My Therapist Neighs And Hates Paperwork

Come and listen to our Host, Joyce Benning, as she chats with today's guest, Stacy Zablocki, for our “Determined, Not Distracted” Podcast Series.

This mini-series serves as your blueprint for a high-impact year, distilling success into three non-negotiables: Goal Clarity, Resilience, and Commitment. By sharpening your focus, hardening your mental toughness, and anchoring your habits in discipline, you’ll shift from chasing temporary inspiration to achieving unstoppable, year-long momentum. 

Stacy Zablocki is a devoted mother of four and proud grandmother of four, whose life’s work reflects her deep commitment to faith, family, and community. As the founder and executive director of Make Life Better Together, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to holistic healing, trauma recovery, and community empowerment, Stacy leads with compassion and purpose—believing that true transformation happens when people come together to lift one another up.

Alongside her nonprofit, she owns and operates Gritty Grace Farm & Livery, a for-profit enterprise that blends equine therapy, riding lessons, and agricultural education to create meaningful experiences for children, families, and individuals seeking connection and growth. With more than 22 years of horse ownership and over 12 years of experience in therapeutic riding, training, and youth camps, Stacy has witnessed firsthand the powerful bond between humans and horses as a pathway to emotional and spiritual healing.

Currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Neuropsychology, Stacy integrates brain-based learning, faith, and neuroscience to design programs that foster resilience and holistic well-being. Her entrepreneurial spirit and lifelong dedication to helping others are grounded in her unwavering belief that we cannot make it alone in this world—we must make our lives better together.

Above all, Stacy’s work is guided by her unshakable faith. She gives all glory to her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whose vision and grace continue to inspire her mission to serve and uplift others.

We explore how faith, horses, and neuroscience help people stay determined and not distracted, turning trauma and brain injury into pathways for growth. Stacy shares her journey from business owner to nonprofit leader, homeschool mom, and neuropsychology student building equine-powered healing.

• purpose-led focus rooted in faith and service
• flow to grow to glow as a daily check
• horses as mirrors for emotion and energy
• connect before you correct as a core method
• redefining brain injury across trauma and PTSD
• right-brain learning and homeschool breakthroughs
• daughter’s transformation through play and horses
• documenting progress and sharing evidence
• matching clients with consistent horse partners
• building community partnerships and residential care
• scaling programs while keeping work humane

For more Divas That Care Network Episodes visit www.divasthatcare.com

Transcript

Welcome & Stacy’s Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's Divas the Care Radio. Stories, strategies, and ideas to inspire positive change. Welcome to Divas That Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone. This is a global movement for women, by women engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations. To find out more about the movement, visit divasletcare.com after the show. Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Hello to all and welcome to Divas that Care Network. I am Joyce Benning and I will be your host for this magical robust lifestyle show. I am so excited today because I have with me a brand new Diva, and her name is Stacy. And I am just going to turn it over to her and let her give us all an introduction of who Stacy is.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Awesome. Thank you so much, Joyce. I appreciate it. I am Stacy Zablocky. I'm a devoted mother of four and a proud grandmother of four whose my life reflects uh deeply around faith and family and community. I'm also a founder of a nonprofit called Make Life Better Together, Incorporated, where I dedicate uh holistic healing with trauma recovery, uh, with uh community empowerment, and I lead with compassion and purpose. I also, alongside that, operate an LLC called Gritty Grace Farm and Livery. It's a for-profit that blends equine uh therapy with writing lessons and also agricultural um education. And so I'm right now currently in school getting my uh clinical neuropsychology degree, uh my PhD in that, and hopefully one day uh run my farm on uh just horse therapy and uh being able to have those services available.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Oh, I love it. Wow, what a true diva working to make life better together, and that's exactly what Diva Zakare is about women working together to make the world a better place. Oh, this is just it's phenomenal. And I knew it would be a magical show. And tonight we are going to we have a special kind of a special title that we're going to kind of address. And Stacy is very well acquainted with determined and not distracted. From the little bit her and I have talked in the past, I know she has a great determination and not letting the distractions get in her way to keep on moving forward to her goals in life. So with that, Stacy, I'm just gonna kind of let you take it from where you would like and start to share with our listeners today about being determined and not distracted.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Awesome. Thank you so much, Joyce. Um, well, uh with everything that I'm doing, obviously I have to stay majorly focused from running an in-patient, well, in-resident home, um, nonprofit, for-profit. Um, but what most importantly, I think uh what brings me there is my faith and the what the Lord has given me, the the uh purpose in my heart to um strive forward and having that vision to help other individuals. And when you have that purpose in your heart, it literally um drives you to uh be motivated every day. And I think when it we have purpose and determination like that, um, it it truly runs your heart on an authentic level. So when we're running authentically and we're not trying to sugarcoat things and make it be something that it isn't and try to drive on our own um understanding, it really tires you out after a while. So when we're really dedicated to um, you know, that purpose and we're running authentically, it I think it just leaves our gas tank full at all times.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Oh, I love how you put that the purpose from the heart, and it just drives you to your motive motivation and being authentic, that is so important because to me, so many people try to be what other people have them imaged as and not being their authentic self, and that that wears you out trying to be who you're not so being authentic and purpose from the heart, it's like you're you're leading, you're living out your passion in life, and to me that is important also. Oh, I love what you just said, amen.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Thank you, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

