The VetsConnection Podcast

Ep. 28 - Healing Through H.O.O.V.E.S: Amanda Held's Journey with Equine Therapy for Veterans

• Scott McLean • Episode 29

Share episode

Send us a text

Ever wondered how a wild Mustang could transform a life? Amanda Held joins us to share her journey from the Air Force to founding H.O.O.V.E.S, an equine therapy program dedicated to healing veterans. Amanda's personal story is one of serendipity and renewal, as a chance encounter with a Mustang named Shelby helped her find renewed purpose. Listen as she recounts these pivotal moments that led her to create a program offering hope and healing to those who served.

Horses have a remarkable way of mirroring our emotions without judgment, providing veterans with a space to explore vulnerability and healing. Together with Amanda, we discuss how societal and military norms often equate vulnerability with danger, making the healing journey even more challenging. Through H.O.O.V.E.S, veterans experience a profound transformation, gaining insights into their emotional states and achieving emotional awareness through the subtle feedback only horses can offer.

The episode also touches on the unique and transformative aspects of the H.O.O.V.E.S program, including the intensive five-day format and innovative activities like "rage painting." Amanda candidly shares the challenges of funding such a program and the nonprofit sector's role in supporting veterans. We also explore her exciting initiatives, including the documentary "Hooves Healing Our Veterans" and her podcast "The Pegasus Perspective Podcast," both aiming to extend hope and healing beyond the reach of traditional services. Join us for an inspiring conversation filled with heartfelt stories and impactful insights.

Scott McLean:

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott McLean. My guest this week is Amanda Held. Amanda is the founder and CEO of Hooves, an equine therapy program in Swanton Ohio. She's also an author and the producer and host of the Pegasus Perspective podcast, so she's a very busy lady. How are you, Amanda, Hi?

Amanda Held:

Scott, I'm great and thank you so much for the opportunity to join you onive podcast. So she's a very busy lady. How are you, amanda? Hi Scott, I'm great and thank you so much for the opportunity to join you on your podcast.

Scott McLean:

Oh, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. We met through LinkedIn. Linkedin has been very, very good to my podcast here. We met through LinkedIn and we had a phone call. We had a very lengthy and informative and fun discussion and well, here you are. Here I am here you are. Equine assisted services, or equine therapy, is very near and dear to my heart, since that is what literally changed my life, and I'm sure my listeners are sick of hearing me say that, but it's true. It's true and I'm going to continue to say it, because it's an amazing program. It's amazing what it can do for people. So tell me, amanda, what is hooves? H-o-o-v-e-s. What is that the acronym for?

Amanda Held:

Well, you know it had to be an acronym because I'm a veteran myself. So hooves stands for healing of our veterans. Equine services.

Scott McLean:

All right. So tell us how you got to Hooves. Give us a little background on your journey.

Amanda Held:

Absolutely. I started this affinity for horses when I was like three years old and my parents were city people and they were just like, yeah, okay. And my mom fortunately fostered that love and got me riding lessons, which I now call my gateway drug, and so I grew up doing that. But I had to leave that life to join the military in 1999. So I'm dating myself here, which seems like a lifetime ago and also not that long ago, but I had to get out of horses to join active duty Air Force. I did four years and ended up at the Air Force Academy. My ex-husband was a combat arms instructor and so I had a phenomenal military career. I was a personnelist by AFSC or admin, but I always found myself in places where I was taking care of people and my first assignment was actually at Lackland Air Force Base with the 342nd Training Squadron, which was the Pararescue Combat Control EOD, and that was like my indoctrination to the military, which I later found out was pretty unique and special demographic within our services to be with the special forces, but I've always kind of had this knack for just looking at gaps and filling them. Unique and special demographic within our services to be with the special forces. But I've always kind of had this knack for just looking at gaps and filling them. And so because I was able to do that, I think I guess they found value in me and they kind of took me everywhere with them. So I got to have a lot of really neat experiences and actually got to jump with the Golden Knights at one point just out of nowhere. So I had a great career.

Amanda Held:

For me it wasn't being in the military, that was the problem. It was when I got out of the military and just losing that purpose. I really lost hope. I got out to be a stay-at-home mom. Our kids were one and two at the time and I had all the time and space, I guess, to process all the things I had never processed. But I didn't have the tools or the skill set to be able to process those things. And throughout my story you'll hear over and over again about the serendipity of life and the synchronistic moments. But my first really synchronistic moment was after I'd gotten out of the military.

Amanda Held:

I started going to the stables on the Air Force Academy because we lived there and I just started kind of hanging out watching people and that turned into me adopting a wild Mustang named Shelby. I still have her today she's actually she's 22 this year and that experience changed my life completely. I went from not wanting to live, not feeling like I had purpose, not being able to stand up for myself, to just going out every day and working with this wild Mustang. And the guys at the Air Force Academy showed me how to gentle and train and really speak the language of the horse. And I didn't realize it, but over time I noticed I started showing up in my relationships differently, I started to get confident, I started to feel purpose, I started to stand up for myself and I don't know that I really put all of that together. Even at that time I knew that I was ready for a different situation for my life. So I ended up calling my dad, who's back in Swanton Ohio, and said dad, I need you to come get me coming home, but don't come without a horse trailer.

Amanda Held:

So I took Shelby, I threw her in one half, I took the kids' beds and everything I could fit in the other half and we came back to Swanton and at the time I just was a single mom. I didn't have a formal education, I was waitressing and I thought, well, I should probably go back to school. Business is safe. And while I was in school, for business, we had to write a business plan. So I did one on a horse farm, never thinking it would actually come to fruition.

