244 Birthing the Heart | Somatic Practices For Healing, Awakening & Spiritual Growth: Interview With Jess Garet

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Join me and my guest, Jess Garrett, as we unpack what it means to birth the heart. Why it matters in the therapy room and how integrating these practices can deepen the therapeutic process and nurture authentic growth. On today's episode of Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast, let's get to it. Welcome to Yoga in the Therapy Room, the non-traditional therapist guide to integrating yoga into your therapy practice.

Join me on this journey to help you be one step closer to bringing Yoga into your therapy room. Welcome to the Yoga In the Therapy Room podcast. The non-traditional therapist guide to integrating Yoga into your. Therapy practice. I'm Chris McDonald, your host. Today we're diving into heart-centered exploration.

This episode is called Birthing the Heart, somatic Practices for Healing, awakening and Spiritual Growth. So many times in therapy and in life, we focus on our thoughts, our behaviors and stories. We forget Ben Eve. All of that lives the intelligence of the body and more specifically, the wisdom of the heart.

Energy healing and intuitive listening just helps people come home to the intelligence of their own bodies. Her work bridge is the spiritual and the cellular, guiding others through grief, awakening, and the mystery of being human. We'll discuss how somatic practices can give space for clients to connect within and allow clients to access a more authentic and embodied sense of self.

You'll also as the listener, be able to experience a hands-on heart-centered practice to help you connect with your heart. And here are the messages within. Let's begin this journey inward into the heart of healing itself. Welcome to the Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast. Jess, thank you so much, Chris.

It's so good to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you. Can you share your journey to becoming a somatic therapist?

I was trying to get pregnant. I was 33 at the time and I was trying to get pregnant. I was really, it was a really struggle. It was a struggle. And we were having a really hard time, and I was going through it in my body. I was feeling it in my body. I was confused. I was angry. I was grieving. I, we ended up doing IVF in order to support us trying to get pregnant.

I got pregnant at 10 weeks. The pregnancy, the heart stopped. I always loved kind of preferencing that kind of my initiation into the body was around a heart stopping, right? A life that I thought was gonna come through, ending and that devastated me. And I was in therapy at the time and I was working as a therapist at the time, and I was just.

When you really feel drawn to researching something, it's often some way that you're searching for yourself. And I was like, oh, I love that. So in my me search, I started finding Peter Levine's work. I'm Somatic Experiencing. I started reading this and I was like, oh my goodness, how has this been so missing?

From my learning. How come nobody was talking about the impact of trauma on the body and how the body stores what happens to us and how that energy lives inside of us and how when we privilege the body, so much support can be gained. So in that, I. I said, okay, well clearly I'm meant to find this now I'm meant to learn this now.

With my daughter and all through that I really needed somebody to support me with my body. So I was doing yoga, but then I found myself in, uh, somatic experiencing and I said, I'm gonna do the training, enough reading to know that I need to do this training and the training shaped and changed my life. I did that simultaneously with also exploring breath work.

So a good friend of mine at the time had said, um, do you wanna go do this thing? I've never done it before. It'd be fun if we could do it together. I said, sure. I had no idea what I was signing up for and I went and did it and it was completely sh, it completely shattered me open in a way that I had not expected.

So a lot of me was, a lot of me was getting explored in ways that I had not even know, like there was energy and trauma in my body that I didn't even realize as I was doing this training. And I remember about a year and a half into it, 'cause they kind of split it up into modules. Um, my then daughter who was.

A few years old. One time I had been in this immersive week and I came home from it and she looked at me and she goes, where's my mama? Oh wow. What do you mean, baby? I'm right here. And she's like, no, you, you are different. Oh, whoa. What is happening here? She is picking up on something in the resonant field, in the field of me, in the feeling of me.

So, you know, one of the things that I share often is that the moment that we say yes to our body and we begin to bring that kind of awareness, um, and reverence to the body, to the breath, then ultimately we are also, whether we know it or not, saying yes to our soul. And that's deep. Yeah. Right? Like, we're like, uh, like opening the windows and the doors to our spirit, to our soul to now begin to really speak to us.