So, how on a daily basis do you keep this in living your purpose from your heart and being authentic in everything that you have going on in your life?

Flow To Grow To Glow

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Well, when you live it and breathe it every single day, uh and it's intertwined in you, it it's like you never miss a beat in you know where you go. And it's uh so funny because everyone, as an entrepreneur, you're like, okay, well, um, checks and balances and books and money and all that. But when you're there and you're really running authentically and it's a true purpose, it is truly amazing how it all synergistically works together. And and it just flows. And I have a statement, and I I always assess myself daily is you have to flow to grow to glow. So if you're not flowing, you're not growing, and then you're not glowing. And that's when I know that if I'm not flowing, I can feel that. And typically it's something where I'm putting self in that. So I, you know, it's just a flow to grow to glow kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Oh, I absolutely love that. I I wrote that down. I was like, oh my goodness, I've never heard it put that way. And how true that is. You have to flow to grow to glow. Because I just thinking of in my own life when I get frustrated sometimes and not not too many to-do lists, I guess you might say. And I let them overwhelm me, and I'm like, okay, just stop. Most of that isn't that important anyway. Just rather be your authentic self and be the one that flows to grow to glow. Oh, that's just beautiful, Stacey. Thank you. Well, how how long has it taken you? Has it been like a journey you've been on to come to this point in your life to be able to live the purpose from your heart?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

It's definitely been a journey. Um, I went from a med spa owner working in my own strength, and then the Lord got a hold of me probably about 16 years ago, and it totally changed everything. And so um when I I moved into that and my eyes were opened um to seeing that purpose, it just it, you know, that's that's when I started to, you know, really start that flowing and um understanding and started to really put in what I was doing in my my own strength, but I started to truly apply that in a dedicated uh vision that the Lord had given me. So I I worked diligently and I was a very disciplined person anyway, but um, you know, applying that it just changed everything when I opened the nonprofit and the you know, my horse therapy business, it just changed everything.

From Med Spa To Meaning

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Oh well, being into horse therapy, I mean, being a horse lover myself, and I know the therapy the four my four horses give me. Do you truly feel in this journey they have played a big part in helping you to become the person you are and be able to flow to grow to glow?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yes, so definitely my horses were my beginning impact. Um, I've been a horse owner and trainer for 25 years. And matter of fact, that's um the program that I developed within the nonprofit was based upon horses. And and the Lord gave me a vision of called the power of a line. And so I say if I can't teach you about God directly, I can definitely teach you it through horses or science. So it's for it's God, horses, and science. I bring all of those together with an understanding, but without that true um understanding of being a, I mean, I believe there's horse trainers, but then there's truly horse trainers. And so when you're a real true horse trainer, it comes from your heart and you have to self-examine who you are, you know, to be able to connect with that horse. And I took that same kind of concept and moved it into helping kids that were in foster care and also help um parents and you know, work with their own children. And I I used to feel uncomfortable saying, Oh, well, train them like a horse, you know, don't get in that arena if you haven't self-examined and if you're negative, don't get in that arena. Well, it is the same concept, and so my horses really laid that foundation for me.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Yeah. So the connection with your horses and connecting on to me, it's like you connect on a different level than just going out there, putting the bridle on, and teaching them how to ride and this and that. There's a heart to heart between you and your horses because the horses have such a big heart and are so they're just amazing how they're so willing to help and they're such healers, from what I have seen.

