When We Cannot Save Them: Grief, Horses, and the Courage to Heal

What happens when love cannot fix what is happening to someone we care about?

For many of us, helping becomes part of how we love. We research, advocate, anticipate, and try to make things better.

But sometimes healing asks us to confront something harder:

There is a difference between helping someone and believing we are responsible for saving them.

In this episode of NeuroAlchemy: The Brain-Body Healing Podcast, Dr. Sarah Young sits down with Tony Di Zinno, an equine specialist whose path into this work emerged through profound personal loss.

After Tony's youngest brother, Nick, was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer, Tony spent months helping care for him through the end of his life. During that experience, someone asked Tony what he would do if he were the one facing the diagnosis.

His answer eventually emerged: work with horses.

That answer opened an entirely new chapter.

Together, Sarah and Tony explore grief, caregiving, courage, boundaries, compassion fatigue, purpose, and the extraordinary ways horses can invite us into connection without requiring words.

They also explore a question relevant to caregivers, clinicians, helpers, and anyone who has desperately wanted to make things better for someone they love:

Can we remain deeply compassionate without making ourselves responsible for saving another person?

✨ In This Episode

• The difference between helping, fixing, and rescuing • Anticipatory grief and loving someone through illness • Why presence can be one of our deepest expressions of love • Compassion fatigue and boundaries for helpers • Co-regulation and connection between humans and horses • How horses respond to nonverbal communication • Equine-assisted learning and the EAGALA approach • Why helping someone should not require losing yourself • Grief as something we learn to move with rather than conquer • Courage, purpose, and finding meaning after loss • The progression from hurting → healing → helping • Connection and belonging beyond human relationships

Tony offers a powerful metaphor for grief: it can arrive like an unpredictable wave. We may not be able to prevent the wave, but over time, perhaps we can learn how to move with it rather than simply being knocked down by it.

🐴 Connect with Tony Di Zinno

Tony's Leland Coaching Profile

💜 Connect with Dr. Sarah Young

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You are not broken. You are becoming.

What if your body has been telling your story long before you had the words to explain it?

The way we breathe, move, stand, and hold tension can reflect how the nervous system has learned to respond to stress, emotion, relationships, and the world around us.

In this episode of NeuroAlchemy: The Brain-Body Healing Podcast, Dr. Sarah Young welcomes Feldenkrais® practitioner, movement educator, author, and body language expert Lavinia Plonka.

Lavinia shares how her career as a mime and physical theater performer led her to explore the relationship between movement, pain, emotion, and human potential. After years of chronic back pain and shoulder tension, one gentle Feldenkrais lesson changed how she understood her body and opened an entirely new path.

Together, Dr. Sarah and Lavinia explore how mindful movement can support neuroplasticity, proprioception, emotional regulation, self-awareness, and connection. This conversation invites us to stop treating the body as a problem to overcome and begin listening to it as a living, adaptable source of information.

In this episode, you’ll explore:

• What the Feldenkrais Method® is and how it differs from traditional movement practices
• How movement, sensation, emotion, and thought influence one another
• Why neuroplasticity can reinforce helpful and unhelpful patterns
• How posture and gesture can reflect the stories we carry
• How breathing patterns communicate with the nervous system
• Why connecting with ourselves can deepen our connection with others
• How self-compassion creates space for learning and change
• Why “no pain, no gain” can interfere with meaningful movement
• How small, curious movements may support pain, tension, fatigue, and limited mobility

Micro-Practice Invitation

Lavinia guides listeners through a gentle shoulder-awareness practice:

1. Rest your arms comfortably and notice the space between each ear and shoulder.
2. Observe whether one shoulder feels higher, closer, heavier, or farther forward.
3. Choose one shoulder and slowly begin lifting it toward your ear.
4. Notice what happens in your breathing, face, jaw, tongue, ribs, and the rest of your body.
5. Pause within a comfortable range, then slowly lower the shoulder.
6. Repeat a few times and compare how the two sides feel.
7. When you are ready, gently explore the other shoulder.

There is no perfect way to do this practice. Move slowly, stay within a comfortable range, and approach what you notice with curiosity rather than judgment.

About Lavinia

Lavinia Plonka is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner, body language expert, author, and internationally recognized teacher. For more than 40 years, she has helped people explore the connections among posture, movement, emotion, behavior, and the mind.

She is also the creator of Kinēsa®, an experiential process integrating movement, sensory awareness, emotional exploration, modern science, and ancient wisdom traditions.

Connect with Lavinia:

Website: https://laviniaplonka.com/

Explore Kinēsa®: https://laviniaplonka.com/kinesa/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/laviniaplonka

Healing does not always begin with pushing harder. Sometimes it begins with slowing down, becoming curious, and discovering that another way is possible.

You’re not broken. You are becoming.

In this episode of NeuroAlchemy, Dr. Sarah Young sits down with Mike Woods for a powerful conversation about the subconscious mind, emotional healing, self-worth, and why so many people mistakenly believe they are broken.

Mike shares his deeply personal journey of growing up with an undiagnosed form of dyslexia, graduating with a second-grade reading level, and carrying years of anxiety, shame, and self-criticism before discovering that the patterns driving his life were not character flaws—they were protective programs created by the subconscious mind.

Together, Sarah and Mike explore how childhood experiences shape lifelong beliefs, why the subconscious mind is designed to protect us, and how awareness creates the opportunity to rewrite old patterns. They discuss neuroplasticity, observer consciousness, forgiveness, gratitude, and practical ways to begin shifting from survival mode toward greater peace and resilience.

Throughout the conversation, Mike reminds listeners that healing begins when we stop asking, "What's wrong with me?" and start understanding how our minds and nervous systems have been trying to protect us all along.

Topics explored include:

• the role of the subconscious mind in everyday life • protective survival patterns and emotional programming • anxiety, self-criticism, and negative thought loops • childhood experiences and core beliefs • observer consciousness and awareness • neuroplasticity and repetition in healing • gratitude as a tool for nervous system regulation • forgiveness, self-compassion, and emotional resilience • dyslexia, identity, and overcoming shame

🌿 Micro Practice Invitation: Daily Gratitude

Mike invites listeners to spend 5–10 minutes each day writing down what they are genuinely grateful for.

Rather than keeping gratitude as a passing thought, write it on paper or speak it aloud. Start with simple things—a warm shower, your health, a loved one, fresh air, or the ability to see, hear, or move.

Over time, this consistent practice helps shift attention away from fear and scarcity toward abundance, strengthening new neural pathways and supporting a calmer, more regulated nervous system.

🧠 Learn More About Mike Woods

Website: https://learntolovebeingyou.com

Coming Soon: One Brave Breath: The Owner's Manual for Being Human

🌿 Connect with Dr. Sarah Young

https://www.neurosynergyhealth.com

https://youtube.com/@neurosynergyhealth

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You are not broken.

You are becoming.