Regulate

In this episode, Jenn St John sits down with psychotherapist and trauma expert Jenifer Freedy for a deeply grounding conversation about nervous systems, survival patterns, and what it really means to regulate.

Together, they explore how chronic stress, trauma, and emotionally unsafe environments shape the way we move through the world long after the original danger has passed. Jenifer shares powerful insights into the nervous system — including the now widely recognized “fight, flight, freeze” responses — and explains why so many of us live stuck in states of hypervigilance, shutdown, over-functioning, or emotional exhaustion without fully understanding why.

Jenn and Jenifer also talk candidly about parenting, grief, high-functioning survival, and the ways unresolved wounds can quietly surface in relationships and everyday moments. Throughout the conversation, Jenifer offers compassionate, practical tools for slowing down, reconnecting with the body, and learning how to return to ourselves with less shame and more awareness.

This episode is a reminder that regulation isn’t about perfection or staying calm all the time. It’s about understanding that our nervous systems learned to protect us — and that healing begins when we stop seeing those responses as failures, and start seeing them with compassion.

Topics discussed include:
• Nervous system regulation
• Trauma and chronic stress
• Fight, flight, freeze, and shutdown responses
• Parenting and generational patterns
• Somatic therapy and polyvagal theory
• Emotional safety and self-awareness
• High-functioning survival patterns
• Grief, healing, and repair

About Jenifer Freedy:
Jenifer Freedy is a psychotherapist and trauma expert with more than 25 years of experience working in the fields of trauma, grief, and loss. Her work integrates somatic therapy, parts work, and polyvagal (nervous system) principles to help clients better understand the connection between the body, trauma, and healing. She also provides professional trainings and supervision, and her upcoming book, Reclaiming What Was Lost, focused on healing from childhood sexual abuse, will be released in Fall 2026 through New Harbinger Publishing.

Connect with Jenifer:
Website: www.jeniferfreedy.com
Instagram: @jeniferfreedy_psychotherapist
LinkedIn: Jenifer Freedy

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following, sharing, or leaving a review. These conversations help remind people they are not alone.

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

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Subscribe, leave a review, or just send a little love—your support helps these conversations reach the people who need them most.

Transcript

PODCAST:           The Shadows We Cast

EPISODE:             Regulate

HOST:                   Jenn St John

GUESTS:              Jenifer Freedy

LENGTH:              1:06:55

TRANSCRIPT

Jenifer Freedy  00:02

I know your mind knows that you shouldn't maybe be reacting this way or repeating this pattern, but your nervous system is still trying to protect you, and unfortunately, the protective mechanisms that really did help you, probably during the time where you needed them, are over, extending their stay and really running amok. And essentially, this part of your brain and nervous system has commandeered your life now. This nervous system is raising your children and having your marriage and doing your job and trying to engage friends.

Jenn St John  00:36

Hello and welcome to the shadows. We cast a podcast about what we carry, the impact we leave, and the messy, beautiful reality of mental health. I'm Jenn st John, a writer, business owner and a mental health advocate who grew up in a family shaped by mental illness. Some of it was heartbreaking, some of it darkly funny, and all of it shaped who I am. Today here we're going to share honest conversations, stories from me, from you and from those who have walked this road in different ways. Through journal entries, letters from my mom and real conversations, we're going to pull back the layer on mental health, the tough parts, the moments that shaped us and how we move forward together. So grab a coffee, settle in and let's talk. So today's episode is called regulate, and I wanted to begin by saying that this isn't about being calm all the time or getting it right or fixing yourself. That's not what regulation means to me. It's about understanding what's happening inside of us when our reactions feel bigger than the moment that we're in, so when our bodies respond as if something old is happening again. Regulation, in this context, isn't perfection. It's the ability to return to notice that when we've left ourselves and to come back with a little bit more awareness and a little bit more compassion. In this conversation, we explore what it means to live with a nervous system that learned early how to survive, and how those survival patterns can quietly shape adulthood relationships and especially parenting. We talk about what happens when stress becomes chronic and when we get stuck in that high alert or that shut down phase entirely, and what it can look like to slowly widen that middle ground, that place where we can be present and connected even when things are hard. And I'm joined today for this conversation with Jennifer Friede. She is a psychotherapist who has spent over 25 years working in the field of trauma, grief and loss. Her work is grounded in somatic and parts based approaches using the nervous system or the polyvagal principles to help people understand what's happening in their bodies, not just in their thoughts. Jennifer also teaches, she supervises other therapists, and she's the author of an upcoming book reclaiming what we lost, which is focused on healing from childhood sexual abuse. What I appreciate most about Jennifer's work, and what you'll hear throughout this conversation, is the way she brings clarity and compassion to experiences that can otherwise feel confusing or overwhelming. This is a conversation about nervous systems, yes, but it's also about care, about the way that our bodies have tried to protect us, and about the possibility that regulation isn't something that we achieve once, it's something that we have to practice over and over. So as I do in every episode, I wanted to begin this conversation with a short journal entry. Sometimes it's one of my own, or it's one of my mom's, or it's a letter that we shared for this conversation. I've chosen one of hers. Seven years ago, I decided I wanted to feel whole, happy, well, healthy and fully alive, to get in bed at night thinking today was a good day, a day that I lived in the very best way that I could not abusing myself or anyone else, and tomorrow will be even better. That's from one of my mom's journal entries, and it was written during a time when she was beginning to face her own mental health and addiction struggles head on, in her early 50s. And when I read it now, it definitely makes me pause, because underneath her words, not abusing myself or anyone else, is the awareness that her pain wasn't just living inside of her, it was leaking, and it was rippling down to all the people that were in her life, obviously touched everybody who was in her life. Because healing isn't just about feeling calm, it's about learning how to live and how to love without hurting ourselves or the people around us, and that's exactly what I wanted to explore today, how our bodies carry those echoes, and how awareness and regulation can begin to change those patterns, and I'm exploring this with Jennifer. So welcome Jennifer and thank you for being here.

Jenifer Freedy  04:49

Yeah, well, it's my pleasure.

Jenn St John  04:52

I find it fascinating how the body keeps adapting to survive. You know, especially with everything that we went through with my mom, seeing. Her and how she was trying to survive, and then us, and how we were trying to survive. When someone comes to you and they're feeling constantly on edge, or, you know, they're in that state of overwhelm, how do you begin to help them to understand what's happening in their bodies?

