0:00:03 - (Megan Owen): This is pretty psych, the podcast where we discuss and deconstruct the impact of evangelical Christianity and cultural phenomena on the psyche, the deep and sometimes uncharted territory of the mind. We venture into raw, rough, and sometimes triggering moments, but we know that through this, what we will find will be pretty fascinating, amazing, and pretty intelligent. My name is Megan Owen. I'm a pastoral trauma counselor, and I have spent decades studying the science of human behavior.
0:00:43 - (Megan Owen): I draw parallels between therapy and connection to God, self, and others. I love what I do and I will walk hand in hand with you through the fire to help you find healing and rest. Most importantly, I want to bring you home to yourself. This is part two of a conversation with Jen Ferrante. In part one, we talked about understanding the subjective and objective truths and how they play a crucial role in rebuilding self trust, especially for trauma survivors.
0:01:30 - (Megan Owen): We also discussed how embracing our own internal integrity fosters personal empowerment and healing, offering a path out of victimization. In part two, we pick up where we left off when we talk about women's intuitive powers and historical role, rounding it off with balancing emotional strengths in relationships. Let's jump back in. Oh, and by the way, stay listening as there are a bunch of giveaways in this episode.
0:02:05 - (Megan Owen): It's interesting that you say that, that at first it feels good to have somebody have control because you don't trust yourself. And there's an assumption that everybody out there, everybody else knows what to do. Yeah, they all know it's me. I'm the problem. And then we have. We do have a perpetuation by the church or evangelical ish churches that we are not supposed to have any control as women, that that is not our role. And so I can see how easily we slip into that, right?
0:02:39 - (Megan Owen): We are trained to not have control over ourselves.
0:02:43 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And it's so interesting because historically, women were the oracles. I mean, if we go back even further, the gift that we can tease out from the feminine is this intuitive sensing that comes from heightened sensory input and compassionate emotional connection. And anytime we remove that from the framework of what is the existing government, church organization, family structure, now we have an unbalanced model, and it's impossible to create really healthy, vibrant relationships that are unbalanced in that way.
0:03:22 - (Megan Owen): It's so true. I'm actually just thinking of a friend of mine who said that anytime she felt emotion, she would stuff it down because she would be called too emotional. So all of these beautiful feminine tools that she has, she was told they are bad because emotions are bad. But how do you connect to anybody without emotions. And isn't that the stuff of life? Right.
0:03:51 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And that's where, again, when subjective experience is honored, we can understand, too, that the opposite flip side of that is we can look at somebody whose emotions maybe don't do this quite as much and are more like this and also be able to see that.
0:04:08 - (Megan Owen): So for our listeners, she was kind of doing a little rollercoaster hand motion. And then like an even Steven hand motion.
0:04:17 - (Jennifer Ferrante): There's value in both. And I think that's why we have these beautiful, balanced relationships as examples. The things that I love to use with my clients is a system like a yin and yang spectrum of repressed nature versus active nature. Because we all experience emotions, and we experience them in a repressed way or in an active, expressed way. And one is not better than the other. We just have to come with understanding into our relationships.
0:04:49 - (Jennifer Ferrante): We need to understand our patterns, how we show up in relationship. And when we can value the other person for what they're bringing forward and where they sit on that spectrum, then we can really lean into the gifts there. And that's one of the things that I've gotten to explore through the relationship that I'm in right now. Because my husband is very even keel. He doesn't experience those big swells that I do of emotion, but he notices all the details that I don't. So he's very tapped into the tactile world. What needs to be done, what needs to be taken care of.
0:05:27 - (Jennifer Ferrante): He notices things on cabinets that I haven't seen for 15 years, you know? And I appreciate that about him. And he can really ground a room in energy myself. I'm tapped into all the people in this space. So I may be not noticing the dust on things or, you know, something out of place, but I'm really tapped into the pulse or the feelings of the people in the space that I walk into, which also makes certain situations very overwhelming to me.
0:05:56 - (Jennifer Ferrante): He can walk into a crowded room or a restaurant or a fair and not feel these swells of emotions that I feel when I'm around other emotional people. So again, when we play into our strengths and understand that about each other, then we can act from a place of compassion, because we know that the strength that I bring is I'm able to tell him when I'm noticing emotions running in other people that he's not picking up on the or noticing.
