Seeds Of Wellbeing - SOW

Ep 56. The Spirit Horse Ranch on Maui

• Thao Le / Paige Deponte • Season 3 • Episode 5

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In this episode, we explore topics like natural lifemanship, heart math and coherence with Paige Deponte, Founder and Executive Director of The Spirit Horse Ranch on Maui. Paige discovered and learned these techniques to help manage her own trauma, and so now trained on them and teaches others how they can see their benefits, and uses her horses as part of the process. We discuss these techniques in detail and how they may be of help to  anyone that has experienced trauma.

Brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resilience (CTAHR), and the Seeds of Well-being (SOW) Project. This podcast is supported by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

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The views, information or opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Hawaii, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, our funders or any of the organizations affiliated with this project. Welcome to a Seeds of Wellbeing,"Experts in the Field" podcast featuring Hawaii agriculture producers and affiliates working in their field of expertise to support agriculture in Hawaii, in the United States and in some cases around the world. These podcasts are made possible by a grant from the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, also known as CTAHR, and the Seeds of Wellbeing, or SOW project, and is supported by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Hawaii Department of agriculture.

Thao:

Hello. Aloha everyone. Welcome to another session of the Seeds of Wellbeing podcast. Today, I'm delighted to welcome you and introduce you to Paige Depont. She's the founder and Executive Director of the Spirit Horse Ranch located on Maui, and she started the ranch in 2021 as a trauma-informed care, equine-assisted healing center. She has a lot of different certifications, including being an art therapist. So we're just going to do a little talk story session with Paige, and let's get started. Thank you, Paige, for agreeing to be on our podcast. Can you share a little bit about who you are and what motivates you to start this center?

Paige Depont:

Good morning. Thank you so much for inviting us to share our program with your audience. So we as a family, the DuPont family, own Triple L Ranch, which is a cattle ranch, so we are ranchers. We raise bar angus crossed with charolais cattle, and we began horseback tours when my husband passed away in 2011. During COVID, I have asthma, so I couldn't even be around my family, so I was at the ranch by myself. They would come out and help me feed. All the staff was gone at home, of course, but that first 30 days, I was alone with the horses, and that's who I talked to. So I was down there a couple of times a day with my dog, Blue, and, you know, I'd sit down on a rock, and I would just tell them what was going on in the world. Sometimes I'd shoot videos, and I'm a complex trauma survivor, and so it's complex post traumatic stress description, and I've done a lot of work in a lot of areas to heal and process that trauma. I'm a recovering addict, and so, you know, I thought I was pretty good, until that 30 days with my horses, just every day, a couple times a day, talking to them, I started to feel this incredible shift. Now, I'd always ridden horses. I cowgirl up, chase cows, you know, do roundups ride out on the ranch, but that was a different mentality entirely. It's more of one of power, domination and control, which is needed when you're chasing cows to a certain extent. However, when I was sitting there talking with them, and I'd always kind of treated them like family, this internal regulation started happening. The world was kind of going through crisis, and I was very calm, which was new for me. And so I kind of had an epiphany that in 2012 I wanted to do something with the horses geared towards recovery, addiction recovery, and I hit a lot of roadblocks within the powers that be and and so in 2020 with all of the mental health crisis that was happening with COVID and my feelings so at ease And and healing, just by talking to the horses about everything, I started to check into the possibility of trauma programs for equine therapy, and so I did extensive research and found a modality called natural lifemanship, which is akin to natural horsemanship. It's connected horsemanship, but natural lifemanship dives deeper into the principles of trauma informed care. We get certified as facilitators, not as therapist. So I liked that because I had, of course, had many visits with therapists. And, you know, often times it brought up the trauma and and rehashed, and it was like reliving the trauma. And what I liked about the principles of natural lifemanship Was that they meet you where you're at today. You know, they meet you where your trauma's at, which is basically stored in your brain stem and in your your body. And so I investigated that, decided to get certified in this new modality, because during COVID it was like, think about things to mitigate, right? And so we were tourism based and ranch based, and everything was shut down, so I investigated that, and I decided to get my daughter and I on board with their training at the same time their trainings off, often mentioned coherence. And I'm like, "What's that?" And I'm a pretty energetic person, I like to say but I, with all of the work that I had done, I still would get pretty engaged. And I say"engaged" because my triggers were still there, even though I'd done all kinds of work and therapies and experiential work. So I started investigating another program called heart math, which all the horse organizations talk about, and heart math is teaching coherence. So horses are always in a state of coherence. Their heart, brain and nervous system are aligned, and they're aligned in this incredible phenomenon, because they're prey animals, and so they can respond in a nanosecond to danger, or they can relax if they are alerted in a nanosecond. So their response mechanisms are are really incredible.

