In today’s podcast episode, Megan is joined by a very special guest, Jeanne Foot.
Jeanne Foot is an Addiction and Recovery Specialist, Podcast Host of Naturally High, Co-Author of The Epiphany Project, Master Practitioner, Trauma Recovery Facilitator, Trainer of NLP & Clinical Hypnotherapy & Life and Success Coaching, Jeanne Foot.
Jeanne is the founder of The Recovery Concierge, a premier mental health concierge boutique, offering its client’s the best chance for sustainable recovery and an enhanced quality of life.
Jeanne has been published in the Canadian Mental Health Journal, Elephant Journal and Thrive, and has been featured on This Naked Mind Podcast, LandMark Recovery Radio and more.
Jeanne knows that all behavior has a purpose and substance abuse is not about drugs or alcohol, but rather the root causes that are beneath those compulsions are part of the emotional response caused by past trauma. The customized concierge support that Jeanne and TRC provide allows clients to move from ‘surviving to thrive with a 97% success rate.
Realizing that the path to recovery is not always linear and supporting each individual and family through their own unique journey is the driving force behind Jeanne’s mission to change the misconceptions people have about the meaning of recovery.
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Megan Blacksmith
Hi there, everybody. Welcome back to the Zesty Ginger podcast. I have a lovely guest here today with me. Hello, Jeanne.
Jeanne Foot
Hello, everybody. So happy to be here.
Megan Blacksmith
Yes, I’m happy. I’m excited to continue on this topic of addiction and recovery. And we are going to get into a little more detail than I have in the previous episodes. Because at this point, if you have not gone back to listen to my story, I think it would make a lot more sense to start there and start with part one of this series so that you can understand how I got to the place where I got here. And the things that Jeanne shares will make a little more sense and open you up to where we are. So, Jeanne Foot is an addiction and recovery specialist podcast host of naturally, I love that by the way. So her author of the Epiphany project, Master Practitioner, trauma recovery facilitator, trainer of NLP and clinical hypnotherapy and life success coaching. So she’s the founder of the recovery concierge, a premier mental health concierge boutique, offering its clients the best chance for sustainable recovery and enhance quality of life. So Jeanne knows that all behavior has a purpose and substance abuse is not about drugs or alcohol. Yes, please, thank you, but rather the root cause that are beneath those compulsions are part of the emotional response caused by past trauma. The customized concierge supports that Jeanne and TRC provide allows clients to move from surviving to thrive with a 97% success rate. Wow, that’s exciting. That’s not the rate going the going rate right now anywhere else? Is it?
Jeanne Foot
No, I would say we have, it’s one of the very few areas in medicine or clinical training that we are seem to be okay with the high failure rates. And so that was one of the reasons why I wanted to kind of create something that really looked at, in a holistic and integrated approach that looks at all areas of life. And that’s something I believe that you’ve done personally with your own life as well and your husband. So, good for you.
Megan Blacksmith
Thank you. So, an addiction recovery specialist. So how does one end up with that title? And I’d love for you to just back us up to a little bit of your personal background of how you came to this profession and to learn so much detail about this area.
