Hi, I’m Abby — a trauma therapist based in Melbourne, and I know firsthand how it feels to live with anxiety, panic, and that constant feeling of bracing for impact.
My anxiety started when I was next to my horse (the one in the picture), even though I’ve been around horses since I was 10 years old.
I love riding Dressage, I competed as well, then moved on to teaching natural horsemanship, because I love the quiet connection horses offered.
But in 2018, when I got my horse Banjo, everything changed.
Even though I’d ridden him before, something shifted after I moved him to a new agistment. He started showing more anxious and unpredictable sides of him… and suddenly, I felt so anxious.
I felt shaky, nervous, and on edge. I had butterflies in my stomach just going to see him. And to top all of that, I started experiencing panic attacks at night.
At the time, I couldn’t understand it. He didn’t do anything wrong… but my body was frozen.
Looking back now, I can see it clearly: his unpredictability had triggered the unpredictable environment I grew up with.
My body was responding to old survival patterns I hadn’t even realised were still there.
I tried everything I thought I should: riding through it, telling myself to “just do it,” trying to make sense of all of this, but reasoning didn’t help. The fear wasn’t in my mind. It was in my body.
And what made it harder was that I didn’t feel like I could talk about it. I was worried people wouldn’t understand. So I stayed silent and tried to fix it alone — pushing through, judging myself, and wondering why I felt like a beginner again after 30+ years around horses.
That’s when I shifted my focus to Banjo. I knew he had his own trauma history, and I wanted to help him feel safe. I started learning about nervous system regulation, trauma, and healing — at first, for him. But the more I learned, the more I realised: I needed this, too.
Eventually, I found trauma-informed support that actually worked. Not surface-level tools, but deep, body-based work that helped me feel safe again — in my skin, in my saddle, and in my everyday life.
It didn’t just change how I rode. It changed how showed up as parent. How I showed up as partner.
That experience led me to become a trauma therapist myself. I trained as an Embodied Processing Practitioner so I could offer the same healing I’d found — gently, naturally, and at the nervous system level.
I still ride. I love Latin dancing. Sunflowers make me smile.
And I believe with my whole heart that you deserve to feel steady, calm, and safe in your body