Jessica Bugbee is a U.S. Army combat veteran, wellness director at Hudson Valley National Center for Veteran Reintegration, and co-founder of TRIBE, a non-profit that teaches yoga and meditation to the active duty military community. She’s also a peer specialist in the Vet2Vet program of Ulster County, New York, and leads Women’s Warrior Writing classes, mindful hiking groups, kayaking trips and other mind-body-spirit offerings to support and empower veterans and their families.

Jessica served as a combat medic and paratrooper during her seven years of active duty, and has been on a monumental healing journey since returning to the States, navigating life after the military and finding her way through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the myriad ways that trauma presents in the mind and body.

In today’s conversation, we talk about her life of service, where it started and who inspired it; her experience in the Army, oftentimes as one of two or three women among 500 or more men; and what her reintegration process has looked like, the ways that her military experiences—while technically “over”—are not at all over, and which modalities and healing techniques have helped her overcome and move through anger, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and heartbreaking loneliness over the last seven years since her discharge.

Now, she practices and teaches five categories of wellness and rehabilitation: nature, community, movement, breath, and storytelling. It’s these resources that inspired her to start TRIBE in 2019, along with a team of veterans, military spouse & family members, DOD personnel, and yoga teachers dedicated to showing people that their superpowers and navigational tools are within them and accessible at any moment.

JessicaBugbee.org
Hudson Valley National Center for Veteran Reintegration
Tribe Yoga

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