Podcast Summary: Trauma Rewired

Episode: Sexual Fawn and Fawn
Hosts: Elisabeth Kristof & Jennifer Wallace
Guest: Luis Mojica (Somatics Practitioner, Holistic Life Navigation)
Release Date: December 30, 2024

Overview

This episode delves deeply into the trauma response known as "fawn" and the nuanced territory of "sexual fawning." Led by somatics practitioner Luis Mojica, the discussion explores how these automatic protective adaptations are rooted in nervous system function, early developmental trauma, relational dynamics, and societal conditioning. The conversation provides practical insight into how individuals can recognize, honor, and gently transform these patterns for greater self-compassion, agency, and embodied healing.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Fawn & Sexual Fawn

• Fawn response: Reflexive trauma response where one appeases, people-pleases, or placates to ensure safety and belonging, often unconscious.
  • "[Fawn is] a reflexive protective response that happens inside our body, [it's] a behavioral adaptation to placate a predator, to create safety." – Elisabeth (12:12)
• Sexual fawning: Specific manifestation where sexual behavior is used to ensure connection, avoid conflict, or maintain attachment, often present even in safe, loving relationships.
  • “Sexual fawning...the more insidious, the more common sexual fawning comes from people you really love and feel safe with and you just don’t want to hurt their feelings...” – Luis (29:55)

2. Overcoupling & Developmental Trauma

• Overcoupling: Somatic process where the body links specific sensations or experiences (like threat/pleasure, arousal/fear).
  • “The body can practice over coupling shame with pleasure. Especially if something felt good that quote shouldn't have. It’s so nuanced. But...the meaning your body or subconscious made from your sexual experiences...becomes your physiological response to arousal.” – Luis (10:02)

3. Embodiment & Somatic Signals

• Recognizing body cues is crucial for understanding trauma responses.
  • “You can notice, my jaw’s clenched, my fists are clenched, my hips are really tight...those are those nuanced signals that you completely miss before practicing embodiment. And then you go right into sexual fawning...” – Luis (33:13)
• The first steps in healing involve pausing, locating tension/constriction, and using gentle interruption (like taking a bathroom break).
  • “You can literally pause this and think of someone you don’t know how to say no to...the moment you think of them, right, there’s a constriction.” – Luis (23:02)

4. Shame & Compassion as Key Themes

• Shame often follows fawning, but reframing fawn as a survival response invites self-compassion.
  • “When you identify with the trauma response...shame is one of the results because you think ‘what’s wrong with me?’” – Luis (16:03)
  • “When you understand the reflexive nature of these responses...you just don’t even identify with it anymore. It almost becomes comical.” – Luis (16:03)
• Compassion is stigmatized but fundamental for both self and others.
  • “There’s nothing more controversial than compassion...there’s always a reason someone’s having a behavior...In most cases, it’s capacity.” – Luis (39:27)

5. Freeze & Fawn: Complex Coping

• Fawn is always coupled with freeze, resulting in conflict and inner immobility.
  • “You’re never just fawning, you’re always freezing. Because the part that wants to run away or say no, that part freezes and then the other part performs.” – Luis (36:58)
• Chronic fawning/freeze patterns are linked with autoimmune issues and long-term health impacts.
  • “That’s also why people who fawn have the highest prevalence of chronic illness, autoimmune issues. Gabor Maté’s book, The Myth of Normal, has an incredible chapter all about this.” – Luis (36:58)

6. Boundary Rupture: Self & Others

• Ongoing sexual fawning breaks personal body boundaries, even without external coercion.
  • “When you get in the practice of sexually fawning...we are in a practice of constantly breaking a body boundary...the body still became traumatized sexually.” – Luis (47:19)
• This is true even in healthy, loving relationships, emphasizing that intent doesn’t negate embodied impact.

