❤️‍🩹 What is a Trauma-Informed Business? — with Jess Jackson

Amelia Hruby [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. Hello, and welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast about running a thriving creative business with no or minimal social media presence. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby. I am the founder of Softer Sounds Podcast Studio and on this show, I am your fellow traveler and guide on our journey of doing business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty.

Amelia Hruby [00:00:43]:
If you're new to this podcast, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Please make sure you head to the show notes and grab the free Leaving Social Media Toolkit. It includes three great tools that pair with the first few episodes of the show, and it's a great place to dive in. So again, you can find that at offthegrid.fun/toolkit, or just click the link in the show notes. There's so much for you to explore. And if you're a longtime listener, welcome back. I am so happy to be here with you over halfway through season three of the show. We've had so many amazing conversations this season and today is no exception.

Amelia Hruby [00:01:25]:
So today on the podcast, I'm really excited to be joined by Jess Jackson of Soft Path Healing. Jess is a licensed massage therapist, somatic, and Safe and Sound Protocol practitioner, and trauma-informed educator and mentor for healers. They draw from their lived experience as a survivor with extensive trauma-informed studies. And Jess is a forever student of the nervous system, neuroscience, healing justice, and somatic practice. Welcome, Jess. I'm so happy to have you here at Off the Grid.

Jess Jackson [00:01:57]:
I'm so glad to be here. Two softies in business.

Amelia Hruby [00:02:02]:
Yes. Both of our businesses have the word soft in the name, and it feels like a kinship.

Jess Jackson [00:02:06]:
It really does.

Amelia Hruby [00:02:08]:
So today's episode is all about trauma informed business, which is one of your specialties and something that you teach and support business owners in. So I wanna take us right into this concept because trauma-informed is so meaningful, and it is also a bit of a buzzword at times. What does trauma informed business mean to you and in your work?

Jess Jackson [00:02:34]:
I think trauma-informed business, it's, like, really, really expansive when there's a lot of softness because it has to be adaptable to the business, to the client, to your customers, to your model, and to the world. I think lately for me, a lot of my pals in business are really struggling right now, especially online business, especially in healing. And so I think an access that feels really alive and potent for me right now is that trauma-informed business is antithetical to capitalism, and yet business exists within capitalism. And so not that it's impossible to be trauma-informed, but I feel like to do it, we're always at odds with the system that makes it really difficult.

Jess Jackson [00:03:19]:
And I think that framework can be really helpful. Like, no wonder it feels hard. It is hard. So I know that's general, but I feel like, for me, that's a generous and generative way to think about it for a lot of us who are grappling with what is it and how to do it. I think capitalism and bro marketing makes that even harder. So that's where I would start.

Amelia Hruby [00:03:45]:
I think that's really interesting that you're pointing us to the fact that one of the reasons it's really tricky or slippery to talk about trauma-informed business is because there is this inherent tension between being trauma-informed and being in business and late stage capitalism. So when we combine those two things together, we're trying to use, to some degree, a nervous system support and regulation framework to heal something that then is always activating and challenging our nervous system, and that sounds really hard.

Jess Jackson [00:04:22]:
And I think especially, it's a buzzword, and it's meaningful, and I think the ways in which trauma-informed care is on the rise and often being co-opted or used as lip service can also make it feel more meaningless than meaningful. Even in this piece of what does trauma-informed mean? It's not just about trauma.

Amelia Hruby [00:04:47]:
I'd love to take a step back then because I don't want to presume that everyone listening to this conversation knows necessarily what trauma is or what trauma-informed care is. So could you take us back to the basics for a minute and just kind of define those terms and how you're using them?

Jess Jackson [00:05:08]:
I'm so glad you asked that. I think this will be really helpful, and this is actually how I approach what trauma informed care and what trauma informed business is, looking at what is a traumatic experience. And, yes, anyone who's been through or is going through something traumatic gets to define that. And there's a lot of material that we can draw from. Like, not just trusting our clients and trusting someone's lived experience, but part of what I love to offer folks is a bit of a framework and a blueprint of what a trauma-informed experience could mean for someone and how that could show up.

Jess Jackson [00:05:45]:
And from that place, we can kind of flip it and reverse it to figure out how to be trauma informed, is really the antidote of a traumatic experience. So for me to rewind a little, a traumatic experience often is a time where we are not in control, we are not in our agency, we are not in power in the situation. And often things happen really quickly and without our consent. Traumatic experiences are often really overwhelming, and there can be a quickness. It's not that it's always a fast experience, but in the nervous system, there can be a quickness in that we know that we're under threat or that we're not safe, and the nervous system is gonna pick the best option to respond.

