Next Group Therapy starts February 6th. Learn More.

A recent study has found that repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) is effective in treating depression. The results showed that the majority of patients experienced a significant reduction in symptoms, with some even achieving complete remission.

Are you interested in Group Therapy? Groups offer a safe space for sharing ideas, helping others who are going through similar struggles and can promote social skills and group accountability. Click to read more.

The combination of TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) treatments and Ketamine Infusions is gaining national attention as a powerful way to alleviate Treatment Resistant Depression. For more information or to schedule an assessment call or text us at 330-754-4844.

Hardship is Great

Welcome to the Ascend Health Show. I’m Nick Angelis. I’m the owner of Ascend Health Center and I’m a Nurse Anesthetist. And today I’m with Rachel Whitehawk from Whitehawk Ranch and we’re talking about suicide, depression, therapies and hope.

Nick Angelis: Hello, and welcome to the AscendHealth Show. I’m Nick Angelis. I’m the owner of Ascend Health Center and I’m a Nurse Anesthetist. And today I’m with Rachel Whitehawk from Whitehawk Ranch. And there is an accordion backstage, but Rachel has refused to play it. Even though this show would be so much better if she played accordion.

Rachel Whitehawk: It would be memorable.

Nick Angelis: Yes, it would be.

Rachel Whitehawk: I am sure. I haven’t played it since I was nine, but, uh, it would be fun to try.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: It is sitting right there.

Nick Angelis: And this is a completely inappropriate joke that will ruin everything we’re about to talk about, but we are talking about suicide today and if you’re terrible with the accordion, okay, I’m done, I’m done. But so, this is your second time on this show, which is very exciting. We’ve had few, uh, second probably because of the jokes that I make actually probably why we don’t have many people come back for a second.

Rachel Whitehawk: Not at all. Not at all.

Nick Angelis: But can you start by telling us a little bit of what you do at Whitehawk Ranch because this is like, I think our 23rd show. So, it’s possible not likely. But it’s possible that some people have not seen all 23 shows and missed the last time you were right here.

Rachel Whitehawk: I think it’s probably very unlikely.

Nick Angelis: Very unlikely.

Rachel Whitehawk: But for the sake of those who have not.

Nick Angelis: Right, both of you.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right, well done. Um, I, uh, started this horse ranch, um, non-profit organization, a number of years ago to create an environment and a methodology that teaches girls and women how to forever change their perception of themselves, of stress, of life in general. Um, I created a very unique program. This is going back. We’ve been in existence for about 17 years. So, I was very young when I started. Um, but we, we created an environment and a place and a methodology, as I said, that really transforms the way people think. We start our lives out in the, in circumstances over, over which we have no control. And we learn and develop ways of thinking and living that aren’t always optimal. A lot of it is stress, a lot of anxiety, a lot of negative thinking, um, self-esteem issues, self-worth issues. These things become problematic as we get older and in some cases become just impossible to navigate without some assistance. So, I, after many years of being in the entertainment industry and, and, and being blessed with a great family, decided to create something that would really teach and help girls and women change their lives forever by giving them the skills and the tools to master emotion, to master perception, and to ultimately master their life.

Nick Angelis: Wow. And is humor used as any of those skills, because, so the last show I just did was about domestic violence. And so, it was very difficult for me but, um, just because of the subject matter, I was very serious throughout the show and we talked about a lot of helpful resources.

Rachel Whitehawk: Sure.

Nick Angelis: And here we are talking about even more serious subjects, but I can’t quite keep it together and be serious for two shows in a row.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: But often with serious mental health issues, there is a sense of let’s keep everything serious. Let’s be very professional. And, you know, at Ascend Health Center we’ve taken a different approach of let’s be a bit more casual.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: Yes, these are deep, difficult situations but somehow, they seem to be even worse when you’re in a cold, sterile professional environment where there’s such huge boundaries between like the staff and the patients that it’s almost the way I tell the patients as, well, when you go to your dermatologist, you don’t wear makeup because otherwise they can’t tell what’s wrong with you. So, unless you feel like you can be yourself with us, we’ll probably give you the wrong medicines, wrong treatments, that therapy won’t be effective because we’re treating this shadow self, this persona that you’ve developed often because of trauma or hardship. But that person doesn’t need the medicine or the therapy. It’s the real you who you are at your core that we really need to treat.