Jeanne Foot
So, I always say my life chose me not the other way around. Right? I would never have signed up for this because I think if life had been easier, I would have asked for a softer, a softer pathway. No, no questions asked. I grew up with, the I am the third generation of mental health and addiction substance issues in my family. And so it was something my brother was took our whole family emotional terrorists, he was an international criminal by the time he passed at the age of 36. And he had, you know, some very severe substance issues, which were robbing banks, all the things like I have the drama to prove it. But I think what happened for me was I obviously learned at a very young age to cope with substances because of my sexual history, a sexual abuse history. And so for me, that was really about just numbing out of my skin. And so what happened for me was basically, it was the only way I knew how to cope. I had no understanding of how to cope in any other way other than using which was to take me out of my pain and let me be okay, because I couldn’t feel I was completely numb inside. And this went on for years. I just thought I was in a party girl. Until eventually I fell into recovery. And really I fell into recovery at the age of 33 in 1993 When my husband said they basically, you have an alternative, get it together or else. And I had three young children ranging from 18 months to eight at the time. And I thought, “You know what, if I don’t do this, we’re going to repeat the same history all over again.” Not that they would be victimized in the same way, but they wouldn’t have a present parent, they wouldn’t have anyone who could model exemplary behavior to them. And I wasn’t that person at that time. So I went to rehab. And in those days, you know, I disclose everything. That I had sexual abuse history. And in those days, nobody knew what trauma was, even though I’m saying it, this is my history. But nobody kind of connected the dots or said,”This is what you need to work on, or this is who you should see” or whatever. So I could literally go clean, and I stay clean for seven years. I don’t know how no programs, no 12 step meetings, I was taught the 12 step program, it didn’t mean anything to me. I really felt like I was learning a foreign language. It was that hard for me to get my head around. And then eventually, seven years, I came to an intersection, I thought I wanted to just die. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, my skin is like frozen. My self loathing is off the table. I Can’t even look at myself in the mirror. My pain is searing, I’m depressed, I’m have untreated PTSD, which now live for really five years before I was treated properly. And then not medicated. Nobody suggested I see any professional at all. And I’ve got this veneer going that I’ve got it all together. And from the outside, everything looked really well. But internally, I thought I was gonna die. I couldn’t handle the life I was given. And I thought there’s got to be a better, better way. And that was the beginning of a quest for something more. And from initial I was given the 12 steps traditional rehab as a program to that would cure my problems. But in fact, it really created way more for me. And I didn’t understand why because I was doing it right. So what was the issue that I just couldn’t get to this, the, you know, the land of wellness, right? And so I started, I fell into Kundalini Yoga, which was my first experiential modality or methodology of, you know, finding something that integrates the endocrine system, the hormonal system, and integrates our mind, body and spirit. And that worked for me and I my very first meeting, my first experience was with Mastin, KIPP, and Tommy Rosen, as a matter of fact, and I thought I was going to a normal yoga class. I slammed my daughter there. And we came out, we went on in at six, and we came at 1130. And I was like, as high as a kite, which is where naturally high comes from. I had never experienced anything like I did. And I thought, Okay, this works for me. So it was the beginning of looking at different things. And then obviously, I went back to school and you know, that nagged me for five years. And I said, No, I’m not doing this, everybody does this. Everybody who gets into recovery wants to be a recovery coach, or this coach or a therapist or whatever, I’m not doing this because I had a business. But it kept calling me. And then from there, I went into NLP, I went into trauma facilitation, somatic relational healing, and just all the various modalities and I ended up in a very spiritual forward of therapeutic community, which were all about somatic healing. And this was about 8 years, 10 years ago, like nobody was doing it, then nobody knew what embodied was. Nobody knew what trauma informed was, nobody knew anything other than more of the traditional stuff. And in the beginning, it was hard for me, but I knew I needed it, I knew that was the very thing that would unleash me and set me free. So I just went with it. And then it became very natural. And it’s part of the evolution of my own practice, actually, because I believe we need to integrate all the loose ends in someone’s life and realign them in order for them to really live a fulfilled sustainable recovery. And so that often is really not missed, you know, tackled, as you know, in NLP, for example, which I know that you’re a trainer of, we tell people how to make change consciously and it’s our subconscious that’s running our behavior. So how do we expect people to have a sustainable recovery, if every other programming is was what’s driving the behavior? And then I thought, “Okay, this is ludicrous. Nobody’s doing this, like, why are they not looking at this in a different way?”. And so I just started evolving, but it’s been a lonely journey, because when you’re walking against the flow, as you may know, you don’t have a lot of friends along the way sometimes because people are sticking to more traditional tried and trued methods of what the norm is doing. And I just felt that the success rates were so dismal. Why are we doing it that way? Which is why I created my own.
