How to Actually Stay Present With Your Horse (And Why It Changes Everything) - Natalie Hummel

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Check the link in the description below. So I typically kick the episodes off by having the guest tell us who they are and what it is they do. So whenever you’re ready, you can go ahead and kick us off. Hi, I’m Natalie Hummel and I am a high performance coach who specializes in the nervous system and somatic work, and I think the essence of what I do is I help people get what they want by becoming who they’re meant to be. And so one of the things that has kind of kept popping up as I’ve done some research into you is sort of how this nervous system somatics work differs from something like talk therapy or, you know, something along those lines.

Yeah, I’ve also, I want to be really careful as I answer this question because by no means am I putting down talk therapy. I think talk therapy has place. I think it’s useful. I think I’m who I am on the backs of toxic artists. So I, I want to be honest about that, that I think that talk therapy is useful and in a lot of regards and builds a lot of self-awareness.

And then, so then full stop, like end of sentence there. And then I’m just going to speak to what my work is and then people can decide how it differs. So when you’re working with me, as much as it’s important to know why and you are the way you are, we don’t stop there. You understand why you are the way you are. And you you don’t keep wishing that you had different parents.

You don’t keep staying in the same cycles of wishing that that trauma, whatever the trauma, big T or small T, didn’t happen. Coming to the reality of that, it did. Maybe you are responsible or aren’t responsible for why it happened, but it did happen. And now what are you responsible for? Because that has caused and it will cause an anyone, you’re not unique, Anyone with a nervous system that will cause you to go into a state of protection, a pattern of protection, which is what the nervous system’s main job is, is to protect you.

And it has two states of protection. And so if you’ve had any sort of even attachment trauma, which means your caregivers attuned to you properly didn’t meet your emotional needs properly, you’re going to go into a, into a state of protection. We don’t need to know why. I can give you some basic information of, of why. So it’s easy that it comes up of why.

OK, great. But the point is you are here and now. It’s your 100% responsibility to get out of that pattern of protection if you want to reach your potential. If you don’t, if reaching your potential is not your highest desire, it’s you don’t have to take 100% responsibility. You can, you can keep looking at why you can keep getting these dopamine hits of awareness because they really do they Oh my gosh, I understand this part of me.

I understand not part of me, but responsibility is not a dopamine there. It’s like a slab in the face A lot of the times of like, OK, now you have to do the opposite of what you’ve been doing. Now you have to be more clear in this conversation. Now if you want that result, that relationship to change, We’re not going to label that person as a narcissist. We’re, we’re not going to even look at their behaviors.

We’re going to look at why is that in your movie of your reality and how can you shift it? And a lot of that is feeling what you don’t want to feel, you know, like if I needed to tell you no or if I needed to, to give you clarity, maybe that would feel like threatening to me and make me have a closed chest and maybe or maybe race with anxiety. OK, I need to feel that with presence. I need to integrate that with presence. So then when I’m in front of you, my pattern of protection doesn’t take over.

And I don’t just shut down and people please with you and then call you a narcissist. I get to hold my own energy, feel what I don’t want to feel, and then say, hey Samantha, what happened with us last week? That’s not going to work for me. I really need us to do XYZ in the future. Does that align with you?

Yes or no and then yes or no. Either way, we don’t make any meeting around you and we go on our merry way. So it’s just a lot of personal responsibility and 0. Looking at what’s wrong with the others. Yeah, no, it’s and it’s.

A lot of building capacity for what you don’t want to feel. Yeah, that’s what. So it’s funny because I, I do a lot of nervous system work with horses. I get horses with behavioral problems and typically it’s just a, a subconscious way that they react in certain situations. And it’s always easy for me to like see it in the horses and, and understand how to, OK, you know, I call it sitting in the mud.

We sit in these uncomfortable feelings and then eventually you’re going to realize it’s not as uncomfortable as you thought. You have to build the capacity for the discomfort and you know they give a lick and a chew or a big breath and then you know the sessions over. That is exactly what I do. So I never took that framework that I do in the horse training to myself or to the people who own the horses that I’m dealing with. And it, as I’ve become sort of more aware of the human nervous system, I go, OK, there’s so much to this idea of being present.

And I maybe it’s because I grew up with a cell phone, maybe it’s for whatever reason, but I find it very hard to be present. And I find my clients find it very hard to be present. So why is it so hard? Wow, Samantha, I have chills #1 thank you for asking such an incredible question. And we’re answering the right question by you asking that because all things don’t exist, like any problem you think you have, it doesn’t exist in present.

But what you’ll find in practices, it’s very hard, almost impossible to get to presents, especially if you’re in a state of protection or if you’re in a pattern of protection. And so all of my work, it goes in so many different ways and avenues and, and modalities really. But the question or ultimately trying to answer is, can you be safe in this moment and this present moment? Because in this present moment, you are not a patter. And this present moment, there is limitless opportunities and options for how you could move inside of this present moment.

