Pushkin.

Hey there, it's Maya.

If you listen to the show, you know that I'm fascinated by how people respond when life doesn't go according to plan.

My new book with Penguin Random House, The Other Side of Change, comes out January thirteenth, and it grew out of the same questions we explore on this podcast.

What do we hold on to when life shifts, what do we let go of?

And how do we find meaning on the other side.

The Other Side of Change blends all new stories you haven't heard on the podcast with new scientific insights on resilience.

My hope is that it gives you the tools you need to navigate your own moments of disruption with a great ter sense of possibility about who you can become on the Other Side of Change.

You can learn more and pre order now at the link in the show notes or at Changewithmaya dot com slash book.

That's changed with Maya dot com slash book And if you'd like to get more involved, I just launch an Ambassador's program, which will give you exclusive content, free perks, and invitation to a conversation with me and behind the scenes updates.

You can join this new community at changewithmaya dot com slash join.

I can't wait to share this book with you.

Okay now, onto Meg Josephson.

If you're upset with me, I can't feel okay until we're good again, Like I need to know that you're not upset with me before I can breathe again, because it's just so all consuming.

That's Meg Josephson.

She's a therapist and author of the New York Times bestseller Are You Mad at Me?

How to stop focusing on what others think and start living for you.

Meg says that when we're constantly focused on how others feel, we can abandon ourselves.

It leads us to feeling like I don't know who I am.

I don't know what my preferences are.

I don't know what my interests are.

What do I even think of this?

What do I feel?

Because we've been trained to be hypertuned to what everyone else wants and thinks and feels and needs.

On today's show, who are We when we're not trying to please other people?

I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who studies human behavior, and this is a slight change of plans, A show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change.

How often do you wonder if someone's mad at you?

I do it all the time.

I'm just this constant, low level worry that I may have upset someone without realizing it.

So when I saw Meg's book, Are You Mad At Me?

I felt like it was written for me.

I used to think of people pleasing as pretty harmless.

I mean, what's the worst thing that can happen?

I'm overly nice and accommodating to someone.

The Meg helped me see how, over time, constantly trying to please others can really erode our sense of self and even threaten the very relationships we're trying to protect.

The good news, since we learned some of these patterns over time, we can also unlearn them.

For Meg, people pleasing began in childhood.

It was a way for her to stay safe in a home that didn't feel emotionally stable.

I think as children, we grow up kind of wanting it to be black or white.

It was all good or it was all bad, or it was loving or it wasn't loving.

And there were loving moments, but they're also really painful ones as well, And so I think Honoring that complexity has been really important to me, just allowing there to be both.

My dad struggled with addiction in my childhood and with that had a lot of rage.

Things could just change very quickly.

It kind of felt like a held breath in my home.

The smallest things could set him off, if, like we're driving, I'm in the front seat with him, someone cuts him off like that would send him into a blind rage.

But also just small things at home, like I would spill something by accident, or my mom would make a mistake or forget where her keys were, and just these tiny things that didn't feel like a big deal, but they became a really big deal.

I loved the complexity and nuance that you capture around your relationship with your dad.

You write in your book that you had lots of loving, tender moments with your dad, and you share it a lot in common, right, You saw many parts of yourself on him, like your creative side and what have you.

And so tell me a bit more about that part of the relationship with your dad.

Absolutely, he was my best friend growing up.

He was so creative and very entrepreneurial in spirit, really silly.

We would just make each other laugh like such a quirky, funny personality.

Everyone would always tell us, Oh, you guys are so similar.

You guys are so similar in terms of personality, And so we had a lot of fun moments.

But even as a child, I remember wishing that he was all mean and all scary, because I remember thinking, even that young, he's two people.

He's my best friend, and then he's the person who scares me more than anyone.

And I just wanted to kind of a side how I felt it would just be easier.

But life is never so easy and simple.

Yeah, but you're so.

Right, and I so resonate with especially as a young kid, wanting to carve the world into the black and white spaces and to make clear delineations between good and bad.

As you were navigating this very complex environment where there was a lot of emotional volatility, how did you find yourself responding to that.

