I made a comment recently that I have really had to sit with. “Real, genuine care doesn’t have to, nor does it want to, advertise itself.”
That lines keeps echoing around in my mind. It brushes up against so much of what our world esteems: the polished, the performative, the perfectly curated version of care.
In a Bible study recently, we were asked to name the kinds of people we find hardest to love. My list came easily. Performers, pretenders, controllers, energy drainers. The curators of the world. The ones who are always manipulating, who can make anything feel staged.
I live and work in spaces where connection is everything. Where authenticity is not optional. Horses have been my greatest teachers in that.
The very first thing a horse ever taught me was: “be genuine, or get out of my space.”
I remember one of the first times I really understood that lesson. I went to approach a new rescue horse, calm on the exterior, but absolutely buzzing with nervous energy on the inside. That mare didn’t even look at me twice before she high-tailed it away from me- a clear “I don’t buy what you’re selling”. I had to breathe, soften, show up honestly, and match steps with her for many days before she was willing to meet me in the middle. Horses don’t respond to performance, they respond to truth.
The second? “Control is an illusion. You can think about that while you eat a mouthful of dirt.”
Both lessons, taught many times over many years, have knocked me flat in more ways than one. And both have shaped how I see people.
When one part of your life, horses, is built around real, nonverbal, heart-level connection, anything less than that anywhere else in your life sounds the alarm bells. You can feel when something isn’t true. You can see when someone’s care is more for show than for relationship.
Maybe that’s why performative care unsettles me so deeply. Because I’ve lived under it. I’ve loved someone who mastered the art of pretending. Saying the right things, curating the right image, all while withholding anything real. That kind of false care and connection wounds deeply and makes you crave authenticity like oxygen.
And I think that’s why I’ve learned to lean into the quiet kind of love; the kind that doesn’t need to be seen to be real. The kind that doesn’t posture, doesn’t prove, doesn’t perform.
Genuine care, like a steady horse, carries its own quiet confidence. It doesn’t need to make a scene to be known.
Jesus’ care was rarely loud, but it was always real. When He healed, He often told people not to tell anyone. When He served, He knelt.
That’s the kind of love we should all want to live out- the kind that doesn’t need an audience. The kind that moves with grace, not performance. The kind that feels like peace, not pressure.
I’m still learning how to soften toward the performers. The ones who maybe haven’t yet felt safe enough to be real. But I’ll keep choosing the genuine, even if it’s quieter. Because that’s where connection, and center, live.
“Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.” 1 John 3:18
Centered Path Equine 