How Using Fear, Ego, Honesty and Our Animals Can Be Check Points with Your Intuition

I spoke with Gillian Larson on Jan 24, 2023 and we spoke about her adventures with her horses and how she works hard to discern fear versus intuition when she is on cross country trails for weeks and months at a time. Her awareness of her partners who travel with her is a whole other intuitive tool. It was interesting to see how important patterns were to staying in a good place.

Bio
Ever since she was a young child, Gillian Larson has been exploring the outdoors on
horseback. After graduating from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with a B.S. in biology, Gillian became the youngest person to solo thru-ride the Pacific Crest Trail, covering the 2650 miles from Mexico to Canada in 2014, then again in 2016. She rode the Arizona Trail and the Colorado Trail in 2017, then completed another Mexico-to-Canada route on the Continental Divide Trail in 2018—the first person to thru-ride the PCT and the CDT with the same two horses. Most recently, Gillian tackled a third thru-ride of the PCT in 2022, this time
with a rotating team of 4 horses and a mule, for a total of more than 13,500 back country miles. 
Also in 2022, Gillian received her M.A. in Agricultural Education at Cal Poly to become a better mentor and educator for aspiring back country riders. She provides private consultations and in-person workshops as well as online resources to facilitate sharing her knowledge and experience. Through her social media she has collaborated with brands and creators that inspire others to explore the outdoors and encourage women to embrace adventure and independence, and she also trains occasional client horses when time allows.
Gillian cultivates an ethos of equestrian travel that is modern and progressive, blending a love of the outdoors with respect and care for her equine partners. Her goal is to create accessible content that demystifies the skills needed to explore the backcountry with equines. She focuses on educating others about the many challenges of wilderness equestrian travel while continuing to push the boundaries of long-distance riding and helping to modernize traditional packing techniques. She currently lives on a ranch in California’s central coast along with her expanding
herd of seven horses and a mule.
Visit www.gillianlarson.net for more information, or find her on Instagram at @thru_rider.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Sears Beers, knowers and Doers. A podcast about intuition. Do you know what that is? Intuition to me is that inner sense for knowing that something is true. And yet I have no proof. But there's so many definitions and there's so many ways it can come. I'm looking to bring together and share with you some amazing guests. You have some amazing life stories and also some insights into how intuition can come, and I'm looking to gather those crows in the trees. I hope you're one of them. I hope that this podcast inspires you to be more connected to your intuition and I hope that by doing that we make the world a better place. Thanks for coming on this journey with me.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Before we get started today, I would love to share some tools with you to help with stress and feeling overwhelmed, especially for the energetically sensitive person. Feel free to go to my store on my website@www.healingvitality.ca. Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me.

Speaker 3: 1:11

So I'm super excited today because I have the opportunity to connect with somebody who one of my other podcast guests put on my radar screen. Don Dio said, Hey, you two need to meet and now we've got together. And I'm really excited to share her with the rest of the world cuz I think there's some cool stories to be shared and people need to hear them. I think that's my sense of today. So thank you so much Jillian Larson for joining me and I'm gonna dump that big question on you and say tell us about yourself.