So then my work really with people transformed and I was no longer doing talk therapy. It was a completely different way of being with people. Now it was like, well, what's your, what's happening in your body? So that we could really understand what's being communicated. From your soul. That's here to wake you up.

That's here to go. That's here to

Chris McDonald: wake

Jess Garet: you

Chris McDonald: up.

Jess Garet: Yeah. Yeah. Powerful. So that's a little bit, that's a

Chris McDonald: little bit of how it began. Yeah. Oh, I love that. What an amazing journey. I know one thing that you mentioned when we've talked before was that you're a heart doula. Yes. Can you share more about what that is?

Yeah.

But often people as they're working with me would say like, why is it every time we come together, I feel so much and I feel so much like happening in my heart. I'd be like, I don't know, darlings is just like the way we are, right? Like we are heart consciousness. So maybe just as we're really diving into this body and really listening, we're just awakening the heart, really hearing the heart's voice and people would, you know, I, I made this commitment to myself last year that I, I'm a New Yorker that moved to Florida four years ago, and I've been.

As most of us through COVID having, having to transition to online work, and I was comfortably working online, but late last year, I realized I really need to get out into my community and start meeting more people and talking to people. And I, how do I introduce who I am and what I do? And so I was kind of looking for the words.

Or what does it really mean when I say I'm a heart doula? Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense when we come together to listen the body and listen, whatever we're experiencing, if we can really tune in the heart's consciousness. Our soul, as it expresses itself through the heart, is really wanting to be birthed, wanting to be known.

Uh, so I said just a few weeks ago to a good friend. Um, I didn't realize when I heard the calling, I'm a heart doula, that what I was being was also being initiated by that name because in the last few weeks I've had a lot of heart and that anatomical heart stuff come up for me. That has never come up for me before.

Um, I'm perimenopausal. So as a, as a woman, I

Jess Garet (2): understand

It's causing me to feel my heart more, more heart racing, hot flashes, right, that are causing increased pressure around the heart. So. This has become a new thing. I'm like, oh, I help people birth their heart consciousness that I understood when I heard the word, you are a heart doer, the phrase, but I'm also simultaneously being birthed by my own anatomical heart, by the shifting landscape of my body.

Oh, wow. Oh. I had no idea. I had a hole in my heart. A little tiny space between the chambers. It turns out this is a like maternal legacy that I didn't know about. So my grandmother, my mother, my maternal aunt, my brother, and myself, we all have this congenital heart. Defect they call a hole between the chambers.

So now I've been initiated by this hole in my heart to really listen. What does it mean to have a hole in our hearts? Right? What does the energy of that space carry? What was like, what is this maternal, matriarchal, inheritance? That I am now discovering as a heart doula. So this is how I listen. You know, this is all things heart related, emotional, psychic, spiritual, and now anatomical.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that sounds like that's bringing you down a whole path too. It totally is. So how do you integrate somatic practices into your professional work?

Jess Garet: So it really isn't even how I, it's just how, it's how I am with people. So when we come together, actually, my, my typical practice when, when I start with anyone, is to ask them how they're doing, but how their heart is doing. So I'll say, well, how's your heart today? What wants to be listened? Um. You know, when I first start with people, sometimes they're, I don't understand what you're asking.

Me

Chris McDonald: know, it's funny as you, as you said that, it's like the light just like shined on our video today. Oh. Even though people can't see this if we're listening just audio. But it was so funny. It was like you said that, how was your heart today? It was like the light just shone. I, I kid you not.

Right, exactly. This is what I often say, like, you know, um, we're connected

Chris McDonald: spiritually and Yes, metaphysically, it's just giving light. It's your heart's opening up

Jess Garet: Exactly the aperture of the heart. Right. That. Heart space is opening up and it's shining light. I love that. I love that you caught that. That's awesome.

These are the things that kind of happen in session. You know, when I'm with people or if I lead a group, you know, it's like we're really paying attention to what's occurring. What's occurring. Yeah. What's occurring within and without us. It's all, it's all one communication, right? So when I come together and ask somebody, how's your heart?