Thao:

I'm just going to interrupt really quiet because just clarifying, because you mentioned coherence, so that folks understand and think you little you elaborate on, what does that mean? That alignment and the right awesomeness to the situation and context at hand?

Paige Depont:

Sure. So coherence, so, so horses are always in a state of coherence. Their heart, brain and nervous system are always aligned. And so what I noticed was, even though I've done all these programs and healing and years of recovery work, I was still reacting to life. And you know that meant probably there was unhealed trauma, and so I started learning this coherence technique. And coherence, again, is when your heart, nervous system and brain are aligned. So when our heart, nervous system and brain are not aligned, we're dysregulated. So that's not a really comfortable word, right?

Thao:

What does that mean when you're dysregulated? What? How does that show up? Like...

Paige Depont:

Um, okay, an example, you know, I'm working out on the ranch, and a new ranch hand drives my jeep through the fence, and he knocks the fence down and, and if I were dysregulated, I would probably start spewing profanities and, you know, "Ah!" you know, "What did you do?!" and and kind of lose it, right? This is an actual event that did happen. And so instead of freaking out or getting upset or getting dysregulated, where I reacted spontaneously based on previous experiences that were stored in my memory to a current situation with a stressor, right? So I was triggered, stressor, I lose it. I get mad. After practicing the coherence technique, I could take a look, take a heart focused breath, which is one of the techniques. It's called heart focused breathing. Take a heart focused breath or six and be able to realign my nervous system to take a second pause, see the truck has gone through the fence, assess what needs to be done immediately. Okay, the horses can't get out. The cows can't get out. Take that breath again and say, Okay. First, turn off the engine. Second, make sure the brake is on. Third, I'm gonna go grab one of our other ranch hands, and we're gonna put the fence back without having to lose it. And the ranch hand looked at me like you're not going to fire me. And I said, you know, stuff happens, and

Thao:

It sounds like you were able to sort of slow the process down.

Paige Depont:

So you're able to respond appropriately. And all of us have had trauma. We've been through so much in Hawaii, and we've been through, I don't know if you remember the missile alert, where that really shocked our nervous system, and then COVID, and then the fires. And I you know, Maui has been deeply affected. Everybody on Maui has been deeply affected, but they also have been affected on the outer islands, and then tourism and so lack of fina... So everything is heightened. And then we have, you know, the current political situation, and then the world political situation. All of that creates a lot of stressors on our nervous system. You know we read the news, and you know we hold our breath, and you know we're trying to run our farms and our ranches, and you know things aren't looking good, and we start to panic. And you know our relationships at home and with our children and our friends and our bosses get affected. So, so what? I found, first and foremost was that my coherence level shifted dramatically within two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, in just two weeks. You know, they said to me, Paige, you need to practice, you need to try and practice three times a day. And I said, "I don't have time for that." They said, "You don't have time to breathe?" I said, "Nope, I'm very busy person. I don't have time. I'll do five minutes." I was like, this isn't going to work for me. I'm going to do five minutes. And so I was like, I'm going to beat this thing. I I've got this I've done all the therapies. I'm good. So just to show them they were wrong, because that's me. I practiced with this app and this little sensor that they have. I practice for five minutes every day for two weeks, and after two weeks, I woke up one morning, and it was extremely profound. It was quiet. There was a sense of peace. My head was quiet. I don't know if you hear, you know, "nananana" all day long about, you know, it's self talk that's usually not very positive about all the things I wasn't doing and should do, and it's like nattering away in the background of my day and the pressure that that put on me constantly. I kind of call it my alter ego, and named it Sybil. So Sybil was in a state of coherence, probably for the first time in my life, because I have a long history of trauma, and the first traumas that happened to me were when I was just prior, just after being born. So there was a first traumatic event that happened after being born, and that just went on throughout my life, continual incidents, right? And so for the first time in my life, my nervous system, my heart, my brain and my nervous system were aligned. Most people believe that our brain is in charge, but what I found was that the heart was in charge. So if I could breathe into my heart and regulate my heart, which regulated my nervous system, it would send a message to my brain, this is all science. I'm all about science. You prove it to me, right? So my nervous system, for the first time, was quiet, and the result of that was peace and quiet. It's not that Sybil has stopped talking. She has great ideas that usually don't work right? She sometimes speaks up, you know, and that it I'm like, I take a breath. I take a pause, a heart focused breath. There's about 22 different coherence techniques that we train. I'm a master trainer. So we train individuals. We can also train other trainers. And at this point, after years of practicing, it's part of my daily being. And, you know, running a ranch or farm, stuff happens constantly, constantly, something's always happening. You know, animals, floods, fires,

Thao:

Yes, yes.

Paige Depont:

Yes. Always something right? Every day. So having that coherence tool like just at my fingertips, has just been amazing.

Thao:

So how do the horses relate to this coherence and your tools?

Paige Depont:

Right. So horses, like I mentioned earlier, are always in a state of coherence. So the second part of what we do is we've incorporated two other modalities into our program at Spirit Horse Ranch. So Heart Math is the first. When they walk into a session, we do a five minute heart focused breathing, and then the horse, who's also in the same area, is also working with the individual to regulate their nervous system.

Thao:

Oh, and how do they do that? How do the horses work?

Paige Depont:

So because horses are coherent, naturally, they will meet the client where they're at in their nervous system, and they will start to regulate them. Often times, if you ride a horse, you might be a little worried when you're riding at first, and pretty soon, the horse is actually working on your nervous system while you're riding, and you start smiling, you start having a good time. So the horse is always within...

Thao:

So they're really tuning into how you're feeling and how your nervous system is in alignment or not in alignment, and they're helping you to do that attunement, then?

Paige Depont:

Yes. So they're..

Thao:

If you're really nervous, or you're anxious, the horses know that, yep. And then they're not comfortable, so they want to bring you...

Paige Depont:

So they, it's not that they're not comfortable. How many horses do you have who are trained? Are they are Yeah, a required? Is there a training for the horses too? What they do is they'll meet you where they're where you're at, and they'll attempt to help you regulate. As facilitators who work with the horses and equine professionals, the team, there's four people in in a in a round pen, there's the client, the horse, the Equine Facilitator and the Equine Professional. So the Equine Professional keeps an eye on the horse, make sure the horse is okay at all times and is there for safety. The Equine Facilitator works with the client, and the horse works with the client. So while we're in there, after Heart Math, we'll go into one of two different modalities, Equine Assisted Learning, or we'll go into trauma, informed care, Equine Assisted Connection work. So generally, when a client comes in, they might not be ready to go into deep processing, because it's all experiential and somatic work. So we'll start with some Equine Assisted Learning. When someone walks in, most of the time to a session, they're ready, and just start with the brushing and walking activities. Wherever they're at in their trauma, we facilitate by asking certain questions. And if they're ready, they start to talk about where they're at today and and how they can heal that where it's related to their body. So the facilitator, the horse and the client, go through a series of activities that are stretched over different sessions. Sometimes it's just rapid trauma response to help them self regulate, and the horse helped them get back in their body. We did a lot of that right after the fires, and then it goes into long term recovery. It takes anywhere from four to 12 sessions, sometimes up to a year of weekly sessions to, depending on the level of trauma and the individual's experience and how they perceived an event and how it affected them on a traumatic level. You and I will not experience the same event the same way. It will not affect our nervous systems the same way based on our personal perception of that event. So each person is treated individually. Each person's program is set up specifically for their story, for their their history, for their generational and historical trauma, and it's very personalized. They have their own horse. The horse gets to know them. They build relationship. Now that we are moving into a different phase on Maui, specifically, we're incorporating more rhythmic writing, which is an even deeper process of connection building. What happens with trauma is we step outside the body and we start to disassociate. We're functioning. We're doing stuff. But if you notice people check out. Have you ever seen that? You're talking to somebody, and all of a sudden their eyes glass over. So they're nodding, but of people that we send out. They refer to us. You know, this they're not present. They're not attuned to you, they're not in their authentic self. And so you can ask them, "Hey, would you mind repeating back to me what I said?" And they're like, "Uhh, I don't know." And right now, there's a lot of stressors, right? There's a lot of stressors: financial, emotional, our Hawaii living situation, you know, the grants for helping our communities are out there for farmers are really limited, and things are more expensive. And yet people aren't getting the right amount of funding or funds for what they're selling, and it's a really tough time. So if you have pre trauma experiences and all of this pressure is on you right now, we would have you come into session and and first start to process some of what's happening today. It eventually connects to an original trauma. And sometimes it's it's not even verbal. You can't even talk about it because you don't really remember. So we work on the somatic aspect of it to help process that, right? person stuck. A lot of times, people are stuck. It's not working. Talk therapy isn't working. I don't like it. It's judgmental, all kinds of stuff. And they're not comfortable sitting in a room so outside in nature.

Thao:

So I mean, I'm very, I would be very interested in experiencing this.

Paige Depont:

Come over

Thao:

I will. I have to now at this point. So farmers and ranchers, have you worked with or

Paige Depont:

So we primarily work with, let's see we primarily work with. You know, any Maui resident at this point that was affected directly or indirectly, whether they were a farmer or not, we don't, we have not asked, so that's not one of the questions we ask, because our focus has been primarily on, were you affected or not affected by the wildfires? We have had a several people from the backside come over and get some, some healing. They're continuing sessions, actually. They came for one session, and now they've booked out for the next few months. Oh, they're like, "I'm gonna stick with this. It's working for me" right? And that happens often. You know, we also work with youth in crisis, right? We have a youth program that is step by step, building them up to the point where they can connect with the horse, saddle the horse, and do rhythmic riding. So that's a really unique program, and that's a minimum of 12 weeks. Yeah, we're excited. You know, we started out as a youth program and opened the doors to everybody, because we're trained in trauma informed care. That's our our foundation for what we do, I think, for ranchers and farmers, you know, we're not the type of people to sit in an office and talk to somebody. You know, just in general, it's we're outdoorsy people. Most people in Hawaii are outdoorsy people. We want to be in nature, and we feel better when we have our hands in the dirt. We feel better when we're with animals, and we feel better when we're planting and sowing and reaping and sowing. And you know, we're we're just a more comfortable. And I think that for Island people in general, coming up to our ranch is just such a reprieve. You know, it's it's a far away from noise and distractions, and it's very peaceful. And

Thao:

Where in Maui are you located?

