I’m older than she was when she died. And then it kind of just sort of dawned on me like, yeah, I guess this was always going to be the path is trying to help people out of pain so that they don’t become dependent on prescription drugs so that they feel have a little bit more control in their life. As far as managing their pain, showing people that there is a way out of pain, they don’t have to live in pain, and all those kinds of things. So, on the surface was like, Yeah, I had my own stuff going on as a teenager. And but the deeper root of it, I think was just this was going to be my path no matter what.

 

Manon Bolliger 03:37

Interesting how it’s kind of like it’s a rewrite, but it’s not a rewrite. Really, it’s an in depth. It’s like going to the root cause.

 

Jenna Howe 03:47

Yeah, exactly, which is what I do. That’s my goal is always to find the root cause of what’s going on with somebody. And in, I can be a little obsessive with education. So even just listening to mention all the certifications and so on. And then there goes on deeper than that, right? Because I’m always taking a course I’m always looking ahead. I’m always Oh, that really that’s really cool. And what I realized is that, from the very beginning, I you know, doing something that I really love, really enjoy, and then I start to identify, well, wait a minute, there’s something else that this particular thing isn’t quite addressing, what can that be? And then I just sort of think about it. And then usually within a few months, all of a sudden information comes to me with through whatever path other professions and stuff like that. And I’m like, oh, that’s the thing. And so, then I grab up all that education and work with that and then build another level. And then again, I see another, you know, a little bit of a gap of like, oh, that I wish I could just do this and then all of a sudden, another training comes in and it always comes in at the right time, when I’m looking for a way to amplify the results I have on my clients, and then all of a sudden, I’m being presented with information. So, I’ll be doing this forever.

 

Manon Bolliger 05:15

It is like that, right? And even every therapy evolves tremendously. If you stay very connected to, to exactly that, like I’m an endless learner as well, because it’s just like, what else? What else? You know, so, I mean, I’m thinking 19, it was 19 years ago, but you took Bowen therapy, right?

 

Jenna Howe 05:39

Yep. I probably finished my advanced class or just finished my, my module six in, in this month. So, December? Yeah. 19 years ago. Yeah. So, this would be like, probably my 19th anniversary. Funny enough. Of being Bowen therapist. Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 06:05

Interesting. So well, why don’t you tell us a little bit? Yeah. And I get that once you look, you’re putting it out there in the universe, it shows up, right. And that is actually how our brain works. That is how it does work. Right. So once you identify, you don’t even have to know what the gap is exactly. You just need to know that. There’s more. One point I called my clinic for people who know there’s more. Yeah, the tagline is like, how can I identify what it is that we’re really dealing with? So, it is kind of like that in that search? So how did you find? Yeah, what attracted you to Bowen therapy? And yeah, how are you still using it? How what’s going on with that world? Since that’s one where we connect?

 

Jenna Howe 07:02

Yeah. So, the way I work, when I when something comes to me is I just, I hear it, I say, yes, I do it. So, what had happened is that I had gone to college with one of my, like, one of my closest friends I met in college, Denise Cameron, and she went on after we graduated from the Fitness and Lifestyle program, she went on to become an RMT. We both have children in and around the same age. So, we just were just sort of having this, like, crunched in conversation between kids in the background. And she was telling me that she was taking this really amazing course. And she wants to tell me about it. And at the time, I felt like I had sort of, oh, what would be the word I kind of settled for the fitness, lifestyle management. So, at that time, at that age, I didn’t really push for the things I really wanted. I settled for what I thought I could do. And so, working with, you know, athletes and new moms, I was doing fitness programming, nutrition programming, exercise rehabilitation, but people still had chronic injuries that I wanted to help work with. And then so when Denise was telling me about Bowen, I had no idea what she was even talking about. I said, that’s the thing. That’s what I’m going to do. I was like nine months pregnant. When I sign up for the class. Clicked, send. There’s my money. And then the course didn’t even start till June. So, I was headed hadn’t even had my kid yet. So, I was like, sweet, that sounds like this is the thing. And Denise was like, well, maybe I should come and give you a treatment before you take the class so that you actually know what it is that you’re going to be doing. Sort of Oh yeah, that might be a good idea. But I was I just knew I heard it. And I knew it. And I went for it. And honestly, it’s the basis. I mean, I might see anywhere between 20 and 25 patients a week. And a large majority of them are Bowen based, some of them are just strict Bowen, I’ve got two sessions this afternoon, actually, that are just strict Bowen. And everything else is a combination. But Bowen has been the foundation of, of my entire healing career. And so, I always come back to that even if it’s, you know, outside of the traditional teachings, I’m still infusing it with whatever I need, at whatever time I need. It’s, it’s always there.

