← Trauma Rewired
Trauma Rewired
When Attachment Overrides Authenticity: The Fawn Trauma Response
00:55:36
Fawn is a nervous system survival strategy, not a personality flaw. It helps you keep connection and avoid threat by overriding your needs, smiling through discomfort, and saying yes when you want to say no. In this episode of Trauma Rewired,...
Loading summary
Transcript98 lines
- [00:00]
Jennifer Wallace
It takes time to rebuild trust with, with your body. When you've spent all those years overriding your own needs and your own desires. And it takes time to hear your body's no and to be able to, to honor that no. It takes time.
- [00:15]
Elizabeth Kristof
When we talk about like healing or nervous system repatterning, it's about building that capacity to hear our yes, hear our no, but also building the capacity for the good feelings as well as the bad so that we can experience that connection that we're seeking and really exp what we have the capacity to hold and to, to be embodied with and to trust it. Welcome everyone. Today we're talking about one of the most misunderstood and yet also common trauma responses, the fawn response. If you've ever felt like you can't say no, maybe you identify as a people pleaser, you keep the peace, you find that you lose yourself trying to make everyone else happy, then this episode is for you. We're going to dive into what fawn is, what really happens in your nervous system, how it shows up in everyday life, how it impacts your sense of self and safety, and most importantly, how you can begin to shift these patterns, these deeply ingrained responses in your brain and in your nervous system. Because it's not just a psychological discussion. It's about survival and belonging and reclaiming your body's wisdom.
- [01:29]
Jennifer Wallace
You will leave this conversation with a new understanding, with self, compassion and the tools practiced, practical tools to recognize and to gently reclaim yourself and to change these patterns. This is a topic that's deeply personal for me. I am someone who smiles a lot and that smile is about acceptance. There's something behind the smile when really sometimes I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to share something that's a little bit more deeply personal, but it doesn't feel safe in that connection, in the way of connection. And so a lot of times, and I think this is gonna be really explainable for people is saying yes when we really wanna say no. And there are ways that we're gonna get into today that our body is saying no, but we are propelling ourselves into the action anyway and disregarding and self abandoning from ourselves. And so I want everyone to listening, I want everyone who's listening to know that you're not broken, you're adapted. And there is another way for us to be in the world.
- [02:34]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, I spent years beating myself up for being a people please thought it was a character flaw or like something, something inherently wrong with me. And over time I've learned that it was my nervous system trying to keep me safe and that knowing that understanding changed everything. And that's what we want to share today. Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system, how trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm your co host Elizabeth Kristof, founder of Brain Based.com, an online community where we use applied neurology and somatics for resilience, growth and behavior change. And I'm the founder of the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification, an ICF accredited course for coaches, therapists, practitioners to bring the nervous system and neurosomatic tools into the good work that you're doing.
- [03:22]
Jennifer Wallace
And I'm Jennifer Wallace. I'm a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integration guide and I bring your nervous system into peak somatic experiences. And I'm also an educator at the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification. Make sure that you hit subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss any of our conversations. And if you're watching us on YouTube, click that little bell to hit subscrib. Subscribe so you never miss one of our shows. If you're new here, we invite you to go deep with us into your nervous system so that you can learn to work with these adaptations. And if you want to join us for a daily training practice, you can do that for two free weeks@rewiretrial.com let's.
- [03:59]
Elizabeth Kristof
Talk a little bit about what Fawn looks like in Patterns and Behavior.
- [04:03]
Jennifer Wallace
For me, Fawn shows up as constant people pleasing as, you know, saying yes when I want to say no, but I didn't know how to say no. I've got much better at it now. Smiling to keep the peace. I've always been known as a very smiling person, but it's smiling to just be agreeable and to to not be seen or to feel the disconnection, the loss of connection. And I used to hug people a lot as a way to be accepted. I've since now I'm actually kind of an ant. It's not that I'm an anti hugger. I want to hug the people that I really love, but I just don't go into hugging now I actually try to create some space with people, especially when I'm first meeting them. But you know, we've all met people and it's just like I'm a hugger and it's like you're fawning. And it's not that I'm not a hugger. I Am a. I am a hugger. But it's as a little girl. And I think that's when it really gets patterned in. We learn to hug people that we don't want to hug. And I learned that it's really. I was engaging in deeper self abandonment to do that. Which is why I'm just using that as an example of how I am now because it felt safer at the time for connection. And then especially when I was a little girl, I would create conflict if I didn't hug.
- [05:32]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yes, totally. Totally. I think so much of this gets patterned in. In our early development about having to do the things that we don't want to do that we feel inside of our own body isn't right. And we override that. To like you were saying, to keep the peace, to not sever our attachment bonds to stay safe socially, emotionally and physically. And that's everything that we're gonna talk about today. And this response is deeply reflexive, right? It is just like all of our other trauma responses. It's not necessarily conscious. I'm not making the decision to do this but I'm moving into that reflexive nervous system pattern. And so this used to show up for years in my life. I would walk into a meeting say with my business partner intending to set a boundary and instead end up agreeing to everything. Like just going with the flow and agreeing to all the things and agreeing to things that were out of alignment because that conflict felt like danger. And recognizing these patterns was really step one in beginning to re pattern and work with my nervous system. Because it is so subconscious and reflexive that first we just have to have the awareness am I doing this because I really want to? Because it's in alignment. Like where is this coming from? What am I agreeing to out of this response? And just recognizing those patterns in ourself.