Jenifer Freedy  05:15

Well, one of the ways I like to think about working with people and us as human beings with not just logical minds, but also nervous systems that are also designed to keep us, you know, surviving and well and functioning is I like to think about the whole person. And I think that's shifted a lot in the field in the last sort of 15 years, so in the 90s and the early 2000s and certainly before that, I think we focused a lot on just how you're thinking about things, your thoughts, or your beliefs, your memories, that you talk about, the story, or the way you're behaving. And we kind of really tried to shift those. But we've learned a lot about the nervous system in the last 15 years. So it's pretty recent. And I mean, technology and research has allowed us to do that. And so I like to think about how a person's nervous system is, first and foremost, working hard to protect them. Usually it's over protecting them. Now it's lost back in time. But nervous systems, and I would tell the people I work with, I have a lot of respect for someone's nervous system, because nervous systems work very hard for us. They're very, very loyal, and they remember all of the hard things that we went through, so we never go through them again, or to maximize the potential that we never go through them again. So when someone's in overwhelm, that tells me that their nervous system is working really hard to protect them from something that has happened in the past that the nervous system doesn't know is over now, a lot of clients come to therapy. People come to therapy because they hate something that they're doing or they're hard on themselves about something that's going on, or they're really bashing themselves for how they're replaying old patterns. So I really like to get them started understanding that it's not just a mind and a behavior thing. It's also a nervous system thing. It's a deep brain and embodied nervous system response to probably, usually more than one, but one or more, really difficult things that they've gone through in the past. And unfortunately, when we go through something that is overwhelming, the brain doesn't often keep track of, well, that was then, and that's over now, and this person's X years old, and they have a different life, and there are good, safe people in the world. It would be great if it did that, you know, sort of automatically, like control, alt, delete, and

Jenn St John  07:43

then,

Jenifer Freedy  07:43

you know, we move on. But it says a nervous system that's lost in time, even if the logical mind knows that the person is now an adult and all that sort of stuff. So I like to get people curious about I know your mind knows that you shouldn't maybe be reacting this way, or repeating this pattern or feeling this way, but your nervous system is still trying to protect you, and unfortunately, the protective mechanisms that really did help you, probably during a time where you needed them, are over, extending their stay and really running amok. And essentially, this part of your brain and nervous system has commandeered your life. So now this nervous system is raising your children and having your marriage and doing your job and trying to engage friends, and we want a nervous system in my self protection when we're truly going through a danger. We want that,

Jenn St John  08:34

yeah,

Jenifer Freedy  08:34

but we also want it to know when the danger is over. And that's really a big component of trauma healing is catching that nervous system up with where life is now,

Jenn St John  08:43

yeah, I think that's a big why on the road for you in therapy, when you can get to that point when you realize, oh, I'm reacting to situations that I'm not in, because my nervous system has this memory of me not being, yeah, not being safe. I think for me, I probably only the last five years that I kind of start to really dissect things, a little bit more about like, Oh, why am I reacting this way? And then, like, really trying to think about it.

Jenifer Freedy  09:10

And, you know, insight into that is very helpful. So therapies that talk about connecting dots is, for sure, very helpful. But unfortunately, post trauma is really about that nervous system is overriding the more logic, time based kinds of knowings. Now, yeah, it's that overriding that we're really trying to heal in therapy.

Jenn St John  09:31

So when that stress state does become the norm, what's happening in their body over time?

Jenifer Freedy  09:39

So I like to talk to clients a little bit, just to kind of give them a beginning understanding of this. And I think it simplifies it a little bit is we're kind of looking at the speed that your nervous system is now working from. And so I really love the Goldilocks analogy, because it fits so beautifully with the. How the nervous system functions when we're overwhelmed and coping with an ongoing situation that we can't escape. And it also shows us the states that we can be and the feeling and even body states that we can be in when we're functioning well and we can engage and enjoy life, even to small degrees. So I like to say, you know, is your nervous system revving too hot or too cold or a little bit of both? And how often do you find yourself in the just right or the just right enough kind of state? So when we talk about chronic stress, chronic stress is really kind of a hybrid term for I'm always hyper vigilant. I'm always thinking and planning. I'm always trying to get out in front of something. I really need a lot of control and predictability. Rest does not feel safe. It feels like the calm before the storm. So my nervous system always keeps me fast, and anxiety is a part of that. I suspect there are some people who have a brain that's just really, really well wired for anxiety, but if you look at their history, it makes a lot of sense why their nervous system revs so quickly to keep them anxious. Because anxiety is the thing that keeps us on our toes. It's an inner alarm that alerts us to always be on so nobody or nothing could ever hurt us again. And in a way, it's a brilliant adaptation that the nervous system does, and the chemistry of the brain and the body can really do that for a long time. So we don't rest well. We don't stop thinking. We don't stop planning for all the worst things that could happen, even things like hot, heavy self criticism, which is a fight response, is designed to keep you on your toes, and so you have to rev fast to stay there. That's a tell. That's not a neck or even slower speed. It's it's pretty busy speed, if I'm up there too long, and I don't know how to get into a nice middle ground my nervous system is going to take me into the too slow realm. Now I'm kind of numbing out and zoning away and disconnecting, pulling in, withdrawing even more severe kinds of forms of that, which is, you know, dissociation to some degree, even activities that get me down there like drinking and drugs and really numbing addiction, kind of activities that help my nervous system go low. And so what you end up having is a nervous system that gets into what some psychologists refer to as a biphasic way of living. I'm neither too hot, my porridge is too hot or too cold, and this nice middle ground of just right or just right enough that allows me to engage and connect and assess, you know, what I like, what I want, feel myself, feel who others are, know to what degree I want to connect with them. It helps us to feel little joys, moments of contentment. I don't get in there very much. And if I'm not functioning from that very much, then you can imagine how my outer life looks. Because if I'm living outer life from too hot or too cold, my outer life is going to look too hot or too cold.

Jenn St John  13:14

Yeah,

Jenifer Freedy  13:15

I'm either disconnecting or I'm over engaging. So you can see where the spiral in this loop, this can linger for decades. I mean, if you can catch this in your 20s, then do so. But a lot of people haven't had that opportunity, or aren't oriented to that, or they don't understand this, so they assume they have a disorder or something like that, and they don't maybe explore therapies that can help that nervous system re regulate where sure we go up and we go down. We all do that, but maybe 20% of the time for both. And maybe I always say to my clients, you kind of want to be like 7585 75 80% in that nice, what is called that window of tolerance, right? Yeah. Steven Porges of the polyvagal theory, refers to it as the social engagement. I'm engaging with me and my life, and it doesn't feel dangerous or make me wary, and now I can actually live my life from a pretty engaged, healthy state. And so to answer your question, there. Long story short, the chemistry of middle ground and just right or just right enough is very different in the brain and body than too hot or too cold. And different parts of the brain and aspects of the body are off or on depending on what state you're in. So it really is a physical thing too. Wow.

Jenn St John  14:39

So if you do have some awareness, and you're in your 20s and you're experiencing that super high, super low, where would somebody start to try to connect with their bodies in that middle ground?