Speaker 4: 1:45

Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so my name is Gillian Larson and I grew up in the greater LA area, not too far from like Malibu, Santa Monica. You know, it was a not very normal horse, probably experience for most people, but I was lucky the area we lived in was kind of a stoned throw from a state park. So grew up with a lot of trail riding and my mom was a very, very supportive mom. You know, did the whole, got me a PO when I was a little kid. Got me a first horse and was very supportive of me going out on a ride exploring the state park. And once I, you know, went to undergrad and got my degree and was, I took my horses, me to college of course like any horse obsessed girls that tried to do as I was graduating from my undergraduate degree and getting ready for a a grad program, you know, kind of had that logging of wanting something bigger so of an adventure, you know, something to mark the interlude between continuing on and school and was just feeling pretty burnt out. I think my regular life was definitely starting to feel like I was struggling with some mental health, you know, depression. And that felt like I really just, I needed something to look forward to to push me just outside of my normal box. And the summer before I graduated I was out backpacking with my mom for three days and backpacking is a very generous term. We were going out to high Sierra camp, so you like hike in like 11 ish mile and then there's a kind of cabin situation like wall tents and they feed you and there's even showers, rustic showers. The showers. Nonetheless all you bring in is your clothes. So this isn't real, real backpacking. I was very novice in the outdoors to say the least. I had like never even boiled water in the back country. But anyhow, while my mom and I are hiking out there, she tells me about an article she had read in the LA Times about a woman who had just set like the speed record for hiking from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. And that was absolutely incredibly here. But the part that was truly mind blowing to me was the fact that there was such a thing. Like there was a trail that went from Mexico to Canada and it was just kind of that light bulb moment of that is exactly what I want to do, you know, during this kind of time that I'll have off from any other obligation. And so I kind of was definitely a dog's phone and set out wanting to do that. And it was an incredible learning curve. Uh, definitely learned by doing type of thing. I was, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I was out there, but managed to get through it. A thought that it was a one and done kind of event in my life. Um, but once I was sitting in grad school, you know, in that first semester just was really then struggling with not feeling like that I had any fire left for that pursuit in life and was just deeply unhappy. And starting to then realize that even on like my worst days on my trail ride, uh, out there with my horses, you know, when I can't feel my toes and I'm hungry and cold and scared, even on those worst days I wanted to be out there way, way more than my best days in my current grad program. Mm. And that was definitely that realization moment that like some big changes had to be made and I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I was going to continue to try to get out in the back country as much as possible. So stuck it out for a little while in grad school to save up some money and then did another Mexico to Canada ride in 2016 again on the Pacific Crest Trail. Uh, 2017 I rode the Arizona Trail across the state of Arizona and the Colorado Trail, which goes from like Durango to Denver. And then in 2018 I did another Mexico to Canada ride this time on the Continental Divide Trail 2019 road from the Grand Canyon to like the Wyoming border. And then also did the John Muir Trail that year and then took some time off because I had a, the tragic loss of my like main riding horse shilah. She was the one that had done all these trips. Um, and she passed with like a, an expected aneurism. Oh. And so kind of then had just build up again from the ground up. But just recently with some of my newer horses and Shils son who I've had for over 15 years, we did our fourth Mexico to Canada ride this year again on the Pacific Crush Trail because that trail is definitely my first love and has a very special place to my heart. So I can't seem to stay away from it for too long. Mm. And yeah, I think, uh, there we go. That that summarizes everything pretty well I think for what I've been up to.

Speaker 3: 6:44

Okay, well, well, well that's, that's kind of like staring at blue sky with clouds and for those of us who don't know what all is involved in that level of trip because you know, there's trail riding where you're sitting in on a horse who's on automatic drive cuz they're doing the same trail and people have paid their$20 to get on the back of a horse who've never been on the back of a horse. And so the horses know they're their trail like the back of their hand cuz it's the only trail they do. I would say that would be the exposure a lot of people have exposure to. And this isn't a podcast just for horse people, but a third of the podcasts probably are about horse people. Cuz I think horses and humans are actually, horses are the educated ones in how to have relationships and they teach us about relationships. And I think

Speaker 4: 7:44

Most

Speaker 3: 7:44

Definitely, I think that anything that goes on between a horse and human can be translated to kids or workers or coworkers or bosses or whatever. So all that to say, I think there's a little bit more you can share with us<laugh><laugh>, um, just saying, you know, like it's one thing.

Speaker 4: 8:04

Yes. That was, that was definitely the

Speaker 3: 8:05

Uh, intro. That was the two minute highlight

Speaker 4: 8:07

Intro

Speaker 3: 8:07

Version.

Speaker 4: 8:08

Yeah. It's the quick and dirty.

