Your Therapist Needs Therapy 39 - Nature Informed Therapy with Jenn Sowers

It’s the Wellness with Jenn and Jer episode! Jeremy has the serendipitous chance to sit down with Jenn Sowers for this episode. They talk about what nature informed therapy is and how it helps, the importance of community while working in the mental health field, and ways to reconnect to the natural world in our tech-driven go-go-go society. 

To learn more about Jenn and her practice, you can check out jennsowers.com or follow her on Instagram for updates and upcoming events like the full moon celebrations! Jenn loves talking about nature informed therapy, and is able to meet individual, team, or organizational needs for trainings or events!

To learn more about where Jenn got her training (and highly recommends!), check out natureinformedtherapy.com

Jeremy has all his practice info at Wellness with Jer, and you can find more media from him on youtube or Instagram. And to support the show, you can now pick up some merch! We appreciate support from likes, follows, and shares as well!

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Podcasts about therapy do not replace actual therapy, and listening to a podcast about therapy does not signify a therapeutic relationship. 

If you or someone you know is in crisis please call or text the nationwide crisis line at 988, or text HELLO to 741741. The Trevor Project has a crisis line for LGBTQ+ young people that can be reached by texting 678678.

Transcript

Attendees

Jennifer Sowers, Jeremy Schumacher

Transcript

This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.

Jeremy Schumacher: a good hello and welcome to another edition of your therapist needs therapy the podcast we're too mental health professionals sit down and talk about their mental health Journeys and how they navigate mental Wellness while working in the mental health field today. I am joined by a very special guest we'll get into how we connected today. My guest is Jennifer Sowers Thanks for joining me today.

Jennifer Sowers: Thank you for having me.

Jeremy Schumacher: Do you want to share the story of how we connected?

Jennifer Sowers: Sure, so. I take health insurance and Jeremy I guess you don't But somehow these big health insurance companies that have all sorts of checks and…

Jeremy Schumacher: I do not know.

Jennifer Sowers: balances in place. Sent me a piece of paper for wellness with Jer instead of Wellness with Jen and so I looked you up and I was like, hey who's this person so that I can look in case this is something you need to follow up on and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. it's such absurdist type connection that I couldn't pass it out to be like hey,…

Jennifer Sowers: then the rest is history, I guess. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: do you want to be on my podcast? This is a really funny thing. Yes, these billion dollar insurance companies can't figure out Wellness with Jeremy as Wellness with Jen so We have that instant connection naming our practices in a very clever way.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah across many state lines, too. You'd think

Jeremy Schumacher: Literally for our wonderful listeners nothing else in common. zip code. No numbers or Street Nothing Was the Same just jair versus Jen. So that is…

Jennifer Sowers: 

Jeremy Schumacher: what your insurance premiums are paying for y'all. So I don't take insurance one of many reasons why I don't take insurance. Jen I was like to start with how'd you get into the mental health field? What was that Journey like for you?

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, so I guess I'll just take it all the way back to even when I was a kid there were opportunities even in my elementary school to volunteer at a local school for special education, and I took those opportunities and got super into it in high school. I did my volunteer hours at the same school that I Did some work with in elementary school and at that point I took an AP psychology in high school. fell in love couldn't resist when in went to University of Maryland got my bachelor's in psychology searched around ended up deciding on social work because you can do so many.

Jennifer Sowers: different things with it not just therapy and at the time I was interested in really intensive work working with inpatient or crisis situations schizophrenia psychosis bipolar

Jennifer Sowers: and it was just something that working in those Realms really clicked with me and the energy aligned and I really loved it after. I like eight years of doing it. We had a global pandemic and burnout is a real thing, especially, in the therapy field things are hard in hospitals and a pandemic. It's not the most enjoyable or helpful experience to be living in so then I got into private practice rap And working for myself, so there wasn't so much oversight. I didn't have to listen to bosses.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: And so that's like the brief but long version of how I got into therapy in the mental health field. I had my own experiences with my own mental health too that have kind of shaped my journey as well.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Help me get here.

Jeremy Schumacher: A lot of my guests, especially in the social work side of things talk about getting burned out, but it sounds like you had a pretty good run. Eight years is beyond what we kind of in the field joke about is that five-year burnout point so you got past that it took a global pandemic to burn you out.

Jennifer Sowers: I did and part of the strategy even within that, eight years or so was That when I would burn out at one job, I'd find another job that was similar in the field with a different organization and that was super helpful for me because I usually was not burnt out of working with the clients or patients or individuals. Usually was the business aspect that wore me down.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: And from what I hear where as many social workers down at the very least.