Amanda Held:

And probably a year after I wrote that business plan, my grandfather was driving by a farm for sale and he said you should go check that out. And I'm like, ok, you know, I'm a single mom, I'm a waitress, like I don't have any money. It's a half a million dollar property, no way. But I'm nosy, I'm super nosy. So I went anyway and I went to the gate and I had to sneak in. It was like it's kind of at night. No one was there and I just went into the arena. They had a really nice indoor arena and I just hit my knees and I was like God, if you give me this horse farm, I don't know how this will ever work. You know I'm trying to negotiate with God. I'm like I promise I'll use it to help people.

Amanda Held:

And I just got this like idea, like this voice was like take your dad to lunch and see if he wants to go into business with you. And my dad had recently got a divorce. He was living in an apartment in town. I was living in an apartment in town. I take him to lunch. I'm like you need a retirement investment. And I kind of slid the business plan across the table and he said, yeah, let's check it out. And I don't. I was just like, yeah, I'll take him, he'll tell me, no, I can move on with my life. And then he didn't say no and I was like what about now? Now he's serious, now I really have to do this.

Amanda Held:

And you know, through serendipity really, we made an offer on the farm. We were able to purchase it on a land contract at first and it just all worked out. And so here I am. I've got this 40 stall barn and horse farm operation going and I took everything that I learned at the Air Force Academy about horses and speaking the language and I started a boarding and training barn. But what was interesting is that I kept getting the same type of client or synchronicity. So it was typically the ladies that showed up at my barn were high powered executives who had always had a dream of owning a horse as a child, never got the opportunity. Now they have the money, now they have the means they go out and buy their dream horse and, within the horse's overpowering greed, trying to kill them, not cooperating whatever the case may be, and they would bring them to me.

Amanda Held:

And I was just doing what I was taught, like speaking the language of the horse, doing these horsemanship exercises, that improved communication. And then they started telling me the same thing. You know, I'm managing my employees at work better, I'm managing my marriage better, I'm managing my kids better and I'm going, man, I think I'm onto something. You know, I thought I had maybe created something and then I met a man who was into equine assisted psychotherapy and when I met him, he was I was psychotherapy on horses. Like that's weird, like what are you talking about? And he was like no, no, no, this is for people with mental health struggles and it doesn't involve riding. The horses can be on the ground. And he's explained the whole thing to me and I got like a lightning shock through my body and I was like this is my purpose, like this is what I need to do with my life, to do with my life. And he connected me with an organization.

Amanda Held:

Well, I think what makes horses so unique? And I get the question all the time. Why don't you just use dogs? Like can't dogs do the same thing? And they can't, and I can tell you why. And a lot of the stuff, a lot of the stuff that happens and I know, I know, scott, I'm sure you can relate to this, having gone through it like it feels like magic and we want to be like horses are magical and what happens, the therapeutic benefits, like it's just magic, right.

Amanda Held:

And I think, even when people are first starting out in their organizations where they're doing equine assisted services, there's no words and and it's something you know, we've kind of coined this phrase out here and we're like talking about putting on a t-shirt, but it's, you can't make this stuff up, but we don't usually say stuff, but you really can't, right, and so I believe well, I'll tell you the science behind, just so it makes more sense. But horses are non-predatory herd animals and they have a really high sense of self-preservation. And so if you look at especially wild horses which we have all breeds, but we have the most wild Mustangs here, formerly wild and if you look at what a wild horse goes through, they're out, you know, in the wilderness, they're prey animals, they're trying to survive. They have to look around every corner for their safety, for their survival, and I think, especially in combat. You know there's a lot of similar things that our veterans go through, and so one of the things I've noticed in terms of therapeutic benefits is just being able to connect with the stories of the wild horses or to be able to resonate with the feelings.

Amanda Held:

Right, and we all know at this point that the first step to healing is vulnerability. If you can't be vulnerable, you can't heal. You've got to go through that door first. But then it begs the question well, how do I become vulnerable? Because it's scary, and it's extra scary for our veterans because in the military, vulnerability equals people die, right, either you die or someone else dies.

Amanda Held:

Like we are programmed not to be vulnerable. We can't be, and I'm not saying that that's a bad thing not to be vulnerable. We can't be, and I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, but there's never a deprogramming of that. So we leave, we go back into society, especially a society today that's more cognizant of mental health and everyone's like be vulnerable. There's books about vulnerability and talks and TED talks and all this. But it's like how? How do I become vulnerable when everything in my brain and everything in my body tells me that's not safe. And so that's the first component, and I think the second component, or the other limitation to people becoming vulnerable, is judgment, and I think the third component now that I'm thinking of it, I just created a third component. The third component of that is people giving you advice. Right, like advice is the worst, like nobody really wants advice, please just stop.

Amanda Held:

And so when you're going to places for help, instead of people just seeing you or listening to you or holding space with you without judgment, without trying to fix you or change you you know that doesn't really happen very often, unless people are really trained in that. And you know horses can't talk, and it's so refreshing to be in a space where you don't have to explain yourself, where you don't have to listen to people's advice, where you don't have to, like, think about what to do any other time than the moment that you're in. And the great thing about horses is more so than people they can see behind our masks. Like your mask is a thing. To a horse it doesn't exist. And so they're going to meet you where you're at, they're going to show you what's inside of you, but they're going to do it in a really safe way, in a non-confrontational way that you can just reflect on what's going on in your life. There's no pressure, there's no fear of judgment.

Amanda Held:

And so what I see so many times and you know, we get all types of veterans. We get combat veterans, non-combat male, female, all the demographics. Everybody's been through something different, unique, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that there's a space here. Until you have the experience, nobody's going to be able to fully palette what you're talking about. But I will say this because I think it's helpful, because sometimes people will go in the arena, you know, we'll do a meditation with the herd and people will have like a profound healing or something. Or they'll go into a session and they'll come back out and they're like I'm a different person, like I just changed to my core, to my core.

