#325: The KEY To Your Healing Journey With Jessi Beyer Mental Health Speaker & Best-Selling Trauma Author

If you look at the stats, if you look at the papers and the research on various forms of talk therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy, about 50% of people receive clinical benefit from those therapies. Now, 50% is a great number. It means half of the people are being helped by these therapies. But that also means that 50% aren't. And where the mainstream psychological community fails, in my opinion, is in providing the people who do not benefit from talk therapy other opportunities for healing.

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I'm ready for my close up.

Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest this week. Jesse Byer is an award nominated international speaker and the number one bestselling author of how to Heal A practical guide to nine integrative therapies that can help release trauma. Named a 2020 Young Entrepreneur to Watch by Idea Mensch, she has been featured in over 200 media outlets including Thrive Global, Refinery 29 and Elite Daily, and spoken to thousands of people around the world. Penn State University Leadercast, now the Institute on Violence and Abuse Traumas International Summit. Jesse holds a master's degree in Critical Psychology and Human Services from Prescott College. And outside of her professional life, she is a canine search and rescue handler with her dog Phoebe. And literally the first guest I've ever had. That said, she wasn't promoting anything. Jesse, so nice to have you here today.

Oh my gosh, thank you so much, Heather. I'm so excited to be here.

Okay, so first of all, let's get into it. I'm always super interested to hear people's story in regards to how they got into the line of work that they're in. And you getting into trauma work is big. So give us that backstory. How did you get here?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think like a lot of people who work in mental health, we all have our own personal story of mental health struggles. So for me it was really high school. I mean, high school is hard enough anyway, and then you throw mental illness on top of it and it just kind of goes downhill fast. So I was struggling with things like anxiety and depression, self harm, body dysmorphia, and disordered eating and suicidal ideation. And I was also in a relationship with someone who was really struggling with his mental health. And throughout the course of that relationship, I did what I now teach people not to do, which is just completely gave myself over as a support system. I was the doormat at his feet. I would do anything that he wanted to try to keep him happy and therefore keep him al. And unfortunately, because as I now know, you cannot control someone else's mental health, that relationship ended with his suicide attempt. I was the one who called 911. I was the one who showed up on scene with the first responders. And as he was being led out of the house in handcuffs and taken to involuntary psychiatric hold, he looked at me and he said, I trusted you. And that night completely broke me because I was torn. I was. I was torn between, do I save his life, do I call the cops, or do I respect his trust? And a weird part of me understood the decision he wanted to make because I was in a similar boat. So it was this very, very difficult night, this very difficult next few months. And as I started to heal from that evening, I went to a day of therapy. I went to talk therapy. And I'll just caveat this at the beginning of this discussion. I have nothing against talk therapy, but I went, and I was so completely uncomfortable with the whole situation that I literally. I ran out of the building and I never went back. So I spent the next couple of years on this massive roller coaster of healing, I guess, and doing everything by myself, trying things, failing, having, you know, steps backwards and steps forwards. And when I got to college, I realized that there were other types of therapy out there. I realized there were other options than just talk therapy. And my mind was completely blown. If I would have had that information when I really needed it, I firmly believe that my healing journey would have been so much more straightforward. Of course, there would have been ups and downs still, but I would have had that support and I would have had that programming to follow. So when I started learning about this, I was like, oh, my gosh, I have to share this with other people. I have to let other people know. And, you know, I come from a military family. I worked as a first responder. So the concept of trauma was. Was definitely not foreign to me from an academic perspective. And when I saw how much trauma is a sub facet, I suppose, or a pause behind so many other types of struggles in people's lives, which we can definitely get into, I was like, this is where I need to focus. This is where I need to help people from, really, you know, inspired by that personal story of everything I went through when I was struggling, my mental health.

Wow. I mean, that is huge. A lot to discuss there. So for the people listening, because I'm sure there's someone listening right now that just heard your story and is relating to themselves being in a relationship with somebody who. And I don't know to what extent, but listen, I've been in a relationship once with someone who I was wondering, are they depressed? Are they going to harm themselves? Like, these were real questions, you know, And I'm not a doctor, I don't know. What do you say to that person? P.S. i'm not in that situation any longer, thank goodness. But what do you say to that person that is currently in that situation? What advice can you give them?

Yeah, so the two things that I would share with them are, number one, please take care of yourself. And a lot of people who are in that situation have said something along the lines of, and I know this because I said it, no worries, like, I'm fine right now. I'm just going to be there for them. I'll worry about me later. And by worrying about you later, you are going to hurt yourself now and later. So make sure you have support systems for yourself. Get a therapist, talk to your mom. If you're a youth, talk to your school counselor. Just get, get someone on your team that can support them. The other thing that I would say and this kind of ties in is recognize that it is not your job to fix their problems. I don't know about you, Heather, but I know for myself and for a ton of other entrepreneurial minded women and men and everyone in between, we want to fix problems. Someone comes to us and says, hey, I'm struggling with this. And you're like, I got it, I got the answer. We're going to do this and it's going to be great and it's going to be fixed. And that is not your role. The story and kind of metaphor that I use to explain this is that if you walk up and you try to pick up a really heavy boulder on your own, that's going to be really, really difficult to do. You can't do that, right? That's too much weight. And so what often happens is someone else comes in and says, don't worry, I got this, I'm going to pick it up for you. And that's what you don't want to do, is the support system. You want to be one extra added hand that comes in and helps pick up that boulder alongside the person who is struggling with their mental health. So you're one hand, maybe their family is another, maybe a therapist is a third, maybe their pet, maybe God, maybe nature, whatever those other support systems, you are one Part of that. It is not your job to come up with solutions. It is not your job to carry their weight or feel responsible for their mental health. Your job is really just to be there for them. And sometimes that's the hardest thing to do because you're like, what do I say? What do I do? I got to do the right thing. And just by sitting with them and zipping your lips and listening to what they're saying, empathizing with them, expressing concern, expressing support, that is going to be the most powerful thing you can do for someone who's struggling while also keeping yourself safe in the process.

