SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, alcohol, being nice, fawning, trauma, response, people pleasing, complex developmental trauma, fawn, stop drinking, stopped drinking, sober, sober curious, deeper work, why we drink, helps, heal, survive, surviving, cravings, not drinking, alcohol-free, sobriety, sobriety starter kit, community, connection, life changing, moderate, coping skills, coping mechanism, women, manage anxiety, hard times, EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, IFS, Internal Family Systems, FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), Somatic Experiencing, self-abandonment, please and appease response, relational, developmental, psychological, childhood trauma, relationship with yourself, consequences, Recovering Spirituality, Spiritual bypassing, resonate, vulnerable, brave, truth, rebuilding, life, without numbing out, mixed emotions, early motherhood, kids, postpartum depression, recovery, married, husband, patriarchy, socialize, spouse, mom, marriage, change, without alcohol, mental health, addiction, quit drinking, quitting drinking, anxiety, setting a boundary, boundaries, navigate, remove the alcohol, guilt, shame, addictive behaviors, patterns, defer, acquiesce, care, take and appease, please, gray area, therapy, emotional sobriety, healthier practice, healing, journey, women’s mental health, alcohol abuse, recovery, normie, ego talking, 12 step program, AA, Al-Anon, CA, Children of Alcoholics, support, take a break from alcohol, sober coach, Hormone replacement therapy, trauma-informed therapist, trauma-trained therapist, FAWNING, Believing Me: Healing from Narcissistic Abuse and Complex Trauma

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Dr. Ingrid Clayton

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hey there, it’s Casey, and today we’re diving in to talk about something.

I know a lot of us can relate to being the one who always says, “yes”, keeps the peace, earns the gold stars. Who never wants to disappoint anyone. Even if it means completely losing ourselves in the process. If you felt exhausted from doing it all or felt guilty, just thinking about setting a boundary or worried about if you upset someone. This episode is for you.

 

[00:02:00]

I’m talking with Dr. Ingrid Clayton. She’s a Psychologist and the author of the new book, Fawning – Why The Need To Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How To Find Our Way Back.

She’s a Licensed Clinical Psychologist with a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology and a PhD in Clinical Psychology. She’s had a thriving private practice for over 16 years and is a regular contributor to Psychology Today where her blog, Emotional Sobriety has received more than 1 million views.

She also got sober at the age of 21. Her bestselling memoir, Believing Me: Healing from Narcissistic Abuse and Complex Trauma, blends, deeply personal storytelling with Ingrid’s knowledge as a trauma therapist.

And today, we’re going to learn about the Fawning Trauma Response – what it is, how it’s different from fight, flight, or freeze, and why so many high achieving women fall into it.

So Ingrid, I’m so glad you’re here.

 

I loved your book, so thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me and for that amazing intro.

[00:03:00]

Yeah. I told you before we jumped on that I have been reading your book and underlining all the parts of it and found that it really resonated for me, but also for a lot of women who I work with, who I’ve talked about, the way that they interact with the people in their lives.

Mm-hmm. Thank you for reading it. I’m so glad it resonated. Oh, of course. So, to start, will you tell us what fawning is? Yes. Well, it is a trauma response. So, as you mentioned, we’ve long thought of fight, flight, and freeze. But if you think about it oftentimes for women, for marginalized people, generally for people of color, fight might not be available to us, right? Fleeing, leaving a situation might not be available, and so the Fawn response is very common when these other responses either aren’t available or they would make things worse.

[00:04:00]

So, sometimes it’s called the please and appease response. It’s where we lean into the very relationships that might be causing us harm.

It can look like flirting or flattering smiling. It can also look like caretaking, doing the, you know, doing the emotional work for everyone in your family, at the workplace.

Right. It’s sort of, soaking up all the shame, being the fixer or the pleaser in that way. So it takes a different shape depending on the context that we’re in, but it’s about managing this gap between ourselves and others, so that if you are good, I’m good.

 

Hmm. Yeah. And you talked about in the book, Complex Trauma.

Yeah. Or relational, developmental, psychological, or childhood trauma.

 

Yeah. Can you talk about what that might look like? Yes, so it’s such a great question.

[00:05:00]

I think even in the mental health field, we can still use this antiquated definition of what a traumatic event might be, and it, and we tend to think it’s something that everyone can agree is traumatic. It’s a car crash, it’s a natural disaster, it’s a sexual assault. And quite frankly, that’s how we defined these things even as I was coming up in my graduate school training and a lot of my postdoc work, and so even though I had always said, oh yeah, I have childhood trauma, I never thought it was real trauma. Okay, so complex trauma basically means ongoing, pervasive threats to our sense of safety over time. And that can look like an actively addicted family system that can look like emotionally immature parents. It can look like racism or poverty. It can look like emotional abuse, neglect. It’s these day in and day out experiences, kind of like into like ho honestly, water torture that’s just drip.

 

[00:06:00]

Drip and meanwhile we go, well, this is just normal. This is just regular life. And certainly other people have it worse because we’re using that old school trauma measuring stick again to say, well, I haven’t experienced that thing, but what we know is that the body is experiencing this overwhelm. And that it maps out pretty much exactly the same in our nervous system in terms of this bracing and this re-experiencing of our history and navigating the world as though we are still under threat, whether we are or we aren’t.

Yeah, I thought that was really interesting when I read that because I remember I went to my therapist when I was about 4 months sober and I was having just really deep seated anxiety, like I wanted to jump out of my skin and went to her and was like, you have to help me, but I cannot go back to drinking.

