Be Here Now With Jen

Be Here Now With Jen Jennifer is an experienced psychotherapist in the Atlanta area who has dedicated the past decade res

What happens to the self when we lose contact with where we end and another person begins? In a culture organized around...
05/13/2026

What happens to the self when we lose contact with where we end and another person begins? In a culture organized around both hyperconnection and emotional avoidance, many people oscillate between emotional fusion and emotional cutoff without realizing either extreme can erode the self. Drawing from neuroscience, Bowen Family Systems Theory, contemplative practice, burnout research, and even the film Cast Away, this essay explores the fragile architecture of identity, intimacy, and the difficult art of remaining connected without disappearing into one another or trying so desperately to stay separate.

Read full essay here: https://jenniferchasefinch.medium.com/essay-self-other-bed2593f8b32

As a supervisee, what kind of relationship would you want with your supervisor? I’ve had my share of less-than-great sup...
05/12/2026

As a supervisee, what kind of relationship would you want with your supervisor?

I’ve had my share of less-than-great supervisors over the years. Not all of them, of course—some profoundly shaped the clinician and person I became.

I think many clinicians remember both the supervisors who expanded them and the ones who made supervision feel more like a survival game. I had one supervisor early on who left me questioning nearly every decision I made. I walked out of sessions doubting my instincts, my voice, even whether I belonged in the field at all. It was terrible.

Twenty-five years later, I can see more clearly that good supervision should challenge you without shrinking you. It should sharpen your thinking, deepen your integrity, and help you become more fully yourself as a clinician—not less.

I have dedicated much of my work to the realities of burnout, emotional exhaustion, and the erosion of self that can happen in this field over time. My hope as a supervisor is not to create dependency or structure a hierarchy where I would presume to know and have all the answers. I want to create a space that rests in equanimity—where we can think out loud, ask difficult questions, make mistakes, strengthen clinical judgment, and grow into our own voice, power, and intelligence with greater confidence and steadiness.

Above all, I believe one of the most important skills a clinician can develop is the ability to remain connected without losing themselves inside the emotional intensity of the work. That self-other distinction changes everything—that is the one thing I hope to pass on from my lived experience in this field and in my personal life as well.

Published in 1970, psychiatrist R.D. Laing wrote Knots—a strange little masterpiece that reads like an adult nursery rhy...
05/11/2026

Published in 1970, psychiatrist R.D. Laing wrote Knots—a strange little masterpiece that reads like an adult nursery rhyme after one too many martinis and several generations of unresolved family trauma.

It is written in a style I have never come across before—looping conversations, contradictions, and manipulations—showing the gridlock of common patterns in relationships. The themes explored are of marriages stuck in endless impasses, family secrets that bind generations in dysfunction, violence that destroys a self, and projections that entangle a parent-child dynamic. All of these are called “Knots.” Emotional gridlock that still feels somehow painfully modern. I hear every single one of these themes from my clients weekly.

Part poem, maybe part play, or maybe part psychological fever dream—it is undoubtedly unusually written, and dizzying to read, but somehow still held up to my attention standards. You can read it in under an hour and then spend the rest of the day thinking…”Well…that explains such and such….and I can see why everyone is so stuck and why no one can seem to move forward…”

There are free PDFs floating around online if you’re curious.

This is for anyone who has ever felt too much for the space they were given and suspected that nature might understand t...
04/27/2026

This is for anyone who has ever felt too much for the space they were given and suspected that nature might understand them better than most people do. This is for those who feel the pull to get back to the feeling of bare feet in the dirt.



Read and be sure to subscribe on my page:

https://jenfinch.substack.com/p/born-in-a-wheatfield?r=7fj47

Hello colleagues,I’m launching a second cohort of small supervision and mentorship groups beginning in May 2026, designe...
04/20/2026

Hello colleagues,

I’m launching a second cohort of small supervision and mentorship groups beginning in May 2026, designed for therapists and helping professionals who want thoughtful support, clinical insight, and sustainable ways to continue doing meaningful work.

We will meet May 1, 8, 15, 22 from 12:00–1:30 PM ET via Zoom. Each 90-minute session will provide space to explore challenging cases and clinical questions, share perspectives, and discuss practical strategies for maintaining vitality in a demanding profession.

My intention is to support clinicians who know the very real experience of professional fatigue and emotional depletion that can come with caring deeply for others. Over the past two decades, my work has lived at the intersection of trauma therapy, Somatic Experiencing, embodiment, meditation, spirituality, and systems thinking, along with the Kintsugi Method I’ve developed through my own work. I’ve come to see that sustaining a long career in this field requires more than knowledge and methods alone. It requires differentiation, presence, and the ability to stay steady in the midst of complex human dynamics. This group is designed to help therapists strengthen those capacities while continuing to grow in the craft of therapy.

A few spaces remain in the noon group. If you’re looking for thoughtful consultation, community, and a place to think deeply about the work we do, I’d love to have you join us.

This is a small group format.

