Meeting Alicia VanderGriend Felt Like Meeting a Forgotten Part of Myself
There are some interviews you schedule because they make sense for your platform.
And then there are interviews that arrive like mirrors.
The conversation I had with Alicia VanderGriend was never just another podcast episode for The Legendary Edition. From the first minutes of speaking with her, something unexpected happened to me. I stopped interviewing as a host and started remembering as a woman.
Because there are certain people who do not simply speak to your mind.
They awaken parts of you that you thought were sleeping forever.
And Alicia did that to me.
The moment she began speaking about horses, about identity, about losing herself and finding herself again, I could feel something ancient waking up inside of me. Not business. Not strategy. Not visibility. Something much older than that.
The little Rita.
The teenage Rita.
The girl who spent her life on the back of a horse.
The girl who understood freedom before she even understood language for it.
There are very few people in the coaching industry speaking to women the way Alicia does. Most people today teach performance. Optimization. Productivity. Scaling. But Alicia speaks about something much more dangerous and much more honest.
Coming back to yourself.
And the truth is, women who ride horses understand this differently than everyone else.
Horsewomen are a very special breed of women.
They know how to fall. They know how to get back up.
They know fear.
They know instinct.
They know what it means to hold power with softness.
And they understand something most people in the modern world forgot a long time ago: you cannot lie to a horse.
A horse reacts to your energy, the invisible way you show up,before your thoughts can become words or actions.A horse does not care about your followers, your branding, your social media strategy, your status, or your image.
A horse only responds to truth, and what is happening in the present moment.
And maybe that is why women who ride become the kind of women who eventually cannot lie to themselves anymore either.
During our conversation, I had moments where I almost forgot I was supposed to be hosting the podcast at all. I interrupted Alicia more than once because every sentence she spoke was opening doors in my own memory.
I remembered dust.
Sunset rides.
The silence of ranches.
The smell of leather.
The feeling of trusting an animal more than most humans.
And I remembered the kind of happiness that only exists when you are completely connected to yourself.
That kind of happiness cannot be faked.
You either know it or you do not.
And Alicia knows it.
What moved me deeply about her story is not only that she returned to horses after years away from them. It is the honesty with which she speaks about losing herself along the way.
For twenty-five years, Alicia helped build the visions of other people as a project manager and marine biologist. She became known for securing millions of dollars for whale research, ocean conservation, and environmental projects through compelling storytelling, strategic leadership, and an ability to bring ideas to life.
She loved the work itself.
The animals.
The research.
The fieldwork.
The research writing.
The compelling proposals.
The challenge of turning vision into reality and inspiring others to believe in it too.
But somewhere inside a system where achievement never quite felt finished, where recognition always seemed tied to another credential, another publication, another level to reach, she slowly began disconnecting from herself.
Like so many high-performing women, she kept functioning beautifully from the outside while overriding what her body had been trying to say for years.
Until eventually, her body spoke louder.
Exhaustion.
Fibromyalgia.
Grief.
Disconnection.
Not because she was weak.
Because no one can live indefinitely disconnected from themselves and still feel fully alive.
And maybe the most painful thing of all: walking away from the very thing that once made her feel alive.
Her horses.
When she spoke about losing her “heart horse,” I could hear something in her voice that cannot be performed. Real grief has a frequency. You recognize it immediately when someone has truly loved something deeply enough to lose part of themselves with it.
For years, she stayed away from that world.
And then life did something beautiful.
It called her back.
Not in a clean Hollywood movie way.
Not perfectly.
Not comfortably.
But honestly.
Alicia returned to horses in 2020. She bought the “wrong horse,” as she laughingly says now. This purchase made her question why she even returned to horses. As horsewomen do, she was determined to find the right horse, and she found four. In 2025 she broke her leg getting off a horse she loved.
And, this time period of mandatory stillness was the answer she needed.
And somewhere between the horse, the body, and the silence she had spent years outrunning, Alicia began finding her way back. She built her coaching business.
From her lawn.
With a broken leg.
That detail stayed with me long after our conversation ended.
Because there is something deeply symbolic about a woman sitting in the middle of physical pain and emotional defeat refusing to abandon herself again.
Most people wait until life looks perfect before allowing themselves to begin.
Alicia did the opposite.
She built in the middle of the mess.
And honestly?
That is exactly why women trust her.
Because women today are exhausted by perfection.
They are exhausted by polished performances pretending to be healing.
They are exhausted by industries trying to convince them that empowerment means becoming harder, colder, faster, louder, or more disconnected from themselves.
Alicia offers something different.
care of everyone else. Women who became mothers, partners, professionals, caretakers, builders, survivors.
Women who suddenly wake up one day and realize they no longer recognize themselves. And remember they once had a dream, and it included horses.
