When “Knowing Better” Stops Being Helpful

Listening to Bodies, Horses, and What Lives Between Us

Many years ago, I was drawn to psychoanalytic therapy because I believed that thinking deeply about human behavior would help me support people more effectively. I enrolled in an intensive training program with the hope that greater insight would lead to better care.

And in some ways, it did.

But over time, something began to feel off.

I found myself in rooms where we spent hours analyzing therapy sessions—dissecting every word, every pause, every imagined meaning. The part of me that feels enlivened around over intellectualization was fully satiated but something else was feeling off. Conversations stretched on endlessly, yet I kept wondering what all this thinking was actually doing for the people we were meant to support.

It often felt as though the focus had shifted away from care and toward intellect—toward who had the most compelling interpretation or the biggest brain in the room. Clients, who were not present to speak for themselves, became material for discussion rather than collaborators in their own healing.

What felt most missing was something simple and essential: practical care that genuinely reached the human on the other end of the work.

Eventually, I left that program, carrying forward what felt useful and leaving behind what did not or as my dad used to say, “Chew the hay and spit out the sticks.” What stayed with me was a growing clarity that healing work—of any kind—must be collaborative, responsive, and accountable to the lived experience of the being receiving it.

I Started Seeing the Same Pattern Elsewhere

In recent years, I’ve begun to notice this same pattern showing up in the horse–human relationship.

I see it in how often we focus on how a horse’s body should move, what posture is considered correct, what alignment is ideal, and which expressions are labeled as problems to be fixed. Much of this comes from a sincere desire to do right by our horses.

And still, I find myself asking: By whose standards? What elements are we missing?

I felt something similar years ago in yoga spaces. For a long time, certain yoga spaces felt rigid and constraining—centered on achieving “correct” poses without regard for different bodies, injuries, histories, or nervous systems. Yoga didn’t become healing for me until I found practices that honored choice, variation, and listening to the body rather than forcing it to comply.

I hear this echoed often by clients as well—especially those who have been told what a “regulated nervous system” is supposed to look like. Calm. Quiet. Controlled. Often without acknowledgment of culture, trauma history, disability, or context. Regulation becomes something to perform rather than something to experience.

Bodies—and Horses—Are Not One-Size-Fits-All

Horses are sentient beings. They have nervous systems, emotional lives, preferences, and histories. They communicate continuously through their bodies, their movement, their breath, and their behavior.

And yet, it is easy—even with the best intentions—to fall into rigid ideas about how they should carry themselves or move. Ideas that may overlook their individual needs, relational histories, or emotional states. What is meant as care can quietly become over-correction or control. Like certain forms of yoga we can get so stuck in specific bodywork methods that we overlook the emotional landscape for horses or the relational context.

The same thing happens with people. We are often offered set prescriptions—movements, practices, or rules for healing—by someone who does not actually know our full story. What is meant to help can feel overwhelming, invalidating, or misattuned.

Care that does not listen can unintentionally do harm.

The Language Between

At the core of my work—whether with people, horses, or both—is a commitment to listening before fixing. My new program that rolls out in Spring is an opportunity to blend all of my principles and styles and channel them into the horse-human relationship from a trauma informed lens for the horse and human.

The Language Between is not about forcing alignment, achieving calm, or correcting bodies into compliance. It is about paying attention to what is happening in the shared space between beings. It is about noticing signals, honoring consent, allowing movement or stillness to emerge organically, and trusting that bodies—human and equine—have an innate capacity to adjust when they feel safe and respected.

This way of working invites us to slow down enough to hear what is already being communicated and to look at the conditions that exist from moment to moment.

Small Ways to Practice the Language Between

You don’t need special training, perfect posture, or a “regulated” nervous system to begin listening differently. These are not exercises to do correctly, but gentle invitations to notice what is already present.

Allow time for things to settle before acting.
Before moving into a plan, a correction, or an agenda, pause. Give yourself—or your horse—time to arrive in the moment. Notice what may be shaping this interaction right now: fatigue, environment, emotional tone, past experiences. Settling is not wasted time; it is how information becomes available.

Explore current conditions, not just the goal.
Rather than asking how to get somewhere, ask: What’s influencing this moment? Is there curiosity, hesitation, tension, readiness, distraction? Understanding conditions allows responses to be supportive rather than forceful.

Practice listening before adjusting.
With your own body or with a horse, notice first. Breath, weight, movement, stillness, emotion. Often, awareness alone creates enough space for something to reorganize without intervention.

Let go of how it’s “supposed” to look.
If you feel the urge to correct posture, movement, or emotional expression, see if you can soften that impulse. What happens when variation is allowed instead of improvement being required?

Track comfort, not performance.
Rather than asking “Is this right?” notice what feels resourcing versus effortful. Ease, curiosity, and subtle relief are often more meaningful than outward calm or compliance.

Honor choice and consent.
With yourself, this may mean stopping sooner or changing direction. With a horse, it may mean allowing movement, distance, or stillness. Consent is not an obstacle to connection—it is the foundation of trust.

Stay relational, not agenda-driven.
Instead of asking “How do I make this happen?” try asking, How is this being received right now? Healing does not unfold on a timeline; it unfolds in relationship.

Listening Is the Work

When we loosen our grip on rigid ideas of correctness—whether in therapy, horsemanship, or wellness—we make room for something far more alive to emerge.

Healing does not come from perfect posture, perfect regulation, or perfect technique. It comes from relationship, curiosity, and responsiveness.

This way of listening—slow, relational, and attentive to conditions—is what I mean when I speak of The Language Between. It is a shared conversation that unfolds when we stop forcing bodies to comply and begin trusting what they already know.