Decode Horsemanship

08/07/2026

We are absolutely over the moon excited to announce the birth of Cali’s baby! It’s a BOY!!!

We will post more info about him in the coming days, but for now just know that all is well with both mom and baby.

08/03/2026

I want to tell you about the most impactful moment I have had in my horsemanship journey.

I was a relatively new rider. I was terrified. Irrationally so. Maybe part of it was about physical ailments (my doctor called it “Brain on Fire”), maybe part of it was about all of the things I didn’t know about horses.

One day, I had an opportunity to ride my horse, Willow, on a type of ride that was new to me. Through the woods, part of a group, sort of a trail ride, but not the kind you do on vacations, with horses that are older than you and have done this exact trail more times than you have showered.

We came to this ravine in the woods. It seemed like the steepest hill I had ever seen, impossible for a horse to get down safely, in my then obviously professional opinion.

But at some point, as everyone else in the group went down the ravine, I just HAD to go. I had to let my horse go on down, find her own footing, and trust that she would take care of both herself and me.

I did. It was terrifying.

When we got to the bottom, I was filled with so much emotion. Relief, love, trust, admiration, pride. There aren’t words. Tears. So many tears.

I guess as a woman who had been juggling literally all of the balls of life for SO LONG, the idea of letting go was so foreign, so terrifying, I couldn’t even imagine it.

But once I did, I was SO GLAD I did it. There is nothing else in life that could possibly replicate that.

If you can relate to this, please come see me. Let’s work on this journey together. You won’t regret it.

08/02/2026

I didn’t own horses growing up, or grow up with them. I didn’t even get to ride.

I rode a little in college, working off my lessons in the barn on Saturday mornings.

And then I had a baby. And then something that looked like a career. And then I got married (at 34, the first time I got married).

And in 2020, after everyone was locked down, I went out to dinner with my then husband one day. We said to each other “Okay, everything is reset. Let’s let the kids tell us what they would want to do when things open back up. But what about us? What would we want to do, for ourselves?”

Mine was easy. DUH. I would pick horseback riding. DUH.

So I found horses. I started riding. Then I started volunteering at the farm, and spent more and more time there. Then I bought a horse, and then another. I was hooked.

Does this sound familiar? You are my people. Come see me at Decode Horsemanship. Let’s figure out how to connect you to horses. In whatever way you imagine.

08/01/2026

(Post 6 of 6) Through ALL OF THESE STORIES, there was a sub-thread, a constant stream, always a factor in everything else that I did.

I have Lyme Disease. I got it when I was 13 (I grew up in Jersey). Tick bite, bullseye pattern, the whole nine. My Lyme, like many other people's, acted in ways that were obscure, inconsistent, and sometimes severe. Over my adult life, I have probably seen over 100 different doctors. I have always told people that "my body defies all of modern medicine." Very few of the issues I struggled with acted in the ways defined in the checklists those mainstream doctors were following. Very few medications acted in my body in the ways described on the pharmaceutical insert.

I have so much medical knowledge that people often ask me if I am a doctor lol. At times, my pursuit of my health issues has consumed me. And the lack of answers has left me feeling alone, unheard, voiceless, confused, and hopeless beyond repair.

If you've found yourself lost in the suffocation of chasing your own health, No Reins is for you.

If any of this week resonated with you, that's your sign. [Link to No Reins]

No riding. No agenda. Just you and a horse who can't be fooled. A morning to stop being fine.

07/31/2026

(Post 5 of 6 in series) After my divorce, I got into another relationship. I thought I was strong, independent, comfortable, and I thought I had found a strong partner.

2 years later, I started reading some posts about narcissism. I did some more reading, and the more I read, the more I recognized. Somehow, slowly, quietly, covertly, this man had dismantled absolutely everything I knew about myself, even the most fundamental levels of self-confidence that I had carried with me since before my permanent memory starts.

I kept asking myself "What happened to me?" "Where did I go?" And "How in the hell do I rebuild myself back up NOW??"

As cliché as it sounds, I decided my next tattoo was going to be a phoenix, and my tattoo artist did the most stellar job and created my very favorite tattoo ever. This program, this business, is about me building myself back up out of the ashes.

If you're rebuilding yourself from the ashes, No Reins is for you. Come find connection with a horse — and rise.

No riding. No agenda. Just you and a horse who can't be fooled. A morning to stop being fine.

07/30/2026

(Post 4 of 6 in series) In 2017, my (now ex) husband and I got separated. I had 4 kids still at home and I was homeschooling all of them. I had been working at a small company that got acquired by IBM, and IBM smashed all of us on the leadership team to pieces. IBM was expecting the impossible from us as it tried to merge several healthcare companies' technologies in a matter of months.