Amanda Held:

And what I will say to that from a scientific perspective, is that our body, the first job, the first goal of our body, is to achieve homeostasis. Our body is fighting always to achieve homeostasis. So balanced, balanced brain chemistry, balanced hormones, balanced body right, that's our primary function. However, our body has a secondary function and that after our body has achieved homeostasis. The second function is to start healing what's out of balance or what's broken, and I believe this is my opinion. This is not scientific data, but I believe that what is happening, based on that information, is when you spend time with the horse, when you get into that parasympathetic nervous system, I believe that that time with the horse number one, is putting you into that balanced state so that your body can go in and start repairing some of the things that are broken and that could be physical or emotional or mental really. So I think, at the base layer, just spending time with a horse puts you in a state where your body can start to heal itself without having to do anything or think or say anything. Really, that's kind of layer one. And then I think the second layer, if we're talking therapeutic benefits, is then the feedback that the horses give you about where you are right.

Amanda Held:

And so, to explain that in a scientific way, horses communicate because they don't have words, like you said through mirror neurons, and so do humans right, and so 80% of our communication is done non-verbally through mirror neurons, and horses just happen to have those at an amplified level. So when you take that, based with their survival instinct. You know if you're the horse in the wild, that isn't with the herd, you're the target for the wolf. So it's literally a built-in safety mechanism for horses to observe their surroundings and blend in. So when we put the people in with the horses, the horses will start to read that finite body language. You know the twitch of a nose. The horses will start to read that finite body language. You know the twitch of a nose, the blink of an eye. We're communicating with them and they know what's going on in our soul based on how we show up.

Amanda Held:

And I think there's energetic components which I won't go too deep in, but at a scientific level we'll stay, we'll keep it PG here, at a scientific level. That's what's happening is that the horses are reading your finite body language and they are going to start to act how you act. And then when you talk about Scott, that emotional awareness piece, right, that socio-emotional learning or that awareness, the way that you treat people, the way that you show up in the world, the horse is going to start. The way that you show up in the world, the horse is going to start to act like that and you're going to see really in that moment, if you like who you are or not, because you're like man.

Amanda Held:

Why is this horse being stubborn? Why is this horse being this? Why is it? Oh wait, that's me, that's my projection onto that horse. And it's amazing because sometimes people are like that horse is acting just like my wife, or that horse is acting just like my kid, you know, and we feel like they take on the personas of the people in our life. But they're just reading into us at that level and you know, we say here horses reflect the life inside of the human and they do that very scientifically, but it feels like magic.

Scott McLean:

Yeah, they want to anthropomorphize everything that animals do dogs, cats, horses, people just do that, and it's I. That's a whole science itself. But one of the first things I learned probably day one a horse walked up to me. Kind of I put my hand out and he turned around and walked away and the facilitator asked me so what's that all about? And I said I don't know. I guess he doesn't like me. And the response blew my mind. She just looked at me and she said well, why is it about you?

Scott McLean:

Damn, it's like wait a minute Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa and I, I, I was like I had no answer and she was right. She's absolutely right. Maybe the horse is playing with him. Why am I making it about me? Why does the horse not? Maybe the horse does like me. Maybe the horse is just playing a game. Maybe it really opened my mind to that whole thing. It's not everything's about me, but when we get stuck in that, in that thing, we get stuck with our stuff, right? Some people use stuff is a good word to use in these situations. It makes you look at your stuff and say, ah, you take that outside the arena, you walk outside that gate, you get into your car and you take that into your life. Just take that into your life. Not everything's about me, right?

Amanda Held:

Why do I?

Scott McLean:

make it about me. I'm just making my life that much harder, and so you and I could probably talk for the next two hours about this.

Amanda Held:

I know I feel like we could do a whole series on equine assisted services.

Scott McLean:

Well, if you ever want me on your podcast, I'm available, Amanda.

Amanda Held:

I absolutely do. I absolutely do.

Scott McLean:

So okay, I'm a veteran, I'm in the Swanton Ohio area and I want to see if I could do the hooves program. How does that happen for a veteran?

Amanda Held:

Yeah, well, actually, what's really cool is that we are currently flying veterans in from all over the country.

Scott McLean:

That's beautiful.

Amanda Held:

So we actually I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but this year we had more veterans come in from out of state than we did local.

Scott McLean:

It's amazing.

Amanda Held:

Lots from California, lots from Texas, lots from Florida. I've got five or six from Florida that came this year. So, yes, whether you're local or whether you're, and we've had two, actually two, one person from Germany and one person from England come as well, which is super cool. And so the way that we run our program, it's a five day intensive format, so we fly you in on a evening and then we fly you home on Monday. But, um, we are seasonal, so we operate through April through October. Right now we just have a wait list on our website, so it's really easy to register. You just go to the website, click, you know, get on the list and then in January we'll open up registration for 2025.

Scott McLean:

And so we what's the website?

Amanda Held:

It's hooves H-O-O-V-E-S, dot U-S. And then if you go to the homepage, you'll see where it says programming and you can just click on that and it'll give you a little bit more information. And we did get a little bit more selective this past year because I do tell people like you have to be ready for this. We used to call them retreats and we had to stop because people were thinking that they were just going to show up and have a good time and lay by the pool and you know, it wasn't.

Amanda Held:

It wasn't the right word to accurately describe the soul upheaval that happens here.

Scott McLean:

The soul upheaval. I like that Is that fair to say. That is very fair to say.