I was just always watching him.

I was always eyes were always on him.

Let him set the tone, let him decide what this moment's going to be like.

He had the power and control to dictate how the room felt.

And if he's happy, then I can exhale and be happy too, And if he's in a bad mood, I will just course correct and act accordingly.

But I blamed myself for it, or I thought that it was my fault.

And for a child, it's like, what's the one thing in my control?

I'll never mess up, I'll never make mistakes because if I'm perfect, there's nothing to criticize.

It's a preventative measure to take.

I think my coping was immediately correcting of like, are you mad at me?

Am I in trouble?

Did I do something wrong?

What can I do?

How can my actions appease you and soothe you?

And obviously this isn't a conscious thing that I'm thinking about as a child, but it was just I think, immediately course correcting so that I would be approved of once again.

FIRSTP I so relate to this question are you mad at me?

I mean, I think maybe I've asked myself that an infinite number of times Meg in my life.

You're not alone.

What was it about someone being mad at you that carried so much power in young Meg's mind?

Why was it so significant to you?

I felt this my whole life, with friends, with teachers, with my dad.

If you're upset with me, I can't feel okay until we're good again, Like I need to know that you're not upset with me before I can breathe again, because it's just so all consuming.

He would yell, or he would say really hurtful things or call me something that was really hurtful, and there was no repair after the fact.

There was no hey, I'm so sorry that that happened, and let's talk about it.

It was just I'd go downstairs and it's like, so, what about for dinner?

Or it's just awkward, and no one's acknowledging what just happened.

What ends up happening When we don't receive that acknowledgment accountability repair, well, two things happened, we start to blame ourselves.

It goes from I did something bad to make dad upset, and when that happens every day or weekly or just frequently, I did something bad to I am bad, and it cultivates this feeling of something's wrong with me, I'm always in trouble, I'm secretly bad, and it's just a matter of time before everyone finds out.

But then, also as adults, because we didn't witness that coming back together after a conflict, we end up believing when there's conflict, i e.

When someone's mad at me, the relationship's over, it's ruined.

I will be abandoned.

It's so personal, it's a rejection of who I am.

And if being perfect and being good or being funny is like a way to prevent that from happening, why wouldn't we do that?

And that's why I talk about people pleasing as such a brilliant safety mechanism, because it's how brilliant that as children we know how to do that, and that we know to do it in the first place.

You talk in the book about how people pleasing can be called a fond response for listeners who are not familiar.

Tell me more about what a fawn response is.

Yes, our body has what we know for responses to a threat, fight or flight, which I think a lot of us know freeze, and the fourth one is the fawn response.

What it means is when there is a threat, whether that threat is real or perceived.

So there's a line in front of us, or our boss is being a little cold or stand offish, and we're like, are you madam, don't just me wrong?

We appease the threat.

We try to be liked by it, we try to impress it, satisfy it, diffuse conflict so that we can go back to feeling safe.

Sometimes we need to do this, whether it's in childhood, whether it's to survive in the oppressive systems that we're living within, whether it's to get a paycheck.

Sometimes we need to.

It's not to say we don't ever need this, but, like I was speaking too earlier, if we're doing it all the time, if we're doing it with our best friend when we don't need to be, if we're doing it with a loving partner, that's when it takes a toll body and becomes exhausting and leads to burnout and resentment in our relationships, anxiety, overthinking overall.

Can people think of it as just trying to do or say whatever you feel will appease the other person?

How should I think about that?

Yeah?

I think if it as an external piece and an internal piece, the external being not setting boundaries, avoiding conflict at all costs, saying yes when you want to say no, contorting your opinions to match whoever you're with because you just want to be liked by them or you don't want them thinking you disagree silencing your needs, shoving your feelings down.

But then I also think there is an internal element that's more secret and more private, which is I find safety in pleasing you, and I find safety in doing more and being liked.

And in order to do that, we have to abandon ourselves.

In order for us to be hypertuned to the person's facial reactions and body language, we have to leave ourselves to successfully do that.

And so internally what ends up happening a lot.