[00:07:00]

So, like, we got to fix this and, yeah. The pervasive thought in my mind is like, what is wrong with me? Why can I not handle my life? Yes. Like, and so I went to her and of course we do this comparison thing because even when I was reading your book Yeah. I was like, oh, well that’s trauma. Yeah. My. It’s not trauma, but I was telling her about my childhood and she was like, oh no, that’s trauma.

And I was like, no, no, no. Nothing happened to me. My parents were kind, I always had enough food. Like, and so, it was interesting that I was like, therefore something is wrong with me, that I cannot, right. That I’m having this outsized emotional fear, reaction to things that I should be able to just move through.

And in fact, that is a symptom. A very common symptom that it’s me. I’m broken. Being filled with shame. These are the symptoms of complex trauma.

 

[00:08:00]

And so honestly, it’s not even about the events themselves. So like we get stuck there, but the reality is. 10 different people can experience the same exact event and half of them will walk away unscathed.

They, they had the proper resources, right? They had loving people around them. They sort of helped get ’em through. The other half might end up with this internal sense of wounding. And so I’m not saying that the events don’t matter because of course they do. But I’m more interested in what are the symptoms that you’re living with right now?

Yeah. Yeah. And she was, I mean, I feel so much better now. We did EMDR and obviously it’s, well for me, it’s been almost a decade since I quit drinking. So, I did a lot of work in between there.

Amazing. Which is good ’cause I could not live that way anymore. And I think a lot of us self-medicate with alcohol.

Did you, do you find that in your work? Oh, a hundred percent, yes. I, it makes so much sense to me as a coping mechanism. You feel all this overwhelm, right?

[00:09:00]

You, again, you don’t have any resources, internal or external to manage it. It’s chronic. It’s ongoing. We need something to, you know, turn down the volume or kind of flip the light switch and alcohol works.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once I got away from it, I kind of realized that I was like going, going, going, smiling, trying to overachieve, and then I literally would walk in my door, and the metaphor I used to see it clearly was I would take a bottle of wine and knock myself unconscious. Every night. Yeah. And wake up the next day and do it the same thing.

 

And I was like, what is wrong with me? My life is good. Like, why am I, I couldn’t like sit with myself or handle the anxiety or the worry or whatever it was. You know, I really appreciate in Internal Family Systems or IFS, how we talk about the parts of ourselves, right? That there’s a part of you that’s like, my life is good, there’s nothing wrong, but there’s this other part.

 

[00:10:00]

The one that needed and wanted to drink that in that language is called a protector, right? It’s a manager. It’s coming in to go. I’m going to take this from you. I have this client that I worked with for a long time and she looks at both her. When she was actively drinking even binging and purging or smoking cigarettes, these were the parents she never had. They were the most loving parts that stepped in and said, oh honey, you’re overwhelmed. Let me take that for you. And when she saw it that way, man, it just reduced all the shame and suddenly she could make sense to herself and have self-compassion. So, I love that lens.

Yeah. And yet, I also see like drinking or the way I was drinking was like a toxic relationship, right? This idea that like, oh, I can help you. You need me, you’re happier when you’re with me. And yet, every morning it was, you’re a piece of garbage, yada, yada. You know? I know it flips, right? It’s like the coping mechanism. It works.

[00:11:00]

And initially it’s the thing that’s sort of saving us and helping us, but long term it becomes very maladaptive and, and we get stuck.

So, I’m so grateful you were able to get out. Yeah. I mean it’s from drinking. Yes.

Yeah. Anxiety is a con, constant like thing I’m managing and working on. Mm-hmm. And I mean, I’m sure I know from reading your book, that’s the work you do with clients every day. Mm-hmm. Is like healing from that.

Mm-hmm. One question I had because I had it for myself, and I know a lot of women listening to this are going to have the same question, which is a lot of us. You know, see, okay, I need to deal with my people pleasing, or I need to deal with perfectionism, or I’m just nice and easygoing.

What’s the difference between people pleasing and fawning, you know? Yes, I do.

 

[00:12:00]

So, it’s such a great question and I see it like this, that people pleasing to me is a symptom of a chronic fawn response. And why that’s important is because historically, we’ve talked about these things, perfectionism or people pleasing as though they are conscious, rational choices that we’re making.

 

And so, the solutions then were sounded very rational and, and who could argue, right? I don’t want to do those things, and yet they were not available to me to change and fawning gave me this trauma-informed lens and language to understand why. So, here’s the truth, if the fawn response enabled me to navigate what were very dysfunctional environments.

 

It was the one place that I did actually find a sense of safety in relationships if orienting externally to make sure, are you okay? Are you mad? Can you validate me? Can you give me permission if all of my sense of self and safety resided outside of my own body in someone else’s hands?

 

[00:13:00]

Okay, which is what happened.

It makes sense that telling me now just go take care of yourself and have a voice and set boundaries would feel deeply triggering to my body. And it did. But when I didn’t have that language, I just thought, what’s wrong with me? Right. And now we’re, we’re sort of circling back on that shame and thinking that we’re broken and it’s just me and everyone else can figure it out.

And it becomes this vicious, vicious cycle. And so in a way, I think. Maintaining this kind of shortsighted language. Essentially, we’re gaslighting survivors, we’re blaming the victim, and to me, fawning points to these genius, adaptive origins of these behaviors. And it’s only when we can understand that and see ourselves through this really compassionate lens that the shame can start to reduce. We can start to see ourselves clearly, and then we have a shot at reducing these behaviors because we understand the why, right?

