EP 3: Jane Pike - Confident Rider

You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com. Welcome back to Live Free, ride Free, where we talk to people who live self-actualized lives and find out how they did it and how they still do it, and what can we learn from them. What's the true meaning of success? What's the true meaning of fulfillment? Is it money? Is it career? Is it how you feel inside? Is it your creativity? Is it all of the above? Is it none of the above? What does it mean to you?

So we have the amazing, by any standards, Jane Pike, with us tonight, who is jolly interesting. Why is Jane Pike jolly interesting? Well, Jane Pike was an early pioneer of, the online membership, equestrian learn to train your horse or learn to ride better type stuff That came out a few years ago on the internet. And, many, many, many people have done this. I myself have signed up for quite a few of these things because hey, it's always good to learn something.

And I know some people who've certainly made money at it. I don't know many people who have managed to both be economically successful at it and also genuinely help people out and also do it from a perspective that is neurological. showing people how to really access what's in their bodies, the sort of wisdom of the nervous system, in a way that goes far transcends horses. she's also a poet but she don't know it. but you'll soon know it.

cuz there'll be something published quite soon and she's sort of all around awesome. and she very definitely lives life on her own terms down there on the south island of New Zealand when she's not traveling all over the world. And so I feel that we could tap into some Jane Pike wisdom about how do you do something like this? How do you become financially, creatively, independent like this and live in this extraordinary place and help people out all over the world and still sort of remain cool.

So, without further ado, welcome Jane Pike.

but my travels took me to New Zealand when I was in my late teens, actually, which is kind of a funny story because, one of my best friends from school, Claire, we wanted to travel after we'd done a period of study and we wanted to go to Asia and we went to the travel agent and said, this is where we wanna go. And they were like, oh, well that's holiday time. It's all booked out. And she said, but what about New Zealand? And both of us went, oh, New Zealand, why would we wanna go there?

It's just like Australia. That was kinda our thought, at the time in our ignorant Australian mindset. but then because we both wanted to get out of the country, we were like, oh, okay, let's go. And so we hired a little car and drove around the, south island of New Zealand for two weeks, and I instantly fell in love with it. and then we were, we decided, at that point that after the next semester of university that we would come back and do a longest in over the summer.

and Claire pulled out on that longest stint and I decided to come by myself, and then I just didn't go home, basically. so that was my,

and I was one of those people that had a very clear idea of what I was going to do with my life. I was like, right, I'm gonna tickle of these boxes and I'm going to come out of school. And I got a scholarship to Sydney University for Communications Law. and I knew that at that point I had to,

, and so that's what happened. And so, so I got into, I got into this degree, this double degree, and I, I went from a, a little town in rural Tasmania at that point, to, to the center of Sydney. And, I had like an apartment and it was like a, a complete shock to the nervous system. And I just remember sitting there a few weeks in thinking, what am I doing here? I was kind of like desperately homesick. And I also had this very clear.

I don't know if you'd call it vision, but just sense of what the end of that particular period of study would most probably look like, which is me sitting in an office, sorting through paperwork, climbing my way up this chain of like, whatever it is I need to climb up to get, to whatever position that I wanted to be. And I just thought, I just, this is just not gonna make me happy. I was like, this is, this is not gonna

And I just packed it up to the ceiling and drove, three states across Australia home. And that was the end of, of that particular, moment in my life and also the end of clarity, for what I was gonna do. And then it just became like a hotchpotch for the next sort of,

and she had a, a horse called Icon who was a Arab Cross, something, something cross something, something that was, she had him since she was, he was a two year old and he, he actually only relatively recently passed away in his forties. So she had him literally his whole life. And she used to ride all of the time. And I've got photos of me plunked up on, on Icon from a very early age. And then when I was about five, my dad said to me, come with me.

You're gonna come, come, we're gonna go for a walk. And the, the area that we lived there was a, a road that led up to like the end of a, a bush track or a clearing. And mom rode this pony from a friend's house that instantly she had got him from through the clearing. And that was captain who was gonna be my. Who was my pony, basically. and he was rescued out of a bramble bush, on the side of the road in kind of slightly dilapidated state and had been, brought back to health.

And now I had this like black, wild main, unidentified breeding pony that was, that was mine. And we, we were very fortunate at the time, that the area that we were in was surrounded by farmland. And the farmer also bred riding ponies on the side. And so he was horse horse friendly and let us ride. Overall his paddocks, which was sort of about 500 acres and very like hill, massive h you know, hills and bush and rivers and all those sorts of things.

So I just used to take off on captain and like, ride around the, the paddocks. And what was really glorious about it looking back was my lack of, Just self-consciousness about that experience because he was like a very wild looking pony. But I used to take him in all the competitions with all the fancy ponies that were all platted up, and I had no clue that I was like, completely inappropriate for that setting.

I'd just be like, tering round, like, and both of our hair would be going all over the place. And all my, you know, I just didn't have the, didn't have the gear. I was the opposite of all the gear and no idea. I was like, no gear and no idea. But it was, it was pretty fun. Yeah. And mum used to come writing as well,

and they were very put out about that, which c created some women's races in Australia. And so she was running the five and 10,000 meters and my dad was a sprinter and so, they met and hit it off obviously.

And I think that why I mentioned that was because they had like a competitive streak in them that , maybe when I was flying around with like main flying in the wind and they saw these other people and they saw how into it I was, they thought maybe there would be a possibility for me to take it a little bit further. And so, or maybe they just couldn't stand it and they wanted to do better.

And so they brought me, they brought me a pony called Mini, who was a writing pony and she was, amazing actually. And I was just, I just remember being shocked cuz I went from like, I. This little bush pony to like this quite fancy little, other pony. You had lots of issues at the time. It's so funny. Retrospectively looking back where, you know, like she was very cold backed and had issues that I would now treat from, from a variety of perspectives like

She was quite young when I got her. and so we had quite a successful showing career together and and I had sort of lots of other horses in between that were part of what I just did my whole life. I just used to get up before school and ride and I rode after school and I mucked out stables and did the whole works and, that was my life pretty much. Yeah.

how long did it hit you for and where did it lead you? What, 20 years. Okay. That's good. That's a good minimum.

It was like, if I don't do this, I'm gonna disappoint someone. Yeah. And if I, if I, I don't wanna disappoint someone. I don't wanna get in trouble. I, I, I don't know that I learned this. It's a lot of us, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I learned as much as I really was good at playing the game. Mm-hmm. I'm like, okay, I know what you need for this exam, and I will learn exactly what you need.

I will predict the questions, and when I get there, I will spew out everything I know and that will get me a perfect score. Which is true. Like, I, I was, I was smart in that I could decipher what was required of me, and I could predict it and, and I gave it to them. It's, it's different from learning, you know, because now I couldn't necessarily, think back to what it is that I learn and, and tell you with passion. I just knew that.

In this particular area of study like history or English or that, this is probably the question that they're gonna ask me based on what we've studied or one of these. And so literally if I write the essay beforehand and I memorize it, I can change the introduction and I can change the conclusion around the question and I will just give you what you wanna hear. And that's what I did. and so I think that that brought me success at school.

and so when I stepped outside of that and all of a sudden the framework that was comfortable to me, which was, here are my friends, here is this institution, here is this place that I know, what the rules are. And I notice, you know, the wider world. I notice that actually for the first time, like, well, shit, this is actually my life. This isn't like getting to the next stage of like 17 or 18. This is like where I'm supposed to sit when I'm 40 or 50 or 60 or 70. Like, and is that what I want?

I think I've always had that little spark in me thinking about that. And I just, it rebelled at the, at the, at that moment. And and then it threw me into a huge amount of conclusion, confusion because I became somewhat of the joke. And this was a bit of a ego bruise because, but I was the person that if my friends. Were like, oh, who's gonna make it or who's gonna do the thing? They'd be like, oh, Jane, Jane will do it. Like she's, she'll do it.

And then all of a sudden I was the one blanking out of university, and I was the one trying a million different things and going to these crazy places, and it became a thing of like, oh, Jane's doing another thing. Or Jane's like, oh, Jane's doing this now. And it was, it was very challenging for me to take, I'm sure in some ways they meant it lovingly and, and that, or they didn't mean anything by it.