I am not a medical professional. Don't pretend to be one. I have a minor in psychology, which means I am not qualified. Okay. So knowing that, I just want to put that out there. I'm not giving any professional advice around psychiatry or psychology, but my own experience, obviously life experience, teaches you, right from what you've gone through and learned. One thing that I learned, and I think I'm hearing this from you, so let me know if this is correct. But I know having been in a situation with someone who I believe was depressed at the time, sometimes that person wants to draw you in and then shut everybody else in the world out because they just want to. You know, they're almost like codependent on you, or they want to have that closeness with that one person they feel safe with, and they suddenly want to just cut ties with everything else, which can be so negative for the person, the person trying to help, that you start getting brought into, wait, I don't feel so great now. Wait a minute. I'm waking up tired. I don't have all the energy I used to. I don't feel vibrant. I don't feel excited. I'm not doing the things I used to do. And to me, one of the things I was picking up on, which I believe is important, is don't allow for isolation on any level. That's when you know you've got major problems.

Absolutely. And that's something I really went through with this relationship that I was talking about because I promised him I wasn't going to tell anyone. So I was lying to my parents, I was lying to his parents. I was lying to all of our teachers and the school counselor and things like that because I thought it was my job to protect that secret of his. That is not the case. And at the same time, you obviously don't want to go spreading people's personal business everywhere. That's not what I'm encouraging you to do. But if you find yourself really getting pulled in, if this person is continually asking, don't tell anyone about this. You know, I'm really struggling with this, but don't tell anyone, and I don't want anyone to know. That's not a burden you have to carry. So from a tactical perspective, something you can say to someone who's in this situation is something along the lines of, you know, Heather, I'm so honored that you shared that with me. I'm so thankful that we have that good of a relationship that you can share this with me. I do want to let you know, though, that if I feel like you are a danger to yourself or others, I am going to have to tell your mom, the counselor, call the police, whatever that that resource is. And I want you to know I'm not going to spread your business if I don't need to, but I want to make sure that you're safe. My priority is that you're safe. And so, yes, I want to be there for you, and I want to support you. And if we need it, I want you to know that we are going to have to call in external resources. And so just being very upfront with someone and saying, look, I'm here for you, but at end, the. At the same time, this is my boundary, whatever that boundary is for you, that can really help kind of mitigate that process of getting sucked into being that person's entire world.

I also believe that can be really scary for people to say face to face with someone. So even a better solution if you feel afraid or intimidated by that other person, is to say it over the phone so you have space, you're in a safe place that you're protected, and you can go get help, versus feeling intimidated by another individual. Especially in my experience, if it's a woman and you're much smaller and that person's bigger and they are intimidating to you, which happens so often in these unhealthy relationships. So, again, don't isolate yourself. Get help. All right, so above and beyond trauma, in a relationship where you're a caregiver, how do you define trauma? Because I know, first of all, there's people listening that are like, trauma. I've never had any trauma, which I completely disagree. First of all, anyone that lived through the pandemic, in my opinion, you've been through trauma, right? So how do you actually define trauma? And can you give us some examples of what trauma could look like?

Definitely. So trauma is kind of unique in its place in the mental health world because Alongside having a very psychological component and brain based component, there's also a very physical part of it. So things like depression and anxiety. Yeah, you may feel them in your gut or your heart, but psychologically, medically, they're mostly related to brain chemicals and hormones in your head. And not in your head as in you're making it up, but like literally in your skull. And then with trauma there is that psychological piece, but it is very, very often stored in the body. So the way that I kind of like to explain this without getting too much into the, the medical side of things is that when you're in a traumatic incident, your body is in survive mode. And so we have all of these hormones running through your body. You have the fight or flight response. So you're either going to fight your attacker off or you're going to run from your attacker. And your attacker could be a tornado, it could be a pandemic, it doesn't have to be a person, but whatever that traumatizing instead incident is, you're either going to want to fight it off or run away. And if you're able to do one of those two things, oftentimes you're able to kind of process that event and move forward without having these long term traumatic symptoms. What happens though is that we may enter the freeze response. So we have all of these hormones, all of these emotions and we freeze. And if you think about that from a physical perspective, everything that's going in your body has no outlet, right? You're not fighting someone off, you're not running from someone, you're just kind of stuck. And that can retain itself in the form of the somatic part of trauma or the part of trauma that's stored in your body. So one example of what this can look like is for example, a survivor of sexual assault. They may have constant pain in their pelvis and they may go to a physician, an OB GYN and say, hey, I have this pain. This is what's going on. The doctor looks at them and says, there's nothing wrong, there's nothing here that's causing that pain. And then they can get in this spiral of okay, well, I went to talk therapy and I talked about my sexual assault and the doctor said, there's nothing wrong with me, but it still hurts all the time. That's one example of carrying trauma in the body. Another very common example for me and for a lot of people is that when I'm anxious, my shoulders go into my ears and I just sit there with my neck and my shoulders Tensed all the time. And so that's a response for me of protecting myself, right? I'm trying to make myself smaller. I'm trying to cover all of the vulnerable parts of my body.

