Why You’re Still Chasing Enlightenment and Missing the Point with Kelly Wendorf
Reese Brown (00:32.718)
Kelly, firstly, thank you so much for being here for your time and energy today and your openness of spirit already just being on this call with you and your curiosity towards me and my work is so, so appreciated. And I'm just really excited to be sharing this space with you. So thank you for being here.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (00:56.986)
Yeah, thank you so much, Reese. It's a pleasure and I share in the experience of your openness. So I look forward to our journey together today.
Reese Brown (01:05.25)
Yes, me too. Well, to keep this gratitude train going a little bit, I always like to start with gratitude to set the tone for a conversation. So first question, what's just one thing you're grateful for right now?
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:18.794)
It's a great, you know, I've listened to a few of your podcasts and I love that question and it does, it does change the tone of things to just go right there. Um, there are so many things I'm grateful for, uh, things and people and energies I'm grateful for in my life. Um, and I think of all of them, the one I'm most grateful for is the fact that I
that I have that gratefulness molecule somewhere in my body. There are so many people where they may read about gratitude, they may understand about gratitude. They've certainly had opportunities to experience gratitude, but for whatever reason, their neurobiology doesn't land there easily. And that isn't the way I'm wired. I'm so grateful that
Reese Brown (01:49.996)
Mmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (02:11.43)
I get to have that gratitude experience for so many things and people because I didn't make that happen. That kind of came with the packaging when I was born and it didn't have to be that way.
Reese Brown (02:25.644)
Yeah, wow, what a beautiful thing to be grateful for and mindful of the gifts that we are all given, right? Because I do think that it's almost a spectrum of how easy it is for us to fall into gratitude. Because I think there was certainly a time in my life where it wasn't as easy for me to go there. there is this kind of training that I think a lot of us have to do to build the muscle of walking down the path of gratitude.
So what a beautiful self-aware moment. I love that. Second question to break open our conversation is what is your story? I know a lot of it is discussed in your book, Flying Lead Change, which of course we will get to here in a moment and it's linked down below wherever you are listening if you are curious about it or listeners. But what is your story? Whatever you feel called to share right now.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (03:07.37)
it's not
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (03:18.57)
Thank you. So I, I, where, where do I want to start? I think when I was young, I was a really, really sensitive kid, very attuned to the natural world and to marginalized communities. was born in the sixties and Vietnam was raging and
know, Time Magazine had a lot of pictures that I saw as a young child and I was, and you know, just, we lived in the mountains of New Mexico, for at least part of my childhood. And, know, all the logging trucks coming down the road with these massive trees cut. And so my, my recollection of that time was one of, I would say profound melancholy, of just.
So much to feel and so much, you talk about coherence. I use the word congruence in a lot of ways and they're related. They're wonderful siblings, those two words. But the incongruence of what the narrative was by the adults and not being able to make sense of that incongruence. Like how could there be so much,
Reese Brown (04:27.042)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (04:45.49)
environmental destruction, cruelty to animals, cruelty to children, bullying, war, you know, how could there be all that? And yet people walk around like everything is okay. And how can, you know, how can I be upset about something? And that's a very real, true, authentic felt sense. And yet I'm told, you know.
Reese Brown (04:59.832)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (05:15.572)
to wipe that smile, that frown off your face, and stop crying and stop being so sensitive. so I think at a really young age, and maybe this is true for like most kids, but certainly for me, the start of my journey of becoming ultimately an executive coach and spiritual mentor was to...
to acutely feel this incongruence in the space. And it always became a place of, in a way, tension, you know? Like when I was a really small kid, would, when I was like six, seven, I made these huge posters, stuck them on, you know, little sticks and walked around the streets, you do not pollute, stuff like that. I was always a little social justice advocate, you know?
all alone. And that led me that was the through line has always been the through line and continues to be a through line of my life is is increasing levels of of congruence and coherence with who I am who the world is and how that manifests. So
Reese Brown (06:13.932)
I love that.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (06:41.78)
So I'm grateful for those experiences because that was sort of the seed. I spent the better part of my childhood in the company of horses and nature. I was horse crazy girl and so spent just most of my days. And back in those days, parents like it was the parenting of benign neglect. Like as long as you came home by dinner, otherwise they didn't know what you were doing or what you were.
and they didn't really care. I mean, they were overwhelmed with their own world and their own life, right? And that's, it's fine. There's some wonderful, there's some wonderfulness to that style of parenting. Because I was given a lot of freedom. And so really, you know, the natural world became apparent to me. And the natural world is very uncompromising. If you...
you know, didn't pay attention to where you were walking and ended up in the woods one hour deep and didn't pay attention and you were lost. You were lost. And, you know, so she taught you pay attention. Right. And same with the horses. Very strict tutelage of are you listening? Are you paying attention? Are you being present at this moment? Because if you're not, you're on your head. And
Reese Brown (07:48.728)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (08:04.092)
So I appreciate that tutelage very much and there was something inside the natural world in that it is coherent. It is congruent. I learned from the horse world, which, the horses are, we'll talk about this later, but they're a 56 million year old system. They're one of the oldest, most successful mammals on the planet. Second only to the platypus at 150 million.
So this really ancient system that has been highly successful is an animal prey, highly attuned to its environment. And what I learned from them is they, unlike humans, they don't have an issue with how I think, how I feel, how I show up. None of that. You know, the old cowboys used to say like, don't let them know you're afraid because then they'll take it right. Which is...
Reese Brown (08:53.036)
Hmm.