But for me, who had created a lot of my identity, I think, and value around academic success, it was a lot. Like, I, I really was wobbling inside with that. and did wobble for the next sort of 10 years, even though retrospectively I did a lot of stuff, which people would think was very cool. And I think on reflection, I, I can see how it was, I, I know at the time I probably didn't get the most out of it because I just really struggled with who I was at that point and where it was

and I did study, health science and got into sort of naturopathy and herbal medicine as part of that, which was the beginnings I think, of, of leading to where it is that I am now.

I, I, lived on a different property to them with my horses, and just had a really, really hard time with like isolation and and kind of venturing out into the adult world in a way that perhaps wasn't the most ideal transition in that I moved to somewhere where I didn't know anyone, where I was very isolated with the horses. My parents were coming six months later, so my family wasn't there yet and it was just like this, I think health-wise that really started to knock me around.

And again, looking back, I dunno why that was a supportive decision, but again, it's just a different time, isn't it, when you just do different things than what it is you do for your own kids now. But the reason that this is relevant is because, at that stage I was really suffering health-wise. I had like a lot of different back issues, which I'd had my entire teens, like to the point where my back would just burn and I couldn't escape, the pain that I was feeling in my back.

And, I had a lot of anxiety. There was, that was definitely a feature. I would say I was a very imbalanced human at that moment in time for a few different reasons that fed in. And so I started to seek out different solutions to my own wellness.

And at 1.1 of those solutions was to, I went to a, a fair, like a wellness fair and saw a chiropractor there who like got out all of the machines and like read the amount of tension that was in my system and, and put me on like this prescription of like ridiculous amounts of sessions with him. And he popped a vertebrae, popped a vertebrae, popped a disc in my back with his adjustments. And so, yeah, so that was, so then I, I became even more, incapacitated with my own stuff at that point.

And so that led me, like I said, into being interested in different alternative therapies and I was quite stoic at that point in time and I didn't wanna take, I don't really know why, but I didn't wanna take traditional pain medication or painkillers and, and so I just, I, I think, well, when I say I dunno why, like I, I had seen people in my family, you know, struggle with different, medications for, for different reasons.

And I guess that part of me was like very much not wanting to be in that same ilk. So that led me on the health science route rootin. And that led me further down, wanting to study yoga at a different period of time and breath work and all of these things. And, and that was definitely a huge part of the next sort of 10 years that followed after that.

So what do you find and how does that lead you to yoga and breath work and where does yoga and breath work lead you?

And, and the transition, came where I had horses that were, you know, that were either very young or that were. Able to be sort of semi-retired by that stage. So I had no kind of middle ground horses at that moment. And so what that meant is that my horses could go onto my parents' property and essentially they could look after them without it being a really big deal. Cause they had quite a lot of land at that point in time.

And so there was an opening, I guess, for me to do something different because that, at that point my commitment to my animals would've probably stopped me doing other things. But it just so happened that that was possible, at that moment. And that was where, I decided to go to New Zealand. And with your back, back in New Zealand? Yeah. Well, my back was kind of like workable at that point, but it was sort of like just permanently not okay. So they thought I had rheumatoid arthritis.

They thought I had like loads of different things that were going on because it was sort of unusual to have the degree of what I had, at the age that I was like you said. And so I went to New Zealand and the second stage of that, which is when I sort of jumped ship and moved over there for the summer, I met an Israeli and ended up going back to Israel with him like you do, like I do. Yeah. Yeah. And that was after, living in New Zealand for a period of time and starting to whle wobble around.

And at that stage, I was in Tel Aviv and there was a gym across the road. I. And the gym was the first place that I started to learn Hebrew because I was doing this horrendous spin class, and they'd be like, LA, la la, la which is like up, down, up, down. And so I started to learn all, all my Hebrew was coming from, like the things that the gym people were shouting at me, in, in classes to, to do. And, and so I, I, I was just like, on a mission basically.

I had this like window, where I wasn't working necessarily. I was living off savings. And I, decided to just get well. And as one of those classes was a yoga class, and I went into the yoga class and I, in my competitive mindset was like, I am really bad at yoga, which is like what a lot of people say. And it was just because I was like, had the flexibility of a concrete truck and , just kind of found everything quite challenging. But I kept going.

And I thought, oh, maybe this is going to be able to help me in some way. And that really was kind of the catalyst for seeking, out physical therapies that would allow me to, find ease basically to just not be in pain. and. Alongside of that. Again, like I find this really difficult to explain because I can't make sense of it. A lot of these transitions myself, it's all kind of like bound together.

But I think that there, like there'd always been a part of me that was a seeker, and they'd always been a part of me that was interested in, you know, spirituality and wellness. And that was motivated by like another parallel thread in my life where, you know, someone in my family was incredibly unwell for the duration of my life in, mental health wise. And I just remember thinking, that to be out of control of my own mind was like the worst fate that I can imagine.

No matter how many on the surface nice things are going on, there's an underlying insecurity. And as a child that is difficult because it's your security. So do you feel that your Yeah, your, your, your, the seeds of you as a seeker of human wellness? I, I feel this is such an overused term, but, can't think of a better one at this particular point. Human, okayness, really? Mm-hmm. Human, the healing that brings us to, that started actually quite early in your life.

Do, do, do you feel that that was really

And after I, you know, absconded from the, the journalist and the law degree, I thought, well, maybe I'll be a psychiatrist or maybe I'll be a psychologist because that, or, or a, a, a researcher that could study like the ways that the brain works and, and so that I could stop, will help you know, this person and also stop it happening from other people. And then the second thread of that was what if that's what if that's my destiny, right? Like, what if there's nothing I can do?

What if this is my lot? What if this is what I'm going to become? Wow. And so that was the second thread of that. And then the third thread was, I used to get quite nervous as a competitor and I did love writing. And so the psychology of like positive thinking and being able to control yourself mentally and emotionally was always really interesting to me. Like, ever since I can remember my bedside table was like stacked with books about that. That was what I heard. Did you

I think that a lot of what she mentions in there would perhaps say, we'd say as part of the mainstream, movement within like, you know, affirmations and positive thinking and visualization, that sort of thing. But at the time, that was pretty revolutionary, especially in the horse world. And so I used to have that as my Bible.

Okay. so, and not from a, like, I'm gonna steamroll you type way, but just like, I just felt so at home, riding and doing what I did and I was so proud of my horse and loved my horse so much that it was, that was kind of all I needed to, to get out there.

Or did you sort of let it go and how mad Drift, did you really only use the affirmations and that sort of thing in your competitive life?

And now retrospectively I can see that I was just trying to grab onto some semblance of control in an experience that just felt completely out of control. But I, I would, you know, I would exercise obsessively for like four hours a day after I'd worked all day. And then I was really, really strict with food. And, and I can see that I had a very disordered eating and very dysmorphic view of my own body.

And I, that is definitely, you know, that that's not a feature, thank goodness of my experience anymore. But it's, it was a very, at that particular moment in time, I think I was so, and you're

It feels like such a, is such a long time ago, but I, so the bit that kind of came up in between, gosh, what's the order of operation here? I've completely confused this part of my life in my mind. So the, at one stage I was in Asia, so I was traveling. I traveled quite, quite a lot. Yeah, yeah, I left, I went back to Asia, and I met some people in Did you,

It was like, I don't think I, did I have a mobile phone at that stage. I might have had a mobile phone, but it was like sort of the Hotmail Messenger type thing. Like that was like, you had to like log on at the same time and it was like, do you remember that there was like an M MSN messenger or something like that? It was something like that to me that only feels

So some, a lot of people will be familiar with yenga yoga, much more structured, a lot of rules around I, ien yoga that deals with body alignment. And they use quite a lot of props, like straps and blocks and like, there's ways of, Of shaping the body towards this particular outcome. And the third person who's much less known, was Mohan Ag Mohan and his wife, who are very much into the therapeutic side of yoga. And so there were these three, students that studied with him.

Patabi Joyce is from Myo in India. There's kind of a big, movement in mys saw towards Ashtanga. And Ashtanga originally was, the form of yoga that was designed for teenage boys, basically. So a very active, very strength-based, very dynamic form of yoga that would suit, a boy with a lot of testosterone, a lot of strength, a lot of, you know, a lot of just physical capacity to do that. And not necessarily designed for.

Women especially, because of the types of, breath work that it utilizes and the type of body movement that it utilizes has quite a strong effect on the reproductive system. And because women weren't in mind when that system was around. And so it's just a very, very physical, yoga, you go through a set of, postures that all form a part of a sequence that are constantly flowing. And you tie in the breath with that.

