The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
Welcome to the Emotional Alchemy Podcast where safety is medicine, connection is never automated and everything is relational.
The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
126. Healing Burnout With Authenticity and Boundaries with Equestrian Coach Lockie Phillips
We all know that burnout sneaks up on us when we are overdoing. But have you considered the burnout of living an inauthentic life? This is quite honestly one of my favorite episodes I have recorded on this podcast and I'm thrilled I got to have it with my friend Lockie Phillips who is a horse trainer, equestrian coach and horse dad.
As two humans who are recovering from and developing awareness around burnout ourselves, we delve into the raw nuances of burnout and it's correlation to our drive to belong. We share our personal struggles with recurring burnout, shedding light on the essence of working in seasons, the harmony between spirituality and practicality, and the delicate balance of accountability and space in our lives and businesses.
Towards the end, we talk about empowering clients to become their own problem solvers, the challenges faced by service providers, and the importance of self-care in creating a sustainable lifestyle. With Lockie's discerning presence, we navigate through these complexities and offer insights on dealing with burnout in a healthier, more sustainable way. We invite you to join this enlightening conversation and discover how to better navigate burnout and work in a more balanced way. So, tune in and let's explore the path to a healthier, balanced lifestyle together.
Lockie Phillips is a internationally sought after horse trainer who focuses on the emotional well being of horses through his training methods called Emotional Horsemanship. A retired professional dancer, and Australian immigrant living in Spain, Lockie delivers online services to deeply caring horse owners all around the world, and travels internationally for clinics annually. Living quietly on a small farm in rural Galicia Lockie is exploring entrepreneurship that seeks to change the way service providers are accessed by clients in a way which creates sustainable and responsible business offerings now and in the future.
Connect with Lockie:
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
Hello, wonderful friends, I am here with a repeat guest. This is my dear friend Lucky, and this is something that I do off camera, but oftentimes, when I feel like I've had like a really juicy conversation with one of my guests, I say hey, if you ever have anything that's on your heart and you want to just jam about it, shoot me a message and we'll get you back on the show and we'll play. And, lucky, you are literally in the two years that I've been doing this, you're like the only person who's actually taken me up on that.
Speaker 2:I don't believe you. I don't believe you. That can't be possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've had repeat guests. Just because, like I have friends and you know right, like we'll be in conversation, I'll be like oh, this should be a podcast episode. But I've never had somebody who was like let's play. I really want to like jam out about this thing, and so I'm actually going to like give you a little bit of the reins and like what is it that you want to like play with? And where are we taking this conversation, lucky?
Speaker 2:So you know, you invited me on that first podcast and it was a really interesting conversation for me.
Speaker 2:And oh, fuck it, I'm just going to say it, not all podcast conversations are interesting. Sometimes I find myself just repeating myself you know, it's true Like I'm happy to be there, because when you're being introduced to new communities you start at the base level. When I say not interesting, it means maybe it's just not interesting for me, you know, but it could be interesting for other people. So anyway, I've already pissed off everyone but your, your. Our conversation was interesting for me because you asked me questions about buying the scenes of a business and I know that you're spiritually minded but you're also a horse girl and you kind of blend the two in this really fluid way. And I've been watching your social media since we were on the conversation and then I saw you steer really beautiful conversations towards burnout and I've been flip floppin' from burnout to burnout since I was 15. And apparently it's a repeatable pattern and it's a weed with deep roots and I'm interested in genuinely uprooting it.
Speaker 2:And you had a conversation I can't remember who it was with, but you were discussing work in with a seasonal analogy. You were saying there's a winter, a spring, a summer and a fall to your work output, and that gave me permission that it's okay sometimes to be in extreme output mode. You know, prolific is a word one of my friends called used to describe the amount of content I have put out on my own, despite huge obstacles. Prolific, they said, and I went really because I felt like I've been struggling to keep up with how much I wanted to put out and I get in these modes where I'm like pumping all this stuff out, and then there are times when I want to sit back and I don't give anything.
Speaker 2:And you had this really beautiful conversation on burnout and I'd had three or four conversations of burnout preceding me listening to your podcast and I was like I need to continue this conversation, and I need to continue it with you because you have a perspective on business that I've not quite come across yet. You blend spiritual with the pragmatic, accountability with holding space, and it's a very tricky balance and I believe you managed to do that. So that's what I'd like to discuss today. But if we sort of spring out into a wider range in conversation, I'm here for it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I feel so seen in this moment, lucky.
Speaker 2:Oh good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that the place that I want to sort of start this conversation is like I am a recovering burnout artist as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it has. I think part of the process of really understanding that is is really getting to the depths of where that has actually served you. Because the way that I look at like what people call like shadow work is I don't want to identify that part and then just be like let's exercise that demon, it's, it's really about. Okay. So, like this part of me exists, there's a reason that there's likely a protective part of that story and how can we integrate and digest that part of me in such a way that it feels safe to stop doing the pattern, to survive and so? Wow.
Speaker 1:I'm curious how has burnout served you?
Speaker 2:Or overworking, I guess integration instead of excision, seeing burnout as an undigested meal rather than a cancer or a fault or a sickness. That's already changed my mindset. It gives, it gives one. It gives workaholic permission to not feel shame over having a work addiction. So when I think it's an addiction to raised by self employed parents and, in my extended family, all self employed, my father is an Australian expert on small businesses and self employed people. My mom was an entrepreneur. She retired early and it's in my blood and it's in my DNA, it's in my bones to be self employed and to work really, really hard. So it served me. Because it honored family roots and to not work yourself to the bone on some level feels like a betrayal of family, and so that's been something to unpack with a qualified mental health practice practitioner, which you know as soon as you get your LLC or SL or whatever, or autonomous in Spain, it should come with an accountant and a therapist. Those two things should should come together in your start package when you're a small business owner, because it's a whole thing right. So it's served me because being an immigrant, immigrant living on the other side of the world, separated from family, working really, really hard, honored my family ties when every other tie was gone. That's one.
Speaker 2:Number two it was a little thing called COVID-19. That happened, you know, we all kind of blacked out for three years and here we are and I mean I was pretty poor and struggling all of my 20s with my dance career beforehand surviving on below the international minimum wage for someone born into Western civilization and then moving to another country again and then building a business from scratch and living off nothing each month. And then COVID hit and it all disappeared and I fell into a bureaucratic gray area where I didn't qualify for any government assistance from my birth country in Australia because I hadn't lived there for over 10 years or worked there. I didn't qualify for any government assistance during COVID from the Spanish government because I hadn't been six months in the country yet and I didn't qualify for any government assistance from where I had just left Poland because I just closed my company in Poland. So I found myself facing COVID with about two euros 50 in my bank account and two horses and three dogs and three cats and a partner who was also going through it professionally.
Speaker 2:That shook me to my core Absolutely and I'm still vibrating to this day, and it's literally within the last three to four months, when I moved into my farm because I'm doing good now, as you can see, I've had a glow up, I've got a soundproofed office and a farmhouse and four horses now and I'm doing well. But it's only in the last four months I've been able to turn around and take a breath and go okay, survival strategy done, tick, I know how to do that. I know how to survive an unprecedented event and scrabble my way out of a black hole. Yeah, overwork, it's a survival mechanism.
Speaker 1:As you were talking, particularly as you were talking about your ties to family lineage, the word epigenetics came to mind.
Speaker 2:This is why I wanted to talk to you, because you know this stuff generational trauma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was just the like. I know that you're not going to be offended if I call you out a little bit here.
Speaker 2:No, always call me out. That's why I'm here.
Speaker 1:There's like a rigidity to like this is my DNA, this is in my bones, this is like who I am, and I think that a lot of times, people fall to that when they're talking about, like physical ailments, right, like, oh, diabetes runs in my family and so therefore, I'm fated to also have diabetes, right, and really, what we're finding is, yes, there may be a propensity to diabetes because of particular genetics, but what you do in life matters.
Speaker 1:The different decisions that you make in your life, the way you integrate, the way like if we're just using diabetes as an example like the way you move, the way you eat, the ways in which you sort of like view health matters, and so ultimately, that can lead into a yes, you have diabetes or no, you don't have diabetes, and I feel like there's an energetic, emotional component to that as well. Like that we don't always speak about. You know, I too grew up in a family. I, you know my parents immigrated from Korea. My dad literally came to the United States and then immediately had all of his money stolen at the Chicago airport and started from nothing and you know, I grew up with a dad who worked.