0:06:25 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And so he'll come to me and ask for the pulse on the kids or things like that. Because there are things he doesn't necessarily notice or pick up on so valuing.
0:06:37 - (Megan Owen): Of you and of your strength. That's beautiful. I love that. Could we, since we're talking about big emotions and feeling overwhelmed sometimes by our emotions, could we just sort of right now, break the stigma of autistic people being unfeeling?
0:06:58 - (Jennifer Ferrante): Absolutely. Because nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, one of the things that autistic people deal with is not the lack of feeling of emotion, but becoming so overwhelmed by it that they don't know how to label it, explain it, or communicate it. And so often that leads to what somebody would call a meltdown because there's this overwhelming emotion that is running. And sometimes it's not even internal. Sometimes it is picking up the emotion of the space.
0:07:29 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And instead of knowing how to label it, communicate it, and move it, it sits in the body and it becomes extremely uncomfortable. And so if we don't have ways to move that sensation out, to come back to a place of comfort and feeling more comfortable inside of ourself, it will look like a meltdown. It could look like a breakdown. It could look like someone acting out. But nothing could be further from the truth that there is no emotion running depending on the presentation, because there's very big difference between male presentation of autism and female presentation of autism.
0:08:08 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And even within those two, there's whole spectrum. So we really can't even generalize and classify those as two extremes. But people experience autism very differently. And even the most feeling very well communicative person can break down and lose that ability to communicate. When overwhelmed with emotions, I lose every word in my mind when my emotions are high. And so somebody could listen to me do a podcast or write a book or something and think I can articulate myself well, and I'm in touch with emotions and I can label them unless I'm in them.
0:08:47 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And when I'm in them, I lose that tool, I lose that skill. And so I really have to come back to center before I can explain what happened in that moment.
0:08:58 - (Megan Owen): Yes, I can so relate. So is this related to the freeze response, or is this something completely different? Because I know that when I have been overwhelmed by emotions, I feel frozen and stuck. I can't articulate. I feel like I've gone into sort of a collapse. Is it similar or is it something different?
0:09:20 - (Jennifer Ferrante): I think it's layered. I think that's a response that is born out of a lot of different imprinting that's happened over the years, particularly. And this is one that I find a lot with clients who have dealt with abuse. There is a huge fear around anger because they've seen anger be used really poorly. So when they start to feel anything build inside themselves that may feel even sort of like anger, a big, overwhelming emotion, there is fear there, and that is shut down.
0:09:52 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And I have learned that when I can let myself move through that feeling faster, I recover faster. So for me, that means letting myself cry and move. And I do that removed from, you know, like, if I'm feeling that way and I'm around my kids, I may go up to my room to do that, come back to center, and then be able to express how I'm feeling. And then really, there is no fear around expressing whatever it is I'm feeling because I'm in a safe space to do it.
0:10:23 - (Megan Owen): Beautiful. So I'd like to go back. I wrote down the word fully feminine. Words fully feminine. You were discussing women. Having been the oracle. Now, I think I know what that means, but can you help me to understand better what you're talking about there?
0:10:40 - (Jennifer Ferrante): Sure. So, historically, the gender polarity has shifted, where in certain cultures, the women were really celebrated for the gifts that they brought in the community. We have the archetype of the medicine woman. We have the archetype of the oracle of Delphi. We have these beautiful examples of feminine wisdom. And even in the christian tradition, we have the women that went to the tomb afterwards, very insightful, touched in and connected to the heart of the message versus just the rules and regulations. Right? They got the heart and they got it fast, and they were the people sitting at Jesus feet and listening.
0:11:29 - (Jennifer Ferrante): So we see that through all of these really beautiful feminine archetypes, and in all of mythology and stories of ancient women who were celebrated and revered, we see this underlying golden thread of an intuitive nature, a highly compassionate and connective and nurturing, and at the same time, very powerful, very powerful internal compass. And so often women were seen as the judges. I mean, we have lady liberty, right? And we live in America. We have lady liberty as our symbol, because women are beautiful judges, and we should never question our discernment that is built in.
0:12:18 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And usually we come into the world knowing that that is inherent. It is only when we are questioned in that inherent knowing that we start to think, because of our relational nature, we don't want to break disconnection with the people we love. And so we change.
