The hardest part of parenting isn’t our child’s behavior. It’s the emotions and sensations their behavior activates in 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 response patterns that shape relationships and secure attachment. My work weaves together neuroscience, somatics, and relational healing to help parents 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 children deeply, yet still find themselves overwhelmed, reactive, shut down, or 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 keep showing up.
I've worked with countless parents carrying heartbreak, guilt, and self-doubt - without realizing that parenting tips and strategies alone aren’t designed to rewire the stress patterns driving your reactions.
When a child feels deeply seen, something much greater than good behavior takes shape.
When a parent can stay regulated and present during a child’s difficult behavior, your child gets to grow up feeling deeply seen. 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 become greater self-worth, 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 and 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 their own 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 neuroscience and stress physiology research, 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 tribal communities, where I witnessed the effects of historical trauma - and profound healing - across generations.
The Integrated Parent™
I developed The Integrated Parent™, a Somatic Parenting educational and coaching program that helps parents interrupt survival patterns where they live - in the body and nervous system. In the deep relational neurocircuits in the brain.
Rather than focusing on behavior through therapy or parenting strategies, The Integrated Parent™ helps parents transform the nervous system patterns that shape how they respond under stress, when their children need them the most.
The Integrated Parent™ 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 focus on the nervous system, and move from automatic survival responses toward emotionally available, connected, and securely attached homes.
When a parent's nervous system patterns change, your child’s behavior and underlying physiology can change too - potentially affecting the health and well-being of the family for generations, via epigenetics and neurobiology.
Education and Training
Dr. Jessie Lundquist, Clinical Psychology, PhD
Every stage of my career led me to develop The Integrated Parent™: A Somatic Parenting 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, cultural and mental health, and mindfulness-based programming.
But some of my greatest teachers weren't found in research labs or university programs.
For years, I worked alongside American Indian and Pueblo communities across New Mexico and Wyoming. These experiences profoundly shaped the way I understand historical/developmental trauma, attachment, family systems, and the remarkable capacity for healing across generations.
Together, science and lived experience shaped the approach I teach today - one that integrates neurobiology, attachment, somatic practice, and relational healing to help parents create lives of beauty and connection, where children feel deeply seen, and where families thrive. The Integrated Parent™ is delivered via ICF Level 1 coaching parameters, focused on rewiring nervous system patterns, rather than processing trauma or life events.
A mother, first
In addition to this meaningful work, I am the mother of two beautiful boys - 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.
Our goal isn’t to become a perfect parent. It's about becoming more present, more emotionally available, and able to stay connected in the moments where we’re challenged by our kids’ behavior - these are the moments that matter most for our children’s self-worth and secure attachment.
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 toward unsafe others, and he develops into the healthy young man you dream of.
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 body to stay connected. Your daughter feels your safe presence, and she wants to contribute to morning routine. You walk around the corner and witness her hand on her chest, working with her body, just like you do. Mornings have become much more workable, and this ease brings you tremendous relief in your busy life as a parent. You feel proud.
Over time, these emotionally available interactions become the foundation for secure attachment, trust, and relational resilience - for us and for our children.
This is where a new legacy of connection and vitality begins.
One relationship.
One family.
One generation at a time.
