Fawning is normal [and more so for women]

Fawning is normal.

A normal nervous system response.

A response that comes up when to our body it seems all other options are more dangerous than to please, agree, comply.

Our nervous system wants for us to survive. If you nod the head where you actually have a different opinion... If you yesand go with what another person suggested... If you stick to a promise rather than to break it although there's big resistance now... – then, your nervous system interprets this as the option that most helps you to survive.

Hearing about the normality of fawn in a podcast-episode by Ailey Jolie has given me yet more understanding and compassion for myself (and by reading this, I hope you find it for yourself too...).

3 points stand out for me as she normalizes the response (especially for women! but more below).

One:

The fawn response has a lot to do with attachment. And attachment is very interconnected to hormones: Once we're attached to someone, we experience a flush in dopamine and oxytocin. The attempt to let go of a connection (or even the interpretation that something we do does threaten the connection), can be utterly complicated by that hormonal mix. And that again, is strongly interrelated to our nervous system.

Fawning or not fawning is less a question of strong will – and more a question of our nervous system wiring.

Once our nervous system is activated, we cannot merely talk ourselves out of it anymore (though, with the right guidance, we absolutely can change the pattern).If our system from very early on* constantly needed to be vigilant and make sure it doesn't lose connection (say CPTSD) to those who cared for us and ensured our survival**... and if that threat could be minimised by pleasing/fawning/masking our own truth... then our neural circuits got wired in a way that made it a default in our autonomic – involuntary, unconscious – nervous system: shaping our breath, muscle tone, organ functioning, hormones, immunity, emotions and thoughts.

The understanding and compassion I talked about in the beginning is crucial - because what often comes along with the fawn response is: Shame. (a reason also why so few sexual assaults get talked about, revealed, or reported).

Shame often talks like: You allowed it to happen, right? Why did you not say No? And even with all that knowledge and having worked on yourself to that extent – it still happens to you?? Shame on you.

At least that's the flavour of the internal talk that I know, very intimately. Here 3 examples (trigger warning) I experienced in the last few months – of which I've been shocked that they still happen to me – and felt initially ashamed of:

• In November, all at once my head was in the lap of a 70+ old man (I considered him a new friend), who told me he enjoyed touching me. The seconds that passed until I finally could force myself up and tell him "something feels wrong to me" seemed endless. As if time stood still, and like it wasn't really happening to me, to my body. Conclusion: The freeze response is real.

  Also, me then trying to calm him – instead of acknowledging the deep trust rupture I just experienced - saying that it's okay, I understand, I forgive.... – What a fawn!?

• The strength it took me in February to tell a man I felt cringe about that "I do not want to hug"... the time it took for my nervous system to settle after his outburst of anger and blame... the discernment it took me to wake up from my confusion in which I started to spiral down into an "I did wrong", "I am wrong"... to eventually understand that his response is about him, not about me...

• Even a short moment a few days ago where a friend held his phone in front of my face to take a picture - me feeling off yet smiling, not noticing and reacting quickly enough to say "I don't want to be photographed right now"...

I believe so so many women can relate? Or, would it be more accurate to say "people"?Maybe. Yet there's another point that Jolie makes:

Two:

Studies show that women's physiology tends more to the fawn rather than the fight/flight response. Why? It seems that next to cultural conditioning - be nice, good, agreeable - there's a biological component to it. Just for the fact that the different sexes have different hormonal mixes. It is well known that women have more of the bonding hormones (oxytocin).

So, it makes sense also that – as the study says that Jolie cites in her podcast: Women, more so than men, under threat tend to fawn, attempting to keep the connection.

As it's been revealing to me how ingrained this pattern is – even after so much awareness practice, authentic relating/communicating, somatic tracking etc., I also understand more and more that also men often are pretty oblivious to the fact how powerful and pervasive the fawn response is (in themselves for sure too, that depends very much on the individual – yet, as it seems, generally spoken especially in women).

And whereas before I feel I've minimised certain movements ("me too"), it ist dawning on me how incredibly important checking for proper consent (in oneself and in others) is. With proper I mean: acknowledging the fact that a verbal "Yes" might collide with what the body says.

Three:

Reason number 3 is what Sigmund Freud called the "repetition compulsion". From a nervous system perspective, this is very real – not just a theory: Even if a situation or person is harmful to us, it might be more familiar, therefore more "safe" to engage with it/them for our nervous system – than not to.

You might ask yourself: Now what to do with all of this - do I just need to accept my fawning?

Help is here :) Fawning is a response inherent to our nervous system, like fight, flight and freeze. At certain points, it simply shows up. Yet we can rewire our nervous system so it becomes less of a default for us to fall into it:

=> For me, what's been essential is: sensation tracking aka noticing the sensations in the body: where contraction is, where expansion, where heat, where numbness is – and so forth.

From there, I've been catching earlier and earlier when something feels off. I have been responding differently. And have been celebrating my progress for what is, rather than shamed myself for what is absent.

This is a process that requires gentleness, patience and perseverance. And, to avoid misunderstanding: it is not about staying in the body at all costs - but to notice also when we leave it.

As Jolie says so beautifully:

"The nervous system doesn't change through force or shame, it changes through gradual embodied experience of safety and connection. [...] The question is not: Is my nervous system regulated? The question is: Can I be with myself wherever I am? Embodiment doesn't begin by forcing presence. It begins by understanding absence."

Thank you for reading. I'd be so glad to hear what comes up for you. You may e-mail or dm me on instagram.

<3

*to be more specific:

• It may have happened to you personally in the past;

• You or your nervous system respectively could also have learnt behaviors from others (per example your parents), including certain triggers, muscular responses etc;

• Or, you could have it in your bones, imprinted in your cells from your ancestors.

**repeated exposure to threatening situations. Which can be physical but also emotional. Science is clear on that by now: Emotional threat, the threat of being excluded, of not belonging - is kickstarting the same threat responses in our brains and bodies that physical danger does.