4. Tending to our nervous systems with Joanna Miller

This week - of all the weeks, when fear has been activated in so many of us - I wanted to write something about tending to our nervous systems. It’s so easy to only notice the distress that surfaces in our minds without noticing how it resides in our bodies too, and without understanding how mind and body are connected. I always feel like a beginner at this, so I decided to ask an expert in the form of my beloved Jo Miller, who has so often helped to soothe my overwrought mind-body.

Here’s our conversation, and at the bottom of the page there’s an exploration of what Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn responses can really look like.

Katherine: I’ve started this series on my Substack called ‘Bright Ideas for Dark Times’ - I wanted to find a way to talk about how we can get through these coming years, acknowledging that awful things are happening, but keeping mind and body together.

One thing that came to mind for me was - broadly - tending to our nervous system. I think a lot of people don’t know how to listen to their bodies and, even when they hear them screaming, don’t know how to address that. I felt like that was something you know a lot about! But first, maybe before we start you could say a little bit about what your work entails.

Joanna: I believe that ultimately we all have an organic intelligence within us - think like flowers that point towards the sun. This organic intelligence is one of healing and thriving. We have been robbed of that by the modern cultural container (colonialism, patriarchy) that takes us away from our bodies and our larger body - earth. I help people find their own way back to that organic intelligence through nervous system work, ancestral somatic healing, shame work, and childhood developmental trauma work.

Katherine: It feels to me like that touches on all the different things that are rising up for a lot of us at the moment - a sense of disconnection, failure (because we didn’t quite manage to change the world, despite throwing ourselves at it for a long time), and resurfacing trauma. Do you get the sense that this is a particularly difficult era to live through?

Joanna: Without a doubt. And it is one that is a ripe territory for shame. We have so much we don’t know about the future. And on one hand it could be argued that we have failed - and we are illiterate at dealing with failure so rather than metabolising that failure into healthy new ways of being shame kicks in, shame then either goes internal as self-hatred, perfectionism, all those things or attacks outwards. And on the other hand it could be argued that we have not failed but we have BEEN failed by our cultural systems.

All of this is a lot for a body to sense and metabolise. So there is a lot in our system to feel and be with. So of course overthinking (a form of dissociation often learnt through childhood trauma) kicks in as a survival. So in this context it can feel difficult to build new ways of being where we listen to the body because we might first encounter our pain, our ancestral pain and our collective pain if not navigated with care. But the beauty is this is where we also tap into our own, ancestral and collective resource, wisdom and strength too.

So all in all I have a lot of compassion and understanding for anyone who finds the journey of embodiment and somatics a little challenging to start with, truly.

Katherine: To ask a very basic question: how do we even register this kind of distress? How does it show up in our bodies?

Joanna: There is no one-size-fits-all response and I think this is where some discourse around nervous system work or somatics does fall down, especially when considering us neurodivergent humans. But I can give some starters for 10. Broadly speaking many of us will experience ‘freeze’ when we first start this work. And freeze comes on board after fight and flight have been activated, so really they are all present (see box for fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses). Freeze can often be described as like having the handbrake on but the foot on the pedal at the same time.

Katherine: That’s such a useful insight because I think we sometimes feel bad about a lack of a reaction, where we feel there should be an immediate response. (And as an aside, I think a lot of autistic people often believe they’re emotionless when they’re actually experiencing a freeze response.)

Joanna: Well this is such an interesting conversation. I hear that and for some it can be true. For some it is also just there is soooooo much emotion and sensation it is hard to grasp and put into words.

Katherine: I’m thinking how hard it is to be a ‘freeze’ person when all the ‘fight’ people are also activated. These are often the loudest voices online and they seem more righteous somehow!

Joanna: That also makes me think of where there is super righteousness, it is probably actually shame attacking outwards, and shame is a mix of freeze and primal emotion.

Katherine: Yes! We’re all feeling the same horror and it turned into conflict.