Rachel Whitehawk: I could not have said it better. One of the reasons we are so successful and we are an alternative, um, and a good one is because we provide that very thing. When you are out at a horse farm, um, and we have offices and they’re heated and air conditioned, and we have all the comforts that you need in order to, to learn certain things. But you, you have to be genuine when, when you’re with animals, especially the animals that we have, because they’re huge. We have draft horses. Authenticity and genuineness are, are absolutely paramount to doing what we do. And we provide an environment that is not clinical and we are often the last resort for a lot of people who’ve gone through a lot of the, the medical community or the mental health community and, and those resources and haven’t found everything that they need.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: Um, and we are a great resource because of that, because of our relaxed environment. The, the idea that we are just, we are here to help you, the genuine, we are helped – we’re here to help you reveal who you are, love who you are and sustain who you are. And, and you’re so right it is all about being genuine. And humor to your point is, is a huge part of that. If we don’t learn to enjoy life, I think sometimes people who suffer with anxiety and depression and these related issues, um, never really appreciate humor and joy.
And that’s a learned skill in some cases. I think it’s a learned skill of more often than we realize, because I think we stay in this kind of pretense as you, as you say.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: Um, so you’re absolutely right. We have to provide an environment where people can enjoy. We get this one life, that’s one of the things I say all the time, we go around this earth one time. We are meant to enjoy it, and it’s meant to be happy and wonderful and, and full of laughter and humor. You are so right.

Nick Angelis: Right. No, I had a patient who told me how he is no longer depressed. And then he told his psychiatrist, okay, I’m not depressed but I’m also not awake. I don’t think this counts and the psychiatrist said, no, it does. You’re not suicidal, we are succeeding.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: And it’s that idea of, well, no, this is cheating. Like in anesthesia, my specialty as a nurse in anesthetist.

Rachel Whitehawk: Exactly, right.

Nick Angelis: We give drugs for nausea. Some of them make you very drowsy and it’s like, but am I really taking away your nausea because you’re asleep. I don’t know if this counts as a win either.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: So, its.

Rachel Whitehawk: And do you want to spend your life.

Nick Angelis: Right surviving.

Rachel Whitehawk: Going through it just, yeah, just surviving without really optimizing. I mean, I, I believe we’re all put here for many purposes, great purposes. And part of our journey is to get beyond the things that limit us and find those purposes and enjoy them and live them out. So, you’re right. We can’t do that in a, in a drug haze.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: Or, or sedated in any kind of way. Um, but that’s often the go-to answer because, because the medical community and, and other people were concerned about keeping people alive.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: But while we have them alive, we need to teach them how to live. Right. And that’s what you, you do and that’s what I do.

Nick Angelis: You’re right. A lot of times we think of quality of life as far as older adults in nursing homes and, uh, with some of the medical devices that can keep them technically alive, but that is, uh, it’s, it’s a very difficult ethical issue, but that it’s a huge issue of mental health. Uh, and in substance abuse, like to what lengths do we go to, um, not that we give up on people, but are we keeping the focus on harm reduction and what is right for this person, instead of, well, they won’t hurt themselves if they’re in this room with nothing to do, or if you watch them every minute of the day, or if we whisk them off to the hospital, if they say the wrong thing.

Rachel Whitehawk: Yeah. And temporarily those types of things are helpful, but, but I deal primarily with teen girls and with adult women and, and we need to be able to take them from that place and strengthen them. The last time I was here, we talked about resiliency.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: And resiliency is the cornerstone of, of, of treating suicide or treating suicidal ideation, I think. Teaching people and every situation is different. I don’t want to make a blanket statement, but just in managing life. We, we need to be able to teach people the skill of resilience, being able to manage how we feel, be able to experience an emotion without reacting to it or reacting on it or acting out that emotion. These are fundamental things that we don’t see being taught regularly in society.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: Um, so our, our program and others like it are, are, are vital to keeping people healthy and happy and giving, giving people the opportunity to go from a suicidal state, um, to a state of wholeness and health and being able to manage and live their lives well.