Reese Brown (08:58.072)
Great.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (09:01.502)
baloney, they don't have a problem with that felt sense of fear in you. What they have a problem with what really ignites their nervous system is incongruence. So if I go to a horse and I am pretending like I'm present, but I'm not, or if I'm fearful and I'm not really aligned and being present with that fear, if I'm in some way trying to push it away or trying to muscle through it.
that feels incongruent to a horse. And the reason incongruence is such a big deal to an animal prey is that's exactly how it feels when an animal, a predator is about to eat them. You I'm hiding in the grass. I'm not hungry. You know, I'm not here. That's the kind of, from a horse's point of view, it's like, whoa, wait a minute. Like, I don't see the lion. Right.
Reese Brown (09:52.822)
Right, the masking.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (09:56.138)
The masking, exactly. I don't see the lion, but something's not adding up. So I learned from their teaching that to be authentic and honestly, I'm still learning, know, I'm still decades and decades later, unwrapping deeper levels of of showing up with that level of attunement to self.
Reese Brown (10:00.302)
Yeah, right.
Reese Brown (10:13.347)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (10:24.23)
an attunement to other just yesterday I was with an amazing mentor of mine named Warwick Schiller who also has an amazing podcast and he and I had this amazing day together and it was all about like the slightest the recognizing of the slightest most miniscule moment that a horse is saying I
I'm thinking about that. I recognize that and us signaling to them, I see you, I get you. It's quite amazing. So very long story short, that instruction, but still I didn't know how to hang out in the people world so well. So that drove me to a very long spiritual quest. I spent some time in India, sat with a very
Reese Brown (11:00.686)
Hmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (11:20.884)
Profound sage who's no longer on the on the planet. He gosh by the time I met him. He must have been in his late 70s learned a lot about presence and Being with one's own consciousness Which is of course connected to the collective consciousness of all so
Reese Brown (11:45.922)
Right?
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (11:48.894)
But interesting, know, even in that spiritual world, a lot of people who have not fully differentiated their egos as a solid human being different from all the other individuals, and a lot of us who have been traumatized in childhood, which is probably nine-tenths of us, are very attracted to these spiritual approaches that have us
Reese Brown (12:12.527)
Right?
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (12:18.718)
disappear ourselves into into nothingness into consciousness to transcend The human experience as a form of enlightenment But I later learned that to transcend one needs a solid sense of self You know, you can't give away an ego you haven't fully formed
Reese Brown (12:42.658)
Great.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (12:43.326)
So it ended up being a community of really wonderful, kind, amazing, brilliant people who had missed some very fundamental developmental chapters in their life and who were therefore either giving their power away way too easily or putting their power on top of people way too easily. It's the same coin because it's a power under, right?
Reese Brown (13:09.449)
Hmm, right.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (13:13.716)
So it could be highly toxic in these communities that, you know, we're all about peace and love and joy and freedom. And again, there was this incongruence for me about like, but this is supposed to be peace, love, joy, freedom. And yet we're not talking about the planet. We're not putting our feet in the soil. We're not embodied. Like what do we do with the human body if it's just an illusion, you know? So that...
Reese Brown (13:40.43)
Great.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (13:43.508)
kind of led in some directions that weren't necessarily, well, they were good teaching moments. I'll just put it that way. That's the whole picture. And I did suffer at the hand or hands of some really intense narcissistic folks and sociopathic folks. And that's not to say that the spiritual communities
Reese Brown (13:49.665)
Sure, sure, sure.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (14:09.968)
aren't worth spending time with. an important part of the human puzzle is our connection to the divine. Having said that, it is fraught, fraught with some very unsavory personalities.
Reese Brown (14:26.124)
You know, I don't wanna interrupt your story and I'll certainly cue you to go back into it here in a moment, but I do just have to throw out there how profound I think this piece is that you're sharing. It is something that is not talked about and is so real and is so felt. And I actually had a conversation with my therapist about a year ago, or maybe less than a year ago when I was...
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (14:42.91)
Nope. Yep.
Reese Brown (14:55.458)
you know, kind of in one of these communities. And it was really deeply, activating for a lot of the pieces of myself that I was like, I I'm really working to heal this and there's something that's just like coming up and mucking it up. And there's all these things. And my therapist was like, I, she, in her wisdom was like, I couldn't tell you exactly what it is or why it is, but in these communities, there is a draw.
for narcissism. There is a draw for people who, regardless of your kind of belief on whether it's predisposed to having these traits or, you know, learned or to no fault of a person's own, but when you have that experience, there is this tie there. And we need to be mindful of it as people who are trying to, like you said, align.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (15:27.486)
Yes. Yes.
Reese Brown (15:52.588)
with the divine sense of our human experience, while also getting really clear about like, we're embodied, we're human beings in this incarnation, in this iteration, that can't be ignored either. So I just have all the respect in the world for you sharing that. And I think too, this way that, you know, we hear love and light, love and light, love and light.
light casts a shadow and we cannot ignore that either. So thank you for including that. I'll hand it back over to you with your story here.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (16:23.796)
Yes!
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (16:34.792)
Absolutely and you know we can go right down any rabbit hole there because You know for for a good let's see I hit headed to India when I was 28 and I would say for a good a good 25 years I was You wouldn't have known it had you know me because I was a I produced a magazine I was a mom of two amazing kids and you know and I always presented like this But what I can tell you is that I was like wrestling
these really, really intense pathologies, and I'll say it that way, and the denial that is around these pathologies and these personas, because people need and want their guru, they need and want their spiritual teacher, they need and want their spiritual community, and so it's a no-touch zone. So it can be a very lonely, lonely kind of
Reese Brown (17:06.254)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (17:32.574)
And you can't just, you can, you can throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I didn't want to because the baby was the very sacred, precious, important spiritual path, but it was surrounded in this bathwater of just awful, traumatizing, toxic stuff. And, and.
