Welcome back to Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD! This week I’m joined by psychotherapist, supervisor, energy worker and Equine Assisted Psychotherapist, Louise Yourell
I met Louise a few months back at an IACP walk-and-talk supervision session she was facilitating in Mullingar and I’ve been looking forward to this interview ever since
We talk about:
- what happens when a horse becomes part of your therapy team (spoiler alert: they help regulate your nervous system before you even realise you needed it)
- how knitting and crochet help her overwhelmed AuDHD mind
- the divine feminine and
- new for this episode: The Cardamom Pod Question (who would you throw them for?).
As always, we run it through the FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. framework you may want to go stand barefoot in the grass and turn your face to the sun.
Grab your headphones (or your knitting) and enjoy!
le grá (with love),
Ev3
CHAPTERS
2:40 Louise’s work and how she found Equine Assisted Psychotherapy
4:39 Grounding with horses and the power of the breath
6:49 Self-care, animals and making space to regulate
11:24 Knitting, crochet and calming an AuDHD mind
13:43 The divine feminine and connecting with something bigger
15:29 Simple ways to ground yourself
17:38 Community, collective care and tackling bullying
21:48 Who would you throw cardamom pods for?
24:59 Raising awareness of equine-assisted psychotherapy
26:32 What horses can reveal about ourselves
28:23 What Louise would send her younger self
30:20 Grounding the episode
LINKS
westmeathcounsellingservice.ie
https://www.instagram.com/westmeath_counselling
https://www.instagram.com/louise_healingwithhorses
https://www.equineassistedpsychotherapyireland.com
https://www.instagram.com/equine_assisted_psychotherapy
Joanne Pasternak and the Moon Tribe https://www.instagram.com/joanne.pasternak/
Sisters of Defiance with Anita Rani https://youtu.be/tM8Y3OudwKE?si=t2hCtip70WoCgD2Q
https://www.megganwatterson.com
If you enjoyed this, check out:
Episode 83: Community as self-care with Elizabeth Potts https://youtu.be/ukjngIR6U_w
Episode 104: Excitement without AuDHD Burnout https://youtu.be/Ji6ss46u3iI
Episode 106: Working with the Divine Feminine https://youtu.be/imbXIxMkfaA
Episodes 20 and 114: the Moon Mná interviews with Dr Karen Ward
Choose your own adventures: New adventures in the works including Inner Child Play, Stop Self Loathing, Move Past People Pleasing and Purpose, Meaning and Joy
Book your free telephone consultation and access 100s of body-mind practices at https://solestosoul.ie/free-downloads
FULL TRANSCRIPT
They never forget their time out with the horse, never. They could, years later, recite what happened, where I was, what I was standing, what I was doing, what that horse represented for me. It could be a feeling, it could be emotions, it could be a part of yourself, it could be people, places, anything, what they represented for them and how they worked that out.
They don’t forget their time with the horse. Yeah. And you’re embodying it as well, aren’t you? Because you’re connecting it, you’re really integrating it in that moment in order to have the result.
Absolutely. Yeah.
You’re listening to the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD Podcast with me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham and you’re in the right place if you’d like to learn to love and care for all your parts, from the soles of your feet to your soul.
I hope you enjoy this episode and you can access other episodes and more information, as well as ways of working with me and free downloads and more about the adventures at solestosoul.ie. That’s S-O-L-E-S-T-O-S-O-U-L.ie. Thanks for listening. Welcome to episode 125 of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD. In today’s episode, I’m talking to the delightful psychotherapist, energy worker, and supervisor, Louise Yourell.
And she’s talking about her work with horse-assisted psychotherapy and her energy work, her work with the divine feminine and knitting, crocheting, crafting and grounding, lots and lots of grounding. I hope you enjoy listening or watching as much as I enjoyed talking to her. And thanks for being here.
So welcome, Louise Yourell. Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you, Eve, for the invitation.
It’s been fantastic. I met you a few months ago in Mullingar. It was my furthest drive. You were facilitating a supervision walk and talk networking thing for IACP. And I loved what you were saying about the horses and other things. And I was delighted. I missed your presentation at the IACP conference. I wasn’t at that particular conference, but I heard amazing things about it. And I’m delighted that you can join me.
So thank you for being here. Do you want to say a bit about what you’re working on, where people can find you online, and how you got into it?
OK. Thank you, by the way, the praise for the walk and talk and for the conference. There’ve been some lovely things happening for me this year. And it’s so nice to share them with everybody. So what am I working at the moment? Well, supervision is a huge part of what I do. And that’s why I’m involved at IACP as well, and kind of organising the supervisors’ walk and talk. I suppose most of my work would be with groups for group supervision and individuals.
