Frank began coughing beside a veteran. The sound was sudden, persistent, and unusual enough for Brenda Westwood to notice at once: her horse rarely coughed. As Frank walked past the man, Brenda asked, "What is stuck in your throat? What is it you want to say that you haven't been able to say?"
What is stuck in your throat? What is it you want to say that you haven't been able to say?
The man said it. Frank stopped coughing.
That moment complicates the comforting idea that insight is enough. We can name a pattern, trace its origin, and understand why it no longer serves us, yet keep making the same choice. We return to the unhealthy relationship. We people please when we meant to set a boundary. We start rescuing and fixing after promising ourselves we would stop. The mind may understand the old story while the body continues to live inside it.
I can recognize a pattern and still repeat it
Brenda knows this tension well. Before founding Horse Sense Healing and becoming a master equine gestaltist, she went to therapy and attended Codependents Anonymous, trying to understand why she repeatedly chose unhealthy relationships. She had what she calls "light bulb moments and ahas." Some patterns changed in her personal life, then appeared again in situations at work.
I recognize that experience from my own history of unhealthy relationships and people pleasing. Recognition can feel like freedom at first: now I see what I am doing. But seeing is not the same as finishing. Brenda believes old stories live in our bodies, often beyond our awareness. We can think our way through new strategies and coping mechanisms while an unfinished part of the story continues to direct our reactions.
Brenda believes old stories live in our bodies, often beyond our awareness.
Some stories begin before we can question them. Brenda describes children as little sponges until about eight years old, absorbing what they witness between parents or caregivers. A child may watch a mother continually put aside her needs and quietly learn that love requires self-erasure. Brenda calls these absorbed messages "introjects." They become patterns without ever being conscious decisions.
This changes how I understand repetition. Falling into an old pattern does not necessarily mean I learned nothing or failed to heal. Brenda still feels the impulse to rescue and fix, but she now catches herself. That pause matters. Awareness interrupts the old story before it takes over, leaving room for a different choice.
Frank's cough turned an unspoken story into a question
Before Frank began coughing, the veteran had been grooming a horse. When Brenda asked what he was experiencing, his first concern was whether he was doing it correctly, or well enough. A simple interaction had already exposed a question of self-worth. Then, as the work turned toward different parts of the self, Frank stood beside him and began to cough.
No one restrained Frank or directed him to perform. In Brenda's work, horses remain at liberty rather than on a lead rope. They have a choice and are treated as equal partners, not tools. The horse can approach, move away, yawn, roll, shake, or respond to what is happening without being forced into contact.
Brenda treated Frank's unusual coughing as a prompt, not a diagnosis. What was stuck in the man's throat? What had he been unable to say? Once he spoke, Frank stopped. The horse's behavior brought the unspoken issue to the surface as a question the man could answer.
Brenda says horses are highly attuned to whether a person is authentic and congruent. When someone's outward presentation does not match what is happening in the body, a horse may avoid that person. Full emotional expression does not necessarily make someone unsafe to a horse. The mismatch can be the larger problem. The person need not perform calmness, but must be honest about what is already there.
There is an important boundary around the language used for this work. Although people may casually call it equine therapy, Brenda identifies herself as a gestaltist or coach, not a therapist. Gestalt brings what lies outside awareness into view so unfinished business can be experienced, voiced, and finished. The horse may help reveal where the story is held, while Brenda uses her observations to shape her questions.
Healing the story means taking away its charge
A 15 year old girl came to work with Brenda alongside her mother. The girl was experiencing suicidal ideation and recognized her perfectionism. She did not feel like a good enough daughter, student, athlete, or sister. When Brenda asked the mother whether those words sounded familiar, the answer came immediately. They did.
Brenda created what gestalt calls an "experiment." The daughter returned the perfectionism, lack of self-worth, and other stories she had carried to her mother. A volunteer handler then represented the grandmother, allowing the mother to pass those stories back in turn. Together, they considered a new message that could move forward from their ancestors.
No one denied what had happened. No one pretended the pattern had never existed or told the girl to simply move on. They made a generational pattern visible. They gave form and language to what had been carried, then created the experience of no longer having to carry it in the same way.
Brenda's own old story told her that she had to rescue, people please, or fix to be loved, especially in relationships with men. Healing does not erase the girl she once was, including the teenage mom with a ninth grade education who later earned her GED. It lets Brenda meet that younger part of herself and remind her that they are not there anymore.
This is the difference between remembering and reliving. Unfinished business keeps us reactive. The stomach tightens, a headache begins, we shut down, or we reach for another response before we understand what has taken hold. Once an experience loses its charge, the memory can remain without running the present. We have room to respond instead of react.
Once an experience loses its charge, the memory can remain without running the present.
"You are not your story" does not mean the past is irrelevant. It means the past need not remain the hidden authority behind every relationship, boundary, or act of self-abandonment. The first step may be self-compassion: recognizing that the pattern once helped some part of us survive, then allowing that part to discover another way. Brenda calls this living your grit with grace. The old self does not need to be crushed, and the old story no longer gets to do the crushing.