You know, I look back now and you know, we talked about in the beginning about like this molly, this gratitude molecule. And I'm so grateful I have that. I'm another molecule I have that I didn't make happen is that I will be broken open by things, not broken by things. will take anything and turn it into a learning opportunity so I can grow.
who I got to become as a result of these very, very toxic situations is like so precious. So I'm grateful. And, you know, it's powerful enough that I've often thought I should write a book because I was in the living rooms of all these very famous people who you see in the bookstores. I was there. I saw everything with my own eyes. And I feel it needs to be exposed, but in a way that doesn't
Reese Brown (18:27.808)
Mmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (18:50.388)
provoke people to throw the baby out with the bathwater, which required quite some titration, right? I kind of in my 30s, 30s, 40s, was really, I was living in Australia. I was really suffering from the consequences of being inside many of these communities.
Reese Brown (18:53.303)
right.
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (19:19.53)
I had pretty much thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I became quite cynical. I was mad at God. You know, I just pretty much hated everybody. And it was bitter and shut down. And that was when I met a gentleman named Uncle Bob Randall, who is the listed custodial elder of Uluru. Uluru is the big
Reese Brown (19:32.417)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (19:47.848)
rock in the center of Australia. People know it as Ayres Rock, but the real name is Uluru. And Uncle Bob and I met through a series of very magical circumstances and a lot of serendipity. And I was publishing a book and writing a book at the time and he became somebody whose words became a part of the book. So I had an opportunity to sit down with someone from
a 60,000 year old culture to listen to his stories, to listen to his teachings. And that returned me back to my spirituality because as an Aboriginal man, his spirituality is our connection to earth, is our connection to the rocks and the trees and the animals, not as a concept, but as an actual right at this moment, living, breathing, embodied experience.
And that's what had been missing for me in all those years in India and with all these transcendental sorts of approaches was it connected earth to heaven through the conduit of my body. And that's when I really found my meaning, my purpose as a human. It's like all the things that had been.
Reese Brown (21:00.45)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (21:13.61)
Dismantled and dismembered in my life and in my awareness suddenly just came together and I knew that This is what I wanted to help people with this is what I wanted because when you come from this place of understanding your Your place and belonging in the kin centric field of all of life then you you then you know you recognize what
What that through line is in your life and you start to follow that much more profoundly as much more courage Yeah Yeah, so that's I mean that's that's sort of there's many other sort of ten potential things alongside that story, but uncle Bob passed about ten years ago and And
Reese Brown (21:51.202)
Right, right.
Reese Brown (21:59.47)
Sure.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (22:11.282)
What's manifested ultimately is a little ranch in northern New Mexico that's adjacent National Forest. I work with clients virtually. Most of my clients I work with like this on Zoom, but a lot of the clients will come and be here in person for a private retreat or some time here with the land and the horses and the neighboring indigenous peoples who surround this area.
and get to remember. And I borrow that term from Resma Markham, who wrote the book, My Grandmother's Hands. And he talks about remembering as a, it's not just a remembering in our mind, remembering of who we are and what matters to us and why we're here on planet earth, but.
coming back to our body, the member of our body, instead of being dismembered by all the incoherence out there, right? That we bring ourselves back embodied, you know, what is my chest telling me? What is my stomach telling me? Where are my legs taking me? How do I experience life through my body? And yeah.
Reese Brown (23:11.5)
Yes.
Reese Brown (23:21.315)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (23:25.166)
So beautiful. I am such a language nerd and it makes me think of one of my favorite etymologies, which is etymology of the word religion, religio, ligia, we can think of like ligament to connect, but also in the muscles, right? And it is this to remember. Religion at its core was supposed to be this thing of exactly everything you just described. don't want to try and...
use any other words and the ones you used were beautiful and perfect. But I think unfortunately, as we have seen, religion has been misused in some ways and is now a cause to forget sometimes. But I love going back to that core of remembering not just in this mental practice or even in this kind of esoteric metaphysical practice, but remembering in the body and that we are
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (24:07.837)
One, two.
Reese Brown (24:24.652)
made up of different members, right? Our arms and legs, but also we are a member of the broader whole. We are membered and a member in these ways.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (24:26.696)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (24:35.464)
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I love the etymology of religion. I've never looked it up and that just like lights up so many things because isn't it fascinating that in the name of religion, so historically people were dismembered, Like, all the witch burnings and all these things in the name of religion and how children are spanked and people are shamed for their body. And it's actually the antithesis of what religion
Reese Brown (24:50.871)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (25:05.448)
was originally intended to be. Amazing. Yeah, wow.
Reese Brown (25:07.928)
Right. Fascinating. Language is such a fascinating, fascinating thing. Well, to dive into the book that you have written, Flying Lead Change, which of course is evokes the, or invokes, I should say, the beautiful creature of the horse that you've discussed with your work with Equus, and this beautiful movement that horses
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (25:16.35)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (25:37.486)
take in galloping, which I had never heard of. So it was fascinating to learn more about the just the mechanics of that. Right. But I actually want to start almost exactly where you start, which is the epigraph before the introduction. And I find epigraphs are so powerful because any writer or author artistic pursuit is, of course, standing on the shoulders of giants. Right. We've all heard this about taking
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (25:38.526)
when.
Reese Brown (26:07.232)
everything that we've learned and all of our experiences and the words and pictures and art of other people and kind of reconfiguring, remembering them into a new work to share our specific lens through which we interpret these things. And this epigraph, I want to read it verbatim because I think it's so beautiful. Let me pull it up here.