Speaker 1:I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that he worked like 70 to 90 hours a week like through most of my childhood and it's how we survived. It's like our immigrant survival story and so I hear that in yours as well of like you know, this is how my family learned to survive, and I thought that was the only choice, right. As well.
Speaker 1:This is how we belong in our families and this is how we find a sense of like, camaraderie and almost like. I remember when I first started my business this was back when I was an acupuncturist. I would talk about how tired I was.
Speaker 2:Like a badge of honor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Exactly, my parents would be like, oh my gosh, like we know how hard you're working and you know it's because that was something that was relatable to them. And so I've noticed that, as I have integrated some of those overworking wounds, there is less of that kind of interaction with my parents, because I'm very rarely tired now and you know, you know I love the life that I've built, and so it's like we've had to find a different language around relating. That was really, really difficult to forge at first.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can imagine you're further ahead on this journey than I am, because obviously your business is now about businesses and about integrated that's. That's what you wake up to do each day. My business isn't about that. This is like a side hustle for me. Dealing with myself has become a side hustle in my own life, and realizing that, realizing that, was a profound realization this summer and it was like, oh, that's got to stop right away. What did I do? I had a very honest conversation with my schedule and I said no, no, no. What is actually realistic, doesn't overbook me, doesn't overextend me, honors my energetic levels, builds in rest time between client sessions, maximizes my reach so that I'm still reaching people who want access to you, and it involved basically reducing my availability by approximately 40%.
Speaker 1:I love this for you.
Speaker 2:And I don't regret it. I'm still, funnily enough, working full time, flat chat each day. But I've built in times for me to move slower, because I'm entering my 30s and it's not going to get faster. My body system is going to slow down, it's going to get slower from here on out and it's unsustainable. And I know you're a business mentor. I have another business mentor as well that I work with and I was sharing this with her and she just straight up called me on it. She said this is unsustainable, this has got to change. You've got to address your time management and you've got to get a team.
Speaker 2:As soon as I changed my schedule, magic booked out until next year, if you don't mind, four months in advance booked out. And I'm like, oh, that is how much I was overworking and over delivering and people came to expect me as an infinite resource. And I've had multiple conversations with clients and I'm really blessed to have the kindest, nicest clients in the world Because, listen, if you can get through my filter, I'm an Aries, right, if you can get past my horns, then you're a nice person. Yes, so I tend to work with really nice people, and but I've had lots of conversations, even today with clients where I've had to say politely I am a finite resource. This is the policy. That's not available. All services are subject to availability. Wish I could, but I can't. Don't hate me. Let's let's rethink strategy. Let's rethink how you book me. Let's rethink how you study, how you work. You know, and that was really, really important for me. Then I reached out and got help. So I'm now building a team, two years after I really should have begun to build a team.
Speaker 2:I've been a one man band until this moment and running a business that is now of my size.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't be doing it on my own Because it reduces your cognitive capacities and you're not giving the most of yourself and it's fundamentally disrespectful to yourself, to your clients and your business.
Speaker 2:So, building a team and first team member arrives Next month as a groom, I'm outsourcing all of my horse care to someone I would trust with my life and my horse's lives, and that's hard for me because I am giving her the job I wish I had If I could spend sunrise till sundown fiddling around in my pastures with fences and poking at the earth and doing something with a horse here and starting a trim and then not finishing it and then reorganizing my tack room and then sweeping the yard, and then that's my day. You know, if I could do that and I would be very, very happy, but I can't. I've got. I'm being led by this public that's wanting what I'm having to offer. So building a team, reducing my schedule and being held accountable, and surrounding yourself with people who will call you on your shit my partner last week, no, on his birthday, so it was three weeks ago.
Speaker 2:I actually asked him because he works in a similar field to me, but we don't talk about business, it's a boundary. I said I want you to tell me what's wrong with my business and he said time management. He said you'll go straight from the bed in the morning to your computer and your pajamas and you're working. He said that is nothing to be proud of. And I went oh, he's right, and he's like I didn't, I don't say anything, obviously, because he loves me, right, and he they'll hold space. Yes, that's what love is. But if you ask for it, he said that's nothing to be proud of. That's nothing to be proud of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and the rigidity that you speak to. That's also my personality. I can be, I'm type A, B. I can be both. So but when it comes to business behind the scenes of a business, I'm very type A because it doesn't come naturally to me, to administrative business. So type A is a discipline, so that it doesn't go out of control for me, and rigidity again is another thing that served me really well sometimes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I mean. That's why it's there. You know, and this is why we don't want to just like excise and root out and get rid of it's like that part of you is there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that part of you is there because it doesn't feel safe in some way, you know and so then it's about how can we help that part of you that is rigid, or the part of you that overworks, feel safe, so that then you can take over you know driving the bus instead of you know these younger parts. Typically, those, those parts are related to much younger versions of ourselves who have had to figure out how to survive, who have had to, like, look up to people and belong to those people. Right, and so it's. I think that what you're speaking to even though, like our stories, may be a little bit different from the folks who are listening I think that the pieces there that feel really important to just like highlight is that this is like such a common thing with service providers, and I kind of want to do a little bit of like a deep dive into the horse industry in particular.
Speaker 2:Please.
Speaker 1:Horse trainers. Yes because, since I have bought my property, I have an indoor arena, and so I've been lucky with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel very, very lucky, and so I've been in chats with a lot of folks who are horse trainers, are wanting to make a name for themselves in the horse training industry and and I'm seeing very similar patterns of being available all the time of, you know, being really accommodating to people's horses or people's times, and then even to the point of, like putting their own bodies in danger To make sure that they are serving their clients which you know, and I think that there's, and I can't quite connect the pieces here, and so I am hoping that you can help me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me lead you somewhere. So yeah, I've done a couple of North American clinic tours. Now I'm setting up for my third, and my biggest takeaway from my clinic tour this spring was how friggin exhausted horse people are, or people are in North America, canada less so, usa particularly. So everyone's exhausted. We are living in a late stage capitalism, guys, and it is real, and I don't train for the public anymore. Dip my toe into it. Didn't do it for very long, so you know if someone's listening and they're a trainer for the public. No, the source. I didn't do it for very long, but I did my toe into the waters and I went oh no, no, hard pass. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I'll serve the industry in a different way, however. I am an equine service providers, I'm a coach, I produce online courses, I'm a clinician and I teach lessons all online, except when I'm clinic and I'm about to do retreats as well. And currently, in spite of myself realizing I'm some sort of leader, whatever that means. Horse trainers. No one's more exhausted than a horse trainer working for the dollar right now, and they put their bodies at risk and they put an element where boundaries are inherently muddied, if they're existent at all between the client, the horse and the service provider. Because there's an element around horses where people say, well, it's for the animals, it's for the welfare and the good of the animals. So there's very, very insidious undertones and, may I say, often coming from clientele, not from the service providers, pressure from clientele that attempts to manipulate a service provider into bringing down their prices, overworking, being endlessly flexible because something, something, something be charitable because it's an animal. I've had these conversations before. I had someone. This was many years ago when I was trimming hooves for the public in southern Spain, someone locally. This was during COVID, by the way.
Speaker 2:So in order for me to travel and trim during COVID, my clients had to fill out a form, sign it, scan it and return it to me for me to print and carry with me in my car in case I was stopped by the police. Because it was only essential travel allowed and I was deemed an essential service provider. So I had organized my route two weeks out and then, the morning of my trip, one of my clients, who's a very dear friend of mine, now called me and said oh, so and so, in the next village has a horse with an abscess and would like you to just drop by and trim. I'm like, well, there's no, just dropping by because it's COVID and I've organized this two weeks ago. She might be able to get on the schedule today, but she has to call me before 10 o'clock for me to organize that. She didn't call me before 10 o'clock, she called it about midday.
Speaker 2:I said yes, I have a horse with an abscess. I said well, how long have they had an abscess? She said six months. I said, excuse me, the horse has had an abscess for six months. I said what conditions is he living in? He's living in a round pen. I said is the? It was winter. I said is there much? She said yes. I said how deep is the much? She said well, it's about 15 to 30 centimeters in places. I said and does he go anywhere else? Is this his only place to live? Yes, this is his only place to live.
