Good Neighbor Podcast for the Greater Chattanooga Region

Wellspring Coaching's Regina Gee on Overcoming Disconnection and Depression

August 22, 2024 • Scott Howell

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Ever felt like no matter where you are, you just don’t belong? That’s a feeling Regina Gee, Wyoming native and the mastermind behind Wellspring Coaching, knows all too well. Join us as Regina opens up about her personal battles with disconnection and depression, and how these experiences inspired her to create a unique coaching practice that fuses neuroscience and anthropology. Regina's story is a testament to the power of reconnecting with your body, community, environment, and—most importantly—your hope.

Ever wondered why returning to a once-familiar place can feel so unsettling? We dissect the emotional complexity of reverse culture shock and share some moving personal anecdotes about what it means to feel uprooted. Learn how dislocation and the loss of agency can often be mistaken for depression, and how finding your ‘right’ space can lead to a renewed sense of belonging and well-being. This episode goes beyond the textbook definitions of mental health conditions, exploring the deeper layers of human connection and the profound impacts of our environments on our mental state.

Curious about the difference between a coach, a personal trainer, and a therapist? Regina breaks down the common myths and misconceptions surrounding coaching, emphasizing a holistic approach that sees depression as more than just a condition to be fixed. Discover the versatile formats of her coaching sessions, from virtual meetings to hands-on workshops, all designed to foster personal growth and community connection. Plus, we highlight the importance of supporting local businesses in the greater Chattanooga area and invite you to nominate your favorite entrepreneurs to be featured on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Tune in to celebrate the incredible individuals who make our community vibrant and resilient.

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Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Scott Howell.

Speaker 2:

Good morning neighbors, how y'all doing today. Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Friends and Neighbors Group of the Greater Chattanooga Area. Again, my name is Scott Howell and I'm your host for today. The purpose of the Good Neighbor podcast is to bring awareness to the residents of our communities regarding locally owned and or operated businesses in the greater Chattanooga area, including Cleveland, dalton, from I always say from Cleveland to Dalton, from Jasper to Benton, the whole entire area. Every little small business is important to us and you know small businesses are the backbone of our communities and they really still need our support today. And you know I always say this Every local business has a story to tell about themselves and we just want to help them tell it loud and proud here at the Good Neighbor Podcast. And joining me today is one of our good neighbors, regina Gee. Did I say it correctly? Yep.

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I want to make sure I said that correctly. Regina Gee at Wellspring Coaching. Regina, thank you for being our special guest today on the podcast.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, scott, I'm jazzed to be here.

Speaker 2:

Jazzed. All right, I never had anybody tell me they were jazzed to be here before. That's cool yeah.

Speaker 3:

I'm excited to talk about what I do and why I do it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm jazzed to have you here, so I'm going to adopt that phrase. But yeah, we're glad to have you here. You know, of course, we're here to learn all about you and Wellspring, coaching and what you offer to our listeners. But before we dive into the business part of it, would you like to share anything with us about yourself or your family?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So I think that two things that I keep pretty close to my heart are the fact that I'm the oldest of four girls. I think that's always a fun thing, and we're 10 years apart, and so the four of us together is something else in a good way, in a powerful way. And then I also I grew up in Wyoming, um, and so I have this big fondness for the mountains and the big skies, and just I like being outside.

Speaker 2:

Wow, the big Wyoming. That's one state that I've never got to go to. I've always wanted to see Wyoming and Montana and never got to get to either one of those places, so it's on my bucket list though.

Speaker 3:

When you go, let me know and I'll tell you my favorite places.

Speaker 2:

Hey, that's fair enough. That'd be awesome. So so, what are you not? Are you from anywhere famous like Jackson Hole, or anywhere like that I grew up in Cody Wyoming.

Speaker 3:

So the east entrance to Yellowstone, where Jackson is the south.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, I've heard of Cody, all right, well, all right. Well, I tell you what let's do. I'm going to give you all the time that you need to tell us about Wellspring Coaching. What I'd like for you to do is share with us. You know not only what you do, but also your journey, how you came, you know to doing what you do. So just share with us all that you can think of.

