Long Time Sun Equine Massage

12/01/2025

Most people underestimate what actually happens in the brain when stress, fear or overwhelm hits. We often talk about “mindset,” “self-control,” or “staying calm,” as if these are conscious choices always available. But biology doesn’t work that way.

There is a predictable, measurable sequence that occurs in any mammal under threat:

the limbic system takes control,
and higher-order thinking becomes limited or unavailable.

Once this shift happens, neither humans nor horses can reason, learn, or “behave better.” The body has already decided that survival comes first.

In humans, the prefrontal cortex is the seat of reasoning, planning, impulse control and reflective thinking. People assume it’s always accessible, but it only functions well when the nervous system feels safe.

During high sympathetic arousal -the classic fight-or-flight response - neural activity shifts away from the prefrontal cortex toward the faster, reactive survival circuits. Blood flow changes, stress hormones surge, and processing becomes rapid and instinctive rather than thoughtful.

Psychology sometimes calls this an amygdala hijack. It isn’t a literal hijacking, but it’s a helpful shorthand for limbic dominance overriding the slower, deliberate thinking pathways.

This is why a person in panic cannot “think their way out of it.”
Their thinking brain isn’t available.
Their biology is louder than your words.

So what happens in Dorsal Vagal | Shutdown?

In dorsal vagal states - freeze, collapse, dissociation - cognitive access is also reduced, but for different reasons. Instead of hyperarousal, the system goes into metabolic conservation. Energy and neural resources withdraw. Sensation dulls. Awareness shrinks. The person disconnects internally and externally.

Different pathway. Same outcome: limited access to higher cognition.
This isn’t a behavioural choice - it’s an autonomic reflex.

Horses also have an amygdala and limbic system that guide their threat responses. But their cognitive architecture is not like ours. They do not rely on a human-like prefrontal cortex for abstract reasoning, conceptual interpretation or narrative processing.

Their cognition is:
• immediate
• sensory-driven
• movement-oriented
• deeply tied to safety

So when a horse enters a sympathetic state - the spook, bolt, brace, reactive movement, heightened startle - nothing is being “hijacked.” There is no “thinking brain” to override in the human sense.

Their survival circuits simply take full priority.
They are not being stubborn or disrespectful.
They are over their THRESHOLD.

A horse in a limbic-driven state may respond to pressure or cues, but that isn’t learning. That is reflex. Behavioural compliance in high arousal happens through survival reflexes, not understanding.

High sympathetic activation produces:
• reflexive movement
• startle responses
• defensive behaviours
• impulsive decisions

Learning requires access to exploratory, social, perceptive pathways - the parts of the brain that only activate when the nervous system is regulated enough.

A horse in a survival state is not being disobedient. They are being biologically accurate.

Why does your nervous system matter to your horse?

When a horse is overwhelmed, they look for safety cues through:
• your breathing
• your muscle tension
• your posture
• your rhythm and movement
• your internal steadiness or lack of it

This is supported by research on social buffering and emotional contagion in herd animals. Horses read nervous systems, not instructions. If you escalate - tightening, shouting, pulling, bracing - you amplify the horse’s threat response. Their system mirrors yours.

Regulation is not passivity.
It’s grounded action instead of reactive action.

When you regulate:
• their heart rate shifts
• their startle threshold lowers
• their sensory field widens
• curiosity reappears
• movement becomes organised instead of chaotic

The nervous system returns to learning only when it feels safe.
You cannot instruct it back into place.

Why "CALM DOWN" doesn't work us or horses...

A person in panic cannot access higher reasoning.
A horse in sympathetic overload cannot “listen” or process cues.

Calm is not a command. Calm is a physiological state.

You cannot talk someone out of limbic dominance.
You cannot train a horse out of survival activation.

Both systems must come back into regulation first.

And for horses, the fastest pathway back to regulation is your nervous system.

This is an important nuance: Learning doesn't only happen in calm.

There is a healthy, regulated form of sympathetic activation where learning thrives - alert, engaged, energised, curious. The body is active, but the system is not overwhelmed.