Jess Jackson [00:06:40]:
So I think one of the signature kind of flavors of a traumatic experience is that we are making these choices from the nervous system, which I say without judgment, the nervous system just does its best. And for folks listening who are familiar with fight or flight, freeze and appease, you can't see my air quotes, but, trauma responses. If you have a nervous system that has a big reaction to something seemingly small, it might be that you have needed a really big reaction to keep yourself safe.

Jess Jackson [00:07:14]:
I think a lot of us used to think about trauma as being in a war or being in a car accident or something that seemed really big in a certain way. And I think now we know that a lot of things can be experienced by the nervous system as traumatic for a myriad of reasons. But often, there's some core facets that I think across the board, it's often a choiceless choice, no agency, no consent, overwhelming stimulus, not having a lot of power, having limited choice.

Jess Jackson [00:07:51]:
And I think another misconception is that trauma and traumatic experiences are like it's always in someone's history. And, probably, this is not, news to a lot of your folks who are tuning in, but it's also an ongoing experience for a lot of folks. So post traumatic stress disorder, the post part doesn't exist for for all people. So trauma can be really inherent and insidious to the world we live in and the systems we live in.

Amelia Hruby [00:08:22]:
What I appreciate about a trauma-informed approach or about trauma-informed care is the way that it really tends to the moments when our nervous system is activated. And we don't necessarily have to know that we've experienced trauma or even believe that we've experienced trauma to tap into those moments where you're like, "Oh, I'm activated right now. Oh, I'm having this big response. Oh, I know I logically, I think that here's what's happening, but in my body, something totally different is happening." And for me, the business has been a minefield of those kinds of experiences. Right? Like, oh, I get an email from a client and I'm suddenly panicked, and then I go back the next day and I'm like, wait. This email is perfectly nice. What is happening here?

Jess Jackson [00:09:09]:
Uh-huh.

Amelia Hruby [00:09:10]:
And I'm like, oh, receiving feedback in that way is triggering to me for some reason, and I can kind of figure all of that out. And what I found is that I've never uncovered some email PTSD or something with my therapist, but I can recognize the trigger regardless. But I think a trauma informed approach is so much about just understanding those moments of being triggered or activated, whether or not we're identifying a specific trauma that we've experienced.

Jess Jackson [00:09:41]:
Yeah. I'm so glad you shared that for a lot of reasons because it's relatable. I don't even have to open the email to be terrified of the email. I'm thinking about this because I have clients who come to me for Safe and Sound Protocol, which is a nervous system healing acoustic intervention. Really, really lovely for post trauma, and often people are worried nothing big enough has happened to them. Nothing traumatic enough has happened to them. And I think the brain often really wants a why to what's going on, and it makes sense, context and naming. But it it makes me think too of, like, a huge part of trauma-informed business and being trauma-informed and trauma aware and trauma sensitive, we don't always get to know. Same as you might not know the story behind being triggered with an email, we don't always get to know that with our clients.

Jess Jackson [00:10:37]:
I think folks really struggle with that, and I really think we need to know less than we think we do to be trauma-informed. And we don't actually have to work with folks who are coming to us to process trauma to be trauma-informed. It's another piece of that blueprint of, like, can I put the glasses on where I can imagine into what someone might be experiencing? And can I hold that, but really gently so that I can see them as they're showing up? I think that's really a big piece of of trauma-informed business and care. Can I hold that? Folks who are going to be visiting my website or coming to a session with me that they might need x, y, z adaptations, and then I have this sort of menu that's available without presuming. But it's a bit of readiness and then trusting our clients or our customers. like, trusting their timeline too.

Jess Jackson [00:11:35]:
Because I think a lot of our systems are really, like, trauma extractive. Like, "Tell me everything and then tell me your whole trauma history and story and then I'll offer you service." And for folks working within certain systems, I know not everyone is able to issue that or the systems are the systems, and yet I think it's so trauma-informed to be at someone's pace and just to kinda weave back, like, when we're working with someone's pace and not demanding information or sensitive history, we can notice even as you're listening, how different that is to a traumatic experience where folks do not have agency. We're saying here's some agency. Take your time.

Jess Jackson [00:12:19]:
And we get to have boundaries around that within this period of time. Take your time because we get to need stuff. We don't have to just have zero boundaries and be a little mushy people. Just a little bit of mush, you know?

Amelia Hruby [00:12:32]:
Yeah. I like being a little mushy, but not, like, a total puddle of mush.

