How Well Do You Know Your Trauma Responses? (2518)

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In this episode of Next Level University, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros explain why success is not only about ambition, discipline, or bigger goals. It is also about how you respond when stress, pressure, conflict, and opportunity push you beyond your current capacity. They break down the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses, helping you recognize how these patterns can either protect your progress or quietly pull you away from it.

You will learn why self-awareness matters when you feel overwhelmed, how to identify your personal triggers, and what it takes to regain perspective without abandoning the work in front of you. The next level is rarely reached by avoiding pressure. It is reached by learning how to stay in the arena when pressure arrives.

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Show notes:
(1:51) Understanding stress responses and self-belief
(3:35) Constructive Vs. Destructive fight responses
(5:20) When flight becomes avoidance
(6:30) Building capacity before greater success
(10:08) Knowing your triggers and regulating your response
(12:18) Using awareness to get back in the fight
(13:55) Finding perspective when overwhelmed
(15:07) Different triggers require different tools
(16:02) Outro

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Transcript

Kevin Palmieri

(0:00) If you do not know how you respond when you are overwhelmed, when you have opportunities that you did not think you could get, and now you're thinking to yourself, how the hell am I gonna balance it? (0:10) Today's episode is for you.

Alan Lazaros

(0:12) Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. (0:16) Everyone has these trauma responses to physical, mental, emotional, spiritual pain. (0:22) Which one is your big one, and is that constructive or destructive?(0:25) Welcome to Next Level University.

Kevin Palmieri

(0:28) I'm your host, Kevin Palmieri. (0:30) And I'm your co-host, Alan Lazaros. (0:33) At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven, but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Alan Lazaros

(0:39) Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life, love, health, and wealth.

Kevin Palmieri

(0:46) We bring you a new episode every single day on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits, and defining your own unique version of success.

Alan Lazaros

(1:02) Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from anywhere, completely free. (1:08) Welcome to Next Level University.

Kevin Palmieri

(1:14) Next Level Nation, today for episode number 2,518, we're doing You Can't Shut Down and Succeed Part 2, kind of talking about the trauma responses. (1:22) One of the reasons we are doing a Part 2 on this is because I do believe it is probably more of the game than we have talked about in the past. (1:34) If we're going to say that self-belief is one of the most important things ever of all time, I would say another thing that we very rarely talk about is understanding what your trauma response is, number two, and then how do you mitigate the downside of what your trauma response is?

Alan Lazaros

(1:51) Your trauma response is going to be predicated on your level of belief in that arena, I think.

Kevin Palmieri

(1:57) Like, that's fair, right?

Alan Lazaros

(2:01) If you, let's say you're on the show Survivor and you don't have any survival skills, you're going to fawn to someone who does, and you should. (2:11) Or you're going to freeze. (2:16) It's not like a Navy SEAL is going to freeze because they fell off the boat, you know?(2:20) That. (2:21) And one of the things that's a weird goal I've never said out loud is to just be the most capable human being possible so that when anything happens, I can handle it, you know? (2:35) And those are the people you want around you.(2:37) You want people that can handle hard times, not people who... (2:42) I heard this quote for the very first time last week. (2:46) I cannot believe I haven't heard this before since Emilia sailed the D1 at Providence College.(2:52) A great sailor never came from calm seas. (2:56) That's good stuff. (2:57) Of course not.(2:58) Imagine it was always calm. (2:59) It's like, well, then you're not a good sailor. (3:01) She almost got frostbite sailing.(3:03) So I think the same is true for life. (3:06) And if you don't have goals or adversity, you're going to end up very incapable. (3:11) It's another conversation.(3:12) And then you are going to shut down when hard things happen. (3:16) Okay. (3:16) Coaching.

Kevin Palmieri

(3:18) Give me each trauma response. (3:21) Don't give me an actual client, but like, let's do a study of, right? (3:25) Client one, client two, client three, client four.(3:27) Each one has a different trauma response. (3:29) How do you coach them effectively to make sure that they aren't held back by that?