- [06:58]
Jennifer Wallace
And fawn is a lot different from Fight, Flight, Freeze or Flop because it's a behavioral adaptation. It is our nervous system's need to protect attachment and for to protect our social survival. And it's not just psychological. It's biological connection is isn't a luxury. It is our survival. Our brains have evolved to keep us close to others. Because isolation means danger. Sometimes isolation really means death. And this is wired deep into our nervous systems. From infancy on, our bodies and brains seek safe connection to regulate and to develop co regulation is the original regulation. Before we can self regulate we rely on other people's nervous systems to downshift our own.
- [07:45]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, exactly. We that's why we spent all of season Three, looking at relationships and nervous system health. Because social connection and relational health is inextricably linked to nervous system health. And especially when we're talking about children and a developing nervous system, having attachment, having a source of CO regulation is just as important to our survival as having food and shelter so that we don't get overwhelmed by stress, so that we have healthy brain development so that we can regulate ourselves. And with that regulation comes healthy function of all of our bodily processes. And so when we feel threat, especially relational threat, we can move into performing as a safety behavior. It's the nervous system saying if I keep calm, I can stay safe. It's using our body as CO regulation for someone else's in order to survive. There's really two parts to fawn and I think we should break this down a little bit here because there's fawning when we're in a really dangerous situation to placate a predator to try to calm them down and appease them. So if we're in a situation of threat, like an assault or an act of sexual violence or a dangerous situation, yeah, we might really try to agree with the person, use soft tones, use our nervous system as a way to de escalate the situation. And then there's this component of fawn that is about maintaining our attachment needs, maintaining our sense of community or our connection to our family or our caregivers or our partners. And so then it's when we move into these patterns of people pleasing and over giving and self abandoning so that we maintain attachment for that survival need. And those are kind of two different ways that fawn can show up.
- [09:46]
Jennifer Wallace
You know, thinking about a predator too, that could be an animal, right? An animal comes at us and you immediately change your tone, right? You want to use various ways because you want to soothe the threat to protect yourself with your own nervous system. It's really fascinating. And over time, fawning can be chronic. Fawning becomes part of the way that we see ourselves. You may associate with like being the good girl, the caretaker, the very easygoing, always available friend. And it's people and self abandonment dress up as virtue.
- [10:22]
Elizabeth Kristof
It is. And I can really identify with that because I thought I was a people pleaser for a long time. I had this like deep connection, like I'm a people pleaser. This is one of my, I'm codependent. This is one of my issues that I have to work on. And I would work on it and work on it and couldn't ever get anywhere. But then I also really prided myself in being like incredibly loyal, like incredible to the point of self sacrifice, of not setting boundaries. Like I was the one who would show up for you, who would take care of things, who would always be the person that people could count on to be there. And so part of it was like identifying that. And there are some parts of that that I like, you know, that I like about myself. But where is that coming from? And is that like true and authentic and within my capacity?
- [11:15]
Jennifer Wallace
That's right. That's right.
- [11:17]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah.
- [11:18]
Jennifer Wallace
And it's so rewarded. It's rewarded through connection, but it's also really depleting. Right. That's why it's important to understand the energy at which we're moving from our nervous system. Because that depletion is the self abandonment. Right. You can still show up for people that you love and not be in a fawn.
- [11:37]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yes, you can. And since this season we're talking all about emotions and emotional expression, we're kind of coupling all of these with different emotions. And so today we're gonna look at connection as the emotion and start to see how the connection that we get from Fawn is a little bit of a faux connection. It's not.
- [11:58]
Jennifer Wallace
It's actually a disconnection from the self.
- [11:59]
Elizabeth Kristof
It's actually a disconnection from the self. And there isn't actually the emotional experience required to have the state internally that gives you the connection that you're looking for. So I think that's gonna be really interesting. I think so too.
- [12:12]
Jennifer Wallace
Because Fawn energy costly. I want to share something with you about capacity because this is what so many entrepreneurs and high performers get wrong. Capacity isn't just about time management or better strategy. It's your nervous system's ability to hold complexity, stress and visibility without shutting down or burning out. If you're hitting that wall where you know what to do but you can't seem to do it without paying too high a price. There's a free workshop I want you to check out. It's called the Capacity Gap. Taught by Elizabeth and Margie Feltun at Brain Based. They're going to show you where hidden nervous system patterns are draining your capacity and teach you simple neuroscience backed tools to expand it so you can actually feel good showing up with the impact and leadership you want. It's free with a replay available. Sign up@rewirecapacity.com if you're ready to create real sustainable capacity from the inside out. You will get so much from this workshop and when. Because when we're fawning we are not acknowledging our own emotional needs, our own, Our own needs and self expression. It gets buried. And that costs a lot of energy. That suppression shows up as somatic tension. It shows up as dissociation or chronic illness even. And it's all the things that we think are personal failings. But it's a survival strategy.
