Dr Jo Battye Wholehearted

16/01/2026

Embodied IFS meets nervous system regulation and the Polyvagal Theory

In 2021, I made a significant change to the Survive/Thrive Spiral graphic concerning how the word FREEZE is used.
As I notice the old version is STILL being shared, I’m re-sharing this updated one.

The change emerged from a conversation with Stephen Porges about how - confusingly - Freeze is used for 3 different nervous system responses.
My previous use combined these two types of Freeze, and was located within the red ‘I Can’t’ zone:

1. FUNCTIONAL FREEZE - the ‘Submit’ response: the feel is Dorsal but there is enough Sympathetic energy in the system to keep going

2. TONIC IMMOBILITY FREEZE - the ‘Collapse’ response: pure Dorsal

The new use is located at the junction of the red ‘I Can’t’ and yellow ‘I Must’ zones, and represents this type of Freeze:

3. STARTLE FREEZE - an emergency fear response: like a deer in the headlights, this type of Freeze is rigid (unlike Submit or Collapse). The heart is pumping hard with Sympathetic energy alongside an equally strong of Dorsal immobility.

This 3rd type of Freeze is a nexus point at which Sympathetic and Dorsal are contrary forces, rather than collaborating as in Submit. It is often described as having one foot on the accelerator revving the engine whist the other is pressing the brake. It is a place that presents an urgent choice which needs to be resolved quickly, either into Fight/Flight or into Submit/Collapse. With trauma, the overwhelm of excessive Startle Freeze often leads to psychological splitting.

🌀 You can download a PDF of the updated Spiral here:
http://calmheart.co.uk/resources in either A4 or US LETTER.

💚 I offer an experiential workshop called Exploring the Survive/Thrive Spiral, suitable for professionals and anyone interested in trauma & the nervous system, which happens several times a year - full information here 👇🏼👇🏼

SPACES AVAILABLE on the next workshop!
🌟🌟 Wed 5 Nov 2025 8-11 AM GMT
(9 AM CET / 4 PM WITA / 5 PM JST / 7 PM AEDT / 9 PM NZDT)
If you're in a USA timezone, the next one for you is on Wed 17 Dec.

INFO 3 BOOKINGS: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/calmheart

13/01/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Ajx74b4fd/?mibextid=wwXIfr

12/01/2026

Embodiment of walking a peace trail. 🕊️🕊️❤️❤️

Why are we all emotionally undone by monks who are… just walking?

Yes—there’s also Aloka, a rescued dog. Obviously. 🐾

Right now, Buddhist monks are walking 2,300 miles from Texas to Washington, D.C..

No protest signs.
No shouting.
No outrage.
No hot takes.

Just… walking.
For peace.

And yet—

People are lining the streets.
Tracking them online.
Crying in public.
Re-evaluating their lives mid-afternoon.

So what’s actually happening here?

Here’s the truth: We are
overstimulated,
overworked,
over-argued,
over-informed,
and profoundly under-rested.

And suddenly…
calm feels erotic.

Science backs this up, by the way.

Humans regulate better with:

simplicity

compassion

mindfulness

fewer notifications

Turns out your nervous system hates the news cycle.

And yes—when the rescue dog joined the pilgrimage, the attention doubled.
Aloka became the emotional support icon we didn’t know we needed.

Because this walk isn’t loud.
It isn’t clever.
It isn’t trying to convince you of anything.

It’s just embodied peace moving through a noisy world.

And your body recognizes that before your mind can explain it.

So maybe peace isn’t something we wait for.
Maybe it’s something we walk toward—
in small, unglamorous, everyday ways.

Peace can look like:
pausing before reacting
walking without your phone
choosing kindness over being right
breathing instead of spiraling
letting “simple” be enough

No robe required.

I always say this: You don’t wait for joy.
You place yourself on the path to it.

And yes—peace, pleasure, and prosperity are allowed to coexist.

And this is why the monks’ walk matters.

Not because it fixes the world overnight,
but because it regulates it.

Their steady steps slow people down.

Their silence gives permission to exhale.

Their presence reminds us—without preaching—that peace is a practice, not a performance.

For a moment, people feel safer in their own bodies.

Less alone in their overwhelm.

More willing to choose gentleness over urgency.

That’s the real impact.

They aren’t marching at anyone.

They’re walking with us—
showing, not telling, what calm looks like in motion.
You don’t wait for joy.

You place yourself on the path to it.
And yes—
peace, pleasure, and prosperity are allowed to coexist.