Nick Angelis: So, is there a concern in this maybe slightly offensive since you’re a therapist where you can almost get too much help or you have someone who sympathizes with every emotion that you’re having?

Rachel Whitehawk: Exactly.

Nick Angelis: Oh, that must be terrible.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: Instead of the occasional that’s not a big deal.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right. You have to teach people that it’s okay.

Nick Angelis: Because I do say that sometimes to my patients but again, that’s a risky thing because it could come off as uncaring or that they’re not in their shoes while at the same time, none of us have the mental capacity to focus on every detail and really ruminate about, well, what did they mean by that or how will I get over this?

Rachel Whitehawk: Right and sometimes it’s very comforting. The opposite of that is very comforting to be able to tell people that, hey, I know this feels awful right now, but you’re not in any physical danger. You know, I deal with people who have, it runs the gamut, but a lot of young women have enormous panic attacks and anxiety. And in that moment, they are just sure, the end is near.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: And being able to, to teach them that you can be uncomfortable. You know, we live in a society where we have instant everything, right, instant gratification, instant relief, instant information.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: And we have lost the idea of what it means to be in discomfort for a period of time. We want to eliminate that as quickly as we can and that’s not always possible. And it’s certainly not always optimal to your point yeah.

Nick Angelis: Right. It’s almost as if I said that hey Joanne it is 71 here at inside the WCTVStudio, I prefer 72.So, if you can make that happen, Rachel and I will be so much more comfortable.

Joanne: I am on it.

Nick Angelis: Oh.

Rachel Whitehawk: Wow. It’s magic. Yeah. Don’t we wish all of life work that easily, but it doesn’t. And I think that we, we stay focused on this absence of discomfort to such a degree that it’s a culture now that people can’t sit with uncomfortable feelings, they can’t sit with grief. They can’t sit with, uh, worry, you know.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: And a, a moderate amount of worries is a normal part of life. I spend a lot of time teaching girls and women how not to worry and how to not ruminate because ruminating is now what most people consider worry. Right.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: One of the most destructive habits possible. And I think one of the things that leads to a depressive, suicidal state in many cases, you know, we have to try to arrest that the development of that negative thought pattern. Um, and we’ve been very successful in doing that, but, but it takes an environment that’s genuine. It takes people away from their regular day, takes out into a horse farm, it’s a much more conducive environment to come to grips with real emotion and learn to control them and manage them.

Nick Angelis: No, that makes sense about rumination. You know, the Bible verse give us this day our daily bread.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: It doesn’t say give us this day.

Rachel Whitehawk: Give it all to us.

Nick Angelis: A loaf of bread that will last in my pantry for four months and every day I will think about the bread.

Rachel Whitehawk: Great point. That’s a great point, right.

Nick Angelis: I know. I think I’ve told you this before, but that’s how the ketamine and treatments work in our clinic, where it is a stress to your brain, but more of an acute let’s live life and have an adventure stress that then dissipates and leaves someone less anxious and less depressed as opposed to these chronic stresses where it’s, well, what about my bills? What about my career? Because many people during the pandemic said they actually had a lot lower stress, but, and they felt better, but that’s because they had no human interaction at all. They were just using Instacart and Amazon and staying in their houses.

Rachel Whitehawk: Sure. Right. We are becoming more isolated, you know.

Nick Angelis: And that doesn’t count. It’s a more peaceful life. And there’s often a lot of talk about tranquility and mindfulness, but it’s almost an abuse of those words.

Rachel Whitehawk: It is.

Nick Angelis: Because of course your life isn’t stressful. You have no responsibilities to anyone else.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right and that’s not healthy long-term, you know, a little bit of that is fine, but anything done in, you know, great amounts or for great periods of time creates the same problem, just on a different, on a different level.

Nick Angelis: Okay.

Rachel Whitehawk: You know, it’s, it’s awful, you know, one of the things that you and I do, um, that has really been a great mixture of kind of the mental health world and, and some of the, the more alternative methods, which I guess I would fall into is that you and I have been able to work together with patients and create really great success stories for young women who have struggled with suicidal ideation. And, and these other things ruminating, um, as well, um, I think that we need more of that. You know, you, and I’ve talked before about the fact that one person comes, comes into your practice needing help. And you don’t always know all of the other types of things that are going on in their lives. You don’t know what other kinds of medical care they’re seeking, what other kinds of information they have, what other kinds of medication they’re taking, all that kind of thing. It would be so great to be able to, and I don’t know how we do this. Maybe you have some advice on how we can integrate, um, care for each individual person, you know, creating a plan of care that kind of has everybody talking, you know, everybody who deals with that particular person talking about their care.