So.

And again, that's how this emotional reaction can turn into something physical and stay with you for a long period of time. So in terms of kind of sharing some examples of what trauma might look like, and we can obviously get into how the treatment options differ because of what I just shared. But in terms of what trauma might look like, some of the standard things are war, terrorism, the pandemic, sexual assault, car accidents, burglaries, domestic abuse, sexual violence, any, any kind of, of those broad characteristics that people, when they think of trauma. But what I want to make very, very clear is that there is no one definition of trauma. And this is where the APA and I, the American Psychological association, will go head to head until the day I die. Because in the apa, when it's talking about the diagnostic criteria for trauma, it defines trauma, or as for ptsd, that's, that's incorrect. Trauma is a thing. PTSD is a diagnosis. But when they're talking about the diagnostic criteria for ptsd, they list criteria. So it'll say, you know, in order to meet the diagnostic criteria for ptsd, you have to have experienced e, either a threat to your life or a threat to the life of someone that you love or witnessed violence.

Right?

They have kind of these characteristics that you have to meet, and there's a couple other ones in there. But when I think of trauma, I think that that strict definition can really invalidate a lot of people's experiences from both perspectives. So for example, let's say that two people experienced a sexual assault, right? And one person is having a really difficult time moving on from this experience. And one person is like, man, that was really rough. But I have my support systems and I was able to heal and move on. And in general, I'm doing okay right now. To tell the person who experienced that kind of long term traumatic response, you're just being dramatic, like you didn't actually meet the criteria for ptsd. And so this was not a trauma that is completely invalidating to that person. And unfortunately that happens all the time. But it also works the other way where let's say the event is something that meets the diagnostic criteria for PTSD and the person is generally doing okay. If you look at them and you say, what is wrong with you? Like you went through something so terrible and you're just like out here living life what is your problem? That is not going to be helpful for that person either, because then they're going to start second guessing themselves and being like, well, should I be feeling worse? Like, is there something wrong with me that I was able to move on from this incident? And so the very short answer that I've been getting to this whole time is that I define trauma as an event that you carry with you in your body for a long period of time. It's vague on purpose because it allows for personal experience and for people to decide what is traumatic to them and what is not. But that's the way that I like to approach it is something that happened to you that was oftentimes out of your control, that carries with you for the next months, years, decades, whatever that may be for that person.

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Everyone is impacted and responds to situations differently over the short term or and or long term. You know, for me in thinking about trauma, divorce is obviously a traumatic experience. Not only in the adults going through the children and family members impacted by it. And to not qualify that that as trauma is ridiculous. Getting terminated, losing your job, I went through that. That was incredibly traumatic. Again, not to everyone, right? So I have a friend who's married to a very successful man. She got terminated. She has a great support system with her husband. She was like this sucked but it wasn't the end of the world. You know, I actually get to be home and do things I Enjoy. Now I'm a single mother who I'm responsible for all the bills. When I lost my job, it was like category 5 alarm. What are we going to do? Very similar situations, totally different in each one of these households. So I want people to feel that no matter where you are with what situation you're in, you are however you feel is validated and to your point, something I'm reflecting on. When I'm hearing you talk about two people go through a similar situation. I think you use the example of a sexual assault or something. Doesn't matter what the situation was. Two people respond very differently. However, one thing I've learned, I had very traumatic childhood. I shut that part of my life off as a coping mechanism to survive. So I would never acknowledge what happened in my childhood. I never thought about it. I literally put a pin in it and moved on. Anyone in the world that saw me would say, heather has everything in the world going for her. Her life is perfect. No one knew I had a traumatic childhood. Right. Cut to later in life, actually. After I had my son and went through some major, you know, life events and got divorced. Those pivotal moments ended up opening my mind to this idea of, wait a minute, there's some stuff in my mind I haven't been dealing with. I need to start exploring it and digging into it. So just because someone isn't responding the way you think they should doesn't mean it's not impacting them in a massive way. It could just be that they found a way to hide it for the time being, to survive, to get to a point where they can cope with it, in my opinion.

Yeah, absolutely. And what you just said is, is so common. It is so, so common to have something terrible happen, you to deal with it in whatever way you know, how to deal with it at the time, with the resources that you have available. And then a series of life events happen in years or decades down the road that bring all of that up again. And that's what makes healing from trauma and a lot of mental health struggles in general so difficult. Because you're like, I did it. I got it. You know, whether it's a healthy coping mechanism like therapy, or you just did put a pin in it and kind of shove it aside for a moment, whatever that is, you're like, I got it under control. I'm moving forward. I'm ok.