But if you’re living from the past or if you’re trying to predict the future, you’re not going to be in the present. Now, why the present is moment is so hard is because of trauma. Whether you know you’ve had trauma or not, you’ve had trauma. If you have, if you have a hard time being present, I can say with a lot of certainty, maybe not 100% certainty, but a lot of certainty that you’ve had some trauma. And, and we need to broaden the scope of trauma.

Trauma at the base of the words means at some point you’ve had to disconnect from self. So then all of us have because and, and why I feel so comfortable saying that is because we’re wired for attachment, meaning our survival was dependent on how well our caregivers emotionally attuned to us. So if we were getting connected, that meant we are going to be survived. But what happens when we’re not getting connected to that puts us in a position to have to earn that connection back. And how we earn that is through lot of approval validation, we become who that person wants us to be to get that connection back.

Then that becomes a pattern that we play out throughout our full lives because we don’t wake up to the fact that past a certain part of our development, actually we can keep ourselves alive. That was just needed and and see and, and adolescence. But now we are fully capable to meet our own emotional needs and our own physical needs. But we’re still in this pattern of trying to earn love approval and validation. So it’s really, so that means we’re disconnecting from what our self wants, what our self needs in order to manipulate and controlled love, approval, validation, because we’re still stuck in the developmental phase that says our life is dependent on if they approve or if they connect to us.

So then trauma is a disconnection from self. Well, we’ve been disconnecting from self for a for a long time. And so presence is so hard because at one point being present was too painful, what you were experiencing was too painful or you didn’t have the capacity to process the present moment. So then your nervous systems, those are OK, I’m going to protect you from this. And there’s two ways to protecting you from this.

I’m shutting you completely down and freezing or predicting the future so that you don’t experience that what was so painful in the present. So now you have your nervous system, which dictates 95% of your experience saying let’s not be present. Let’s predict the future so we don’t recreate the past. But paradoxically you do recreate the Passover. Paradoxically, you just keep experiencing this familiar.

So that’s why it’s so hard to stay present and then add on to this myth of normal to steal doctor government tasting this myth of normal of having an e-mail, cell phone, social media, all of these things that are saying, hey, spend your present in a literally alternate universe that doesn’t exist in this present moment and in this reality, but you can get the dopamine hit and get be in a completely different world. So makes for that, yeah, we we don’t have a lot of chance of being present, but being present is the answer. And what does presence feel like? Like how do I know that I’m living in the present moment? Or how do I like, I think anxiety is pretty easy because you’re thinking about something and then all of a sudden your heart starts racing or whatever.

But I, I don’t, I think people can think they’re living in this point in time, but then when you talk to them 5 minutes later about something, their recollection of the thing that happened does not match the thing that actually happened. And so I I just almost don’t even know if people know what presence feels like. They don’t. They don’t. On a sensation level, it feels open.

It can feel heavy, but in a good way. It can also feel warm, light. There wouldn’t be any sensation in your body that overwhelming or disorienting. And then on an emotional level, it feels something like grounded, peaceful, OK, whole. And, and how I would describe it is there’s there’s, there’s coherence, there’s cohesion.

Like as I’m talking to you, I’m not thinking about my grocery list. I’m not thinking about my dog. I’m not even thinking about how it sound right now. I’m just in this moment with you. I’m not even thinking about what I’m going to say next.

I’m just trusting what’s coming out of my mouth. I’m experiencing this moment as it is. I’m experiencing this moment as it is. But also what I’m not doing is I’m not hyper focused on you thing present saying present, saying present. And I, I didn’t, I don’t know what the last three eye movements you did.

I couldn’t tell you that. I couldn’t even really tell you how I answered the first two questions. It’s not a, it’s not a hyper fixation. It’s not a hyper arousal. It’s a, it’s a somatic feeling of like my shoulders are down and back.

I’m here right now. I feel slightly relaxed because I, I know I’m capable of meeting the demands you’re going to give me. But let’s say I was going into cross country where I’m questioning if my capabilities to meet the demands, but not in like a overwhelming way. I might feel a little bit more alert and I wouldn’t describe it as as relaxed right now. I feel relaxed because I feel very confident in meeting the demands and I don’t feel like I need to be anything other than I am right now.

But yeah, that’s that how it feels. I mean, I’m not. I’m nowhere but here. Yeah, it’s so I really only know how to talk about this in in horse training, so bear with me for a second. Yeah, that’s great.

Maybe I can clear it up. When I’m working with a horse and the the sessions at which, because everyone says horses are present beings just being. When horses experience trauma, they do the same thing where they might physically be there, but same thing. They’re somatically remembering the negative experience that they had, whether that be girth got tightened too quickly and it didn’t make them feel good or whatever. Like, so they they have this out of their mind experience, not a freak out, but like they’re no longer there or they’re there too much and they’re not kind of in the area with me.