Speaker 3:

Sounds good. So Wellspring Coaching is all about relieving depression with integrative care. So I think that depression is about disconnection and so I work with it as disconnection and help people reconnect to their body, to their place, to their people, to source and to hope. And so I'm the person who kind of looks at you as a whole human being and asks these questions of like okay, like, where are you connected, where are you disconnected, what do you want to do about it? I love what I do because it kind of fills this gap in the medical world of like I'm not here to be an outside voice to tell people what they should do or how to do it. I'm here to facilitate this inside voice that just needs to be witnessed and listened to. So it's this deeply respectful, deep listening space and I really love it. It's Wellspring was really born out of my lived experience and then also my background and research in neuroscience and anthropology. Oh wow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So in my undergrad I studied at the University of Pittsburgh and I went there because they had this great neuroscience program. But I also, like, since I watched this TED Talk with Wade Davis, I've just been obsessed with anthropology and this question of, like, what does it mean to be human? So I went to this school and I was like, okay, cool, like these two like the social sciences and then the hard sciences, like kind of two different tracks. But then I was always trying to put them together and I found how to put them together with mental health. But that only came after I studied abroad in India and had this like incredibly, like expansive semester.

Speaker 3:

I was like whoa, look at how big the world is and look at how capable I am, this is amazing big the world is. And look at how capable I am, this is amazing. And then I came home and I got incredibly depressed and I was like, oh, this is, this is like a dent. It felt like I was moving through jello. It felt like everything was covered with goo. It was hard. And then I went to student health and tried the medication and tried the therapy and it didn't touch it and I was like oh, there's a bigger story here.

Speaker 3:

How do I learn to tell that? And I know I'm not the only one who needs that bigger story. So then I dove in and I was like, okay, here's the culture and politics of mental health, here's the biophysiology of depression, with the neuroscience background, and I put them together. And then I thought I was going to get a PhD in medical anthropology. But then COVID kind of swoops in. I was like just kidding, we don't have the funding for that right now. What are you going to do instead? And that's when I found the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine in Tucson, arizona, which is where I was living at the time, and I was like what do you mean? I can still ask these questions of wholeness and care, but do it in a way that's like one-to-one or in groups, like actually making contact with another person who is suffering. And so I got that certification.

Speaker 3:

And right after I graduated I started Wellspring and then for the last two years I've been going deeper with it and helping people out.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's great. That's a whole lot of in two minutes there. That's a whole lot of places you have been and lived in the world right there. I mean all the way from Arizona to Pennsylvania and then to India and back. I mean that's a lot of living in a short amount of time.

Speaker 3:

I drew a map one time where I was like here's where I've lived, here's where I've been, and like the amount of lines that were covering the world I was pretty heartened by. I was like look at that, look at you, go girl.

Speaker 2:

Well, I got. I got two questions out of what you shared with us so far. One is how did you wind up in Chattanooga?

Speaker 3:

Yes so the most important answer is that I loved it. My husband and I we were in Tucson. We kind of crash landed in Tucson in the pandemic because my sister was there and we liked it. We were there but we knew it wasn't our place. Like I love to talk about how the desert is just intense in every way, like it's hot, it's spiky, it's dusty, and I am, uh, more soft and gentle than that. And so then we were starting to be like, okay, like we're. No, we know we're not going to stay here forever. Where do we want to go next? Um, and then at our wedding, one of of my best friends was like I'm moving to Chattanooga and I was like, where, what is Chattanooga? Where's Chattanooga? And then my husband, logan's dad, was also like I had asked him where some cool places were and he's like, oh, chattanooga is really cool. And so it pinged my radar twice and then we came to visit and we're like, oh, this is great. And then it closer to logan's family, which is also a win logan being your husband.

