The Path from Healing to Healer: Embracing Faith and Transformation with Jen Bayer

In this episode of the Hope Unlocked podcast, I welcome holistic health coach Jen Bayer, who shares her transformative journey from traditional health coaching to embracing a holistic approach to wellness. Jen candidly discusses her struggles with body image and self-acceptance and recounts a pivotal moment when she cried out to God, receiving a powerful message: true breakthrough comes when we stop cursing what God made to be good. This revelation sparked her journey toward authentic healing and helped her learn to view her body through God’s eyes.

In addition to her holistic coaching, Jen introduces her unique practice that integrates inner healing and somatic techniques, nurturing the vital mind-body connection. She also shares exciting developments about her upcoming offerings, which aim to enhance emotional regulation and mental clarity.

Join us for this enlightening conversation filled with practical tips and spiritual wisdom designed to empower you on your healing journey. Whether you’re seeking physical wellness or spiritual growth, this episode is a beacon of hope and inspiration. Tune in to discover how to unlock your potential and embrace a life of healing and wholeness!

Jen's contact info:
Website: www.exaltedhealth.com
Email: info@exaltedhealth.com

Jen's book:
Bless Your Body Devotional: Changing the way you communicate with your body in 40 days

Chapters

• 0:16 Healing Trauma and Body Image
• 13:39 Journey to Health and Healing
• 21:44 Somatic Healing Approach in Health Coaching
• 33:00 Gratitude for Life's Journey
• 38:02 Finding Peace Through Healing Trauma
• 45:20 Healing Trauma Through Body Integration
• 54:11 Holistic Healing Partnerships and Neurofeedback
• 1:05:46 Hope and Healing Through Faith

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:16

Welcome to the Hope Unlocked podcast. I'm your host, kristen Kurtz, and I'm also the founder of New Wings Coaching. I help and empower wildhearted and adventurous women of faith feeling caged and stuck, unlock their true purpose and potential, break free from limitations and thrive with confidence, courage and hope. If you're curious to learn more about coaching with me, head to newwingscoachingnet and be sure to explore the show notes for ways to connect with me further. Get ready to dive in as we uncover empowering keys and insights in this episode. So tune in and let's unlock hope together.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Welcome to the Hope Unlocked podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy IV of hope for your soul. Please help me. Welcome my friend Jen Baer to the show. I am so excited to have her here. As you guys know, we are in the season called Launching Pioneers and just been such a blessing to get to know her better, to have some wonderful healing work done through her healing hands, and I would love for you to share more about you with us before we get into the meat and bones of it.

Speaker 2: 1:19

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. My healing practice is a direct result of my own healing journey with the Lord A few years ago. I was a health coach for many, many years and I was your typical health coach and I would tell people how to eat and how to exercise. And I found myself feeling like I was being really inauthentic because I still had major body image issues. I still didn't like the way I looked. I felt like the scale was never my friend. I lived and died by that number on the scale or the size of my pants, and I kept trying to arrive someplace.

Speaker 2: 2:03

And during that process I was just crying out to the Lord one day and I just was like, why can I not, you know, get to that perfect size or get to that perfect number? I know you want us to be healthy and I audibly heard the Lord say I am not going to give you breakthrough in this area until you stop cursing what I made to be good. And that was a huge pivotal moment for me and that really started the journey of where I am today, where the Lord just took me through this process of really recognizing how often I was cursing myself, looking in the mirror and, you know, hating what I saw or letting my, my attitude and my mood be determined by what the scale said that day or how I thought I looked in a certain outfit and as he started unraveling that, I realized it just went so much deeper than that. He started really just talking to me about the way that I spoke to myself, the way I chose foods, and I started doing it in tandem with the Lord, versus choosing foods or outfits or clothing based on external appearances. I wanted to really come into alignment with what God was saying about me in all areas of my life, and that really was a long journey.

Speaker 2: 3:37

I did write a book about that journey a couple years ago and just all the processes and things the Lord took me through. But then it was like as soon as I wrote the book, he's like okay, we're doing something new now, which was really scary because I finally felt like I had a grasp on it Right. And during that process it was just uncovered like how many traumas I had been through with my own body, many traumas I had been through with my own body, and he really started talking to me about the trauma of the nervous system and how that can directly affect your health. At that point I was still really struggling with some co-infections and things from Lyme's disease that I'd been diagnosed with years before that. But my journey with my health started way before that when I was a kid.

Speaker 2: 4:24

I was the kid that was always in the doctor's office. I was on antibiotics pretty much my whole childhood and you know they never looked for the root cause. They they just continued to throw antibiotics at me to the point where I had rashes all up and down my legs and my arms. And now looking back, I know that was like yeast yeast infections that cause my my gut health was so off but it really continued into my twenties.

Speaker 2: 4:52

When I was 19 or when I was 20, I got really sick and I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is a very aggressive form of cancer, and was was really told that I didn't have very much longer to live and by the grace of God he he pulled me out of that. Uh, only, to you know, a handful of years later I got married and had a baby, but then I had several miscarriages, I got Lyme's disease, I had all these co-infections and the Lord started talking to me about the trauma that had resulted from some of that. I was also raised in a lot of chaos and when we don't deal with our stuff it gets projected onto our body. And the Lord started walking me through what that trauma can do internally when that nervous system has never allowed a place to settle. And that's kind of where we are today.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Well, just even looking back on, you know, you went back to, you know, early childhood. You know, going back to the scale and the ways that you were looking at yourself. Do you remember a specific event that, um caused you to kind of look that way? Because I also I think it was around 10 I was constantly weighing myself and I know messages that were being, you know, put my way to make me start doing that. Was there something sure?

Speaker 2: 6:18

yeah, there was a catalyst event. So I had excuse me, I had developed a little bit sooner than most of the girls around me, so I had hips, I had breasts. And I remember having to get in the pool in gym class in seventh grade and I was already terrified right, because seventh grade boys are seventh grade boys and then I had to wear a swimsuit and I was much more developed than the rest of the girls in the class at that point in my life. And I remember getting to math the following period after we'd been in the pool excuse me and a group of boys that were supposedly my friends. I overheard them making fun of how I looked in a swimsuit and that became a catalyst for just getting just torn to shreds for my appearance that entire year by people that were supposed to be my friends, and I didn't have the self-confidence then to realize that I didn't have to swallow what they were saying.