And this is more something that I always felt kind of weird in, but then when I became a therapist, I'm like, oh my gosh, other people feel this too, and so that was a really illuminating experience for me.

This overthinking social reactions.

Did I say the wrong thing?

I can't believe I did my joke not land, What did they think of this?

Should I apologize for this?

Feeling like we're always about to get in trouble, like we're bad, wondering how are you mad at me?

In our relationships, replaying things again and again with the fun response, we often feel like we can only show people the best, most perfect version of ourselves, and so we feel like we're often performing in our relationships, and that can feel quite lonely.

It can feel like am I fake?

Am I?

People don't really know me?

I'm always keeping people at a day stints, And it also leads us to feeling like I don't know who I am.

I don't know what my preferences are.

I don't know what my interests are.

What do I even think of this?

What do I feel?

Because we've been trained to be hyper attuned to what everyone else wants and thinks and feels and needs.

Yeah, I'm reflecting in this moment about how when I was a little kid, I was bullied a lot, and I absolutely engage in those interactions with a fund response.

I internalized the cruelty as evidence that I was broken in some really deep way, and I remember thinking, well, I'm just going to kill them with kindness, Like if I'm just like extra nice to the mean girls, maybe one day they'll like me.

And I think you were talking about losing yourself.

I mean I when I reflect back on the way I would interact with some of my classmates, some of these girls in my neighborhood, there's such a loss of self respect and dignity.

Yeah, but I didn't even care in those moments about any kind of pride or self respect.

I was like, I will do anything just to get these kids to like me back, or to just stop being mean.

And the last thought on my mind was what does this do to my sense of self?

Well, of course, and that makes so much sense.

And the fawn response is really common with bullying, it's really common with abuse.

And of course you're not, especially as a child, you're not thinking about, well, what do I deserve?

Do I even like them?

Of course you're not thinking about that A because you're detecting a threat.

Yes, And there's no time to pause.

When we are feeling in danger.

You're just going to appease.

And if you were to fight, flight or freeze at school, you'd probably get in trouble.

Right.

It's the only threat response that we're not punished for, which definitely reinforces the need to fawn in the first place.

But also, as children, our sense of belonging and safety at school and at home is our entire world.

Yeah, you've written about different fond types.

Can you walk us through some of those?

Yeah, I have six archetypes, and so you might resonate with all of them.

You might see yourself more in a few of them, but it's really just to illuminate, Oh, this is how I have protected myself so that we can understand it and begin to shed that identity in many ways.

So I have the peacekeeper, which definitely finds the most safety in creating a harmonious environment and harmonious relationships, whether that's being super hyper vigilant of what people are feeling and needing, maybe it's killing them with kindness and just harmony is the most important thing to a peacekeeper, and those beliefs sort of manifest as other people's happiness is my responsibility.

I'm in charge of managing people's moods.

When someone's in a bad mood, it's my fault and it's my responsibility to fix it.

The performer is I have this vignette of little boy who grew up with really depressed parents, and he would find safety in just being the really funny clown performing type and his job was to make sure that everyone was happy.

And so as an adult, what that manifests as is I need to always kind of be on I can't slip, but also feeling like, oh my gosh, no one really knows me because I'm only showing them this on version, I'm only showing them this masking that happens.

And then the caretaker, which is fulfilling the parent role in some way, whether that was you had a sibling who had a disability or mental health issues or a parent who had those struggles and you had to fulfill the parent role, whether it was emotional, whether it was physically caretaking in some way, whether your first generation of immigrant parents and you're going with them to appointments as a child to help them translate.

You're taking on this parental role.

The caretaker might be drawn to people as adults who they kind of need to mother or parent their partner in some way.

Their value is in being helpful and fixing and saving people.

So you just describe Meg peacekeeper, performer, and caretaker.

Yeah, I think I resonate most closely with peacekeeper.

I will insert myself into conversations that don't even involve me to try to facilitate peace.

If there is a lack of peace between me and someone else, that's the sort of thing that will keep me up at night and prevent me from sleeping.

Well, there's this urgency in my mind that has to be resolved as quickly as possible.

Which ones of those three do you most identify with.

Everything you just said, every single piece I resonate with so much.

