What Fawning Really Is and Why It Happens

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Fawning essentially is becoming whatever we need to be to be safe in the situation that we are in. So I am less focused on my authentic experience and being in integrity with myself and I am overly focused on what does this environment or these people or this experience want from me and if I can make that other person feel good or if I can meet their need then I am going to have a higher probability of survival and safety. Welcome to you make sense.

[00:00:34]This podcast is a manual to understanding your human experience so that you can navigate the world with freedom, ease, empowerment, and create the life that you desire. Remember, you make sense all parts always. Hey my friend, and welcome back to you make sense. So this episode is all about the experience of fawning. Instead of beginning by getting into the neuroscience behind fawning and why it exists and what we're doing, we'll get there. But first, I'm going to tell you some stories from my own life that show you what fawning is like. So, for the majority of my life, I would do something that I called chameleoning.

[00:01:14]And what that means is if I was around somebody, you know, maybe a new friend that said, "Hey, let's go to dinner."

[00:01:20]and they suggested some restaurants that they wanted to go to or a restaurant and I really didn't like that restaurant. I would say, "I love that place. Let's go." You know, at the time I didn't know why I was doing that. It was just totally reflexive. Or maybe I was out with somebody and they said, "Oh my gosh, this book is so amazing. I love it." And I had never read that book. I don't know anything about it. But do you know what I would do? I would say, "Oh, I love that book, too. It was one of my favorites." and and I would very seamlessly make sure they thought I had read it and that they thought I'd liked it. If someone was loud and playful and they wanted me to meet them in that, I would reflexively do it. Even if I was tired, even if I wasn't in the mood, even if that's not how I was feeling in that moment, if someone was more serious and intellectual, I would meet them in that even if I wasn't feeling that way.

[00:02:08]If I was exhausted and someone was asking me to do something for them, even though the very last thing I wanted to do was to help them out, I would do it anyway. And I would do it with a smile on my face. They would never know that I didn't want to be there or that I was exhausted. And this would trickle into every area of my life. Like if I was at a department store and I was trying to pick up some makeup and I needed to get somewhere else. If that person that was working with me wanted to show me six other things that I wasn't going to buy and that I had no interested in, I would never say, "I got to get out of here. I would let them do what they wanted to do so that I ensured that they were happy."

[00:02:46]And when I say this trickled into every area of my life, I mean it. I was a pescatarian for a really long time. And even 8 years in, if I was invited to a dinner and they were serving pot roast or pork or something, I would eat it even though everything in me was saying, "I don't want this." And it would actually leave me sick because I wasn't used to eating meat at that point in my life, but I would do it because I didn't want to make them feel bad. There was one point in my life where I actually moved a couch that could probably fit five or six people down two flights of stairs by myself. If you're wondering how I did that, I also wonder how I did that. And there was somebody else in the house who could have helped me. But because my system was saying, I don't want to upset anybody else. I will literally hurt my body. Like I actually hurt my back doing that and scuffed up the walls. Anything to make sure that nobody else was upset. When it came to romantic relationships and friendships, if I was upset about something and I shared that and then the other person got upset or they shut down, I would immediately disregard my truth and I would just try to fix it. What can I do to make you happy? Just kidding. I'm fine. Everything's fine. Just fine. I just want you to be fine. Can you please be fine? Because if you're fine, I'm fine. And the list goes on and on and on. That, my friends, is the experience of fawning. So, a lot of people ask me, "What is it?" Well, think about all the examples that I just gave you. What does it sound like? It sounds like not being authentic, right? Not being my true self, not communicating what I am actually feeling or thinking, not doing what I actually want to do in any given moment. And if you're thinking to yourself, well, why would anyone do that? What is the point? This is a brilliant self-protective response. If you do any of those things or something like it, it is an indicator that at some point in time in your life, when you were authentically you, it was met with being abandoned, not being loved or loved being withheld, danger, harm, being gaslit, meaning your truth was taken away. When you communicated a need, it was met with no or neglect. Or perhaps you had a caregiver who was narcissistic. I don't throw that term around lightly. Um, and was self-focused. And the only way for you to navigate that experience was to focus on them instead of yourself. You see, that's really brilliant. We may have had caregivers who were really loving, but they were in really young parts of themselves. They were scared. They felt out of control. And so, in order for you to feel safe, you had to caretake them.

[00:05:25]So, you had to disregard your own truth and focus on them. Did you know that your nervous system is creating your entire lived experience right now in every other moment of your life? It's responsible for your feelings, sensations, the thoughts you have, the behaviors that arise. So everything you do or not do is a result of what's going on in your nervous system. And it creates your perception of self, others, and the world around you. That means, my friend, it's literally creating everything about your lived experience.

