Episode 150: Frozen in Success: The Biology of Staying Stuck in Survival
- THA Operations
- 52 minutes ago
- 12 min read
Many high-achieving people look successful on the outside while part of them remains frozen in childhood survival patterns. Through the Biology of Trauma® lens, I share how trauma disrupts the natural flow and movement of life—and the healing roadmap that takes us from stuck to truly alive.
If we've ever wondered why we can reach every external goal and still feel disconnected from our own life, this episode explains why. I share Elena's story, a 45-year-old Chief Operating Officer whose autoimmune diagnosis revealed what her body had been holding for decades. When her thirteen-year-old daughter had thoughts of suicide—and felt she couldn't talk to her mom—Elena finally understood: a part of her had been frozen since before she could walk.
We'll explore how nervous system dysregulation shows up as professional success masking emotional unavailability. We'll see how trauma stops our natural movement through life—and discover the six-step roadmap from survival to authenticity, belonging, and flow.
In this episode you'll learn:
[00:00] Why successful people can still be frozen in survival patterns from childhood
[02:15] How Elena's birth trauma created a freeze response before she could walk
[06:40] The moment her daughter's crisis revealed decades of emotional unavailability
[09:10] Trauma defined: the biggest disruptor of movement in our life
[12:45] Why everything inside us is movement—and what happens when trauma stops it
[16:05] The healing destination: authenticity, belonging, and flow as what it means to be alive
[19:50] Why state shifts matter more than neuroplasticity on your healing journey
[24:05] How neuroplasticity wires in whatever state you're in—including overwhelm
[26:30] The six-step roadmap: from "I am alive" to connection with others
[28:15] How Elena broke the generational cycle with her daughters
Main Takeaways:
Trauma Is the Biggest Disruptor of Movement: Trauma isn't just an event—it's the shock that stops us. It disrupts movement at every level: physical, emotional, relational, and through our life stages.
Successful and Frozen Can Coexist: High achievement doesn't mean our nervous system is regulated. Elena built an impressive career while part of her remained that terrified little girl, hiding and staying still to survive.
State Shifts Come Before Neuroplasticity: Whatever state we're in is what neuroplasticity wires in. If we're frequently in stress and overwhelm, our brain builds pathways that make that pattern automatic. We must shift our state first.
The Destination Is Authenticity, Belonging, and Flow: These three elements define what it means to be truly alive—free to be ourselves, grounded in connection, and moving with ease through life.
You Can't Skip the Sequence: The roadmap follows a specific order: recognizing we're alive, choosing to live, shifting our state, being here, wanting to be here, deserving to be here, and finally connecting with others. Each step prepares us for the next.
Healing Breaks Generational Patterns: When Elena addressed her frozen patterns, her daughters noticed changes they never expected. The "resting bitch face" disappeared. Presence replaced absence.
Notable Quotes:
"Trauma becomes the biggest disruptor of movement in our life."
"I can still see myself as a little girl, hiding with my dolls, quiet, still and absolutely terrified."
"Whatever state we are in is what neuroplasticity wires in."
"Being in calm alive can actually become a habit. Imagine that."
"Your body's decision to freeze wasn't a failure—it was survival. But you don't have to stay frozen."
Episode Takeaway:
Frozen doesn't mean broken. Elena's story reveals what happens when trauma stops our natural movement through life—not just physical movement, but emotional presence, relational connection, and our ability to truly arrive in the life we've built. Her freeze response began at birth, reinforced through childhood, and showed up decades later as professional success masking emotional unavailability. Her daughters felt it. Her body felt it. Her autoimmune diagnosis confirmed it.
The healing roadmap offers a way forward. First, we help that frozen part recognize we're alive—that survival happened. Then we consciously choose to live, rather than simply existing because we had no choice. We learn to shift our state into calm and aliveness, practicing until it becomes our new default. And finally, we move through the deeper work: being here, wanting to be here, deserving to be here, and opening to genuine connection with others.
