Episode 280: Gratitude Amidst Adversity: Caring for Orphaned Foals

Episode 280-Doing hard things.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 280-Doing hard things.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Stacy Westfall:
Because I have chosen challenges, I know how to embrace the challenges that life offers. Raising two orphans was not on my calendar. I did not see this coming when I set my goals in January.

Announcer:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Stacy Westfall:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to help you understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. This is not the podcast I had planned for this week, but it fits perfectly with how my week has been going. If you have been following me on social media, or I've mentioned things in the last couple podcasts, or if you're on my email list and you've been reading what's been going on, it has been a busy and unexpected last few weeks, actually. Ten days ago, my husband's mare, Lucy died after giving birth and she left a ten day old foal named Lefty an orphan seven days ago. I brought them home and when I say them, I went to Last Chance Corral and adopted an orphan from that organization to raise with Lefty, the orphan from the death of our mare. So to say that a lot has changed in an unexpected way in a short amount of time feels very realistic to say I now own a bonus orphan that we've named Stormy, who is now spending her days with Lefty, and they're growing up together. And for me, it's been a really interesting emotional ride and physical journey. And at the end of the week, the thing that keeps coming to mind is embrace the contrasts. And what I mean by that is my experience has had a lot of contrasts. There has been tiredness and there have been moments of rested, there has been concern and there have been moments where I've been very content.

Stacy Westfall:
And I think often times, especially when it's challenging, it's easy to feel and experience the things like the physical tiredness or the burden of feeling concerned, and those in and of themselves are normal and let's say in this situation, very fitting things to be experiencing. Where I think it gets a little tricky is if we over focus on, let's say, the physical tiredness, because my schedule now involves getting up and checking the foals, and even when I don't have to get up, I in the middle of the night, will wake up and I'll check the cameras just to see what's going on, because they are very young and things can change very quickly. So I'm physically tired from this change of schedule. But what's so beautiful is that if I accept that and I don't resist it, and I don't even have to make it a really big deal in my own mind if I just accept it. What's amazing is that I can really fully feel how amazing it feels to lay my head down on a pillow, even if it's just that awareness for five minutes before I fall asleep, or when I wake up to feel how good it feels to be rested before the day begins. And this, to me, is the secret of embracing the contrast. It is the idea that you can truly experience something that is exhausting, but also look for those moments where you feel the opposite of that, or at least something that contrasts that, like that rested feeling.

Stacy Westfall:
And those are both physical things I'm talking about there, and that's for a reason you're going to hear in a minute. And on another level, I am having a lot of contrasting emotions. I keep coming back to feeling concerned. There's a heightened sense of awareness, of the fragility, of the change that has happened for these foals, of what they're eating is now different of their environment being different, and of the possibility of them getting sick for one reason or the other. So there is this concern, and if I let that become consuming, it would block out the moments when I feel really content. But because I've been practicing this for a long time, I can feel concerned. But I can put that down and I can have moments of true contentment. But it's easy when you're feeling something like concerned to just stay at that energy level. And instead, what I've been practicing is noticing moments where I feel really content. For me, that often happens after I have fed them. I've checked to make sure they're not too hot, not too cold, and it could be just in the middle of the night when I roll over and I open up the app and I look and see that they are settled, but I fully let myself feel those moments of contentment, knowing that I may wake up again in an hour, concerned that something could be happening, and that I'll have that desire to check on them again.

Stacy Westfall:
And by practicing choosing hard things over the last ten, 20, 30 years of my life, practicing, choosing hard things, whether that's been horse shows or whether that's been business decisions or whatever area of life has been something challenging, like when I took up running and then decided to do a 5K and then a 10K, practicing doing hard things has given me the ability to move in and out of this comfort zone, where I can stretch myself and then return to the comfort zone, or what I'm going to call a plateau. So it's really interesting to me that this is the way this works with me in my life, because this is the same way it works when you're training your horses, and it's amazing to me to see how it's working already with Lefty and Stormy. So in day to day life with the foals, they're going to have their comfort zone, their moments when they're content, and then they're going to have the moments where they are stretched and those moments for them are going to both be mental moments where they feel their comfort zone being stretched, and they will also have moments when they will be physically tired from their physical comfort zone being stretched. Keep in mind these foals are very young. Lefty was born three weeks ago and Stormy was born the day after that. So Lefty was born March 5th, Stormy was born March 6th. And what's interesting is that even though these foals are very young, I can see where their plateau is.