Megan Blacksmith
That is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. So tthis is exactly I heard you say you know, you went on this journey like a quest for something more. And those words are so good because that’s exactly what this podcast series that we’re in the middle of, I was basically explaining that that was, for me, it was my quest for something more. So as everyone here has heard, for me, it started with this like rock bottom of like finding out my husband’s having an affair, and you know, needs to go to rehab. And it sounds like for you that you were already in, you know, you had already gotten sober for a while. So do you remember what, what was it just a little feeling? Did something happen when you were like, I gotta do something else like was there a moment?
Jeanne Foot
There wasn’t a moment of clarity. And at that stage, when I went to it was really, there was external pressure from my husband, having up until that point in time, I just sort of kept all the balls in the air tossing. And I was very good at that, obviously, because it was a survival adaption, right? I just knew how to do that. And I didn’t know how to do anything else. I didn’t have any other skills or tools. And I didn’t use when I was pregnant, but I ate myself way through it, which is why you know, you put down one addiction and other kinds of it’s like guacamole, you know, that game where you thumb one and up comes another. And so when I recognized that, because I gained a lot of weight because there was no way out. But I think for me, what really was that moment was losing my children was not even something I couldn’t even contemplate it was my non negotiable. And he kind of said to me, you need to get it together. And because up until that time, I was manipulated and doing it my way. I wasn’t smoking all day when they were around. But once you were in bed, that was the only way I knew how to cope. And eventually that picked up. But I also noticed other compulsive behaviors were picking up too. Like I was cleaning all the time. That’s the way I escape is cleaning. You know, like it was crazy. I had little one. So it made sense. I was cleaning all the time. But these compulsions would pick up and I could see they were getting more frequent and more frequent, which so was the addiction getting more frequent of using and I knew there was no way out but through. The interest in it wasn’t the answer. For me, it was just the very, very beginning of the journey.
Megan Blacksmith
There was, yeah, that moment of external pressure. So what do you suggest for the people you work with around that? Because the family structure, right? Like whoever they’re going to be around and dealing with and living with? Can I’m, I can imagine because it didn’t, in my scenario make a really big impact on whether you’re successful or not. And you had somebody who was like, “Okay, no more of this.”. So how do you integrate working with family members?
Jeanne Foot
So basically, the family is equally affected as the client or the person of, POC, the person of choice. And basically, what we’re really trying to do is we’re trying to give them the skills and language to really engage them. And so sometimes, I just ask a family to get them to me, and I can do the rest. So sometimes I coach a family on how to really engage with them. And rapport is very important. Like, obviously, rapport is broken, there’s a lack of trust, there’s this lack of a lot of things, they’re in a relationship that’s been fractured by mistrust, in particular. So we’re looking to build rapport and communication using certain eye language instead of like you, obviously, which will put someone’s wall up immediately. So trying to get them to be more curious about their addiction, because what you’re essentially doing is you’re competing with the addiction. So we need to find something that is more powerful than addiction itself for that individual who’s even contemplating giving it up. And if we don’t talk about what could be for that individual, like, obviously, they’re in pain, their relationships, or ruins, and maybe not career choices, there’s numerous issues that could be there. But what competes with that maybe it’s a love of sports, maybe it’s a love of, you know, the family, maybe it’s a love of trying to find something that they’re good at whether it’s even a hobby that they can return to that opens that pathway for them. So language is a very important part, but also being curious about what’s going on for that individual. Why are they, why they do what they do? What do they find that’s beneficial in it. But we tend to avoid those questions, because we’re so scared, it’s going to drive the addiction further, which it won’t. It gives a person to really question and examine why they do what they do.
Megan Blacksmith
Yeah, beautiful. What would you say Jen is most missing, in general from the recovery world, if there’s something you could scream from the rooftops?
Jeanne Foot
Well, basically, there’s systemic gaps everywhere all over the world. So I think we need to look at mental health and addiction recovery as we would any other chronic health condition. Diabetes, heart disease. We need to have we have to have more frequent contact when someone leaves rehab. We need to have mentors, people who can track people who can support them way through plus, a different methodology of treating goes without saying because we’re treating one small component, which is the presenting solution for that person, which is the drugs and alcohol, but underneath it, there’s a myriad of trauma and attachment issues and nervous system regulation like, there’s so many things that are underneath it that never get examined in a traditional rehab setting.