Details and registration: www.beherenowmindfulness.com (* if you need financial assistance, please email me directly at [email protected])

Warmly, Jen

Join us for our First Friday monthly meet ups to practice a little kundalini to get the energy moving and Realization Pr...
04/20/2026

Join us for our First Friday monthly meet ups to practice a little kundalini to get the energy moving and Realization Process meditation to make sure we stay inhabited in our body.

When we allow our natural energy to move through us while we stay put (and not go up and out with the energy….the way some traditions teach) we feel more alive, more connected to self and our environment, and more centered in a stabilized way. This regulated and balanced state of feeling up energy/vitality AND grounded embodiment/connection to self, is a skill within our control and once learned we can walk through the world with greater ease, openness and confidence.

May is just around the corner.
Next First Friday is May, 1, 2026

Refresh, restart, reconnect, or simply explore and try something new.

Join us and the First Friday Crew
Friday, May 1, 2026
8:00 am ET

The cost is free but registration is required to get Zoom link. Please register at least a day in advance, last minute registrations cannot be submitted (it is just me back here working the backend of stuff). If you register late, you can join us the next go.

Go to EVENTS page at: www.beherenowmindfulness.com

Class starts promptly at 8:00 am Eastern
Please arrive a few minutes early to settle.

meditation realizationprocess

This is a question that I pulled from Erica Bassani’s book: Women In Love With the Divine, where she specifically addres...
04/17/2026

This is a question that I pulled from Erica Bassani’s book: Women In Love With the Divine, where she specifically addresses her question to woman.That is of course important and a powerful frame, and it is an excellent read.

In this moment however, I feel inclined to broaden the scope to the entire human race regardless of how me might orient ourselves to gender. Right now, it feels bigger.

I don’t think it has a really good and clean answer either. I recognize the importance of our anger as a source of our power. Anger isn’t the problem—not entirely anyway.

Anger is data. It can tell us that something matters.
It tells us something has been crossed, ignored, or harmed. It pushes away what oppresses us.

But living in anger becomes problematic. Can we see the difference? It isn’t meant to be where we live and build a home. I fear we have become too comfortable with it, even if we don’t choose to express it—dormant anger is still felt by the way.

Love, on the other hand, isn’t the opposite. I find the term soft strength disagreeable at times. Even though I get the gist of what that means I am tired of anything soft to keep the peace and be agreeable.

So the conundrum this question ignites in me is how to give love a spine. To strongly say no, and set a boundary. Can love stand in the fire of disagreement without needing to win or destroy?

So maybe the work right now is to get out of the duality—and stop choosing between anger or love.

And to learn how to let anger move through us
without letting it take over the steering wheel.

To train instead in a nondual act from something deeper. Something that doesn’t need to dominate in order to feel powerful. To allow ourselves to feel anger without becoming it. And to stand in anger, powerfully and forcefully without losing contact with our love. To not have one eclipse the other.

Can we get both online and start from there and see how it goes?

My creativity is in full flourish after a weeklong retreat in Ann Arbor with my mentor and teacher Dr. Judith Blackstone...
04/13/2026

My creativity is in full flourish after a weeklong retreat in Ann Arbor with my mentor and teacher Dr. Judith Blackstone. I am currently curating events to bring the experience of the Realization Process (RP) to you and your groups and organizations.

RP has fundamentally changed and opened how I live…in my body…in my self…in my life. I am discovering that I can experience and express more joy and pleasure even amidst the crazy current events we get besieged with on a moment to moment basis.

To stay tuned to events subscribe to my website: www.beherenowmindfulness.com You can fill out the subscribe form at the bottom of any page.

My hope is to bring this work to more healthcare professionals out here on the frontlines to help diminish the deleterious effects of burnout and overwhelm so we can do our jobs with more ease and dare I say, happiness. Yes, happiness!

If you’re interested in a program for your hospital, team or healthcare work environment please reach out to me directly.

My supervision/mentoring groups start tomorrow, Monday, April 6. Embodied Clinical Practice—4- Week Supervision Group Th...
04/05/2026

My supervision/mentoring groups start tomorrow, Monday, April 6.

Embodied Clinical Practice—4- Week Supervision Group
There are a few spots remaining in the noon session.

We’ll meet on Mondays—April 6, 13, 20, and 27—from 12:00–1:30 PM ET via Zoom.

Each session will offer time for case consultation, thoughtful dialogue, and teachings using somatic experiencing interventions, trauma-sensitive meditation, embodiment, enhancing clinical presence through the core of the body, Buddhist psychology frameworks, and nonduality methods. We will also discuss practical support around the real demands of this profession—burnout, complexity, ethics, and the challenge of staying present over the long haul.

Tomorrow we will be discussing the potential pitfalls of modalities and singular methods. (Ahem…polyvagal theory was recently debunked)

My intention is to offer a small-format space open to 4-6 individuals, so we can ground ourselves in the work cohesively.

You can find more details and sign up here: https://www.beherenowmindfulness.com/courses-list-shop

If you have questions or need financial assistance, please e-mail me directly.

Warmly, Jen

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