Lessons from Freya and the One Who Came Before Her

Today was a day I’ll carry with me.

I spent it at Factum Equine, Freya's home. There was a workshop with Nicole Birkholzer—an author, educator, animal communicator, and someone who truly knows how to listen between the words. Afterward, I stayed for a one-on-one session with her, and we sat on the ground together, Freya close by.

We talked about so many things—about Freya, about me, about the space in between. About my hopes and my heaviness, and everything I carry for this beautiful mare who has already begun to teach me more than I can explain.

Then Nicole looked at me, with a quiet kind of knowing, and asked:

“You always pick the hard ones. Why do you think that is?”

It hit me in the chest. Not in a painful way, but in a way that asked me to pause. To really feel.

Luna was my first horse—a stunning draft rescue with eyes that held entire lifetimes. She was only with me for a few short months, but her impact was deep and soul-shifting. She came into my life suddenly, powerfully, and left just as fast. But now, with Freya beside me, I see more clearly:

Luna was preparing me.

She was the beginning of this path—this walk with the so-called “hard ones.” The sensitive ones. The misunderstood. The guarded. The ones who’ve spent too long being shaped by someone else’s hands. The ones who don’t need to be saved—they just need to be seen.

When Nicole asked me that question, I didn’t have a polished answer. But I think it's this:

There’s something in me that understands what it’s like to be too much and not enough all at once. To be observed more than understood. To have layers no one sees unless they sit long enough to listen.

And today, I learned what Freya needs from me isn’t fixing or figuring out. She doesn’t need pressure or perfection. She needs presence. She needs stories.

Nicole described Freya as being like a soul at the bottom of a well—not stuck, not broken, but quietly searching. She will find her way out, not because I pull her, but because she’s curious. Because she feels safe. And my stories—offered not as solutions, but as feeling—will be the lanterns.

She doesn’t know how to feel yet. She’s never been given the space to learn.

So she needs me to show her—through laughter, memory, sorrow, joy. To tell her when I’m happy. When I’m sad. When I remember something beautiful or something I’ve lost. And in witnessing me, she’ll begin to witness herself.

But I also realized something else today: I need to stop worrying.

I need to stop walking into her paddock with the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. I need to stop obsessing over her weight, her ulcers, her topline, this and that. Imagine if someone were always fretting over you—constantly checking in, questioning, micromanaging. My God, it would be exhausting. That’s how Freya must feel.

Other than the farrier—who truly does have a job to do—I need to take all pressure off her. I need to just show up as a storyteller. To be present. To speak my stories, not as solutions, but as offerings—so she can find herself through feeling. She doesn’t need fixing. She doesn’t need me to solve anything. She just needs me to show up, be real, and let her breathe.

And in doing so, I need to dig deeper within myself—into the layers of my own healing, both light and dark. I need to tap into the part of me that shows up for everyone else and remember how to show up for myself, too. To stop hiding behind worry and responsibility, and embrace the full wholeness of my own story. In the spaces where I’ve learned to be present for others, I must learn to be just as present with my own heart, my own healing, and my own unfolding.

And I realize… maybe that’s the work I’ve been called to all along. Not to fix the “hard ones,” but to love them. To sit beside them long enough that they no longer feel alone. And maybe, in that space, I learn something about trust, too.

Luna didn’t come to stay—she came to awaken.

Freya didn’t come to be fixed—she came to be.

My Luna