[00:14:00]

So, those terms never included the why for me, and it was very limiting. So not only does fawning include our physiology, which is important, it includes the context of our lives.

Okay, so we are all navigating so many systems of power and hierarchies, and our body knows where we exist in the pecking order, right?

Yeah. So, the reality is that saying no for a lot of us has had real consequences. That being pleasing has not only been expected, it’s been rewarded. It’s been taught.

So, there are so many layers that we are unpacking and you don’t get to understand that if you don’t look at this larger context, that we are not dysfunctional. We have been bravely navigating these dysfunctional environments in our lives and whew. It’s almost like I can take a deep breath. Just saying that again out loud right now.

Yeah, and I don’t think I realized until I started working with so many women and reading books and doing personal development, how little power kids have, like they have no power at home. They have no power at school. Just because of the way you’re, I mean not only the other kids and cliques and interpersonal, but also teachers and you.

Become an adult and you have more power, but you still don’t have as much in the workplace if you need your job and if you need That’s right. You know? But especially as children, like whatever family you are born into, depending on how healthy your parents are and the environment you are really at the mercy of just navigating that until you’re able.

To be outta that household. And that’s what you describe. That’s right. And I think, you know, that’s important to name in terms of this coping, these reflexes, these unconscious reflexes came on for most of us as our bodies and brains were developing.

[00:16:00]

So it’s the only roadmap that we have internally, and it’s why a lot of people confuse what are actually.

Trauma responses with their personality. I’ve heard it from clients so many times, Ingrid, I just thought I was being nice. I thought I was being empathic. I thought I was, you know, being a good daughter. And, and the truth is, maybe they were, but they did not understand the extent to which they were abandoning, abandoning themselves in order to accomplish those goals.

Yeah, and that’s the heartbreaking thing is that even though I see the genius in the fond response, and I’m grateful for it. Living in a chronic pattern of fawning means we are abandoning ourselves. Yeah. And in terms of not understanding it, I remember, you know, even when you grow up and you are in, you know, for me, a healthy relationship, my husband didn’t understand it either, and the way he described it to me was, you have a daddy complex with every boss you’ve ever had.

[00:17:00]

Mm-hmm. And like that again, felt very like. What is wrong with me that I like, feel so compelled to get a pat on the head and to be in their good graces and to not fail them. And you know, like if they don’t like me, I’m going to get fired and then I won’t have money and then I won’t be able to take care of myself.

Like it felt ridiculous. Like I should just have more self-esteem or whatever it is. Confidence? Yes. Yeah. More agency when we don’t, yes. Similarly, you and I briefly talked before we started today and one of the clients that I present in the book had a very similar thing. And in fact, one day, he came in and he said, Ingrid, I think I’m trying to win therapy even, right?

It was like I had become in the mother role and he wanted to get the pat on the head and sort of stay in my good graces, and it opened up this opportunity to go, what if you were more focused on you than what I thought of you. And even just that question, can we be curious what comes up in your body in this moment?

[00:18:00]

And I literally saw him take a breath. It’s as though he dropped into himself for the first time and he said, It would be a relief. It would be a relief. And it opened up this ongoing conversation and, and him sort of, kind of acquainting himself with himself, if that makes sense. Like cutting out this feedback loop, right. That he didn’t even know existed. And here he was in his 50s, uber successful, did all the things Ivy leagues and partner in a huge firm. And he had the family and he had the fancy house, you know, but he was missing in his own life. He didn’t even really care about the work he was doing. He didn’t have a lot of fun outside of that.

And so, he’s now gone and created this life that, honestly, I’m almost jealous when I get to peek in on it. It’s so rich and abundant and full of this man that is so creative and loving.

[00:19:00]

And a lot of these traits were just buried under this persona. And it’s so exhausting constantly taking the temperature of the room and trying to figure out what other people need or what they want or what they think of you.

Like, it is exhausting. It is anxiety, right? We can call it what it is. That hyper vigilance, that constant, yes, it is the anxiety and it’s very common that when we start to notice these behaviors and maybe even get curious about not solely navigating the world through this external lens, and we start to look at how do I feel that we feel anxious because the fond response was managing our own unrest and overwhelm, and we didn’t even know it.

Most of my clients, actually, who have a fawn response. They don’t even know they’re anxious. They’re like, no, no, no, I’m not anxious. But when we start to do this work, they’re like, I’m anxious all the time, and it can feel like things are getting worse, but in fact, they’re actually in their own body for the first time in their lives.

[00:20:00]

Yeah. Yeah. And I see so many clients who like establish a boundary first. They’re terrified to establish the boundary, then they establish it. And the anxiety of holding it is so uncomfortable because they’re like, this person isn’t going to like me. They might talk about me. They’ll, you know. Not want to be around me or withdraw something that I need.

 

And it’s, it’s really emotionally hard. Whereas some other people are like, no, I’m not going to do that. Right. And just move to their day. Like, it’s like how do they do that? Right.

Well, and you, there’s this saying, I think I referenced it in the book, that when we stop people pleasing, people will not be pleased.

 

Right. And so for people that found safety through these behaviors, you’re ripping away your only sense of safety. Of course, it feels excruciating. Of course the stakes feel high.

[00:21:00]

And I think that also gives people permission to sort of feel the cacophony of feelings that emerge. ’cause it’s not just about that boundary, right?

It’s about removing the only safety net you’ve ever known. That’s major. It’s major. But as an adult, and this is a question that I have for myself or I did when I was working through it, it feels so intense and terrifying, and yet you’re not a child anymore and you do have agency and you do have more power.

