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

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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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