It’ll start very small of I get them here with me, they get rewarded for that. They go back. And the goal is to try to grow that to a point where like we can sustain a 45 minute ride with both of us being, you know, pretty there. I assume when you’re talking about capacity for presence, it’s that same idea of like the length of time you can be in that space of being here and now. Yes, without the fear taking you out of fear.

What does this mean about me? Am I good enough? Did I just fail that? Am I disappointed that I embarrassed myself? Is urge judgment it that’s why I always talk about avoidance like avoidance will take you out of presence yeah.

It’s exactly what you just said. It’s and so it’s, it’s how long can you be here without that wanting to avoid something coming up? And the more capacity you have, the more, the more capacity you have for what it feels like to be embarrassed because you in reality, you might do something that’s embarrassing, like have some humility, you know, but that doesn’t mean it has to take you out of presence. I can be here in this moment with you and be embarrassed. It’s OK.

I have the humility. I have the range to do that. But before people do this work they don’t like embarrassing is super triggering. And then their production mode takes over. There’s somewhere in the future.

There’s somewhere in the past. Yeah, I kind of a side tangent, but I was listening to a podcast a little while ago and they were talking about how, like the fear of public speaking isn’t really a fear of public speaking. It’s a fear of I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to be embarrassed, and then I’m going to die. And like at the end of it, it’s like I’m death is the thing that we’re actually afraid of and we think it’s talking in public or whatever. But I had this client who was like talking about her fear of getting back on this horse that she hasn’t ridden in a little while.

And she was like, well, I’m just afraid I’m going to die. And I was like, well, the good news is you’ve skipped all of these other fake fears and you’ve gotten right to the main one. And not that that made her feel any better, but it, it makes me think that we have all of these going back to your mastermind. I think one of the things you guys were chatting about was fear, the hatred of losing versus the love of winning. And that like, there are different drivers for like why people seek out success.

And at least that’s kind of how I interpreted it. No. Great. Yeah. And So what do these I’m afraid I’m going to go down the center line and turn the wrong direction or I’m afraid that I’m going to maybe I’m afraid that I’m going to jump clear inside the time all cross country when I move up.

Maybe I like There are so many of these fears that I don’t think those are the things we’re actually fearing. Afraid of? How, how do you even start to like dissect or work through the OK? No, I’m not actually afraid of failure or success or whatever it is. I’m afraid of death in the eyes of all of these people that I’m like.

Surrounded by yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. I want to before I answer it and I’m going to answer it before I answer it, I’m going to go back to the public speaking thing because, because what you said is correct. But I’m going to fill it. I’m going to fill on gaps a little bit. And people are going to be like, or I hope it’s going to cause a greater aha.

So they’re, they’re, they’re afraid of public speaking because they’re, yeah, they’re not afraid to stand up and talk. They’re afraid that when they stand up and talk, they’re going to be embarrassed or they’re going to do something. They’re going to be vulnerable to perception and that vulnerability could be favorable or it could be non non favorable, which results in a disconnection. Again, back to attachment, we think that connection is safety. Safety is survival.

So it’s not actually that they’re scared that they’re going to physically die. I mean, maybe, maybe, maybe some people, but no. And actually I’ve seen that people have a bigger fear of poet speaking than they do of death. And that, and which tells me and which also I know about attachment theory, which says they’re afraid of the disconnection from the other based off of the survival mechanism that we have that says attachment equals safe, it equals connection equals safety. So they’re they’re literally afraid of being disconnected from the tribe.

That’s, that’s what it is being rejected. And so, so that’s stilling in the gaps. So they’re not afraid of physical death. And most people that I’ve ever worked with, and actually I was, I said this on a webinar recently and I had somebody friendly disagree. So I’m not going to say 100% thank you to that teacher, everybody.

But this one person that I’ve ever worked with doesn’t actually have a fear of getting hurt on cross country. They have a fear of being rejected because of the result on cross country. They have a fear of making a mistake and their coach getting mad, their husband getting mad, then looking like an idiot, which again goes back to that attachment theory. They they disconnect from the tribe. So, so then your question was how do you get to the root of fear?

Was that the question? Yeah, OK. So let’s say it’s somebody says, OK, I have a fear of going down center line. I would say, OK, and what’s the fear? Well, the fear is that I’m going to go down and then I’m going to freeze.

OK, so you go down center line and you freeze. Then what? So then the question is then what? Then what? Then what?

Then what? Then what? And then you’ve got all the way to The Root. And what I can confirm and what you’ve confirmed working with courses is The Root is from a painful experience somewhere in the past that they’ve had, that they didn’t have capacity to integrate, that their system is still trying to protect them from. So, and it could have, it could be something as I went down on center line three years ago and I made a huge mistake or it could be that in 3rd grade, I stood up to give a project and someone made fun of me, you know, but you get to the root and basically it was a painful experience of the past that their nervous system said, no, we don’t want it steering instead again.