Amanda Held:

That was the only word that came to mind the soul upheaval that happens here. So you fill out a process. We actually implemented an online course that I do have available for anyone. It's our signature course that we teach here at the farm, called the Human Blueprint, and that is available at any time on our website as well. But the premise is based on the fact that you're not who you were before you joined the military. You're also not who you were when you were in the military, and if you don't know who you are, everybody in your life will gladly tell you who you are, and it's easy to find ourselves living a life that's so incongruent from who our heart wants us to be and we just become what everyone else thinks we should be, and that creates a whole slew of mental illness that adds to the PTSD right, and so that's when we find people suicidal treatment resistant, so on and so forth. But anyway, I know I'm digressing off of your original question.

Scott McLean:

So what happens here?

Amanda Held:

So yeah, so anyway, if you think hooves might be for you, this is what I tell people go to the website. Take the human blueprint class. One of two things will happen. You'll either say this is a bunch of bullshit, and then we don't have to waste anyone's time, or you'll say, oh my gosh, I need to know more. And if you're the second person that is like this really spoke to my heart, then please register and we'll send you the application. You know just the questions common questions that you get, and then Katie is our assistant or associate director and Katie gets everybody booked and in the queue. So we hold seven intensives, one a month from April through October.

Scott McLean:

What are the living arrangements for somebody that comes in from out of state?

Amanda Held:

That's a great question. So I'll just give you kind of a rundown of the process. So we have a house retreat and I can't say retreat anymore, we have an intensive. Maybe you want to edit that one. Sorry, I just created editing for you, they'll get it after the way you described it, they'll understand yeah.

Amanda Held:

So we have a large house and the house has three bedrooms, and so two of the bedrooms have bunk beds and then the big bedroom has three sets of bunk beds. So, depending on what your lodging needs are, we kind of go open, bay style, you know, just to bring it back, and so we have the in the house option. We also have rustic camping, so we have we call them the cabins, but I don't feel like they're really cabins, they're like Adirondacks, it's a glamping situation, really nice beds in there. But if you don't want to stay with a bunch of other people and you want to have a more connected stay, you can stay back in one of our glamping tents and it's really beautiful back there as well.

Amanda Held:

And so we bring 10 veterans through. Two of them are always alumni. So, like my daughter says, they give me some street cred. I can talk about the program all day and how impactful it is, because I made it. But to listen to the stories of two of the veterans, you know it's inspiring, it instills hope, and so they get to have an incentive to stay in the work and come back and serve the next group going through. And then there's always another layer right, like we always have another layer, so they get to work on their next layer. So it's really cool. And um, and then we have eight. Uh, brian calls them noobs. I guess that's an army. Is that an army thing? We don't say?

Scott McLean:

that I was in the air force.

Amanda Held:

So I guess, yeah, I think it's an army thing, but anyway, uh. So it's a. It's a five day process and it's it process and it incorporates the horses. But we do a lot more than that in the process. So we start every morning with a mindfulness practice. So we do meditation with the horses, we do breath work, we do yoga. My husband has a program for veterans called Miles to Freedom and they do long distance bike packing. But we have a bike shop and we have a whole bunch of bikes that were donated by the Lucas County Veterans Service Commission. So one of the mornings we go on a bike ride. We're on 14,000 acres of Metro Park, right at the end of the driveway, and a lot of the veterans end up staying in the Miles to Freedom programming because bicycles are well. We could do a whole nother podcast about that, but anyway so we do.

Scott McLean:

Maybe I will tell you when I want to interview him.

Amanda Held:

I know he's so shy. He's like I don't know and I said it's an easy interview. I know. Yes, I'm going to take you up on that.

Scott McLean:

Thank you, I'd love to know more about that.

Amanda Held:

It's amazing. His program is so amazing. I'll send you some info. But so in the morning we do a mindfulness practice and we try to incorporate a lot of different things because not everybody heals the same. People are different, so maybe people are like I've never meditated before, but I loved that. Maybe people have never considered yoga. We have an essential oils class, so we do something in the morning to help us get prepped. People have never considered yoga. We have an essential oils class, so we do something in the morning to help us get prepped. And then we do a class where I've developed a curriculum. It's all based on the laws of nature and how to find our authenticity and how to live within that.

Amanda Held:

The human blueprint is part of that book work and then we take what we've discussed and learned in the classroom out to the horses in the afternoon and the horses are able to give us an additional layer of clarity and also some solutions. So we bring the things that we're struggling with out to the horses. And another thing that horses are really great at doing in these exercises are revealing our ineffective patterning, because there's a saying it's like how we do one thing is how we. Another thing that horses are really great at doing in these exercises are revealing our ineffective patterning, because there's a saying it's like how we do one thing is how we do everything right. So we have exercises that the veterans go through where they create challenges in the arena that represent challenges in their life, and then we see what the horses have to say about those challenges and it's really powerful. And then in the evening we do a fun activity. So we do rage painting, which is totally awesome, and then we also do woodworking. We do a pen crafting workshop so every veteran gets to make their own pen. They're those really cool like bolt action bullet pens. So we have 10 lathes. They get to lay the pen, and then they do that on Saturday, and then Sunday morning they get to rewrite their destiny with those pens that they make on Saturday night. So cathartic and powerful. And so the process, I think you know, when we look at veterans and I've facilitated these experiences for other demographics and we do one every year for spouses and caregivers of veterans, and I've done some civilian ones, but I've realized, you know, it is a lot of information we're hooking people up to a fire hose, but I think that's the way that veterans are accustomed to learning and they seem to do really well with it and they seem to understand.