00:05:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and it's hard I think to be in a service minded field in a capitalistic for profit Society where you see a lot of people who are in crisis or in high need in the hospital settings, but also they are very low resource for the most part and so it's this. I don't know just juxtaposition that I doesn't work real well. And we as therapists social workers helpers in general have to kind of balance that.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Definitely definitely and another thing, in that time period for me in that experience. I moved state to state which also gives a really unique perspective to see how different states are handling mental health and each state is allocating finances or what kind of step down units. it's so different across the country. It makes it very interesting. Good learning experience,…

Jeremy Schumacher: queasiness about it

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah. and…

Jennifer Sowers: too. Yes.

Jeremy Schumacher: Different from provider experience too. I think out of network. If you're a big healthcare industry like Wisconsin, which is where I'm at has three different big hospital organizations and're they have a different vibe. So if you're with Aurora or you're not like that's different if you're at the medical college or you're at one of the four-profit hospitals, it's a different vibe. So state to state is fun to differently and then these corporations are also funded differently.

Jennifer Sowers: Mm- Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, so what was the pandemic? Okay that says a lot but what was the journey into private practice because I like to highlight people who are in private practice. and hear other people's experiences because sounds like you're in the field for a long time before you took that jump similar experience on my end. Whereas coming out of the pandemic and leaving higher ed and then getting back into private practice before launching my own. So what was it about the pandemic and then kind of getting into your own space. What was that like

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, so the pandemic hit I was working in patient psych at a place that I really enjoyed working. but again, the resources policy changes things like that are hard and then just I mean it was a Global Universal trauma to go through covid we all experienced it. and that was hard I came out of it and I was like, first of all, I got my lcswc so I was fully licensed at that point and I was like, I need to try something different which again I've changed jobs a lot. So I thought I was just going to change jobs again.

Jennifer Sowers: and I was like let me take a travel social work job across the country in Colorado and just do that for four months or so if that refreshes me kind of resets my mind and gets me ready to go back into another hospital or crisis field of some sort. So I did the stint of travel social work. came back And I thought about getting a job and I was just like I can't do this right now. I'm not able to handle this. and two of my friends had a private practice that they were hiring someone part-time. And so I was kind of like alright, let me give this a try. I can do a couple hours a week while

Jennifer Sowers: Get my head back on my shoulders. Facing forward in any kind of reasonable way.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: and then I'll go back into a, quote unquote real job at a real business, whatever that even means and just continue Private Practice on the side but then I enjoyed it and I didn't get to a point even now where I felt like I could mentally handle the bureaucracy in the capitalism and those things in big business

Jennifer Sowers: and so here I am after a year and a half working with them. I transitioned fully to My Own Private Practice. Then I've just been cultivating that since

Jeremy Schumacher: yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, this is a personal curiosity. What was the business background that you had in that was that a thing that you joined this other practice and they're like, I could do this or was it something that you had been thinking about for a while?

Jennifer Sowers: if you had ever asked me even up to Four years ago three years ago when the pandemic hit anything I would have told you I will never ever go into private practice. I'll never own my own business. I don't want to do individual therapy. I thought that was off the table for me. Honestly, it didn't seem like something That would interest me and…

00:10:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: that's why I try different things is find out it does interest me. yeah, so I was with them and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: really what it came down to is I realized I don't think I'm gonna be able to go back. To a job where there's so much oversight and there's so many politics around it. I just don't think that's in the cards for me.

Jennifer Sowers: And working for another Private Practice where you're getting a certain percentage of the income you bring in. Wasn't financially feasible. So it was like I'm enjoying this work.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: I can't imagine myself working for someone else right now or in the near future. So let's give this a shot. As long as I like it. Let me give this a shot.

Jeremy Schumacher: That sounds like such a lovely peaceful Journey. I'm sure there was more stress to it than that. my experiences everything went wrong. And I finally got to point was like everyone else keeps screwing this up. Maybe I should just do it myself because similarly I didn't want to do thought the business side of it would be very unwieldy. I don't have any business training and so I was like I can't do this. I have ADHD. I'm not going to be able to balance stuff and getting into that space be like this is how I always wanted to practice I get to do things in a way that are genuine and authentic to me and that shows up differently to my clients then and so yeah, I'm always curious to hear the journey because I think so many of us get here. by various routes

Jennifer Sowers: Mm- Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: so you have some specific Niche areas of expertise that I want to dig into. One of the things you do is nature Ecotherapy, I always have to watch myself on some of these things because they're certified and they mean specific things but share with us kind of the background in nature therapy and that Eco therapy when you pick that up in the chronology and kind of where was that interest for you.

