About me
I’m Rachel Parsons.
I help people and horses heal, look forward and thrive.
I've lost my confidence 3 times and suffered from anxiety for years.
I have learnt that confidence is a journey that anyone can learn. It's not mythical or about talent, it's about brain patterns and practical skill.
Anyone can learn to change - even if it feels hard at times.
I’ve lost and rebuilt my own confidence with horses 3 times—the 4th time – unrelated to horses – almost broke me. That last experience caused me to struggle for many years. From the outside most people didn’t know. I masked my pain, self doubt, fear and stress. As a single-parent I had to just keep going. It wasn’t easy.
What I learned is this: we can rewire our nervous systems, our patterns can shift, and we can grow braver, calmer, and more resilient—at any stage of life.
Every clinic, I see people and horses teaching each other. A rider who feels anxious but finds her breath again. A horse once labelled “dangerous” who softens under a new kind of leadership. These are not just horsemanship lessons—they are life lessons.
For me, it is a privilege to stand in that space: holding calm, guiding change, and reminding people that progress is possible, one step at a time – in and out of the saddle.
In my early twenties, I spent six years in Australia’s High Country, cattle mustering, colt-starting, and catching wild horses. I learned from both old cowboys and progressive horsewomen—a steep and unforgettable education.
Back in the UK, I collaborated with BHS Fellow Joanna Day to rehabilitate top event horses with behavioural problems. It was rewarding, but the methods of the time often felt ethically uncomfortable. Disillusioned, I stepped away from public horse work for almost two decades.
I used this time to learn coaching – and spent 20 years learning Neuro Linguistic Programming – a highly dynamic coaching practice that focuses on rebuilding limiting beliefs, land learning new ways into mind and body excellence. My clients were corporate leaders, mums, dads, riders, people with anxiety, frustrations, family challenges, and all wanting a better way to be.
In that time I kept working with troubled horses and coaching people but not marketed myself at all and kept it as a quiet side-hustle.
But in 2024 on a visit to Joanna Lowes training yard (Jo is a great family friend) – she asked me to help with clients who were anxious and needed more support. We discussed what might be useful and the “How to Train Your Dragons” courses were born – pretty much on the spot!
In the first year, (to Nov 25) we have since trained over 350 people with 100% saying they would return and we’ve really helped build their confidence and skills.
I have also started Natural Horsemanship Training and Rehab’ again, plus marketing my online coaching and take up to 6 clients at a time.
This work isn’t my main role – I am a Sustainability Consultant for Tourism industry – but it is a growing and wonderful part of my life and definitely the most fun!
If you would like help, or to talk about support – do email me:
rachel@thewhatifdepartment.co.uk
If you want it. You'll be able to do it. Change and 'turnarounds' are totally possible.
Every month I see amazing and profound changes.
It's not myth. It's not talent. It's choice, design and practice.
And you can do it. You really can!
Qualified by
I love this picture. Neide so utterly loved being the first person to sit on her little horse Dusty. And it was a priviledge to teach them over several of our Young Horse clinics to get here. Dusty was a little braced on his feet when they first came, and “all whoa and no go” – and Neide’s groundwork needed finesse – particularly on using both up and down energies, goal setting and recognising and clearly rewarding his early tries (shaping behaviours). This was his very first ride and we turned some gentle circles to prep the bend-stop move. Notice his relaxed eye, but ear towards me as I have picked up a feel on the rein to ask for a stationary neck bend. My focus here is to teach Neide to teach Dusty, and also to encourage Neide to clarify and focus her own goals, exercise designs, adaptation plans, and before she asks him. Together they are growing in confidence beautifully.