And so it's, because there's these set sequences and set levels that you go through, in order to kind of like graduate to the next level, you, your body needs to be able to move in particular ways. And for me, that wasn't part of how my body liked to move, you know, in terms of, just my natural inclination. And so I found it quite challenging, but again, it fitted in quite well with trying to make my body do something.

Yeah. That's what I needed at the time. And to think of being still just meant that I had to meet myself and that would probably be one of the worst things that I could think of at that particular time. And how

And so now it's like, oh gosh, my right shoulder hurts because I'm using that arm more and I'm doing this like 50 times a session. And so that starts to have a, have an effect. But the, the way out of that, was actually following someone that had most likely been in a similar position to me, who was one of my main Ashtanga teachers, and then started studying with Mohan, who was the therapeutic.

Teacher and she came back from, Chenai, which is where he was based, and just started teaching this like incredibly slow, form of yoga. And I was like, what is this? Like this is doing nothing. I now need to go for like a 50 k run if I do this. Like, that was my mentality, you know, it's not enough to kind of keep me in shape or whatever it is I was supposed to be at that time.

And so she sort of sparked a seed in me and then from there I did some, prodding around on the internet and decided that I was gonna go and study with them directly, when I was in India, where I was gonna go to India. Yeah.

But she's just ag mohans wife, if that makes sense. But she's studied the same as him. She's actually, she's, she's really the magical, one of the two of them. And she, because I was female, she was the one that saw me. Cuz there's quite strict customs there in terms of who sees who. So we go into the room and she asks me to, she does like a, gets me to move in a couple of different ways. And, and their approach is they give you a personal practice.

So they actually give you the postures to do based on your mind and your body. Which is a first for me because everything else had been generic up until that point. So they designed postures for you, they designed a sequence for you. And, I went in, I can remember it really clearly. I went into her little room and she is like, for the time you are here, you're only doing what I say. You're only doing these postures. Because I was doing my Ashtanga Pro practice in the morning.

And then going to them, you see this is the level of my addiction actually. Like, I was like, I was doing something that I thought would like keep me strong and fear and then I was gonna go and do the therapeutic yoga, which was like the nice thing on the side that I could tell other people. And she was like, no, no, no, you you, you are not doing that anymore. You're not doing that. And that was like a crisis of, for me, for a month. I, I did do what she said cuz I was like, I'm here.

It feels very disrespectful to not do. What she is asking if I'm gonna be in this. But I had a real moment with that, that was like the beginning, I think of breaking, it was basically like an alcoholic arriving and them saying, you're not drinking for the next eight weeks. And you're like, what? Like that, that's how it felt like I was, that's how I imagined it would feel.

It's like I was so addicted to that as a way of like keeping my mind in a, in a container, that I could manage that to think about letting that go was actually terrifying.

And so if I let that go, I thought that would mean a, I would start looking a certain way, which was, again, I didn't even really have ideas about, like, I didn't, it's, it's funny to reflect on because it wasn't so much that I was like judging people's body shapes, but for me it was just control. Like, it was like I just was aiming to look a certain way in order to stay controlled.

And that involved, I guess I had so much adrenaline crossing through my system, that that was kind of burning that up as well. And if it wasn't being burned up, then I had to deal with it in other ways. Right. But I found interestingly that, because I am a good student and I do do what I'm told, if I, into a certain extent at that moment in time, that I followed the practice, I was like, well, I'm here.

And I, it was actually so beautiful, aside from I would get up in the morning, and for those of you who've been to India, it's like this very, it's a mishmash of different things. So on the one hand, you'd have the call to prayer that's very, very beautiful, like so, so beautiful. I'm up before the sun. It's, I've, I've laid out my little yoga mat. I'm on my little concrete floor. My, my place is super basic. You know, there's no toilet, no anything like that.

I've got the colder prayer, the air is warm. I'm like, this feels lush. And then all of a sudden someone starts like hoking outside my window, like, like clearing your throat. And like, and you know, like the abolitions begin, you're like, what a j this is India. Right? Like the juxtaposition between this is the most sublime thing that's ever happened to me. And then all of a sudden someone starts like, just literally like throwing up.

I'm just gonna do this. I'm gonna be in whatever way I need to be in life, as much as I need to be, and then I'm just going to do this thing. I'm just gonna be by myself and do the thing. And I think that, again, retrospectively, that was very convenient. Because it, you know, relationships are hard and like showing up in the world notice is hard. Yeah. Really.

And, and if you can, like, if you can be like, wow, maybe actually the idea is that you should just like, be in a cave and like, and secrete yourself away. Like, was, that was quite a attractive, idea at that moment because, and

And that, you know, relationship has a purpose for recreation. And then, you know, beyond that, it's like, not that they weren't very loving towards each other, but the, they, they understood that their ultimate purpose was to unite with the divine. And that was. That was bigger than what either of them were individually or what their relationship was.

And so, you know, there are a lot of beautiful things that came out of that experience for me and a lot of problematic things, that came out of that for me. I, I won't speak for them or their lineage, but for me from a, you know, cultural perspective and from the perspective of who I understand myself to be now and who I understand myself to have always been, but just didn't really recognize, because, so

And there's like an expat community, and I just remember feeling deeply uncomfortable with the situation in that they're, they're very affluent in the country that they're, they've arrived in because obviously the currency that they have come with is worth a lot more than the currency they're playing with in that moment. They all have housekeepers and there's just this like residue of colonialism and, hierarchical living that really, really made me uncomfortable. And, and the.

Yoga community in those places is very much a part of that because a lot of the reason why people go there in the first place is to seek some form of wellness, and wellness solutions and wellness retreats. And there's a lot of people that have set up things there, that are kind of doing so under this pseudo idea that they're, you know, helping humanity. But actually what I saw was just like, well, this is just a convenient, I don't know, it just really didn't sit well with me.

And you, and you saw that in a, in a few different places that kind of, oh, we're helping out here. But actually it's like, no, you're under really good wicket and you are doing so at the expense of some local people. And it just is just, was weird to me.

Yeah, but, and so I, I, I, I al I always had this thought of like, this can't be the end point because I watched, I just, I remember sitting in a cafe and I like saw a group of, men come in that were all in their little, like, you know, hos or whatever. I was gonna

And, and so I I, I always had this idea of this was temporary, but I wasn't quite sure where things were gonna lead next.

And I had the opportunity to go. And I'd already been doing, different pieces of work, that were like aid humanitarian related, projects, whenever I could around the place, both personally and then kind of hooking in with other groups. And so I went, and decided to be a part of the, like, dispatch that went to Sri Lanka. and so shortly after that happened, that's where I arrived and was there for the next 12 months.

Also, and I think that that was a real sort of turning point for me as well, where I was like, I need something. I, I, I just need to figure myself out. Like I really need to figure myself out. And I went back to New Zealand after that. That's where I was

But after the, tsunami kind of hit new levels, especially, especially with the president of Sri Lanka, who was, female at that time. I'm not quite sure who it is now, but she was, there was a huge outpouring of public donations, because, I mean, this is one of the first times really I think, where something to that scale had been caught on camera, for the mainstream to be able to experience.

And so, you know, people holidaying had caught on their mobile phones and it was all over the, the news and it was so shocking. Like it was, it was really, really so shocking that, it moved people to give money in ways that they hadn't really given money before. And so, of course this goes to the powers that be initially in the country. That doesn't go to the people that who need it. It goes to the people who you hope are going to equitably distribute it.

And in Sri Lanka, that definitely wasn't the case. So, she profited very handsomely and fabulously off people's, donations in that first instance. And so, When, when you work or are with a organization that are, that have a huge administrative background, there is also limitations in what you can do because everything has to go through, process of course. So, how, how publicly, good this is to talk about. But anyway, so that was the first part of it was with, with the organization.

Then what we decided was that we would come back independently. And we thought, well, you know, if we had like you and a small

I had sort of other skills that were going on and the other thing that we did at that point in time was, my main role was I worked with the, the children quite a lot and it was very much making it up as you go. So I could see that, the kids were quite traumatized but also desperate to be children. And so I said to them, cuz one of the things I was really aware of was the.

Sort of white savior thing that happens or you create that mentality where, you are handing out money and it's a very disempowering situation for people, especially individuals, you know, with their own pride and their own, stuff going on. And so with the children, I thought, well, how can we make it so that they feel like they're actually raising their own money, even if it's not actually the case? Like, so that there's like a sentiment that they have apart in what they're receiving.