Jenifer Freedy  14:54

First thing I do with people is I kind of give them the owner's manual of the nervous system. I want them. To understand why they're investing in a therapy that's not just about telling the story, connecting dots and insight, or, you know, deciding that you want to really fight a particular belief about yourself, or shift a behavior and get really sort of conscious about that. Those are good but the problem when you've had a nervous system that's been dealing with chronic stress or traumatic issues dysfunctional family, or you've gone through something really horrific, is the nervous system that is still going too hot or too cold to protect you, because it learned to do that back in the day. It doesn't respond well to those things alone. So for a lot of people who do sort of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a very, very useful therapy, but it doesn't work really well alone, if you've had complex kinds of things happen, or you've had a chronic history, so trying to figure things out and understanding things and analyzing things and telling the Story is helpful, but that language is very cognitive. It's top left brain language, as opposed to lower right brain and body language that says, I just feel the danger. I just always feel something is off out there. I always feel wary. I always feel that people can't be trusted, or that shit is going to happen, or whatever, right? It's always got that feel to it, so that's the first thing that responds. So I like to give people that sense of I want to shift. I want to tell you about the first half of you that you're familiar with this cognitive behavioral, analytical, logic based, time based you, and that's important. But I also want you to understand the nervous system you, because that's the you that's bringing you here. And in fact, by the time people have come to therapy, even if in their 20s, especially these days, there is more psycho education for kids in elementary and high school. So they do come with some having put the dots together to some degree. But this stuff about the nervous system, and these three states of the nervous system and the five protection mechanisms the brain and body use when we've gone through something that stay on for us, and the trauma that stays in its very raw form in different parts of the brain, this is often very new to them, and so I like to get them, first Of all thinking about their nervous system. And then we start talking about pacing, one of the key features of having gone through either overt trauma, really intense trauma, or, let's call it subtle trauma that goes on for 15 years in a dysfunctional family, or whatever is, your brain really wants to be highly protective of you, so it has to go fast or slow. And everybody's wish is, well, I want to get in that just right or just right enough so I want to be able to get more in my window of tolerance. I want to be able to grow that and spend more time in there. But a nervous system that's not spent time in that territory, even if logically, you know that's exactly why you're coming to therapy, the nervous system will say, Hang on, here's what I've come to feel. I feel that fast and or slow is what's safe in this world. I learned early you don't trust anybody. Mommy and Daddy are not safe people, and if they're not safe, ain't nobody say exactly. So the world becomes colored with that kind of thinking in various ways that nervous system has to learn that healthy is okay and safe, and so for a bit, we're playing around with speed and pacing. How does it feel when we talk about life from this middle ground state? You can probably imagine what it might look like and how it might play out. But can you imagine feeling that inside your body every day, and it weirds people out. It really does our goal. And I think this is the issue with some therapies where there's almost this mentality to fight the difficulty, to go to battle with your thoughts or your core beliefs or these problem behaviors. And I don't find that usually too helpful, because you're up against something now that actually helped you will be with you, right? I mean, we all have to have protection mechanisms built into us till the end of our day. That's what keeps us surviving. I think therapies that mean well, or maybe can do some good. I think sometimes therapists go too fast. And I also think the people coming for therapy can go too fast, too they've been doing this for a long time. They're tired of this, and usually by the time they come to therapy, they're in crisis, or they're really drained, or what have you. So they're urgent and anxious to get feeling better, which completely makes sense. But again, you have to be in the mindset of the nervous system that says, I've been working hard for you in a from a state and a mindset of danger for 25 years, I don't know what it's like to live life from this. And you got to, first of all, give me a chance to build this state and to visit this state. And so we want to play a little bit with just the idea of even life from that state and what your nervous system feels about that. So again, I'll say to people. So part of you is here for therapy, but part of you isn't. Part of you gets this stuff. I give you some education, or you already have some information. You've got this. The part of you that often really needs the therapy is the nervous system component of you, and then we can integrate what you logically know with this lower brain and body stuff that is now learning how to also be in balance after years of being too hot or too cold. To help you. Yeah,

Jenn St John  20:25

absolutely no. It's very interesting, because I can imagine that it takes a long time. And I mean, hopefully everybody gets there, because you literally what kept you alive, what kept you in survival you no longer need anymore. But now, what does that look like? What does that feel like? Like you said,

Jenifer Freedy  20:42

yeah, and a lot of people have a hard time answering that question, or they'll answer it globally. I can imagine my relationships would be calmer, or my marriage would be better. I'd be a more calm and present parent, or whatever. But to say, can you imagine just slowing down for a moment and feeling what it might be light. It's tricky. Yeah.

Jenn St John  21:02

Well, my next question was going to be like for somebody who's never experienced emotional safety, where do you even begin? But like you said, this is the beginning part. It's just that slowing things down and feeling and instead of thinking to things logically, thinking about your nervous system and trying to spend some time there and really understand,

Jenifer Freedy  21:20

getting acquainted with the body,

Jenn St John  21:22

yeah,

Jenifer Freedy  21:23

and again. You know, for people who've gone through a lot a lot of times in order to survive, they've had to disconnect from how their body is feeling. They're oriented to what the outer world needs or wants, or what someone in my life needs or wants for me, but to really have someone say, How do you feel when you turn your eyes inward and you kind of go down below your neck and you're not thinking or busy and you just notice what's going on in there? Sometimes it's very hard for people because just again, very new territory. And so there's a learning curve in somatic experiencing therapy. They talk a lot about orienting, and a person who's gone through trauma orients to danger and speed and really slowing down and disconnecting to cope and all those things externalizing to keep things safe. So when you invite them to orient inward and orient to the body, and orient beyond thoughts and into sensations in the body, which is really where the healing goes. From there. It's new, and it's also, again, as we were talking about, they're nervous about it.

Jenn St John  22:27

Oh, I would imagine it's very scary. They're nervous.

Jenifer Freedy  22:30

Yeah? So there's a whole, like, again, relationship building with your nervous

Jenn St John  22:34

system, yeah,

Jenifer Freedy  22:35

the care and feeding of the nervous system. And then how do I begin to actually engage it at a case that feels okay,

Jenn St John  22:41

yeah, that feels safe again. I mean, I'm in my 40s. I'm at the end of my 40s right now. And I would say it's only in the last like three to five years that I really realized the state of, I'll say chaos, just because I'm using that term. But you know, the state of always doing too much, always doing so much, always having so much on the go was really just a state I was putting myself into because, like, that was kind of a protection mechanism for me when I was younger, right? And so that was a big realization of, again, my nervous system. What do I actually need right now? What's getting me into that middle ground? But I feel like I couldn't have had that realization 20 years ago. It seemed like things had to happen in order for me to get to a point to be able to have that realization

Jenifer Freedy  23:25

well. And I think 20 years ago, your therapist not saying that there weren't somatic oriented or nervous system oriented therapists, but they weren't plentiful. And EMDR was, you know, a weird therapy that only a few people did. And now everybody does it. They teach it sometimes in graduate

