This week Alyssa sits down with friend and colleague, Jennifer Bristol, LCSW, to discuss the mind-body connection and the idea that addressing our emotions can help to pacify chronic pain. 

Book’s discussed:

Healing Back Pain by Dr. John E. Sarno

The Mindbody Prescription by Dr. John E. Sarno

Jennifer’s website

 

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Transcripts:

Alyssa Scolari: [00:00:23]

Hi, everybody. You know what time it is. Welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari and we have here with us today. My dear friend, Jennifer Bristol, LCSW. So I met Jen. I’m just going to give a personal bio for her. I met her as a result of COVID. So while I, of course would have never wanted COVID to happen.

And horrible things have happened. One of the wonderful things that has come out of COVID is the support group, or I guess it would be like a peer supervision group that we are in together on Sundays. I met her through there and I have really watched Jennifer make incredible changes in her life. In the last year when I met her, she was working for another company.

And you were working in like geriatric care, right. A social worker for…

Jennifer Bristol: [00:01:56]

Yeah, hospice actually.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:01:58]

Okay. So yes. So when I met her, she was working for hospice and over the course of the year, she has gotten married. Is it okay if I say…

Jennifer Bristol: [00:02:08]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:10]

So she has gotten married. Had a beautiful wedding, even in a pandemic ,safely, of course.

And she works for herself now at Embracing Stages, she is a therapist working with people ages 18 and up. Correct.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:02:31]

Correct? Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:32]

So without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Jen. Hi Jen. Thank you for coming on the show. I know you have a lot going on and it has been a year of changes for you.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:02:46]

Yes, a lot of changes, but wonderful ones. All good, except for COVID. Other than that, all good.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:54]

Right, except for COVID. But in terms of your career, you have just been thriving and it has been such a joy to watch because you are, you’re so good at what you do. Jen to the listeners out there, and I will link her website. It’s embracingstages.com. I’ll link it on the show notes for everybody. Jen’s a phenomenal therapist.

So one of the ways in which Jen helped me is early on in the pandemic. So it has to be probably like a year ago at this point, because I think we started the group in March of last year. So it had to be maybe like 10 months ago or so Jen started talking about back pain. And how she healed her back pain.

And I am somebody who has had physical symptoms out the wazoo, my entire life. I’m always like my back hurts. My knees hurt. My hips hurt. My neck hurts. And she recommended this book by John E Sarno called “Healing Back Pain.” And I was like, what the hell. So I ordered it on Amazon. And I read it and I was like, Oh my God, we have to talk about this.

So I am having Jen on today to talk about back pain and the book. And so could you talk a little bit about how did you even stumble on this book?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:04:31]

So actually through my own experiences and my own complaining of physical symptoms, it was actually close friends of my husband and I they’re a close couple of friends and she recommended the book to me because of her own experiences and how much it helped her. She recommended it to me and I read it and that was it.

My complete way of thinking changed everything. It’s like a whole new world open.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:05]

Yes. And so as a disclaimer, let us say that Jen and I are not doctors. We are not, not, not doctors. So if you are listening to this podcast for medical advice, please hit the stop button and call your primary care physician. We are simply two people who have experienced kind of the same effects and the same results with our pain after reading this book.

So can you give like a brief kind of synopsis on like what John talks about in the book? Cause I think he’s a chiropractor, right?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:05:47]

I want to say physical therapists.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:50]

You’re right. Physical therapist. Yep.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:05:52]

Yeah. And so what was the question, that synopsis of the book or TMS or kind of in general.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:06:00]

Yeah. So can you introduce like, cause he introduces the concept of TMS. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:06:06]

Yeah. So for TMS, because TMS is actually, there’s a therapy of TMS, but the TMS we’re talking about is Tension Myositis Syndrome, where basically it’s an emotional state, a psychological state that can trigger, in Dr. Sarno’s work ,and trigger the autonomous nervous system. And when that’s triggered, it causes a mild oxygen deprivation to different areas of the body.