And so, I said, look, we've got a, art, a, a museum sort of art gallery, a couple of different art galleries that are interested in, auctioning off your pictures. Cuz I know that you do really good art. You've been drawing with me and you do really good pictures. So I do wanna draw some pictures for me. And so they started producing this artwork that was just like wild, like, and I didn't ask them to draw about the tsunami. I just said, you can draw whatever you want.

Like, it doesn't, doesn't matter. And they drew these like big black waves with like teeth coming out of them and like bodies floating on top of the water and like, People hanging off trees and like, basically like whatever was in their subconscious, these little kids that were just like la la la would come out with these like dark pictures of like death and destruction and like metaphorical representations of the wave. And I was like, oh, wow. That's lovely. That's lovely. Thank you.

Just be like, oh, like where am I gonna take this? Like it was, it was, it was a thing. And so I collected all of their artwork and I said, thank you. We're gonna take it. And there, there's people, you know, in places that might be able to help us right now that are gonna auction off your work and then we're gonna come back and, and, and help you. And that's kind of, and that's kind of what we did. And we also had prints and things that we made from there.

And we were just hard out fundraising when we got home. And then we went back directly with the money in our bank accounts and just worked as nobodies. But already knew kind of the ins and outs of what was needed and, and where to put the money. So we just picked a few, we picked a village basically, and we picked families that we thought we could most influence and help. And, and then we just, did what we could there. Yeah.

Like what's, what can I, I I wanted to have roots a little bit. Like I wanted to, to find a place where I could. You've been traveling for a while by now? Yeah. Yeah. I'd been traveling for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of it with a sort of lost feeling inside. And so I was like, I think I'm gonna go back to New Zealand and and I'm just gonna land there.

The landscape always felt really good to me there or here, and I never, you know, there's aspects of Australia, which are always gonna be a part of me, which actually has to do with the landscape as well, and smells and animals and those sorts of things. But I never really, wanted to stay. I knew that wasn't the place that I was gonna stay. And I think actually, you know, I have a nomadic tendency anyway that perhaps I struggled to reconcile for a long time. But yeah. So

And also I, it sounds like I was just dropping things in, but I'm not quite sure how they, how they happened. I did have a column, I had like a column in a couple of newspapers at one point in time, that I was writing for, and I'd managed to kind of whe on my way in there. So you arrived back,

That actually, that's probably one of my proudest moments where I like quit on principle of something and then later on, and they were really assholes about it. And then later on, they begged for me to come back and I got to say no again, which was like, you know, this beautiful moment in my life actually, you have a, a little plaque on the wall, so Yeah. No, to the misogynous. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now you've fallen into writing.

Is it all fashion or do you start to go writing in retail? Yeah, that's right. Fashion and retail. It, so that was just literally for bill paying practices and then behind the scenes I was, playing with fiction writing. Yeah. And so the idea was that I was going to write my own thing, mm-hmm. And just. Be single and, and have enough money to get by so that I could do that and just be free basically. How long did that last? Not very long. I met my husbands fairly soon after that.

So then how, how does it go from your, you're back from this significance adventure. Yeah. You, you've learned these skills, but now you appear to have abandoned them. You, you're, you've gone a whole new direction. You're writing now, you're doing bill paying fashion and retail stuff. You're, you're writing, how does, how do you go from that to running this really successful, interesting online equestrian and nervous system thing? Yeah. How does it happen?

So being back in New Zealand, I, I did start to sort of play in the horse world again, although I didn't have my own horse to start with. And then when I met my husband, he, I was on the north island at that point. He was on the south island. And, I ended up moving down here and he, and we had some land together down here. And so, he said, do you wanna get a horse? And I said, I don't think you understand what that means.

And he was like, oh, yes, so do, and I was like, no, no. Like if I ha if I have horses, I horse like, I'm like, I, I'm not a casual horse. I'm like, I, so it's either I'm in or I, and he is like, oh, no, no, no. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I don't know that you, you really understand. And so clearly he didn't because we got a horse. And then that's led to me to where I am now.

So, but it was, it was beautiful, you know, in that like, this is, I guess where all of the different seeds start to merge. And the initial idea for it was that, I thought, okay, there are a lot of people struggling with, physical things to do with writing. And, with my background in like therapeutic yoga and like body stuff, I, dabbled with starting to help people from that perspective.

And then it became apparent to me through our conversations that a lot of what people were struggling with was like confidence and anxiety issues. And, and I had things to say about that, that were helpful to people, but they, I had never considered that to be something that would be like, it was so natural to me to talk about that stuff. And it was so. In me to talk about it, that it wasn't anything that I considered to be a skill.

Mm-hmm. Until I recognize that, oh, maybe I do have something to say that people would, would like to hear about. And so what mainly started was I started a Facebook page, and this was kind of in the early days of Facebook where I just blogged like I wrote every day. And I blogged about the things that to do with the mind and emotions and the body from the perspective of all the things that I've been studying and learning about. And people were really interested in it.

like I started to have a really solid following. I never sold anything for like years. I literally just wrote and put lots of free stuff out there. I just shared what I knew. And I, and I started to get a, a bit of a following off the back of that.

And I'd always studied, like, it was in the meantime I was studying like loads of different, like, mental skills and, and you know, like I've studied, I've done masters in hypnotherapy and like, and like loads, loads of different things, different psycho psychology studies and, Lots of different things kind of running in the background.

I actually started another university course in violence and trauma that when I got back from, the tsunami, how to cause it or how to recover from it, how to recover from it. But then I realized that, actually just at the time, that is something that I'd wished I'd continued on with. But being in the position I was at the time, I was one of the few people that was sort of working full-time and trying to study full-time and I just couldn't do it.

I had no support from outside, so it was like I just, I can't actually, live and, and eat and, and do this at the same time. So that, that fell away at that point. And it really did evolve from there when, when I had my first child, Flynn, so he's 12 this year. That was kind of the, the seed of like, like I think part of partially it was the seed of frustration that bore the actual business in its form that it is now in terms of like, I've lost my autonomy.

You know, my partner is working really, really long hours and is way a lot, and I'm completely reliant on other people to look after my baby if I wanna do anything that's like separate to me. So what can I do that will like, Feed this sort of intellectual energy that I have and creating Just by now, you're living in a remote part of the south island? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, having gone from this completely cosmopolitan life, now you are Yes. Yeah, yeah. Down there. Yeah. In but isolated.

Yeah. And so that's how it started. I, I started putting together like little packages for, for well writing initially, like continuing on with the blog that I'd started and then putting together little packages. And, at that stage, like anything internet wise was a very new endeavor. Like now memberships and stuff like that are so common that everyone has a membership at that point. I remember talking to a software person, him not even knowing what I was talking about.

He's like, oh, that's not a thing. You can't do that. It'll be, that would be like 20 million to like, create that. And I was like, oh, I have no money. Excellent. So, so everything started with zero money. Like I had no, no money. I had to do it all myself. If I wanted to figure it out, I needed to learn it and, or it needed to cost like only $5 and it was basically like my budget. And so I did, yeah, I'm, I'm sort of studying in the background all the way through.

I'm studying to get like a small amount of people to the point where, The first thing I offered was a bootcamp. I called it a bootcamp and it went for six months and I gave people content like at the start of each month. That was, that was specifically focusing on like confidence type things. And I remember thinking, oh my God, I am like, this is so much money. I think I charged them like a hundred dollars each, and there was maybe 15 people in it.

And I was like, this, I've made it like this is it. I've got like something coming in that just felt like this phenomenal achievement. And there was another really kind of cataclysmic moment where, all the way through I've had to teach myself. So I've always been doing like business courses or I'd look for someone that was doing something similar, in terms of a format that I thought was good, even if it was a completely unrelated topic.

And I just studied their thing to like look at their format. And so at one point I signed up for this business course and it was $800. It was 800 New Zealand dollars, which for me was like, this is outrageous. Like, and I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell my husband. I just put it on the credit card, put it on my credit card, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna put it on the credit card. And then, and because I've done this so deceitfully, I have to make it back by the end of it.

Like I have to make it back like that. There's no choice about that. And so, within the six weeks I did, I did, I created two. Different courses off the back of that one, which was COMPETIT focused and one which was confidence focused. And then that kind of led me to the membership, just through realizing what different people needed at different moments. So yeah. Now, confident Rider and Joy Ride are these known things and, you've got a following all over the world.

