Today we’d like to introduce you to Jocelyn Brueggeman
Jocelyn, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I moved to California in 2020 to work as a travel ICU nurse, but my personal healing journey began several years before this. By 2020, I had spent several years working at the bedside as a nurse in traditional western medicine. Pretty quickly into my career, I felt at odds with a lot of what I was seeing being offered to manage people’s health concerns and began to crave a deeper, more transformative way of working with people. I noticed the treatments that were being offered to help people manage their symptoms were just that – temporary solutions to manage the issue – not to resolve it. I became disillusioned with the limiting idea that healthcare’s role is to help people manage symptoms and I started learning everything I could about root-cause medicine. One of the first “alternative” or holistic modalities I learned was called Healing Touch – it was founded by a nurse and is a system of gentle, subtle energetic rebalancing that fundamentally views a person as a whole – mind/body/spirit – interconnected network of constantly ebbing and flowing frequencies.
After that, I became certified as a yoga instructor and began to meditate regularly. One of the first times in my life I can remember feeling calm and clear-headed was a few weeks after I started a short 10 minute daily meditation practice. I would practice putting my thoughts on clouds and watch them float away, unattached and unbothered by them. For the first time in my life I felt relief and realized in that moment I had been letting my thoughts circle and loop over and over and over without questioning whether or not they were true, helpful, or accurate. I began to understand what monks call the Monkey Mind and learned that true healing is body-based (where the subconscious mind – our beliefs – live). The mind is running a million stories a minute, trying to constantly protect itself and feel some sense of safety through control. As someone who has experienced severe anxiety most of my life and debilitating depression at times, meditation was not only a game-changer for me, but a life-saver. Shortly after that, I began learning about Ayurveda and acupuncture and then went on to get further certified as a health coach and most recently a somatic breath work practitioner.
At the same time I was developing all of these professional skills in the realm of holistic health, I was and still am on my own personal healing journey, learning to utilize these tools and techniques that continue to transform my inner world, which I now understand creates my external world. One thing I’ve come to fundamentally understand is that, in order to truly heal, we all must become our own healer. We all must at some point decide to take full responsibility for the state of our health and wellbeing, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. Practically speaking, this looks like not relying on society, school, or even doctors to tell us what is right for us and our health. I believe there are many practices and tools available to help us “know thyself” as Socrates would say. Over the years, I have seen many people come into the hospital expecting the doctors to fix them and figure out what’s going on without them having to make any changes or learn anything about themself. They want a pill to make the symptom go away, but don’t demand to know what led to the symptoms in the first place. This is a greater issue with our fast-paced, I-want-it-now culture that’s dependent on productivity, but it has become toxic when superimposed on our approach toward our bodies and our health. The greatest gift we can give ourselves is intentional self-discovery and determined curiosity.
The way most people find themselves in the world of alternative health is because it’s a last resort, a last ditch effort, when western medicine has, undoubtedly, failed them. Medications simply mask dysfunction, they don’t resolve it. I believe the more self-agency we can embody by asking deeper questions and empowering ourselves to learn about proper nutrition, detoxification, and trauma healing, the better health and overall life we will have. I am not here to bash western medicine – it absolutely has it’s place and I am so grateful to be a nurse and even receive it’s care when I need to – but I feel it’s my moral duty to speak up for what I see is lacking and offer solutions to help people heal from their ailments and chronic conditions. That is what really inspires me and makes me get out of bed every day. It’s knowing how powerful each and every person on this planet is, especially when we get fully into the driver’s seat of our own experience and dare to know ourselves deeply.