- [13:37]
Elizabeth Kristof
It's about avoiding conflict. Right. The body would rather carry the pain of self sacrifice than to risk relational rupture. And then that unresolved energy doesn't go away. It lives in our body as unprocessed emotions. And then it's constantly dysregulating us and adding that really high chronic stress load.
- [13:57]
Jennifer Wallace
And a lot of times on the back end, the shame can be expressed as like, why did I laugh at that joke? Why did I smile? Why didn't I. Why didn't I speak up? Why didn't I use my voice? And it's just so reflexive to move into a fawn response. It's not a choice.
- [14:13]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, it's not. And like you said, then it can often be followed with that shame, which then immobilizes us even more. It moves us into more of a freeze state. We get chronic inflammation. There's less ability to process our emotions. And so this can kind of become a loop that plays on itself that really keeps us from having a healthy, well attuned nervous system and the ability to. To process our own emotions.
- [14:38]
Jennifer Wallace
And this response exists because belonging is survival. Our bodies will sacrifice authenticity for attachment. And it's primal, it's necessary, but when it's overactive, it's costly to the body.
- [14:53]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. There's a beautiful quote from Prentiss Hemphill, who we had on the podcast before that talks about trauma is a rupture of belonging. It's the experience of being severed from safety, dignity, and connection to ourself and others. So when we have this history of developmental trauma, we often lack that sense of belonging and connection, and we don't have the capacity to experience connection and belonging. And so then we're really primed to prioritize that over our own authenticity and expression because it's a need that we have never had met, but is also really important for our survival. And so we're constantly seeking that attachment and becoming very hyper vigilant. Vigilant about the ways that we might lose that attachment. And so we can start to move really quickly into saying what we think people want to hear. Perfectionism in the relational way. Right. Like, not the perfectionism that's driven by like need to control the external environment, but more that perfectionism that's driven by, I really want people to like me. I really care what you think about me. I really want to maintain the relationship at all costs. So I will change myself and put so much pressure on myself internally to show up a different way.
- [16:18]
Jennifer Wallace
Let's explore the emotional landscape of connection so that we can understand this a little bit more. Because it's a conversation that we started having not too long ago. Like, is connection an emotion? And the answer is no, not quite. So a question that Elizabeth and I were asking recently to ourselves was, is connection an emotion? And it's really not in the classical affect of neuroscience sense, like fear, anger or sadness. Instead, connection is more of a state. It's made up of multiple emotional and physiological events. Safety, openness, presence. It's in a re. It's connection is a relational experience that arises when the nervous system is regulated enough to be opened, to be attuned to, to be in the act of attunement. Right. It's an outcome of emotions like tenderness, trust, joy, belonging, or even co. Regulated grief.
- [17:14]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. There's a lot of connection in being able to share an emotional experience with someone like grief or to be witnessed in your grief or to witness someone else in theirs.
- [17:24]
Jennifer Wallace
Yeah. We talk about witnessing so much as an importance of like, healing, to witness each other.
- [17:32]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. And in relation to Fawn, we have had some great conversations with Luis Mojica on the podcast about fawn and sexual Fawn, boundaries and shame and. And Louise calls fawn the body's reflexive way of belonging. Right. It's trying to secure our place in the herd, to make sure that we are accepted and loved and maybe spared in the physical or emotional safety sense. And recognizing that really helps us to have compassion for why these patterns exist. Right. Because again, if we don't have that connective experience, we are constantly seeking it. Right. We don't have the emotional capacity to. We're coming in a state of dysregulation. The trust is not actually there. There's a hyper vigilance around maintaining attachment and not feeling really secure in your relationships. So there's no trust there. There's no ability to share emotions like grief or to even feel them yourself. And all of these things are required as part of that state of connection. The vulnerability, the intimacy, the trust, the safety. And so we're never getting that. That. And then we are constantly seeking it because that is a need for our human being to have that sense of connection. But what we end up creating with fawn response is this false sense of connection because it's coming from dysregulation and hyper vigilance. It's coming from self abandonment. It's coming from not expressing our needs and emotions authentically. And so it's not coming from attunement to ourselves or to the other person. It's coming from that pattern stress response. And so we're creating this connection because we really need it. But the connection is not true. Connection in that sense of what's required for that nervous system state and connection.
- [19:24]
Jennifer Wallace
Is a whole nervous system response. It's a whole nervous system experience, A state in the nervous system where it's safe enough for us to make eye contact, for us to attuned to facial expressions and vocal tone modulation. And it's a shared emotional experience. And it's where co regulation really becomes possible. And this is the foundation for emotional resilience and post traumatic growth.
- [19:52]
Elizabeth Kristof
And then for those of us with trauma histories, and that could be, you know, developmental trauma, complex trauma, living in a state of chronic stress from systemic trauma or oppression that often all of those things lead to disconnection from ourself and from others, from our own body, from the environment. And so even if we have positive connection or safe relationships or spaces where we should be able to express and trust, even that can feel threatening in a body that is primed for survival and safety over connection. Right? We talked about this a lot in season three, where with complex trauma we need both safety and regulation and we need connection. And so these two competing needs create a really high stress load because there's a big level of stress at being connected to others. Relationships are not safe and yet we need them. So we're kind of stuck in this state of moving into a threat response all the time. And then that creates more fawn, if that's our well worn path. And then we're creating more dysregulation and more stress on our system. So we start to confuse sometimes connection with fawning or with any of our other trauma responses, right? Moving into a collapse state or a panic state.