So we’re going to have a pattern of protection that prevents you from showing up whole and authentic in that moment and present and that moment. We’re going to protect you from that moment. And what’s so crazy about that is our nervous systems are pattern and that’s patterns. And at first it has to be the exact pattern, like the example of going down center line at the past. But but as you confirm, that is biased.

So like you, you stand up in 3rd grade. If the one makes fun of you, OK, now it’s in. Now it has to be that exact situation. Being in the concert and answering question class OK, but then maybe it happens again and now it’s just being in front of people and answering a question. They’ll know what it then it happens at dinner and then it happens in the arena.

Your your coach asked you a question in front of five people and you got the answer on and now it’s now it’s on the horses and being put on the spot. So it like it grows. What once was this like a cute thing that was only in that one area. If you don’t answer that and you don’t integrate it, that will spread and go across all areas and the pattern just. Widens.

Interesting. Yeah, I had this experience a couple years ago with I had an owner of a few horses and she kind of just up one day decided she didn’t want anything to do with horses anymore. And so I found that after that experience happened, I went into this complete people pleasing thing. And it was so weird because like, not that I’m like annoying or trying to be annoying, but I’m not really one of those people that necessarily cares about people pleasing. Like that’s never really been my pattern personal.

Yeah. And but I have always been a bit of a a showman. I like when I am in the dressage arena and people are watching me because I’m on a nice horse or and I, as I started to do work into sort of why I became this people pleaser, I kind of figured out that both of those were two sides of the same coin where I really wanted the validation from people because I was doing good in the dressage or good in the show jumping or whatever. But then when I had this negative experience happen, I wanted the validation that I was like were whatever. And it I became this like, I mean dog in this race of just like non-stop work non-stop, like saying yes to clients, non-stop showing up at like and that led me to burnout.

And I feel like in horse sports, we don’t really like to talk about burnout because we all recognize that. Yeah. Well, and it’s a hard sport and it’s a hard life. And, you know, we all go, yeah, except. Exactly.

And so I remember, like, being like, all of a sudden I just got really angry with everything. And my husband works in tech, and he’s like, I think you’re burnt out. And I’m like, no, I just need to like do all of these things and everything will be OK. But yeah, it it just. We’ll see how you’re trying to earn your safety have to do all of these things, then I’ll be OK.

So you’re and it goes back to remember the where I said in the beginning, we’re outsourcing for love, approval and validation, all because we have our nervous systems and attachment. And yeah, you’re seeing that the people pleasing at the same side of like wanting to be seen, it’d be that because you from in the past when you were seen, you got validation and goes back to that end of you. You’ve learned this pattern that if I do all these things, then I’m OK. Well, the whole work is you’re OK now because you can create your own source of safety. And now from this OK Ness, what movement are you going to create?

But not from this lack of IB to earn this something that you. Already have yeah, I I read a quote last year and I’m totally going to butcher it because I’m horrible with with callback, but it was something along the lines of like we is still wheat even when it’s grass. So like we then when we is grass, we still nurture it and take care of it because eventually it’s going to be this thing that gets harvested and whatever. But we don’t view ourselves as like, oh, just because I was born means that I should have like be complete as a person. I’m not looking to outsource this because I don’t feel whatever and because both me and my husband have like we so seek validation and I go no, like where, where were they just because we’re born and living and humans.

We don’t have to like earn being like noticed or, or whatever it is like and but it, I think it’s so hard when you’re trying to go after something that’s more than the here and now. And so you’re always raising the standards and you’re always kind of pushing harder and harder and more and more to level up that you never like look back and say, OK, like, look at all of this. I did. You’re waiting for other people to do that for you. But everyone’s just in this own thing of waiting for other people to give them that validation.

And so we’re all like, yeah, I guess we’re all not present. We’re all waiting for other people to validate us, but we’re all trying to earn validation. So no one’s noticing when someone needs to be validated. And it’s just, it’s like vicious cycle of like never feeling enoughness. Does that make sense?

Makes perfect sense, yeah. And, and, and I want to ask you this question and how does and then I’ll answer it. But how does that make sense from attachment theory? Like how does that make sense that you’re constantly wanting validation? Why does that make sense?

So in my head it makes sense because like, we we’re all a part of a tribe at some point. So we all want to like feel this connectedness to other people. And so when we, you know, don’t feel that connection, we go, there’s something wrong with us. And you know, I so I can like rationalize it, yes, you know, and but applying it is a little bit of a different. It’s a different thing.

OK, I can help you with the applying, but let me let me just also just say, yeah, you nailed it. And attachment says my safety comes from other people, other people. So if I’m not getting that just naturally, if you didn’t get that from your parents naturally, and you got in the pattern of earning it, you’re just still in the pattern of earning it and you haven’t woken up to the fact that you’re the source of it now. And so also this worse that you’re talking about. And, and we have two parts of us.