Jenn St John  23:39

schools,

Jenifer Freedy  23:40

but we were just trying to get used to all this stuff. I think there is a lot of power in helping somebody understand the nervous system. It changes the game, because prior to some of the research around nervous system and its impact on the person's life after trauma and trauma's impact on it, we used to think about the human being like a triangle. This is very popular in cognitive behavioral therapy, where you think about your beliefs and the cognitive your behavior and how things are playing out, and then your emotions, and so you kind of enter in at one of those three places and do therapy. But I say to people, it's really a square. It is behaviors and how things are playing out and thoughts and how those impact your reactions and your emotions, of course, but it is also your nervous system, and it's a big part. I still do get a lot of people who say, I have been in therapy before, and I worked with a cognitive behavioral therapist, or I worked with somebody doing, you know, talk therapy or anxiety therapy, great. They learned a lot. It did help. They got psycho education, super important. But something was missing. And then after I left therapy and I stopped doing my thought records, or I stopped doing, you know, my behavior interventions and things, my nervous system went back to anxiety. It went back to the way it. Is protecting me prior to that therapy. And so this is why I'm really, as you can probably tell, I could talk for hours about this, but very passionate about helping people understand that when you've been through a lot, this is really important, too. So to your point, I think sometimes when people get this information, they get curious that there's a whole branch of something here that has not been attended to, and I think a lot of therapists are still learning this. Many know it, but it is relatively new in the field to focus this way. And so I think for people coming up in therapy now, with people who also share this bent and are really up on this research, they get some really good information early on that adds a whole nother branch of therapy that can really get to this stuff, and not just thoughts and behaviors and feelings,

Jenn St John  25:50

and get to this faster and sooner for them. Ideally,

Jenifer Freedy  25:52

that's it, yeah, yeah.

Jenn St John  25:54

So is it almost like this middle ground is also like emotional regulation.

Jenifer Freedy  25:58

Polyvagal theory talks a lot about this, and is Dr Steven Porges and Dr Dan Siegel, who is internationally known psychiatrist and trauma and development, talks a lot about that window of tolerance. So when I work with clients, I sort of say the window of tolerance, if you imagine three blocks stacked on top of each other, and the middle block is a green block, and the green block is that window of tolerance. It's just a fancy term, which means when I'm in that nervous system state and the brain and body chemistry in certain parts of my body are activated. To put me in that state, I can use pretty good judgment. I can feel pretty emotionally regulated if something difficult happens. I can stay, you know, I may not feel amazing, but I can stay online and be present with it. I can make some good decisions. I have some social skills that I can use toward that, and also I can seek support from my inside world and my outside world as needed, where Dan Siegel talks about this as the window of tolerance. Stephen Porges calls it social engagement. I can engage my world, myself and life while I'm dealing with upset, or even just day to day functioning when I'm parenting my kids and I'm having my marriage and I'm planning an event, I need to kind of be in that green zone where the parts of my brain and body that helped me do that best are well developed and functioning right the block. On top of that is the red zone, and that's fight or flight, and that's where, yes, we can be aggressive or running away from things, but it is also things more nuanced, like perfectionism and heavy control of myself and others, and a lot of anxiety or panic or busy mind and racing thoughts and eye control, that's also fight and flight. And some people are so good at that that they look incredibly functional, and they can do a bunch of things. And if somebody needs help, you're their go to and you get that done ASAP, and all the things you're highly, highly, you know, functional, let's say in that from an outside perspective. But you're doing that from the fight or flight red block, not from the green block. Easier to do it from green than red, because you have to pay a big price to get up and red. And then the block at the very bottom is the blue block, or what I call kind of that, the blue zone, or the blue block, which is hypo arousal or freeze shut down, and there's a lot of people that live a lot from this, you're disconnected emotionally and you're numb inside. You might be highly cognitive. You don't really connect well with other people. Not so great, you know, in relationships and you dissociate, or you're doing things like drinking and drugs and such to get you down into that place, because you can't get green to restore.

Jenn St John  28:48

Because

Jenifer Freedy  28:49

green is also where we rest well we digest our food. Some people actually call it the rest and digest zone. It's where we connect with others for love and care and relationship, all of which we need for mental and physical health. The bummer about the Green Zone, and I don't know, I sometimes joke that this is Mother Nature's flaw, and if it were different, the world would be different. But the green zone is the only zone that we have to develop. Infants can be in fight, flight,

Jenn St John  29:16

right?

Jenifer Freedy  29:17

Infants can be in freeze, shut down. The nervous system is wired for those more rudimentary ways of coping with upset green is something that has to be built and usually over the first, sort of 25 years of life. So there's different parts of the brain and body and chemistry that are developing over the first 25 years of life to build that green zone strong enough and wide enough that, again, 8075, 80% of life is being lived from there, generally speaking. And if you go through trauma or sort of chronic, heavy stress or family dysfunction for a lot of years, not only is your nervous system being wired to be up in the red or down in the blue, it's. Help you cope with all of that, especially as a child. But you're also not getting experiences you need to build the green so you're kind of getting a double hit. You're getting wired to be in red and blue an awful lot, and your body and nervousness get really good at that. It's like default, right? And also, your green doesn't get enough exposure to life. It doesn't get enough of the things it needs to grow, because it doesn't just grow default or de facto. There are a number of experiences we have to have over the first 25 years of life to build that well enough.

Jenn St John  30:33

I love that she keeps coming back to this idea of green, because it reminds me that regulation is always available, even if we leave it and we come back to it, we can always return

Jenifer Freedy  30:46

people with trauma. They're not only wired for self protection, but they're also often missing the development necessary for this zone that they really want to be in and start to build a life from now. And we can do that. That's always every client. Is that possible, even though I'm 40 or 30? Absolutely. In fact, jennina Fisher's referred to that as developmental catch up, and you do it with a therapist or other sort of things in your life that build that, but you will not do it with your mom and your dad, and that's a bummer, yeah, because there's a lot of grief there too.

Jenn St John  31:20

Oh my gosh, yeah,

Jenifer Freedy  31:21

you've missed out on a lot, and it's not true, and it's of no fault of your own

Jenn St John  31:24

right. I was talking to somebody earlier this week. I was interviewing them, and we were talking about grief. I ended up losing both my parents are, and it happened really quickly with both of them. And I was talking about how had so much grief already my relationship with my mom, especially, you know, from a very young age onwards. I think, I guess this is why a lot of people are really shocked by how well my sisters and I have come out of our childhood. And obviously, this is, this is, you know, we're this happens to lots of people who go through, you know, really traumatic or long, chronic, traumatic situations. And it's, um, it's understandable, like when you put it visually that way of always the always the red and always the blue. How can you possibly carve out the green,

Jenn St John  32:09

right?

Jenn St John  32:11

And so there's so many factors, very personal factors, but also environmental factors and etc, that help you to to start to carve out that green and you can see that why the road where others have just not been able to get to that point?