0:12:36 - (Megan Owen): Oh, I love that. I do so much. And spiritually, if we're going to look at the Bible, a lot of times what's used against women is, well, Eve ate the apple. And if you have been part of source, you'll hear my friend El niece talk about being tricked by somebody, that she was tricked. I think God may even be bigger than that in that. That was probably plan a. It doesn't really fit with my understanding of who God is. To think that he had this beautiful plan and then Eve messed it up. You know, she's not that. She wasn't that powerful.
0:13:19 - (Jennifer Ferrante): So I read Genesis so differently now, and it's my favorite book in the entire Bible, because from a scientific perspective, and I love both. I love story and I love science. And when you can overlap and combine the two, my heart is just super happy. And so I look at Genesis and I this study, because I studied botany, I see this taxonomy of things being divided, in contrast being built so that we can tangibly experience the world.
0:13:52 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And the way that I see the fall is so different than the way that I grew up learning it, because we have this tree of knowledge of good and evil. Here's our dualistic polarity, right? We have a tree of good and evil, two ends of a spectrum. And when we take that fruit and we believe that fruit, that it is this or this, that is where separation comes, because it is never this or this. It is both. And.
0:14:22 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And we see that through every truth that exists in this paradigm, in this world that we live in. We live in a dualistic world, and we have to hold both polarities and say it is both. And. And we do this with the kingdom of God because it is not here and here, and the kingdom is within. And so I'm not staunch on, like, I know that this is symbolic, but I do believe this is symbolic story. And so in that beautiful imagery of Eve taking fruit from a tree, that is contrast.
0:15:05 - (Jennifer Ferrante): She is imbibing the seed of believing it is this or this. And when she did that, then she had a very hard time understanding that God is within and that we are here in a body, but we are not separate. And that is where separateness was born from that seed. And so that's where I feel like humanity. That is our journey. So just like you said, plan a, this is our journey to coming back home. Had we not gone on this journey of understanding that, we have to integrate both and walk this middle balance line, which so many of the cultures and stories hint to, you know, holding that balance line that is not one extreme or the other.
0:15:55 - (Jennifer Ferrante): When we can reintegrate that and understand that we are never separate from God, even when we feel separate from God, then we heal and we go back to the garden.
0:16:05 - (Megan Owen): You are remarkable. The way you just put that into words, Jen, is like nothing I've ever heard. You managed to with a little bit of the frustration of somebody who's a non dualist, because we're trying to describe different. Different dimensions. We're trying to bring in the mystical and the physical, and there's so much to it. But you did it well, even with.
0:16:33 - (Jennifer Ferrante): The mystical perspective, I think they both go hand in hand because we take something, even if we think of, like big bang or whatever we want to think of. And it all works in this framework because you start here, you expand out and then you go back in. And that is the pattern that we see in music. With resolution, we get to this disillusion and then we bring it back to resolution. And this is the process, this is the journey. We start in the garden and we end in the garden, and we go from togetherness and connectedness to separateness and then right back again.
0:17:07 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And without that journey, we can't sit in that.
0:17:11 - (Megan Owen): Yes, it is all about that. That is everything. What you just said, that connection, that shalom. I think that's what the book of Galatians is about. Let's move past the rules and regulations. You don't need to do that. That's childish, actually. And we can move into that world of non dualism and find tremendous relief. And that does, by the way, include being able to say there is subjective truth. There is.
0:17:42 - (Megan Owen): Now, there are some things that are rock solid truths. Also, God is big enough to give all of us our own subjective truths because we're so different. He does not demand that we fit our square pegs into round holes.
0:17:59 - (Jennifer Ferrante): He just doesn't.
0:17:59 - (Megan Owen): That's not who he is. It's not how he acts when he walked this earth. That's not what we see. So, Jennifer, can you sort of give us a description or like, a blueprint of what a session with you might look like?
0:18:14 - (Jennifer Ferrante): Sure. So it depends, too, what modality someone's interested in and what path they're wanting to walk on. But a traditional, just a general session would be. An intake is usually 90 minutes because the first one is the longest. I need to get the backstory, what's running. I want to really listen, listen for patterns, listen for things that are playing out over and over again, and I want to see where they want to go and where they want to get to.
0:18:41 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And then we start looking at where's the disconnect between where they want to be and where they are right now. And then we built a plan. And so usually after the first initial intake session, I work with people weekly. There's usually 60 minutes sessions, but again, I vary this for clients. If maybe they can only come bi weekly, I give them homework. So there's ways to adapt this to whatever someone is needing. But then we also wanted to make it really accessible and built the online course because the online course can walk someone through it and then they have it for life so they can apply it to every situation that comes up.
