Horse wisdom - Dr Margaretha Montagu

I used to think contentment was something you had to earn. Like it was a reward you unlocked after enough years of doing the work. I pictured it as a mountain peak — you’d get there eventually, breathless and enlightened, and finally feel content in some permanent, glowing way.

Then I watched Bianca fall asleep standing up in a patch of afternoon sun, bottom lip drooping, one back leg cocked at that ridiculous angle horses manage without ever tipping over, and I realised I’d had the whole thing backwards.

The Nap That Changed My Perspective

Bianca is not a horse who does much. She’s not the herd’s ringleader — that’s Tess’s job, self-appointed and taken far too seriously. She’s not the one who greets every visitor at the gate like she’s running for local office, either. Bianca’s contribution to the herd is, essentially, vibes. Good ones. She finds the sunniest spot in the paddock most afternoons and simply commits to it.

I noticed her doing this one day when I was mid-spiral about an email I hadn’t sent, a blog post I hadn’t finished, and a general sense that I was somehow behind on my own life despite living in rural France with six miniature horses and no boss. I looked up from my phone and there was Bianca, radiating pure, uncomplicated contentment over a patch of grass and a bit of warmth. That was it. That was the whole event. No achievement had preceded it. No milestone had earned it. She hadn’t done a single thing to deserve that nap except show up and notice the sun was out.

It’s an infuriatingly simple lesson for someone who spent two decades in medicine believing that rest was something you scheduled after the crisis, not during it.

We’ve Over-Engineered Happiness

Here’s what gets me about the way we talk about contentment these days: we’ve turned it into a project. There are trackers for it, five-step frameworks for cultivating it, entire industries built on the premise that contentment is a skill you’re failing to master correctly. I say this as someone who has, at various points, been part of that industry. I’ve written the frameworks. I’ve added the trackers.

But horses don’t track anything. A horse’s entire concept of a good day can be reduced to: gate open, grass available, sun out, nobody’s chasing me. That’s the whole checklist. Angelito will greet a treat like it’s the first food he’s ever encountered in his life, even though he had breakfast twenty minutes ago and will have dinner in a few hours. There’s no sense that this particular carrot is less exciting because he’s had carrots before. He’s not comparing it to a better carrot he had last Tuesday, or worrying that this carrot means he’s not disciplined enough. It’s just a good carrot, and he is, for the four seconds it takes to eat it, completely present for it.

Meanwhile I’ll eat an entire meal while scrolling and not remember a single bite.

We’ve made happiness so complicated that we’ve talked ourselves out of the very thing it’s supposed to produce — which is simply noticing what’s good, right now, without qualification. Somewhere along the way, “practising contentment” became another item on the to-do list instead of the thing that interrupts the to-do list. That’s backwards. Contentment isn’t a task. It’s a pause.

Don’t start a Journal

I’m not going to tell you to start a happiness journal, mostly because if you’re anything like me, that journal will become one more thing you feel vaguely guilty about not doing consistently, sitting on your nightstand judging you.

What I’ll say instead is this: notice the gate. Whatever your version of an open gate is — the ten minutes before everyone else in the house wakes up, the first sip of coffee that’s still properly hot, the fact that nobody currently needs anything from you — notice it before it closes again. You don’t need to earn that moment. You don’t need to have done something impressive first. Bianca certainly hadn’t. She’d just stood in the right spot at the right time and let herself feel the sun.

The horses don’t wait for the big wins to feel good. They don’t need the metaphorical mountain peak. They take the small, unremarkable, entirely undramatic moments — an open gate, a treat, a nap — and they don’t diminish them by comparing them to something bigger. That’s the whole trick, if you can call it a trick. It’s really just attention. Unglamorous, repeatable attention to the small simple thing that’s already happening.

I still catch myself scrolling past my own version of the sunny patch most days. But I’m getting better at looking up now.

Notice the Small Things With a Small Herd of Friesian and Falabella Horses in the southwest of France

If your version of the sunny patch has been buried under a to-do list for longer than you’d like to admit, this is, quite honestly, what we do most at Maison Meraki. Days built around noticing — the horses, the Camino de Santiago walk, the meal that isn’t eaten standing up at a counter. No frameworks, no trackers. Just space to remember what it feels like to savour the simple, small thing in front of you.

Private Rebooted and Realigned Retreat –this 3-day/2-night, bespoke, one-on-one retreat on the Camino de Santiago in the sun-blessed southwest of France enables you to press pause, connect with a small herd of Friesian and Falabella horses, recalibrate your inner compass, and return to your life rested, rooted and realigned with who you are now.

My small-by-design retreats are capped at four guests for exactly this reason — because contentment, like a good nap in the sun, doesn’t happen well in a crowd. If you’re curious what a few unhurried days here might do for you, come take a look. Bianca will most likely be asleep in the sun when you arrive. She usually is.

Do you dream of escaping your stressful life to raise a herd of goats or grow sunflowers in the south of France? Then you may be ready for an Esprit Meraki retreat. Get access to this “very serious” quiz to help you figure out how urgent your need for a change of scenery is, when you subscribe to my monthly newsletter.