Speaker 2:

yep, okay, okay, yeah, so, uh, and then so you you talked about a while ago about uh coming back from india and I and I saw some of your pictures. Uh were in where you were in india and had pictures made of things and I saw those and they piqued my interest when I saw them. So you came back from India, you came back from studying the place of Buddhism, right, the place of all the you know. So when you came back and you found yourself suffering from depression and I don't want to get too personal if it's too personal for you to talk about, so it's okay to say so, but what do you feel like kind of contributed to the sudden depression?

Speaker 3:

Oh, I love talking about this and thank you for like respecting the space, because depression is really personal and part of my work is like how do we talk about this? In a way that is like what's the generative narrative within depression?

Speaker 3:

yes um, and so for me it was. I came home in quotes, um, and it was I felt. I felt this profound disconnection, like the rug had been ripped out from under me and I wasn't expecting it, like I knew integration was going to be hard. When you come back, they call it reverse culture shock and things like that and I was expecting that.

Speaker 3:

But I wasn't expecting to feel like my life was too small for me. Like I had the same apartment, I had this, I was getting the same degrees, I had the same job and it just didn't fit anymore.

Speaker 3:

Like I felt like my environment wasn't holding me, it wasn't big enough and at the time the best story I had for that was oh, this is depression, and if you have depression, then you treat it with medication, and so that's the story I inherited and I tried it and it didn't work. And I was like that's where the shame piece came in, where I was like, oh, I'm broken because this didn't work for me.

Speaker 2:

And having to heal that within myself and be like, oh, I'm not broken, I'm just disconnected, how do I find yeah, I could see that where, if you're spending time and a large amount of time in another culture, you know, suddenly, uh, I moved to Chicago and uh, you know, and I'm, I'm in my twenties and I've moved to Chicago and man, you talk about culture shock. You know, it was just like, uh, it wasn't really Chicago, they call it the Chicago land area, it was Northwest Indiana, but but, uh, and then I changed my, I jumped into a brand new career and it was just like everything was just like bam, bam, you know. And well, I adapted pretty quick and I kind of liked the new sense of life and the new sense of direction. And then suddenly some things happened and when they happened I found myself being forced to leave the newness of life that I'd found, being forced to move back.

Speaker 2:

And I moved to Nashville, the Nashville area, and when I moved back it was just like, because I guess I was forced and I didn't want it and I wasn't ready, I went into that. I went into a deep depression. I never experienced depression before that You're talking about being disconnected. I didn't fit in anywhere anymore. Suddenly, no area of my life had meaning to me. I don't think you have to go across the world to experience what you're talking about.

Speaker 3:

It's just whenever you find yourself in that space where it's like, oh, this is a little off kilter. Now I'd love to hear how you talk about that experience. What you're talking about it's just whenever you find yourself in that space where it's like, oh, like, this is a little off kilter. Now I'd love to hear how you talk about that experience, like I've heard people talk about. It's like a cloud came in. I feel like there's a veil between me and my life.

Speaker 2:

What was?

Speaker 3:

it like for you if you want to share.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it was. I mean, I felt disconnected. My late wife was still living Then, obviously we were very young, a married couple and and she, we had a wonderful relationship, you know. But then suddenly there was just like disconnect everywhere, everywhere, from her, from my church, from, you know, my church life, and I had a wonderful church life, and it was cut off. My marriage had a cutoff in it, my career had a cutoff in it. Uh, you know everything. It seemed like the only the only place I could find any solace was actually going back home to Alabama for a weekend and I could find a little solace there, you know. But but then I had to go right back to where I didn't want to be, you know, and I was, you know, it was just constant turmoil, uh, for me for a while. So, yeah, it was, uh, this. When you say disconnect, I totally relate to that word because that's the way I felt.

Speaker 2:

I didn't feel connected to anything until five yeah, until finally, I was able about, I guess, uh, close to a year or so later to actually to relocate into a place, a space that I wanted to be, and when I, when I found that place, I wanted to be again. Then it was like things began to come back together. You know, it was just that feeling of being forced to do something that I felt wasn't right for me, wasn't the right thing for me to do. You know, that makes sense.

