Equimotional - Trauma-Informed Training & Resource Hub

07/12/2025

07/12/2025

We hit 10k two weeks ago, 11k last week… and somehow we’re already at 12,000.

I don’t know how this community keeps growing the way it does, but I’m genuinely grateful for every single one of you who shows up, shares, chats, learns, reflects and cares.

Thank you for being here. Truly.

Love ❤️

07/12/2025

We’ve been shaping the VetSafe Wellbeing Initiative behind the scenes, and the first step has been building the core learning modules. These are the parts of veterinary practice that carry the biggest emotional load but rarely get any structured space in education or CPD.

Here’s what we’ve mapped out so far.

Unit 1. Understanding Vicarious Trauma in Veterinary Contexts
What the data actually says about mental health in the profession, and how vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, burnout, moral distress and moral injury differ. How these processes take hold through repeated emotional labour, not personal weakness.

Unit 2. High-Risk Veterinary Scenarios
The emotional weight of euthanasia, acute suffering, cruelty cases, distressed clients, financial barriers, rota pressure, the vulnerability of early-career clinicians and solo practice. Case material from small animal, equine, exotics and farm work.

Unit 3. Recognising Early Signs
Cognitive changes (intrusive images, cynicism), emotional shifts (dread, irritability, numbness), physical clues (sleep disruption, tension) and relational patterns (withdrawal, conflict, error-risk). How to notice the difference between stress and emerging trauma processes.

Unit 4. Protective Strategies and Sustainable Practice
Rituals after difficult cases, debriefing models that actually work in clinical settings, boundary-setting, peer support, and structuring workload to reduce cumulative trauma. How to say no to unsafe expectations professionally.

Unit 5. Professional Culture and Systems
How culture shapes trauma load. Leadership, team dynamics, unhelpful narratives (“you just get on with it”), and preparing for transition into practice in a way that aligns with wellbeing rather than survival mode.

Unit 6. Help-Seeking Pathways
Vetlife, RCVS Mind Matters, counselling, occupational health, reflective space, peer networks, and how to respond safely when you’re worried about a colleague.

This is only the start.
Before we finalise anything, I want to hear from the people who live this work every day.

What else would genuinely help you?

Whether you’re a vet, nurse, student, receptionist or practice manager — what support, skills or conversations would make your working life safer, steadier,
more sustainable?

Please add yourself here to share ideas 💡
https://chat.whatsapp.com/H3leRKG0ayXDCTP2JzPiqT?mode=hqrt2

Your input shapes the VetSafe Wellbeing Initiative, not the other way around.

With Pocket Nook Equine Vets Ltd.

07/12/2025

🔥🐴 RIGHT. LET’S ADDRESS THE FIRE I STARTED.

Yes, I said I prefer mares.
Yes, the comments section lit up like Christmas at Tesco.
And yes, I absolutely stand by what I said.

But it was never about “mares vs geldings”.
It was about the way mares, specifically, have shaped MY learning.

This is the heart of it:

I grow the most around horses who give unfiltered, immediate, emotionally accurate feedback.
And mares do that with forensic precision.

❤️👑 THE MARE CODE: ENTRY BY ACCOUNTABILITY ONLY

People often misunderstand mares for the same reason they misunderstand opinionated women.

They’re direct.
They’re exact.
They don’t soften their message to make you feel comfortable.

Call a mare moody and half the time you’re describing a horse with a fully functioning boundary system.

Watch herd dynamics closely and you’ll see it:

Who negotiates tension?
Who arranges space?
Who keeps the emotional glue intact?

The mares.

And because of that, they don’t automatically give their trust.
Not without evidence that you’re safe, consistent, and paying proper attention.

A mare will not humour you.
She will not pretend you’re clear when you’re not.
She will leave the conversation the moment your body language contradicts your intentions.

You cannot push a mare.
You must persuade her.
And she will know exactly when you’re bluffing.

That level of honesty is why I adore them.

🐴💛 AND THEN THERE ARE GELDINGS…

Geldings offer something entirely different, and equally valuable.
Steadiness.
Soft-heartedness.
A grounded presence that makes sense to so many people.

Some geldings are emotional anchors in ways mares never will be.
Some teach patience, gentleness, and consistency with a depth that is easy to underestimate.

My preference doesn’t diminish that.
It’s simply where my learning has been the most transformative.

🔬 WHAT THE RESEARCH ACTUALLY SHOWS

• Mares: More likely to show flight-based responses (moving away, creating space).
• Geldings: More likely to show displacement (chewing rugs, ropes, sleeves, fence posts… you name it).
• Under saddle? No significant difference in focus, reliability, trainability, or temperament.
• The myth: “Mares are unpredictable.”
• The reality: It’s a long-standing s*x prejudice, not supported by evidence.