Speaker 2: 7:26

To realize that I didn't have to swallow what they were saying, it didn't have to be truth, to the point where I played volleyball back then and I was on a traveling volleyball team and our team was actually really, really good. But if you've ever seen a volleyball uniform. They are not kind to young girls, right? You're basically wearing underwear. They call them bun huggers and I remember towards the end of that season we had a home tournament and I was not having fun that season because I felt so miserable in those uniforms. That was one of many reasons, but I remember we got to that home tournament and I heard that a lot of those boys were coming and I was so mortified to be seen in that that I actually quit the team versus showing up for that tournament. That's how deeply it had been affecting me.

Speaker 1: 8:15

And did you have people around you at that time that could speak into that?

Speaker 2: 8:21

like walking away from something that you know you were not an individual, nope, nope. That like walking away from something that you know you were not an individual, nope, nope. I was told, uh, that that was not true and to get over it, unfortunately yeah, well, and I imagine how many people that you've encountered over the years.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Um, you didn't have necessarily a support system, so as a child, you don't have, you don't really have the tools to know what to do to have a breakthrough right.

Speaker 2: 8:51

No, you don't. And it is hard because there was, there was a message of that's not true, get over it. But then there was also the message of well, you can never let that be true, because then the world will not accept you at the same time, so there was also mixed messages of you know, watch what you eat like that's really important, Don't let those pant sizes get bigger. That, so it was a lot of mixed messaging, which is the same thing that the media does to us as well.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Yeah, yeah, well. What do you have to say about just even what we see in this day and age?

Speaker 2: 9:26

I, I don't have girls, you know, I have boys but I even notice it in them, right, and so anytime it's brought up, we we really just surrender it to the Lord and ask him what his truth is. Because, like the Lord didn't make us to be walking around loathing the way that we looked all the time Right. And there's so many sides of this that can go astray from what God's word says about us. What we've been given, or parts of what we've been given in our bodies, or we can make it an idol, to the point where we are obsessed with everything that we eat, everything that we wear, everything that exercise, can become an idol, and so there's so many places that can go wrong that the enemy can corrupt what God's word says about us.

Speaker 2: 10:49

I doubt that there's a single person on the planet that loves every single part of their physical body. But we can align it with God's truth, right and knowing that he doesn't make mistakes and that he didn't put us here to loathe and hate and curse what he made to be good, like. The Bible literally says that we are an indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit resides in us. So when we hate ourselves or hate our bodies, we're actually hating the Lord's creation.

Speaker 1: 11:16

And can you imagine to have this knowledge as a child and a teen?

Speaker 1: 11:21

It would have been a lot different and a teen, it would have been a lot different. It would have been a lot different. But we can't look back and you know we have to look forward, right, and yet we can look back and get healing in those places, because that's a lot of the work that you also helped do as well. One of the things I was thinking about the other day and this might kind of be random, but in relation to just even our culture in general like this identity crisis and, you know, wanting to be somebody different than who you've been created to be, and we have so many options to go get surgeries and, you know, manipulate what God gave us and I just had this vision of like it's going to be so random random, but you might understand where I'm going here like a Chevrolet car that like wants to put Ford parts on it. It's gonna, it's not gonna look right right, you know what I'm saying yeah, yep, and that's, it's so good.

Speaker 2: 12:19

And then, um, the weeds this is a little bit of a segue here, but the weeds that get into our hearts, um, start to shape how we see ourselves when we see the world. So if I have unforgiveness in my heart over those seventh grade boys and I'm angry at them, that anger tends to spill over into a lot of areas of my life and it can become bitterness, it becomes rage, it could become me not hating or not trusting men. Um, it can flow over into intimacy, uh, not feeling comfortable with your spouse. It flows over into so many areas. But the Lord is kind in his healing process when he, he knows what the weeds are, he knows what the roots are, and so bringing those to him which is what I do in my practice is help people bring, bring the root cause, bring the root lie to the Lord and helping reshape how he sees them.

Speaker 1: 13:27

Right.

Speaker 2: 13:28

And then you add in the trauma release technique that I use, called somatic release, and people get healed like at an incredible rate. It's. It blows my mind every single time.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Absolutely Well and I've I've received a great measure of healing in working with you. Just what have I seen you what?

Speaker 2: 13:48

three times, I think yeah, I don't know off the top of my head, but I know you had some great success.

Speaker 1: 13:55

Um, so you went from being a health coach. Uh, what? What led you to become a health coach? Like what? What was the, the catalyst for you stepping into that realm?

Speaker 2: 14:07

Yeah, it was really a desire to be healthier myself, and not even from like a materialistic point. That was part of the motivation. But I had been sick my whole life, right, I had struggled with my health my whole life and I didn't. I wasn't raised in a home where I had a lot of knowledge of what, how to feel my body, what nutrition was, and so after I went through chemotherapy when I had the cancer, that was my first experience going to like a naturopath and she really showed me how to feel my body, what areas of my body weren't working correctly, how to feel my body, what areas of my body weren't working correctly, like, for instance, my liver wasn't detoxing the correct way, which probably led me to getting cancer. Because if you're not detoxing that correct way, those toxins have to go somewhere. And I'm not saying that's the only thing, but it was definitely a piece of the puzzle. All the trauma that I had been carrying all those years. All of that has to go somewhere and oftentimes it manifests in disease. So after I got sick, that's when I really got excited about nutrition. And then after I had babies you know your body changes a lot and that is when I got really motivated to just make sure that I didn't end up with that post baby body for forever. So that was a little bit more materialistic.

Speaker 2: 15:33

But the desire to be healthy was deep within me at the age of I think I was 32 when that happened that really I had a young toddler and a young baby and I was so sick and I just didn't want to miss out on everything and I was to the point where I wasn't functioning, and so that's when I dove even deeper into nutrition and health coaching.