Speaker 2:I said okay, have you spoken to this farrier and this farrier and this farrier who have serviced the local area? Yes, I have, but they're too expensive. And I said okay. I said, well, here's my price. My price was more expensive than those people and I said plus, there's a call out fee, plus, you need to arrange the paperwork because I've already got my route and I can't just put you on today. Oh, can't you just stop by? I said I can stop by. You have to pay for my travel, for me to get there. Stop by, but no guarantee that I'm going to trim. I will assess the horse and tell you what I think what needs to happen.
Speaker 2:By the way, this horse was a rescue horse from a charity. He was rehomed, this person through a charity and I. Obviously you're hearing all the red flags. They're not, but they're putting pressure on me to come and serve them. Oh, why won't you just do it for the good of the horse? I said well, you know, I'm a service provider and I'm paying my taxes. Wow, what does paying taxes have something to do with it? I said, okay, thank you here, my prices. I can come out to you next week for a private whatever they said. Oh, you should know something that when people move to this area, they all have to lower their prices, because that's how we do it here. And, by the way, you should have just come out to see us because you care about the animal.
Speaker 2:Brazen, brazen and inappropriate and inappropriate. So I happened to know the horsemanship manager for the charity that had re-homed this horse to the person. I had them on speed dial, gave them a call and said you need to do a home check on such and such horse. I'm making an anonymous report. Long story short, they seized this horse back from that person and they sort of guessed that I was responsible but didn't Anyway, and they claimed that I didn't care about the horses and I cared about money. But I did care about the horse because I made sure that horse was safe and I did it in the correct way and I wasn't going to play their games.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile I had friends locally that had been attempting to communicate with this person for six weeks about the abscess and going over with painkillers for the horse and trying to describe to them why abscesses are a chronic issue and can't be served overnight, blah, blah, blah, and I can't just come and trim and abscesses is a serious issue that needs rehabilitation and lifestyle changes etc.
Speaker 2:I mean so this is an anecdotal way to describe what some horse people are up against, and I can imagine that there are horse trainers, trimmers, farriers, body workers out there who will listen to me tell that story and will nod their head and light a cigarette, proverbially, and say, yeah, got 20 stories like those in my back pocket, you know right.
Speaker 2:And then service providers become jaded and then you've got a jaded service provider working with a vulnerable animal. Not a good mix. Not a good mix. Overworked, underpaid, under resourced, exhausted, jaded, resentful service provider working with an animal that needs intelligence, capacity, study, patience, resourcefulness Not a good combination. And we wonder why horse training is often a brutal and hostile place so long way to say, kate. There is immense pressures on service providers that are not only coming from the service provider, they're coming often from the clientele, and conversations between clientele and service providers and service providers has got to change. In my opinion, there needs to be way more transparency, way better boundaries and way more accountability towards clientele who behave in an inappropriate manner towards a service provider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in my opinion, yeah, and I think that this is partially why, you know, I think of you as a leader in this field, because you're putting down boundaries in places where there haven't been boundaries before.
Speaker 2:Well, there haven't been boundaries and when you do that, people are often experiencing that boundary for the first time and that boundary feels let me give some words rude, aggressive, inappropriate, confusing enter some sort of bringing my character into question conversation. I always try to be honest and kind. I always try to be honest and kind, but you got to have both. And I'm also not trying to be some sort of inoffensive dream boy. Right, that's, that's. I just can't do that. It's not in my nature and maybe then I'm not the best person to take this on, but I'm certainly brave enough to take this on. Even recently I've had conversations with clients where I've had to say can't answer that question because that question and this is exactly how I worded it I can't answer that question. Wish I could, but I can't because the question has invited me into an inappropriate professional interaction with you. You have asked me to give you advice about an animal that I haven't seen. Can't do that and keep my credibility. But what I can do because I'm not rejecting your question what I can do is listen to your story, identify the big themes and the pictures and the topics. I can speak to you about those topics and from that you might be able to troubleshoot this on your own which dot dot dot, by the way, would be a far superior service to you. To teach you problem solving strategies with your horse rather than remain didactic and prescriptive to you. Harder for you as a client, also harder for me long term. More successful for the horse, because I'm teaching you how to fish rather than giving you a fish.
Speaker 2:I always say if someone asks me what time it is, enough times I will explain to them how to build a clock, because I'd like to be free of those sorts of questions, you understand. And so that was really hard for these clients to hear. But I had built enough trust, I believe, with them within the program we were working so that I could say that to them and they knew which place I was coming from. I wouldn't take someone fresh off the street and communicate this way, because I believe situations call for different personality strengths and situations call for different contextual communication styles. But it's me haphazardly trying to find different modes of conversation and communication with our clients that install and build in boundaries for me and for them, because it's super toxic field. It's a super toxic field.
Speaker 1:I think some of the things that I'm sort of like wanting to play with in this space is the balance between burnout and boundaries, that's one road that we can go down. And then there's this idea around we can use both of our industries like people needing to be rescued from the problems that their horses are having.
Speaker 2:You did not just say that. Are you going to make me plead the fifth? My goodness, go for it, go for it, take me there, take me there.
Speaker 1:The reason why I'm bringing that up is because this concept of teaching somebody else, basically empowering them to work through problems and become their own creative geniuses around whatever it is and I've had so many people come to me, particularly in the beginning of when I started business coaching, who would just be like just tell me what to do For me, that's an instant. You're not my people.
Speaker 2:That's an instant. No, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:But part of that is because there's a relationship between you and your business. I think about my business as being an entirely different entity. I think about my business as having something to say and I get to be sort of the megaphone platform that that energy gets to move through me. And I feel that way about your work as well, because you are saying things that are controversial at times.
Speaker 1:You're saying things that are you're holding boundaries where there haven't been boundaries before. So there's this, this way in which we really need to start empowering people to like, like, reestablish that relationship between from in my world, between you and your business, and for you in your world. Reestablish that relationship between that person and the horse and you can be there as a little bit of like, a translator and like. This is the experiences that I've seen. But ultimately it comes down to to me it always comes down to the nervous system.
Speaker 1:I think in both realms is like when you have a dysregulated nervous system, there's no way you're making decisions in your business in ways that are going to be responsive and expansive and you know, from a place of abundance. And in the horse world, if you have a dysregulated nervous system, that animal is going to pick up on that energy and do its own reactive thing to that energy. That is going to be harmful to that relationship between you and the animal. And so how can we move people out of this dynamic of like wanting to be rescued by their service provider, doesn't matter what industry you're in? How can we move away from that rescue or victim mentality?
Speaker 2:I did a lot of research on exactly this recently. So I'm doing a deep dive 12 week group coaching program into emotional systems as prescribed by a specific lens of neuroscience, and the revelations there are shaking the industry, the industry, at least the corner of the industry I exist in. That's really truly what's happening at the moment, based on what I'm uncovering here and the connections I've made. But I won't speak to that right now. But what I'll speak to is care and nurturance as the primary emotional system of social connectivity. What of clients will look to their service provider as a caregiver? Service provider, caregiver it's under the same category. It harkens back to relationships with our mothers, with our fathers, with our aunties, our uncles, our brothers, our sisters and friends, and they see us as a caregiver in some way. One thing I discovered that there's a connection between panic and care and there's an emotional system is about loss, it's about grief and in a low arousal it's sadness and depression. It's about separation, distress when you are out alone in the cold on your own, and there's very specific evolutionary roots that are about 200 million years old or more that gave us this system that all mammals have, and the primary marker for panic is cries of distress and the cry of distress. Its function is to alert caregivers that the young, vulnerable baby is on their own and to reunite the vulnerable one with the caregiver. So I'll sit in front of a client sometimes, and the client will be not consciously and it's not a bad thing, I'm just very aware of what I'm looking at. There'll be a damsel in distress situation. There will be a cries of help oh, it's a, oh, you know, help me, help me, tell me what to do. And I've now recognized that it is a cry of distress. Now the plot thickens. If the animal this is whether it's a dog, cat or human, it's all the same If the animal has forged strong social attachments with the caregiver, the cry of distress will be met by immediate reunion and the reforging of social bonds and immense protection, love and care, the warm glow of oxytocin which is what we're all seeking. At the end of the day, it's what we all look for is. It's what we all want and desire is to be cared for by each other, especially those we are close to.
