In this episode of the Being Well Podcast, Forrest and therapist Meg Josephson explore the fawn response, a survival strategy where safety is sought through people pleasing. They discuss how fawning can start as self-protection in childhood, but later morph into overthinking, hypervigilance, and self-abandonment. Meg shares her own experience, including how fawning creates resentment and makes it difficult to find a healthy relationship or figure out your authentic needs. Topics include becoming aware of unconscious habits, building distress tolerance, grief, self-compassion, healthy boundaries, and speaking up for ourselves.
Key Topics
- 0:00: Introduction
- 1:18: Self-sabotage as self-protection
- 4:01: Bringing the unconscious fawn response into awareness
- 9:51: Silencing wants and needs, conflict avoidance, and resentment
- 14:33: Rediscovering wants and needs after people pleasing
- 18:05: The healing arc: grief, anger, and relationship
- 25:30: Viewing people pleasing as a “part” rather than an identity
- 30:11: Nice vs. compassionate
- 51:36: Hypervigilance and the NICER practice
- 57:22: Authenticity as “uncovering” rather than “fixing”
- 1:03:02: Recap
Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there.