It is by Elise McClay and Bev Doolittle in When the Wind Had Wings and it says, a broken song beneath the snow, the echo of a soaring joy, a shape in the mist, a touch in the rain, in wilderness you come again. You tell us what we used to know. You speak for all the free wild things whose ways were ours when the wind had wings. And goosebumps.
Right? Just absolutely beautiful. but my main question here is what is it that we used to know?
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (27:10.282)
That's a great question.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (27:19.248)
It was sort of a knowing itself, right? So the details of the knowing, it isn't as important as the knowing itself, that there is a template that is interconnected with all sort of greater, a greater beingness, a greater livingness, a greater aliveness that
That means we can never go astray. I mean, we may make a less optimal turn right or left, but ultimately that knowing this is gonna keep us on track. And so it's a deep trust in ourselves and who we are and how we are uniquely inclined kind of my ranch manager.
is a gentleman from the Tuskegee Pueblo. He's a Native American gentleman. His name is Thunder Bear Yates. That's his real name, Thunder Bear. he says, know, we're all like, and he's young, he's like 32, and he says, we're all like snowflakes, like so, and the snowflake-ishness is, is the knowing supports that.
and reports like never questioning one tiny little angle or shape or contour of that snowflake this as it moves through time and space.
Reese Brown (28:53.39)
That's so beautiful. I love that. I think too, you know, as we're talking about grounding these esoteric thoughts into this reality, of course, being called a snowflake has come to mean something very different in our culture now. And I always thought, what a funny, funny thing to call someone because boy, does that sound like such a compliment, right? That it's like,
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (28:54.943)
you
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (29:21.642)
He's dying! He's dying!
Reese Brown (29:23.862)
You are so unique and like the ability of these crystals to form, it's really so beautiful. I love that. And I guess to kind of keep going on this thought, the idea of freedom, I think is one that is coming up in these conversations a lot right now around America, American politics, the socioeconomic and environmental spheres.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (29:26.751)
No!
Reese Brown (29:52.648)
And you have a really beautiful system in the book, the system of core cultural pillars. And one thing that was so striking to me about this system is that freedom in the system lies right at the intersection between care and presence. It's the only one of the pillars that is exactly split by care and presence. And I thought that that was so powerful and really made me think of how
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (30:11.845)
Thank you.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (30:16.095)
So.
Reese Brown (30:20.958)
we are conceiving of freedom today and freedom being one of the core values of the American and of America to reframe to it being about care and presence, I think is really powerful. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how this is, why it does sit at the intersection between care, right, for self, for others to be caring and careful, but also presence.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (30:44.148)
Thank you.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (30:50.547)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (30:50.55)
right, in this embodied way and why, how maybe as a secondary B question, we can use this reframe of freedom in our lives right now.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (31:01.642)
Yeah, wonderful. Well, a little backstory to that model that you're alluding to. So my, as I mentioned previously, one of my most powerful teachers has been the horse. And it's tricky to talk about horses because there's just a lot of ideas and biases and, horse girl and horses or whatever. But I have, as a lifelong horsewoman,
increasingly had to look at the horse from a bunch of different perspectives, not the least of which is a neurobiological perspective and a biological perspective. So before I was a horse woman, I was just very interested in nature and how nature works. And I want to pan the camera back to a little bit broader picture before I bring in those seven.
principles of thriving that the horse culture embodies. So we've got nature and nature is a 3.8 billion year old system and of all the species that have ever been on planet Earth 99 % have gone extinct or have evolved to new forms. So everything that's around right currently right now is the 1%, a different 1%. And this 1 %
over 3.8 billion years has figured out how to live on planet Earth, not just survive, but thrive. And so what is it about the way these species organize themselves, the way they operate, the way they adapt and transform? What is it about how they are that helps them to thrive? Now, humans on that, you know, in that
place, or the babies, depending on where you put the needle, six million years as the oldest mark for human beings. So we're the babies. We've not been around that long. So when we look at horses, we're looking at a system that's 56 million years old, been around a really long time through tectonic shifts and climate spikes and volcanic mega explosions. What is it about? Why?
Reese Brown (33:06.679)
Right?
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (33:26.546)
What is it? How have they adapted so well? they're still here today, thriving. And there's a lot of reasons why, but a big, big reason has to do with their culture. And they have a culture, just like elephants and wolves and gorillas have a culture. Not a lot's been written about their culture because they're largely seen as pets or a commodity. So people haven't researched them in the same way. But their culture is really fascinating.
Reese Brown (33:47.896)
Mmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (33:56.208)
It's wonderful to look at it through the lens of, wow, if that helped them to survive 56 million years through tectonic shifts and climate spikes and explosions and pandemics, what can we learn from that culture as humans to help us thrive? So a lot of people have learned that the lead
horse in a herd is the stallion. We have all this Hollywood, you know, and we've got the gladiator stallion who's fighting, all this thing. Well, that has nothing to do with leadership. That's breeding. And what they found in wild herds and domestic herds, if the domestic herd can operate like together in the way that they're intended, is that the leader is usually a mare. It's a female.
Reese Brown (34:26.689)
You
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (34:50.138)
The leadership is a matriarchy. they're in a domestic herd, if they don't have a female in the herd, then it'll be a quieter, more contemplative, more present male horse. They do not operate in a sort of violence, dominance paradigm. It's very much a power with paradigm. Power with and power to.
Most of contemporary human culture is power over. And we can go all over the map on that one, how it manifests, but power over creates these rigid hierarchies that ultimately cost, ultimately cost the entire system. I mean, for a while there seemed to be a few privileged few at the top, but in many, many ways they cost them the most.
