Episode 122: Shutdown Before Stress: The Misstep in Trauma Healing That Often Gets Missed

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When Healing Makes Things Worse

Your therapy sessions leave you feeling worse than before. You push through techniques that drain you completely every time. You wonder why healing feels so hard and retraumatizing. Could you be processing trauma while your body's in shutdown?

Healing begins when we stop pushing ourselves relentlessly forward and start listening to what our body is trying to tell us.

In this episode, I walk through the science of how trauma is stored in the body. And what that means for the sequence of healing. And what can go wrong when we don't follow the steps in the right order.

You'll learn the key differences between stress and trauma responses. Why therapy can sometimes leave you feeling worse than before. And how to work with your body's natural healing process instead of against it, creating more harm than help.

I break down why attempting to process trauma without following the correct steps can make you feel worse. I'll guide you through the steps for trauma healing carefully, explaining why addressing shutdown responses in the body first must happen before working with the stress response at all. Skipping this order often leads to frustration and retraumatization.

Whether you're a practitioner working with trauma clients daily or someone navigating your own healing journey through trauma recovery, this episode provides insights and practical tools for reconnecting safely. To help you reconnect with your body's wisdom innately present and begin the path to healing that actually works.

Understanding Trauma Storage

How trauma is stored in the body matters for healing. The science behind this storage explains why sequencing matters. Why it matters for the healing sequence you must follow. This storage affects every aspect of your recovery journey.

The healing sequence involves following steps in the right order to create sustainable progress forward. This is critical for avoiding retraumatization during the process of releasing stored trauma from tissues.

What goes wrong happens when we don't follow steps in the right order, trying to rush or skip ahead. Common mistakes that block healing and create frustration repeatedly. Create frustration making people give up on healing entirely.

Understanding the Biology of Trauma® reveals the difference between states. Stress versus trauma responses represent the key differences between these two states. Understanding this determines the approach you should take for healing.

Stress Versus Trauma

Stress response means activated with capacity to handle the situation. You feel capable of responding to what's happening around you. System engaged but not overwhelmed by demands being placed.

Trauma response means overwhelmed with capacity exceeded by demands completely. Capacity exceeded, leaving your system shutting down for protection automatically. System shutting down, creating different biology entirely from stress. Different biology requiring a different approach to healing and recovery.

Why this distinction matters for the healing approach you choose matters. For approach, for sequence, for understanding what's needed now. Treating trauma like stress doesn't work and makes things worse. Makes worse by pushing when your system needs safety.

Why therapy can make you worse when it doesn't follow the correct sequence for your nervous system. When it pushes too fast, too hard before your body is ready. Before your body is ready to process what's stored in tissues.

The Retraumatization Risk

The retraumatization risk involves processing trauma without proper sequence applied. Without proper sequence can retraumatize, making things worse, not better. Defeating the purpose of healing. Creating more stored trauma needing future processing.

Working with versus against your body's natural healing process matters. This choice determines outcomes you'll experience in your healing journey. This choice determines outcomes, creating success or continued frustration.

With the body means following its wisdom and timing. Its timing, its sequence that knows how to heal. This supports healing, creating sustainable lasting change over time. Creating sustainable lasting change that doesn't require constant effort.

Against the body involves pushing, forcing, ignoring signals it sends. Ignoring signals, creating more trauma and more resistance building. This creates more trauma, more resistance, making healing impossible.

The Shutdown Misstep

Why shutdown must come first before working with stress response becomes clear through biology. This is the misstep that gets missed most commonly. That gets missed, causing frustration and treatment failure repeatedly.

The shutdown state happens when your body is shut down. You must address this first before anything else happens. Before anything else because shutdown means no capacity present. No capacity for processing or dealing with stored trauma.

Why this order matters involves because shutdown means absence. Means no capacity for processing anything at all currently. Must build capacity first before processing can happen safely. Before processing trauma stored in your nervous system tissues.

Skipping this step leads to frustration, setbacks, retraumatization occurring predictably. This is a common mistake in healing approaches used widely. In healing that doesn't account for nervous system states.

The Disconnection Problem

Over 90% live in their heads, disconnected from their bodies. People disconnected from bodies, living upstairs in thinking only. This blocks healing because trauma lives in body tissues. In the body, not in your thinking brain understanding alone.

What this means for healing involves you can't heal trauma in your body while living upstairs. While living in your head, disconnected from sensations and signals. Must reconnect to your body before healing can truly begin.

The disconnection problem occurs when you're in your head only. You can't feel your body, can't hear its signals clearly. Can't follow its wisdom guiding you toward healing naturally. Toward healing that your body knows how to do.

How to tell if your body is in trauma shutdown versus stress showing specific signs for each state distinctly.

The Essential Sequence

Shutdown signs include numb, flat, disconnected, exhausted feelings persisting. Can't feel, can't engage, foggy, collapsed into yourself completely. Into yourself without energy or motivation for anything at all.

Stress signs include activated, anxious, energized, wired feelings running. Can still function, still engaged, still feeling sensations clearly. Still feeling, though uncomfortable and wanting relief from activation.

The essential healing sequence works with the nervous system carefully for lasting trauma recovery that doesn't create more problems. This is the path forward toward sustainable healing success.

Step one involves safety as the first step always, creating foundation. Create safety in your nervous system before anything else happens. Foundation for everything else that follows in the healing process.

Building Sustainable Healing

Step two means support by building capacity for being with sensation, with emotion, with experience gradually. Gradually increasing what your system can handle without overwhelm.

Step three involves expansion only when safe and supported fully. Can you expand, process, release, heal what's been stored. Heal stored trauma in a way that doesn't retraumatize you.

Why this order works involves because it follows the body's natural sequence, building on each step progressively forward. Creates sustainability, making healing last rather than temporary relief.

The right approach involves addressing shutdown first, always before processing. Build capacity, create safety, then and only then proceed. Then and only then process trauma stored in the body.

This Episode Is For: 

✓ People whose therapy makes them feel worse

✓ Anyone frustrated with healing progress

✓ Those living "in their heads" disconnected from body

✓ Practitioners needing proper trauma sequencing

✓ People with chronic symptoms and trauma history

✓ Anyone who's tried everything and still struggling

✓ Those needing to understand shutdown before stress

✓ People ready to work with body instead of against

What You'll Learn

Listen to understand the critical misstep in trauma healing. Trying to process trauma while in shutdown state doesn't work. Learn the essential healing sequence of Safety, Support, Expansion order. Why over 90% live "in their heads" disconnected from body. How to tell if your body is in shutdown. And why addressing shutdown responses must happen before stress work.

Your healing frustration might be wrong sequence, not wrong person.

Listen to Episode 122 →

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The information shared reflects my clinical expertise and research, but every person's biology and healing journey is unique. Always consult with qualified healthcare providers before making changes to your treatment plan or starting new interventions. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact emergency services or a crisis helpline immediately.

Join the Conversation

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. What resonated with you? What questions came up?

Please keep comments respectful and supportive. This is a community of people committed to healing. We welcome diverse perspectives and honest questions, but we don't tolerate personal attacks, spam, or content that could harm others on their healing journey.