Here is the full transcript and summary of James French’s talk titled “The Hidden Magic Of The Animal-Human Relationship” at TEDxBologna conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Good evening. I am delighted to be here to share with you the hidden magic of the animal-human relationship. Shelley and myself have been running a mindfulness organization for the last 20 years. Its sole purpose is to help animals and people with a mindful practice.
These insights I’m going to share with you tonight are from those 20 years of experience. I would like to cover trust and connection, change of behavior, and true cooperation.
So first of all, what on earth does mindfulness helping animals look like? Well, when you understand how animals and humans share feelings, we developed a process that delivers the present moment directly to any animal.
Now, just like us, when they feel the present moment, it helps them to feel very calm, very relaxed, and it creates this huge amount of connection. Yes, the less we think, the more connected we can become. We have shared our experience with many rescue centers all over the world, and it is an absolute pleasure to help some of the most sensitive animals on the planet. At times, it just feels like you’re reaching out and touching their soul.
Helping an animal who’s had really bad abuse from people and helping them to relax into such a peaceful state and building trust is just such a privilege, and it doesn’t matter how big the animal is or how much the abuse that they had. The fascinating thing, our science shows us that the limbic system for the animal and human is almost exactly the same. That’s the way we process emotions, memory, and how we learn.
There’s no question in your mind when you watch an animal go into the present moment that the present moment is a thing. There’s nothing psychosomatic. This was a wild stallion, DeLorean, who I actually helped to relax right down into a deep trance-like state before he would allow me to touch him for the first time. Gwen was so badly abused by people, by helping her to relax, meant that she could actually realize that not all humans are bad.
So, where did this come from? I didn’t wake up one day and go, hey, shells, let’s just Buddha the animals in our life. No, this came from a childhood experience, and when I was two years old, my sister died. My family moved to a farm in the UK in Surrey. And my mom surrounded us by animals, which is no surprise with her loss.
And it wasn’t really a surprise a couple of years later when my mom and dad separated and a stepfather came into my life. And I guess the best way of describing it is I was surrounded by the A’s, anxiety, arguments, and alcohol. And I am so grateful. This is a story of gratitude.
I am so grateful for that human disconnection, because that human disconnection made me incredibly vulnerable for connection. Every being is seeking connection, and I sought it from the animals around me. There were so many of them. There were such beautiful connections.
And I was aware of it, but I wasn’t conscious of it. This is Sunday, my little dog. Her only role was to be by my side always, no matter what obstacle was in the way. It was even more impressive to see her coming down the ladder.
So being aware is something very different from being conscious. And my first conscious understanding that we share feelings was it was a little bit painful. So I had this beautiful pony called Pip. He was a rescue. We used to go all over the countryside. To be honest, he was like an intelligent motorbike for me. He was my legs. We were very, very connected, and he loved this field.
So when we got to the field, he’d be all ready. And I’d go, yeah, you can go. Now, this one post in the middle of the field has been there all the time that we went through this. But this particular time, we were heading directly for it.
And when we got really close, I just went, oh, I better steer him to the side. At exactly the same time, Pip wanted to go and steer me. It’s just that he went the other way. So we kept going straight. So realizing this, I thought, I better go his way. Realizing this, he thought, I better go his way. And we both swapped over.
We were still heading straight. In the very last second, he turned to the side, and I hit the post. It was the first time I’d ever knocked myself out. When I woke up, I was absolutely delighted that my pony was in my face, blowing at me.
I was so delighted that he hadn’t just run off with the fright of it. I was completely broken. We were three and a half miles away from home. So I clambered up on top of him, and it was halfway home that I got hit again.
But this time, it was an understanding. I just went, oh, my God, we were thinking the same thing at the same time, just in different directions. I became conscious at a very early age. Oh, wow, that consciousness has really changed the direction of our lives.
So the second part I wanted to share with you was behavior. This is really fascinating. Change the feeling to change the behavior. Us human beings are so fixated on trying to change the behavior. We shouldn’t do that. We’re so fixated on changing the behavior that another behavior comes, because we haven’t addressed what drives the behavior, which is feeling.
So I’d like to share with you Pasha. Pasha had been in rescue for many years because he bites people.
So nobody had been in with him. So we have this power of the present moment and a vehicle to deliver it. So if we deliver the present moment to an animal, even though he’s not aware of what’s happening, suddenly he starts to feel quite relaxed. Now, he doesn’t know that it’s me.
