We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Meg Vanderbilt Licensed Registered MACE Practitioner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Meg Vanderbilt below.

Meg Vanderbilt, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When you’ve been a professional in an industry for long enough, you’ll experience moments when the entire field takes a U-Turn, an instance where the consensus completely flips upside down or where the “best practices” completely change. If you’ve experienced such a U-Turn over the course of your professional career, we’d love to hear about it.

I have been in the equine assisted mental health arena for almost two decades and have had the privilege of meeting some amazing professionals, clients and horses. Talk therapy, or CBT, has been an industry standard for the treatment of many mental health disorders. This therapy that starting in the 60’s has become popular as it helps a client discover the connection between thoughts, emotions and behaviors. There is some benefit to tracking thoughts and understanding how to change them. If a person is aware of the thought, then they can have influence over it.

In our equine assisted therapy models, it is the discovery of what we do not know that has power over us. The horses will show us in by their reactions thoughts and behaviors that we are unaware of. It’s as if they can see a part of us that cannot be seen by our selves yet. Once those areas are illuminated, then we have the option to work on changing them. The horse’s bilateral movement is also an “EMDR” based therapy that can help a client calm their nervous system and restore balance. This has been a very effective therapy to treat trauma, anxiety, compulsive disorders and a variety of deep seated emotional issues.

Recently, I have had the privilege of studying and applying the Mace Energy Method (MEM) to myself, clients and even animals. This approach uses our feelings as a gateway to find negative identities or roles that we unknowingly create during moments of upsets or distress. We mistakenly start believing that these negative identities are our real self and over time we give them more power and control. They are the source of unwanted feelings, emotions, reactions, addictions and anything we do not like about ourselves. I finally had a tool that we could use to help children, adults and even the animals.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a science major and high school educator, I always had an interest in learning and problem solving, My passion for horses led me to start a equine assisted therapy center using rescued horses. After the horses were physically rehabbed, they would often still have triggers, emotional instability or strange “tics”. Western medicine was limited in helping me find these answers so I began to seek knowledge from other professionals.

After personal experience with chiropractic and acupuncture modalities, I knew there had to be some truth about this energy flow in our bodies. The problem was that my traditional science studies did not have a box to fit this “unproven theory”. I started with some basic Emotion Code sessions with the horses and was stunned at how quickly they responded. As my hands felt areas of tension, I was able to release certain negative emotions with the swipe of a magnet. They would respond with strange blinking eyes, repeating yawns and a relaxed body posture. Over the next few years, I keep exploring meridians, frequency and energy flow and witnessed subtle health changes. I witnessed aggressive behaviors mellow, chronic diarrhea symptoms stopped and a happier demeanor would replace sour expressions. If this could work on horses and dogs…could this work on humans too?

I earned my Emotion Code Certification and expanded the work offered to people and animals. It was great seeing the releases and transformations that occurred along their journeys. Since the Emotion Code is based on quantum physics and energy (which has non physical matter) these sessions could be offered remotely–with no direct contact. That allowed me to work on animals and people that needed help at a distance. Emotions are the roots of many disorders and diseases so by removing these imbalances, the body can then start to rebalance and rebuild. I think of it as “debriding a wound” so the injured area and start to heal.

In 2023, I had made another amazing discovery in my personal journey. I had dealt the previous year with some major life stresses and changes. My family experienced the death of my unborn nephew along with some other significant losses. My body was stuck in a literal freeze response and was not able to rebalance. I had many tools at my disposal between a therapist, medication, prayer and herbs/naturopathic support. The medications could numb me temporarily, but could not fix the problem. The therapy and tests could only show me what was not working, but none of those could correct the problem. I was left with no answers and no way out of this dark hole.