Stacy Westfall:
I can see how they handle being stretched either physically or mentally, and then I can see how they recover from that stretch. So an example of that would be when I got permission from the vet to turn the foals out into a bigger area to run and play. If you haven't seen photos, Lefty has a little corrective shoe on his right front hoof, and so he's been limited to what he could do. And so when I got permission to be able to turn them out in a bigger area, they went out and they ran and ran and ran. And this was a stretch of their physical comfort zone. And in the middle of running around, it was so fascinating because Lefty got tired, because this is the most he'd ever done and he's so smart. He stopped and laid down and said, okay, my legs are tired. And so it's fascinating to watch that stretch, because that first day when he did that, he was out for maybe 5 to 7 minutes when that happened. And then he got rested. And the next day when I turned him out, he was out twice as long and never had that moment where he wanted to lay down. So it's amazing to see the stretch that challenges the body and helps improve his legs, but also the rest that's required that return to the plateau. And it was really interesting for me because I let them out in the big arena the next morning and they both chose not to run around.

Stacy Westfall:
And then it wasn't until that next night. So the foals aren't getting forced movement, they're getting allowed movement. And inside of that, you can actually see them listening to their own bodies and making those choices on a mental side, with the foals stretching their comfort zone a lot of times is going to be something that is done by me. And specifically for both of these, it's been through the need to be able to give them some medications, and so that means I'm going to catch them. And it's been fascinating to watch them as I've needed to do this day after day because they have figured out the routine. They have figured out that I'm going to catch them, that I'm going to put something in their mouth that they're not super fond of, and I'm going to let them go. Now, because Lefty was handled a lot as a foal. He's very comfortable with people and he's super funny because he comes up to me and he wants to be scratched, but he's so smart because the minute my hand goes to go around him, I'm not using a halter to restrict them, I'm holding their bodies when my arm goes to go around him in a very particular way to hold him, you could tell he goes, "uh oh, she's changing the stance. She's going to catch me and we're going to do the medicine", and you can see him go through that.

Stacy Westfall:
Now that's going to get better over time. But that's his reality right now is he's like a little kid who needs to take medicine and doesn't really want to. And so I catch him, I give him the medicine and then I release him. What's fascinating with him is how quickly he returns to the plateau. So remember, he's coming up to me. He wants to be scratched. We're best buddies. I'm the one that brings the milk. I'm the one that gives good scratches. And so he's very into hanging out with me until my left arm slides over him in a particular way. And then he's like, "Okay, maybe I'll try to leave". And then I give him the medicine, and I let go, and I turn to walk away, and he follows me. So his stretch of the comfort zone, that discomfort of knowing he's about to take medicine that he would prefer not to. That stretch of his comfort zone is still there, but his return to plateau is within seconds I let go, I go to walk away, and he springs right back to come to me and I give him scratches. So it's fascinating to see how early the horses can understand what's going on. They can understand that, yes, sometimes there are things that are not as fun, but that's okay. We can then return to the fun stuff. Now. Stormy, on the other hand, didn't have the same handling foundation, so she's just generally more skeptical of people.

Stacy Westfall:
So engaging her, touching her, scratching her has been more of a challenge because she's been more of the mindset of "no, thank you" right from the beginning. So I've been stretching her comfort zone a little bit at a time by going in and using a stick and string and scratching her from a distance. It was easy for her to accept that because you're further away from them and it's a less threatening thing to use. And so by doing these little training sessions, she was able to catch on to the moments where I would step back and release. And she also got acclimated to the idea that the scratching felt pretty good. So even though it was uncomfortable for her, for me to choose to put her into a corner area where she didn't have a lot of choice and scratch her with the stick and string from a distance carefully, even though that was a stretch to do that with her, it introduced to her the idea that the scratching felt good. She's not getting the scratching from her mom, and Lefty is more interested in nursing on her, which she says no to, but he's not scratching her either, so Stormy doesn't have anyone scratching her. So even though it was uncomfortable for her to be in that smaller area in the corner of the stall where I introduced scratching, now she actually stands, stops and stands much further away from the corner to let me start scratching her. So in my willingness to stretch her comfort zone by putting her in that smaller area and scratching her, even though she was saying "I'm not hugely a fan of this". The next day when I walked up, she didn't have to go all the way to the corner to make that decision. She stopped in the middle of the stall and gave me a chance to scratch her. And then I walked away. And through doing this, she's now coming to me to be scratched. She has the same exception that Lefty does. She can also tell at this point the difference between when I'm going to scratch her, and the difference between when I'm going to catch her and give her medicine. Now, what I want you to hear is that I'm still willing to make them uncomfortable by catching them and giving them medicine. And for many of you who are listening, this might make sense when you think about a three week old foal who needs medicine in order to stay healthy. This very much lines up with raising small children and understanding that they're not always going to like your choices for keeping them healthy, but you're willing to do it. What I want you to think about is this is very much the same principle that is still at play. When you are working with your full grown adult horse, there are going to be times when you choosing to stretch their comfort zone, whether that is physically stretching their comfort zone by doing something like exercise that requires them to breathe a little bit harder, something that physically challenges them a little bit, or whether that stretch of the comfort zone is mental.