[00:05:55]And the thing about your nervous system is someone has to be in the driver's seat of it. So if you are not driving the vehicle of this nervous system, it takes over on cruise control. And the number one job of our nervous system is to keep us safe and alive. So if it has to choose between the life we really want or keeping us safe, it's always going to choose keeping us safe. And when it does that, it leaves us living a smaller life than we feel called to. We feel unable to step towards our purpose.

[00:06:23]We feel stuck in our relational dynamics. And when it's protecting us, we experience a lot of symptoms that we don't like like anxiety and depression and hopelessness and racing thoughts and so many things that cause us suffering in our lives. When you begin to understand this system and then you get into the driver's seat of it, you begin guiding your life towards everything that you're desiring and you get to feel good in your body and in your life in the process. I've created a self-guided program for you called nervous system essentials. This program is going to teach you about your nervous system and then it's going to equip you with tangible therapeutic tools necessary to actually bring it into regulation so you can live the life you are here to live and feel good in the process. The program is under $100 and you'll have access to all of the course material for as long as it exists. Check out the show notes to learn more and sign up. So fawning essentially is becoming whatever we need to be to be safe in the situation that we are in. So I am less focused on my authentic experience and being in integrity with myself and I am overly focused on what does this environment or these people or this experience want from me and if I can make that other person feel good or if I can meet their need then I am going to have a higher probability of survival and safety. This is really, really brilliant. And if you're like me, I used to feel this way all the time. I didn't know what I was doing. And I would beat myself up for it after because integrity is so important to me. So I'd leave that lunch with a friend where I said I read the book that I never read and I'd say to myself like, "What is wrong with you, Sarah? You're a liar. Why are you doing that? It's not okay." So you know what I was doing? I was beating up the part of me that developed to save my life because my my mother uh is a nar I was going to say was she who's still alive is a narcissist and the only way to survive all of that was to fawn and to become what she wanted me to be and my stepfather was abusive and the only way that truly I I didn't die in that was to fawn with him. So by the way we even fawn with people who are hurting or harming us. I used to go out into the world and I'm actually going to say something that doesn't just happen with people who've experienced abuse. It's culturally uh so incredibly common. I see this happen a lot with women, but of course this can happen with men, too.

[00:08:55]When someone is hitting on you and you're not enjoying it or liking it and instead of saying like, "Oh, I'm going to excuse myself or I don't really want to talk anymore." That people let themselves experience that even though you're not interested, even though I don't want to be in that conversation.

[00:09:12]We plate. We make the other person feel good because our system is saying if I don't, something bad's going to happen or I'm not going to be okay. I spent the majority of my life doing this in so many different ways. So many different ways. And so I just want to name if you find yourself fawning in any area of life, please know there's a reason for it. It's not happening because you're inauthentic. It's not happening because you lack integrity. It's not happening because you're a liar. It's happening because at some point in your life, you receive the verbal or non-verbal message that if you are authentically you, you won't be okay. You know, kids when they're raised, if they are able to be all of themselves, they don't fawn. And I can tell you that in relationship friendship but mostly romantic partnership when I was with someone and of course am with someone who uh didn't have to fawn meaning when they could be all of themselves all the time um and then I had to have a partner who in their adult life would just be themselves you know like if they're not interested they're not going to talk about it or if they've been over peopleing at a party they might just go sit for a little while. Oh my goodness.

[00:10:27]I can tell you that that would trigger me so much. I didn't know why it was triggering me in the moment, but I would feel panic. So, I just want to name if you find that happening like with your kids, if they are authentically them and when they're frustrated, they express that. When they don't like somebody, they're not going to be mean, but they're not going to engage. And maybe you have a partner who does that. We we see the people closest to us as an extension of us. So, if you're used to fawning like me and you have a partner who had greater safety or your kids because of their because of you, they have greater safety. When they don't fawn, you're going to find it triggering at first. Why? Because your system's going to say, "What are you doing? You should people please them because if you don't people please them, you're not going to be okay and you're an extension of me, which means I'm not going to be okay." So, if you disagree and say, "Oh, I didn't like that book." Could tell you like with my beautiful partner, him doing that, he doesn't fond. So if he did, he would say that, you know, in a loving way. Oh, I didn't I didn't really like it. What do you like about it? Oh my gosh, that would be used to be so triggering. And so if you don't understand this, what you'll do is not only will you control yourself and have yourself continue to fawn, you'll have everybody around you fawning, too. Or you'll try to get them to. Even your pet, your dog's on a walk and they bark at someone and you're like, "Everything's fine. No, just kidding.

