Turns out that I love being a tour guide. Perhaps that’ll be my next career!
I spent July 4th weekend in the UK with our HERD students and graduates at UK HERD CAMP. Our Senior Instructor and Program Manager, Rachael Loucks, came with me to co-facilitate an incredible weekend of connection and learning. We are so grateful to HERD graduate, Jude Jennison, for hosting us at her facility with her wonderful herd. It was definitely a weekend that will stay with me for a long while.
Something magical happens when you witness someone encountering what’s familiar to you for the first time. Traveling with Rachael, I found myself immersed in the joy of discovery, seeing everything through her eyes. The familiar narrow tree lined country lanes, ancient castles, and winding cobblestone streets all became delightful surprises. Places I’d passed a hundred times without a second glance suddenly shimmered with new life. The way Rachael lingered over a crumbling stone wall, marveling at the ivy creeping along its edges, or squealed with delight at hearing “Mind the gap” on the underground, brought me so much joy. These moments reminded me how wonder and growth often appear not from the extraordinary, but from allowing ourselves to be present with our experiences in each moment.
I watched Rachael navigate unfamiliar places with quiet courage, asking questions, trying new foods and delighting in each discovery. Her openness made space for connection, not just with people we were with, but for me to connect with my sense of place in a different way. I found myself softened. Less rushed. More attuned to the richness of the moment. And in that attunement, I could feel something within me stretching and shifting. I felt more rooted and grounded to the place that I call home.
That same sense of awe and quiet transformation came alive during our time at UK HERD CAMP. Rachael and I had only met the majority of attendees online previously. So to be in the same place physically brought a sense of newness to our relationships. And in practice sessions, I watched moments of profound courage unfold. They weren’t loud declarations, but in the uncertainty of working with a new equine partner, in vulnerable words spoken aloud in front of peers, in the brave choice to stay in the discomfort of not knowing. There’s a kind of stillness that emerges when someone is meeting themselves honestly, witnessed by horses and humans alike. The horses, in their nonverbal attunement, often sense what words have yet to reveal. And in these interactions, something powerful emerges. Sometimes it’s a tear. Sometimes it’s laughter. Sometimes it’s silence, but always, it’s growth. These are the moments that stay with me; the ones where relational safety gives rise to authentic expression, and where the horses remind us that presence is enough. That we are enough.
This is the same kind of courage we witness every day in the work that we do. When clients arrive at the barn, they are often carrying the weight of what they think they already know about themselves, about relationships, about the world. And yet, when they are met by the presence of a horse who neither judges nor demands, but simply is, something begins to change. The familiar stories start to loosen their grip. New perspectives emerge. Sometimes, it’s in the way a horse responds to their tension. Sometimes, it’s in the shared stillness of just being alongside another living being, without the need to explain. And sometimes, it’s in the moment they realize they’ve stepped into a paddock while feeling scared and vulnerable and survived. Grown. Opened.
When we lean into new experiences, we surrender to the unknown while staying rooted in relationship. Rachael’s joy became a catalyst for my own – just as our clients’ breakthroughs often elicit deep reflections of our own. It is a humbling and beautiful reminder that growth is not always about transformation in the dramatic sense. Often, it is about noticing. Paying attention. Allowing ourselves to be moved.
I came home from that journey changed. Not because the places themselves were different, but because I had remembered how to look again. That’s the work we do at The HERD Institute. Not to fix or force, but to invite. To walk alongside. To offer presence and permission for courage to rise. And in doing so, we get to witness the quiet miracle of growth, not just in our clients, but in ourselves.
So, what familiar sight or routine might you look at from a new lens? How might that shift your sense of your surroundings? How might that impact the way you step into your work with horses and humans?