Speaker 3: 8:09

Quick and dirty. Which I appreciate cuz I mean really that<laugh> that does give people the highlights of who the heck you are. But let's like, so I mean horses are flight animals and you're going into what would be back country, which would to me means that it's not a carved trail that thousands of horses ride together on you. I'm assuming you didn't have a lot of company on these trips. I'm assuming they were like meditative for like days on end. Like I don't even know how many days that would take to ride a horse. I know it takes days to drive<laugh> at that distance, so I don't even know how like the start to finish. How many days would the your favorite trail be? The continental just for perspective?

Speaker 4: 9:00

Both the me or all, all of the Mexico to Canada ride take about like five, five months usually. Right. I take okay a couple weeks off maybe throughout the entire trip, you know, to give them breaks here and there actual like riding days, if I never took week off here and there, maybe we could do it in like four and a half months, but five months is more comfortable and for some trails, you know, it might be more like five and a half from, you know, when we stop and then maybe I'll give them, you know, two weeks off here and there. Cause it's nice to be able to give them downtime. I basically try honestly to take as long as I possibly can so I'm not trying to rush through it. I really have to do it within, under a six month window just because of how the snow weather, uh, melts in the mountains. Yeah. Cause yeah, the routes in a very high elevation. And so even like in Southern California, within the first 200 miles you're gonna be hitting impassable amounts of snow or like iced over trail that you can't go through until it's, you know, melted out in the later spring mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So you have this window between like mid-April and, you know, mid-October, early October to get everything done. So you have to, you have to move pretty fast. Like that usually means that we're averaging like 25 mile days. Okay. Um, 20, if you factor in our rest days and stuff, we're still usually averaging about 20 miles a day. Okay. So it, it, yeah, it's quite a lot. We definitely usually hit like a hundred to 150 miles a week. Okay. Um, and

Speaker 3: 10:34

Now for those

Speaker 4: 10:35

Months that out there,

Speaker 3: 10:37

So you're, you're riding into towns, you're prearranging stabling, you're sleeping under a tent with your horse tied to a tree. Like seriously<laugh>. Yeah. What are you doing?

Speaker 4: 10:49

And I wish we were riding into towns. We're not even honestly riding into towns. I think the Pacific Crush Trail like actually only goes in like riding distance of about maybe four towns. Like there's not too many towns that you could actually just ride into. Most of the towns, you know, you just cross kind of a, a part of a highway somewhere that's miles and miles away from any sort of town. Um, and so you have to kind of, you know, figure out how you're gonna resupply. For me, that's always meant that I have a vehicle somewhere on the trail. Um, either I'm like moving the rig myself and kind of limping it along, um, on my days off or like drive it ahead and hitchhike back to the horses. That's kinda what I did originally. Um, obviously not a huge fan of the having to hitchhike part. So I kind of evolved the resupply strategy to have like two rigs that I would have on trail and I'd ride from rig to rig over like four or five days, be able to resupply as needed that way. And then most recently my mom retired in 2021 and so she was able to come on this most recent Mexico to Canada ride and meet me regularly to resupply me. Okay. So yeah, every resupply strategy has been a little bit different as I've just grown and life circumstances have changed. Yeah. But yeah, there has to usually be some sort of methodical resupply strategy that is, you know, that you, that you really is like kind of the backbone of how you then plan the rest of your trip. Right. Cause obviously it's so resource dependent, you know? Yeah. Other ways that, you know, I've done some other trips is, you know, or parts of a trail, it's maybe if there's a lot of pack stations like in the High Sierra, I'll go there on my own ahead of time and I'll drop off resupply at pack station and then when I ride through I can pick up my resupply in some places you could get away with doing something like that and then other stretches Okay. It becomes just a bit easier somehow you can have a little bit more control over it. It's always a little nerve-wracking if you're kind of trying to rely on, you know, sticking foot schedule and meeting up with people to bring you a resupply or something. Right. Just because then that kind of puts the deadline on you, which mother nature loves to not work on. Right. Your timeline and loves throw curve balls. So yeah, I learned pretty early on that like, it just became another stressor if I was having to try to like, you know, stick to a meetup schedule with someone. You know, I've done it once in a while and sometimes it's very stressful. I know one time I got food poisoning and I still had to meet up with my mom who had a flight to catch. Ooh. And so I had to meet her and you know, it was that or I was gonna be in some serious trouble and so I had to ride like 90 miles and 50 hours while still like not able to keep food down. It was awful. So things like that are not fun. Not why like try to control my own resupply situation when I can<laugh>.