[00:11:44]They're they're barking because they are they like you." instead of like, "Yeah, they're barking at you and maybe I have to bring them to puppy school or kindergarten or whatever." Um, and work on that. No, I can't be bad. So, as you hear that, if you're saying, "Oh my gosh, I do do that to my kids or I do do that to my partner." We're going to get to what do we do to change this? But here's the thing, everybody. We can't change what we don't understand. So, we have to first understand it and then we have to know what the heck do I do to make it different. So, as I said, fawning serves a important purpose. And for many of us, if you're like me, it saved your life. And so, there are a lot of short-term benefits even in our adult life from fawning. For example, it gives us a sense of control. I know that if I do this thing, make you feel good, chameleon, you, become whatever you want me to be. I've done it so long that I know that there's a high probability that you're going to feel good, you're going to like me, and things will be okay. So it gives us this really beautiful sense of control when we felt out of control. It also makes us really likable. For me that was so important because I was abandoned, not chosen. So fawning helped people to like me and oh that felt really good when I went through my whole life feeling like you know I wasn't liked or I wasn't chosen.

[00:13:03]It also helps us to avoid conflict. So if in the past conflict was a source of danger or we didn't know how to navigate conflict. If I fawn, there's very limited conflict around just whatever you want. Whatever you want, whatever you want. And we also become the easygoing person, right? That people say like, "Oh, you're so you're so easygoing. Everything's fine with you."

[00:13:25]And there's a short-term benefit to that. It also helps us to navigate danger or perceive dangerous experiences. So, let's say that I'm on a walk and there's somebody I don't like their energy. doesn't feel really safe entirely reading it that way. I may fawn as a way to ensure that they feel good so nothing worse happens. So, I want you to know there's a lot of short-term benefit to fawning. And it's very important that when we look at any of the things that we do that we come to it from the lens of compassion and understanding. There's a reason for it and there certainly is a reason for our fawning. So, now I want to talk about the long-term ramifications of fawning.

[00:14:09]I want you to think about it this way.

[00:14:10]If you have some weeds in your backyard, there's just a couple of them. It's not really a big deal, right? But if you don't tend to those weeds and take care of them, they are going to overgrow and then the rest of your garden isn't going to be able to flourish. And the same goes with fawning and most other things that we're doing or experiencing in our lives that are the result of our lack of healing. It's like a slow drip of poison. Doesn't affect me so much in the short term, but long-term it creates real challenge. One of those is resentment. So fawning is acquiescing or disconnecting from my own needs and truth. Right? And if I do that habitually over and over and over and over and over again relationally, what happens is I'm going to get resentful of that other person. Now here's what's actually true. I am giving away my power when I do that because who is the only person that can stop resentment from occurring? Us. And it requires us to bravely step towards being seen and being known and asking for our needs to be met. We'll talk about how we do that in a second if you're like, well, how?

[00:15:15]We'll talk about it, but it leads to resentment. It also leads to feeling unknown because if you're fawning, you're wearing a mask. And so, for me, it led to me feeling unknown everywhere I went. I had that realization at one point like there isn't a person that knows me. It was my only the only person that knew me was my dog and what I call God, universe, divine mystery. They were the only beings that knew me. And that wasn't the fault of the safe beings in my current life. It's that my nervous system, my my parts, which I'll get to in a minute, didn't know that the people in my current life were different than the people in my past. And it's a primary human need to be known. So it's very painful to go through the world and feel utterly unknown. It also leads to not getting our needs met. It also leads to not knowing how to receive because you see if I haven't worked the muscle of receiving then I'm not going to have the capacity for it when things come towards me. So I deflect them all the while deeply wanting to receive. And in that vein I'll feel undeserving of things. So even though I deeply desire them I push them away. It also leads to not having toleration for difference or conflict. So because of that, I'm going to avoid it altogether. And then when you have people, as I named your kids, your partner who never had to fond because they wonderfully didn't have your childhood, they're pretty comfortable with difference. And so they can lean into it. They can lean into political difference. They can lean into uh faith difference. They can lean into difference around what you like in art and what you don't like in art and every other other way. and their leaning into difference will feel very very scary for us and we're going to try to make it stop. It also leads to low selfworth because I don't know how to receive yet.

[00:17:06]So now I want to briefly dive into the full understanding of what's going on when we're fawning. First I want to name this. A lot of people uh post online that fawning is a state in the nervous system. It's not a state in the nervous system. Fawning is a behavior. It's a behavioral response as the result of the sensations and feelings we have inside.

[00:17:26]So I have sensations, I have feelings that creates a behavior. Okay. So behaviors are a result of what state we are in in our nervous system.

[00:17:36]Essentially that means our state creates the behavior. Okay. So where we are in our nervous system and that means that you can fawn in your sympathetic nervous system where anxiety, worry, frustration, fear, terror, rage lives.

