Being Brave comes in all ways

Being Brave comes in all ways

Being brave comes in all forms—Cathy pushing her transmission temperature as she goes up a hill in West Virginia, to riding at upper levels around a cross country course.  It could be having that tough conversation, making changes in your life that you have never known before—   One thing about it, being brave is contagious.  When you are brave it helps all the people around you!  Listen up, like, subscribe and share it!  You got this!  Peace and Love!

Theme song and host introduction. Jess and Cathy welcome listeners to There You Are, introduce themselves, and share what the show is about and who it's for.

Theme song and closing words from Jess and Cathy, including a call to action to share the episode, leave a review, and tune in next week.

Cathy is a professional at training and teaching the sport of Three Day Eventing. Her website is: 

https://www.cwevent.com

Jess is a licenced clinical social worker.  She see's clients in her office in the back of the house here at the farm.   

Her website is:

https://www.jessicabollinger.com

Transcript

jess-and-cathy_1_05-25-2026_063137 1:38

there you are. It's another Monday morning. There you are. So had a great weekend. Jess- I'm like, "Jess it's Memorial Day. We normally go work out, but if they have a workout after 5:00, I won't go because I gotta get to the barn and do all the things." So- Yeah, there's no, there's not a day off. No. No, you don't take a day off when you're around animals or dairy cows. Exactly. You gotta keep milking. Yeah, and keep milking the day. So I got up about 5:30, and I'm like, "Okay, Jess, I know you're gonna go work out at 8:00, but we gotta do our podcast." So I took her a cup of coffee about 10 after 6:00, and I said, "Hey, baby. Get up and do your podcast." "Oh yeah. Okay, I'm there. I'm all over it." I'm all over it. I'm all over it. So then she- Yeah asked me, "What do you wanna talk about today?" And I said "Being brave." And and a couple of things came up for me when I... M- the big thing was that I was driving my truck this weekend, and I'd had a new transmission put in it 'cause it was sorta overheating. $10,000. Yeah it's better than buying a new truck. And, It started doing the same thing again, and I was like, "Oh my gosh." And I texted my-- took a video and I sent it to my mechanic guy. Okay, y'all, this is Cathy. Where she's going up some hill on I-64 East and she turns her video on her phone, and she's taking a picture of her- Video yeah, video of your transmission- Temperature gauge temperature gauge going from what to what? 216, then 219, then 221, 223. And so my world as a kid or younger in older trucks, if your engine started to overheat, you-- it would be at half and then all of a sudden you were overheated and you were sitting on the side of the road with water spewing out of your radiator, and you were stuck until it cooled down enough for you to open it up and put more coolant in or something. But this is, 20, 30 years ago. But that's PTSD for me, was like, "Oh man, there it goes again." So anyway, I called, I sent him the video. He was in class. Ka-Cathy has a really good relationship with her truck mechanic. Lee. Lee. He's amazing. She's got him on speed dial for her cell phone. Yeah. And he takes care of me. So he was in a class. So he called or texted his guy who was at Paul Miller Ford, heavy duty trucks. And Dwayne called me, and we had a chat, and he said, "It should-- You should be okay. It's gotta go to 240." So I'm like, "Okay, Cathy, be brave." 'Cause what would happen is it would start to heat up, and I'd back off the accelerator, and it would cool down. And so I was like, "Okay, I'm good," but I just paid however many thousands of dollars for the new transmission for it not to do this. So I was so excited 'cause I was brave, and I just kept pushing that truck up the hill. And this is when it's hauling my camper or hauling the, the horse trailers. It doesn't do it by, without anything behind it. So right now you're hauling your camper. Yeah. Your- My toy hauler your toy hauler. It's got the Kawasaki Mule up in there and it's how many pounds? I'd have to look, but I'm sure it's 10 to 15,000. Yeah. Yeah. And my old trailer was 20, 20,000 empty, so before you put horses in it. So anyway, I was really brave, and I kept pushing it u-up the hill, and it switches from sixth gear down to five, and you can hear the engine really working. And there it goes, 217, 219, 221, 223, and it stays at 223. And then it starts cooling down while I'm pushing it up the hill. Yeah, you weren't, you didn't let up on the gas or