0:19:21 - (Jennifer Ferrante): So I realize I'm not going with like traditional marketing of pick a niche because this is a process that you can work through with anything, with anything. If you are working through relationship patterns, you can apply this course and this process to that. If you are working through trauma from your childhood, you can apply this course and it will work for that. If you want to break an addiction or a habit, you can try this course and it will work for that. The same. If you're just really a goal setter, we call it reach my zenith for a reason. Because if you are setting goals and you want to vision out your future and you want a really amazing ten year, 20 year vision, this course will do that.
0:20:03 - (Jennifer Ferrante): And the personal coaching work does that as well. And so I would say if you are a person who really wants that co creative container where you want feedback, then personal coaching is the way to go. That's the path to go. But if you are a self studier and you are a person who wants to read everything you can get your hands on and do it yourself, there's that path too.
0:20:28 - (Megan Owen): Wonderful. This is so exciting. Obviously, Jennifer is incredibly brilliant, very intuitive. It sounds like a great, great course to take. Now you are offering something special for Mountain City, aren't you?
0:20:43 - (Jennifer Ferrante): Yes. I am so excited to be able to donate this. In fact, this is. It is the fulfillment of one of the things I wrote down as a ten year plan about seven years ago. Because they said, I want to get to a place where the work that I am donating, contributing is for this exact audience. So when you told me about this, I said I was an absolute yes, because this is what I want to be doing and where I want to be opening up opportunities for somebody who might not be able to do this work otherwise.
0:21:16 - (Jennifer Ferrante): So we are donating a free coaching session for one listener. Whoever the winner of the giveaway is will get one free session and everyone. Because I want to make it accessible for everyone. We have a 50% off promo code, so half price.
0:21:34 - (Megan Owen): That is amazing and so generous. Oh my goodness. I love it. I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jennifer. All right, you guys, Jen Ferrante wants to champion you and she desires for you to reach your zenith. She is giving out a 50% discount to any of her zenith plans for you just because you did a little something. So here's what we need. All you have to do is to head on over to Apple podcasts, then rate and review the pretty psych podcast.
0:22:11 - (Megan Owen): Tell us what you love about the pod, take a screenshot of that review and then message me on Facebook. Mountain City Christian counseling along with the word zenith. Make sure you send the screenshot along with the word zenith and then we will send you a link to Jennifer's plans along with the 50% discount code. But that is not all. For the entire month of November, anyone who rates and reviews the pretty psych podcast will be in the running to win a free guided coaching session with Jen valued at $555.
0:22:53 - (Megan Owen): All right, hurry up. This promotion ends the 31 December. Oh my goodness. So happy to have you on pretty psych. You have been just an insightful, remarkable guest. I've learned so much from you today.
0:23:08 - (Jennifer Ferrante): I do want to shout out or promote. I guess we have a podcast as well that if listeners like our conversation and want more. My podcast is the Yogi and the hypnotist. My husband is a yogi and I'm a hypnotist. So we have very different perspectives and we talk about these big questions and how we see them from different perspectives and we would love to have you on as well, Megan.
0:23:30 - (Megan Owen): So oh, I would be so honored to do that. And anybody who's in source will or in the platinum plan or the plus plan will be joining us soon, right? In a couple weeks for a lot. Yes, our live and Jennifer's going to be our guest for the Q and A.
0:23:46 - (Jennifer Ferrante): We will go into tools there. I'm going to come with the tools.
0:23:49 - (Megan Owen): Oh, so exciting. So wonderful. And we will have Jennifer on our podcast again. So all right, thank you, Jennifer. Thank you.
0:23:57 - (Jennifer Ferrante): Have a great day.
0:24:06 - (Megan Owen): I hope this conversation has encouraged deep thought as well as helped you draw Paralympics between therapy and your connection to God, self and others. If you'd like some one on one time with me unpacking some of your most precious life stories to find healing and rest, contact me on mountaincitychristiancounseling.com. to help this podcast reach more people, do subscribe and review this podcast and share it with someone who would benefit from healing and rest.
0:24:42 - (Megan Owen): My name is Megan Owen and thank you for listening to this episode of Pretty Psych. Catch you next episode. And in the meantime, do find healing and do find rest.