Nick Angelis: Well, I think it has to do with the stiff facade I mentioned earlier. And when I first opened my clinic, I did try that. It isn’t my nature, um, because unfortunately I’m a pretty silly person, but I tried the whole very professional and let’s uh, make this look like a very sleek well-run organization and we can take care of everything. And then I realized, well, if I’m real with these patients, than I’m much more likely to realize quickly if something is, if, if I know, like obviously there’s no horse ranch inside of Ascend Health Center, I’ve looked into every room. I’ve never seen a horse, not a, not even a pony. We don’t even have a pony inside. And so, when you’re more relaxed with the patients, you can more easily relate I can’t help with this particular issue. But here is someone who can, and it’s a much more natural approach.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: Like going to your neighbor’s house for sugar and, oh, they have two of egg. I could use an egg, uh, here’s a potato that you can use that sort of system of, well, here’s what we can all do together. And it doesn’t matter if I’m the one who heals you. It kind of takes the pride out of it too, because a lot in healthcare, many of us get into it. Having the superhero complex of.

Rachel Whitehawk: Sure.

Nick Angelis: I can save everyone. But if we’re sharing, then it’s like, well, here’s the expertise that I can bring and then I won’t go beyond my expertise. I’ll send you to this person and it’s a more natural progression and it does help, I think, prevent what I was also talking to you about and what I’m often worried about is too much help.

Rachel Whitehawk: Yes.

Nick Angelis: Where it’s almost like healthcare becomes like the Amazon and Instacart.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right, right. Well said.

Nick Angelis: We just lay around and other people deal with all your issues for you.

Rachel Whitehawk: That’s right. Well said, that’s really true.

Nick Angelis: Because that’s great until you need to, I don’t know, get a job or something and then all crumbles.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right, right. Yeah, right, we need to be empowering people to manage their own lives. And you’re very, it’s a very great point. We are now in an environment where there are so many options and so much help available that there are people who are receiving so much assistance or care that maybe it’s skewed and they’re not taking on the responsibility of, of taking that information and kind of elevating their own experience. I think one of the reasons you and I worked so well together is because we have that same viewpoint. We, we love people and we want to help people, but we also know that we – you and I have limits. There’s only so much that I can do within my right purview.

Nick Angelis: And it does not need to be more of a referral process of professional to professional because otherwise I can envision a future in two or three years where mental health care becomes almost like Bumble or Tinder where the patient’s like, like use this. I want some EMDR.

Rachel Whitehawk: Exactly right.

Nick Angelis: While I do some ketamine therapy, here is some TMS.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: And that sort of approach almost becomes like a gluttony of healthcare. And that’s a bit where we have the inequality and culture of here’s the people that their insurance will pay for everything. Here’s the people who have nothing and it becomes very imbalanced, but maybe the key is, uh, patients among professionals. Meaning if I tell patients like I said earlier, well, this isn’t really a big deal. That can be a very unkind thing to say or a very kind thing. I think the difference is patients. Am I just burned out or fed up and saying, look, just get a grip and deal with it because that’s when it’s a, uh, a caustic thing to say.

Rachel Whitehawk: Sure.

Nick Angelis: Or, but if I can center myself and be in a place of patients that can with more authority, say like, no, this is just something called life. This is not your depression. This is just a bad thing to happen today and you need to move on.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: Um, or sometimes it is, okay, well, here’s a little thing, but let’s make sure it’s processed completely before we move on.

