Hello my loves! Today, I am thrilled to welcome in Anna Ferguson, also known as @annatheanxietycoach.

I’ve known Anna for a few years now; she’s a qualified counselor, coach, author of The Vagus Nerve Reset, and an integrative nervous system therapist. She passionately supports individuals in coming home to themselves through harnessing the healing power of their unique physiology, body, and nervous system. She also integrates her background in psychology and counseling with somatics, breathwork, and holistic process to create a functional, effective, and practical therapeutic approach to anxiety, stress, and trauma.

I honestly cannot think of a better human to have on the podcast, because I know nervous system stuff is something that so many people, myself included, have struggled with at one point or another.

I had a breathwork session with Anna a few years ago, and I still remember it. It was so healing, and it really drove home for me how powerful somatic therapy can be.

So please welcome Anna!

How it Got Started

Michelle: So how did you get started in somatic therapy? What was your journey?

Anna: I actually got started because I have a formal diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive episodes.

That began after I was in a rollercoaster accident when I was ten years old; I went from being an extremely outgoing, vivacious kid to becoming very withdrawn, very angry at the world, and very disconnected from myself and my body.

That one experience fractured my identity of who I thought I was; instead, I was slapped in the face with “No, this is who you actually are. You’re a scared little girl who has to navigate the world in a way that you’re not prepared for.”

That event was the catalyst to me becoming a very angry, rebellious teenager. I was always, much to my parents’ dismay, doing the exact opposite of what they wanted. It was a pretty detrimental time of my life, because I would do a lot of things that were damaging to myself and to the relationships in my life, especially my relationship with my family. I had a lot of anger towards them just because they were the ones that were present at the time that the trauma happened to me.

After about ten years of going through therapy and not seeing almost any progress, I ended up stumbling upon mixed martial arts and Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu. And I found that when I started to move my body, I actually began to feel like my body was useful. I could feel different sensations. I coukld feel myself getting confident and finding that sense of self again.

I actually went and lived overseas for a couple of months, training full-time doing Muay Thai, and I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore called Acid Test. It all about MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, and I knew immediately that was my next step.

I went and studied psychology, finished that degree, and then sat down to try and figure out how to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I knew that utilizing my body was what actually functionally worked; I also knww that the cognitive side was important, but that felt like a second step as opposed to the first step.

At that point, I started exploring polyvagal theory, somatic therapy, breath work, psychedelics, all of these different things to put together a cohesive plan and structure for understanding why I was feeling the way that I was feeling, as well as how to functionally move out of those states.

For me, I would often titrate between anxiety and depression. I wanted to know what was actually happening, and what were the useful tools that I could use to actually move through those states?

I was sick of trying to “think positive.” I needed to actually do something to feel different.

And that’s how my business was born: I combined al those pieces together, stepped away from that traditional space of talk therapy and cognitive therapy, and entered into a far more intuitive body-based process that other people like me could walk themselves through as well.

What is Somatic Therapy?

Michelle: So, somatic is a word that I use quite frequently. But I actually think the majority of people don’t know what the fuck somatic even means. Could you briefly explain what somatic therapy actually is?

Anna: It’s actually not as complicated as people might thing! Soma just means body in Greek, and somatics is just the practice of working with your body.

Somatic therapy can cover many things, including massage therapy, movement, breathwork…any sort of shift in your physiology falls under the umbrella of somatic therapy.

Somatic therapy is very helpful when we need to shift our nervous system, shift our state, or shift our emotions.

My work generally revolves around functional semantics. I believe that anything that is useful to you and your body can be a therapeutic approach to working with your emotions and working with your sensations and feelings. And I like having that generalization, because it doesn’t contain us in these boxes that say therapy has to be a certain way. It can be whatever works for you.

There is such a broad range of human diversity and traits and characteristics, and there is absolutely no one-size-fits-all approach to things. So if you find something helpful, let’s bring that into the fray and utilize it in a therapeutic way.

