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As a somatic trauma therapist in Los Angeles, I see clients blaming themselves for being “too sensitive” or “codependent,” when their nervous system is just stuck in survival mode. Let’s get clear on what nervous system trauma work actually is—and why it takes more than a 60-second video to heal.
Somatic therapist in Los Angeles specializing in trauma, attachment, and anxiety therapy
TikTok has brought trauma responses like fawning, freezing, and shutdown into the mainstream—but viral content often oversimplifies what’s actually happening in the body. Nervous system trauma work isn’t about mindset tricks or quick fixes. It’s about teaching your body something it never got to learn: how to feel safe.
When trauma is stored in the body—especially from childhood or chronic relational stress—the autonomic nervous system doesn’t just “get over it.” It adapts. It gets stuck in survival patterns like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. This isn’t a conscious choice—it’s your body’s way of trying to protect you.
In my Los Angeles therapy practice, this is the first thing we address. Not just your thoughts or memories, but what your nervous system is doing right now:
Tracking these responses, building tolerance for sensation, and gradually rewiring your system for safety and connection.
People often come in saying things like:
And nervous system trauma work is about giving your body a different experience—one that doesn’t rely on hypervigilance to survive.
| Want to go deeper? This work is grounded in Polyvagal Theory and Somatic Experiencing, both of which focus on how the nervous system holds and releases trauma.
Let’s give credit where it’s due—TikTok has helped bring trauma-informed language into the mainstream. People are finally talking about fawning, dissociation, shutdown, and nervous system overwhelm without needing a psychology degree. That’s huge.
For so many of my clients, TikTok was the first place they heard the term nervous system trauma response. They saw a creator describe fawning and thought, “Wait… that’s me.” That moment of recognition matters. It helps people feel less broken, less alone, and more open to getting support.
TikTok also gets this part right: trauma isn’t just about what happened to you—it’s about what happened inside of you. It’s the lasting imprint on your nervous system, not just the event itself. That’s a critical shift, and it aligns with what somatic trauma work is all about.
So yeah—short-form content can be validating. It can help people name what they’ve been experiencing for years. That’s not nothing.
But validation alone isn’t healing. And that’s where things often get off track.
TikTok has helped normalize conversations around trauma—and that’s great!
But the downside? It’s created a flood of content that sounds therapeutic… without actually being therapy.
Trauma isn’t just “something hard that happened.” And healing isn’t just bubble baths, journaling, or regulating your nervous system with a skincare routine.
A lot of what shows up in the TikTok therapy world packages healing as a lifestyle brand.
It’s aesthetic. It’s marketable. It’s… easy to misunderstand.
Take the rise of the Soft Girl Revolution, for example—a trend that celebrates gentleness, slowness, and emotional openness. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when these traits are promoted as trauma responses (like fawning) or used as a “solution” to trauma without context or depth, it blurs the line between coping style and actual healing.
One of the most misrepresented trauma responses online is fawning.
It’s often mistaken for being “too nice” or overly agreeable—something people link to personality or femininity. But fawning isn’t just a behavior. It’s a nervous system survival response. It’s your body saying: “If I keep you happy, I’ll be safe.”
Fawning can absolutely look like softness.
But softness isn’t always fawning.
And fawning isn’t about choice—it’s about survival conditioning.
You can’t somatically repattern your nervous system in a 60-second video. You can’t override a lifetime of chronic stress with a checklist of “healing girl habits.” And while self-care is valuable, it’s not the same as nervous system work.
I wrote a piece for MindBodyGreen on this exact topic:
“People-pleasing isn’t about being overly kind—it’s about staying alive in environments where boundaries weren’t safe.”
This is a pattern I see constantly in clients who were “the good kid” growing up—the one who didn’t cause problems, didn’t push back, didn’t ask for too much.
In therapy, we work toward restoring their sense of agency and reconnecting them with their own needs, wants, and boundaries—without their nervous system treating it like a threat.
Fawning might have kept you safe once. But it doesn’t need to be your future.
In somatic trauma work, we get underneath the behavior.
We track where in your body fawning lives—tight throat, shallow breath, frozen jaw, collapsed chest—and start to repattern the response slowly, safely, and without shame.
Healing isn’t just knowing what your trauma responses are. That’s just a part of it. It’s not enough to say, “Oh, I’m fawning again,” and move on. Awareness is helpful—but on its own, it doesn’t change the response.
Real nervous system trauma work is about what happens in your body, in the moment.
It’s noticing the urge to disconnect, disappear, over-accommodate, or explode—and learning how to stay with yourself instead of abandoning or overriding what you feel.
This work is experiential. Slow. Sometimes uncomfortable.
And honestly? That’s the point. It’s not about achieving a perfect state of calm. Instead, it helps your body’s capacity to stay present when things feel messy, uncertain, or intense.
