The Practice of Therapy

Well, hello everyone and welcome again to the podcast and I'm happy for you to get to know today Jessica Patching Bunch. Welcome Jessica, glad you're with me.
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Yes, and so one of the things that Jessica is passionate about, and I'm really looking forward to diving into this conversation, is just the mind body connection, and kind of her work around that.
So, Jessica, as I start with everyone, tell folks a little bit more about yourself, and how you've landed where you've landed.
Hi, yeah, so it's, it's A long journey, and I always try to be succinct, but it is. You know, started when I was younger I had a lot of stress related illnesses and issues that I would see doctors for, and they would tell me, you know, this is just stress and kind of leave it at that, have less stress.
And at that point, I didn't have the education that I do now, and I didn't understand that that, Was even possible. I thought, you know, my life is stressful and this is terrible advice. I don't know how to do that. And I've always, I'd always been really interested in psychology and just kind of human behavior and why, why we do the things we do.
And so that was my study in undergrad and I kind of stumbled on a neuroscience class and that kind of put me on that trajectory. I thought these, this has, so many answers that I'm looking for about the biological underpinnings for some of these you know, behaviors and, and things. And so that's the route I went.
And I now work in neurodevelopmental research and have for some time, And learning about how the brain works, how the body works, how the nervous system works has been so useful for me personally, in being able to identify the things that I can do to help manage and mitigate some of my stress and anxiety.
And so that led me to want to share that information outside of academia to the general public, where a lot of these things are just not talked about. And there's also a lot of poor information out there. And I think understanding that there are biological reasons for a lot of the things that we're experiencing, that understanding how your brain and body work give you the agency to.
interact with your systems and focus on what you can do to you know, increase your overall just health and wellness.
Right. Right. Yeah. It's been for, for me, it's been interesting because I guess it was back during COVID. I and it's funny how we mark that as, as, as a point in time, but back during COVID, I did continue to add.
thing on somatic therapy and you know, I'm, I'm old enough to where somatic therapy or somatic things wasn't really talked about much in my, in my study, but yeah, I'm just really understanding that brain body connection and it, it really is amazing stuff when you can get people to understand that.
So what, what sort of I guess for lack of better way to ask it, what sort of techniques do you use and kind of what's your way of going about things?
So I, I always start with breath work as a foundation, which I think getting people maybe comfortable with that, or there are a lot of skeptics try just having people again, The physiological response and how that is actually changing your responses in your body.
I think that kind of education piece comes first and then working with different styles of breath work. Functional breath work being kind of a baseline and helping people understand that how we breathe is how is a measure of our stress. It's indicating stress. It's also input into that stress response.
And so having slow control controlled breaths throughout, throughout the day, throughout our, our lives helps us to have some balance in our nervous system. Because when we are. You know, overbreathing, hyperventilating, where you have those short breaths. We're sending those signals to our sympathetic system to activate which then increases heart rate and all of that causes all kinds of problems.
So that as kind of preventative as longterm, and then also acute kind of immediate interventions with like physiological side and things like that, that people can do immediately when they need some, some relief. So, so that is, that is my big one because it is just. So much information for us and information that we can send to our system.
I think it's really the most accessible. Also some kind of somatic movements for to activate Vegas nerve and work on bagel tone very basic movements, just very slow, mindful stretching and encouraging more movement throughout the day because we know, you know, we have a very sedentary lifestyle here, especially in the States.
And that creates a lot of depressive symptoms. And so just things like going for a walk people think of, I think movement a lot of the time I have to go exercise, I have to do something specific and it's not just moving our bodies creates a physiological response that enhances our mood and our cognitive function and overall brain health, which then, you know, if we, if our brain is not functioning right, our mental health cannot follow.
So. I think those are my big three.
Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a story that really kind of kind of sold me. Maybe that's not a good word, but I had a a client, a former client several years ago, and this particular client was waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks and they just couldn't.
figure out why she, and just kind of this constant state of anxiety all the time. And eventually she got to the right doctors and they discovered that she was Suffering from gallstones and they missed it somewhere along the way But it was like her body was going into this fight or flight kind of thing even in the middle of the night just because of that and when she had that Had all that corrected and the surgery it just changed everything for her.
And so yeah, so I think there definitely is that You You know, our, our body's a whole, whole thing. And I think we we've been misled. I think maybe in the past that it's so, it's just all in your head. There are things that happen.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that we, you know, science and medicine are ever evolving.
