Sunday, October 20

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Umm, making it through the day without having a melt down? Managing to be diplomatic and hold my words?

Today was a long day. I got up at 7:30 am, basically no sleep, and got to the riding barn for 8:30 am.

The horse rescue that R (barn owner) supports is run by two women (a couple). One of them is trained in fascia work with a background in being a personal trainer at one time.

She wanted to try something with us that she hadn't done before, and frankly isn't really trained to do by any institution, which is to see us interact with our horses and make inferences about our mental health based on how our bodies move, and how our horse reacts to us, with R contributing to that assessment.

She IS trained to assess a person's movement and look at the biomechanics of how that person is moving and assess where there is tightness etc. because of her personal trainer back ground.

The part that I found very speculative was the part where she looks at how a person moves, and when she sees that someone is very tight in say, the shoulders, or the hips, or toe walks, instead of working with that person to bring more flexibility and balance to their body, she ALSO assigns a "mental health issue" to that "body imbalance".

So, one person, in front of the group of six other people, was "intuitively diagnosed" with having some kind of "birth trauma", relating either to her own birth or that of her children, or something vague like that. Well, the woman teared up and did say she had some trauma relating to that (I would guess that many women do, you could probably say that of any woman who bore children and strike a nerve, and maybe even women who had medical issues like cervical cancer or maybe not being able to have children), and was then put through some "fascia release work" on a table in front of all of us, while she held back tears.

This is how it went for each person. Based on their interaction with the horse, the horse's behavior, and the way their body "held trauma" she made an "intuitive diagnosis" that she then "worked through", often by doing some kind of VERY PERSONAL fascia release, often with her grappling the other person with body to body contact in front of all of us (which may indeed by correct for fascia release, but very personal and intimate to be doing in front of a group of onlookers), and the other person being tearful, and sometimes talking about their issues, sometimes only in the most vague of terms.

THEN, the person in question got on their horse and MIRACULOUSLY was GREATLY IMPROVED by the fascia work, the tears, the confession, and often repeating some kind of mantra like "I thank my body for holding this trauma so that I could understand my need to heal. I no longer need this trauma, and release it as white, loving light to return to the universe".

I paid money for this.

R's daughter even participated in this, and what I couldn't understand, is how it was okay for R to help assess her own daughter, who is a minor, and ask her to do such a vulnerable thing with her Mom more or less telling her that she's holding some kind of trauma or whatever.

The one topic that I felt they SHOULD have diagnosed, if this was real, is the issue that I am very aware of; R's daughter "not wanting to be like her Mom, but still finding a way to love horses". I have been at this barn four days a week for almost four years now, and I KNOW what their personal issues are. Of course that one isn't going to come up.

R's daughter is a tough girl, and at more than one point disagreed with the assessment of things like "feeling like you don't belong anywhere" and "being afraid of moving ahead in life, or being unsure of yourself". For a 17 year old girl, she's got a strong mind. I ADMIRE this kid. They finally settled on her eyes "not tracking properly" and needing to be reset.

So, eventually it was my turn. River was very sluggish today, and I felt like his breathing wasn't great.

That said, our "physical assessment" was that I was very strong in my movements, and was very connected to River, BUT I seemed to have short steps (yes, because my horse wasn't moving out. I have long steps with him when he is, or with other horses that are stepping out well) and my left shoulder was dropping.

So here's our "trauma". River's behavior was "resentful", and thus MY body (since what the horses display is the mirror of our issues, theortetically) was "holding resentment".

When she asked me if I was "holding resentment", well, OF COURSE I AM. I'm willing to bet that every living soul on this planet is holding some kind of resentment.

She also said my left shoulder was lower than my right, and yes, it is. It has been for a very long time, and R and I have even addressed this from time to time, and so did the riding instructor before R. It's a known thing, and I am aware of it. It's pretty obvious.

The "spiritual issue" of having a left shoulder lower/less active (believe it or not, it's NOT because I'm right-handed), it's that there is an imbalance between my masculine and feminine energy, with the "masculine" energy being "doing and giving", and not enough "taking care of myself and nurturing my own needs and accepting kindness from others".

Once again, is there anyone on the planet who would say "oh no, I am OVER nurtured if anything!".

I didn't elaborate on the resentments I might be holding, which are many. Why would I want to go into a lifetime of trauma with an audience?

