When your job requires to you to travel around the globe, panic attacks and anxiety are not just unsettling—they’re debilitating.
International travel consultant and writer Sunny Fitzgerald experienced her first panic attack while on a business trip in India in April, 2017. In its wake she almost canceled her next trip: an event organized by the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) in Jordan in May 2017. Instead, she saw it—and the equine soul session she would experience while there—as an opportunity to fight back against anxiety in a natural way. This is her story.
“Everyone must wear closed-toe shoes,” she says, eyeing my exposed toes peeking from the front of my sandals. Desert dust swirls toward me through the open door of the minibus. We have barely come to a stop at the top of a dirt driveway when equine trainer Sandra Jellyappears at our door.
She is petite but her presence is immense and undeniable. Her piercing blue-grey eyes move up to meet mine, and I immediately feel an urge to duck lest her energy engulf my own. Bending down, I slip my sandals from my feet and fumble around my bag in search of proper footwear.
We are already exhausted, having spent the first half of the day driving from Aqaba and hiking in the 95-degree heat in Little Petra. Sandra seems anxious to get started. Just as quickly as she appears at the door, she spins around and moves toward the horse stable, gesturing for us to follow her.
“Yallah, let’s go!” she says. As she glances back at us over her shoulder, she smiles. Her sun-kissed face softens and a gentleness now emanates from her eyes.
One by one, my travel companions—a spirited mix of award-winning journalists and adventure travel specialists from the US, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East—step out of the air-conditioned bus and onto the gravel driveway in the blistering afternoon sun. I stay seated, stealing a few more moments in the cool comfort of the bus.
They don’t overthink the way humans do. They feel you and respond immediately, acting as a mirror, reflecting your feelings and fears.
Sandra slides off her shoes and sits down in the Bedouin-style tent facing the paddock, instructing us to do the same. A local Bedouin gentleman passes around hot tea while Sandra briefly introduces the soul session she and her horses are offering us.
“Horses’ minds are pure,” she says. “They don’t overthink the way humans do. They feel you and respond immediately, acting as a mirror, reflecting your feelings and fears.” Flies buzz about, zipping in front of our faces and diving into our tea cups. Some land on Sandra’s chin and cheeks as she speaks, but she remains poised. “When you enter the paddock, choose a horse you feel called to,” she says. “Don’t initiate contact. Just mentally set your intentions and wait for them.”
Her instructions seem vague, yet deliberately so. The horses are, after all, the leaders of this soul session. “Take notice of feelings and thoughts that arise, but don’t force anything,” she adds. We spend a few moments in silent meditation, connecting to our body and breath before she sends the first group of three participants into the paddock to join the horses. I remain seated in the tent, aware of my own medley of fears and feelings of skepticism, hope, shame, anticipation, and self-doubt already bubbling to the surface.
I observe the range of interactions between my fellow travelers and the horses already in motion: playful, tearful, aggressive, gentle, indifferent. Each horse’s behavior is noticeably distinct to each individual. A familiar panic consumes me.
I stand alone, wondering whether I did something wrong.
When emotions from traumatic experiences can't be fully acknowledged, their energy gets stuck in our bodies.
You do love me. I feel love. I feel lighter. I feel whole.
I stand and return to the tent. Remaz also stands, but remains close to the fence, as if to reassure us she is still there, should we need her. “When emotions from traumatic experiences can't be fully acknowledged, their energy gets stuck in our bodies,” Sandra explains as we rejoin the group. “That stuck energy creates limiting beliefs and we unconsciously recreate the same painful experiences over and over again. It is only in connecting to these emotions that we can learn from them, release them, and change our beliefs and our life.”
It is said you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. In the same way, it seems horses can lead us to our demons, but they can’t make us deal with them. Remaz revealed some of the root causes of my anxiety: Painful memories and limiting beliefs I have been carrying—some since childhood. In reflecting my inner world with such unadulterated honesty and loving acceptance, Remaz created a nurturing space for me to do the same. She effectively led me to the water. But she can’t make me drink. Taking that sip—the work of sifting through the darkness, acknowledging past traumas, releasing toxic thought patterns, and creating healthy, new ones—is up to me.
Upon arriving home in Los Angeles, Fitzgerald felt her body was in LA but her heart was still dancing in the Jordanian desert. She immediately began making plans to return to Jordan and headed back there in July 2017 to continue the soul work she had started, prioritize her health and well-being, and explore more of this country that had so positively and powerfully impacted her. Her love of Jordan has led her to become a Jordan destination expert for Lonely Planet and kimkim, encouraging others to travel to Jordan and experience its magic for themselves. Her next adventure: a 400+ mile, 40+ day trek across the entire length of Jordan that she will begin on March 2, 2018.