Neuroplasticity works for or against us depending on our state. If overwhelm has become our habit, our brain has built pathways that take us there automatically. But when we build the habit of calm aliveness first, neuroplasticity starts working in our favor. The destination isn't perfection—it's authenticity, belonging, and flow. Movement is possible. Coming home to ourselves is possible.
Resources/Guides:
The Biology of Trauma book - Available now everywhere books are sold. Get your copy
Foundational Journey - If you are ready to create your inner safety and shift your nervous system, join me and my team for this 6 week journey of practical somatic and mind-body inner child practices. Lay your foundation to do the deeper work safely and is the pre-requisite for becoming a Biology of Trauma® professional.
Related Episodes:
Your host: Dr. Aimie Apigian, double board-certified physician (Preventive/Addiction Medicine) with master's degrees in biochemistry and public health, and author of the national bestselling book "The Biology of Trauma" (foreword by Gabor Maté) that transforms our understanding of how the body experiences and holds trauma. After foster-adopting a child during medical school sparked her journey, she desperately sought for answers that would only continue as she developed chronic health issues. Through her practitioner training, podcast, YouTube channel, and international speaking, she bridges functional medicine, attachment and trauma therapy, facilitating accelerated repair of trauma's impact on the mind, body and biology.
Frozen in Survival Mode: Why Successful People Still Struggle with the Freeze Response and How to Finally Thaw
"I can still see myself as a little girl, hiding with my dolls, quiet, still, and absolutely terrified." — Elena
Can you build a successful life while part of you is still frozen in survival mode? Many high-achieving individuals carry a hidden pattern that undermines their health, relationships, and ability to be fully present—the chronic functional freeze response. This trauma pattern doesn't look like what most people imagine. It looks like pushing through exhaustion, like never quite arriving in your own life, like building an impressive exterior while feeling heavy and stuck inside.
Elena was a 45-year-old Chief Operating Officer who had built what looked like an impressive life. But when she sat in her rheumatologist's office holding lab results confirming her autoimmune diagnosis, something inside her stopped. Her heart raced, yet she froze. She couldn't hear a single word the doctor was saying.
Then came the call from her daughter's school counselor: "Sofia said she's been having thoughts of suicide, but didn't feel she could talk to you because you've been distant and fatigued lately."
What Elena couldn't see yet was that a part of her had been frozen for decades—unable to fully arrive in the life she'd worked so hard to build. Understanding how to heal the freeze response would change everything for her.
What Is Trauma Really? The Definition That Changes Everything
Trauma isn't just about what happened to us. It's about what stopped moving inside of us when we felt powerless. This distinction matters because it shifts our understanding of why we're still affected years or decades later.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains it this way: "Preventing people from moving when something terrible happens is what makes trauma a trauma." Many experts call this "thwarted movement"—self-defense movements made ineffective. There was nothing we could do that might make a difference.
The walls we hit aren't always visible. Negative self-beliefs from past experiences can be just as immovable as physical barriers. Childhood conditioning that anger isn't safe. Deeply held beliefs about not being good enough. The helplessness of watching a loved one struggle when we can do nothing to help.
Until we understand that trauma is fundamentally a disruption of movement, we'll keep trying to heal with strategies that can't address what's really frozen.
How Does the Freeze Response Actually Work in Your Body?
The freeze response is your body's most powerful survival strategy. While it might look like passive weakness, the freeze is actually stronger than both your fight and flight responses combined.
Think of driving a self-driving car increasingly fast. At some point, the car's safety system says "we're going too fast" and automatically engages the emergency brake. You don't choose this. The system overrides your control to prevent catastrophic damage. This is exactly what happens in your nervous system when you cross what I call the critical line of overwhelm.
Dr. Peter Levine describes what happens during freeze: our muscles lock tightly, trapping all the energy from our previous stress response inside our body. We're quite literally "scared stiff," frozen in a state of shock as we face the unthinkable.
