"Mindfulness for Teens: A Path to Mental Wellness"

in this enlightening episode, join Pete as he sits down with Jennie Marie Battistin, a renowned psychotherapist and Amazon best-selling author. Dive into the world of mental health as Jennie shares her journey from traditional psychotherapy to innovative approaches like mindfulness and psychedelic-assisted therapy. Discover how mindfulness can transform teen mental health, the importance of emotional regulation, and the power of having meaningful conversations. Whether you're a parent, educator, or simply curious about mental health, this episode offers valuable insights and practical advice. Tune in to explore how we can better support the younger generation in navigating their mental health journey.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome into a new exciting I'm so to Pete for
his anxiety. My guest today is a renowned psychotherapist, Amazon
best selling author, and one of the first certified psychedelic
assistant therapists in the US with over twenty five years
experience in healthcare. She is the founder of the Hope
Therapy and Psychiatric Centers of California. Please welcome in the
one the only Jen Marie, is it Battiston? Is that

(00:44):
you say it?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Pretty close? Battistan close? Man, close close. I think you're
the closest one this week.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Just like well time somebody will finally get this damn
name right. With that being said, what did you tell
me a little bit more?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, So, I'm a therapist here in the Greater Los
Angeles area, have a large group practice. We actually have
now extended all the way through California, all the way
down to the Long Beach souths Bay area up to
Sacramento in San Francisco. So got about forty different clinicians
who work for me, and we really believe in total

(01:18):
mental health recovery. So we've actually partnered with a psychiatric
group so we offer holistic support in addition to medication.
Traditional psychotherapy.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
So twenty five years what was your twenty five years old?
Is just basic medicine at first, and then you kind
of got into everything else later on.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, So I originally started out thinking I was going
to go med school. So was working at UCLA, working
in you know, department administration, kind of getting the lay
of the land, figuring out the different fields within medicine,
and then was raising a family and realized like, okay,
well I'm an administration maybe I should get you know,

(01:58):
a master's in business administration, and took an organizational psyche
class and that brought me back to my roots of
when I was in high school and I was doing
peer to peer mentoring and I said, you know what,
I actually don't want to go to medical school. I
actually want to go be a therapist. And so went
into grad school, worked in first off with women's mental health,

(02:19):
then worked on high school campuses, and I think that's
really where I became very interested in how anxiety shows
up in the body, how we're managing anxiety, the messages
we have around anxiety, and really helping teens understand what
was happening to monmentally for them, how to talk to
their parents about it, how to talk to their peers,
and so kind of moved into the space of working

(02:40):
with teens, and then my default started working with their
parents to help their parents better understand their teen and
you know, out of that just kind of grew, you know,
an all encompassing view of how anxiety shows up in
the body, how trauma shows up in the body, how
to help everyone just function better within the family system.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, I think it's very important that you work teens too,
because I think if we teach them an early age
about mental health, they better understand what it is that
they're they're seeing, you know, maybe help them better understand
or be able to say something, because I think that
we're not talking about it enough. And I feel like
we're not talking about it young enough, honestly, because some
of these kids, you know, were losing them to suicide
and things like this, and they just don't understand what's

(03:19):
going on with these thoughts that are going on in
their heads. And you know, and as my friends Gretchen
he says, cause the messy thoughts in your head, you
know what I mean? Because a lot of times, you know,
we don't teach a lot enough emotional regulation either I
feel too. You know, it's like some of these kids
aren't sure what these feelings are, you know, like even
it's anxiety, depression, all these challenges that these kids deal
with every day, you know, and things like that too.

(03:39):
And I think that, you know, teaching the parents is
a great idea too, because then they could teach them,
you know, and then it just rolls down hill, which
is a great idea. I mean, you know, it had
to be hard working with kids, honestly, because we all
remember we were like Garant teenage. Trust me, I can
only imagine the things that you hear.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, I was a little bit terrified. Actually when I
got this side, I meant that I had to go
work on the Burbank High School campus. I'm like, the
Burbank High School campus, what are you talking about? What
are they gonna do with me? You know, this woman
who's clearly not you know, anywhere near their age at
this point coming in to tell them how to deal

(04:17):
with life. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm gonna
get eat up. My daughter says to me, She goes, Mom,
what are you talking about? And love you? They love
to come talk to you. You're gonna do great. So
my daughter actually was the one who gave me a
pep talk. I think she was thirteen fourteen at the time,
and was like oh wow, okay, and she's like, remember, mom,

(04:37):
it's just a conversation. And it was like out of
the mouths of babe, kind of like advice from my daughter,
which has been so helpful because it really helped me
as a therapist at that point my career. Remember, hey,
it's just a conversation. And if I go in talking
with teens realizing they probably want to have a conversation too,

(04:58):
but we think that they can't have a co conversation,
maybe we'll get somewhere.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah. No, I agree. I think a lot of times
if you overlook the fact or treat them differently so
they don't want to say anything because they're like, well,
at this point, you just disrespect me, so whatever, you know.
And I think that's a big thing is that people
find that these these younger generations I want respect now
are just like, well, no, they're just they just don't
want to listen. No, it's they want to be treated
like a person, not like you know, jars, like you're

(05:23):
talking down to them. Because if you're fine if you
actually talk to them on a normal level, A lot
of them will actually talk to you, no problem. It's
just how you approach things. I think it's great that
you took that challenge on early on because it's it's
hard though. I mean, I don't want I was like
a kid, I didn't want to talk to anybody, and
I went to a bunch of different therapists. I didn't
really want to talk to many of them. But if
one of them just goind of came in and just had
a conversation, I think that would have been a whole

(05:45):
nother approach. And that's that's how I run the show
though too is it kind of do a conversation because
I'm like, I could sit here and ask you twenty
thousand questions, but I'm not Larry King. Okay, Like it
just doesn't work for me. I like to talk to
people because I feel like more fluid conversation comes out
of these. And then at your thirteen year old is
giving you advice, listen that she's already on the right
path or ready you know.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know, we
used to play a fun game when they were growing up,
and I use it with a lot of kids now
today and helping parents too. We call it the high
low buffalo game. And you know, because so often parents
are like, how is your day and the teens like
it's fine, you know, or they just kind of blankly
stare at them. But if you can engage them a
little bit of like what was the best day that high?

