47. Listen To The Horses

Courntey Maum is not only a talented writer, but an experienced Horse Girl. Today she shares some of the important life lessons she’s learned from riding horses. Her latest book is all about her relationship with horses, and is called The Year Of The Horses. This is an excerpt of the Terrible, Thanks For Asking episode, ‘Courtney’s Secret Garden’. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay.

Nora: Come on. Come on. Let me pet you.

Nora: Let me pet you. But miniature horse. That was a miniature horse breathing into the mic.

Nora: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa. What? What? One. Oh, right.

Nora: Can your donkeys come here? Oh. Oh, do it again. Okay. There we go. Got some donkey fans.

Nora: That’s… it’s a very big horse.

That’s me at a farm in October 2022. I was there to interview a writer named Courtney Maum about horses. Horses are not my thing. But they are Courtney’s. And after spending a day with her…I kinda understand why.

Courtney Maum: when you’re with a horse, I mean, especially if you’re at a pretty bucolic place. Horses, they just want to have food, water and shelter and some friends.

Courtney Maum: Which we lose track of that as humans, where we start to think like, I need a foot massage or I need a ring light, right? Or whatever the fuck. I need an organic mayonnaise. We lose track of the fact that we need food, shelter, friendship, water. But everything else is a cherry on top money, unfortunately, that comes in. But I see that with food. And, you know, if I spent all my life just online, I might have suicidal ideations. It’s pretty easy to convince yourself that things are very bad. And that, you know. The writing’s on the wall and world’s coming to an end. You don’t have to. You can get that with two clicks on Google. Right. And find lots of proof to back it up. But if you spend time with animals and, you know, I’m very lucky I live in a rural place, I have access to a horse, I’m super lucky. But you lot of people get this with their dog. They get it with a cat. You can live in an apartment with five roommates, your dog, the way your animal looks at you, the love, the unconditional love and the trust that they’re putting in you. How happy they are about a walk. These are little reminders like chill the fuck out. You haven’t you know, you got terrible roommates. One of them is gross and keeps bringing things off the street. You know, like he lives on a mattress that has bedbugs, and that sucks, but. Do you have a job that you don’t hate? Every single day. You know, like you got friends you really enjoy. You’ve got goals you’re working towards. And for the moment, you’re.

Courtney Maum: Still alive.

Courtney Maum: For the moment. We have water. And you do have to do things to make sure that, you know, be responsible with the planet. But there is still so much I don’t know when I’m with the horses, when I go to the front, I just think like, fuck nature. Mother Nature is like.

Courtney Maum: Just this crazy genius artist.

Courtney Maum: This is so beautiful. These animals are so beautiful. The trust that I’m like my. This is incredible. What a gift to be alive and have this level of relationship with such a large animal. I can’t believe this animal is obeying me or listening to me or even allowing me to spend time, much less get on its back. Like, Oh my gosh, I’m getting to walk down a road listening to the footsteps of this horse. How lucky am I? This is. This is incredible. And all the other problems fade away. Because the problem is, especially if you’re on horseback and you start thinking negative thoughts, the horse will, like, throw you, you know, the sense, the difference in your heart rate when you start to get stressed out. They could tell if your cortisol is rising and they get really tense and they’ll think that a monster is coming. Because you’re worried about something they can’t see. So. Because they can’t see it. It’s even more worrisome to them. So the horse is always going to want you to be calm. And that’s what’s amazing for me and that’s what’s so healing about horses for me is. They remind me not just to be calm, but that I have access to that and that I have access to things that can be I should be incredibly grateful for and that everything I have already right now is enough. I don’t. I don’t even need to achieve what like. Everything I have is more than enough. And I have such a great lucky life and I could just spend the rest of my life being grateful for what I have right now. And that would be enough.

There’s a full interview with Courtney on our other podcast, Terrible, Thanks for Asking. It’s called Courtney’s Secret Garden. We’ll also have a link to her book – The Year of the Horses – in the show description.