I love this! In all my years of training in and teaching trauma informed yoga, I’d never yet heard of fawning. Thank you for shedding some light on my weary soul. After nearly twenty years in an abusive marriage, I fawn all over the place. I’m working on not apologizing and as I change my own approach, I notice how so many of my friends, my daughters, my clients and my students apologize for things that have nothing to do with them or are not their fault.
Now that I know the term, I will be more cognizant of not apologizing for my existence.
I didn’t know about it until the last year too!!!! You’ll also hear it called appease. It’s so fascinating what humans do to survive and also when we’re conscious and in a place we feel safe how hard it is to turn it off sometimes
Exactly. Although I am safe I still find myself falling into those old ruts I walked for so many years.
Lately, I’ve been “training” my inner child- my heart. When I catch myself uttering an apology or defaulting to something I don’t want, because I don’t want to be an inconvenience, I pause. I say wait, that’s not actually what I meant. And then I speak my truth, my desire, my joy. It feels so good.
Thank you for writing about this. Thank you for your grace (when I'm late) is my go-to and teaching my littles to say, excuse me instead of I'm sorry (when appropriate) has been an on-going lesson.
I love this! In all my years of training in and teaching trauma informed yoga, I’d never yet heard of fawning. Thank you for shedding some light on my weary soul. After nearly twenty years in an abusive marriage, I fawn all over the place. I’m working on not apologizing and as I change my own approach, I notice how so many of my friends, my daughters, my clients and my students apologize for things that have nothing to do with them or are not their fault.
Now that I know the term, I will be more cognizant of not apologizing for my existence.
Excellent article!
I didn’t know about it until the last year too!!!! You’ll also hear it called appease. It’s so fascinating what humans do to survive and also when we’re conscious and in a place we feel safe how hard it is to turn it off sometimes
Exactly. Although I am safe I still find myself falling into those old ruts I walked for so many years.
Lately, I’ve been “training” my inner child- my heart. When I catch myself uttering an apology or defaulting to something I don’t want, because I don’t want to be an inconvenience, I pause. I say wait, that’s not actually what I meant. And then I speak my truth, my desire, my joy. It feels so good.
Beautiful !
Thank you for writing about this. Thank you for your grace (when I'm late) is my go-to and teaching my littles to say, excuse me instead of I'm sorry (when appropriate) has been an on-going lesson.
Good point about the modeling part. Jonah is a HUGE apologizer
Love this, Sarah! I've also been working on not saying "sorry" unless it's appropriate, so this really resonated with me. Thanks for writing this. xo
Thank you for reading
Thank you, Sarah. What an enlightening entry re: fawn response!
I, too, am part of the “I’m
Sorry” group due to similar reasons you’ve pointed out.
It’s also a reminder of how amazing our brains operate to protect and to secure our wellbeing.
It’s also our inner child and it’s so powerful to be like I got you now. To be our own adult
Yes indeed! 👍