I had a very hard time learning to say no to my mother. She didn\u2019t ask me how I wanted to live my life when I was growing up. She ordered me to do what she wanted, which usually was whatever she thought the church wanted. Having grown up in California during my early years and missing it for the whole rest of my childhood, I wanted to go to Stanford and had the grades to have a chance at getting accepted. But my mother told me I wasn\u2019t allowed to go to college west of the Mississippi or north of the Mason-Dixon line. When I threatened to apply to Amherst and Stanford, my mother told me that if I defied her, I\u2019d never qualify for financial aid because my physician father made too much money.<\/span><\/p>\n Once I matriculated at Duke, my mother forbid me to drive to my boyfriend\u2019s college to visit him, assuming I\u2019d instantly have sex and lose my precious virginity if she wasn\u2019t there to chaperone. That was the first time I remember pushing back.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou forbid me?\u201d I asked. \u201cI\u2019m at Duke and you\u2019re in Florida. My roommate is offering to drive me to Jordan\u2019s college. Exactly how are you going to stop me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n To her credit, my mother loosened up after realizing she was powerless to stop me.<\/span><\/p>\n Not until I was a resident at Northwestern, training to become an OB\/GYN did we hit another big power struggle. I was pro-choice and all residents at Northwestern learn to do abortions. My mother forbade me to kill a baby, threatening to disown me and shun me from the family if I did.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I cried through my first abortion but did it anyway. To my mother\u2019s credit, she didn\u2019t disown me. Instead, she swore we would never speak of this again. On her death bed, she tried to make me pray to Jesus to forgive me for my sin, but I refused. I didn\u2019t think it was a sin. I was proud of my women\u2019s reproductive rights activism and spent eight years as the only OB\/GYN in my San Diego group to offer pregnancy termination services to our patients because I didn\u2019t want them to feel shamed or rejected by us if we referred them out of our practice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n None of these things were easy for me though, because I\u2019d grown up learning to be a compliant, pleasing, accommodating, self-abandoning good girl. In other words, I was fawning. In the words of Anthony \u201cNippy\u201d Ames from <\/span>A Little Bit Culty,<\/span><\/a> you might even call me a \u201cfawn star.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until I left home that I realized I had the right to have a different opinion than my mother. My parents were Republicans, but when I registered to vote, I registered Democrat. While my parents were virgins when they got married, I was not. While my parents were tithing members of a Christian church, I left the church the minute nobody was forcing me to go anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t think of myself as rebelling. I was individuating, breaking out of lifelong enmeshment with my mother and figuring out who I was as a separate person. I didn\u2019t know how to even know whether I was a yes or a no. I just knew that I tried very hard to be pleasing to everyone, but especially to my mother.\u00a0 It took me years of therapy to realize that fawning was a trauma response I developed because it wasn\u2019t safe to defy my mother growing up.<\/span><\/p>\n Nobody beat me into submission. Nobody had to. All my mother had to do was threaten to kick me out of the family and disown me if I got pregnant as a teenager, had a drop of alcohol, tried any drugs, got bad grades at school, or otherwise acted like anything other than the perfect teenager.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When you\u2019re a teenager, you don\u2019t question whether your parents really mean it when they threaten you into terrified compliance. You just obey. So my nervous system learned to do just that- with just about everyone, for many, many years.<\/span><\/p>\n I joke that my quick rise to public notoriety during the heyday of the Mind Over Medicine, PBS special, TEDx talk years forced me to break my fawning habit. Prior to that, I\u2019d done a pretty decent job of pleasing just about everyone but my mother. But once total strangers started reaching out to tell me their stories, and everyone all at once seemed to want something from me, I had to become what I called a \u201cprofessional disappointer.\u201d I didn\u2019t want to disappoint anyone. I wanted to please everyone who wrote to me via my website or on social media!