And when there is the oxygen deprivation, it causes physical pain in simple terms.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:06:41]

Yes. I think you put that actually way more simply than I would’ve ever to but that, so yes, TMS is Dr. Sarno’s ,after seeing so many patients and please order this book on Amazon, it is absolutely worth it. After seeing so many patients come to him with back pain in particular, he talks about. He started to think and be like, what is going on here?

And then from there came TMS, which is this idea that people, because it’s too painful to feel their feelings, whether it’s emotional distress as a result of trauma of grief, whatever it may be, they store those feelings in their body and where those feelings are stored causes. Like you said, oxygen deprivation, which causes acute pain.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:07:36]

Well, and chronic pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:07:38]

Yes.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:07:39]

And I think the thing that is always fascinating to me is that. So many individuals who have chronic pain say, you know, it’s kind of like a hamster wheel of going to physical therapy and maxing out all your physical therapy sessions for the year, or at least that was for me, but then also going to out of network, in network, searching constantly for that physical result of what it can be in that physical treatment.

But when it comes to something, that’s a cue. Now, everyone knows. If you’re anxious, then you get butterflies in your stomach or you have to run to the bathroom. Or if you feel sad and you just are fatigued and you can’t get out of bed because of how sad you are. But when it comes to something that’s chronic, like back pain or GI issues that can’t be from emotions, that can’t be anything that’s repressed.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:32]

Heaven forbid.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:08:34]

Yeah, it has to be something physical. And so it still to this day fascinates me how the mind can kind of separate, like it’s okay for acute things, but not for chronic.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:47]

Yeah. Yeah. And really what Dr. Sarno did is he brought the two together and I feel like is one of the forefront doctors that really began looking at this mind, body connection that like, okay, people who are having chronic back pain, for example, X-ray after x-ray and like you said doctor after doctor, they’re not getting better, they’re not getting answers or maybe they’re getting temporary relief.

And then what would happen is the pain would pop up somewhere else. Right? So now my back doesn’t hurt anymore, but I suddenly, I have this like shoulder pain that I can’t quite kick and what he was doing as the listeners out there, if you read this book, as you would read through the book is he would prescribe people to go to therapy.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:09:38]

Yeah to therapy or to journal. Absolutely. To get in touch with the repressed emotions.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:09:46]

To connect the mind to the body and to integrate the emotions with your physical functioning and people were noticing it was then that their pain was going away. And again, I want to reiterate Jen and I are not doctors. So if you are having back pain, please go see a doctor. But, we’re here to share our stories about how freeing it was.

I know it was so freeing for me to read that book and it truly healed my back pain. So I guess I’ll ask you, did you, and I think I know the answer to this, but you had back pain, right? Is that the chronic pain?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:10:33]

So I’ve had a few different pains, kind of like you, because if one is feeling better, the other pops up. So I’ve kind of had upper back pain my whole life, and then it became lower back pain and then GI issues and pain shooting down my leg to my knee. And so it’s kind of been all over the place.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:11:00]

And what was the process like for you when you were reading this book? Like, because I, I don’t know if it was different than it was for me. Did you read this book? And then all of a sudden it went away?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:11:14]

So, yes. No, it didn’t completely go away, but I would say there was a percentage that was lifted. As I read it and I went along and it really was almost like you could feel a part of the mind opening up to, Oh my God, there’s this whole new concept. And it could really be some, like, I don’t need to be on this hamster wheel anymore of trying to go to physical therapy or acupuncture or massage therapy.

And so as I was reading it, yes, a lot of my pain did heal, but it wasn’t a hundred percent. There was more work and exploration that needed to be done as I read. And after I read.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:01]

Yes. And it’s a lot of having to feel the feelings that you’ve been suppressing, which doesn’t happen in an instant. And when we talk about pain, I know that you said it was chronic pain, but can you talk about the ways in which it perhaps like limited your ability to function?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:12:23]

Absolutely. So with my lower back pain, I couldn’t wear heels like high heels for more than like 10 minutes without having my back, starting to hurt. If I would go for a walk or I would be cleaning or cooking, I could stand or walk for maybe like 10 or 15 minutes and then I’d have to stop and stretch and then continue.

