Hi, I’m Abby
I’m an anxiety therapist based in Melbourne, offering online anxiety therapy to women across Australia.
I know firsthand what it’s like to feel anxious when, logically, you know you should be okay.
For me, anxiety seemed to come out of nowhere.
I had always thought of myself as capable and confident. But in 2018, I started experiencing anxiety around my horse, Banjo — something that made very little sense to me after spending most of my life around horses.
Soon, the anxiety wasn’t just showing up there.
I started having panic attacks at night. My body felt constantly on edge. I was shaky, nervous and found myself bracing for something to happen, even when I couldn’t explain what I was afraid of.
I kept asking myself: Why am I feeling like this?
I tried to reason with myself.
I pushed through. I tried to understand why I was suddenly reacting this way.
But even knowing logically that I was safe didn’t stop my body from feeling anxious.
And that was incredibly frustrating.
I also felt embarrassed. I didn’t want people to know how anxious I felt, so I tried to deal with it by myself.
The harder I tried to get rid of the anxiety, the more attention I seemed to give it.
Eventually, I began to understand my anxiety differently.
I started learning about trauma, the nervous system and the connection between our past experiences and the way our body responds in the present.
And I began to recognise something important:
My anxiety hadn’t really come out of nowhere.
There were patterns of fear and hypervigilance that had developed much earlier in my life. Although my circumstances had changed, certain situations could still bring those protective responses to the surface.
That helped me understand why I could know I was safe and still not feel safe.
And that distinction changed the way I approached my anxiety.
I stopped trying to fight what I was feeling.
Through trauma-informed, body-based work, I learned to pay attention to what was happening in my body rather than immediately trying to make the anxiety disappear.
I began learning how to regulate my nervous system, stay with difficult emotions and respond to myself with curiosity rather than judgement.
Over time, I began to feel calmer and more grounded.
But the changes went beyond anxiety.
It changed how I showed up as a parent, how I showed up in my relationship, and how I responded to stress and uncertainty in everyday life.
That experience changed the direction of my work.
I wanted to understand this work more deeply, which eventually led me to train as an Embodied Processing Practitioner.
Today, I work with women who are experiencing many of the things I once struggled with myself:
A mind that won’t switch off.
Constant overthinking and “what if” thoughts.
Feeling on edge even when nothing is obviously wrong.
Physical anxiety that seems to appear out of nowhere.
Or simply wondering:
“Why don’t I feel like myself anymore?”
My approach to anxiety therapy is gentle, body-based and trauma-informed.
We don’t just focus on getting rid of anxiety. We become curious about what may be happening underneath it and work with both the mind and body to help you feel safer, steadier and more able to handle anxiety when it shows up.
A little more about me
I still ride Banjo — the horse who unexpectedly became part of this whole journey.
I love Latin dancing, and sunflowers make me smile.
And I know from my own experience how much can change when you stop seeing anxiety as something you need to fight and begin understanding what your body may be trying to tell you.