What Horses Can Teach Us About Healing

Reflections on the journey — and a gentle goodbye

There’s something about a horse.The way they meet you — not with judgement, not with analysis, but with presence.Noticing everything. Holding nothing. Just there.

This week, I had the privilege of publishing an article with Counselling Directory exploring the ways equine-assisted therapy can support mental health and wellbeing. You can read the full piece here, but I wanted to use this space to speak more personally.

Because this work — the work with horses — has shaped me.

For almost two decades, I’ve walked alongside clients in fields and woodlands, watching as horses quietly dismantled defences, offered moments of startling truth, and gently rewired nervous systems long held in survival mode. The herd taught me everything I know about attunement, about congruence, about meeting people exactly where they are. Not with force. Not with urgency. But with deep, steady presence.

And yet, after many years of holding space in this way, I’ve made the decision to step away from offering equine sessions with my own herd.

This wasn’t a decision made lightly. It came with grief, reflection, and ultimately — peace.

My horses have given so much of themselves. Session after session, year after year, they’ve shown up with their full selves — reading the room, responding to subtle cues, offering their bodies and beings to the work. I owe them everything. And I owe them rest.

The truth is, herds are living systems. They grow and change, just like we do. And mine needed space to settle into a quieter rhythm, one without the weight of therapeutic holding. I listened. I stepped back.

I’m still very much part of this field. I continue to teach, to write, and to supervise other practitioners doing beautiful work with horses and humans. The lessons my herd taught me live on in my indoor and online practice — in the way I sit with clients, in the way I supervise, in the way I see the world.

But the chapter of walking the land in boots and silence, watching a client find their breath as a horse leans in — that chapter, for now, has closed.

If you’ve ever wondered what therapy might look like outside the walls of convention, what it might feel like to be held without words, this piece might speak to you.

Read the full article here:👉 How Equine-Assisted Therapy Supports Mental Health and Wellbeing

With love and deep gratitude,

Sarah