(06:28):
What did you really enjoy about your day, maybe you
might get something out of them. You know, what was
your low? What was the hardest point, what was the worst.
But the one that I get the most out of
teens is what is your buffalo? And that's what was
the drama? What was the unexpected And if parents can
really hold that drama part or the unexpected part, this
is where the good stuff comes and we can really

(06:48):
do some emotion coaching too, like wow, that sounds really
shocking that your friend would have done this or that
or really difficult, or that sounds pretty exciting, and just
trying to use some emotion and coaching and not trying
to fix it. So often I think parents get they
get panics or get worried, and they want to go
in and immediately lecture and fix, But to really help

(07:10):
your kids critically think through Okay, I got this drama
between peers at school, what do I want to do
with that? And I could run in there and tell them,
well have you tried this? Have you tried that? Or
you know, do this or do that, But then I'm
not setting them up for a lifetime to be able
to deal with that drama and those difficulties.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, you know, it's it's great that you're a therapist
or that she's like, let me just got of navigate
these things because I remember my teen shot came you like,
well I'm not friends with this person this reason. I'm like, okay,
well now we're friends again, okay, And it's like, oh okay,
it's just going so fast. You're like, yeah, I'm a
little lost here. Maybe he catch me on some clip
notes and when I'm missing. But I love in fact

(07:49):
you asked that question because like for me, like how
excited up to the show? Is always like don't ask
your dais that's how your mental health is? Because think
about it, I can ask you that same question as see,
well how does you date? It was okay and they'll
just stare at you blankly. But if you change the
question to like you said, what's your buffalo? It's basically
the same thing. You're getting them to think about what
they're actually gonna say next, because you know, I mean,

(08:10):
you could ask you all day, hy are you okay?
I'm good, and a lot of you all day, Oh
I'm fine. Okay, Well you didn't ask the right questions.
That's why you didn't get the answers you're looking for
a lot of times. And you know, and at first,
people just look at me weird. And I've asked a
couple of people that question before. You used to ask
everybody all the time. I made new people, Hey, how's
your mental health? And they just look at you weird?
Like I think one guy he freaked out, he was
like going Crazy's like, why is he asking me these questions?

(08:31):
Because this is what he does, man, he talks about
this stuff all day every day. You know, this is
what his podcasting about. It's like he's just asking you
how you're doing at a deeper level. And this guy
was just going berserk. He's like, oh and that's for
no reason. I'm like, I don't understand what he's so
triggered about. And it maybe made something that triggered him
to something. I don't know what, but he was just
like going ape. He was like, oh, oh god, oh yes,
I'm like okay, Oh hold on, chill out. It's okay, man,

(08:54):
We're all right. We're good, dude. But you know, you
see the reaction what people say though, because like you know,
if you give them an out to say, oh, I'm okay,
then they're going to say I'm okay, and they'll lie
to your face so I'm good. Or if you get
to the deep, get the need of the conversation, it's different.
You'll get a lot more details coming out of them.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
So true. And you know, I think a lot of
times people think you don't really want to know how
I'm doing?

Speaker 1 (09:17):
More exactly exactly the response from that too. Yep.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, so we've just defaulted into our society of just
saying like I'm good, it's okay. You know, what's the
common thing we ask everyone? How are you doing? I mean,
do we really want to know how you're doing? Do
people really want to know how I'm doing? You know,
So if you can really just take a moment to
sit down and have a conversation, even with you know,
my adult clients, you know, basically looking for what was

(09:44):
your buffalo this week? Adults are a little easier to
engage in that in the therapy setting because that's why
they're coming to a therapist. But even as you know,
just in our day to day life as humans, if
we really could honestly be in that space to really
sit with someone and inquire in a way of like,
I really want to know what your buffalo is or
your difficulty in life? You know, how can I support

(10:07):
you today? And you know, then you get a lot
more out of people, and you can actually change someone's
life by actually turning in a slightly different a way
and asking how can I support you? Is there anything
that's difficult that's going on right now that it'd be
helpful to talk to someone about you.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Know that too? Or even just just like you said,
you ask him like it and they want to know,
art do you really want to know? Because I've had
people ask me I want to ask that question? Look, yeah,
what's up? And the things you find out? I cannot
even begin to begin to tell you all that. It's
just like I found one guy, he's it's a friend
in a shooting accident. So I ended up when I
recorded an episode that Monday, I'd send a message out

(10:44):
to him, you know, and he's seen it and it
was so impactful. He was so excited. He's like, oh
my god, thank you so much for doing that. I'm like,
it's just one act of kindness just made his day
right there. He was just so excited. And all I
asked him was like, hey, man, is everything okay, because
like you can tell sometimes and people ask that, do
you really want to know? Yeah, I'm asking because I
want to know, Like I want to know, Like that's
just how I am as a person. I'm just curious, like, hey,

