Horse Spirit Journeys

11/22/2025

It was a pleasure to attend the Women Rising Symposium, an inspiring event dedicated to empowering and supporting women in paramedic leadership.

As a vendor, I had the opportunity to share the incredible work being done at the Trauma Centre to support first responders from tailored group therapy programs, to resources and books that address the unique challenges of leadership in first-responder roles, to the powerful lived experience and expertise of our clinicians.

It was also energizing to connect with fellow advocates, including Garnet Families and Badge of Life, and to learn more about the meaningful initiatives they’re leading in this space.

Grateful for the conversations, collaboration, and shared commitment to supporting those who serve our communities.

Our wonderful RP-Q student Kateryna did an amazing job sharing about first responder leadership resources, equine psychotherapy for individuals and groups! Great job Kateryna!!

11/18/2025

The first step is usually small:

• “I have too much to do.”
• “I can’t handle this.”
• “What if this goes wrong?”
• “I’m falling behind.”

This thought might feel normal at first. But your brain interprets the tone, urgency, and fear it hears, and not logic that its okay. This alone is enough to activate your “threat response.”

So then your brain sends a message to your nervous system that something might be wrong. And your body jumps in to help you prep:

• Heart rate increases
• Muscles tense
• Breathing gets shallow
• Thoughts get faster

This is why overwhelm feels physical ... because it is. Your body is preparing for danger, not just a busy day at work.

Once your nervous system gets activated, your thoughts become more dramatic to justify the physical sensations:

• “I’m going to mess this up.”
• “I can’t catch up.”

Your mind tries to make sense of the alarm bells going off internally.

This is the “confirmation loop.” And it is the moment your mind feels threatened, it starts looking for more things to worry about.

Overwhelm thrives on extremes or All or Nothing Thinking:
• “I’ll never get this done.”
• “Everyone else handles this better.”

The more overwhelmed you feel, the harder it becomes to stay grounded in the present moment. At this point, your mind and body aren’t working together and your survival system is now running the show.

You may feel:
• easily triggered
• like tiny tasks feel huge
• pressure to get everything perfect
• guilty for not doing more

Negative thinking doesn’t cause overwhelm.
It happens because your nervous system is trying to protect you and sometimes it helps too much.

When you understand the steps of overwhelm, you gain the power to intervene earlier. You start recognizing the signs and shift from reacting to responding.

11/18/2025

When someone pushes us away, most times they’re protecting themselves from exposure, shame, and loss of control. They expect judgment, pity, or pressure from others. But being seen isn’t necessarily about being understood. It’s about being *accepted* without having to perform or be anything different than we are at any given moment.

When someone’s in emotional survival mode, their nervous system is scanning for any kind of threat (emotional, physical, internal, external). When that happens, it's our steadiness to hold them exactly as they are that helps their body and mind believe, “Maybe I can exhale here.”

So, what can we say to those we care about who have put up a wall of distance?

Genuinely let them know that:

"I see your worth, even in the mess."
"Life circumstances do not make you a burden."
"Take your space. Just know you’re not in it alone."
"I don’t see your struggle as something ugly. I see it as human."
"You don't need to be perfect. You don’t owe me your best self. Just the real one, when you’re ready.”
“I’ll be here until it feels safe to talk again.”

If you imagine their nervous system right now, it's flooded, ashamed, guarded. These words don’t demand, don’t fix, and don’t wound them further.
They land softly. They leave the door open.
And they remind them they're still worthy of care, even when they feel they can’t receive it.

11/18/2025

⭐ Horses don’t think like humans.

They don’t plan, ruminate, imagine the future, replay the past, build stories, or interpret “meaning.”
They live in the present — in pure sensory experience, moment to moment.

But here’s the part most people miss ⬇️

⭐ Horses do share the same core survival systems we do.

These systems are nearly universal across mammals:

• amygdala (threat detection)
• hippocampus (context + memory)
• hypothalamus (stress hormones)
• autonomic nervous system (fight/flight/freeze)
• vagal pathways (connection + regulation)

So yes —
fear, startle, freeze, shutdown, hypervigilance, overwhelm, relief, and safety all follow the same neurological patterns in humans and horses.

Not the same thoughts.
The same wiring.

⭐ Humans and horses DO NOT share the same thought-based emotions.

Horses don’t feel guilt, shame, embarrassment, resentment, or pride.
Those emotions require:

• narrative
• language
• meaning
• time (past/future)
• abstract thought

Horses don’t have that.

But…

⭐ Mammals DO share the same primary emotional systems.

(A huge thank you to neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp for his decades of research.)

These deep emotional circuits exist in every mammalian brain, including horses:

• FEAR
• RAGE (activation)
• PANIC/GRIEF (separation distress)
• SEEKING (curiosity + exploration)
• CARE (bonding + nurturing)
• PLAY
• LUST

These are NOT “thinking emotions.”
They’re neural circuits — instinctual, biological, and powerful.

