David Boje's story Page  (audio version of David's story)

The Story of David Boje 

https://PerView.org

Who here would like to save lives? 22 veterans take their lives every day. 8030 per year, and three times that just put the pedal to the metal and take that curve way too fast.

Grace Ann and I bring veterans, first responders, and their families to our ranch in New Mexico, into the barn. The horses start the healing work. You show up angry or guarded, the horse bolts. You soften, open up, begin to love yourself, the horse moves toward you. That horse knows. And the healing begins. Then we do sand trays, because veterans don’t talk about their deep dark rabbit hole.

"We help veterans, first responders, and their families rewrite the most painful stories of their lives—using horses, gratitude, and love. We’re asking you to help me train them to become the healers they were meant to be."

Big Problem: People live in their rabbit hole, reliving the horror show. That rabbit hole keeps them hyper-vigilant, ready rage, in fear their Darkest Monster will take over. My grandfather Word War I, wouldn’t talk about shell shock. My Dad in WWII pacific, and again Korea War wouldn’t talk about what happened. Me in Vietnam War, I could tell you stories that would give you nightmares.

Big Solution. Step 1 horses. Do you ever notice that a horse will mirror what you in the body? A horse will run out of the barn if you and your body rage or anger or deceit. But a horse is a herd animal if you’re hurting, that horse will come up and rub your back, lick your face, and make you part of the herd.

Step 2 sand trays. Why? Things have quantum vibe energy. Telling your story without any words, by choosing things is an awakening of new ways of telling. Have a family do this each with there own sand tray reveals the need for alignment of their different ideal futures.

Why listen to me? I’ve been helping people climb out of their rabbit hold for 35 years. Yes, I have a PhD in organizational storytelling. So does my wife. PhD means piled higher and deeper, right? So don’t listen to me because I have a PhD written 150 research articles or 35 books in the teacher of the year for the entire university six years in a row, but that does not make me an expert in saving lives. You know what does? I’ve been there.

My Rabbit Hole. In Nam, my buddies invited me to go get some food, and took me to the hospital. A doctor an a nurse pulled down my pants and stuck a big needle in my butt. I woke up three days later, and I could see the helicopters landing, and piling up the body bags. Do you know how many US and Allied deaths? 282,000. There I am in my nervous breakdown, and there are people with missing arms and legs, and eyes. Yeah, I feel guilty and ashamed. I did not see a doc for two more days. Worst part, is I went back to work as a company clerk like Radar in M*A*S*H, and buddies took my back two more times. Only 6 months into my tour, I was removed as company clerk, and they put in some guy with a CPA to take over. But since I had done exceptional work, I got choice of assignments, and became a golf pro. So I started reading a book a day just to prove I was not bat shit crazy. After deployment I found out I could get out 4 months early, if I enrolled in a community college near Fort Dix, New Jersey. I did, and still trying to prive I’m not crazy, graduated 1^st in my class. First in my family tree to every go to college. Went to Rider University in Princeton New Jersey, and still trying to prove I am not crazy, graduated first in my class there too.

But then, I went batshit crazy again, over-preparing, overworking, marriage on the rocks, kids hating me, not able to live in LA on $19,000 UCLA Assistant Professor salary, and totally intimidated by the place. I was an assistant professor at one of the most elite universities in the world, UCLA, and failed to get tenure, my first marriage failed and after 24 years of marriage, I went bankrupt. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a bankrupt professor in a BUSINESS COLLEGE?

Two years, ago on New Year’s morning, I woke up peeing blood and I looked at it and I said “I know what that is and I know where I got it.” Agent Orange. Then I started to loose it again, self-sabotaging myself in our quite successful consulting firm, True Storytelling Institute. And scared shitless about Agent Orange, stage 4, scoring 26 on a 10 point scale. The doctor told me, “put your affairs in order” and then he asked me, “have you got a will?”

What’s the vehicle for changing a life? One afternoon, in my therapist’s office. He began to sing a song about a jaguar, and played guitar, I saw a baby Buddha. It spoke to me “David, you need to love Agent Orange cells in your body?, all 500 billion of them. Be grateful to them.” WTF? I said, ‘you want me to love my cancer cells?’ I knew there were 37 trillion living cells in my body. “Yes make peace with them” said Little Buddha.

I’m grateful for all of it, everything that’s happened in my life, including Agent Orange, divorce, nervous breakdowns, and bankruptcy, and all the failure again and again.

So I created a little easel, and I wrote the following on it. “I love myself 100% unconditionally right now!” Why is this important? If you can’t love yourself 100% unconditionally right now, you can’t love anybody else. I’m unconditionally right now.

Can you stay that with me, “I love myself 100% unconditionally right now!”

What does it mean to be in paradise? For me, helping people who have lost their shit. It’s seeing a woman soldier, an officer, after her second deployment to a war zone, come home to her children as “military mom” shutting herself off from her family and then teaching her to love herself unconditionally she replaced a ‘military mom' with a ‘loving’ mom to her children and her husband.

It’s loving a raging alcoholic Vietnam Veteran unconditionally that’s me as he picks up the pieces of his life after divorce and bankruptcy, and even after remarrying, the Agent Orange strikes, and Today I am cancer free and I’m loving everyone unconditionally.

It’s working with a paranoid, schizophrenic son, that’s my son and walking him back again and again and again from his rabbit hole

OK, so the big solution is Horses and then Sandtrays. When a horse, a veteran, and their family members all meet together in our barn, a miracle happens. The horse is a mirror to whatever they’re embodying, what a person doesn’t want to talk about and doesn’t wanna face up to. You see, the horse reads them And reacts accordingly. You have rage in you that the horse will run out of the barn. You are depressed and sad. You’re just binge-watching TV. That horse will come up and rub your back with his big head, and if you’re facing him, he’ll lick your face with that big tongue and a big sloppy lick. Wait!

