Trust before change.
You can't force a frightened animal, and you can't force yourself. Small. Steady. The same way every day.
The elephant in the corner
I was 12 the first time I saw Mek Kapah.
Grade 6 field trip to Melbourne Zoo, 1989. I stood out the front of the old elephant enclosure and watched an old elephant rocking in the corner.
I didn't have words for what I felt. I left that day thinking zoos weren't doing right by their elephants.
At 19 I became a zookeeper at Healesville Sanctuary. I couldn't believe I was going to get paid for it. I landed in the birds department and fell in love with training animals. Teaching wild birds to fly free, for presentations and for release back to the wild. The connection. The trust. The process.
Then I was invited to work on the elephants at Melbourne Zoo.
It was 2003, fourteen years after that school trip. One of the first elephants I worked with was Mek Kapah.
The same elephant.
The zoo had spent $13 million on a new enclosure, and I was part of a new philosophy in how we trained. She could move freely. Explore. Do what elephants do. When three elephants were imported from Thailand, she became part of a real herd for the first time in her life.
She became a new elephant. Physically, mentally and spiritually.
That took trust. It took her relationship with me and the team, and with the other elephants. It took training that was good for her body and enrichment that was good for her mind.
I saw that change in animal after animal.
I related to every injured, orphaned or damaged animal almost instinctively. I saw a part of me in them. It's almost like I knew what they needed. No language required. Presence. Patience. Trust. Training animals with difficult backgrounds came naturally to me.
I learned it from them before I learned it about myself.
For the best part of 30 years I've lived with depression and anxiety, and more recently PTSD. Therapy, movement, nutrition, breathwork, better sleep and consistent habits are how I rebuilt.
Now it's in every fibre of my coaching: trust, relationships, and physical, mental, emotional and social wellness.
So when someone comes to me overwhelmed and exhausted, that's what I call on to help them find calm, confident and capable.