Jennifer Sowers: So I'm certified in informed therapy through the center for nature-informed therapy, which is in North Baltimore. It's a division of the Chesapeake mental health collaborative created by Heidi who has her PhD in nature therapy and has done a lot of great research written some great books. so I really Found that organization. again, as I was transitioning into my own private practice and away from The practice that I was in once I finally decided this is what I wanted to do. I also knew I can't sit and look at a screen all day. You…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: and I don't have an office. I wasn't that interested in getting an office.

Jennifer Sowers: But I love to hike I love to be outside. And so I started thinking this has to be a thing Nature has to be good for your mental health right like it is for me. I know that. and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: so I started researching different organizations and luckily, I'm in Baltimore and the center for nature informed therapy is also in Baltimore.

Jennifer Sowers: and so I reached out to them and I looked at their trainings and I just signed up

Jennifer Sowers: Because I knew I couldn't do therapy in private practice and run my own business getting outside And being with people and moving those are things that are super important to me. And so I wanted to be able to share them and to learn more about it and I didn't feel comfortable just doing that without knowing some of the research behind it and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: dealing with some of the technicalities of what this would be like Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Did you have some paradigm shift in that I know? I was straight counseling the whole time. I was in school. So I kind of had that background but there's so many rules and regulations that kind of a deep program myself from you can't take your client outside because what if they see someone they know and then what about their confidentiality and all these things that were legalistic in nature and not client-centered at all. So what was there some deep programming for you coming out of your training or your hospital stays that you had to deal with or was it like easy shift?

00:15:00

Jennifer Sowers: so I am big on worrying about liability and all those ways that you just mentioned and that's part of why before the training I tried to be like okay, I can do this. This makes sense. There has to be a way to safely do this. But I was way too scared luckily this organization when you go to their three day intensive training and the couple months of supervision afterwards, they talk about that. It's in the slides to talk about liability to talk about,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: how to talk about client. It's and risks of being outside risk injuries seeing people you or they know.

Jennifer Sowers: So that was part of why I signed up for the training was to get something more official. on

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and then you don't have to reinvent the wheel and create something that somebody else already did all the work for.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah people have already been using consent forms and assessment tools that seem to be working.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: So that was helpful for me.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: And once I had that and once I had the training I felt pretty comfortable just going into it.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, what has been the response from clients and people who are interested in it when you tell them. This is what I do. This is how I operate our people looking for that specifically or is it some explanation and kind of that? I don't know elevator pitch. I don't like that phrase but do you have to pitch them on it or…

Jennifer Sowers: I would say some of each I do get a decent number of clients that reach out to…

Jeremy Schumacher: is it like no people are searching you out because they want it.

Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.

Jennifer Sowers: because they see on my website or my psychology today profile. I don't have Some formal headshot. It's just me standing on top of a mountain in my leg vest and hiking gear in my backpack.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: So some people do see that and see how I describe nature therapy briefly in those pages and they do reach out to me just for that reason. other people Will reach out and all pitch to them hear the things I do. I do virtual therapy. I use acceptance and…

Jeremy Schumacher: intelligence

Jennifer Sowers: commitment therapy and I do nature therapy. If you'd like to meet outside, these are kind of the days and times.

Jennifer Sowers: And some people are like, that sounds great. Let's do it and other people are like I'm not sure. In which case we just meet ually informed therapy is something I bring into virtual sessions as well.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: So there's not really an escaping it.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: but just the response kind of varies and then sometimes it's timing also it gets dark really early now. So if people want to meet after work hours, I can't meet with them outside after work. It's dark. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah and cold. I mean Maryland is not a super warm Zone

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, it is cold. But that's also kind of a useful piece of nature therapy is we want diress tolerance in our life in general. cold is A slightly more simple way of practicing distress tolerance. We're out here. We're gonna sit here. We're walking out here and experience a little distress and that's actually part of the process of nature therapy.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah, that's so lovely. It's so interesting to see. I'm biased I guess because we're all in our own little Echo Chambers, but seeing how many people are using nature as a grounding technique whether in session or just kind of as homework for clients to work on spend more time in nature and then all the metaphors that it provides for us the changing of the seasons how we can talk about being cold as distress tolerance and yeah, that's such a obvious mental health connection, but that's not something that I would say. psychology as a whole normally portrays it as so I think it's fascinating to see A lot of people are connecting with nature. Do you feel like that's at all coming out of the pandemic where we were all kind of locked down or do you feel like that's a response to? Tech taking over our lives like what are you kind of see?

Jeremy Schumacher: working in this field

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, I mean I have to imagine it's all of the above the pandemic did cause a shift even in that it got people even more hooked on technology. Working from home. You have interpersonal connection connection at work with colleagues.