Speaker 3:

Oh, it makes so much sense. One of the things that I work with is a disconnection from hope, and hope is goals, agency and pathways. So it sounds like your agency was like cut off when you were forced to move to Nashville and then that precipitated this depressive experience, and then you were able to find relief when you reconnected the place.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I think so, and you know, I moved to a place where I'd never been before, so I didn't. It wasn't that I had any previous connections there, but it was just. It was a place I felt like I was supposed to be. I felt like it was good for me, whether than, rather than being forced to be somewhere where it wasn't a bad place at all, it was just where it wasn't a bad place at all. It was just it didn't feel like it's where I was supposed to be. You know, and that resonance, yeah, I guess that's part of it. Yeah, absolutely so thanks for asking, though I appreciate you, you, uh, being willing to ask me my side of the story thanks for sharing yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Uh, you know when, when people, when you, when people begin to approach you for the first time or you begin a coaching session with people for the first time, and what kinds of myths and misconceptions do you hear from people that maybe that they have in their mind about what you do or what, or what you can't do for them, whichever it might be?

Speaker 3:

yeah, so coaching is an interesting like it's. People can call themselves a coach for many different ways um so people, first off, they're kind of like are you a coach who trained over the weekend? Are you a coach who, like, did a thing?

Speaker 3:

um and my training program was a year. So I'm like, yeah, I did a thing. So the first off is kind of like talking about like, what the heck is coaching, why? Why should I work with a coach? They often, they often think that I'm like a personal trainer or a therapist, which I I'm not. I'm kind of the person I those are specialists who I can direct you to. But I'm more zoomed out where it's like, hey, we're gonna look at how all these pieces go together and then if you need a trainer, we'll bring a trainer on board.

Speaker 3:

If you need a therapist, we'll bring a therapist on board. Um, and then they come to me with a lot of um.

Speaker 3:

I don't like a lot of stories about what depression has been told to them, or it's like oh it's a chemical imbalance in your brain and it's like, well, we don't really know that, like it's a hypothesis, the monoimmune hypothesis, and like, oh, you need medication if you're depressed, and it's like sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't, and so there's just so much more nuance and it's so personal in particular, and so I just make a bunch of space for their specific experience.

Speaker 2:

What if somebody comes to you and they have a child, that suddenly something's happened and they're disconnected and they're, you know, suffering from something but nobody can seem to you know figure out what it is? And they come to you. Do you also work with younger children, or is there an age range you work with?

Speaker 3:

so, yeah, I've worked with teenagers before. I've worked with retired people before I've worked with like. I think 16 to 75 has been my age range, and it's so interesting when parents come to me with this longing to fix their child, where it's like oh, there's something here that I need to fix, that I need to fix, um. And I love what Parker Palmer has to say about how, like, the human soul doesn't want to be fixed or saved or advised, it simply wants to be witnessed.

Speaker 3:

And so so much of my work is saying like, hey, this depression, this thing is serving a purpose, so let's figure out what purpose it's serving and how to make it life-giving rather than life-taking. So if we out what purpose it's serving and how to make it life giving rather than life taking, so if we try to fix it and cut it short, then it's not authentic, it's artificial. If we let it do its work and if we're willing to be brave and sit with it, look into the deep dark and just stay there for as long as we need to, with the knowing that it's not always going to be that way, then that pressure to like be saved or fixed goes away and, lo and behold, the thing can do its work. The depression can do its work, and it spirals, unweaves and untangles, as long as you're walking alongside somebody instead of trying to fix them.

Speaker 2:

So so what you're saying is sometimes the things that we go through like that is just part of a greater learning process that we just kind of have to go. It's kind of a journey, you might say.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I believe depression is a signal asking us to look deeper. And when we don't look deeper, we're going to continue to feel depressed. But when we look deeper, like for you when you moved to Nashville, if you wouldn't have been depressed, it wouldn't have been telling you that this wasn't your place For me, it wouldn't have told me that my life needed to expand. Um, so there is a gem within there, and it's how do we listen for it and how do we give, give it breathing room so that it can do the work it needs to do?