We have the, the nervous system and the ego, which work in tandem called your default network. But we also have this other more essential part of us, which is like soul and, and religion and self of the capital S and psychology or S And you know, so we, we all know that we have these two parts of us. There’s this essential part of us, the self, the soul, and then that’s like nervous system and ego. And so your ego and your nervous system develops its sense of self worth through how well your parents emotionally attuned to you. And this is not enough on parents.

This is not a knock on anyone. This is, that’s a dumb debate. Doesn’t matter, but that is how it is. So how well your port, your parents all heard and validated you just because just because when you had an ocean, they came and met it. When you had a need, a need, they came and met it.

And that’s kind of impossible. And the way that mothers don’t stay home with kids, it’s normal. Like kids go to daycare at three months, three months. That’s attachment trauma. OK, so you can’t make your parents wrong because your parents are necessary for your survival.

So you make you wrong. They’re not attuning to you. They’re not seeing, hearing, and validating you because there’s something wrong with you. And if you were just doing more, if you were just more perfect, if you were just achieving more, they would give it to you and you would finally be worthy of that connection. So then we just get in that pattern.

Now your soul, your essence knows the truth. It knows that I’m worthy, just as a tree is worthy of the resources it has, just as a dolphin is worthy of the resources and that size. I am worthy. But these two, these two get in conflicts. That soul and the nervous system and the ego, they there is that resistance between the truth and the confusion that constantly is happening.

Now what is helpful is just basically sitting in the mud. This is to use your vocabulary, so not enough feels like a thing. So in order to not keep acting, because right now that sensation comes up and the pattern response is to do more, to be more, achieve more, but you have to rewrite that pattern. You have to say no, no, no. When that sensation comes up, I’m going to be the secure attachment that I needed as a child and I’m going to sit in the mud with this feeling.

Not so that you get used to being a loser or get used to being whatever level that you are now, but because then you’re whole. Then the soul and the ego in the nervous system come in congruency and now you’re not creating from lap from I need, I need, I need. See me, see me, see me. You’re saying I’m whole now I’m going to go create. It’s kind of like if we, if we make an analogy with horses, and I’m sure you see this all the time.

People don’t have true connection and they’re going to leg yields and haunches and an extended track and it’s ridiculous to even watch. You’re like, what is the point of creating a movement when you don’t even have connection on balance? But they’re doing it all the time. I mean, very few people are actually doing it from connection and illness. But when you see connection, when that energy is moving in that circular way and there’s true connection, there’s through balance and then they go to do an extended trot or or a transition or leg yield.

It’s like wow, that they’re on 2 separate plays. That’s the same. When you create and you do work and you try to achieve from I’m not enough and I’m going to go out and earn it. It’s kind of like a joke. I mean, you might get it done, but it doesn’t feel good.

You get burned out. Or when you do it from connection and balance, it’s like, wow, that’s amazing what energy can do. Yeah. It’s the same and but because not many people are doing it from connection and balance, we create the misunderstanding that you have to do it from life. No, no, no, no, no, no.

That’s a misunderstanding. It’s much better to do it from wholeness. How do you do it from wholeness? Sit in the mud of feeling not enough. Feel that feeling.

Create capacity for that feeling. Create a new pattern of of reaction from that sensation. Interesting. Yeah, I’ve told the story like 800 million times on the pod, but I’ll do a quick Cliff Notes version of it. But I as a junior, I had a couple of horses and I swear that they were like as competitive as I was.

Like, they showed up every day and gave me so much. And I always liked the feeling of being an underdog. I always liked the feeling of being a little bit doubted, maybe so that I could surpass expectations that or whatever. But like, I just always remembered liking that feel. And then I bought a horse a few years ago.

And if I approached her with that underdog feeling, I mean, she gave me several middle fingers. Like she was like, absolutely not. We do not play this game like. She. Already feels like she is the queen.

So then when I come in and I’m like, we’re not enough. We got to work really hard. We got to do. She’s like lady, you know, and that’s what sort of got me on the you know, I sought out a sports psychologist and all the things because I got to the point where I was like, well, why am I the way I am? I think you kind of figure it out and you go, OK, so I understand, but I don’t understand what to do with it.

And that’s why I find your work so interesting, because. That’s where I different, yeah. There’s a difference between having the awareness and shifting that. Yeah. And, you know, it’s, I think it’s easy to think, oh, if I know why I do this, I’ll just stop doing it, you know, by the grace of God or whatever.

And it’s like, no, actually, sometimes you become aware of it and then it becomes worse. And like, that’s the experience that I had was like, all of a sudden I became aware of these things that, you know, I was struggling with. And then maybe it’s because I felt like things should have gotten better because I became aware that things just even got worse. And I was like, OK, I need to figure out how to make myself lighter and, and less negative. I this like negative, you know, I was coming from this place of lacking and not that I’m going to sit here and be like, yeah, I really figured it out because I’m like hit or miss on meditation.