All in all, somatic therapy is really just about connecting with your body and connecting the body and mind so that they’re actually in synergy with one another instead of at war with one another.

That’s how a lot of people feel when they’re anxious, right? Cognitively, you can know that your response isn’t logical. You can know that it’s born of fear. But even understanding that consciously, your body is reacting as if you’re getting eaten by a tiger.

That disconnect is often happening because often we don’t have the trust between these two things. So that fusion of the two is such an important space that we start to operate in when we integrate our soma into our healing and therapeutic journey.

Is Cold Therapy Good For Anxiety?

Michelle: Let’s go back to what you said about there not being a one-size-fits-all approach.

Because one of the questions that my audience wanted to ask you was, “Is cold therapy good for anxiety?” Because ice baths are all the rage right now.  Are ice baths good for everyone? 

Anna: So that, that answer one I give about every single practice I talk about. And the answer is no, nothing is good for absolutely everybody.

Statistically, scientifically, cold therapy is a type of somatic therapy beneficial for most people with anxiety. But there is obviously that caveat that if you are having a reaction during that practice that is so overwhelming and pushing your nervous system into a state of dysregulation, then it is not beneficial for you. You have to table that thing and come back to it.

That applies to any somatic therapy practice, including shaking, screaming, breathwork, etcetera. If you are using one of these practices and it is overwhelming your nervous system to the degree that you start to shut down or you’re crying uncontrollably and you can’t rein things in, then that practice is not for you at this point in time.

That doesn’t mean you can never do it. But it’s about honoring where you’re at and what you do have the capacity for, touching that boundary, and then bringing yourself back to baseline to start to build your capacity over time.

Nervous System Regulation

Michelle: I would imagine that the somatic therapy methods that are best for you might be different depending on whether you’re in a fight or flight state versus being in a freeze state. I would think that you’re likely going to need different tools for different things. Would you agree with that?

Anna: Absolutely. For example, one of the buzzwords you’ll often hear around somatic therapy is the phrase nervous system regulation. People think that any state requires nervous system regulation, but that detracts from the nuances of it. Regulating your nervous system is a step-by-step process, and it’s often not the first step you want to take.

If you’re in a freeze response, for instance, you actually need to arouse your nervous system to come into that sympathetic state, then release, then regulate your nervous system.

If you’re in a fight or flight state, releasing that energy is your first step, then regulating your nervous system.

You can’t skip these steps or mess around with their order. If you’re trying to regulate your nervous system constantly, you’re missing out on the fact that your nervous system actually works in this hierarchical way, and you have to move through each state to get back to a state of safety and calm.

When people are in a freeze response and they do something to try to regulate their nervous system, they actually push themselves further into that freeze response. And the same with sympathetic; if you’re not honoring the fact that your body wants you to use this energy that it has created for you, and you’re always trying to calm yourself down, you’re creating a situation in which that energy doesn’t go anywhere. And that prevents you from doing things like winding down to sleep or actually relaxing, and that only promotes a greater state of dysregulation.

Connect with Anna!

If you’re curious about somatic therapy, or if you’re just an anxious person looking for potential tools to help…trust me, if you aren’t following Anna on Instagram yet, you want to get over there ASAP. Check her out @annatheanxietycoach. Order her book, The Vagus Nerve Reset. Check out her website. Do whatever you gotta do, because I’m telling you, she’s incredible.

This is just a portion of the discussion between me and Anna about somatic therapy, how she got into this work, and so much more. Make sure you listen to Episode 143 of Unf*ck Your Relationships to hear the full discussion, because there is some life-changing shit in there. Don’t miss out.

WORK WITH ANNA:

Visit Anna’s website to see all the ways you can work with her: https://annatheanxietycoach.com/ 

Pick up Anna’s book, The Vagus Nerve Reset: https://www.amazon.com/Vagus-Nerve-Reset-Stress-Anxiety/dp/0593689909/ref 

CONNECT WITH ANNA:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annatheanxietycoach/ 

WORK WITH MICHELLE: 

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CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:

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