(11:07):
what's up? Talk to me? You know, because I do
a lot of overnight so I work. I worked between
those late hours, so a lot of times the people
that come in it's more of a personal kind of
setting because not a lot of people are in there,
and so you can ask them questions like hey, listen,
what's going on? You know, And a lot of people
tell you though, like don't they tell you some crazzy,
crazy stuff Like I couldn't even get in the list
of some of the things that if it told me,

(11:27):
I few a lot of real wild shit though, And
I'm just like, but it's the way you ask a
question to me. You don't give them that out of
just like okay, I'm good, I'm good. You know. It's like,
you know, when you can tell that something is clearly
bothering and go listen, Well, I could tell something's up.
What's the matter? Well, you know, and then they start drawing.
Then they know, Oh, I don't want to trauma dump
on you just start dumping the end. It's like, no,
I asked you, so go ahead and tell me it's okay,

(11:48):
let me know what's going on.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, absolutely well, And I think we also have to
slow down as a society to actually be able to
have a meaningful conversation, because often we do just ask
that out of courtesy, how are you doing? We actually
don't want to put the time into having a conversation.
So if we can just close down, yeah, yeah, so true.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
So can I want to ask you a question though
your Amazon best selling book. What is the title of
the book and what's it about?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah? So mindfulness for teas and teens and ten minutes
a day. Okay, even though I put the title as
ten minutes a day, I actually find that two to
three minutes of mindfulness for a teenager can actually help
them improve their concentration, help reduce anxiety, help reduce depression,
help them feel more confident in their day to day.

(12:39):
So it's a book of sixty different exercises broken up
into morning, midday, evening exercises, so they can really kind
of bite size grab a mindfulness activity. Some teens will
roll their eyes because mindfulness has been really in the
last few years. I think, you know, we're always telling
people to be mindful, but it really is true how

(13:00):
powerful mindfulness can be. Yeah, there's so much research. There's
thirty days of doing a mindful practice. Each day, you
see anxiety scores go down, depression scores go down. But
the thing that always sells my teens on using the
mindfulness is like, you're going to get through your homework
quicker and you're probably gonna score better on tests and

(13:21):
not have to study as long. And they're like, all right,
I'm like, let's do this a thirty day challenge. Just
a thirty day challenge. Just do an exercise each day
for two to three minutes, you know, prove me wrong.
And they usually come.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
All pretty consistently like.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they usually come back pretty consistently, and
they're like, Jenny, I can't believe it actually is working.
I'm remembering things where I feel less anxious. I was like,
look at that.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
They're like, well, what a shock of that is?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I wrote a companion journal
for that. That's you know, the Mindfulness Journal for teens
has nice little prompts for them, so like actually really
kind of deep dive and consider like how am I
showing up in the world, What am I thinking about
my day to day? You know, how am I really
caring for myself?

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, We've had an experience here on the show with mindfulness.
There was a guy who made an app that was
just that it was teaching you more about mindfulness. And
he's example, as we were talking about drinking coffee, is like,
you know, you could taste the coffee, you feel the
textion like he would just try to broke it down
until the point of like it's it's like, now I
can't drink coffee the same way after that conversation, because
it's like you go through the same steps in your mind.

(14:31):
Is it's happening and you're just like, Okay, well now
I'm looking at this from a different angle, you know,
and I do with a lot of the other stuff too.
I'd like, like anything else, I drink and just kind
of sit there and it just processes through your brain.
And it's so weird because it was like, you know,
I didn't know much going into the conversation, but afterwards
it was just like it was so interesting, you know
about like what I learned about mindfulness and things like that.

(14:52):
So trying to apply that to teams hats off to you,
because you got to be a real good salesman to
get them to try some of those things, you know,
and the fact that you know it started working and
they're like, oh yeah, you know, it means that they'll
go tell their people, oh yeah, look I tried this.
This is what I'm doing. You know, some of them
may not say exactly where they got it from, because
you know, when people talk about therapy, they're like, what
people think I'm crazy. So a lot of people, if
I asked, have said like, well, I said, what do

(15:13):
you think about therapy? Well, I think you have to
be crazy. I'm like not really though, It's not the thing, like,
you know, just talking to somebody is a very it's
a very powerful conversation, like you're you're sharing something with
someone you know, and a lot of times, you know,
that's all people want to do is be heard, you know,
and things like that too. And I think that's you know,
with it being suicide Awareness month and with this episode
is being recorded, it's like, it's just crazy. You see

(15:35):
all these different things, like what was it the guy
from the Ellen Show the other day? We lost him
to suicide and I made a post. It's like, yo,
when the hell are we all going to start talking
about this? Like this is crazy, Like, guys, we got
to start talking more about these things, you know. And
it's like we as men, we don't talk about either.
You know. It's because you're preprogrammed to think that you
can't say nothing. But it's like, dude, we got to
start talking because we're losing people at numbers and it's

(15:58):
not just anybody, it's this guy. We had money, he
had everything else, you know, everything going forward. That just
proves at the end of the day that he still
had problems regardless of the fact.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, yeah, you know. I mean that's the thing about
mental health. It doesn't look at your bank account and
so you know, and it doesn't look at your status,
you know. It affects everyone and so really you can't
tell by just looking at someone are they internally struggling.
So that goes back to that conversation, you know, and

(16:27):
you know, mindfulness is is a pretty powerful way to
help us be able to just tolerate our day to
day life, you know, because so often I think we
are so disconnected in our life. We just you know,
drive through life and we just don't even realize just
the roses in life. You know. How often do we
go from point A to point B and we're like, wait,
I don't even remember how did I get here?