I’ll say it on this podcast, sex with my partner, it was like so many different things. And when we look at repressed emotions, I mean, intimacy too is something that people, a lot of times, people don’t dive into and there’s intimacy issues and relationships. And I love working through that with my clients as to what does that look like.

Whether you’re single or you have a partner ,intimacy and sex can be explored. And so really every part of my life was affected because if I couldn’t stand for more than 10, 15 minutes, what was I supposed to do? Sit down all the time. And then I’m sitting in a chair and I have to constantly fidget because no position is comfortable.

And then when it comes to the GI stuff, I mean, you would have thought I was gluten intolerant, dairy intolerant. I would have like four or five different sugar substitutes in my house and thought that all of that was the cause for it. And now today I could scarf down a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s and not have any stomach problems.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:13:51]

And be fine. Yes. I like that you touched on that, that it extends to GI issues as well. Maybe not necessarily in the book.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:14:00]

In the other book he mentioned it. “The Mindbody Prescription.” Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:14:04]

Okay. Okay. I didn’t read the other book, but yes. So it touches on like GI issues as well: gastrointestinal, like Irritable Bowel Syndrome that people have food intolerances, all of these things. And we’re not saying for sure, but oftentimes they are related to your inability to process and regulate really difficult emotions.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:14:35]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean even, and cause I know this is a trauma podcast and when you look at victims of sexual abuse and when you look at sexual abuse survivors, a lot of times there’s pelvic pain and genital pain and that is very common. And so why can that happen? But not other chronic pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:03]

Yeah. And it sounds like what you’re talking about from your experience is it’s almost like you feel even in like your twenties, that you’re a hundred years old.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:15:18]

Oh, absolutely. I felt like I was a hundred years old. Yeah. Yes.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:24]

Yeah. And how old were you when your chronic pain started?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:15:27]

I’ll be honest with my upper back. I have been going to a chiropractor since like middle school.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:34]

Okay. Yes. That’s when it started for me as well, issues with my, it was not my back at first. It was my knees. My knees have hurt me my entire life and because of my eating disorder, I have been every weight and every size under the sun. And so weight never affected the pain in my knees, but from the time I was a little kid, I had this knee pain and I went to doctor after doctor some of the top docs in the nation for knees.

And every doctor was like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And then what would happen? They would send me to physical therapy. I would max out my physical therapy, just like you said for the year. And then my knees would stlll hurt.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:16:28]

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:30]

And at 14 years old, my friends used to actually make fun of me because I would emember being in middle school and like getting up with the lunch tray in the cafeteria. And I could barely, because they were benches that we would sit on, so I would have to like slide over and I would moan and groan and be like, Oh, Oh, as I got up and my friends were like, what the hell?

Like are you 110. I was 14. I was in pain because I had no clue how to process any of the emotional pain.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:17:12]

Absolutely. You know, it’s almost, when it comes to my upper back, it was really my lower back that brought me to Sarno because the upper back I had had it for so long since I was a kid, that it was almost just like a way of life at that point, having to crack my back. And this is even the coolest thing I used to have to crack my back all the time, all day long.

I don’t even do that anymore. It’s like the muscles and the structure just loosened. But, it really was a way of life going to the chiropractor and going for massages and acupuncture. That was, it almost seemed normal to me. And so I didn’t even view it as an issue that could be fixed. I just accepted it, that this was my life and this is something I was going to have to deal with.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:18:05]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that was the same for me, for my knee pain. It wasn’t until my lower back pain came, I was in my, what am I 29 now? So I was in my early twenties, early to mid twenties and I was at the gym and I was, I mean doing the same workout, that I’ve done a thousand times and out of nowhere, I was doing kettlebell swings and.

