When Horses Taught Me to Feel Safe Again

A personal reflection on trauma, trust, and emotional healing through equine connection

By Heather Martin | SMR Wellness Center

As someone who grew up in a trauma-filled environment from a very young age, I didn’t trust easily. People were unpredictable. Love was conditional. But horses? Horses didn’t lie.

They were introduced into my life when I was just two years old, and I was hooked from that point on. Horses didn’t judge me. They didn’t pretend. And they wouldn’t come near me unless I learned how to quiet the chaos inside me. I didn’t know it at the time, but horses were teaching me emotional regulation, to slow my breathing, soften my energy, and pay attention to the silent communication happening all around me.

Through this, I learned something that would shape the rest of my life:

Regulation comes before trust.

Only once I could manage my inner world would a horse allow me into theirs. And that simple, honest relationship became my first real experience of connection without fear. Horses trusted me when I gave them a reason to, not through words, but through calm presence and respectful boundaries. That taught me to trust myself, and eventually, others.

Emotional regulation, which begins developing in infancy through co-regulation with a caregiver, allows children to manage their internal states and engage in healthy relationships. This process is deeply connected to Erikson’s Trust vs. Mistrust stage, which suggests that infants learn to view the world as safe or unsafe based on how consistently their needs are met. It also ties into Mary Ainsworth’s attachment theory, which showed that infants develop secure or insecure attachment styles depending on the caregiver’s responsiveness and emotional availability.

Horses, like healthy caregivers, respond to energy and intention, not just behavior. That’s why they can become such powerful partners in emotional healing.

Children who have experienced trauma often carry deep mistrust, not just of adults, but of their environments, and sometimes of themselves. They may appear guarded, emotionally detached, hard on themselves, self-critical, self-deprecating, or overly controlling as a way to feel safe, or sometimes, simply to feel something at all. Some may even believe they deserve the pain they feel.

But when these children are given the opportunity to engage with horses in a calm, nonjudgmental space, something powerful can happen. The horse becomes a mirror, reflecting their emotional state without criticism, but with honesty. As children begin to regulate their energy in order to connect with the horse, they start to build new emotional pathways. In learning how to be still, to observe, and to breathe, they discover what it feels like to be accepted without words. That’s regulation.

And from there, trust becomes possible.

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🧭 Want to Learn More?

At SMR Wellness Center, we support individuals of all ages through trauma-informed, equine-assisted therapy. To learn more about our programs or how you can support our healing mission, visit www.smrwellnesscenter.org