Now, he doesn’t know that it’s me. You see, perception’s based on how you feel. Change the feeling and the perception changes. Again, present moment delivery. He’s not really sure why he’s feeling relaxed. He’s supposed to be barking and ferocious right now. But it allowed me to do each step to get closer and closer to him. So this at the beginning upset him.
So now I’ve made it safe to go in. The behavior’s changing. And suddenly we realize the only thing that Pasha really wants is to be close to people. So his fear pushed the one thing that he desired away from him.
How many of us have felt that? Come on then. Come on then. You’re a good boy. Oh, I know. What’s that? Tell me. You’re a good boy. Yeah. Every being… Every being is seeking connection. Even if you don’t think so at the beginning.
Two weeks after our visit, Pasha found his forever home. His message to us is rather than change the world, change how we feel about the world and our world will change. So I’m going to share this little story because I think it’s a golden key to the magic. The hidden magic of that animal-human relationship.
Red came into my life because my mum rescued him from being put to sleep. Bless her. And his issue was not physically, but it was in his mind. So he had got into a battle with people. Or should I be more honest, people had got into a battle with him. So much so that when he was asked to go forwards, he would fly back at a million miles an hour.
Now, humans are mainly flight animals, but when they can’t run away, they fight. So no guessing what happened to him. He got hit a lot and a battle came because someone was very afraid on him. When he came into my life, I was so excited that it was coming. I knew his story and I had already got in my mind that I don’t battle animals. I’m going to let him go backwards.
I’m going to learn how to ride backwards. So he wasn’t allowed, allowed to go backwards. So when I sat on him, I went, that’s okay. And I just turned around and I was like, we can go backwards. I’m quite a good rider, unless there’s a post in the field. So off we went and he shot backwards, but then he stopped. I was a bit disappointed that he stopped. I’ve been winding myself to ride backwards, but he stopped.
And then from that moment, what had happened is that I was okay with him being broken. It’s a power of allowing. And the key magic is acceptance. When we can accept a behavior, we can move forward in life.
So true cooperation. I say true cooperation. Willingness, asking and listening, a mutual benefit. This is Sisko. Sisko came from a dealer’s. He was shooed into the lorry. He’s only one years old, quite big for a one-year-old. And he was in a new environment, away from his herd.
And my role was to help him to go into the new field with new friends. But first of all, I had to show him how to have a halter on and how to lead. The willingness is reward. The present moment is asking and listening.
Well done. Thank you. We established touch. Very good. Well done. That’s superb. That was very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well done. I’m working with his intelligence. Animals are highly intelligent.
Action, reward, present moment. Oh, well done. Look at you. You’re so clever. The result of that is this. Come on then. That’s beautiful. Come on then. And it’s very easy. Easy then to understand what the rope and the halter is all about. Even for a little one-year-old. So then came the time to move.
So this is the first time we’re leading out. Now, the distance… Lovely. Well done. You’re doing ever so well. It’s only 50 metres to the field. It’s nothing for us humans. But for Sisko, it was a whole new step in his life.
Well done. And then a few days later… Oh, Sisko, you’re a gorgeous boy. You are a gorgeous boy. It was so worth waiting for you to come to me, wasn’t it? Yeah, yeah, you’re so lovely. Such a lovely boy. I know, I can really feel your gratitude.
Mutual benefit. Why would you ever want to train an animal that’s not your best friend? Why would your animal ever want a trainer that wasn’t your best friend? So I want to take this a little bit further for you, because this is a place of ideas. So we did some work at the donkey sanctuary. This is the vet, Joe. You can’t have an extra one, you can’t have four. Joe was really delighted with the work we’d done with this mule over the four days that we were there.
So I thought we’d have a little bit of fun with each other. I could see their relationship. So what I’d like to do is stop, get present, and imagine him kissing you. Imagine his nose coming up. No, seriously, get present. Imagine his nose coming up your body. Up, up, up higher. So just keep imagining it.
Keep imagining it, keep imagining it. There you go, keep imagining it. Keep imagining it, keep imagining it, keep imagining it. There it is, give him a kiss. Intuitive connection. So I want to share with you the one thing that destroys the magic, and that is the illusion of dominance. You might think by forcing or telling another animal, a person, or yourself is a force. But it’s not.
It’s not. All of the fairy dust disappears. All of the magic disappears. It’s the one thing that kills it all.
So I’d like to leave you with value peace of mind. It’s a thing. Allow things to be. Inspire cooperation and just live the magic.