Megan Blacksmith
Yeah. And then I know, in our situation, like, I’m wondering if you feel that a lot of people don’t necessarily come out or ask for help about an addiction, or about a place they’re in because of like, the shame and stigma attached to that. I was just, before this interview, I hadn’t shared this before on the podcast, but I, a part of the story that I hadn’t shared was that, you know, my husband was in the military. And at this time, and he knew drinking was a problem. But he didn’t want to tell anybody in the military, because one, he didn’t want to go where they would want him to go. And two, he felt like I will, you know, be treated differently. Like, they’ll look down on me like, he felt it wouldn’t actually be good for his career. I think I can say all this, he’s out of the military now. So, instead of actually going to get help from anybody, officially, he was in between commands, like we were moving, and we had almost a month off, he happened to have for moving and starting the next job. And that’s when like, we just took it into our own hands found a place that we thought was a little more holistic, as it turns out, not so much, although maybe a little better than what would have happened. But um, but at this point, you know, it’s totally out of pocket. We were in a place, right? So it’s just like not even having the resources are going, going to the people that you would think would help you with this. Do you find that that’s really like common that people are just like ashamed, or there’s a stigma around as they don’t even want to start to get help?
Jeanne Foot
Absolutely. So shame and stigma is the number one barrier to getting help. It’s it’s actually known as that. But yes, and you know, like addiction is almost like the poor cousin of mental health. It’s bad enough to have a mental health issue. But then there’s this moral judgment that comes with addiction, like you’re doing this to yourself, as if any rational person would actually do this to themselves, is a way of them coping maladaptively, but the point is, that person doesn’t have a better way of coping, until they actually learn the skill. So yes, I think there’s a lot people can do, though, there’s, you know, there’s, we have to have accurate advocacy in our own healing and wellness. And that’s the truth, you know, like, we go to a doctor, traditionally, we’ve put the power back into professionals. And yes, we do need professional guides. I’m not dismissing that at all. But there has to be some agency in someone’s house, whether it’s we’re talking diabetes, or we’re talking mental health or addiction. Like, you don’t just take a pill and do nothing, you have to whether getting up and walking around the block or going to a meeting or non isolating, or having a daily ritual, or whatever it may be, or your own self inquiry about whatever it is that you’re working through. We have to learn to do that. And so much of that we can do on our own with the right mentors and guides. And some and professionals are needed at times. And I think we come from a top down approach. And we’re now moving into a bottom up approach where we can do this with fellow guys and professional people who can help us and it’s not a done to process. It is a do with process. And I think we’re finally getting into that landscape. But there’s more and more of that is becoming more mainstream. But until now until the last few years, I think absolutely not. It was like go to a doctor go to a professional they will be able to fix you up and that was kind of the mentality that most people would subscribe to. And interestingly, not most professionals and unless they’re geared in a specialty, are not equipped. They don’t understand pharmacology, they don’t understand addiction. They’re more of a GP general practitioner, they can help globally, but when it comes to specific issues, you need a specialist in that area.
Megan Blacksmith
Beautiful. So you said you are clean for many years, but not well. I thought that was such a potent line. When people I just want to kind of understand like when people are coming to you, for example, are they in that category of people like they’ve been clean for a while and they’re just like, still doesn’t feel right doesn’t feel aligned? Or is are people coming to you in the rock bottom? Like what’s the process of most of the people you work with?