Amanda Held:

You know, the first couple of days are rough, like we kind of I don't say you get beat down, but it's kind of reflective of that basic trading or boot camp indoctrination where you got to do the hard shit and it's hard and it's uncomfortable and we empathize with that and we support and challenge you through it. But then halfway through, after you kind of get to your rock bottom, we build you back up. And we build you back up stronger, with more clarity, certainty, confidence, authenticity. And so you leave and I tell people, the goal isn't to be a rah-rah fest and get you here to just try to make you feel good and then send you back home.

Amanda Held:

You're here to do the work, you're here to address the problems and I don't want you to go home feeling elated because that, knowing your next steps, knowing how to actualize all those things, that you lay awake at night thinking about, wishing, about telling yourself you can't do or be or have. I want you to see how you can actually do those things and we're going to help you. We're going to help you get the tools to do it, and then we're going to help you get the tools to do it, and then we're going to guide you when you go home, and so we have an 11 month follow-on program that's done virtually, where there's a curriculum that you follow that helps you get home and implement everything that you learned while you were here, and then we have a monthly support call. So that's just kind of a an office hours is important.

Scott McLean:

Aftercare is important. Itcare is important, it's critical.

Amanda Held:

It's critical and you have to do the work. It's not, you know, and I tell people when they're here if you come here and you just do this for five days like you'll get some result, but the work is forever. As long as you're alive, you're going to be working on yourself. Yeah, if you want to be happy.

Scott McLean:

Absolutely, absolutely. So, that's, yeah, that's a, that's an intensive.

Amanda Held:

That's a five day intensive.

Scott McLean:

It's intense, yes, and I like the fact that you said that. Uh, you know you don't want to leave there, feeling I'm refreshed now and, oh, that was so wonderful. You want to go out going. Wow, what the fuck.

Amanda Held:

Yes, yes, exactly.

Scott McLean:

You know, that was amazing, you know, uh, I think that's the, that's, that's the attitude you want leaving there. Uh, you mentioned rage painting. Is that just another form of Jackson Pollock painting, just throwing stuff at a canvas, or?

Amanda Held:

oh yeah, absolutely, and it is it sounds actually I hate to it's.

Scott McLean:

It sounds like fun. It's part of an intensive, but it sounds very relieving.

Amanda Held:

Well, I'll tell you. What's interesting is that we were doing it on Friday night. And what's funny is we like hype it up right and we're like rage painting, rage painting. It's Friday night and we would get to Friday and no painting. Rage painting. It's friday night and we would get to friday and no, and they're like man, I was so excited to do that, but because I process so many things, like I'm not angry, so we actually had to move it up in our curriculum so that people could actually experience rage painting, because by friday everyone's like oh no, I already see how my life is. Like you know, I see the serendipity, I see my responsibility. Um, I've left my uncontrolled rage, you know, on Wednesday. And then you know they would go in there and just you know, screw around and be like flinging paint, like laughing, and you know we're like what music do you want? Like, do you want Pantera?

Scott McLean:

like yeah, what do you want? Like do you want? Pantera like yeah, what do you want? Oh, I'd like some. Can I have some new age music please?

Amanda Held:

it was such a social experiment, unintended it's great though but it was wild and so, yeah, so, um, it's cool, though. We've had some experiences, you know, one guy was like, basically, like I feel like a demon was following me ever since I left Iraq. He's always behind me, or it's just this shadow that I see, and he was whipping his paint and somehow it looked like a demon. His painting actually looked like there was something in it, and then he burned it, and that was a year ago, and he was like, yeah, the demon, um, and then he burned it and now, and that was a year ago, and he was like, yeah, the demon just left when I burned it wow, it's gone right, so that was like is that what you do when they're done?

Scott McLean:

they they just the. I know there's a bonfire involved or a campfire at night or something.

Amanda Held:

Yes, there are bonfires not every like. A lot of people, especially the enya people know a lot of people take theirs home, like I had. Actually, um, I had a guy come through last year. He's a command sergeant major. Oh, this is such a great story, you'll love this.

Amanda Held:

Okay, command sergeant major, like I don't know 40 years, like just this guy is the epitome of like a life of service. Right, he made it to the top of the top and, um know, he came through more to like check it out because he works for a veteran service program and he, he wanted to have the experience, but he really wanted it to check it out for other people. And so he's going along and he's having a fun time, whatever. And he gets to rage painting and he he's, you know, he's not serious and Heather is our rage painting instructor.

Amanda Held:

She's an army vet and she's amazing, she's so I don't know how she does, what she does when she facilitates these processes, but he gets his painting done and he's all happy and he's like it's perfect, I love it. And she comes over with a paintbrush and she whips paint at it and like he was just like you ruined it, like you ruined my perfect painting, you know, and that was his breakthrough moment at our intensive is like his, his attachment to high level perfection. And you and then she asked him some facilitative questions. Oh no, it was a mop head. She threw a mop head at it.

Amanda Held:

It wasn't just a little paint splatter, she threw a damn mop head at it. And you know, I talked to him not that long ago but and I don't I don't know the exact questions she asked, but it was such a moment of realization for him in his attachment to things being perfect. And I talked to him a couple of months ago and he was like, yeah, you know that painting is on my desk at work and I look at it every day to remind myself things don't have to be perfect to be usable and viable and important. And so like that, usable and viable and important, and so like that. That was his biggest moment through all of it.

Scott McLean:

Nice, as my wife would say, perfectly imperfect.

Amanda Held:

Yes, perfectly imperfect.

Scott McLean:

So you have a pretty, I'd say, big program going. If you're flying people in from out, you know, out of state. So what are the biggest challenges your organization faces in terms of funding and resources?