Okay.

I did the healing thing. And then something happens and everything erupts again. And you're like, what the heck? I thought I was okay. And so when you approach this trauma healing process, you have to understand that it is a cycle and that you can heal to the best of your ability now, but there will very likely be things in the future that you can't predict that are going to bring up elements of this trauma again. So I invite people to look at this as an opportunity to revisit their healing, not as a reflection of that they failed in healing the first time, which can be a difficult mind shift. But, yeah, your experience of having these life events bring that up again is so, so common for a ton of people.

Yeah. And to your point, just because I have dealt with it and have gone down every rabbit hole I think possible, and I'm super interested in getting into yours the different ideas and concepts that you have employed in your life. But even though I've done all that work, and even though it's been two decades now, still I get triggered by certain things. The difference is now I don't put a pin in it anymore. You know, the way that I used to. I say, oh, I know this, I know this is a trigger. I know how I'm behaving right now. This is taking me back to a way that doesn't serve me. I know I need to reach out to my energy healer or my therapist or someone I trust in my circle. That is really helpful for me to get back to the steps and processes that I can put in place so that I can respond better, learn from it, hopefully continue to heal more and not keep repeating these sabotaging behaviors which I see through so many people.

Yeah, definitely. And what you just brought up is actually a really great in the moment coping mechanism. When you are triggered or having some type of panic or anxiety attack, if you're able to name what you're feeling, that makes the situation so much more comprehensible and controllable, to an extent at least mentally controllable. And that allows you to start to access some of the coping strategies that you've learned that maybe take a little bit longer, like going for a walk, calling a friend, something like that. So if you're in that moment of crisis, this. And you don't really know what's going on. If you're able to say, oh, I'm feeling my heartbeat really fast, I'm feeling my stomach turning, I feel myself sweating, or whatever those things are for you, you can say, okay, that means that I'm having a panic attack or that I'm being triggered. And that is because of this experience that I've been through. And if you can start to kind of make those mental structures in the moment just by recognizing and naming what you're experiencing. That is the first step in getting into a headspace where you can actually de escalate yourself in that moment. So you're doing great clinical things all by yourself, even with just having a minor ins like.

Well, and for everyone listening right now, I know a lot of people listen while they're at work or on their way to or home from work. Maybe you're reflecting on your day saying, oh, I remember when that guy came into my office and when he said that I started getting, my palms were sweating. Those are all trigger moments too. We've been so conditioned to dismiss that, you know, and just say, oh, it's just work and work is stressful and let it go. No, you're triggered in that moment. It's not even just about the moment you're in. Maybe it's because that person's treated you terribly for years on end and that actually has become a traumatic experience for you. Maybe it's because growing up you were belittled your entire life. And then when someone puts you down at work, it brings back all that emotion. So to your point, label it, name it, put take power over it. And then start thinking about what are the steps that I can take right now, here in this moment to help improve my situation. Don't dismiss it because how you feel truly, truly matters. And I just want everyone to find joy in their life. And that comes so much, much through healing. All right, so now I want to get into. You have very non traditional steps to. As you mentioned, you're pro talk therapy. I did talk therapy my whole entire life, since I was 18, I believe.

Right.

And I don't really do talk therapy anymore. Same. But I did it for years. Right. So there is a benefit to it. And again, people respond differently to different tactics and, and feel more comfortable in different environments. And it depends on the therapist you have and it depends where you are in your life and it depends on so much. I like you. I'm pro healing and pro try different things, find what works for you. But I really wanted to get into your book and the different and unique ways that you found to heal that are non traditional.