“I am an experienced medical doctor – MBChB, MRCGP, NLP master pract cert, Transformational Life Coach (dip.) Life Story Coach (cert.) Stress Counselling (cert.) Med Hypnotherapy (dip.) and EAGALA (cert.) I may have an impressive number of letters after my name, and more than three decades of professional experience, but what qualifies me to excel at what I do is my intuitive understanding of my clients’ difficulties and my extensive personal experience of managing major life changes using strategies I developed over many years.” Dr M Montagu

I used to think I was a good listener. Then I got a small herd of Falabellas who couldn’t care less about my medical degree, my life coaching certificates, or the very reasonable things I was trying to explain to them, and I found out I had a great deal to learn. Tess, my Friesian mare, in particular, has a way of pinning her ears at me that says “What a lot of hogwash!” Humbling.

In our hyper-connected, fast-paced modern world, communication has largely been reduced to words on a screen, quick voice notes, or hurried conversations over coffee. We are constantly talking, texting, and broadcasting, yet we rarely take the time to truly listen. We often listen merely to reply, rather than to understand.

Enter the horse. A 1,200-pound prey animal whose very survival has depended, for millennia, on its ability to read the subtlest shifts in its environment. Working with horses offers an in-depth masterclass in a skill we desperately need to reclaim: aware and active listening.

The Illusion of Verbal Communication

Most of us rely heavily on verbal language. We assume that if someone isn’t speaking, they aren’t communicating. However, psychologists and communication experts have long noted that a significant portion of human communication is non-verbal—encompassing tone of voice, facial expressions, posture, and micro-movements.

When you step into a round pen or a pasture with a horse, your verbal language becomes almost entirely irrelevant. You cannot explain your intentions to a horse using words. You cannot negotiate, rationalise, or debate. Instead, you are forced to engage in a completely different paradigm of communication. You must learn to “listen” with your eyes, your body, your perception and your intuition.

Reading the Equine Language

Horses are constantly broadcasting their internal state, but their language is a silent symphony of physical cues. A horse’s ears are perhaps its most expressive feature. Ears pinned flat against the neck often scream anger or extreme discomfort. Ears flicking back and forth can indicate divided attention or uncertainty. A relaxed, slightly drooped ear may suggest contentment and trust.

But it doesn’t stop at the ears. A horse communicates through the tension in its jaw, the swish of its tail, the shifting of its weight, and the softness—or pointedness—of its gaze. When a horse licks and chews, it processes information and releases tension. When it rests a hind leg, it is signalling relaxation.

To work safely and effectively with a horse, you must become an active observer. You cannot be distracted by your phone or lost in your own thoughts. You must be entirely present, actively “listening” to the continuous stream of non-verbal data the horse is providing. If you ignore a horse’s subtle signs of anxiety—a tightened lip, a slightly elevated head—you might soon find yourself dealing with a full-blown panic response. The horse teaches you that listening is not a passive state; it is an active, continuous engagement with the present moment.

Linking this Way of Listening to Human Relationships

The profound beauty of learning to listen to a horse is how seamlessly this skill translates back into our human relationships. When we train ourselves to notice the subtle physical cues of an animal, we inadvertently sharpen our awareness of the people around us.

Think about your last conversation with a colleague, a partner, or a child. Were you truly listening, or were you just waiting for your turn to speak? If you apply the “equine listening/absorbing” approach, the entire dynamic shifts. You begin to notice the unspoken narrative.

You might notice that while your colleague is saying “I’m fine with this project,” their crossed arms, tight jaw, and lack of eye contact are screaming the exact opposite. You might realise that your child’s sudden quietness and slumped shoulders are communicating a distress that they don’t yet have the vocabulary to articulate.

By becoming attuned to these non-verbal cues, we become better, more empathetic listeners. We stop taking words at face value and start listening to the whole person. We learn to read the room, to sense the underlying emotional currents, and to respond to what is actually being felt, rather than just what is being said.

The Gift of Being Heard

There is a profound psychological comfort in feeling truly heard and understood. When a horse realises that you are “listening” to its subtle cues—that you step back when it shows anxiety, or that you soften your posture when it seeks connection—it responds with immense trust. The horse relaxes, knowing it is safe with someone who understands its language.

We are no different. When we practice deep, active listening with the people in our lives, we create a safe space for vulnerability and authentic connection. When people feel that you are not just hearing their words, but truly seeing their emotions and understanding their unspoken needs, the quality of the relationship transforms. Trust deepens. Conflicts resolve more easily. Empathy flows.

A Practice for Everyday Life

You don’t need to own a horse to practice this, though it does help a lot if you can practice with a horse first. You can start today. In your next conversation, challenge yourself to listen like a horseman/woman. Silence your internal monologue. Put away your phone. Look at the person in front of you. Notice their posture, the tension in their face, the movement of their hands, and the cadence of their breathing.

Listen not just to reply, but to understand what the other person is trying to get across. In doing so, you honour the profound lesson that horses have been trying to teach us all along: that the most important things we say to one another are rarely spoken aloud.

If any part of you just went “well, that explains a few things,” I’d love to welcome you to a Rebooted and Realigned Retreat. It’s a bit of Camino de Santiago walking, listening to horses, and blessedly little talking — the kind of quiet that helps you actually hear what your inner critic has been drowning out. Come see for yourself.

Tag: Horse wisdom

What Horses Can Teach Us About Contentment

The Nap That Changed My Perspective

We’ve Over-Engineered Happiness

Don’t start a Journal

Notice the Small Things With a Small Herd of Friesian and Falabella Horses in the southwest of France

What Horses Can Teach Us About Listening with Self-Awareness