- [21:20]
Jennifer Wallace
And there are emotions that we can identify that create a signal to true connection, right? There's trust where the nervous system deactivates defense. There's tenderness, that tenderness invites vulnerable presence. There's joy where we can experience that in shared play and synchronicity with each other. There's the feeling of belonging, feeling of being part of a whole gratitude which reinforces relational safety. And then there's grief, grief can deepen connection when we hold it together. And in order to be able to fully experience connection as a state, we also have to have the availability to feel and experience the spectrum of emotions.
- [22:04]
Elizabeth Kristof
When we can't experience emotions because of those well worn patterns of emotional suppression or repression, when we have those interoceptive deficits and freeze responses that are occurring and immobility with feeling emotions, then we can find ourselves seeking connection above all else because it's such a primary need, right? We want to feel the trust, the joy and the belonging. And so when we grow up in environments where we have to choose between attachment and authenticity, we start to choose attachment every time. And this is an idea that comes from Gabor Mate. Because we choose that attachment because authenticity is who we are, but attachment is our lifeline. And as children we will give up authenticity to maintain that attachment. And that is how we lose ourselves over time. So in that absence of safe connection, we learn to abandon parts of ourselves to preserve that sense of belonging. And that is not just a conscious choice. In fact, it's rarely ever a conscious choice. I'm never thinking, oh, I'm going to abandon myself in this moment. Moment. It's a reflexive, protective, adaptive survival strategy. Just like our other Fs. We have the same things happening in our brain and our nervous system. We have our amygdala that is perceiving threat. But this time it's usually some kind of social threat, right? It might be the way somebody's vocal tone is, or their body posture, or their eye movement or connection, right? We're always communicating with one another across the social synapse. So my nervous system is constantly picking up cues from other people's nervous system and making that same decision that we talk about safe or unsafe. But in this case we're really thinking about socially safe. Is my attachment staying safe? Am I safe belonging in the herd and my tribe? Or am I safe maintaining this relationship? And so we're interpreting all of those signals. And so over time, if we grow up in an environment where that attachment is frequently threatened, we can start to really have a lot of, of threat response or hypervigilance around how we interpret social signals, around what somebody else's glance at me means, around what their posture means, around what they're saying means about me. And so then my brain is perceiving that through the amygdala. Also, the interior cingulate cortex has a lot to do with interpreting and processing our sense of social safety. So it's being filtered through the brain and we're decisive how to respond, and then our system can become activated or shut down. Right. We might move into more of a parasympathetic state where we're more frozen or immobile. We might move into a more sympathetic state where we feel panicked and we're, like, rushing to do and talking really fast and trying to fix the situation with a sense of urgency. Right. So there can be all the different flavors of activation that show up here, but the behavior is that we're moving into trying to. To placate the predator or to maintain attachment. And that behavioral pattern is ingrained into our nervous system, and it all happens lightning fast.
- [25:26]
Jennifer Wallace
So after we recorded the fawn conversation, I. I had this moment where I was like, wow, I have been in the experience of a real predator situation where I fawned and I didn't share it. And so I thought it was really important for me to jump back in and to share this experience, because we talked about the pred. And how we would fawn for our safety. And maybe you've heard the conversation of me being kidnapped. When I was in Turkey, I was held for just over 12 hours. And it was. It was with the intention of that man to hold me for future sex trafficking. And the. He was holding me in the home. I was supposed to be in a particular room, and I had gotten out of that room, and I could not get out of the front door because there were multiple deadbolts. And I knew where the keys were, but I couldn't grab for them because they were on, like, a huge ring. I mean, there must have been a hundred keys on this ring. And so I knew there was no way out the front door. And I'd had enough time and space in the home to know that I couldn't get out the back door either, because I couldn't jump down that many, you know, from the balcony. Wasn't safe. And so when he woke up and found me, he. He was incensed with rage. I mean, he was so angry, and he was confused. How did I get out? What was I doing? How had I been spending my time? And. And I tried in that moment to just be, like, placating him and just forgetting the night before that he'd tried multiple times to rape me. I was just like, basically, like, let's just forget about what happened, like, last night. Let's just let me go. How about that? You talked about going to the beach. Why don't we go to the beach? Like, I was doing everything I could. Like, my voice was super soft. And I was really trying to make him appeased in a way and also in a way to let him know that like, oh, last night was no big deal. Let's just, let's just forget about it, you know, and like, let's. Let's do something. Something right. Let's do something fun. Let's. I wanted to be like really nice to him because I thought that that would make a difference in your survival. In my survival.
- [27:49]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think that is a perfect example of fawn in an acute big T trauma experience.
- [27:58]
Jennifer Wallace
Yeah.
- [27:59]
Elizabeth Kristof
And then that pattern can play out in much more subtle ways throughout life as well. We negotiate our safety socially, emotionally and physically with that. And I was also thinking about your experience and that you did try fawning there, but in the end you fought.