What wants to be privileged today from the inside? If we closed our eyes and we went to the, into the world under our skin and listened to the communication of the world under our skin, what do we hear? What do we sense? What do we feel? So people might come in with like, here's what's happening in my life, or here's where I'm stuck, or I'm stressed and, and I might ask them to gimme just a little bit of information there.

Words are energetic expressions of what's happening within us. And so when someone says, maybe like, I feel. Stuck, or I'm really feeling overwhelmed, or I'm really struggling to make sense of something. I'm listening the words and then I'm gonna help and assist and support. How do we locate where that word originates from?

From the inside. So when you say I'm stuck, can we take a moment to kind of feel stuck expressing itself on the inside? Do you feel it in a particular way when you say it, is there a sensation in your body as you say that word, or as you hear it back? Do you notice that it's something in the chest that's talking to us, or is it somewhere in the belly?

What else might it wanna share? And it can, you know, I say body speaks in its own language, body language, sensation. This is from Peter v's. Work and from a lot of body centered work, sensation, image, they call it siva, right? Sensation. Image, meaning, affect and behavior. We're listening the Body express. I add in also, like maybe the body would give you a color, maybe.

And that's image, right? Um, a texture, right? So I'm really inviting people to experience what they're living through in a different way. So when you say, how do I integrate? It's kind of like that's, it's not even an integration per se, as it's just the modality. It's just the way I'm at this point in my, in my development as a person.

I'm interested in what does Spirit wanna communicate to us in this moment in time. And if we're listening the body, we're going to get the message. If we're listening to the body, we will get the right communication. The communication of what's really occurring beyond. What we've as described, what we think is happening here.

So, you know, the 45 minutes or an hour that we spend together is really kind of this journey of, okay, now what? And I'm always bringing it back to the present, right? So like if you know there's something that we discover and now that we've discovered that, now what are you noticing now? What's alive here?

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I love your pacing. I could tell that your pacing would be very soothing too with your voice and the way that you're present with even just talking about this, right?

Jess Garet: Yeah, yeah. As somatic experiencing really taught me to, yeah, it's slow.

Really slow down and breath work also taught me to really slow down. We move so quickly, we, we miss, what is it? I feel like I'm quoting Ferris Bueller, like, uh, life moves so fast if you don't, what is it? Yeah, like fast. If you don't slow down, you'll miss it. Like you'll miss it. Mm-hmm. You'll miss it. Right?

Chris McDonald: and wait. Yeah.

Jess Garet: So, yeah. Yeah. And it, it makes it feel much more nourishing to move at that pace.

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Jess Garet: All of us. I mean, all of us have, I, you know, I, I often feel it this way too, you know, for a lot of us, we haven't had a chance to tell our story.

So when I feel the desire to tell the story, sometimes I'll tell people. Is today a story day?

Jess Garet (2): I

Jess Garet: love that. Right? Like it's today where it's like there was so much that happened that you have to like give yourself the opportunity to just put language to it. Cool. Today's a story day. We won't, not privilege the body, but maybe the beginnings of our.

You know, time together is gonna really be listening to the story. I take a lot of notes when I'm with people 'cause I really do wanna capture the words. The words, what is, what are the, what are the themes that are coming up here so that I can come back to them and then we can anchor them in the body a bit more.

Uh, so even like stuck in, stuck in a story might be like, there's something energetically here that's very thick, that's very dense, that's needing time. Okay? So we're gonna give it that and then see what occurs. I definitely know that this, this way of being with ourselves is very new for so many of us, and so I'm, I'm, I'm always very humbled, like, yeah, this, this is hard.

This is hard to shift this perspective, but once you do, then you're gonna notice right away the feeling of it, and you're gonna wanna do that again. 'cause it feels much better to the, the whole of who you are to, to try out this something new. So even with people who are like, people be like, I'm looking for a therapist.

I know enough to know like, okay, then we, we need to do a few things, a few practices that'll help this body understand it's okay to slow down.

Chris McDonald: And what do you do then?