 

Manon Bolliger 09:38

Well, I yeah, when you say the traditional teaching, so I have evolved as well. Because at the time, you know, it was done a certain way. It was mostly a physical therapy. It was a technique rather than actually honoring that it’s actually an art that has very much to do with also the connection between the client and the practitioner. And so now at Bowen College, we really stimulate the creative ability, you need to know the baseline. But we have to think out of the box, we need to use all of the skills, whether it’s, you know, Chinese medicine, knowledge of Meridian knowledge of fascia, knowledge of even, even the understanding of healing, which was really taboo. At the time when I was teaching, I wasn’t really able to teach what I knew. And yeah, it has evolved as well. So, it’s, it’s interesting. Yeah, looks like some of the courses you’ve taken are like, yes, like, it all makes sense you know.

 

Jenna Howe 10:49

So, it all just pulls in together. And it’s and it’s very interesting, because it because I have another friend who has who has stuck with a very traditional, very traditional approach and teaching. And so usually when someone comes to see me, but it’s hard to go in more in depth, because I know the listeners might not understand completely what it is that I’m that I’m talking about. But you know, whenever this friend and I get together, we’ll do a trade, but our application of the same thing is actually quite different. And it’s an I find it fascinating. And I just when I’ve got people come in who, who’ve had previous experience, I just explained to them like how it is that I’m that I’m different my approach. And then I really welcome dialogue with my client base and to say, you know, this is the type of pressure that I use, but this changes based on the individual that’s in front of me. Right? So, it kind of it just varies and then yeah, it’s just been, it’s at the end of the day, you just you just have to love Bowen.

 

Manon Bolliger 12:02

So, one thing to be you’ve been treating a lot of concussion, because I’ve been reading things that you’ve written about it and, you know, and following up here and there through the grapevine, which is quite short. So, tell us maybe what, what, yeah, what you’ve seen, or what’s possible for concussion, people that are suffering with concussions.

 

Jenna Howe 12:27

So, I started using Bowen for concussions in 2003. And so, at that time, you know, concussions were still when there was from a media perspective, it was like, oh, this is a thing now, like it was just emerging in terms of a topic of conversation, but not a huge topic of conversation. And, you know, on how I came to and again, some of the things that I come across, it just is random. So, I was looking for sports, mentorship with Bowen, Bowen in Sports Therapy, I was teaching at the college I had athletes and anyway, just made sense. And I met up with Craig Matimo, over the phone, and we can fast friends long, lifelong friends. So, he kept going on about this concussion thing. And at the time, I was like, man, whatever. Like it didn’t really resonate. Well. One of my students, so I was an instructor at the college, local college. And one of my students hired me as a personal trainer after she had graduated. And then she had called me up and said, I can’t come I was concussed. I was like, oh, I said, well, you know what, I do this therapy that’s supposed to be really amazing for concussions. Why don’t you just stop by the house? And I’ll just, I’ll just do whatever I’ll just do. You know, I think I did have the protocol. I mean, it was an honest, and it was amazing. I couldn’t even believe it, because she said three hours later. So, at the time they graded concussion, so it’s considered a grade two concussion, headaches, dizziness, nausea, hard to drive, couldn’t exercise, you know, all the things. And she said, within three hours of leaving my house, every symptom was gone. And so, then I called my friend back is like, so concussion thing. It’s a thing. So, I’ve been telling you. So that was my start down this road. But at that time, nobody was treating concussions. Like it was it. He worked really on acute young athletes. That was his thing. And what I found is that I was starting to get chronic people. So, I was using the protocol, the concussion recovery protocol. I’m using Bowen but having to apply it to chronic situations and figuring out the nuances with these chronic situations and differences between men and women or older people younger people, car accident versus sports injury. And a lot of it was a lot of self-education. And that’s kind of how I ended up grabbing up all of these other programs and certifications along the way, is because, you know, the concussion has, there’s a lot of layers to that, depending on the type of person that you’re working with. So in over time, I kind of predicted, probably not publicly, but just, you know, just sort of in my head, that there’s going to be these waves, there’s going to be the recognition of concussion, then there’s going to be the whole, like, management of it, and then it’s going to dip down, and then it’s going to come into treatment. And so now we’re in the treatment phase. It’s still very much management from a very clinical perspective. But I’m just I just keep riding my little wave, I just do what I do. And people find me anyway. And, and so it’s just been really interesting over the span of like, 18 years, watching, you know, sort of this wave and how it’s coming more to the forefront. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun working with concussion, people as well.