Everybody, of course who hears that as like, Oh my God, kettlebells are the worst for you. I know the point is back then, I was doing them regularly. I was the strongest I’d ever been in my life. And I wasn’t kettlebell swinging, you know, 60 pounds. I was using a smaller sized kettlebell and my back suddenly locked up and I went down in the middle of the gym class.

And I couldn’t get up and I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t drive. I went to doctor after doctor who told me you will never be able to work out again. You will never be able to lift. You will never be able to exercise. You’re going to have a horrible time in pregnancy because you’ve destroyed your back. And I thought my life was over. Like I had just met the man that I’m now married to. And I was like, I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I don’t know. Did you have that too? Like a grieving process of just being like, there’s something wrong with me, like permanently.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:20:01]

Yeah. Especially when it came to the lower back, I don’t know what it is with the lower back, but because it’s almost as if like you had your knees. I had my upper back, we weren’t listening. Our body was giving us a signal and we didn’t know, and the body will keep giving different and new, stronger signals until, and different pain and different symptoms, until you listen or you don’t and you continue with it.

And for me, the lower back pain, I was actually training for a fitness competition and my upper back hurt as it always did. So my husband went to give me a back massage and he’s an average sized man. And when he went and like sat on me from behind to give me a back massage, I felt shooting pain, go from my lower back all the way down my left leg.

And he barely put any pressure on me whatsoever. And I was told to not to work out. I mean, I, I still finished the fitness competition and training for it, but

Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:08]

Damn right you did.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:21:08]

l had ot pain, but talk about repressing emotions. I mean, that is someone who is running from their feelings, waking up at 4:30 every day to go work out when I’m having pain.

But then also. It literally felt like crippling almost like not that my life was over, but there were times I was just like, how am I going to do this? Like, I did want to have a baby. And I was told not to run that pregnancy may cause pain, all of these things. And now I’m 20 weeks pregnant and I haven’t had any back pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:43]

Yeah.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:21:45]

And even with my scans, I, and I was told I have a bulging disc. Two of my discs or vertebrae were starting to fuse together. Like I was told all of these things were going on with me. And, but hello, it’s normal. As someone gets older, your spine is going to have degenerations. And again, I say this not as a doctor, but anyone can do the research and show that you take majority of adult people and you give them.

You scan them and do imaging. There’s going to be some sort of degeneration, but why does one person have pain and another person does’t.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:29]

So my jaw dropped. When I heard you talk about like the degenerative discs, like the bulging discs, because I was told the same thing I was told: you’ve got one herniated, disc, two bulging discs, whatever else discs do in your back, mine did. And I was sobbing. I, this is so embarrassing. I remember being in the office when he told me when the doctor told me and I blacked out for a second. I started to sweat and shake and he had to give me part of his lunch. He gave me a granola bar from his lunch because I think he thought I had low blood sugar.

God bless him. He was a very kind kind, but I was like, Oh my God, my back is broken and I’ll never be okay again. And I was told like, if you’re going to go to the gym, if you ever do a bicep curl, you need to be laying down. So it’s no pressure on your back. And it was like, so stressful that, you know, my world, as I knew, it kind of stopped on a dime, it just came to a halt.

And for the last couple of years, I have been nursing my back and constantly afraid of hurting it. And for so, so many times I would hurt my back again and I would try to work out and I would be like, Oh, well that hurts my back. Oh, this hurts my back. I had a lumbar support in the car. I mean, I have a lumbar support everywhere, everywhere I go.

I have a lumbar support. And then I read this book and was like, wait a minute. I was like, son of a bitch. I know this is emotional I know that around the time when my back pain hit, it’s like kind of crescendo, is before I started uncovering. It was like right before I started uncovering repressed memories of sexual abuse, I had met the man that I was going to marry.

I was scared. Because that required intimacy and for sexual abuse survivors, intimacy was really difficult. So I was like, Oh great. I’m good. I know I’m gonna marry this guy. Now I’m going to have to friggin to have sex with him. What am I going to do? And all of those feelings just came to this crescendo in back pain.