The wisdom of the freeze is in its purpose—to stop movement and action that now endangers rather than helps us. Like a circuit breaker that cuts power to prevent system damage, the freeze shifts your survival strategy from heroic action to strategic paralysis. The problem comes when this temporary protection becomes a permanent pattern.
Chronic Functional Freeze: The Hidden Pattern Behind High Achievement
Trauma professionals use the term "chronic functional freeze" to describe how this pattern shows up in everyday life. It depicts two important elements: a chronic inner state of immobilization yet the ability to remain functional. We appear fine on the outside while feeling heavy and stuck inside.
The key to recognizing chronic functional freeze is that we use extra energy to adapt and push ourselves so nothing appears different externally. But the extra tension required on the inside will have consequences. Many of us have built impressive lives around our frozen parts—perfectionism masquerading as accomplishment, people-pleasing appearing as kindness, overachieving becoming our source of pride.
When your body holds trauma, movement itself can feel dangerous. Being too alive, too visible, feels threatening. Your neuroception—your nervous system's unconscious detection of safety and danger—still views the world through the lens of past powerlessness. Being seen and heard makes you vulnerable, so your system instinctively blocks progress.
Why State Shifts Matter More Than Neuroplasticity
You've probably heard "neurons that fire together, wire together." This describes neuroplasticity—how our brain strengthens neural pathways we use repetitively. Unfortunately, neuroplasticity has no preference for whether these are healthy patterns or unhealthy ones.
Each time your body cycles through the stress-to-shutdown loop, you deepen these neural pathways, making the loop your default response. Here's what changes everything: You cannot rewire your brain from within a trauma state. Your nervous system state determines what's possible.
In shutdown, the emergency brake is fully engaged—no amount of positive thinking or cognitive strategies will create productive movement until that brake releases. This is why so many healing approaches fail. They try to create change while the person remains stuck in a trauma state. State shift must come first.
The Healing Roadmap: From Stuck to Alive
Your body must trace the same steps in reverse to fully open up back to life. I call this the "essential sequence"—three steps that help you open and release stored trauma.
Step One: Safety. In shutdown, the emergency brake is fully engaged. Safety is the first step that informs your neuroception you are no longer trapped and powerless. It begins releasing the brake. Your job is to find your safety zone—the range where your nervous system can stabilize.
Step Two: Support. As you come out of shutdown, the activation state prior to shutdown starts to emerge. The emergency brake didn't remove the anxiety and panic—it was just overpowered. Support helps you navigate through stress without getting overwhelmed and crossing back into the trauma state.
Step Three: Expansion. When you successfully support the stress, your neuroception shifts your body into the calm-alive state. This is where you rest, recover, and create. This is where you build capacity and experience life more fully than before.
A common mistake is not following this order. When you engage in deep or intense therapies without first establishing safety and support, you overwhelm your body. This sequence isn't arbitrary—these are the body's natural principles of coming out of overwhelm.
Why Healing Must Address Mind, Body, and Biology Simultaneously
When trauma first occurs, the blocks are primarily emotional and mental. But compound that over twenty or thirty years without resolution? Now you have blocks at all three levels.
Mind level blocks include fragmented parts stuck in past experiences, limiting beliefs, and cognitive patterns keeping you cycling between stress and collapse. Body level blocks include muscle memory of helplessness, incomplete protective responses, and somatic patterns of freeze. Biology level blocks include inflammation, nutrient deficiencies, mitochondrial dysfunction, and gut dysfunction.
Someone doing only therapy addresses the mind but misses body and biology. Someone doing only supplements addresses biology but misses mind and body. The other blocks remain. Healing doesn't stick.
But here's what changes everything: You don't need years of intensive work at each level. You need small interventions across all three simultaneously. When you bring all three together, they work like small hinges. And small hinges move big doors.