Speaker 2:If the one making the cries of distress has not been modeled positive social attachments in their life, they will not know how to recognize when it is appropriate to make a cry of distress or not. So they'll make random cries of distress, random cries of distress in the area, and even direct a cry of distress towards a random and totally inappropriate caregiver, hoping that they will come and reunite and care. When that happens, the cry of distress is not met with care and nurturance but by frustration and rage by the other animal, because the other animal says, basically, the body says that's inappropriate. You don't know me well enough to make a cry of distress with me right now. You don't know me well enough, you're inviting me into an inappropriate interaction. It's met with rage and frustration.
Speaker 2:When I read that research, I needed to go lie down and have a glass of water because I was like that is exactly what I've been experiencing, particularly because my specific take on horsemanship is forged in the foundation of care and nurturance. And then you'll often meet people who are struggling with care and nurturance, maybe because something, something, something. They don't have good models of it. I'm not saying I've had the best models of it, you know, and it's a really interesting thing. So how do I help such a person in this situation?
Speaker 2:Well, first, self-awareness is key, especially because I'm not a mental health practitioner. I cannot deliver therapy and I will never do that to people. But what I can do is speak plainly on the truth and try to illuminate some self-awareness to the issue. I want to find some truth. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Let's call it a duck. Call a thing a thing. Let's just check that we're safe, check that we have trust.
Speaker 2:Do you trust me? Can I tell you something? Yes, well, this is what's happening right now. Are you aware that this is what's happening? This is what I can help you with, boundaries. This is what I can't help you with. I'd love to help you over here with my primary skill set. That's what I'd love to do. That's what I'm great at. That would be the best use of your money and time with me is, if you allow me, with your consent, to serve you with my primary skill set over here, can we redirect over here? But that I can't help you with? That is does not belong to me. You hear what I'm saying? It's a ownership thing. It's an ownership thing.
Speaker 1:I love that you're modeling with the exact language, because I think that this is something that I see a lot in my circles is lots of healers, lots of folks who are wanting to help support people, lots of coaches, folks who are in a space where, let's just say, they've been validated for being useful in that capacity, and so I have a lot of conversations with people about you cannot rescue the world, which is another way of saying, if you want to put it in business, speak is like niching, but the very real boundary there is this is what is within your capacity to support, this is within your experience to support, this is what is within what you feel excited to support, and it would be unethical of you to step outside those bounds. And so I think that a lot of folks get caught in this like martyr, victim sort of space, because A we have.
Speaker 2:We get a hit out of it, we get something out of it.
Speaker 1:It's like a drug, it's a drug, and so then it becomes less about this is something that we need to fix within your business and more about like, what is it that you are getting out of that dynamic? Is that a healthy dynamic and again bringing in that self-awareness that you're speaking to? And if you're complaining about burnout and yet you're still saying yes to every single thing that comes through? Your door.
Speaker 1:It's not the client's fault necessarily. It is like we've got to tighten up some of the pieces within your own energetic system. This came up recently, actually, with one of my clients, and she self-identifies as a people pleaser, which a lot of my people do and she called me and she's like I'm so sorry this is so difficult to say, but I really need to cancel our session for tomorrow. And it was within like a 24-hour time period, and so that's kind of my policy is give me 24 hours. And she was struggling to get these words out of her mouth because she's afraid that I'm going to be disappointed, that I'm going to be mad at her in some way.
Speaker 1:And she was like the reality is that I've been saying yes to so many things clients, friends, what have you? And the one thing that I wake up wanting and craving every single morning is just a day where I don't have to do anything. And she was like tomorrow I have you and one other person and I would just like half a day where I don't do anything. And this is what we get to have, like these disconfirming experiences with people where I heard that and I heard in her voice like how fucking tired and exhausted she is, and I wanted to give her a good experience of her saying no to something, and so the coaching moment for me there was fuck it. I want to celebrate you. Right, you still honored the bounds of our relationship, which is, you gave me 24 hours notice, but you're saying no to something and you're saying that in a really brave and honest and real way, and so if I get to be one of the first people that you say no to and it ends up being a positive experience.
Speaker 1:This is the coaching Right.
Speaker 2:You did your job. That was your job yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I basically told her I was like okay, so the prescription here is actually to cancel this appointment, yeah. So, like love it. Yes, that's the message. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:It's like ultimate post-modern, post-capitalist business culture. Truly, we need a 12-step program for people pleases, anonymous. I started my group coaching program with addressing people pleasing. I started my group coaching, my first group coaching program ever. I started it with them with the discussion around people pleasing and we all agreed that we're all people pleases and that we'd all like to stop it. And I started the program in the first week with an integration week and the first video after introducing the program was community boundaries and I had eight boundaries that I outlined in the community which, oh boy, my nervous system fought me tooth and nail putting that tutorial together. It was like they're going to hate you, they're going to see you as rude, they're not going to like you, they're going to see you as demanding and, adiba, they're going to you know all this fantasy rubbish. I'm like where is this coming from? And I'm like you need to, whatever that voice is, sit down. I got this Sit down Right.
Speaker 2:Several things such as if you have an administration question which there will be plenty please send it to an email, not the Facebook group, because the Facebook group is about discussion and the discussion can't be clogged with. How do I find the video? X to video. No, do that on email. Let's keep the discussion a discussion right. Use the community, because last time I did a group coaching program, we had a Facebook group, but then each of the people were writing me their experiences privately on email. I'm like use the community. That's why it's a group. This is not your private program. This is a program for all of us together. So when you sign up, you agree to contribute to the group. It also unburdens me a little bit and God forbid enables me to not be a freaking cult leader, which I vehemently reject, and allow other people in the group clients to step up as potential leaders, which is exactly what has happened.
Speaker 2:What happened a couple of weeks ago which deeply triggering on a group coaching call you know 40 people there and out of a 80 something people group, which is a lot of people for me as a introverted, deeply introverted kind of loner. You know I was in the middle of a group coaching call where it was a question and answer section with me and we had a blackout. Computer went and no, it's like you know and then it takes, you know, 10 minutes for everything to come back online and I've got a great friend named, called Michelle Knapp, and she wrote me on Instagram. She said by the way, we've all just continued once you've left and we're having a fabulous discussion without you. And she's like don't you worry, everything's fine, she's great, she always knows when I'm flipping and she just intervenes at the right moment with the right way. She's a great friend, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I look back into the group and they were like oh hi, locky, anyway. So, and they went back to their discussion. I sat there for a few minutes going you guys have got this. I don't need to. I'm like can I not show up to these anymore? That, thanks, that would be great. Can you just do these without me? That'd be fantastic. I can go riding, you know.
Speaker 2:And that was so freeing for me because I realized that I was taking up all the space in the room and I didn't have to, and I realized that I was loving my business and my community so much that I was strangling the life out of it and I just needed to let go and I needed a blackout for that to happen. So, relinquishing the control and actually unwinding that feeling, in my, just below my solar plexus, somewhere between my solar plexus and my diaphragm, there's this little little ball of goo that gets hard and tight and I just have to speak to it and say stop, step back, let other people step in, but don't overcorrect, because that's my other issue. That comes from overworking as well. Soon as you find something, you'll overcorrect. You'll go in the other extreme.
Speaker 2:People are still paying for my mentorship, they're paying for my intellectual property, they're paying for me to figurehead this and to spearhead this and to drive this. That's why they're there. So, even though there's a group discussion right, even though there's a group discussion I still have to step in and say, yes, dovetailing on this, by the way, and shape it. It's not to completely shirk responsibility and step back and say, oh great, you know I can be lazy now. No, it's just working smarter rather than harder and allowing others to rise with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think something that I'm noting just because I feel like everyone needs to hear this is that video that you were just so scared to put out, basically about community guidelines, that, honestly, I bet you, if you asked your people, it created more safety.
Speaker 1:Right and so the thing that we're so scared of is actually the thing that serves our people. I have a very, very similar process with my group program as well. The very first time we meet in group, we go through what are the rituals that keep us safe, what is okay and what's not okay, and it gives people the ability to like expand into that space that you've created for them, and so boundaries in that context. Oh my God creates so much safety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think out of 80 something people in that group there was maybe, I mean, you don't know it could be selection bias, because usually the people who don't like something aren't necessarily going to come straight up and tell you about it, right, because that takes a lot of courage for someone to say. You know what I actually really didn't like that community. It felt icky to me. It felt like you were being demanding and that we'll pay for this program and now we can't reach you or can't access you, but we're paid to access you and we feel entitled to access you, which basically is a long way to say. They're not my client, because just because you're paid for something does not entitle you to own me at all. I am free. I am free. I will refund all of you if I have to, truly, truly. If I have discovered that I have pitched this wrong and you've all shown up here thinking it was something that it's not, I'll refund everybody and I'll keep pushing. I'll move on to the next thing. That hasn't happened. It was.