Absolutely. So just I'll start with a little bit of my commentary on talk therapy as a healing modality. For anyone who's listening, who has had great benefit from talk therapy or who is a practitioner who provides talk therapy, all the more power to you. I'm a huge fan of like Heather said, what works for you and what's going to get you healing? What I do have a problem with is the mainstream psychological community saying that talk therapy is the best therapy for healing from trauma. And everything else is unsupported and non evidential and we shouldn't be using it at all. And if you look at the stats, if you look at the papers and the research on various forms of talk therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy, about 50% of people receive clinical benefit from those therapies. Now, 50% is a great number. I mean, half of the people are being helped by these therapies, but that also means that 50% aren't. And where the mainstream psychological community fails, in my opinion, is in providing the people who do not benefit from talk therapy other opportunities for healing. It's actually quite interesting. Again, if you dive into the literature, a lot of academics will blame the patient, patients for not getting benefit from the therapy either. Oh, they couldn't be bothered to show up. And so we're just going to forget the people that didn't show up and say, oh, of the people who did finish, which is only like, oh, 50% of the people, they got benefit. Right. So there's all these different pieces where it's like, oh, it's the patient's fault they didn't show up, they didn't engage with the therapist. When in reality, it's a much more comprehensive picture of what might be failing in talk therapy for trauma survivors. Because of that, I kind of went down the rabbit hole of what are all these other different integrative therapies that are out there and why may they actually be better for trauma than talk therapy specifically? If we go back to my definition of kind of trauma and traumatic events that we spoke about earlier, there is a somatic piece and when you get triggered, you are put back into your body, right? All of these physical symptoms that we were just talking about. So if your only mode of healing is talk therapy, that's a very cognitive approach and it fails to address that very somatic part of trauma. Now, where talk therapy can have profound benefits for trauma survivors is in addressing some of those maladaptive thought patterns, those unhelpful thought patterns that you have about, oh, the world is unsafe and X, Y and Z because of your traumatic event, talk therapy can be great at reworking those and reframing those. And then when you're able to pair it with an integrative therapy that addresses things in the body, that in my opinion, is a really, really powerful approach to healing. From trauma. In terms of what some of those therapies are, broadly, they're categorized into three areas. There's movement based therapies, nature based therapies, and animal based therapies. So starting with movement based therapies, those are things like dance movement therapy and trauma sensitive yoga. Those are the two that I talk about in my book. And the goal of those therapies is really to rebuild that bridge between the mind and the body. So dissociation is a very clinical term, but that happens a lot with trauma where there's that bridge break between the mind and the body. And the mind has to separate itself in order to stay safe and to be able to survive in that moment. And so oftentimes there is this major disconnect between the mind and the body where they don't trust each other, they don't communicate, there's hypervigilance in the body, but the mind is kind of checked out. And so these movement based therapies allow you to reintegrate yourself and work through maybe that fight or flight response that you weren't able to have in the moment of your trauma.

Trauma.

In terms of nature based therapies, the two that I talk about in my book are eco therapy and then flower essence therapy. And under ego therapy is also wilderness therapy and adventure based therapy, which we can talk about in a second. But nature as a being, and I use the word being intentionally, is incredibly powerful for healing. Actually, the first studies on the healing power of nature were done with artwork of nature inpatient hospital rooms. And the patients who had artwork of nature, not even real nature, like not even a real plant, but artwork of nature in their rooms, they were out of inpatient care faster than patients who did not have that natural artwork in their room. And since then there have been so, so many studies on how nature does things like reduce cortisol levels, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, increase relationship building skills, generally provide this sense of calm and connection that is hard to find in our busy, everyday lives. And all of those can be channeled and paired with a more formal form of therapy like eco therapy or adventure based therapy.

Personally, 100% agree with you. This is not something I was taught when I was younger. Wish I had been. Guys, listen, this is something so simple for you to do. What Jesse just said is you can put a picture of the ocean in your office and there are going to be positive effects from you viewing that every day. If that's a stressful situation and, or a small plant and, or flowers, you know, I'M big into. I always have plants and flowers in my house now. And the other thing that I just added to this that's been helpful has been if I'm having a super stressful day in my bedroom, I have a sound machine. Like lots of little kids have these, right? I'm a mom. Everyone had a sound machine for their child to help calm them to go to bed. And most of those sound machines are the ocean, crickets, nighttime noises. It's nature, right? So this is just, again, it's non intrusive. There is no negative benefit. There is not. Like when you take a medication. Here's all the negative things that can happen to. Nothing negative is going to happen if you have a sound machine playing in a certain room that you go into and you need a break. It definitely has a positive impact on me.

Forget the.

Even the obvious ones. Go outside for a walk, go outside for a run. Those are incredible. And I'm totally here for that. But I just wanted to make sure, Jesse, that we highlight that point for everybody. Simple, small things that people can do today, right now that will help them to feel better.

And that process that you described is actually formally called indoor eco therapy, which is very oxymoronic. I did not make it up. But it is a thing. And so if you want to do that in your own life, think about how you can build nature into your five senses. So you can have a painting or artwork or photograph or something of nature. For sight, you can have a little like, I don't even know what they're called, but the little bubbly fountains that sound like a creep or a white noise machine. For sound, you can have a flower that smells like nature or you can open your window and get a little bit of fresh air in. You can do all of these things based on your different senses. You know, for touch, maybe you run your hand along a plant that you have in your office every time you sit down for work and that's kind of a ritual for you. But think about how you can integrate nature into all of your senses as a very simple thing you can do today. So, yeah, spot on. I love all those tips. Yeah, so that's kind of the nature based therapy options. And that can really take anything from the form of, like I said, indoor eco therapy to these multi day backcountry adventure therapy type of things that are pretty common in like the veteran and first responder space. Those are really phenomenal resources there, of course, as well as, you know, traditional ongoing eco therapy with a mental health professional and then with animal based therapy, the two most common animals used are horses and dogs for different reasons. Dogs, because they're cute and fluffy and accessible, and most people generally like them. But horses specifically, because they are able to model a healthy level of hypervigilance because they're a prey animal. So what does that all mean? When we are a trauma survivor, it is very common for us to be hypervigilant all the time. Everything is dangerous. We're always on guard because something could get us at any point. That is our body's way of protecting ourselves. Ourselves and horses, they are that way in the sense that they are a prey animal. They are the food, they are not the hunter. And so they have to be constantly aware of their surroundings and any threat that might be coming. But they also do that in a way where they're grounded, they're not panicked 100% of the time. They're aware, they know what's going on, but they're not in this constant state of anxiety. And so they can serve as that model for us as we start to heal from trauma using equine or canine assisted therapy. The other thing about animals in general, especially for kiddos who are trauma survivors, is it is a really great way to start to build a relationship again. So a lot of traumas, if you think about kind of a broad definition, are a violation of a boundary. And if that boundary has been violated by another human, it can be really, really difficult to build healthy relationships after that traumatic event with anyone, right? With people who are similar to your assaulter, or people who are different. And so assailant, not assaulter, but anyway, but different or similar to that person. And so when you're able to start to build a relationship with an animal who's non threatening, who's not going to tell any of your secrets, that can help you get back in the vibe of having healthy relationships, learning to trust other beings, learning to communicate, learning to be vulnerable, learning to trust, all of these different things. And that is another huge benefit of canine and equine assisted therapy. One thing I do want to highlight with all of these different therapies that I mentioned is that there is always the involvement of a mental health professional. I think there are things that you can and should absolutely do on your own to heal from trauma. But I don't want people to walk away from this and say, okay, great, I'm gonna go hang out with my friend's horse, I'm gonna pet my dog, I'm gonna go on a walk. And my trauma is going to be healed. There is huge benefit in having the guidance and support of a mental health professional along this journey because there are going to be things that come up that you aren't ready for that you don't know how to handle and having someone to hold that space and container for you throughout that healing journey is so so critical. So yes, do all the self care things, visit pet the dogs, go on all the walks, but also make sure that you are pursuing a form of therapy where there is a trained person with you to help guide you along that journey.