It’s why understanding these behaviors in a trauma-informed lens is so important because when we have unresolved trauma, there are parts of ourselves that are literally stuck in time.

 

They are coping at the developmental age of that wounding. That’s real. Trauma isn’t what happened back then. It’s a chronic feeling that it’s happening right now. It’s happening right now. It’s happening right now.

[00:22:00]

So yes, I have so many experiences where rationally I could go, this isn’t that big of a deal, but my body is so flooded and activated, right?

So, that is unresolved trauma. And yeah, that’s what it, that’s what it like. That’s why you gaslight yourself or, or feel that shame ’cause you’re like, this is not rational. Yes. That’s what I used to think. Like, yeah, what is wrong with me? This is not a rational, normal response to whatever the, the situation is.

And so, you know, in my work, I, I go, that’s right, let’s get out of our thinking brain that thinks that it knows better and that you should be responding differently. Thank it for its opinion. And then we have to come back to the body where the trauma is and where our healing can happen, which is can I be present to what I’m experiencing now, and if there’s this great overwhelm, what are the tools that I can do?

[00:23:00]

You know? Right. Right now, as we’re speaking, I’m just kind of instinctively putting my hand on my heart, which is a physical stance of self-compassion, and I can feel it often for me. I will go for a walk.

You know, you mentioned bilateral stimulation or one of the tools that we have in EMDR, which is right, left rhythmic patterns that can help. Right? Left brain connectivity. If I can go for a walk and I can orient to nature. And I can use the senses, which are the language of the nervous system to connect with my environment. It helps to bring me into present time and place. Things like this can start to quell our activation. And it might sound simple, but I’m telling you, it’s going to move the needle a lot farther than shaming ourself going, why do I feel this way?

This is so ridiculous. Because what that does, it reinforces and reenacts the trauma.

Yeah, I, I would love to talk to you more about those different coping mechanisms.

[00:24:00]

I know you go through a lot of them in your book because I, I did EMDR after I, after I stopped drinking to try to manage that anxiety or my response to different triggers.

And it was incredible because I was like, oh no, nothing’s wrong. This is all good. And then suddenly I was crying and you know, all the things and I was like, how am I reacting this way? Yeah. I’m so glad to hear that.

Yes. EMDR is one of the modalities that I use as a trauma therapist and you know, it’s not the right tool for the job every time, right? Not every client has responded well to it, but when it works, it does seem to work in this almost magical way where, you know, people might be waking up with nightmares. They can’t get, you know, scenes out of their head.

 

They, they feel plagued by these symptoms and after doing EMDR, they go, I haven’t even thought about it. You know, it hasn’t even. It hasn’t even occurred to me, so, I’m so glad that, that, that worked for you.

If you’re listening to this episode and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit®. The Sobriety Starter Kit® is an online self study, sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step-by-step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one-on-one coaching. And The Sobriety Starter Kit® is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it, when it fits into your schedule.  You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time. This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step-by-step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life. You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better, you’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course.

 

[00:25:00]

Yeah. So what if someone is listening to this and they are identifying with what you are saying? What is like, what are some steps they can take to recognize the fawning response or move past it or take care of themselves in that, in that flooded response?

Yeah. Well, I think if you are listening and you find yourself nodding, first of all, I would say this work is for you. You know, get out of the debate about like, well, I don’t know if I can use the word trauma or all of that. You know, if you resonate with anything here, this work is for you. And then I would say, honestly, the biggest tool that we can use is one of curiosity, and that means taking, what is this?

[00:26:00]

External focus all the time. This feedback loop of making sure the environment is okay in order for me to be okay. And just starting with the self, starting with your own body, and we’ve already talked about this a little bit, what you might feel might be uncomfortable, it might be anxiety, it’s like, whoop, nope, I don’t want to feel that.

It might feel a little numb or dissociated, like I don’t know what I feel. Do I even have a body? And this is where a lot of people stop. It’s the place that I see people get stuck because they go, I’m doing it wrong, or It doesn’t feel good, or I don’t know what I’m doing, and they kind of abandon the process.

So, I really want to encourage people whenever possible to return and know you’re doing it right. This is exactly what you’re meant to notice. There’s no right or wrong. Whatever is there, is what’s there. It’s not our job to manage it, change it, dress it up, right? Give it a different narrative. This is what it looks like to start building a true relationship with yourself.

 

[00:27:00]

So, what do I notice? What am I experiencing? Is there any sensation? What am I feeling? I often say you can ask yourself if I did have permission to feel all of my feelings, what might I feel? Right. We tend to have, to make a lot of space and give ourselves a lot of permission. So, it’s this type of inquiry that starts to build.

This foundation and it starts to build a new sense of internal safety. So, when we talk about like having a voice and having agency and speaking our mind and setting boundaries, we cannot do that if we don’t have a sense of internal safety, which is also, you know, for those of us with childhood trauma, it’s like, oh yes, I am an adult. I am here. I am here now. I’m in direct relationship with myself. So, we do this internal work before we start running out into our relationships and trying to do things differently. And that’s the other piece that I think has been so missing in the historical discourse on these topics, they made it relational automatically and it was terrifying.

 

[00:28:00]

So we’re, we’re being with the terror in a new way than we’ve ever been before, and we’re increasing our capacity to feel that discomfort. And this is the thing that starts to allow us to discern, is this discomfort or am I in real danger? The body has been acting as though we’re in real danger all the time.