Speaker 2: 16:04

But then it became an idol, right, it became an obsession to the point where I talked about this and that scale, the number on the pants. That had always been there. But after I had babies it really became like my sole focus, because as you get older and your metabolism slows down, I started to struggle with my weight a little bit more, and that's when it really kind of took hold. I was in an environment, being a health coach, where I felt like everyone was fitter than me, everyone had gotten their post baby bodies back better than me, everyone had six packs and I was still struggling with a lot of those things, and that's when it really became a complete idol in my life.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Yeah, so at that point you know you're, do you feel like you were kind of doing all the things that everybody else was doing? You know, following all the plans and you know the XYZ and do this, do that, and yet you weren't having the results that you were desiring then.

Speaker 2: 17:04

I wasn't having the results and it was consuming my brain on a level that it had never consumed before, but I also got to the point where it was consuming me so much that the Lord was finally able to reach me through it.

Speaker 1: 17:24

So, in that like, what was that process like for you?

Speaker 2: 17:29

It started out, uh, uh, pretty slow. So I told you about the situation where I was just really crying out to him one day Um, and that was that was a really low point. Right, it was a really low point Cause I was in an environment with all these other health coaches and I had a lot of people telling me that I would never be successful as a house coach unless I looked like them. And a lot of them were size twos, a lot of them were beautiful blondes, and it was just absolutely consuming me. And so I was crying out to the Lord one day just saying like, why can't you make me like them? Um, and I and the silly part is is looking back cause I was already actually really successful. So I don't know why that took hold. I can't tell you why that took hold, but I was absolutely convinced I needed to be a size two. And I'll tell you what Jen has never been a size two, even before babies, even before. You know, all these things like that is just not the way the Lord made me. So it was just like this ridiculous goal that I set myself on, and so the Lord just really started unraveling all the ways that these negative thought processes had been consuming me, and it wasn't a quick process. It was sitting down with him every morning and asking him what he wanted to work on that day, and that's really what my book is is. It's all the questions that I sat there and just worked through with the Lord. The questions that I sat there and just worked through with the Lord. I mean, one of them was I was completely obsessed with having, like, a tummy tuck. I was completely obsessed with it. I also wanted a breast augmentation, and it was something that my husband and I would argue about on the regular, and he wasn't necessarily against me getting them. He wanted to convince me that I didn't need those things to be accepted, to be beautiful, and I'm so thankful that he held his ground on that before I did those things to alter what the Lord had given me, because now those desires are completely gone.

Speaker 2: 19:43

I've heard so many horror stories of people getting breast augmentations and getting very, very sick from them Because the bags are leaking. I've heard horror stories of tummy tucks. What I didn't even know at the time is that I had diastasis recti was, which is is, um, when, the, when the muscles of your stomach split because of pregnancy. Um, so if I had gotten a tummy tuck, it actually probably would have looked worse because that needed to be repaired first. Um, so there was a lot. There was a lot of unraveling that happened and it was a very slow, slow process, which which is why he had me write the book so the next person could start on, you know, the ceiling of my journey and walk through it with the Lord, um, knowing what questions to ask and sit with them, and I'm sure there's more out there. But, yeah, he took me through that.

Speaker 2: 20:37

What is the name of your book, so the listeners can bless your body and it's a 40 day devotional of of ways to walk through and ask the Lord what you have to clean up. Where you are, your, your thought processes and your actions are not lining up with God's word. It's a very gentle way to just fully recognize all the different areas where we've been cursing ourselves, where we've been talking down to ourselves. It's just a gentle way to come back into alignment with how God created our bodies to be.

Speaker 1: 21:12

And I love, I mean I love that you have you know they're, in essence, it's it's coaching, it's coaching right. You're coaching questions, but you're having somebody sit with the Lord to reveal like the roots in essence and heal how um have you heard testimonials from people who've gone through your book?

Speaker 2: 21:34

I have heard testimonials from people who've gone through my book One of my favorites, um, and I have her permission to share this as actually a coaching client and somebody that's gone through my book. But, uh, this particular client had struggled with emotional eating her entire life, her entire life that she could remember every single time she would try to clean up her diet or, you know, really get control of her diet, Cause she was struggling with with some extra weight that she didn't want. She would find herself binging and she's like, it's like it takes over me and I cannot turn it off right. And so we asked the Lord what the root cause of that was. And she was immediately transformed or transported back to a time in elementary school, back when they used to weigh all of the students at the front of the class, and so the nurse had weighed her, and the nurse said you're fat, go home and have your mom put you on a diet. And she was about 10 years old at the time, if I'm remembering correctly.

Speaker 2: 22:41

So from the time that she was 10 until she was 18, her mother controlled everything that she ate. Everyone else at dinner would get a full meal and, you know, be able to eat whatever they wanted, and she would get like one cup of rice. And so she felt like she had to hide food to survive because, as we know now, one cup of rice is not providing the nutrients that body needs to grow and flourish Right. So when she became an adult, every time she tried to limit and clean up or, you know, make make healthier choices, the part of her brain that had been traumatized by that would say Nope, actually, this is when we need to overdo it. And so we went back, we did some healing. We, you know, we forgave the nurse, we forgave mom, knowing that mom really had did not know what she was doing, she did not know the trauma that she was causing. We healed some stuff there and this person was totally free from emotional eating from that day forward.

Speaker 1: 23:52

Praise God forward.

Speaker 2: 23:58

Praise God. Right, and not everybody's story is as clear cut as that right, because a lot of us have more than one thing that has happened along the way or, you know, we've had new traumas that have triggered or added on to old traumas. So not everybody's as cut and dry as that one. But she's really done well with it and she's been able to really change her relationship with food through some coaching that we've done, and now she eats to satiate and satisfy. She does not diet and she's been able to. She's been able to drop quite a bit of extra weight. It's been really inspiring to watch.

Speaker 1: 24:31

I'm so thankful for the work that you're doing. Um, so you're still just to clarify you're still doing health coaching. It's just a different way.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Yeah, it's more like a life coaching, uh relationship. We focus on inner healing, we do some somatic release, um, but also we use coaching tools, um. So I no longer advise people, uh. People like eating plans or exercise plans I will make suggestions on if somebody wants to improve their diet, but I don't provide any of the eating plans or supplements or anything like that anymore.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Okay, so moving into where you are now with doing a lot of the you know, somatic work, the inner healing, yeah, were these things that, like the Lord brought you to to learn about and get healing through first? Yeah, like, how did that, how did that play out for you?