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I love this one. The eye movement desensitization and reprocessing EMDR. I do this myself. I've had this in my tool belt for the last few years, luckily before the pandemic. And I did get panic during the pandemic and this helped me immensely. I was hoping you could walk everybody through how this works.

Yes. So this is so fascinating. And emdr, like Heather said, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing that gets into kind of the neurology of trauma, which is very largely not understood yet. So it's such a new field and I get very nerdy and excited about it. So from kind of an outside perspective, what EMDR looks like is you're going to go, go sit in a therapist's office or you're going to go across from them in zoom and they're going to ask you to move your eyes back and forth and cross this center plane of your body. So they may move their hand back and forth and you just follow their hand with your eyes. Or you're just going to move your eyes back and forth. But the goal is to stimulate both sides of your body. And what this kind of does from a neurological perspective is during a traumatic event, you have all this cortisol, all your stress hormone dumping in your body. And that level of cortisol, that level of stress is actually toxic to your hippocampus, which is the part of your brain responsible for memory formation. So oftentimes what happens in a traumatic incident is you have flashes of the memory, but you can't walk someone through A, B, C, D. Here's what happened at each step of this trauma. You remember the smell, you remember the sound of the car Crashing. You remember the wail of the sirens as they came, but you can't say, ABC happened, happened. And so your memory is not encoding correctly of this traumatic event. And it gets stored with all of those emotions and all those traumatic symptoms with it, like we talked about. So what EMDR does is using this bilateral stimulation, again, working both sides of your brain by having your eyes cross this center plane, it allows you to kind of reprogram those incorrectly stored memories, integrate that trauma into the rest of your life story, and kind of of separate and let go of some of those really difficult emotions that are attached to it. For those of you who are out there that might be skeptical of this, I was too, when I first learned about it. I was like, what? You're going to hypnotize me into this? Which actually clinical hypnosis is a very powerful thing. But I was like, I don't understand it. And a lot of the neurology behind EMDR and exactly how it works is still not known. But there are studies after studies after studies and anecdotes after anecdotes of people who have been through emdr, including myself, including Heather, who have had incredibly powerful results from it. So if you are someone who's skeptical, like, I just got to move my eyes around, what is that going to do? Give it a shot, give it a couple times and just see what happens and how you can start to integrate some of those memories into the rest of your life and let go of some of that somatic part of the trauma.

