Those Horses Are a Miracle
| March 2019 | Real Hero Report
Fox On Point by Vance Rosen
Supervision
Our nation was captivated when she was found safe. In 1991,
while she was walking from her home to the bus stop, Jaycee
Dugard was abducted. She remained missing until 2009, when
her abductor, Victor Garrido, was seen with two women. The unusual
behavior of the two women sparked an investigation which led Garrido’s
parole officer to take the two women to a parole office where it was
discovered that one of them was 29-year old Jaycee. It turned out Garrido
and his wife Nancy had kept Jaycee concealed in sheds, tents and leanto’s
in an area behind their home. Jaycee had two daughters, ages 11 and
15, at the time she reappeared.
How does one heal from that kind of trauma and abuse? Her story
recovery from severe, unimaginable trauma. Now Jaycee is literally paying
it forward. She had undergone and benefitted from EFT, otherwise known
as equine-facilitated therapy. As the article states, “For veterans, victims
of abuse, people with special needs, eating disorders or PTSD–they may
all benefit from hanging with the herd.”
Jaycee used her financial award from the state of California to fund
the JAYC Foundation. Jaycee has vowed to provide other families in crisis
with the same access to healing that she and her family received. JAYC
is short for “just ask yourself to care.” During her captivity while Jaycee
lacked human companionship, animals were her companions. Years ago,
her family had given her a palomino horse from which she says she had
learned, “patience, humor, staying present-attunement to each other.” She
says of her treatment, “Trauma can shape you in many ways. One thing I
know for sure; you have to face your fears to move beyond the pain. The
thing to remember is you can heal and you don’t have to live with the
nightmare forever. Find something you love and find a therapist or friend
who will do it with you.”
Her program has an LEO, or law enforcement section. She says officers
who have gone through their program have found “a renewed sense
of their job and are much happier.” I didn’t just take her word for it. I
explored the JAYC website and listened to officers experiencing the LEO
in the field of EFT, and author of The Tao of Equus: A Woman’s Journey
of Healing and Transformation Through the Way of the Horse and Way of
the Horse: Equine Archetypes for Self-Discovery. Kohanov says, “Horse
wisdom is concerned more with the present than with the past or the
They don’t stay up all night worrying about lions. They go right back to
enjoying life, taking it minute by minute, and they teach us how to do
that.”
This article goes on to share how EFT helped a stubborn, hurting air
force veteran, Ron Hathaway. Through EFT, he literally learned to live
again. For more information, please visit https://braveheartsriding.org/.
The Lord comes to us in many ways in our hurt and pain–maybe even
force vet, Hathaway says it this way, “Those horses are a miracle.” Who
says the Lord isn’t still in the miracle business?
G
establishes two classes for people with oversight and
responsibility for subordinate employees. Those classes are
Supervision, and Management. Each course consists of three modules.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a Supervision Level One class at
the Georgia Public Safety Training Center. I have completed all levels of
Supervision and Management classes, but I wanted to audit the class to
see what had changed as to how we instruct our future leaders. This was
a great experience, and I cannot recommend it enough.
One thing that resonated with me was that we could fall into the trap
of not communicating clearly with our subordinates. As Majors, we have
contact with Captains, other Majors, the Deputy Chief, and the Chief of
Police. We all are working on different parts of the same projects. Since
we all have the big picture in our view, we rarely have to explain things to
each other. We all know why we are doing what we do.
Lower ranked employees do not have this luxury. They usually are
told by a Sergeant or a Lieutenant what to do. The person delivering the
order may or may not know what the end goal is. This may make the
order ambiguous for the one carrying it out. As an example, consider the
following:
In a Command Staff Meeting, the Chief tells their Majors that there have
been reports of a suspicious vehicle roaming around the school bus stops
in a certain neighborhood, and they would like Patrol to be in the area
at school bus pick up and drop off times. The Major of Patrol tells their
Precinct Captain the message verbatim. The Precinct Captain then tells
the Day Watch Lieutenant. Now, the Lieutenant tells their Sergeants that
they are looking for suspicious vehicles around schools. (See a significant
change in the order?) The Sergeants now tell their troops that they need
Patrolmen have no idea why, and will not even be in the right place since
the Chief wanted them in a certain neighborhood. It’s like that old game of
telephone where the more “operators” involved in relaying a message, the
more distorted it becomes. By the time this order is carried out, we have a
Patrolman directing traffic at the schools.
The good news is the fix for this is simple. When we give an order, we
must have the subordinate repeat it back. Make sure we explain why we
are doing this. Instruct them to communicate the reason for the order all
the way down the chain. We cannot depend on them to ask questions,
even though we may inquire as to whether they have any. We have bred it
into them not to question, simply to do. We must break this cycle.
In closing, Superior Officers, make sure that we show our charges what
the end goal looks like, and you, Subordinate Supervisors, ask questions.
Stay safe, we need you out there.
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