Is the Way You're Trying to Heal Traumatic Shutdown Backward? (Probably.) 🧠

How to tell trauma shutdown apart from stress, and why the healing sequence matters more than you think (9min Read)

TL;DR Summary

• Stress and trauma shutdown aren’t the same—and healing requires knowing which state you're in.

• Shutdown feels like numbness, fatigue, and fog—not laziness.

• If you're trying to heal without resolving shutdown first, you're working against your nervous system.

• If you skip straight to mindset work or therapy while in shutdown, it may backfire.

• True trauma recovery follows the “Essential Sequence”:

  1. Safety (freeze)

  2. Support (stress)

  3. Expansion (growth)

• Healing starts by reversing the path trauma took—beginning in the body, not the mind.

---

Is it stress, or is it shutdown? Why the difference matters more than you think

Have you ever left a therapy session feeling worse than when you walked in?

You’re not alone.

And it might not be because therapy "isn’t working."

It might be because your body wasn’t ready for it—yet.

Here’s the thing no one tells you: the nervous system doesn’t heal in a straight line, and it doesn’t heal on your therapist’s timeline, or your coach’s, or even your own ideal one.

It heals in a very particular sequence.

A sequence Dr. Aimie, Founder of the Biology of Trauma, calls, “The Essential Sequence.”

And it begins far below the neck—in your body’s felt sense of safety.

But what if the first step is skipped?

Let’s break it down.

What is trauma shutdown—and how is it different from stress?

Stress is your system getting mobilized.

You feel agitated, anxious, wired.

Maybe you’re hyper-productive or irritable.

In terms of the nervous system, this is the sympathetic branch firing: get up, do something, fix it, flee it, fight it.

But trauma shutdown? It’s the exact opposite.

It’s not hyperarousal. It’s hypoarousal.

This can happen when too much happens too fast, or too little happens for too long.

This is when your body says, “I’m not safe, and I can’t escape—so I’m going to go offline.”

Neurobiologically, this is the dorsal vagal system in the parasympathetic branch of your nervous system.

I’ve written extensively on this part of the autonomic nervous system before in case you need a refresher!

This portion of your nervous system is evolutionarily ancient and designed for survival through immobilization.

It’s a shutdown that keeps you alive during overwhelming threats and trauma.

It’s a protective mechanism, as crazy as that sounds.

In short: Stress means your body is still fighting.

Shutdown means your body has surrendered.

One is a revving engine.

The other is pulling the emergency brake mid-race.

Ok, Cody, I get it, but how do I actually know which one I’m dealing with?!

Great question.

How do I know if I’m in a trauma shutdown or just stressed?

Stress is a state of activation.

Your body thinks there’s a threat and gears up to do something about it.

You feel it as urgency, worry, restlessness. Your thoughts race.

You might feel tightness in your chest or clenching in your gut. You feel too much.

Shutdown is different. It’s not about too much.

It’s about too little. Too little energy. Too little connection.

Too little sense of safety.

You may feel foggy, slow, numb. You check out, not because you want to—but because your system is conserving energy to survive.

Stress feels like your foot is on the gas.

Shutdown feels like the engine has gone quiet.

You're still in the car, but it's not going anywhere.

This is not about how things look from the outside. It’s about how they feel inside your body.

That’s the real compass.

What are the patterns?

• Are you constantly on edge, flinching at notifications, avoiding inboxes, snapping at people you love? That’s stress.

• Are you staring at your screen, unable to move, feeling like you could sleep for a week but don’t feel rested when you do? That’s a shutdown.

• Are you numbing out with food, social media, or endless “just one more episode”? That’s a sign your system might be frozen—not lazy.

If stress says “hurry up,” shutdown says “it’s too late.”

And here’s the thing: they can alternate.

You can oscillate between hyperarousal (stress) and hypoarousal (shutdown), especially if your body hasn’t found a stable baseline yet.

Knowing where you are helps you know what you need.

Because what works for stress might worsen shutdown.

