When the wildfires tore through Eaton and the surrounding communities of Greater Los Angeles late last year, they left behind more than ashes. When the flood waters overwhelmed Texas Hill Country with devastating speed last summer, they swept away more than homes. When Hurricane Helen ravaged Asheville, it shattered more than a quiet mountain town’s infrastructure. Each of these catastrophes made headlines for the damage that could be seen and measured: the lives lost, roads washed away, downed power lines, and structures destroyed. But alongside the visible devastation, there was the invisible as well: sleepless nights, panic attacks, grief that has no discernible end. These are the injuries that don’t show up in damage assessments, and they are the ones our current disaster response protocol is least prepared to address.   

The Unseen Impact of Natural Disasters

Psychologists tell us natural disasters can trigger long-term anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. Still, our disaster response systems overwhelmingly prioritize physical recovery: clearing debris, restoring power, reopening schools. But emotional and mental recovery is just as essential for a community to truly heal — and without it, physical rebuilding alone falls short.

A recent report from the STAT Network, led by Brown University’s School of Public Health and supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, underscores this gap. Of 45 states and territories surveyed, only 5% of public health leaders said they feel “very prepared” to handle the health impacts of extreme weather. Mental health struggles, the report notes, are among the least measured and least supported consequences of disasters, even though they ripple through households, workplaces, and entire communities long after the storms pass.

As the COO of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), I’ve seen this up close. In communities hit by floods, hurricanes, and wildfires, we meet people whose nervous systems are still in fight-or-flight months — or even years — later. Sleep is disrupted. Tempers are short. Bodies ache from stress that never quite lets go. These are not personal weaknesses; they are predictable physiological responses to trauma. And with the right tools, healing from trauma, building resilience, and reclaiming a sense of safety are entirely possible.

Months after these natural disasters, debris may have been cleared and homes may be in the process of being rebuilt, but the invisible damage, the toll on minds and bodies, remains. As one community leader who recently completed our Professional Training program told us: “We can rebuild the houses, but if we don’t rebuild the people, the community never really comes back.” 

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine’s Approach

For more than three decades, our organization has helped communities recover from trauma by teaching practical, evidence-based skills that restore calm and create connection. After Hurricane Harvey, we partnered with Houston-based organizations to train clinicians, counselors, and community leaders who went on to reach more than 10,000 residents. In Sonoma County, California, following the 2017 wildfires, we helped launch a local resilience collaborative that brought mind-body skills training to hundreds of service providers — resulting in measurable drops in depression and increases in hope. In the summer of 2019 in Puerto Rico, we partnered with Foundation for a Better Puerto Rico to bring our training program to more than 70 service providers and community leaders from the health, mental health, social welfare, and education sectors, ensuring that our model could be readily integrated into existing programs, becoming a foundation for innovative, sustainable, island-wide primary mental health care. In Baton Rouge, a community already facing enormous challenges due to high levels of poverty and racial tension, we’ve brought our model of trauma relief and resilience building to high-need communities, demonstrating a healing model that is scalable and replicable — because disaster response must address mental and emotional needs, not just tactical ones.

The approach is simple, accessible, and transformative. We teach people about the science behind mind-body medicine and how to use techniques like breathing, movement, and meditation to navigate trauma, chronic stress, and anxiety. These techniques are practiced in small Mind-Body Skills Groups that offer therapeutic support and safe spaces to share, reflect, and connect. They’re grounded in neuroscience and designed to be shared: a teacher can use them with students, a nurse with patients, a parent with their children, a first responder for themselves. Healing begins within individuals but multiplies outward, becoming community resilience in action.

As more Americans express concern about the increasing frequency of extreme weather — and question whether society is prepared to respond — emotional resilience is emerging as a critical form of infrastructure. Just as we invest in levees, power grids, and early-warning systems, we must also invest in our capacity to recover emotionally and psychologically. This means dedicating disaster-response funding to early mental health interventions, embedding trauma-informed care into FEMA and state emergency response protocols, and treating psychological recovery as essential, not optional. Training local leaders in stress reduction and group support techniques can make these resources as routine as first aid kits.

Physical reconstruction is visible and measurable. Emotional reconstruction is quieter, but just as vital. The next phase of disaster preparedness must recognize that until we rebuild people — not just places — recovery remains unfinished.

Randi Mitev, MA is Chief Operating Officer at The Center for Mind-Body Medicine. 

The post When Natural Disaster Ends, Trauma Remains appeared first on CMBM.

From Self-Care to Community Care: How Mind-Body Medicine is Building Resilience in Indiana’s Healthcare Workforce  

In the fall of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jennie Voelker attended a one-hour training session that would change her life. Eskenazi Health Center, a partner of CMBM’s in Indianapolis, had been integrating mind-body medicine into their healthcare system for years. Through the partnership, CMBM trained healthcare workers across the region. That day, CMBM-trained practitioners from Eskenazi facilitated an introductory session designed to teach future therapists self-care skills during one of healthcare’s most challenging moments.

“Within minutes of the training starting, I knew this was something different…there’s something here.”

— Jennie Voelker   

Over the years, CMBM’s mind-body medicine model and techniques had been thoughtfully integrated throughout the Eskenazi healthcare system, establishing a strong culture of self-care, self-awareness, and mutual support. That foundation not only shaped the environment in which Jennie first experienced the model, but also launched her journey from a participant in a single training session to a certified CMBM practitioner now bringing healing and resilience to hundreds of healthcare professionals across Indiana.