Jenifer Freedy  32:27

There is a certain amount of talk about the resiliency factor. I think it's fair to say. And I think those that research in the resiliency area, why do some people just cope better? Why do some people go to war and they come back horribly traumatized, which completely makes sense. And other people come back and they don't,

Jenn St John  32:45

yep.

Jenifer Freedy  32:45

I mean, some people smoke all their lives and live to be 90, and some of us do all the right things and get cancer at 40, right? So it's kind of that piece. So there is, I think, a resiliency factor where some of us maybe neurobiologically, the right connection of genes and such that made us a little bit more naturally resilient. But I would say that only counts for a certain part of that. And when I do see clients who've had really a lot in their history, and I don't just mean you know, they were horribly beaten or sexually abused or something like that, even just living with an alcoholic parent for 20 years, or a very absent, disconnected parent, where, essentially you're raising yourself that does a lot to a nervous system.

Jenn St John  33:27

Yep, that was our situation

Jenifer Freedy  33:28

yet, okay, and that's that's often the case. People are coming for that so called complex trauma. That's really what they've gone through. And by the way, you would sometimes have to educate them that that's trauma. Well, I wasn't sexually abused. I wasn't raped, I haven't been beaten. But that doesn't matter. We know that nervous systems can be overwhelmed and struggle and suffer and need developmental catch up or updating that you're safe now, even if it wasn't daily beating.

Jenn St John  33:57

Yes.

Jenifer Freedy  33:57

And so there are other things, though, sometimes I'll say to someone, you know, you really should be a lot more messed up than you are. What's, you know, somewhere along the line, I'm going to guess that there was a buffer for you. Yeah, I'm always curious about the buffers, and often they will say I had a teacher who was really great to me for grade seven and eight, or my friend's mom

Jenn St John  34:21

let

Jenifer Freedy  34:21

me sleep over a lot, and she was like a second mom to me, or, you know, I had a coach that was really, really liked me and cared for me and took me under their wing. And those moments do buffer trauma, and they actually, I mean, some I, you know, I don't think teachers, all teachers and coaches, and, you know, your friends Moms always understand just how much they have helped buffer some really hard outcomes for people being nice and caring and loving and understanding and offering space and time for you goes a long way when you're going through a really tough time in childhood. So we also think about those external things that have given you some.

Jenn St John  35:00

Resiliency here.

Jenifer Freedy  35:01

Some people are really sort of starting from I don't know anything about this trauma stuff. I'm just learning about this, but I think my nervous system, and it's funny when they use this language, I think my nervous system is still really dealing with a lot of stuff from the past, and as much as I logically know it's over, and you know all that. And I've even been to therapy to kind of deal with my beliefs and my behaviors and try and make changes there. I think my nervous system is still back in the past fighting a battle for me that's been long over and I don't know how to talk to it.

Jenn St John  35:35

That's a great awareness, though.

Jenifer Freedy  35:37

It's a great awareness,

Jenn St John  35:38

yeah,

Jenifer Freedy  35:39

and very helpful, because it gets them curious about how we learn the language of the nervous system that's very different than the language of thoughts and conscious behavior choices.

Jenn St John  35:48

Absolutely, if I didn't have siblings, I think that would have been very different. So having my sisters and all of experiencing at least things together, that was, for sure, the rock that we all leaned on. But, I mean, there were lots of teachers, there were lots of friends, parents, there were lots of coaches, there were those buffers that did help, right? But, yeah, we're definitely in that group of people are just like, I don't understand how you guys, yeah, we

Jenn St John  36:17

did.

Jenifer Freedy  36:18

Yes, well. And again, if you have siblings who I find people either say, I have siblings, and we're we're a unit, and we're witnesses for each other. We can talk with each other about this, and we get this, and you're not alone, thinking, maybe it's you. You get somebody verifying and validating, or your birth order, sometimes

Jenn St John  36:36

one

Jenifer Freedy  36:36

of the kids gets out a little better, because you're the one that had to be super functional to take care of your siblings, and in a weird way that buffered. I mean, now it's getting in your way, because you're always there fixing everybody else forever more and exhausted and over functioning and perfectionism and all the stuff that leads to but it's true, you

Jenn St John  36:55

survived.

Jenifer Freedy  36:55

There is a Yeah, it's the buffering effect of the role that you took, right?

Jenn St John  37:00

Yeah? You

Jenifer Freedy  37:01

can hear how complex this is, you know. I mean, it's definitely workable, but it's all the things. It's beyond just thoughts and behaviors. There's a lot here.

Jenn St John  37:09

Yeah, there is a lot. So for my situation, for example, there's been a lot of awareness like I came out of, you know, my childhood went into adulthood with lots of baggage from everything that I'd experienced my nervous system was probably not a lot of green, you know, super high functioning, you know, like just, you know, took on everything career wise. And all of us really did that, like all of us went to post secondary and hit the ground running. But we also all became parents. It's so fascinating to me, how much can come up and come out of being a parent when you've experienced a childhood that you've experienced that was similar to something like just a traumatic childhood. And I waited until it was my 30s, as I definitely knew I needed to do some work. It's interesting to me how when I'm in a situation with my child, but it could be, I don't know if triggering is the right word, but like my nervous system is, you know, feeling what it's feeling and expressing itself in a certain way for how much work you have to do to not parent from that place or not right, communicate from that

Jenifer Freedy  38:17

right. I think one of the things that in the last maybe 20 years we're learning about parenting, you know, just as a bit of a side note, that the days of having three or four kids, and, you know, they go outside on their bikes, I came from that Gen X era, right, where you go out and you play with your friends. You know, you went to your friends for lunch, and their mom fed you and kind of parented you a bit. And probably there was more stay at home parenting then as well, etc. So parenting was a little different then. I'm not saying it wasn't hard. I just think it was different. Plus, we didn't know all the stuff we know now about child development. So if you like, SWAT your kids, oh, well, who? Who cares? That's just what you do. We didn't know how some of that stuff really does impact a growing nervous system. So in and of itself, I think people are recognizing, like, parenting is no joke. The idea of we'll get married and, you know, partner up and have a couple kids. Well, hang on, that is a huge, huge job. You are parenting back to the nervous system. You're parenting nervous systems from scratch, and how well you parent them. Nobody's Perfect, nor should you be. A little bit of imperfect parenting actually helps to build some resilience, but how you parent that child says a lot about what their life is likely going to be. So now you add in, not only is parenting a new matter and requiring a lot more than or different things than the past, I'm also going through trauma, and I'm not just oblivious to my trauma and not mindful of my trauma, like maybe you know parents of decades past were or generations past. I know that I have to be a little bit more on my game, because I know more now about child development, and I want to give my kids something different, and I don't want to be an alcohol. All like the way my parent was with me and all those things. So not only am I doing more in the parenting realm, but I'm also mindful that I have my own trauma, so I've got to deal with that too, because I know the stakes are high. They just are. We just know that now you know some of the ways it plays out, of course, is when your kids trigger all the shit that you went through. And by that, I mean, usually there's four or five categories that you know trigger you. If your kid doesn't listen to you, I feel rejected. I was rejected my whole life in one form or another, or I was dismissed or unheard. So now when my kid doesn't listen to me, it's not my kid not listening to me, and I'm in my adult going, well, eight year olds don't always listen. I'm now that eight year old myself remembering my nervous system is viscerally remembering, even if I'm cognitively not remembering, somewhere inside my nervous system, I'm remembering the feeling of being unheard and how horrible that is, especially when you're vulnerable. And so with my kid not hearing me, suddenly they're the dismissive parent and I'm the hurting child.