So I too got to go through some very intimate contortions with the fascia expert, where she stood (spooned, actually) behind me and helped me twist my body while she dug her hand into my gut to "release my gall bladder". She's lucky I didn't pee on her.

Guess what though? I was deemed "wonderfully improved in my body" when I got on River after some intense stretches (well, intense stretches are indeed known for helping a person sit up straighter and be more loose, who ever would have guessed!).

There was still a group consensus though that I "didn't seem happy enough" and that I had a lot of "dark energy" (I've had this conversation with R many times now). They figured that maybe if I were willing to take mushrooms or at least "loosen up and get drunk" with them it would help. Maybe if I started wearing bright clothes or a feather boa to the barn I would find some joy.

Maybe they were kidding a bit, maybe not. I do wear bright clothes in other situations, but to go to the barn I wear....barn clothes, which are admittedly drab.

So, my homework is to write down things that bring me great joy, bliss even, and try to bring that energy to the barn.

All of this kind of left me with a sort of paralysis.

I AM OFTEN FAIRLY DEPRESSED, and I think I have every reason to be. There are very real things that happened in my life that eroded my sense of trust that there is any reason to believe that "things will be okay". I don't really believe that all people are inherently good and without selfish motivations. I don't really believe that most of the things I fear will never come to pass. I do not believe that when I die I am merely passing on to another plane of existence that will be nothing but peace and a final understanding of what it all means, and finally being with our creator.

I fully believe that we die, often painfully in a way that brings us no sense of peace or closure or greater meaning, often after a lot of suffering, and often mostly alone. We die of things like car accidents, cancer, a very bad case of pneumonia. MAYBE we die fairly peacefully of old age in bed, but that's an absolute best case scenario. If we're lucky we can feel like something we did mattered. I think a lot of people feel like "it's just happening to me, and I am in no way ready to go".

When we die, we become dirt. That doesn't really bother me. I like dirt. It's got to come from somewhere. I just don't believe that our consciousness as we know it goes on, and I especially don't believe in the "church of the really bright light". I think we wink out, a bit like sleep or going unconscious, and that's it. We just stop functioning, and our body breaks down.

I grew up with a lot of chaos and sadness around me, I did not feel like I was a special or wanted child, I felt more like an after thought, overlooked most of the time because my Mom was numb from Dad's death.

No one liked me at school, I was often bullied, made fun of, and not included in much voluntarily. I had ONE real friend through all of high school. I was the girl that guys would have grossed each other out with, as in "wouldn't it be gross if X liked you".

I did do better after I left that town, as far as being liked and having male interest. I was actually well liked in secondary education each time I went. Probably the highlight of my whole life was the experience of going to three different places over the years, and in each place feeling accepted and having friends and going out with people. Probably the only place I have ever truly felt like I belonged.

Dating though, meant three serious (for me) long term relationships in a row where I was just torn to pieces and left to die, metaphorically.

Even life with my husband hasn't been easy, with our traumatic stretch in Wyoming, the difficulty of moving a few times, and even the event of building on our new home isn't "joyful", even when there is some satisfaction eventually.

I do carry a kind of heavy-ness. A mix of trauma, a bit of a morbid outlook on life, a kind of resignation to many things I cannot change, and frankly, feeling jaded.

While it isn't going to harm me to try to improve my general mood, I feel like there is an authenticity in my somewhat threadbare soul.

I've been through a lot, and I'm in no way light-hearted or carefree, and not very often joyful.

I am loving, compassionate, creative, maybe kind of wise, but it's hard to break free from the feeling of heaviness I live with.

Lots of things bring me joy, like seeing Northern Lights, going to the park down the road, our animals, reading a good book, working with River (contrary to popular belief), spending time with my husband, making things, watching a good show. All of those things though, are more like a peaceful contented joy, not some kind of blazing JOY!!!

I really don't often feel JOY!!! Like seeing ten unicorns dancing in a meadow surrounded by all of our deceased loved ones who let me know they are SO HAPPY NOW. Not JOY like converting a Conservative or finding out that we're finally getting the last book from Game of Thrones and it's AMAZING.

I do have lots of good days, but those days are still...not the giddy joy of a newborn lamb? My good days are days where things are okay and I feel like it's safe to smile or tell a joke without the world falling down around me for a moment. When I am happy, it is more like a contentment than a burning joy.

I don't really like the idea that somehow "blazing joy and bliss" is even a reasonable thing to ask me to muster, and it shouldn't be necessary for me to work with my horse.