Jess Jackson [00:12:37]:
Yeah. I am really unlearning that being a practitioner and being a people pleaser are the same. People need you know, they need a little bit of mush, but I think it needs a little bit of a container too. So some of us, we have to work on being a little more mushy and flexible, and some of us have to learn, like, oh, I get to have boundaries, then, people need me to have boundaries or need me to believe in what I'm saying. I think that helps a lot with trust and safety. But to be meta, we might have had experiences where we didn't get to do that in in our relationships, and so for us, maybe it doesn't feel safe to hold the boundaries.

Jess Jackson [00:13:16]:
We have to be trauma informed with ourselves in realizing, like, oh, this is why that's hard for me to hold that boundary. Like, it's not for my client to be my therapist. But if I can notice, like, oh, yeah. I'm kind of recreating some, like, dynamics of little Jess and her family. Okay, well name that. Then I can try to turn my ship around a little bit.

Amelia Hruby [00:13:39]:
Something that has always resonated with me about your work is that you talk about how trauma-informed care is helpful for anyone with clients. Because I know in your context and in many people's context as healers or somatic practitioners, we might think of that as a space where you're like, "Yeah. That's where I go to talk about my trauma, and I'm glad it's trauma-informed." But I make business and wellness podcasts with other people, and those people are not coming to me to be like, "Let's talk about my trauma." But let me tell you, the trauma still comes.

Amelia Hruby [00:14:16]:
So part of what led me to do more research on trauma informed business practices is that I noticed that my clients had some different patterns in how they would approach things. Like, for some clients, they'd miss a deadline and totally disappear on me. And I had to be like, "Why? I'm not telling them this is a bad thing." I'm asking them, "What would you like to do?" I'm providing a lot of agency, but they're stillghosting me after this thing has happened. With other clients, there's this tendency to over communicate, like sending me so much information I already have.

Amelia Hruby [00:14:48]:
I just noticed these patterns. And at at first, I was like, oh, it must be me. Like, it must be my systems are weird. I didn't do something. I was like, oh, okay. No. This is all about the clients and their experiences. And I think especially because I make podcasts and I work with people for the long term, I really do have to learn for each one what are the things that are really gonna activate you in some way? What's gonna really work for you? And how can I adapt to that within my own systems and processes? So I'm also not just people pleasing every client and ruining my own life in the process?

Jess Jackson [00:15:23]:
Yeah. With love. I think it's hysterical to hear you just already, like, "Step 1, let's internalize."

Amelia Hruby [00:15:32]:
Oh, a 100%.

Jess Jackson [00:15:34]:
Already talking about, "Okay, I must be the problem." The healing journey and the business journey are not that different. I think the relational attachment piece, I'm really swimming around in lately in that things don't have to be inherently retraumatizing to bring stuff up. In fact, I found offering a relatively safe container, I never can promise a safe container, that's so relative, but offering a relatively trauma-informed, intending to be a safe and warm and soft space, that can bring up a lot for people.

Jess Jackson [00:16:13]:
Being in connection and being in conflict while being in connection can bring up a lot for people. Maybe that wasn't possible in the past. Visibility. I think there are so many ties between where we are asking clients or clients are wanting to do things that maybe in the past have been paired where it's not safe. Is it safe to be seen? Is it safe to be in relationship with someone new? Is it safe to disappoint someone? Is it safe to overshare? I think there's a lot of relational testing of the waters and ghosting too. That makes sense to me.

Jess Jackson [00:16:51]:
And this is why I think too, we don't have to be doing explicit work on trauma for these survival responses to come up because often on some level, what might be happening is for us, for clients, whoever, we have this threat response of, like, I don't know if this is safe. And it might not be proportional to I'm late for the deadline. It might feel too big for that, but I always like to say it's the right size for something. Maybe in the past, disappointing someone wasn't safe or I can't be safe within connection, so I'm not gonna have any connection. Can't be myself within connection, so I'm gonna have connections but not really get to be there. There's so much negotiation that happens.

Jess Jackson [00:17:37]:
So a lot of this comes up even if it's not allegedly why folks are coming to you or they're not naming with it. And I just wanna say one other piece on that, that I'm not into this fuckery of doing an archeological dig into someone's stuff if that's not what they're there for. So I just wanna be really clear, don't do that. People hate that. And if they've been through trauma, their neuroception and their hypervigilance is so smart. Like, let's not do that. But we can hold this wondering of, "I wonder if they felt safe enough to be able to be disappointed with me" or whatever it is.

