Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Healing Power of Hugging Cows With Ellie Laks
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08.6] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed, with your host, Brittany Darrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. If you’ve never thought of cows as intuitive healers, this episode just might change your mind. Ellie Laks is the founder of The Gentle Barn Foundation, a national organization that rescues and rehabilitates abused and discarded farm animals. She is the creator of Cow Hug Therapy and as she explains in her book by the same name, she has learned amazing lessons from these animals about life, death, and everything in between. She’s here today to share some of those lessons with us. So, let’s have a listen.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:47.3] BD: Ellie, welcome to the show, I’m so excited you’re here.
[0:00:50.9] EL: I’m so excited to be here. This is going to be the best conversation ever.
[0:00:54.6] BD: I met Ellie recently. I went out to The Gentle Bar, my husband and I took a road trip to Nashville and we got to check this space out. This is a big question, like right out of the gate.
[0:01:06.7] EL: I’m ready.
[0:01:07.5] BD: You talk a lot about how growing up, you did not feel connected to other humans in the way that you did with nature and animals, and I just resonate with that so deeply and I know that our listeners feel the same way. Why do you think that is, that animals and nature just so innately feel like home and like safety to people like us?
[0:01:31.1] EL: I love that question and I have spent a lifetime trying to figure that out because I had very loving parents. They took really good care of us and they loved us and so, you know, I’m not sitting here thinking, it’s anyone’s, you know, main fault. I just – when I look back in my childhood, I felt completely at home in the woods and lakes by my houses. I felt completely at home with my dog and my bird and the animals that shared our home that I brought home.
I just felt like they saw me, they understood me and they accepted me as I am. I didn’t feel like I had to be someone else, I didn’t have to edit my speech, I didn’t have to modify my actions. I could just simply be me and I was a hundred percent accepted and somewhere along the line, I didn’t feel that way about people, and I don’t know if it was the kids at school. I just saw so much bullying and so much judgment and criticism and so much cruelty that maybe that made me feel unsafe.
But somewhere along the line, I felt like I had to always be an edited version of myself around people but a completely free and pure version of myself around animals, and I have a beautiful family, a husband, I have kids, and grandkids, I have beautiful, wonderful friends and coworkers that I love dearly, but they’re just something very special still, being beside an animal that I feel like the best version of myself, and I just feel home.
[0:03:03.8] BD: I wanted to ask this question first because I think this really informs the conversation that we’re about to have, and it clearly informed your life’s work. Tell the listeners about The Gentle Barn, how this began, where they can find it.
[0:03:18.1] EL: So, The Gentle Barn is a 25-year-old national organization located in Los Angeles California, Nashville Tennessee in Saint Louis Missouri. We very specifically taken animals that have nowhere else to go, because they’re too old, too sick, too injured, or too scared to be adoptable. We bring them in and put them through a very extensive rehabilitation program, and once they’re healed, we partner with them to heal people with the same stories of trauma.
So, eventually, if the animal chooses to, they can partner with us to really hearts and change minds to who these animals are and to really do incredible work with people that are suffering from depression, anxiety, grief, trauma. People that are really suffering and words and talk therapy is just not cutting it, they can come and then they embrace of our beautiful animals, they can really find themselves.
[0:04:08.2] BD: Yeah, and these are farm animals, and so for many people, and you know, I live in Kentucky and I was raised on farms where these animals were not considered sentient beings, were not considered equals, were not even looked at in the way that our dogs or our cats were, and so I just wonder what wisdom and insight you might be able to offer to our listeners that maybe grew up in like, similar scenarios that are really interested in being around animals and learning more about what farm animals have to offer and that it’s not a hierarchy, right? It’s – animals are not in hierarchy and we shouldn’t be them as such.
[0:04:52.9] EL: Yeah. If anything, I think that animals are far superior to us. Far superior, and they have so much to teach us and so many ways to heal us, and if we could just stop doing what we’re doing to them and pay attention and listen, they would change us all, and at The Gentle Barn, they are changing humans every single day. It’s hard to connect with animals that are in survival mode, right?
Like on animal agriculture, like on working farms, those animals know what’s going to befall them, they know that their babies are being taken away, they’re in survival mode every single day. So, it’s harder to connect with animals like that because they don’t know who to trust or how to trust but I mean, I would say, oh my God, find a sanctuary near you because there are so many sanctuaries popping up all over the country, or plan a trip to The Gentle Barn and come see who these animals really truly are.
The way they celebrate birth, the way they grieve death, the way they get married and fall in love and break up and have fights and have drama and just like we do, who they really are when there is no trauma, when there is no fear when they’re safe and loved and respected to see who they are with each other and see who they are with us, oh my God. I mean, I filled a book with it, right?