Speaker 2:

Okay, I understand Now. Do you typically do your your coaching sessions, uh, in person or virtually, or is there a preference?

Speaker 3:

Right now I'm virtual, so I work with people all over the place um virtually, and then I do groups as well, and then I occasionally have in-person workshops.

Speaker 2:

Okay, in-person workshops, what are those?

Speaker 3:

a lot and make one big collage together on a particular theme and then I'm going to facilitate a wellness coaching discussion about it and we'll record it and have a scan of the collage for you to take home. And then I also do like the healing song and dance events where it's singing circle journey, dance and wellness coaching together. We've done one about water, one about trees. It's very connected to the natural world. And then I have my Depression is Disconnection 101 workshop, which is an hour long, like my framework of working with depression. Here's how it looks with connection to body place, people, hope and source. Where are you disconnected? Where are you really connected and where do you want to focus?

Speaker 2:

Okay, I read about. I was telling you before we started recording. I read about the one you had last month and you tell me what that was called.

Speaker 3:

Again, you said that one was healing woods song and dance, and so that one was about trees.

Speaker 2:

Song and dance. Yeah, and you, you, you worked with some other coaches as well, that that one that specializes in dance and one in singing, and you just kind of all brought all three of your coaching practices together, right, and did something.

Speaker 3:

So Naomi Self is amazing and she does Chattanooga Singing Circle. So if you ever just want to be in a group of people who are using their voice in a nonjudgmental way, like it's just, it's just playful. And then Catherine Toledano does journey dances.

Speaker 2:

Okay, all right. Well, I was reading about it. I thought it was very interesting. I'd never heard of anything like that before.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's kind of new and unique, like I know about a bunch of dancing events or singing events, but putting them together, I haven't heard of anyone else doing them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, you know some of the questions I was I was planning to ask you you've already kind of answered and uh, so uh, but you know, you and your husband moved here from Chattanooga. Sometimes, I do, I do like to ask some personal questions sometimes and you and your husband moved to Chattanooga from some some pretty fantastic places I mean Wyoming, and and then uh, then you know Tucson, I've been to Tucson, Like you said, it's a big desert, but it's still kind of it's different when you've never been there. So, but now you're in Chattanooga, what do y'all like to do outside of work?

Speaker 3:

Oh, my goodness, we have so much fun going, paddle boarding and kayaking. Like last weekend we did Audubon Anchories to Camp Jordan on South Chickamauga Creek and that was really. That was really fun. Um, I'm trying to hike as much of lookout mountain as I can. We're going to go backpacking in august for our second wedding anniversary in wyoming I'm very excited about that oh great.

Speaker 2:

I've never did backpacking type hiking, but I love getting out in the wilderness and walking and enjoying nature. I really enjoy that kind of thing. So if there was one thing, regina, that you wish if our listeners can know about you and when I say this I mean the heart of Regina, gee and Wellspring Coaching If there was one thing that you wish that they could know but they probably wouldn't know unless you shared it with them and you'd like to shout it loud and proud here today what would that be?

Speaker 3:

I want people to know that not all depressions are disorders and that you don't need a diagnosis to be worthy of support diagnosis to be worthy of support.

Speaker 2:

That's very interesting. Not all depressions are disorders and you don't need a diagnosis. Diagnosis. Yeah, Thank you. To be worthy of support. That's very I think that's a very comforting saying.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, go ahead I just want. I was going to say tell me a very comforting saying yeah, Go ahead.

Speaker 2:

I just want I was going to say, tell me a little bit more about that. Just explain that a little more.

Speaker 3:

I think that it makes so much more room for the heart of all things, and I the idea of care as being cherishing rather than controlling and so not all depressions are disorders means that this question of feeling depressed is also a question of what it means to be human.