Jeanne Foot
Most of the people I work with are just beginning their journey. However, that is not more the clientele I ultimately thought would come forward because there are living and there are different people now who recognize that I always say we are the common denominator within ourselves. Like we follow ourselves wherever we go. So some people think it’s conditions and outside circumstances that really are their issue. shoes were really the issues are within, they’re always within, as are the solutions within. So, to know thyself to be true is absolutely a global response I think is is necessary, we have to know who we are because we can find trouble anywhere we want. And I don’t mean trouble as in even adversity in any way we want unless we can be honest about what is going on for us. So you know, there are a lot of people like one thing I know, after, you know, people can’t see who I am right now. But at my stage in life in my early 60s, and I’ve been at this for 30 years now, I clearly understand that life has a way of ebbing and flowing. And that, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know, until you’re ready to actually deal with something in your life, which is now being presented and coming forward. And we sometimes get those spiritual lessons over and over and over again. And so, for a lot of people, you know, you can be on a solid path of recovery, and it can fall as quickly as you know, you got on a path of recovery, it can happen, I’ve seen it fracture after 10 years, 20 years, whatever. And that’s not meant to disturb people. But I feel that if you actually understand what’s driving all behavior, because it has purpose, you really understand yourself better that you can actually not just manage yourself, but you can actually integrate those fragments, fragmented lost pieces of who you are, right? And that’s really part of it. And so often, we don’t do that. We say, “Oh, that’s good, that’s over, the addiction is down, we’re good.” until we hit another bump in life. And that can happen for some people, not all people, but some people, depending on what’s really underneath all that addiction. And for the most part, it’s trauma. I think we live in a very traumatized world and a very fear based world where anxiety is like the normal. It doesn’t need to be.
Megan Blacksmith
Yeah, how much has it shifted? Just with the last few years like that? Have you seen everything skyrocket for the mental health?
Jeanne Foot
Oh, absolutely. I feel like COVID was a tipping point for people. I think people who are trying to manage it, just keep up with their lives and knew that they were they had their inherent struggles to assault that that life was normal. And for those types of people who were just sort of hanging on, I think that was the tipping Berg tipping point for them, so that they kind of went over the edge. And you know, it’s very, very hard to get their personnel in a timely manner coaches who specialized in trauma informed care, because people are just consumed with what they have.
Megan Blacksmith
So what is the process? Tell people like where,when do people come to you? And what state like Have they gone to rehab? What’s the process?
Jeanne Foot
So I pick people up, sometimes I pick people up because a family member has called about someone and they know that they need to be guided. And so we start the process of looking at what are their needs, and what is achievable out of a few different goals. And it may be therapeutic placement is really the goal. So then it’s matching them. Not all we have to create it same, not all in in professionals internally are trained the same the amount of time people get the modalities, the kind of modality so this is where we decode that for that individual, we do an assessment, we do some family work, we do some individual work. And then when we decide what is really the root. Then we do some case management, and we liaison with the clinical team. And we do that because that person has to reintegrate back into their real life and without having a pulse on what’s going on there, we can miss a lot of things. And sometimes family are shut out from that process. So having a main liaison on the case and doing the management and working with the client, even when they’re inside can help. Sometimes we pick and then we create a wrap around extended care program for them outpatient program, and really they do need more support, then there’s more risk then in the real world than in a contained environment. And so we would match the therapeutic with the clinical team and their recommendations. We would find the resources on the ground in the client’s nearby community. And then we would start, you know, liaisoning and collaborating with the whole team for that person’s optimal wellness. And we can pick someone up anywhere along the line. Like if someone comes to me just for coaching and mentoring and they just want to work through some stuff, they’re stuck, that’s fine too. Or sometimes, most times we take a family from beginning to end. We do a lot of sober monitoring. So Alcohol Management where people have burned through trust, so they have custody issues or whatever that may be and access issues with their children who are young. And a partner wants peace of mind that when the kids are being picked up, they’re sober. We have monitoring services that we can do that as well. So we do a lot of that as well an advocacy work.
Megan Blacksmith
I know you’re in Canada, so is that is this just Canada?
Jeanne Foot
No. So everywhere, everywhere. Very rarely do people Go to treatment resources in Canada is much better than it has been. But it’s still not progressive because we really were under a publicly funded health care system, even though there is private, they’re nowhere as progressive as in the US and worldwide.
Megan Blacksmith
Okay, so do you have, have found recovery centers or locations in the US or otherwise that you’re like, I also feel good about and amazing.