00:20:00

Jennifer Sowers: And you're just at home alone staring at a screen. And I don't think people realize the extent of I don't know the impact.

Jennifer Sowers: Journey look how humans evolved in and with nature prior to the Industrial Revolution 300 years ago something around there. What we're doing right now is so unnatural for Humanity for…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: how we evolved.

Jennifer Sowers: And so I do think that the pandemic had an influence technology definitely has an influence. And some people are more ready than others to get back out in nature and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. I think the pandemics interesting too…

Jennifer Sowers: find it as you can act.

Jeremy Schumacher: because we also know things like bike sales went through the roof and people were kind of frantic to get out at one point. And so, getting bikes or going hiking like some of those things. technology invaded our personal home life in a way that it hadn't before and there was also this push to get Outdoors that was kind of associated with it as people learned it was safe to be outside and wanted to engage in some of those outdoor activities.

Jennifer Sowers: Right even just hanging out with friends. You could no longer hang At a restaurant or in a spaces and so it got people. in this kind of I gotta go outside if I want to see people

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, so it sounds like nature for you was always there and then it was figuring out how to tie the therapy part into what for you is always been very important.

Jennifer Sowers: Mm- Yeah. Yeah Nature has been a huge part of my life. Forever. I mean there have been times where I wasn't doing much with nature. I wasn't going outside that much or hiking that much but it was always really important to me and I always felt connected to Nature.

Jennifer Sowers: So yeah, I was definitely part of my life. I'm big on hiking I play soccer. I do a lot of things outside. And that's always kind of been one of my threads. It's just get out there.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, do you find a lot of clients are already there or they're looking to kind of reconnect. Or both I keep asking all these both questions.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, and I think probably most the time the answer will be both in these kinds of questions.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, I guess it does depend there are again clients that seek me out because I do this work. And there are also clients that I see that. Most of them I'm still virtual with but they come to me and they're like, I do not like nature. I don't want to go outside when I'm…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: okay, let's start there then.

Jeremy Schumacher: And so I chuckle when you said you bring it into session anyway.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: As a marriage therapist I've used gardening and I'm a terrible Gardener. my wife would be like Jeremy cannot grow pumpkins grow really well in our climate against my will because they take over everything but these gardening is this analogy of healthy tending to your relationship and it's a maintenance we have to weed and we have to make sure our soil is good and we have to get the rocks out for good stuff to grow. We have to set put in all this work and that analogy that metaphor makes so much sense to people that I do think there's an intuitive aspect to using nature and some of the lessons that provides for our Mental Health.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, nature metaphors are such a huge part of it and they're definitely easy to do when you're actually outside in nature and you're talking about grief and you see a tree that's Fallen. And you can talk about where that tree came what it's life was how it fell and how it's now nurturing the Earth. It's not gone.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: It's energy will never be gone energy doesn't disappear. It just gets transferred to the next thing. So things like that and force with the seasons nature hibernating right now during the winter. I have this on my mind so much and have really been embracing. Winter and slowing down and hibernating and things like that.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: There's this large disconnect for culture at large. I would say of Nature, it's just kind of produce and be success the grind culture as it were of everything's the same all the time regardless of what's going on around us. And so there is a disconnect I think with the changing of the seasons and being okay with that.

00:25:00

Jeremy Schumacher: and it's so much of what we're doing as you said earlier is just unnatural to What our bodies were built for and our brain being part of our bodies being built for? not 24/7 social media consumption not capitalism like Some of this structure that we exist in is not…

Jennifer Sowers: right

Jeremy Schumacher: what our bodies designed for.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, I'll give you even another example because to me when I talk about nature naturally brings up a lot with Evolution and how our bodies are and so if you think of an animal or ourselves in fight or flight mode when there was an animal attacking us visual field your eyes kind of come Inward and there's this direct Focus. They narrow in towards your nose and they look directly at the thing. That's a threat. And there's a feedback loop in our mind and our body when our eyes do that. It tells our brain danger fight or flight.

