For the love of a horse

As one of the millions of little girls worldwide who grew up with horse dreams and Breyer horses, those plastic models of magical beings that made me swoon, I always wanted a horse of my own.

Well, I got one. Right after marrying at age 21, we bought a horse instead of a sofa and called her Sophie. The expense turned out to be a bit more than expected, and after six months of rushing home from work to put on a saddle and ride her across the watershed of Mount Tamalpais, we sold her to someone with deeper pockets.

A horse that spooked but led to daughter bonding

When my third child was born, I leased Natarra, who spooked sideways with such fortitude that I routinely ended up on the pavement or dirt or feared I would. The point was to have time for my daughter Haley and me to share, now that her baby brother John was getting so much attention. A dear friend gave us a horse for her, Muzelena, a gorgeous Arab, and we had mother-daughter happy days together. The daily early morning treks to scoop poop and cast out a flake of hay to the horses with fingers frozen gave us something more to bond about.

Now, three decades later, Walt crossed normal boundaries of sensibility and bought Sammy Rose in an auction, admittedly with me pining for him. Now he is ours. On a rather flat, cognitive level, I knew I would love this horse, but then expansive, boundless love set in, and now we sit at dinner talking about our lovely Sammy Rose the way each of us spoke in volumes about our infants . . . toddlers . . . OK, children, teens, and now adults. Oh well, it must be the same circuit.

I was a bit insecure when he arrived in our lives a month ago, given that I hadn't been around horses recently. I charged forward, listening to people tell me how to lead him and lunge him. One woman, Margaret, a trainer herself, took me under her wing, laying out the basics. That helped. Yet Sammy was still a bit nervous and was given to spooking now and then – not a good thing.

Sammy Rose is from the wide-open spaces in Texas, and our barn is next to a busy road, and a good 100 horses are clustered together. In short, the country boy Sammy just arrived in the horse equivalent of New York City. Yet I sensed it was more than that. Something was a little "off."

The power I had to create something wonderful

Given the perfection of the emotional brain, that "off" sense eats at us and radiates a longing to right the ship, and it's only a matter of time before something gives. That happened today. I gathered on Zoom with providers in the morning about the new EBT initiative, Emotional Health for All. Despite one nasty typo in the PowerPoint, the energy in the room was golden. I sensed that EBT had crossed over into a way of being in the world that would transcend my life and be as useful to others as it has been for me.

A small but important shift in my inner life came about, and after the talk, I was off to West Marin to see Sammy Rose. I didn't feel compelled to follow the "horse rules" and instead became his loving partner, still giving him the security of me being in charge – so he was safe, but when he saw a dapple-grey mare and flinched, I noticed it. We stopped. He looked around and then let out a relaxed exhale. He was safe. And for the first time since my sweet Sammy Rose came on the scene, we both relaxed.

All it took was emotional brain caring

What I learned from Sammy Rose today is that we are all servants of our magnificent emotional brain, the most powerful processor on the planet. Even when it comes to our equine friends, life is pretty simple: Connect with the deepest part of ourselves, connect with others – horses, people, dogs, cats, and perhaps even rabbits – and be a good partner.

Most of all, it was being at peace with myself. Only then could I care about how Sammy Rose felt and what he needed without losing sight of my own feelings and needs. Now, that is something worth building a method around!