Oh yeah, I definitely want to give my testimony here. You know, I, as I mentioned, and it's funny that you brought up hypnosis. That's how I found emdr. I wasn't familiar with it. It's not widely shared, or the information's not out there in a large way right now currently. So get on this stuff. There is no downside. Nothing bad can happen. You from giving this a shot. It's not like taking a pill. Again, just back to that point, you know, there's no downside to it. However, I had been seeing a hypnotherapist who is incredible. And again, like anything, you have to find the right person for you. Some people right now are listening and saying, why would you go to a hypnotherapist? If you look at the data in regards to people who are afraid to get on planes, planes can't stop smoking, can't stop overeating, can't stop self sabotage, whatever it may be, and then they go work with a really strong hypnotherapist. The results are incredible. My results were incredible. And I'm such a fan and I actually wrote about it in my first book, Confidence Creator, because I want, I want that message to be out there and people to know. So I developed a relationship with that therapist who I trust immensely and who's amazing to work with. Send him a ton of people, people. And during the pandemic, I started getting, I had never had a panic attack before. I started getting panic only when I was driving over a causeway, which is so weird. I've lived in Miami for 20 years. I drive over causeways every day. But obviously the level of extreme stress that was in my life at that point in time was coming out in strange ways that I would have never been able to predict. I was having panic attacks while driving on causeway. Not a great combination. Right? Right. So especially with my son in the car. So my son's like, what's going on? Like, I'm getting sweaty. I don't know. Mom is feeling really nervous, you know, so it was a huge problem. So I, I, I reached out for help. I went to someone I trusted. I reached out to the hypnotherapist who I'd worked with previously. I said, I've got a huge problem. And I explained everything. He said, great, we're going to do something called emdr. I think we can get rid of this really, really quickly for you. And I'm like, no, you don't understand how big this this is. He's like, take a deep breath. We're going to get through it. I so I just felt better, first of all, that I reached out to someone I asked for help made me feel better. Number two, I knew I reached out to someone who'd helped me in the past, so there's a good chance. And then he told me, don't worry, we can totally solve this problem. So even before I got on the call, I was feeling better, which again, reach out for help, ask for help, and gosh, it's so important. So it was literally a 30 minute session where he sat with me and showed me to your point, point. Moving my eyes, he has me hold my own finger. And I can actually, he taught me a way that I can do it while I'm driving. If I start getting really nervous, I can use my thumbs, you know, and I can distract myself to look from one side to the other. Even just that you can still see the road in front of you, can still drive. But even just reminding yourself to go back to Bringing your eyes from one side to the other immediately lowers the stress for you. And it was just, what an incredible experience for me. And then he took me through some visualization exercise, visualizing myself driving and not having any problems. We leveraged music. He started talking about the fact of distractions, like singing lyrics to a song, like, there were so many things I could do that could get me to beat this, and we beat it. And it's just, it's an interesting thing because the more people I've talked to about weird things that happened during the pandemic, maybe somebody broke out in a rash, maybe someone got angry. There were so many examples of stress rearing its ugly head in really big ways that oftentimes we want to, you know, turn a blind eye to and say, oh, it'll just go away. Why not deal with it, ask for help and resolve it? Especially with something so easy like emdr.

Yes, definitely. And again, your story is one that I've heard from so many people of. They go, they have this problem, and then in a couple sessions, they're seeing noticeable changes in how they're feeling about that particular problem. And I don't want to delude anyone into thinking that, you know, EMDR is a magic pill and it's going to work for everyone. And you go, one session and everything is perfect again, again, because that is unrealistic. But what happens often with these integrative therapies, and again, this is what the literature has shown on these different topics, is that you often see results faster, you often have results stay for longer, and you often have more people finish the course of therapy than in traditional talk therapy. There was actually one really interesting study that looked at therapies that had people confront their traumatic memories versus therapies where people didn't have to confront them and they could kind of work from a somatic perspective around it.

It.

And the result, results were astounding in terms of the amount of people that actually finished the therapy.

Right.

Because even if, even if talk therapies are the best therapy in the world from an effectiveness perspective, if you can't get people to finish them, it's not going to do any good. And I believe that, yes, healing is hard. There are going to be things that are going to come up. It's going to be uncomfortable, there are going to be bad days. But if you are dreading going to treatment every single time you have to go, that's probably a sign that you can look at other forms of therapy or a different therapy therapist and try to make this whole process just a little bit more approachable for you.

Oh my gosh. So true. It doesn't have to be one therapist or one way. Be open minded. There are so many different ways to solve problems today and definitely on each one of us to try it. Tell me the level of importance you see mindfulness and meditation playing in healing.

So important. So what meditation and mindfulness can do specifically for healing from trauma is they can retrain your brain to come back to the present moment so that when you are triggered or you're having a panic attack or a flashback, your brain, just like a muscle that you go to the gym to work out, knows that it's supposed to come back to present. And this does not require this elaborate, you know, meditation room and ritual where you're spending two hours a day meditating. You can even just do mindful dishwashing, right? Mindful laundry folding. This doesn't have to be an additive time, you know, consumer in your life. All you need to do is, okay, you're washing the dishes and your mind starts to wander and you say, okay, I'm bringing it back to washing the dishes, dishes. And every time it starts to wander, you bring it back. And every time it wanders, you bring it back. And again, you're training your brain to be in this present moment. If you think about what a trigger a panic attack flashback is, something like that. It is your brain not understanding the difference between the past and the present. And so if you can get your brain to know the present, to come back to the present, to come back to this moment in time right here, where I am not under threat, that can really, really help in those moments of crisis, in those triggers and flashbacks, in helping you recover more quickly. One thing I do want to share with people with this is that this is actually one of the hardest strategies for people because it is so difficult in the beginning. I don't think people recognize, and I'm the same way, how many different thoughts they have going on at one time. And so they'll be meditating, they're like, I got this 20 minutes, I'm going to be doing this, it's going to be great. And they get maybe two seconds in and their brain is already off on something else. And then it's like, okay, well, okay, bring it back. And then two seconds later it's to going on again. You know, so people come into this with these really high expectations of I'm going to be able to be present, I'm going to be able to be mindful and it's going to be great. And in reality, it's going to be every one or two seconds in the beginning that you're bringing your brain back to this present moment. So what I want to tell people from that is give it some time and start very, very small. So start with three minutes, start with five minutes, and then slowly build up from there. And understand that this is a practice. Again, to use the gym example, if you have never worked out in your life, you've never been to a gym, and you try run a marathon or you try to lift, you know, 300 pounds, it's not going to go very well because your body is not trained to do that. The same thing is true with your mind in mindfulness and meditation. Start small. Start with these little pieces that are really reinforcing. Bring your brain back. Don't judge yourself for how much it wanders, because we all do it. And then slowly go from there, just like you would building up a workout plan at the gym.