It’s been on autopilot, but this is how we start to understand, wait a minute, present time and place. What am I experiencing right now? Is this just discomfort? So these are the, the principles of moving into a new relationship with self and moving out from there, right?

Yeah. I was wondering, you talk about fawning as sort of the trauma response that isn’t as well known or, or needs more awareness.

 

[00:29:00]

If someone is looking for a therapist or someone to work through this, how can that identify someone who is actually tuned into that? Because I know, for example, when a lot of my clients try to find a therapist. Because they want to stop drinking or to work through the things that happen afterwards. A lot of therapists drink and they still have that, Hey, either you’re an alcoholic or you’re not, or you should just cut back.

So does that happen with the fawning response as well?

Absolutely. And with trauma, generally, so just because someone is a therapist doesn’t mean they have any expertise or experience related to drinking, related to trauma, related to fawning. So, ask these specific questions. I think I didn’t know that for a long time.

As a consumer, I thought, oh, anyone who has the title of a therapist can surely help me. And I sat on a lot of therapists, couches, spinning my wheels for a lot of years, and, it’s okay to ask these very specific questions and I would say at the very least, you need to make sure someone is trauma-informed, but that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people.

[00:30:00]

So, ideally, I say work with a therapist that is trauma-trained and there are so many different modalities. But that therapist should be able to tell you. I use EMDR, for example, or I use IFS or Somatic experiencing, I use this modality, here’s why. Here’s what that looks like and here’s how I found it to be helpful.

 

And then, as the consumer, you get to take that information in. And then I want you to go back and do what we just talked about, which is. What do I notice in my body as I’m taking in that information? Does it land? Does it feel interesting? Does it feel like, oh, I, you know, I, that feels scary? And then see if you can bring whatever is there back to the conversation, right?

Trusting what you’re experiencing and saying it out loud. And this is how we start to build a real relationship with a therapist or even a coach.

 

[00:31:00]

Yeah. No, that’s super interesting and I’m going to, I’m going to ask you to get like super specific because Yeah, I know like you’re looking for a therapist. I feel like I got super lucky with mine ’cause she was amazing.

Mm-hmm. But a lot of people have wait lists or you’re just reading their bios online or you’re getting the therapist that’s next available.

Yeah. And then, okay with fawning response and people pleasing and being super uncomfortable, people don’t like you. I know I, and a lot of women I know like, oh my God, I can’t break up with my therapist.

 

Like, it’s like a hairdresser. If you’re cheating on them, you’re like, they’re going to be mad at me and this is going to be uncomfortable. Like, just, so if you’re looking for a therapist, are there certain like. Things in the bio you should look for, or questions you should ask or what, you know what I mean? Like Yes.

I think these buzzwords are probably in their bio complex trauma. Okay.

[00:32:00]

Relational trauma. It might not mention fawning. Okay. But it should mention things like complex trauma, childhood trauma. Or relational trauma. And then I want to say it makes perfect sense. I have felt this way. All my clients have felt this way.

 

We do not as FAERS want to disappoint our therapists. We are very compliant and this is a part of our work. As clients is to be able to say to a therapist you know what, this doesn’t feel like it’s working for me. Or, I’ve had so many people as a therapist on Instagram who’s putting out all kinds of con content on complex trauma and fawning in particular, they’ve reached out to me to say, Ingrid, I shared your video with my therapist and they didn’t know about fawning, but guess what that therapist is doing?

Learning about fawning. Yeah. And so, they get in this collaboration. Right. So, the other truth is, is that this is an emerging piece of the puzzle. And so, you might not find people that have been working in this area for many years, but they’re hungry to learn, bring them the information that you have, share this podcast.

 

[00:33:00]

Right. I think that I’ve heard of a lot of success stories that way where people get up to speed and they do it really quickly in service of their client and it, and it’s helpful. And I like that you said sort of internal family systems and EMDR. ’cause a lot of times that is on the bios and obviously if you’re doing one of those, you’re sort of looking into childhood or developmental or previous experiences that cause trauma responses or anxiety or whatever it is.

Yes. And somatic experiencing. Those are just the three that I use. Specifically in my practice. But again, there are so many more. So, I also don’t mean to, you know, inadvertently disparage other methods. It’s just, Oh, yeah. Trauma-trained, ideally trauma-informed is fantastic.

 

[00:34:00]

And it’s okay if you are the one initiating the conversation about, Hey, I think I have complex trauma, or identify with fawning, here’s this book that I read. Have you read it?

Yeah. Yeah. I was just about to say that because your book is such a great introduction. Well, it’s, well much more than an introduction, but a dive into what fawning is, how it can show up, the tools you can use to move through it. And I think once someone reads that, they’ll be much better informed in terms of like advocating for themselves or finding the right people to help them.

I hope so. Yes, for sure.

Yeah. There were two things I had sort of written down or pulled from your book that I wanted to ask you about because I think they’ll really resonate with my audience. So, I mentioned a lot of the women who listen to this are high achievers, they’re successful in their job, they’re doing all the things, they’re getting the gold stars.

And you had written about Anthony, who’s one of your clients who worked at a law firm.

[00:35:00]

And this I thought was interesting. It said working where he worked, and I know a lot of women who work in corporate or wherever it is, will feel this too, where fawning looks a lot like meeting expectations where it looks like success.

 

So, it brings us titles and money and all the things. So your client, Anthony, was at the top of his game. And yet, at the mercy of the culture, he was in avoiding conflict or seeking approval or overworking to gain financial security and access to maintain his life.

