Slow is the Fastest Way

If you were to walk past the paddock where the horses and I spend our days, you might wonder if we’re doing anything at all. You’d likely see me sitting quietly near them, or standing in silence, just breathing. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much.

No halter. No grooming tools. No checklist of tasks.

In a traditional horseman’s sense, it might look like “nothing.” But in truth, this is everything. Each slow moment of presence, each quiet breath, is building the foundation of safety and trust that no quick fix could ever create.

Horses teach us something profound: that slow is the fastest way.

In our own lives, we’re often tempted to believe the opposite. We get a health scare and suddenly swear off alcohol, sugar, or meat in one dramatic swoop. Or we promise ourselves that this time we’ll change everything at once- exercise daily, meditate, clean up our diet, wake up at 5am, all starting Monday.

Sometimes storms in life do push us into big swings, and they can serve us in the moment. But more often than not, those radical overhauls fizzle out. They’re exhausting to sustain.

What truly lasts are the small, steady shifts. The shifts so subtle you hardly notice them until you look back and see how far you’ve come.

When I reflect on my own life, I see this truth clearly. I didn’t adopt Skye and immediately uproot everything to move to the mountains. That might have made sense, but that’s not how it unfolded.

Instead, change came slowly:

• Learning her language
• Building relationships in the community.
• Planting the seeds of a business.

One step at a time, I inched closer to the life I live now – one where my horses are my daily companions and teachers. It wasn’t a single bold leap, but a series of small, consistent choices that moved me forward.

With horses, slow is not optional. It is the way trust is earned. They don’t measure progress by what we do but by how we are.

The horse I am working with doesn’t need me to show them a checklist of training tasks. They need to feel that I am safe. That I won’t rush. That I’ll stay steady no matter what. And so, we breathe. We stand. We let time itself weave the relationship. What looks like “nothing” to the outside world is actually the deepest work of all.

So I wonder:

• Where in your own life are you pushing for a big, sweeping change?
• Where are you straining to leap forward in one dramatic move?
•  What would it look like instead to choose one small, slow, consistent shift?

Because just like with horses, those invisible moments of steady presence add up. And when you glance back months or years later, you may be astonished by the distance you’ve traveled.

From the outside, slowness looks like stillness. But beneath the surface, transformation is happening. With horses. With us.

Slow is the fastest way.

Dedicated to Skye, whose spirit still breathes through every moment of stillness with the horses, reminding me that presence is love in its purest form.