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:50):
And so you know, again, in our day to day
we're just not paying attention to things, and we're not
paying attention really to deeply what's occurring in ourselves. So
we're not talking about it, and then it just builds
and builds and builds to wal you can't tolerate it.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
I think about where you say, like, we're just going
day to day life. You ever seen that movie Meet
the Millers or We're the Millers. Okay, so remember when
he's in the hair he's in the hair salon, He's like, hey, listen,
give me the haircut, and he describes the guy sitting
right behind him. It's like, I feel like that's a
lot of people though these days, you think about it
because a lot of people are one burnt out because
they're just overworked and stressed out. And then just like

(17:26):
you know, everything else going on on top of everything else,
just keeps piling on you, and it's just like it's
just gonna take that one thing. It's going to cause
somebody to either snap or something to happen, you know.
But it's it's just like it's crazy though, because it's
like we know these are happening. And I had a
guy on here that he runs a podcast called The
Breakfast Schrits is something a camera exactly what it's called.

(17:49):
But his thing was burnout that he was saying he
was talking to top five hundred companies. He said, like,
in five years, ten of them won't be here anymore
because they don't listen to what I'm telling him. Burn
out all these people and then they just like they're
so mentally stressed. But it's it's funny though, because like
they like to send the emails, Oh well, it's meant
all awareness month. Okay, so what are you doing for
your people for this? Oh? We offer four free sessions,

(18:12):
but is that enough? That's not enough for a lot
of people, Like four sessions isn't anything for some of
these people. You know, I learned this past year with
one girl that was working with us. She had BPD,
and when I started this podcast, I didn't really know
what that was until she started introducing it to me
and I started looking into it, and I was just like,
holy shit, man, like, do what these people deal with

(18:32):
on a daily basis? Oh my god. And it's like,
you know, I don't feel like like she was in
a customer service setting and like how she didn't lose
her fucking mind. I don't know, man, Like I was
looking at the things she deals with, you know, I
know you could read it on paper and then what
people deal with the two different things. But it's just
like I had a newfound understanding for a lot a
lot of people deal with, you know, like you know,

(18:52):
autistic people, the people that have like the like really
crippling anxiety and things like that, to tmis and things
and all that other kind of stuff. It's like just
the knowledge of gain from the year of doing this already,
it's just it's just insane. The things that you learn.
And I feel like we as a society are not
doing enough to accommodate these things. And I mean people

(19:12):
are be like, oh well, everybody gets surprised, every sad.
But what are we doing about the problem. We're not
doing anything about it. We're just sweeping it under the rug,
going oh, well, this is an issue. Okay, we're gonna
put this to the side for now. And then when
something happens that, oh god, we didn't know what was
gonna happen. Get that a out of here. You knew
what's going on.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, yeah, Well, And that's exactly where I love mindfulness
because it helps us to actually tune into ourselves because
we're not paying attention to the cues within our body.
So if we can take a mindful moment and just
literally check in with our body, do a little breath work,
we can start to radulate the breathwork.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Greatest discovery ever is when someone taught me about breath work.
It helps so much of anxiety sometimes, Like if I
feel like I'm gonna start having a panic session, I'll
let it go in somewhere and I'll go like, well,
look where I work out a freezer? So I go
in the freezer and take some deep rits and do
some stuff, you know, and I come back out and
my mind's refocused and I've got it better under control
versus before when I've have freaked out before people that

(20:08):
know what to do, and they were just like adding
more to it, and they just keep feeling the fire.
And it's like you're not helping. Stop saying things to me.
It's like I want to tell you shut them up,
but I can't, you know what I mean. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
people just don't get it though, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
They don't well. And the other thing too, is I
think that sometimes we don't understand anxiety too, because sometimes
anxiety is keeping us alive. It's a signal to actually
keep us alive, because if I wasn't anxious, I would
just walk out into traffic. So there's good anxiety, and
maybe there's anxiety that isn't as helpful. But sometimes I

(20:42):
think we misunderstand anxiety that it's cues to help keep
us alive and into like, oh what do I need
to be aware of right now? And also anxiety sometimes
is we're excited. Sometimes we misunderstand and this comes from
because we're not teaching emotion regulation, we're not talking about
the range of emotions that actually exist. Most people are like,

(21:04):
you know, you know, things are good and bad, you know,
and there's so many emotions in our realm that we
can be exploring and we just aren't, and so we
feel anxiety and we think that's we label it as
bad rather than can we be curious about anxiety? What's
coming up that I'm being anxious about? And is that

(21:24):
maybe it's just going to be with me today? And
so a lot of times I'll talk to my teens
of like, it's the monkey. So if we can just
like imagine there's a monkey on our shoulder and that's
our anxiety monkey, and we're not sure why he's here today.
Oh well, maybe it's because I've got this test or
that test or didn't finish this homework. And we can
just like kind of like kind of like, oh right,
that's a right monkey. It's okay, We're going to be

(21:45):
okay today, We'll get through this day. You can just
sleep on my shoulder today and kind of accept a
little bit that the anxiety might be there, but also
understand where the anxiety is coming from and have a
dialogue with it.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, Mine sometimes is like that, though I'm always I'm
the fully aware of things going around me. Or I'll
start forward thinking so far in advance, like I'll start
inventing new things in my head that are going on
that aren't going on. You know. Luckily, my wife it
tolerates my shit enough that she's like, you know, well,
these things aren't happening when we start dating. Like, for example,