Speaker 2: 25:26

I had been on that journey of healing with him for several years, right, and during that process I had read a book called Wants you Well. Somebody had suggested it to me because I had been doing all this healing with my own body. I had been, you know, really focused on nutrition and supplements for many, many years and I kept thinking like why am I still sick? Why do I have all of this pain in my body still? And that's really when he directed me to more inner healing, right, like what is the root cause that's keeping this pain or this you know chronic health issue locked in my body, because not only did I have Lyme's Lyme's can attack your nervous system and you start developing all these chronic co-infections and things that can happen. But I kept thinking like I'm doing everything right, but there's got to be more.

Speaker 2: 26:19

Because I'm reading nonstop about how Jesus lives in my body. The Holy Spirit lives in my body. God made us to be well, but there's something missing, right? So I read this book called Jesus Wants you Well, and that was really when I started learning about like spiritual healing and how we can have these spiritual roots of unforgiveness or anger or rage or whatever it is that when we're not dealing with them, we're projecting them onto our body and that can continue to cause physical inequities. Right, and while I was reading that book by way, do not read that book, it's from like 1940, it's very outdated, but it gave me. It gave me an understanding. What's that?

Speaker 2: 27:02

is what you needed at the time, though yes, yes, just to paint you a picture, there's like five chapters on what DNA is. So it's, it's. Yeah, it was, it was the right book and it's time. But now we have a lot better stuff.

Speaker 2: 27:16

But, audibly, during that, I heard the Lord speak to me and said this is what you're going to bring to the people. You're going to modernize this and bring it to the people. And so I started. I got my life coaching certification and I started coaching women on what it was like to have a godly body image, right, and that's where that client came from. That I just told you that story. But, and then I wrote my book and the Lord was like, okay, we're done with that. Now you get to switch gears. And I was like, oh, what are you talking about, lord? I don't know what I'm doing here.

Speaker 2: 27:49

And during that time, I had an open vision and I saw myself and this is also a time in my life where I was learning about inner healing. I was learning about praying for miracles and just contending for healing, right. And so I had an open vision that the Lord gave me, where I saw myself laying hands on women on a massage table and they were doing what I didn't know at that time was somatic release, and so he was giving me a tool to help women release trauma from their bodies. And about two weeks later after that, I was at a seminar at the ministry I'm partnered with and they brought in a woman who was coaching on trauma in the body and somatic release. She was a licensed therapist and she walked us through how to release trauma from the body, combined with inner healing.

Speaker 2: 28:45

And I don't know if I've ever been more blown away in my entire life, because when he gave me that open vision, I said to him I will do whatever you tell me, but I need confirmation first, because there'd been a lot of times in my life when I'd gotten ahead of the Lord when he told me I was going to do something. And so he gave me that open vision. This woman came to visit who trained me on somatic release. She spent some time with me afterwards, got me all trained up to use it, and then I said, okay, lord, but I'm not moving until you confirm it again.

Speaker 1: 29:17

Okay, Gideon.

Speaker 2: 29:19

And a couple of weeks later, someone that had no idea about this conversation I was having with the Lord, but was somebody that was praying into my life about where my business was going to go, gifted me a massage table.

Speaker 1: 29:33

Girl seriously.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Yeah and I was like, all right, I heard you, lord, what's the next step? And I started doing somatic body work on other friends that I had from this ministry school to get trained up, and I actually found that as I was doing it, the Lord had been training me for years. I have an undergrad degree in occupational therapy. That's what I was going to go to get my master's in, and I never went, but it gave me a very deep understanding of the body. I had worked for a chiropractor in college where I had done deep tissue work for years, and so I had a deep understanding of how the body worked. I'd been through so many things with my own health and he just started downloading exactly the tools that I needed. I'd been through inner healing training I'd been through the somatic training now and he just brought it all together and just and he made up a profession. For me is basically what happened and he made up a profession for me is basically what happened.

Speaker 1: 30:35

Yes, well, and we were talking about that before you know, this is what did you say. It was basically like this is you know? This is different. It's absolutely different.

Speaker 2: 30:44

It is yeah. I don't know anyone that's doing anything like what the Lord has me doing?

Speaker 1: 30:51

Yeah, I don't. I don't either, and that's part of why I wanted you to share here today, because, for those of you who are local, we're in Minnesota. I really want to have people reach out to you to hear more about it. But you also do work online too right.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Yeah, I mean the Lord can work through any, any medium, right? He's not outside of space and time. So I do have clients that I also work with online. It's obviously a little bit different because they're not getting like the healing hands in prayer, but he can still work through people. Like the somatic release is just simple movements that we do to release trauma, so that can be done. The inner healing can be done also over zoom, so that's not a problem. It is a little bit different in terms of like creating the environment, because I can't control other people's environment, but I've still seen people get healed the testimony I told you about a few minutes ago. That client I've never seen in person. She's always been online and she's still gotten a radical amount of healing. And I've seen people all over the United States. Obviously, most of my clients are in person because they really like that healing environment that we partner together to make with the Lord, but it doesn't mean that they can't get healing over Zoom.

Speaker 1: 32:04

So I wanted to kind of go back a little bit. How long ago did this new thing come to be? It's been about two years, two years Okay, it's been about two years. Called to do. I mean, I could go on a little tangent on this, but I just wanted you to speak to that a little bit more on. You know, looking back over your life and the you know the things that you've walked through, whether it be challenging, or you know things that you've been equipped, the tools that you've been given along the pathway like what would you say to somebody who's listening today? They're like well, I, I don't have anything like that.

