The Freeze Response, Gifted Kid Syndrome, and BPD: July Mailbag

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Rick and Forrest answer listener questions about perfectionism, performance anxiety, trauma, and relationships. They explore how early praise for being “gifted” can create a fear of failure and contribute to “failure to launch,” and share ways to shift from focusing on an idealized future to appreciating your actual self right now. They discuss learned helplessness, the freeze response, and practical ways to build agency and vitality to counter feelings of powerlessness. Other topics include the differences between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, overcoming performance anxiety, and how to decide which friendships are worth investing in. Key Topics: 02:30: Gifted kid syndrome and fear of failure 08:00: Moving from potential to presence 15:50: Performance anxiety and perfectionism 18:50: Redefining success through process goals 22:30: Learned helplessness and the freeze response 29:30: Reclaiming agency and vitality 38:00: Failure to launch in adulthood 45:00: BPD vs. Bipolar disorder 55:00: Rethinking modern friendship advice 1:03:34: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Try Daily30+, the 30+ plant prebiotic supplement from ZOE. Go to zoe.com/daily30 today, and you’ll get a free bright yellow ZOE tin and a magnetic scoop. Join hundreds of thousands of people who are taking charge of their health. Learn more and join Function at functionhealth.com/BEINGWELL. For a limited time, get Headspace FREE for 60 days. Go to Headspace.com/BEINGWELL60. Listen now to the Life Kit podcast from NPR. Go to Zocdoc.com/BEING to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hansen. If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened to before, welcome back. I'm joined today as usual by clinical psychologist Rick Hansen. So dad, how are you doing today?
0:19.7	I'm good, Forrest, and as always,
0:21.8	just happy to sit here with you. Yeah, same. And also happy to be answering some questions from our
0:26.7	listeners. This is another mailbag episode. If you would like to have a question answered on a future
0:30.9	episode of the podcast, the best way to do that is by signing up for our Patreon. It's patreon.com
0:35.6	slash being well podcast. And you can also send an email
0:39.0	to contact at being well podcast.com. Before we get started, I wanted to give you a quick reminder
0:44.9	that Rick's got an online course coming up that's focused on his big core practice of taking in the
0:50.9	good. It's usually easier for us to ruminate on the things that bother us,
0:55.1	that it is for us to notice and take in our more positive experiences. That's in part because
1:00.0	of the brain's negativity bias. And in this course, Rick's helping people learn how to harness
1:04.0	the power of positive neuroplasticity to get more confidence, motivation, and hey, maybe even
1:09.5	a little inner piece.
1:14.7	Learn more through the link in the description of today's episode and use coupon code Being Well 25 to receive a 25% off discount if you decide that you want to get the course.
1:20.5	So, okay, let's get started here.
1:22.2	We got awesome questions in this mailbag.
1:24.5	I'm super interested.
1:25.7	What do you have to say about them, Rick?
1:27.3	Sometimes I go into a mailbag and I've got like my mental four-point plan for each of these
1:32.3	questions. I do not have that today. So I'm kind of flying a little looser than normal with this
1:37.5	because I just thought they were very interesting and evocative questions that don't necessarily
1:42.3	have a really tight answer. Many of them kind of touch on this
	...

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