Rachel Whitehawk: That’s true. And I think that, again, this idea that we, we are not, um, creating environments of resiliency. We’re not teaching people that they can live with discomfort. They can live with and they can, they can develop the skill to discern between what is really something worth having some concern over and what is just an emotional trigger or something that you just need to process and kind of sit with and be uncomfortable with and move forward.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: Um, much of what we do in the ranch program is reprogramming people’s perceptions and you know, I don’t know why, and maybe you can answer this, but I don’t know why it’s so much more of an issue now than it was even 10 years ago or 15 years ago. And certainly, when I was growing up, we didn’t see as much of this inability to manage some of the smallest things. I think social media is a huge piece of this though.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: I think that we had – there’s a plenty of, there are plenty of studies that have come out just recently to validate the fact that, um, social media does more damage to us as people, whether we’re teen girls or adult men or whoever, than it, then it helps us I think.

Nick Angelis: Yeah, with Instagram just a few weeks ago where it came out, that they knew that their apps specifically harmed the mental health of girls and they did nothing about it.

Rachel Whitehawk: Horrifying.

Nick Angelis: In a way that Snapchat and Twitter and Facebook did not. Um, it is that comparison game.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: But I think it is also that in our culture, hardship is almost viewed as a sin where.

Rachel Whitehawk: Yes.

Nick Angelis: If you’ve made it, then you don’t have hardship and we have this foe hardship where the self-help books and the, the guru speaking talk about I suffer through adversity and here I am. It’s like, well, why don’t we talk a little bit more about the adversity? How hard was it? And did you have this safety net of your family behind you where if you failed financially, you were going to be fine.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: So, we liked the idea of, um, a hardship that looks good and impresses others, but isn’t hard.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: And I’ve had a lot of broken-hearted family where they came, their family member came to our clinic for treatment and found it difficult and had great results. They’re a lot easier to live with even. And then they’re like, no, this, this is hard. I think I’m done here. And they – the family members realized we’ve kind of done this, that here was actually a chance for a cure and in some cases, but because it was a difficult thing. And usually I tell patients like, well, this should be difficult.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: Usually if you’ve come to us, it’s because other things haven’t worked. And if there was a magic bullet, you would have already found it through an infomercial.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: The kale smoothie would have done its job and you’d be perfectly fine.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: But apparently you here because all the avocados didn’t work.

Rachel Whitehawk: That’s right. But that’s, that’s exactly my point. You know, when, when people finally come to you or to me, in most cases, they’ve been to a lot of other, they’ve tried a lot of other resources. And in, in some cases, in many cases, it’s the effort was, was too great to take on. And then they – I think a lot of people come to me and think, well, this’ll be easier. And in some ways, it’s more pleasant, but the work to change our perception and to heal from things that we have been through and experienced is difficult. That’s part of the journey, but in that difficulty, we build resilience. And if you can get people to sign on, you know, my programs are, are begin at six weeks.

If we can get someone for six weeks consistently coming and doing things at home, doing some cognitive exercises at home, we are on our way to helping them change these neural pathways. It takes 30 days as we, as we all know, roughly 30 days to change a mindset or a habit or a, uh, a thought process. If we can get you thinking just, just for a few days consistently differently, the brain begins to appreciate that and you begin to see change. It is to your point, you find people in the midst of that, that even when they’ve come to you and they’ve gotten a better brain, essentially, they’re now, they’re now tasked with making sure that that stays that way and maintaining and learning the hard skills, the challenging skills that will keep them permanently whole. That’s sometimes very challenging for people to accept because it requires that they put the effort in.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: And that’s what we need to work on.

Nick Angelis: So, it sounds like what both of us can do is sort of, and this is going to be a strange analogy, like all of them, but my mom loves gardening. So, uh, if you’re watching the show and you want to contact us because, you know, our, our phone number is (330) 754-4844 for Ascend Health Center. But let’s say you can’t say, hey, is Nick’s mom’s available. I heard she’s a good gardener because she is, she can come to your house and make the perfect garden, but you know what next year that’s your garden. You have to be the one that takes care of it. She might set you up for success, but eventually you have to do the work. And it’s similar with this. So, I don’t want anyone to think that this is, if you really have problems, you’ve got to check out the technology at Ascend Health Center or the horses at Whitehawk Ranch. We’re not saying that we’re the foremost experts where only we can help you. It is that you have to be with someone that will be real with you and where they put in work and you also put in work.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: And that’s the real key to success.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right.