Speaker 2: 32:58

You know it took it. It took a lot of reflection, um, in hindsight, to see the path that the Lord had been laying for a lot of years, because I didn't go on to get my master's degree right. I have never practiced occupational therapy because I never went to grad school and you have to have an occupational therapy license in order to do that, um. However, the first time that that came into play, um is, I had a son with severe sensory issues and, um, we were missing a lot of them. He was about 18 months when I left my uh. I had a full-time job years ago and I left my full-time job to stay home with my kids and I was doing the health coaching part-time on the side. And until I started spending a lot of time with my son cause he was at daycare most of the time, right, I had missed that there was something in his brain that wasn't computing. And then, when I started spending a lot of time with him, I would start kind of cataloging them and I would tell my husband. My husband would be like I think he's just a kid. I think he's just a kid, but I had a deeper understanding of that brain body connection because of that undergrad degree, right. And so when he was finally, I think, four, I had him. I took him in for a consult for occupational therapy because he'd gone to preschool and nothing was computing. He wasn't able to grasp the content, even when we're talking simple letters and numbers and colors and things like that. And so I took him in and what it did I know this is just one example, but it gave me such a deep understanding is that the Lord can use all things for good.

Speaker 2: 35:03

I had a lot of shame around the fact that I never went to grad school, and there's a lot of reasons that didn't happen, but one of them being like I was offered a job that paid more than I would have made had I graduated with an OT license right. But I always felt like I was wasting my gifts Because I knew that I was called to work in the healthcare field, to work some way with the body, and I don't know if that's. I wasn't walking with the Lord at the time, so I wasn't seeking, you know, help from him on which direction I should go, but I had a lot of shame around it and then, when I was able to uncover that, that that the Lord was actually using it. I started looking at all the other areas, um, where the Lord had been preparing me, where he had been using things that I'd learned along the way for good, like when I worked at that chiropractor. I worked at that chiropractor for many, many years because I worked at it the last couple of years I was in college and then for two years after college when I was working towards getting into grad school, and I learned so much about the body during that timeframe and that job was so stressful.

Speaker 2: 36:26

I had a boss that she hadn't done a lot of her own healing is the kindest way to say that and she was. She was a very hard person to work for, but I learned so much about the body she learned about, like and that was right coming off of my own cancer journey that I started working there, and so I knew I had a lot of dysfunction in my body. So I learned a lot about the physical body and how we can fuel the body in a certain way. And so, to answer your question, without going through every single thing, I had so much gratitude, like looking back at how the Lord had been weaving things together and so many things that I just thought were such a waste ended up being part of the story of how the Lord was preparing me.

Speaker 2: 37:08

So I was, you know, in my 40s before I started doing this, and I was coaching a couple of years before that, which I also thought am I doing the right thing? Because I wasn't super successful when I was just coaching. I was mildly successful, but I had come off a coaching, a health coaching career where I was really successful, right, and so each step of the journey prepared me for the next one, and it took me looking back and really having gratitude for each step of the way prepared me for the next one, and it took me looking back and really having gratitude for each step of the way to recognize it.

Speaker 1: 37:40

I think that's a huge key point there is is the gratitude through the journey right and even taking that time to look back, I, I, I like to do it in little like breaks of you know, every 10 years, kind of looking at those pivot points that you know really were challenging. You know, for example, for me I moved a lot and I liked it was so traumatic for so many years.

Speaker 2: 38:07

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:08

But I can look back now and say I'm so thankful that we moved a lot, because if we hadn't moved here I would never have met my husband, I wouldn't have had my kids. It was to be able to kind of flip the script on some of those really challenging years, right? What would you say to that?

Speaker 2: 38:26

I mean I wholeheartedly agree, most recently, like you know a little bit about what I've walked through the last couple of years. So I went from coaching and then I really learned a lot about the nervous system and getting rid of my trauma. And what I learned in that process is that my nervous system had been in a state of hyper regulation or hyper arousal excuse me, hyper arousal for 30 plus years, which basically the world would call extreme anxiety, right, right, and I just could never settle. I never felt peace. And when I learned a lot of the tools that I use now with clients, I was able to settle my nervous system in a way that I had never felt peace in my entire life. And not only settle my nervous system. I got to live there. I got to live in peace. I got to walk in the peace that I heard so much about in the Bible. That felt so impossible to obtain, but I just needed the right tools right.

Speaker 2: 39:17

And about the time I figured that out and started really walking in peace, my dad died unexpectedly and right after that my mom got sick and I had to walk her through 18 months of the dying process and my mom died, and so I lost both of my parents fresh off of coming through this and kind of finally figuring out how to walk in peace. But what was so beautiful about it is that I got to be so present. I got to feel healed in a way I never had before, during the hardest season of my life, and I got to care for and honor them the best way I knew how. Um, if that had happened even a few years before that, I would have been so like I wasn't overwhelmed.

Speaker 2: 40:05

My whole life is what I figured out until I, until I regulated myself, um, but I was able to be present and take care of them in a way I never had, but I never would have been able to prior care of them in a way I never had, but I never would have been able to prior to learning all of that and that, like I treasure that time as hard as it was, cause my mom was really, really sick but I treasure that Right and I think I shared in the beginning like my home wasn't one of peace. It was one of chaos and um, I don't mean anything to dishonor my parents, but they were. They were chaotic and I got to walk them through dying from peace, um, and that is probably one of the greatest gifts I'll have of my lifetime.

Speaker 1: 40:49

And do you have siblings too?

Speaker 2: 40:51

I do yeah, I have two brothers. And do you have siblings too? I do, yeah, I have two brothers.

Speaker 1: 40:55

And were they able to just see this change in you during this time as well?

Speaker 2: 41:01

You know, the thing about healing is sometimes the people closest to us are the last ones to see it.

Speaker 1: 41:11

That's a word right there.

Speaker 2: 41:13

What's that?

Speaker 1: 41:14

That's a word right there.

Speaker 2: 41:14

Yeah, that, that's a word right there, yeah, and so I would not say that, um, and it was such a charged emotional time, um, that's I don't know. I don't know to answer your question. I don't think so. But I know how I felt different and I know how I showed up different and I know how I came through it different.

Speaker 2: 41:36

Prior to that, any little stressor in my life would have kind of sent my whole body into a uh, even greater dysregulated state. Um, a serious illness would have fought, would have followed, or a serious injury, because that stress goes somewhere, uh, it weakens the body in all sorts of ways. Um, and I walked through that, um, able to just really be at peace, and not that I didn't mourn, I mourned very, very deeply. But I also learned how to take care of myself in a way I never had before. I took the whole summer. I hardly worked all summer, I worked very, very part-time and I took the whole summer after she passed to just rest, um, and really take care of myself and make space to process my emotions and work that out with the Lord in a way that I have never done in my life. And I can honestly say that I'm regulated through that season, which means peace essentially.

