BY AUBRY GREEN
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t revolve around horses.
My days were measured in feed schedules, supplement regimens, training times, tack cleaning, and counting down the hours until I could get back to the barn. The smell of leather and hay felt more familiar than perfume. The whispers of hoofbeats were a language I understood without needing translation.
Trauma has a way of dividing our lives into two versions of ourselves: the person we were before, and the person we become afterward.
For some, that trauma happens in the saddle. A bad accident. A freak moment that leaves your body remembering what your mind wishes it could forget. For others, the trauma has nothing to do with horses at all.
It can be grief, abuse, a car accident, or financial strain. The countless invisible battles we carry while still showing up for work, family, and everyone else around us. It gets heavy.
Whatever the source, trauma changes the way we move through the world. It teaches us to anticipate danger. It convinces us that control equals safety. It whispers that perhaps the things we once loved are no longer meant for us.
For a long time, I listened to that.
I told myself I was too busy. Too out of shape. Too anxious. Too disconnected from the version of myself from years and years ago.
From afar, I never could quite give it up. Plenty of late nights and early mornings were spent scrolling through videos of cross-country rounds and the rhythmic dances of the Dressage arena, all with equal parts admiration and heartbreak. I convinced myself that chapter of my life had closed.
However, the thing about horses is that they always seem to have the ability to call us home.
It’s messy, tightening your girth with shaking hands. Grieving the rider you used to be while trying to meet the rider you are today.
It’s learning that confidence and courage are not the same thing. Confidence says, “I’ve done this before, and I know I can do it again.” Courage says, “I’m scared, and I’m doing it anyway.”
The first time back, your body remembers things your mind forgot. How to shorten your reins. Inside rein outside leg. How to sink into your heels. How to feel the difference between a horse who is in tune with their job and one who is distracted by all the fun things outside the ring.
Then the body remembers. It remembers fear. It remembers unpredictability. It remembers every experience that taught you the world wasn’t always safe.
But horses demand our presence. A horse doesn’t care who hurt you. They don’t know how many times you’ve had your heart broken. They don’t ask for your resume for survival, or proof of a college degree
They simply ask you to show up honestly and treat them with respect. To breathe, soften your hands, feel the rhythm beneath you. And try again.
The discipline I have loved since early childhood especially feels like a metaphor for healing.
Dressage teaches patience and precision. It asks us to build trust through consistency rather than force. Years of dedication to master, the very same as overcoming trauma.
Cross-country asks us to move forward despite uncertainty. To balance caution with bravery. To commit when hesitation feels safer.
Stadium jumping reminds us that mistakes happen in front of other people, and that knocking a rail isn’t the end of the world, nor is going over the time by .6 seconds.
Healing isn’t linear. Neither is riding.
There will be days when you feel strong enough to tackle combinations that once intimidated you. There will also be days when trotting a 20-meter circle feels like the bravest thing you’ve done all week. I mean, come on, math is sometimes hard. Both count.
You don’t have to earn your place back in the sport by proving how fearless you are. You don’t have to jump the same height you once did. You don’t have to compete this season or ever again if that is not something that you have in your heart.
Trauma often convinces us that our identities are forever altered by what happened to us. And in some ways, they are. You are not the same rider you were before. But different does not mean lesser than. You have lived through difficult things. You understand fear more intimately. You appreciate small victories more deeply. You know what it means to rebuild trust, not only with horses, but with yourself and others.
Perhaps healing isn’t about becoming the person you were before everything changed, but maybe about allowing the person you are now to rediscover joy anyway. I do know for sure that healing and horsemanship have this in common: they are built through thousands of small moments of choosing to show up.
One ride, and one breath, at a time.
Aubry Green is a lifelong writer and equestrian, dedicating years to her passion for developing a connection between horse and rider. She focuses on advocating for mental wellness within the equestrian community and healing in the saddle.