This is where:
• play
• exploration
• liberty
• movement-based learning
• athletic training
• problem-solving

naturally occur.

Over-arousal shuts learning down. Healthy activation supports it.

The goal is not to force calm. The goal is to stay within the window where the system is “switched on” but still able to process information.

We are not anthropomorphising, we are talking biology here.

Everything described here is grounded in measurable physiology:
• vagal tone
• cortisol levels
• heart-rate variability
• limbic activation
• muscle tension patterns
• attentional narrowing
• metabolic shifts

This is not softness or emotion or opinion. This is mammalian survival architecture.

When you understand this:
• you stop blaming horses for being afraid
• you stop personalising behaviour
• you stop expecting logic in a survival state
• you stop fighting biology
• you start working with the nervous system

This is the foundation of compassionate, ethical, effective horsemanship.

At The Whole Horse Journey, this is exactly what we teach:
work with the nervous system, not against it.
Safety first. Connection first. Biology first.

11/30/2025

Some horses show behavioural and physiological responses that sit at the high end of the normal equine reactivity spectrum. They startle more easily, react more strongly to change, struggle with transitions, and take longer to settle after stress. These aren’t “problem horses.” They simply process the world with more intensity than most.

Stormy, Nicola’s mare, is one of these horses.

She does not soften easily. She rarely offers outward affection. She often appears distant or unavailable, even when handled gently and consistently. For a long time this was confusing. But once we began viewing her behaviour through established equine stress physiology and temperament science, rather than seeing it as resistance, the picture became clear.

Stormy is not unwilling. She is a high-reactivity horse with a low threshold for sensory and emotional stimulation.

So let's understand sensory reactivity and temperament variation in horses:

Equine research shows large normal variation in:

• sensory thresholds
• startle responses
• vigilance
• stress recovery
• behavioural inhibition
• coping styles

Stormy sits toward the extreme end of this spectrum. She reacts to sound, touch, movement, and emotional tone more intensely and more quickly than many horses. This does not mean something is wrong with her. It means she is a sensory-reactive temperament type.

Horses like this often show:

• heightened alertness
• rapid autonomic activation
• difficulty processing multiple inputs
• withdrawal when overwhelmed
• slower return to calm after stress

Domestic environments can overwhelm these horses because their internal systems activate faster and take longer to come down.

Horses shift between three broad autonomic patterns:

• mobilisation (sympathetic arousal)
• calm social engagement (parasympathetic regulation)
• protective withdrawal (freeze/low-mobility states)

Stormy moves rapidly between mobilisation and withdrawal, with limited access to calm engagement. This does not mean the states are abnormal. These states are normal in horses, but Stormy transitions between them at lower thresholds and with greater intensity.

Her typical pattern is:

• heightened vigilance
• quick activation
• withdrawal when overloaded
• bursts of reactivity when protection alone cannot contain the stress

These behaviours reflect her stress sensitivity, not disobedience.

All horses constantly assess their environment for safety. In reactive horses, this process is more active and persistent. Stormy remains alert for longer. She monitors small changes. She reacts strongly to sudden sounds, touch she did not initiate, emotional tension in humans, or shifts in the herd. Her system does not settle as easily after activation.

This does not mean she perceives danger irrationally. It means she responds more intensely along a normal equine survival continuum.

So how do we recognise an overload in a high reactivity horse like Stormy?

Stormy’s signs of overwhelm include:

• subtle bracing
• fixed or distant expression
• shallow or held breath
• tension through the poll or jaw
• withdrawal instead of engagement
• inconsistent responses to cues
• shutting down under pressure

These are normal stress responses, but in Stormy, they appear sooner and last longer because her stress-recovery capacity is limited.

Triggers for her include:

• unpredictable movement
• touch she did not initiate
• rapid transitions
• emotional tension in humans
• noise
• social pressure
• conflicting cues
• physical discomfort

She does not have the buffer that many horses have. She reacts earlier in the sequence and takes longer to return to baseline.