Comments

[ratunderpaper]

Lois used to say that the only person who was happy 100% of the time was an idiot. I laughed at the time (I think it was said to cheer me up over some odd thing) but she was right.

That was a nutty experience you endured. I had to reread it to see how it came about and to get the wacky details straight. I am sorry you had to go through such tripe. There's a lot of crazy stuff these days that people are trying to float as legitimate.

[gottawonder]

It was nuts. It ended up feeling more or less what I imagine one of those tent revivals feeling like.

The thing that I'm most frustrated about, is that I don't want to be labelled as the "depressed person" who needs to be fake cheerful all the time just to get people to leave me alone.

I don't want to be told to wear bright clothes or listen to cheerful music or whatever visualization of bright light is supposed to "fix me".

I have good days, I have bad days. Sometimes I have a shitty whole month. Sometimes I have a couple of good weeks. It's NORMAL.

I don't want every "low performance" day with River to be blamed on my "dark energy", and I want to be able to be authentic in my feelings, and to also consider that maybe River has normal older horse reasons for being slow some days.

I am also 52 years old, and there are normal, older person reasons why I might be more sluggish too. We're all just meat, after all.

[ratunderpaper]

That's one of the things I like about living in a big city - there's room for all manner of differences, eccentricities, moods, bents, and ideals. These are the people who are considered "odd" once they leave for the sticks. I stand out like a sore thumb if I go to Woodstock or Dorchester, land of the Outbacks and Staples malls.

I have no idea what qualifications this person has in diagnosing mental status, but she sounds dangerously like the freedumb chiropractor types who don't have any formal medical education. A doctor would never perform instant public diagnoses like that, but you know this already.

[gottawonder]

I'm fine with people being different, but that's not the same as paying money to spend a day with them, kind of at their mercy.

The woman doing the fascia work is actually a very nice woman. I've met her a few times. She and her partner run a horse rescue that R often assists by doing a fund raiser a few times a year, and helping them train horses to rehome.

I am okay with people practicing alternative medicine on themselves, though I think it's delusional.

I don't like people hanging out their shingle as "healers" when they are not qualified to heal, since NO ONE is actually qualified by the medical world to heal anyone unless they are LICENCED DOCTORS.

The fascia thing might still be considered fringe, but in practice it felt like a lot of other deep stretches and I don't think you'll get hurt doing that. I was not prepared for having another person make that much close physical contact with me, nor was I prepared for her digging her hand into my abdomen to "release my gall bladder". I wonder, if I actually had inflammation in there it might have done some damage.

The calling out people's issues in front of a group felt awful. Even doing that in private is nothing more than guesswork, the same way that a fortune teller or one of those people who speak to dead relatives can keep fishing around until they hit gold.

A therapist doesn't even jump to label a person's issues until they've spent some time with a client, and generally they don't just tell you to "let it go, you don't need it any more, and now you're cured".

A lot of what I have going on isn't so much "current trauma" as a mindset about people and the world that is the result of years of interactions with people, and trying to cope with situations I can't change.

I wouldn't mind finding a way to let go of a lot of the past, to feel like I had no obligation to take on the pain of other people, to be more resilient in the face of unpleasant events and changes, and to feel more optimism. That's going to take a steady amount of work for a few years, not a ten minute stretch and a mantra.

[ratunderpaper]

Whatever issues you want to work on are entirely up to you and licensed professionals. The people who were at that event are off their collective rocker and are dangerous if their advice is heeded.

[gottawonder]

I'm not sure that the advice (a mantra and a type of exercise to release your body) was too dangerous, though I think the gut probe was potentially dangerous.

If anything, I would say it's just a dangerously shallow approach to mental illness, and gives the impression that it can be dispersed with a mantra and a good stretch.

It was just an awful experience to be that vulnerable in front of a group of people, to have a potentially very sensitive topic addressed this way, and to make it seem like it's just something you have to "let go of".

Thus it makes it kind of "your fault" if you aren't magically better in a short period of time. YOU'RE the one hanging onto the trauma, when people said all you have to do is let it go.

YOU'RE the one who is going to continue being "dark" when all you have to do is just NOT BE DARK ANYMORE. Just focus on happy things! Why aren't you doing that? YOU'RE STILL DARK, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!

I don't want to walk around with a label hanging over my head, being something that has to be fixed, and being brought up as the reason why things aren't working for River and I every time we have a less than perfect day.