Joanna: It’s so weird because on one hand healthy anger is so important for change-making, personal vitality, and creativity, but anger has to be felt and anger is only really the precursor for the body sensation of fight response - it is the emotion that fuels it. So often when it doesn't get felt and metabolised all the way through to the body it loops and eats away, turns into rumination in the mind goes inward. It is especially prevalent in those socialised as women because we get shamed and socialised out of our anger which is a core part of our humanity and life force energy. It is important.

Katherine: If people notice these signs, what can they do about it? Are we stuck with our response styles?

Joanna: So I don't think of it like being ‘stuck’. I know that term is used a lot but I feel it is inaccurate. I see all these responses as more like a constellation and all CAN be available, we just have to lighthouse towards them. The best way to start is by building islands of safety - so when we first go into the sensing body we would want to find places of resource. I think this is where your book Enchantment steps in. To find that peeling of an orange or simple moment of enjoyment and to notice what the body feels like in that moment. This is likely to be a more parasympathetic state. When we can feel at that level we build resources and that helps us navigate the rest of the waters.

Also some tenets of how I hold this work that I think are important and non shaming are: we don’t always want a calm nervous system - we want a coherent nervous system. So in that sense none of the responses are bad and all of them might be entirely appropriate to the world we live in. But we do want some flexibility so we can orient towards calm and parasympathetic too, so that our body can have its chance to rest, restore and repair.

Also I really believe that all these responses are like whispers from God. Whenever they have kicked in they are primordial wisdom here to keep us alive.

Katherine: But I guess whispers from God are very strong medicine.

Joanna: Whatever we find when we go to the body - don’t make it wrong. Instead develop a sense of a kind and curious observer.

Katherine: So, we can learn to observe these responses and treat them more neutrally, as signposts for how we’re feeling?

Jo : 100% that is it. The amount of times I have heard something like - ‘I did this course on nervous-system regulation and all I noticed was my flight response. And I reply, ‘who says that’s wrong?’ and it is such a healing moment. Because NS work has been commoditised and made such a one-size-fits-all, goal-oriented thing. And really it is about being in relationship to what is happening. That is the medicine.

Katherine: And how can we generally take care of our nervous functioning? As you know, I get very fed up of people suggesting that we must do extreme and unpleasant things to ourselves!

Joanna: Given the right conditions, space, curiosity and community our body knows how to heal.

Katherine: So: trust ourselves to respond in the way we need to?

Jo: Yes. And don't make it wrong. There are enough voices of wrong. Don’t add to that with our mind making our body wrong. As a side note, the relationship that our mind has with our body, if you listen carefully, will often carry the same narrative that our early primary caregivers gave to us

And to answer your question, there are some simple things in my free, five-day course (link below) but one thing that is a non-complex invitation is to take what I call sacred pauses in the day. These can be nothing more than a minute of stopping and noticing: what is my posture like? What is my breath like? How is my heart / emotional body? What is my sense of connection to myself like? What is my sense of connection to that around me like?

Katherine: That is so much up my street - make time to connect with your body before it has to shout at you to be heard.

Joanna: This helps build a vocab of the body, acts as a barometer, helps stop a backlog of sensations and I would add if people notice a blank that too is worthy of notice - get to know what type of blank, empty, cold etc. From there it can build but again, don't make that wrong.

Katherine: I’m so grateful for your time and wisdom.

Joanna: So welcome. I can talk about this all day (I kinda do)!

FREEZE

Freeze might sound or feel like:

Sensations might include:

Some neurospicy people might pick up more in imagery such as:

FIGHT

Where there is fight response yet to be metabolised it might sound like:

Body sensations may include urges to attack, defend or sensations might feel ‘fiery’ or high energy:

Imagery may include images of their body doing any of the above or be more metaphorical and include:

FLIGHT

Where there is Flight response wanting to be metabolised it might sound like:

Body sensations may include urges to escape and sensations may sound like nervous energy or energy that wants to move:

Imagery may include images of their body doing any of the above or be more metaphorical and include:

FAWN

Fawn or appease is my wheelhouse and passion but this is to some degree about all of the above and none at all. On the nervous system level it lies in the ventral vagal. It is more of a relational phenomena.

There is interesting crossover here for neurodivergent folk, too. It might sound like:

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