[00:17:46]You can fawn in your dorsal vego complex when you feel shut down, apathetic, hopeless. You can fawn when you're in freeze. I have all this energy inside, but I'm trapped and I can't move. So, you can fawn anywhere in your nervous system in terms of a state of disregulation. But we do not fawn when we're regulated. Why? Because when you're regulated, you feel safe. And the result of feeling safe is that I can be all of me. So, I don't have to wear the mask. So, a big part of shifting out of fawning is teaching our nervous system how to come into regulation. A lot of times what I see people do is they try to stop the behavior. Like, I'll just not do this thing. But remember what I just told you, your state, the state that you are in in your nervous system that creates your behaviors. So, if you stay in a state of disregulation, but you try to stop fawning, fawning is just going to come out in another way. It's like the game of whack-a-ole. and it's exhausting. Maybe you've tried that to manipulate behavior. Instead, what we have to do is number one, you have to build the muscle of coming into regulation in your nervous system through consistent neural exercises.

[00:18:52]It's like a rep at the gym again and again and again and again. And then what I would invite in is when you're regulated, I want you to begin practicing allowing yourself to be seen, allowing yourself to have needs, allowing yourself to take up space. This starts small, not in a big way. Like for example, we by the way, we can even fawn by ourselves. I used to do this. I'd be sitting at my computer and my body really wanted to go outside and I'm like, "Nope, you can't go outside. You got too much work to do." That's fawning with me because I felt like, well, if I don't get all this done, things are going to be okay. So, how can I actually listen to my body and go outside and have agency and see nothing bad happens?

[00:19:29]And then we lean into it a little more and a little more because the thing about a nervous system is it's a data collector. It doesn't just trust your words like you don't have to font anymore. It's safe not to fawn. It does not care about that, nor can it really hear you because it speaks the language of the felt sense. It needs data. Those are called disisconfirming experiences.

[00:19:48]Experiences where what was once dangerous is now safe. We do that again and again and again. And the other thing that you need to do is we have to connect into the younger part of us that learned to fawn. It's a protective part.

[00:20:00]Who are they? How old are they? What do they need from you? Listen to my episodes on parts work for more of that.

[00:20:05]But also, if you actually want to do the work, not just learn about it, join one of our programs. This is a big part of the work we do here inside of my community. And we'll link out some opportunities in the show notes for you.

[00:20:17]Okay. The next thing that I want to talk about is that fawning is not always just a result of trauma, the complex trauma you experience in your childhood. It is also influenced by social pressures that so many of us are faced with again and again and again in our lives. I just want to give some examples of what this looks like and normalize this for us because so many of us are doing it. One very common way is that we do this around our sexual experiences. So many people fawn in sexual intimacy. For example, faking orgasms. What is that actually about? Well, in that experience, my system is saying, I don't want you to feel bad, but I don't know how to navigate conflict. But here's the thing. Conflict is not just fighting.

[00:21:02]Conflict is when two of us are either misatuned, we're not meeting each other, we're not getting each other. And so when I'm having a sexual experience and I'm noticing, oh, this isn't what my body wants or this isn't exactly what I need, that will feel very dangerous for a lot of our systems. So instead of doing that because I'm afraid it's going to make you feel bad, I say nothing and then I fake an orgasm so that you feel good. That's fawning. And so many of us have done that. And so what is that an indicator of? That somewhere along the way in my life, and not just somewhere, probably many, many places, I learned that in order to be loved, I had to be just kind, be good to you, make you feel good. And if I don't do that, you're not going to love me. And so, see how that's a brilliant, brilliant thing. And we will go to the ends of the earth to try to be safe. Yeah. Including not being sexually fulfilled in our relationship.

[00:21:58]The beautiful thing is when we come into safety in our adult lives, in our relationships, whether it's a romantic partnership or friendship, it is the most fertile ground for us to show our parts and our nervous system, hey, it can be different, but it takes anchoring an adult us. So, in this example, anchoring an adult me. And if you have a loving, safe partner and you said, oh my gosh, I want to share something with you that feels really scary, but I feel very afraid to tell you that there's different things that feel good to me than you're doing. And even as I'm saying this right now, it makes me want to throw up because I feel you're going to be mad or you're going to leave and I've been wanting to tell you, but it's just too overwhelming to tell you and because I don't want you to feel bad u because I love you and I want to be intimate with you and I just I just never wanted you to feel this way and it reminds me of when I was a kid and you know I couldn't be my full self and so like I I just get overwhelmed and and so anyway I feel bad like I've been lying to you and I don't want to lie to you and you know if you're with a loving person if you say that what does it make a loving person want to do. It makes them want to make you feel better. It's true. So, what they might do is give you a hug, you know, and say, "Oh my gosh, I had no idea you were feeling all that.

[00:23:08]It's okay. I love you. We can do anything together, and I'm not mad at you." Could you imagine how healing that would be for the parts of us that could never have a voice, could never be disappointed, could never be our authentic self? And do you know what that leads to? intimacy into me. You see, you know, and that's going to lead to also a better sexual relationship.