(22:18):
we had a situation that came up and she understood
completely where I was coming from, and I invented this
whole story, and she was just like so calm about it,
you know, she was just like, you know, it's okay,
I understand You're good and everything like that too. And
it was so like different than what I've been used to.
It's like a shock to the system. So she's kind
of used to it by now, Like she can tell
when my wheels are turning to my head like something's

(22:39):
going on. She's like she could tell by the look
on my face and things like that too. You know,
things that you start learning a little bit a little
about people, you watch a little little quirks that they do.
You can tell a little bit time someone You can
tell something's going on, you know, like, and I have
a feeling that something's up, so you know, like sometimes
my brain starts taking and she's like, yeah, you stop
thinking right now. You stop thinking right now because she
knows what's happening. It's it's getting ready to go to

(23:00):
the races. Baby, it's safe for that green light to go,
and it takes off and just it starts inventing new
stories along the way and things like that too, So
you know, but yeah, I agree. I think that you
could turn it into a superpower. At the same time,
it's like, wait, what am myself anxious about? What's got
me on edge at this point?

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (23:18):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
And one of the most powerful modalities that I've learned
as a therapist is this technique called brain spotty, and
it really keys into where we look can determine how
we feel and how we process information, which is so beautiful.
It's just so in line with the mindfulness aspect, you know,
and that we actually have the capacity to heal within

(23:39):
all of us. And while yes, I would love for
you to come sit on my couch and I'd love
to work through what are the roots, I actually believe
that everyone has the innate ability to actually heal themselves
if we can just take a moment to be with
whatever is happening. And so I'm going to show you
a little cute little so this is my little mickey head.

(23:59):
I use it. It's just more fun. But in brain spotting,
what we actually want to do is we can just notice,
like you know, just take a moment and go like, Okay,
I'm feeling anxious about something right now. Where do I
feel that in my body? Maybe I feel it in
my gut. And if you know, if I was working
with the client, I would just pull across my little

(24:20):
mickey head here and ask them where in your gout
as I pull this along, does it feel a little
more tense?

Speaker 1 (24:28):
You know?

Speaker 2 (24:28):
And they'll you know, maybe they'll stay here, and I'm like, okay, great,
So now does it feel a little bit more intense
right here in the middle of my screen? Or if
I kind of go up to the top of the
screen or the bottom of the screen and they're like, no,
it's definitely right in the middle. And then literally I
just hold this for about five minutes and I say,
just notice what you notice. Just just stay with that

(24:48):
anxiety for a moment, noticing your gut just allow to
whatever needs to process through your mind process. And it's
really crazy, but this just opens up because you're connecting
into the neuro network, the brain spot where that anxiety
might be lying, and you might actually find different beliefs
that are circulating around that anxiety that you just hadn't

(25:10):
processed before. And so it really becomes powerful. In five minutes,
they'll start to become more aware of, you know, some
of the aspects that's fueling their anxiety. And if we
go a full session of forty five minutes, you know,
they actually will notice like their whole body will start
to relax. It might start to shake at different points
as they're letting go of some of the anxiety and

(25:30):
their system, but they'll actually find maybe some of the
sources of where did this anxiety start? You know, we
just haven't stayed long enough to figure out where is
my anxiety really coming from.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, let's let's talk about your groundbreaking approach. Okay, So
Jenny's prol approach includes e md R, brain spiding, like
she just mentioned, parts work, so manic healing, and psychedelic
assisted psychotherapy. So how did you come up with the
right blend? It's a lot of trial and air. I
would think, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
So psychoedel was really interesting because you know, when I
went to grad school, of course, psychedelics was bad. You know,
you were going to jump off buildings, it was going
to be the end of you. You make sure that
clients do not do psychedelics, and so I bought that.
But I had a client that had just crippling anxiety,
absolutely crippling anxiety, and you know, periods of deep, deep,

(26:22):
deep depression. She had tried every type of medication, and
her doctor sent her to a ketymine Ivy clinic. And
this was in early I think this was probably around
two twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, somewhere along there. And over
a three week period of time, I had a very
different person that was showing up in my office and
I was like, this is so interesting. I mean, I

(26:43):
don't I'm a good therapist, but like she like had
significantly changed in three weeks. So the end of three weeks,
you know, I'm noticing things are different about your anxiety
seems to have just evaporated. What do you attribute that to?
And she got really quiet, you know, and she's like, well,
I did a thing and I was like, yeah, well
you should do and she's like I did some ketamine

(27:05):
and I was like, oh my gosh. I was like,
I'm like looking at this like almost sixty year old
woman and thinking, wow, I mean you're almost sixty, so
maybe you did shrooms at one point in your life.
I mean you're a little young with that, but whatever. Okay.
So I was just like thinking, what the heck is
this because when I went to high school, ketymine was

(27:26):
a party drug. We called it, you know, a horse tranquilizer.
And she's like no, no, no, real quick. She was
like it's you know, it was a medical procedure. And
I was like, this is so curious. So after she left,
I went to deep dive into the internet, read some things.
Wasn't totally sold about it. Kind of let that go by,
and then two years later, same thing. I had a

(27:48):
client and he had crippling depression, and probably over four
or three four week period of time, same thing, different
tells me doctor Sandham's ketemine. So now I'm like, okay,
I got two clients who've done this. Totally has changed
some I got to look into this, and so I
really did the deep dive into psychedelics, and psychedelic is
just sit therapy, and really learned the difference between going

