The Horse Doesn’t Reject Us. Our Story Does

What Horses Reflect, and What We Carry into the Relationship

You approach the horse with curiosity, maybe even hope.  You take a breath, open your body, soften your gaze.  And then it happens. The horse turns away.

Your shoulders tense. Your stomach drops.  Something whispers: I did it wrong. He doesn’t like me. I must have come on too strong. I always do.

We call it rejection. But often, it’s not the horse rejecting us.  It’s our story.  The one we’ve carried quietly for years reaching forward to interpret what just happened.

Horses Don’t Make Stories, But We Do

Horses don’t have a prefrontal cortex like ours. They don’t ruminate, rehearse, or assign meaning.  They read energy. They respond to tension, congruence, rhythm, and breath.

When a horse turns away, they’re offering data. Maybe they’re reading subtle tension in our body. Maybe they’re checking out something in the environment. Maybe they just need space. But they’re not calculating whether we’re “good enough.” That’s our story talking.

And most of the time, that story didn’t begin with the horse at all.

What We Carry Shows Up in the Arena

In somatic and relational therapy, we understand that past experiences shape present perceptions.If we grew up walking on eggshells, trying to please, or expecting rejection, our nervous system learned: connection isn’t safe. Or worse, it’s conditional.

So when a horse offers neutral feedback such as a pause, a shift away, a moment of stillness, our body doesn’t always register neutrality. It registers danger.  A protector part may jump in, trying to fix or control the moment. An exile part may collapse inward, overwhelmed by shame or longing.

That’s the moment the old story slips in and takes over:  See? It’s happening again. You don’t belong here either.

What If We Didn’t Take It Personally?

What if we let the horse’s movement be what it is; an honest, body-based response?  What if, instead of reacting from the parts of us that once had to try so hard to be loved, we paused?  What if we stayed curious?

In that pause, something powerful happens.  We begin to separate from the story.

We notice the part of us that panicked and tried to protect us.  We offer it kindness and gratitude.  We track our breath.  We ask that part for space.  We ground through our feet.  We take care of the part that was triggered.  We regulate.  We look again.

And maybe this time, we see that the horse is now watching us too with ears forward, eyes softening, body more open.  The moment we stop chasing or performing is often the moment the horse begins to turn toward us.

Healing Isn’t in the Outcome.  It’s in the Process

This is the beauty of equine somatic work. It’s not about training the horse. It’s about retraining our nervous system.  We don’t just learn about connection.  We experience what it feels like to stay present through uncertainty.  To ask for something and wait.  To receive a “no” without collapsing.  To stay connected long enough for something new to happen.

And when it does, when we see the horse’s eye soften, when they come alongside us not because we demanded it but because we stayed steady, curious and present, our body remembers. It catalogs the moment,  The beauty here is that this regulated interaction also does the same for the horse.  It creates new memories of safety, new coping mechanisms for stress, new patterns for mutual co-regulation.

For Clients, Parents, and Future Practitioners

If you’re considering this work for yourself or your child, know this: the horse doesn’t care if you’re polished or perfect. They care if you’re present. And they’ll teach you how to return to that presence again and again.

If you’re a therapist, coach, or practitioner drawn to this work, that moment with the horse, when the story and trigger starts to take over and we choose to stay, regulate, be curious, and try again, is one of the most potent interventions you’ll ever offer. And one you’ll practice yourself, over and over, alongside your clients.

The Repatterning Starts Here

The horse doesn’t reject us.  Our story does.  But stories can change.

And when they do, when we find ourselves standing in connection without performance, without urgency, without rigidity, we discover something astonishing:

We are not too much.  We are not not enough.  We’re just here. And that’s exactly what the horse has been waiting for.