Embracing Inner Healing with Jill Baumgartner

[00:00:09.480] - Sheila

Welcome to the spiritual geek podcast, Wisdom for Modern Times, where we focus on living with intention to consciously create a life you love and celebrate. I'm your host, Sheila Franzen, and I'm so excited to share another episode with you. Today, Gill Bomgartner has joined me for a discussion about mental health and therapy and all things related to this transformation of personal development and self growth. Gill is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice. She blends traditional talk therapy with practices that honor the wisdom of the body and the intuitive guidance of emotions. Gill is passionate about helping others embrace inner healing, integrating trauma, and returning to wholeness through the path of the heart. Gill, welcome and thanks for joining me.

[00:00:58.050] - Jill

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

[00:01:00.780] - Sheila

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this conversation. It's a topic that is talked about so much more these days. Is there anything else you would like to share as part of your own introduction before we get started or as we get started here?

[00:01:14.130] - Jill

Sure. Well, it's a great introduction. One thing that came to me recently, I think that... I'm super passionate about the work that I do, but I feel very fortunate in that I've known since I was a teenager that I wanted to be a therapist. I think regardless of any life experiences I had had up until that point, they were really a small percentage of why I wanted to do it. It was more just this really deeply soulful path that I knew that I wanted to help people and to serve. Then the steps are laid out of like, Well, how do you do that? But I was thinking recently, I had this very... When I see clients, sometimes they're struggling with their purpose and they might be in a job that they're just not feeling fulfilled. And so I have just this very deep empathy for helping people along their path, if that's part of their journey of finding what they want to do.

[00:02:19.870] - Sheila

Yeah, that's a tough one. I spent a lot of years trying to figure out my passion and my purpose. Sometimes that question in and of itself can be really frustrating when you feel like you can't get clarity around that. In this concept of, even in your intro, you mentioned blending talk therapy with practices that honor the wisdom of the body and the guidance of emotions. I know from my own experience with therapy, which I'll jump to a little bit later, how would you describe therapy today? Or how do you describe it for you and what you're doing compared to... I've had my share of conversations with people resistant to the concept of therapy even. I don't need help. I don't want help. This isn't valuable for me. Why would I go talk to a stranger? All of those things that go around this concept of really being able to engage with somebody to help you to work through with something. How do you blend all those things to make it make sense for people these days?

[00:03:31.980] - Jill

Yeah, it's a great question. So it might be helpful, too, if I share a little bit of an overview. I think what I've seen over the last couple of years is just a shift in more people being open to therapy, which is really awesome. I think it just normalizes that it's okay to talk to someone and having support on the path of self growth. I see people sometimes they... People come to therapy for different reasons. There might be an event that happened or more chronic symptoms or just a curiosity. They want to communicate better with their partner or set more healthy boundaries. But I see a whole gamut of awareness and insight. So sometimes someone will come to me and I'll be like, Wow, that sounds like anxiety. They might not know that it's anxiety. I think sometimes these things are... We don't see mental health symptoms. If you break a bone, it gets set in a cast for weeks and you know. You know what I mean? It's visible. But I think sometimes it's the invisible wounds that we have that it's good to be open to processing through them and having that support to do that.

[00:04:58.970] - Jill

One thing that I see a lot too, and I always ask this when I'm first meeting with someone is just very basic questions of how's your sleep, how's your appetite. The amount of times that I've heard that people aren't sleeping well is really pretty high. That, I think, brings the awareness back to just the body, like, we should be sleeping. That's our body's way of clearing out toxins. And when our eyes move back and forth at night, it's helping us process the day and hold on to memories that we need to hold on to and information that we need and things that we don't need. So sometimes that just is a good answer to a question that I ask that helps me guide the framework of some work that we can do. To answer your question, too, about just my practice, I think something several years ago that really changed my practice, I was starting out in a profession. I go to school, then you get licensed, then doing all these hours and working with people. You can read something in a book, but until you actually work with someone, that's where the real learning and growth comes into play.

[00:06:15.100] - Jill

But I remember there was a time where I offered a coping skill to a teenager, and I just had this own curiosity. I was like, That's not going to work for this kid. I was like, Why isn't it going to work? I started to just question, yes, I could give them a worksheet and there's this information on there that's very valuable, but if they're emotionally dysregulated, there needs to be a step before that, before they can even look at the worksheet.

[00:06:49.570] - Sheila

If.