Jeanne Foot
We know centers, we know treatment centers all over the world, and different fits for different budgets and different methodologies and assessment clinics, and different ways of approaching this, there’s like, that’s what I always say. You can spend a ton of money addiction treatment, or very little, you may or may not get it, right. So it’s like, it’s like a crapshoot. So you have to really understand what it is you need, what is really achievable, how vested the person is how vested the family is, in terms of their doing their work. There’s a lot of nuance that goes into all of this. It’s not as easy as googling rehab centers and coming up with a powered ad, which a lot of people fall for. And pick based on that choice. And that’s a huge investment. People are are doing, right? Like they’re making a huge investment, without knowing. And that’s to me, that’s criminal, unfortunately. So having a navigator is really essential, because it can save you a lot of money. Even though our fees are on a pay fee for service. We can save people a ton of money as well, because there’s so many different ways we can do it. And we, I always say you can always increase escalation if the way that we don’t start full throttle, like person’s got to go to rehab done. Where you start, unless it’s an actual safety issue. That’s not where we start, we start at what can we do to increase the safety and engagement of this individual right now. And then if that person cannot commit to this, then we move to Plan B. Because once you go too fast, and escalate too quickly, you’ve damaged the relationship, and it’s harder to then rebuild it with a family where it’s already fragmented. So we try to move slowly and then escalate if there’s opportunity to do so rather than dialing it back.
Megan Blacksmith
Can you explain a little more? What part damages the family? About going too fast?
Jeanne Foot
So often people get such like, you asked five people a different answer. What should I do? And family members who are really in crisis, look at different resources, and they’re trying to discern what’s the best way to go. And what happens is they get five different opinions. And they’re gonna get, you know, the school of hard knocks, “Just leave him he hasn’t reached rock bottom.”Rock bottom could be death is dangerous. Like enough like people. I think it’s a very dangerous statement. Yes, the person has to be vested. And there has to be clear consequences to one’s choice, right? But so what happens is, people get poor advice, they execute on one plan, it may not be the right plan. And then, you know, you’ve got someone who has a substance use disorder is in jail now with a criminal record, because they, they were told they’d be forced to go to jail, which was our son’s issue. And it was the worst advice we ever had, which is one of the reasons I’m in this field, because we were given such poor advice, because there’s so many unregulated professionals in the industry, and like many other industries, and I find that’s criminal. We’re talking about people, vulnerable people, and we’re talking about a lot of money. We’re talking about life and death, and we don’t have room to get this wrong.
Megan Blacksmith
Yeah, I mean, when, when you said Googling, I mean, that’s literally what we did. I panic when I’m Google, doo doo doo doo, right. And I typed in
Jeanne Foot
Drug and alcohol problem.
Megan Blacksmith
Google that too. But guess what I typed in the holistic I added that because you know, that’s gonna help, which so I got the place that was supposed to have like, the acupuncture and the whatever. And he got there. And like, it was just he, it wasn’t there. He’s like, that things on the website is literally not here. So three days later, we transfer them to another one that was, Oh, my goodness, maybe going to be better. It really wasn’t. Although it was in that he got away from the environment. He had a break. He didn’t have a cell phone. He said that alone, honestly, was one of the biggest things of just like disconnecting completely for 30 days, and this was, it was $32,000 for the month, which is probably about standard, I don’t know. And the crazy part about the story is that I had told, I told my dad what just happened. My husband has had an affair and he is you know, needs help with this alcohol and he was like, “I don’t get choked up talking about it. He’s like, where’s he need to go? What do you need?” So he sent him, he’s like, whatever happens between you two was whatever happened? I’m just like, but this is the you know, this is the father of my grandkids and he deserves, like, as much support and healthy life. So who we are lucky there. And I know everybody is not as lucky there.
Jeanne Foot
Well, your father was a very beautiful wise man, because most people wouldn’t have responded that way. Yes, he is the father of your children. So you have a lifelong relationship with that person. So we’re going to make this work for you, as well as his children. He needs to be rehabilitated regardless what happens to the two of you, but so many people would have given ill advice and says, you know, dump and get rid of him. And then how would that have helped you? And look where you are now.