Why therapy (and mindset work) can make you feel worse

If you're trying to "push through" trauma when you're in a shutdown state, you're forcing your system to activate when it physiologically can’t.

Imagine you’re trying to power up a frozen computer by clicking faster and harder.

It doesn’t work. Why?

Because the issue isn’t in the app. It’s in the system.

That’s what happens when you try to cognitively process trauma or regulate anxiety without addressing shutdown first.

It leads to:

• Retraumatization

• Emotional flashbacks

• Feeling like “nothing works”

• Burnout from therapy

• Chronic looping and cognitive fatigue

So what’s the solution? The Essential Healing Sequence

What most people misunderstand about healing from this traumatic shutdown, is that you’ve gotta go backwards.

You must reverse the path trauma took in the first place.

What do I mean by that?

Trauma isn’t random. It follows a biological sequence.

When your system perceives a threat it can’t escape or resolve, it shifts gears — first from safety into stress, and if that’s not enough, into shutdown.

It’s like falling down the stairs of your nervous system.

You don’t think your way into these states — your body takes you there.

And that means: you can’t think your way out either.

You have to climb back up, one step at a time.

This is what Dr. Aimie Apigian calls the Essential Sequence, and it shows us the order that healing has to follow.

Not just to feel better, but to truly resolve stored trauma at the nervous system level.

Here’s how that sequence goes, and why each step matters.

Step 1: Safety – The Way Out of Shutdown/Freeze

Freeze isn’t just stress—it’s what happens when the system says, “This is too much for too long” or “I’m not going to make it.”

It’s the body’s emergency brake.

You can’t power your way out of freeze.

You have to coax yourself out with felt safety—experiences that tell your biology, “You’re okay now. It’s different.”

This doesn’t happen through logic.

It happens through neuroception, meaning your body senses safety before your brain does.

Here are some things that can help:

• Small sensory cues: warm tea, weighted blankets, soft light

• Micro-movements: gentle rocking, breathwork, hand on heart, stretching

• Safe people: Co-Regulation w/ a safe person. Slow, rhythmic touch (only if consented to), or quiet routines can help the nervous system sense that things are steady and safe.

• Avoid: big goals, confrontation, intense somatic work

Imagine your body and nervous system like a little turtle that’s firmly tucked into its shell.

It’s not gonna poke its head out until it knows it’s safe.

Without this step, no other healing sticks because the turtle is still stuck in its shell.

Step 2: Support – The Way Out of Stress

Once the freeze and shutdown start to lift, stress returns.

But this isn’t a failure.

It’s a sign your system is waking up.

Remember, to heal, we have to reverse the sequence that got us where, stress is the next step, neurologically, in that reverse sequence.

This stage needs structure and support.

Your body is testing whether the world is safe enough to stay online, or if it should shut down again.

It’s when we feel all alone, that we slip back into overwhelm and shutdown.

Support at this stage looks like:

• Boundaries that protect your energy

• Regulation tools that calm the fight-or-flight system

• Biological support (nutrition, sleep, nervous system supplements)

• More co-regulation with safe others like a therapist, partner, friends, family

You’re still tender here.

This is the time to stabilize, not stretch.

Step 3: Expansion – The Way Forward

Once your system feels safe and supported, it naturally starts to move into what Dr. Aimie calls “calm aliveness.”

This is the ventral vagal state: where curiosity returns, emotions feel manageable, and learning becomes possible.

This is what I would call “Self Energy” to use an IFS term.

Your calm, compassionate, caring, clear Self is back online again, your Parts have finally relaxed back a little, now that they feel safe & supported.

This is where you can finally:

• Access growth

• Tolerate discomfort without shutting down

• Explore your story with openness instead of fear

• Step into new challenges without collapsing

But you don’t force this state.

You build toward it by completing the first two steps.

If you try to expand while you're still in freeze or even stress?

You’ll likely crash, spiral, or shut down again.

If you jump straight into therapy, exposure, or mindset work before your system is ready, you may feel worse—not because you’re doing something wrong, but because you skipped steps your body still needs.

Climbing Out of a Well

Imagine trauma as a deep well.

