Healing From Within: Understanding and Addressing Trauma Responses

What Are Trauma Responses and Why Do They Matter?

Trauma is more than just a difficult experience; it’s an imprint on our nervous system that shapes how we react to the world. When we face overwhelming stress, our brain and body instinctively activate fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses to keep us safe. But what happens when these survival responses persist long after the threat is gone?

Even after trauma has passed, our nervous system continues to protect us, often in ways that no longer serve us. What once ensured safety can now manifest as patterns such as perfectionism, overworking, people-pleasing, or emotional shutdown. These behaviours, rooted in unresolved trauma, can be mistaken for personality traits. These automatic reactions, driven by a perceived threat, can limit our ability to thrive.

Recognizing these patterns is the first step toward breaking free from their hold. By understanding how trauma shapes our responses, we can begin to heal and regain control over how we engage with the world.

The Four Main Trauma Responses

Fight: A High Achiever’s Drive or Defense?

The fight response isn’t just about aggression—it’s about control. It can show up as ambition, competitiveness, or an intense need to prove oneself. When our fight response is activated, we might be quick to anger or experience self-criticism when we feel internally threatened. Many high performers unknowingly operate from a fight response, using success as a way to protect themselves from vulnerability.

Signs of a fight trauma response:

• Perfectionism and high self-criticism
• A strong need to be right or in control
• Quick frustration or defensiveness when challenged
• Difficulty trusting others to handle things

Healing from a fight response means learning to soften the grip of control. Practicing self-compassion, delegating, and recognizing that your worth isn’t tied to achievements are powerful ways to start shifting this pattern.

Flight: The Urge to Escape

The flight response is all about escape—whether through busyness, avoidance, or over-planning. It often involves physically or mentally distancing oneself from an actual or perceived danger, serving as a way to avoid confrontation and potential threats. This can manifest as using substances or social media to escape, seeking validation or emotional refuge from others, isolating yourself, or developing hyper-independence because relying on others feels unsafe.

Signs of a flight trauma response:

• Constant busyness or overworking
• Anxiety when things slow down
• Difficulty staying present
• Procrastination due to fear of failure
• Hyper-independence or isolating
• Hyper-sexualization: using sexual behaviour as a means of avoiding difficult emotions or confronting vulnerability

To heal, it’s essential to practice stillness. Mindfulness, breathwork, and even something as simple as taking a slow walk without distractions can help regulate an overactive nervous system and break the cycle of running from discomfort.

Freeze: The Emotional Shutdown

When fight or flight aren’t options, the body may default to freezing—becoming numb, stuck, or detached. Many who experience a freeze response describe feeling like they’re watching life happen rather than participating in it.

Signs of a freeze trauma response:

• Feeling disconnected from emotions
• Difficulty making decisions
• Avoiding responsibility or challenges
• Feeling overwhelmed and shutting down

Healing the freeze response requires gently reconnecting with your body and emotions. Somatic exercises, therapy, and small, manageable actions can help rebuild a sense of safety and movement.

Fawn: The People-Pleaser’s Pattern

The fawn response is a survival strategy based on appeasing others to stay safe. Many empathic, emotionally intelligent individuals fall into this pattern without realizing it, believing that their worth depends on meeting the needs of others.

Signs of a fawn trauma response:

• Difficulty saying no
• Prioritizing others’ needs over your own
• Fear of conflict or rejection
• Feeling drained from constantly giving to others

Healing from a fawn response requires learning to set boundaries and reclaim personal agency. Assertiveness training, inner child work, and practicing self-advocacy can be transformative steps in shifting away from automatic people-pleasing.

Healing from Within: Practical Steps

Healing from trauma responses isn’t about erasing them; it’s about understanding them and integrating new ways of responding. Here are a few foundational steps:

1. Build Awareness Without Judgment

Start by noticing your patterns. Journaling, therapy, or even discussing your experiences with a trusted friend can help bring unconscious responses to the surface. The key is to observe without shaming yourself.

2. Regulate Your Nervous System

Because trauma lives in the body, healing must involve the body. Practices like breathwork, yoga, cold exposure, exercise, and grounding techniques help retrain your nervous system to feel safe without reverting to old survival patterns.

3. Redefine Safety and Success

Ask yourself: What does safety feel like to me? What if success wasn’t about avoiding discomfort but about embracing growth? Shifting your mindset around these questions can be deeply healing.

4. Set Boundaries and Honour Your Needs

Whether it’s learning to say no, taking breaks, or allowing yourself to rest without guilt, setting boundaries is essential. You’re not selfish for prioritizing your well-being—you’re practicing self-respect.

5. Reclaim Your Narrative

Trauma can shape how we see ourselves and the world. Challenge limiting beliefs that stem from past experiences and rewrite your story in a way that empowers you. Practices like affirmations, inner child work, or reframing past events through a compassionate lens can help shift your perspective.

6. Embrace Self-Compassion

Healing isn’t linear, and setbacks don’t mean failure. Practicing self-compassion—offering yourself kindness, patience, and grace—helps you navigate the ups and downs without falling into self-criticism. Kristin Neff’s work on self-compassion is a great resource for cultivating this mindset.

7. Engage in Expressive Healing

Creative expression can be a powerful way to process emotions. Whether through writing, painting, music, or movement, engaging in creative outlets allows you to release stored emotions in a way that words alone sometimes cannot.

8. Reconnect with Joy

Trauma often shifts our focus toward survival, making it easy to lose sight of joy. Small moments of pleasure—laughter, playfulness, hobbies, or spending time in nature—can help restore a sense of aliveness. Healing isn’t just about working through pain; it’s also about reclaiming happiness.

9. Seek Support

Healing doesn’t have to be a solo journey. Whether through therapy, support groups, trusted friends and family, or mindfulness practices, having guidance can make all the difference in rewiring deep-seated patterns. Opening up to others who understand and support your growth can provide the validation and encouragement needed to move forward.

Taking Control of Your Healing Journey

Understanding trauma responses isn’t just about identifying patterns—it’s about reclaiming your agency. Self-awareness is a powerful tool. Once we recognize the patterns we’ve been operating from, we have the power to shift. Healing is a journey, not a destination, and every step toward self-understanding brings you closer to transformation.

You are more than your trauma responses. By acknowledging and understanding them, you can begin to heal and create the space for peace and growth. Healing is not about erasing the past but about embracing your full self and allowing yourself to move forward with strength and resilience.