the gas pedal. No. I was like, "I gotta see. I gotta... If they say I can go to 240, I'm gonna test this thing out because otherwise I'm gonna take it back. This isn't working," or whatever. This new transmission. This new transmission. But it was, the cooling system kicked in, however that works, and I'm not smart enough, and I don't wanna be smart enough to do that. But I was brave enough to keep pushing that accelerator to thankfully watch the temperature start to cool down and go away. There was no warning, and I'm pushing it up, not Rabbit Ears Pass, but one of those. Rabbit Ears Pass is up in, In- in, in Colorado near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. You're right, yeah. No, this is Sandstone Mountain. Oh. When you go up Sandstone Mountain, yeah. Okay. But in the, right outside of Beckley, West Virginia. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's where you were. That's where I was. But that's not Rabbit Ears. No. Rabbit Ears is in Steamboat. Rabbit Ears is my first s- my first climb on a great big mountain that we did, and we probably sat overheated. I think we have pictures of us at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass when we were kids driving across the United States. In that old Jeep truck? In the Jeep family truck. That Jeep truck. Yeah. Anyway, so that was one, that's what came up for me about being brave. Yeah. And then, So- I'm gonna let Jess talk to, about what- Whoa a couple other things. What? When you said, "Let's talk about being brave," to me, and this is one aspect of it, there's so many ways of being brave that kick in. And you went to go watch Ellie and your assistant Nikki ride a long course, Two star long a two star, two star long at the Virginia Horse Trial, and it was very formidable, and those girls were really brave. And they're doing what we used to do. We used to ride that level. You rode twice that level. You went, rode even a lot higher than that level. And there's brave there. Yeah, that's what else was coming up for me, how many ways of brave that I witnessed this weekend. That there are, yeah. For me. How many ways of brave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and brave can be having that tough, hard conversation, too. True. That can be brave. Brave could be me moving here to the farm when I was 27. Yes. So brave this is kicking in for me. Being brave helps when we are resourceful. True. And like the girls have you as their instructor- Yeah and you're there for them- Yeah helping them with their trot ups for their inspections and you've taught them dressage and- Yeah and stadium jumping and cross-country, and you're there, and you're walking the course. Y'all, when you go, when you do cross-country, it's the first time. You're galloping. How long was the long course? How many minutes? Like seven? Seven and a half minutes. Seven and a half minutes. Yeah. You're galloping 450? No five- This is me- No meters per minute. 5- 550. No, 520. Sorry, I had to get my head into the rules. So the- 520 meters a minute the horse is galloping 520 meters a minute, so they're going pretty fast. And that's the that's the average, so you would slow down sometimes to 450 to jump certain exercises, but then you, so then you gotta go even faster. And somebody actually did a really cool study on that, John Staples- on how fast you actually were going in certain places on the course in order to average 550 meters a minute on your seven and a half minute course. Wow, never thought of that. Yeah. So like when I moved here to the farm, where I was in my mindset is, "I can do this." Exactly. I was 27 and I thought, "Sure, I can do this." And I know a lot-- I've seen a lot of girls, I witnessed different girls move into farms after college. And so they did the same thing I did, and they probably felt the same, "I can do this." And then when we do it, and we can... As you were calling Leigh on speed dial, you can get information that can help you- Exactly to know that you can be brave, still pushing it- still pushing your truck, still keeping your foot on the accelerator. And I I guess one of the big things I got from college, which I tell people, my, my degree was being resourceful and finding out people, finding people who know- finding people who can help. And there's my neighbor David Back, helping me walking up the driveway with my little young trees and showing me how I can take my gloved hand and knock off little baby branches coming off. I can trim them that way and stuff. That's right. Just learning. So much to learn. Exactly. And today, even though I slept in a little bit, I'm gonna be learning some stuff