Peggy holding Roxy on a halter and Sunset nuzzling her hand

A path to healing

I’ve spent much of my life in the relentless pursuit of success—whether it was in sports, academics, raising my daughters, or building St. Helena Olive Oil Co. I lived by the thrill of taking risks, by the drive to achieve. And yet, in 2015, everything shifted in a heartbeat. A car accident left me with a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), and in an instant, I became a stranger to myself. The sharp edges of my once-clear world blurred, and the symptoms that followed felt like a distant separation from who I once knew myself to be. Contrary to what the doctors assured me, 30 days passed, and I didn’t get better. I got worse.

The body speaks to us in whispers, and sometimes it takes something profound to listen. The turning point in my recovery came through a neuropsychologist who didn’t just see my brain as a puzzle to solve—he saw the whole picture. He said something that shifted the trajectory of my healing: to recover, I needed to tend to not just my physical body but my emotional body. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the depth of that message, but I was ready to surrender to a process that would take me deeper into myself.

Through nervous system education, cognitive therapy, and plant and energy medicines, I began to unearth the layers that needed healing. This journey wasn’t about pushing to regain what I had lost but about opening to a more expansive understanding of life itself. Letting go of my 25-year-old business—my production facility and retail stores—was an invitation to let go of the person I thought I needed to be.

Two years into this process, I was met with another catalyst—a California wildfire that took almost everything. I escaped with my dogs but left behind the remnants of the life I had known. Moving to Santa Barbara, near my children, marked the beginning of another chapter. It was there that I found ImagineX and underwent a brain bootcamp, a significant step toward healing through functional medicine. Yoga teacher training grounded me further, aligning the pieces of my journey.

But it wasn’t until I met Roxy, a warmblood mare in the Eastern Sierras, that I understood the depth of nervous system regulation. Roxy was a mirror for me—anxious, unsettled, burdened by her own trauma. Yet, through working with her—first at a distance, then in meditative presence—I began to see the incredible capacity of the body to heal when given the space and support to do so. The Trust Technique by James French became a powerful tool for both of us, and as Roxy found regulation, so did I.

Eventually, Roxy and I moved to Tucson, AZ, where I established Congruence Tucson, a sanctuary for horses and humans alike. Our herd—each one with their own story of dysregulation and healing—has become a living example of how deeply interconnected our healing is with the world around us. As we’ve created harmony within our herd, we’ve opened our space to guide others seeking the same alignment.

My journey has taught me that true resilience is not about going back to what was, or even pushing through the challenges. It is about listening. It is about evolving. Just as nature continuously adapts and thrives, resilience is the capacity to shift, grow, and flow with life’s invitations. I don’t believe we are not meant to ever return to a former version of ourselves but to emerge into a fuller, more aligned, and profoundly connected version of who we are becoming.