Captivate Podcast: Horse Wisdom and Healing: Susan Bloom’s Path to Authentic Success | EP035

Susan, hello and welcome again to the share giving secret, I have a very intriguing guest today. As you know, I've been looking for unconventional solutions to help caregivers do what they do, and to help generally, help everyone get better. So my guest today is Susan bloom, who has a very unique program to me anyway, called touched by a horse. So I want to welcome you, Susan, and would you please give us a bit of introduction about what you do and how you come to be doing it?

Okay? Well, first of all, touched by a horse is the program I'm trained in. My business is connection and synergy. So I am a master equine gestaltist, and I partner with horses to help humans unpack and release emotional baggage using methodology called Gestalt. I also am I was the daughter of the only doctor in a small rural community that I grew up in in western Kansas. I was a caregiver for my husband for five and a half years. I am now sort of caregiving for my son, who has started having seizures, so I'm his driver and I'm a breast cancer survivor on top of all of that.

So that is a lot to unpack, but I can see some interrelationships there already. So let us start with equine therapy. Can you talk a bit about how you became interested in it, and what it might do for people.

So I was horses have always been a part of my life. Can't remember a time when I didn't have whether it was my grandfather or my aunt who had a horse, but I think he bought me a pony. Got me a pony when I was about five. So I really don't remember much time when horses weren't a part of my life. And I guess when I went to college, one of the majors that I kind of kicked around and played with was psychology. I did not follow that path. I followed a couple of other paths before I landed on animal science and then communications. So again, the horses have always been a part of my life, and before my husband got sick. I think I discovered this, the touched by a horse program, the equine Gestalt program, and I was very interested in it, and my husband said, We cannot spend money on that right now. So about three years into caregiving for him, where I was had a full time job and had taken all of my time off, had graciously had two of my co workers give me over two weeks of sick leave that they had accumulated and still took time off without Pay, and they told me they were going to combine my full time job with another full time job. And I said, I already have two or three full time jobs. I don't need another one. And I left that job, and at that point, I went to my dad, who had been a doctor and said this is what I'd like to do, maybe even go back and get a degree in counseling, but I'd really like to do the the equine stuff. And he said, Okay, let's do it. And so the last two and a half years that I was caregiving for my husband, I was also in the equine Gestalt program. And then the last six or eight months, I think it was about eight months before he died, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I, I would say that, you know, I know where that came from. It was my, I mean, my heart was breaking. My it was tough. It's tough you don't take care of yourself as a caregiver. And and I thought, you know, everything was fine, so and that. And it took me about two and a half years to get through the the two year program, because when I was diagnosed, my mentor and trainer said, take a little extra time to finish this up. You're so close. I had. Already passed my final test, and I had one more in person, training to go to, and just a few paperwork, things that we needed to finish. So about think it was about five weeks after I finished that program, my husband kind of dramatically died, and that's how I got to where I am today. I moved to eastern Kansas, to a more populated area and and have a beautiful, 100 acre ranch to practice with people through equine Gestalt. So that's where I am today.

Well, that's quite a quite a path with a lot of different milestones on it. Now, I came of age in the National Velvet era of girls loving horses, so I have a little bit of experience with them, and I did train horses at one point, actually retrain them to use different gates. But I'm especially interested in this meeting point between caregiving and the horses. You said at one point you thought everything was fine, and that is such a typical caregiver rationalization of what's going on around us. Everything's fine is still as long as I'm still standing on my feet and so on, and I can still do the job. But you've also said to me on a different occasion that horses are the best natural lie detectors. So I'm really intrigued about that remark, and I think I agree, but I'd love to know more.

So that's one of the one of the things that we do. We would ask a person a question and ask them to go in the round pen with the horse. And the horse is almost always at Liberty, so not on a lead rope or no halter or anything. And they it's it's up to them to do what they think is best. And we'll ask a question, and I'm sure this has happened to you, sometimes you'll you'll think what you're saying is the truth, but it's not. And they can tell me that when, when someone is lying to themselves, so to speak, you know, they, they, they think it's the truth, and it's really not. One of the things that we like to work on is values, people's values. And again, if you're weighing say, you're kind of swaying between two different things, the horse can help you figure out which one is above the other one. And they can do a lot of things like that, yeah.