Nick Angelis: Because I’ve had patients who’ve said, I need a ketamine infusion, the brain drive, neurotrophic factor and the dendrites and the neuroplasticity. And I’ll say, no, actually you just need to talk to a therapist and do the homework they give you every week and you should be fine. We don’t need that. Um, but that’s our culture of like, give me the best and all of the things, and then I’ll be healed.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right. Right. Personal responsibility is something that we, we all struggle with as a society now, more so than ever before. And I think it falls into that. Um, the, the joy though is when you see, you know, I think of one patient that you and I have, have worked together with and she, um, young girl, and she has come so far and worked so hard. But in the beginning, when she first came to me, um, she was reticent to make those changes. And it took just, you know, I told her my phone is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You call me no matter what, we’ll, we’ll get you back on track. Because by the time we are in our twenties, we have, or late teens, we have developed even, even early teens, we’ve developed a thought process, uh, that, that we think is who we are when, and I tell people in so many cases, this cognitive behavior and these, these habits are simply that they’re habits you’ve developed coping strategies that you’ve developed not, these are not dyed in the wool personality traits that we can’t alter.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: We can change the things about your thought process that aren’t working, that habits that you’ve developed, the, the, the thought about, your low self-worth, that’s the, I think the key, the cornerstone of everything, that’s so much of what we do. Um, but once we get people to realize that they can change that and that they can sustain a new, a new thought process, it’s so exciting and it’s so wonderful. And it takes organizations like mine, organizations like yours, people who truly love people and are willing to take the time and be patient and say, hey, I know this is difficult, I’m asking you to do this for just, for just seven days. You’re going to come back and we’re going to see where you are. Just stick with it for seven days. I’ll send an encouraging text or I’ll send an encouraging video. And, you know, it’s, it’s those types of things that walk people through the process. So that at some point they are autonomous and they’re empowered.

Nick Angelis: And a lot of it is with appropriate goal setting because.

Rachel Whitehawk: Right. Great point.

Nick Angelis: You know, if someone could watch this and think, oh, I must not be working hard enough if I worked harder then I won’t have depression. But when I first started, uh, Ascend, I was because I have a background of holistic health, I was like, here is some supplements you can take, here’s some dietary changes and some exercise. And they realized, nope, we need to see some results with something more powerful, what if it’s transcranial magnetic stimulation or psychiatric medications and then once – it’s a snowball effect. Once you can see a little progress and the patient is on board, of course I’ll do the work.

Rachel Whitehawk: Great point.

Nick Angelis: But a lot of times it is, uh, an error in goal setting as opposed to, oh, this patient just isn’t working hard, you know.

Rachel Whitehawk: Yeah. That’s true. And you don’t want people to be, people are so vulnerable when they come to us, it breaks my heart to see everybody who comes to us is so vulnerable. And so, um, just open for hope.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: And, and we are the peddlers of hope and in any ways, because we do have information methodology, uh, medication that can help, right. So, we start them at that place. It’s funny that you say giving them a little bit of sing, a little bit of success is motivating. When, when girls come to us or when women come to us and they interact with horses and they, they’re able to do a very small, I would say 90% of the people who come to us have no horse experience. So, I tell people, this is not Nazi horse camp. We are not going to force you to do crazy, dangerous things with horses.

Nick Angelis: Right.

Rachel Whitehawk: However, horses are inherently prey animals. So, there’s always that element of, of communication and, and control, but it is a magical moment when these young women or adult women master even the smallest skill with a horse. It builds their confidence and it makes them see what’s possible because in order to, to interact with horses, you have to have emotional. And many people who come to us haven’t had a moment’s worth of emotional control in their life. So, when you can get them to understand that in just a few minutes, your, your point is exactly right. They are so motivated to do whatever else is required to get that feeling forever. Right. And that’s what we do. That’s what you do.

Nick Angelis: Yeah. And if you need to contact us at Ascend, we have therapy, psychiatry. TMS. We do a lot with pain management, substance abuse, uh, AscendHealthCenter.com. And if they want to contact you at the ranch.

Rachel Whitehawk: It’s, our, it’s a WhitehawkRanch.info. And you can call us at (330) 819-2032.

Nick Angelis: Thanks, and thank you all so much for watching. We’ll see you next time.

You are watching WCTV Wadsworth Community Television.

Powered by Paranoid Hosting™. 'Cause you never know...