Board-certified psychotherapist Jessica Muñoz calls herself a visible survivor of gender-based violence and an expert in re-traumatizing systems designed to help. She built The Business of Healing™ to train the rooms most likely to encounter a survivor first: hotels, gyms, courts, workplaces.
In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Jessica, founder of The Business of Healing™ and a survivor leader with Sanctuary for Families, for a conversation about why early intervention blocks lethality and what trauma literacy actually looks like at a hotel front desk.
Jessica grew up in Scotland with a Hispanic last name, moved to West Harlem just before 9/11, and went through domestic violence, sexual assault, criminal court, family court, and the New York City shelter system as a first-generation immigrant. She points to the Diddy and Cassie hotel video as a textbook case of what her training is designed to interrupt. A staff member took a $100,000 payment to keep quiet. That, she argues, is the second wave of harm survivors meet after the first.
Ron and Jessica get into what trauma-informed hospitality looks like inside hotels, restaurants, and gyms, why the relationship is the vehicle to healing, and why the courts pay forensic evaluators rates so low that no trained professional will take the work. They also talk about Sanctuary for Families, The Bride's March, Kyra's Law, and why patriarchy is not about men versus women but about unearned power that hurts everyone, men included.
Tune in to hear why Jessica believes your story is necessary, not just for healing, but because it is the cultural expertise the system keeps refusing to pay for.
Chapters:
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01:13 Ron's call for voices: Leadership in a Time of Chaos, a book about saying something real
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02:10 Meet Jessica Muñoz: board-certified psychotherapist and founder of The Business of Healing
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04:20 Visible survivor of gender-based violence and expert in re-traumatizing systems
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09:06 Patriarchy on steroids in the courts: judges and attorneys not literate in trauma
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15:31 Kyra's Law and the fight still on Governor Hochul's desk
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17:14 Trauma-informed hospitality: what the Diddy and Cassie hotel video should have stopped
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18:12 The Bride's March: a grassroots movement run by families who lost women
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23:00 The barbell section is therapy: inviting the mind back to the body
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27:12 Why the relationship is the vehicle to healing, from front desk to gym floor
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43:51 Jessica's Rondering: your story is necessary, not just for healing
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45:42 Patriarchy is about unearned power, not men versus women
Links:
Follow Jessica Muñoz and The Business of Healing™ to learn more about trauma-informed hospitality training and the clinical work behind early intervention in gender-based violence.
Episode 94