Amanda Held:

That's a great question. You know, what's interesting is not this past January, but the January before we. It's a really long story. I'm going to give you super cliff notes. We decided to rescue four baby Mustangs from Sacramento, California, and we didn't even have the resources. I didn't have a horse trailer, I didn't have a truck. God tells me to do things, or you know, maybe I'm just certifiably insane. That's still on the table, but I feel like God speaks to me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. And we decided we're going to go get these baby Mustangs from from California. So I make the commitment. I have no idea how this is going to work out. My board loves me, I promise Um and then yeah we woke up.

Amanda Held:

So, my friends, come over. We have this Christmas party for the veterans and in this these two are alumni and they're like hey, we just bought a horse trailer with living quarters. You should totally, you could totally use our horse trailer to go get these horses. And I'm like, oh, that's sweet, awesome. We don't have a truck to pull it, though. That's a challenge.

Amanda Held:

Well, one of the other veterans who's one of our, he's been alumni like four times there. Him and his wife are huge volunteers with us. He works for a car dealership and he was like well, let me go ask Brandy's if they've got a truck on the lot that you can borrow. So they didn't and they went out and bought a truck of F-350 just for us to use on this trip. And you know, I'm sure they were probably hoping we would buy it. We couldn't. I wanted to, I didn't want to give it back, but anyway, everything worked out. We got the truck, we got the trailer. You know I threw up a fundraiser. People were so supportive. But I thought, like I'm always thinking, how can I make this bigger, how can I make it more than just about hooves? Like, how can I make this for the industry. I promise this has a point to your question.

Scott McLean:

Oh, no, we're in no hurry, Amanda.

Amanda Held:

I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this national campaign and I'm going to find other programs that help veterans with horses and I'm going to interview them and I'm going to highlight all the programs on the way. So we mapped out our route, we took 80 out and then we took the southern route back, like 40, and that through Sedona and my friend Lisa Dearson. She is the founder of the Equus Film and Arts Fest and she knows people all over the country, so she was making phone calls and we found all these places to stop on the way and every place had to be an organization that supported veterans with horses. And it turned into like such an amazing experience because I was in such a bubble, I was so siloed in our own little world and as I started talking to all of these founders I realized like all of our problems are pretty much the same. We're not unique in the challenges that we face, especially in this industry, because there's so much overhead. Having a farm is a huge overhead. Having horses they're expensive is a huge overhead and I think you know I don't want to sound like polarized in my views because I try to be very balanced and pragmatic, but I feel like it's easy to get donations for suffering children, of course, it seems to be easy to get funding for animal like puppies and kitties and shelters, like there's a lot of money. People feel very passionate and I think it's because, after I've talked to so many people about why they give and where they give, they feel like puppies and kitties and little children are, are defenseless, right and um, they can't stand up for themselves.

Amanda Held:

But a lot of people don't understand why veterans need charitable support, when we have a VA, when people pay taxes and taxes are supposed to be going to caring for our veterans, or they just really don't understand. You know, I've had people say things like well, I don't understand. They signed up for this, you know. And so there's a huge I like to call it an education gap. There's an education gap to the general public on why the veterans need these holistic, non-clinical programs and, um, you know, it's a blind spot. It's a blind spot.

Amanda Held:

What I have found is and I hate to say this, but it's true we take care of our own, so it's easy for me to get funding from our American legions, from our VFW families, and getting other people to see the importance of what we're doing and why us and why they can't just go to the VA or a therapist is a huge barrier. And from talking to all these other organizations, they all feel it as well. You know it's very competitive there's. You know nowadays it's much easier, like it used to be a lot harder to start a nonprofit. Now you just kind of fill out the paperwork and you get it, and and there's an oversaturation and then a lot of people aren't serious or maybe they're not ethical. And so for those of us who are honest and ethical and bootstrapped and trying to do the work like it's, it's a major challenge.

Amanda Held:

And I will say, the only reason that we're still in existence probably because I'm crazy I like I said that's not off the table, um, but but is really the tenacity Like I can't get, like I can't stop doing this. Trust me. There are days where I'm like what the hell am I doing? I could go get a corporate job, I could make a bunch of money, yeah, and then I'd be miserable and I would just be sitting in my corporate office thinking about one more veteran that didn't get the life change because I chose to be selfish and go get a real job. Quote unquote. So thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I'm very passionate about this topic.

Scott McLean:

No.

Scott McLean:

I love your perspective. I agree with you 100%. It's funny. You said that I just had a conversation with somebody, a dear friend of mine, earlier today In regard to that, that tenaciousness, that that's my problem.

Scott McLean:

I, I keep moving forward and I want to just keep doing it and keep doing it and get better and and uh, nonprofits are not really wired for that it's. It's very, if the pace yourself in a way, uh, you can burn out too. But uh, and I'm, I, and I'm pretty much immersed in the nonprofit world down here in South Florida and 99% are above board and mean well and are doing good work. And there is that 1% that it's questionable. I'll just say that in a nice way. They're questionable. And as far as the VA, I have an amazing relationship with the West Palm Beach VA and the VA is a giant machine and they're turning that machine, that ship. They're turning it. They can't pivot, they can only turn. And people don't understand that the VA I went to 20 years ago and I just said this on my last episode is not the VA that I go to today, 20 years ago. That's why I didn't go to the VA, because of the way the VA was 20 years ago. Now you walk in and it's different. It's a whole new vibe, a whole new feel, and when people say, oh well, they can just go to the VA, it's just not that easy, because the VA is trying to keep up. They're always trying to change with the times, they're always trying to uh, to make it right and they they are.

