Raising Energy and Active Pendulum Dowsing with Dana Jenkins
There is a whole world beyond what we can see and touch - and in this episode I dive into the subtle realm with my guest Dana Jenkins of Elevation Equine.
In episode #12 of Healing and Horsemanship, I spoke with Dana who is an Equine Massage Therapist, Energy Worker for humans and horses, and wild horse advocate. I was mind blown hearing Dana’s story, about how she came back to the horse world after losing touch with horses as a young adult - a journey many equestrians have in common, I feel - and that her coming home to horses, and herself, was thanks to energy work.
If you haven’t heard of Active Pendulum Dowsing, like I hadn’t before coming across Dana’s work, then this is the episode for you. She speaks at length about its virtues, and how it informs her practice with horses, and her own wellness.
Are you curious?! Read on or listen here to learn about how unprocessed emotions are stored in the body, why our intuition is a gift we all share, the importance of trusting and believing in our abilities in order to unlock creative potential and expanding our subtle senses, and much more.
Dana, you are an equine massage therapist, energy worker for horses and humans and a wild horse advocate, which I really love. And I'm sure if there's time, you can guess what I'll be asking you about since I'm a wild horse obsessed person. But to start, why don't you tell us your backstory and how you came to do all of these things?
Yeah. So that it is a very long story. And I will try to make this short of it. I grew up with horses. I actually had to learn everything I could before I was able to get a horse. It was just something I wanted. I fell in love with them early on in life. And, you know, my parents were like, okay, well, you know, make straight A's, learn everything you can about horses, learn how to ride all the things. And, you know, get a horse. And I made it happen. And those were just the most magical parts of my life and growing up, even before I got my horse, because I was just with horses so much. And I was actually like assisting the barn manager and the trainer during summers. So it was just full gamut, you know, the feeding, the farrier, the vet, you know, it's moving horses and, you know, the full gamut. And I 100% miss it.
So yeah, I got my horse. Her name was Smooth Reba. That was her registered name. Just a chestnut quarter horse mare. She was a trained roper, pole, and I think some barrel racing as well. Although I did none of those things. She knew exactly what to do, but I did not. But I just did Western pleasure and trail riding and things of that nature. No competition, no shows or anything.
I was actually a ballerina at that time and actually on a professional level with Alabama Ballet. So that was a huge contrast for me. My artistic director and choreographer and like the company's director honestly didn't want me horseback riding because the technique and the way that you use your body and your muscles actually contradict each other.
So, you know, with ballet, your legs have to be turned out and you're from the hip down and including your feet. And so of course, when you're horseback riding, it's a completely different set. You know, you're from the hip down from your legs, you're turning in your legs then, and you're, you know, using those different types of muscles and, you know, it's, it's, they just look down upon it. I got by. I made this, you know, I made it all work, but that's kind of why I, well, one reason why I ended up coming out of it. But that's a little bit down the road. So yeah, and you know, I just, I loved it and nothing was going to keep me away from horseback riding. Nothing was going to keep me away from my horse.
She taught me so much and she literally got me through my, I guess you could say teenage years. I was professionally dancing and I was at a fine arts high school which was heavily demanding. It was heavy as far as academics because it was somewhat of a math and science school also. And then of course there's a ballet aspect where I'm touring and I'm dancing and I'm performing constantly as well. I had a great high school life but at the same time it was jam-packed stress, and actually lots of trauma and trauma on my body that I had no idea how to deal with or how to cope with. And it's just what you do in childhood, whether it's sports or whatever you do, you just do it, right? And either you love it or you just make the most out of it. And I was kind of in the middle. She literally got me through, literally I think just kind of saved my life as far as growing up because I was able to go to the stables, to be with her. I didn't know what I was doing then, but I was co-regulating with her. She just taught me so much. Just being out in nature and learning from her and her natural instincts really helped me unbeknownst to me. But I would be able to go back home, back into the city, back into whatever city I was touring to with ballet and take all of that with me, just to help me, you know, at that time be okay and do all the things that I needed to do and deal with all of this stress. And, you know, it was a fine art school and it was a math and science school. I'm not a math and science person. Like math, me and math don't agree. So just making it happen was really, really hard for me. And she got me through along with teaching me all the lessons.
So to date, this is my largest regret in life when I, at the end, I think, end of high school, going into college, it was either, you're either gonna dance professionally or you're gonna go to college. Again, hindsight, I probably would have given myself or my child lots of other ideas, you know, maybe incorporating the horse or, you know, there's different majors or there's different you know, job opportunities that you can do that might fit me best. But I decided to go to college. And I majored in dance briefly. I ended up changing it to like human development, but just maybe two years into college, I just got caught up in the college life and just kind of stopped going out to the stables. Stopped coming home. We were too busy traveling, having fun, you know, instead of coming home for the weekend, we would go to New Orleans to, you know, to party. And that was just me being a college kid. So my horse was, you know, still home. At the stables, there was another girl who was learning to ride who we pretty much just leased her out to. And, you know, same situation as me pretty much young girl learning to ride and she was perfect, perfect for her and she absolutely loved her. So I just went home less and less. And you know, one day my parents were like Dana, you know, you have a horse. They're expensive. You know, what do you want to do? And they completely left it up to me. And you know, I probably wasn't even at school when we had this conversation. I could have been, you know, in Atlanta somewhere or in New Orleans somewhere. And I was like, okay, yeah, you're right. I haven't been home in a few months. Let's just, you know, go ahead and sell her to the girl who was leasing her. And that's what we did. So my hugest regret is that, but next to that is I did not go home. I did not get to tell her goodbye. And that was just me being young and dumb. And from what I know now, there were trapped, I have trapped emotions that, you know, of course were not resolved because I had no idea they were there or what that even was back then.
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Learn more about Dana
Learn more about Dana’s work at Elevation Equine Services, follow along with her on Instagram @elevationequine, and be sure to claim your 15% discount on her services at Elevation Equine, including Active Pendulum Dowsing as a Herd Member.