- [28:17]
Jennifer Wallace
I did fight.
- [28:18]
Elizabeth Kristof
And I was thinking too about your well worn fight response and that that's kind of one of the things that your system goes to quickly. And I was wondering in this big, very impactful on your nervous system experience of being kidnapped for sex trafficking, the response that ended up working was fight. And I just wonder, does that have an impact on what your nervous system goes to in the future?
- [28:47]
Jennifer Wallace
Well, I think that's. There's a couple things that come up for that is that one is that I have a really deep trust within myself that I can employ fight. Like I, I can do that, I can protect myself. I have this idea that I could protect you or anybody. Right. Like I, I can do that. I can fight for myself. But you know, I experienced divine intervention and that is what really saved me because he, he pulled a knife on me that was much larger than what I stabbed him with. Like there was that moment of, I mean he was over me like psycho face to face with a huge knife. Knife, like holding it just like that. And there was this moment where I said, well you tried and it didn't work. And then it was just like right there. And the next thought that went through my head was like, you're going to be okay. So although I employed a fight response and I do think that that has been beneficial in re patterning later. What I really put the success of me being in this moment right here and leaving that situation is, God, there was that divine intervention. That was a real felt something came in and that's what saved me in the end. But it's curious to think about my fight response in that way.
- [30:17]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, I feel also too like it was probably later in life and that was already a patterned response for you.
- [30:25]
Jennifer Wallace
Totally. Oh, I knew, and I grew up with Oprah and John Walsh. They told you, do not get to the second location. You will not make it. And so I knew in my mind, I am going to. Like, I just had a list. Like, it was like a grocery list I was going through. It was like, and. And then you're going to do this and this and that. Like, taking action was really what I knew. Well, once I'd fawned, that didn't work.
- [30:49]
Elizabeth Kristof
Right.
- [30:49]
Jennifer Wallace
So I had to employ.
- [30:52]
Elizabeth Kristof
Right.
- [30:53]
Jennifer Wallace
Like, I couldn't freeze. Freeze was not an option in that moment. Like, freeze, I think probably did happen in the subtleness before I faw. Before I fight it.
- [31:04]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yes.
- [31:04]
Jennifer Wallace
Right.
- [31:05]
Elizabeth Kristof
There was probably a moment.
- [31:06]
Jennifer Wallace
Yeah. Definitely, like we talk about in the freeze, where that is, like, just a moment to make a decision. And I'm sure. I'm sure I hit those free spots several times in that story, but they're so fleeting that I couldn't actually identify them because I was employing other. And it's like, once Fawn didn't work, it was like, okay. And I remember saying to myself, it's me or you, and it is not going to be be me.
- [31:31]
Elizabeth Kristof
Mm. Mm.
- [31:31]
Jennifer Wallace
I'm not leaving this place. I heard. I grew up with Oprah. I know what all this. I know I need to get out of this situation.
- [31:38]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah.
- [31:38]
Jennifer Wallace
And so I'm going to hurt you.
- [31:40]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. You survived, and I did. It is a beautiful example of how our nervous system responses are for our survival. Yeah.
- [31:48]
Jennifer Wallace
Yeah. And it's a great story. It's in season one in two parts. If you feel the call to listen to it. It's a. I'm here.
- [31:55]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. Yeah.
- [31:56]
Jennifer Wallace
And which, you know, we recorded on ambivalence, too. That's coming up for the person. And this is one of those times of ambivalence. Right. Because there's a lot happening in our world to sex trafficking. We've both experienced violence and abuse in the. In the realm of. Of sexual abuse. And so this is exactly one of those times where I hold a lot of different emotions around that experience. And gratitude is there. There's pain, there's. There's fear. Sometimes it still happens in When I see particular men.
- [32:30]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that.
- [32:33]
Jennifer Wallace
Yeah, thank you. And there's some nuances to Fawn, Right. Like sexual fawning, where we get into more complexities with intimacy and with consent. And this is something else that we talked about with Luis Mojica in season three. And I have to tell you, I've. I've given it so much thought over these years and it's, it's sexual fawn is this. It's when we are engaging sexually in acts of pleasure with another person to maintain that attachment or for safety to get our needs met. And it's about pleasing the other person even when it's not what we want. So this doesn't always happen in abusive relationships. This sexual fawning happens in safe relationships and safe experiences, well with people that we really trust. And it's about avoiding hurting their feelings and keeping connection and keeping the peace. And we give our bodies away. And that is a level of self abandonment that is actually abusive in a, in a, in a sexual abuse umbrella kind of way. And I mean, I can really think of too many times, like I said, I've really given this a lot of thought because it actually came up in ceremony with one of my clients recently where it's like our body is a battleground for abuse that we are protecting ourselves at this really deep, intimate level. And there are so many cues that our bodies would give us as women that would say I am not, I am not connected to this sexual experience right now. And that is going unnoticed by the per. By the other person. So that's why in safe relationships this is really important for the other person to be aware of like physiological responses that a woman has when she's engaged in sexual pleasures that you're not picking up on that this is not a good experience for us.