And you know, I do meditation. Is hard though. It it is, it’s asking you to be present. And if you haven’t, if you haven’t worked with the nervous system and says, hey, it’s not safe to be present. Now, I find that meditation actually can be a little bit harmful.

I mean, it’s it’s getting it’s it’s trying to solve the problem of present. So I’m not putting I love meditation on the men theater. I love it. But I find that especially working with so many athletes at this point in so many people, your story is not unique. And and actually it’s frustrating because then it’s just this 10 minutes of I just failed again and I just became more aware of the problem.

Yeah, that I can’t be present with no solution. And so then you’re just kind of more in this confirmation bias of like, I’m not out of it. I see it, but I’m not out of it. And that’s really hard. And meditation is is just directing the attention.

But what do you think is going to win the attention or the thing that’s dictating 95% of your experiences as you’re not safe right now? No. And I mean, I’ll listen to a guided meditation on 2X speed and you know, like I’m, I’m always, I’m like, OK, if I get through it and I dress in. Flags. I’m tall, sucking.

If you’re hoisting, getting my intention on, how do you? How do you know I’m not present? What is present? Back to your first question, what’s the litmus? Festive present?

Why? I will tell you what’s not. Yeah. That’s hilarious. Oh, I well, and I become, you know, I’ve had to be really careful with the podcast because I’ll make things super OK, what’s the minimum effective dose?

And then how do I because. I’ll question. You know, I’m I’m not the only one struggling with this. So I try to give it to my listeners, but then I’ll be like, OK, so I just add this to this part of my routine and then I completely and by the end of the. Day my you’re trying to date?

Yeah, you’re trying to do a leg yield without connection on that one. Yes. So yeah, you’re keep frying. Yeah. Well, and that’s that’s where I feel like meditation, you know, or like the thing that I’ve learned from these masterminds that you do is that you actually shouldn’t be visualizing the positive thing.

And when I was taught about visualizing. It was you were taught. That. Yeah, to go through and like make it perfect and what is the perfect, you know, thing feel like or look like or whatever. And and I always found that when I did it, I did it from a place of watching, not from a place of doing it.

And so then I became, OK, well, visualizing doesn’t work, you know, like all of these things. But I think, you know, because the, the nervous system stuff is a relatively new conversation. So I don’t want to necessarily like, fault normal therapist for being like, yeah, this is what you do to get the results you’re looking for because they might not even know, like the reason why behind some of the things. They just know that the things have been shown in studies to do things. And so would you mind just talking a little bit about meditation and visualization and like what it’s doing when we’re doing it correctly?

Yeah, first you have to, you have to solve the root problem, which the root problem is you have attachment trauma, like end it like in this sentence. So, so no matter what, you have trauma. So until that trauma is resolved and you come back into connection with self, you’re not going to you’re not going to be able to meditate now. Now, have I seen where meditation has brought people back to connection with self? Yes.

Have I seen it be probably like likely no. So what I have seen is that through deep schematic work and inner child work from the brain that I do it in and and nervousness and work being the key of like how do you come back into connection with self? How do you learn to attune to self because you have that trauma because you didn’t get attuned to. So now we got to go and attune to you. So you have to become that loving presence, that loving attachment that you did not have.

That is that’s number one. And then we can talk about these nuances as meditation and visualization. But before you fix the root of the problem, you’re going to keep circular. It’s going to, it’s going to keep being circular. And so the root of the problem is attachment and and not good enough.

So, so kind of distinct thing you do with horses, you got to sit in the mud of that. And it’s not meditation. It’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a nuanced difference, but it’s not that it’s, it’s holding the space, it’s being present, but it’s guiding them to feel that sensation until they have, like you said, a lick or a chew or it’s the same thing with you. I have to guide you back and I have to guide him to feel all of that and sit in the mud until there’s a liquor, there’s a chew. And then from that place you can meditate.

You could grow the capacity, you could grow your attention from that place you could visualize. I still wouldn’t have you visualize it being perfect, but you nothing is going to be effective until you fix the root of the problem, which is why people are so frustrated with therapies. Of course, the ecology personal development work because it’s just another To Do List that ultimately makes them feel like they’re not enough because they’re doing it and they’re not getting a a big result. And it’s, and I’m not trying to be vague in my explanation of what that attunement looks like. I mean, I would show you, but and I it, it’s kind of like, how specific could you be describing it with the horse?

It’s kind of personal and it’s, it’s, it’s individual, but the root of it is that, that feeling of not enough or that, that attached to trauma that feels like something in your system. And it’s and it’s, and it’s very familiar. You all have felt it before. And you will, if I say how familiar is this? You’ll be like my whole life and it’ll be living somewhere in your throat, your chest, your solar pricks, your solar plexus, your stomach.