Jennifer Sowers: And look at us right now. These screens are right in front of us eyes they are coming in at that same way. So when we're looking at computers things that are super close to our face all day. Our eyes are telling our brain Panic something's wrong. Ensure and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: so things like that are really easy to bring in to Nature therapy virtually. without being Love the trees and I love the trees but you got to meet clients where they're at. And Almost everyone.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Maybe actually everyone in this culture and Society can relate to. I do. Look at things really close to my face. For hours and hours on end.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah with bright lights that signal to our brain that it needs to be alert. Yeah, there's so much that goes into that. And I love this analogy. I use a similar one when I'm teaching people about their stress response of what's a saber tooth tiger in our society now? because so few of us have threats that are hardwired in our brain goes and finds them this they search out things to be concerned about. So what if our boss is mad at us. What if someone doesn't like the email we send and that's such a stupid silly thing for our brain to be panicked about but when we're living in a fairly secure Society where our danger is not naturally at risk that often our safety is not at risk that often. Our brain reprocesses some of these things as threats that wouldn't make sense as a threat at all in a different context.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I'm that person who doesn't want to ever talk on the phone. So again, I'm not throwing shade at anyone I Pace while I'm on the phone because it stresses me out. So there's this disconnect from nature.

Jennifer Sowers: Yes.

Jeremy Schumacher: And for a lot of people getting that back is helpful not just in a metaphorical sense, but in a grounding connecting back to your environment being much more authentic and genuine than

Jeremy Schumacher: the dystopia that we've kind of built around ourselves

Jennifer Sowers: Mmm Yeah Yeah, definitely and you say these things in my mind goes in 20 different directions every time a client talks about these things. My mind goes okay, which is the Direction I'm gonna chase down and am I gonna talk about distressed tolerance and how nature can help am I going to talk about connection? And how lonely it is to live in a concrete box. and only interact with people when Our schedules align or whatever the case may be versus a really genuine connection.

Jeremy Schumacher: right

Jennifer Sowers: With nature with trees again. This is where we came from. We relied on the land. To support us. I mean we just don't pay attention to that because we are not the ones gardening for example, or

Jeremy Schumacher: or gardening poorly

Jennifer Sowers: Or gardening poorly someone else is doing that piece. So we don't see that connection, but it used to be we had to work with and foreign nature and there was a really authentic connection. And even now that can decrease loneliness and improve your mood to connect with nature authentically have a reciprocal relationship with nature. We get from nature food. ways to regulate our nervous system. It can also give Back To Nature picking up litter tending to a garden whatever the things may be the ways that we choose to interact with nature.

00:30:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Mm- Yeah. Yeah, I have ADHD and so I've always said Fire and Water even before I had my diagnosis or really understood my diagnosis for very calming to me and I didn't understand why I thought I just liked fire and water but it's that constant stimulation that goes on these are things that are never moving. They never sit still and for my brain like that soothes me. I need a certain level of stimulation for my brain to be able to focus elsewhere. And so nature is one of those things water and fire specifically for me but even going for a hike going through the woods. There's so much stimuli going on that The best video game is trying to replicate nature.

Jennifer Sowers: okay.

Jeremy Schumacher: That's it for the video game culture. the leaves are really realistic or the waters really realistic like they're trying to capture that sense that you get being out in nature because our brain is wired to respond to it.

Jennifer Sowers: Mm- Yeah, the fractal patterns in nature the shapes of the leaves when you look up at A canopy those are things that they find looking at those things helps our mental health seeing the colors blue and green. Just that alone helps your mental health. Those are the soothing colors. They're the natural in the span of our vision the colors that humans can see blue and green are Nature patterns are soothing kids who spend time in nature kids with ADHD who spend time in nature? if they've been outside for I think it was 20 minutes or something. I don't remember actually the numbers off the top of my head but given a task that requires Focus

Jennifer Sowers: they're better at it after they've been in nature for 20 minutes compared to a control group that's been inside or doing other things for 20 minutes before the focus task.

Jeremy Schumacher: yeah. Yeah, which opens up a whole separate box about our education system, but my wife's a teacher so I'll speak on this a little bit what happens when a kid's misbehaving a kid who maybe is undiagnosed ADHD or just hadn't get a good night's sleep or didn't have breakfast. They get their recess taken away. And then what happens throughout the day they Behavior gets worse instead of better because what they need is stimulation with the need is dopamine what they need is a connection somewhere and we're taking it away putting them in a sterile classroom envir.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And two, I mean you have this experience working in the hospital set in this very dry white sterile approach to things that isn't at all what our brain is wired to feel comfortable in. It's clean and…

Jennifer Sowers: Mmm Yeah Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: put the boats at the podcast people can't see me. It's clean. It gives the illusion of being sterile. But again, that's not how we're super wired either. It's good if you're doing surgery. but recovery and being around in nature and going for a walk on dirt or grass versus walking on concrete does different things to your body.

