05/21/2026
Working with my wonderful friend at a therapy barn, (shoutout to Bien Aimé Farm MN ) Laurabeth taught me about the humans "window of tolerance" and how important it is to know where your window of tolerance is in order to be regulated. People can learn to regulate by going *just past* their window of tolerance and then coming back down.
Say you are afraid of heights and you look down from a glass elevator 20 stories up and you are beginning to feel your heart race and your thoughts scatter. You might not be able to escape the situation but you can do some breath work, sensory work or grounding techniques to get you to come back into your "window of tolerance."
Do you see where I'm going here?
Something I heard several times after people saw the video of the obstacle clinic was, "Were the horses really that calm? It didn't seem like the horses cared about anything." I strive to make ALL of my teachings like this... clinics/lessons/personal horses... I never want anyone sitting at an obstacle for an hour trying to make their horse go over or through something, the horse shaking and sweating, not getting anywhere. Or if they do it is full of emotions and not calmly going through it.
We start with step 1, and step 1 is NOT to "do the obstacle." Step 1 might be looking at it from 20 feet away. It might be approach it and then reward a curious thought, and walk away. It might be rewarding a "try" over the tarp and then the horse steps back and you ask for a "try" again before petting and standing and waiting. This eliminates the theatrics of rearing, spooking, bolting, bucking at new things. Those responses are when your horse is way outside of its window of tolerance. When you're IN the window of tolerance, your horse can stay calm while doing new and "scary" things.
The point is, let your horse get just past its "window of tolerance" and then allow it to come back down. Don't push your horse for more and more when they're showing you their brains are not in the right state of thinking in that moment. If you work your horse in its fight/flight/freeze/fawn state, you will not teach the horse how to be confident, how to feel comfortable and relaxed, how to trust you when it's time to try new things.
Find your horses window of tolerance, ask for just a little bit more, then reward the thought of trying to keep going. When you do this, I promise you will have an emotionally regulated horse that trusts you to guide them rather than forces them to do things against their nature.
In this picture, my daughter had just gotten her horse to step into the pond by using the same technique. He didn't want to. He wasn't fighting but he wasn't willing to freely walk through. She was calm and asked for just one step. When he gave her those first "breakthrough" steps, she stopped and let him process it before she asks him to keep going. You can see in both hers and her horses body language that there is total emotional regulation happening here. That's the ticket.
