How trauma shapes your business

When you think of the success, impact, and trajectory for your healing business, the topic of trauma usually isn’t top of mind for its influence on those factors. And yet, it’s how we hold the trauma we’ve experienced that shapes not only how successful and impactful our healing businesses can be, but what the journey of growth looks like - how we do the build and creation process of our businesses. 

When I first started working with clients with healing businesses, I began noticing some distinct patterns come up in how they were tending to their business growth. Passionate about their purpose, held a big vision of what they’re here to do, and know they are here to change the paradigm. But they weren’t seeing the results or momentum you might expect when you’re so on fire for what you do. 

So we started digging in, not just to the structure and logistics of the business, but the energy, emotions, stories, and what would come up for them as they tried to do all the things towards business growth. It wasn’t just about mindset, poor habits, or even low self-worth, though each of those certainly play their part and it is key to know how to dial those in.

What was happening were trauma responses - fawn, freeze, fight, or flight.

If these are new terms for you, let’s define them so you see how they play out in a business context later.

Fawn - To people please, put your needs below others, say only what others will agree with, show up in a way that you know makes people the happiest and doesn’t rock the boat. Those who defer to the fawn trauma response want acceptance and to belong. Their trauma may likely be related to abandonment types of dynamics and issues. You adapt your behavior as a way to make others (clients) stick around.

Freeze - A sense of being frozen, holding your breath, often feeling “stuck,” always seeming to lack clarity, wanting others to check back with you later (when you’re unfrozen), being indecisive, not responding in a timely way, hesitant to commit or choose. Those who defer to the freeze trauma response want to know they are safe to express anything without repercussion, except there’s no guarantee for that. Your true safety lies in the security and acceptance you have within yourself. Their trauma may be related to situations where they felt like a victim, lacking a sense of authority, sovereignty, or self-empowerment.

Fight - Wanting to respond to any and all opportunities that aren’t necessarily relevant for you. Think getting into a back and forth pokey conversation online with a stranger, spending hours composing a response to someone who triggered you, being attached to proving your point by justifying or over-explaining and continuing to add in “just one more thing” to the conversation, really wanting the other person see how right you are. Those who defer to this trauma response may have experienced situations where they had to fight to be seen or feel loved by others, reinforcing negative attention.

Flight - Get me out of this place/situation/relationship/opportunity! When any experience comes up that invites you into more of a fuller expression of who you are, the flight trauma response can kick in. If we have not met or cultivated the version of ourselves that feels safe as we (or our businesses) grow, we unconsciously default to leaving the scene that would invite us to grow. Those who defer to this trauma response may have experienced situations where they didn’t feel safe to be-exist as themselves.

Do you see your behavior in any of these trauma responses?

I know I do! It was through my own reflection, transformation, and inner alchemy that I was able to see just how much of my traumatic experiences shaped every aspect of life. Once you become aware of the real reasons behind why you act, think, feel, and create in the way you do, you then feel freer to shift it.

Here are the top ways your trauma shapes your business…

1) Inconsistency (flight-freeze)

Sometimes you show up, sometimes you don’t. You might have challenges completing projects, conversations, or goals you’ve set. You could be inconsistent in your messaging, marketing, follow up, and overall business procedures, reinventing the wheel with every new task. You’ve tried to convince yourself that if you simply hold the vision and practice manifesting techniques, that could be enough for a quantum leap of growth in your business. Except truly sustainable businesses grow over time, consistency, and commitment to doing the full spectrum of what needs to be done for growth.

2) Unclear boundaries (fawn-freeze)

You may be a people pleaser, over or under giving, spending lots of time on little tasks and not enough on what would move the needle in your business. You may compare your business to others rather than simply contain your own judgment and focus your energy on getting done what needs to be and staying in alignment with your own business goals. Perhaps you find yourself scrolling and commenting on other people’s posts instead of creating your own and leading the conversation. Not having completion dates or accountability for yourself in whatever you are creating. You often lack boundaries around your time, money, and energy in your business.

3) Promises of easy (fawn)

I see this show up often in marketing for those in transformational business space promising if you just follow a certain formula - get your vibration in the right frequency - have a particular mindset, everything will be easy and fall into place. Except everyone’s journey is personal to them, and life isn’t about always being easy. The desire for it to be so, rather than simply resting in your resourcefulness to make the best of the moment, is more related to a trauma response of not feeling capable to do the hard stuff. Having ease in business is desirable, sure, but the snake oil promise that all will be easy as long as you do x, y, z is more speaking to an inner child rather than an adult ready to do the work of growing a business.