Speaker 3: 13:58

Yes. Wow. So I'm gonna suggest that you actually in, I don't know, let's see, 2000 16, 8, 7 years, you've become kind of the expert on these trails and actually help can help other people with their strategy<laugh>. Is this true?

Speaker 4: 14:15

Yeah. Yeah. I definitely, definitely have become somewhat of a odd, it's not odd thing to expertise in, but yet, so especially when it comes to like the logistics or the planning side of things. Yeah. Um, I've gotten pretty good at it because I've had to do it in the, in a lot of different ways. Either completely on my own or with help from the com local communities or from help from my mom. I've kind of, I've tried it all out. So yeah, I've, I feel like I've gotten pretty good experience with helping people. So usually I can help them, you know, figure out what their resources are that are at their disposal and then best help them to, to plan out logistically arrive. Cause sometimes too, people will have a family member that can come out for two weeks to help them somewhere and they'll be like, where would it be most helpful for me to have my family member come out and help me? And I could tell them this would be the place where it'd be really great to have some help or, you know, this section you can probably do without any support. Like the grazing is good enough. You don't have to resupply as often you can rely on grazing to feed your horses here. So there's definitely even just that side of things, kind of understanding the terrain and understanding how to juggle a lot at one time and help people kind of like plan. Cause I could not, my first ride was completely off the cuff basically. I remember sitting down with a bunch of my mats and staring at like the first 200 miles betrayal for a couple weeks and feeling like I just couldn't, couldn't like hold it in my head. Basically just felt like this almost like esoteric thing that I was just like, I can't quite grasp it. I can't quite picture what I'm gonna be doing, how this is all gonna come together. Like what it's even like out there. Like it was very much even as, you know, someone that had ridden casually a lot of trails and like state parks and things. Doing something like that was still like, just outside of my ability to understand, which was almost somewhat of an advantage. It wasn't an advantage when it came to planning cause that just didn't happen. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. But it at least kept me very open-minded once I got out on trail to be able to kind of have ego to the side and just, you know, if something wasn't working, I was very quick to then, you know, just to, to everything out the window and start again from scratch. You know, be like, okay, this nutrition regimen isn't ordering for my horses. You know, they're, they're like slowly losing weight and understanding that that would not be successful. If they are starting to, to lose some weight in the first couple hundred miles, we're never gonna make it thousands of miles, so. Right, right. All right. You know, we had to try something new. I think that was, you know, it was obviously what my biggest weakness was being so inexperienced, but there was also some positive to that in that it definitely made me very unafraid to admit that I knew nothing and tried as much as possible to pay attention to my horses and let them tell me what they needed. And sometimes that was one of the harder parts is everyone has an opinion. And especially when you are freely admitting that you are a novice, people can then try to kind of be very heavy handed with giving you advice even if they themselves do not know what you are doing or have any experience doing it. I ran into that a lot where older cowboys or endurance riders or some other niche that felt that they knew what I was doing with my horses within, tried to heavily kind of like put me in a box of what I needed to do and that it would then work out. And having that kind of like instinct of like, I don't think that that's quite, not quite the same and you know, then having to balance that influx of advice from people with the feedbacks and my horses are giving me of, yes, this is working, no, this isn't. And you know, it's, it was definitely an exercise in learning how to listen and get advice from people, but also then how to respectfully like, like still listen to my horse above them and, you know, filter through what was actually needed. So that was a big, I would say one of the, a very large part of my first ride was feeling a little stressed out about that side of things and being only 22. And I've never been a, uh, a very like loud in your face kind of like confident person. I'm very, was very reserved, was very willing to just let people tell me how much more they knew and felt that they did know more than me. And then it was only as I started trying to sometimes take their advice and so I ever was not listening to my horse then, you know, things were, were not going as well as they could happen. Anytime I ever like just went kind of with that, that deeper instinct of like, my horse is telling me that this is like not, this is not working for them. And would just kind of follow that and let that lead the way. Then that was always when we were having our most, like our biggest wins, so to speak. So that was a, that was a very big thing I think for my relationship with my forces was kind of really having to learn how to even more deeply listen to them. And then obviously just a lot of two-way trust involved with trying to just get through the today's mileage and camp together. It was, it was a big, big, uh, council exercise for us.