What would you say now it is that you do an offer, if you were to put it in your, not even the elevator pitch, but if you are, if you were to say more or less in a nutshell what it is you give people through this online, thing involving their nervous system now, what is it? So it's a movement based program and we are ultimately looking to create nervous system, adaptability.

So we're interested in, getting people into a position and a place where if we, we think of it technically, their brain and body are responding accurately to what's going on in their life. And for lots of people, they're not responding accurately. They're either in Groundhog Day situations, they're finding themselves overreacting or underreacting. And that, That shows up in writing, that shows up in life, that shows up mentally, physically, and emotionally.

And so, I look at biomechanics, but I look at it from a nervous system perspective, which is, which is quite a different lens to view it from than traditional biomechanics. We look at mindset and also, emotions within the template that the nervous system creates as well.

But I think that there's a slightly different flavor, also to what I offered that perhaps I haven't been so vocal about in the beginning, in that, I'm, I'm really fascinated by the body and I have so much reverence and respect for science and, everything that it offers us and have, you know, gone deeply down that rabbit hole and will continue to myself. However, there also has to be room for the mystical and the magical.

And I think that a lot of our conversations, while they're rooted in that scientific understanding, also allow space for, just what it means to be human and what it means to be, you know, a part of the world that we're in and the landscape that we're in. And, and to recognize that there is something bigger than us at play. So, you know, it's, it's all of those things. Does that make sense? This, this sounds like it goes far beyond helping people out with their confidence on horseback.

Yeah, the horses are such a gift in that they're, well firstly they give people a reason to look at things that might not be, comfortable, acceptable, quote unquote, or okay to look at without them. So for instance, you know, people may well recognize that they struggle with anxiety generally, or they're feeling like, gosh, is this kind of it as far as their life is concerned?

But they don't give themselves permission to really look at those things in isolation or they wouldn't go to someone to talk about them because that would be just kind of not something that they would ever do.

But if it relates to their riding or they can use their horse as like the thing outside of themselves, which is the conversation, Kickstarter, then it takes the pressure off them, it takes the spotlight off them, and it just provides a way in to have bigger conversations that, that just feel more possible. What would you say? That's what my experience has been.

Yeah. What would you say is the prevalent thing about the nervous system in the brain that you find yourself now helping people with the most? So I think that one of the gifts of the. The time that we're in is that this nervous system awareness, is becoming much more mainstream.

That it is, it's not uncommon, especially in the world that you are moving in and the world that I move in for people to have some kind of understanding about the nervous system, whereas that used to be like 10 or 20 years ago, like such a foreign idea to talk about. And I think that just in science in general, it's really like there's been huge leaps and, and evolutions in understanding that.

And so for me, what my work involves, which is not something that I see commonly talked about and or offered is this understanding, of the different motor reflex patterns that we move through when we're in the fight flight response. And so if we consider, as we go into our sympathetic system, there are these templates, if you like, that the body utilizers in order to fulfill the function of that nervous system state. So fight, flight, freeze.

And there's a couple of different statements say just for those, for those people who are not, move, Nervous system people. The sympathetic nervous system is the fight, flight, freeze, fight, flight nervous system. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So go on. Yeah. So within, within the fight flight nervous system, there are these different, reflex patterns, which are essentially structural or movement patterns.

That means that for any of us who move into a fight response for any of us that move into a flight response or a freeze response, there is a way that your body, moves itself a way that your body orients itself from the inside out, that is observable and, and, discernible in that like if, if RU or myself, whereas in a fight I can, I would be able to observe that by the way the structure of the body moves. So there's a template, that that creates.

And so alongside that physical template, and again, it, it, we do that in order to maximize the purpose of that particular, state. So for fight, I'm really wanting to maximize my force for flea. I'm wanting to maximize my acceleration, and so the body orients itself in order to fulfill that function. And this has been such a revelation to me because a lot of, what we see as dysfunction disease, disharmony in the body is the body operating more often than not from one of these.

Sympathetic patterns from one of these fight flight patterns. And the brain in and of itself, for a number of different reasons, has lost the capacity to move fluently between the different nervous system states, which is essentially, if I am, a human with adaptability and who isn't stuck on a particular channel, I'm able to flip in between any of the states, both fight, flight and parasympathetic.

So parasympathetic is like just optimal mode functioning, sort of normal, everyday functioning, being okay, Bethany being okay. And the survival nervous system is really only, designed for me being under physiological threat. So, for most of us, hopefully, who aren't in a position where we're under physiological threat in the day-to-day, there is no reason for us to be in our sympathetic nervous system. But many of us are living there and that creates different, problems for us on every level.

So would you say, would you say that, yeah. Would you say that the majority of people that you find that you're working with, despite the comfort of Western life, the physical comforts of Western life, are in fact for a multitude of reasons, basically living in their fight flight nervous systems? Yes. I would say that even when there is no elephant coming at them, Yes, exactly.

Yeah. There's like a, you know, a, a meme that goes around saying, you know, I want my, my nervous system to my fight flight nervous system to kick on in response to the tiger not reading the email sort of thing. And it's like, it's, it's true, right? Like, I think Why do you think, why do you think we're, we're all living in this fight flight freeze when we're not in war zone?

Because we have become 50 steps removed from our environment, we're no longer getting the amount of movement, novelty or sensory feedback that we would if we were part of a hunter gatherer type setting. And that starts to intimately affect how our nervous system is able to function and operate. So basically we're stressed because we're not living in the natural environment that our organism is programmed for.

Yeah. It's what has happened now is that, meeting our life needs and meeting our survival needs is a cognitive choice rather than a physical reality. So if I was part of a, a living situation where I was required to be in the world, and that that meant that I had to move, so I had to look after the people in my community. I had to go out and search for my food, I had to tend to my shelter. I had to like be in my environment as part of that reciprocal economy.

I'm always moving, I'm always my sensory system. My sensory nervous system is always getting stimulated. I'm always encountering novelty, which means that, my brain is always receiving information about my current reality. And now we're in a situation where movement has become a choice. And we are no longer required to be in the world, should we choose not to be. And so the amount, I mean, we could sit in our, sit in our rooms and order Uber each. Yes. Okay. Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. So that's the example that I use. You know, like I can, I can be in this office, I can order food, I can ring someone to come and fix the roof. I can get on Facebook and I could essentially sit in my chair. Perhaps I wouldn't be thriving, but I could stay here for decades and still live. That's completely possible. And so now, if we think of it, do the lesson to that. Yeah. Well, the, the, it's, it's even more than that.

It's like, if we use the example of a traumatic situation, if I go out and ride my horse or I just go out into the world and something happens to me that I register as upsetting to the point where I might label it as traumatic. If I sit in my office essentially, In order for that experience to have context in order for my brain to be able to contextualize it. As that happened yesterday, or that happened this morning, or that happened last year, I need to be constantly uploading new information.

I need to be constantly in the world. My sensory system needs to be bringing in new information to my brain. So my brain is not prioritizing or sitting front and center that experience. It's because I'm, I'm required to be out there. And so when that happens, things get contextualized. It's like I had that kind of shitty experience with that happen last year. Now what happens is that we have this unpleasant event.

We come and sit wherever it is, we are in our home and we don't go out, we don't engage our, our sensory system isn't getting stimulated. We're not moving in novel ways. And so it becomes the dominant process for the brain. It becomes the dominant pattern that isn't being challenged by any other information coming in. The, so basically the, the trauma doesn't get massaged out of us. We don't, we don't. We don't. Is that what you're saying?

That, that, that this, I'm gonna go back to this novel movement thing. Cause it, yeah. It's a novel thing to hear. It's still a novel term to me. Novel movement. I think. I think listeners would like to have that explained to them.

Is that basically what you're driving? Yeah. Is, is it alright for me to give a little background to it? Please. I think it's, without it, it's a little more difficult to understand. If you think of it in very simplistic terms, the brain is always looking to answer the question, are we safe? That's the baseline of, of any type of conversation that the brain is having with the environment.

And where relational creatures, meaning we're always looking to assess what it is, how it is we fit in this situation, in any situation that we come into. So the way that we do that is through sensory information. Sensory information comes into the brain. We have 19 different sensors that we're constantly feeling into the environment with, and it's coming into this place in our brain called the reticular activating system.

And the reticular activating system is using that information to answer that question, are we safe? The answer is either yes, no, or maybe right? So if it's yes, then what gets sent out is a motor pattern, which is a movement pattern, right? So sensory in motor pattern out movement, pattern out. That motor pattern can either be a parasympathetic pattern or a sympathetic pattern. It's either one of those two things.