Jenn St John  41:05

Okay, I wanted to pause here for a sec, because this is one of those moments that can land right in the body. What Jennifer is describing isn't just I overreacted or I lost my patience. It's the past showing up in the present, and it can happen to so many of us.

Jenifer Freedy  41:26

And now I either go to red or blue in that moment to cope with this nervous system upset that's activating, and all of a sudden I'm parenting out of fight flight or shut down and disconnect. And I don't want to do that, but I do, and so my green isn't parenting my kids in that moment, I feel unheard if there's terror, you know, if you're if you had a childhood filled with fear or abandonment or a lot of loss. So when your child triggers some side of loss or some sense of inconsistency, or you see them going through loss, or you worry about their future consistency, you're not that parent anymore. It's that nervous system part of you that activates. It remembers the felt sense of how hard loss was, and your nervous system doesn't say, let's all slow down here and see how we want to parent this that's green, your nervous system automatically activates a red response or a blue response, and then suddenly you're parenting out of this. And then later you go, why do they do that? Like I get it. You know, eight year olds have fights, and they break up their friendships, and then they get back together. But I'm getting super invested in this. And I think the question is, you're getting super invested in this, or your nervous system is remembering a time when loss meant a lot to you, even long before your kids were ever thought of. And here you are reacting to your loss through them, vicariously. And unfortunately, you're parenting through that. And so this is why I love to talk about the nervous system, because logically, you know, oh, I blew it there. Oh, I something happened there, and I got to go and repair that with my kid. But the bigger question is, what happened to me? What part of me came out and reacted and I say, well, that's not logical, you. That's nervous system, you. And it means so well, it's so acquainted with how horrible loss can be that it's protecting you from loss in this moment by fighting hard to get your kid not to lose or disconnecting because you're overwhelmed by it, or making sure your kid never goes through this and you overreact and over respond to protect them from something that you haven't healed yet.

Jenn St John  43:41

Yeah,

Jenifer Freedy  43:41

so the heart is in the right place, and the intention is absolutely right, because I'll say to people I have such deep love and respect for nervous systems and protection mechanisms, because they are always on the clock.

Jenn St John  43:52

Wow.

Jenifer Freedy  43:53

They are 24, 7365, they love you so much. They're out to protect you. If you live 300 years, they'll they'll do this for 300 years. And when you have people in your life that matter, that matter, they fight for them too, and they don't think about the method, the ends always justify the means. So if I can just get my kid from having dealt with this loss, I don't care what it takes, then great. That's the nervous system's mentality. Our whole goal is to avoid loss, abandonment, not being seen or heard, feeling invisible, losing resources or terror,

Jenn St John  44:27

and

Jenifer Freedy  44:28

as their behavior kind of trips one of those five categories, if I'm not healed, or if I'm not aware, my nervous system is going to respond out of red or blue and I'm not Parenting out of green we're out of present day, meaning, yeah,

Jenn St John  44:43

that's like a minefield for somebody.

Jenifer Freedy  44:46

It's such a minefield, yeah, and it's and think about how exhausting it is at the end of the day. Because I don't know about you, but moms are so great at mom guilting or self guilting, so you then go to bed at night and say, I'm such a horrible parent. Well. You're not a horrible parent, but you don't understand the nervous system that just tried to rescue you and your child via any means necessary. And that's the problem,

Jenn St John  45:11

my gosh.

Jenn St John  45:12

So what are the get really tired? No,

Jenn St John  45:15

this is fascinating. I mean, in those moments, and I know this is a whole other conversation, but what can like if I'm in that moment? You know my 13 year old daughter, let me tell her,

Jenifer Freedy  45:26

I'm short, especially when they're teenagers, forget it. I don't know how parents who don't have trauma are doing that, let alone those who do, yeah,

Jenn St John  45:33

my sister's son is a little different. Oh, my 13 year old daughter. And I know it's just the me that was 13, like, I understand what's going on here, but in those moments when I know I'm not in the green area anymore, what are some quick resets, or what are some things that would generally be suggested,

Jenifer Freedy  45:57

one of the things I say to parents is, I want you to teach your child about their nervous system too, or for a little bit, maybe they, you know, we hang out for a minute and I tell them about that, or they go to a therapist and learn about that. So you can get a language of, are we doing this from Green, red or blue? And it just simplifies. And kids like this too. And even in the polyvagal world, there's lots of charts with diagrams that just show Am I climbing up the ladder or down the ladder? So I like those because they help us get much more self aware about I'm not just coming out of this from anger. This isn't just an anger problem. I don't actually believe in anger management issues. I think I am in fight, and my nervous system is going to fight, and I'm up in the red. And this matters enough to me that my nervous system is, I mean, 13 year olds are often in the red, partially because their brain is undergoing a lot of change and right so they don't have access to the prefrontal cortex and a lot of the regulating stuff, but, and that's where CO regulating them in teenage years is like your back to back to toddler years. But if you can say to them and to you, I'm going to try my best, honey, to be with you from my green

Jenn St John  47:06

and

Jenifer Freedy  47:06

if I'm slipping into red or blue, I'm going to say to you, you matter. I know this is important to you. We haven't resolved this, but I just need a breather, because I don't want to be parenting you from red or blue. And you can say, and I know that you're inside this thing that's happened at school, or this thing that you want really badly, or this rule that you want to break, that I'm saying no to, or whatever it is. I know it's putting you in red or blue, right? You're either shutting down, or you're hot and pissed off at me or whatever. And we're going to battle

Jenn St John  47:37

this.

Jenn St John  47:38

If you're thinking, great, but what can I do in the moment? Jennifer's about to offer a simple framework that can help you slow the spiral without shaming yourself for having one.

