
Dr. Susan Fay:
Yeah, these are the horses that I love. I think being a highly sensitive person myself and having a hard time in the world coping with human, you know, everything that goes human, I think I have that much more empathy for, okay, what are the coping skills and what, why did I go into a psychology? Because I needed some coping skills to navigate through this world. because I was being overwhelmed. I was over threshold all the time. And what did I do is for years, I just went away and hid out on a, you know, oh good, I get to be a rancher and be in the middle of nowhere. Oh, perfect. Oh, I get to be a researcher and sit in an office and be away from all the people. Perfect. But really that's not, that's you're losing half of your experiences in life. If that's what you do is you always just find a way to cope that's not all that functional. Um, and one of the places I'm really looking at, and I'm going to, this is the first time I'm publicly talking about this in a bigger way is that I'm looking at dissociation in horses and when they reach their threshold and what do they do is they check, you know, people say, well, they check out, yeah, there's a whole lot of ways you check out, not just one. And I'm looking at all those different ways that horses are dissociating because I've done it myself. So I recognize it when I see it in horses. And it's not all the same. And what do we do with different types of dissociation in horses? And how do we work with that horse to help them? And it's like coming, I think we always get that thing that we experience most in life as the hardest thing that we've had to deal with. And I was very good at, something gets pretty tense for me, I'm just gonna zone out. And I could be functional. People would think I was totally functional and I was not there. I could be talking, I could be doing anything. And how many times do we see this in our horses? They're functionally dissociating. They're going through the motions. And what do you do? And how do you get them to stop using that coping strategy? So that's where I'm really intent on, kind of looking into that a whole lot more. And I've gathered information over the past few years from horses and... And so now it's like, okay, now I think it's time that I kind of bring this over to the forefront and really talk about this and our training methods that cause this and the horses that are sensitive that are susceptible to using that strategy.
Steve Halfpenny:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so do you do virtual clinics or is it just one-on-one sort of thing?
Dr. Susan Fay:
I have a group in Finland. I'll do a shout out to my group in Finland and we've started doing a sessions, virtual sessions where I have one person with their horse and we all watch the horse and I walk the person through doing certain things and then everybody can watch and then we can talk about what happened and why I did certain things. So yeah, I guess that would be somewhat of a virtual clinic. There's some other things, like I can teach some of the other techniques and stuff without, you know, having to have horses there because there's a lot of theory and practice on our part of this that can be done virtually. And I have to admit my total ignorance of how to do this stuff. I've got my Finland group that I'm trying to, you know, they're pretty nice to me, you know, if like if I mess up on the... the video or the zoom or whatever we're using, but it was like, oh, the bigger people, bigger numbers, I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can handle that, but I need to find an assistant that can handle all the technical glitches. Sometimes it gets dicey. When you're working in energy, I've said this many times and people don't believe, sometimes you get the energy going and your energy can affect electronic equipment. And that's why I find that I have to be really careful when I'm doing something that I am not getting the least bit excited because it'll blow out whatever. And yeah, it's happened to me with 500 people on a Zoom call and it just... The whole thing just imploded and I'm like, oh my gosh, really? Seriously. Okay, so yeah, I need help with that part, but I'm very much into, yeah, I'd love to do some clinics, virtual clinics and things like that.
Steve Halfpenny:
Well it's good we need to take this a little further eh, follow up and do something, get a group together for you.
Dr. Susan Fay:
That would be fun.
Dr. Susan Fay:
We could have our test group and a bunch of people that are willing to see what goes on. And I think what's kind of interesting about this work I do, people go, well, what are we gonna do at the clinic? Well, I have an idea I'm gonna teach this, this and this, but I have no idea what the horse is gonna do. And what's gonna present here? And that's part of our thing as horsemen is can we deal with what shows up that day? that minute that's right in front of us in the real world and go, okay, I'm going to draw in all my stuff that I know and let's see what happens here.
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah. I think it's a really difficult job you've got because when I look at just human physical patterns of behavior, just trying to get them to change the way they do things has been really difficult for me, you know, cause they've spent years developing the patterns that they use and it's like, yes, you haven't changed at all
Dr. Susan Fay:
Right.
Steve Halfpenny:
from what I asked
Dr. Susan Fay:
But.
Steve Halfpenny:
you to do. So mentally
Dr. Susan Fay:
It
Steve Halfpenny:
it would
Dr. Susan Fay:
is.