Megan Blacksmith
Right. Right. And he was willing to do the trauma work, which to me from the beginning, I knew that was there. I knew there was deep trauma there. And I honestly, not knowing anything about trauma coming into the relationship, I thought, if I was just that one consistent, loving person, that I could fix it, right? Here, right here I come and 10 years into it. I’m like, huh, is not adding up. So let’s talk about the trauma piece a little bit, because I know this is I know this is your your thing. So without looking at that part, what happens with addiction? Do you feel like that really is just such a pivotal piece of this?
Jeanne Foot
Absolutely. As Dr. Gabor Maté says there’s very few people who have an addiction issue without having a negligent or mistreated childhood. I’m not using the right language. But basically, you know, children who are exposed to adverse childhood experiences, and there is such a score on that, the more the higher the score, the more likely a child is going to be vulnerable and predisposed to addiction as a mental illness. And interestingly enough, it’s not just only mentally. They seem physically now. We know that the onset of major disease comes 10 years earlier, for for people who have high ACE scores, as well as people who they just have, and they actually lived a shorter lifespan by 10 years. So it’s vital, it’s a health, it’s a behavioral health care condition. It’s a health condition that we need to be treating, because the investment here is tenfold on the other side. I can’t say enough. So trauma, basically, as trauma is the most overused word, the most misunderstood. And we you know, you don’t have to have a big T trauma, which most people would say like a PTSD kind of chronic PTSD that people have lived with for years, like myself or you know, the army or whatever that may be. But if you can have a little T trauma, someone can be exposed as a child, and feel bullied or shamed as a six year old, that person, that trauma is going to govern that person from speaking up in a boardroom later on in life. So it seems so benign, but the most important thing about what happens with trauma, which is why it becomes so prevailing and so big, is that you have to have a reparative experience and without a reparative experience, that person can’t get by that. So they’re not thinking that this has happened to my mind every single time, their body is sending a signal that I’m very distressed, sensations are happening in the body, whether it’s a heart pounding, whether it’s sweating, whether it is pain, whatever it may be, and the body knows it’s not safe, and it’s ready for battle. And it could be a trigger of something that takes that person back to a younger version of themselves is not the same situation, but it’s activated the same feelings. So what is really critical is when a person has been exposed to a traumatic experience, the faster they can have some sort of reparative experience to know that is not their fault. What do they need? No, they’re safe. And they’ve been seen, heard and validated for what they’ve experienced. Then they can move through that and have a felt experience. A felt emotional experience, like maybe crying and say someone saying, “I got you, you’re safe now. It’s okay. I’m here for you. You know, you’re you’re here, we’ve got you.” But what happens often as you know, motions are not valued. So and especially for men even more so, right? We’ve been caught I know be silly. You’re too sensitive. You’re overreacting. What do you cry about? I’ll give you something to cry for. Like all of these things. We grew up especially in my in my genre, for sure. Like it was really like that was the time that we were just dismissed as emotional beings. And now we know they have so much power and so much intelligence behind them. And so I think for men in particular is even a hard thing because they’re told big boys don’t cry. You know, they just keep it stoic and the only emotion men have ever really been able to articulate His anger, which we now know is a secondary emotion. So there’s a lot of work to be done. We’re just starting to open up that Pandora’s box, I think in terms of the evolution and change of how we look at humanity in general. But a lot of this is really not always addiction or trauma related. It’s humanity as a whole. Where as a collective, we’re so far from I think, what we were originally primed to be, and destined to be.
Megan Blacksmith
Yes. Let’s, let’s speak to, I’d love for you to speak to someone who is kind of at the beginning of like, digging into this information. I didn’t, I didn’t prep you on this, but do you have any resources or books or just any kind of where to get started? Like, what is the best place for someone to just start to really understand from your methodology, you know, from the, something that’s a little more what it what was it 97%, like, I like that percentage success rate. So let’s just talk about where they go.