 

Manon Bolliger 16:15

Well, because often, I mean, it wasn’t my main thing in my practice, but certainly people showed up with concussions. Yeah. So, I’ve got to figure this out. And, you know, and like you said, it varies a lot on so many different factors.

 

Jenna Howe 16:36

Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 16:37

What I’ve found, too, is that there’s a sense of hopelessness, that, you know, there won’t, the brain won’t repair, and they’ll have to sort of take things and deal with reality, you know, the way it is now. And it’s like, wow, this, this can’t be true. So even though I did not know, when I started, when my first patient came, I was like, okay, time to go deep on this one. But, you know, I seen that everything else was not true, that it’s not true, you’re stuck with chronic diseases, it’s not true that things are incurable. Then it’s like, Oh, okay. Okay, so, so let’s, let’s do this, you know, and I’ve been amazed as well.

 

Jenna Howe 17:28

It’s really fantastic. And, in the unfortunate thing is that, by the time people come to see me, they’ve been suffering for quite a while. And they’ve been told by specialists and so on, that while this is just the way it is, it’s never going to change, you’re just going to have to deal with it. And that doesn’t help anybody. And I’ve always been the type of person who, I believe there’s a solution to every problem. I may not have the solution personally, but there’s going to be a solution somewhere, somewhere, there’s going to be a way to deal with whatever is going on. And so oftentimes, when I start working with people, and I, and I’m a huge educator, so I educate people on, here’s why I’m assessing these particular things, here’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. Here’s why I’m using this therapy, at this point in time, and how this is going to be affecting the body and then what to expect. And then people feel a little bit more empowered, because now they have a better understanding of what’s actually happening. No one’s actually told them, what’s really going on with their visual system with their neck, with their jaw, whatever it might be. And so then, and then I give them maybe very unique and specific to them. precursors prescriptive exercise, so that again, they’ve got something that they can do at home that genuinely feels like it’s going to be helping them

 

Manon Bolliger 18:59

And then thing to the fact that they’re getting involved also refocuses their attention to that they are empowered beings, they can they have something to do with the outcome. Exactly like the victims receiving.

 

Jenna Howe 19:19

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely, you know, a back and forth, right. It’s a partnership, yes, between the therapist and the patient client. And, you know, and I explained this to my clients as well, like, you know, you can choose not to do your homework, you can choose not to do all these other things. But when you do them, and you come back and you give me feedback, and that makes me a better practitioner for you because then I’m not like, knocking on the same door with the same result. I need the feedback so that I can then adjust whatever it is I need to adjust in order to be the best therapist for you. And so, when I explain it to them like that, they tend to have everybody be little bit more motivated to do their half.

 

Manon Bolliger 20:19

Yeah. Makes total sense. So, what else can we talk about? There are so many things. Yeah. Well, you know, I think it also helps people to have a real story. I’m a real person, no names, obviously, you know, but what’s, what’s something that surprised you? In your practice? And it doesn’t matter what, therapy combinations? It’s not really about that. But what’s the human potential? What did you see that you couldn’t believe? You know, I don’t know myself. I’m always amazed. I just always going, oh, my gosh, and I’m, you know, yeah, hug your patients, but I would

 

Jenna Howe 21:04

Oh, my patients hug me all the time.

 

Commercial Break 21:10

Hi, I’m Dr. Manon Bolliger. And I wanted to take a moment to thank you for watching these podcasts. If you haven’t subscribed, please do. Also, feel free to leave comments and like it. This way more people get to find out about this work and about other choices for health. So, I think it’s really important that we all share this information, I have a free gift to you. It’s a seven sequence email that has tips for every day, and a little insight about how to live your life when it comes to health. And it’s very much built on how I managed to overcome stage four cancer and what it took. So, I, I would love you to have this. And thank you once again, for listening to these podcasts.