One major aspect of healing I have realized over the years – and this is a crucial aspect – is learning how to let go of what we think we know to be open to receive new possibilities. Regardless of what may have occurred during childhood, as adults we all get the opportunity to develop new behavior patterns, new belief systems, and a deeper understanding of the ways our own bodies work. It is never too late to learn to love and forgive yourself. Several years ago, when I began practicing breath work, yoga, and Tai Qi/Qi Gong, I noticed these practices began to transform the relationship I had with myself, both my body, mind, and spirit. I began to speak more kindly to myself, practice more self-acceptance, and listen to the cues my body was telling me. Growing up, I didn’t always have a healthy model of what a positive relationship with oneself looked like, and so I sought practices and teachings that could not only help me find relief from suffering, but also support me in fulfilling my purpose as a healer.
I have had many mentors and positive influences on me and my journey toward truth. Two of the most influential people that have shaped and continue to guide my professional healing career are Hippocrates and Florence Nightingale. Hippocrates reminds us that natural forces within us are the healers of disease – I will speak to this more regarding the breath in a little bit. Florence brings me back to the remembrance of what truly heals and that it can be quite simple – sunlight, rest, and fresh air. Nowadays it’s so easy for things to feel very complex and complicated, especially with the digitization of everything, but I truly believe healing happens when we slow down, learn to listen to the needs of our bodies, heal from past traumas, and learn to unconditionally love and accept who we are, mistakes and all.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Much of my journey has been bittersweet, meaning the wisdom I have acquired has been from the struggles I have overcome, even from an early age. Like most humans, part of my life has been spent discovering that I must learn to appreciate the good with the bad and the bad with the good in order to have a healthy relationship with life. I have been actively participating in self-concept work for several years now. What that means to me is learning to accept myself, fully and unconditionally, practicing patience with myself and others, accepting imperfection as perfect, and learning to let go of control and perfectionistic expectations.
As humans, we are very brainwashable. This can be both a positive and negative attribute depending on what is being programmed into the subconscious. A huge part of my journey has been questioning what I’ve been told or taught and challenging my own thoughts and beliefs. We all have an ego that is here to protect us and keep us safe and alive. Oftentimes when we are younger, we are more egocentric as we are growing and establishing a sense of individual identity. Sometimes we will pick up some not-so-helpful (maladaptive) behaviors and coping mechanisms in order to be able to show up in the world in a way where we feel safe. Many times throughout my journey I have declared and recommitted to the belief that it is my number one responsibility to decide what kind of world I live in – do I live in a supportive Universe or one that is punishing. As Albert Einstein has said, “the most important decision we can ever make is to decide that we live in a benevolent Universe”.
In order to retrain and rewire my amazing, neuroplastic brain to be able to receive and hold all the goodness that is truly available and accessible to me (and every one else on this planet), I have acquired a nervous system toolbox so to speak that includes a variety of practices and techniques such as EFT (emotional freedom technique) tapping, breath work, mirror work, and self-massage/self-touch. As O Carl Simonton has so beautifully said, healing is simply attempting to do more of those things that bring joy and fewer of those things that bring pain. Indeed, one of my working definitions of healing is not necessarily a equivalent to a complete resolution of “problems” or symptoms, but an increased capacity, a resilience, to be able to hold the pain and at the same time still feel hopeful, supported, and some degree of inner peace. At the end of the day, I think we all want to feel proud of ourselves and comfortable in our own skin. The tools and techniques I’ve found over the years have allowed me to feel relaxed in my body where there used to be tension and fear, inner freedom where there used to be confusion and doubt, and acceptance where there used to be critique and judgment.
In the pursuit of happiness, we can realize that we have adopted and ingrained maladaptive behaviors from a very early age that can include self-sabotaging coping skills. These coping behaviors ultimately block us from experiencing more joy, happiness, health, wealth, peace, etc. Once the self-awareness develops that there is some outdated programming secretly running the show, then begins what is known as the Hero’s Journey – the journey of self-discovery where one’s character is developed a process of adventure, challenge, and overcoming. It’s a story about growth and passage, where the hero separates from their comfortable world (our childhood programming) and enters a new level of awareness, skill, and responsibility. The hero must successfully pass each stage of the journey to become a hero, and turning back at any point means rejecting the need to grow and mature. I resonate a lot with this idea, as I believe Earth is a classroom that allows humans, who have a unique ability to experience free will and consciously direct our energy higher or lower, to evolve so that we may experience soul-level growth which is eternal wisdom we carry with us.