Jess Jackson [00:18:21]:
And it doesn't always mean we're talking about it or it's what's happening in our coaching call or whatever, but it just might be part of the fabric and part of the ingredients. And this is what's so wild about being in this space of offering trauma-informed care. For me, I think the lines are really fitting sometimes because I don't wanna be perpetuating that we're projecting on clients or asking them to go somewhere they don't wanna go. But for us to be able to go through this process of something's up, maybe it's my systems, maybe it's not, maybe it's my client. We just have a little more in our Rolodex to to sift through until we land somewhere.

Amelia Hruby [00:19:04]:
Part of my discovery of this was that I was noticing behavioral patterns in my clients. But what I was learning in the business world was that if you design your systems well enough, then they should be able to hold kind of any type of person. Any person should have the experience you want them to have within your business. And what I think was so refreshing about a more trauma-informed approach was it really just kind of issues that sense of, no, not every person is gonna have the same experience of your business because you have created your quote, unquote perfect systems.

Amelia Hruby [00:19:37]:
And it's exactly that Rolodex you're speaking to. What I can do is build systems that I believe are soft and supportive, And then as my clients are navigating them, I have more tools to be even more supportive when I notice different reactions. I can respond differently if I see something happening. And none of that is about me being like, "Oh, so and so is traumatized. Better go deal with their, like, bond response or whatever." That's not what I'm doing. We're emphasizing the care part of trauma-informed care. And I just think there are so few places in business where care is at the center of it, and that's really what drew me to these types of approaches.

Jess Jackson [00:20:20]:
Yeah. It's interesting for this one size fits all piece because there's not gonna be an across the board solution. And, also, I don't think any of us are really for everyone. So another paradox of trauma-informed care. I mean, I love adaptations. I love accessibility. I love inclusivity, and and there are limits to that. And I think because I feel like I don't wanna just be philosophical. I wanna give people some things that they can chew on in a more direct way too. And one of them can be to think about your limit, your scope of practice, who you serve, and not in like, "My gal is 32 and shops at Lululemon" or, like, Bagu or whatever. Sorry to any Bagu lovers.

Jess Jackson [00:21:08]:
We get to be thoughtful in who we're for, who our trauma-informed care and business is for, and who it's not for. And that, I believe, is the kindness, and so that can show up in specificity in our marketing and in having a menu that's not Moby Dick size. Like, it has to be doable or else we can't do it. So it's like, yes, let's be super, super expansive, and where are the stops?

Jess Jackson [00:21:37]:
I had a biodynamic craniosacral therapy teacher and for folks who don't know, this is a very floaty, dreamy kind of bodywork approach. It's not kneady and glidy like spa or Swedish massage. It's a little in the dreamy blue space, and this teacher would say to clients when there were five minutes left in the session, he would always say, "Take all the time you need in these next five minutes." And I feel like that's something we could bring into some of our businesses. There can be so much freedom within a parameter, and I think for us, we can experience more safety when we know what's possible and we know the boundaries.

Jess Jackson [00:22:24]:
And the other little gem that's related to this is, when we say, like, "Well, what do you need? Anything you need." You might have experienced this. I know I've experienced this if I'm doing an application or an intake, and people are like, "What do you need?" I'm like, "I don't even know what you're offering or who you are or what you're doing." So sometimes it feels exclusive, but it's actually so kind to be really clear and transparent about, like, "Here's the menu. What is it that you need?" Or, "Here's what I offer." And then internally, our prospective folks can be like, "Oh, yeah. That sounds like my cup of tea" or, like, "I need to look elsewhere. So take all the time you need in the next five minutes. Like, what's your five minutes? I like to think about that often.

Amelia Hruby [00:23:16]:
Hey there, lovely Off the Grid listener. We're taking a quick break from the episode because I want to make sure that you know that you can now become an Off the Grid sponsor and share your work during a mid-roll ad like this or in a pre-roll ad before every episode on our feed. In the past seasons of the show, I've shared some of my favorite affiliate partners. If you've heard the Flodesk ad, you know what that's all about. But starting in season three, I've decided to partner with listeners like you to showcase your work and the amazing inspiring things that you're creating and sharing with the world.

Amelia Hruby [00:23:54]:
There are so many fun ways to sponsor an episode or a week of the show and to share your work with our amazing community of small business owners and creatives all over the US and abroad. If you'd like to hear your work shared by me and featured in a spot like this, you can head to the show notes to learn more about our ad opportunities. Whether or not you decide to sponsor an episode, I'm so grateful that you listen to the show, and I hope that you'll check out some of our partners this season. They have amazing free and paid offerings for you and make sure you click through when you hear them. Okay. Enough about our sponsorship opportunities. Let's go ahead and dive back into this conversation.