Speaker 3: 19:53

Well, and it's interesting because that dynamic at your age, you would've had your horses counsel as you rode away from the conversation. I'm curious, when you say listening to your horse, what does that feel like, look like since like, like describe that if you can, what that is for you. I

Speaker 4: 20:14

Think that's a, yeah, no, that's a very good question. How would I word it? I think, I think the biggest thing when I think of like listening to my horse is just remaining kind of open-minded to try new things and being really honest with yourself if what your, if your horse is happy, if you're so, especially on trail. For me, I noticed that my horses seemed, you know, the most fried in Turkey the next morning if they got like a good rest in camp. So prioritizing them, being really comfortable and relaxed in camp has always been a big thing for me. You know, making sure they're warm and fed and are able to lay down and rest their bodies or kind of what they need to. Just like us, we are shivering all night long, you know, we're not gonna feel rested the next day or if we're hungry or if we're sleep deprived. And so, you know, that same thing with the horses and, and I think just always trying to kind of like lean into that of just being open-minded and really thinking about it from their perspective or honestly taking in their feedback of like, I am happy, I am not happy. My body hurts, my body feels great. And then just taking that bare minimum kind of feedback and really sitting with it and then setting aside what maybe biases or preconceived ideas that I have and really just being open to the feedback that I'm getting. I think sometimes we decide this always worked and then if we're kind of starting to get feedback from our horses that it's not working under these circumstances, we're sometimes resistant to then changing and knowledge in the fact that what we are doing and the decisions we're making is maybe not working anymore or with this particular horse or under these new circumstances. And so I think especially when it comes to like long distance riding or riding in the back country, that that's been one of my bigger strengths is, and I had to do it when I got a bunch of new horses after the passing of my main mayor was I have all these new horses and they definitely don't necessarily have the same burning fire that my main mayor had. And I've had to learn how to be more of a supportive leader. Some of my new horses and some of my horses need very different things and you know, they can't camp the same way and camp or they need a different food regimen for keeping their bodies healthy or they just don't like the taste of some foods. And so I've had always kind of just like watch and listen to my horses and you know, it's kind of that pit in your stomach too. Like if you don't feel good, like you, you have that like little voice in your head that's almost like a little bit guilty. Like, uh, I'm out here doing this and I don't feel like my horse is liking it as much as I am. And at least two when I was a big gift from my main mayor was she loved going out in the back country and doing these long distance rides and even after like horrible days, oh she would be so like bright-eyed and bushy tail the next morning, like, let's go. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And that kind of like set that benchmark for me of like, I want my horses to always feel good on trail mm-hmm.<affirmative> and I don't kind of settle for them being a bit more muted or having their light dull. So I'm always trying to make sure that they have this light and energy to them. And if I see something that's not not happening, then I have to really evaluate what I'm doing or how can I better meet their needs where they having some problems. So I think that's been a big thing is just being able to be critical of your own leadership and maybe the way you're going about things. And if you are maybe kind of afraid to try something new or you think that you know best and maybe you're not then open to kind of some honest feedback that the horses are giving you. That's, I think the biggest thing is just really trying to strive for happy healthy horses. They're very simple creatures in the end. They're highly emotionally complex, but it doesn't take too, too much for them to be their best selves. And so once you kind of realize that and you can kind of just listen to that honest fe feedback that they're giving you, um, I think that's, that's the biggest key. And they, they do a very good job of teaching us how to pick up on the little things and pick up on things like mm-hmm.<affirmative> mood and energy and you know, how they're feeling emotionally. And then learning how that is affected by things like physical health and mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, how we can then meet those needs for them. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3: 24:50