The MACE Energy Method came into my awareness after listening to a podcast. This psychologist was discussing how they were using this method of therapy to help the clients that were considered “hopeless”. As the director of Bit of Hope Ranch, I was always looking for ways to continue to help our clients who felt unreachable. And now, I was also looking for ways to help myself. I started the process of getting certified remotely in 2023 from the head trainer in Australia. After 5 months, I now was N.C. first Licensed Registered Practitioner and was only the 6th in the USA. I knew this was a missing piece of therapeutic support needed at the Ranch and in my personal life! It is based on finding the feelings that we have created during moments of upsets and then using the mind to dis-create the negative identity that we have unknowingly created. When we drain the energy off of these programs, then they no longer have control over our lives. We can walk forward, unhindered, and make decisions that are right for ourselves.

During a MACE session, we do not need embarrassing details or history about events….only how it made you feel. When you experienced this upset, you resisted an unwanted feeling and made a negative decision about yourself. What you “resists, persists”. You create an identity that is buried in your psyche. This identity controls how you see the world and how you react to other people, jobs and other upsets that occur. This differs from a traditional therapy session where talking about details and decisions often keeps the event “charged”. That negative identity cannot think its way out of anything–or it would have already done it. A MACE practitioner is trained to help a client find the source of the feeling, the root, and then to dis-create it.

The process of dis-creating is simple and quick. The feeling that is in the energy universe will intersect the physical universe in the form of a mental image. When the mind has made an image, it has material qualities and can be dis- created. Once it has been dis-created, it is gone and out of your universe. It puts you back in charge of your life so you can experience the real you! Once these are gone, talk therapy can be helpful as you put your life back into order.

Horses and animals can experience the power of a MACE session too. We use a surrogate person to assist in the process. This offers a way for rescued animals to release the hurt from the past in a quick and painless way.

So, I am now catching up to the way horses have always seen and experienced the world. They are my greatest teachers about intention, focus, trust and love. Humans are great at wearing disguises. Horses are refreshingly honest. That is probably where there is such a great connection between the two species. They feel our energy and respond accordingly. Even Nicolas Telsa said “If you want to understand the world, consider it in terms of energy, frequency and vibration”.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The journey of starting an equine assisted therapy center non profit has been a challenge from the beginning. It started with “no money, no land and no horse”, BUT it was a God sized dream. I believe that God’s desire is for everyone to walk in His perfect design for their life. The dream of “reaching, rescuing and restoring” was His dream and I have had the privilege of living it out at the Ranch and in my life.

There are ingredients needed for success. You need a dream, something that fuels you. You need planning, a road map on how to get there. You also need resources, dollars and people. Finally, you need faith that God will do something that you cannot muster on your own.

Chip Ingrams book, Holy Ambition, lays out a similar process from the book of Nehemiah. The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson was also a huge driving force in my life. There were seasons where I wanted to quit. Giants showed up to discourage me. Your journey will have them too.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I grew up riding traditional english/dressage horses and loved the challenge of training. My well meaning mentors and trainers were only passing along the knowledge that they had acquired about horses. Although we all loved our horses, it involved too much spur and stick to me.

When I acquired my Friesian, Naya, I told myself that she was different and that I wanted to be different. I wanted to to want to be with me. No more sneaking her a carrot just to catch her. I wanted to her to partner with me through our highest level of training. That meant that I went against personal timelines and other trainer’s expectations. I learned the power of the pause. I had to learn to stop and ask permission…and then wait for her response. She had a lot to say once I was willing to listen! Now my spur has a different job. It is a precision instrument that I can tickle her sides with to communicate more clearly. My stick also took on a new role–much like a conductor’s baton. She was the one who showed me how to listen to the horses and that opened the door for the horses at our farm to be great partners for therapy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bitofhoperanch.org/
• Instagram: bitofhoperanch_nc
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bitofhoperanchnc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meg-vanderbilt-11383b46/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pJO-e-Ab1fOIUgQapTJwQ
• Other: You can also find more about MACE and the Emotion Code from my personal site: renewyouenergetics.com.