[00:06:50.950] - Jill

That makes sense. I went into this deep dive of learning more about trauma and the nervous system in both brain hemispheres and how those really impact us. And sometimes we need skills for those parts of our body to be able to do the insightful work.

[00:07:14.720] - Sheila

Yeah, I love what you're bringing in of the invisible things, right? And there's an aspect of... I do a lot and spend a lot of time talking with energy healers and coaches, but I love the twist of this concept of thinking about therapy as an aspect of that inner knowing. It's that inner map. What's going on inside of our inside? Like healing a bone, there's a structured process for that in the medical world. I think that's such a beautiful example to say, Well, if there's things that aren't feeling right in my life, whether it's sleep or anxiety, even if it's just... I look at life and say, If you're not happy, find a path. Find somebody that can launch you into a direction that lets you experience more joy in life. Because why not try to have a goal of just like, let's have more fun in life. And I think that this ability to dig in and have questions and just really appreciate the power and the benefits of a therapeutic process, I mean, that makes it sound almost very medical. But to me, I've discovered a therapy in college from the perspective of really struggling in my own college life and the counselor on campus, and finally just surrendered to going in because I needed somebody to talk to.

[00:08:50.470] - Sheila

There were things I could not make sense out of and I needed support. And it really was a journey that allowed... It was the beginning, I think, of the introspect. I was always a quiet introvert, but the true introspective process that happens with therapy was the launch of personal development in its own way for me. I ended up finding a therapist in my 20s after a extremely difficult time of life where I just couldn't get traction, I couldn't make sense out of it. I was just miserable mentally. I worked with that therapist off and on for 10 years. There was a period of time for several years that I did full psychoanalytic therapy in the depth of actually going in and doing talk therapy four days a week. The depth at which I got to know myself, my own thoughts, how my sleep was working, where I had anxiety, all of that stuff was an incredible gift in my journey to really investigate and understand and a lot of tools that gave me the perspective of there is this whole inner world. I think it's like, oh, well, I watched this with my children as teenagers, there is conversation that happens that is all about the labels that people have.

[00:10:29.450] - Sheila

It's like everybody's wanting to label these internal things of emotions and anxiety and panic disorder and this and that. And it's like they all get labels, but nobody really knows how to work with them. How do you move through them? How do you deal with trauma? The idea of the inner map and the inner journey is just so important because it's what keeps us from our joy. It's what keeps us from finding peace and contentment with life.

[00:10:59.950] - Jill

Yeah, absolutely. I think something, too, that I wanted to touch on is just my role as a clinician, right? I'm holding space for someone and I'm guiding and doing these clinical interventions and just always triaging. But I think that just having someone to listen to you, right? What that does is, I mean, we have mirror neurons, someone in their life may never have listened to them. There's wounds around feeling invalidated and that can change structures in the brain. But when we feel listened to, someone gets our experience, we can create oxytocin, a bonding hormone. There's chemical things that are happening in a therapeutic process. I think sometimes it's good to know that because then you can buy into a little bit of like, okay, I'm here for myself and there's these changes that are happening and I might not be able to see them. But when I'm done talking, I feel better.

[00:12:06.150] - Sheila

Yes, exactly. It really does make a difference. I love that you bring the geekiness of the science into it because we have a whole set of chemical reactions that happen with every thought if you want to get really into it. When you're dealing with trauma and thought and the neural pathways, there is real physical stuff going on and real physical healing that's happening just by engaging in this aspect of being able to talk about something and being listened to, like the witness of being listened to. We acknowledge our own presence in that. It's a beautiful thing.

[00:12:53.270] - Jill

Yes. And I think it speaks to having value for someone to say, yes, that I hear you and you went through that, and it helps people feel valued. I was just thinking, too, just to give a cliff notes version here, there's something called... It's referred to as top down therapy, and then there's bottom up therapy. The top down therapy is what we would think of as traditional therapy where you're verbally processing. There is so much value to that. I pepper that into my practice all the time, especially during a session. But the bottom up is it's taking a look at the limbic system and different areas of the brain. That's where the body comes into play of how we can integrate certain thoughts that we have and certain experiences to integrate these parts of us to reclaim our illness. So there are a lot of interventions that I've learned over the years that I would do with clients where just helping them become aware of their body, identifying feelings, noticing just nuances of where they might even look when they're having a feeling. They can practice those things outside of session. Then if they're having a disagreement with their partner or their spouse, they would then have this inner awareness of, Oh, maybe I'm feeling guilty, or I put my head down when I feel guilty.