[00:23:34]But what is a good sexual relationship about? About letting ourselves be seen.

[00:23:40]That's going to lead to the depth and strength in a relationship that is so strong and it requires us to go towards our scary places, everybody. But what I can say is if you're with somebody safe, that's a really good place to try it out. whether that's a friend too or a romantic partner. So, let's just get into a couple more ways that this shows up um in our adult lives. Not necessarily due to the trauma we experienced in childhood, but just society. A lot of us have learned that when you're easygoing, like you're the easygoing guy or the easygoing girl or the easygoing person, you're more likable. So, what do we do? We disregard our needs and we just say, "Everything's great. Everything's great. Everything's great." because I'm so afraid if I'm my full self, people will say, "You're too this, you're too that, you're wanting too much." And then again, that leads us to never being known. We do this a lot with um those that are in authority.

[00:24:36]Like for here's here's a really good example. I used to do this in um when I was do going to anything medical. Like if I went to the dentist and they're cleaning my teeth and they're poking at my gums in a way that really really really hurt, I wouldn't tell them. I just let them do it because I didn't want to make them feel bad. Or I would pay for a massage and I really wanted, this happened so many times, I really wanted a deep tissue massage and they would just kind of be like rubbing the surface of my skin and then they'd say, "How's the pressure?" And I would say, "Great." It wasn't great, but I didn't want to make them feel bad, right? So, we do this with a lot with authority figures. And where does that stem? If you're my age or older, in school, you had to fond with teachers. If you actually said, "Hey, this isn't working for me or I need to talk about this."

[00:25:16]What usually happened? You were told you were bad. There wasn't space for it unless you had a really fantastic teacher. I had a few of those who who would have held space for it if I had felt safe enough. But I just want to name this. This happens all throughout our lives and society is really organized around it, especially with kids now. Thankfully, it's changing. But again, if you're my age or older, kids were supposed to be were supposed to be a certain way and if you were a certain way, you were okay. You know, another thing that we do in our world is we're we're fed this message of scarcity. And so when we're in, you know, a job that we maybe like, we're we're told or the message that we should feel so lucky. So even if we reach a place where we're like, I need to set a boundary, like they're asking too much of me to work beyond working hours, they're not paying me enough and what I really deserve, I feel so afraid to actually voice my truth, like I'm going to lose this good thing that I just stifle it and keep it inside. So what I see happen a lot when people get to a place where they're like I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to fawn. Instead of doing the parts work that's necessary to actually heal this and anchoring in their adult self.

[00:26:28]What happens is we can actually go into a different self-protective part that swings the pendulum from collapse like I have no needs, I have no voice. The pendulum swings all the way to the other side where I'm roaring like a lion or lioness. And I want to normalize this.

[00:26:44]This can really be a part of the healing process where when I'm inhibited, I swing the other way. And the goal though is that we come back to the middle. Now, we have to have the awareness that this is happening so that we can come back to the middle. Otherwise, what occurs is whoever is in front of us, we are essentially taking out on them everything that the people in the past did to us. And I see this occur a lot like um if I have been underpaid at all kinds of other jobs, I get into this job and I think about women being underpaid around the world and I go into this roar when the people in front of me, they might be really open to giving me a raise. They would welcome me coming in to talk about it, but I'm projecting onto them all of the people who made me feel suppressed or all the people that have made women feel suppressed. And I roar at them in a way that's not coming from regulation. And then it becomes kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy because once when we roar from dysregulation, it creates in someone else's nervous system dysregulation. So they might get defensive. They might feel shut down. And so I just want to name that this this really common thing that can happen of swinging. You may have noticed that with other people in your life. They go from really fawning to like all women are bad, all men are bad. I'm rageful at the world. That's a pendulum swing. And so we have to have the awareness around hm is it all about what's happening today or is some of this about the suppressed emotion and healthy aggression and needs that I had from the past. That's what makes this really empowering. That's the only way to live your right life. So we got to gain control of our nervous system. Get into adult you. What's the truth of adult me? What is my truth? And then we have to get in touch with these younger parts. the part that fawned. So, you know, acquiesced and then the vulnerable part underneath them that wasn't safe to have healthy aggression. Meaning to express this isn't okay. And we have to in our own therapeutic work feel that rage that is about something from the past so it doesn't get projected onto our kids, our partner, our friends, our work environment, everywhere else. And once we do that and we actually are able to free ourselves from it and we show the protective parts that it is safe to be me because adult me is here now and I am here to protect you that we can walk through the world as we are. And I can tell you for myself every single time I took a mask off of fawning every single time oh my gosh there was fear. Fear of like oh the person's going to leave.