And We have had this idea there was for, for a long time, the idea that, that your brain and body were very separate and kind of what was happening in your head didn't really matter. It was kind of, like you said, it's all in your head, which a lot of the time it is because our interpretation of things, our neurochemical makeup is sending information to the rest of our systems.
And so it is, but not in the way that we have been. Led to believe not in a dismissive way. And with the gallstones, exactly. All, all of our systems work together and we have kind of also been taught. I think through, through medical specialization, which is fantastic. But we've been taught that all of our kind of pieces are separate and that's just not the case.
All of our systems are always communicating with each other. And. You know, a large part of our mood balancing neurochemicals live in our gut. And so all of that, along with our vagus nerve, which is the cranial nerve that is kind of sending information back and forth to the body. 80 percent of that information is going from your body to your brain about your state of being and what is needed.
And so I think those two things alone are enough to, for me to say, okay, there's something, there's something in there. Right.
Right. Yeah. So what what, what were the things that, that really kind of, on this path. I mean with your own story. I mean, what were the things that really kind of helped you say, okay, this is, this is solid stuff.
When I started working in research, I, I was, I was really having a hard time struggling with my own stress and anxiety in addition to, to what had always kind of been there. And I really started looking into the stress response and what that cycle looked like and what that, you know, the physiology involved.
And, you know, that led into kind of how our internal environment affects. the physiology and really creates those responses. We think about stress a lot of the time. As the external things, money, worries, traffic, other people, and so much of it is internally derived. And so I really started focusing on that and, you know, working on my own therapy to address some of the things like my inner critic and my you know, anxiety and worries about things and, you know, past traumas and things.
Again, because those are the things that we can control. And so the more I learned about the stress response and what influences that, like breath and movement and more about the vagus nerve and how your brain interacts with, with all those things I just kind of fell in love and just kept going down that rabbit hole.
And I, it just made so much sense to me that I just kept. Kept digging away at that.
Mm hmm. Yeah. What with your, with your own kind of self care, I guess, what are you finding is, are kind of the non negotiables that you have to do now? Because I know for me You know, being outdoors in some form or fashion every day is really important for me and weather permitting, you know, I do a lot of walking.
I'm fortunate to live close to a greenbelt that goes along a stream. And so being able to walk and see all the, the ducks and discovered otters the other day, so that was really cool river otters. So, I mean yeah. So what, what sort of things do you find? Because I think one of the things that happens for us, particularly in the mental health fields and as therapists, is that we're really good at telling other people what to do, but we don't do it ourselves.
Yes, absolutely. And you know, I always, I do notice when I'm, I'm like, Oh, I'm just, I'm feeling really overwhelmed or I'm, or I'm, I'm starting to see a lot of anxious symptoms and I, I have to reflect, say, Oh, I have not been doing these things that I know. I need to be doing and very similar. My my non negotiables are our movement every day.
And that looks different depending on I live in the Pacific Northwest, and it is beautiful. And when I can be outside in nature, I absolutely do. But it rains a lot here. And so sometimes I don't want to go out there in that. So it will look like more you know, indoor movement, whether that's going to the gym and just walking on the treadmill.
Walking is a fantastic one that for every day because of the movement, but also kind of the bilateral stimulation and eye movement that happens. So walking and then sitting in silence first thing in the morning with my breath and practicing some kind of balanced, balanced breathing, because we don't get a lot of silence in our day and we are overstimulated all the time.
So giving ourselves. You know, giving myself that in the morning to prep into the day where I'm not immediately stimulated and going into all of the, all of the stressors of my day. So movement and my morning breath. And I think those are the two big ones that I make sure that I have every single day.
Yeah. What, what do you see as the, the most important things you would want people to know, maybe not necessarily in the therapy world, but just in, in helping people in general, what is kind of your mantra now?
That you can do something about how you are feeling and that there's nothing wrong with you, even with, you know, with with diagnoses.
I think we tend to identify with that a lot. Yeah. And it doesn't like when we're talking about generalized anxiety or certain symptoms of depression, it's not necessarily a lifelong thing. And there are things that we can do to change those symptoms and how we experience that. And I think, I think I would be remiss if I didn't, you know, acknowledge, I think there's a lot of focus on individual, individual things of what we can be doing.