Scott McLean:

The nonprofits are essential. They're essential to, especially for veterans. They are essential. They just don't get the publicity that they deserve, and I've said this a hundred times. Recently I came up with this idea that, like I'm in the state of Florida, the state of Florida needs to do an advertising campaign for nonprofits and just call it find your nonprofit. And I'm like you know, find your nonprofit, it's there. There's so many of them there that are free, but we don't know about them, and that just baffles me. Until I got in the world as a veteran, I didn't know this world existed and there's no reason for that. There's really no reason for that, which is why the podcast came about, and my audience is saying he's being repetitive again. So thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Amanda Held:

I love it, but it's so important and critical and, like I always like, because people have this tendency to generalize everything, right. And I like to say when we generalize, we polarize. And you're right. The VA, it is a machine and you know, in part it's designed to provide services and in part it's designed to connect people to services right Connect veterans to services.

Scott McLean:

Exactly yes.

Amanda Held:

And I know, you know again, I try to just stay away from absolutes and I do not believe that just because you had one experience one time with one thing that everything else should be crucified after that. And I think from a lot of the people that come here, there are some amazing phenomenal VAs with people that care so much.

Amanda Held:

But it is a machine and I think a lot of people gain employment with the VA because they want to make a change for veterans and then they realize it's a machine and they only have so much power and control yeah and then they get frustrated and burnt out and they leave, and then there's high turnover and I know a lot of the veterans say, like, every time I go there, I'm starting at square one, because the person I was with before quit. Well, yeah, because they don't pay people enough and people get better jobs and better opportunity. So it's, it's a you know, and I think there are a lot of people that are trying, and I think, instead of nonprofits speaking out against the VA which some do, that's not helpful for anyone we should be coming alongside to offer our support. We should be working together. Yes, and that's really like I'm.

Amanda Held:

I've got some lofty goals for 2025. I don't want to speak to many of them because then, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be fully committed to these things, but one, one goal that I will speak to. I'm going to put it out there so that I'm going to make myself.

Scott McLean:

You might not be fully committed because maybe you don't have enough time.

Amanda Held:

Time.

Scott McLean:

Go on.

Amanda Held:

I'm sorry um no I, but I, I want to be a lobbyist but, um, I want to advocate. I want to go to dc and I want to stand on the floor and I want to advocate for our programs, our holistic, non-clinical services because, like I'll tell you, we're bootstrapped, privately funded God only knows how I do it every month, or we do it because we've got a whole team, but God knows how we do it every month receive grant funding and people. The first question they always have when they meet me it's an honest and a fair question is why, why?

Scott McLean:

aren't you going after grants why?

Amanda Held:

haven't you received grants, grants, grants, grants, grants? Well, because grants are for clinical programs and every time I sit a lot of them. You know we've gotten some foundation grants but like these state and government federal grants, I can't answer half the questions on them, because we don't do that, because that's not what we are, and I think the federal government needs to get a pocket of money for non-clinical holistic services. And now I'm fired up. So now I'm going to give you the rest of my spiel. But if you think about it, like, okay, if we go the clinical check the box route right, because I have I mean, I have my master's in psychology I could, could have gotten licensed. I chose not to for many reasons. I still could tomorrow if I wanted to. But you get licensed right. So you go to school, you do your clinicals, you take the master test and you're licensed and then, like you're pretty much in right, you check all their boxes and now no one's checking up on you, like you just see people, you bill insurance, you get the money. Life goes on, wash, rinse, repeat and no one questions you because you're licensed and you've checked the boxes. And then we've got programs over here like Hooves and many other programs where people are labeled treatment resistant. They've been in therapy for 10 years and I'm not saying anything negative towards the clinical. It certainly has its place. Sure to have a PhD, if that's what I wanted to pursue easily.

Amanda Held:

I'm constantly educating myself, taking all of these classes. I have all this knowledge, but we approach things in a nature based, non clinical way. And when I ask for money, it's what are your statistics? What are your policies? Show me this, show me that. And it's like I get interrog, interrogated to get five thousand dollars from somebody where people would never think twice about giving it to somebody who's in the system.

Amanda Held:

And that's a really big problem because we're getting results for people who can't get results in that system. There needs to, and it's not you know, it's not just us, it's I'm sure you, I know, I know for a fact that you have could write a book on the lives that you've changed of veterans who couldn't get the help they needed in the clinical services. But we're dying over, we're lighting ourselves on fire to keep other people warm, because we know the power of what we do, we know the power of what we have, while other people aren't, don't even care about their wash rinse. Or I have friends right now that are shutting down their organizations. They're tapping out, they're done, they've shut stuff down, they've quit, and all they were missing was some funding yeah that's it okay.

Amanda Held:

Now I'm really done. I apologize, kind of no again, kind of I love your perspective and you're absolutely right.

Scott McLean:

You're absolutely right. Uh, well, is there anything else you want to tell us about hooves? Anything you want to promote anything? I know you have your fundraiser. We talked about it, uh, prior to the interview the big chili cook-off that you do once a year and up in in in uh swanton and that's always I from what you say an amazing success, yeah that, that it really is.

Amanda Held:

It's amazing how much people love chili and beer. That's like. It's like it's America, right, it's America.

Scott McLean:

It's America.

Amanda Held:

Yeah, but yeah, we so, like we were talking before, we actually swapped out our chili cook off this year for a country was Western Gala and it didn't. It didn't hit. You know, I appreciate the people, that, the people that came we had like 50 something people, but we sell out our chili cook-off at 250 tickets every year, and so some people have expressed that they're disappointed. We're not doing it this year, but we are definitely doing it in 2025. It's going to be better than ever. It's going to be our best one, yet we're going to add some new cool things. So, yes, not this year, but we do have two really cool things that I want to talk about, and the first thing is our documentary. We just got out of the film festivals and you talk about not understanding what really happens between horses and humans.