(28:10):
and doing a psychedelic recreationally, doing it in a clinical setting,
and having what we call proper integration. So with that,
I really kind of looked at, well, how do you
know when to use this with a client? And for me,
it just kind of becomes like if we're stuck, if
we're circulating on the same thing and we just can't
break through that anxiety, we can't break through that depression

(28:30):
or the trauma is so deep that other modalities just
really are not getting into that, then we'll go to
the psychedelics. But usually when someone comes in, I'm initially
looking at, Okay, what is the negative view of self
that is maybe underpinning some of this anxiety or this depression,

(28:51):
or is there a deeper trauma that's there that you
really have not processed? You just kind of tried to
push that to the side, And so we'll try to
try to get in there with brain spotting or EMDR.
There's similar if anyone's done EMDR, they know it's kind
of like you're passing the finger quickly. You have a
white bar or maybe you have tappers, which is allowing

(29:12):
your mind to access and process information on a deeper level.
Brain spotting too, it's helping you process information in a
deeper level with their new brain.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
See. I know before we hit record, I was going
to ask you though about parts work, and I know
that I want to make sure we cover it on
this episode so people know what it is. What is
that exactly? You know, maybe break that down from the
few because I'm curious myself about this.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, so have we all have parts of self that
are helping us manage our day to day life. And
so there's a more formal modality it's called internal family
systems that really gets into different parts and you have managers,
you have firefighter And so though that's a more in
depth parts work, I work on a little bit lighter

(29:55):
parts work. I work with emotion focused therapy and we're
we're kind of looking at the different parts of you.
So there might be a part of you that's feeling
anxious in this moment, and there might this be this
other part of you that's like being like I got
to be strong here, you know. Can we have a
dialogue with those parts of you? Can we have some
compassion with this part that's really anxious, you know, and understand,

(30:18):
you know, we have these parts that are at work,
and if we're ignoring one part, how it may try
to kind of keep having a voice. And until we
give it a voice, we're actually you know, going to
feel distressed because it's like we're in this part of
ourself that's saying, my hair's on fire, Why aren't you
paying attention to me? Why aren't you paying attention to me?
And so to actually sit down and be curious with

(30:40):
those different parts of self and understand where how they're
trying to function, of what they're trying to say to you, or.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Common conditions that you use part for it for is
it's just kind of just like on a case, the
case basis of how much you'd actually use of it.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, you know, I'm using it every day, all day
long with every client because I really believe that there
are different parts of ourselves that we're just not giving
voice too because we just don't we just don't even
know how to look at it. And so I'm looking
for more of an attachment lens frame, you know, anxious attachment,
avoiding attachment. How that's showing up and if we can
understand those parts of self, we can move towards being

(31:17):
more securely attached. And when more more securely attached, typically
factors of depression anxiety will start to go down because
now we're not ignoring different parts of ourself that we
just haven't given a voice too.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah. So I was wondering though, when you started your clinic,
what was the moment you were like, you know what,
I forget, I'm gonna do my own thing. I'm tired
of working for other people. I just wanted to my
think because that's a big undertaking though, because you said
you partnered with somebody else as well, and things like
that too, so there's a lot of working parts. So
how long did it take you, like timeline wise, did
you already have this idea, like when you started getting

(31:51):
into this area, or like, you know what, I just
kind of want to be my own boss one day
and do my own thing. Or is it just one
of those like you're in the middle of doing something
that it just hits you, like out of or like
an apple out of a tree just hits he goes, oh, well,
you know what, this is probably what I want to
do now instead.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I take it back to I
went to the school of Don Batistin, which was my dad,
and at age eight, he really kind of taught me
about business. We had a small family business, so I
think that gave me the kind of idea that maybe
I might want to have my own business one day.
I worked for medical doctors for about twenty years and

(32:25):
was helping them make a you know, really a good
amount of money, large practice, figuring out the marketing and
all those aspects, and so I thought, well, if I
can help them do that, maybe I can do that
for myself. And I just started what I thought was
just going to be me, you know, it was just
going to be me, And within three months my practice
was completely full. I had a wait list. So then
I hired another therapist who was like, I don't want

(32:47):
to do a day to day business part. You like
doing marketing, you like doing accounting, you handle that. I'll
just go see the clients and do my good work there.
And I was like, okay, great, you know i'm full.
I got a weight list, so you can take on
these clients. She was full in three months, so then
it was just like, oh wow, there's something more here,
and I think, you know, if I can empower therapists

(33:08):
by taking away the headaches of running a day to
day business so that they can actually be focused and
sit with their clients and do good therapy work, how
great is that? And so hope therapy really kind of
grew out of that of just like creating a space
for therapists to come do good work and let me
manage the headache of the business.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
So yeah, it makes sense. So because some therapists only
specialize in certain things, and I know when you're looking
at them in a list, what their areas of expertise
would be that you know, And that's the great thing
is though, that you have them all under one building
that someone can find what works best for them, you know,
and things like that too, and if the one doesn't work,
there's another one, hey, that there's another one here, you know.