Steve Halfpenny:
be rather difficult.
Dr. Susan Fay:
But I think the beauty of doing it with horses is there's such a great motivator for us to change ourselves, I think. Because there's things we would do for our horse we wouldn't do for our family. I hate to say it. It's like, I'm going to take the criticism of the horse and go, well, I guess I better change
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah.
Dr. Susan Fay:
a little bit rather than, yeah, my sister said this about me, well, about her. And it's like... But my horse said this and I was devastated, I'm gonna change. So there's a big motivator there that horses have for us.
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm really looking forward to this. So this is going to be good. So I think the first step for everybody is maybe get a copy of your book, huh? Just to learn
Dr. Susan Fay:
That
Steve Halfpenny:
what
Dr. Susan Fay:
would
Steve Halfpenny:
it's
Dr. Susan Fay:
be
Steve Halfpenny:
about.
Dr. Susan Fay:
great. And in that book, I just introduced the concepts and what I like to do now, like I said, I was a little afraid putting that book out. It's like, I'd better just make it pretty general. I didn't really go into how I do a lot of this stuff. And so now it's the clinics that I do is, here are the specific techniques that I use to accomplish this thing. Here's how we get to that place. So, That's my next book probably at some point is transitioning to that. And I'm, I just am finishing up a little workbook on just the breathing. And I thought when I wrote it, it would be maybe a couple of pages. It was going to be handout at my clinics and it ended up 94 pages. So this is how critically important that, that just that aspect of this sacred spaces is, and it's really the foundational piece for everything. So. I'm going to be ready to teach that one pretty soon. So it'll be fun.
Steve Halfpenny:
That's amazing. That's going to be really good. So they, you've got your book, I see on your website,
Dr. Susan Fay:
They
Steve Halfpenny:
they
Dr. Susan Fay:
can
Steve Halfpenny:
can
Dr. Susan Fay:
go
Steve Halfpenny:
order
Dr. Susan Fay:
to
Steve Halfpenny:
it directly.
Dr. Susan Fay:
Amazon.
Steve Halfpenny:
And then
Dr. Susan Fay:
Yeah, I think they can
Steve Halfpenny:
what's
Dr. Susan Fay:
go
Steve Halfpenny:
the
Dr. Susan Fay:
to
Steve Halfpenny:
other
Dr. Susan Fay:
the website
Steve Halfpenny:
Amazon.
Dr. Susan Fay:
and then there's a button they can push and it'll take them. It's only available on Amazon right now, but just because that's easier for me to do at this point. But yeah, they can get through it through Amazon or through my website and then click on a button there and go to the order.
Steve Halfpenny:
Well, that's good. So I think that gives everybody a good view
Dr. Susan Fay:
Yep.
Steve Halfpenny:
of what you're about anyway. And we'll get back to them when we can
Dr. Susan Fay:
That
Steve Halfpenny:
organize
Dr. Susan Fay:
would be wonderful.
Steve Halfpenny:
a date to get together.
Dr. Susan Fay:
And I love what you're doing. And it's so meaningful that we have people like you out there really studying and really doing this kind of work with the intention of helping people and their horses in a really good way. So I appreciate
Steve Halfpenny:
Yeah,
Dr. Susan Fay:
everybody that's doing this.
Steve Halfpenny:
yeah, well thank you. It's nice to sort of analyze what a person is doing differently, you know, because if it's
Dr. Susan Fay:
Mm-hmm.
Steve Halfpenny:
not physical it's got to be something else.
Dr. Susan Fay:
Absolutely.
Steve Halfpenny:
Well, thank you Dr. Susan, it's great to talk to you and I'm sure everyone's going to enjoy this and you'll have a few sales I would think because it's a really good book and you can't stop reading it once you start.
Dr. Susan Fay:
Oh thank you so much for that. That means a world to me coming from you. It really does. So I appreciate that. I'm just a little scientist in the middle of nowhere going, well, I might have something to say. I don't know
Dr. Susan Fay:
.
Steve Halfpenny:
yeah. Well, it's easy, like you said, to get shouted down. So it's good on you for sticking your head above the wall.
Dr. Susan Fay:
Yeah, well it took a long year, so it got the gray hair to prove it. It took a long time, but you know, better late than never.
Steve Halfpenny:
Thank you so much for for joining us and goodbye for now.
Dr. Susan Fay:
Thank you so much Steve.
