It’s Not About the Horse: What a Hoof-Pick Taught Me About Carrying Grief

I arrived at Miraval Berkshires Resort and Spa under a quiet, staggering weight.

I had been invited there for an event leadership retreat—with strangers who were brought together to share experiences, lessons learned, and open dialogue to move together based on our collective experiences.

This invitation was meant to be a reward as well, a time for celebration and unwinding, especially since I had just wrapped up our company’s largest event of the year only seven days prior.

But my mind wasn't on the corporate win.

I was exhausted, physically, and emotionally.

I was standing in the aftermath of a massive heart attack that had shaken my foundation two years ago. In that same window of time, I lost my mother. Then, just a couple of months before arriving at the resort, I lost my dad.

Grief wasn’t an abstract concept; it was a physical mass pressing down on my chest. I was moving forward because I had to, but I was carrying a really heavy load. I had admitted to several people before the retreat that I was pressing through, not necessarily dealing with the emotional weight all of this had put on me.

I didn't know it yet, but maybe I needed this time more than I realized.

Sometimes we don't know how heavy we've been carrying something until we finally have a place to put it down.

A Place to Slow Down

For me, the healing began with the drive up to the estate.

The drive through Massachusetts didn't feel the same. The intensity of navigating heavy traffic and road rage slowly gave way to a sense of calmness. The farther I got from home, the more I felt myself beginning to slow down.

Nestled in the Berkshires near Lenox, Massachusetts, the property feels suspended in time. At the center of the resort is the magnificent Wyndhurst Mansion, a historic Tudor-style “cottage” built in 1894 during the Gilded Age.

The grounds were beautiful, but what struck me immediately wasn't the history or the architecture.

It was the feeling.

And it was the people.

The warmth of the staff was immediate. They welcomed us not just as guests, but as people who needed care.

Unlike traditional, rigid retreats, Miraval offered an incredible sense of freedom. There was no pressure to follow a strict script or fill every minute of the day. We were given the space to navigate the beautiful grounds and build an agenda based entirely on what our bodies and souls needed each day.

That was different for me.

I spend a lot of my life focused on what needs to happen next. What problem needs to be solved. What decision needs to be made. What needs to get done.

Here, I didn't have to do that.

Between the deeply informative workshops, we gathered over incredible, farm-fresh meals that felt both nourishing and celebratory—a perfect testament to the agricultural richness of the Berkshires.

There was something about sitting around a table with people I had just met, sharing food and stories, that made it easier to slow down.

To listen.

To be present.

And maybe, without realizing it, to begin dealing with some of what I had been carrying.

The Language of Flowers

Our time there was designed around reflection, and my personal transformation started subtly.

One of our first group experiences was an ancient, creative process: printing silk scarves using dried flowers. We arranged the petals into intricate patterns, then steamed the fabric to permanently adhere the natural dyes.

My mom loved flowers.

As I handled the petals, learning about their histories and watching their colors bleed beautifully into the silk, the noise of the past month faded.

It was the first time in a long time I felt genuinely connected to her spirit, rather than just the sorrow of her absence.

It was a gentle opening of a door I had kept tightly shut.

Meeting the Mirror

The most revealing moment, however, waited in the arena.

The legendary Miraval Equine Experience—pioneered decades ago by therapist Wyatt Webb—carries a reputation for breaking through human emotional blocks. Because horses are prey animals, their central nervous systems are evolutionarily wired to detect human heart rates and tension from yards away. They don't react to who you pretend to be; they only mirror what is real.

When it was time to step into the barn for our next exercise, our facilitator gave us a strict directive: take a deep breath, consciously release the invisible load you are carrying, and clear your mind before you initiate contact.

Our time in the arena was split into two groups.

My group’s first encounter was with a beautiful white horse named Toby. We took turns practicing basic mindfulness by leading Toby around the ring.

But the entire time, my eyes kept drifting across the way to a horse named Jaeger.

We were told Jaeger was a rehabilitated horse—an animal that, much like me, had survived his own traumas and had to learn how to trust the world again.

The Concrete Weight

Then my moment came.

Our team entered the fenced arena with Jaeger. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Our assignment sounded deceptively simple: walk up to a thousand-pound animal, ask it to lift its hoof, using a very specific technique of moving your hand down his leg and gently trying to raise his hoof.

But in this arena, a horse’s hoof acts as a psychological scale. If you approach them filled with unexpressed anxiety, self-doubt, or a subconscious need to force control, the horse will plant its weight like concrete.

You cannot out-muscle a horse.

I watched as person after person in my group stepped up to Jaeger.

Everyone before me was unsuccessful.

He stood completely locked, unyielding, refusing to budge a single inch.

Then, it was my turn.

The Liftoff

The moment I stepped into the ring with Jaeger, the atmosphere shifted.

A feeling I cannot fully put into words overcame me. The hair on my arms stood on end the exact second we locked eyes.

I approached him.

At first, Jaeger remained grounded, deeply implanted into the ground beneath him. He wasn't going anywhere.

I gently caressed his side and, almost without thinking, whispered,

“I'm here… we've got this.”

Then something happened that I will never forget.

Jaeger leaned into me and pressed his massive head against my chest. Heavy, warm exhales rushed out of him as he nudged into my sternum. He exhaled deeply five times and licked his lips.

The trainer told me that was his way of responding to me—a sign of trust and comfort.

In that moment, it truly felt like he knew my heart was hurting.

Not just from the heart attack. From the grief, too.

I closed my eyes, took a very deep, heavy breath, and allowed the exhale to release slowly.

For a moment, there was nothing else. Just me and Jaeger.

Then, I slid my hand smoothly down the inside of his leg. Told him to trust me.

And without hesitation, Jaeger lifted his hoof into the air.

He didn't fight.

He didn't hesitate.

He simply handed me his weight.

I was the only person in our group he did it for.

In that moment, it felt like we had both surrendered something. I had stopped trying to carry everything myself. And Jaeger trusted me enough to give me his weight.

For those few seconds, it didn't feel like I was working with a thousand-pound animal.

It felt like two beings who had both experienced their own kind of trauma had found a way to trust each other.

And somehow, in that moment, I felt safe.

I felt present.

And I felt like I was strong enough to hold space for both of us.

You cannot out-muscle a horse. And maybe you can't out-muscle grief either.

Carrying Clarity Forward

I went to the Berkshires because of the work I do.

I was invited because of the demanding job I had just come through and the experiences

I could share with others who were there to learn, reflect, and move forward together.

I thought I was going there to share what I had learned.

I didn't expect to learn something so deeply personal myself.

Jaeger was the one who, in a very unexpected way, helped lead me back to myself.

Lifting that hoof wasn't an exercise in animal handling; it was a lesson in resilience.

Grief and trauma make us want to brace ourselves against the world, tightening our muscles and holding our breath.

But Jaeger showed me that true strength lies in the release.

The minute I stopped gripping my pain so tightly and just breathed, the heaviest things in the room finally began to lift.

I still have a long road of healing ahead. I don't pretend that one weekend—or one horse—changed everything.

But something changed.

I left that beautiful, historic New England estate with a profound sense of clarity and resilience.

I don't think I'll ever think about Jaeger as simply a horse.

Maybe he was just there at exactly the right moment.

And maybe that's all I needed.

Someone to remind me to breathe.

Someone to remind me that I didn't have to carry everything alone.

I can't wait to go back to the Berkshires, step back into the dirt, and see my friend Jaeger again.

And when I do, I'll take a deep breath, look him in the eye, and say:

“I'm here… we've got this.”

Love you more.