(33:49):
And it sounds like there was enough demand when you
started doing it that people needed this, and they started,
you know, and it just kept snowballing, which is great
because it's it's hard for people to get access to
those kinds of things, and I think that, you know,
that's the problems. A lot of people don't know where
to start. So like, for someone that is like trying,
is like not sure where to start with therapy, what
would you recommend to them? Liking Like, I know, for

(34:10):
me in the beginning, it was like I had I
just had to meet with a bunch of different therapists
and figure out what was wrong with me because I
had to figure that base model of what exactly the
issues I was dealing with, so I knew how to
better attack them. So like say you're talking to somebody
they're like, well, Jenny, I don't know I'm having these things.
What would advice would you give them? Like say, hey, listen,
this is this is the best way to get started.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, yeah, I mean again, it's going to be a
conversation with a therapist. And remember, you know, just like
every person we meet on the street's not going to
be our friend, not every therapist we're going to meet
it is going to be our therapist. But finding someone
who actually maybe has a modality, so it's not just
traditional talk therapy. I think, you know, traditional talk therapy
has some merit in the beginning because we do get

(34:50):
what we call a cathartic release. It's nice to unload
in a safe space that's non judgmental. All that's kind
of going on within our mind, but then what do
you do with it there after? So really finding a
therapist that has a modality that sounds like it's going
to help you work through view a self view of
world in a way that I can maybe better understand myself,

(35:10):
better understand how I'm showing up in the world with others.
That is more than just you know, hey, you know,
so that happened, and then what happened? And then what
did you do? You know, a little bit more than
just kind of that basic back to back interaction. So
something like brain spotting is going to process on a
deeper level, or AMDR is going to process on a

(35:32):
deeper level doing some part what's work is really fabulous,
and I think more and more people are being drawn
to that because we're recognizing there's so many different aspects
to who we are as a human and we ignore
a lot of those parts. So doing you know, working
from that modality, and I think also we're really understanding
how much attachment is driving, you know, how we're showing

(35:53):
up and interacting in our world too. So a therapist
that maybe comes from an attachment perspective as well, will help,
you know, for a lot of people really understand how
they're relating and reduce mental health symptoms.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Definitely, no, I agree. So let me ask you that
important question. Do you have any new books coming up?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
You know, I've got so many different ideas that are
going on. You know, I do mental health retreats, and
so mostly I've been working on fine tuning journals for
those retreats, so people go to a retreat, we'll do
some psychedelic assisted medicine therapies, and then having a really
contemplative journal. So I'm working through a couple different journals

(36:33):
on how to work with that. And my good colleague
wrote a book called The Queen's Path, which is really
looking at how as women we've been divided between either
being the good girl or the bad girl, but how
can we bring those together? And so out of that,
we've been working on developing a workbook. So I think
that's probably going to be our nest. The next thing
that gets published is probably a companion to her workbook.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
That's pretty cool though. I think that's really cool. I'd
like to see when people come together their ideas together
and work together and things like that because you get
a lot of really great things that come out of it,
you know, and that's so awesome. I love what you're doing.
I love the fact that you were talking to kids
and things like that too, because, like I said, I
don't feel like we talk enough about mental health the
younger generation. You know, Well, with any of the parents

(37:19):
that are listening, do you have any advice for them
to maybe start the conversation with kids. I mean, you
were there, so you probably got some little nuggets and
knowledge from how to better approach someone, especially the younger
teens these days, and how to approach them better.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, one, slow down, take a few moments. I think
so often we think we're so busy, and life is busy.
We have a lot to get done. But if you
can sit with your kid for five minutes a day
and just ask them, hey, did you have a buffalo today,
you will set them up for a lifetime to really

(37:52):
understand how to handle those difficult moments in life. You'll
start to teach them emotion coaching and distress tolerance, which
will help their overall mental health. We all have five minutes,
I don't It doesn't matter how busy we are. We
can all pause for five minutes and have that deeper
conversation with our kid.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
No, I agree, you could do making dinner or with
the rose you're interacting with just you know, getting getting
stuff ready or whatever, you know, and things like that.
So let me let me ask you this question, though,
how young do you think they should start having these conversations?
Like is there like a limit you should just like
you all right here, but this is where you should
start having these conversations because I feel like we need

(38:33):
to start having these conversations with these younger generations sooner
so they can better understand and hopefully teach them some
emotional regulation a little bit so they can better understand things.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, I mean I think it starts when they're toddlers.
I mean so often we see, you know, the terrible
twos and threes and we're just like rolling our eyes
and like it's terrible twos and threes. But there's the
the option to even like start a motion coaching then.
I can remember one time I was in the grocery store.
One of my daughters really wanted some sugary cereal. I
was like, no, we're not getting the cereal. I put

(39:03):
it back on the shelf. She dropped to the floor.
She's having a temper tantrum. She's screaming, she's flailing, she's
on the floor. I got down on the grocery floor
late next to her, and I was like, you are
so mad, You are so mad. You really want that cereal.
And she just stopped because it's like, what the heck
are you doing on the ground with me pounding the

(39:25):
ground going you are so mad? And you know, I
think she was four at the time, and she's sat
up and she just looked at me and she's like,
you are bizarre that you are on the ground with me.
I'm just I'm just supposed to be on the ground.
And it instantly stopped her temper tantrum, and she was like, well, yeah,
you got me. I am so mad. I'm so mad
because I want that cereal. And I was like, yeah,

(39:47):
you really want that cereal and you're mad that mom's
not getting that cereal. Yeah, it's a bummer, okay, But
what we can do is we can go get some
tangerines and some raspberries from the produce section. And she
popped up instantly and was all excited to go find
the tangerines and the raspberries. She just in that moment
needed to be acknowledged she was mad. And so often