That’s right. Yes. I think at the heart of this response is the need for external validation.

And so, similarly in my practice, people are at the top of their game, right? They have climbed the ladders and I think, in a way, what feels so hopeless about that is they did all of the things and they still don’t feel okay and they really wonder, right?

[00:36:00]

Again, it goes back to that old idea of maybe it’s just me and I’m broken and there’s something fundamentally wrong that can’t be fixed.

Instead of like, no, no, no, no. It makes perfect sense that you did that. And in fact, part of that mechanism is the thing that’s keeping you stuck now.

That’s right. It looks like success, but as we talked about earlier with Anthony, there was a lot of success externally, right? The labels and it’s not that, you know, financial security doesn’t go a long way in terms of, you know, being helpful for our lives, but these things were almost placeholders in a way. It was like, you know, checking boxes of like, okay, I did that, I did that, I did that. But there was not a connection to his true authentic self. There were so many boxes that never got checked that were so meaningfully him because they didn’t fit into these external molds.

[00:37:00]

And so, part of his work was to look at these other longings, these callings, these nudges, these curiosities. It became painting, even exploring art, going to galleries. He went from having this, you know, house that was sort of, you know, beautiful but not that exciting to, his walls are now populated with other people’s work, his own paintings. He, he’s really cultivated this rich, beautiful, colorful life that he cannot believe he wasn’t living before.

I mean, it is in such stark contrast, and that’s only one tiny example.

Yeah. So, yeah. There’s like a widening, I think of our lens essentially. It’s like we had our eye on the prize and we got it over and over and over, but it was like, but what’s over here to the left and what’s over here to the right?

What have I been missing? And often it’s ourselves.

Yeah. I also wanted to ask you, it was in his example, but I see it with a lot of women I work with or, or I hear from them.

[00:38:00]

And the answer may be nuanced, right? It might be sometimes versus other times. But in his story specifically, it was about never getting approval from his parents, right.

Or attention, or no matter what he did, he couldn’t, he couldn’t get what he wanted or needed or deserved from them.

That’s right. And I have clients who have narcissistic mothers or, you know, emotionally immature parents or whatever, like at what point. Do you continue to work to try to get what you deserve or need from them?

And at what point do you just say, I’m never going to get this, and the way for healing is to drop those expectations and just realize that no matter what I do, yeah, it’s not going to give me what I need. Like, is there a line there? I think to your point about it being nuanced, the line is deeply personal.

[00:39:00]

And I will say for a lot of folks, we start to have to pivot away from, especially if you’ve tried and you’ve tried your whole life, right?

It’s like, okay, how much have you been trying to kind of shape shift in order to have this external thing happen and it still hasn’t happened. We do have to pull back some of that energy and go, you know what? It’s probably not going to happen the way that I had hoped. And this is, you know, I talk about this in fawning around.

The grief that a lot of us have to do because when we stop chronically fawning, which in this way is like, maybe if I do it like this, then they’ll see me. Or maybe if I do it like that, right, I’ll finally get, if I explain why this is hurtful to me, maybe then they’ll get it right in a new way. Right. And quite frankly, this is what my entire memoir is about and why I titled it Believing me is because I was looking for this external validation that never came at his.

Largely still not come, but this process of stop where?

[00:40:00]

Where I stopped looking for someone else to choose me and I just chose myself. Right. It was, that was the essence of that book, and I find that it’s a common story for those of us that have been seeking that external validation that. We have to drop into the reality that it didn’t happen.

You know, it’s probably not going to happen and then grieve that. And it’s honestly facing that reality is so painful. It’s, it’s, it’s a bit of the rub of this work. You know, that I’m inviting people into perhaps experiencing devastation in a way they’ve never allowed themselves to feel before, but because it’s real.

This is, again, the thing that restores our sense of self-trust and agency is that now we’re operating within the present tense, real conditions of our lives. Otherwise, it’s a bit of a fantasy. It’s a curation, right?

[00:41:00]

It’s a performance.  And even if the performance sort of looks better, this is the seed of self-abandonment.

 

So, coming into our bodies means feeling all of the things and trusting that it’s not going to be that painful forever. And I want to offer that as a promise, right?

There is another side. But it tends to be an aspect of this work, for sure. Yeah. And so, I’m thinking of one friend I know in particular where, for example, her mother is never, has never given her what she needed.

And you know, basically like she keeps trying and keeps trying and keeps trying and keeps being disappointed, like, mm-hmm. You’re not going to cut that person out of your life, but you do. You need to just drop after some point. The idea that at some point this person is going to give you what you deserve or need, is that the grieving. That’s, that opens us up to grieving. Yes. And I would say it really spans the spectrum.

[00:42:00]

And you see this with the different clients that I tell their, their entire whole story in the book, which is some people, they do end up having to remove that person from their life. Right. That’s, that’s a reality for others, they don’t or they don’t feel like they need to, but they do find that they cannot keep them on a pedestal or maintain the same, what I call toxic hope.

Right? Because it’s not even hope. Yeah. It keeps us stuck. Right? It’s keeps our blinders on, and so yes, in, in either of those scenarios, we’re grieving what we’ve always longed for. And the handcuffs that, that’s kept us in the, the, the time and the energy that we’ve lost really stuck in this waiting and hoping and helping.

Yeah. I’m curious, in the book, you talk about your own family system growing up and your stepfather, but also your mother and how your mother never believed you or supported you or was there for you in very real ways.