And a focus on, on individual responsibility, which. Absolutely is a huge part of it, but our environment also dictates a lot of that our access to nutritious foods and things that just contribute to our overall well being. And so, there are a lot of external stressors, there's a lot going on in the world, and so focusing on what we can do, what we can be doing for ourselves, we are not helpless.
And the things that we do do affect our physiology, our neurobiology and how that works. And so long answer, we have agency. We can do things in our days to to adjust how we're feeling.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that I think is you know, and just my work over the years with the organization.
Individuals and couples and that sort of thing is I love that word agency of being able to to recognize that. Okay. There are things that you can change and I think one of the one of the mistakes. I think a lot of us as humans make is is that we wait for change to come to us rather than creating change in our lives, you know, across any any of our life domains.
I mean, it's just Yeah. I think, you know, my, you know, waiting, waiting for my ship to come in, so to speak, is I think a, a mindset change that's important to, to communicate to people.
Absolutely. And, you know, as you're saying that, another thing that kind of popped into my head is, I think when we're trying to implement some of these, these new practices or habits, we think about, you know, kind of the go big or go home message of you have to jump right in and do all of that, which.
Isn't necessarily always great for your nervous system because a lot of change can be shocking to your nervous system. And then that's doing the opposite of what we want. Also, when we're thinking about creating new physiological patterns, patterns in the brain and body, it is repeating that over and over and over again in small amounts.
Like I think about we can, you know, brush our teeth for. An hour once a week, and that is not going to be as beneficial as that two minutes a day. And so it's about really just making it accessible for ourselves. It doesn't have to, you know, these things that we can do don't need to be another overwhelming thing in our day.
Two minutes at a time, five minutes at a time. is worth it. It does matter. It does make a difference.
Yeah, I've always been adhered to an idea of you know, we don't necessarily need to have huge changes in our, in our life. And I think like, you know, like brushing your teeth, I think change occurs at the level of our daily routine and that we do, we have to do something different for things to change.
And I know just working with clients, just being able to kind of share with them my theory of change, which is you know, if you think about an airline pilot flying from point A to point B, they have to maintain a certain heading. But if they change that heading just by one degree, it puts them in a totally different place than if they were kept on that same course.
So I think just small one degree changes is all we really need in our life. Yeah,
I really like that analogy. That's that's great. And it is.
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely. And I think we have, it can be frustrating to not see the changes that we want immediately and might think, you know, this isn't working because, you know, we, we don't necessarily see that immediately.
It takes time to, to build up. And then I think over time we, we can look back and say, oh, this is a major shift that I can see. Yeah.
But
it does take time.
Yeah, it does. Yeah. And that's again, going back to what you said earlier. We have a culture of instant gratification and instant change, but I think being able to get into that mindset of change occurs gradually and we just make little tweaks along the way that that create that change.
So, yeah, well, Jessica, I've got to be respectful of your time and you What sort of parting thoughts do you have and also tell folks a little bit about your practice and how they can get a hold of you if they want to have a conversation?
Parting thoughts, I always am like, what profound thoughts do I have to finish?
It doesn't have to be a
big one, it can be a little one.
Like we have just talked about. Yeah.
If I have, have, you know, any kind of parting thoughts. It is again, just to reiterate that
some of these, these symptoms and feelings and, and things that are going on doesn't mean that something's wrong. It's just a part of being human, experiencing all of these different things and how we, how we interact with that and the things that we do to respond to that makes all of the difference.
Mm-hmm . And there are things that we can do. For ourselves. And it doesn't have to be complicated to be to work. And I got, yeah, I'll leave it at that . Yeah, I could go on, but I will leave it at that. Yeah,
yeah.
And
yeah, go, go ahead. Yeah,
just to get ahold of me, I, you know, I do a lot of free content on Instagram.
I have also my own podcast brain Body Resilience.
Okay.
And then I do have a, a website which is www dot brain body resilience. And that's where folks can find me for kind of, you know, staff trainings and more along those lines as, as well as personal personal meetings. So those are probably the best ways to, to find me.
Okay. Awesome. And we'll have Links in the show notes and the show summary about that. I'm looking forward to listening to your podcast and I'm so glad you joined me on this podcast and hopefully we'll be able to have another conversation here soon.
Yeah, this is great. Thank you for having me.
Yes.