Despite this, Stormy does show connection. It is subtle, because connection requires a level of calmness that is harder for her to reach.

Her signs include:

• choosing to stand near
• softening her nostrils briefly
• slower blinking
• matching Nicola’s breathing
• shifting slightly toward her
• accepting touch in one area
• releasing her jaw
• a brief softness in her eye

These behaviours indicate a temporary decrease in arousal, not a complete shift in state. But they matter, because they show she is finding moments of relief.

Supporting her is a little different to supporting horses with higher thresholds. The aim is not to change the horse’s temperament. It is to reduce overwhelm and create conditions where the horse can return to calmness more easily.

Choice reduces stress.
Let her step away. Let her initiate proximity.

Predictability supports calmer responses.
Consistent routines and slower transitions help her process.

Safe spaces help recovery.
Areas associated with past calmness support settling.

Slow movement reduces overstimulation.
She processes sensory input quickly. She needs slower input from you.

Your calm state influences hers. Horses physiologically respond to human posture, movement, and breathing.

Rhythm reduces arousal.
Patterned movement or grooming helps the autonomic system settle.

Reduce simultaneous stimuli.
Simplify requests. Break tasks into small, manageable pieces.

Watch for small improvements.
A soft blink or lowered head signals reduced tension.

Stormy is not rejecting Nicola. She is not cold or unconnected. She is a horse with a sensitive stress-response pattern that makes daily life more demanding. Nicola’s consistency and emotional steadiness provide exactly the support a horse like Stormy needs.

Reactive horses often show their true internal state only to the person they trust most. Stormy does this with Nicola.

If you recognise your horse in Stormy’s story, there is nothing wrong with your horse, and nothing wrong with you. You are simply learning how to support a horse whose reactivity and stress sensitivity fall at one end of the normal equine spectrum.

These horses may not show big displays of softness. But the small improvements, the brief softening, the moment of presence - these are meaningful.

This work is not about correcting them. It is about supporting them.
Helping them find a little more comfort in a world that overwhelms them easily. And recognising the quiet forms of connection they are able to offer.

11/29/2025

My name is Jasper, though I’ve been called many things.
Some I wouldn’t repeat - even if horses could speak your language.

I need to tell you something honestly right from the start:
I was not an easy horse. I know this because I heard it said hundreds of times, across four barns in six years: “He’s not an easy horse.”

As if difficulty were a moral failing. As if I had chosen to become the way fear shaped me.

Let me explain how a horse becomes “difficult.”

For around 60 million years, my ancestors survived by noticing everything. A flicker in the grass. A shift in the wind. A sudden movement in the corner of the eye.

Our amygdala - the part of the brain that processes fear - is highly developed and wired for rapid response. We’re designed to react first and think later, because the horses who paused to analyse didn’t live long enough to pass on their genes.

I was three when the trailer accident happened.

The details don’t matter - a blown tyre, a sway, a metal box that suddenly wasn’t travelling in a straight line anymore.
What matters is what it taught my nervous system:

Enclosed spaces mean danger.
Restraint means pain.
Loss of control means death.

After that day, my brain couldn’t separate a trailer from the accident. This is called fear conditioning - one traumatic event forming neural pathways so deep that anything similar triggers the same chemical storm: adrenaline, cortisol, the full body surge of survival.

My heart rate would leap to 180 bpm at the sight of a trailer ramp.
I would rear, strike, fling myself against walls - not because I was bad, but because I was terrified.

But humans don’t often see terror. They see behaviour.
“Difficult,” they said.

The first barn tried force. When a horse can’t flee, he fights.
When he can’t fight, he freezes.

They backed me into the trailer with whips and ropes. I taught them what real panic looks like.
Someone got hurt.
I got sold.

The second barn tried a more "natural" approach, which for me meant being chased in circles until exhaustion took over. Learned helplessness is often mistaken for cooperation. A horse who stops fighting hasn’t necessarily stopped being afraid - he has simply learned that nothing he does changes anything.