[00:43:00]

In dangerous situations when you needed her to be. How did you resolve that with her? Do you have a relationship with her now or how did you move through that?

Well, I think it’s a good question and an extension of the one that you had asked previously, which is how much of this work can we genuinely do with the other person?

Yeah. And how much of it is just our work to do? And you know, for my whole life, I think I was pretty focused on my stepdad’s behavior because it was overt and obvious. It was clear from day one, this is not okay, but my mother’s absence was not as obvious. Right. Her neglect was not as obvious, and I always sort of knew even intuitively as a child, like, well, she’s undergoing her own, quite frankly, chronic Fawn response sort of appeasing my stepdad in order to find her sense of security at the time. And so, part of my fawning with her was that I just gave her a complete pass.

 

[00:44:00]

Yeah, and I kept waiting and hoping and helping and waiting and hoping and helping, and it was towards the end of writing my memoir where I thought, oh my gosh, I really had to see. She is never going to validate my experience and the heartbreak of that, right?

Even as a fully grown woman, as a mom myself, the heartbreak of having to really go. The one person that we’re told is supposed to love us more than anybody else, doesn’t even know me at all. And there was a long period of time for me where I had to withdraw from that relationship.

And this is true for a lot of folks. It’s not prescriptive. I’m just saying, this was my personal experience that I needed to finally stop. It was like there was this tether that kept me sort of dutiful and loyal and being a good daughter and what that meant for me was always privileging her pain over my own.

[00:45:00]

So, I truly did have to like set that tether down just to feel and have my own pain, and I had to do that in order to drop into my body and have a sense of myself and a different voice in my life. So, fast forward several years, you know, I’ve tried to address this with my mom again, and it’s just abundantly clear she can’t.

She can’t do it. She can’t go there. She’s given me x, just as much as she can give, which is like, okay, I’m going to listen and I’m going to hear you, and then can we please move on? And the reality is, I’ve done enough work on myself, and this isn’t always true. It’s not a finish line, right? I’m not saying this is right or wrong, but that I have done enough healing to where I know who I am.

I know what happened. I don’t need anyone else to validate it or give me permission to say that it’s true because I know that it is. So, the fact that she can’t do it isn’t as hurtful to me as it was my entire life. Right? Yeah. It’s still not great, let’s be honest. But it doesn’t have that same hold over me.

[00:46:00]

And so, this is why it’s so deeply personal that only each person know, right? What they need. And in particularly with this kind of stuff, I say I hope that people have the opportunity to navigate it with other loving, supportive people in their lives. Yeah. Support. Yeah. It’s enormous. Yeah. Yeah.

 

One thing we, we touched on briefly before we jumped on, but I think it, it might be interesting to discuss because, you know, a lot of women listening to this either have stopped drinking, are sober or sober curious, or have been trying for a while to do it and seeking a lot of different support. I mentioned that, that I had done 12 step programs for.

 

Just about four months, so not that long, but I, you know, went four times a week when I was doing it and it wasn’t my path. And you also came from a 12 step background, but in the book you talk about how some of the 12 step messages might be problematic for fawns or reinforce their responses.

[00:47:00]

Because of, you wrote sort about the self-blaming language or the constant messages to be of service and recognize your shortcomings and defects of character and sort of taking that blame.

Can you talk more about that?

Yeah. So, you know, this month I will have been sober for 30 years.

Amazing. Congratulations.

Thank you. For me, it is foundational to everything else. I wouldn’t have gone back to school. I wouldn’t have, you know, done so many things and most of the really important people in my life I know from those programs ’cause I have done several over the years and I, so basically I, you know, I was 21 when I got sober, and this was 30 years ago, so there wasn’t. A lot of options.

Certainly. We didn’t even really have the internet. It was like I had a phone book and I looked up alcohol and off I went. I will say for me, AA saved my life.

[00:48:00]

It was that promise of like, we will love you until you can love yourself. And all of that was true. And so, I can see why I stayed for decades and every time I moved, the first thing I would do was go find a meeting and find my community. But it wasn’t until I really started to write my memoir and understand in a more personal way the impacts of my own unresolved complex trauma, that some of the 12 step stuff inadvertently kept me from healing those other wounds for all of the reasons that you just mentioned.

I think one of the other things we haven’t talked about as much today. Essentially, often when we’re in a chronic fawn response, our fight response has been snuffed out. We don’t even feel entitled to healthy anger, and that’s really an important part of being able to have a voice and set boundaries. And so even being told things like anger is a luxury, right?

 

All of these things that, you know are in the book and that we’re told over and over, I thought, oh, I’m, I just am not allowed to feel that stuff. I got to stay to my side of the street and pray about it.

[00:49:00]

Right. And, it’s another reason why my first book was on Spiritual bypass in 12 Step Recovery many years ago.

 

I published that in 2011.

What’s the name of that book? Because oh, it’s called Recovering Spirituality.

Okay. Yeah. Can you tell us just a little bit about spiritual bypassing? ’cause I think that’s so interesting.

Yes. Well, I think, you know, this is my first attempt at what ultimately led to fawning, right? So, you think about how long I’ve been trying to unpack all these things. It’s been decades and decades, but I heard about spiritual bypassing in graduate school, and it’s a defense mechanism where you use your spiritual practice or ideas to avoid your feelings. And it was like, time stood still. I was like, well, I do that right?

 

And, and it makes sense. You go, well, I’m not drinking anymore, but I need something else to kind of, you know, be this salve or the pain that I’m carrying. And ultimately, you know, I’d say for me, I’m kind of a junkie at heart. Like, if I can take something or do something that’s going to make me feel better and I can swap a drink out for prayer, I’m probably going to do it.