Speaker 2:There was only one person who I believe the boundaries didn't sit well with, but they were challenging the boundaries even before the boundaries were set. That's who they are in community, they're a boundary challenger. I have a couple of friends that we were in discussion about boundaries at a clinic. You can imagine, at an emotional horsemanship clinic the discussions of boundaries come up a lot. Sometimes these discussions can be good and sometimes they're average. Sometimes they're great and sometimes they're terrible.
Speaker 2:One friend of mine in California she said I don't like the word boundary, I bristle, it just feels hard, it feels like exclusion, it feels keeping people out, building walls. I want to be open, I want to be expansive, I want to create space, I don't want to eliminate it. I heard that I really understood that perspective, but I found that for me that wasn't true. But at the same time I don't want to wall myself into a castle. Boundaries keep people in. It doesn't stop people from entering, but they're always free to go.
Speaker 2:But the boundaries let you know what the territory is. It's a bit like fencing my farm. I've got these two meter fences. They're not just people coming onto my farm or even looking at what I'm doing, because I'm pretty overlooked in some places of it. It's to stop my horses from running out across the road inappropriately killing themselves. It's to stop you know errant wild boar or hunting dogs or people. God forbid coming onto my property to screw with the horses and locking my gate at night with that key, knowing that my entire perimeter is fully fenced in two meters, right down to the earth, that is such a secure feeling, I tell you. I sleep good at night, knowing nothing's happening on my land. But the boundaries are there to keep people in and to create freedom within that space.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and I think that that's what I mean by the safety and community is. It actually is so freeing when a practitioner comes in and says this is what's okay and this is what's not okay in this space.
Speaker 1:This is how you can reach me, and this is what I'm available for in this space. This is what I'm not available for, you know, instead of people having to guess or wonder and actually if we're talking about people pleasers, it makes the people pleasers smaller because they're scared that they're going to offend in some way and so they feel like they can't take up more space, and so having the container they're having the boundaries there, allows them to like, expand into that. Yes. So yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's the.
Speaker 2:This whole discussion on burnout, if I can be really frank, and she discussed it on her own podcast too. Do you know Alexa Linton? Alexa Linton, she lives.
Speaker 1:She lives on Vancouver Island Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And I and Elise Mickey and Iquan, osteopath did a clinic together in the spring, and Elise is the osteopath and so is Alexa, and Alexa is also a horsewoman, a advocate, a teacher, a coach, a podcaster. She's my home girl. Love it a bit. We were doing a clinic and she had had major health scale last year. She almost died. She's recovered and she's right back at work.
Speaker 2:We're at this clinic and on the end of day one she had a full out of body experience where she basically collapsed in the driveway and was Couldn't speak, couldn't move, no body control and I had to drive her home and I we almost took her to the hospital, but she knew what was happening to her. I asked her do you know what's happening to you? She says yes, I'm like do you want to go to the hospital? She says no, okay, what do we do? I need to get home, I need to get in bed and I need to hydrate. She was chronic, she was very dehydrated, she couldn't walk to the bathroom. I had to help her go to the bathroom. I made her soup and sponged her head and checked her temperature every 20 minutes until her body temperature came back up and then we were sitting in the room late at night and I called her partner and we organized to get her home. And she's a leader. She's 10 years older than me and she's a businesswoman in the same sphere as I and we were collaborating.
Speaker 2:We had a conversation. She talked about it on her podcast. This is where this all burnout conversation started. She said that don't do what I did. I've been burning out since I was a teenager and my body just found rock bottom. You thought almost dying last year was rock bottom. Nope, this is it. Welcome to your bottom. She later spoke with her doctors and she had some sort of acute burnout episode where her body essentially shut down on her without her consent. And I witnessed all of this and it was like the universe just knocking me upside my head saying Hello, do we need to give you any other signs that you got to change now and look at a sustainable business model for yourself that makes a living, breeds security, does good work in the world, challenges the paradigm, shifts the paradigm, but honors you in the process and honors your family too. And it shook me and I decided to take responsibility for it.
Speaker 2:Alexa and I had a conversation on her podcast about it with another friend of ours, elsie, and then Dr Tracy Rainborders in the Seattle area. She reached out. She was on the podcast with Alexa discussing burnout as well. She was like well, I listened to your podcast with Locky and Elsie and I'm like well, by the way, I had a similar thing happen to me too last year and we all started coming out of the woodwork and then you did your podcast and it was just like what is going on? How can young, the young professional workforce, be this early in the game and already at rock bottom and already close to death, working ourselves to death? What are we going to say on our deathbed? I work so hard and I'm proud. No, it's a real, it's a come to Jesus moment for me, and I wanted to contribute this to the conversation because I don't know how many people are going to relate with my story.
Speaker 2:But building a business hand over fist, from nothing to something, from nothing to a six figure business in four years with dumb luck and perseverance, talent only gets you so far. Adrenaline only gets you so far. Hard work only gets you so far. It's discipline that really takes you the distance. Anyone who loves their work and is good at it can work themselves to the bone. I think anyone can. You need no personal discipline at all. I could work myself to the bone every day, all day. It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to do. I'd pay for it, but it would be easy to do, no problem. The hardest thing in the world for me is to have the self discipline to say could, but I won't. Thank you, but no. No to that. Let me be more intentional, let me structure, let me take care of myself. That is so hard and until we figure out why that's so hard, I'm not sure we're going to see any kind of broad spectrum change. Do you have any insight into why that's so hard?
Speaker 1:I think it's so hard because to me it always goes back to the body, everything about our bodies.
Speaker 1:My previous career was as an acupuncturist and I stopped looking at signs and symptoms as something that we need to shut down and rather started looking at signs and symptoms as like communication from the body, because the body has no other language.
Speaker 1:And so if Alexa was sitting in front of me today, I would be asking her what were the subtle signs that your body was sharing with you before I had to scream and basically shut you down, for you to take a rest. And this is not to blame Alexa or anybody else who's overridden their bodies, but to me it goes back to the systems that we live in. We're trained from an early age. I think about kids, I'm thinking about a nephew in particular who is so kinesthetic, just like the most vibrant little creature, and you stick him in a school for like eight hours a day and you expect him to not have sit and be quiet and do math. Like that kid wants to be out riding a bike, yelling and screaming about life, and like playing, you know. And so we've systemized ourselves from a very, very young age to override what it is that our bodies want and need, so that we find belonging.
Speaker 1:So that we find validation. And then you stick these little bodies that have been trained in the capitalist system that we live in, and this is another form of how we find validation is if you work more and if you make more money. And so to me, when we are talking about burnout, it's a radical conversation about, like resisting the oppressive systems that we all live in. You know, it's so healing to my inner child, who hated sitting in a classroom but did very well in a classroom to be like hey, like today, all you have to do is pick up horseshit and like pet horses, like you have nothing on your calendar today.
Speaker 1:That was what I did yesterday is I literally had no calls.
Speaker 1:I picked up horse poop and I hung out with my colts like that was on the agenda and my inner child is so happy because that's exactly what all the different parts of me wants to do. You know my body, my five year old self, my 16 year old self and and to me that is that is the kind of revolution that I want to start is like can we start listening to our bodies? Can we start like actually listening to our desires, you know, and we balance that out with work Because to me, like I find work to be so fulfilling and so purposeful. I love my job, but that can't be the only thing that that takes up the entirety of my life and you lose the magic of that work.
Speaker 2:You said earlier that you're in coming from a you know second generation American and the story of your father losing everything at Chicago hair and the amount of work, how and you said that you had this moment of change where you started to present yourself more closely than your upbringing. Am I getting that right? How, how, how, what. What was, what was that like for you? I mean, if you don't mind sharing what was that like for you, for your family, how long did it take? What were the conversations like? I need the 411 on that.