[00:14:31.510] - Jill

Our body is constantly giving us clues. Sometimes we just need this skills to be able to tap into that awareness and also just be curious about it. Because when we're curious about something, it's like a mindfulness skill. We're in the present moment.

[00:14:50.320] - Sheila

Yes. Curiousness. I love that. It's the asking, Well, what's going on right now? Why am I feeling this way? Sure. Have I done this before? And how have I responded this way in the past? Or how could I respond differently? I love the energy of curiosity because it keeps us in a place of innocence if we think back to being a child and are in a sense of being curious about the world. And we lose that often through our journeys of life or through whatever has transpired. But it is curiosity is what can bring us back to wholeness and understanding and releasing and all of those pieces of it. But it's hard to do that on your own. I think that's the real power of... I can still remember so many times the therapist I worked with so many years ago would ask me a question, I'd be like, I never thought of it that way, or I've never considered that. And so that aspect of no matter how well we know ourselves, the witness of somebody that goes, Oh, but what about this? Or, Have you considered this? Or, How are you experiencing that? It's just invaluable.

[00:16:13.700] - Sheila

It's a really beneficial process to go through.

[00:16:16.950] - Jill

Yeah, absolutely. I think just even challenging certain thoughts that we might have or shifting... I use the metaphor of looking through a kaleidoscope. If you just shift it a little bit, there's a whole different picture and different structures that you see. And so sometimes we just need a shift in our awareness and then we feel different, which can be really invaluable. And that's part of challenging thoughts. It's part of that top down approach. It has value. The bottom up approach is just also honoring the nuances of the nervous system and everyone, their experiences are different. With trauma, for instance, it's not necessarily what happens, it's how that event or that experience gets stored in the body. S o someone might have an emotional reaction where they become really upset, whereas somebody else might shut down. And so understanding those responses can be a huge part of someone's growth and just normalizing their experience where I say, Hey, here is a worksheet. This is written on there. This happens to other people too. And so they know they're not alone in that. Or I might say, Yes, there's a book about this. And so sometimes we need to know that this information is out there because it happens to other people as well.

[00:17:49.840] - Jill

And so you don't feel as alone in your experience. In my practice, I see a lot of people feeling isolated with their feelings and shame is a big one. So sometimes we have certain beliefs that keep us in shame and shame is a feeling, but I would say it's like a denser, lower vibration feeling. And so we have to feel all of our feelings, but we don't want to stay stuck at that one. So we acknowledge it, but be able to shift out of it.

[00:18:21.660] - Sheila

Yeah, the bottom up and the top down is, well, that's where wholeness is at, right? That's the aspect of seeing wholeness. If we only come at it from one way and ignore the other, then the other is ignored. But if you leverage both of that, what you describe with the bottom up, the body and the limbic system and the nervous system and the top down of our mind and our thoughts and creating our reality, then you are looking at wholeness. And I think that's a much more complete approach to therapy than someone who might approach therapy from only one of those perspectives. That makes it feel more complete versus just saying, Oh, it's talk therapy.

[00:19:14.740] - Jill

Sure. I'm so glad we're talking about this because I was just thinking of something else. I work a lot with the right and the left side of the brain as well. It's referred to as being whole brain. We're talking about wholeness, so this plays into that as well. But we operate best when both sides of our brain are balanced. Depending on, we might have preferences or habits or certain life experiences or even trauma sometimes where we rely on one side more than the other. And so sometimes I offer just these educational tidbits is what I would describe them as to clients where the left side is... We have an area in the left side of the brain called the Broca's area, which is all about language, so left and language. But it's like order and being practical, and we need that to function in the day to day. The right side is all about being in the present and emotion and being expressive, creative. And oftentimes in my practice, if I can see someone might be relying on one more than the other, I'll purposefully ask them something to get them in the other side of the brain.

[00:20:34.330] - Jill

What that's doing is it's helping neuroplasticity. It's getting the right and the left side of the brain to connect with one another. As they're doing that, they're able to become more aware of emotions, but it's also just bringing balance to the brain as a whole. I think of it as like a highway that goes down the middle of the brain called the corpus callosum. And so that's going down. But that can become strengthened. And with these certain exercise, they're just being curious about, well, I don't want to over intellectualize. Maybe I'm having a feeling or going back and forth. I have found that to be really beneficial with clients over the years. And I actually have a little structure of a brain that I painted and so I use that as a demo just to show them because sometimes the visual queues are helpful where someone can see like, oh, okay, this side is very colorful and the left side I painted just almost looks like computerized. But again, it's about integration. We need both sides to be able to communicate with one another so that we are best selves.