How does the horse signal that to you? How do you how do you find out? Well,

usually it is by they when, when a person is not congruent or not speaking their truth, they will stand back and not do anything. When they are, they would be following them, or right there beside them, or, you know that, that kind of thing, and that's how they they tell me,

yeah. So they're really intuitive creatures, as are many animals. I remember when I was growing up, we had a dog who seemed to understand the vibe in our household very well. And there were, there was a lot of drama. My dad was a doctor and was always going out on emergencies. And the dog would wait for him to come home. He would, he would guard the door until, until my dad came back in and and if we were postponing doing something that we should do, he would kind of nudge us into it. He was a collie, so he was kind of the sheepherder style of minding his owners and so on. So I'm a little bit familiar with that, that kind of intuitive behavior. Well, horses are especially sensitive to a rider's intentions. So is it something along that, that line, understanding who's with you and who is not really with you. Yes,

I would, I would say it is, you know, they understand if I go, if I go to the barn, and I'm sad for whatever reason, and I go, and I say, oh, you know, everything's fine. Everything is great. They'll like, No, it's not and, and there have been occasions right now they're, they're out in pasture, and I'll go out and a while back, one of them I went out to, to bring him in and, or to turn him out. I guess it was to turn him out, and usually he goes right out to grace. And he stood there for a minute, and I thought, Oh, he must think that I need to, that I need to be here with him, because they also balance energy and and. They would like us. They would like to bring us up to the same energy level where they are. And, you know, he he did that, and then he said, Okay, we're done. And he went on out to pasture.

So it's a little like having a gyroscope that keeps keeps you centered somehow. How long does it take people, typically, to become acclimated to that, to understand this wordless dialog that they're having with an animal? What? What should I expect if I, if I tried to do this?

Well, the training program that I took is an intensive two year training program.

I'm thinking more a client. How for a client? Yeah, how would they acclimate to

it? So, you know, it's, it's very Gestalt, is very experiential. And I guess the one thing that that you might want to be concerned about is if they're scared of the horses, and I because the horses will pick up on that, and I would never put someone in the round pen with a horse. We could, we could work outside. They can do their work from a distance, and and they, you know, they don't pick up on those subtle things the way I do,

probably, and they don't need to. That's what I'm there for,

and that's the horse and I are co coaching and but I've never had, well, that's not true. I did have one person here for a demonstration, who simply was so in her head. She has a disabled son that she care gives for, and he and her husband were there, and I could not I had more trouble getting her grounded and getting the horse to to pay attention to her at all. She she would stand back and say no, and it would we were on a concrete floor. It was in last spring, and it would be easier to get someone grounded to the earth, standing on the earth. And I do what I do, where I do it so,

so do you travel out to people's homes, or mostly at do it at the farm.

I don't have a way to haul my horses right now to to other people's places, so no, I would prefer that they come here. I can, you know, I can do the Gestalt without the horses. The horses are kind of a bonus, and add add a lot to it, so I could travel to someone without them.

All right? So there, there are some different options. There might be people who are disabled in some way and can't, can't travel to you. Do people need to have a familiarity with a gestalt system of doing things before they come? Nope,

they do not. They don't need that. They really don't need to know anything about horses, as far as that goes. And sometimes I think that's better if they don't. Yeah,

that's true. Your own knowledge can be your own worst enemy at times when you're trying to sort things out, for sure, what is the the most important thing about working with an animal intermediary like this? What? What is the most important message you you would want to tell our audience about this?

Well, if you're going to come, come with an open heart and an open mind, um, that's, I've, I've had people here, not clients, but people here who are, like, just real standoffish. And I don't, I don't understand, I don't, I don't think this would work, you know, and I would say that that happens in therapy sessions, talk therapy sessions as well. People come in with an attitude of, this is baloney, and I'm not going to try and they waste their money. And that would be the same thing here if, if you don't come with an open heart and an open mind, it's not going to work.

Yeah, there's that old saying, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right. So the the attitude you approach with is going to be important, no matter what type of of therapy we're talking about. So you've had had a fair amount of training. In counseling, and you have a number of tools at your disposal if someone wants to learn to do this is that important?

Yes, the tools and and the program is slated. She, she says you don't have to even have any horse experience to do the program, or your own horses. If you can go say, if I have a place that has horses where I want to practice and will allow me to partner with their horses, I can certainly do that as well. So there are people who have graduated from the program who don't have horses of their own, and they do that sort of work. I also took another two year training in just Gestalt without the horses. So I have four years of Gestalt training. And then I took another training for facilitating, and I call them play shops, but they are team building, leadership training, mindfulness for any sort of a group. It could be a family group, it could be a corporate group, you know, any sort of group could come out and do these team building and these experiences with the horses?

Oh, that's great. Yeah, I was thinking horses often figure in creative works of art. Do you view this as a way into a person discovering their own creativity in some way? Do the horses help with that?

