Hi Mind Bod Squad!
This week we're hanging with someone extra special: Jan Winhall — psychotherapist, nervous-system nerd, and (drumroll) Jeff's former therapist. As Jeff puts it, she's the one who helped him dig out of his own mental health sinkhole. Now she's on the other side of the mic.
Jan’s spent 45 years in the trauma and addiction trenches, and along the way she built something super useful: the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, which blends Eugene Gendlin’s “felt sense” (what you notice in your body before you can name it) with Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory (how your nervous system monitors whether you’re safe or not). She’s written 2 books on it — Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model and 20 Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction — and is deep into a third, this one on couples.
For Jan, assessing trauma starts by asking: what’s actually happening in your body, right now?
We talk about:
Trauma as a nervous system stuck in a loop, and addiction as the body’s attempt to regulate itself
“Fun/Fired up”: how to stay grounded in a heated convo without tipping into fight
Why growing up unseen is its own kind of trauma, even in a “privileged” home
Why opposite nervous systems attract… and then drive each other nuts
Healing as the slow thaw of frozen memories
The Adventure
Jan takes us on a guided tour of the nervous system, feeling our way through each state in the body, from the tight readiness of Fight-Flight to the heaviness of shutdown to the grounded ease of safety. Then she invites us to meet whatever is present in our own bodies with curiosity and care, and to ask what it needs.
If you’ve ever wanted a cheat sheet for what your body’s doing when it’s doing... whatever this is, this episode’s for you.
Let us know in the comments what state you found yourself in :)
Till next time,
Jan’s Links
Website: janwinhall.com
Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Institute: fspminstitute.com
Book: Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model: A Bottom-Up Approach
Book: 20 Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction: Using the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model