- [34:29]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, I think it can. It's. So this is a really interesting one because I think it can go across. I, I think men can sexual fond too, in order to maintain attachment as well. Right. Like it's delicate in a partnership because you don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. And you also. It's very unlikely that two people are exactly synced up in what they want, when they want it all of the time, you know, and, and for those of us that this is a really common pattern. It's hard to even know sometimes that you're doing it. I had to really spend time learning to read the subtle signals of my body. Like, is my jaw clenching? Are my hips starting to tighten up? There are some times when sex is painful and sometimes when it's not. Right. And it has to do with the state of my nervous system and how relaxed my body is. And so, and that's a process too, of creating a relationship where you have enough security that you can say to somebody right now, my body is not on board. Sometimes there's Times, even cognitively where I am on board, but my body is not in that moment. Maybe I'm under resourced, I'm tired, I've had a long day, I'm just not in a relaxed state. And so in my mind I'm like yes, but my body says no. And how do you have that conversation and explain that without someone feeling like it's about them? And it requires a high level of, of communication skill in a relationship.
- [36:02]
Jennifer Wallace
And I think of another client of mine who's a housewife. She hasn't worked in many, many years. I mean she's been raising children, which is a huge job. But the intimacy, it gets really challenging for her because she feels like she has to do it and she doesn't want to often engage, but she finds herself engaging. And then on the back end really spirals into freeze responses. Some immobility, some tonic immobility we just discussed. Or like even the self abandonment becomes really painful for her and she will engage in numbing out after that. Like binge eating is a big one on the back end to then get the regulation from the experience that she just had. Intimately.
- [36:48]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, because there is something that happens inside of our body when we go into the, that it's a deep act, right? Like it's, it's deep. And so when it, when there is a violation of boundaries, whether we're the one violating those boundaries or not, there's a reaction inside of the body, right. And there can be bracing, there can be pain, there can be inflammation, there can be dysregulation and then moving into using some of those self soothing behaviors. And I think I want to also talk about, you know, this sexual fawn is on such a big spectrum, right. Because I also think about how much of my like adolescence and early 20s, all of my sexual experiences were in sexual fawn. And that was not necessarily always in safe relationships. You know, sometimes it was with strangers and in places where I didn't feel safe. And so then it really was about that survival preservation strategy. Like you gone so far into a situation, you feel like the only way to get through this moment is to just go along with this. And that is really safest.
- [38:01]
Jennifer Wallace
Well, as women, I mean you think like, okay, well I've made this connection, I'm going home with this person now. I'm in this man's home. He's bigger than me, he's stronger than me, there's been alcohol. How can I say no now? How am I going to get out of this now? Now I'm really in danger. Danger if I do not perform this intimate act, I could really actually get hurt.
- [38:25]
Elizabeth Kristof
So you just go through it. You just go through the motions. And I remember even after I'd quit drinking, I was still dating a lot at the time. I was young, you know, I was 25 years old and I was still out there in the dating world a lot. And I remember talking with a therapist and they were like, you know, that's fine as long as you're taking care of yourself, as long as you're being safe, like, meaning you're having safe sex. And I wasn't. I would not make the time to pause or I not make the time, but I wouldn't have, I didn't have the capability to pause and say, we need to wear a condom. We need to be safe. I don't really know you. And so I was like, yes, okay, I'm not drinking alcohol anymore. I need to behave differently. I need to take care of myself. I'm gonna start doing this. And in those moments, I couldn't, like, I could not speak up for myself. And I would just go through the moment emotions of being in a sexual act with somebody and was self abandoning and not taking care of myself. And I, I practiced it, I rehearsed it with the therapist and I, I couldn't do it.
- [39:34]
Jennifer Wallace
I think this is so relatable because that's also about setting a boundary. Right? And in Fawn, we don't have boundaries. We've lost boundaries and boundaries. We've had conversations. Boundaries are about setting and about receiving. So if it's one thing for you to set the boundary with that guy, but how is he gonna receive that boundary? And then you're, you're back into another unsafe situation.
- [39:56]
Elizabeth Kristof
Either I lose the attachment and I'm scared of that. I. There's some kind of conflict or disappointment and I'm scared of that. Or it's actually unsafe. Right. Like, it could be any one of those things going on. And I was so dissociated from my body during sex at that time, like for years. And it took me. It's been a long journey to come back into my body, to have sensation, to not just perform through sex. And I will tell you, I was not there in my 20s. I.
- [40:23]
Jennifer Wallace
It's. That's very, very relatable. I mean, really, in my 20s, I wasn't either. I was drinking a lot and I really desired relationship. Yeah, none of those relationships worked out. Like, spoiler alert. Like, I'm not with any of those guys. And I think too, you know, promiscuity is also a. A. A backend effect of complex trauma and attachment needs. Being that and fawn and you know, just the whole.
- [40:54]
Elizabeth Kristof
I mean, sexual abuse. Yes. Especially when we're talking about early childhood sexual abuse. There's so much confusing over coupling with sexuality and love, sexuality and attention, maintaining attachment to the caregiver, Shame and pleasure. Shame and pleasure. Somatic overcoupling right there. Yeah. Y. And so it's. I really think about, when I think about fawn and sexual fawn, think about all these young people, men or women, you know, going through these experiences and how that just perpetuates the trauma cycle because you have these early childhood experiences and your nervous system dysregulation is as it is, you know, and so you're moving through the world trying to regulate, but rerunning these patterns and then ending up in more traumatizing experiences over and over again. Where your body boundaries are violated, your energetic boundaries are violated, you lose your voice, you self abandon, you dissociate. And that just repeats until we can find a way to start to come back into our body, to not lose our voice, to be able to process the emotions, to find the connection that we need.