If the brain says, yes, you are safe, then we create a new pattern that is based on matching the circumstance. So I create a whole new response based on what it is that I'm in, relationship with. And that's something I haven't experienced before because it's not a reflex, right? It's a new pattern that the brain creates. When I am, when the answer is no, then the brain chooses which of these reflex states are we gonna choose? Are we gonna put 'em in fight? Are we gonna put 'em in flight?

Are we gonna put 'em in freeze or collapse? Those, that's the template that it chooses. If it's maybe the brain always errs on the side of caution. And so we go into the sympathetic system, right, just as a, just in case policy. So that's it. Sensory information comes in, a movement pattern gets set out. The movement pattern is either parasympathetic or sympathetic. That's, that's the sort of the basis of it.

So in order for our sensory system to stay alive and remembering the sensory system is what the brain needs to make accurate decisions about the situation that it's in. In order for the sensory system to be alive, it needs to be constantly stimulated and it gets constantly stimulated through interactions with different experiences that capture our attention. We're always looking to be efficient. So basically the brains, as soon as something is no longer novel, it creates a pattern for it.

It creates an understanding for it, so it doesn't constantly have to process what it is that's going on. And so novelty is what keeps our sensory nervous system alive. Now, if you're constantly engaging in your environment, it's constantly novel because it's constantly changing. If you're constantly putting change, the wind changes, the ground underfoot changes. Yeah. Nothing is ever the same, even if you're treading the same path every day. Got it. It could be hard depending if it's right.

Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, and, and if you put your awareness on different parts of your body as you go through the world as well, that that's changing. Like, because your body's in constant change. And so what we have in traditional societies is a setup where, where, where, where our nervous system is supported for optimal function. And so when we get into modern day living, what we have now is if you ask any adult that, you know, I will safely say this.

The majority of them, I would say perhaps 10% will fall outside this window, will be able to tell you exactly what they do and how they do it over a given week. Like, they'll get up on Monday and maybe they'll go to the gym and then they'll go to go to work, and then they'll eat this lunch, and then they'll come home. They'll be like a predictable set of ways that they move their body. And most of the time they'll do that with headphones on, or they'll do that with some form of distraction.

So they're not even really present with what it is that they're doing in their environment. And so the brain has already recognized this is no longer novel, like there's no new sensory information coming in through this. And so we get stuck in these sort of set patterns which start to become predictable to the brain, and it's not being stimulated in any way. And then as well, because of modern living, what happens as we enter our fight flight nervous system is the sensory system gets turned off.

And so, and the reason for that is protective. So if someone punches me in the face, I don't wanna feel all the feelings because that limits my ability to respond in the moment. and if I'm in conservation of energy mode, for instance, which is like collapse essentially, it's sort of hibernation mode for humans. Or it's essential MAMs. Yeah, yeah. But you Yeah, exactly. You just, like, you, your, your sensory system is not, what's feeling into the world.

You're, you are essentially in, in literally introverted at that moment in time. And so, By design. We're not supposed to live in our sensory, our sympathetic or fight flight nervous system. We're supposed to be like flicking in and out of it. But now we have a lifestyle set up where people are in their, in their sympathetic nervous system and not coming out, they're not being stimulated to come out of it. So the sensory system is getting switched off.

But we talk about being dominantly parasympathetic, which for me, in my life situation, for instance, I'm not under physiological threat, so there's no need for me to be, except for every time you climb in the saddle, you just, kid yourself that you're not Yeah, yeah. True. But, but, you know, more than 50% of the time I would wanna be operating out of the parasympathetic.

That might be different if I'm on the front line in Afghanistan than it would be more appropriate for me to be operating for my sympathetic, more than 50% of the time. But I use movement-based, processes and a, a practice that really activates the sensory system. So it's all about reengaging the sensory nerves, habituating the sensory nerves to send signals to the brain again.

and when that happens, you start to release some of the patterns that have been held there in over different periods of time. And so essentially what what I'm working with is a, a brain mapping or a body mapping process, where we're updating the brain map. Cuz your brain map gets distorted when you are, In sympathetic for a long period of time. I've probably complicated things now by introducing that, but basically just using movement to activate the sensory system.

But basically it's based on the premise that, The body moves differently in parasympathetic and sympathetic system. the way that we start to activate sensory nerves is to bring awareness. I work with like a two point awareness process where we focus on two points in a specific part of the body and just observe what's happening. And that starts to activate the sensory system, which overall kicks back into the unconscious brain.

And then you start to habituate, habituate these sensory feedback loops. But basically it's just like a movement practice that's, that focuses on different body parts. So we're like mapping the body by going through different structural parts, noticing different points on the part of the body that we're focusing on with view to activating the sensory system in that area. And, and that overall starts to, kick the brain back into a different mode of functioning.

Yeah. Yeah. It also knows where all my organs are and all of those sorts of things. So that's part of my sensory motor map that's in my, in my brain. And when that sensory motor map is, accurate, so when it's, it's updated and the, the brain has accurate information about the different location landmarks of the body, it's able to accurately place me in relationship to my environment. And so that is through my sensory system.

I basically got a series of active sensory feedback loops that are feeling into the environment, giving my brain information so my brain can respond accurately. When we start to get into fight flight, more often than not that brain map starts to get distorted. It can get distorted through paying attention to sensation too much. So how I feel, the sensation that's in my body, that's separate to location. And when we have a distorted sensory motor map, the sensory system gets switched off.

And again, the brain's unable to accurately make decisions, and. And you experience this all the time. When you're in a place of like high anxiety, it's like you're no longer responding accurately, or you can see that in someone else. They just have this kind of complete discombobulated view of themselves in relationship to the world.

And so you don't actually have to, for, for as long as the brain has a few accu, few active sensory loops to go on, you can really start to change your experience of the world. And so we do that through this two point process, which is in line with activating these play cells and grid cells, which is just an awareness process. And the other thing is, everything that I talk about here might sound confusing. You don't need to know any of it in order for it to work.

Like you don't need to know how it works in order for it to work. It's kind of like the horse boy stuff. Like if you experience it, it doesn't matter why or how, like it's just, it, it will work because there's a way that the body responds to the process that allows that to be the case. And it's the same here. Like my process is I love to understand things and there are other people that love to understand things. So I lay out these processes as to this is why it works.

But the reality is if you come in and just do the practice, you can understand nothing and still get the benefits of it because it's just part of the physi physiological process.

No, I mean, I mean, that has been, when we talk about the pain aspect, I've definitely, like I'm completely pain free now.

But all of those types of words, were, were my interests to start with. And, one of the things about those things is that you're always behind the eight ball, right? You can only change a thought to a positive thought after you've already had the negative thought. And so you're always kind of chasing your tail a little bit there. But, the interesting thing is that, I realized the, that those skills and understandings had to shelf life.

As far as like, for some people they worked just sort of depended on the start, at the start point. And, and I got to a stage myself where I was having like a meltdown in the arena one day. That wasn't just in relationship to what was going on, it was more actually just a life circumstance at the time. This is at home Lone Horse in New Zealand. Yeah. And I remember thinking like, no, it was at a clinic. Even worse. I was at a clinic, with a public, with an audience, which is clinic.

Yeah. So you're at, you're at a horse training event and, and you are at, you're there as a horse trainer?

You know, I really wanted to do a good job and I felt like I wasn't doing a good job and there was just, I just put a lot of pressure on myself to be something other than what I was able to be in that moment. And that was what precipitated the, experience.

But afterwards, it created a whole change because I was like, well, if I can't do this based on all the things I teach and I live and breathe this stuff, then how can I expect someone else to do it that perhaps isn't doing 20% of the work that I do, or thinking about it the way that I think about it? How can I expect it to work? And so I had a crisis of sorts after that.

And then I went on a whole different exploration, which led me in the first instance to somatic experiencing, which is a lot of the work that's based, the of Peter Levine's. And he does a lot of, you know, nervous system, trauma based work. And I did loads and loads of study and loads of different workshops with, people who were his colleagues and or students. And the work that I'm teaching now was, Alicia was a guest speaker on one of those, workshops.