Amelia Hruby [00:24:37]:
So what I'm really hearing and what you're sharing is different places where we can invite in a trauma-informed approach through really bringing in the both ands, like finding ways to be both expansive and contained. And I love that you gave us a few examples of different places we can embed that in our businesses. I'm wondering if you could share any other places in business that you find it's really supportive to bring a more trauma-informed approach, or if you wanted to expand on any of those instances of marketing, of space holding in sessions or courses, of intake processes. Just again, thinking for those folks who are like, "Okay, cool, cool, cool, but how do I apply this?" Like, where are we going to apply this work in our businesses?

Jess Jackson [00:25:24]:
When we think about both ands, we can think about what works both for us and our clients. To be more specific, I meet with the folks on Zoom, for example, virtually, maybe in a group, maybe I'm teaching, I want them to have a lot of permission around how they show up. Typically, for me, this will mean cameras off or on, using the chat or using your voice, taking breaks whenever you need to take a break, positioning your camera however you want, blah blah blah. That's amazing, and that can be the both part.

Jess Jackson [00:26:03]:
And then there might be this and part of can you notice in your own nervous system what it's like for you to hold space when all the cameras are off. And it might be fine for you. It might be that the both gets a little more you know, if we're thinking of a Venn diagram, but it's not really a Venn, and the both gets all the space, and it's more important folks can show up that way, and you just keep doing yourself tending while you're like, "Is anyone there? Hello."

Jess Jackson [00:26:27]:
But I find this can be a really great compass point for us, and I'm continually learning this. And it changes. In this exact example, I won't go into the specifics, but I'm noticing I'm having some changing needs around how I'm holding space virtually. And I also know I have other practitioner friends where we have really different needs. And it's fine because if I'm gonna say, "Sure, come and your cameras can be on or off" or whatever, then folks who are okay with that for their nervous system experience will wanna be in that space. A colleague of mine needs cameras on all the time. Maybe they're not supportive for someone else's nervous system. So, like, that's one piece.

Jess Jackson [00:27:13]:
And I think the other piece that can be helpful for folks is that now our client or customer, like, relationship and journey starts before we even are in the Zoom room or in the session or in the gathering. Right? Should it? I don't know, but it does. So I like to think about having, like, a trauma-informed thread that's threading through all of my work. But if we're thinking about holding space for clients and being transparent and having containment and having coherence, a lot of us think to do that when we're in a session. And then we might not think about, like, what is it like for a client?

Jess Jackson [00:27:57]:
For example, if they're on an intake form or application form, and we ask the question that a lot of people ask, "How committed are you financially to this" when we haven't told them how much it costs? Or, like, asking a really big question about trauma history with a little asterisk next to it so they have to answer before we've had any time to connect as humans. I don't mean to be shamey. I just think a lot of us have learned from business, but not really trauma-informed business ways, and it's that's a different blueprint. But when we think about that we're really, like, cultivating and fostering this relationship even through the client journey and the funnel.

Jess Jackson [00:28:41]:
But it's like, "Okay. Let's back up. How can we make even in our website more trauma-informed? What's the accessibility like there?" And, I don't know if that's even specific enough because I think it kinda comes back to, like, who is this for? Who isn't this for? And what am I doing? And just being so clear that, hopefully, there's not a switcheroo when people come to see us. It's like what you see is what you get to the extent that that's possible.

Amelia Hruby [00:29:09]:
I feel like a big part of the foundation of all of this is self reflection and learning what you need to be able to show up in your business. In my words, with energetic sovereignty, and that you have to start there. A trauma-informed approach has to bring you to the table in your fullness of your honest needs and begin with that. And then what I'm hearing you say is, a lot of it is just being really clear about that so people can make their own informed decisions about whether or not that's right for them.

Amelia Hruby [00:29:47]:
And we're also doing this all the time. Right? Like, when I go to sign up for a group program, I'm looking, like, are they live calls? Is it asynchronous? Is it all prerecorded? All of that has to do with what do I prefer and what is supportive to me? And, hopefully, the person offering that group program or whatever it is has also thought about that for them because there's nothing worse than to be in the middle of a program and realize that the instructor, the leader, facilitator is totally flaming out and having an awful experience because of how they designed it. And you're kinda like, "If you didn't want this, that's fine."