Jenifer Freedy  47:51

I talk to people about and this takes some practice. This is one of those, like tricks that takes work. But Peter Levine, who is the founder and the developer of somatic experiencing uses an acronym called sai bam,

Jenn St John  48:06

okay,

Jenifer Freedy  48:07

s, I, B, A, M, and sai BAM stands for all of the five elements in the mind and the nervous system that activate during a positive thing or a difficult thing. So s really quickly. S stands for the sensations that activate in our body. And let's say this, we'll use parenting as the analogy. So when I'm parenting my teenager who's going through something, I'm going to have sensations activate in my body. I might get tight, I might get braced, I might feel jittery, I might feel. I might feel fast. I might have certain things. I'm going to have imagery that maybe comes to my mind, which is the eye of Sai, bam. The next one is eye imagery. Imagery might be when I was 13. If I talked to my parents like this, I would have been swatted, or I would have been whatever. So How dare you right? And you you get that imagery of what your parent might have done in this circumstance, or if you had done this, what your parents might have done. You might also have images of I have to get this kid resolving this issue now, because if not at 25 they're going to be a failure in life, and I don't want them living in my basement forever. All the imagery that comes to try and get you right nervous enough to fight for this kid. The B stands for behavior and body. So behavior is I'm yelling, I'm screaming, I'm debating, I'm explaining myself. I'm pulling away, I'm disconnecting. I'm threatening you. I'm whatever, right? I'm bribing you. I'm whatever the behavior is, and the body is where I'm feeling the activation inside of my body. So when I feel braced and tense and urgent and fast and afraid for them and pissed off at them and resentful in this moment because I've just done a bunch of things for them, and this is. Thanks I get or whatever triggers you in my body, I'm feeling that in my gut or in my chest or in my shoulders, or I feel words building in my throat and my mouth. Then the a of Sai Bam is affect, which is just a fancy word that means emotion. So I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm afraid, I'm resentful, I'm disconnected. Whatever it is I like to pair sai BAM with allow. So I say to parents or people I work with, when you've recognized with your child that you've gone into the red or you're in the blue, and red and blue are parenting your kid who's also not in the green, and because of their age, struggles to be in green, you might want to say, I'm going to go and take a break and get me back in the green but I hear this is important, and I am coming back and etc, and then you go to your own space. And usually I say to people, notice a sensation in your body. So notice that you're either angry, you're not having joy right now. So you're angry or scared, or resentful, or afraid, or whatever, is activating, and you're going to notice the sensation of that in a part of your body. So if I said to you, when your 13 year old is being amazing and being a being her fabulous self, and you get triggered. I mean, what's the feeling and its sensation in your body. Do you sort of notice

Jenn St John  51:22

I feel like the tension in my body goes to my shoulders and my throat area I get tight. I would definitely say that, like I get very heated. It's like an anger all right, yeah, so that kicks in.

Jenifer Freedy  51:35

You're definitely up in red. You're in fight flight. And if you say the heat and the anger is what I notice. I'd say, what sensation? So if so that the anger is the emotion, it's the affect. The sensation might be heat and bracing and tightening in the shoulders. So allow those three parts of your sai BAM to be here. I'm recognizing that in this moment, and I don't have to analyze it. I don't have to, oh, is this my childhood? Is this my trauma? Is this me having a long day? Is this her? You don't do that. You just you go to I feel the anger. I feel its sensation. I feel it in my sort of chest and shoulders, maybe a bit in my throat. And then we slow time down. This is so key, and it's not easy. So it takes practice. I'm going to sit with that feeling, and I'm going to do a process I call allow a, l, O, W. It's, I mean, it's my acronym, but it's based in lots of mindfulness and somatic work, which just stands for I'm going to attune to that sensation in my body. I'm going to locate where it is in my body. Then I'm going to o observe it without analysis, judgment, anything like that. I'm going to let it be here, and I'm going to welcome it. And how I welcome it is I'm going to say in this moment, you're saying this to the sensation of anger in this part of your body, in this moment I see you take your time. You matter, and you're welcome here. And the thing that calms the nervous system, and this is true for our children, too. And when I'm working with people, I'm always mindful that their nervous system has probably spent a lot of its time never having heard those words. So even if you've heard I love you, some won't have but even if you heard I love you, probably you haven't heard much in your life. I see you and take your time. There is space and time for you here. You're welcome here. And it's so funny, even when I'm doing that with people, I will hear like, feel my nervous system sort of regulate a little bit. And so when I say that to people, my nervous system goes, oh, right, there's lots of space, there's lots of time, there's no danger or urgency unless your 13 year old is literally in danger, because then there's a whole other process for that. But really them pissed off about not getting to go out Friday night for the sleepover is not an urgent danger. So you're saying this to your insides, your nervous system's reaction, and in saying it, you kind of want to feel the feel of it. When someone invites you to take your time, I see you. I come in peace, because so often our anger or our upset or our frustration, we need it with urgency, fast judgment, quick analysis, hurry up, get this solved or and then you beat yourself up, or there's not a lot of space and time. So when, I guess we could sort of very broadly say when you're healing your nervous system, whether in therapy or doing a little bit of your own. Work, or even in moments where your child has tripped you, triggered you, and you've got to go and do some of your own little sound bite of work so you can go back and parent from as much green as you're able, you have to say to yourself, I'm going to offer my nervous system in this moment, probably what her nervous system needs too, which is i i hear you. I see you, truly. I see you. You matter. You're welcome here. So we attune and we locate where that is inside, in the body, you observe it. By that, I mean no analysis, no judgment, no no super big agendas, just and then you welcome it here with those words, and often that will help you feel validated enough. And it's brings that speed down, right? Take some work, because if your nervous system is not used to hearing those words or feeling the sentiment of those words, or having a lot of practice with that, there's, there is a learning curve, even neurobiologically for your brain body, but it allows you to regroup, and often what it will do as well. When I do this with parents, because a lot of parents who are doing their work are also talking about parenting, they'll say, you know that they'll come to it naturally. That's probably what my kid needs to if I go to her and say, I know this matters to you, and I'm attuning to this mattering to you, and I'm locating that inside of you, belonging on Friday night with all the other girls who are getting together matters, and I'm going to just observe that belonging is really a part of your fight right now, and that makes sense to me, and I'm not going to analyze or judge it or anything. It's welcome here. And let's just even talk about what it feels like when you don't get to belong. And we'll welcome those feelings in you, honey, and we have lots of space

Jenn St John  56:51

and time. Yeah. Oh, that's so

Jenifer Freedy  56:53

and that will slow it down, too.

Jenn St John  56:56

It's so interesting to me, because I've actually started in the last two or three years, I'm making a connection now, though, to her and parenting is that I found myself getting into situations where I'm in the red and I can feel and it's nothing necessarily that somebody, I'm in an interaction with somebody, it's just I can feel this, and I've started to say to myself, you're safe, but I've never thought to do what You just said, Where, if you're in an interaction like with my daughter or with my husband or with my son, and I'm feeling that way to do what you just described, right in that like you said, it's just with your nervous system and just bringing yourself back into the green

Jenifer Freedy  57:35

and the thing about safety, you're safe sometimes that's a really big leap for a nervous system that has had a lifetime of lack of safety, so we have lots of time. I see you, you matter is a little bit gentler entry than you're safe, because the nervous is saying, No, I'm not safe. I don't even know what that is. So we start a little earlier on the path.