7. Capacity & Individual Differences

• Capacity for intimacy, pleasure, joy, or compassion varies based on nervous system history, current stress, and unconscious conditioning.
  • “Honoring our capacity is like, it’s a real next level thing for me...there are things I can do to increase my capacity and there are times when I have to simply honor it.” – Elisabeth (51:22)
• External and internal factors (hormones, sleep, environment) influence capacity; oftentimes, individuals have little control.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Luis Mojica:

  • "Everything that I teach, I can only teach if I’ve experienced it. So I am so well experienced in the fawning response." (07:43)
  • “Fawn response is the body’s...reflexive way to belong. It’s how a body finds belonging with other bodies.” (13:16)
  • “Fawning is the most highly rewarded trauma response. If you’re smiling, if you’re nodding, you’re the good kid.” (35:10)
  • “Lying becomes this way to pause the eventual rupture or avoid it altogether...It’s a compassionate lens.” (39:27)
  • “Fawning inherently breaks your boundary. It’s designed to.” (47:19)

• Elisabeth Kristof:

  • “It’s really fascinating to me to recognize, somatically, that the threat isn’t always happening in the moment—it starts at the thought, or the proximity, or even the anticipation of a person.” (02:42)
  • “Fawn and freeze were the most adaptive responses. As a little kid that can’t fight or flight in that situation, I’m either going to flop or I’m going to fawn.” (18:22)
  • “For so much of my life ... people would tell me to be gentle with myself, and it would literally make me nauseous.” (45:21)

• Jennifer Wallace:

  • “That hypervigilance in the room of people and understanding that like the fawn’s already happened and I can witness it now in reflection. I had none of this language back then.” (34:39)
  • “A well worn pathway is a well worn pathway. Whatever your protective mechanism is for threat, it’s coming for joy too, because then joy becomes the threat.” (46:28)

Practical Tools & Practices for Listeners

• Somatic Inquiry:

  • Notice physical constriction when thinking about people or situations where fawn arises (23:02).
  • Practice gentle disruption of the pattern – excusing yourself, breathing, or relocating briefly.

• Building Capacity:

  • Gradual, compassionate expansion of what feels tolerable (ease, joy, intimacy, compassion).
  • Small, repeated exposures to new behaviors in safe contexts.

• Reframing and Self-Acceptance:

  • View fawning, lying, and numbing as protective outputs rather than faults.

Memorable Moments

• The biological “echo” of trauma:
  “What’s happening now in the room isn’t the experience, but the experience in my body. It’s like a biological reverberation. It’s literally an echo that comes through high blood pressure and extra adrenaline and neurotransmission...” – Luis (28:03)

• The challenge of compassion:
  “There’s nothing more controversial than compassion.” – Luis (39:27)

• Somatic honesty:
  “Intent means nothing when it comes to trauma. How the body experiences it means everything.” – Luis (47:19)

Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 00:04 | Episode intro, Luis Mojica’s background | | 07:43 | Luis’s personal experience of the fawn response | | 10:02 | Overcoupling & sexual trauma explanation | | 13:16 | Somatic perspective on fawning & belonging | | 16:03 | Shame, identification, and reframing | | 23:02 | Embodiment practices for fawn | | 29:55 | Defining sexual fawning | | 33:13 | Somatic cues during intimacy | | 35:10 | Developmental roots of fawn & people-pleasing | | 36:58 | Fawn/freezing hybrid & impact on health | | 39:27 | Lying, manipulation, and lack of capacity for truth | | 47:19 | Sexual fawning as body boundary violation | | 50:38 | The uniqueness of individual nervous system capacity | | 53:03 | How to work with Luis Mojica |

Episode Tone

Warm, validating, and deeply compassionate. The discussion is rich with personal stories, gentle humor, humility, and practical wisdom, inviting listeners into acceptance and curiosity rather than judgment or urgency.

Conclusion

This episode provides an articulate, deeply felt roadmap for recognizing and healing fawn and sexual fawn responses. Its grounded psychoeducation and lived wisdom empower listeners to approach longstanding patterns with a new gentleness and embodied skill, reminding us that survival responses are never a personal fault, but a call for compassionate understanding and presence.

Resource Links:

• Luis Mojica’s Holistic Life Navigation: Courses & Membership
• Trauma Rewired Podcast