Continuing our discussion on relationships, let’s talk the fawn response.  I briefly touched on people-pleasing yesterday and how the fear of losing people becomes greater than the fear of abandoning self.  This can lead to fawning, the strategy is to fawn, to make ourselves more appealing to the person by staying as a people pleaser.  We people please to avoid conflict and  to feel safe.  At the cellular/physical level, the nervous system sees a threat (losing someone).  In response, we feel we must forget our needs, rights, preferences, and boundaries to get acceptance in a relationship.  As discussed yesterday, the thought of being abandoned is the main fear of people-pleasers and the fawn response is the extreme end of trying to resolve perceived rejection from someone the person cares about.  Often we fall into it without even knowing it because we are trying to fight the extreme fear of being alone.  Like any behavior around people-pleasing, we don’t know how to honor who we are and we feel like doing so isn’t allowed.  In some cases, the individual on the other side of the relationship will enforce that belief by creating scenarios where the people-pleaser will do what the other person wants.

I share this because there are times we don’t recognize this behavior in ourselves.  Sometimes we feel like we are simply being nice or that the person may be right.  There are moments when that is true, where we all mis-step to some degree and we must apologize.  When we look at our pattern of behavior and if our constant response is to fawn, to give in, or submit to someone else, then we need to consider the context and content of that relationship.  If that behavior extends to others in different environments (family, friends, work, etc.) then we need to consider the context and content of our relationship to ourselves.  Outside of when it is absolutely necessary (again we all have moments of mis-step), we need to remember we are all worthy of our opinions and validation of self.  I’m referencing legitimate expression, not perceived rights to some behavior or belief.  The bottom line is that in order to have healthy relationships with others, we need to have a healthy relationship with ourself first. 

We are social creatures, we do need relationships, but we don’t need a relationship with every single person we encounter.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be kind and we don’t need to actively look for reasons to disagree/fight.  What it means is that we are allowed to have respect for others even if we don’t agree with them and that means we are allowed to honor ourselves as well—it’s mutual.  We don’t need a hierarchy and we need to understand that there is space for all of us.  A disagreement isn’t the end of the world, we can simply acknowledge it’s different and move on.  At the same time, a disagreement doesn’t have to mean the end of the relationship, and a good relationship allows for differences.  Again, there is no hierarchy and no one has to defer to the other—there is no fawning necessary.  Breaking these habits can be challenging because we feel it on the physical level and it is a very real response.  The more we understand it, the easier it is to shift our patterns and the more we can shift patterns, the closer we become to who we are as we learn what feels right.  We are all worthy of being exactly who we are, we are all worthy of respect.