 

Jenna Howe 22:13

No, COVID. I get hugs. I think you know, it’s hard to isolate because it happens so frequently. And I’m because I I’m always invested. I’m like a detective. And so, the feedback I get from my clients is that they can feel that I genuinely love what I do. Like I genuinely love what I do. And for example, if I’m doing a neuro kinetic assessment, and I find something really cool. I like it. I can be a bit hyper I talk a lot in my class and like in my sessions and whatever, when it’s appropriate. But I’ll get giddy like, I’ll jump up and yay. We’re like, Oh, that’s so cool. I’ve been doing this for years. And it’s still so cool. how the body responds when, when you do certain things. And it’s and I can’t help it. I’ve tried not to, and I just can’t help it. It’s like, you know, whatever. That’s just who I am. As a therapist, I get super excited. But I will say this one, the one thing that that sticks out, and it was fairly recent. Somebody who had been having this chronic pain, I don’t think, oh, this was really cool. Actually, this was super cool. This is the importance of taking a really thorough history and really leaning into what they’re saying and really working on timelines of injuries, surgeries, whatever it might be. Or all this crazy chronic pain, no car accident, no nothing but it ended her career. She couldn’t get resolution for years of chronic pain not being able to work, bouncing from thing to thing. The first thing we did is I actually ended up doing some scar tissue release on an old hysterectomies scar, because she had said, I don’t understand it. She’s like, but within 30 days of that surgery, all my pain happened. I just woke up one day and all my pain was there. I’m like, that is really important information. She’s like, people told me I was nuts. They gave me antidepressants. They sent me to a psychiatrist. And I was like, no, I mean, anatomically, everything is connected. Right? You just have to look at the Anatomy Trains anatomy coloring book, I still have mine from 25 years ago. It’s all it’s all connected somehow. So, we actually did scar tissue release and that was the first major…she was like came back and was like what just happened, and then we started working on getting some, some muscles firing in the appropriate way. And then I actually then the right time was to do, I added shockwave to the mix and done in a very particular way. So that it reduces discomfort, but gets results because people get scared off of Shockwave. And honestly, when she came in, I almost cried. When she came in just said, I can’t believe it. She’s like, I had no pain for two days. I haven’t had that in four years. And it was just…So, what I learned from that is just the connection you have with your client to really have good dialogue. And to really and to be genuinely invested in solving their problem is the one thing that I just hold on to that each person comes in with their own history, their own whatever, they’re not just another person that’s walking through the clinic, and you just up, there’s the chart, there’s the chart, there’s the chart, each person I’m genuinely invested in helping them solve their problem. And, and I just continue that even on the hard days, even if I have my own pain on that day, or I didn’t sleep. It’s just I keep getting invested in that person at that moment. Yeah, I felt like a ramble. But I think that answered the question,

 

Manon Bolliger 26:31

An inquiry, right? It’s like, it’s not you, you have solutions, but you don’t know which ones you’re going to pull until you really identify what is the basis what’s the what’s going on. And sometimes, I’m sure you’ve seen this, that it’s sometimes it’s also emotional, which then has a physical manifestation, but the opportunity to allow for that to surface it you’re chasing, it isn’t fully released, you know, and I think all kinds of trauma, it’s like that, you know, as well, if we don’t work with the autonomic nervous system, if we don’t deal with the shock of an event, nothing else is gonna happen. Nothing’s gonna, exactly, that’s why, you know, I don’t want to put down therapies. But there’s many therapies that don’t focus on that at all. And so, people are in that, you know, for two years, and they’re getting, you know, 10 20% improvement or whatever. But, yeah, they come and see that person like yourself, and, and it’s like, it’s, it’s solved, because you have to talk to the whole body.