Jennifer Sowers: definitely

Jeremy Schumacher: So you also do some other ways to connect with nature you offer some groups that go off of the lunar cycle some of that stuff. Tell us about how you stumbled into that or why that was important to you and to include in your practice.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, so when I started doing private practice and I started doing individual therapy sessions as a practitioner working for myself. I was feeling lonely and isolated and I know a lot of clients were too but also a lot of clinicians that I'd reach out to friends that were in similar Fields. There was just a lot of isolation loneliness lack of connection again being trapped in my concrete box of the house, which is an amazing how

Jennifer Sowers: I love it. It's cozy. I've cultivated it with plants and all the things that I need but any more than that and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: so I had a friend that is a therapist in DC and she was feeling the same way and maybe we can create a community of Healers. And get together on the lunar cycle. I feel very connected to the Moon. I know there's research on how the moon impacts. Nature our bodies different things. I don't know what it all is. …

00:35:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.

Jennifer Sowers: but I love it and I feel connected to it. And so that's how we decided that we would meet on the lunar cycles. So we first started with a full moon celebration.

Jennifer Sowers: And this was a time to celebrate successes set intentions for the next month. It's super convenient that it's basically every month you get a new moon and we use that as a Time. To kind of reset set intentions again come together and Community we'd have a bonfire set up tiki torches and a nice circle around us.

Jennifer Sowers: and then we invited other people and so for our full moon celebrations, we'd invite people from everywhere all the community anyone who wanted to join and we'd have Wellness events scheduled into it, but also just a lot of conversation a lot of chance to connect to dance. We literally Howl at the Moon. We wait for it to break the clouds…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: if it's a cloudy night, but at the end of our celebration we have this nice release of howling at the moon.

Jennifer Sowers: And it's just been such an amazing way to build community. And to get people out of the house people who attend seem to really enjoy it as a release but also as a way to connect on a deeper level, it's not just let's have a party.

Jeremy Schumacher: the fourth planet Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Let's get in touch with ourselves and with each other in a really intentional manner. And so it started with this full moon celebration, but then we also had our little community of four healers myself as a social worker Nicole a social worker in DC. Shot a nutritionist does like yoga things meditation mindfulness and a lot of creative expression for healing. the pharmacist

Jennifer Sowers: And we've come together to create this little community that puts on the full moon celebrations and then each month. We also do a new moon celebration with just the four of us. Where we do a lot of reflective and deeper personal work. Shadow what Looking at,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.

Jennifer Sowers: things like journaling more.

Jennifer Sowers: And just connecting on a deeper level.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah, I work with the religious trauma and see a lot of people who are coming out of high control religion and one of the things that's really grounding for people is nature. I grew up fundamentalist and nature for me was important but connecting to the Pagan Community for me. what's it got me through the pandemic in a certain way because all these people who minded were connecting with nature the wheel of the year if two little boys is what we use Now to celebrate holidays as opposed to the religion I was raised in and tracking the moon knowing the moon cycles knowing what the different moons are like again. I think that Paradigm for There's a sequence there's an ebb and flow, but everything keeps kind of moving is healthier than the like.

Jeremy Schumacher: It's a Monday and that means you're working nine to five that's all arbitrary enough based on anything. Where is connecting to Nature you're getting this feedback of right. We're connecting.

Jennifer Sowers: Mm- Yeah, definitely whether it's the moon cycles, whether it's other aspects of nature it feels more authentic to me and I don't know the different,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Meanings of the different moons and it's just something that I feel a deep connection to personally and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: I enjoy sharing with other people and it's been a great learning experience too because as we're doing these things do a little bit of research here and there and learn a little more about different Cycle Of the Earth the stars. the nature Cycles like I've been learning a lot and

Jennifer Sowers: Also, but most of it for me has come from a place of I feel an authentic connection to Nature. I feel unauthentic connection to the moon and water and fire and the different elements and I don't know what any of it is or what it means but I'm gonna embrace it because this is what I find meaning in.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and I love the meaning making component of that. There's an authentic genuine response to a stimuli and what we do with that. It's kind of open-ended and I find that is empowering for a little bias here coming out of a high control religion, for people who have been told what to do. There's a right and wrong way to do everything. There's a real freedom and empowerment in If you want to learn the moon cycles, but you can just appreciate a bright moon and the nice stars and get out in nature more. that's great if that works well for you and if you're somebody who wants to connect and know what the strawberry blood moon means or whatever. I'm a bad Pagan. I don't know all these things yet.

00:40:00

Jeremy Schumacher: But there's levels of What do you want to connect to what feels genuine authentic to and that's an option as opposed to this is the only way to interact with nature like that isn't a thing.