I agree with you whole-heartedly that this is the kind of thing left to licenced therapists, though this person does think that they are a licenced therapist.

I just want R to not bring this into our lessons. If I have a bad day, I should be allowed to have a bad day without dragging up my "problems".

[ratunderpaper]

I think it's dangerous and ethically wrong to foist mental illness arbitrarily on people. These charlatans have absolutely no qualifications and want to tinker with peoples' psyches?

[cf2princessawnw]

Oh my word. The sounds like all those psychics and con people which give a vague sort of story which could fit most people and seem related to most people. The whole cold reading and then hot reading thing and all of that. Throw in a few believable moments and a total charlatan can get away with anything.

I just kept thinking how much none of this has anything to do with horses.

I also wanted to be like I hope she was glad you all helped her because clearly it was some kind of weird thing she needed that she decided to create that profession. Yeah there is such a thing as fascia and fascia release, but she's clearly got no bloody clue what it is or what it means. It's like someone saying oh I know about headaches, and then creating all these other reasons for how to help them. Instead of just simply saying are you dehydrated, did you eat a balanced meal, did you just get whacked in the head? No instead it's like were you thinking of really intense mental stress that just created this tension in your body? Sure tension headaches are a thing, but I don't know. I just don't like all that kind of stuff with people that have a thimble full of medical terminology going out there and creating what they could be sued with for malpractice. Good grief even licensed medical doctors and therapists don't always get it right. So many people with ego and their own traumas are drawn to trying to be healers.

----
Okay. Reading the rest. You know when I have to do those huge long 3-hour assessments annually to see what level of care I qualify for through insurance with medical Home Care coverage Etc. They go through each of the systems of the body and ADLs etc, and then they do ask some questions about your mental health. And when they ask the stupid ones like are you ever depressed or do you ever feel anxious? How many days of the week do you think you do? Do you ever feel like you wish you weren't here? At this point I've just started laughing lightly and playing it with confidence saying the truth. I usually start with this is 2024 who in the world isn't a little anxious or depressed! They usually break the professional barrier in that moment and admit how stressful life is to everyone. Then I continue with "but anything to where it's consuming No." Or if they ask the questions about are you happy with your life or blah blah blah. Are you freaking kidding me I'm paying former and sometimes current drug addicts to come into my home to take care of me because I'm unable to actually take care of myself. Are you off you're ever loving rocker? Because if you think I'm thrilled over the situation, I think you should be the one taking the psych eval.

Anyway. What it comes down to is common sense and getting a community of people that will use theirs. It really sounds like some of the people in your community are self-proclaimed this or that and take on a role simply because it fits their own issues. They're not actually qualified to do what they do, but they have the fantasy to need to play dress up and be believed. So they try to project that on everyone else as you're the ones having the issues. Sorry I'm rambling but this was just nuts and I'm sorry you had to go through it. I really wonder what she's on. And good grief, the poor horses!!!! What on Earth were they thinking?!
-----

I just finished reading. I'm sorry. I'm exhausted from today and wish that I had something of actual use to write in this comment. What I'm trying to do is offer support because that was just total stupidity. You think things through and you've explained them very well. Yeah I wish you more joy too, but not fake fluffy fabricated manufactured joy. Just the freedom to be happy because there's so much in life that makes most sensible human being's feel it's not safe to be. And the craziest thing of this all is that you get so much joy from working with River. There's a peaceful flow of contented Joy that you seem to express overall with working with your horse - except when crazy morons come in and forcibly tell everybody otherwise. Did they increase your joy or did they decrease it today? They made you feel bad about yourself. So as a friend, I don't like them. But as a bystander who's objectively looking at it, how in the world are you the problem when they're the ones that are going around making you feel bad about yourself. I would bet good money that woman goes back to her house, sits in dim lighting, doesn't smile, and at times really hates life..... that is, when she actually has the backbone to face it. I'm sorry for whatever trauma she went through that's brought her to this point. But serial killers go through trauma and we just don't let them loose either to work out their traumas in society. Although with the way the world is going, give it a decade!!

If anything I've said is not helpful please throw it out. I really am not sure I have anything useful to say tonight. But that was just awful, because it was awfully stupid and trying to be pawned off as amazing. Next she'll have telepathy with your horse, and then you'll find she can do it through the phone from a distance so you can still pay her.... Or some other stupidity. Thank you, no.