Reese Brown (35:38.67)
Mm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (35:47.786)
But you just don't see it right away, you know give give power over a Longer stretch of thousands of years and you're gonna see how poorly it it performs so you've got a system that Works by care and presence leadership is care and presence Care for self care for other care for the whole care for the whole so
Reese Brown (35:50.414)
great.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (36:15.398)
And that care isn't necessarily a kind of sentimental, wishy-washy enabling caretaking. It is a powerful, like, what is going to serve the whole? What is going to make sure that everyone is taken care of? What boundaries need to be set? What discipline needs to be put into place, you know? And then presence, you know, the deep abiding moment within this moment.
that is very embodied. And so the lead horse is selected based on their ability to keep five core principles intact. Safety, connection, peace, freedom, and joy. And you're right, like the model is in the book as a Venn diagram and it's meant to be very kind of 3D, almost holographic in a way, and each piece impacts another piece.
Reese Brown (37:05.504)
Mm-hmm.
Reese Brown (37:09.528)
right?
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (37:14.654)
But, if you, you know, if you don't have safety, mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, psychic, then you can't have connections. So they all impact each other, But the freedom piece is interesting that you, like that's the one you zeroed in on. And that the freedom to be who you are, the freedom to
Reese Brown (37:26.69)
Yes.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (37:44.234)
express yourself as you are, freedom from oppression, freedom from shame, you know, these are all kind of pieces that tie together in that freedom piece. And Uncle Bob is the one who really taught me about care, and care has to come with responsibility and accountability.
Reese Brown (38:02.274)
Right.
Reese Brown (38:12.216)
Yes.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (38:12.266)
So he had the indigenous term called Kanyini, K-A-N-Y-I-N-I. You can watch a documentary about Uncle Bob on Netflix. It's like a 45 minute documentary. It's called Kanyini. It's very beautiful. That really care is nothing if it doesn't have this component. You know how it is. You're with somebody who says they love and care about you.
But if they're not accountable to their actions, then that care is toothless. So care, right? It has to be, love isn't enough. It has to come with, this is how I'm gonna show up. This is how I'm gonna be accountable. This is how I'm gonna be responsible for my actions. This is how I'm gonna be true to my word, all of that. And so that's real care. That's very robust. And to do that, you have to be very, very present and self-aware.
Reese Brown (38:47.084)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reese Brown (39:05.613)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (39:10.194)
not only to yourself, but to the one across from you. Yeah. And once that is like, that sort of like holds the freedom. It's not just, you know, I get to have 50 guns whenever I want to because I'm free to, you know, what the heck? No, that doesn't serve the whole. That doesn't, it isn't accountable to the others. You know, that's not freedom. That's just entitlement.
Reese Brown (39:32.162)
rate.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (39:39.506)
And I think that blur and confuse the two that freedom is entitlement. Freedom is not entitlement. Freedom is something that is very carefully cultivated through the capacity to hold freedom well with responsibility, right?
Reese Brown (39:39.66)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (40:06.05)
Yes, that is so powerful. And I love what you said about without, I don't think you use this word, but like without boundaries, care is toothless, right? It's like there's no grit in it. There's nothing to chew on, to grasp hold of. And I think that that is so powerful in rethinking like the care that we need to hold freedom with that it's like.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (40:21.3)
Right.
Reese Brown (40:35.224)
I think so often when conversations are had around like reframing freedom, it doesn't speak to the people who may want to have 50 guns because it's like, I don't care about this like butterfly. I don't like this language, but you know, hippie dippy bullshit. That's like, no, that's, that's I I'm on my path. I'm doing my thing. I want to be strong. I want to be independent. I want to have this grit and it's
in a lot of ways, almost tying it back to what we were talking about earlier with the toxicity that can sometimes come with spiritual communities, that it's like, it's missing the forest for the trees and that, okay, freedom and maybe this like hyperbolic sense in which we've seen it devolve into entitlement and like deep spirituality, they're committing a similar crime, but on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (41:09.546)
You
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (41:30.44)
Mm-hmm, that's right.
Reese Brown (41:30.804)
And what you're really suggesting here is calling into balance these things with a fierceness, with a fierceness that creates safety. And without having both of these things, it doesn't work. I think one thing I think a lot about with freedom is like the difference between the, know, John Locke and quote unquote, perfect freedom that is I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want.
versus a freedom that actually matters that is in community, right? Because you can't have perfect freedom outside of community. it's how do we strike this balance when we're in community? Cause that's what we all want, right? But you still want to be able to do, you want, yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (41:59.402)
you
Right.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (42:11.85)
Well, we want to have normal life. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not perfect freedom. That's just anarchy. This is the thing is that people can argue about these points all day long. You cannot know what real freedom feels like until you're ready to embody what you and I were just talking about. A freedom that is both
Reese Brown (42:21.314)
Yeah, yes
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (42:42.148)
absolutely free and tethered to my spirit and how my spirit moves in the world and absolutely tethered to the existential responsibility that we are part of a larger whole. And until you feel that and experience it in your body, really can't, you have no business talking about it to people.
Reese Brown (42:59.682)
Yes.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (43:08.498)
because you don't know what you're talking about. And some people can be like, well, that's not freedom. Well, how would you know? You haven't even tasted what we're talking about.
