Several weeks ago, I was lying in a hospital bed in Mexico with six broken ribs, a shattered clavicle, and a punctured lung—still trying to understand how a beautiful afternoon riding a horse I adore ended with my body broken.

A tube had been sewn into my chest to drain the fluid collecting around my lung. It stayed there for four and a half days.

When the surgeon removed it, I screamed so loudly the whole hospital probably heard me.

The horse who caused the accident is the horse I love the most.

If you spend time around horses, that sentence probably makes sense.
If you don’t, it might sound strange.

Let me start from the beginning.

About a year ago, my husband and I moved to a small town near Lake Chapala, Mexico. For most of my life I had lived in cities—Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Denver—places where ambition moves fast and silence is rare.

Life here is slower.

There’s a small ranch down the street from our house where a group of women board their horses. None of us planned to become a community. It simply unfolded that way.

Some of the women are retired. Some are grieving. One lost a child. Another spent years caring for a husband who now lives in memory care. One woman has been sober for 20 years. Another survived a severe burn accident.

Our lives are different.

But most days we stand next to horses.

If you’ve never spent time around them, horses have a language that is almost entirely physical. They communicate through breath, posture, and energy.

A horse can feel your nervous system before you say a word.

They notice when your breathing changes.
They notice when your muscles tighten.
They notice when your mind is somewhere else.

You can’t fake presence around a horse.

The horse I was riding that morning is named Magnum.

He’s big, intelligent, and sensitive to pressure. He loves to run! He’s the kind of horse that requires your full attention. Horses like Magnum don’t respond well to half-presence.

That afternoon, we had set out on what was supposed to be a four-hour ride around the lake. The trail winds through dusty paths and wide-open fields where my friends and I let the horses stretch into a gallop.

By the time we were heading into the third hour, the horses were warm, the sun was higher, and my mind had started to wander.

My body was in the saddle, but my ADHD mind was highly active sensing the euphoric feelings of my surroundings: families picnicking, men fishing, carnival noise in the background, and street vendors selling their goods.

Horse people sometimes say something that sounds mystical but is actually practical.

“You get the horse you deserve that day.”

As a long-time student of Equus, I know (and have experienced) that horses notice the truth we try to outrun.

And that day, Magnum reminded me of something important.

The accident happened quickly. Horses are powerful animals with instincts that move faster than human reaction time. One moment we were moving together, the next moment I was on the ground. My head hit a thick branch when I looked down to tighten the reins. It happened in a fraction of a second. My body disoriented, I went into fear and jumped off.

Later I would learn that six ribs had broken. My clavicle had snapped. One rib had punctured my lung.

Pain has a way of stripping life down to the essentials.

Breathing.
Resting.
Waiting.

In the hospital, I kept thinking about horses.

For most of my life, I’ve searched for healing in many places—therapy rooms, recovery meetings, meditation cushions, even the deep silence of the mountains above Golden, Colorado, where I once lived. Yet some of the clearest lessons about presence—and the slow repair of a nervous system—have arrived standing quietly beside animals.

Horses live completely in the present moment—not because they are enlightened, but because survival requires it. Their nervous systems are designed to detect subtle changes in their environment and respond immediately.

Humans, on the other hand, live almost everywhere except the present.

We replay conversations.
We can be easily distracted.
We imagine future problems.
We worry about things that may never happen.

Horses refuse to participate in that kind of behavior.

That’s why I think horses are powerful partners in healing work.

Research on equine-assisted therapy shows that being near horses can help regulate the human nervous system and reduce symptoms of trauma and anxiety. Programs using Equus-based practices are now used with veterans, trauma survivors, and people recovering from addiction.

Horses don’t analyze our stories.

They respond to our state.

If you stand quietly next to a calm horse long enough, your breathing will start to slow. Your body will settle without any effort.

Since the accident, I haven’t been able to ride.

Even taking a deep breath hurts.

But I still go to the ranch a few times a week.

Sometimes I just stand next to Magnum while he grazes, his breath against my arm, the quiet of the moment settling around us.

He doesn’t care that I fell.

He doesn’t care that my ribs are healing.

He doesn’t care about the story I might want to tell about what happened.

He only cares about one thing: who I am in that moment.

There is something deeply honest about that kind of relationship. Horses don’t ask who you were yesterday. They don’t ask what you do for a living. They don’t care about the version of yourself you’re trying to become. They simply respond to the energy you bring right now.

In a world obsessed with doing more, achieving more, and becoming more, I think the quiet lesson horses keep offering us is presence.

So here’s my gentle invitation:

Sometime today, pause.

Put your phone down.

Take one slow breath.

Feel your feet on the ground.

You don’t need a horse to practice presence.

But, if you ever find yourself standing beside one, pay attention. Breathe.

They already understand something most of us are still trying to learn.

Life is only happening right here.

Horses know that.

Our invitation is always waiting.

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