[0:06:06.8] BD: My husband and I, we came out to The Gentle Barn in Nashville and we’re animal lovers. We’ve experienced a lot of healing atmospheres with animals but that trip out there was incredible and to be able to experience Cow Hug Therapy, which we’re going to get into in a minute was next level but the animal that stands out to me the most, and you’ll have to remind me what this turkey’s name is, it’s mostly like a white, a beautiful white color.
And I would just put my hands out and the turkey would walk up and just push its like chest, like its breast like, into my hand, and just stare at me, and it was a really profound moment of connection with this turkey that I’ve never had in my life.
[0:06:51.5] EL: Was her name Spirit?
[0:06:53.0] BD: Yes, yes. Spirit.
[0:06:55.0] EL: Spirit’s very special, very-very-very special, and she takes people by surprise because people don’t think of turkeys a cuddly but in all three states, we have these remarkable cuddle turkeys who are all female and they will literally, just like you said, they will look in your eyes, they will just stand in such a humble, sweet way in front of you, they’ll put their wings out, and they will welcome you to cuddle them.
And if you feel comfortably, you can sit on the ground in front of them, put one leg on either side of them, scooch up real close to their right here, kiss their little fuzzy pink heads, slide your hands under their wings, and stroke them and I’m sure she fell asleep in your lap, right?
[0:07:34.6] BD: Yeah, it was pretty wonderful.
[0:07:36.0] EL: Yeah, turkeys are remarkable. Male turkeys like to show off and be called handsome but female turkeys, once they feel safe, oh my God, they are such wonderful cuddlers, and I like to say that we have not lived life ‘till we’ve hugged cows or cuddled turkeys.
[0:07:51.6] BD: Yes, cow hugs. Let’s talk about hugging cows. Wow, what is Cow Hug Therapy?
[0:07:58.8] EL: So, Cow Hug Therapy is when hurting humans, no matter what they’re going through or what they’re feeling or what they’re struggling with, they can come to the gentle barn and book an hour-long Cow Hug Therapy session, where they get the cows to themselves for an entire hour, and they can either be gravitated to one particular cow and rest in their embrace or cry in their embrace for an entire hour.
They can hug them all, they can ask us questions or they can just sit in the stillness and the quiet beside these gentle giants and find themselves. Cows, I think, all animals have so much for us but cows are very, very special in that they weigh 3,000 pounds. So, you don’t really ask them or train them, or teach them to do anything. It’s who they are organically. From the time that they have forgiven and let their past go and decided to trust humans, they incorporate us in their family.
And they are so nurturing and gentle and kind to each other that when they incorporate us, they just extol the same beautiful energy, the beautiful healing, the embraces that they do for each other to us, and so when we’re infants, we can rest against our caregiver’s chest and hear their heartbeat, which slows down our own, rise and fall with their breathing, and eventually, our breathing can match theirs, and we feel tiny, small and vulnerable in a huge protective embrace.
When we grow up, there’s really nothing that models that, except for Cow Hug Therapy. We are full-fledged adults, but we can go and we can feel like infants against these cows and hear their heartbeat and rise and fall with their breathing, and they wrap their necks around us and hold us. We can feel the energy of their love and their nurturing, without uttering one single word, closing down our left brain and opening our right brain.
It’s a connection, it’s an energy and it’s a nurturing, that feels like we’re safe, that we’re whole, that we’re loved, that we’re not alone and we leave those embraces feeling healed and hopeful, in a way that I really can’t articulate with enough words. I just – people have to try it. When you come and you embrace these beautiful cows, and they rather embrace you, it’s a special brand of healing that’s unlike any other and you leave changed, and when I’m having a bad day, I’m really lucky to live at The Gentle Barn California location.
[0:10:26.2] BD: Yeah.
[0:10:26.9] EL: When I’m having a bad day, I go straight to the cows and they make everything better. They clear our minds of thought, they immerse us in present time, we feel grounded and centered and loved, and it’s just remarkable.
[0:10:40.3] BD: How did you begin doing Cow Hug Therapy? Like, how did you coin the term and how did you get into this practice and like, writing this book, you know, bringing this to a broader audience? What’s the story behind that?
[0:10:56.0] EL: Well, I was the very first recipient of Cow Hug Therapy. Back in 1999, we got our first cow, Buddha, and she was adorable and she was a fuzzy, red, and white cow and long white eyelashes and she was absolutely adorable, and we all fell instantly in love with her but very early on, I was doing my bedtime checks, just making sure that everybody was okay before I went to bed, and I pass by Buddha and kind of looked, kiss at her.
You know, pat her on the head to say goodnight, and there was something about the way that she looked at me and she was like, “No-no-no, you need to stay a while.” So, I said, “Oh, okay.” So, I sat down beside her and I leaned against her just to kind of – for that camaraderie, and she wrapped her neck around me and held me, and I burst into tears because I didn’t realize how stoic I had been that day, and how much stress I was carrying on my shoulders.