Out of all the modalities I have included in my healing repertoire, one of my favorite practices is breath work. I believe the bridge between the body and consciousness is the breath. In all esoteric traditions, there is knowledge of the special meaning of the breath. Just as we breathe in oxygen for basic survival, we also inhale the universal life force which nourishes and cleanses our mind body and spirit. One of my passions as a nurse is re-educating people on the importance of learning how to use our body as the tool for transformation rather than something we are stuck with, that we don’t understand, or that we ignore because it feels scary or out of our control. True healing comes from learning to work with the body, slowing down enough to learn how to respond to it’s signaling, and creating a healthy relationship with oneself in which you feel safe and secure and breath work is an absolutely amazing tool anyone can use to achieve this.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Currently, I have a private mobile breath work practice, meaning I come to you. I offer unique 1:1 guided experiences that incorporate Reiki, therapeutic touch, and breath work coaching. These modalities when used together allow someone to enter altered (meditative) states and a higher level of consciousness. In these states, my clients are able to reconnect and recalibrate to parts of themselves that are often tucked away, hidden from conscious awareness. The healing that happens on this level is only possible through accessing the body-mind complex. I specialize in helping people open themselves up to more abundance (a felt sense of trust in one’s goodness and worthiness to receive), whether that is practicing receptivity to more love (from others or self), money, goodness, opportunities, peace, joy, clarity, etc.
I am proud to be a nurse who is bridging the gap between Eastern and Western medicine. I think both approaches have great components that are equally necessary and supportive, AND I believe the future of medicine is integrating the two in a synergistic, complementary way. I approach health and healing in a trauma-informed way, meaning that I deeply understand the experiences we have in life that leave an emotional blueprint or memory in our nervous system can, do, and will impact us and our thoughts, beliefs, and relationships until those emotional/energetic memories are processed and fully integrated through the body.
One thing that sets me apart as a nurse is my person-centered approach to healing. I believe that at the core of healing is a felt sense of connection, to oneself and also to others. I believe we need each other to heal, and we need a healthy self-concept to heal as well. My framework for working with others is lifestyle based, which includes mindset work, practicing detachment from unhelpful thoughts, patterns, and behaviors, and a willingness to see oneself in a renewed compassion-based way.
What does success mean to you?
Success, to me, means to accept and love oneself unconditionally. I do not believe success is defined by external achievements, but by an internal state of feeling comfortable and confident in your own skin. This is something that makes the journey of life much more enjoyable, fulfilling, and worth living. It is a very rewarding and personal experience of making peace with all of the things that get in the way and rob us of internal peace. You can have all the money in the world and still be miserable and feel like a failure. Alternatively, you can have “achieved” very little on the outside, but if you were to look at that person’s heart to find they feel at peace within themselves. To me, that is the real measure of growth and success. Do they speak kindly to themselves? Do they treat others and themselves with respect? Do they like who they are as a person? Thich Nhat Hanh once said that the longest journey you will ever take is the 18 inches from your head to your heart, advising us to live not from the mental space, from the heart space, which is wise and true.
As someone who has tended to operate mostly from my head (thoughts/ego), often that is accompanied with a great deal of anxiety and overthinking. One of my greatest opportunities as an adult has been to learn to direct my focus to my heart and feel with an open, forgiving, unassuming heart rather than with my mind, which is always trying to look for evidence that I’m right or that what I already believe is still true and happening. Ultimately, my measure of success is feeling secure in my own body and nervous system, which allows me to show up in a more bold and courageous way in the world where my heart is magnetizing to me all that is in alignment with my greatest good and the highest good for all.
Pricing:
- $125 for one 60 min breathwork session
- $300 for a pack of 3 60 min sessions
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/regulatetoheal/