So then, you know, fast forward to COVID I meet you. I read this book and I’m sitting in bed and every line I’m like highlighting and I’m like, “David, read this.” He’s like “what?” I’m like, “there’s nothing wrong with me.” He’s like, “I know.”

So, I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s debilitating. It’s absolutely debilitating.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:25:42]

I don’t know about if this happens with you, but I know with me, it’s kind of like a key almost like I actually am happy for the fact that I have physical symptoms and in therapy, we could say Somatic Symptom Disorder.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:25:58]

Yep.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:25:59]

It doesn’t cause me the distress that it once did, but if I’m not dealing with my emotions, those symptoms will come back.

There will be times when, around the holidays or certain people in my life, I could have a phone call with them or they could say, or do something and you know, I have a busy schedule. I have a very full practice and it could be easy for me to hang up the phone and be like, Nope, not going to deal with this.

We’re just going to like carry on our day, see our patients or do house work, go food shopping. And then the back pain starts to creep in, or I’ll be sitting there eating and I’ll be like, why does my stomach hurt so much? What did I eat today? And then it’s like, Oh my God, wait. Like, I’m not processing that I’m not dealing with how much that hurt me or how angry I am.

And even with being pregnant, I believe in his “Healing Back Pain” book and correct me if I’m wrong. Cause I, I was also reading the other book too, but I think it’s in “Healing Back Pain”. He mentioned like do gooders and people pleasers than individuals who are overly self-critical. Yeah. If you just want to like be good and make a good impression, and you’re more susceptible to chronic pain and being pregnant.

I worked hard for this baby. Like there was lots of morning monitoring and doctor’s appointments and tubes of blood being taken. And I could very easily be like, I need to just be grateful for this baby. I should just be happy and it’s a miracle and that’s it. But what happens is. It’s terrifying to be a first time mom and I like sushi and I like going for bike rides and I just recently moved down the shore and thought I was going to be taking surf lessons.

And none of those things are a possibility right now, but it’s okay. I can both be grateful. And also be that kid who’s kind of like this isn’t fair. And I can have both emotions at the same time. I don’t have to push away. I don’t want to call them bad emotions because they’re not bad. They’re just feelings

Alyssa Scolari: [00:28:24]

The less comfortable emotions.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:28:27]

Exactly. And what happens is when you push those away, because I’m supposed to be grateful and I’m supposed to be happy to be pregnant. When you push the other stuff away for me, physical pain comes up. And so when I allow myself the beautiful freedom of being both grateful for my miracle baby, but also a little frustrated that I’m not supposed to eat sushi.

I don’t have physical pain.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:28:53]

Yes. Yes. When you allow it all, the good with the bad, is when your pain goes away. And it’s kind of, like you said, I feel the same way that I’m almost grateful for it because my body is really communicating with me and I’m now more in tune with it than ever. And after I read that book, I really started to think about my back pain and the more that I processed it, the more my back pain went away and it will pop back up or sometimes it’ll go to my shoulder and sometimes it goes to my hips, like, you know, my pelvic area, or comes out in the form of like stomach issues.

Right? But if I’m able to identify what it is, and then I’m able to go, well, what am I not dealing with? Because like you said, it’s so easy to get off the phone with somebody after being triggered and to be like, eh, I’m not going to deal with that. Or even as therapists, we sometimes have sessions with other people that are triggering.

So it’s so easy to be like, and then be in pain. But as soon as that pain comes, like, I know it’s something I’m not dealing with. And I love that you said you’re allowing yourself to be like, Hey, this kind of sucks. I can’t have sushi. And I’m scared. Cause I’m about to be a mom. And I know I wanted this, I wanted my baby so badly, but I’m terrified instead of just being like, well, you should be grateful.