But if you ask for where I managed to blend my love for the work I do and my hobbies, then it would be the equine assisted psychotherapy. I absolutely love that peace. It just makes me shine and gives me energy. And it’s so fulfilling in a very different way.
Do you want to say where people can find you online? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So the organisation itself, we have a website for Equine Assisted Psychotherapy Ireland. On that website, you can actually find practitioners all over the country and connect with them individually. And of course, we’re on social media, who isn’t now. And so we have the Eagala which is Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association.
That’s the model of equine assisted psychotherapy that we do. I’ll explain a bit more about that in a second. So they have a Facebook, they have a network, the Irish Network Facebook page, and we’re on Instagram as well.
So we can find us everywhere. Personally, I have an Instagram for louise_healingmyhorses and then Westmead Counselling Service, which is the centre that I run here.
And there’ll be links to all of that in the show notes for people who are listening while driving to get a sense.
I would love if you’re happy to take a breath with me, a conscious breath. Obviously, we’re breathing 24-7. It’s all good. But I’ve adopted this from Anita Rani’s beautiful Sisters of Defiance podcast. If you are comfortable just grounding, pressing into the soles of the feet, letting yourself feel supported and listeners, viewers, inviting you to join us, just to connect and connect with yourself and connect with each other. Eyes open or closed, whatever feels most comfortable. And just breathe, noticing what’s happening with the breath.
And Louise, I’d love to ask you about the horses and the breath. What happens? What do you notice? This isn’t a question I had planned to ask you, so I hope it’s OK to ask you. How do they influence your breath?
OK. It’s a bigger question than you think.
Often we’ll go into the space with the horses and we talk about grounding ourselves, but actually the horses will ground us as we go in. Because when we go into the arena, they immediately, or even into the paddock with them, they immediately see us as part of the herd. So they will check in with us to see what we’re feeling and if our anxiety levels are high, they’ll check out the environment to see, what has you feeling this way? And if they can’t see any danger, they reduce their heart rate and they also reduce your heart rate to match theirs.
So without realising it, you find yourself taking a breath when you step into the space with them. It’s incredible what they do.
When I was taking my breath, I just imagined a horse. So I’m glad I asked you that unexpected question. Thank you very much. So I told you, I ask about your ideal and your actual self-care practices in different areas.
So working with my FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. framework, the FEEL. bit is the kind of lowercase self-care, the thing we think of, like it might be going for a run for someone or like for me swimming or going for a walk or bike ride or things that we know are going to help us feel better.
It might be cooking something nourishing and things that we know are going to help us feel better, but they’re going to help us regulate, but they also take a bit of effort and there are things we can do to make them more easy to make that effort, but it’s still, it takes a bit of bandwidth. Then the LOVE. bit is the, you’re part of nature, you’re part of the divine.
I’ve just flung a pillow across the room and it’s the things that help you remember that, the things that remember you’re as mighty as the horses, you’re as magnificent as them or like the things that help you get into that frame of mind and that connective with your miraculous self. So the, again, ideal practices, if you had all the time and resources in the world and an essential, and then the HEAL. bit, and I’m guessing that horses will be part of this, the community that you hold space for and that holds space for you. So different types of community, but again, ideal and actual.
So what helps you feel better? Like what are the ideal self-care practices that you would love to do each day or week or on a regular basis?
Well, I love animals. I surround myself with animals. I’m very fortunate in where I live and I’m very fortunate to share my space and my life with animals.
So for me, I think the first thing is in the morning, I’m first one up in the house. So I’ll head out and I will put the horses out and I’ll let the dogs out for a quick run around and just spending that time, that very much grounds me to start my day. And I enjoy it for that very reason, you know? And then I go for a walk to the lake with one of the dogs and he absolutely loves the lake, doesn’t like the van driving there, but he loves the lake when we get there.
And again, I think it’s about just giving myself space and time to stop and to breathe. So when I, there’s a certain point in the lake and the walk around the lake where I will actually just stop and just take a breath. And I need to do some Box Breathing or some, you know, vagus nerve reset or whatever I feel I need to do in that moment or in that time.
And I feel that really when I have time for that, but sometimes I still have to push myself to do it because it gets me higher, you know? And you know, wish somebody else had put the horses out today, you know? But when I do it, I always feel so much better after that. Definitely after the walk, it just, it sets me up so much better for the day. Yeah.
And what else in an ideal world would your day or your week include? Time with family. So you say my family would all live in Dublin. I live down in Mullingar and everybody has a busy life.