💥 THE MARE MIC DROP

When a mare chooses you, when she gives partnership rather than mere compliance, it feels earned in a way that stays with you.

It’s not luck.
It’s not chance.
It’s the result of showing up honestly, consistently, and without ego.

A mare can change your horsemanship and your self-awareness in equal measure.

✨ So tell me:
Which horse—mare, gelding, or stallion—has been your biggest teacher, and what did they shift in you?



🔎 Research Links for Transparency in Comments Section.

07/12/2025

𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚 📖

The older I get, the more I notice how the state we live in shapes what we invite into our lives. Not in a mystical “manifestation” way, but in that quiet psychological sense where our nervous system becomes a tuning fork for our choices.

For years I lived in survival mode. My life was loud and chaotic, and so were my decisions. Even the way I chose animals mirrored what was happening inside me. I once brought home a dog who had clearly lived through his own share of turmoil. I adored him, but everything about him was intensity. Separation anxiety. Chewing through doors. Escaping. Never settling. He was a product of his world, and at the time, so was I.

Life moved on. I started the slow work. I found safety. I found Jed. I stopped bracing for impact. My home became quieter, and so did I.

And when I felt ready to bring another dog into my life, something completely different happened. She arrived from the rescue like a little pocket of calm. Sleeps through the night. Learnt quickly. Settled. Curious rather than frantic , still nervous & apprehensive but different.

I don’t think animals magically cure us or reflect us perfectly. That would be too simple. But I do think our choices shift when we feel safe. We reach for different things. We move towards steadiness rather than chaos because our bodies finally believe they deserve it.

Life hands us experiences we never should have had to survive, yet they still end up shaping our self-development in ways we only recognise later. Reflecting on that isn’t about blaming our past selves. It’s about noticing how far we’ve come.

Happy Sunday to anyone doing the quiet work of becoming someone their younger self wouldn’t recognise.

There’s something very powerful in that.🙏

06/12/2025

The moment you share anything about your life, your work, or your opinions, you sign an invisible contract. Someone, somewhere, will decide they know better.

Judgement is part of the landscape when you work online. You can be thoughtful, curious, willing to learn, and genuinely open-hearted, and there will still be people who arrive determined not to understand you. Not because you’re wrong. Not because you’ve done anything terrible. Simply because they weren’t here to listen in the first place.

It took a long time for this to land.
Me and Flick spend our days trying to collaborate, to stay open, to grow both personally and professionally. We work from the assumption that we will never know everything and people will always have something to teach us. Most of the time that brings rich conversations and good connection. Occasionally, it brings walls.

This is where the Mel Robbins Let Them Theory makes sense.

If someone wants to misunderstand you, let them.
If someone wants to judge you, let them.
If someone is determined to take offence where none was intended, let them.

Not in a careless way. Not in a dismissive way. In a self-protective way.

The point is simple. You cannot control how another person interprets your existence. You can only control how deeply you allow it to take root in you.

Let them think what they think.
Let yourself keep learning, keep reflecting, keep growing.
Let the right people stay close and the wrong ones drift.

The truth is steady. You will never please everyone.
And you shouldn’t aim to.
Aim to stay grounded, thoughtful, and open.
The rest is noise.

06/12/2025

💖💖💖💖💖💖

Dora is just missing. Im sure she could squeeze in 🤣🤣🤣💖💖💖

06/12/2025

Being “Triggered” Is Not a Failure of Character

People keep using the word triggered as if it means irrational, dramatic or unable to cope. In reality, it usually means the opposite. It means your body has recognised something important, something linked to a deeper story, and it is trying to protect you.

Most triggers are not about the thing in front of you.
They’re about the history that sits behind it.

Someone reacts strongly to a comment about horsemanship and it looks like defensiveness, but underneath there is usually a belief they have fought hard for, or a part of themselves that feels unsettled or unacknowledged.

A rider qualifies for a major show and suddenly feels dread instead of excitement. It looks like avoidance, but the trigger isn’t the show. The trigger is what it represents. Pressure. Old memories of not feeling good enough. The quiet fear that success might demand more from you than you feel you can give.

The moment you start recognising what is being stirred, instead of shaming yourself for feeling stirred at all, things shift. You stop framing your reaction as weakness and start seeing it as information.

The real turning point is having safe people who don’t rush to “fix” you and don’t tell you how you should feel. Safe people help you explore the meaning without dismissing it. They notice the story underneath the surface one.

Triggers aren’t enemies. They’re signposts.
They point to the work that matters and the parts of us that deserve gentleness.

And in the horse world, where opinions are loud and identities run deep, the ability to step back, stay curious and reflect rather than react is one of the strongest skills we can develop.

Whether it’s training choices, competition pressures, or the emotional noise from people who don’t know you, the aim is not to avoid triggers. It is to understand them enough that they no longer run the show.