 

Jenna Howe 27:47

Yeah. And when people ask me, like, so sometimes when, when, you know, I’m working with somebody, and we’re really sourcing out what’s really going on? And they’ll say, well, why didn’t anyone else tell me this? Like, like, why didn’t the whoever it might be, why didn’t they tell me this? Why didn’t they explain it to me, I’m like, I can’t, I can’t speak for other people? I just know that this is how I work. And I’m just always a detective. And so, and I get obsessive about it. And that’s just the way I am. And I said that there’s a time and a place for everything. And so right now, this is the right time for this particular approach. And maybe down the road, if there’s something else that’s going on, then the other thing, because oftentimes people will work with me temporarily, and it makes things better, and they go back to their regular person that ends up working a little bit better. Sometimes they’ll come back to me six months, a year later, like it’s really interesting. And I had to over time, especially as I got older, is just sort of take myself out of the mix, and just say this is what I have to offer at this time. And it may not be the right thing. At this time, maybe down the road. The other thing, so again, when people say Oh, should I sorry, I quit doing this thing. I said, you know, it’s not for me to decide, you have to check in to see what your body feels. And I often I find myself saying to people, you know your body better than anybody else, you’re living in your body. So, I can say, here’s my assessment, here’s what I’m feeling, here’s whatever. But it’s your body. So, you might walk out of here and go, well, that was nice, but I’m not so sure. Well, you have to honor that. Like, like, you can’t say, Well, I’m sorry. But um, no, there’s no personal. Like, I can’t take it personally as a therapist. And I just remind people, if this is how you’re feeling, then you have to honor that. That’s how you feeling when people say I really think it’s like this spot right here and I’m like, then it probably is. Let’s look at it. Let’s figure it out, let’s assess it and see, and almost 100% of the time, I can validate why they’re feeling what they’re feeling. And then they’re like, oh, see, I knew it was that, like, of course you did it’s your body.

 

Manon Bolliger 30:14

I think you’ve hit on a fundamental thing that I mean, now we’re, we’re clearly letting every practitioner understand the depth of that. And there’s much more research to back now and all of that, but it’s so fundamental. Whereas the old model is still, the doctor knows better, or the therapist knows better. And it’s the biggest disconnect. We know better than the person receiving it, not necessarily exactly how to fix it. That’s why there’s a team.

 

Jenna Howe 30:50

Yes, exactly.

 

Manon Bolliger 30:51

Know that. This is what’s going on. Right? And it’s just, and it is, you know, it’s funny, you use the word detective, that’s what I want to be when I grew up a detective.

 

Jenna Howe 31:07

Yeah, yeah, it’s, um, I mean, it’s really, it’s really fun. And lately, I’ve been really, I, it’s hard to explain, but I just, you know, over time, people are like, oh, you should do this. And you should do this. And you should write this, and you should create this. And, and I can be a little ADD, and like, oh, I want to do this flashy thing. And finally, I find just said, Wait a second. Like, genuinely, I actually just genuinely love doing what I’m doing, you know, six or seven hours out of the day, having wonderful, cool conversations with clients. And maybe not every client loves how chatty I am. But I have learned so much from my clients, just as a person, as a therapist, as a mom, they’re just people are just coming together to solve a problem. And so, I finally just kind of sank into that, and like, I don’t have to do this thing over here, I don’t have to do that thing, I don’t actually have to do anything else, other than what I’m actually doing right now. Because I really, really love it. And then that’s it. Like, as a therapist, it’s like, I don’t have to do all the other stuff.

 

Manon Bolliger 32:21

So, I’m curious, your relationship to the part that most therapists neglect, you know, it’s like, there’s a belief that you open up and the patients will come. Now there’s a truth to that patients will come. And there’s also truth that if you get results, there’ll be a referral. But there, you know, and that is a way that you can grow the business, but in this age, being present on another level seems to be required for many. So, could you talk a little bit about the general idea of marketing? What do you do on that level?

 