Alan Lazaros

(3:35) So each one has a constructive and a destructive one. (3:38) So we'll go through them. (3:40) Fight, flight, freeze, fawn.(3:41) So fight, it's destructive if you fight others, unless it's a bully. (3:49) It's constructive if you fight towards your goals or you fight to be better, or you fight to learn why, or you get back in the fight. (3:58) I had a, you and I coached someone, I coached him this morning and he is in the fight to extensive amount.(4:07) And I said, true or false, this is the most overwhelmed, the most failure you've ever endured in any one couple months. (4:17) He started smiling. (4:19) I was like, you're a sicko.(4:21) You're a sicko. (4:23) He's like, yeah. (4:24) And it's like, dude, I would smile too.(4:27) I said, Kevin said to me one time, you fucking love failure. (4:32) Yeah. (4:32) It hurts me.(4:33) Well, how much you like the reason? (4:35) One of the reasons I know he'll win. (4:37) This is my point is because he's excited.(4:40) He's more excited for how much he's going to level up than he is fearful of not winning because no, no one gets strong from like easy shit. (4:56) So he likes being in the fight at that level. (5:00) That's my point.(5:01) Fight is constructive. (5:02) If you like being in the fight, the point of life, I think is being in the fight. (5:05) Actually being out of the fight means you're retired.(5:08) Okay. (5:09) Number two, you don't retire from your purpose. (5:11) You don't retire from your calling.(5:12) You don't retire from your mission. (5:13) The hell are we doing here? (5:14) All right.(5:14) Number two, I'm, I'm so anti-retirement. (5:16) It's not even funny. (5:18) I'm never going to retire.(5:18) Not a chance. (5:19) Okay. (5:20) Number two, fight flight flight.(5:23) You run away. (5:27) I would say that's almost always destructive unless you're actually actually in physical danger, or if you need to like run away temporarily to get your head right. (5:42) So I guess the destructive one would be run away at the first sign of danger.(5:46) The another constructive one would be run away if you actually are in physical danger. (5:51) Right. (5:52) But the constructive one would be run away to get your head right.(5:56) And then come back with the right tools.

Kevin Palmieri

(5:58) Should you ever say no to an opportunity? (6:00) You don't think you can do, you know?

Alan Lazaros

(6:04) Yes. (6:05) If it's not aligned with what you want to achieve in life.

Kevin Palmieri

(6:09) What if it's not aligned? (6:10) What if it's not aligned with your current competence?

Alan Lazaros

(6:13) Oh yeah. (6:13) No, you gotta try. (6:15) Or maybe I do think there are like, if you've never swam before, don't start with a stormy ocean.(6:23) So yeah, of course, everyone has to limit the size of, and I think that this is, dude, I'm so glad we're talking about this. (6:30) This is so wildly misunderstood. (6:32) Like most of the success people want, they couldn't handle if they got it anyway.

Kevin Palmieri

(6:36) I wholeheartedly, well, that's what I'm saying though is like, I know a lot of people that like, they're like, yeah, I want to, I want to do what you're doing. (6:45) So no, you don't. (6:47) Maybe in like five years, but not right now.(6:49) Absolutely. (6:50) It's terrible. (6:51) It would be terrible for you.(6:52) It would not be enjoyable. (6:53) It's if, if I went to someone and said, all right, cool, here are the keys to my proportion of NLU and my portion of NLPA and all the things I'm, I think they should most likely say no. (7:06) Cause I don't think you're going to be able to level up quickly enough before it crushes you.(7:09) That's why you have training like bootcamp. (7:12) Well, I know, but bootcamps, you can't just go to war. (7:15) You have to, but that's what I'm saying is some people get offered to go to war without knowing what it's actually going to take.(7:20) In this game, I'm not saying that's called being naive.