Horses As Healers

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Absolutely. And coming from the neuro um field, uh, I have learned now that horses do not have very much of a frontal lobe, which is our executive functioning of logic. So a horse can't plot against you, you know. So it does it all runs on um our on its emotions, and so to connect with that horse, um, just like a child, it does not, and then beginning phases and growth cycles, they don't have that development of that prefrontal cortex of the brain. So they don't have the ability to plot or make logical decisions, and so we can only connect through a truly authentic heart. And horses know the difference.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Oh, yes, they do, they definitely know. And to me, they know your emotions, they know your emotions before you ever get to them, and it's just amazing how how they react. And I have four of them, and they all they all have their own personality, and I think that is so beautiful too. And they're to me, they're very authentic. They never they are they don't come to you in a mask or anything, they are who they are. And so in your daily work, do you use your horses on a daily basis to help with uh your clients?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, uh absolutely. Um, you know, I do therapeutic, you know, sessions with people, um, you know when it's not winter. I try to do pretty much daily. If the sun is shining, someone's here. Um, but yes, it's it is um a way that I can connect with individuals, it's a way that I can um, you know, read energy um because I've been able over though these 25 years learn how important our energy is. And so um to be able to work with an individual, but they don't understand where their energy is, that horse can help generate a you know a written document for me.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

So you and the horses, horses are a team working together from what I'm hearing, to help your clients and whatever. Do you have a certain uh a certain group of clients that you work with that are maybe having certain issues, or do you work with all ages, all ranges of issues, or what what all kind do you uh work with on with your horses in them?

The Brain, Emotion, And Connection

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Well, we work with all ranges of people. Um I mean that that's just uh for where I'm at, um, I work anywhere from you know with the brain injuries. I'm highly educating on you know what is a brain injury. So it's not just when I hear brain injury, traumatic brain injury, it's you know, kids that are in trauma or adults in trauma. So when we say brain injury, it's not limited to just one individual. It could be a veteran with PTSD. Um, so anyone that is struggling with some sort of brain injury, uh, which I feel is a big part of our world, um, my horses are here and available for services.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Wow. Because a lot of times I think when you you hear the word brain injury, you immediately think they were in an accident. Right. Or they had head trauma. Right. Where from what I'm hearing from you, it can be all kinds of things that can affect a brain injury.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yep. Verbal trauma, physical trauma, you know, military combat, things like that. Those are all now, um, we are now learning there are all certain types of brain injuries. Um, even going into dementia and Alzheimer's, those are all things that can be prolonged with different brain integration therapies and horse, you know, therapeutic horse sessions and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Oh wow. You are making great strides in working towards helping people in so many different ways, and and like you said, in what terms as a brain injury. Oh, how did you get so involved in kind of focusing on what you call the brain injury, which opens up so many doors for so many people?