Speaker 1: 42:31

That is that, honestly, that word peace, you know, for for myself as well, I we have a lot of overlapping. You know, areas of our life that yeah I go into as well that are just so parallel and I think that was one of the last like fruits of the spirit that I was like.

Speaker 2: 42:49

I don't know if I can ever feel that you know, yeah, or you feel glimpses of it, and then the next life thing happens right.

Speaker 1: 42:57

Yes, absolutely. It'd be like okay, like here's another thing and another like dodgeball coming my way, Like how do I have peace when all these balls are being thrown at me?

Speaker 2: 43:08

Yeah, yeah, and then, having a nervous system that's regulated, you're starting from peace then, and it doesn't mean that you don't have moments of that fight or flight or, you know, the nervous system kicking in and taking over because that's its job, right, like if we're being chased by a bear. We have to have a way to process those emotions, number one, and ways of regulating the nervous system so that our bodies stop releasing those hormones, because those are stress hormones and so we don't want to live in a place where adrenaline and cortisol is going all the time, and unfortunately, most people are.

Speaker 1: 43:52

Absolutely. So if somebody is listening, they're like well, I don't, I don't really know. I'm like I'm not having a lot of peace, but I can't really tell if I like my nervous system's not regulated. I have some anxiety like what would be some? So we have the roots but then we also have the fruit. So, like what would be some of the you know for you, maybe some quote, unquote indications that somebody is, you know, nervous system is dysregulated, like are there?

Speaker 1: 44:21

yeah, there's definitely, or you know manifestations of sickness, or that just maybe a few that might help somebody say, yeah, I think you're talking to me. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I mean I think you're talking to me.

Speaker 2: 44:31

Yeah, yeah for sure. So I mean, I think the first, the first sign that I know that I've lost my peace is I have ruminating thoughts, and what that means is I have a thought process that I just can't let go of. So, for instance, we've all had situations where we've had a disagreement with another person and then we leave that environment and we're having conversations in our head that we just can't stop right, the rebuttal that we wanted to say, the thing we wanted to say to put that person in their place, or even a response. That's not healthy. So when we're ruminating on things, that's an indicator that we're heading towards dysregulation, if not dysregulated already.

Speaker 2: 45:13

Other physical symptoms when your shoulders are up by your ears and you feel yourself bracing, that's a good indication. Clenching your jaw, waking up with jaw pain or headaches, that's a sign that you're clenching your teeth during the night and that's a really good indicator that you're dysregulated, because your body's trying to find a way to process that excess stress while you're sleeping. So if you're waking up with a tense jaw or a headache, neck and shoulders that are clenched, that's another way that you would know. In extreme cases it's going to be anxiety that you can't get to shut off for any reason, it's going to be pain in your body with no root cause. Going to be a pain in your body with no root cause, or if you're just having a lot of health issues that they just can't tell you by right, that's an indicator that you've just got trauma kind of bouncing around in your body or you're treated for one thing and it's like within a couple of weeks it's bouncing up somewhere else within your body. A couple of a couple of examples right there.

Speaker 1: 46:17

And I mean, if you go to like I'm just even kind of thinking back to even I'm sure you could have situations like this too, like years ago, um, you know, I had a lot of jaw pain and I had a lot of headaches, and the first thing that I was told to do was to go get a mouth guard for sleeping.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Right, which is just a bandaid Right. Yeah, and I'm not saying they don't serve a purpose Like I've had one at different points in my life, but once I got regulated I actually didn't need it anymore because I wasn't clenching anymore. Um so then my jaw pain and my headaches all disappeared.

Speaker 1: 46:51

It's so fascinating, isn't it like? And you learned about all of this in your 40s and I, you know, for me too, I feel like I fully stepped into, like what he's called me into in my 40s. So what I, what I've been just really noticing, and even with a lot of the gals I've been interviewing on this podcast, is it's never too late.

Speaker 2: 47:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:14

Amen to that. It's never too late, and especially in this realm of, you know, being a pioneer, being a trailblazer, like it hasn't been rainbows and butterflies, I'm sure what has this journey been like, you know, even as a business owner, as you've continued on this journey.

Speaker 2: 47:40

You know, it's really incredible because I had a full time job in my 20s and 30s and I actually had a really good full time job and then I switched over to this health coaching and that was just 100% hustle, 100% of the time, and obviously not the healthiest environment. I shared some things that were happening within that environment before, and so then I, like I knew the Lord was calling me out of that, but I had such, I had such a belief that I had to be, you know, the most successful at anything that I did, or it was a failure, right, it was all or none.

Speaker 1: 48:16

But what was success at that point?

Speaker 2: 48:19

I mean to me it was, you know, I had to be earning at least a six figure income, and I mean even more than that, maybe I don't. I was very focused on on the, the income. I was. I was raised in a home where there was never enough, and that was a complete trauma response. Right, my family was never going to be without and so for me that was that's what it looked like.

Speaker 2: 48:48

So everything had to be done from a place of hustling a thousand miles per hour, striving, from a place of hustling a thousand miles per hour, striving, proving. And when the Lord really started this journey with me, with my own body, he really dismantled that idol I had of what success looked like and what it looked like to partner with him. What it looked like to partner with him, um. So the striving, the proving, all that ego and pride filled um behavior, the Lord really dismantled that and that was a very humbling process. It was incredibly humbling process and I really just realized that I had putting been putting the wrong things on on the throne, right and um, when he started just dismantling the thought processes, it wasn't just about my own body, it was about what success looked like, um, and when I really started to find my groove, um, with this coaching is when my dad died and it was incredible for me to say, okay, lord, I trust you Like. I trust you in a way that I never have before. You have created this job out of nothing, out of random things. Other people have created and made it into a profession, and women are getting healed all the time.

Speaker 2: 50:17

But I was walking through a season where I was taking care of very, very sick human beings, right, and I just surrendered it.