And hugs.

[gottawonder]

I am actually very grateful for this response, because YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I FELT!!

You totally see how the person hosting this, and our barn owner R, must really have something going on inside themselves to feel like they have to root around in other people's lives like this, dredging up people's issues like it's some kind of witch hunt.

In most of my interactions with R, she already knows that I don't play ball on this stuff. We do sometimes talk about feelings, but I have boundaries when it comes to the nutty woo woo stuff. I don't want her to consult tarot cards or crystals or call on the universe to heal me in our lessons.

The ONLY reason why I went to this, is because I thought it would be a SERIOUS event that focused on fascia like we said a sensible person would approach it. Seeing body tightness and recommending exercises to release it. I thought the reason why the horse was there, is because we would be looking at how the horse moved, and look at THEIR fascia, etc.

That's how it was pitched to me, and I thought there would be a BIT of woo, like a group mantra or something (nothing with a group happens at this barn without a certain amount of that, and I generally accept that as the price of admission).

This was nuts.

No, I did not feel better after that event. Yes, the part that was FASCIA RELEASE felt good in the way that any nice, deep stretch feels, but the rest of it made me feel that awful helplessness, where you're going "oh no....it's going to be like this after all", and you kind of go numb and try to let it happen without ruining you.

I've been upset about it now for two days, and it's really eroded my trust in R.

I've always easily understood her need to help and rehabilitate horses, that's easy to understand. I've always understood the need to help people improve their relationship with their horses.

On some level, I do know that when you work with people and their horses, their emotional health does come into play, but how far should you go with that?

I don't have an answer for that, but I KNOW DAMN WELL THAT THIS WASN'T IT.

If we had all sat around and had a seance it wouldn't have been out of place.

When I was a teenager, my Sister N always played "psychoanalyst" with me too, and it had this same feeling. There were a few years that I ended up spending a lot of time at her house babysitting for her. I would go to her house on Friday or Saturday night so she and Trainwreck could go out and party, and that always turned into me staying another day looking after her kids for free while she pretended she was too busy to take me home). She was always projecting the issues of a grown woman onto me, and things that were obviously HER trauma, and always making it like I was "so damaged" and how "all of us in the family were so messed up and depressed", but other then murmuring at me for hours at a time about how the male world has dominated women and tries to destroy them, and how the trauma within our family is such and such, and TRAUMA, and on and on about how this is why I felt the way I felt (and you know, all this likely did was plant the idea that I WAS full of generational trauma and pain, and helped create a story that was never mine).

The event the other day felt like that. It was incredibly triggering.

I KNOW that I have a lot of baggage, and that I have very real things going on in my life that are not happy making. I absolutely do have days that are very heavy and hard to get through.

I know that I take on things that aren't my trauma.

I didn't need anyone dragging that up in front of a group and dismissing it by saying if I just thought happy thoughts and let it go, voila I would be a HAPPY PERSON!!!

Just like you, there are things that just exist in my life that aren't always easy, but they are real, not imaginary issues that I'm just making up. I should be okay to have bad days, and to not always be a ray of sunshine.

Yet, you know too how active I am in trying to create good things in my life, like my animals, my creative efforts, the walks in the park, the days with my husband where we go to city or find something else fun to do, and yes, being with River at the barn was one of the biggest things I am doing for my happiness.

That's also why this hurts so much, is because that event made it feel like I somehow wasn't generating any happiness with River, when I KNOW THAT I DO.

I often go to the barn all messed up inside, and after spending some time with River I often feel a lot more at peace.

When I don't always feel at peace with him is when I feel a lot of pressure to put together another freestyle, or be in another show. This brings out all of my feelings about "being good enough", and it sucks.

R wants me to enjoy showing, but often the pressure makes it hard for me to see the fun in it. I don't like the idea of people watching me perform, and seeing me fail sometimes.

She LOVES competition, but that's HER. I know that there is value in showing and competing because of how it creates goals and deadlines, and there is value in that because it does make you focus and improve in specific ways that you otherwise might not do.

I struggle with having positive feelings "regardless of the outcome".

Anyhow, now I am the one rambling on.

Thank you for this post, as it helps me feel validated.