10/01/2026

09/01/2026

I have my solar return next week and I’m also in reflection and planning mode for the seasons to come.
It’s an 8 year for me which maybe about manifestation, power and business and 8 is also my Life Path number. Sandy Atkins - Numerologist
In human designs Im a manifesting generator so here we go 😂 Lynska
From the Mayan Calendar perspective the coming year is Tone 11 for me which can represent the power of creative dissolution and dissonant structure.
“The gift of your cosmic identity is to access the power of Freedom.
Activate your Spectral powers by releasing rigid concepts and definite notions of what should be; by being willing to explore an entire spectrum of potentiality; by surrendering to the “spectral flow” of spontaneous detours, seeming disruptions, and what may appear as chaos; by allowing structure to dissolve in order to be liberated into new possibilities; by celebrating the constructive forces of deconstruction; by learning to fluidly shape-shift; by freeing yourself and others from limiting perceptions; by letting go into the vastness of formlessness; by freeing your soul - releasing into the majesty of your full wing-span; by submitting your personal will to the Great Mystery as it reveals itself in every moment...” I was born in a blue storm wavespell so I can usually accept the chaos to some extent 😂
My signature for this year is double red earth which is also my challenge glyff- navigation, dissolution in order to evolve and attuning to synchronicity. I already feel lots of patterns and programs dropping away with the healing I have experienced during the Chinese year of the snake, my journey back to my homeland, visiting Mexico and the training I have been pursuing. ❤️🙏 I’m ready for the year of the fire horse mid February as I have always resonated with horses and one of my first memories was being mesmerised by a shire horse at a fair.
I’m happy to welcome in more earth medicine and fully align with my intuition and matakite. The year that has been was about free will, wisdom, planetary manifestation with the yellow human guided by the enlightening sun and was also a galactivation portal 🔥🔥🔥Just after my 52nd birthday I met Vasumi Zjikaa who gave me lots of confirmation I was on the right path with weaving global plant medicine and wisdoms together so highly recommend her readings.
I feel a more sturdy grounded clarity arising and so blessed to have such amazing guides on this winding journey ❤️🙏
Now thyself and tune into divine will.

08/01/2026

Brownie Mary helped get medicinal cannabis legalised in California by 1996!! In Aotearoa we had to wait until 2020.

She was fifty-seven years old when the police finally caught her, and without meaning to, they set off a chain of events that would change American medicine.

At fifty-seven, she had never been arrested before. When officers entered her San Francisco apartment, they found eighteen pounds of ma*****na, dozens upon dozens of cannabis brownies cooling in her kitchen, and a grandmother who greeted them with a calm smile and a simple sentence. She told them she had been expecting them.

Her name was Mary Jane Rathbun. History would remember her as Brownie Mary.

It was 1981, the same year the Centers for Disease Control first used the word AIDS. Fear was everywhere, and understanding was nowhere. Mary was sentenced to five hundred hours of community service. The judge believed he was delivering punishment. Instead, he unknowingly handed her a mission.

Mary completed those five hundred hours in just sixty days. She volunteered with the Shanti Project, caring for people dying from a disease most of America refused to acknowledge. She worked in AIDS wards at San Francisco General Hospital, places so feared that even trained professionals sometimes stayed away.

And there, Mary noticed something others overlooked. Her brownies worked.

They eased nausea when medications failed. They restored appetite to bodies wasting away. They gave comfort, dignity, and small moments of relief to people who had been abandoned by families, churches, and government alike.

So Mary made a decision. She stopped selling brownies and began giving them away, free of charge, to every AIDS patient who needed them. She called them her kids, and she meant it.

Mary understood loss. In 1974, she had buried her only daughter, Peggy, killed in a car accident at twenty-two. Now she was surrounded by young men in their twenties, dying alone, stigmatized, and terrified. She adopted an entire community because she could not walk away again.

By the mid-1980s, Mary was baking hundreds of brownies every day. She spent her Social Security checks on flour, sugar, and butter. Cannabis growers donated what they could. Demand grew so intense she pulled names from a jar because her oven could not keep up.

At sixty-five, she was named Volunteer of the Year at San Francisco General Hospital. At seventy, she was arrested again, this time facing felony charges that could have sent her to prison for years. A prosecutor reportedly joked that he was going to destroy her. He did not understand what he had stepped into.

By then, Brownie Mary was impossible to silence. Patients testified that her brownies had saved their lives. Doctors confirmed what she had witnessed with her own eyes. Cannabis was medicine.

The charges were dismissed. That same day, San Francisco officially declared August twenty-fifth Brownie Mary Day, a recognition that still stands.