Speaker 2: 50:27

I just 100% surrendered it. I quit all marketing, I quit most networking that I was doing, and in that season the Lord blew wind on it and my business has grown beyond what dreams I had for it Because I had found peace. Right, I had found peace and I was like, whatever you want to bring me, I'm okay with, because my peace is more important than my business at this point, because I've learned how to carry the peace of the Lord right. And in a season when I had almost no more to give because I was so busy taking care of my parents and my family walking through my own grief, he just kept bringing me people, he just kept bringing clients and it has grown now to a point where I never had I didn't have dreams for that anymore, because I thought I laid all that down, right, but he just wanted to do it his way. It's almost like he said watch what I can do when you let me.

Speaker 1: 51:27

Yeah, wow, that's a word for somebody. Yeah, there's a pause there. Say that again.

Speaker 2: 51:37

What did I say? Watch what I can do when you let me.

Speaker 1: 51:41

Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's in essence like quote unquote impossible in the world standard.

Speaker 2: 51:49

It absolutely is, and sometimes I still have to sit back in awe because I get referrals. Now you know four and five people deep meeting. I don't know them, I don't know who referred them, I don't know who referred that person before them, and but people are desperate for healing and they've tried a lot of other things and incorporating the body into a lot of the inner healing and the nervous system regulation has just given people so much freedom and I'm just I'm so grateful for what the Lord has done, has just given people so much freedom and I'm just, I'm so grateful for what the Lord has done, absolutely and it's and it's so beautiful because you can even look at it kind of the other way.

Speaker 1: 52:29

So these people that are being healed are then impacting, like if they're in business or ministry. Absolutely, they're able to better impact their families. You know, you, can you, you, elaborate on that? I don't want to do it, you do it.

Speaker 2: 52:44

I, yeah, I mean the, the. The splash is is what's the word I'm looking for? It is undefined, isn't the right word. The ripple effect is has gone so far already that I it can't even wrap my mind around it, because, you know, people that have been walking with trauma for years are getting healed and then they're going into their own home and being different people and then, you know, breaking off the generational stuff that's affected their family for years and people are just getting healed, like it, the cumulative effect of that.

Speaker 2: 53:29

I don't know if if I'll ever know, maybe when I get to heaven and the lord um reveals it to me, but it's just, it's so beautiful and it's not just me. I'm not taking credit for this by any means. It's for sure the holy spirit and I know that there's so many other people out there doing inner healing work, um, which has so much power, but then there's just a select population of the people that need the body work along with it, because the inner healing is really great for the emotional and the spiritual stuff, but the body, the body keeps score, to quote that incredible book that's been written like the body holds on to stuff, and so if we don't incorporate the body, sometimes it can't move forward. That's the key that can unlock a lot of healing for people.

Speaker 1: 54:11

Exactly and, like you know, from my perspective, in the life coaching aspect, you know, there's people that I can even refer out for inner healing, because once they have that piece unlocked they can further go out and do that.

Speaker 1: 54:27

You know we're working on. So it's like a partnership. You know, right, absolutely prayer hub last week about. You know it's collaboration. It's not, um, yes, I don't have to. Just, you know, quote on we don't have to hoard people Like absolutely not come to us and sometimes we refer out because you're not ready for life coaching yet and what could you speak to that?

Speaker 2: 54:52

Yeah, I refer out all the time Because there's skills that I don't have that other people specialize in. So, for instance, like yourself, like you are such a gifted life coach and helping people unlock. So if I have someone that's trying to unlock what their future looks like, right, they might come to me for a couple sessions and get healing and get all that stuff that's weighing them down out of their way and I can send them right back and then they can accelerate the growth process they want to in any area of their life. If I have somebody who maybe has some trauma in their body, but then I can also see that they need some supplementation or help in that regard. I have a holistic kinesiologist that I refer to all the time who understands completely what I do, and so we can partner and really create the synergy within.

Speaker 2: 55:41

I also have a therapist that I refer to all the time that's very well-versed in prayer ministry and inner healing, but I can only help the hour that they're on my table I can help get the roots out. But if they still have work they need to do in skillset like boundaries or healthy communication or positive thought processes, I don't get enough time with them to work on those things. So I have a therapist that I refer out to, and I have a whole team of people that I refer out to because I specialize in what the Lord's called me to, but I can't do all the things, and so there's other areas that people can fill in. I even have a whole inner healing ministry that I refer to because they do it in a little bit different way than I do, and so I know if somebody has a deeper inner healing, then I feel equipped to, because I always ask the Holy Spirit is this person my client or is there someone else's? Then I can refer them out to where they need to be.

Speaker 2: 56:41

And it doesn't mean that they're never my client. It means that they might not be in that moment that they need something else first. But there's so many people out there doing beautiful work, Um, and I love having so many people that I trust and can partner with, uh, to send them out to that that have a skillset that I don't carry Right. I know where the Lord's called me and I'm really fine sticking in my lane Right. I know where the Lord's called me and I'm really fine sticking in my lane.

Speaker 1: 57:05

Isn't it beautiful to have that like revelation too. It is. It is, it's so beautiful To be able to say you know, even when you said something a little bit earlier, I can't do it all.

Speaker 2: 57:26

Yeah, and I don't want to right Like. I don't want to like I like my peace. I don't want to like I like my piece. I don't want to work 24 7. I want to do what the Lord's called me to do and then be refilled by him and send. Send the client that needs something else to the person that specializes in that. Like I have prayed for collaboration like that my entire entrepreneurial career, which is 12 years now, and I finally found it within this community where I know that I can send any client to any one of you and know that they will be safe and well taken care of and I never feel like there's competition. It's amazing, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed and I've prayed for it for a long time and had other circles that claim to be that that we're not that.

Speaker 1: 58:07

I know, I, I'm just it, it floors me. I'm like, thank you, lord, agreed, agreed, we can. We can, just, we are the body and we're like this beautiful, like the word that keeps coming to me, like, as you're talking, is this mosaic right? And as we come together, even kintsugi, you know kintsugi, like the gold that's stitched between, like we're coming together to really help um, bring breakthrough and freedom, um to those he calls us to.