<affirmative>. Totally. Oh yeah, I, I like the description of simple, highly emotional creatures. A lot of people don't even think of them as being emotional creatures and it's like, okay, that's where you are. Yeah. They, that's,

Speaker 4: 25:01

Yeah they definitely are. It's amazing too. Totally. My, my geldings, he has like a sore foot. He will, it's like it affects his entire outlook on life. Yeah. And he won't eat as well in camp. He won't, you know, do certain things and have to like really make sure that he is feeling a hundred percent. Otherwise he just, he'll like fall apart out there. Yeah. And then of course I have other animals like my mule that seem like physically indestructible and she's pretty, pretty darn used to keep, keep happy as long as she has like a buddy. Like she can eat almost anything. She's comfortable almost anywhere, but she wants like an equine companion. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, so I don't take her out alone on trails. I'm hoping we'll eventually deepen enough of a relationship that maybe a decade down the line will be able to go out on like overnights just the two of us. But for her that's like the, the big thing that she needs. Whereas oh all of my other horses, I can take them alone on overnights and some are more comfortable than others but they're all capable of doing it and they all heavily rely on then like me and Bear's relationship then I have to put in a lot more effort to emotionally support them when it's just the two of us. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. But for my mul, that's still like a hard, hard no<laugh> Yeah. Of it being, you know, no other equine out there. She's very like herd driven. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. So there's just certain accommodations too that you have to make or certain things that you have to know that your horse isn't ready for and adjustments accordingly too.

Speaker 3: 26:30

Well and that paying attention<laugh> is a form of intuition. So I'm gonna shift gears cuz you've, you've talked about things very matter of factly because it's a matter of fact of life and death likely on these trails with your horses and there's probably nuances that um,<laugh> because you have to watch all the nuances of your horse. So I'm gonna shift, I'm gonna shift gears and ask you how do you get your intuition?