Speaker 1:I think that work was probably the least controversial thing that I brought up with my parents.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. So you talked about other stuff too, and they were like, oh and that, okay, well, that's not so bad then. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh wonderful.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know if it was cloaking, but it was just. It became unbearable for me to not be myself anymore. I was kind of the model child, like I got good grades growing up, I did everything that you know daughter of an immigrant family is expected to do, from the good grades to even playing the violin, and like name the stereotype. I was it and it turns out I'm not actually that person. So just for context, I'm bi and I at one point for five years I was in a polyamorous relationship with two men and I have a ton of tattoos. I used to play roller derby and so like love it.
Speaker 1:My parents were just like who the fuck are you?
Speaker 2:This is the American dream. Yes, but it is, but it is.
Speaker 1:And, and part of that was like, hey, like you moved to America so that I could be whatever it is that I wanted to be.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because none of this would be acceptable in Korea, and, and so I think work was probably the least of their worries. They were more concerned about the fact that I've slept with women, and, and I'm so proud of the work that they've done Because I don't think I realized how little they fit in in their worlds. So they have moved to America where they don't speak the language, they don't understand the culture. They have now moved back to Korea, and as expats they don't fit in. You know, they're Americanized as well, and so Korean people look at them with a little bit of an outsider view as well, and the work that they've had to do had nothing to do with me and had everything to do with them. And this is, I think, where, again, that self awareness is so important is they saw how stifling their own lives were and decided that that's not how they wanted to relate to me as an adult and that's happening in my late 20s, I would say. And so I think I had.
Speaker 1:The work that I had to do was I had to contend with the fact that my parents might not accept me.
Speaker 1:They might not accept me as by, they might not accept me as Polly, they might not accept me as having tattoos, all of it, and I still had to choose myself in those moments.
Speaker 1:And I think that when we're talking about burnout, it's also a conversation about choosing yourself. You know, just in terms of like like you've said before so eloquently is like, just because you hire me does not mean that you own me. And and learning what those boundaries are, just because my parents gave birth to me does not mean that they get to dictate who I am. And if they're going to give me the beautiful gift of choice because another part of this context is that, like, I'm the first woman on my mother's side in that lineage who I get to choose who I want to marry Even my parents were in a ranged marriage and so, like, if they are giving me that choice, then don't I have a responsibility to actually choose? And so, not in a selfish way, but in a selfish way, like I want to put like a big S in front of selfish I will choose myself every time.
Speaker 2:Wow, thank you for telling me that. That really helps. Actually, if it helps me, it's about bound to help other people. I'm just, yeah, so much grace there, so much grace there and respect for your parents as well. It's been really hard for me to to pieces. It's been really hard for me to not see myself as a product, to disconnect myself from my own internalized extractivism, because in my previous career as a dancer, I was a product.
Speaker 2:Imagine an actor. Well, this you don't have to imagine many actors. They'll sign with the studio and then they have to do the movie, whether they like the script or not. And you're supposed to do it like you like it, be professional and be good at it and don't roll your eyes about the crappy script or whatever. It's very similar with dancers.
Speaker 2:Once you're in a company, you just do what's in front of. You do what you're told. You don't get to pick your parts. You don't get to say, no, I don't like that performance, no, that choreographer's an asshole, I'd rather not. You don't really get that choice. You don't really get that choice and you're used. You're a product and disconnecting from that has been the primary focus of my life for the last six, seven years, to the point where I can't even bring myself to regularly physically exercise, because if I do, all of that comes back up to the surface again. You turn yourself back into a product, and so that's been really interesting to explore. Funnily enough, when the horse is there, that's gone. Because when the horse is there that's not there, that's gone. Because I'm so hypnotized by them that my own focus on myself goes out the window, and I really enjoy that process of losing myself.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed that when I was a dancer, sort of immersing myself in a character or in movement and just not being me anymore, but something else. I really enjoyed that. The other piece of this is coming home. I've been 15 years overseas and initially it was like Lucky might come home. Lucky might come home, he might come home eventually. Oh no, he's moving to that country. Oh okay, Well, he's got that job. Oh okay, he's with horses now, oh okay. Oh, he's got pets now. Oh okay. Oh, now you're buying a farm and you're throwing down roots.
Speaker 2:There's this whole wound that's reopened around where losing our son. It's almost like death. It's like watching my parents grieve for me while I am. They are still alive. It's been really, really fascinating. That's sort of what I was contending with this summer. I wonder. I wake up in the morning and I feel burnt out because you just you need to carve space for these natural human, behavioral, emotional processes to happen. And if I'm always showing up as a product, I'm just putting all of that on the shelf and waiting for the next pandemic for me to deal with it Right, which is what we all did, you know, it's been fascinating to see how that's affected my tendency to overwork and say yes.
Speaker 2:I say no, a lot more than I used to and a little bit like a toddler when they learn the word no, you wake up in the morning. Good morning, lucky. How are you no?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:What would you like for breakfast? No, you see, but that's important. That's important because it's like you've got a flabby no muscle, you've got to go to the no gym and you've got to lift some no weights, meaning you've got to say no to everything. So I've developed the ability to whinge and moan about the weather. I used to be Mr Stoic, mr Positive, mr Kandu, about any kind of weather you can throw at me. I decided that if I am so lucky to complain about the weather, that's my little way just to say no, no, no, no, no and lift the no weight for a little while, in a way that's mundane and harmless. And if my life is going so well that I can complain about the weather, it's almost like scrolling Instagram because you can, because you've got 20 minutes, and it's just like a way to wind down or get a dopamine hit, a way to say no, and so then it feels easier to set those boundaries and to carve that space out for ourselves as service providers.
Speaker 1:I think the one invitation that I would offer for you or for anybody else who's listening, is oftentimes because we learn these patterns from our families and those sorts are deep right, like when you were seven, there was no, not belonging to your family, because that would mean literal death for a seven year old.
Speaker 1:And part of learning how to choose myself and contend with burnout has been really getting clear about what's my responsibility and what's not my responsibility, and so I'm hearing a lot of pain from your parents. Oh yeah, you know there's a grief that's coming up and that is real. You know there is the death of a story, there is the death of a fantasy, and that is a very, very real emotion and a grief, and that is their responsibility to work with. You know, yes, if I think about it in terms of like horse work, you know my responsibility is to be the stable center and the horse can do its reactive thing, and my responsibility is to be like I love you. You might be bucking and like be upset with me right now, but I'm just going to stand here quietly, loving you. And that was the hardest thing that I've had to do with my parents, because they they asked me to get my tattoos removed.
Speaker 1:They asked me like, why am I hurting them, like, like, and and. So my response to them and and for sure they've done a lot of their work. But my response to them was not to cave into those emotions of of pain, like it's real pain, that my parents were experiencing. It was really painful for them to hear that I've been with women, because that was something that was so unaccepted in their culture.
Speaker 1:And so I had to stand in my own security of knowing that that is my truth and that it's OK and that I have no shame around it and I love you. And so I mean, I think that that concept around what's my responsibility, what's not my responsibility is something that doesn't get talked about enough, because we tend to step in and try to fix and over fix things where it's not fix and over fix yeah fix and over fix, fix and over fix.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing so openly. It's really humbling to witness and it gives so many people permission to examine our unexamined parts and broken pieces and find peace with them, whether we're a business owner or not right, because these are not just the purvey of business owners that we're discussing how this shows up in burnout. You don't have to be running a business to be burnt out. You can be working for the man and be burnt out. I mean you probably are, you know and whole concepts or be a parent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love watching these tick tockers that are explaining the millennial and Gen X employment experience and like characterizing and spoofing on things like quiet quitting and all of that. Really, really, I'm like finding professional ways to set boundaries. I mean, I find this all really fascinating how we have so divergently stepped aside from our parents generation and their culture around work and I have adopted a totally new attitude around work. Someone will be in the middle of a conversation at work goes tick, tick, tick, five PM. Thank you so much, I'll see you on Monday.
Speaker 2:I remember being in a ballet company and seeing that in someone who'd been in the company for 10 years and was over it, and I remember being my first year in the company and we were in the middle of a discussion and this whole battle acts was standing there watching them go on and on and on about the same shit, same corrections, whatever. Okay, fine, been here 10 years, I can do this performance in my sleep. And the clock went six o'clock and they just turned around and walked out in the middle of the superior's conversation and I'm there clutching my pearls. You know the little, the little, the little bathroom saying, but the art form, you've got to stay and sacrifice your life. And they're just like turning around and grabbing their handbag, walking out and lighting a cigarette as they go out the door. You know, and that was at the time I judged it, I was really judgmental towards them. I thought that they didn't care anymore. But I realized that they're working in a system that didn't care about them, so why should they care back? They were in a system that the game is rigged, the table was tilted, didn't matter how you hit like in a game of snooker. If the table's tilted, didn't matter how you hit that ball, it was always going to go in one direction, didn't matter what you do.
