Heroes and Horses: A Commitment to Hope and Healing

Over the course of the last twenty years, I have come to know well the underbelly of war.  Not because I have worn a uniform or lived in a war‑torn country, but because I chose to love a man who did. Micah served as a Navy SEAL and later as a paramilitary contractor, deploying thirteen times. Thirteen times I stood in a doorway or an airport or a gravel parking lot and said goodbye, not knowing if the man I loved would ever walk back toward me again.

I’ll never forget the first time I met him, and he told me he was a Navy SEAL. I was young, naïve, and truthfully had no idea what that even meant. This was before all the hype and the movies. All I knew was that he was a double‑down HELL YES for me. Funny, charismatic, brilliant, and sexy as hell. I had no way of knowing what those words, Navy SEAL, would come to mean for both of us. No way of knowing the cost.

Silent Ripples of War

The silent ripples of war is something our culture struggles to digest and fully understand.  No handbook, no story, no training could ever prepare you for the way war threads itself into a home, a marriage, a body. Perhaps it was my innocence, or ignorance, or just maybe something much greater within that led me to this man and to this life. I sit here now with gratitude for every single life experience we have navigated over these last two decades…for it is through our perseverance, devotion, and choosing love again and again that has allowed me to become the woman I am today, the man Micah is, and the powerhouse team that we are now as we raise our five beautiful children in rural Montana while serving a mission far greater than ourselves, Heroes and Horses.  And for that, I am deeply grateful. 

Those early years of our relationship unfolded in parallel with Micah’s first deployments to the Middle East. Our love was built through long‑distance phone calls, pixelated Skype screens, and the ache of wanting more time than we ever had. We traveled impossible distances just to share a few days together. And somewhere in the midst of all that uncertainty, all that longing, we began to learn love across the fault lines of war.

This is our story.

After years of deployments and plenty of moves, we found ourselves two children deep with one on the way, hillbilly bopping our way across America in a 1991 Ford 350 with a rocking chair and grill strapped down to the tongue of a trailer holding everything we owned. By this time, Micah had transitioned from active military to reserves and was doing paramilitary contract work. Not knowing a single soul, we were motivated to start a new life together. We gave birth to our son that summer along with a dream to live self-sustainably in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. It was 2013.

At the end of that summer Micah and our oldest daughter, Isabella, went on a backpacking trip into the wilderness not knowing the trajectory of our life would be forever changed. Inspired by a group of men on horseback, Micah came home with a fire in his belly to help combat veterans find their way home from war. We tended that spark quietly yet steadily, growing our family and building a life in Montana while figuring out how to build a 501(c)(3) nonprofit from the ground up. 

The Dark Days

That following summer we ran our first pilot program and Micah would go on his last ever deployment, one that almost took his life.  He came home on Christmas Eve carrying something I had never felt before, it was heavy and wordless and settled into our home before he even said a word.  By then I was pregnant with our fourth child. Three babies in three and a half years. Thirteen combat deployments. A cross-country move. A purchase of our first home…which then flooded. The building of my own small business, MommiesRfit. And the launch of a non-profit. Little did we know this was the beginning of what Micah and I now identify as the “dark days.”

When Micah came home from war, his body didn’t know he was safe. He was still running on adrenaline, still looping in survival mode, still recreating the chaos his nervous system had learned to depend on. And that chaos didn’t stay inside of him, it filled our home. Life moved at a pace that swallowed me whole. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and convinced that pushing through was the only option.

I ignored my needs because I didn’t know them. I justified his choices because I didn’t know how to speak up. I poured myself into being a “good” wife and a “good” mother, believing self‑sacrifice was the proof of love. But the truth was much harder to face: I was disappearing. Burned out, running on empty, and unable to show up as the woman I wanted to be for anyone.  In my desperation to hold everything together, I tried to create a sense of normality by managing every detail around me, believing control and manipulation would keep me safe.

The hard truth… I was filled with fear, lost, and confused.

Things only got worse. We kept pushing harder, faster, stronger while pouring everything we had into others, giving nothing back to ourselves. Micah was running the classes, carrying the mission, raising money, and keeping Heroes and Horses alive. I was behind the scenes building the entire infrastructure, holding the details, the logistics, the weight no one saw. And in the middle of all of it, our young children were feeling the strain right alongside us.

