Welcome to my 2025 passion project. I’ve asked all the amazing horse people that we work with on our retreats – in Montana, Argentina, Sweden and Costa Rica – to answer the question, how do horses make us more mindful?

McKenzie is the founder of Blue Zone Equestrian in Costa Rica. McKenzie moved from California to Costa Rica four years ago, fulfilling a lifelong dream of living among horses in the valley of Punta Islita – a place she’s loved for over 30 years, when her parents acquired a home there. With a love of blending disciplines such as show jumping, liberty work, and bridleless riding, she now shares her passion through unforgettable retreats on the beach with her well-loved herd. I’ll be attending – si, attending – a Liberty Training Retreat (“the art of connecting with horses without ropes or restraints”) that McKenzie is hosting in January 2026, if you care to join me. Maybe she’ll even let me teach a yoga class or two.

McKenzie, how do horses make us more mindful? 

When I turned four, my parents surprised me with a pony-led cart at my birthday party, igniting a lifelong passion for horses. Since then, I have always felt happiest and most at peace when in their presence.

Horses are horses. Humans are humans. I don’t like to project my humanness on horses. I have deep respect for the fact that they are this creature so utterly separate and different than me. I’ve always found horses to be more interesting than people. I suppose a big reason I enjoy their presence so much is because I always allow myself to be exactly who I am when they are around. No need to fake it or force it. 

I love allowing them to just be a horse, and focusing my energy on providing them with the most healthy, happy and free life that I can. With that recipe, meaningful mindful moments (or cool shit as I like to say) just happen. The horses hold the magic, the potential. You as the human have to stop with the humanness, and open to something greater than you.

Of course I love jumping and training and doing “unnatural” things with them, but I also love to let them be horses as much as possible, and then I exist there with them. Not asking or needing anything from them, and not projecting anything on them. When I’m riding or sitting around at the barn or pasture with them, there is never anything else on my mind. I’m not planning or stressing or fretting. I’m completely in the moment with these majestic, unbelievable creatures, falling more and more in love with them and always feeling so grateful that they bring me such peace and joy – peace and joy that’s been hard to find within myself.

Of course the flip side of this is when hard things happen with horses, as it inevitably does, it feels like a piece of my soul has been ripped from my body. Those days I wish I never met a horse in my life. But even though I know the risk of loving them so deeply and purely, I can’t help but continue to have them in my life.

If ever I am having a difficult moment all I need to do is walk over to the pasture and visit those cuties, and the cloud starts to lift. I am just so grateful to them for being there, and so grateful that they allow me to be there too. I’ve also been so fortunate to meet incredible people from around the world and to share profound horsie moments with my daughters, again – all thanks to the horses.

Yeehaw & Namaste.