[00:21:58.430] - Sheila

Yeah. Everything I know about trauma and the mind and thoughts and emotions, when you talk about the two halves of the brain, it's not even just purely... We could go down a whole path of actually food you eat and health and how that actually can be effect the two sides of the brain and that channel that lies in between the two halves of the brain. But what pops into my mind, I know over the years I've learned different exercises. I actually have one that I do every morning that's actually about activating both sides of the brain. It's like a cross body crawl that I learned through Donna Eden's daily energy practice. What's your favorite technique or super simple technique to bring a body back into balance or the brain? Is there one that you love to do?

[00:22:58.480] - Jill

Oh, sure. So if I'm working with someone, there are certain questions that I might ask. So let's say someone, if I observe them to be in the left brain where they might be, maybe... We have a defense mechanism. Sometimes we might intellectualize about things, but to get them into the right brain, I might ask, Well, is there a color to describe maybe what you're feeling? Because sometimes people struggle with accessing feelings, and that's okay. It's like learning. We need to learn the ABCs before we write in perspective. But you can do it, build these skills in other ways. So a color, a texture, a shape. And so all that's doing is activating the right side where it's just getting... It's almost like the brain is getting a little cardio. So now the right side is a little activated. Sometimes people get emotionally dysregulated it. And so that would be more the right side of the brain. So I might purposefully ask them a question to get into the left side. So something as simple as like, I've asked people, What color are your shoes? Or just notice your feet inside of your shoes? Or just bringing their awareness back to the present can help to activate the left side and maybe take a little bit off of the intensity of the emotion that they were experiencing.

[00:24:31.040] - Jill

And their brain is rewiring as they're doing that. So that back and forth is what can be really helpful.

[00:24:39.420] - Sheila

I just love that you talk about rewiring the brain and these simple little tricks because they're tricks that we can practice ourselves. And they're tricks that sometimes you can't even identify yourself, which, again, comes back to our benefit of getting support. I think about when I'm super analytical, or there's times where then it's like, I will actually pull out... If I just need to get my brain offline, I actually pull out the adult coloring books that I have and I just color because I'm like, I need to do something that's creative, something that's so different than where my brain is literally stuck in thinking mode, so to speak. And then I'm reminded of also when I feel really angry or frustrated, one of the things that I do is, and my kids know this about me, that's really funny is they'll actually tell me, Oh, because I'll start organizing something. Because the act of organizing actually, for me, brings structure back to my thought process instead of the emotion that I'm stuck in. And so if I'm organizing or cleaning a room now, my kids are like, Are you angry? Were you angry? I'm like, No, I'm not.

[00:25:55.600] - Sheila

But I could have been. And that is what I do to get myself out of frustration because it's the fastest way I found that shifts the energy because it literally is rewiring. I can sit and meditate and I can do release and forgiveness and all that. But the movement in the physical world brings the emotions back into balance for me.

[00:26:18.380] - Jill

Absolutely. Sometimes I'll even ask someone to, Can you define what is an emotion? What are these? Because sometimes people have fear around them as well based on certain experiences. Emotions are just energy. I think sometimes when people know that or understand that, it become like, oh, okay, well, everything's energy. Sometimes we just need help and like a nudge or whatever that support is to be able to say, okay, I'm dealing with something, but this is just energy that needs expressed through my body, whether I go out and run or I journal. Whatever we need in that moment is usually... But sometimes people need help figuring out what that is.

[00:27:12.640] - Sheila

Right. It's only after how many years now, 25 years of asking myself internal questions and curiosity that I can generally get myself out of one thought process or one emotional process. But that's come with a ton of practice. That originated, like I really, knowing our conversation was coming up today, thinking back, that's originated from that aspect of a therapeutic process that I engaged in for years to really deepen the inner knowing of my own experience of life.