(40:09):
we just kind of roll our eyes, look the other way,
ignore it, or we tried to distract versus. Just sit
with our kids and understand their emotion, right or wrong.
They're having an emotion. You know, I could have been
freaked out and embarrassed that my kid was having a
temper tantrum in the middle of the groceries store floor,
or I could lean into it and understand it.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, I love it. I think it's a great approach.
My wife does that with my stepdaughter now. She'll she'll
get upset and then start to explaining to her, Allie, Okay,
I understand you're angry right now, you know, explaining to
her what it is she's feeling so she understands, you know,
like when she gets older that Okay, this is what
this is anger. This is what anger feels like, you know,
not yelling at or anything like that. You know, like
my parents would use toe KDIC. As soon as you

(40:52):
said the kid on the ground thing, I was thinking
of that because I used to do as a kid.
My dad told me once He's like, yeah, that's what
you see. You get mad when you get you one,
you fainted and your mind. I'll be screaming at you
in the middle of the store and I'm just walking
dragging you behind. It's like, keep just walking with you, man.
People are staring at me. I don't care. I'm just
dragging you as I go. I'm like, oh, that's great, dad,
thanks appreciated. Well, I'm not giving in your crab. I

(41:12):
got time for this. I got places to go.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah. I was like, hello the old world, thinking Dad,
thank you so much. I appreciate it. So, okay, so
as we start wrapping up this episode, Jenny, I have
a couple questions for you. So on my show, I
asked two questions to every best that comes on this show. Okay,
So the first one is a bit of a fun one.
All right. So this comes in from a friend of
mine who runs a podcast called The Shit that Goes

(41:36):
On in Her Heads. When me and her interviewed, she
asked me a question. So my question to use if
your mental health had a song, what would that song be?
This is a great question.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
I'm telling you, Wow, what would that be?

Speaker 1 (41:49):
It could be the first song that pops your head.
Any you know things like that. It's We've gotten some
fun responses here.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
I don't know. The only one that keeps popping into
my head is baby. He's not a great one, but
it's Madonna's borderline because I think, like, you know, I'm
always bordering on do I do this? Do I do that?
You know? No, I don't know why that popped into
my mind, but there it is.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
You know, it's so interesting to hear the answers. We
had a million from women like fifty years old. Tell
me that Michael Jackson's beat. It was the song that
came to mind. I was like, girl, get it. I
was laughing hysterically. You know, it's so funny just hear
people's responses because they get that same like, oh, hold on,
wait a minute, what.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Did you just say?

Speaker 1 (42:30):
This is a good question. Let me see what come
up with. You know. We had led Zeppelin come up
recently a couple few days das Ago. I think the
best one so far was Raging against the Machine by
Susan Snow said that's what her favorite one was. She's like,
you're gonna laugh at me. I'm like, no, it's okay.
What is it? She said? Raging against the machine like
about time somebody said it, you know, and it's just
so interesting to hear people's responses of things they say.
So the other question I asked everybody, and the reason

(42:52):
this whole podcast is even here, is if you could
break this stigma mental health I'm talking about like anything
that you see on a day to day basis that
you just want people to stop talking about what would
it be?

Speaker 2 (43:03):
You know, I really like people to stop labeling individuals
as bipolar when they're having an emotional experience. Not everyone
you encounter is bipolar, and we have to stop the
stigma even around bipolar, you know. And so please don't
label someone as bipolar just because they're having an emotional experience.

(43:24):
Sit down, have a conversation, find out what's going on
with them. And for anyone who truly is struggling with bipolar,
you know, know that there is a possibility of healing
if you can get to the right doctors who can
understand the cause and the sources of bipolar and get
you on the right treatments.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, I love that do. I think a lot of
people get a mistaken too, and a lot of times
bipolar and BBD get mixed up. Too a little bit
because they're so close together. If you look at them,
they're really identical in some ways, and people get a
mistaken which way they go and things like that too.
But I love that. I think that's great because a
lot of people call everything bipolar. It's like, but it's
not always by polar stop it. You know, it's like

(44:02):
everybody was labeling the same thing, and it's like, can
you just stop doing that please? It's just terrible. Well,
with that being said, Jenny, I want to thank you
so much for being here today. Did you want to
go ahead and let people know where they can find you?
Say they want to reach out if they're in the
California area and they want to come check out your
clinic or whatever, what's the best way for them to
reach out to you.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah. So, our website is Hope hyphen Therapy Hyphencenter dot
com and we are in the greater California area. I'm
also licensed in Oregon, Nevada, Washington, and Tennessee. You do
have to go to a therapist who's licensed in your state.
And if you ever are looking for a therapist and
you're really uncertain, go on psychology Today. There's a lot

(44:39):
of great therapists that are there, you know, pick something
like brain spotting EMDR because these are higher level trained modalities,
and find someone who use as that mentality because they're
going to probably do a little bit more than just
the traditional talk therapy.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
I love it. Thank you, thank you so much. I
appreciate you being here today. It's been great. I enjoyed
this conversation so much, you guys said. With that being said,
we're going to wrap up this episode of Pete Anxiety.
You know where to find me. I'm peeted for anxiety
and X all the way down of TikTok, I'm on Spotify,
oh the way to iHeart Radio And as always say,
it costs something, absolutely not to be kind of somebody.
One kind act you could do could saves his life
or hell, it can make their day. I'm Pete for

(45:12):
so Anxiety, signing off saying, don't ask how your day
is today, say hey, how's your mental health today?

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Reckonin of respect?

Speaker 1 (45:20):
That did I drink but dive protect?

Speaker 2 (45:23):
I got my chechoty am, I learn, but to die didn't?
That didn't learn my respect?

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Don't have to but that don't think that Wait