4. Tending to our nervous systems with Joanna Miller

Bright ideas for dark times

Previously on Bright Ideas for Dark Times:

1. Pay the doorman a living wage

2. Create pools of peace

3. Hope is none of my concern

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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.

Illustration: Complot

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.

The wise and wonderful Joanna Miller

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?