I loaded that day, trembling so violently my muscles cramped.
They were pleased. My nervous system was not.

The fear didn’t fade. It spread - tarps that moved, tight spaces, vets with needles, unexpected sounds, firm hands on a rope. My world became mapped with invisible landmines I couldn’t explain.

“Dangerous,” they said. “Unpredictable.”

By eight years old, after two more barns, something inside me had begun to shut down. Chronic stress does that. It suppresses neuroplasticity - the ability to learn new patterns, to try new responses, to imagine safety.

Then I arrived at Sarah’s farm.

She didn’t try to do anything with me that day.
Or the first week.
Or the first month.

Instead, she stood at the fence and breathed.

Horses are master readers of physiology.
We smell pheromones. We sense heart rate shifts.
We pick up micro tension long before humans feel it themselves.

I could smell that she wasn’t afraid of me.
This alone was… unusual.

Some days I crept within ten feet, then spun away with my heart thundering.
She never chased.
Never pressured.
Never crossed the boundary I set.

Here is what I was learning, though I didn’t yet have a name for it:

Safety isn’t the absence of scary things. Safety is the presence of choice.

Two weeks later, I touched her palm with my nose.
Oxytocin released in both of us - the smallest gesture, but the beginning of a bond. She smiled, lowered her hand, and walked away.

She never asked for more than I could give.

The trailer sat at the edge of the property.
Not hidden. Just… present.

Each day, a little closer. This is called systematic desensitisation - exposure below the threshold of fear so the nervous system can learn:
Trailer near → nothing bad happens.
Trailer closer → still nothing bad happens.

It took months.

2 months before I ate hay inside with the ramp down.
4 before I stood in it. 6 before I travelled two kilometres down the road and unloaded into a field where she let me graze in peace.

But this wasn’t just trailer work. She was teaching me something much bigger:

I had agency.
I had a voice.
My signals mattered.

Every flick of my ear, every tightening of my poll, every breath that came too sharp - she noticed. And she responded.

This is how mammals heal:
Through predictable, consistent attunement.

My cortisol lowered. My startle softened. My behavioural flexibility returned. I began exploring again - something I hadn’t done in years.

One day, I walked into the trailer on a loose lead rope, heart steady at 48 bpm - a calm horse’s rhythm. She rested her forehead against my neck, and her shoulders shook.

“You’re not difficult,” she whispered.
“You were scared. And nobody listened.”

Sarah didn’t “fix” me with a technique or method.
She didn’t have magic hands.

She had time.
Patience.
Attunement.
And the radical belief that my fear was valid.

She let go of her timeline and honoured mine.

I am twelve now.
I load quietly.
I stand for the vet.
I can handle tarps, clippers, tight spaces - all the things that once meant terror.

But most importantly:
I’m curious again.
I have returned to myself.

My nervous system remembers joy.

The other day, a young mare arrived at our barn.
She rears when someone approaches with a halter.
She strikes when cornered.

I heard it again:
“She’s difficult.”

Sarah smiled - the same soft smile she gave me four years ago.

“No,” she said.
“She’s scared. And we’re going to listen.”

This is what I learned.
What Sarah gave me.
What I need you to remember:

Difficult is so often just traumatised.
Dangerous is so often just unheard.
And the opposite of fear isn’t courage - it’s safety.

Safety built one choice at a time.
One boundary respected at a time.
One moment of listening at a time.

We are not machines that break.
We are living beings with nervous systems shaped by experience - and capable of healing when given the conditions for healing.

Whether we stand on two legs or four.

My name is Jasper.
And I was difficult…

Until someone gave me the space to become something else.

by Gaylene Diedericks (fictional story)

09/11/2025

09/11/2025

In a world that's divided, lost, violent and at odds, it's easy to feel crushed underneath the weight of it all.

People don't agree. Everyone yells at each other, staunchly defending their ideas and beliefs. With no wiggle room. No yielding. No compromise. No listening.

"We are right, and you are wrong."

It's soul-crushing.

