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
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Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

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In this episode, I sit down with Caitlin Morrison, Executive Director of the Matthew Perry House, to talk about the experience of loving someone through the illness of addiction — and what it means to carry that experience forward after loss.

There’s a version of this story we don’t talk about very often.

The one where someone you love spends years struggling, finally finds their way to recovery… and then is gone.

Together, we explore what families often carry behind the scenes: the early signs that something isn’t quite right, the cycles of hope and disappointment, and the emotional weight of trying to support someone you can’t “fix.”

This conversation also moves beyond the personal into something deeply hopeful — the work Caitlin is leading through the Matthew Perry House, a first-of-its-kind transitional housing initiative in Ottawa focused on long-term, community-based recovery. Grounded in the understanding of addiction as a medical illness, this model addresses a critical gap in care: what happens after treatment ends.

This is a conversation about love, grief, understanding — and legacy.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What families often notice before they have language for addiction
• The cycles of hope, relapse, and emotional impact on loved ones
• The limits of control — and what “support” can really look like
• Reframing addiction as an illness, not a failure
• Recovery, and the part we don’t often talk about
• The vision behind the Matthew Perry House and long-term recovery support

About Caitlin:

Caitlin Morrison is the Executive Director of the Matthew Perry House, carrying forward her brother Matthew Perry’s legacy by advocating for long-term recovery support. With a deep commitment to breaking down stigma and improving access to resources, Caitlin has played a pivotal role in the development of the Matthew Perry House Ottawa, a first-of-its-kind transitional housing initiative.

Learn more:

🌐 https://matthewperryhouse.ca

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthewperryhouse

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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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In this episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down with Tychon Carter for a conversation about identity, self-trust, and what it really means to come back to yourself.

Tychon shares his experience of growing up feeling misunderstood — navigating early messages around masculinity, emotional expression, and what it meant to be “right” or “wrong.”

We talk about the identity shift that comes in early adulthood, especially when something that once defined you suddenly falls away — and the quiet, often confusing experience of feeling misaligned, even when everything looks “good” on the outside.

Tychon reflects on how his time on Big Brother Canada became an unexpected turning point — not because of the game itself, but because of what happens when the noise disappears and you’re left with your own instincts.

Throughout this conversation, we explore vulnerability, emotional literacy, and the process of rebuilding self-trust — including the powerful work of forgiving the version of yourself who had to survive.

We also talk about the small, practical ways we can begin to reconnect with ourselves — from noticing what we feel, to creating routines that support both our mental and physical well-being.

This is a conversation about embodiment — about learning to listen, to trust, and to return to who we are beneath everything we’ve been taught to be.

ABOUT TYCHON CARTER

Tychon Newman-Carter is a Canadian speaker, mental health advocate, and community builder, widely known as the first Black winner of Big Brother Canada and a contestant on The Amazing Race Canada.

Beyond television, Tychon has built a platform centered around emotional awareness, personal growth, and self-trust. Through his work, he shares openly about his own experiences navigating identity, masculinity, and mental health — using storytelling, humor, and lived experience to make these conversations more accessible.

His work also explores intergenerational trauma and anti-Black racism within African-Canadian communities, while emphasizing the importance of mindfulness, meaningful relationships, and purposeful routines as foundations for resilience and well-being.

Connect with Tychon

• Website: https://www.tychoncarter.com/
  
  
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/tychonxcarter
  
  
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tychoncarter
  
  
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tychonxcarter

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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Amanda Patrick joins me for a conversation about inheritance—what we’re given, what we absorb, and what we eventually have to decide to do with it.

In this episode, Inheritance, Amanda shares the story of her childhood—marked by poverty, neglect, and profound loss—and the long, complex path of what it means to carry that forward into adulthood.

At just 13 years old, Amanda experienced a tragic event that would shape the course of her life. What followed were years of survival—leaving home at 15, navigating instability, masking pain, and building a life from the ground up without support. But as Amanda shares, survival is only one part of the story.

This conversation explores what we inherit—not just from our families, but from the environments we grow up in. The patterns we learn. The coping mechanisms that once kept us safe. And the difficult, often painful work of deciding what we keep… and what we lay down.

We talk about:

• Growing up in neglect and the loneliness that lingers long after
• Trauma, coping, and the masks we learn to wear
• Addiction, sobriety, and the turning point into motherhood
• The power of long-term therapy and self-awareness
• Estrangement, boundaries, and the grief that comes with choosing distance
• And how healing can evolve into service

Today, Amanda is the co-founder of LADR Consulting, a speaker, and the founder of Gift-a-Family—an initiative that has raised over $200,000 to support children who might otherwise be overlooked during the holidays.

Her story is not linear. It’s not simple. But it is deeply human.

And at its core, it’s about this:

We don’t get to choose what we inherit.
But we do get to choose what we do with it.

GUEST INFORMATION

Amanda Patrick is a business strategist and co-founder of LADR Virtual Assistants, where she helps entrepreneurs streamline operations and build scalable systems. She is also a speaker and philanthropist, and the founder of Gift-a-Family, a community initiative that has raised over $200,000 to support hundreds of children. Through her “Drop the Mask” presentations, Amanda works with youth to build confidence, resilience, and self-trust. She’s also a proud mom and pickleball enthusiast.

Connect with Amanda:
Instagram: @amandalelepatrick
Instagram: @ladrcoaching
Instagram: @gift_a_family
Website: https://www.ladrconsulting.com/

CONTENT NOTE

This episode includes discussions of childhood trauma, neglect, addiction, and suicidal ideation. Please take care while listening and choose a time and space that feels supportive.