Alan Lazaros

(7:22) I mean, I think we all do to some extent, right? (7:24) That's, that's one thing that I've, you and I, we, we don't even know this anymore. (7:31) I'll get back to the point in a second, but I was thinking about this yesterday.(7:34) Cause one of my clients said he saw someone online. (7:38) I'll keep the name anonymous cause I don't like to promote people. (7:40) I don't want to promote, but he basically said between, you know, 18 and 25, just get wicked jacked.(7:47) And he said, what do you think of that? (7:49) It was Hormozy. (7:50) Hormozy said that to my client.(7:52) I knew that. (7:52) Yeah. (7:52) You know what I was talking about?(7:54) Whatever. (7:54) Hormozy is fine. (7:55) Whatever.(7:55) I'm not, I'm not promoting Hormozy. (7:57) I'm not disliking him. (7:58) Just don't even with that.(7:59) The point is the principle. (8:01) I said, he's like, do you, do you agree? (8:03) I said, kinda.(8:05) And he's like, really? (8:07) And I said, yeah, because the discipline dude, you and I built so much discipline through fitness. (8:14) Like so much.(8:16) You can't be in shape. (8:18) And this is, I'll say this too. (8:20) The AI thing, they can't lift the weights for you.(8:23) That being physically fit, the fundamentals to be physically fit are useful in every area. (8:34) They are useful in every area. (8:36) I really got my life together to a whole nother level when I got obsessed with fitness.(8:42) And I think that's still paying dividends, brother. (8:44) Like doing hard things by choice. (8:47) You just fitness is the fucking way to build that.(8:49) Just build that. (8:51) And so my point of this is I think you and I forget how much those early years of character over everything, whatever it takes consistency over everything, keep doing the hard things no one wants to do, keep cranking the flywheel. (9:08) That was a little later.(9:09) And then like another nail in the structure. (9:11) Like I got another nail in the structure from Greg Plitt when I was 27. (9:16) Another nail in the structure, you're building something.(9:19) And I just started saying that to myself and then to you for almost a decade now. (9:26) And we forget how long it takes to success. (9:33) And no one teaches you that.(9:34) No one says like, Hey, you got to prepare now for your twenties and you got to prepare now for your thirties and you got to prepare now for your forties. (9:44) You got to like, that's one of the reasons I had kids late. (9:47) I'm having kids late.(9:48) I haven't had kids yet, but I'm having kids late because I knew if I did it in my twenties, I wouldn't do it as well. (9:54) Like you're still a child in your twenties from my perspective. (9:58) So, and again, anyone had kids in their twenties?(10:00) I get it. (10:01) It's all good. (10:01) Don't attack me.(10:02) I'm just saying, I'm just saying God, but fight, fight, freeze, and fawn. (10:08) You, you, if you prepare yourself in advance to emotionally regulate, to not dorsal collapse, to stay in ventral vagal, to stay in a flow state. (10:17) Like I had one lady, uh, do the TV thing again today.(10:21) Very abrasive, very abrasive, very disrespectful, very angry. (10:26) She's an angry, miserable old lady. (10:28) I mean, she's not happy.(10:31) And it rocked me a little. (10:33) I was a little annoyed and I was like, just use the anger towards the weights. (10:36) It's all good.(10:37) Like, don't, don't worry about it. (10:38) She's her own person. (10:39) Let her do her thing.(10:40) She obviously has a terrible life that she's miserable, miserable about. (10:43) She has a very bad attitude. (10:45) Um, just don't just use it.(10:48) My trauma response with that stuff is usually to shut down a little bit. (10:54) Not with me and my failures, but with like people disrespecting me, it was a blatant disrespect in front of others. (11:02) And no one was near the TV.(11:04) I shut off the TV. (11:05) No one was near it. (11:06) She is literally turned it back on and then went on the bike facing the other way.(11:10) I mean, it was just ridiculous. (11:11) It's like, and, and usually I fawn or shut down in those moments. (11:17) And instead I was like, no, come on warrior up game time.(11:24) Don't let her ruin your workout. (11:26) She obviously hates you for no reason. (11:28) She doesn't even know you.(11:29) Right. (11:30) And she's not even watching the TV. (11:31) She's just trying to establish dominance because she's miserable.(11:36) So for everyone out there watching or listening, you have to learn yourself in this. (11:40) I know what ignites me. (11:42) I know what shuts me down and I notice when it happens.(11:44) And then I try to coach myself out of it and, or shift my energy out of it. (11:49) And I'll notice on the podcast, I am constantly struggling to say accurately what I really think because I don't want to offend people and I don't want to be disrespectful, but I want to say what I really think. (12:06) And I think the world could use a little more of that tenacity, but I also wanted to have some compassion on it too.(12:11) So fight, flight, freeze, fawn. (12:13) What's your go-to? (12:13) Why is that your go-to?(12:15) And we all have to leave hopefully with that new awareness.

Kevin Palmieri

(12:18) Give me 10 second version, uh, freeze fawn. (12:21) No, sorry. (12:22) Fight.(12:23) What do we do?

Alan Lazaros

(12:23) I just gave you one for fawn. (12:26) Okay. (12:26) Which is when people disrespect you, do you, do you shell up or do you get ignited?(12:35) Um, and then the freeze one is disassociate really breathwork meditation. (12:48) What I'll say is this, all my clients, the one that you need to leverage, I do believe this. (12:55) And this is, I know this wasn't what you wanted, but this is all I've got.(12:57) And this is the truth. (12:58) You need to leverage the fight. (13:00) You've got to stay in the fight.(13:02) You don't need to fight others. (13:04) You don't need to be disrespectful. (13:06) You don't need to be a prick.(13:07) You need to be in a fight. (13:10) You have to know what you're fighting for and you have to be in that direction. (13:15) And you have to notice when you're doing fight, fawn, freeze, or flight.(13:19) And you have to shift into fight. (13:20) You have to get back in the fight. (13:21) There's the, the, the man or woman in the arena is the one who wins.(13:25) You have to get back in the fight. (13:27) And that's a non-negotiable. (13:28) All right, cool.(13:29) What about you, brother? (13:30) I know we got to go, but I want to, I want to hear from you too.