So I would really enjoy spending much more time with them if I could, but we’re all so busy and I understand that. And kind of, I love having time out with like-minded people, good friends, you know, just people are on the same wavelength. Also I practice energy healing.
And for me kind of, again, spending time with people who are on that same wavelength and who get that peace. And even doing the healing sessions, I find energise me. Yeah.
Vicarious healing. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And it’s different to the psychotherapy. And if you had to pick just one thing, like if your bandwidth is lower, if you’re travelling, if you’re ill, if you’re stressed, what would be the one thing that you have to do to help yourself feel better, to help yourself regulate? Well, you’re going to laugh at this Eve. So I find when I’m stressed or if I’m travelling or if I’m tired, the hardest part is slowing my mind down.
My mind will be in overdrive racing, racing. So I will knit or crochet as a way of, the head is busy because it has to think about what I’m doing. The hands are busy.
Sometimes I’ll even stick a familiar programme on in the background, something I’ve watched a million times before because that feels safe and there’s no surprises coming from it.
And I forgot to say you have ADHD as well, don’t you?
Yes, I do. So yeah, that’s what I will do as a way of kind of calming everything down and getting everything back onto the strength now.
And sometimes it’ll only take 10 minutes. Sometimes it’ll take an hour. So, you know, that’s why I kind of enjoy it.
And the upside of it is, is I get some lovely things at the end when I’m finished. Lovely. Yeah.
And you have that in common with Michelle Obama. She wrote about her love of knitting as a way to ground and feel less anxious.
Oh wow, I didn’t know that.
At the moment I’m painting my fences and picnic tables and gate. I’m doing a big heart mural, multicoloured. And my sister-in-law died a couple of weeks ago. And it helps me get into my body just painting.
I’ve got a fairly smart blouse on and I’ve got paints covered jeans. I’m hoping the rain will stop and I can get some more done. But there’s something so joyful about getting into the body and moving whatever it is we’re feeling out of our bodies.
But then seeing the hearts or seeing the multicolours, it makes me beam. I don’t think she’d approve of my colour choices, but I’m thinking with you, you’re talking about the dual benefit you’ve got in the moment and also the pretty things to admire and that sense of accomplishment. And yeah, thank you.
That’s brilliant. So moving to the LOVE. part, the part of us, that love archetype. You’re already part of nature, part of the divine, no need to improve a thing.
But what helps you connect with that? Like you’ve mentioned the energy work that might be part of it, but what helps you remember your miraculous self? I suppose I’m part of, Joanne Pasternak is an absolutely wonderful energy healer and she was my tutor when I was training. And she runs a thing, a group called the Moon Tribe. And I always try to have, that’s on a Monday evening, we will have meditation and we’ll chat about different things that have come up.
There might be around where the moon is at, or it might be to talk about Mary Magdalene or that divine feminine, which really resonates so much with me. And then it will finish with another meditation that’s sending healing out to the world to where war and famine and genocide, all of these things are happening, unfortunately. Yeah.
It’s about sending healing out there and it makes you feel connected. It makes you feel that in some way you’re doing something that might actually help you. Absolutely.
The heart has an electromagnetic field. It does help. Even ourselves feeling like we’re doing something like that, it helps calm our own nervous systems and it helps us be less reactive in a more harmonious, in a truthful way.
That’s amazing. That’s wonderful. I love that.
What would be your essential, if it weren’t a Monday night and you felt a bit at odds, a bit kind of, what would you do for yourself? The simplest thing for me is to take off my shoes and socks and walk out the back and walk in the grass and just help myself to feel grounded. Or sometimes in group supervision, they’re always laughing at me because if the work has been really heavy, I will say, right, let’s get up and let’s put some Taylor Swift on there and shake it off, shake it off. So things like that, to shake that out or to walk carefully in the grass or just to stand outside.
If it’s daytime, turn your face towards the sun. If it’s nighttime, turn your face towards the moon. Just to allow yourself that few seconds, that minute or two, just to breathe and to feel it and to feel connected to something much bigger than you are.
Yeah, love it. So moving to the HEAL. part, you’ve already talked about many communities. You’ve talked about your family, you’ve talked about the Eagala community, the Moon Tribe.
What else? You’ve talked about the groups you hold in supervision. What I like, list all of the groups that you want to list, the communities that you feel held by, that you allow yourself to be held by, as well as those you hold. And if you want to add, although this is no pressure at all, but if you were to add imaginary groups that you’d like to exist, but thinking about that community self-care, that collective care, like it’s so important.