Jenna Howe 33:08

Yeah. So, as I said, as a self-employed person who never purposely went into self-employment, I did that to myself by always doing something outside of the norm that isn’t necessarily employable, because nobody knows how to how to market you, like, is the thing, right? So, so I just naturally got into just being self-employed. And, and then spending years trying to figure out how to do this newsletter and bad thing and all the stuff and then, you know, in getting into a coaching program, that they’re like, okay, we’re gonna teach you how to do all this. And that was a very expensive way to go. I don’t want to do any of that. I actually just don’t want to, like, I just dig my heels in the sand. No, I don’t want to do it. It’s not what I’m good at. It’s not what brings me joy. So eventually actually hired a marketing promotions company that works specifically with physical therapists, chiropractors, osteopathic therapists. That is their whole thing. That’s all they do. They don’t take on people who are also doing accounting as their business and they’re only for health care providers. And honestly, I mean, it’s not it’s not a cheap way to go, but it was the best way to go. Because, you know, they write my newsletters for me, which were all fantastic. They do my social media for me, they update my website. As soon as I change my website, my clients are like, oh, I noticed you change your website looks fantastic. And it’s someone who’s self-employed, who just felt bogged down by all of the other tasks that is really required, especially in this day and age. I just gave it all to them. And so and so that gave me the freedom to just do the things that I love to do, and that was really important to just delegate that piece, and really, and really make the decision of, I really don’t like that task. And if you’re constantly having that, I don’t like that task in the back of your mind. It affects how you move through your day, in my opinion, and because then you’re constantly thinking, oh, I got to do this thing, and I got to do that thing. And nope. They do it.

 

Manon Bolliger 35:34

That’s, that’s brilliant. And, you know, I’ve, what I’ve had to do for Bowen College is include this. So, what a lot of people were doing is they were, they were delegating, but it wasn’t really a delegation, it was an abdication. Like, take it, and I don’t know anything about it. So, what I’ve done now is, is trained people to know what they can delegate what to look for, to really understand this so that it’s truly don’t do what I did, because I made so many mistakes.

 

Jenna Howe 36:09

And those mistakes are expensive.

 

Manon Bolliger 36:13

Lose your website, how to do…been there done that how to lose your name, how to, you know, every and how to, you know, I have nothing against good investment. But it has to be an investment. And there has to be clear return. Right? And yeah…

 

Jenna Howe 36:31

It has to be the right investment.

 

Manon Bolliger 36:33

Where you feel like you’re getting something and you’re actually attracting more people. And part of it is why are we doing this? It’s not to spend money. It’s to reach people who desperately need your services and would not know about you.

 

Jenna Howe 36:49

Yeah. And at the end of the day, so not only did it increase my traffic overall, increase or decrease my traffic. But what’s really interesting is that, I mean, it’s a great website, love my website, I mean, I was part of the process, in terms of like, you know, picking different things and approving different things. But you know, what’s really been interesting is that how do I put this it’s, the people who are drawn to me and drawn to my website are always the right person, or it’s always a good fit, or, you know, there’s going to be some people might I might only see once or twice, and they’re like, Well, that was nice, really liked you. But I don’t know, this isn’t really, you know, working for me. And that’s fine. It’s usually when there’s a mechanical issue. You know, they’ve got pins and wires and hardware, and whatever, it’s a bigger issue than then what I have the capacity to treat, and that’s fine. But I have to say making that switch also is just bringing me individuals who, who are genuinely interested in what I have to offer. And that’s been really cool. Because that’s not…wasn’t necessarily the purpose behind the website. If you look at the website, you don’t necessarily see any anything written for that. And yet, but that’s also what is coming through the door. And so, it’s been great. So that one was definitely worthwhile investment.

 

Manon Bolliger 38:30

So, Jenna, our time has already passed.

 

Jenna Howe 38:32

Yes, yes, I know, we could probably talk for hours.

 

Manon Bolliger 38:38

What would you like to leave people with?

 

Jenna Howe 38:41

Oh, that could probably be more than just one word. But I would just say, I think when you tap into what you truly love, about the work that you’re doing, then your clients will feel that. And I think that’s the biggest piece is, you know, if there’s an aspect of what you’re doing that you don’t love, but then there’s another piece where I really just love doing more of that, then do more of that. Right? Things will shift naturally to accommodate that. But I think it’s really well worth it to figure out how to do this work because it’s very easy to get overworked. I definitely was overworked pre COVID And so COVID locked down and all this stuff forced me to reevaluate a bunch of different things. And, and I just home in on what I love and everything else is falling into the place the way I want it to. And in so then I’m not overworked. And I do come out of the day feeling inspired by the clients that I’m working with. I feel energized enough to come home and make dinner and do the exercise and do all the things. Thank you so much for having me. It was really wonderful

 

Manon Bolliger (Deregistered with 30 years of experience in health)

Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to DrManonBolliger.com.