Jeanne Foot
In September, we are going to be launching a trauma recovery facilitation program. But in the meantime, and that would really combine all my years of my own lived experience, as well as everything that I do. And to an integrated, kind of a blueprint for sustainable change, and optimal well being. That’s really what this is all about. And to really heal future generations, because for every generation, we heal with healing for moving forward. So I think the work is critical. And that was really my, my main impetus for really getting well is not to repeat where I came from. And so for someone who’s trying to get well, or just really think about it, there’s many, there’s four disciplines that are all saying the same thing. One is neuroscience. One is epigenetics. The other one is mindfulness and somatic intelligence, which is nervous system regulation. So you can hear the word somatic, you can hear nervous system regulation, you can hear polyvagal theory, they all mean the same thing. So just so you could take from any of those disciplines. One of the easiest books to read is how to do the work by Dr. Nicole LePara, and she has a workbook that is coming out with it. And she also has a new book coming out in December as well, which you can preorder. I think that’s a really wholesome, grounded kind of high level of exposure to really understanding yourself and getting to know how you came to be the way we are. And just because you are the certain way doesn’t mean you can always say that we can have reparative, full reparative experiences. And that is what the goal is. And if you’re curious enough to do this work, and do go through a process of self inquiry. And you know, you’re ready, when the old way is really driving you absolutely mad that you can’t live longer in the old way, then you’re you’re ready to start to look at that inquiry process. There’s a workbook, not a workbook, but a handbook called The Polyvagal Theory by Dr. Stephen Porges. And he’s known in that area of expertise. It’s not an easy read. But it’s really what our nervous system regulation is really all about. It’s that we’re saying that if an event happened, we have what we call a window of tolerance. So think of a rectangle box. And we see something that shocked us maybe a car accident, say, and you witness a car actually go oh my god, like a car accident. And then for a minute, you’re very heightened. If you’re a hyper vigilant person, you’re going to this sort of startled response. And then maybe in the next half an hour, now your nervous system comes back to its baseline. The other version of that is someone sees a car accident, and they can just shut down and they don’t have anything to say and they’re tired and they’re exhausted, and they just check out that’s another way. But what happens is when someone’s been on constant alert all their life and has this hyper vigilance and they’re living a life of chaos or unpredictability or lack of safety, which is what we’re really talking about here, their nervous system is ready for anything and this is where the cortisol starts to pump out constantly. So when that accident happens, that person goes oh my god like person I just described. But in an hour’s time, they don’t really come back to their baseline so quickly. And then if you compound that with another incident, someone’s screaming at them and told them they did it wrong or you know, some drivers flicking the finger at them. It what happens is it the nervous system is like stuck in the wrong gear. So think of it like a manual car shift is trying to catch into gear and it just can’t get into gear and that’s what’s happened. So the nervous system stays very dysregulated which means you can’t even access your brain at that point. Your amygdala is in control, which is like you don’t know where your keys are. You don’t know what you’re thinking you don’t know what you’re feeling. And so it’s really messing with that person’s programming, overall programming when they’re dysregulated. So the work has to bring our nervous system back in as you know, there’s so many different wonderful tools, whether it’s mindfulness, whether it’s Kundalini Yoga, whether it’s tapping. Whatever it may be for that individual. And that’s what we’re really talking about here.
Megan Blacksmith
Beautiful. So you’re bringing all of those areas together. And that’s where the success is coming. I love that. This has been amazing. Jeanne, thank you so much for sharing. Well, you just tell everybody where they can find you. And I know you have the training coming up anything else we need to know?
Jeanne Foot
Absolutely. So you guys can find me at info@therecoveryconcierge.com C-O-N-C-I-E-R-G-E, for those French people, or lack of French people. @therecoveryspecialist on Instagram @therecovery_academy on Instagram. And naturally, Hi, I’m always talking about trauma and all of this stuff at the naturally high podcasts on Apple and Spotify.
Megan Blacksmith
Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. And thank you for helping people get a more holistic way back to wholeness.
Jeanne Foot
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to talk with you!