This is where the real resilience begins.

06/12/2025

✨ There comes a moment where the soul simply refuses to carry one more ounce of old weight.

2025 has been that moment for many of us. Heavy lessons. Strange pauses. That “in-between” feeling where nothing is quite ending, but nothing is quite beginning either. A year of spiritual friction, emotional clutter, and inner truths trying to surface.

And then the message starts to appear from everywhere:
Shed. Let go. Release. Make space.

🌿 Shedding is not gentle.
It is uncomfortable.
It is raw.
It is the phase where the old identity loosens and the new one has not formed yet.
A spiritual moulting.
A soul finally admitting what can’t come any further.

In many traditions, shedding is the precursor to a shift in destiny. The space between cycles. The thinning of old stories and the dissolving of the armour that once kept everything together.

And this time, the timing matters.
2026 is the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac.

🐎 Historically, a Horse year is:
• a breaker of stagnation
• a mover of truth
• a catalyst for courage
• a year where intuition sharpens
• a year where buried feelings rise
• a year of doors opening in quick, bold ways

Horse years pull life forward. They untangle knots. They refuse to entertain anything that drains spirit or slows momentum. They are known for clarity after long periods of confusion.

To step into that energy, the shedding becomes essential.
You cannot carry the emotional debris of 2025 into a cycle built for movement.
A new year asks for a new skin.

🔥 Shedding becomes:

Releasing resentment.
Letting guilt dissolve.
Retiring survival habits that no longer match your season.
Allowing old versions of the self to fall away without ceremony.

When something leaves, something else can enter.
That is the ancient rhythm of renewal.

2026 is not asking for perfection.
It is asking for space.
For honesty.
For a willingness to loosen what never truly fit.

🌙 The shedding is the doorway.
The Horse year is the stride through it.

Everything begins the moment the weight drops.

06/12/2025

Why Mares Are Better Than Geldings (and yes, this is absolutely my biased opinion) ❤️ 🐎

There’s a pattern in the horse world that mirrors the human one a bit too neatly.

People don’t like mares for the same reason they don’t like strong women.
They’re direct.
They know what they want.
They have boundaries that aren’t negotiable just because you asked 4 times.

Call a mare “moody” and half the time you’re just describing a horse who refuses to tolerate behaviour that doesn't serve her.

Watch a herd for long enough and you’ll notice it’s the mares who stitch the whole thing together. They manage space, negotiate tension, hold social order, and they do it with very little fuss.

Geldings are lovely. They can be the reliable, soft-hearted labradors of the equine world. I adore them.
But mares… mares operate on another level entirely.

You don’t get anything for free, and that seems to be what rattles people. To work with a mare, you have to be clear, respectful, and emotionally tidy.
She will not pretend for you.
She will not humour you.
She will not let you blag your way through a session while you’re thinking about your Tesco shopping list. ✨️

And that is exactly why they’re my favourite.

A mare makes you accountable.
She makes you present.
She makes you honest about who you are and how you show up.

People say mares teach patience.
I think they teach you how to communicate with someone who knows her own mind.

And when a mare with that kind of intelligence chooses you?

That is not luck.
That is a privilege.

06/12/2025

🛑 STOP DOING THIS.

​It starts with kindness: "I'm so sorry." "I understand."
​Then, it happens. The inevitable shift 💔
​Someone shares their pain—a mistake, a setback, a fear.

And the internet (or the Yard Whatsapp Group ) turns into an interrogation room:
​"What were you doing at the time?"
​"Why didn't you check earlier?"
​"Was that really the best choice?"

​🤯 The TRUTH Behind the Scrutiny

​That slide from empathy to dissection? It's not a moral failure.
​It's unconscious bias trying to protect you. It tries to create a safe distance by proving you would have done things differently.
​It turns someone else’s difficult moment into a quiet reassurance: My horses, my choices, and my identity as a "good horse person" are still intact.

​The Equestrian Trap 🏇

​Equestrian culture is uniquely vulnerable. So much of our identity is wrapped up in being capable, competent, and in control.
​When a story threatens that illusion, the bias kicks in:
​We analyse the human instead of holding the human.
​We make someone's struggle a cautionary tale instead of an ordinary part of horsemanship.

​🤝 The Real Meaning of "Community"

​Real compassion is refusing that easy distance.
​It is pausing the urge to explain, correct, or dissect. It's accepting that even the most experienced among us are working with half-tonne animals who don't read manuals.

​Sometimes the kindest thing we can offer is a moment of quiet where someone does not have to defend their pain.

​Maybe the thing that makes us a community is not shared opinions, but shared humility.

​Drop a ❤️ if you agree it's time to choose HUMILITY over HINDSIGHT.

​

05/12/2025

Equestrian Business Awards ❤️❤️❤️