.@People 🤗 thank you for including me in your #MostBeautiful issue. I'm humbled & in the company of beautiful humans, both inside & out. pic.twitter.com/iiet5PrCg1

— Beth Behrs (@BethBehrs) April 24, 2017

I kind of laugh when I hear Beth Behr’s name because Beth was born and raised back east but her family moved to Marin County when she was in high school. So we, Marinites, get excited and cry, “local girl!” but I don’t think she actually counts. Oh well, we claim her. Anyway, Beth stars on 2 Broke Girls, which will likely be back next season, although that’s not confirmed yet. This is inexplicable to me as I have yet to find someone who actually likes it. I’m not trying to be insulting, I’ve honestly never spoken to a person that admitted they liked the show. I was okay with it but stopped watching after the fourth episode. I guess everyone hate watches it?

One of the best things about the show was Chestnut, Beth’s character Caroline’s horse. As it turns out, Beth had a connection to horses she didn’t realize until she got the job. Beth has suffered from anxiety since she was a teenager but it worsened once she finally found fame. Noting that she was always more relaxed when she shot her scenes with Chestnut – played by Rocky and later Gunner – Beth looked into working with horses for therapy to try and help her panic attacks.

Beth Behrs began working with horses in 2015 in hopes that it would help with her anxiety.

“I noticed just being around horses, my panic attacks started going away,” Behrs, 31, tells PEOPLE exclusively for the 2017 World’s Most Beautiful issue. “They’re so grounding. You have to be your authentic self around them, which is so empowering. You realize, I don’t have to fake it. If you’re scared, say I’m scared — they’ll come right to you. If you try to put up a wall or fake it, they won’t.”

The 2 Broke Girls star cherished spending time with horses so much that she decided to adopt one of her own.

“When I went to Belle’s rescue, Blue Apple Ranch in Ramona, Calif., we were in the pasture and she literally walked up and put her head on my chest,” recalls the actress of first meeting her 6-year-old quarter horse-mustang. “It was like, ‘Yeah I’m good, that’s the one!’ She’s been amazing.”

The co-founder of SheHerdPower, an equine therapy program for sexual assault survivors, says spending time with Belle every weekend has helped her to grow as a person.

[From People]

Animal therapy is amazing. I love the flexibility people with service animals have now. (Shout out to Carrie Fisher’s Gary!) Some people complain that folks just “say” their animal is a service animal to bring it with them but I would rather that than see the restrictions go back in place. However, I adore most animals – I might feel differently if the service animal scared me. I can’t even look at scorpions so if one was seated next to me, even with a little blue vest and leash on, I’d need medical attention. I’ve heard – first hand – that horse therapy is incredibly effective. One friend enrolled her autistic son up for a program and another friend enrolled, like Beth, for anxiety. Both swear by their programs.

Having benefitted so much from equine therapy, Beth recommended it to a friend of hers who was a victim of sexual assault. The therapy proved so effective, Beth and Cassandra Ogier co-founded SheHerdPower, a three-day, free program to help victims of sexual assault. Beth said of the program, “It’s hard for survivors to go to therapy and want to relive their experience and talk to a stranger. We’re providing a program where you actually don’t have to talk about it at all, and all the healing is stemming from the horses and groundwork with them.” Beth also actively helps to rescue horses.

I suddenly have the urge to go pet my dog.

A post shared by Beth Behrs (@bethbehrs) on Feb 14, 2016 at 11:48am PST

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