[00:50:00]

And, although it’s a much maybe healthier practice, there were elements that were still about self-abandonment, right? They didn’t, it doesn’t have the same consequences that my drinking did, but there was in fact still a bypass, right? Just as fawning is a bypass, so part of tapping back in means I am entitled to appropriate anger.

I am entitled to looking at myself in context. I’m entitled to look at what happened to me, not just from the lens of what was my part, how am I meant to look? So, being invited to let it go over and over and over and kind of jump to acceptance again, a bypass for me and what was bypassed was my unresolved trauma and this deeper road back to myself.

 

[00:51:00]

So, I’m in this process of trying to reconcile all of this, right? I remain grateful for my sobriety and I know too much to sort of hear a lot of the same things said in the same way. It just, yeah, there just came a point where I, I just kind of couldn’t do it in the same way anymore. So, more to be revealed as they say in the rooms, for my own personal, yeah.

Yeah. Well, and I, I think it’s good to so 12 Step isn’t my path. Yeah. But I mean, I know a lot of women. Pull from whatever works for them and create this patchwork.

Yes. For me, and I’ve, I’ve talked about this and I’ve also had people on and have good friends in 12 Step, you know, the idea of take what you need and leave the rest.

I was like, I would have to leave 90% of this just because of who I am and my beliefs and you know what works for me.

Yeah. Yeah. You also talk about the patriarchy and how women are often raised and socialized to be FAERS and that they’re also kind of taught.

 

[00:52:00]

The feminine traits often also seem to fall into some of those categories to defer and acquiesce and care, take and appease, and please.

 

Or live in a system where men have the power. And you also talk about how men have their own personal fawning characteristics that they are taught and socialized to, to do. But in. AA or 12 step programs. I mean, I think it’s really hard to separate the fact that it was created in this patriarchal Christian written by two men 80 plus years ago.

 

I mean, in the book they have a chapter to the wives where they basically tell them to like put up and shut up. I mean, that was my take.

Yeah. Yeah. I think even if they’re being mistreated. Kind of thing. Yeah. Even the founders being 99 men out of a hundred right? At the time that they were writing the book.

[00:53:00]

And so, what I know now in terms of putting this all in a trauma-informed conversation is the likelihood that those men living in a patriarchy at that time, all those years ago, that they were probably more conditioned towards and had more of a chronic fight response is very likely. Right.

Man up to get in a tussle. That’s what it means to be a man. And to your point, we as women, we’re conditioned more towards fawn. So, an appropriate intervention for a chronic fight response is to get out of yourself.

 

Yeah. Is to go be of service, right? Is to go and be helpful and think about what could I do for my, for my fellow man.

But when you say those things to someone who’s in a chronic fawn response, you are perpetuating that very problem. I knew absolutely how to be of service. I’d been doing it my whole life. What I didn’t have access to was to feeling like it’s okay for me to exist in the world if I’m not caretaking somebody else.

 

Yes. That was, that was foreign, right?

[00:54:00]

Yeah. So, it’s not all or nothing. It’s not black or white. All of these things are nuanced. Of course, I think there’s a place for service and of, you know, all of that. But at the same time, I did experience these things decades into my recovery as like, wait a second. Like, this. These are more harmful now than they feel helpful. And if ultimately what we’re saying is to thine own self be true, which is on all of the coins, that meant for me that I actually had to shed some of these things that may have been helpful in the early days of my recovery, but are not helpful now.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I remember my sponsor early being like, that’s your ego talking. That’s your ego talking. I was like. I, I don’t think, like, I don’t have that much of an ego or I don’t think I did all these terrible things that I need to apologize for or, you know, I’m not religious, literally at all.

 

Yeah. So, like, the idea that I should get down on my knees and pray every morning for God to lift my desire to drink, I was like, okay, that’s a hard stop.

[00:55:00]

So. Yeah. All that is to say is, I have so many friends in 12 step programs, but I thought it was also interesting that if you do tend to have this font response, some of the things suggested might not be the best path for you.

I know I felt a ton of internal resistance and also being like, wait, that’s not me, and them being like invalidating or gaslighting me and being like. No, that’s your ego saying that this isn’t you, kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I will say, you know, I’ve spoken at some different recovery groups and I have heard from people that the newer 12 step programs and also ones like a CA that have always been more relational.

They tend to have more of the spirit of this trauma-informed lens. But where I was coming from was the mothership, right. And again, 30 years ago in old school. Yeah. In 1995. And so, it’s kind of just what, that’s what I grew up in.

[00:56:00]

Yeah. What is a CA? Just adult Children of Alcoholics. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Super, super helpful. This has been so interesting to me. I mean, I think anyone listening to this who resonates with it, it has been given a lot of tools and threads from you that they can take the next step and dive into. And so, thank you for that.

Where can people find you and follow up and get your book and tell us if they’re, if they want to go further.

Well, thank you for having me. This was a really fun conversation for me to have.

So, the book is Fawning, it’s everywhere you can buy books. So, I hope that people will avail themself of that.

 

And my website is just my name, ingridclayton.com and there’s links for everything there. I’m on all of the social media platforms and come join the community.

My Substack has a really rich community where people. Send in their own experiences, and we get to kind of unpack that and sort of be in the, be in the work together. So, yeah. I hope you’ll find me there.

[00:57:00]

Awesome. Thank you so much.