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But it was literally impossible. After I stayed up all night trying to save a stranger who sent a suicide note to the contact form on my website, and after she went ahead and killed herself years later after I\u2019d gotten her what I thought was appropriate help, I finally gave up thinking I could save the world and please everyone. I realized that if I didn\u2019t disappoint strangers, I\u2019d wind up disappointing my daughter. In other words, I finally got some boundaries.<\/span><\/p>\n But prior to that, I was a porous gap, ready to be bulldozed over by anyone who love bombed me.<\/span><\/p>\n My partner Jeff and I are in the final edits of our book about the health implications of people who fawn. It\u2019s called <\/span>RELATIONSICK,<\/span><\/i> because that\u2019s what we call people who fawn all the way to illness- relationsick. But lest you think we\u2019re blaming sick people for their cancers and heart attacks, let me reassure you that we\u2019re not. Hopefully, we\u2019re empowering them to heal the fawning trauma response, so they can begin to say no, set boundaries, become more authentically themselves, and spare their nervous systems the chronic dysregulation that rides shotgun with fawning, which leads to immune system dysfunction, chronic inflammation, and many different types of illnesses and physical symptoms.<\/span><\/p>\n To get a preview of the content of RELATIONSICK, join LOVE SCHOOL here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n It bears noting that fawning isn\u2019t just people-pleasing. It\u2019s a reflexive trauma response that belongs to the same family as fight, flight, and freeze. Where fighting spurs you into confronting danger, fleeing leaps you out of your seat to escape it, and freezing stops you in your tracks to play dead, fawning mobilizes you to appease it. It\u2019s not a conscious choice; it\u2019s as quick a reflex as hitting your knee with an orange hammer. It\u2019s the nervous system\u2019s attempt to ensure safety through compliance, obedience, caretaking, or self-erasure.<\/span><\/p>\n When you fawn, you abandon your own body, your own preferences, your own instincts, and your own self-protection- to stay in someone else\u2019s good graces. You monitor micro-expressions. You laugh at jokes that sting. You offer help before it\u2019s asked for, trying to pre-empt conflict. You may even feel a strange comfort in being indispensable- because in childhood, that was what kept you safely attached. It\u2019s what prevented you from getting kicked out of the house, disowned, or beaten. To a child, sacrificing your agency is a fair trade if the alternative is being out on the streets.<\/span><\/p>\n But beneath that caretaking, compliant impulse is an exquisitely sensitive nervous system that learned early: If I disappoint you, I could lose connection\u2014and connection equals survival. When you\u2019ve spent your life making other people comfortable by silencing your truth, the hardest part of healing isn\u2019t learning to speak up\u2014it\u2019s learning to pause. If someone issues an entitled demand, PAUSE. When someone makes even a reasonable request of you, PAUSE.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In IFS language, Self is in the pause. A fawning part might jump to an insincere yes or an action you might later regret. But if you can break the compulsion to fawn by adding just a beat of time, you buy yourself time to allow other parts to cast their votes. Even a one minute pause can change everything.<\/span><\/p>\n That tiny space between stimulus and response, between the moment someone\u2019s face tightens and your nervous system rushes to smooth it over\u2014that\u2019s the threshold where your freedom lives. But when fawning is wired into your survival code, pausing can feel impossible. It\u2019s not that you don\u2019t <\/span>want<\/span><\/i> to pause; it\u2019s that your body thinks your safety depends on <\/span>not pausing.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Fawning happens in milliseconds, before conscious thought. The body reads threat in another\u2019s tone or tension, in even the slightest hint of disappointment on someone\u2019s face or in their voice, and the switch gets flipped, instantly shifting into appeasement mode. The brain barely registers it until afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n To pause, you need <\/span>interoception<\/span><\/i>\u2014the ability to feel what\u2019s happening inside your body in real time. But if you grew up in relational environments where tuning in was dangerous (where noticing your body meant noticing fear, or noticing anger meant punishment), you may have learned to tune your body out, to quiet your spidey senses, to ignore the hairs on the back of your neck when someone controlling and narcissistic does not want you to have the option of consenting or declining.<\/span><\/p>\n Reclaiming interoception is like building new sensory equipment. You begin to notice your throat constrict when someone\u2019s disappointed in you, or your heart races when you\u2019re about to say \u201cno.