Oh, so good. All right. What's another one that you have tried that worked for you that you want the audience to know about before we write? Wrap up?

Yeah. So flower essence therapy, I mentioned briefly when we were talking about nature based therapies is really, really interesting. So flower essence therapy is actually something that standardized healthcare in places like Brazil, Switzerland and Cuba. And it's something that you can get at kind of every pharmacy in Spain, but it has not really made its way into mainstream mental or physical health care in the US So what it is is a bottle. Like, it is a solution of liquid that contains flower essence essences. And this is not just like perfume. It doesn't smell or taste like anything. But there's this very spiritual and beautiful process of setting certain flower essences, flower petals and flowers in bowls of spring water in the sun for a certain amount of time. And then you collect that water. And it's this very connective process with nature and the language of flowers. So to give a little bit of history on this, most people probably understand the language of flowers to an extent. Like, okay, a red rose is a sign of love, right? And I don't know what the other one is for the sign of someone you don't like. But there's all these different things that different flowers mean, and we understand that. And so what this, this doctor did, Dr. Edward Bach, is he looked at the ways that flowers and flower essences could communicate with different parts of us. Anger, sadness, fear, jealousy, criticism. All these different characteristics that are oftentimes coping Mechanisms or symptoms of trauma. Right. They're protective. We're going to criticize others, so they don't criticize us. We're going to be angry at this because being angry is easier than being traumatized. And so he. He looked at all these different flower essences. He used himself as a test subject, and he came up with 27 different flower essences that, when combined, can address these different types of symptoms and emotions that are oftentimes the top level of deeper concerns. And so what you do with flower essences, and you can work with a trained flower essence therapist, or you can do it on your own, is you just literally take them like droppers of liquid in your mouth and you ingest them, or you can put them on your skin as well. Well, and over time, you start to see how some of those reactions dissipate a little bit. Now, again, this is one of the ones where I was like, bull. Like, no way. This does not work. And I tried it for myself, right? It's like, drink a flower and everything's better. And I. I tried it for myself, and it took a little bit, and it took a little while. And after a couple weeks, I was like, man, I don't get as angry anymore because that's. That's my thing is, like, I'm critical. I get angry at people quickly when I think they're not doing what. What I think they should be doing. And so I was like, this is weird. And so I stopped for a little bit, and I started to see myself get a little more critical of people. And I was like, this is so odd. And so, for me, as a personal case study, it did help me. I also have a friend who's been through a lot in her life. She has a lot of medical trauma, a lot of really difficult things she's gone through with physiological diseases. And I brought up flower essences to her, and I was like, have you heard of them before? And she. She's like, changed my life. Absolutely changed my life. She swears by them. And so it's something that, again, the. You know, it sounds a little weird, it sounds a little hokey, but other countries are using it, other cultures are seeing benefit from it, and it's something that works for me as well. There is one study, particularly with flower essences, that I find really fascinating is they examined the effects of skepticism on flower essence therapy. And what they found was that it didn't matter how skeptical about the therapy you were, you still got benefits from it. So even if you're someone who's like, no way. I don't Believe it. Spend 10 seconds a day dropping some flour liquid in your mouth and see if you get any benefit from it. Give it a shot and see if it works for you. But yeah, that's, that's a really fascinating one I like to tell people about as well.

I've never heard of it before, but of course I want to go down the rabbit hole. Where can we buy something like that in the U.S. yeah, so you can.

Actually buy them just online. I mean, Amazon sells them. There's different stores and E commerce retailers that sell them all the time. I would just Google Bach Flower Essences, B, A, C, Age Flower Essences and then you can order from one of the retailers that shows up there.

Jesse, thank you so much for all the work that you're doing to educate people on all these amazing ways to recover from trauma and to help heal. I'm so grateful that you made the time today. Tell everybody where can they find you? Where can they get your book?

Yes, absolutely. So if you want to connect with me, I am on Instagram at its Jesse Buyer, that's J, E S S I, no E. And you can also connect with me on LinkedIn if you want. My book is available at any retailer. You want to buy it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible, anywhere you buy book, you can find it. And then if you are someone who wants to give therapy a shot, DM me on Instagram. I have a list of, I think it's like 70 places you can get free therapy and then a bunch of places you can get really low cost therapy. So if you're looking for some resources to just get you started in therapy for very little to no financial risk, just DM me on Instagram. I'm happy to send that list over.

Jesse, thank you so much for this incredible work you're doing. We're so grateful that you're. You keep doing it and that you've been here today. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. Me, Heather.

All right, guys, take some notes from this show, make some changes in your life and know that I'll be back here next week. So keep creating your confidence. I'll see you then. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

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