[00:27:52.080] - Jill

Sure. Yeah. I was just thinking, too, as far as... Something as simple as a coping skill as journaling. It's a great coping skill. It helps us process our feelings. It can help us categorize things. It's what I refer to as like one pointed focus. When we're writing, it's like a very mindful activity. But this is something that years ago that shifted my practice. If I'm sitting there trying to give a teenager a coping skill and they're upset, they're not going to want to journal. Their brain is actually going to find it difficult to do that. That's where in my own experience, I was like, Yeah, that wouldn't even work for me. What am I missing here? It's finding these other skills that could be helpful to then eventually be able to journal. I think that sometimes people, if you can have that understanding, again, it brings just this, it normalizes the therapy experience of like, okay, well, that would be difficult if you were upset to sit down and Journal. Maybe you need to go release some energy before you're able to sit down and do this introspective work. That makes sense to me.

[00:29:08.990] - Sheila

Yeah, right. I love journaling, and that was another tool that I learned very on in the therapeutic process. It's still a tool I use frequently to process things, but it is hard to jump to that. That makes complete sense. There's probably some other steps to take in that process of being able to dive into saying, Oh, yeah, I'll just go journal and figure this out. It's not always that easy.

[00:29:41.730] - Jill

Yeah.

[00:29:43.970] - Sheila

Sure. one of the things, and maybe this is a topic where we bring ourselves back to the aspect of energy and wholeness and the spiritual geekiness of this podcast. You end your bio with a wholeness through the path of the heart. I would just love to hear how does heart fit into this? What was your intention with that?

[00:30:13.280] - Jill

When I was writing it, it just came through me. I was like, Wow, that's powerful. We have experiences, we have relationships, but it always comes back to the self. I think we have certain experiences where we learn to either keep people at bay or we don't want to get hurt. But our heart, if it's open and expansive, that's where true healing is. And sometimes we need just help working through to remember that. I was just thinking to it in terms of how my role as a clinician might help people. Sometimes it's like, can you quantify how someone's doing better? If they're doing something four out of seven days a week and it goes down to two out of seven, they're like, oh, hey, that got better. But sometimes it can be hard to pinpoint. And I will often reflect back, well, you're smiling more or your posture changed. So all of those things, something as simple as posture, if we aren't feeling well about ourselves or we're feeling shameful, we tend to hunch over and protect our heart. If we feel positive or healthy, what I refer to as healthy pride, we sit up straight, our heart is open.

[00:31:48.390] - Jill

Then how does that then impact how we interact with others in our relationships and the quality of just connecting with ourselves and others in our lives? It's just so important, I think. And sometimes we get disconnected from that. But I think the heart is way more healing than sometimes we realize.

[00:32:14.160] - Sheila

Well, and I love how you bring it back to a reflection of our relationship with our own heart. When we talk about connection, it is that aspect of is our heart open or not? We could probably do a whole episode on just relationships and connection. I probably shouldn't dive down that path right now, but it is a But that is this journey of wholeness as we do come back into our bodies and we are more at peace with our minds and we're more content in our heart. And why not have somebody help us discover that? It's like if that's not how we feel in life, then have that be a goal. It is possible and be open to being supported in that journey.

[00:33:22.030] - Jill

Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:33:25.220] - Sheila

So as we complete our conversation here, how can people get started working with you? How can they find you, discover you?

[00:33:38.920] - Jill

Sure. That's a good question. Based in San Diego, the best way to find me is probably my website, to be honest. I have a contact form on there if anyone is interested in getting in touch with me. My phone number is on there. And then I also have a tab for workshops. So if anyone is maybe not in California in the area, but they're interested in any of these topics, they can sign up for a mailing list on there as well.

[00:34:13.380] - Sheila

That's great. And so those workshops are online?

[00:34:20.180] - Jill

Yes. So Zoom options and in person options as well. And so they sign up there and I would send more information on what's becoming available. But it's a good avenue to get connected.

[00:34:35.970] - Sheila

Perfect. Well, thank you, Gill, for joining me today. It has been fun to explore these different aspects of our personal journey and how a therapeutic process can accelerate that personal journey, deep in it and enliven it. So thank you for this conversation.

[00:34:58.300] - Jill

Yeah, thank you for having me. This is super fun. I have a lot of gratitude for being here and being able to just share information that I think is just so valuable.

[00:35:08.500] - Sheila

Yeah, you're welcome. You've just listened to the Spiritual Geek podcast. Thank you for joining us. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to share a comment and a rating on your favorite podcast platform. If you were inspired, consider sharing with friends and family. Love and light to each of you and may your day be filled with joy and wisdom as you consciously create your life.