Kevin Palmieri

(13:33) I have nothing to say.

Alan Lazaros

(13:34) Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

Kevin Palmieri

(13:36) I think they, to your point, I think they all have positives. (13:39) They all have negatives. (13:39) I think you spoke eloquently enough about them.(13:42) Yeah. (13:43) You got to learn which one to deploy. (13:45) I don't feel like there's much to add.(13:47) Yeah, for sure. (13:48) And you have to like, which one is your quote unquote biggest weakness slash opportunity that I think that's really important. (13:55) How do you get back in the fight?(13:57) I take a second. (13:59) I'm extremely overwhelmed. (14:01) I have way more to do than I could possibly get done.(14:04) I've been working more than I ever have in my entire life. (14:06) I'm like losing sleep over it because I'm so fucking stressed out, which is good because it's been a minute since I felt that way. (14:10) So it's not, that's not a bad thing.(14:13) I just like, sometimes I just have to get out of the office and walk around the house or walk down into the garage and walk around a little bit.

Alan Lazaros

(14:19) Yeah. (14:19) The sky's not falling.

Kevin Palmieri

(14:20) It's just that. (14:21) I think if there is ever a freeze, sometimes you just need to freeze for perspective, realize that the sky isn't falling, and then just get back into the fight. (14:29) So I think you can leverage every one of these as a tool to be leveraged to get back into the fight.(14:34) As long as you get back into the fight that, that, but it's going to be different for everybody.

Alan Lazaros

(14:40) It's going to be different for everybody. (14:41) So, and the triggers for these are different for everybody. (14:44) Like some people wouldn't care at all about the TV thing.(14:47) Yeah. (14:47) Like that triggered me a lot. (14:48) Cause I knew what she was doing and everyone has different triggers.(14:51) Yeah. (14:52) You get triggered by interesting things and I get triggered by things that don't trigger you. (14:55) Of course.(14:56) All right.

Kevin Palmieri

(14:56) So I wouldn't even notice the TV thing because I don't, because I don't turn the TV off because it like, that's the thing, right? (15:02) If there's, of course I wouldn't because I don't turn the TV off. (15:04) Just like you wouldn't get triggered by certain things cause you wouldn't even notice them.

Alan Lazaros

(15:07) But it's even beyond that too. (15:09) You, you, you get triggered by losing certain revenue. (15:14) Of course.(15:14) And I don't, but I get triggered by being treated that way, right? (15:19) More than you do. (15:20) And I get triggered by people more.(15:22) You get triggered by failure more. (15:23) For sure. (15:24) Yeah.(15:25) So everyone has this, you gotta know what triggers it and then you gotta know how to get back in the fight.

Kevin Palmieri

(15:29) What an interesting business we're in.

Alan Lazaros

(15:30) Yeah.

Kevin Palmieri

(15:31) We're in business, which requires money and we work with a lot of people. (15:34) So it's like we get the best of both worlds and we get to overcome our, our things, our traumas.

Alan Lazaros

(15:40) Yes. (15:40) That's a good way to frame it.

Kevin Palmieri

(15:43) Very optimistic about it.

Alan Lazaros

(15:44) All right, cool.

Kevin Palmieri

(15:45) Reach out to Alan for coaching next level fitness accountability group. (15:48) If you want to be the most consistent you've ever been in fitness, I'm just going to say that because people are, people are just on exercise streaks in there. (15:54) People are crushing it.(15:54) So coaching with Alan, if you want to be the most successful version of yourself, next level fitness accountability group, if you want to be the most consistent version of yourself when it comes to fitness, as always, we love you. (16:03) Appreciate you. (16:04) Grateful for each and every one of you.(16:05) If you are as committed as you say you are to getting to the next level, make sure you tune in tomorrow because we'll be here every single day to help you get there.

Alan Lazaros

(16:12) Keep leveling up to reach your full potential.

Kevin Palmieri

(16:14) Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. (16:18) We love connecting with next level family.

Alan Lazaros

(16:21) We mean it when we say family. (16:23) If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. (16:26) Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes.(16:30) Thank you again. (16:30) And we will talk to you tomorrow.