Reese Brown (43:17.656)
Right, right. It makes me think of what you said earlier about in order to transcend the ego, you have to have a well-formed ego, right? It's like you can't transcend something that you haven't experienced that isn't there.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (43:28.234)
Right, right, right. Exactly. so, you know, in these, in these places where people misconstrue what freedom really is, I would argue that, you know, the unformed ego is well live and well there. It just shows up in that manifestation as opposed to say getting
Reese Brown (43:47.906)
Wow, yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (43:54.442)
taught up in a narcissistic guru story in a spiritual world. But we have very, very traumatized people who have not learned to be safe inside their own body or safe inside their community that they could even feel what it's like to to to be profoundly okay with themselves as is this kind of
I get to do whatever I want. Whenever I want is just like, it's a, it's an over flex of an eye because there is no eye there.
Reese Brown (44:29.676)
Right. Well, and I think it begs the question of why too, right? Like, why would you want to do anything you want whenever you want, however you want, what's the purpose behind it? What's the meaning behind it? And I think that speaks to like, what's the eye behind it? Like, what is this thing in the sense that human beings are all searching for meaning and what's going on here that it's like, you really have to tackle that question first.
Within all of this, how, of course, both of us have a deep vested interest in helping people with this. And that's really what the book and your work as a whole speaks to. But again, to honor what you said in the beginning, that it's like, still learning, still growing, that this is not a perfectable practice. How would you suggest
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (45:07.748)
Thank you.
Reese Brown (45:29.226)
anyone maybe kind of dip their toe into these waters to think about whether or not we may be over flexing. For those of us that are actively trying to help other people do it while we're learning, but also for those that maybe have never considered this before, what is kind of maybe a practice or a thought or something to check in?
on this journey.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (45:58.547)
Mmm.
Yeah, thank you. It's going to sound like a way over simplification, but it's a simple doorway into something that's very, very complex and multi-layered impossibility. But I believe with everything I know that when we connect back to nature, even if we don't really necessarily vibe with nature, but when we connect back to nature,
this is where we get in right relationship to ourselves and to the greater whole. So, there's a way that nature, when it connects with us, alters our nervous system and our thinking and our frequency in a way that we just start to understand things better.
Reese Brown (46:36.684)
Mmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (46:57.99)
and we start to understand ourselves better. And it's not necessarily a linear process and it's not necessarily something that we totally conceptualize or understand, but it does seem to kind of create coherence, right? And so I love to tell folks when they come here to the ranch that
Reese Brown (47:17.196)
Hmm, yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (47:24.956)
and they've invested a considerable amount to do a retreat with me that, you know, on the surface, I'll be talking, we'll be in dialogue, we'll be doing exercises together, but make no mistake about it. There is a conversation happening between you and the trees, you and the soil, you and the horses, you and the sky, that it's having its way with you and you don't...
even if you have amnesia about your retreat, you are going to leave here changed. And I love that because it means, you know, they can relax. And so if people just spent a little more time, either put a few more potted plants in their house or just spent a little more time hanging out with their dog and just allowed that companionship to touch them.
Reese Brown (47:57.667)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (48:22.058)
that they're going to find things get more aligned for themselves. So that would be the problem. Yeah.
Reese Brown (48:28.108)
Hmm. That's so beautiful. I love that. And I think there is something to the sacred simplicity of it too, right? That's like, we don't need to overcomplicate each and every one of these things and make it feel so inaccessible. And speaking of the inaccessibility of a lot of this work, one thing that I wanted to ask you about is the way you talk about meditation in the book. And I think that
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (48:56.66)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (48:57.536)
Even the gift that you give these retreat goers of saying, yes, we'll be doing things, no matter what, you're going to get something out of this, take the pressure off of it, makes it so much easier to be. And in the meditation, in discussion around meditation, you talk about the difference between just being and meditating.
And I found that personally so helpful because I think I'm predisposed to, you know, really wanting to lead into this kind of like, I'm meditating or like I'm going on a spiritual journey or, you know, all of these things. Like that's certainly what my constitution likes to, how my constitution likes to make meaning. Why do you think it is that telling someone or, or inviting someone to just be instead of meditating?
makes it feel attainable and accessible. Cause I think the language around meditation turns a lot of people off and it's like, I can't do that. I can't just sit in silence and do nothing. What am I supposed to, you know? So yeah, talk to me about this and the accessibility of some of this work.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (50:04.959)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (50:09.034)
Right.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (50:18.474)
I'm delighted that you spotted that. So there's.
Let's see, where do I want to start? So first of all, you I've always been a very sort of moving active person and always had a hard time with crossing my legs and sitting quietly for five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes. Our brain is always streaming thoughts. So good luck quieting the mind. That's not going to happen.
You know, you may find different states that arise sometimes, but honestly, none of that is necessarily worth a whole lot. It's just kind of mental acrobatics that are happening. And some people settle into their, you know, their, their constitution is that they can settle into that much easier than others. I, my teacher taught me
that and his teacher taught him and his teacher was Ramana Maharshi. He was a sage in India. I think he died in the 1950s. He was known as the silent sage. He'd never said a word. He lived in a cave. But the point to meditation aside from what the spiritual new age industrial complex wants to have, have you believe around, you know, better creativity and less stress, the point of meditation.
in its truest form is to connect us with life, with life itself, with consciousness, with God, the divine. That's the point. To remind our body that feels very separate from all of those things, to remind our body and our mind that we are in fact a part of a greater whole of consciousness. That's the point to kind of, as my teacher would put it, to return to our beloved.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (52:18.09)
For its own sake, not so that I am more stress-free, not so that I can be enlightened because that's ridiculous. It's so that I can return to something that is really existentially close to my being here as a human on Earth. And so why wouldn't I want to visit that space a hundred times a day? Why wouldn't I want to go back to my beloved and
Reese Brown (52:18.638)
Hmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (52:46.388)
kiss them in the hallway a hundred times a day. And so, so it's the spirit of like, just every few moments, every few minutes, every few hours, just dropping into being this for a few seconds to just like, yes, and this, yes, yes, this is what matters. And doing it kind of in that way, more sort of micro doses throughout the day.
actually changes the fabric of your day in a really beautiful way because I can be like sweating over an Excel spreadsheet and like really in it and then...
take a breath and drop in into beingness and then head back to it again. And I don't know, it's just like, it's that important hit of oxygen. And it makes my in-person, in the world life feel divine. As to like, I'm gonna compartmentalize in this morning from nine to nine 30, I'm gonna sit with my legs crossed and burn some incense. And then I'm gonna go and be
Reese Brown (53:49.057)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (53:58.768)
all stressed out for the rest of the day.