Jess Garet: Um. Had a feeling you'd ask. Um, so one of the big things, it's like this most simple thing that we learned at the very beginning that I learned and that I continue to learn.

So orienting You might, do you know it, Chris? Yes. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, if a body's really having a hard time getting slow, I'll just say, can we? Can we take a moment together here? I hear there's so much happening and there's so much that wants to be said, and I kind of am feeling from your body that it could really be good for us to pause together and let your eyes take us around the room.

Your eyes, take us on a walk around your space. And so what that looks like and what I invite people to do is like, all right, let's take, you know, most times we're on screens together, but sometimes I'm in person working with people. And I'll say, let's just pause and let's let the eyes take us on a walk around the room.

I'll say, oh look, we're breathing right. And then. Keep going. You go, you know, if you get all the way to one end, then go all the way around to the other. Notice the colors, the textures, the things you've chosen to take up space around you. The objects that have meaning to you, the light in your room. Maybe you are looking on the level, you know, just around.

Level to your chin. Maybe now you're looking up and around, maybe you're looking down at the floor, and then let your eyes find something they wanna show you. So maybe there's an object or a color or something outside your window that they really wanna show you. They want you to stay with. So like for you, Chris, as you're staring around your room, was there something you found?

Yeah, yeah.

Jess Garet: I love it.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I love it. My eyes are like,

Jess Garet: exactly, my body sigh. Beautiful, beautiful. So let's just, so then I would say, wonderful. Let's be with that. Notice the communication of surrender and notice the effect it has on the physical.

It makes my body sigh and the breath and the shape shifting that's happening inside as you're with the message your eyes have led you to in this moment.

Chris McDonald: Just reminds me a little of brain spotting too. 'cause. I use the visual field a lot with clients as well and, and how it can really shift our, where we are in our bodies and we finding that resource is so important.

Right? So it's beautiful. And so that right away then opens up a space, right? If a nervous system that is so accustomed to moving in the world on alert takes a moment to do something like this, the system is getting a new communication. Uh, I can, I can pause. I can breathe. I can feel, I can sense it's safe to do these things.

And now then we would say, so now what's alive inside of you? What do you notice now? Right? Yeah. And then a whole new channel potentially opens up a whole new way of being with each other. Opens up.

Chris McDonald: I love how you described that. 'cause I, I've taken trainings with orienting and you know, I've taught other therapists, but I love the way that you say, having your eyes, what did you say?

Walk around the room or,

Jess Garet: yeah. Yeah. Take you for a walk around the room. Take you for a walk.

Jess Garet: Exactly, because it is, it's continuously trying to get our attention and say like, I've got something to show you.

I've got something to show you.

Chris McDonald: Right.

Jess Garet: So

Chris McDonald: Oh, beautiful. Yeah. That's so helpful. Can you share, um, another brief somatic practice, maybe something heart-centered that therapists listening might be able to really participate in?

Jess Garet: Absolutely. So let me see what wants to actually come through. So part of, I'll share with you, Chris, part of what happens too with me when we, when we again open all the windows and the doors to what wants to come in, is that I'll get.

A clairvoyance, right? Clear sentience, what we sense beyond the physical sensing world, right? There are all these Claires that come in. So when I close my eyes right now with you, and so you invited me to share something, heart-centered. I saw a heart with wings, but turned up. Upside down. So I said, okay, spirit, what do you want me to do with the upside down wing to heart?

I'm not sure how this heart centered invitation, how do we listen a heart upside down? Maybe a shift of perspective around the heart. So I take my time to listen to like what spirit wants me to communicate to all of us healers. So what I'm kind of hearing here is that there's a potential for healers to listen this.

So. I might invite us here, Chris, just for a moment. 'cause sometimes again, the, the channel gets open and then the words just wanna come just to close our eyes and go into our hearts together. Let's go. You wanna go there? Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so let's take a moment, all of us listening here in real time, in recorded time, in all time.

In no time to just close our eyes and to begin to journey into the heart. Now for some of us, that's a specific location. Somewhere in this high chest body, and for some of us, that heart exists beyond the body. So just notice where you go first. Notice where your consciousness wants to bring you as you connect with the heart space.