I spend a lot of my time hiding out here on the top of my little hill in the plains and ignoring the current state of the world. I've committed to impacting the world in a positive way in the only way I know how: by healing horses and helping people.

I wish I could reach more people. I wish I could teach them the things we do here to help them find more peace within themselves. I wish I could change the world.

I wish I could put everyone in front of a horse and help them find some common ground with an animal who thinks differently than them, feels differently than them, and acts differently than them.

I wish I could give everyone access to the peace you find when you sit quietly and breathe. When you feel the ground beneath your feet and listen to a horse exhale slowly.

I wish I could let a horse heal the souls of all the troubled humans who choose violence, opposition and aggression.

And so for all of you who feel crushed under the weight of the world we live in, or to those who just don't know what to do with it all:

Keep changing your own little world. Find ways to consistently fill your own cup so you can help top off the cups of others when they start to get low.

Maybe, just maybe, one little ripple of magic at a time, we can all find our way back on track.

The world may feel divided and loud, but out here on my little hill, there is quiet. There are horses. There is peace. And if your cup ever feels empty, you’re welcome here. 💛

08/07/2025

Humane Colorado said more than 70 horses and foals are currently in their care after being rescued early last month from what appeared to be a situation of "severe" neglect.
MORE INFO: https://www.kktv.com/2025/08/06/more-than-70-horses-rescued-rural-colorado-property/
📷: Humane Colorado

06/11/2025

Horses did not evolve to be ridden.
They did not evolve to go in circles.

They weren't designed for any of it.

WE decided that we would get on their backs and ride them into battle.
Then, we decided we'd ride them for sport.

We didn't know better. Not at first.

We tacked them up and threw ourselves on top of them. We labeled any and all misbehavior as some kind of rebellion, as if the horse was plotting against us. We "worked" it out of them with sweaty saddle blankets, tied up legs and leverage.

We broke the horse. Literally and figuratively.

Then, decades later, we learned more about their bodies. We learned about growth plates, development, the spine, the structures and how it all works together. We learned about their nervous systems, their social structures, how they learn, how they feel. We began to know better...

Yet we didn't do better.

And so we continue to break them.

We push them too far, too fast, too young. We accelerate training to meet the needs and desires of the human ego. We use gadgets and tools designed to create pain and leverage to put the horse into the "frame" that we deem desirable.

And we break them.

We do permanent damage to the spine that can't be undone.
We create lasting scar tissue to ligaments and tendons that support the most delicate and intricate structures of the horse.
We overdevelop muscles that create nerve impingements, continuous pain and hyped up nervous systems.

And for what?

A blue ribbon? The thrill of the ride? The jackpot? To be able to say we've conquered the beast?

Cool.

I'm not saying we can't do the things we love to do with our horses. I'm saying we need to do it WITH them. Not TO them. Our success in the saddle cannot continue to exist at the expense of the horse.

We know better now. So do better now.

Take the time it takes to properly develop the body.
Take the time it takes to heal the nervous system and teach it to regulate.
Take the time it takes to create an emotionally healthy horse who loves the work as much as you.

"Okay, well how long will it take to do that?"

As long as it fu***ng takes.

For one horse, it may be 6 months. For another, it may be 3 years.

They are individuals. Beautiful, imperfect, intellectual, spiritual, kind individuals. And they do not conform to the timelines of human existence.

Enjoy the journey instead. Savor the small moments of progress and fall in love with every single part of your horse that makes them who they are. Give up the need for dominance, for quick fixes and for human satisfaction.

I'm so tired of seeing horses who have bodies and souls that have been ruined by humans...sometimes past the point of "fixing" any of it.

So please, do better.
You can be the difference.
Be the human your horse deserves.

03/31/2025

11/21/2024

It's Giving Season! Help us raise funds to continue to fully support the 3 horses in our care!

11/21/2024

At the Honor the Horse Foundation, we take time to know each horse’s personality and needs. Through individualized rehab programs, we don’t just help horses recover—we help them find themselves. 🐴

Read about our approach at honorthehorsefoundation.org