Building the Muscles of Agency

The thing with agency is, it’s not necessarily a straight line. It isn’t so much a smooth, paved path or a one-time destination. It is more like a muscle. And like any muscle, if you haven't used it for heavy lifting in a while, the first time you put it to work, it’s going to feel awkward, shaky, and perhaps a bit exhausting.

The other thing is, when you start to reclaim your agency, the road often gets bumpier before it gets smoother. In those moments, it can be incredibly tempting to backpedal. Your internal monologue—and sometimes the people around you—might whisper, “Let’s just go back to the way things were. It was easier then. Let’s just forget about this shift.”

But the problem is that when we "forget about it" to keep the peace, we aren't just pausing our progress; we are actually training ourselves to stay small.

I had a reminder of this yesterday with Luna.

Luna was helping me with the afternoon chores, which involved riding out to the estuary to bring the other horses back to the ranch, one by one. It’s repetitive work: out, back, out, back. By the end of the chores, Luna was done with the whole idea. She doesn’t particularly like having other horses in her space, and she was ready for her dinner.

But I knew she still had a lot of pent-up energy, and we have a big cabalgata (an all-day ride) coming up with steep inclines. I figured that actually going out for a short trail ride before the sun set would be the best thing for her fitness and for our work together come the day of the cabalgata.

As we headed back out toward the trails, Luna realized we weren’t going right back to the ranch. She began to make it very clear that her plan did not align with mine.

Now, the thing is, in horsemanship, you strive for a partnership, not domination. It isn’t about "forcing" a horse into submission. But there is also a balance. Luna began very clearly "pointing" with her head toward the ranch. “Can’t you see? Dinner is that way,” she seemed to say. With each move of her head, I gently steered her back to the trail.

At one point, we picked up a canter. I felt the flow and reached for my phone to take a quick video. In that split second of my distracted focus, Luna seized the opportunity and veered hard toward an offshoot trail that led straight home. In the past, that kind of move might have thrown me off balance. But Luna and I have over a decade together now, and I have learned to blend my energy with hers rather than be thrown off by it. So, I just laughed, brought my hands and my focus back to the task, and gently led her back to the path in front of us.

This went on for a few minutes. Luna was "testing" the reins—not out of disrespect or "ornery" behavior, but simply to see if there was any give in the direction. She wanted to see: Is the boundary real? Is the plan firm? Are you really going to follow through with this?

I didn't need to get mad. I didn’t need to yank the reins or chastise her. What was called for was simply presence and clarity. A steady message that said: “I am here. I am leading. This is where we are going.”

This is exactly what reclaiming agency looks like in our lives.

Whether it’s in a relationship with someone else or the relationship we have with ourselves, agency is that gentle, firm, clear direction that says: “I am going this way.” It is the ability to hold that boundary even when the "veering" starts—even when the other person tests to see if we really mean it, or our own old habits tug us toward the "ranch" of our comfort zone.

Reclaiming your agency is not a switch you flip; it is a practice you inhabit. It’s a series of small, intentional choices to keep your hands on the reins and your eyes on the trail, even when the "easy" path is calling your name.

If you feel like your "agency muscles" are a bit tired, or if you’re finding it hard to hold the reins when the road gets bumpy, I invite you to join us on February 8th for my workshop: Take the Reins: Reclaiming Your Agency.

We will explore how to develop that presence and clarity, learning how to blend with the resistance rather than be thrown by it. Agency is a muscle—and we build it better when we work out together.