That’s not the whole deal once Veterans and family members or police and family members were first responders and family members firemen, paramedics, and family members. I like to do sandtray work with the whole family. Well, if we’re gonna do all this, it’s gonna take a lot of cash. Horses are expensive. They eat a lot, very expensive, and Veterinarians and Ferreirs are expensive. You have no idea.

This is a movement to create an evidence-based alternative to RED. RED stands for “Repeated Exposure Desensitization”. It’s the go-to method for treating PTSD. But here’s the truth. It only works in the first few minutes after a trauma. When RED is used, it takes seven sessions, and most people drop out after session one.

Why? Psychology 101: Reliving your trauma again reinforces your stuck story it gets more rigid, more clogged. Why do you think there are so many suicides? 22 suicides a day for a year is 8,030 a year. But that’s half the story. Twice that put the pedal to the metal and leap off 'deadman’s curve'.

• Vietnam War (1955-1975): 58,220 U.S. military deaths.
• Persian Gulf War (1990-1991): 382 U.S. military deaths.
• Iraq-Related Operations: 4,605 U.S. military deaths.
• Afghanistan-Related Operations: 2,459 U.S. military deaths.

If you can save lives, create love in a marriage, is that something you can help with?

So what I need from you is a donation of $25,000 each to finance the horses, to pay tuition to train folks to be certified coaches in two years. This is a movement to train and certify veterans, police, firemen, first responders of all kinds, and family members to become coaches in their own milieu. More importantly, we can do evidence-based science and stop relying on the RED way.

So that’s what I’m asking of you.

I’d love to meet up with you, so email me, and I’ll talk about how to save marriages and how to save lives. Thank you.

This isn’t just therapy. It’s transformation. And it’s expensive.
Horses are not cheap. Neither is healing. That’s why I’m asking you—straight from my heart—to donate $25,000. That covers the training for one veteran or first responder to become a certified story filter coach. To take what they’ve been through and alchemize it into healing for others.
You can be part of a movement that rewrites what healing looks like. One story, one family, one horse at a time.

So,  email DavidBoje@gmail.com

Self-Coaching Questions for Your Unconditional Love Journey

1. What part of your past are you still fighting?

2. What would happen if you stopped resisting and embraced it?

3. How can you reframe your pain into a path of transformation?

4. What is one small act of self-love you can practice today?

5. Can you say, right now, with feeling:
   “I love myself 100% unconditionally right now”?

Coaching Conversation: The Seven Steps of PER & VIEW Energy Work

David, let’s step into this journey together. We will walk through PER, not as theory, but as lived transformation. I will guide you through each step, reflecting how you have already embodied them and how they can be used to help others reframe their stories.

Step 1: Characterize – Naming the Story You’ve Been Living

David, let’s begin by stepping back. If we were to name the story you were living before your transformation, what would it be called? Was it the “Warrior’s Endurance”? The “Battle with Agent Orange”? Or perhaps “The Search for Meaning Beyond the Battlefield”?

Whatever it is, let’s acknowledge it fully. This is the foundation of restorying—it begins with honoring where we’ve been.

Q: If you had to give a title to your old story, what would it be?

Step 2: Externalize – Separating Yourself from the Story

The key to transformation is recognizing that you are not the story—you are its author. Agent Orange was not you. The war was not you. Even the rage, the apathy, and the reckless speed—none of it was truly you.

You have already done this in your transformation. When the Buddha appeared, smiling, and told you, “You must love Agent Orange,” that was the moment of externalization. You realized it was not something to fight, but something to witness and integrate.

Q: What parts of your old story do you still feel tied to? What would it feel like to let them go?

Step 3: Sympathize – Finding Compassion for Your Past Self

David, the discipline you learned in war—the way you stacked beer cans to the sky, the way you endured while others fell—was a form of survival. But now, it is time to offer compassion to that version of yourself.

You were doing the best you could with the tools you had. You were navigating war, both external and internal. And look at you now—you are creating a bridge for others who are lost in that same storm.

Q: What would you say to your younger self who was drinking beer instead of water? If you could sit with him, what wisdom would you share?

Step 4: Revise – Rewriting the Narrative

Your story is not written in stone.

What if you rewrote the way you see yourself in this story?

Instead of a warrior damaged by war, what if you are a warrior who alchemized suffering into healing?

Step 5: Strategize – Choosing a New Path

Now that you’ve begun to shift the story, how do you want to live differently moving forward?

What does peace, love, and joy look like for you—not in theory, but in action?

Step 6: Rehistoricize – Anchoring in a New Identity

It’s time to replace the old patterns with new rituals that reinforce your transformation.

What small, daily practice can you commit to that reminds you:

"I love myself 100% unconditionally right now"?

Step 7: Publicize – Sharing the New Story

Healing expands when it is shared.

Who needs to hear your story today?

How can your transformation help others walking a similar path?

VIEW: Vibrations In Energy Waves – Quantum Energy Work

Now, let’s tune into the frequency of self-love.

Close your eyes. Breathe in peace. Breathe out resistance.

Feel yourself vibrating in a higher state of gratitude and joy.

Repeat:

"I love myself 100% unconditionally right now."

Let it echo in your cells. Let it rewrite the energy you carry.

Support the Mission: Help Fund Scholarships & Horse Care

Not every veteran or first responder has the financial means to access this life-changing training. Your donation can provide scholarships for those in need and ensure the well-being of the therapy horses who make this healing possible.

• Sponsor a Veteran or First Responder’s Training
• Support Equine Care: Feed, Farriers, Veterinary Needs

Fuel the Movement of Healing & Transformation