And you will know that feeling and you have to sit in the mud of that feeling and, and you have to do it. It’s not a one and done, but one time can get a lot of it like it’s it’s it’s remarkable what even one time of sitting and not somatically can do. And then from there, once you, once your system trusts that you are the attunement, you are the attachment, then meditation becomes available. And I can explain different types of meditation or I could explain different types of visualization if you if that’s helpful. But I want everyone to understand that if you don’t fix the main attachment drama, it doesn’t really matter what you do.

So say I’m listening to this and maybe I’ve had some blocks or I’ve had some things and I’ve tried the talk therapy or the sports psychology or whatever. What’s the first step to like fixing the the attachment issue? So this is where I find this question hard to answer without, without pointing it back to myself. But I was in PhD school, I was in I, I did my own work and I kept finding that no one had the answer, which is why I formed my programs in my process like I don’t know of. And I’ve worked with staff, hundreds of staff, like not hundreds of thousands, hundreds to thousands of athletes at this point.

And everyone’s like, wow, this is remarkably different than anything I’ve ever experienced before. Like I thought it was going to be similar because I’ve done a lot of therapy, I’ve done a lot of sports psychology. I’ve done, I’ve worked with other nervous system coaches. This is remarkably different. And it’s remarkably different because I didn’t find another.

If I found, if my, if my PhD school, if I found it to be effective, I would have copy paste it. It wasn’t effective. If when I went to therapy, if it was effective, I would have copy paste it. It wasn’t, It’s not like I wanted to create something completely new just for the hell of it. It’s because I couldn’t find anything that was effective and, and I got sick of of what I was hearing and I got sick of not getting to the root of it.

So I’m sure there’s other people out there that are doing it and I didn’t find it. But in practice, what it would look like is, is when I’m sitting with someone, so they’re telling me that you have a block of center line. OK, We follow it all the way back to the root of the trauma. And if we followed it back, I gave the example of like standing up in 3rd grade class. Well, we could even follow it back from there, but we could start there if that’s your first regulation of it or you don’t have to remember any of it and you could just tell me where that feeling lives in your system.

We don’t even have to go into the story about it. And then I would hold the container. We would it’s, you know, some, there’s different experiences of it. Some people are really scared of it. Some people, it’s like some people are like, wow, that wasn’t anywhere near as scary as I thought.

But you face what you’ve been running from and it’s a somatic experience. So you know, if it starts in the chest and might rise and might go to the throat, and you just sit in the lard and you just keep facing what you don’t want to say. So you just keep sealing it, sealing it, sealing it, and then it integrates, and then you feel this wholeness and now you have an imprint of what presidents feel like. You have an imprint of what wholeness feels like. So anything that’s not that, you can kind of start waking, making your way back there, but you first have to experience that.

And you first have to wake up to the fact that you are now the source of your own safety and you can sit through what you want very much avoided. And that’s the only answer. Like anything that that’s not the answer to, it’s not the full answer. That’s the answer. You have to sit and feel what you don’t want to feel until it integrates, until you get the liquor, The Chew and anything that is not that.

It’s in my experience and working with lots of different people, you didn’t get to the root. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that’s kind of what I had figured because I know, you know, from doing it with the horses. Even if I give people a step by step guide of what I’m doing, like so much of it is like feeling and like being there with the horse, feeling the feeling with them and then being like, OK, now let’s go back here and be like, OK, we’re here and it’s all good. So that’s kind of what I did, but I was interested to know.

What you do and what I do are the exact same thing. And then you said now we go back here. You do that with the person. Now you go back here and then you create a disconfirming experience. So now the brain and the nervous system has a different pattern to go down instead of just keep going down the same Rd.

It’s the same thing, but it is just staying there and feeling the feeling. And if you’re working with somebody that’s never done that before, they’re not going to be very good at guiding, even if they know now that that’s the answer. You know, just as you’re saying, you can give somebody the exact recipe, but if they haven’t been there themselves, it’s really hard to do. It’s very simple, the practice. You don’t want to feel, sit in presence if you don’t feel.

And it’s very nuanced and sophisticated and, and practice. Yeah. So kind of as we start winding this down, I was having a chat with a woman who does a lot of young horse development and she creates courses for people to help them develop their young horses. And she was saying that most of the issues she finds with people developing young horses is the attitudes not quite the right word, but like the the way we show up to the the session with the horse, so. For.

People who maybe want to start showing up with their forces a little bit better, what do you recommend to start like that process of showing up better? That’s why in my program, like in Limitless Academy, it’s South Mastery and then it’s Performance mastery. If you don’t have mastery in yourself, there’s no way you’re going to have mastery of something else. You might be nuancedly good at something or be able to show up in certain situations. Well, but if you can’t trust yourself and how you’re going to show up and how your ego is going to show up, you’re really not going to have mastery over being a horse trainer.

Because when you’re, when your safety is dependent on love, approval, validation, and that horse is giving you the opposite. That’s why we have the problems that we have. That’s why we see people on videos going nuts and whatever else. It’s not because they’re monsters. It’s because they are getting their safety from love, approval, validation.