But I was also so incredibly touched by that unexpected show of affection. Animals have loved me my entire lives, they’ve saved my life when I was seven. I mean, I can’t say enough good things about animals, but I’ve never had an animal reach out and hug me for me. Like, she saw how much stress I was carrying, she saw how much I had done that day, and she was literally giving me a mom hug, and it changed my life.
And I came to need those hugs every single solitary day and it wasn’t long before I realized there were other people in the world that needed those hugs too, and so I opened the phone book and I started calling around to drug and alcohol rehab centers, domestic violence shelters, war veteran centers, homeless shelters, really any agency that catered to hurting humans, and said, “You’ve got to bring your residents, you’ve got to bring your clients.” And they did.
And we always started off by bringing the group to Buddha and everyone hugged Buddha, and she did the same thing. She either held still to kind of invite them to ground and center or she wrapped her neck around them and held them and she brought people to tears. She cracked the most offensive, the most cold, the most hardened people because of their stories and their life experiences.
When they came in tough as nails, hardened, and cold and tough, she would crack them wide open and just expose them into vulnerable humble people. She changed so many lives and in her lifetime, she gave out 300,000 hugs. So, we’ve been doing Cow Hug Therapy for hurting humans since the day she hugged me 25 years ago but when we reopened after the pandemic, we realized that it wasn’t just hurting humans at facilities that needed this healing.
It was all of us individuals, we were all affected, we are all impacted, we are all lonely or scared or stressed, or whatever we were doing and so, when we reopened from the pandemic instead of just working, I mean, everyone that came to The Gentle Barn, whether it be a private tour, field trip, or open to the public Sunday, obviously hugged Buddha, and all our subsequent cows but after the pandemic with the entire world hurting as individuals, we allowed anyone on their own by themselves to come out and experience Cow Hug Therapy.
[0:13:57.9] BD: What can cows uniquely teach us?
[0:14:00.7] EL: So, like I said, all animals are wonderful, all animals have something to teach us, and ways to heal us but there is something very unique about cows and I happen to believe that cows are literally who we should be when we awaken to love as a nation, as a people, there’s a lot of different animals and they’re all amazing, but I wouldn’t say, “Oh, people should be more like dogs” or “People should be more like horses.”
But I am going to say us, as human beings, we need to be like cows. They are matriarchal led by the oldest and wisest female who uses her intuition, her sense of collaboration, and communication to really connect with her family and lead them to safety and care for them. They are vegan, so they harm no one. They are environmentally friendly, leaving a pasture better off when they leave than when they found it.
They face their challenges head-on, they don’t run, they don’t fight, they just very peacefully lower their heads, look their challenge in the eye, and try to figure out how to work their way around it. Family is their most treasured and valued ethic. They would do anything for each other, they come together as a circle when someone gives birth. They come together in a circle when someone is passing away to pay their respects.
They come together in a circle when someone is grieving. That community, that circle, the way they support one another is unlike any other species that I know, and they are a hundred percent inclusive. All the other animal species, their instinct when a newcomer comes in is to reject that newcomer and even drive them off violently. Cows are the only species that we have at The Gentle Barn that I can take a new cow anywhere any day, put them in the middle of the pasture, and the cows will say, “Oh, hello.”
And the matriarch will say, “I’m the boss.” And then the newcomer will say, “Okay.” And then the youngsters will come and say, “Hey, you want to play?” And the newcomer will say, “Okay.” It is a totally peaceful transition with no introduction necessary. They are a hundred percent inclusive. They’ll avail of themselves to each other, they are there for each other, they are wise, they are intuitive, they trust their instincts, they practice self-care.
They meditate every single day and they connect with one another every single morning after breakfast. It’s who we’re supposed to be and if you look back hundreds of years ago, we were more like that. We were matriarchal with the shaman and the medicine women leading tribes. We lived off of plant medicine and of the earth. We supported each other, we came together as community, we had ritual for birth and death. We were much more like cows then and we need to return to that now.
[0:16:38.7] BD: I’d be curious what you would suggest to someone that maybe isn’t close to a Gentle Barn location but wants to learn more, wants to get involved, wants to be a better human, and learn more about animals in general, like what would you suggest their first steps be?
[0:16:54.2] EL: Oh, I have so much to say about that. I mean, first of all, find a sanctuary near you and try to find a way to connect these majestic miraculous animals who have so much to teach us. Follow The Gentle Barn on all social media platforms, including YouTube, we have videos on YouTube of certain rescues and certain rehabilitations that will change your life just by watching them.