Speaker 3:

And so when we put something into a medical box with, like, how we seek, how we conceptualize a problem, is how we seek its solution. So if depression is only a medical problem, then you can only seek medical solutions, and that's not the whole story. Right, then there's also room for other solutions, like connection to nature and connection to people, and like creativity and delight and all of these beautiful things, and then not needing a diagnosis to be worthy of support, like the work of diagnosis is a very specific thing and it's very useful in a specific context, but outside of that context, it can actually be harmful. And so if you are feeling this way and you're like, well, I have to go take this test at the doctor or do this thing or take this medication to be worthy of being seen, like, that's not helpful, and so I really care about telling a bigger, better, more beautiful and true story about depression.

Speaker 2:

I can relate to that a little bit. You know, for 15 years I pastored a church. And if you, if a person don't have any stress in their life, start pastoring a church, and uh, I mean, you know, you, you get your stress, and everybody else's too, Right, and uh, so I had an old, I had an old Jeep, an old, raggedy looking Jeep. But where I found a relief and and I called it my therapy, was that old Jeep up in the mountains and and and I just ride and just look at nature, the trees, the hills, the mountains, the creeks, and just spend time out there. I didn't even have to have anybody with me. You know, sometimes I would have people with me, but sometimes it'd just be me and I just got out there and I found my therapy there, you know.

Speaker 3:

Well, that was a sacred space to you. You were out there, connecting with something bigger than yourself, and it made you feel at peace.

Speaker 2:

That makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. But, regina, I've really enjoyed this, but before we end, I want you to take a moment and you just explain to everybody where they can find you or find more information about you, whether it be online or offline.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. The best place to find me online is Instagram and it's at Wellspring underscore coaching. And then I'd also love to see you at my free depression is disconnection 101 workshop. I run those twice a month and you can register online. You'll find that link on my Instagram, and then I also have a sub stack. So I I write a lot and if you're, if you liked what I talked about or how I said things, I would definitely recommend getting subscribed to my sub stack, which is just Wellspring Coaching with Regina Gee.

Speaker 2:

Okay, all right, and they can find all that information on your Instagram account. Yep, okay, all right, wonderful. Well, you know, I really appreciate you being with us today, regina. I've thoroughly enjoyed your time and your explanation of how that you reach out and try to help people. You know, cope with the things that they're going through, and I know, I'm sure, just from what I've got from you today. I'm sure that the people who have connected with you are really glad they did.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, scott. It was really great to be in this space and get to talk about what I care about, and thanks for listening.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and thank you as well. And, of course, you know, to all the good neighbors of the greater Chattanooga area. After meeting with Regina and learning more about what she does at Wellspring coaching, I know that she hopes that you'll take a moment, you know, to consider all she has to offer. You know, examine yourself and your space. You know, after hearing her words today, if if you've something has resonated with you, something you feel that you need, something that you're not getting, and if you feel like that she might have some way of coaching you and helping you to understand more about yourself and more about that space of time that you're going through right now. You know, reach out to her, check her Instagram page out and talk about her sub stacks, I believe is the way she worded it. Uh, you'll check that out and see if there's something there that can benefit you and then you'll reach out to her. Uh, attend one of her sessions she was talking about that. She does twice a month and and uh, you know you might be surprised you might find some of the help. You need a few pieces of the puzzle anyway that you need to start on the right part of your journey and you know all you listeners you know.

Speaker 2:

I'd like to thank you all for taking time out of your busy day to be with us here at the Good Neighbor Podcast today. Always remember to support the locally owned and or operated businesses in the greater Chattanooga area. They're all important to us, from Cleveland to Dalton, from Jasper to Benton and all the communities around. You're all important to all of us. So thank you all for being with us today on the Good Neighbor podcast. Again, my name is Scott Howell. Everybody, go out and make this a remarkable day.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPClevelandcom. That's GNPClevelandcom, or call 423-380-1984. Thank you.

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