Jennifer Sowers: right Yeah, yeah, you don't have to know all that's the magic of Nature's you don't have to know all the facts or the phases or the different things if you want to connect. And even in the training they talk about Spirituality and nature whether you look back to indigenous people from various parts of the world and how they connected to the moon and stars and nature and different ways and celebrated those connections or if you just go out in nature on your own and take an all walk and find all and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: wonder and gratitude in the world that can bring so much connection. Just looking even I live in the middle of the city. I can still walk down the street and find all and wonder in the fact that there's one singular tree and a bird found that tree and made a nest.

Jennifer Sowers: Or that this weed has popped up between the cracks and the sidewalk like that's wild. This sidewalk is impermeable.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: I can't get through it. How did this we do this and it's really cool. And so you don't have to know everything to be able to find that. spirituality in nature or just connection or all

Jeremy Schumacher: It's okay to not know the difference between a silver maple and an oak tree you can still go and enjoy time in the forest. Yeah, so…

Jennifer Sowers: Right exactly.

Jeremy Schumacher: if therapies walking out in nature, what does self-care look like for you? How do you kind of take care of your own mental Wellness while working in the field?

Jennifer Sowers: So a lot of it is nature for me. Which I mean it seems kind of self-explanatory at that point, but I do try to get outside every single day regardless of the weather. I mean the research says take a 20 minute walk every single day.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Or The sun is still coming through to some degree and movement is good. So I do do that. Knowing the research does help me do that more because on days where I'm like, yeah, whatever. I can check in with my nature therapist brain and be like,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: no actually let's do this.

Jennifer Sowers: also looks like aside from hiking backpacking being outside. I play soccer. I like to do a lot of things with movements. I'm very playful and I find I can focus better while I'm moving and while I'm doing something so I do things like Acro yoga, which is a great way to connect with other people where you're climbing on top of each other and with the people I do acroyoga with it's a lot of giggling and enjoying the mess ups and just having fun with it. I've been trying to take up hula hooping. I also like to do things like baking and cooking making bread, especially in the winter. Once fall comes I call it baking season. It's finally not too hot to turn the oven on. And I fully and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: mesh myself in that I'm wintering right now.

Jennifer Sowers: Which is a new term that I've learned and still learning about which goes back to that hibernation. I let myself rest. I have candles and cozy blankets. So right now for me. self-care is sitting on the couch with a good book or Just enjoying the smell of my candles having pretty lights up baking cooking doing jigsaw puzzles.

Jennifer Sowers: Some amount of journaling and things like that. Piece is that community of healers that I told you about? I turn to them for support of a lot of things. We do our new moon celebrations every month next weekend. We're actually doing a little mini retreat and this time with these people is more than just let me hang out with friends, which is self-care in itself also,…

00:45:00

Jeremy Schumacher: right

Jennifer Sowers: but it's very intentional time with guided activities that we create for and with each other to take time to reflect to journal to help each other in our own healing processes get together to talk about business stuff, but separate times not during our healing times because those are special and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: unique to us.

Jennifer Sowers: self-care can look like dancing around the house and putting music on it random times. Sometimes I just shake my body and try to get whatever negativity I might be feeling. I just literally shake my arms and stomp my feet or lay on the ground. I mean self-care to me is so there's so many different things.

Jennifer Sowers: I'll get my nails done. I'm not a very fancy person but sitting there and having the meditative space of someone doing my nails for me is really nice Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: and I love all of this because I think part of the podcast is normalizing that everyone has to work on their mental health, but part of it too. It's like the intentionality behind smoothies things as therapists we take on a lot of other people's stress in addition to our own stress and so normalizing right that's stress levels stress relief has to go up but some of this playfulness and some of these things of I would guess slightly. If not a lot different than yours first or second year out of grad school like that the way that we relate to ourselves and how we take care of ourselves as healers changes over time as well.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, and one thing I noticed that I do clinical supervision for. social workers at lower license level and one of the most recent things that Came up was the necessity of self-care. The intensity of self-care at different points. There are times when my life Things are good. I feel good. I go into therapy sessions. It feels natural and easy. My supervisie has even said how can I justify getting paid for this? This just feels so natural?

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: Our Lives take turns as therapists I still go through things. When things are good myself care might be. minimal or natural or I don't even notice that I'm doing it because It's not urgent. or other times where I'm doing self-care on the time I wake up until the time I go to Around my sessions.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: and it's really intensive because I need to be in a space for my clients, but I also need to be in that space for myself.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and I think checking in with yourself enough to set the intentionality around what it needs to look like because when we are good and we have lots of resources. Naturally. We need less intentionality around it. And when we are dealing with a lot or we have a lot of things that are consuming resources then we need to be intentional create that space.