Okay. And I was there thinking, What is this? Like, this is so random. Like I just, I a and a little bit like your, your, your reaction to the, to the more therapeutic yoga after the hard yoga. Yeah, exactly. Like, it was like, but there was a part of me which was super curious, and I think that was the intuitive part that just was like, keep going. You know, like I had the little, like, you applied it to yourself, you've found something. Yeah. You've found something.

You need to like, investigate this further. And, a lot of the questions that I had had that had very loose answers that weren't satisfying to me, you know, and I think I'm in a fortunate position in that because I'm teaching things, I'm not just finding out things from a personal perspective. Loose answers don't hold because I'm gonna be questioned as well. So it's like, you need to be able to tell me what's going on here otherwise, because I need to know, right.

I need to know who this best suits, who this best fits.

Removing, yeah. And, and so, and, and a lot of meditation practices are for that as well, right? Ah, so like, it's about moving towards enlightenment. It's about moving towards emergence with the divine. Like in whatever way that manifests for you, it is body develop the system, in fact.

Yeah. And, and it used to be, it used to be a, got it aspirational to hear about like these advanced yogis, quote unquote, who would sit for 21 days and not have food, not need to go to the toilet, not need to drink, not have any sort of earthly desires. And you'd think, wow, that's amazing. And now I think, wow, that's dysfunctional. Like, that's like not normal for a body, right? And so I was starting to have a lot of different physical issues from yoga.

Like, you know, it's very common for women to lose their period. It's very common for people to develop, to develop different body dysmorphic. Syndromes or disorders. It's very common.

Or that if they were, they certainly it to themselves.

And so, For me, you know what I understand now about many of the practices is that they take people into collapse, which is the point, right? Like you've got, you're supposed to be at the end of your nervous system when you pass over. But the, the collapse feels better to a lot of people. A because now sensation is absent in the body, which feels safer. Most people equate any sort of feeling or sensation in the body with a degree of danger.

You feel more in control because now your conscious brain and your unconscious brain are more in alignment because again, you're not at war with your body. And so you feel like you have a semblance of control. And, that's kind of the, the, the two things that are most stand out. And you, you, you, you, you do lose like a desire because your body's just not in the place where it's robust enough to have it.

Because the, the, the self-protective mechanism of the body when it is in that advanced stage of nervous system, I don't wanna say degradation cause that's not the right word, but just of, of where it's sitting is to actually like, Create a degree of euphoria as a handholding mechanism basically. Pump you full of, pump you full of Gilbert with hormones to take you into a, a smooth transition. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's only supposed to happen at like six, for six weeks, right. When you're old. But now we're stuck in like 40 years in, in the collapse stage, you know, for, for, for some people. And so there's, there's this, this wear and tear that happens, but, okay.

Yeah. And you know, for me, with the yoga as well, and I, I'll, I don't know, I think I can speak for a wider audience when I say this, in that like a, aside from the body denial, that idea of like oneness with consciousness is also, somewhat of a relief for a lot of people who have. You know, cultural expectations and sometimes not great experiences around sex and relationship and, intimacy. And so it's a ticket out of that, right?

Like if it takes your away from ticket, your body, and that's, it's a ticket out of that to, to think, okay, well I don't, I just don't even have to deal with that. Now. I can be like, I can just be little old me merging with the universal consciousness, and I get to deny everything that feels uncomfortable in my body. I get to deny everything that feels uncomfortable emotionally. I get to deny, deny, deny, and just move towards this.

And because actually being in a body affirming, life-affirming practice is freaking hard, right? Because then you have to be in life. And life is hard sometimes.

Sometimes you recognize your situation needs to change or your relationship needs to change, or you are not actually doing something that fulfills you or this wasn't the choice that you would've liked to have made. And so you have to meet that. You have to meet that. And, and that's takes. Resilience. That takes courage, that takes, you know, a lot of what we're fed in the world at the moment. No, I'm gonna go to a cave and just meditate. Thanks very much. Really.

But really you can see that's an attractive option, right? Meeting the reality is not necessarily an attractive option, but I, I decided that like I would rather meet the reality in the full discomfort than be in the delusion.

And I think one of the missing pieces of information out there is that the, oh, I've just lost my train of thought, is that when we, when we think about, movement patterns, your movement is either rooted in your sympathetic nervous system or it's rooted in your parasympathetic nervous system. And so the movement patterns themselves are. The way that your body creates movement is basically, a product of where your nervous system is sitting.

And so for me, I was stuck in a dominant mode of functioning, if you think about it like that, like a dominantly sympathetic or fight flight mode of functioning. And the way that my body was achieving everyday activities like walking around, going up and down steps, like getting up and down off the couch was a fight flight action. The dominant, mode of functioning was fight flight.

And so even if my emotional framework didn't warrant a fight, flight response, the way that my movement was dominantly geared was in the fight flight system. So I was just firing off my nervous system every time I moved around.

So overall, because, my lu spine is working so hard and my cervical spine is working so hard, from such an early age, and we tend to be gifted the nervous system of our mothers and our primary caregivers, I was just creating so much compression and leverage in my body that it was resulting in, chronic pain. And so when I changed the underlying nervous system state and changed the way that my body was leveraging movement, I don't get the pain anymore.

And I told people, I was like, so you know how you've been working with me for like a really long time and we've been doing this stuff?

Yeah. And I, I took people a, i I gave people a chance. Of course, they didn't have to stay with me. And it was quite scary because Yeah, I bet, you know, I'm the breadwinner and I've created this successful thing, and now it's just so intolerable to me to not be in alignment with what I teach. I just could, once I knew something different and I was practicing something different, I'm like, I can't teach people any different to what I'm doing. Like I, that's just, it.

Just So there was no decision, like it was, well, I guess you were inviting 'em to go along with the evolution. Yes, but not, but nonetheless, that is, that is a brave step. Not everybody would, as you said. Yes. You know, some of the yoga people perhaps that you met were walking one talk and walking, one walking, and some things that I teach now are a complete 180 from what I was doing before.

Okay. And so, but I can say why and, and I think one of the advantages maybe that I have within my membership is that, this is an advantage or not. I've always been really honest. Like I'm just, I, I, I really see myself as adventuring with these, this group of incredible people. And I don't. Discount their opinion or their thoughts, or, it's not like my way or the highway. It's just like, this is, this is information. Right?

And one of the things that I've really learned about teaching, and I attempt to practice in life to varying with varying degrees of success, is that in order to be honest, you have to be willing to lose. So I was willing for everyone to leave me. I had to be willing for everyone to leave me in order to be able to present something new, because if I wasn't willing for people to leave, I wouldn't have done it. And so I was like, okay, I'm just gonna lay it all on the table.

And, I don't think hardly anyone left. Like, and then it took a while, there was a transition, but I'd already been practicing for a good period of time before I started teaching it. Because of course, there's a, and that was a really annoying part of the practice as well, because coming from someone who's like, okay, gimme the book. Give me all the shit. I'm gonna sit down for a weekend, and by Monday I'm gonna have this nailed, and then I'll teach it.

It wa it wasn't something that I could, think my way through this was a, an unconscious, like I had to have a, a resonance in my body and understanding in my body of the process before I could teach it. And so that required some practice on my part. And then I just said, right, okay, July, we're changing. You've got this amount of time. And I started to like cross pollinate conversations. So to bring in the material in conversation before we taught it.

And, and then, and then it took a while for people to get into. And, yeah.

And then there were multiple reboots where every time, this is just sort of observing the story from the outside, every time you had sort of achieved a certain thing in a certain area, whether it was being the good girl school, whether it was, the human rights work, whether it was getting a, a mastery of this certain aspect of yoga, and then say, actually no, it's this aspect of yoga. And then saying, no, actually I'm going back. I'm gonna work in retail, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna write.

And now I'm gonna build that. And what a confused individual. And meanwhile I'm gonna keep this writing thing going parallel. I've achieved a certain mastery sort of showing as a teen and young adult. But now moving away from that, I'm gonna move into this other aspect of horseman. You haven't really touched on that much, but I'd like to come back and do that in the next podcast.

What, what, what emerges is a picture of growth where it's almost like you see, you know, from seedling to sapling to, I'm not suggesting that you're a big mature wide tree, but you know what I mean, you know, mighty, mighty. But you know, that, that that this maturing process and is so, it, it brings into my mind is, is self, is self-actualization. In fact, to a large degree maturing and not maturing mean, you know, you use growing up, God forbid any of us ever do that.

