Season 1 Episode 2: Tyler Smith Coppes

Horse Medicine and the Mirror with Tyler Smith-Coppes

Some of the most honest spiritual teachers don't speak. They just show up, feel everything, and wait.

In this episode I sit down with Tyler Smith Coppes — a therapist and horse medicine guide based in Sedona, Arizona and what he shares about presence stopped me in my tracks. Tyler works with people in some of the heaviest moments of their lives. Grief. Trauma. Loss. And before he can hold any of that for someone else, he has to come back to himself first.

That's what this conversation is really about. The practice of returning.

Tyler talks about what happens when you sit quietly in a pasture and let the horses decide whether to come close. How that same quality of presence — soft, open, not forcing anything — is exactly what grief work requires. And how his altar, set up in front of a full-length mirror, asks him every single day: what do you need from me today?

This episode is for you if you do hard, heart-heavy work and need a practice that actually holds you. It's also for you if you've never thought of yourself as someone with a spiritual life and you're starting to wonder if maybe you do.

What you'll hear: Horse medicine and why presence in a pasture can be more honest than any therapy room. What it means to be with animals without forcing connection. How Tyler prepares spiritually before entering someone's grief and how he releases it after. The mirror altar and what it means to face yourself with compassion. And one moment that is equal parts funny and deeply true.

"Living with intentionality seems to be the juice, spiritually speaking." — Tyler Smith Coppes

Find Tyler on TikTok: @theintegratedshadow and Download your Free Spiritual Practice Journal at atmyaltar.love

If this episode met you in a real place, follow the show and share it with someone who's trying to stay grounded while doing hard things.