Twenty-five years ago, Chris Lombard had never been around horses. He was going through a breakup, standing in a barn, when he looked into a horse’s eyes and saw something that changed everything.
Not excitement. Not fear. Just contentment. A state of being fully present, fully at peace with life as it was.
That moment set Chris on a path he never could have planned. Today, he’s known across the US as someone who helps people and horses find connection. But the real story isn’t about mastering horses. It’s about following your heart with a period after that sentence. No attachment to outcomes. No thought of where it would lead. Just trust.
This fall, I sat with Chris in his backyard in Maine. We built a fire, talked about horses, masculinity, vulnerability, and the dance between love and fear. What emerged was one of the most grounded conversations about what it means to be human I’ve ever had.
Life Doesn’t Know It’s Big
About halfway through our conversation, Chris said something that really resonated:
“You could take out the word horse and put in the word life. Life. We think that it’s big. Life doesn’t know it’s big. We think it’s a big deal. We think, oh boy, we want to get this right. And we don’t want to have anything go wrong. Life doesn’t know it’s big though. Life is going to be whatever we make of it.”
This is what Chris has learned from horses. That our fear of life being too big is what makes it overwhelming. That trying to control life, to dominate it into a shape that feels safe, is exactly what creates suffering.
Horses don’t let you get away with that. If you approach them with force, with that need to control, they flee. They fight. They mirror back exactly what you’re bringing.
But if you approach with presence, with softness, with genuine connection, they open right up. They seek you. They offer everything.
It’s a perfect metaphor for how so many men approach life itself.
The Masculine Trap
Chris spoke honestly about the trap so many men fall into. The belief that we always have to be doing. Providing. Protecting. Building. Acquiring.
“The busyness that you feel like you have to be in. We feel like we always got to be doing. Because that’s how we can best serve, is in that way of kind of providing.”
This is fear-based masculinity in action. The belief that our worth comes from productivity, from never stopping, from holding up that boulder of expectation no matter how heavy it gets.
Chris knows this intimately because he lived it. He talked about how he used to hold up this identity of being “the guy who’s good with horses.” How he needed that recognition to feel loved and worthy. How that attachment to being seen a certain way got in the way of actually connecting.
The real work, he discovered, was getting himself out of the way. Becoming what he calls a “hollow bone.” Letting love flow through without trying to control where it goes or what it achieves.
Embracing the Feminine
One of the most powerful parts of our conversation was when Chris talked about feminine energy.
“Young Chris in the 80s, if you’d asked him if he had a lot of feminine energy, that would be nothing I would have said back then. My friends would have been pretty intimidated by that and scared by what that would mean. Now, I feel very proud to say that.”
This isn’t about being less masculine. It’s about recognizing that the creative, intuitive, connective, compassionate side of ourselves is just as essential as the grounded, steady, protective side.
Chris learned this from horses. Because horses, for all their strength and power, only open up when you approach from that softer, more present place. The masculine side alone isn’t enough. You need both energies working together.
For men who’ve been conditioned to reject anything that feels “soft” or “emotional,” this is profound work. And it’s exactly the kind of expansion that can move us from fear to love.
The Boulder of Vulnerability
Near the end of our conversation, Chris shared an image that perfectly captures the transformation he’s describing:
“What happens is all of a sudden that big boulder, it gets smaller and you’re not making it smaller with your strength. You’re making it smaller with your vulnerability. And that your vulnerability, that boulder shifts to something you stand on. When it shifts to vulnerability, you’re now standing on that boulder and it lifts you up higher.”
This is one of the core truths I keep encountering in these conversations. That vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s the strongest thing we can do.
Because when we stop trying to hold up that boulder of who we think we need to be, when we let ourselves be seen in our uncertainty and our not-knowing, something shifts. We stop being crushed by expectations. We start standing on them.
And when others see us doing this, it gives them permission to do the same.
Why This Matters
This conversation is part of my Heart-Strong Adventure, a year-long exploration of where love and fear show up in our world, especially in the lives of men.
Chris’s journey with horses is really a journey of unlearning fear-based ways of being and learning to lead with love instead. It’s about presence over productivity. Connection over control. Vulnerability as the path to real strength.
These aren’t just nice ideas. They’re the actual work of healing. And for men, who are so often conditioned to reject these ways of being, this work is revolutionary.
If Chris’s story sparked something in you, I’d love to hear about it. And if someone comes to mind who might need to hear this, please share it with them.
Because the stories we tell each other around the fire have always been how we change.
Learn more about the Heart-Strong Adventure: heart-strong.org
For more about Chris and his work: chrislombard.com
