Recover from Burnout and Restore your Nervous System with Somatic Practitioner Jessica Conway
Synopsis:
This episode with Nurse-turned Somatic Practitioner Jessica Conway delves into innate intelligence of the body in healing, and the importance of empathic witnessing and attuning to the present moment. Jessica emphasizes the significance of maintaining a connected nervous system: advising self-awareness, compassion, and reconnection with the body as key tools in managing stress and overcoming burnout. Simplicity, community and embodiment are recurring themes, as Jessica encourages listeners to explore the innate wisdom that their body holds for them.
Jessica’s Bio:
Jessica Conway is a Somatic Practitioner and multifaceted healer with over 14 years of critical care nursing experience. Her own journey through burnout and nervous system dysregulation led her to become a trauma-informed Somatic Coach, Safe and Sound Protocol Provider, Yoga Instructor, and Meditation Guide. Jessica also holds a Masters of Science in Nursing and is a Registered Nurse in California. As a passionate seeker of truth and wisdom in the human experience, and someone who feels with her whole heart, Jessica empowers others to prevent and heal burnout and nurture resilience through private coaching and her transformative course "Rise in Resilience." Her mission is to help you trust your inner guidance, rekindle your vitality, and embark fearlessly on your unique path towards a wild and authentic life, grounded in your own body and truth.
Connecting with Guest Jessica:
Website: https://jessicaconwaysomatics.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_jessica_conway
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/her_wild_inner_known
Insight Timer : https://insighttimer.com/jessicaconway
Substack: https://substack.com/@jessicaconway
Free Somatic Breathwork Practice: https://jessicaconwaysomatics.com/breathwork
Connecting with Host ElizaBeth:
ElizaBeth’s Website: https://www.energyhealingelizabeth.com/
ElizaBeth’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethhealingarts
https:www.instagram.com/bethalexanderfitness
Free Intro to Energy Hygiene Course: https://www.energyhealingelizabeth.com/offers/baCryudm
Quotable
9:56 - “The goal of somatic therapy, and somatic healing, is to get the body into a felt sense of safety and connection and attunement… really feeling, at the biological level, this sense of safety.”
11:42 - “When the body feels safe enough, it’s inside the window of tolerance. And, in that state is where homeostasis is and relationships can happen and connect and curiosity, compassion, love. It’s a very relational space because the body feels safe enough to be in connection.”
12:15 - “In our biology, if there’s more threat and our body senses more threat than safety… when we receive enough threat, our brain state and physiology profoundly and almost instantaneously changes. We go from this brain and body that was full of connection and choice, to a very narrow simple menu. And that menu is flight… fight… freeze… fawn or collapse.”
18:18 - “When we’re in these states of overwhelm, burnout, dysregulation. The body in order to feel safe, really needs another witness that has the capacity to hold what we’re going through and not be dysregulated. as the compassion, warmth of just allowing it to be there without fixing it or healing it… In the presence of this empathic witness the body really innately knows how to heal, it really just needs that present empathic witness, and then the body knows what to do.
24:36 - “I think it takes a compassionate sober look at one’s window of capacity, and level of resourcing, and evaluate if it’s an act of kindness to stay and work on widening one’s window of capacity, or if it’s an act of kindness to oneself to leave and take another path.”
29:28 - “This goes beyond burnout. This could be applied to any challenge, trigger. You don’t want to face it head on when you’re still in a state of distress. Resource your body, come back into your window… it likely will take support from a friend, colleague, a coach, a therapist, and then you can face it head on with that resourcing on board.”
34:23 - "The mind wants to make healing so complicated… so dramatic… but really the body’s way of healing is so simple, and sweet, and loving, and compassionate.”
35:39 - “I think that’s one of the most beautiful parts of enlisting someone else: when we’re in that state of threat, our options get smaller, we don’t see all the options available to us. And so it takes that empathic witness that can see where we’re at, have compassion, but also see all the paths and options we have to take and point those out to us.”
37:01 - “It’s really just providing the right environment, the right conditions for someone else’s innate healing to happen.”
43:37 - “Healing is bringing back that innate drive and rhythm of the nervous system that’s been interrupted by burnout, chronic stress or trauma… and coming back into connection with one’s body, to another and to the here and now.”
Credits:
Host: ElizaBeth Alexander
Guest: Jessica Conway
Producer: ElizaBeth Alexander
Editor: Gage Hurley
Artwork: Jose Gonzalez
Music: NOVVA