When they’re not horses directly contradicting or getting in the way of that, that horse is going to lose. And so if you’re still judging yourself as you’re still controlling and manipulating your styles, when this animal comes into the to your reality and to your movie, it’s going to trigger you. You’re going to be, you’re all of your shit is going to be projected onto this animal. You’re going to judge their behavior. You’re going to think they should be different.

You’re going to think they should be working harder. You’re going to think they should be proving to you. Unless you’ve resolved that in your cells, you’re just, you’re just a walking projection machine. So my advice is if you don’t want to judge your horse, work on on judging you. If you want your horse to be emotionally regulated, you need to be emotionally regulated or getting involved or misunderstandings.

You can’t have that. So I would say hold yourself to the same standard that you’re holding this animal that doesn’t even have a neocortex and you show the way. You be the one that doesn’t judge. You’ll be the one that’s consistent no matter what. If it’s so easy for them to do it, you need to do it.

And people want some sort of hack or trick or there’s not one that you have to become self masterful. And in my world that means having nervous system mastery, having mastery over that attachment and sensation, having ego mastery, being unascendable, unembarrassable and irritable. And then having emotional mastery that when emotionally comes up, you’re not a pattern response. So unless you do have those three things, which I think are your responsibility no matter what, I don’t know how you, I don’t know how people do it. I really don’t like because beer horse is just hearing what you are.

And so when you get squeezed, if you’re an orange, orange juice is going to come out. If you’re a lemon, a lemon is going to come out, that horse is putting pressure on you and whatever you are is going to come out. So if your horse isn’t reacting the way you want it, it’s because you are who you want to be. And so that’s a beautiful opportunity. So go become self masterful.

I’ve obviously created programs to do that. I’m sure there’s other people that have done that and there’s no way I’m the only one. But yeah, I would say solve the right problems. And I would say as a culture we’ve gotten really good at solving the wrong problems. You know, we’re like getting really good at creating leg yields from a balance and then people are like giving us advice on those leg yields.

It’s ridiculous. If it create the balance, that leg yield will happen. That’s what I’m saying. Don’t solve the wrong problems. Don’t look for hacks and tricks and ways to make this easier.

Be who you want to be under pressure. When you’re squeezed, what comes out, you need to like it. You need to trust it. It needs to be reliable. If it’s not that and your horse isn’t, and your horse is showing you that, go solve the right problem, which is self mastery, in my opinion.

Yeah, but you can. People can be their own scientists. Yeah. No, it’s so true. And I mean, horses are a mirror for a reason, and I think it’s because we’re put in each other’s lives to.

Become. Better versions of each other. And, you know, we’re really lucky to have horses to be able to show us the things that we may not want to see in ourselves. But it’s a blessing, not a curse. I promise.

And yeah. So this has been such a great chat. How do people find you? Follow along with what you do. All of that good stuff.

Yeah. Well, first I just want to say thank you. It is an. Amazing conversation and I love what you’re doing with courses. I think what you’re doing with courses is so unbelievably necessary.

Like they just as much as we need it, they need it too. And so it’s so great that through your life, your experience and it’s all that’s come into your movie and your reality that you’ve used it and we’ve come up with this thing that can really help horses with past things. I think it’s incredible and it’s such a genius and I’m so glad that you’re sharing it and people are getting a hold of it. That’s just amazing. And and it sounds like you and I did the exact same work.

Just so cool. And it’s it’s amazing. So yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for the work you’re doing, the horses and how you’re sharing your genius. It’s it’s really great. Well, thank you.

And then if people are interested in self mastery and, and, and pure responsibility and solving the right problems for my lens and they can find me on Instagram, Natalie Hummel coaching, they can spend it for my newsletter. I send out a newsletter every Tuesday talking about these kinds of things. And then also my website is nataliehummelcoaching.com. The main way to work with me is through my Lynn Atlas Academy program, which walks you through self mastery, which like I said, is nervous as the mastery Eagle mastery and then emotional mastery. And then we do performance mastery, which is capacity for clarity, capacity for failure, capacity for success, and then pure performance.

And we walk you through all those layers, making sure your nervous system is capable of all of those things. And that’s my program. That’s like my hallmark signature line of work. Cool. Well, thank you so much for joining me this.

Was great. One more thing before you go. I’ve put together a course called From Stiff to Supple in 28 Days. It’s six ride along audio lessons. You pop in your earbuds and I coach you through exercises that actually translate to a softer, more responsive horse.

If your horse braces through transitions, falls on the forehand, or just feels stuck, this is built for that. There’s an audio only option or if you want accountability, the 28 day challenge tier gets you into a private group with me plus monthly zoom calls. Only 30 spots for that one. It’s in presale right now, 40% off everything and the code is applied at checkout. That ends March 14th.

Then it goes to launch price. All of that is in the link in the description below.