Jenn St John  57:55

Yeah, I like your wording a lot better. Mine jumped a few steps

Jenifer Freedy  57:58

well, and I get it. You are safe. You're trying to but there is your logic. Yeah, talk to a nervous system that says, I just need slowing. I just need to be seen. I just need validation. Right now, very gently. Can you offer me that? And when you do, you do get some slowing to happen?

Jenn St John  58:14

Well, I'm excited to use this.

Jenifer Freedy  58:16

Well, I do have a few little handouts that I give to people. If you need a cheat sheet, let me know. I can send them to you.

Jenn St John  58:24

I will, for sure. So

Jenifer Freedy  58:26

tape it to your

Jenn St John  58:27

wall, exactly right on my fridge. I just wanted to ask you, what gives you hope about the direction that trauma work is going in right now?

Jenifer Freedy  58:37

Well, a couple of things. One, I think there, at least in way I'm perceiving it a lot more people. So I'm big on social media, around LinkedIn and Instagram, and not about my own personal life, but really about the field. And I do a lot of trauma work, and I have some expertise in that, and I really do a lot of more somatic nervous system based kinds of therapies. I do CBT and all that too, but I like to integrate all these things. So what I'm noticing a lot is that a lot of therapists and those that are a little bit visible in the trauma field are also recognizing not only the benefit but the necessity of integrating therapies. So, you know, I think, like anything therapy as well as a political kind of thing, and who gets the research money and all that, and whose therapy is better, and we get into all this, but really, I think integrative model that pairs both mind cognitive and behavior based kinds of interventions, absolutely for sure, with nervous system kinds of therapies. So we refer to these as top down therapies, because the cognitive and more intentional sort of interventions we use that's top left brain, the bottom up is working from the body and the bottom right brain, where trauma nervous system activations happen, and unfortunately, these two parts of the brain don't speak the same language. They don't speak well. To each other. So you need therapies to complement both. Let's say it this way, simply put both sides of the brain

Jenn St John  1:00:06

Right, right?

Jenifer Freedy  1:00:07

We're really good at left brain stuff as a culture, and even, you know, in therapy, CBT and all that stuff, is really considered like, Oh, this is the thing. It isn't. It's part of the thing. It's half the thing,

Jenn St John  1:00:18

and

Jenifer Freedy  1:00:18

the other half of the thing is these bottom up therapies like somatic experiencing and sensory motor psychotherapy and EMDR, and even sort of trauma based yogas and expressive arts therapies and neurofeedbacks are also necessary. So I see a lot of that, particularly in the last five years, a lot of integrative kinds of therapies. And you're not just training in one therapy. They're teaching you how to combine EMDR with parts work therapy, which is a really important therapy, and you know, polyvagal stuff, even, I have a book coming out next year, and it's integrating polyvagal principles with parts work therapy and somatic techniques. That integration is so necessary to help people heal. So I really think we're going in that direction. The other thing that I'm noticing a lot, actually, is as the young sort of millennial group is growing up and starting to have children, and you see their children, these kids are a lot more savvy emotionally than at least generations before. They're very hearted, they're very empathic, very sort of oriented to what's right and what's good and morality. And I think they've had their parents raise them in a culture of empathy, and I'm starting to see that these kids that come in and talk, you know, even the 1213, year olds that come in, they're really emotionally savvy. They know stuff I didn't learn until I was in graduate school. It was, it's really amazing, and that just gives me hope. But really think they're going to be curious about this stuff and recognize how important being seen, being heard, being felt, having resources, belonging, compassion, understanding they have that and the complexity of this stuff, and I really think that they'll parent their kids more and more, and will kind of dilute out some of the old parenting that's put a lot of us in

Jenn St John  1:02:06

therapy well. I mean, when

Jenifer Freedy  1:02:09

our parents were also dealing with Yeah, post war st, I mean, they have a lot of stuff, they were going,

Jenn St John  1:02:15

yeah. So everybody has their

Jenifer Freedy  1:02:16

own care, right?

Jenn St John  1:02:17

Exactly, everybody has their trauma, right? It's just a matter of Yeah, emotionally, Howie and empathy. I mean, my gosh, I think that's our superpower. So, yeah, 

Jenifer Freedy  1:02:26

Absolutely.

Jenn St John  1:02:27

Thank you so much for being here today. I really, really appreciate your time. It's so much information and so much knowledge, and I love the connection to the nervous system. Think this will be really helpful for a lot of people. So I really appreciate your time today.

Jenifer Freedy  1:02:43

I love talking about this stuff, so it's my pleasure.

Jenn St John  1:02:49

So I just want to take a moment here. Just take a breath, because that was a very full and deep and wonderful conversation with lots of information. What stays with me is this reminder that our nervous systems aren't broken or dramatic or failing us. They're just really loyal, and they've been working really hard to protect us, sometimes long after the danger from our childhood has passed. We talked about how easy it is to live at the edges, stuck in that high alert or that shutting down completely stage, and how many of us learned those patterns really early, not because of something that was wrong with us, but because of what we were dealing with at the time, and our nervous system did what was necessary at the time to keep us safe. Regulation, as Jennifer described, it isn't about staying calm or getting it right. It's about learning to recognize when we've left ourselves and practicing that return back to ourselves, back into our bodies and back to the present, back to that middle ground, that green area, where we can stay connected even when things feel hard and especially when we're parenting or when we're in relationships and we're in moments that matter the most, that work isn't always going to be about perfection, but it's about being aware, trying to repair and having compassion for ourselves. First, if there's one takeaway, I hope you'll hold on to, it's that leaving regulation isn't the problem. It's knowing that we can come back again and again, and this is where the work is and hopefully, where the hope is as well. Before we go, if this conversation resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. You can connect with me through the show notes on social media or at my website. Jenn, st john.ca, which is j e n, n, st, J, O, H n.ca. Supporting the podcast by subscribing, sharing an episode or leaving a review is one of the best ways that you could help these conversations reach more people. If something difficult did come up while listening, please remember that you don't have to sit with it alone. In Canada, you can call or text 988 anytime for free. Confidential. Mental health support. You can also reach out to the local CMHA chapters across Canada. Here in Simcoe County, it's 1-888-893-8333 or you can text, 686868 in the US, the 988, suicide and crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text for anyone in emotional distress, not just in crisis, and for our listeners in Australia, you can call Lifeline at 13, 1114, day or night for free and confidential crisis support. Thank you for listening and for holding space for stories like this and for being part of the community. We'll be back next week with another conversation, and until then, take good care of yourselves and each other and keep finding your way forward.