The Signal of Bad Tired:

A Reflection on Horses, Communication, and Attunement

It was years ago when I first realized that perhaps ‘bad tired’ was actually a signal. By ‘bad tired,’ I mean that specific feeling of being depleted, of being run ragged, of having absolutely nothing left in the tank.

A signal? Yes. It’s strange, but whenever I think about this, I picture myself in a CVS parking lot in the late afternoon. Perhaps that is where the realization first landed. I was in the thick of ‘bad tired’—cranky, depleted, and frustrated. “I wonder,” I thought to myself, “if this is trying to tell me something?”

The awareness didn’t come all at once. But that day, ever so gently, I began to notice that rather than getting angry at myself for being in this state, I could view it as my body—my being—trying to communicate with me.

It reminds me, of course, of a story with horses.

I recently met someone who has come to horses later in life and finds himself with a young, energetic mare. He reminds me of myself when Luna, my first mare, came into my life. I never really intended to be a ‘horse person,’ but suddenly I was an owner, trying to figure out what that looked like. This new acquaintance is convinced that his horse ‘doesn’t like him.’ It is hard for him because he loves her. But when he approaches, she turns her head away, or if she is at liberty, she runs. He sees this as a personal rejection, but I’m not sure that’s the case.

The other day, she was roaming freely in the large corral. It was time to put the horses back into their stalls, so I approached her with a halter. She was not having it. As I walked toward her, she pinned her ears and shifted her weight away. I stopped immediately.

“Oh, sorry,” I said to her. “I was coming on too strong, wasn’t I?”

As soon as I stopped and acknowledged her communication, she stopped too. She tilted her head toward me, looking almost surprised. It was a moment of mutual acknowledgment: me acknowledging her discomfort, her acknowledging my acknowledgment, and me acknowledging her acknowledging my acknowledgment. It’s a mouthful! But it is a technique I learned from horseman Warwick Schiller, and I’d never had the chance to try it in such a perfect situation before.

Once that mutual acknowledgment happened, I said, “I’m going to come a little bit closer.” I moved, and she pricked her ears slightly. I stopped again, acknowledged her, and she did the same. This happened a few more times until finally, she lowered her head, extended it toward me, sniffed my hand, and let me put the halter on. It took only a matter of minutes. Had I pushed through and forced her, it would have taken much longer and damaged our trust.

Back to the CVS parking lot. I realize now that feeling ‘bad tired,’ instead of being something ‘wrong,’ is actually something right. It isn’t a sign of failure; it is a system working exactly as it should—a communication letting me know that things are not okay. My body doesn't "dislike" me, just as the horse didn't "dislike" her owner. It just needed me to listen.

‘Bad tired’ is a warning system that something is out of balance. Maybe we are overextending. Maybe we need more rest. Maybe we need to feel our own empowerment—our capacity to effect change in our lives. Instead of being luxury, that feeling needs to be heard. It is not a "once and for all" fix; it is a practice. Time in the saddle, as they say.

Just yesterday, I had a ‘bad tired’ flare-up. It felt like it came out of nowhere. I felt the symptoms: frustration, triggers, impotence. I felt the energy surging in the back of my neck, my throat tightening, my mind spinning over a triggering situation. But instead of calling myself ‘ornery,’ I stopped. I listened. I realized my body was trying to be seen.

And the amazing thing? Once I gave voice to it—once I showed my inner self that I was paying attention and acting on that attention—the energy changed. It lowered its head, sniffed my hand, and let me lead it back to the stall.

I began to realize, the breakthrough in both of these stories—the mare in the corral and me in the CVS parking lot—is in the shift from judgment to curiosity.

My acquaintance thinks the horse "doesn't like him," just as I used to think my "bad tired" meant something was fundamentally wrong with me. But when we treat a triggered state as a vital communication rather than a character flaw, the entire dynamic shifts. By acknowledging the "pinned ears" of our own nervous system, we remove the shame that keeps the energy locked in our necks. We stop fighting the horse, and finally, we begin to move together.