Welcome back to my passion project. I keep asking inspiring yoga + horse people to answer the question, how do horses make us more mindful?

I met Dora at the beginning of this year, when I attended a Liberty Training with her and her partner, Sándor Mikó, in Costa Rica. In addition to the round pen work and riding, we had the chance to take a yoga class from Dora. I learned a lot from both of them. This is the perfect place for me to say my mantra: you’re never done learning with horses or yoga. So I love meeting new people who are passionate about both, and having the opportunity to be their student. Sándor and Dora had the dubious honor of driving me and my daughter and our friend Beth around, since they were staying close to us and had a car (and we did not). Of course that was beyond kind – but what we really loved was getting to know them “off duty” on our car rides. Sándor and Dora are old souls, despite being young (I could be their mom) – and their wisdom and maturity is showcased through their gentle and beautiful work with horses. 

Follow Sándor at @sandormiko and Dora at @yogatraveldora. 

Dora, how do horses make us more mindful?

I am a yoga teacher, and with my partner Sándor, a liberty horsemanship instructor, I organize riding holidays that go beyond just riding. We combine yoga and horsemanship lessons to help people connect with their horses, reflect on themselves, and practice mindfulness. Sharing this experience and helping others deepen their connection with themselves and their horses is at the heart of what we do.

Horses came into my life long before yoga. But interestingly, yoga changed the way I experience horses.

For many years I mostly knew riding from the traditional perspective. Often the focus is on control, performance, and doing the exercises correctly. Later, partly through Sándor, I discovered another approach that focuses much more on communication, awareness, and the relationship between horse and human.

This was when I started to realize something important. Horses show us a lot about ourselves.

People often say that horses are like mirrors. For a long time I thought this sounded a bit cliché. But the more time I spent with them, the more I realized how true it actually is. Horses are extremely sensitive animals. They react not only to our physical cues, but also to our emotions and inner state. When you work with them, many things about yourself become visible.

For me, one of those things was my relationship with control.

My horse loves to run. She really enjoys a big gallop and the feeling of freedom. She never tried to hurt me, she never bucked or reared, but when she started running fast, I felt a lot of fear. I felt like I was losing control, and that feeling was very uncomfortable for me. At some point it even made me think about stopping riding because the fear was so strong.

Later I realized something interesting. The problem was not really about riding. The fear of losing control affected many parts of my life.

In everyday life I always wanted everything to be perfectly organized. If I started a new project or had a goal, I tried to plan everything carefully. I believed that if I did everything perfectly, then the result would also be perfect.

But horses do not work like that.

When you ride a horse, even if you do everything right, there are still many things you cannot control. A horse is another living being. You cannot control how they feel that day, what emotions they have, or how their body feels physically.

It is not like riding a bicycle. If the bike works mechanically, everything is predictable. But with a horse there is always another mind, another body, another energy involved. Things are never completely under your control. That was exactly what challenged me.

The real turning point came during my yoga teacher training. One day during meditation we reflected on a simple question: What makes you most uncomfortable?

Suddenly the answer appeared very clearly. Losing control.

In that moment I understood why situations with my horse felt so intense. It was not really about speed or danger. It was about my fear of not being in control.

At the same time, another realization came. Losing control does not automatically mean that something bad will happen.

This insight slowly changed my perspective. Around the same time I also started to push myself out of my comfort zone in other ways, for example traveling alone and going to India for my yoga teacher training without knowing anyone there, and trekking in Nepal for multiple days. These experiences helped me see that uncertainty is not always something negative.

Once this fear became more conscious, it also became easier to work with it. My relationship with my horse changed, and I did not feel stuck in the same way anymore.

Horses also taught me something that is at the heart of yoga and mindfulness: being fully present.

Horses live completely in the moment. They react to what is happening right now in their environment. They do not worry about tomorrow or think about yesterday.

For me this was a big lesson. In the past I often lived too much in the future. I worried about what might happen and tried to plan everything perfectly. Sometimes I was so focused on the next step that I forgot to really experience the moment I was in.

When you work with horses, this kind of thinking does not work very well.

Horses are constantly communicating through small signals: their posture, their movement, the position of their ears, the energy in their body. If we are distracted or thinking too much about what comes next, we miss these signals.

Working with horses requires a very different kind of attention. It is about being completely focused on what is happening right now. You have to notice small changes and respond almost instantly. In that way, it creates a kind of deep focus, like a form of meditation. Your mind becomes very clear because your attention is fully in the present moment.

For me, this is one of the most beautiful things about working with horses. They constantly bring you back to the present. They do not care about your plans, your worries, or your expectations. They respond only to what is happening right now.

Because of that, they can become incredible teachers of mindfulness.

Through my horse, I learned not only about my fears, but also about presence, awareness, and trust. She helped me see that not everything in life can be controlled, and that sometimes letting go of that control opens the door to a deeper connection and understanding.

In that way, horses and yoga essentially teach the same lesson: how to be truly present in the moment.

Yeehaw & Namaste.