05/19/2026
A few years ago, I would have called a horse “lazy” for not wanting to work.
That word came so easily back then.
Lazy.
Difficult.
Unmotivated.
Disrespectful.
I thought I understood what I was seeing because that’s how most of us were taught to interpret resistance. If a horse didn’t want to participate, the assumption was simple:
the horse needed better training, more discipline, more pressure, more consistency.
But over time, something in me began to soften.
Or maybe unravel.
I started noticing how quickly humans label behaviors when we don’t understand the experience underneath them.
Now, when a horse seems unwilling, I find myself asking very different questions.
Are they uncomfortable?
Confused?
Disconnected?
Overstimulated?
In pain?
Shut down?
Uninspired?
Grieving?
Exhausted?
Or maybe…
maybe they simply don’t want to do the thing we are asking.
And maybe that matters more than we’ve allowed ourselves to believe.
That question changes everything because it forces us to confront something deeper:
Do we believe another being is allowed to have their own experience if it inconveniences us?
Not just horses.
Anyone.
There is something unsettling about realizing how often obedience is praised while honesty is punished.
A horse pins their ears, walks away, braces, hesitates, disconnects, and we immediately search for techniques to overcome the response rather than curiosity about what created it.
We have entire systems built around making “no” disappear.
And to be fair, most of us inherited this mindset honestly. We were taught that leadership meant getting the horse to comply. We were taught that resistance was something to solve.
But what if resistance is sometimes communication?
What if the horse is not failing the relationship…
but revealing the relationship?
I think one of the biggest shifts in my life has been learning to stop viewing willingness as something that can be extracted.
Real willingness has life in it.
Choice in it.
Spirit in it.
It cannot be manufactured through pressure without becoming something else entirely.
And I think compassion often begins at the exact moment certainty ends.
The moment we stop saying:
“This horse is lazy.”
And start asking:
“What is this horse experiencing right now?”
Because the quality of our questions shapes the quality of our relationships.
With horses.
With humans.
With ourselves.