\u201d These cues become early warning signs. They\u2019re your body whispering, \u201cI\u2019m about to fawn. Please slow down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Healing is not about never fawning again. It\u2019s about catching the impulse sooner, shrinking the gap between awareness and action until, one day, you feel the tightening in your belly and realize: \u201cI don\u2019t have to follow this impulse. I can pause.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That pause is the birthplace of self-trust. It\u2019s where neuroplasticity happens\u2014where old survival pathways loosen and new ones begin to form. So how do we build it? By training the body, not just the mind. The pause must be <\/span>embodied.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 1. Name What\u2019s Happening<\/b><\/p>\n When you notice yourself leaning forward to fix, placate, or reassure\u2014pause and silently name it:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI feel the urge to please.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI notice tension in my chest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI feel frightened of letting this person down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Naming shifts activity from the amygdala (fear center) to the prefrontal cortex (choice center). It\u2019s like turning on a light in a dark room. The moment you name the temptation to fawn, you\u2019re no longer blended with that part; you\u2019re with it, in Self.<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Find Your Exhale<\/b><\/p>\n In Somatic Experiencing, the exhale is medicine. Fawning traps the breath high in the chest, keeping the body in vigilance. Try this:<\/span><\/p>\n The extended exhale signals safety to the vagus nerve and invites the body to settle. You can\u2019t choose wisely when your physiology is hijacked; you can only react. The exhale reopens the door to choice.<\/span><\/p>\n 3. Pendulate Between Activation and Safety<\/b><\/p>\n Somatic Experiencing teaches pendulation\u2014the art of moving attention between what feels tense and what feels safe. It\u2019s like dipping your toe into cold water and then taking it right back out. Then dipping again, until you can tolerate more of the cold. When we pendulate into a feeling or sensation we think is going to be intolerable, we increase our window of tolerance for that very feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n If disappointing someone is the worst feeling you can imagine, you can just notice what happens in your body when you even imagine letting someone you love down. Notice the tightness in your stomach (activation). Then shift your awareness to your feet on the floor or the texture of the chair supporting you (safety). Go back and forth between activation and safety a few times- somatically.<\/span><\/p>\n This gentle oscillation builds capacity. Instead of being flooded by activation, your system learns it can feel discomfort and still stay present. Over time, you develop the muscle of staying with yourself even when someone else is displeased.<\/span><\/p>\n 4. Orient to the Present<\/b><\/p>\n Fawning is fueled by implicit memories. Your body is reacting as if an old danger has returned, even when you\u2019re with someone safe and trustworthy, someone who will not abandon you or beat you if you don\u2019t do what they want. To remind your nervous system you\u2019re in the present time, use the Somatic Experiencing tool of \u201corientation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Orientation brings your system out of the old story and into the now. It tells the body: You\u2019re not a child anymore. You can stay, breathe, pause, and make a conscious choice that involves not just your fawning part, but other parts who may have other opinions and preferences.<\/span><\/p>\n 5. Anchor Your Pause<\/b><\/p>\n Choose a simple physical cue\u2014a hand on your heart, a press of your feet into the ground, or touching two fingers together. Practice linking that gesture to the internal message: <\/span>I have time.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Do it throughout the day, not just when there\u2019s potential conflict. Every repetition lays down a new neural groove: pause first, act second. Eventually, the gesture becomes automatic\u2014a body-level reminder that you can protect yourself through presence, not pleasing performance.<\/span><\/p>\n 6. Practice Micro-Pauses<\/b><\/p>\n Don\u2019t wait for high-stakes moments to practice. Try micro-pauses in safe relationships:<\/span><\/p>\n Each micro-pause rewires your sense of safety. You\u2019re teaching your nervous system that connection doesn\u2019t require instant compliance, that most healthy people can tolerate uncertainty or being disappointed with reasonable relatability. Highly narcissistic people might fly off the handle or threaten to abandon you if you don\u2019t instantly obey them, but the majority of people are not like that.