Who Stacy Serves

Homeschooling And Right-Brain Breakthroughs

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Absolutely. Uh well, it started about 10 years ago when I was homeschooling my children, when I shifted from that uh weight of my development of the med spa. Um, I decided to take a 180 shift and um, you know, homeschool my children and only to learn that my you know second oldest daughter struggled with cognition. And as me, I'm a science brain. So I was trying to figure out any way that I could test her, figure out what we could do, um, and nothing would come back that would give me a complete understanding, except that she had a very low IQ and fell into a gray-scaled area. And so from there, I um, you know, just started seeking outwardly with some of the homeschool moms that had been doing it for years and was introduced to a curriculum called um the right brain theory by Diane Kraft. And that began my process of understanding um brain integration therapies, uh, working the right and left brain. Now I had no idea what I was doing. However, I learned the patience of training a horse. So it allowed me to have that patience with my, you know, daughter. And so we did a lot of different things that didn't make sense. And I went through them. And lo and behold, two years later, I think my brain was shifted and I learned not to be so left brain dominant and to get into the play phase and get creative and fun. So I did recognize that. Of course, years later, backing into it, I learned that. But then also my now ex-husband was in a near-fatal car accident June 17th of 2017, which changed our lives dramatically. Two things occurred at that time was um, now I'm learning. Um, I didn't know about traumatic brain injury at that time. However, um, my daughter, who I had been working with with about for about almost six years at that time, I had to put her back in school, which was at the 10th grade level. Now, I had no idea, unbeknownst to where we went with that education. We just kept doing the Diane Kraft theory and training. But when she got into school, this girl blew everybody's brains and was like, what in the world? Because they didn't, they could not figure out and still to this day could not figure out how this child with a 66 IQ could pass and graduate high school in general educations with a 3.45 GPA and a full ride scholarship to Butler Community College, playing a flute when in fifth grade, when I took her out, they said there would be no way she would actually be able to transition keys. So at that point, I kind of knew that we had done something, but I didn't know what we were doing. But I was at home at the same time, God was building that knowledge because again, my science brain, I got to get to an answer. There's gotta be a solution. Um, my, you know, ex-husband was struggling immensely, but it didn't take it took about two years before we found out that he actually had a brain injury, a traumatic brain injury. And so from there, I was open up to the understanding of brain mapping. And then I got into serious depths of understanding the brain. And that was when I started back in college to get my PhD and realized what need and gap there was for the brain injury community and the education that was needed. So I I began my journey at that point of pushing into um developing education. And it's been a while, you know, it took me about five years to get to full development and where I'm at in building materials and now coming out and doing speaking engagements.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Oh my goodness, girl. Well, no wonder you have such a determination and not being distracted because it started with your own daughter, and that motherly instinct in all of us is we've got to help our children. What is the best way we can do it? So I can I can just see it in you. It was a passion that you felt I have to find a way to help her. And wow, how you changed her life. Because if you wouldn't have taken that determination and saw that there was a gift there and there was a problem, and to get to the bottom of it, who knows what might have happened.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Exactly. Well, that we in the beginning, before I'd taken her out of school, uh the thoughts were that um in full development, she would probably end up having to be in some kind of group home for her own safety. Um she actually lives on her own, drives her own car, has a full-time job, and she's in school at WTI, getting a getting her getting a you know, a certification in um uh medical assistant. And so I'm so proud of her because she's actually at the phase of like an internship kind of where she has to get so many hours before uh she can take on a full-time job. So yeah, she she has done an amazing job and we've documented this journey. So uh I always call her my miracle baby now.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Well, I can see why. I can truly see why. And oh, how that must fill your heart. No wonder you flow to grow to glow. I can see the glowing. Absolutely. Oh, that is that is just incredible. Now, did you use your horses some when you were helping her through her schooling and all of this? Were the horses involved in her life also?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Oh, yeah, and she is a I mean, she is a lover of horses, and and I do contribute a big part of her brain opening and receiving because of her love for horses. So we had our horses right on the property. So she rode horses once, if not twice a day, and having her own horse uh was her love, and then she used her horses as her PE when we homeschooled. So we had a private trainer that would come out and train her a couple times a week. And so she was highly involved with her horses. So I'm sure, you know, I I see God always putting all these pieces together. I had no idea, you know, okay, I'm doing this and this and this. No, God says, okay, I'm gonna have you do piece by piece by piece, and then I'm gonna have you recall all of it and realize what we put together over the years. Because you would not have uh heard the same Stacey, you know, 10 years ago. I would have been on a whole nother level. of this piece of this big mission.

A Daughter’s Transformation

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah, right, right. Well, and it somebody guided you to document all this too, rather than just do it and go, oh, is this going to be right or wrong? Or what am I doing? But documenting it, you you've kind of had you had a journal where you could go back to to see how you got from point A to point B. Oh yeah. And I'm sure that's very important now for you in everything that you're doing with all the other children and all the other people in your life you're helping right now.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

She's my first testimony and all the little scores and the sheets and look at what she did. And so yeah it's it's really what was my first liftoff for everything.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah yeah I can I can truly see how that would have been and wow what a beautiful liftoff to have it with your own daughter and to be able to document how she progressed over this time and where she is at now oh that's that's just incredible. Thank you. Thank you. I love it. I love it.