today. Yep. Yeah. You are. Yeah. But yeah, there's so many ways to be brave. And I was- So many ways I was, Nikki was doing the two-star long with with Shaq, AKA Canvas Back, and then Ellie Winter was there with her horse, Mosstown Rebel, AKA Finn. They all have nicknames. We don't call them by their registered names. It's too much rolling off the tongue. Number one, the it's, it has to do a lot of, with where you've competed before, and Ellie actually competed in Virginia on this track, but it was the two-star short. So she didn't do the long course. That makes a huge difference in your degree of fitness for the rider and the horse. So she'd had a feeling of the terrain a little bit, but Nikki had never been on-- She'd been one time on the Virginia Horse Center side, but then all the Oak Hill side is all the FEI classes. Gotcha. And so it is a- Little bit more hills over on the Oak Hill side. There's a lot more hills. Exactly. So she had never ridden over there and experienced what it feels like to be hooning around the turn. People-- I've got, I love that word, hooning. And I'd say, "Don't hoon here. Hooning means you're going fast, and you need to be able to gallop down hills and around turns and then set the horses up for the jumps and..." So she did a fantastic job of doing that. She was the first to go in the division, so that was being brave, being able to, to step up and say, "I'm the"... And she was the first one out on that cross-country course, and everybody's kinda getting information. She's riding the lines, and we walked it in four and did it riding four. Yeah, it worked great in four for this person, and they might be calling back to the warmup area to give f- you know, the next riders information. So that was really awesome. Plus the fact that it rained and the footing was was not particular- it was, it held pretty well, but a lot of places where all the tracks went, like galloping down the hill to the sheep sheds, that, that terrain got, Chewed up chewed up. So- That's why I was kinda, that's why I was glad that Nikki was the first on the course. Yeah, because the footing right in front of the jumps was fine for her. Okay. But a lot of the other tracks... But again, I had a conversation with both my kids and Claire Maloney, who is a student. Every once in a while I help her out. Her mom and I just advise her. She's a good kid, and then, and they're from Nashville. And and I told the, all of them, I said, "You have got to ride brave. You have got to keep, you have to keep your leg on. You cannot slow down because you think the footing is gonna be slippery. You've gotta ride more forward and be braver if the footing might not be good, and that will give the horse, you know-" The horses don't like it if they think their feet are gonna slip. That's true, but- they don't- But you don't give them time to think about that. Yeah. Yeah. And you're bringing up, you're bringing up a good point. I am? Yes. Okay. Go for it. This is something else about being brave, folks. When you're brave it can spread around you. True. Transfer. Okay. So a rider-horse connection is they're right there together, and the horse feels everything that the rider feels. Yeah. So if the rider says, we got this, we got this-" Yeah And you're coming down and, "We got this," and being brave- the horse feels that brave. Yes, exactly. And then that gives that horse confidence. Yeah. Okay, one time- What was it? I was, we were in Chicago. Oh, we were in Chicago, y'all. This is how, this is a, this is an example of being brave and how it can spread, okay? We're taking the relationship, Cathy and Lucas and I- we're hauling the relationship up to, Lucas is 15 years old. We're hauling the relationship, and Cathy, you just got this brand-new truck. Yeah. And we had to get the special sleeve to go inside your bumper hitch- Yeah for the truck right there at the last minute. And we're pulling it up to Ch- Chicago. I've done all the planning, and that's something that helps you be brave, is to think ahead and do all this planning. Like the girls walking the course- I don't know how many times. Probably six. Cross-country. Yeah. And I know exactly where we're gonna put in. You're driving. I have so much confidence in your driving. We're driving up I- 65 to Chicago. We're gonna put in at Bur- Burnham Burnham Marina there, downtown Chicago and we pull it around, and we prepare the boat and then we back it, you back it into the slip, and then we launch the boat, and where you're gonna park the truck, and you're gonna ride the bicycle back, and then you're- Got it all planned out. It all planned out. Yeah. Yeah. So then you get back. We, Lucas and I pull up to this dock, and you kinda jump on. We got the bikes in the back. We put your bike in the back of the boat, and we're ramming the car. We were just... you're, like, videoing, you're in the back of the boat. I'll never forget this. You're videoing. And and and then we get out a little bit, and it's pretty rough. Yeah. And we got all this cross wake with all these boats and stuff like that 'cause I think it's a Saturday, and all these boats and all these waves, and you're like, "Whoa. Whoa." And I go, "It is rough." And you go, "Jess, I don't wanna, I don't wanna hear you say that." I did not. I don't do rough on water. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm scared. Yeah. So instead of acknowledging it is rough, I said, "Cathy, this boat was built in Nova Scotia. It can handle big waves. We're fine." And then that helped you be calm. It did help me be calm. Then s- seven nights later, the following Saturday you take off on your little bike to go get the truck and trailer and meet us at Burnham Harbor, and Lucas and I cast off there. We kept the boat Down there by the Navy Pier, close to there. Yeah, so we had gotten tickets, this is when Hamilton first came out. Yeah. And we'd gotten tickets to Hamilton and i- in Chicago, and so we took the boat up and used it as our hotel. And had a slip where we stayed, and we had a, just a wonderful time touring Chicago. For sure. Taste of Chicago, the bean. For sure. There were showers there- Yeah at that marina, and we were down there by Navy Pier. Yeah, that was so awesome. At the end, at a T dock, at the end of the dock. Anyway. Anyway, it was our $44 a night- Right, hotel nice hotel- In Chicago in downtown Chicago. Down at Navy Pier. Taste of Chicago, Hamilton, Cubs game. It was just wonderful. Yeah. Renting a bike along the shore and stuff. Yeah. It was so cool. It was a great vacation. Anyway, so we plan to leave on Saturday. There's all these sailboats that, that are, that have slips next to us and stuff. Anyway Lucas and I cast off and we get out there And it's six-foot following seas. It's rough. It's rough. And I already had this information to show total confidence, and I'm- And bravery I'm sitting- Stupidity I'm sitting at the helm. No, keep saying it. I'm standing at the helm. Lucas is in the middle on the, in the aisle way by the table in the stove, in the kitchen, holding his hands on both sides, kinda holding on. And I'm looking behind us and these big, huge waves and stuff. And Lucas goes- My stomach is just turning right now- Yeah thinking about that. And Luc- and Lucas is going, "Are we okay?" I go, "We're fine. We're fine. This boat was built in Nova Scotia." "We're good. We're good. It's built-" It's my story- it's built for whipping waves." and I'm sticking to it. And I point, and I go, "This is where we're going into. We're just going right here." And I point. "The here's the entrance to Burnham Harbour right there." And then we go along and I go, "Ooh, that's not the entrance." "It's further up." And then I just, I take deep breaths and I go, "Oh, it's just right up here. This is where the entrance is." Just kinda... and anyway, we got pulled out. There you are, with the boat, with the trailer there. You back in and you- Yeah I biked and got in the truck and- Yeah met him at the harbor. Yeah. Yeah. And then you have the trailer down in the water, and we pull out. And then just a l- little short time later, I look on my w- I look on my boat weather thing, and it was a- Small craft advisory it was a small craft advisory. Yeah. So I tried to... I was brave. I was brave. And that helped you all. And, and- Absolutely. It helped Lucas and being brave- Yeah yeah, and being brave on a horse helps your horse. Definitely. True. Yeah, definitely. 'Cause I just discovered- It transfers after my 65-year career with horses that if horses think you think something's dangerous, they'll get spooky. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And you let them, you let them turn and you let them look at it. You don't turn them away from it. Look. See? It's not gonna jump out at you. Exactly. There's always those little things in the corner of the arena you look at. Yep. And all of a sudden the horse sees. Yeah. Yeah. So being brave is catching. Yeah, it transfers, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I looked up this quote, Mary Tyler Moore. I love Mary Tyler Moore. I do too. Yeah, she was brave. Yeah. She moves up to Minneapolis, throws her hat up in the air. Yeah. And, on a little young career. You have to take chances. True. You have to make mistakes. I made a mistake. I did not look at the small craft advisory. I felt like Cathy's got this big schedule, we gotta stay on schedule. And I said, "Cathy, would you have been okay if I said we couldn't link today?" And you go, "Oh, yeah." Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I like, I learned how to be brave to say, "Hey, we can't do something." Exactly. Yeah. So Mary Tyler Moore says, "Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave." I love that. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. So I failed that day 'cause I didn't check the weather, but now that taught me a lesson. I check the weather. Exactly. I always look at the weather. Be careful. And you're not even in a boat. I'm not in a boat, but when I go places, I gotta know, I gotta know what the weather's gonna be and make sure I have enough pairs of socks and underwear in case it's wet. An extra shirt and all my raincoats and my Wellies and everything. I lived in my rain pants and raincoat this weekend. And you had your little winter hat on too. I did. It was cold. Yeah. Chilly. It was like 55 with rain, so- Yeah and I've learned keep your head covered up. If your head stays warm, the rest of you will stay warmer. Yeah. True. So anyway. Yeah. Other ways you've been brave. Yeah. Motherhood. Yeah. Like I said, this missing tile on my ceiling, and so we were gonna adopt and it had not really been something that you really thought about. No, never. And I was brave enough to risk that, risk our relationship- and say, "Hey." And so we went forward to adopt through Small Miracles International, adopt Lucas from Guatemala, and you're holding... You were brave. I was very brave. And then you're holding Lucas. Okay, let's do this, Jess. You're holding Lucas on the roof of that terrace of that hotel down there and saying, "If I had enough money, I'd have seven of these." I know. Yeah. Adorable. Yeah. Yeah. So being brave is like going ahead and risking and doing something new. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah the boat staying in the harbor. It's not what a boat's for. No, exactly. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, that's just what came up for me this morning when you said, "What are we gonna talk about?" I thought that, you know- I was brave with my truck. I exuded bravery to my students, and I meant it. Sometimes I'm not 100% I know how to read them or whatever, and it's not those two specifically, but it's like you gotta be able to see where you can actually help your riders stay brave or become brave and tell them that they can do it and believe in them. And they hear that, and you hope that comes from within, but it, sometimes it just helps to give them a little nudge and, "Yeah, you got this," and, You're a very good instructor that way, Cathy. You go "Come ahead," when they're jumping down through the grid or jumping a course, "Come ahead." And you're like, "I know you can do it." Absolutely. They, your students, when you say that, and you've said something that's on their level- you're not over-facing them. You never over-face them. No. It's something that you know that they can do. But it's an interesting observation because, I was in the warmup with Ellie and Nikki and David O'Connor, who used to teach me. You never saw him in the warmup, now, this was at the intermediate and advanced levels. By that time, you shouldn't need to have somebody hold your hand to warm up your horse to go cross-country. But you need somebody there for show jumping 'cause you have to adjust all the rails. But but I wasn't-- I knew the kids needed me there as much as I would've wanted to be out there watching them go. Yes. Because you can... And that's what David used to say, it's "I'm not gonna be in the warmup because I wanna watch you go, 'cause I'm gonna get more information to help you down the road as I'm watching you actually negotiate the course versus watching you warm up, which I do every time I teach you a lesson or something." So that was a situation where they're not quite ready at that level to to be able to warm them. To warm-- It's not, they can warm themselves up, but it's just to have that, "You got this," have the coach there to say, "You, you-- That, that looks great." But now I'm pushing my riders to make their plan for the warmup. I'm not gonna walk at certain levels. It's just each level's different, yeah. Some levels that you, they need to have a plan. Other levels, h- you tell me what your plan is, and yeah, that sounds good. Okay, go execute, and I'll make sure you're staying on track. And that's an element of bravery that's stepping into being, quote, "by