And the most beautiful part about Alicia is that she does not speak to these women with pity.
She speaks to them with respect.
She sees their power.
She understands their grief.
But she also understands their fire.
Because women who ride horses never fully lose that fire.
You can bury it.
You can ignore it.
You can abandon it for years.
But it waits for you.
And the moment you reconnect with it, everything changes.
There was something else I noticed while speaking with Alicia.
Calmness.
Not weakness.
Not passivity.
Real calmness.
The kind of calmness that comes from someone who has already survived enough to stop needing to prove themselves every second.
That energy is incredibly rare today.
Especially online.
Most people are screaming for attention.
Alicia does not scream.
She simply speaks from truth.
And somehow that becomes louder than everyone else.
She reminds women that healing is not becoming someone else.
It is returning to who you were before survival made you disappear.
That message matters deeply right now.
Especially for women in their forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies and even 80s, who are quietly watching time move faster than they expected. Women who spent decades taking care of everyone else. Women who became mothers, partners, professionals, caretakers, builders, survivors.
Women who suddenly wake up one day and realize they no longer recognize themselves. And remember they once had a dream, and it included horses.
And the most beautiful part about Alicia is that she does not speak to these women with pity.
She speaks to them with respect.
She sees their power.
She understands their grief.
But she also understands their fire.
Because women who ride horses never fully lose that fire.
You can bury it.
You can ignore it.
You can abandon it for years.
But it waits for you.
And the moment you reconnect with it, everything changes.
There was something else I noticed while speaking with Alicia.
Calmness.
Not weakness.
Not passivity.
Real calmness.
The kind of calmness that comes from someone who has already survived enough to stop needing to prove themselves every second.
That energy is incredibly rare today.
Especially online.
Most people are screaming for attention.
Alicia does not scream.
She simply speaks from truth.
And somehow that becomes louder than everyone else.
The coaching world desperately needs more women like her.
Women rooted in lived experience instead of recycled motivation.
Women who understand nervous systems, grief, identity, and healing not because they read about it once in a book but because life forced them to learn it.
Women who still believe softness can coexist with strength.
Women who know how to lead without dominating.
Women who understand that healing is not linear and that returning to yourself is not a one-time event.
It is a practice.
That sentence alone may be one of the most powerful things spoken on our podcast this year.
“Coming back to yourself is not a moment. It is a practice.”
I think so many women need to hear that right now because the modern world has sold them a fantasy that healing should happen quickly and neatly. But real healing is messy. Real healing circles back. Real healing asks you to meet yourself over and over again in new seasons of life.
The mess challenges you to take the first step toward your dream life, in an honest and unexpected way, and that you don’t have to do it all by yourself. And that you don’t have to do it without a plan.
And perhaps that is why horses become such profound teachers.
They do not allow fragmentation.
The horse immediately knows when you are disconnected from yourself.
And maybe that is why Alicia’s work feels so different than traditional coaching.
She is not trying to “fix” women.
And she is not promising perfection, healing, or transformation overnight.
Her work is about helping horsewomen reconnect with themselves through consistent practices that support steadiness, self-awareness, confidence, and well-being.
Because so many women already know what to do.
They simply have not had space, support, or structure to fully return to themselves inside lives that constantly demand more from them.
Through movement, mindfulness, and daily rhythms, Alicia helps women create lives and riding experiences that feel more grounded, connected, and sustainable. Not by rescuing them.
Not by doing the work for them.
But by helping them remember they are allowed to participate in their own lives again.
That changes everything.
What also touched me personally was the realization that horsewomen share an unspoken language. Even after years away from riding, hearing Alicia speak brought me back to parts of myself I had forgotten were still alive.
Women who ride understand determination differently.
If a horsewoman says she is going to do something, she usually does it.
You cannot easily tell her “no.”
You cannot convince her to quit once her heart decides otherwise.
She knows what fear feels like and she moves anyway.
She knows how to get back on after falling.
And perhaps most importantly, she understands partnership instead of control.
That is why so many horsewomen become extraordinary leaders later in life. They learn emotional intelligence long before most people even realize what it is.
Listening to Alicia felt like sitting across from someone who had fought hard to come back to herself and who now dedicates her life helping other women do the same.
And honestly, there is something deeply sacred about that.
In a world obsessed with becoming more, Alicia reminds women how powerful it is to finally come home to themselves, and build a life that actually feels like theirs.
That is why meeting her affected me so personally.
That is why this article became emotional for me to write.
Because this was never simply about a coach.
This was about remembering the wildness, softness, resilience, and truth that so many women buried beneath survival.
Maybe that is why meeting Alicia feels so familiar to so many women.
Not because she gives them someone new to become, but because she reminds them of the parts of themselves they have been trying to find their way back to all along.
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