Stacy Westfall:
Through doing something that engages their brain in a different way, that stretches their comfort zone. And they're not as sure it's the same exact principle. Are you willing to stretch their comfort zone because it will change what they see as comfortable? Stormy again is a great illustration of this. When you think that the first day I essentially, it's not like I trapped her in the corner, but I kind of did have her in the corner and then was gently reaching out and scratching her butt 24 hours later when I approach in the same manner, she doesn't go all the way to the corner because she understood the concept that came from the scratching. So the corner isn't necessary anymore because of the mental understanding that came. But it only came because in that situation, I was willing to take her over to the corner. One of the reasons that's a thing with the baby is I'm not willing to work the baby and do some of the things that we can use different techniques with older horses where we would not corner an older horse, we would use a bunch of other techniques. But with babies, I'm going to do things a little bit different. Number one, because they're a little bit different, but number two, because their legs can't handle the same stress. So sometimes you modify your training choices because of what the horse can physically handle.

Stacy Westfall:
And so that's what's happening with these foals. But again what's fascinating is that after Stormy gets the medicine, she's then in a, "uh, no thank you, I don't really want to be near you" stage for a while. So when that first happened, she was in that stage for a good 12 hours. Now, after she gets the medicine, she's coming back over to be scratched after about 10 or 15 minutes. But it's still got a little bit of that holding breath quality. She's coming, but she's kind of coming a little bit more skeptically. Where again, Lefty, I let go of him. After giving the medicine, I turn around and he comes right up to me boldly and is like, this is when you scratch me and I say, yep, and I scratch him. So his return to plateau is much quicker than Stormy's. But listen to what I'm saying. Stormy's return to plateau is getting shorter and shorter, so it's it's happening quicker and quicker. It's just not as quick. Now, the fascinating thing that I've noticed about me is that if I were to think back to myself in my 20s, I think that my return to plateau physically. From late nights, early mornings, disrupted sleep. I think physically when I was in my 20s, I might have been able to spring back a little bit quicker than maybe I do now as I'm approaching 50. But what's really interesting is that emotionally, my return to plateau is very quick now, where in my 20s, I definitely would have been stuck in an emotion for a much longer time.

Stacy Westfall:
So I find these to be fascinating concepts because they work for the horses and they work for the riders. So physically, young horses spring back physically really quick, and older horses you might have to make some changes with and very young horses you might make some changes with probably the emotion that has surprised me the most during this last seven days of bringing both of these orphans home has been gratitude. That one I didn't expect, and it has been overwhelming at times. One of the things that I'm really grateful for was the past version of me back in 2016, who decided that raising two orphan foals was going to be one of my bucket list goals. So I adopted two orphan foals from Last Chance Corral and in 2016. When I did that, it was full of excitement and it so perfectly prepared me for what I'm doing right now. The one thing as everything was declining with Lucy that wasn't a stress was how to raise an orphan that I'd already done. And I'm so grateful I already had that experience. I also noticed, as I loaded myself up in the truck with the trailer, to go down and pick up Stormy 2.5 hours away, and then drive home and drop her off and drive over and get Lefty an hour away and drive back.

Stacy Westfall:
I was so grateful for having the time in my schedule and the resources to be able to do this. And then through the whole process of this. I am grateful for all of the thought work, all of the Mindset Mastery work that I've done on fully accepting all of the emotions that I have felt, whether I liked them or not. The fact that I know how to accept all emotions as valid and not get stuck in one, and not pretend that one's not there because it's ugly and I don't want to have it because I'm able to fully accept all the emotions. This has been such an amazing, revealing time for me. I've learned more about myself and what I'm capable of, and I've shown up fully, which is amazing that I set myself up for this by doing things that looked completely unrelated, by signing myself up, by choosing to do hard things like running a 5K or being self-employed because I have chosen challenges. I know how to embrace the challenges that life offers. Raising two orphans was not on my calendar. I did not see this coming when I set my goals in January. But this is not a weight. This is an honor. This is not a burden. This has been a gift. And this is not an obligation. This is a choice that I'm making, and I am so grateful. And sad at times, but mostly grateful. That I know how to do hard things. I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Announcer:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacywestfall.com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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