Documenting The Journey

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Um well about how many people do you work with at a time do you have quite a few of them that you're helping on an individual basis on any given time well you know I mean we're just kind of all scattered all over where I do you know make life better together is the umbrella hub over you know we have a about 60 different organizations that work within this model and gritty grace um the therapeutic horse farm educational place is is just one of those. So if I'm not running poor summer camps, you know, you know oh sorry um with a bunch of kids I'm um you know working with in resident kids and it just depends on you know how many kids I went from two to seven and then you know back down. So whatever the Lord blesses me with I'm I'm working with and I know that we're you know we're in the process of opening a facility that is going to um you know be able to carry more in resident uh boys and girls that's our our three five to 10 year plan. So um right now I'm just gifted with whoever comes we're working it out we're figuring it out and parents are so desperate that they're just like whatever we need to do we are on board um because they're seeing success pretty quickly and that's what's really great is you know I can almost connect connect um right away with the children through the horses and um and have some kind of layout model more than what they've typically seen. And that's why they're you know leeching on right away because they haven't seen anything like it.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Right.

Scaling Care And Community Partners

SPEAKER_00 25:02

No no not I definitely would believe that they haven't seen probably and they've probably tried numerous things if they're dealing with children that are having some issues they're seeing they've been to different ways and when they start to see results like with this and through it through the horses I mean how beautiful and do you find that you have certain horses that will on like one day if a child comes and there's maybe one horse that connects with them better than the other or do you find they're all willing to connect well they're all they're all pretty willing to connect um however I typically um you know you can read an individual so I typically will uh link them up with who who I feel would be best for them. Yeah and I I I try to keep them with that same horse especially if they are riding them. Yeah. So we we'll switch around until they find exactly that perfect mate.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Oh and how many horses do you work with like that?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Well I have reduced my herd but we're going back up this spring. So I at one point I had 10 horses then we went to seven and now we have three we just lost one not too long ago so we had four but now we're to three and um we have three more coming in this spring and we're going to be teaching an advanced training course. So some of my younger students who are now teenagers want to learn the ropes of training. So I said well I think we'll make a program.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Oh Stacy, how neat. So you're listening to what they want to do too to help better them and make them feel good about themselves too because if this is something they want to do and they know you listen to them and that I can see the connection being made there too because how many times do we get busy and we're not listening to what's being said to us and not hearing and you are so that oh that is just so awesome.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Well and this is a key and this is something I really learned with the horses is um you have to connect before you can correct. And if you go into the training arena what do we do we have to connect first link up with that horse before we can ask that horse to do anything. And isn't that the same thing with ourselves even if we looked at ourselves oh yeah we need to look at if somebody was to work with us I would rather them connect with me first before they come in and tell me what I need to fix or correct.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Exactly exactly you make that connection first and it brings you so much closer together. I love it Stacy. Stacy this has been just an incredible show and I knew it would go so quickly and it has absolutely has so as we're starting to come to a close what what are some five what's some final advice that you would give to our listeners today on staying determined and not becoming distracted.

Matching Kids With Horses

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Well that one I would say um to just stay in tune with the Lord and what his purpose is for your life and to strive for that every day and to trust in um his will and what he has for your life and anything outside of that is going to wear you out. You've got to stay focused on what you are bent for because we are all individually built for something and we are not in competition with each other. So when we wake up in the morning we need to realize that we are individually made just like our fingerprint and so if you have one purpose in this world then find that purpose and stay motivated in the plans for that and it will all flow and you'll find yourself growing and glowing as you're stepping into it. And it sometimes it doesn't feel comfortable in the beginning because you don't feel like you're worthy of the calling or it doesn't make sense but you got to keep going because like I said I started out to be a horse trainer 25 years ago then I became a homeschool business owner then I became a homeschool mom and then I became you know a student again and now running a nonprofit and a for-profit business in full purpose and passion for what my heart was built for. And so when we have that you will stay determined every day because it's not in your strength and you're looking at how you're helping another individual because we have to stay in community to make life better together. It's together.

Growing The Herd And Training Teens

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Yes. Oh Stacy, what beautiful advice to close this magical show with I want to thank you so much for being my guest on the Robus Lifestyle show it has been so much fun. And I want to thank each one of our listeners for tuning in to Divas That Care on this with this Robust Lifestyle show with Stacy. And oh my goodness was it a magical show thank you all again and thank you Stacy.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Thanks for listening this show was brought to you by Divas That Care. Connect with us on Facebook on Instagram and of course on divasThatcare.com where you can subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss a thing.