Elena's First Thaw
When Elena heard that trauma was the disruption of movement, something clicked. She realized she wasn't really there with her daughters. Part of her was still that little girl, frozen in her childhood bedroom, trying to be invisible while her mother's boyfriend raged nearby. That part never learned it was safe to fully show up.
She started with the Foundational Journey, learning to create safety in her body. At first, even small practices felt overwhelming. But slowly, something shifted.
One day in session, as she spoke about that terrified little girl, her whole body spontaneously shuddered. Then she said it out loud: "But now I know that my body was just trying to help me survive."
Relief spread across her face. Her shoulders relaxed. A spontaneous deep breath. It wasn't dramatic, but it was real. Part of her that had been frozen was beginning to thaw. Her daughters noticed too—they told her that her "resting bitch face" had disappeared.
Where to Start: Practical Steps for Healing the Freeze Response
If you could only do one thing for trauma healing: get better quality sleep. Sleep quality has the greatest impact on nervous system regulation while awake than almost any other intervention.
Beyond sleep, align with your body's natural circadian rhythm. Get outside as early as possible after waking. Expose your eyes to natural light for ten to fifteen minutes. This provides free red light therapy for your mitochondria, improving cellular energy production.
Start tracking your nervous system states. Every hour while awake, notice: Am I in calm aliveness—present, breathing fully, at ease? Am I in activation—tense, worried, hypervigilant? Or am I in shutdown—numb, disconnected, exhausted? Don't judge. Just notice patterns.
Try the heart hold. Place your hand over your heart and take three full breaths. Notice what happens in your body. This simple practice can help shift your state toward calm.
From Frozen to Alive: Your Next Step
Elena's journey taught her something profound: "I finally processed those stories I'd been keeping frozen—my traumatic birth, the car accident, my mother's violent boyfriend. And as I let go, I felt more energy inside me. It had been taking so much to keep it all pushed down."
Elena didn't erase her trauma. But she broke the cycle. Your body's decision to freeze wasn't a failure—it was survival. But you don't have to stay frozen. Movement is possible. Coming home to yourself is possible.
You don't need all the answers. You don't need to do everything perfectly. You just need to start where you are—noticing, supporting, removing blocks, building capacity. Small hinges move big doors.
If you're ready to learn the skills for shifting your state from frozen to alive, explore the Foundational Journey—the six-week program where I guide individuals through exactly this process.
Helpful Resources
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books. Dr. van der Kolk's groundbreaking work explains why trauma is fundamentally about thwarted movement and how the body holds experiences of powerlessness long after the events have passed.
Levine, P.A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books. Peter Levine's research on Somatic Experiencing reveals how animals in the wild discharge traumatic energy through shaking and trembling, and why humans often remain stuck in freeze states when this natural completion is interrupted.
Porges, S.W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W.W. Norton & Company. Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory provides the scientific framework for understanding the three distinct nervous system states and why safety must precede healing.
This Episode Is For:
✓ High-achieving people feeling disconnected from life
✓ Anyone frozen in childhood survival patterns
✓ Parents wanting to break cycles with children
✓ People with autoimmune conditions and trauma history
✓ Those feeling successful but emotionally unavailable
✓ Anyone wanting to understand freeze response
✓ People ready for the healing roadmap
✓ Those seeking authenticity, belonging, and flow
What You'll Learn
Learn why successful people can still be frozen in survival patterns. How Elena's birth trauma created freeze response before walking ever happened. The moment her daughter's crisis revealed decades of emotional unavailability present. Trauma defined as the biggest disruptor of movement in life. Why everything inside us is movement and what happens when stopped. The healing destination of authenticity, belonging, and flow being alive. Why state shifts matter more than neuroplasticity on healing journeys. How neuroplasticity wires in whatever state you're in including overwhelm. The six-step roadmap from recognizing we're alive to connecting with others. And how Elena broke the generational cycle with her daughters completely.
Frozen doesn't mean broken—movement and coming home are possible always.
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.
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