A Personal Journey Becomes a Professional Mission

Jennie, a Director at Community Health Network in Indianapolis, immediately began exploring how she could deepen her engagement with the work. She learned that Eskenazi Health had secured a grant through the Hoosier Heartland Healing Collaborative to support participation in CMBM’s trainings. After being selected for the grant, Jennie successfully advocated for three colleagues to join her, recognizing the power of learning and implementing the model as a team.

Together, they completed CMBM’s four-day Professional Training Program (PTP), which introduces participants to the science and practice of mind-body medicine through experiential self-care and Mind-Body Skills Groups. They then continued on to the Advanced Training Program (ATP) which prepares participants to integrate the model into their professional settings and to facilitate healing within their communities.

Deeply moved by the experience, Jennie felt both personally transformed and professionally empowered. “I was so impacted by it—personally and in being able to share it professionally,” she reflected. Committed to bringing the work forward, she completed the required supervision hours and became Certified in August 2023, joining CMBM’s global network of practitioners. In Fall 2024, she returned to co-lead an Advanced Training Program, completing her internship as part of the final stage of certification. What began as a commitment to self-care had evolved into a clear professional mission, and a calling to bring healing to others.

Building the Behavioral Health Academy

Today, Jennie brings everything she learned through our training into her role at Community Health Network’s Behavioral Health Academy, a program training master’s level students to become therapists in community mental health centers. Partnering with health centers and universities across Indiana, the Academy provides intensive training in evidence-based practices. At its core sits mind-body medicine, woven into the curriculum because of Jennie’s commitment to the work.

Since 2019, 283 students have graduated from the program, with approximately 70-75 new alumni each year. All are dual-licensed to treat both mental health and substance use issues, ready to serve anyone who walks through the door. Every single one has learned mind-body medicine techniques as essential self-care tools, carrying CMBM’s practices into their communities across Indiana.

Jennie has extended this reach further, offering monthly introduction workshops to hundreds of healthcare professionals and facilitating eight-week Mind-Body Skills Groups for 150+ participants. She runs these groups three to four times a year, staying faithful to the CMBM model. She meets one-on-one with participants beforehand to create safety, making clear it’s always fine to not share, to pause, or to take a break.

The impact speaks for itself: healthcare workers who are burnt out from high-levels of stress, who were considering leaving the field, stay, in large part because of the skills they learned and 

practiced regularly. Others share how they’re showing up more fully for their families. Many return multiple times, each cycle bringing new awareness.

“We are in a behavioral health crisis, and there’s a huge workforce crisis. If this is a way to increase the number of people who are able to stay in the field to do the work, then it is valuable.” 

— Jennie Voelker

Creating Ripples of Healing

Beyond the Academy, the healing spreads. Participants from Jennie’s groups take the mind-body skills they’ve learned back to their own work, their families, their neighborhoods. The transformation multiplies across communities.

One story stands out. A woman from New York, struggling with severe depression and suicidal ideation, came to a Mind-Body Skills Group at the Jewish Community Center in Indianapolis, at her psychiatrist’s recommendation. Skeptical at first, she discovered something in the practice, an awakening and calm, through soft-belly breathing, one of CMBM’s signature techniques. She never missed a week. When it ended, she immediately joined a second group.

The facilitator of that first group, a former Child Protective Services worker who understood trauma’s grip, built a relationship with this woman through regular check-ins, gentle reminders to use the techniques she’s learned, and creating a safe space for change to happen. One CMBM-trained practitioner opening up space for another to heal. And then the work multiplies.

A Way of Moving Through the World

For Jennie personally, mind-body medicine has become more than a practice; it’s a way of life. She craves it now. The techniques have become her way of moving through the world, keeping her present, calm, and intentional in how she moves through challenging moments. The regular practice has even helped her manage her autoimmune issues in ways she never thought possible, while the science behind the work continues to deepen her commitment.

Her advice to other educators and clinicians interested in incorporating mind-body medicine into their programs? 

“You can’t share it with others without participating in the practice and feeling the impact yourself. Prior to sharing, give yourself time to experience mind-body medicine. Create a practice and be patient with yourself. Start to notice the changes, then you can genuinely share with others.” 

— Jennie Voelker

The Work Continues

Jennie is committed to expanding the work even further, potentially creating retreat-style self-care programs for healthcare professionals who are struggling. She’s diving deeper into the research and science behind mind-body medicine, wanting to better articulate its measurable impact. Her organization tracks burnout scores against program participation and consistently sees reduced anxiety and increased ability to cope with stress, even after just a two-hour introductory workshop. But beyond the metrics, what drives Jennie is gratitude. 

“I just feel this immense level of gratitude for everyone at CMBM who has been a part of my journey, all of our students, my colleagues, and to CMBM for continuing to move this work forward.”

— Jennie Voelker

Five minutes into that training in 2020, Jennie knew she’d found something different. Now hundreds of healthcare professionals use these same self-care techniques because of her. One person’s discovery of our model sparked meaningful change across Indiana’s healthcare community.

Learn more about Jennie’s work:

Community Health Network Mental & Behavioral Health

Behavioral Health Academy

Eskanzi Health

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