I felt like I was simultaneously in free fall, and maintaining 10 spinning plates as I fell. I kept asking myself "How did I get here?" "How come I can't seem to get myself together?" "Why is this so hard?"

And then I saw this old parable, attached as a photo here. I tattooed that last line on my arm, to ALWAYS remind myself WHO I AM.

If you need a reminder of who you are underneath the chaos, No Reins is for you. Come find connection with a horse, and find yourself through it.

07/29/2026

(Post 3 of 6 in a series) Years later, I got married. I adopted his kids, he adopted mine, and we planned for and had one of our own together.

This child was NOT on the autism spectrum, but boy. Was she high needs. Sensory Processing Disorder, and she WOULD NOT SLEEP. She was 14 months old before she ever let her dad put her to sleep. For YEARS, all of her sleep was in short 45-minute or less increments, and someone had to be stimulating her system — white noise, swinging, violent rocking in the rocking chair, bouncing in a carrier, walking ruts into the street outside. Her baby brother was born when she was 17 months old.

When she was about 3, I started acting out. I won't go into detail, but let's just say it wasn't good. I ended up joining a pool league — I had grown up with a pool table, and knew I enjoyed it. Every Thursday night, I got to go play pool. It took me a bit, but I finally realized why it was such a huge deal to me — on Thursdays, NONE of the people were connected to any other part of my life. On Thursdays, I was nobody's mom, nobody's wife, nobody's boss, and nobody's employee. I desperately needed ONE REGULAR THING where I was not OBLIGATED TO ANYONE.

If you need ONE thing that's just yours, no obligations attached, No Reins is for you. Come find connection with a horse, and find yourself through it.

No riding. No agenda. Just you and a horse who can't be fooled. A morning to stop being fine.

07/28/2026

(This is post 2 of 6 in a series.)

When my oldest son was about 7 years old, I hit another brick wall of losing myself. My son was not yet diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and we had been through 7 years of not really knowing what we were up against. Sleep was a struggle, school was a struggle, his emotions were a struggle.

One day, I read an article that talked about moms needing to maintain their own identities. AND BOOM! I sat there, dumbfounded, realizing that most of the people in my world literally only knew me as "Steven's mom." I had poured all of myself into my child's needs, and I had no idea who I even was any more.

She's still in there. If you're ready to go get her, No Reins is for you. Come find connection with a horse, and find yourself through it.

No riding. No agenda. Just you and a horse who can't be fooled. A morning to stop being fine.

07/28/2026

Okay, a little , ladies.

The past few days, I have found myself talking about my programs, and getting especially lit up when I talk about No Reins and the private horsemanship lessons, and who they are for.

I get so passionate because I have been through so many phases of my life where I lost myself without even realizing it, and it has occurred to me that I bet a lot of women will be able to relate to at least one of my stories. So I am going to post several posts in a row, over a period of days, and see who each one resonates with.

No Reins, and Decode Horsemanship, are for every woman who is just going through the motions.

When I was 22, I was the mom of a difficult toddler, who turned out to be autistic. I was in college full time, in a computer science curriculum, and I was working full time to support the 2 of us. The demand on me was immense. One day, a friend asked me if I wanted to go to the movies. I literally remember that the internal answer to that question was just … emptiness. I truly did not know the answer. So I asked myself, "Did I used to like going to the movies? Yes? Okay, say yes, the answer is yes."

But boy that struck me, and hard. I went to a doctor shortly thereafter. That was real, clinical, depression. Horses won't cure real, clinical depression, but they can be a part of the recovery.

If you've ever had to talk yourself into your own life, No Reins is for you. Come find connection with a horse, and find yourself through it.

No riding. No agenda. Just you and a horse who can't be fooled. A morning to stop being fine.

07/27/2026

Nobody split the difference.

Our moms ran the house. Then we grew up, and we were supposed to run the house and the career — full-time, no handoff, no vote. "Having it all" quietly became "doing it all for everyone," and no one asked if that was fair. It wasn't.

You've been somebody's mom, somebody's wife, somebody's boss, somebody's employee — for so long you forgot there's a version of you that isn't in service to anyone.

A horse doesn't care what title you hold for everyone else. It just needs you, as you are, with no performance required.

No Reins isn't a lesson. It's a morning with zero obligations — not to your kids, your job, your husband, your inbox. Just you.

This is for the horse girls who never got to be horse girls.

https://www.decodehorsemanship.com/no-reins

No riding. No agenda. Just you and a horse who can't be fooled. A morning to stop being fine.