Paige Depont:

So we're located up country. We're about five minutes from the Maui winery. So five minutes down the road, we have Triple L ranch and and our famous burger stand, which is Bully's Burger. So we do a a farm to table restaurant for my other company. And, you know, we've, we've had a lot of stressors. You know, we had the fires, so we lost like 50% of our revenues since the fires N.ever got it back. Still haven't got it back. And our restaurant, Bullies Burgers, was shut down for the fires, and then they decided to fix the road from Hana coming to us, and then fix it again and fix it again and fix it so it's been closed during the week. So we've lost significant income there, and we're kind of at the mercy of the powers that be to... the road is needed to be fixed, but it's taken a lot longer than they said. And you know, they gotta do what they gotta do, and there isn't any other funding to help ranchers. You know, we just lost it, you know, $100,000 a year, and they're not like,"Hey, can can I help you?" Like they gotta forget about you, right? So, you know, there are a lot of stresses. What do you do? You become resilient. And I can say that living on the backside of Maui, through all of these disasters and such, we've learned to be resilient and to, you know, be able to pick up and go because farming and ranching is hard work and the odds are against us most of the time, right? Because anything could happen. You know a storm. You know anything. And so being resilient, Heart Math at coming in and processing so that you can focus on today and not be triggered by things that happened in the past. We've, we've all had lots of stuff that's happened in the past. We all respond to it differently. And so we're offering an experiential program that somatically helps restore your DNA to a more healthy, resilient place. Because trauma stores in the body. It stores in in your DNA. It can even pass on. They've done a new research study that that the trauma can pass on through DNA into our children and their children. So processing our trauma is very important for future generations.

Thao:

Well, what are you doing is very important for our community. So we're probably at the tail end of our podcast. Is there any last you know, any sharing of lessons learned or opportunities for the near future that you would like to share with our audience?

Paige Depont:

I would love to see more ranchers and farmers come and experience what we're doing. You know, we did go over to Molokai. Maybe one day, we'll create a program over on Oahu too, or the Big Island, I'm really open to that, and the modality has worked really well here. We've created several programs into one specific for trauma and resilience building. And so, challenges? We always have challenges with funding. So, you know, we're we're nonprofit, so. We're always out there, you know, fundraising and grant writing and stuff. So we feel everybody's on that level too, and we're one of you as as far as ranchers and farmers go, we're one of you and and so our heart is very dear to your struggles.

Thao:

Yeah, so we'll look for opportunities to see if we can collaborate. So to make your offering available to our audience. Like we say, there's challenges in funding, but let's see what we can do together, because I think what you're offering would be very valuable to a particular population.

Paige Depont:

Thank you. I really appreciate this opportunity, and I hope it reaches people who need it, and they can just go to our website and click on the community link on the website, it's under Programs, Community, and then click Free Session, because all the sessions are free right now.

Thao:

Oh, wow, who's sponsoring the sessions right now?

Paige Depont:

So we have Maui community. Sorry. Hawaii Community Foundation still have funds from them. Maui County has done a mental health grant. For children we have the tail end of a youth grant, so kids can come in under that and, you know, we've, we've had several partners who've come in to support. Rotary. Rotary has been awesome. They've been very supportive. Yeah, we're very excited about the Rotary. They've been really supportive of our program. Yeah.

Thao:

Okay. And so what is your website?

Paige Depont:

So the website is www.thespirithorseranch.org So, the spirit horse ranch.org

Thao:

Well, thank you, Paige, thank you so much for sharing your manao and what we're appreciative what all that you do for us.

Paige Depont:

Thank you, and I appreciate the time. You have a wonderful day, everybody.

Thao:

The intention of these podcast series is to create a safe space for a respectful and inclusive dialog with people from across a broad and diverse spectrum involved in growing and making accessible the food we share together. A diversity of voices, perspectives and experiences can serve to deepen mutual understanding, to spark creative problem solving, and provide insight into the complexities of our agriculture system. If you, our listeners, have experiences with Hawaii agriculture ecosystem, from indigenous methods, permaculture, smallholder farmers to large including multinational agricultural industrial companies, and everywhere in between, and you would like to share your story, please contact us. We welcome your voices and perspectives.