Which means:
✔ Curiosity is real.
✔ Social bonding is real.
✔ Play is real.
✔ Safety is real.
✔ Fear is real.
✔ Relief is real.

No stories.
No drama.
Just biology.

⭐ **When we stop guessing what our horse “might be thinking”…
and start understanding what their brain is expressing…everything becomes clearer.**
Communication improves.
Training gets easier.
Trust gets stronger.
And the horse finally stays in the thinking, curious brain —
instead of falling into survival mode.

11/18/2025

Your current sensitivity to dismissal is often rooted in earlier experiences, particularly from childhood. If caregivers regularly invalidated your feelings ("you're too sensitive," "that's nothing to cry about"), ignored your needs, or treated your thoughts as inconsequential, your brain created neural pathways that remain hypervigilant to signs of dismissal.

These early experiences form what psychologists call an "implicit memory" where your body remembers the feeling even when your conscious mind doesn't recall the specific events.

Then, when someone dismisses you today, your brain rapidly scans its old archives and finds pattern matches with past wounds. Suddenly, a colleague interrupting you in a meeting doesn't just feel like a rude moment, it activates the the old pain of every time you've been silenced.

Additionally, dismissal triggers your stress response system, flooding your body with cortisol. This can lead to that familiar feeling of your chest tightening, your throat closing, or your mind going blank—all physiological responses to perceived threat.

This is why your emotional response to current dismissal may feel disproportionate to the situation.

The sub-feelings listed below represent the various layers and textures of this complex emotional experience: each one a potential doorway to understanding what dismissal really means to you and where that sensitivity originated.

10/25/2025

How Trauma Shapes Beliefs
Survival Bias: The brain prioritizes safety over accuracy, cementing beliefs that helped us survive (e.g., hypervigilance).

Repetition Reinforcement: Chronic or complex trauma reinforces negative beliefs through repeated experiences.

Identity Fusion: Trauma can blur the line between “what happened to me” and “who I am,” leading to shame or self-blame.

Healing Insight
Recognizing these patterns is the first step to rewriting harmful beliefs. Therapy, somatic practices, and self-compassion can help replace survival-driven narratives with truths like:

“I am safe now.”

“My worth isn’t defined by my past.”

“I can trust myself to navigate life.”

💬 Reflect: Which of these beliefs have you encountered? Share your thoughts below.

10/17/2025

Our nervous system craves predictability, even if that predictability is painful. How often have we returned to familiar dynamics, be it criticism, neglect, or chaos, because we know how to survive there? It feels “normal,” even when it’s harmful. That familiarity might mimic safety, but in reality it's just repetition. We mistake what we’ve endured for what we deserve. That’s not healing. It’s reenactment and repeating cycles. I had no idea what safety actually looked like, so I remained with what I knew.

But safety is regulated, respectful, and emotionally attuned. It’s the space where our bodies can exhale, our voices are heard, and our boundaries are honoured. And healing requires our nervous systems to be calm. Without safety, our bodies stay in survival mode, hypervigilant, shut down, or consistently reactive. Imagine trying to heal a wound on a battlefield. The familiarity of the terrain doesn’t make it the right place to rest. True healing begins when our bodies feel secure enough to soften. We don't need external permission to heal and we don't need to earn rest. We give that to ourselves.

10/17/2025

10/16/2025

Healing begins where honesty lives.
You can’t numb your way to peace.
Feel it. Name it. Let it move through you. That’s how it loses power.

09/30/2025

It’s easy to overlook the fact that a response to unhealthy behavior can be just as damaging to a relationship as the original behavior. Behaviors that don’t work are behaviors that don’t work, regardless of where they fall in the sequence of an interaction or event. When you respond with healthy assertion or vulnerability, or not at all for the time being, it puts the original partner in a better position to self-reflect on their own behavior, which makes their own growth more likely. Guarantees? No. No relationship advice comes with a guarantee, but shifting your response is still the healthy thing to do, not just for your relationship, but for your own emotional maturity.

09/30/2025

🌿 Introducing Our Dementia Memory Support Equine Program 🌿

We are excited to offer a unique and meaningful program that brings together the healing presence of horses with compassionate support for individuals living with dementia and their caregivers.

Through gentle groundwork with horses—no riding required—participants experience emotional comfort, sensory stimulation, and social connection in a calm and supportive environment. Horses live in the present moment and respond to body language and emotions, making them powerful partners in memory support and well-being.

📍 Location: Serendipity Stables (East Newmarket, Ontario)
👥 Group Size: 4–8 Client/Caregiver Couples
👩‍🏫 Facilitators: Lyndsey McKeown, MSW, RSW & Kateryna Bilinski, RP (Qualifying)
💜 Many extended health benefits may cover session costs.

To learn more or register, connect with us at:
📞 905-478-2226
📧 thetraumacentreadmin@bellnet.ca

✨ Equine therapy isn’t just an activity—it’s a pathway to connection, comfort, and joy.

09/30/2025