Amelia Hruby [00:30:19]:
So a lot of it is about bringing ourselves and our fullness to the business and being able to know and learn these things and reflect on them and adapt over time. And I can just share, for me, transparency is hugely important. Just to talk about pricing because you brought it up and it really is like a huge red flag for me. I understand that it's a sales technique to not include pricing on your website. And I hear the people who are like, I don't want people to count themselves out of this price before they've actually talked to me about how supportive this could be for them. And for me, it's always a hard no. I will not apply for a program that doesn't have a price or at the very least a range. I understand if you're custom quoting your work. Give me a ballpark and we'll talk and then we'll go into it. That's beautiful. But if I have no reference point for the price, I feel panicked and stressed and activated, and I'm just not willing to do that.

Jess Jackson [00:31:16]:
Yep.

Amelia Hruby [00:31:17]:
Other people don't care. Other people are like, "Whatever. We'll see what it costs." That's not activating to them, but for me, it's really a challenging experience. And as a result, all of the prices for my business are on my website. I think I share that to say, it's not meant to be a critique of what anyone else is doing, but it's a way that I've learned. When I looked at that on other people's sites, I noticed how I felt, and then I didn't replicate that in my own business. And that isn't a good fit for some people and that's okay. There are a ton of podcast studios out there with no pricing on their websites, but Softer Sounds is not one of them because one of the ways that I am being trauma-informed on my website you were talking about, is by providing pricing.

Jess Jackson [00:32:03]:
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby [00:32:03]:
To me, that's trauma-informed. For other people, that's not where they are weaving in that thread.

Jess Jackson [00:32:08]:
Yeah. Well, I'm not as nice as you. I mean, I'm pretty nice. You know what though? I think there's this question I realized lately-ish that to figure out if something is trauma-informed, we ask why. And, like you just demonstrated this beautifully. So I would say for folks who don't have prices on their website, just to use this as the example, I might just gently, because I am nice, ask someone, I wonder why you're doing it that way. Because usually, it'll point to an outdated marketing system and maybe a need, maybe, often, a belief. But I have found especially for folks who you might have an icky feeling and not be sure what the why the icky feeling is there. Sometimes we can ask, well, why do I think that they're doing it this way?

Jess Jackson [00:32:59]:
And I noticed folks who offer accessible payment plans, but it's an expiring bonus. I'm like, well, why? I could imagine why. Sometimes we work within capitalism, and we need the money really fast. But we can be thinking about what need is it needing for me, and we're back to what is it like for our clients, and are we able to find a different way to meet the need? It's a lot of creative problem solving and trauma-informed care in business. And, again, it's fucking hard. It's just really hard within the systems that we work within. But, yeah, I like to ask that question even as folks might be listening to try to discern some to dos for their business.

Jess Jackson [00:33:45]:
Yeah. You might ask the why question and also just how it lands for you. Because, yeah, to your point, people can tell when it's not working for us. And, we're taught to do that, to chase the money and chase the customers, and I get it. It's not super sustainable if we're not able to really fully be there, which I think we're taught to abandon ourselves in life and business and trauma and all kinds of things. I really do love this part of my work where it's like, can we challenge a little bit this idea that serving is the same as showing up totally goofy and selfless and whatever you need because that's actually not sustainable for anybody.

Jess Jackson [00:34:29]:
And bless our hearts. Bless our our helpful little hearts. And, yeah, we can shore up having that, as you said, that both end of softness and and what's the container for it, and just trying our best to find a container that works for us and the people that we work with.

Amelia Hruby [00:34:47]:
Yeah. I mean, I think at the other end of that spectrum, other swing of that pendulum, it's like serving people is also not telling them exactly what they need and manipulatively convincing them that your way of doing it is the one that will resolve everything for them. Right?

Jess Jackson [00:35:01]:
Oh, yeah.

Amelia Hruby [00:35:02]:
It's neither of those. And so that is where trauma-informed business is a practice, not a protocol. There is no 10 step checklist where it's like, "Great. Put all these things on your website and your business is now trauma-informed." I'm sure you can buy that out there. I'm sure people will sell you that, but I just don't believe that is what it means.

Jess Jackson [00:35:26]:
Yeah. And I think also to to what you were talking about earlier, oh my gosh, what a fucking relief it would be if we could just do this one overhaul and it would work for everybody. I think, bless the part of us that wants that and, like, no. Sadly, it's more work than that. It's not a requirement that we're perfect at it. If we can let go of trying to be perfect, then we can just be imperfectly grappling with these things, which, I mean, I teach this and I always am. It's just how it works.

Amelia Hruby [00:35:58]:
Since this is a podcast about running a business with no or minimal social media presence, I feel like I would be remiss to not ask you about social media in relationship to our nervous systems and in relationship to a trauma-informed approach to our marketing. How do you approach social media platforms and social media marketing in the context of your work?