Speaker 2:And you can hustle and try and hit balls uphill, but you're going to burn out real quick and the burnouts designed that way because people are easy to control when they're burned out. People are easy to subdue when they're burned out, because this world is not made for everyone to be living in abundance. This world is not made they don't want everyone to have an equal slice of the pie. They don't want everyone to be well rested, well resourced time for learning. We would have a problem if they would have a problem. The powers that be would have a problem. Late stage capitalism would come crashing down.
Speaker 2:And I can't help but think that the fact that horses are by my side and our side while this is happening is really fascinating, because human civilization was built for 10,000 years on the back of the horse, by the power of the horse and the mule and the donkey and the ox and the dog, but the horse really. And between the space of 1910 and 1930, during the invention of Henry Ford's internal combustion engine, all the stables and the farriers and the feed producers and the grooms and the carriages, this entire infrastructure that supported horses in cities, collapsed in a 20 year period and they've been in this gray zone for a while. And here we are looking at some sort of change, some sort of change, and the horses are right there by our side. I think that's kind of prophetic.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, they've been in the background a bit in our conversation here, but you can't talk about at least I can't think about horses, because I came into horses really late in life. I didn't grow up with horses, which I know that is similar to you. But I can't think about horses without thinking about the overwork and the overriding of their bodies that we've had to do.
Speaker 2:The how burnt out the horses are. It's unreal. It's unreal Like I've met horses that someone could have literally whipped them to their skin bled and that horse gave one step forward and that was all they said.
Speaker 2:I am not giving anymore, Anymore, and the entire industrial training complex around horses still exists this day based on that industrial complex. It still exists on that paradigm. And in a best case scenario, I wouldn't have a job, I'd be obsolete. In a best case scenario the way I show up to serve this community in a best case scenario I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. In a best case scenario, I would go to my primary skill set, which is a friggin riding instructor. Yeah.
Speaker 2:How lovely it would be to do that. And yet we have projected onto our beasts of burden the same concepts we project onto ourselves and our service providers, and the parallels in the equestrian industry as it pertains to the greater cultural issues at hand cannot be understated, in my opinion, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean even just like I've been scrolling through Facebook ads and Facebook form groups about horses for months before I ever got mine, and the way that some of these sales ads come up around, like I feel bad that my horse is just out in the pasture like it needs a job, and I'm like, does that horse really need a job? Like I feel like it's perfectly happy being a horse. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you know I, granted, like I'm, I can't not look at the world through a bit more of a trauma informed nervous system. Let's accept you as the unique butterfly that you are, sort of lens. But you know, I was talking to my husband who's who's not a horse guy at all and I was telling him like I really feel like forest. He's one of my colts. There I have two colts that are six months old right now. Forest is so responsive, I've just started doing some like really basic on the ground stuff with him and he just he's a dream to work with Coco. On the other hand, I don't, I don't know, I might have to come to you in a couple years because he's a puzzle and a half and I don't understand him. And my husband was like well, what's the worst case scenario if you don't understand him? And I was like he's just going to be a horse, like he can just be a pet for all I care.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't need him to be a riding horse and they don't think that there's very many people who, you know, think about their animals, slash their own bodies in that way.
Speaker 1:Like what if we just accepted our bodies for the limitations that they have. You know, and part of what I'm hearing in your story and this is like an invitation for other folks who are listening to reflect on their own story as well is like, yeah, we talked about how school forces little kids to do things to their bodies. They don't want to but, like you in a very, very real way, had to override so many of the natural impulses to do your job as a dancer, and so that contributes. Like that then becomes your norm, and so then, because the norm is set out, I am uncomfortable and I am forcing my body to do things that don't feel good to me because the company needs me to or because the stance routine requires me to. You know, then, it's not all that out of ordinary for you to then be like well, I'll just work 12 hours today, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, yeah, people will say to me all the time, I don't know how you do it, and I look at them like what are you even talking about? Like I'm just doing it, you know, and I'm still very close to that tree, still zooming out on this problem, and it's it's. I dream of a world where service providers are able to show up fully conscious, fully resourced, well rested period. Everyone, from my cashier at McDonald's when I get a McFlurry and a Sartor Fries, I want them well rested. Thank you all the way through to I don't know a surgeon, right? I want my taxi driver well rested. I want my horse trainer well rested. I want my service providers to be provided for before they try to provide, if that makes sense. And, to be honest with you, I am so blessed with the people who have discerned and chosen to work with me.
Speaker 2:Holy shit, if any of you guys are listening to this, please don't start shame spiraling, because I know you're about to say, oh, I don't want to talk, I'm sorry. No, please don't, because I'm really sort of talking about, you know, in those horror movies when they're being hunted by a killer and then the phone rings and they're talking to the killer on the phone and then the police trace the call and they say the call is coming from inside the house. This call is coming from inside the house. Guys, this is all my shit. You know, this doesn't belong to them. I take full ownership for this stuff.
Speaker 2:And I've got a lovely client who will text me every now and then and sometimes I'll just say please send it as an email, because I'm having my evening and when the texts come through it just and now I'm at work, you know, and they just go okay, and we move on about it and it's fine. You know, and I have another client who once wrote me 8 30 in the evening and I responded. She said oh, don't you dare respond to me right now, don't you dare respond to me in the morning? Thank you so much. I'll leave you be. Thanks very much. You answer my question, bye, and then sends me a tip. Yeah.
Speaker 2:These people are out there, but there's also a lot of people who aren't well-versed in that and, guess it, maybe it's about niching as well. Do you have any insight into conversing with people who Are somewhere on an entitlement spectrum, somewhere on a Extractivism spectrum towards their service providers? I don't even know if I'm using good words for this. Don't go yell at me, don't cancel me, don't write me, but Do you have any insight about that, because sometimes I feel alone in that conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like your industry is so much different than mine in this because I I largely I mean, I can relate to, to what you're speaking to, but I largely don't have that problem because of the way that I Write my content, and so there's like a level of it where they don't like my stuff is invisible to them, because I'm not speaking to victims and shitsters and I look at your stuff and I don't think that that's what you're doing. But I think that, because of the industry that you're in, there's a level of people thinking oh, lucky does it different way, and I mean I think I'm referring to a specific post here I'm you know, and and they start coming after you. I've seen it.
Speaker 2:But the people who come after me like that, when I write a controversial post and people come after me, that's just Straight up controversial Subject matter. That's that's just what's going to happen. They were never a client, they were never business, they were never community. They they form no context, nothing. I and those I can navigate. It's like water off a duck duck's back. Honestly, at this point it's really like I just keep it pushin. It's like wow, and I'll leave their comments up so that their actions speak for themselves. It's just like you just dug yourself a hole and Wobe tied me to fill it back up for you. I'm just gonna leave that right there like a pile of dog shit on the kitchen table. Well done Well. Do you feel better now? Do you feel better now you? You left my shop and as you did so, you took a shit by my front door as you did so. Do you feel better? Wonderful, I'm glad to have been of service. Love, you mean it? Have a good life? I'm really speaking about Maybe it's my niching.
Speaker 2:Every now and then I've worked with people and this is very, very rare and not even recent, so I don't even know if this is something that is a problem for me anymore. I speak about it because I know it's gonna be a problem for others. Yeah, and maybe there's someone else here that I can help with this. Someone finds their way into your business and they're, on one hand, making all the right noises, making all the right moves and engaging and buying and integrating and showing up and being business, and it's all good, and then every now and then there's just a red flag that shows up. They'll Expect a reply soon and they'll be A microaggression if you don't reply quick enough, or A microaggression about your price point, or a microaggression about the way you didn't serve them when they wanted you to.
Speaker 2:These sorts of things that has happened to me in the past and I try to serve these people and kind of sit with them go. That's a bit jarring, but okay, maybe maybe they're just different communication style to me, maybe I'm misinterpreting it. Give them the good things that they're doing and they're not doing it. Give them the grace to be themselves in this, this container. But every time I've done that, it hasn't worked out in my favor in the past, because they've often revealed themselves to be A titanic. They're headed for an iceberg and they've decided to do it on your watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Um, in my experience, that largely went away from me and my business when I stopped seeing people as like one-off clients. Uh-huh. So all of my people that I work with are in a long-term.