Yeah, I've, you know, I've even talked with a woman who, who runs a writing group, about doing some small writing retreats. To be here, like I said, I have 100 acres. It's beautiful to be here, where it's I call it serenity ranch. It's very serene. And maybe do some Gestalt work with the horses and have time to write. And I've I'm open to stuff like that as well. I've got a few extra rooms here in the house so I can host some people, and I also have him certified in a business coaching training, so there's I can do that as well. And one of the things that I see for that is to come in and spend a day or two here with the horses and work on those things where you're stuck, and then do some zoom some zoom coaching as well after that, and maybe end up with another session with the horses. That

sounds great. I know often people reach a block when they have a creative project going, and it would be helpful to be able to find a way to process that and move on to to keep going. So that's that's something important to keep in mind. And many caregivers turn to a creative activity after being held in that container for so long. So so I can see a nice continuum there of ways to to use equine therapy, apart from and around caregiving. So that's great that there's so many, so many uses of it. If people want to reach out to you, to find you, how would they do that?

Well, I have a website. It is connection and synergy.com Just like my name and it and is spelled out, or my email address is Susan B at connection and synergy.com those that would be my preferred way to communicate with people.

That's great. We will put those in the show notes as well. So, so there's an opportunity. Do you see yourself putting out books or other materials in the future that might be helpful to people to understand these things?

I am right now working on a book about caregiving the five and a half years of caregiving for my husband and I recently, as my son was hospitalized for some testing for the seizures have started, kind of started working on something around that as well. I

think these are the stories that we need to tell, because caregiving is such an insular, isolated activity that people are often shocked by what it what it requires of us when it comes along so

and honestly, I've I've encouraged him. He's 24 and we have three kids. He was the one who was at home when his dad got sick, and he was 12. Of which is a really hard age to lose your same sex parent. But he basically kind of lost both of both of us because we were traveling. I mean, we drove. I figured it up one time just for my husband's care over 57,000 miles, um, miles, and my parents lived just a few blocks away, so it wasn't like he was shuffled around. There were times he was actually shuffled around from place to place, but usually he was at my parents and then his dad died when he was 17, between his junior and senior year in high school, and I believe that all of that is a big cause of his seizures, and so I whether it would be published or Not, I have encouraged him to write about it,

because I think it would be good for him. It would help other people too, but more importantly, I think it would help him. Yeah, I think often we think if we're going to write something, it has to be some major league triumph that nobody's ever thought of before. But these down to earth human moments where people have to struggle to survive and do are probably more meaningful to to most people when we stop and think about it, just to know, because we we want to build our empathy and hearing other people's stories is is a wonderful way to do that. So I hope, oh, I hope, he will write it. You know, it will help somebody. That's what I find with story. It will help somebody, even if it's just one person, who can live a more comfortable life because you told your story. It's certainly worth it.

Now you've got my brain going to one of the things I'd like to do is to do some speaking. And it might he, he loved to act in high school, and he was, he's a singer and a musician. Maybe he could help people that way too.

I have spoken it with a number of people whose kids have lived through a major experience, whether it was healing themselves. I know of one person who's going to be on my show in a few weeks, whose daughter was diagnosed with an incurable disease, but her determination and will to live is so inspiring. So I'm looking forward to that interview share that a little upfront with the listeners. But every story that isn't about the everyday is is worth it, and also the everyday challenges that anyone faces are faced differently by each of us. We're we're not all the same. So it's very helpful to hear those stories.

Well, okay, I'm going to throw this out here. All right, I'm ready. He was, he was in the hospital to have what they call video EEG. So they he's under surveillance for 24 hours a day, and he has EEG nodes all over his head, and they try to induce a seizure. And yesterday, when we finally talked to the doctor afterwards, I asked him, I said, So what part of his brain is this? And he said, Well, it's in the temporal lobe. And I said, so the is that what they call the amygdala? And he said, Yes. And I said, so he's going into fight, flight or freeze mode? And he said, Well, maybe, I mean, he's not going to say that. I've always thought his seizures were emotionally charged, and that the and he and the doctor also said that most epilepsy is in the temporal lobe. So I think if you could calm the amygdala to an extent that for him, especially, because they've really not found a cause, a good cause, that it would Slow down those seizures anyway, maybe do away with them completely.

for sure, yeah. Well, it's been

wonderful talking with you today, so I want to give you one more chance. If there's anything important that we left out or that you'd like to leave a last word with our listeners, and this has been such an enriching conversation for me. I thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to share

absolutely All right, everyone, so we will see you next time. And I thank Susan bloom for being my guest today, and I hope you'll explore what equine therapy is all about. It's another good tool in the toolbox for those of you who are looking for solutions, thanks again.