We told ourselves we were serving a purpose. But the truth is, we were just surviving. Year after year, we lived in a state of depletion, mistaking endurance for strength and output for meaning. And the more we gave away, the less of us there was left.

In 2018, we couldn’t hold on any longer. Our marriage broke, our family divided. It was absolutely devastating, but it was the beginning we didn’t know we needed. Things had to fall apart for the light to finally reach the places we had kept in the dark. And that’s exactly what happened.  Our healing began to take root in truth, honesty, and transparency.

It was the moment everything started to change, and the real work began. 

The Rebirth

Years of uncertainty, fear for his safety, and the weight of holding our home, children, and businesses on my shoulders built armor around my heart. I had to be strong for all of us, especially our young children who depended on me for stability.  After a year apart, we decided to start again…together.  We purchased a small homestead in rural Montana that would be the land to hold us while we intentionally went into the dark places, individually and together.  Eventually, the soul-seed within me broke through its shell of protection and dissolved the life I thought I understood. It was a profound upheaval — a necessary death that made space for rebirth. The cycle of breaking, shedding, and beginning began to reveal itself as the most challenging and transformative experience of my life. Moving through this cycle again and again, unfolding from the inside out, I have learned life is the greatest teacher of all.

My healing has been a process of unlearning and remembering, whose key to entry is surrender. Surrendering with love to what is, even when what is feels impossible to hold. Learning to trust myself and the intelligence within me, and seeing that our greatest challenges create the conditions we need to feel fully, rise, and grow into our highest potential.

What started as individual healing in my heart and Micah’s heart has rippled into our marriage, our home and children, and the lives we touch through Heroes and Horses. 

This is the work.

Heroes and Horses

Through many evolutions of change, Heroes and Horses now stands as a 41-day ceremony of self discovery. We are dedicated to teaching through experience and healing through tradition. It’s a place where combat veterans and their families can rediscover purpose and strength, realizing that the actual battle is within; the one against fear, identity, illusion, ego, and victimization.

As I describe in the beginning words of the cookbook I wrote for Heroes and Horses, The Anti-Inflammatory Farmacy, which is now available to all. It is a heart-centered hero’s journey reconnecting the individual with their inner truths through a holistic approach that uses nature, the horse-human connection, conscious breath, meditation, functional movement, elementals, timeless teachings, and indigenous wisdom. 

Participants learn to honor their bodies as temples, using food as medicine while distancing themselves from modern-day media and influence. The process delves into their unique genetic makeup, facilitating deep healing, restoring balance and a reclamation of their innate birthright and their true power. Ultimately, it evokes exploration and curiosity, around the essential question: Who am I?

We welcome combat veterans into the 41‑day program, and we invite their spouses into a parallel journey of their own. The Resilient Heart Spouse Program includes a six‑week online course, a six‑week integration process, and an eight‑day immersive experience at the Double H Ranch. We also offer Healing Through Tradition, an eight‑day immersive program for the youth of our veterans and for children affected by war, giving them access to the same foundational elements of healing in a shorter format. Our intention with Heroes and Horses is to restore balance in the home so that each family can stand as a steady beacon of light, guiding those in their communities and in the world around them toward their own healing. And ultimately, to the TRUTH of who they are.

Meet Mackenzie

Mackenzie Fink is the author of the book The Anti-Inflammatory Farmacy and co-founder and wellness director of Heroes and Horses, a human development program for combat veterans. She works closely with veterans and military spouses, helping individuals reconnect with their sense of identity, resilience, and personal agency. Drawing from her experience as the wife of a former Navy SEAL and paramilitary contractor, she also created the organization’s Resilient Heart spouse program.

A mother of five, Mackenzie has spent more than two decades cultivating a self-sustaining lifestyle on her Montana homestead, where she homeschools her children and raises much of her family’s food. Her lifelong journey with health and wellness has shaped a deeply holistic approach that connects nutrition, emotional healing, and spirituality. Her cookbook combines personal storytelling, practical wellness wisdom, and recipes developed through both her own healing journey and the Heroes and Horses program.

After facing significant health challenges, including an autoimmune disorder, Mackenzie committed herself to healing through food and now encourages others to view nourishment as a source of healing, simplicity, and connection. Through her work and writing, she hopes to help others rediscover the joy and sacredness of caring for the body and spirit.

Contact Mackenzie at mackenzie@heroesandhorses.org or visit Heroes and Horses website.