Speaker 2:Program or nothing. Yeah, long-term or nothing, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you know it's an investment both in time and money, and also like relational energy to be working with me, and so that respect is there.
Speaker 2:Implied before they sign up in your business structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so. I no longer see one-off clients. Um, if somebody's been with me Through either my group program or through one-on-one work and they're like I, you know, we've graduated, we've finished out that container, and then you know, six months later they have something that comes up, then they can book a one-off session with me. But I never take anybody just like straight off of instagram and say like oh, book a one-off session with me.
Speaker 2:See, I'm available, that way becoming less available.
Speaker 1:If someone wants to book me.
Speaker 2:I'm booked out for the next four months, right, so if someone wants to be that person, they've got a long wait for it. So, um, that's why I guess it's not happening for me anymore. But I know their service providers out there who do go Service to service to service and they might have a higher turnover rate. I know some Equestrian businesses I used to work for. A client would come into their business one time and never return and the turnover was that high. Like a trail riding business it's. It's that it's just like a mcdonald's, you know.
Speaker 2:And I guess what I discovered is that that's not an appropriate environment for me. I don't have the nervous system for it. And there are certain people who do, certain people who've just got a happy go lucky attitude. They're just born, sunshine and butta cut, they walk it and they're just endlessly accommodating and they've got a way that just effortlessly brings people on side, no matter how inappropriate people are. Those people are unicorns, by the way, very, very rare, very, very rare. Often in those trail riding environments, the people who are serving the clients there really resent the clientele. That's been my experience really, really heavily resent the clientele and it's um, it's strange.
Speaker 2:Do you think that there's any place In a modern, heart-centered, self Honoring business practice For someone who can deliver those one-on-one services With maybe a high turnover, and create a space where people can come and just dip a toe in the water, but that we can serve that person who wants that, who doesn't necessarily want that long-term commitment or investment, but just wants to dip in and dip out, and dip in and dip out? Is there a place for that here which can still Create safety for everyone? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I am that client.
Speaker 2:Ah ah.
Speaker 1:You are not your client, but you are that client fascinating so I have Practitioners that I reach out to for specific things, like I have a creativity coach who I love working with, but I just sort of like dip in and out of her universe as a client.
Speaker 1:You know I have a therapist. Same thing, dip in and out as needed. Um To me, though, the relationship is still intact like. The work that that I have to do as a client in that space is. I am still holding that responsibility of like what am I responsible for and what am I not responsible for? And I'm not asking for that person to step outside of their boundaries to deliver the thing.
Speaker 2:What to do if someone I'm talking about a friend. I'm not asking for advice, this is not about me, because this doesn't really happen for me anymore. I'm kind of retro, retrospectively, seeking answers to something I just always pondered and never quite sat with and found Conclusion to and I know other people deal with it too that I deal with it and just don't care and they keep it pushing. That might be one, but I'm. It's impossible for me to not care.
Speaker 2:What if that client isn't a cat who is able to Respect boundaries and interpret the relationship appropriately? And they just can't? And they'll dip in and out and every time they dip in it's just like fuck man, and you just got to like Pick up the mess. When they walk out again, it's like shit. Every time you walk in here, you come in, you make a mess, you go, love you, you're great, you're great fun, but holy, it's like you know the auntie who comes to town every second week or whatever and and makes a mess in your house and then leaves again and thinks they're entitled to do so. Right, what to do with that? How to address that? How to Hold space for different kinds of people? But still niche. Am I asking for the impossible?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that the medicine for that is your superpower lucky, which is honesty. Hmm. You know, I just being honest with people. Yeah, like it's, it's hard to have that conversation with people. I've had those conversations too.
Speaker 1:Hmm, where the conversation is usually like this doesn't seem like it's a good fit. It seems like what you need is x, y and z, and I'm not able to deliver x, y and z. And you know, luckily I do have a network, not that I'm like trying to pass off problematic clients to people, but sometimes there's legitimately a better fit for somebody, right, you know? And so, like, if I have a resource I don't, I mean, my integrity is I do not pass off problematic people I will just say, like, have you considered reading this book or, you know, checking out these resources on youtube or checking out this course? But like, if there is a real issue around fit, then I'm very happy to help them find somebody. But I think it's honesty, honesty what.
Speaker 2:I realized is that the reason why I had this issue In the past? Because I was still Stepping out of that. I'm a tool for everyone to use. I was still stepping out of that, that my job is to be a blank canvas For you to paint on. And then I'm worry. Well, I'm covered in someone else's paint and I don't like that color, and it's been a long walk to walk out of that. Yeah, and I don't think that's the purvey only of professional dancers.
Speaker 2:There are many people who suffer and have suffered from extractivism in one form or another. Any athlete Therapists.
Speaker 1:Therapists that you just said here my clients who are therapists. This is word for word what I've heard to extract something from people.
Speaker 2:It's um Boy or boy. It's a rich field of subject, a rich subject field, sorry, and um, I think I'm coming to the end of my Contribution today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah me too, I'm starting to get hungry, but I think the piece that I want to highlight there, that you just said that feels significant, is Is there a way that we can hold space for everybody, and or am I asking an impossible task? I can't remember exactly how you said it yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:And I don't think you're entitled to hold space to everybody Like that's. The piece is like you know. I don't think Like space holding goes both ways. Have to be receptive to the space holding and the person has to be skilled in space holding and there is a responsibility on the client's end To you know, be self-aware enough to not project their shit onto you.
Speaker 2:So, Wow, there's a One moment. It's um, I'm embroiled in controversy at the moment. You just kind of spoke to that very, very beautifully Self-imposed controversy because I wrote on a controversial subject, because I'm seeking to shift a paradigm forward, and A long-held paradigm that's Decades old, and I'm trying to Push it forwards and and apparently I've got the gumption To start that. Space holding has to go both ways and I think the further we move away from the acceptance of brutality as a norm and as an accepted Interaction style, the less and less tolerant we will become of brutality as we become less tolerant of brutality from our clients, from our community, from our colleagues, from ourselves to others, as we become less and less tolerant of brutality.
Speaker 2:There exists a moment where you need to use a refined form of brutality in In a way of setting a boundary, because boundaries can be brutal for some people, especially for people who didn't expect to get them. It can feel real hard and, um, if we're a people pleaser, we'll back off from putting in a boundary because it feels brutal and we're trying to disassociate with brutality. So we don't put in the boundary. But there's a moment where you actually have to refine and make peace with Society's urges for everyone to be cutthroat. Go get them brutal, step over each other, step on each other to get where you want to get Capitalism right. There's a moment where you have to kind of actually fully embody that, make peace with it and say no, because I am valuable, I am a resource. No boundary here, boundary there. That can feel really brutal for people who are not well versed in putting it in initially.
Speaker 2:Yeah and then it transmutes into a soft way of setting it, and then it transmutes into a business structure where you never need to set it because the business structure does it for you, which is, I think, where you're at, which is probably the best business card you will ever have. Truly admirable, kat. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much. I just want to share with folks that this feels like, honestly, an extension of our last conversation. Yeah, I'm looking up the episode number right now. It's episode 104.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what it's like when you're with friends and I would consider you a friend. Doesn't matter where we were years ago. You just pick up where you stepped off from and you just continue that thread yes, am I going to see you?
Speaker 1:I can see, and healthy boundaries in episode 104.
Speaker 2:So this continues. It transmutes into more boundary talk.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Am I going to see you at the Washington Clinic?
Speaker 1:I you sold out. You have a waitlist for that clinic now.
Speaker 2:The participants, yes, but the other to order no.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, well, yes, you will see me then. Good. Good, I wouldn't have been able to participate anyway because I don't have a trailer yet.
Speaker 2:But Come and watch. There's plenty of the participant. Tickets will probably not sell out, so they'll always be available, but the participants spots are full, yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I will definitely book that and I'll get to see you this year.
Speaker 2:Yay, that'll be fine. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Person, yeah Well thank you for having this conversation with me and we'll chat soon.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes.
Speaker 1:Alrighty and I'll put all the links to find Locky down below. So find the show notes and connect with Locky, because he's awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, alrighty.
Speaker 2:Beautiful Alright.