Cause it was so hard. It’s self-compassion.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:30:48]

Absolutely. And a lot of times people are taught to if they fall off their bike and they want to cry and they’re like, no, if you get back up and I understand that, and I think there’s definitely room for that as well. But if you’re taught from a young age, don’t have your emotions or don’t have your feelings, no matter what those feelings may be, it can…and even in society, we kind of live in a society too where you see on Facebook and Instagram, that everything is happy and positive. It’s almost like where is the room for the grief? Where is the room for the anger or the pain? And it is allowing and nurturing that part of you that has it because we all have it. We all have unconscious emotions and feelings.

And that’s why I truly believe in therapy because it is that safe place to explore all of them.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:31:47]

Therapy is the best. I mean, I know we’re biased, but like the best, it’s absolutely the best. So I wanted to ask you, like now, Right now that you have this knowledge of like the mind-body connection and knowing, right. What do you do differently or are there things that you do differently to try to prevent the onset of pain?

Or does that just look like going to therapy? Because for me, I have found that sometimes it sneaks up on me where I won’t even be aware that I’m kind of suppressing stuff.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:32:33]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so journaling in the beginning of the pregnancy, there was a lot of anxiety. Because I have PCOS and all the things that I went through, there’s a lot of anxiety about having the baby and keeping the baby and miscarriage and all of that. And physical symptoms were just happening all over my body.

And for me, journaling and therapy, but definitely journaling is also what helps me. And I do know that if I have physical symptoms that are sneaking up, I also journal because that is a great place where it’s just me and the journal. There’s no fear of judgment. I, and I even tell my clients this, like after you journal, rip it up, rip it up it out.

There is no need to hold to it. Yes. Yes. I love the burning.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:33:25]

Yes.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:33:26]

Of course got to be careful don’t, want someone to start a fire.

Safely. Yup. Burn things safely.

And that can even be therapeutic too, whether you throw it out or, but just not to hold on to it because I don’t ever want to go back and read those readings and then judge myself for reading them because it’s not about judging or retaining. It’s about getting in touch with what’s going on underneath everything.

So I would say journaling. But other than that, I have no physical limitations to my life minus the pregnancy ones, but I was told not to run before I was pregnant. I was going running. I could go horseback riding. I could, there’s no physical limitations that I need to follow

Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:13]

Yes. Yes. It’s so freeing. It’s so freeing. Really, I mean to the listeners out there, if you struggle with chronic pain, if you’re going to invest in a book, this is one of the books that you really need to invest in. It’s again, “Healing Back Pain” by John E Sarno. You can find the book on Amazon. It’s really not that expensive.

And this is not an ad. We don’t know him personally. I wish we did. What’d you say.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:34:46]

He’s actually passed away.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:48]

Oh, I am horrible human being.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:34:57]

But Nicole Sachs, she’s a therapist who practiced with him and she also has a book too called Journal Speak”. And that’s another good one. She still practices.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:35:11]

Well, yes, books are still available. May he rest in peace.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:35:20]

And “Mindbody Prescription” is another one of his books.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:35:24]

Oh, okay. See, thank God we have you here. Do you want to be the host of this podcast? Cause I’m failing royally today. Alright, so yeah. Read more into this stuff. If you struggle with chronic pain and you can’t find answers, this might be the right answer for you. And I just want to thank you for coming on today.

I know that you are growing a human and you have a lot going on. I know your practice is booming. If people want to find more about you, are you accepting new clients right now?

Jennifer Bristol: [00:36:01]

So I have two offices, one in Oradell and one in Middletown, my Oradell office, I’m not accepting new clients. For Middletown, I am. Not many, but I am.

Alyssa Scolari: [00:36:13]

I mean, yeah. Yeah. Well, if you would like to learn more about Jen, you can go to her website, which I will also link on the show notes, which is embracingstages.com. And I appreciate you chatting with me today.

Jennifer Bristol: [00:36:27]

Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information about today’s episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook Com, as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources, and infographs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors. I’m super active on the Facebook community, and I look forward to talking with you.