SUPPORT RESOURCES

If this episode brought something up for you, you don’t have to sit with it alone.

Canada: Call or text 988
Simcoe County Crisis Line: 1-888-893-8333
U.S.: Call or text 988
Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

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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In this episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down with Christina Orfanakos, MSW, RSW—Registered Social Worker and founder of Grace North Therapy—for a conversation about attachment, survival patterns, and what it really means to begin feeling safe again.

Some patterns don’t start with us.
They start in the environments we learned to survive in.

We talk about the ways early experiences—especially those shaped by silence, unpredictability, or emotional disconnection—can shape how we move through the world as adults.
How hyper-independence, people-pleasing, over-functioning, and even success can all be rooted in adaptations we learned long before we had language for them.

And how those same patterns that once protected us…
can quietly keep us stuck.

Christina brings both professional insight and deep compassion to this conversation, grounded in her work with women and mothers navigating overwhelm, burnout, and disconnection. Her approach is rooted in attachment theory and the belief that meaningful change happens when we feel seen, understood, and supported.

We also explore:

• how attachment patterns are formed—and how they show up in adulthood
• the difference between empathy and caretaking
• why awareness is the first step, but not the only one
• how to begin reconnecting with your body and nervous system
• and what it looks like to gently shift patterns that no longer serve you

This is a conversation about understanding—not fixing.
About compassion—for the parts of you that learned to survive.
And about the possibility of something different.

About Christina:
Christina Orfanakos is a Registered Social Worker and the founder of Grace North Therapy. She works with women and mothers navigating overwhelm, burnout, and disconnection, with a focus on attachment, emotional regulation, and reconnecting to self.

Connect with Christina:
Instagram: @gracenorththerapy
Website: gracenorththerapy.com
LinkedIn: Christina Orfanakos, MSW, RSW

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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Season 2 opens with a powerful conversation about connection, regulation, and breaking cycles.

In this episode of The Shadows We Cast, Jennifer St. John sits down with clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and renowned speaker Dr. Jody Carrington. Known for her bold, honest, and deeply human approach to mental health, Dr. Jody’s work focuses on one essential truth: we are wired for connection — and healing happens in relationships.

Together, Jennifer and Jody explore emotional regulation, empathy, and the long ripple effects of growing up in environments shaped by mental illness and addiction. Through Jennifer’s lived experience and Dr. Jody’s clinical insight, this conversation unpacks how trauma shapes our nervous systems, why empathy requires context, and how safe relationships can help us break intergenerational cycles.

In this episode we explore:

• emotional regulation and the “flipped lid” state
• intergenerational trauma and cycle breaking
• the power of empathy and the phrase “tell me more”
• addiction, connection, and healing
• simple ways to regulate your nervous system in everyday life

About Dr. Jody Carrington
Dr. Jody Carrington is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and founder of Carrington & Company. She speaks on hundreds of stages globally each year and hosts the popular podcast UNLONELY, where she continues her mission of helping people find their way back to authentic human connection.

Learn more about Dr. Jody:

Website: https://www.drjodycarrington.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/drjodycarrington

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jody-carrington/

This episode includes discussion of addiction, mental illness, trauma, and suicidal ideation.

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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Subscribe, leave a review, or just send a little love—your support helps these conversations reach the people who need them most.

Some endings arrive slowly. Ours did not.

In this final episode of Season 1, my sisters and I share the most personal part of our story—the goodbye. After years of surviving our mom’s untreated mental illness and addiction, and then finding our way back to her during her recovery, we were finally in a good place. A healthy place. A place where laughter came easy and trust was being rebuilt. And then, in 2017, we lost her.

Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just two months before she passed, our mom’s final chapter was fast, devastating, and unexpectedly filled with grace. Two weeks after her diagnosis, our beloved Aunt Terry was diagnosed with the same illness. And within ten months, our dad passed away too, leaving us grappling with wave after wave of loss.

This episode is about those final months with our mom. The hospital visits and hospice care. The late-night humor that kept us going when there were no more answers left to find. The tension between wanting to save her and learning, finally, how to just be with her. It’s about what it means to love someone fiercely—even when that love was hard-won and complicated.

And it’s also about the legacy she left behind. About the strength we found in each other, and how grief shaped us into something softer, stronger, and more honest.

All season long, we’ve been pulling back the curtain on what it means to grow up in the shadow of mental illness and addiction—and how, even in the aftermath, healing is possible. This final chapter closes that story for now, but it also opens the door to what comes next.

Thank you for walking with us through the messy middle of our lives. Thank you for holding space for these conversations. And thank you for reminding us that even in the hardest endings, love remains.

Original aired on July 8th, 2025

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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This week on The Shadows We Cast, my sisters, Kate and Teresa, and I return for Part 3 of our story — the chapter where things began to change. After years of boundaries, heartbreak, and distance, our mom started to seek real, consistent help. It wasn’t a sudden transformation. It was slow, uneven, and at times, fragile. But it was the beginning of something new.

In this conversation, we talk about the earliest signs of her recovery and what it looked like to slowly let her back in — not just into our lives, but into our trust. We share moments that felt healing, moments that tested us, and how her role as a grandmother became the unlikely bridge back to connection.

There’s grief here — for what never was — but also so much beauty in what we found when we stopped trying to hold everything together and started meeting her where she was. We weren’t trying to fix her — we were simply hoping she’d choose help. And when she finally did, something in all of us shifted, too.

Originally aired on July 1st, 2025

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it too.

Subscribe, leave a review, or just send a little love—your support helps these conversations reach the people who need them most.