- [42:14]
Jennifer Wallace
It just goes on, you know, understanding sexual fawn. As far as emotional processing goes, a few things come up for me. It gave me. It's a gateway. It has been a gateway for me for self compassion and self forgiveness. And then also as far as emotional processing, sometimes I will just roll around on the floor and say no. However it wants to come out, I will scream it. It'll be guttural, I'll whisper it, I'll cry through has been a huge portal to forgiving myself. And learning how to say no is emotional processing. Practice of just being able to see, say that word yes.
- [42:57]
Elizabeth Kristof
I really feel that. And I remember one time I was driving, it was like a long drive because I was stuck in traffic and I was playing some song. It was a Tony Jones song. And it just brought up something in me. And I had been doing a lot of emotional processing, connecting. I think we'd probably had some peak somatic experiences together. So like things were coming up in my body and I just started saying the word no. I was like no. Until I was like screaming it and saying it in different ways. And like my body, it just, it just came. It just kept coming. Yeah. And it was probably like an hour of just saying the word no in.
- [43:39]
Jennifer Wallace
All different ways after a peak somatic experience. I remember, you know, having this processing experience. And after I'd gone through all of these no's, I had to go to the toilet because I just kept burping and like it was like I was releasing the energy of other bodies being in my body. Like things that I had. And it was like after I went through this emotional no experience and this processing, it was like my body started to release all of this. It was a really interesting experience. And then I really had to sleep. To integrate all of what I'd experienced, I needed like deep rest after that.
- [44:19]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, it's a big layered. It's a big somatic experience to start to learn. Learn to feel and embody your no. Your yes. Like somatic yes. No is this really simple somatic exercise that you see talked about a lot. But for a lot of people it's really complex that, you know, they come into the site or we're working with them in NSI or whatever. And that one is super challenging for a lot of people because they don't know what a no or yes feels like in their own boundaries body. And it's hard to feel those signals.
- [44:57]
Jennifer Wallace
And with emotional processing, you know, we start with minimum effective dose. But the more you work with it, the more you work towards it. And don't turn away from the emotional processing. That is a. An experience that really grows and expands with you over time to look like, you know what we've just talked about in the experience of it.
- [45:16]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, yeah. It's deep. It is deep.
- [45:19]
Jennifer Wallace
Let's talk about some of the tools and the hope and you know how we do repattern this because first, lastly, we have to embody the response. We have to learn to feel it and to recognize it in real time. Notice the constriction in our guts or in our throats before the reflexive laugh or the yes, right. That awareness is in the pause. And this takes time through the nervous system. The more tools and the more you engage in it, the more you can have that higher level of awareness to recognize that you're in the pattern. Because it's so reflexive. You have to catch yourself.
- [45:56]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I think this is, and I know we talk about this a lot on here, but it is part of why having a daily nervous system training practice is so important. Because we need to be able to create capacity in our nervous system to start to reduce the daily threat load in our deficits and have more space in our stress bucket to start to be able to undo some of these patterns. Because it's a big ask and it's a. It's deep like you were talking about. Like so much stuff comes up. There's big emotional processing that happens with it. And to be able to have the fuel and the activation and the function in our higher order thinking systems in our prefrontal cortex, to be able to look at some of this with altitude. And then it's really about creating safety around doing something different. And it doesn't have to be big first steps. Like I don't have to start repatterning by diving into my sexual fawn patterns in my intimate relationship. Right. It can be little things of like saying no to small engagements that you don't really want to attend or setting little boundaries around your work hours or I mean just smaller things. Sometimes it's about like when somebody offers you something to eat that you don't want to, declining that and then creating regulation and safety around that using your tools, using your practices, processing the stress after so that you're continuing to give your nervous system these good reps of setting a boundary boundary of feeling into your own yes and no, of taking action that's in alignment with that and then creating regulation and safety around it so that your system understands this is possible. I can do this and stay safe. I can do this and maintain connection. I can do this and regulate and move the stress through of that. And then little by little you begin to build on that foundation. And when we talk and think about.
- [47:55]
Jennifer Wallace
The full spectrum of human emotions and we're talking about joy and connection, when that has not been experienced. A nervous system, we have to build the capacity for that. And that is worked with through some of the other emotions like grief and rage and fear. And it's, it's about being able to soften and, and be compassionate for the self and for, for other people. But sometimes finding it through other people first is the thread that we find it for ourselves. Like I said, I do think sexual fawn can be a gateway for self compassion. But all of this requires capacity and trauma constricts that capacity. And it's not that we don't wanna be compassionate to ourselves, it's that we just, we don't have it. We have to create it.