4) Pricing challenges (fawn-fight-flight-freeze)

If you find yourself always offering discounts, unsure how to price your offers, lacking confidence in speaking about the price of your offers, not wanting to be salesy, feeling like you have to convince people/potential clients repeatedly or in great depth why they should work with you, packing on loads of “extras” with your offers to justify the pricing, thinking “Oh, I couldn’t charge for that, or that much,” - then you may be caught in all four trauma responses! Wanting to please others (fawn), not wanting to sell (freeze), trying to talk around the money (flight), feeling like you have to convince (fight). Because money is often synonymous with power in our world, for those of us who have gone through trauma and felt like a disempowered victim, the money game in business and otherwise can feel especially daunting.

5) Never being the “right time” (flight)

You may find reasons, excuses, and stories to put off what you know needs tending to, all under the guise of “it’s not the right time” when truth is, you simply need to step up to the responsibility. It’s a way to “take off” (flight) from the scene rather than follow through. There are moments when it truly isn’t the right time for something. It is important to discern if that’s the case. Either way though, leaning into what it is the right time for will help rewire your brain to realize it’s always the right time for something. 

6) Feeling challenged to complete projects (flight)

The tendency to start and stop before something is finished keeps you in a perpetual sense of incompletion. Whether you are starting multiple projects at once, or simply flipping back and forth between two, lacking the ability to commit to completion is a way your brain and body is telling you it either doesn’t feel safe, or grounded, or both. These are common occurrences for those who have been through trauma. 

7) Wanting to give up quickly when not getting results (flight)

You’ve launched the thing - the group, the post, the newsletter, the offer… and no one is responding. You know you should wait a day, week, ok, at least a month, maybe 6 months. But truth be told, you want to quit it all, now. Those who have experienced trauma often unconsciously seek external validation. Pairing this with social media and the obsession over “likes” can be triggering for an already dysregulated system.

8) Epic and polarized emotion - high when it’s going well, down when it’s not (fight)

The steadiness needed to grow a business, wear many hats, and ride the waves of growth, can be hard to come by when your system has been impacted by trauma. Even if nothing technically “traumatic” happened to you, if you didn’t get the role modeling needed of parents, community, and culture showing you how to regulate and steady your emotions, you may struggle with this. You feel like you have to fight your inner and outer reality just to steady yourself emotionally. Blowing things out of proportion, epic-izing and catastrophizing are key markers that you are in a trauma response mode.

9) Feeling invisible, like you can’t reach new clients no matter how hard you try (freeze-fight)

There may a lot of self-judgment and heightened pressure around showing your face on social media or in video. You might feel like you want to be in hiding or ambivalent about being visible. There’s an awkwardness or lack of clarity when you do connect with potential clients, like they just aren’t getting or understanding what you’re offering. You might fumble over your words, messaging, sales, taking a long time to get to the point or ask for a specific call to action. It’s almost as if you try all the things except just authentically connecting with another. If you’re going to get rejected, might as well do it from not fully being yourself, then to be true to you and still not be seen.

How many of these do you do in your business, or in your life?

When you begin to realize just how much your trauma has been shaping your business growth, and start to get specific of the ways in which that’s so, it then frees you to heal instead of hold on to the wound.

What’s important to understand about trauma is that it lives in the body. It may show “symptoms” in how you think, feel, and act, but until you address the body and the nervous system, you may keep bumping up against a wall or ceiling when it comes to your business growth.

It is key to intentionally create a deeper sense of regulation - especially in the moments you are working on your business - as your body needs to feel safe to expand, to allow your business to grow. This is the inner build, and it’s just as important if not more than the outer build. It creates the foundation for success because it’s built on feeling safe, secure, and connected within yourself, your body, your soul.

The most gifted person with the most strategic and aligned business plan will sabotage their own progress if they create from an unhealed space within themselves. 

While you certainly don’t need to be completely healed in order to serve and support others, you do need to be in an active, engaged, and intentional conversation with your body, your trauma, and your regulated nervous system. Tend to this integration and your business will begin thriving.

Trauma can be a complex issue, compounded by many factors. To address the nuances of how it happens and how to heal from it would take more than this article. For now, use this as a starting point for assessing how these patterns may be impacting your business.

For the next steps in working with transforming the inner and outer aspects of your business growth, check out the mentorships I offer in Your Healing Business, Leadership Rising, and Sacred Vision. To best prepare to get the most out of those mentorships, I highly recommend Recalibrate, where you upgrade your identity, stepping into a more full expression of who you are here to be and what you are here to do. As you do your inner work, your outer work has the potential to reach and impact more than you realize!