Reese Brown (54:01.74)
Right, right. I was listening to a podcast episode with Rainn Wilson's Soul Boom podcast and he talks a lot about this and he was criticizing this idea that like, I'm gonna be spiritual in my yoga class from three to 4.30 on Thursdays and then the rest of life is whatever this show is, this performance is. And it's like that, yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (54:18.056)
Right.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (54:23.54)
Wait. Right.
Reese Brown (54:28.27)
Just saying it in that way makes it sound so ridiculous, but it's like, is that not what we've kind of doing? And you can't, if the whole point is to be connected, you can't separate it out in this way. One thing that you said, I mean, obviously that also really impacted me. I teared up a bit hearing you say, it's returning to your beloved. Like this word of beloved is just so like,
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (54:41.748)
Right, exactly, exactly.
Reese Brown (54:55.944)
the thing that is held so precious and I think that really opens the gateway to self-love, to seeing the humanity in others, right? Like all of these things that are so healing. One other thing you said that I want to go back to is not to be enlightened because that's ridiculous. Talk to me about that. What is the ridiculous nature of the conversation we have around enlightenment? I think that
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (55:15.326)
Hahaha
Reese Brown (55:24.59)
I tend to agree with you in a lot of ways, but also it's nuanced, right? So talk to me about that.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (55:29.62)
Yes, it's very normal. Yes, yes. So well, you know, as long as there's a someone, so it's great. We've traveled the spectrum of being this embodied human in space and time on earth, feet in the ground, feet in the soil, right? And having this intact ego, healthy, differentiated ego. And then we're going into this more...
Transcendental place of like egolessness right and both Exist in this amazing life both not one or the other but if you're
So as we look towards this idea of enlightenment, enlightenment is about understanding that there is no self, there is no ego, there is no human, there is no life. This is all just an illusion. All is just consciousness, bliss, whatever. But if you're a someone sitting down and having your meditation to give up your ego so that you can be enlightened, all you do is develop a spiritual ego.
Reese Brown (56:45.614)
snaps, snaps on that. Wow. And then the journey really does become about how much can I separate from this thing, right? And it's like, lost the plot from the beginning.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (57:02.058)
Yes, yes. So, you know, and believe you me, you know, as a very, very ambitious 28 year old, I was by golly gonna get enlightened and I did everything, you know, hey, I graduated cum laude in college, I was gonna get do it, I was gonna do it. And of course, you know, I was gonna do it, but it was just all, it was all spiritual ego. So you know, the ultimate
Reese Brown (57:22.499)
Yeah.
Right.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (57:30.992)
enlightenment for me. I noticed it. I noticed the byproduct of my enlightenment, if I could call it that, was that I stopped talking about enlightenment. I stopped thinking about enlightenment. The byproduct was I stopped searching. You know, I just started finding.
Reese Brown (57:53.07)
Mmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (57:56.082)
And I don't even really know how to talk about all that. But, you know, and to me, that's freedom. That's freedom. the when one is untethered from the seeker, you know, with all these ideas of who the secret would be and how they need to behave and, you know, how
Reese Brown (57:56.536)
Wow.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (58:18.696)
You know, because I think my idea of the Enlightenment was I was going to be a better version of me, like somehow not traumatized and like never triggered and like all this.
Reese Brown (58:24.13)
Right.
Reese Brown (58:27.83)
Yes, all of the things that are promised by by like what you said this kind of capitalist product that is spiritual enlightenment. It's like, since when could you commodify spirituality and connection? Like, how do we not see what we're missing? And one thing that really, really hit me in the book that I think
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (58:31.451)
NAH!
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (58:34.94)
YES!
Reese Brown (58:55.778)
you know, along this spectrum that we're talking about between those in the spiritual community that kind of fall into this trap in a maybe like couched in a way that seems more enlightened versus the communities of, I'll call them entitlement in that it's what freedom devolves into, even though I hope that that doesn't sound judgmental, because it's not how I'm just using it as like a moniker for that space.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (59:23.966)
Yes, right. That's right.
Reese Brown (59:25.81)
that both of these kind of pathways, it's about doing and accomplishing and achieving something, right? Like there is some box to be checked and like enlightenment did it done or, like freedom did it, got it, we're good. And it's just so counterintuitive to what the thing actually is. And you write,
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (59:41.778)
Right.
Reese Brown (59:53.64)
Whenever I see a lifestyle hinged on speed, efficiency, and hectic busyness, I see a life run by shame. And was that not just the most beautiful call in that I needed to be reminded of like, it doesn't matter what hecticness or busyness or how worthy you view these boxes as.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:00:03.22)
Bye.