And I would recommend that we all kind of try on or consider the idea that even though our Western society has put animals into certain boxes, here’s a box of animals we love, and here’s a box of animals that we eat, and here’s a box of animals that we wear, and here’s a box of animals that it’s totally okay to kill them. We’ve got all boxes and things for but the truth is that we’re all the same, though we come in different forms.
And we all are the same and there is a way to connect, where we can really see the gifts, the talents, and the blessings that each of us are without seeing the separation, and when we look through that lens of love, oh my God, we grow, we evolve, we fall in love, we learn, and we become better for it.
[0:18:06.5] BD: And I love the way in the book you describe the work that the cows are doing as really paying it forward when humans come in to see them, like alchemizing their pain into being of service to tend to humans and their pain. How can we as humans be of service to animals and pay it forward to them?
[0:18:25.2] EL: I love that question. I think that the biggest most impactful, most powerful way that we can be of service to them and pay it forward to them is to go vegan. When we go vegan, we save 200 animals every single year, we save 1,100 gallons of water a day, which will end the drought. We save an acre of trees every year, which will combat deforestation, and we reduce our own risk of every western disease by 90%.
So, I mean, it’s so impactful and powerful when someone makes that step. That’s the biggest way we can honor every living being on this planet and the planet itself, not to mention our own bodies. Volunteering at a sanctuary to help out is always a great idea, or to shelter, and if you can’t volunteer, then donate to a place like The Gentle Barn, where you’re sponsoring an animal or enabling The Gentle Barn to save more animals, that literally are out there begging for help and having nowhere else to go.
I think those are the top three, just doing those top three things. You know, a lot of people come to me and say, “Oh my God, it’s so amazing what you’re doing, I wish I could have my farm animal sanctuary, I wish I could start a sanctuary.” But you know, I live in an apartment and I have kids or I work and you know, it’s not possible, and I say to them, “Look, the people that actually do have the space, the time, and the wherewithal to start a sanctuary, great.”
I mean, it’s great that I do this. I’m grateful every single day but if every one of us started a sanctuary, we’d all go under. It takes the people that are rolling up their sleeves in the trenches and then it takes the people that support them, it takes the people that volunteer with them. It takes the people that fund them, it takes the people that follow them. So, we would be nothing without the people around us that donate or volunteer or work here and lift us up that way.
[0:20:08.5] BD: What do you hope that your life’s work with animals can teach those in future generations to come? Like, what impact imprint do you hope that The Gentle Barn and your life’s work will have on the future?
[0:20:21.0] EL: The truth is that we are covering the earth up in cement. We are building buildings and cutting down trees and we’re removing animals from our neighborhoods, and so whereas hundreds of years ago, everyone pretty much lived on a farm or in nature. Most of us now don’t. We live in cities and we are estranged from animals and from nature, and future generations that don’t have that connection to nature and animals they’re going to continue destroying it, and we’re going to end up in real trouble.
We have to maintain those connections, we have to create future generations that love animals, and that want to protect nature. We’re not going to have a planet if we continue destroying it. We will only have this home to live in if we continue protecting it and we can only protect her in future generations if those future generations are connected to animals and so, that’s why I started The Gentle Barn and why we keep going because it offers a space where the biggest city person can come and can be reminded who these animals are.
Can find a connection with these animals and common language, and bring back to the city, the love and reverence for animals in nature and we need future generations to be able to advocate for this planet and for all her creatures, and we’re only going to do that if these future generations have a connection to these animals, and I’m really hoping that by visiting The Gentle Barn, hugging cows, cuddling turkeys, holding chickens, giving pigs tummy rubs, patting goats and sheep.
Hearing these remarkable stories of resilience and creating those connections will once and for all, allow us as humanity to realize that we really are truly all the same and so, stop being so divisive, stop being so ostracizing, and start being more inclusive, more loving, more supportive, more collaborative. Let’s protect one another, let’s defend one another, let’s be each other’s voice, and let’s lift each other up so we can all thrive and we can all live, and we can all have that sense of well-being that we all deserve.
[0:22:27.3] BD: Ellie, thank you so much for coming on the show. This conversation means so much to me and I love every ounce of knowledge that you have to share.
[0:22:36.3] EL: Well, thank you so much for having me, I already feel so sad that our conversation has come to an end and I hope you all have me back sometime soon so we can connect again.
[0:22:45.1] BD: Please, please.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:22:47.7] PF: That was Brittany Darrenbacher, talking with Ellie Laks, about Cow Hug Therapy. If you’d like to learn more about The Gentle Barn, check out Ellie’s book, Cow Hug Therapy, or follow her on social media, just visit our website at LiveHappy.com and click on this podcast tab, and of course, Brittany will be back here next month to talk more about how animals bring us joy, help us heal, and can be some of our best teachers.
So, until then, for everyone at Live Happy, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