And I wonder if the mighty yo, you know, considers itself to be grown up. Or it says, actually I still want to be a, I still want to be a big grown up tree one day, even though I'm now a hundred foot tall. And Yeah. is that what goes through trees minds? But the, it, it's really interesting to see, you know, people.

I'd like to come back this, I think that every, a lot of listeners will have questions like, well, how did you build the business and how did you, you know, what is the secret of success of an online thing? And I, and, and I, I'd like to invite people to send those questions and we'll have Jane back Gifting your spleen to the universe. That's right. And, and Jane, we'll explain these things to you and we will have another podcast in which you will send these very natural questions.

And, and Jane will tell you how to make billions on the internet. But that's not what you set out to do. That's, that's the interesting thing to me. You didn't sit down and say, okay, I'm gonna become this super successful online business showing people how to get back to their nervous systems in a way that's gonna improve their lives. It evolved out of a desire to share and write about that, which you knew, which you need to be helpful.

And then from there, you learned some online business skills, which again, yes. We, I, I, I, I think we should have you back and it would be great to hear how you did that. Cause I think that's useful for a lot of people. But nonetheless, that doesn't seem to be in the primary motivation. It seems that the primary motivation was simply the acquisition sharing of this knowledge. Would I be right in saying that?

And like I said, it was, I mean, it was a couple of years before I even considered that that was a, anything there was anything financially viable in that. I mean, that was kind of a shock to even consider that someone would find me useful in a way that they would actually wanna pay me. And that wasn't like a, a thought in the beginning.

And then, you know, the second thing out of that, just from a business perspective, cuz I kind of, well without downplaying other people's, experiences, I sort of chuckle to myself sometimes when people will email me and they'll like, now I've been doing this thing for three months now and I haven't made money. I was like, I work for five years without making any money.

Like, it's like without even, it's just, you know, this kind of, I think the, the internet breeds like an instant idea of being able to financially translate something into dollars, you know? and so not to say that that's gonna be other people's experience, but just to, it is, it is sort of difficult to, Yeah. To, to put a, I've forgotten the question that you asked me. I feel like I,

Like, I love to be able to go and I work really hard actually, but I decide I'm Pick yourself Jane, your your schedule is completely dictated by your kids. That's true. That's true. They're your bosses, but yeah, that's true. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which is why I've struggled so much in very much I know the feeling. Yes. Yeah.

Without that, you know, it, it's interesting, like, is somebody who makes an awful lot of money but without an element of service, without an element of sharing, without an element of, is that self-actualization? You know, that's, that's a question for the listeners. I, you know, I wonder, but it seems to me that the, you know, fulfillment must come with a feeling of satisfaction that you can't just get from dopamine. Haha, I got these zeros in my bank account. I got you.

Well, it, it's gotta come from something richer. Well, I think my work, everything about my work is there's a, it's reciprocal in nature. Mm. Like it's, I benefit in the best possible way from my work. I benefit from it not only in knowledge and I get to share that knowledge, which if anyone has ever taught anything, you know, that you really have to know something to teach it. Cuz that's shut to show up what you don't know when you start to explain it to someone else.

So there's a, you know, I've always launched myself into sharing knowledge, which has forced me to really understand what it is that I am. Sharing because, that process of like, you know, learn, do, teach, I, I, I activate very quickly. But beyond that, I, I have an incredible community of people that I work with. and I include my horses within that, and they save me many times. They save me.

You know, I, on tough days or hard days that we all have, I, I still show up and I feel different after I've taught than I do at the beginning. And that's because it's not just me, right? Like it's an energetic exchange and, I feel equally valued and hopefully they feel valued and loved and appreciated and respected, as part of the process as well. And I think that that's, you know, that kind of experience is not something that you would ever gain by just selling a product.

For me it's, you know, there's a couple of questions that I get asked, which is like, how do I get to do what you are doing? And I'm like, I've got no idea. Because so much of what I'm doing has been informed by my life experience. It's not so much just about like, sure, you can learn these things, you can study with these people and you can do that, but it's not quite just that. So I don't know.

You kind of, you have to do you, which is like the, You know, a, a bit of a hard statement to say, but as well, you know, there's also a idea of passive income and of like floating off on the island and that sort of thing. And on the one hand, some days that sounds very, very appealing. But actually, ultimately when it comes down to it, I'm not really interested in just like the, the, the success in whatever way that has manifested, I believe comes through the connection.

Having, seen your joy ride community in action, I was lucky enough to meet some of them. I can definitely attest to that. It seems an unusually mutually supportive, very incredible. Like, it's not like, you know, someone, someone going online to do multi-level marketing or something like that. Not necessarily anything wrong with that, but you know, you know why, you know why you're getting into that. You, I, I wanna go and I wouldn't sold these products in order to make money so I can get free.

And, but really what people are saying I feel, I feel when they're going into those things is, yes, I want to be free. I feel that the money will make me free. You have achieved that freedom and to a large degree that it, that is also financial money does give one of these choices.

Obviously you didn't start there, but I do wonder if, Those who are trying to go into an online business like yours with the idea of making money as the primary goal, even if they were to achieve that, would they feel self actualized? Would they feel,

Yeah. There's lots of other things that come into it, but, and I mean, maybe it's enough. Maybe it's enough to keep going. But for me, I, I mean, I don't even know how much money I earn. I've got no idea. I mean, I don't mean that to sound like I don't even know how much money I own. Like I have enough to like, but, but I don't, I don't look at the Yeah, I don't, it's not the, you're not keeping score.

No. And I guess that's a privilege because there must be enough coming in to not have to keep score to know that I can pay the bills each month, which is a thing. But yeah, it's not like, ooh, like it's, it's, it's just like I would keep doing it. Even if 10 people, five people, I, I dunno what else I would do. Like I, if someone said to me, you know, and, and occasionally you get used to this question like, what would you do if you won the lottery?

It's like, well actually, I'd, I'd be doing the same thing. I, I would be doing the same thing. I'd probably have an indoor arena and there would be a few tweaks, but, but you know, as far as like where my life energy is being invested, I would be doing the same thing. Yeah. Just with like a really, really freaking nice saddle or something else like that. But like, yeah, like, I'm not gonna deny things, but Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you, you're, you're doing that which you love.

It can be on the, how did you do it? It can be on the how, on the, what do you do? It could be on the, tell me more about that. Parasympathetic or sympathetic. Tell me more about those body maps. Jane, turned me onto a book. Is it The Body Has A Mind of Its Own? Yes, yes. About body maps and, brain maps, which even though I thought I knew quite a lot about the nervous system, I realized I didn't. And it was fascinating. And there's much, much, much more to learn.

And I think next time we come back, Jane, I want to talk to you in more detail about that because now we've sort of had your story. I'd like to go into more depth about this, with

We've never had it so good, really as a species, and yet we seem to have never been quite so unhappy. Yeah. Why is that?

And, to me, the essence of what I was attempting to escape from, I think with a lot of the yoga practices, just me personally, like, again, I don't wanna paint a brush, but like, is really common for people's experiences.

You know, like the, the, the struggles that we have with like ourselves, our relationship to ourselves, our relationship to others, our relationship to intimacy, our relationship to sexual expression, our relationship to passion, all of those things like really, all the difficult stuff. We separate them. Yeah, we separate them, but then they're, they're not separate.

And yet it's still kind of a little bit taboo when we talk about this type of, these types of conversations or just not as openly discussed or talked about. And so that's really interesting to me as well. I mean, I get lots of, get lots of, it's not quite the right word. I, I have the honor of working with a lot of women in my program that are.

In their seventies or in their sixties, and they got married very young and it's like they have one foot in a time where women's rights and expectations were very different. And another foot in this modern era where they recognize and see all these different opportunities around them. And, and perhaps they've changed and their husband hasn't or like, you know, and how to negotiate that.

All of the, when we talk about self-actualization, and I feel like there's a lot of people in this like transition point both in time and both physiologically and both mentally and emotionally. That means that they're kind of a little bit at war with themselves. And yeah, that being of a sort of inner schizophrenia almost. Yeah, this's just a really interesting point. I just wanted to throw that in there alongside the nervous system stuff and alongside the other stuff. Cause it's interesting.

yeah. So that, that would be amazing to hear from people.

Send your your questions to Jane, but do bother with me to send the questions so that I can ask them of Jane. So please send the questions, say, I've got these questions for Jane. How'd you do it? Blah, blah, blah. And then we can have her back and she can tell us. All right, Jane, thank you so much. Thank you so much. All right, see you next time. Okay, bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.

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