[00:29:17]They're not going to love me. They're going to hurt me. something bad is going to happen. And I can tell you when it came to being with safe people, every single time it led to deeper intimacy.

[00:29:27]And if it didn't, if they like deflected my truth or didn't want my truth, well, that was an indicator that that relationship had reached the end of its journey, but not from anger, but from a place of like, oh, I'm not repeating that pattern anymore of fawning. And if that's the only way you can relate to me, then we've reached that end of our juncture. But a lot of times what would happen actually one of my best friends would would do this sometimes and I was like wow impressed with her ability that I might share my truth and then she may get defensive and then you know by the end of the dinner and you know was taking what I was saying and and then say hey I just want to acknowledge that I got defensive there when you were uh communicating your truth and I'm really sorry I did that and uh I'm so proud of you for communicating your truth. That's highle stuff everybody. So, I'm just saying I don't want you to expect the other person's like, "Thank you for communicating your truth to me." They have parts, too. They're not meant really hear what I'm about to say. The people in your life are not supposed to be your therapist. They're not supposed to get everything right. In fact, it is their humanity that invites in our deeper level of healing inside of ourselves. And when that happens and we bravely go to the scary places, the result on the other side is always so precious. And in this respect, it means being seen and being known and being in congruency. Meaning what is happening inside is reflected externally. And everything in nature wants to experience that, including you. Want to learn more about your nervous system specific to you? I created a free quiz called What's Keeping You Stuck as an introduction to this work. You'll get a personalized guide and seatic tools specific to the type of dysregulation you're experiencing so you can live your life with more ease and aliveness. If you're ready to get started, check the show notes for a link. All right, let's get to the Q&A portion of this episode. Just a reminder, if you have any questions that you'd like me to answer, I would love for you to submit those for us.

[00:31:33]We'll link that out in the show notes.

[00:31:34]It can be a video question, audio, or written. And sometimes the questions you submit actually uh bring to life episode ideas. So send them in so we can answer them for you. Let's get to the ones that we have for today.

[00:31:47]>> Hi Sarah, I've been part of the YMS and it was amazing and I'm so incredibly blessed to have been a part of it. My question is how do I differentiate between a protective partning and when I'm genuinely wanting to be good to people? Warning makes me go out of the way for the wrong people and not do that instead for the right ones. And I really wanted to connect to people but not be so confused all the time even about something as simple as sending a text to someone who hasn't initiated a conversation since months. So yes, I want to connect to people but not from a place of people pleasing and know it in my bones where it's coming from to make aligned choices. Thank you and sending lots of love to you and Rachel. Thank you so much for your kind words and it truly is an honor to support every single person inside of our programs.

[00:32:36]This person is talking about the program we have called You Make Sense. We'll link that out in the show notes in case you're interested in getting more information on it. But that program guides us through all the sematic therapeutic tools needed to do the work we talk about here inside of the podcast. So, what they're asking is, how do I differentiate the difference between a fawning part being nice as a self-protective mech mechanism and my adult self wanting to be nice? What's the difference? And how do I distinguish the difference? Well, what's very important to remember is when I'm in adult me, I'm anchored in internal safety. When I'm in a part, I am anchored in an internal sense of a lack of safety. And so it's the lack of safety that is propelling the self-protective behavior of fawning or being nice. The result of doing that was my safety. And so it might not have been what I actually wanted to do, but it fulfilled the greater purpose, which was the safety. Right? That's what we're looking for. But when we have internal safety, then I can orient in a way that's authentic. And so when you're in your adult self, I want you to think of it like congruency.

[00:33:44]What I'm experiencing inside is reflected externally. And children whose truth is honored do this reflexively. I feel what I feel inside. It reflects externally. Your pets do this. They feel what they feel inside and then it's reflected externally. Why? Because they have the safety that foundation of safety. So that's what I want you to think about. Am I doing this because I actually want to and it's what's happening inside or am I doing it as a way to be safe or to avoid something that I think would be dangerous? And that requires first anchoring an adult you. That's what we want to go back to again and again and again. What does it feel like to be adult me? I can't just explain that to all of us. We have to experience it. So a simple thing like thinking about a moment where I felt capable, able, like adult me. What does it feel like? You feel open, expanded, present. I don't have racing thoughts. I am not catastrophizing the future. I am just here and I know that everything's okay. Even if it's hard, it's okay. And the majority of the time from this place, we are going to want to emanate love. But it doesn't always look like fawning. You know, sometimes emanating love is I'm I am feeling love for others, but I want to be quiet. I don't want to really talk that much. and I go out into the world emanating this safety that's present in my body, but I'm not overly extroverted or making sure everyone feels good. It's just like nature, you know, like you don't go out into nature and everything's like, "Hi, I'm so glad you're here. What can I do for you?" It just is what it is. And through its anchoring and presence, it makes us feel good. So that's what I want you to think about. And the other thing is when we are in our adult self, we are not giving from sacrifice. we are giving from a place of service. So what that actually means is I am making sure my needs are met uh before I just overabundantly give to others. Now of course are there times where maybe you committed to going to a friend's dinner at their house and that Thursday night rolls around and you're exhausted. You committed to it but I hold my commitment. That's actually in integrity for me. Like when I commit to something I'm going to do it. So instead of saying,"Well, that isn't in congruency.