This is the exact process I guide clients through every day—especially those who’ve been in talk therapy before but still feel stuck in their bodies.
These responses—fight, flight, freeze, and fawn—aren’t just behaviors. They’re survival strategies deeply wired into your body through your nervous system. Let’s break them down:
This response gets activated when your body perceives that it can confront the threat and win. You might feel:
This can show up as anger, defensiveness, or irritability—but underneath, it’s often fear. Your body is trying to protect you by pushing danger away.
In flight mode, your body’s message is: “Get out, get away, move now.” This isn’t just about physically running—it can look like:
You might feel wired, anxious, or like there’s never enough time. It’s like your body is trying to run away from a threat it can’t identify.
Freeze is a shutdown response. It happens when your system feels trapped—like escape isn’t possible. It often shows up as:
You might feel like you’re watching your life from the outside or like your emotions are behind glass. Your body is trying to protect you by going quiet and invisible.
Fawning is about appeasement. It’s your nervous system saying: “If I keep them happy, I’ll stay safe.” This shows up as:
Fawn often gets misread as kindness, but it’s survival. Your body learned that the safest way through was to blend in, accommodate, or disappear.
None of these responses make you weak. They make you adaptive. But if your nervous system is stuck in one or more of these modes all the time, you may feel like you’re living on edge—even when things seem “fine” on the outside.
The good news? These patterns can shift.
Not through force. Not through willpower.
But through nervous system trauma work that helps your body feel safe enough to let go of survival mode.
If you’re stuck in survival mode and your go-to response is to either shut down or over-function, this work matters.
Somatic trauma therapy gives your body the chance to relearn safety from the inside out—not just intellectually, but biologically.
Because trauma isn’t just what happened.
It’s how your nervous system had to adapt.
And healing starts when your body finally learns it’s safe to come out of protection mode. You don’t have to keep suffering. I work with individuals every day who struggle with feeling the tightness in their chest, the feeling of always needing to be “on” go from dysregulated to feeling calm in their bodies. Reach out today, and let’s work on regulating your nervous system.
I’m Cheryl Groskopf, a somatic trauma therapist based in Los Angeles. I specialize in helping adults who are stuck in survival mode—even if they’re smart, self-aware, and have already done years of talk therapy.
The people I work with are often:
Most of them know they’re fawning.
Most of them know their nervous system is dysregulated.
They just don’t know how to change it in the body—not just talk about it in their head.
That’s where this work comes in.
True healing isn’t about forcing yourself to relax or trying to enjoy self-care. It’s about retraining your nervous system to feel safe when you’re not over-giving, overworking, or over-explaining yourself.
Here’s how somatic therapy in Los Angeles can help:
Instead of feeling lazy or guilty when you slow down, somatic therapy helps your body feel safe in stillness.
Small, body-based exercises teach you how to ease into rest without panic (because your nervous system needs time to adjust).
You’ll learn how to feel valuable even when you’re not “doing” for others.
If you’ve tried every self-care hack but still feel anxious when you try to slow down, working with a therapist trained in somatic therapy in Los Angeles can help you heal at the nervous system level—so rest finally feels safe.
TikTok has done something huge for mental health—it’s made terms like trauma responses, attachment wounds, and nervous system regulation mainstream. People who never would have considered therapy before are now learning about their own patterns, and that’s a win.
But here’s the thing: understanding isn’t the same as healing.
You can know your attachment style, recognize your nervous system responses, and memorize every “self-care” hack, but if you still feel anxious, stuck, or emotionally exhausted, that means something deeper needs to shift. And that shift happens in your nervous system.
Cheryl Groskopf is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist & Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in Los Angeles. She specializes in helping adults heal from anxiety, chronic fawning, attachment wounds, and the kind of trauma that doesn’t always come with a clear “diagnosis”—but still lives in the body.
Her approach is active, directive, and body-based. She blends somatic trauma therapy, parts work, and nervous system education to help clients break out of survival mode and actually feel safe in their own skin again.
With over a decade of experience, Cheryl’s work has been featured in Well + Good, Verywell Mind, and the Time. She also contributes to platforms like MindBodyGreen, where she normalizes common trauma responses individuals deal with every single day.
This is not surface-level work. We won’t just talk about what’s wrong—we’ll teach your nervous system what safety actually feels like. You don’t have to perform, prove, or be “healed enough” to start. You just need to be willing to show up as you are. That’s more than enough.
Want to see how holistic therapy in Los Angeles works in real life? Or curious about how somatic therapy can help you feel more grounded, less reactive, and more connected in your relationships? Reach out here. I’d love to help.
If you’ve been following TikTok somatic trauma healing videos, but still feel stuck, there’s a reason for that…You don’t need more hacks. You need real healing that works with your body, not against it.
Ready to start? Reach out here and let’s talk about what healing could actually look like for you!