If you’re at the bottom (shutdown), you can’t leap to the top (growth).

You need rungs—not just tools.

The first rung is safety—feeling like you won’t fall deeper.

The next is support—learning to hold your own weight and receive help.

Then you can climb—expansion, resilience, and growth.

No matter how hard you try to climb, if the first rung is missing, you fall every time.

Why this matters for anxious achievers like you

Here’s where anxious achievers get stuck: We often operate from freeze & shutdown, not realizing it.

We overachieve, numb, hustle, attach, or isolate—not because we’re high-performers, but because our nervous system froze a long time ago, and we’ve built our lives around it.

So, not, it’s easier to perform than to slow down and heal what got frozen long ago.

If you’ve spent your life “in your head,” high-achieving, high-anxiety, and overthinking your healing...

Your body might be calling out for you to slow down and listen.

Shame about being “lazy,” “unmotivated,” “not being what others need,” or “not trying hard enough” is often the smoke signal for a shutdown nervous system—not a moral failure.

When you understand this, everything changes.

You stop pushing. You start listening.

And that’s when healing actually begins.

Healing isn’t in your head

Speaking of healing, it’s not in your head, however, over 90% of people process from only their head.

We’re disconnected from our bodies.

This is a sign of unprocessed trauma, and that’s ok!

But to heal, and to make it through the steps we covered above, you’ve gotta get outta your head.

I want to leave you with a tool to do exactly this and kick-start the very first step we talked about today, safety.

It will help you get out of your head, and start to create a felt sense of safety in your body.

Creating A Felt Sense of Safety Tool

The first thing I want you to do is give yourself a couple of minutes to do this.

When you’re in a place where you can pause, I want you to take your hand and put it over your tummy.

Your stomach is a place that holds a lot of emotion.

It can brace to hold this emotion to try and protect us.

So, turn all of your attention toward your hand on your tummy, and see what you notice.

It takes 30-60 seconds for your vagus nerve to send a safety message up to your brain.

So, just pause, notice your hand on your tummy, and wait for a couple seconds.

As you do this, what else do you start to notice?

Do your shoulders start to relax? Does your jaw unclench? Does your tummy loosen or soften? Do you yawn? Do you remember to swallow or stop holding your breath?

These are all signs your nervous system is feeling safer!

You have access to this felt sense of safety 24/7, you just have to pause, get outta your head, and notice.

I hope this little tool helps!

Final Thought: Right Things, Right Order

Trauma healing is not a productivity hack or mindset reframe. It’s biology.

If you’re stuck, it may not be because you’re doing the wrong thing.

You might just be doing the right thing in the wrong order.

And that means it’s not you that’s broken.

It’s your healing sequence that’s misaligned.

Your job is to treat your nervous system state, not just your symptoms.

Remember:

• Freeze response (trauma): Needs safety

• Stress response: Needs support

Once you’ve hit these two steps, your Self can step into expansion by activating the calming side of your parasympathetic nervous system.

You MUST retrace the steps your body took to survive.

That’s the way back to Self.

You’ve got this.

I believe in each of you, and until next time… Live Heroically 🧠

---

Want to Work With Me? Here Are 3 Ways I Can Help You

1. Join the Balanced Creator Community (free): It’s the only community on earth built to support the mental health & mindset of content creators & entrepreneurs (creatorpreneurs) while growing and monetizing their brands and businesses.

2. Become a paid subscriber to the Mind, Brain, Body Lab Digest: You’ll get subscriber-only video posts, email replies, access to my entire blog archive, early access to new products, workshops & tools I create!

3. Work With Me 1on1 Through the Me 2.0 Program: Work with me 1on1 to heal the unresolved trauma and limiting beliefs that are holding back your health, wealth & relationships. (Extremely Limited Spots; Paid Subscribers Are Prioritized on Waitlist)

---

Supporting Research

• Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

• van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.

• Apigian, A. (n.d.). The Essential Sequence Guide (Long Version).

• Schore, A. N. (2012). The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy. Norton.

• Levine, P. A. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. North Atlantic Books.