[00:36:02]I feel tired. I'm not going to go." I say, "What is very important to me is commitment to my relationships and commitment to myself." And I made that commitment, so I'm going to go. It's very different, of course, if I'm sick or, you know, haven't slept all night.

[00:36:16]But if I just feel like I'm not wanting to or I'm tired, I got to look at um what is my truth? And my truth is it's important to me to hold my word. So, as you can see there, there's nuance to it.

[00:36:28]It's not always just going to be like I'm overjoyed to be doing this thing. It might be I committed to doing this thing so I'm going to do it. But in all respects, I'm not fawning in the experience. And so that's what I want you to really feel into. What does it feel like to be adult me? What does it mean to be in congruency? And how do I spread that kind of love and kindness uh outward from this place? I also want to say that um it will be uh more reflexive that we continue to fawn in our adult lives with people that we might not know as well yet because your nervous system doesn't yet have enough data as to whether or not they're safe. And so the more that I'm around someone, the more that I see that they're safe, the less I'll likely fawn. So just know that that's part of the process, too. Let's get to the next question that we have for today. Hi Sarah, my name is Shannon.

[00:37:16]I'm just learning about how I've been fawning all of my life and I was wondering if you could help me out with this most recent situation. I was supposed to go to a hair appointment yesterday and I was in such a dorsal shutdown state that I just couldn't and actually slipped my mind to even let them know. So now I'm supposed to call them and reschedule and I feel all this shame and gosh, what if they're talking bad about me and I'm just nervous to call them to reschedule the hair appointment. This is just a small example out of the bigger picture of daily life stuff that happens when fawning shows up for me and wondering if you could help me out with this situation. Thank you, Sarah.

[00:38:00]>> Yes, of course. So, I love this example because it's it's applies to everyday real life that we all experience. So, what this is an indicator of is that you have a beautiful, precious young part of you, a vulnerable part that when you made what Bob Ross calls happy mistakes, they weren't seen as, if you're wondering who that is, it's a painter from the 80s, painted on PBS in the US.

[00:38:22]Uh anyway, when he made a mistake on a canvas, he just called it a happy mistake. And then he made this blob into a tree or a river or whatever there. And the point is there is no mistakes. So that's what was supposed to happen when we were kids. You know, you only learn by happy mistakes. But if we had caregivers or an environment where when we made a happy mistake, it was not seen that way. It we were shamed for it, we were told we were bad, that we hurt people. What we learn to do is navigate on eggshells. And it makes life very hard to live because what is life? It's filled with mistakes. And in fact, mistakes aren't bad. Uh they're they're beautiful opportunities for us to have compassion for ourselves, to be in our humanity, to learn and to grow. But if we didn't have that kind of parenting, then we're going to see it as dangerous.

[00:39:13]And then what happens is we have these protective parts whose job is to say, I don't want that vulnerable part to experience the pain again. So what that might look like, this is what it would look like for me in that situation. Time in my life, I would just never go to that salon again. even though I've been there for 10 years. And then I'd be like, I can't even walk on that block.

[00:39:29]If I see any of those people in the grocery store, I have to go out of the the way to make sure they don't see me.

[00:39:33]Maybe I have to move out of this town.

[00:39:34]Cuz it was so intolerable to step towards that rupture of me making a mistake. And so I just want to name if you have that protective part or one like it, that makes so much sense.

[00:39:46]Or we have a part that overly apologizes as a way to try which is fawning to make sure that everything's going to be okay.

[00:39:54]So here's what's needed. You got to get into adult you, the most anchored you.

[00:39:58]We've talked about that a bit in this episode. And then from that place, you need to get to know who that young part is. That was not safe to get anything wrong or make mistakes. How old are they? And we have to turn towards them and pick them up and take their fear for them. Just like you would if a kid was scared. You know, you wouldn't be afraid of what they're afraid of. And that's what that part needs from you. And then in the reparing process, we actually have to invite in and celebrate mistakes in in our internal reparing because then that part gets to see this is not dangerous. It's safe and it's the only way we learn. You know, what's happening in our life has usually much less to do about what's at the surface like what's happening today and much more to do about what happened a long time ago. So if we can go underneath and get to the root of it, it changes what happens on the surface and then that frees us up in life to be all of our self to make mistakes, to get it wrong, to try things and to be authentic to who we are. So that's what I invite you to do. And then from adult self, can I call and say, "Hey, sorry I missed the appointment.