Amanda Held:

My hope for this documentary is that it will lift up our industry and that other organizations can also show it. We did our premiere in April and my mom came and she came up to me afterwards and she said I mean, my gosh, I knew what you did, but now I know what you do and I think for our donors, what you did, but now I know what you do and I think, for our donors, for our supporters, for our volunteers. What the documentary is is it takes you through the whole five-day process and you follow nine veterans through their journey here. So if you think you might be interested in the program, you think you might want to support the program. If you have your own program and you're tired of people thinking that you just let people come out and pet horses, watch this documentary, share this documentary. I hope that it does so much for the industry and giving people an understanding of the magic of the horse. So that's, uh, going to be released veterans day weekend. Actually it's called hooves healing our veterans. We made it really complicated.

Scott McLean:

And it's available. It'll be available.

Amanda Held:

It's going to be available through our website to download and we're still trying to decide what platform, but the link to whatever platform we will decide will be on our website after Veterans Day weekend so you can download that.

Amanda Held:

And then one of the ways that we have come up with people that people can help if they want to support us, because so often I get people saying, amanda, how can I support a veteran with PTSD so we decided that the best way to do that is to do what's called the Save 22 Club and it's a membership club and it's just $22 a month. That goes to sponsor a veteran through our healing intensive. They're offered at no cost to our veterans and then also our viewers get extra content like extra engagement with the veterans, testimonials, videos, a chance at monthly giveaways. So it's a really great opportunity to support what we do but also be a part of our family, be a part of our community. So joining the save 22 club is also a great way to get involved, but definitely check out the documentary and then I my own podcast.

Scott McLean:

There we go Scott.

Amanda Held:

thank you so much for all of your guidance in that it's been. It's been so helpful infinitely.

Scott McLean:

You're not done yet.

Amanda Held:

Failing forward through this process. I'm there for you all the time.

Scott McLean:

Amanda, Whatever you need, you text, you call whatever you need.

Amanda Held:

You have no idea how much I appreciate that. But the the reason the podcast? Because I was like I'm not doing a podcast. Everyone's like you need to do a podcast, everybody's doing a podcast. I'm not doing a podcast.

Amanda Held:

But then I really thought about it and so what the podcast is about right now is only veterans who have been through an equine experience. So it's tell me about your life prior to you know, share your challenges, because people need to know they're not the only ones struggling. So we go into a little bit of that, like tell me about your dark moment. What was there? Then tell me about the moment you had with the horse. What was the wisdom that that horse gave you? And then the third part is how did you actually take that wisdom and implement it to change your life?

Amanda Held:

And I think this we've got three episodes in right now and the feedback that I'm getting is just, I mean, people are just in tears, they're like I just listened to that and it changed my life because, as I mentioned earlier, it's all about impact for me, like I am full throttle and before I die I got to have as much impact as I can.

Amanda Held:

Like what's the point if I'm not having impact and right now, I can put 70 veterans through hooves a year and still be able to formulate sentences at the end of the season. That's my max number. However, the wisdom and the stories also provide so much value and I want to help the world and I want to help more than just veterans. So I've had a lot of people say that they've received healing and they've received perspective and insight and information on how to change their lives just by listening to the stories of the veterans coming through. So that's also another really powerful way, and I am on Spotify. I'm working on getting on Apple, but Apple doesn't like my email, so maybe you can coach me on that next, scott.

Scott McLean:

That takes a little bit. Yeah, apple, they're kind of funny. There are some platforms that it takes a little longer to get on than others. Yeah, I've learned that the name of the podcast is the Pegasus Perspective Podcast and I love the fact that you went with the long form podcast, where you don't put a time limit on what you're doing, because what you're talking about, who you're talking to, every second matters to them, that they have this opportunity to tell their story and you know that's my big thing is storytelling, and I love that you went with the long form and you didn't try to. I got to fit this into a certain amount of time and so and it's a it's a very good podcast. So, pegasus Perspective Podcast find it on Spotify and on future platforms, once it gets uploaded, we can talk about that you know.

Amanda Held:

if you're having trouble with the other platforms, I'll be picking your brain.

Scott McLean:

No problem, no problem. Well listen, I think you just broke my record for longest episode.

Amanda Held:

Oh boy, I'm sorry, I talk so much.

Scott McLean:

No listen. These are good episodes, trust me. When I just sit back and I'm on cruise control, that's what this was.

Amanda Held:

You really didn't say much, did you?

Scott McLean:

No, you did great. These are the podcasts that I love. This is an easy sit down edit done. You did great, amanda, thank you very much for coming on. Thank you.

Amanda Held:

I just want to say thank you for your platform and thank you for everything that you're doing for veterans. It's so important and, like you said, like all we have at this point are our stories yes, and they're so important, and sometimes just giving somebody a platform can change lives. So thank you for what you're doing as well, and thank you for the opportunity to share as well, and thank you for the opportunity to share my pleasure.

Scott McLean:

My pleasure. The website is wwwhoovesus. Go check it out. Check out their five-day intensive. Maybe you're qualified. They have an online course. Just go check it out. It is a wealth of information. It's a very well-done website. Also, see, I do my homework.

Amanda Held:

Thank you. Yes, I'll let Sarah know. Sarah has put so much work into that website, so thank you.

Scott McLean:

She does well, she does well and with that I want to thank you for listening. If you could listen all the way to the end, there's a good public service announcement that is relative to veterans, family members of veterans and pretty much anyone in general that's listening to the podcast. It's only 30 seconds long but it's a wealth of information. So listen to that. And again, as I always say, you'll hear me next Monday with the new episode.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Scott McLean

Host