Jennifer Sowers: Very exactly. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And that's what we tell all our clients, but we have to do it we have to do it too.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, which is a learning process as a therapist to remind myself when I need to take care of myself. And easier it gets easier to remind myself to do it with years of experience implements that is as challenging as whatever the situation is,…

Jeremy Schumacher: right Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: but I know.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and I love nature so connected for that because it's easy as therapist intellectualize or go to the research or go to the data and say self-care check that box, but then we don't always do it. And so I find nature again Take a walk take a lunch break go outside. it's stuff that we as therapist know but it's easy to get consumed with case notes or calling an insurance that is declining something or whatever and there's these things. So yeah, I love the intentionality of it. I love how nature Yanks us out of a lot of those mind frames that are unhelpful.

Jennifer Sowers: Mm-hmm

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, yeah and reminds me those nature metaphors. It reminds me of the phases. It reminds me that it's okay to take a break that life will continue I'll go on things will go on if I don't call that insurance company. I might be delayed in getting paid. but In nature therapy, we talk about being enough.

00:50:00

Jennifer Sowers: if I'm For example making enough money because it is a capitalistic Society. I do have to pay my darn bills. that's just the thing. But I can decide you…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: I need a lot of self-care right now. I have this insurance company to call but I don't have the capacity right now. I'm gonna lay on the floor for the next five minutes between sessions or I'm gonna take a walk. I'm gonna go stare up at the leaves.

Jeremy Schumacher: What?

Jennifer Sowers: Go out on my deck in the backyard, like whatever it is to get space and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jennifer Sowers: care of myself and that insurance company is gonna be there next week or next month or whatever. I Have the capacity to get back to that.

Jeremy Schumacher: right

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and knowing that investment of time comes back to us. We're more efficient. Yeah, we have an office dog where I work and sometimes the best use of my time is petting the dog in between sessions. that's what grounds me and resenters me faster than Anything else so right that intentional investment of time comes back to us.

Jennifer Sowers: and exactly if you don't want to waste time, then you need to spend time intentionally doing something different and potentially,

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah, for sure John this was awesome. If people want to learn more about I know you did like a wintering clinics What's the word like? Yeah, you do a wintering workshop.

Jennifer Sowers: shop thing

Jeremy Schumacher: I saw so if people want to follow you or learn more about your practice or connect with you, perhaps Where do they get information?

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah, so my website is www.gen sowers.com. I imagine you can put that in the show notes so they can find it.

Jeremy Schumacher: we will link everything but My auditory processors…

Jennifer Sowers: everything up

Jeremy Schumacher: who want to listen to it.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah but my name spelling is j e n n s o w e r s. So it's just www.gen sowers.com. That's the best way. To just check up on things. I'll post my groups and events the full moon celebrations again next weekend, or I guess maybe it's two weekends from now still. My Little community of healers is getting together. So we'll be scheduling out our new moons and full moon celebrations for people to be able to look out for I will randomly Virtual events if people are interested in Virtual events. It'll show up on my website. If you go to my website, you can also sign up for my email newsletter. It's just easiest to do everything through the website though or send me an email Wellness at Jen sowers.com.

Jennifer Sowers: And then either I'll get back to you and also send links for my Eventbrite my website all those things.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and…

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: you're on Instagram. I know that's how I knew the wintering workshop was happening. I wasn't able to make it but seeing that and so we'll link to that as well.

Jennifer Sowers: yeah, so social media is Wellness with Jen Sowers because there's someone else who also is Wellness with Jen and some other state whose Pages look fascinating all so that I don't know…

Jeremy Schumacher: We're gonna get all the wellness with Jay names together at some point.

Jennifer Sowers: what person

Jennifer Sowers: Wellness with Jen Sowers Wellness with Jer. Who knows.

Jeremy Schumacher: But yeah, and for those of you who are maybe interested in this whether you're a therapist or social worker or just a random person who's like, I never thought about a full moon ceremony or anything like that. I strongly encourage. It is a little bit of my Pagan coming out like it's so cool to connect with these things. I'm in the Milwaukee area. There's a group that meets at the outdoors sculpture garden and they walk through elaborate and it's just this magical experience to be able to connect with nature and then connect with other people who are connecting with nature it's Very cool. So if this at all takes your interest I highly recommend it as the wintering workshop was super easy. It wasn't able to attend but like you said you got links to sign up for all that stuff. So we'll have all that stuff in the show notes for people. So Jen this has been fantastic.

Jennifer Sowers: Yeah. Yeah,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Thanks for joining me.

Jennifer Sowers: thank you so much.

Jeremy Schumacher: And to all our wonderful listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll be back again next week with another new episode. Take care everyone.

Meeting ended after 00:54:43 👋