[00:41:01]Can I reschedule?" And remember that the person on the other line, they know what it's like to make happy mistakes, too.

[00:41:08]Let's get to the last question that we have for today. Hi Sarah and also possibly hi Rachel. I first want to thank you both for all the work that you do and I do have a question about warning and it is around sort of when we get asked by someone to do something for example in a relationship and for me it's a lot about discerning when do I phone and when is it me actually just giving this person what they're asking for. I have a difficulty discerning that. I notice it quite well when I'm fully in my adult self because then I can discern oh is it can I give that or can I not when I'm not fully in adult self then it is very very difficult and I think for me the line is quite thin. So any advice on navigating that doing something for someone and fawning and just appeasing to them. So, here's the thing. If you're not in adult, then that means you're in a part. And if you're in a part, you're going to be exhibiting self-protective behaviors if those parts don't think that you're safe. And that means they're going to be responding to the past instead of your present. Whenever a part is inhabiting your system, your present in your body, you're triggered. You're going to be responding to the past, not what's happening today. And so I really want you to to remember that that very clear distinction. So if you're saying, "Ah, adult me isn't here, so I can't tell if I'm overgiving or not." If you have a tendency to fawn, and that fawning part is present, the protective part, then you're going to be fawning.

[00:42:47]And this means, my friend, you have to know what that fawning part feels like.

[00:42:52]Get familiarized with them. What do they feel like when you're in your body? What do they say? Write that down. What do they say? what do they feel like? Get crystal clear so that then when you're in that experience of not being sure, am I regulated or not? You can look at it and say, am I saying these things? Am I feeling these things? Am I doing these things? And if so, that means I'm in this part. And what I find is when we can externalize it by like writing it down, what does it feel like to be an adult me? What is my truth when I'm in adult me? What do I notice I want to do when I'm in adult me? Write all that down. And then when I'm in the fawning part, what is true? So that at any given moment you can look at those lists and say what who's present who is here and it becomes much more clear. I also want you to notice what are the behaviors that I tend to have or do when I'm in my adult self. Now for me for example I am a very curious person. I think about the work I do all day. I just want to know what's happening inside of people. So even after a long day of doing this shooting, we film lots of episodes in a day and you know it's 8 hours and then I go on a walk with Truman. I might call a friend or my partner and I'm going to ask a lot of questions and I might, you know, maybe they're in the middle of something in their life and we might talk about that for 45 minutes. But I'm anchored in adult me. So that's not fawning and people pleasing. That's being my authentic self. Now, here's the truth. If I finished filming for the day and I didn't sleep much the night before and I'm just really exhausted at this point in my journey, you know what I'd do? I'd go on a walk with Truman and I would call no one. Even though five people called me and I haven't called them back in a week and a half, I'm not calling them because I don't have the energy to connect. I don't want to connect. And so that is not being unkind. That's being genuine to who I am. And so I just want to name that whether you're somebody who like wants to or loves giving love to others or you love helping people and you know all of those different things when it's an adult you it's not fawning even though it might have similar behaviors of fawning like I said listening to my friend for an hour talk about something but if I look at the overarching uh dynamic of the relationship it is a natural reciprocity there's other times where I need to talk about what's happening for me and then there's other times they need to or we both need to.

[00:45:11]It's a very very different experience.

[00:45:13]It's not all about me supporting. So like all things we got to feel it in our body. And I really think for you that externalization of it will be very helpful. Like writing those lists out.

[00:45:24]What is it like to feel adult me? What is it like to feel the parts? Who's here? And if you're in a part, the work is I got to get adult me here. Point blank. That's it. And from that place, how can I show that part? Hey, you don't need to do that anymore cuz I'm here.

[00:45:38]And then from adult me, we have to gather data points about about how it is safe to be us. And it's going to be scary. And all the fears you had around being you in the past, the reason you haven't been you, they all arise. Oh no, we're certainly going to die. We're going to be neglected. We're going to be abandoned. We're going to be hurt. We're going to be harmed. Life is going to fall apart. Don't do it. Don't do it.

[00:45:57]Don't do it. Don't do it.

[00:46:00]Oh, you did it. We didn't die.

[00:46:02]Whoa, everything's okay. Wow, they didn't leave. Huh? And then you do it again and you do it again and you do it again. And then your parts in your nervous system start to see maybe, just maybe, life is different now. And then that becomes your reality. And then being authentically you is how you navigate the world. So thank you for being here, my friends. I am sending you so much love and kindness always. And remember, you make sense all parts.

[00:46:31]Always enjoying this episode and want to go even deeper into sematic healing, you can join my email community for weekly teachings, tools, and live events. Click the show notes to join.