yourself" because once you go out of the start box, you're by yourself. With the horse. With the horse. You're not, you're, there's no coaching. They've got this new level introductory, which is another subject. But essentially, for a three-day eventing, once you enter the arena of competition, you are not allowed to be coached by, or you're not allowed any assistance from outside, from your coach or s- anybody else. "You're going the wrong way!" Yeah, you're not allowed to say. If you don't solicit it, yeah. You're allowed to, there's some other rules, like if drop something, someone can hand it to you, I think. But anyway. Yeah. But that's bravery, for- for them to make their own warmup plan, execute it, and at s-some level, I'm gonna be able to step away and watch riders out on the course versus having to be in the warmup with them and tell them they got this. Kick on. Don't take no for an answer. Yeah. Or I'd like to know how to ride. That's what my mom used to tell me. Yeah. Okay, so let's go into my office. Okay, let's go into your office. Where people are brave, and they made an appointment. Yeah. And they're uncomfortable with something going on in their life- or how they feel in their life. And one of the questions I get, all these infor- all this information, what are their goals? And one, one question I ask many times is, Would you have anything to lose? So if you start to feel the way that you wanna feel, would you have anything to lose or would any bad thing happen to you? Ah, yeah. Because we have to let go of we've adapted our whole life. And so it's been this certain way. And we have to realize that, that's a bad adaptation that we've made. It's, we've settled for the reacting to old traumas. And would you be okay to notice not noticing any of the activity? Exactly. Would you be would you have anything to lose? Because we can't have secondary gain. Or you're not, or you're not gonna really wanna do the work. Sure. And this new accelerated resolution therapy that people might be scared, "Oh gosh, I gotta go back to this old trauma," and they might not be brave enough to do that. But with accelerated resolution therapy, you're only like, you're only like looking at whatever your brain- That's the ART, right? Yeah. ART? Okay. You're only looking at whatever your brain's showing you about it. And it's the limbic part of your brain. Don't think, just let it, allow it to show you. And you're only gonna be looking at that for 45 seconds. For a very short- length of a time. Yeah. To show you whatever it needs to show you. Exactly. And then you process whatever sensation's in the body. And I tell them, you're really they made that appointment. They're coming in, doing the work. And you'll always feel- Yeah you'll always feel better when you leave. Oh, absolutely. The door. Yeah. So it takes being brave to make changes that you need to make. Sure. Exactly. Like I said, even if it's just that phone call or stuff like that. I was pulling weeds in the asparagus- And just starting and noticing, okay, Jess, your body's 68, and I got some arthritis in my hands, which I don't want to talk about because I'm doing really well with burnbootcamp, doing push-ups and all that. And playing pickleball. Let's move on. Yep. Yeah. I don't wanna really acknowledge it. But so I'm only gonna be pulling weeds for a half hour, 45 minutes, and then I'll go back and do some more. Then I'll go back, and I've got some tools to help me pull those weeds out and stuff. But I asked Jardial yesterday at breakfast, I said, "Would you mind helping me pull some weeds?" So I was kinda brave to even ask that. Yeah. That's one way. Yes, exactly. To be brave. Be brave, ask for help. Yeah. It's all good. All right. So as we sat here at the kitchen table, Cathy's assistant has pulled in with her horse trailer and backed up by the barn. 'Cause she brings a horse or two sometimes to work. Yep. It's time to hit the day and, and- Exactly. Let's do this I'm gonna think about being brave. Me too. I think I might take a bunch of balls and practice my serve before everybody gets here this morning. Oh, there you go. That sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go for it. Y'all, peace and love. We're crazy about you. And There you are Own everything you got because you got a lot. You got a lot of resources and there's a lot of helpers out there if you have any questions. And don't forget, if you have anything that you want us to talk about, leave a comment and share the podcast. Yes. It's all fun. It's all good. Help us spread it. Peace, everybody. All right. Have a great week. We'll see you next time. Love you. Bye.