Jess Jackson [00:36:26]:
Yeah. That's a sticky one. It's a system which is inherently capitalistic and extractive, and we've talked a little bit about pace as it relates to trauma experience. The pace of social media is so different to the pace that probably a lot of us long for, but don't always get to live within or abide by. And, also, because of the social media and algorithm machine, to be on there as a business, I think, asks for a lot of content, especially in order to have the visibility and reach that you might need. And, again, I know a lot of folks who are like, just post once a week and have a blog, and maybe that's true. There are different schools of thought.

Jess Jackson [00:37:16]:
But I think it's another sticky one where I think about this a lot because I do post kind of a lot sometimes, and I grapple with that. Like, is that trauma-informed? Just from, like, pacing, and is it helpful to our brains to just be full, full, full of content? And maybe I'm making excuses for the way I show up on social media, but I feel like I'd worry less about that. And what I'm more excited to talk about, but hate that happens, is that I think folks are often trying to elicit a nervous system response in order to make a sale on social media and in business, folks who might leverage their trauma history and leverage the parasocial relationship to foster more intimacy that doesn't really exist so that other folks work with them?

Jess Jackson [00:38:14]:
Or, like, just because someone makes a really good meme, does that really mean that they're the right person for you to work with? Like, I don't know, I think we need a lot of discernment. And I guess what I would worry about the most and what I try not to do is, I don't know. I've been accused of not being salesy enough. I'm, like, swaddling people through my words, and maybe I definitely am better about being trauma-informed than being a profitable, business. But I think some of the power dynamics are just not amazing on social media. And I think there's a lot of folks who are really vulnerable, who end up in these extractive power over kind of culty relationships or giving a lot of power away.

Jess Jackson [00:39:06]:
There's a story I often tell about, a queer radical healer that I worked with who would say each time someone would come in to see them, they would throw the ball of their power and agency at this practitioner, and the practitioner was like, my job is just to keep tossing the ball back. So those of us who are on social media, I think to some extent, it's a compromise in terms of is my pace nervous system centered? I don't know if it can be in order for me to reach the numbers I need to survive. But can I be trying really hard not to be engaging in the pain point stuff that's happening or overpromising? Can I very much be trying to give folks just like we talked about earlier, like, what's all the information they need to be able to be a yes or a no to following me, to working with me rather than not thinking about that and just doing whatever flashy or triggering or activating thing can be required to make us fail?

Amelia Hruby [00:40:10]:
Yeah. What I'm hearing you say is that just there is attention inherent to the phrase trauma-informed business, there's going to be attention to any sense of a trauma-informed social media due to the pace of these platforms, due to their values, and to what is seemingly required there.

Amelia Hruby [00:40:33]:
And I'm also hearing you offer that perhaps if we are on social media, we can always be recentering in this sense of our job as a business owner who is selling something is to help people stay in their own agency and discernment as opposed to putting them in the place of their pain or trauma in order to make the sale. I'm sure I've talked about pain point marketing on this show. I'm not sure it's always bad. I think it's helpful to help people see where they're hurting. But then the purpose of the sales page to me is to move them from that place back into their place of agency so that they can make a decision not from that hurting place, but from their most sovereign place.

Amelia Hruby [00:41:27]:
And I think it's very hard to do that on social media. You don't really get the time to take people on that journey. And so making sure that you're doing that somewhere in your marketing or that all of your social media posts aren't just like, isn't this hard for you? Isn't this hard? Doesn't that suck? Didn't this really ruin your life? Let me tell you this. Let me tell you this. Like, where we just stay in the pain the whole time. There has to be a transformation even in our marketing, even in our sales. And I love this idea just as a guiding question of how can our sales process help people access as much agency as they can muster to decide if this is right for them.

Jess Jackson [00:42:09]:
Yeah. That's so beautifully said, and that folks ultimately are getting to choose that. It's interesting too to think about, we're limited on social media, and I also think some of us could be a lot more trauma-informed on social media rather than just saying, "It's a limited caption. There is no space for nuance." And sometimes I feel that way. Let me just say, Amelia. Sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh. I know I can't quite be nuanced enough, but at least we can name that.