What becomes alive inside of you as you breathe, letting all of. The systems of belief just for a moment, be exhaled all these ideas that we've come to store inside this heart. Just ride out on the exhale for a moment

I always say you can feel someone's heart and really far away before they say or speak anything. You can already pick up the frequency of their heart, so just feel yours for a moment. Notice if there are any colors or images, textures, sensations coming to life here. Notice where your hands are in respect to your heart.

So just notice where they are and maybe. For a moment here, if the body would like even more of their healing touch, you might bring them somewhere. I might bring them right now over my heart. This heart that has initiated me with its whole and all of its increased pressure and pulse. So I might just bring my hands over my heart and just say, I'm listening.

I'm here. I'm paying attention. You might just notice that for you too. What happens when you really anchor into this heart?

We understand in this moment right now that it is the heart that feeds it all of what we think and perceive must bow down to the heart, must understand that it is the heart that will send the right message to the mind if it is not heart centered and it does not belong. And so we can just take a moment to have mind and heart connect here.

The kind of presence, what's new, what's alive now? And so we can do that orienting practice again together and see like what do these windows to the soul. Right now. And so Chris, I'll ask you, since you're here now, having started with me in that way, if there's anything that you noticed.

I hope listeners also experienced that connection, that openness. It was. Like discovering yourself. Yeah. I had a visual. Can I share?

Jess Garet: I would love you to please.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. So I had this visual of like a clear vortex coming out of my heart. I don't know if that was, I know you talked about energy energetic and, but I pictured like.

Almost like birds coming out and like a white dove just flying out. It's like sending things, sending the energy out in the universe, I guess.

Jess Garet: Yeah. So here's Gorgeousness. Okay, beautiful. So what you're the medicine of, your visual is medicine from my heart too. And so we then now take that in together. In this vortex.

Every symbol that the body sends us is deeply meaningful. Deeply meaningful, right? So the dove becomes kind of like an archetypal messenger for you. So your body now tells us, energetically, I want you to feel the presence of this animal spirit, right? Feel the presence of the dove as a messenger for you in this moment right now.

About that dove? Did anything else come in for me as I hear that invitation being extended,

Chris McDonald: that's so

Jess Garet: powerful. Yeah. 'cause doves are like, you know, they're,

Chris McDonald: they're peace. Peace. Yeah. That's like the peace symbol, isn't it?

Jess Garet: It is the peace symbol. Right? Their peace, their grace. So maybe today as you're meditating on your heart, there's something about that message.

But you know, you can, you can listen for, there are symbols that have already kind of like standard associations with them, and then we get to kind of go further. Is there more to this message that I hear? But I

Chris McDonald: love that. I love that. Yeah. What does that mean for us? Yeah,

Jess Garet: exactly. Right. What does it mean?

And then what does it, yeah, it's been amazing.

Chris McDonald: Wow. What's the best ways for listeners to find you to learn more about you?

Just Google that. The heart doula, it should bring me right up, or it's another way to look it up is, uh, www somatic healing with jess.com. And then, or you could email me at info at Jessica Garrett do com.

Chris McDonald: Perfect. And we'll have that in the show notes too, listeners, so that you can access that and connect with her.

But thank you so much, Jess, for coming on the podcast today. This has been truly amazing.

Jess Garet: Oh, it was such a pleasure. Thank you for the invitation, Chris. I'm so glad that we gotta speak and share together,

Chris McDonald: and that brings us to the end of another episode. Thank you for joining us, listeners for this thoughtful and insightful conversation with Jess Garrett on Birthing the Heart.

This downloadable checklist includes best practices for integrating yoga Plus reflection questions to help you refine your approach and feel empowered. It's the perfect tool for anyone wanting to blend yoga into therapy in a safe and impactful way. Go to HC podcast.org/build confidence. That's HC podcast.org/build confidence.

It's also in the show notes, that link, and once again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Take care. Thanks for listening to today's episode. The information in this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only. It's given with the understanding that neither the host.

Always check with your doctor to see if it's safe for you. If you need a professional, please find the right one for you.