Kia, and the Long Road Back

The story behind Sōl — and why I built it.

I grew up on the back of a horse.

Barrel racing wasn't just something I did — it was who I was. I was good at it, too. Fast, fearless, completely at home in the arena. There's a feeling barrel racers know that's almost impossible to explain to anyone else: that moment when you and your horse stop being two and become one. No commands. No hesitation. Just instinct, trust, and motion.

For me, that feeling had a name. Kia.

Kia was my registered Quarter Horse, and the two of us were so in sync it was like we shared a heartbeat. She knew me. I knew her. We didn't ride so much as move together. I have spent my whole life chasing few things as pure as what Kia and I had.

When she died, just over ten years ago, a part of me went quiet. The kind of grief only people who've loved an animal that deeply understand. And in the years since, I carried a quiet ache — a yearning to feel that connection again. To ride. To be one with a horse the way I once was with Kia.

So, when my best friend came back into my life and invited me out to her dad's ranch to go riding, I didn't think twice. I jumped at it. After ten years of missing it, I was finally going to ride again.

But I was accidentally introduced to a horse that hadn't been broken.

And I — confident in every mile I'd ridden, certain I was still the experienced rider I had always been — climbed on bareback like it was nothing. For a few breaths, it was nothing. I was home again.

Until he bucked.

I came off hard, and I landed just right — on my right leg. I survived. But the impact fractured my tibial plateau and tore my meniscus clean in half. And just like that, the rider who had spent her whole life in motion couldn't stand.

I am learning how to walk again.

I want to be honest with you: I haven't gotten there yet. This isn't a story I'm telling from the other side of recovery, polished and finished. I'm still in it. Still working toward that milestone, one hard day at a time. Some days the progress is real. Some days it isn't. But I'm still moving toward it — and I will get there.

Here's what this long road taught me, the part no one warns you about: the hardest battle wasn't my leg.

It was the anxiety.

The worry that wouldn't switch off. The racing thoughts. The way my body held the fear long after the fall — bracing, replaying, refusing to settle. I'd glance at my smartwatch and watch it tell me, again and again, that my heart rate was climbing. It could see my stress. It just never did anything about it. It handed me a number and left me alone with it.

Then one day I looked across the room at my essential oils — lavender, chamomile, the scents that had always brought me back to myself — and there they sat. Useless. Out of reach. In the exact moments I needed them most because reaching for them required the one thing the anxiety took first: the presence of mind to help myself.

And the thought arrived, fully formed:

What if my bracelet didn't just track my stress — what if it calmed me? Automatically. The moment I needed it most.

That was the beginning of Sōl.

A bracelet of bamboo and titanium that reads your body in real time and, when it senses genuine stress, releases a gentle breath of calming aromatherapy — directed right where you need it. No app. No button. No reaching across the room. Just calm, arriving exactly when it matters.

I built Sōl out of the hardest chapter of my life. Out of grief for a horse I loved. Out of a fall that

took my footing in more ways than one. Out of long nights when I needed comfort and couldn't reach it.

Kia taught me what it feels like to move through the world in sync with something that understands you — no asking required. In a way I never expected, that's exactly what I've tried to build. Something that meets you in the moment. Something that has your back.

I'm still learning to walk again. But I know now what I'm walking toward.

Your body knows the storm. Sōl brings the calm.

If any part of my story stayed with you, I'd love for you to be part of what comes next.

Join our founding members at solmovement.co — and be among the first to wear Sōl.

With everything I have,

Kristin — Founder, Sōl