- [48:46]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, I mean we've talked about this on here before. But when people used to tell me to like be gentle with myself or be easy with myself, it literally made me nauseous. And it was because it was so, so threatening. Right. I had lived so much of my life in that high stress, hypervigilant state where I had to rely on perfectionism, I had to keep my guard up. I had to like hustle to earn my worth. I had to, I just had to like there wasn't an. It was not safe. I had to stay braced. I had to keep my muscles tense. I had to be ready for things to bad things to happen. And so somebody's saying like, slow down, be compassionate with yourself. Go easy on your yourself. It actually produced a strong protective output of feeling nauseous. Because for so long that self compassion, that relaxation, that ease, that rest was a huge danger signal to my nervous system. It was not safe. Yeah.
- [49:45]
Jennifer Wallace
When you have spent years and decades turning away from yourself and putting other people, other people in front of you, it takes, it takes time to rebuild trust with your body. When you've spent all those years overriding your own needs and your own desires. And it takes time to hear your body's no and to be able to honor that no. It takes time.
- [50:13]
Elizabeth Kristof
And that's really when we talk about healing or nervous system re patterning. It's about building that capacity to hear our yes, hear our no, but also building the capacity for the good feelings as well as the bad so that we can experience that connection that we're seeking and really expanding what we have the capacity to hold and to be embodied with and to trust it, to.
- [50:40]
Jennifer Wallace
Really trust it, to know that you can trust yourself and what your body needs. It just takes a really. It sounds too far off to say it just takes this little daily practice, you know, but it's just a little daily practice that really expands over time. And in that expansion you experience trust and attunement to your own body's needs and desires. And what I learned about fawn was when I, when I really got embodied, what I learned about fawning was I was engaging in things pretty regularly that I didn't want to do. And so I really got to clean things up a little bit in a way of like, I don't, I don't want to do that actually.
- [51:23]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. And in the beginning you don't even know.
- [51:25]
Jennifer Wallace
You don't even, you don't know.
- [51:27]
Elizabeth Kristof
You don't know that you don't like to do it.
- [51:29]
Jennifer Wallace
You don't, you're just doing it.
- [51:30]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yep.
- [51:31]
Jennifer Wallace
Or people. You don't realize that you don't like that person.
- [51:33]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah. And it's not about like boundaries in this harsh way of like cutting a bunch of people off or really living a small constricted life. Like maybe if I find out what I really like, it won't be Anyone or anything, you know, but it's really about. I think we talked about this maybe, but with Margie, but this idea of boundaries being more about, like, letting go. Right. Rather than like putting the wall up, just opening the hands and being like, this is who I am, this is what I want. And if it aligns, then it is. But if not, I'm willing to let that go. I'm willing to, like, not have such a strong grip on things and increasing our capacity to, to let some of that go and, and then also to receive and respect other people's boundaries.
- [52:23]
Jennifer Wallace
Absolutely.
- [52:24]
Elizabeth Kristof
Because that is something that I noticed too, now that I have worked with my nervous system for so long and worked on this patterning in myself is. You can really recognize fawn in other people too.
- [52:35]
Jennifer Wallace
Yes.
- [52:35]
Elizabeth Kristof
And it actually starts to feel a little bit like a boundary violation when somebody is fawning too much. And it, it's like, you can start to see it makes me mad. It's uncomfortable.
- [52:50]
Jennifer Wallace
It's really uncomfortable for me when someone's fawning all over me. I'm just. This isn't real. Like, I can't trust what you are saying to me. I can't accept your compliments as true because you're fawning all over me. And I know that that is a false connection. Like, you're doing this out of a trauma response, not because of whatever you're saying you really think about me. And even if you do think of me this way, it is not in your nervous system. I can feel you. And it doesn't feel safe to trust what you're saying. And it will actually, like you said, as a boundary violation, it makes makes me mad.
- [53:24]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, well, because with boundary violations comes anger. Right. And so it's really like the more I'm able to re pattern this, the more I have that felt experience of what is a real, true connection. And I, I, and then I, because I have those experiences of real, true connection, I can stop fawning all the time and trying to get those attachment needs met because I have them. I have connection with myself. I have connection with important people in my life. I have connection with the earth, you know, and I really can feel and embody that connection now. So I'm not grabbing at it all of the time in all these places.
- [54:03]
Jennifer Wallace
Or being grabbed at. You know, this has been a big conversation today, and I think, I think you the listener. I hope you're finding yourself in this conversation and feeling that there's some hope for change. And if this conversation really connects to you. We hope that you'll share this conversation with someone, someone that you're thinking of right now and know that there are tools and you don't send us any DMs. But if this conference, if it did resonate with you, please share it.
- [54:40]
Elizabeth Kristof
Yeah, we love to hear your feedback. We love to hear how it landed. So make sure that you subscribe to this episode, leave us comments on social, and we will see you as we continue down the season.
- [54:51]
Jennifer Wallace
And if you are interested in repatterning these responses through your nervous system, then please join us for two free weeks on Brain based@rewiretrial.com this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered medical or psychological advice. We often discuss lived experiences through traumatic events and sensitive topics that deal with complex developmental and systemic trauma that may be unsettling for some some listeners. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you are in the United States and you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health and is in immediate danger, please call 911 for specific services relating to mental health, please see the full disclaimer in the show.
- [55:35]
Elizabeth Kristof
Notes.