<\/span><\/p>\n 7. Meet Your Fawning Part with Compassion<\/b><\/p>\n Shaming your fawning part only deepens the wound. The fawning part developed to keep you safe, protected, and alive. Instead of scolding your fawning part, thank it. \u201cThank you for trying to keep me safe. You don\u2019t have to work so hard now. I\u2019m here. I\u2019ve got this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Compassion invites integration. You\u2019re not banishing the fawn\u2014you\u2019re re-parenting it. Over time, those protective parts learn they can relax because an adult Self is in charge.<\/span><\/p>\n Imagine a friend asks for something that feels like too much. Your stomach tightens; you feel the reflex to say \u201cOf course!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Pause.<\/span><\/p>\n Exhale.<\/span><\/p>\n Feel your feet.<\/span><\/p>\n You might silently name: \u201cI feel pressure to say yes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Then orient: notice the room, the light, the air. The danger isn\u2019t here. You have time.<\/span><\/p>\n From that grounded place, you can say something like, \u201cI want to help, and I also need to check my capacity. Can I get back to you later?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s a pause in action. You didn\u2019t abandon yourself, and you didn\u2019t abandon the relationship. You stayed in connection with both. Once you\u2019ve paused, you can take an inventory of the parts that might want to say yes and the parts that might prefer to say no. Then, from Self, you can mediate between them to make a real consenting yes or a clear, decisive no.<\/span><\/p>\n IFS-Informed Awareness: <\/b>When you sense the fawn impulse, recognize it as a part\u2014a protector trying to maintain harmony. You can dialog internally: \u201cHey sweetheart, I know you\u2019re scared of conflict. I\u2019ve got us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Polyvagal Theory:<\/b> Learn your body\u2019s cues of safety (open eyes, relaxed breath) and danger (collapsed chest, shallow breath). The more you map your states, the more interoception you can develop, the faster you can self-regulate.<\/span><\/p>\n Mindful Exposure: <\/b>Gently practice tolerating small doses of relational discomfort\u2014someone\u2019s mild disappointment, a moment of silence after someone expresses a need. Each time, let your body feel that nothing catastrophic happens.<\/span><\/p>\n Boundaries Work:<\/b> Remember that saying \u201cno\u201d isn\u2019t rejection\u2014it\u2019s clarity. Healthy boundaries protect intimacy; they don\u2019t destroy it. Healthy people want to know where your edge is and will prioritize respecting your limits. Unhealthy people might bulldoze right over any limits you set, but that\u2019s helpful discernment information, isn\u2019t it? How will you know if someone is healthy or unhealthy unless you periodically let someone down and see how they react?<\/span><\/p>\n Every pause is an act of rebellion against your conditioning. When you build the muscle to pause, relationships change. You stop attracting people who require your instant obedience and self-betrayal. You magnetize those who can meet your authenticity, with respect for your autonomy and their own.<\/span><\/p>\n And most importantly, your body starts to believe what your mind already knows: love that costs your integrity isn\u2019t love at all.<\/span><\/p>\n So try it! Be gentle. Pausing is hard when your body equates slowing down with danger. Celebrate small victories. Notice the moment you almost fawned and didn\u2019t. Notice the moment you caught yourself mid-sentence and took a breath. Each one is a rewiring of your nervous system\u2014a reclamation of your truth, neuroplasticity in action.<\/span><\/p>\n If you want support practicing this inside relationships\u2014with guidance, nervous-system tools, and a community of people learning how to love from authenticity rather than survival\u2014that\u2019s what Love School is for. We\u2019re working on breaking the fawn reaction- and what others who love people who fawn can do to support their healing. It\u2019s where we learn to pause, breathe, and love without losing ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lissarankin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fawn-2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat Fawning Really Is<\/b><\/h2>\n
Why Pausing Feels So Hard<\/b><\/h2>\n
From Reflex to Choice<\/b><\/h2>\n
Practical Tools For Building the Capacity To Pause<\/b><\/h2>\n
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In Real Time: What a Pause Looks Like<\/b><\/h2>\n
Integrating Trauma Healing Modalities<\/b><\/h2>\n
From People-Pleaser to Truth-Teller<\/b><\/h2>\n