It’s not that self-care, like I’m fine. It’s like, no, it enables us to then hopefully create a world in which everyone is safe, welcome, loved and able to thrive. Like what communities help you and do you help and do you wish everyone had access to?
OK, well, as you said, the Moon Tribe, for me, even if I can only connect in and do meditation once a week, if I do it that Monday night, it sets me up.
So that’s one community that’s really important. The other community would be the Eagala network, the Irish network, because they are such like-minded people and they are all passionate about what we do. And we’re all passionate about trying to help everybody else through the horses.
It’s unique in that there’s a three-member team and that is the mental health person, the equine specialist and the horse. And the horse is an equal member in that team. You know, we all need each other in that.
And in doing that, we support the client. They’re central to everything that we do. So sorry, I get sidetracked whenever I talk.
But it’s that fact that each person, each member of that network will hold the clients, whoever they may be, at the centre of all that they do. That to me makes me feel that I’m part of something much bigger. And again, we’re all like-minded people.
That is what our goal is, to help in whatever way that we can. And the other groups I’m part of, even the IACP, you know, organising the walks. And again, it’s a group of people that are healing in their own way through their own methods and who all have that collective piece of wanting to assist people to make positive change in their life.
That’s another community that I’m very happy and proud to be part of. I think you said there, if I could come up with a community that would help, it would be one, it would be a community that can eradicate bullying. You know, that thing around feeling it necessary to make someone else feel smaller in order to make yourself feel bigger and better.
I’ve more, you know, as much sympathy as I have, I have a lot of sympathy for those who have been bullied because they’re in my office so often, the teenagers that I see. But I also have sympathy for the bully because what is it in them that they have to do this in order to make themselves feel better. So that’s what I would love to see happen.
In my imaginary world, it would be a group that has a way of removing that so that bullying is not there anymore. It’s very idealistic.
I love it. I love it. And I’m thinking like if like working with like Polyvagal Theory, again, it’s that if we were as much as possible in that ventral vagal, what I call Purr with the Polyvagal Purrs, we would remember there is enough for everyone, enough love, enough attention, enough whatever, like safety, there wouldn’t, but so much of the world, like you think about a bullying adult or child, the way it’s much more in sympathetic activation, isn’t it? Much more sympathetic survival. They’ve been taught scarcity, othering, like you have to be worse in order to not be a victim or you have to.
And it’s like, if we all were able to connect with the amazing nervous systems that we all have access to, we’re all mammals. And if we were all able to heal, which isn’t easy, but it’s possible. But if everyone felt safe, welcome and loved, if prison populations, if instead of people being threatened with violence in prison, if they were actually places where people could heal and be rehabilitated, I don’t think that’s too idealistic at all.
I think the world would be a much better, safer place for everyone. And yeah, so this is the cardamon pod question, which you’re the first person I’m asking. And you’ve mentioned Mary Magdalene.
And it’s a question I’m adopting from Meggan Watterson, the feminist theologian who has amazing work around Mary Magdalene and Paul and Thecla around how Christianity was co-opted from being this religion of love and of kindness and radical love, like radical acceptance and kindness. And it became then adopted by the Roman Empire and people were punished for having that. I think I explained this more articulately before I was recording.
You did, you absolutely did. You’re explaining it articulately now, but you did also.
The cardamon pod thing comes from Meggan Watterson talking about Thecla, the girl who baptised herself in her book of the same name, and the idea that she had the courage to be herself, to not be forced into marriage, to she believed in Christ and was preaching that message.
That was her role. But thinking about the world we live in now, how many people are having to have so much courage to be themselves in a whole host of different ways. And I just thought it’d be a nice thing to add to the podcast.
Who would you throw cardamon pods for? Because in Thecla’s story, when she baptised herself, when she saved her own life, the women in the arena where she’d been sentenced to death, they apparently rose as one and they threw rose petals and spices, including cardamon pods, into the arena, which turned the lions, poised for attack, not the lion’s fault, it’s the humans who put everyone in that situation. But the lions got really chilled out with the spices and the roses. So just thinking, who would you love to send a bit of support, like the cardamon pods to? It might be other people in your network, it might be someone long dead, it might be, who would you like to throw cardamon pods for?
OK, there are so many.
You know, you said there are people who are dead. I’d be throwing it at those who I see in the collective of the divine feminine. So Mary Magdalene, Brigid, a goddess and a saint.
And, you know, there’s just so many in Joan of Arc, you know, incredible, incredible people. If I was asked about who, you know, who would I throw it, who would I like to see? I suppose I would look at a collective now. Because you said there about trying to raise awareness and trying to get that message out.