Reese Brown (01:00:22.55)
If you still see them as boxes to be checked, there is some shame under that.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:00:22.602)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:00:27.402)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:00:29.752)
Talk to me about this. There's not a specific question in there, but I would love to hear your thoughts.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:00:34.162)
Yeah, and really shame is such a big pervasive ubiquitous phenomenon in our society because that's how a power over paradigm keeps intact is through shame and to way out to way over simplify it. Shame is essentially the message or the belief that I'm not okay as is. You know, there's a lot of like legs and things that go out from that, but
Reese Brown (01:00:47.864)
Hmm.
Reese Brown (01:01:02.574)
Sure.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:01:02.954)
I'm not okay as is. I'm not enlightened, therefore I need to get a teacher and I need to become enlightened.
And, you know, again, these things are sort of paradoxical because that doesn't mean I don't, I don't go to a therapist. It doesn't mean I don't have a coach. It doesn't mean that I don't like still engage in processes that are going to help my world a little easier, a little clearer, a little more aligned. But the difference is that it's not coming from a place of I'm broken. I need to be healed.
Reese Brown (01:01:21.23)
Great.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:01:40.176)
I'm not okay the way I am. When you finally unshame yourself and really, really recognize that as is right now, I am okay and a perfect snowflake. From there, life starts to become really interesting. But before that point, you're just checking boxes.
Reese Brown (01:01:57.518)
That's right.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:02:09.022)
because there's something missing and it needs to be, you know, filled. and the end shaming process is, it's a, you know, it's a lot of unlearning. It's a lot of unlearning because we, that's just how, you know, shame is a way that we shape human beings so that they can fit into the cog of the wheel of the power over system that we're in. yeah.
So.
Reese Brown (01:02:38.926)
Yeah, wow, no, that's so, powerful. And I think beginning with this realization of your perfectly imperfect snowflakeness, think is, it's like, that's the journey, right? Is to continue returning to that belovedness, right? That state that is never done, it's never checked, but it's always kind of there. And
One thing you mentioned a bit ago is that you stopped searching and you started finding and you said it in a way that implied, at least this is my interpretation of what you said, please correct me if I'm wrong, but that the searching is really what we don't want to stop and that the fine is really what shuts down this curiosity, this openness, this eye towards the belovedness.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:03:28.842)
Hmm.
Reese Brown (01:03:38.242)
and you did say you don't really know how to begin talking about that, that experience, but of course that means I desperately want to ask you to try and start talking about that experience.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:03:51.044)
Yeah, yeah. Well, so the the so what I said is that, you know, things things became more whole for me when I stopped searching and started finding me. So it's a little different than how how you took it, meaning that search came from a place of lack. I need I'm searching, searching, searching. It's a little bit like
Reese Brown (01:04:05.372)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (01:04:13.678)
Mmm.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:04:19.324)
If you meet your, let's use the beloved as a metaphor. If you meet your beloved in the hallway and you feel like maybe you're not quite enough for them, you're gonna seek their whatever, their validation through the kiss, their, you know, the way they look at you. And there is this like seeking for something that will validate who you are.
When you come to the beloved or to your life or to your anything, knowing you're complete, knowing you're already whole, knowing that there is not one thing about you that is broken, then you find the love that's already there from the beloved. Got it?
Reese Brown (01:05:05.056)
Yes, yes, yes. Well, in this, like, the curiosity and the evolution of the journey exists within the thing that is already found, right? It's like encapsulated in the wholeness. I hear it. I hear it. hear it.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:05:13.64)
Yes Yes Yes, exactly exactly and so, you know, I am more curious than ever And that curiosity is so Pure because it's not curious Because if I don't get that thing or find that thing i'm going to be broken, right? So it's just a like it's just this wonder curiosity that may that is much
Reese Brown (01:05:23.372)
Right.
Reese Brown (01:05:35.907)
Yeah.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:05:45.416)
just more confident in the space more
Reese Brown (01:05:47.372)
Yeah, because it's not grounded in the conclusion of it. It's not solving a mystery, but just like experiencing the mystery instead. Yeah. Well, I do want to be mindful of your time and how generous you have been with it. So as we head into the conclusion portion of the podcast, one, for all of our listeners,
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:06:00.266)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:06:15.982)
Kelly and her beautiful book, Flying Lead Change, as well as information on her organization, Equus, will all be linked down below wherever you are listening or watching to explore and experience and continue to learn and read her beautiful words. So please definitely go check all of that out in your beautiful curiosity, dear listener. But Kelly, first final question.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:06:38.332)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:06:44.91)
Is there anything in light of our conversation that we missed, that we didn't get to, that you want to clarify, that you want to add in? Anything at all. This is space for you to use however you see fit.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:07:00.838)
Yeah, thank you. I feel like we've been so thorough. I've really, really enjoyed this conversation and I wrote down a ton of notes after we were speaking just to, yeah, there's just a lot. So I really appreciate the space that you hold so that so much can come out that one wouldn't expect. I really appreciate that. But no, I feel very complete. Thank you.
Reese Brown (01:07:24.366)
Oh good, I'm so glad. I similarly have all sorts of notes. can't do these podcasts without a pen or pencil in my hand. So I so appreciate your openness and willingness to go all over with me. Last question to hopefully put little button on our conversation as much as one can with these things because the box is never checked. But what is one word to describe?
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:07:30.632)
Hahaha!
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:07:48.882)
Right.
Reese Brown (01:07:52.11)
how you're feeling right now, your current state.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:07:54.89)
Mmm, great.
Reese Brown (01:07:57.335)
Hmm.
I am too, I have to concur. Kelly, thank you so much for your time and energy for this beautiful book and all that you do. Thank you for being here with me.
Kelly Wendorf | EQUUS (01:08:10.921)
Thank you so much, Rhys.