Speaker 1: 58:36

Yeah, it's so beautiful wonderful um, well, what is what's coming up for you? What, what, what, what's coming up? I know there's something kind of cool potentially coming your way, but um, are you open to talk about it yet?

Speaker 2: 58:53

are you referring to something specific? Because I don't know. But oh, the neural feedback, that's what you're referring to. I was like, what event do I have coming up? Think if she can talk about I don't know. If you can talk, I can certainly talk about it.

Speaker 1: 59:00

I had my mind on events and I'm like what event do I have coming up If she can talk about it? I don't know if you can talk about it.

Speaker 2: 59:04

I can certainly talk about it. I had my mind on events and I'm like I don't know if I have events coming, but they're all private events, but that's just where my mind is. So the neurofeedback I'm so excited about neurofeedback. So neurofeedback is something that's been around for a really long time to help strengthen neural pathways in the brain. Time to help strengthen neural pathways in the brain. So the best example I can give when I first was introduced to neurofeedback is back when my son was very young and we were doing many, many years of occupational therapy, physical therapy, vision therapy. We were doing all the things because you get a severe sensory processing disorder and they had us try neurofeedback, which at that time you had to be very focused on a computer device and when one of his biggest hindrances was focus I didn't feel like it was that successful. So what neurofeedback does is that you hook up to electrodes. It feeds information into a computer device that read that device and it sends feedback to the brain so the brain can autocorrect. It can be really great for regulating the nervous system, strengthening healthy neural pathways which are just thought processes within the brain. But the technology at that point, like I said, he had to be focused. Well, when his biggest struggle was focused, I didn't find it that successful.

Speaker 2: 1:00:27

So I've been following neurofeedback for years because I love the concept. You know I can work with clients all day long when they're on my table and we can get to some of those deep spiritual ruts. But I don't have control over them once they leave my table or leave the coaching session and I know you can relate to that right, we can only take them as far as they're willing to go. But some thought processes are so deep in their subconscious that they're not even aware that they're doing them. I see this a lot with emotional eating. People don't know what their triggers are until they found themselves, you know, like eating a whole bag of chips and then they have the regret and the shame that comes after it and they just don't know how to turn it off.

Speaker 2: 1:01:09

So what neurofeedback does is it doesn't need you to consciously know that information and it goes into your brain. It finds the areas that aren't functioning correctly, that aren't functioning for your highest good, and it gives that input back to the brain. So essentially it's a cheat code for healing all those thoughts, lies and beliefs that lie in our subconscious shaping our behaviors that we don't want. It's really great for focus. It's incredibly good for sleep, because a lot of times, our subconscious when we're stressed, our subconscious is going a thousand miles per hour and that's why our sleep can be really, really disrupted. It's even great for things like sports performance. It's great for things like emotional eating all of those things that are triggered in our subconscious.

Speaker 2: 1:02:00

This neurofeedback device can provide a lot of healing. I like to call it the cheat code for strengthening some of those positive neural pathways within the brain that can move us towards the behaviors we want. Everyone is experienced. I really want to change this habit, but it's really hard, right, that's because it's so deeply ingrained in our subconscious. So there's all kinds of things that it's going to be great for and that will be coming to my practice, hopefully within the next few weeks, um, and I'm really excited to be launching that so people can experience even more greater levels of healing. And, um, even in my own home it will be utilized on the regular.

Speaker 1: 1:02:39

So incredible. Well, I am so excited for you. Um, in the time that I've known you, just what he's been leading you into and you know more layers of beautiful unlocking for people. Yeah, thank you Leveling you to be, able to do that in new ways. It blows my mind. It's the yes, it's the yes. The pioneering, launching pioneers, have to have a willingness to say yes to the things that might look a little crazy sometimes, right.

Speaker 2: 1:03:09

Yeah, and just really trusting, trusting the Lord. I mean, the first time he showed me that picture of you know women on the table and myself laying hands on them in prayer, I was like, okay, who's gonna? Who's gonna want to do that? Turns out a lot of people do.

Speaker 1: 1:03:26

Well, I'm so excited for you. One of the things that I like to ask when I feel like we can close up, but when, when I was called to do the podcast, it was a yes, but there was, you know, some trepidation and I needed some confirmations too, but one of the things he showed me was that this is for the one. So, as you have been talking, I would just love for you to kind of get a vision of one woman or man who's listening in today, and is there anything else that you'd want to say to them, and would you be open to praying us out?

Speaker 2: 1:04:01

Yeah, of course, um, for the one. Um, I think there's a belief out there that when we've carried a lot of stuff for our whole life, that that's just the way it is, and Jesus, if he did it for one, he'll do it for you too, and sometimes you just need the right tools and the right people to come alongside you. So, if you feel like you've been on a journey of healing either your body or your emotions, or spiritually, or the trauma you've walked through, or if you're relating to the nervous system dysregulation, like the Lord, the Lord can heal you. He can. If he brought you to it, he will definitely bring you through it. And just pray into what the next step is for you.

Speaker 2: 1:04:51

Like, maybe it's you come see me, maybe it's not, maybe it's you see Kristen or you see one of the other people that we listed that's within our incredible network, but he'll, he'll do it for you too. Yeah, okay, so I'm going to pray us out. So, lord, I just thank you for Kristen and the incredible work that she is doing here. I thank you for each and every person, um, that took the time to listen to our conversation today, and I just released courage, um, over the person that that needs a little bit to take the next step into what it looks like to heal, because they've tried everything else and they've been disappointed. And so, lord, just go before us. Just go before us and make a way to each and every person that needs more of you and needs more healing. In Jesus' name, amen.

Speaker 1: 1:05:46

Thank you, Jen. Thank you for being a brave voice. Who's setting others free. I'm going to close with the hope unlocked anchoring verse, which is may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, and believing that by the power of the Holy spirit, you may abound in hope, and that is Romans 15, 13. So, Jen, I will have her send me information to put in the show notes. Best ways you can get in contact with her, ways you can get her book and any other resources she would like to share with y'all. So I hope you all have a great day and I'll be back with another episode next week. Thanks again, Jen. Thanks so much.