Who do you want? Yeah, for me, it would be around Eagala, the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association and the Irish network. Because there’s a lot of confusion out there that people are seeing that it’s therapeutic riding. And they’re going, oh, yeah, yeah, I know that such a body and that’s not what it is.
This is all on the ground. There’s no horse riding involved. And it is about what happens in the realm and taking it outside and doing it outside in the presence of horses and how those horses create movement and can shed light on so much for a human and get them to connect into where they need to connect into.
Yeah. And that network, that Irish network are working tirelessly to try and raise awareness, raise awareness around this, because there are so many that can help that cannot or have not been able to be helped by other forms of therapy. Yeah.
It’s a slow journey, you know, where they’re all working hard, but it seems to be taking kind of it’s like walking uphill or walking through mud. Yeah. We’re doing the work, we’re doing the work, but it’s slow.
So I think if I was to raise awareness around anything, it would be around that and have people look into it, read up about it, find out more about it, because this is incredible. And this can really move mountains for some people that have tried everything else. And it’s, you know, it just hasn’t happened for them in that way.
I experienced wearing my journalist hat at Equine Leadership Day, like nearly 20 years ago. And it’s still like, I mean, I haven’t fully integrated it, but it was like a lightbulb kind of, we had to introduce ourselves to the horses. And I went first.
And I basically walked up to the horse. And I was like, Hi, you’re gorgeous. I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for you.
And the therapist was like, Hmm, do you feel like you have to have something to offer in order to be?
It was like, just the experience of guiding the horse in my power when I eventually got to in my power, as opposed to the who like, it’s energetic, isn’t it? It’s so like, it’s hard. I’m not really a horsey person. But I adore all creatures.
But yeah, it’s a magical experience. And I’m imagining actual psychotherapy with that lens would be life changing.
You know, often people would say, you know, yeah, I remember a lot from the therapy room and, you know, just bits and pieces, but they never forget their time out with the horse. Never. They could years later could recite what happened, where I was, what I was standing, what I was doing, what that horse represented for me. It could be a feeling, it could be emotions, it could be a part of yourself, it could be people, places, anything, what they represented from and how they work that out.
They don’t forget the time with the horse. Yeah. And you’re embodying it as well, aren’t you? Because you’re connecting it, you’re really integrating it in that moment, in order to have the result.
Absolutely. Yeah. So if you were to be able to go back to a younger version of yourself at any time and send love, wisdom, acceptance, anything else, what might that be? I’d love to send them love, wisdom and acceptance.
Because, well, the younger me didn’t know they had ADHD. And I believe I’m AuDHD. But I think if I could do anything, it would be to say to them, look, you will get this, you will figure this out.
You will find your way. You’re not nuts. You’re not overdramatic.
You’re not too sensitive. And, you know, that your quirkiness is adorable, not, you know, because I was all of the above. And just like I see the teens and so on that I deal with now, trying to fit in, trying to find my space, trying to find who I was, and trying to find, I thought everybody’s head worked like mine.
I thought everybody saw in pictures. I thought everybody had 50 million thoughts at the one time. And then when I discovered they didn’t, it was like, oh.
So if all of them don’t, that makes me the different one. You know? And that was an eye opener for me. So if I could go back, I’d say to them, look, you’ve got this.
It might take you a while to get there. You’ve got this. And you’ll find your way forward.
And life will always, every day you’re learning, every day you’re figuring out something new, every day you’re understanding yourself better. And that’s all. Absolutely.
I love it. Thank you so much for joining me. I knew you’d be a delight and you have exceeded.
Yeah. Thank you. And thank you so much for inviting me along.
It’s been just an absolute pleasure. Joy. Thank you. Before you go, please take a moment to ground the episode by just pausing and scanning your parts, all your parts, from the soles of your feet to your soul.
So you may want to keep your eyes open. You may want to close them. But planting your feet firmly on the ground, lengthening through the spine if that feels comfortable for you, letting yourself feel held by the chair or whatever it is you’re sitting or lying or standing on, and taking just a moment to scan your whole self, your whole body, your whole energy field, and ask yourself what you’re going to do for yourself right now.
It might be as a result of listening to the episode. It might be something else. It might be a nap.
It might be something to eat. It might be some kind of movement. But let yourself ground.
Let yourself get into the habit of connecting with your inner wisdom and notice what you need and give yourself what you need. Thanks for listening to this episode. If you haven’t already and would like to, please like, subscribe, comment, engage across the platforms wherever you may be accessing this.
And you can also email me, eve at solestosoul.ie. Thank you for listening. I look forward to sharing more next week.