Mary never slowed down. She testified before lawmakers. She helped push through San Francisco Proposition P in 1991. She co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, the first medical ma*****na dispensary in the United States. And in 1996, California passed Proposition 215, becoming the first state to legalize medical cannabis.

Later, The Economist would credit her grassroots defiance as one of the reasons public opinion shifted. One grandmother’s kitchen helped rewrite national drug policy.

Mary never thought of herself as a hero. When asked if she would ever stop baking, she said that anyone who expected her to abandon her kids did not understand who she was. She never revealed her recipe, joking that if cannabis were legalized nationwide, she would sell it to Betty Crocker and buy a big house for her kids with AIDS.

Mary Jane Rathbun died on April 10, 1999, at seventy-seven. She never bought that house. But she built something far larger.

Today, millions of people legally use medical cannabis. Dozens of states recognize its value. Entire systems of care exist because one woman refused to accept that compassion should be illegal.

Mary proved that power does not begin in offices or institutions. Sometimes it begins in a kitchen, with an oven, a mixing bowl, and a heart that refuses to abandon people society has already written off.

07/01/2026

Esoteric IFS, unattributed burdens and benevolent spirit guides 🔥🔥🔥

What an absolute treat it was to interview Bob Falconer about his own parts, and about his experiences with unattached burdens. Bob is such a passionate, generous and kind human- we are so grateful for getting to meet him via this lovely podcast interview. Look up 'Parts Party' wherever you listen to podcasts.

07/01/2026

IFS Self Assessment to help you identify protective and exiled parts of your system created for survival. With awareness healing and Self parenting is possible.

Tick next to sentences that are generally true for you and this may reveal trailheads for exploration and mapping.

I often feel overwhelmed by my emotions
I have trouble accessing my emotions
I have difficulty communicating my emotions to loved ones
I often work to the point of burnout
I have trouble setting healthy boundaries with others
I feel a lot of rage inside
It’s hard for me to speak up
I sometimes don’t know why I make certain choices
I often regret things I’ve said to others or actions I’ve taken
I fear embarrassing myself in public
I wish I could control my anger
Sometimes I spiral into depression
Sometimes I get panic attacks
I think I might have PTSD
I have childhood wounds I still need to healing
I have unresolved conflict in some of my relationships
I am easily triggered by things people say
I wish I could silence my inner critic
I say “yes” when I really mean “no”
Sometimes I feel like there are parts of me in conflict with each other
I would like more harmony and peace inside
I have a lot of negative self talk
I struggle to have more curiosity with people I don’t understand
I avoid conflict
I wish I wasn’t so passive
I feel burdened by all the unrest in the world
I would like to learn more about how my family and culture impacts me today
I have behaviours or habits I would like to change
I desire to be a more confident leader

07/01/2026

IFS practices can help you:
-Stay calm when your parts are activated
- Gain perspective in your life purpose
-Keep your heart open
- Be more vulnerable
- Develop more Self Confidence
- Face your fears with Courage
- Feel more integrated with your body, mind and soul.
- Overcome anxiety
- Heal past wounds and trauma
- Extend more compassion towards yourself and others

07/01/2026

Coalesce Gathering was awe inspiring.
Set on Takaka Hill surrounded by my home rākau the beech. The weather was dramatic, but we danced, sang, breathed deeply and flexed our creativity.
I shared my Plant Spirit Medicine wānanga to a small group as the last DJ cranked the decks.
We meditated and embodied the beech trees and opened up the field to visualise and call in messages from our own sacred tree.
So much gratitude for the invite to offer “first aid” and co-create 🙏❤️
Next wānanga Resonate Festival NZ 23rd to 25th January then flow retreat by Aroha Essence Festival
Magical raumati ❤️🙏

07/01/2026

Hit me up for discounted IFS sessions until the end of February. $80 an hour instead of $150. This book is a great summary so you can get a taste of what IFS involves.

07/01/2026

I’m grounding back at home for the next 3 weeks and I’m available for IFS sessions.
Happy to share these powerful tools for integration of family issues from the holidays or medicine work. I’m also available for medicine preparation sessions.
Medsafe are still assesing my application to legally prescribe Psilocybin after 6 months, but a GP colleague has been approved for End of Life Anxiety and they urged me to choose one indication initially whichI chose Treatment Resistant Depression.
Half price at $80 an hour sessions available until the end of February. I highly recommend grabbing a copy of this workbook to reduce time spent in sessions.
The aim is to mindfully respond to life from Self energy leadership.
I nailed it with my parents, but still have parenting challenges 😂 Our children are our biggest teachers.