Speaker 4: 27:01

Yeah, intuition is definitely always a thing. It's for sure, especially when traveling alone cause you don't have, you know, a whole lot of feedback. I'm always taking in my horses' feedback on things. But there's, you know, and I think I've, the biggest struggle for me with intuition has been kind of, you know, is it intuition that I'm hearing or is it fear<laugh>? Mm-hmm<affirmative>. I think that's where I have the biggest difficulty is distinguishing between the two. And is my stomach bit of anxiety about what's ahead or not knowing. Cause there's a lot of just not knowing what's coming down the trail at you. And especially when I'm going to areas where there's gonna be like really rough terrain and maybe some leftover snow or there's been a lack of maintenance on the trail. I can feel kind of that pit in my stomach and be like, you know, I definitely really have to spend sometimes a lot of time with sitting with myself it with is this pit in my stomach from fear? Is it from the kind of knowing that I should maybe be trying something else? So yeah, I would say that's some something, especially long distance back comes to riding on these through rides that is always trying to understand within myself is, you know, is it fear, is it intuition? Is it intuition that I'm trying to tell myself is fear because I'm a little bit of ego in it and I want to go complete this ride and go over through this area. Whatever it is, that's been a huge thing to have to learn and you know, you know, in the end too, it's come down to again, really trying to be honest with myself takes a while of I think self honesty to try to piece apart what you're feeling and where it's coming from. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And I think I try to be honest with myself about whether I am being selfish or whether I have, you know, ego that's maybe being too highly prioritized in a situation. And then I, I think the easiest way for me to let go of that is to kind of detach myself and again, just think about my horses and kind of look at it objectively of how can I go through this situation and put like the horses kind of first or make sure that I am not putting them last. You know, even if it's something that doesn't mean, you know, like, oh I'm worried about this section, I guess I shouldn't do it because things might go wrong. You know, I try not to talk myself out of things because of the what ifs, but more, you know, alright, if my gut is worried about this section or I'm having these anxieties, what could kind of safety nets or plan Bs fees Ds can I have in place that will then make sure that if things don't go the way I'm expecting or if I do hit some possible optical, nothing for the worst happens to my horses, that might mean making sure that, you know, really typical section of trail that I have like all of my kind of like exit trails scoped out and I know, all right, we get to this point and it's not looking good at this point I'll turn around and go back. Or you know, just having kind of these like hard truths to myself of all right, this has to be like your no-go point. You are not feeling good at this point. Things aren't going well at this point if you're running low on supplies cuz you're getting slowed down by obstacles. You know, there has to be some sort of like honest truth. And I think that's where my intuition has been the most helpful is I've learned that I really do like going and seeing things for myself and especially with the right horse. Like I've gotten good about understanding what horses I will go tackle difficult things with and what forces I will not<laugh>. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, some of my horses, you know, are much more reactive based. They're a lot more fearful or they aren't as comfortable. They almost are a little more claustrophobic, which is a common thing mm-hmm.<affirmative> With a big prey animal, you know. Yeah. They, they sometimes if you're asking'em to go over a lot of fallen trees and they're having to jump from here to here, but then they have to like hit the landing just right and then they gotta stay there and wait for your next direction. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> that can really trigger a lot of anxiety in certain horses mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And so knowing that I will not, you know, subject a horse that's gonna be feeling emotionally in distress, uh, through that kind of stuff is a big thing. You'd be like, okay, I, I feel like I can tackle these sorts of things with this particular horse. I think that's been probably where my in intuition is strongest, is understanding my horses and what I feel comfortable asking them to do and which horses I will take through certain areas of trail. And that's I think where my intuition's great. And then my biggest weakness, like I said, is probably trying to understand when it's my intuition that's talking to me and when it's like my fear and anxiety and then how to kind of use the two to help each other sort of mm-hmm.<affirmative> or at least keep my intuition, allow it to kind of dissipate some my fear or more detached way, analyze where that fear is coming from and then like what sort of backup put in place that will make the situation safer and help me hear more of my intuition and less of that fear the back of my head.

Speaker 3: 32:17

Right. Right, right, right. I would assume that it's a bit of a, uh, balancing act. I mean, what you're describing as far as distinguishing fear and intuition is a main topic for many people on the planet because of literally that gut feeling that creates like stranger danger or, or just danger or whatever the case may be is and if people are, are prone to having that trajectory of fear or, or trauma triggers or whatever words you wanna put on it, it sounds like you bring yourself into an objective place of presence. Like your objectivity is your place of presence. Is that a good assessment?

Speaker 4: 33:06

That's a great way to put it, yes. Okay. Yeah. I don't know if I could have articulated it that way, but you saying it, I'm like, yes, that is, I I do try to heavily use rationale when I'm worried that my fear is kind of like getting the upper hand on me.

Speaker 3: 33:22

Yeah. Cool. Cause I think,

Speaker 4: 33:23

I think, and, and, and like you said too about like intuition, I think too when it comes out of the blue mm-hmm. Like when I'm just kind of minding my own business and then suddenly you get that, like, that feeling or whatever, you know, the pit your stomach or you see someone and you get like, you know, normally you're totally fine seeing strangers and then sitting out of the blue you just have an odd feeling. But that's been really easy to distinguish for me at least is intuition. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> where it's like, alright, you know that I don't normally feel this way. Like I better really, you know, that's my intuition talking. Whereas I know myself and I know there's certain things where like I'll be anxious about them or I'll know that like it's something that's makes me anxious and so then it becomes something I'll spend a lot more time trying to nitpick. But yeah, when it just comes outta the blue and it's something I'm, I don't normally respond that way, then it's more of like, all right, this is probably not fear, this is intuition. So there's also that side of things too, like knowing Sure what's pattern<laugh> and what you are typically afraid or anxious about, and then knowing when it's out kind of uncharacteristic for you. And that might be more the intuition side of things cooking in.