Jess Jackson [00:42:43]:
I think it's a really interesting container for sales, for writing, for connecting because, yeah, it is limited. It's not a session. Not everyone there is our client, and I just think it's not very trauma-informed to decide that we have no agency to bring any trauma-informed care or business practices into it. I mean, not that I'm perfect at it or anyone is perfect at it, but for me, it's another piece of trying to be trauma informed in my marketing and also survive within capitalism. It's a constant dance. But yeah. And do folks get to decide. I like to talk in my trainings about on ramps and off ramps and giving folks, like, "Oh, I wanna come and hang out. Oh, actually, I wanna dip out." So are we doing that rather than being super prescriptive or blaming everyone for their problems or just telling them it's a mindset issue? Or or or.

Amelia Hruby [00:43:39]:
And I think this is where you started, but just to kind of end us here as well. If you choose to be on social media in your business and you want to do it in a trauma-informed way, then you are also choosing to build in the self tending and nervous system regulation that's gonna be necessary for you to show up in that way on a platform or platforms that are inherently working against you. Because I do believe that. I think Meta and ByteDance, who owns TikTok, they are working against our nervous system regulation and how they design the platforms. So if you are choosing to show up on them, it's not that I think you can't bring your trauma-informed or more regulated approach, but you also are gonna have to build in the space for that tending and that care that you're gonna need to keep trying to show up in that way.

Jess Jackson [00:44:30]:
Totally. And it's gonna be outside of an extractive and money monster system. Yeah.

Amelia Hruby [00:44:37]:
Well, Jess, thank you for this super nuanced and supportive conversation. Folks who are listening when this comes out might realize by this point that you are also a sponsor on the podcast this month and that you are currently enrolling for your Foundations program. So I wanted to ask if you could share a little bit more about that with us and with anyone who might be interested in learning from you more ways to bring trauma-informed care to their business and their work.

Jess Jackson [00:45:10]:
Yeah. I would love to. So Foundations, typically, it's a five week program for me. And to be more accessible to folks, we are doing a weekend training in May. It'll be the 17th, 18th, 19th. So Friday through a Sunday from four to eight PM EST. And if that sounds like a lot of hours on Zoom, just know my trainings are annoyingly spacious. People struggle sometimes with with the pace being slow. There's some nervous system learning we can do when we notice what is the right pace for us.

Jess Jackson [00:45:44]:
But it's a super permissive and open space where you can come, hang out, and learn with us live, and you really will be going through the arc of trauma informed care of what's a traumatic experience, and what does trauma informed care mean in the world we live in and with the clients we have, and in this sticky web of proximity and privilege and not privilege. And we'll be taking kind of a look at this thread of how to be trauma informed before we're seeing clients. Some of the stuff we talked about today, like pricing and marketing and intake. And is intake strictly for before we see client? Spoiler alert. No. And then we'll get into some during clients and customer sessions and workshops kind of stuff, and then we move to closing with clients. So there's a lot of juicy stuff in there around boundaries and scope of practice, and we'll be mapping our nervous systems.

Jess Jackson [00:46:43]:
And it's not a prescriptive place If we're thinking about trauma-informed care, thinking, maybe everyone has their little blueprint or map, we'll be just filling in some of that blueprint or map. And the other thing to say is that it's live, but you don't have to come live. It's recorded, and there's a whole curriculum that lives in a portal too. So for my chronic pain spoonie folks or whatever time zone you're in, it's meant to be something you can return to when you need it, whether you can join us live or not. And it's always a great group of folks in healing and beyond.

Amelia Hruby [00:47:24]:
I will be there this May.

Jess Jackson [00:47:25]:
I'm so excited.

Amelia Hruby [00:47:27]:
I'm really excited too. So I'll just invite listeners to head to the show notes to learn more about Jess's work and learn more about Foundations. And maybe I will see you in the course this spring, or if you're listening from the future, still check it out. You can hop on a wait list or a newsletter or whatever it might be then. And, Jess, I just wanna say thank you so much for joining me and for sharing so much of your wisdom with us. I feel super regulated after this conversation and just ready to go rest and then return to work in my business. So thank you.

Jess Jackson [00:48:05]:
Yay. I love that, because I forgot to say that that's one of my hugest hopes in all of my work with business folks like you and in foundations is, like, do we get to show up to the spaces we're trying to cultivate for people that can be nourishing of our nervous system? So, yeah, I do too. I feel really energized. And, previously, I was feeling really fussy about being alive on planet Earth. So thanks for for hanging out and chatting.

Amelia Hruby [00:48:05]:
Thank you listeners for joining us as well and until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the Interweb.

Amelia Hruby [00:49:14]:
Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at offthegrid.fun/toolkit. This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Melissa Kaitlyn Carter of Making Audio Magic, and our logo is by n'Atelier Studio. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby, and until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the Interweb.