[cf2princessawnw]

I'm really glad that any of that helped!!!!! Big big big hugs - with no fascia release involved! lol

It's just so frustrating, when unintelligent and uneducated people are ruling the roost and everyone else is expected to cluck and do exactly what they want. I feel like that's part of the definition of insanity somehow somewhere - having to follow people that don't understand common sense or reasoning. I know in my situation here, too these home care agencies are so utterly daft at times and completely incompetent at others, that even though they have the reins and are in control, I feel like I am having to deal with screaming first graders but you can't even calm down long enough to speak basic logic.

I just want to get away from people!! Because being around them makes me feel worse about me. And why in the world would I want that? Other than a few music instructors, I am incredibly grateful that I don't recall any music experience really taking that away from me. Even when I was in training with my violin teachers that would not let me play what I wanted (and it turned out that once they did finally, what do you know, it was exactly what I needed in order to blossom and understand the techniques they were trying to teach. and I got it then!) But during those times, I would still be able to separate and on the weekends play whatever I wanted with CDS and on You Tube so that I still kept my love of the instrument. I have to remember that I knew how to use them for their help back then but still keep my love and joy connected to my instrument with just it and me.

How much more should I do that with my body now? Or with my finances? I just so hate that my finances are so tied to either family or government that I feel like I have no control because well it's been taken away under the guise of kindness and help. you are right on with what you say - which reminds me I need to take all of this to the other comments and not this thread LOL.

But I guess what I mean is that it just seems to be rampant now in the world. Something has truly changed. I don't know if you've ever read or watched George Orwell's Animal Farm. Being an animal true lover, that might hate you in a different way, but we had to read it for college literature and it's always stuck with me. When you see a bunch of people that are maybe not the brightest but not the stupidest either, trade their last bit of common sense and their honest to goodness self-preserving instincts for other people's rhetoric and fancy pies in the skies.... only to see in the end they are used for the other people's means. I don't mean to be judgmental, but somehow in this world we have taken it as a brand and honor when people have been through trauma, and we don't really see have they actually done the work to be as whole and part of Normal sane society as possible. Instead everyone is praised for their identity and how they choose to present, it completely forgetting the statistics that those who have been victimized are more likely to be abusive, those who have been hurt are more likely to hurt others, et cetera et cetera et cetera. we've gone from don't blame the victim to praise and follow everything the victim does because they survived a trauma and we want to be just like them. are you nuts? They don't even want to be like them! nobody wants to have gone through the trauma they went through and have that be their identity.

anyway rambling over. just big big hugs and don't worry about having to reply to this. There's just so much of what you said that is quotable because it's that rock solid as true. Bottom line, who is anybody in this world to tell you whether you are or not good enough - have they ever been you? When I read about your upbringing and how you have brought yourself out from it all, you are remarkable. But that's just it, you're the right kind of remarkable - the kind that doesn't have to be praised as separate and special and different. You're the kind that found a way to be normal from an abnormal background.... you were the one that found healthy habits and ways of living, and you sought that out when you weren't taught it. Your quiet remarkable and that's the best kind. I have no doubt at all that you could probably have helped half those people with some kind of wisdom and inspiration as much as that lady could have pretended to. But again, you don't need validation by becoming a charlatan. You needed normal balancing natural validation from having been around people like that. okay I'll stop now. I wish you every bit of peace and protection of that peace and joy between you and River. May that always be your safe space, just you and him. with no other people's projected traumas.

[gottawonder]

I actually feel that R who owns the barn is a well-intentioned person. I do believe she THINKS she wants to help people.

I also know her well enough to know that she is a very driven, competitive, fiery person. That personality means that at a different time in her life not that long ago, she was part of the competitive horse industry that she is now trying to change, but her personality isn't really any different.

So, she's kind of doing this weird thing where she's trying to be compassionate REALLY HARD, and change the horse world REALLY HARD, and FAST. She wants to be the BEST HORSE HEALER IN THE WORLD!!

I think she's trying so hard to become some kind of industry leader with this different way of working with horses, and it's not happening fast enough for her. She's starting to look for THE MOST out-there things to incorporate into her methods so that she is unique and extreme, so that she can hopefully make very dramatic changes very quickly because she is not rising in the horse world fast enough.

She talks about it as caring about horses, and on some level I believe her,
but there is a TON of this that is about her own ego and need for recognition.

I think it's likely very hard to leave the ego behind for some people. Most people.

[cf2princessawnw]

Your insight is very clear and sharp. Hopefully she can find what drives her and harness it in a way that is useful to her and those around her.