Speaker 3: 34:26

Right. Right. And, uh, you bring up the word pattern and I was gonna mention that for people we're listening because patterns can be a way that we can figure out that discernment by mm-hmm.<affirmative> figuring out what our triggers are. And so your your ability to see the patterns of each horse and how they respond in different environments and know, know what happy looks like for each one is actually also using an assessment pattern to run your intuition up against and go like, well, I'm seeing a nuance there and it's not matching the pattern. Is this something I need to worry about or not? And so you go into your rationale, but it's actually your presence that is creating mm-hmm.<affirmative> your ability for your intuition to pick up on whether this is something you need to pay attention to or not. Like it, it's just interesting to hear your description and so I'm, I'm trying to reframe it to see if I've got it right. Yeah,

Speaker 4: 35:19

I think you're hitting it completely.

Speaker 3: 35:21

Okay. So that other people

Speaker 4: 35:22

Know that are like vocabulary for it than I do. I'm just kinda like, this is sort of what I'm trying to, you know, but I don't have always put that many words to, cause it's all just in my head

Speaker 3: 35:31

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 4: 35:33

Words to it. It's, it's always like a newest exercise for me.

Speaker 3: 35:35

Totally. And I mean, I mean, you're, you're spending five months alone with your horse on a trail like, like intuition. You're just directly connected to surv to, to that ultimate survival piece in the moment with your horses all the time. And so all I'm doing is so that listeners can also see themselves in what you are expressing, whether it's with people or whether it's in their job or whatever the case may be. So I, I am so grateful for the fact that you have given such a clear picture of, of your experiences on these trails and, and yeah.

Speaker 4: 36:14

But, but within my context, yeah,

Speaker 3: 36:16

Totally.

Speaker 4: 36:17

You're doing, you're doing a very good job of bringing it out into a more generalized, relatable context.

Speaker 3: 36:23

I think we can all sort of relate to the context of having to get feedback from our absolutely dogs, from our, from, from the people that we're also walking with on a trail or, or in work with, like being able to capture that data<laugh> and grab mm-hmm.<affirmative> an intuitive hit from it, I think is, I mean that's probably what's kept you alive on all these different<laugh> trails. Like, holy cow girl. Oh man, this has been fantastic. Like, I am so grateful that you've taken the time to share with us, and I think that there's an opportunity to, to dive a little bit deeper into some, some more stories about like very specific things with different horses and whatever in another podcast because I, I just feel like we've scraped a surface here and I, I'm cognizant of time and, and, uh, I, I do know that you can't spend half a year on a horse in the wilderness and not have some pretty good stories to share. So

Speaker 4: 37:26

That's for sure

Speaker 3: 37:27

<laugh>. Okay.

Speaker 4: 37:28

Sounds great. Heather, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3: 37:31

Thank you for saying yes.

Speaker 4: 37:33

No, it's been a great convo. It's been nice to like have someone kind of ask things a little differently sometimes I feel like the podcasts I've done, it's kind of a rehashing of the same things and they ask the same questions and it's nice to happen to something a little different.

Speaker 3: 37:48

Oh, wow. We try. All right. Until next time.

Speaker 1: 37:54

Thank you so much for giving us your time today. We truly appreciate our guests for sharing their stories and insights about how intuition has impacted their lives. And I'm so grateful for Peter Trainor for his time in giving me this original music. It's now your turn. It's your turn to listen and act on your own intuition and help make the world a better place. Until next time, keep seeing, being, knowing, and doing. If you like this podcast, please share it. If you want to find others like it, go to www.healingvitality.ca or wherever you would find your podcasts. We would love to have you join us on this journey. Come be a crow sitting in the tree, be part of our community.