The hardest part of parenting isn’t our child’s behavior. It’s the emotions and sensations it activates within us.
There’s a place beyond survival patterns - a state of aliveness, connection and vitality - that’s our natural birthright. We walk this path home when we learn to meet ourselves differently.
ABOUT
I'm Dr. Jessie, Clinical Psychology PhD, educator, coach and consultant, with over 25 years of experience helping families heal the stress patterns that shape relationships and secure attachment. My work weaves together neuroscience, somatics, and relational healing to help families work with the nervous system patterns driving their reactions, so they can create emotionally available homes where children feel deeply seen and connected. Homes where families live in harmony.
Many parents come to this work because they love their child deeply, yet still find themselves overwhelmed and repeating old patterns they never wanted to bring into the home. They've read the books, learned the parenting strategies, and understand what's happening. Yet the same patterns persist.
I've worked with many parents carrying heartbreak, guilt, and self-doubt, without realizing that parenting strategies alone aren’t designed to rewire the stress patterns beneath your reactions.
When a child feels deeply seen, something much greater than good behavior takes shape.
When parents stay grounded during their child’s overwhelm, your child gets to grow up feeling deeply seen and valued. They learn - All parts of me are welcome here.
In childhood, this might look like coming to you for support, instead of shrinking and hiding parts of themselves, or outsourcing to unsafe people.
And later, it can show up as confidence, healthier relationships, and the ability to trust and repair when relationships get hard.
All of this can develop because you worked with your nervous system to provide a secure home base. Your kids won't have to self-abandon to stay connected and receive love. They'll know their worth, because they grew up in your safe ecosystem.
The Moment that Changed My Work
Many years ago, while working in a Pueblo community in the Southwest, I sat with three women from the same family - a grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. Each carried a pattern she had never chosen. A pattern shaped by generations of historical trauma that passed relationally from one generation to the next.
What I remember most wasn't the pain. It was the moment something shifted.
One by one, these women found the courage to slow down instead of reacting or avoiding. They began to notice the old patterns that had been quietly shaping their relationships for years. As they learned to stay present with difficult emotions and sensations instead of shutting down or pulling away, something changed.
The room felt different. There was more presence. More connection.
Three generations reaching for one another, instead of protecting themselves from one another.
For the first time, I saw what would become the foundation of my life's work: when one person changes the way they relate to their inner world, it changes the emotional landscape of an entire family. And what gets passed on to the next generation.
I have spent the last twenty-five years working to understand, and recreate what happened in this room.
For years, I understood this intellectually.
I could explain the neuroscience of stress, attachment, and emotional regulation. I had spent years studying the relationship between the brain, body, and internal experience, and I had the privilege of walking alongside families as they found a path toward healing.
But in 2020, during a season of profound personal loss and upheaval,
I came face to face with the limits of insight alone.
Like many of us, I defaulted to the thinking mind - learning, researching, studying, and trying to think my way through the pain. Yet no amount of understanding changed what was happening inside me.
This was the moment my work deepened.
I experienced firsthand what the women in the Pueblo had shown me years before: change doesn't begin by thinking differently. It begins by learning to relate differently to our inner world - to the emotions, sensations, and protective patterns that emerge when life becomes difficult.
When we learn to meet these experiences with presence instead of protection, something begins to shift.
This understanding has become the foundation of everything I teach today
It led me to years of research in neuroscience and stress physiology, decades of clinical work in hospitals, schools, and integrated care, and millions of dollars in grants for mindfulness-based programs across communities.
And many years working alongside Indigenous communities, where I witnessed the effects of historical trauma - and profound healing - across generations.
Rooted in Coherence™
I developed Rooted in Coherence™, a Somatic Parenting coaching program to help parents interrupt survival patterns where they live - in the body and the deep neurocircuits in the nervous system.
Rather than focusing on behavior through therapy or parenting strategies, Rooted in Coherence™ helps parents transform the nervous system patterns that shape how they respond under stress, when their children need them the most. These are the times when opportunities for secure attachment are met - or missed.
Rooted in Coherence™ weaves together research, education and coaching across:
Neuroscience
Attachment
Somatic Practice
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Mindfulness & Contemplative Practice
Together, I’ve synthesized the most relevant content from these approaches to help parents move from automatic survival reactions - to grounded, intentional responses - where connection thrives.
When your shift your nervous system patterns, your child’s behavior and underlying biology can change too. With consistency, these new patterns might even be passed on through epigenetics and neurobiology for future generations. In essence, you’re contributing to a new generational wealth.
Education and Training
Dr. Jessie Lundquist, Clinical Psychology, PhD
Every stage of my career led me to develop Rooted in Coherence™: A Somatic Parenting coaching program.
My path began with a dual major in biology and psychology, followed by doctoral training in Clinical Psychology at the University of Wyoming, where I worked simultaneously in health psychology and cognitive neuroscience labs. I studied stress physiology, cortisol reactivity and recovery, and the relationship between mind and body.
I completed my clinical training at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Division of Pediatrics and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where my work integrated behavioral health into medical settings, and deepened my understanding of child development, relationship health, and the connection between mind and body.
Along the way, I taught at the university level, developed community programs, published peer-reviewed research, and presented professionally on topics of stress physiology, self-efficacy, culture and mental health, and mindfulness-based programming.
Some of my greatest teachers weren't found in research labs or university programs.
For years, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Indigenous communities throughout the Western and Southwestern United States. In many of these communities, cultural traditions remain deeply woven into everyday life and well-being. This experience profoundly shaped how I understand family systems, historical and developmental trauma, resilience, and the remarkable capacity for healing across generations.
Together, science and lived experience have shaped the way I practice today - an integration of mind, body, relationships and community. It’s my privilege to walk alongside families as they create lives rooted in beauty and connection, where children feel deeply seen, safe and valued. Rooted in Coherence™ is delivered via ICF Level 1 coaching parameters, focused on rewiring nervous system patterns, rather than processing trauma or past life events.
A mother, first
In addition to this meaningful work, I am the mother of two children - an experience that continues to deepen and shape my understanding of attachment, emotional availability, and the realities of raising children in a pressured and disconnected world.
A Different Legacy
When we learn to relate differently to our own inner world, we change the environment our children grow up in.
Imagine your teen comes home, goes to his room and shuts the door. Awhile later he returns to share with you what’s on his mind. You feel your body tense, but you know exactly what to do to stay present and hear him, rather than jump in to teach or fix it.
For this reason, he comes to you during challenging times rather than turning inward, and he develops into the healthy young man you knew was possible.
Or your young daughter begins to develop skills to manage her big emotions. You used to dread getting out of the house in the morning, but now you work with your own body to stay connected.
Your daughter feels your calm presence and wants to contribute to a helpful morning routine.
Over time, these interactions become the foundation for secure attachment, trust, and relational resilience.
This is where a new legacy of connection and vitality begins.