And what's so important to know and to understand is number one.

As an adult, when that's happening, your body's remembering when you needed to do that, Like your body is returning to that time in life when there were major consequences if there wasn't peace, if you weren't playing that role.

So that younger version of you that's trying to protect you and keep you safe is still within you.

Is Oh, time to wake up, time to work hard and fix this situation.

And when we are in this state of survival mode in the fun response, it is urgent, like if we were in danger, Urgency is survival mode and slowness is safety.

And so if we are detecting some sort of threat and we're reacting very urgently, this has to be addressed immediately.

It's such a sign that there is some dysregulation happening.

Our body is entering into a state of sval mode.

That's why it's so incredible our awareness when we can be aware of this as it's happening and slow ourselves down with our breath, with any grounding technique that feels soothing to ourselves.

We're communicating to our bodies that we're safe, because if we were actually in danger, there wouldn't be time to take three breaths before responding to the text.

Isn't it crazy how all consuming the are you mad at me?

Refrain can be for people that really don't matter to us.

I mean, I just have to put that out there.

It drives me crazy, Meg, because the concern that someone's mad at me will completely hijack my brain.

I will come to feel that that person is the most important person in the world, and then I'll reflect on it for a moment and be like, what are you doing?

Get a grip.

It's misallocating importance to relationships that truly should not matter.

Because the fear of not being liked or approved of is such a threat.

You're speaking to it perfectly.

Because threats are black or white.

When we're in survival mode, we're safe or we're not.

It's good or it's bad.

We're in danger or we're not.

It is all or nothing, and so when we're in survival mode, there's no room for nuance.

There's no room for how much do I value this relationship?

Is it actually okay if this person perceives me in a way that I don't agree with, knowing that we cannot take in that much information, If we were taking in everyone's feedback to us, we would be a million people because everyone's going to have a different take.

But actually, reflecting on I'm working so hard to gain this person's approval.

Is this someone I look up to?

Is this someone that I really want to embody the qualities that they have?

And is this person someone who's even treated me well?

I mean, I think that's been the most devastating part.

I'm just reflecting on an incident earlier this year where I was just viving sort of the contours of this relationship that again shouldn't matter.

I was talking about it with my husband, and my husband was like, Maya, this person has not treated you well.

Yeah, like he could see it so clearly.

This person was actually out of line in terms of the way they engage with you and the lack of respect they showed you.

And yet you're willing to throw your self respect out the door just to get them to like you back.

And it was a meaningful moment for me because I just hadn't heard someone say so clearly to me, you should respect yourself more than this.

You're really speaking to the heart of the faun response, which is kind of like befriending our bullies and leaning into people that feel threatening.

That's really what the faun response is.

It's going further into people that are unavailable or critical.

That feels, first of ball, like home in some way.

Okay, I need to work hard for me to be loved.

Yes, familiar feel safe to us.

And so even if it's a relationship, if you're like trying to befriend someone who's not nice to you, that familiarity feels comforting.

Even if intellectually we know it's not a good relationship for us, if it's what we've known in our parental relationships or a past romantic relationship, there's some piece that feel safe because it's what we know, and so it reminds us of this original hurtful relationship, and there's a part of us that believes, if I can just fix this, if I can be enough for this person that's not nice to me, then it'll fix and heal this core hurtful relationship we were re enacting the wound so that we can finally fix it.

And of course we're never going to be good enough for the people that aren't right for us.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, But that's the faun response, is leaning in to a threat.

Yeah, I love what you just said, and I love to hear about the three other types of fun responses.

Yes, so we've got perfectionist, chameleon and lone wolf, and I can already say chameleon is my jam Oh?

Yeah, do I have a personality or do I just be no what other people want me to be?

In that moment, you are not alone.

The chameleon really morphs themselves to fit in with whoever they're with, And I think that's really we have to in many ways, like how you are with your boss will be different from with your best friend.

But the chameleon is doing this in all of their relationships, feeling like I don't know who I am?

And I write about this myself personally, of like graduating college and I remember wondering, am I just a medley of other people's personalities?

Like?

Am I just?

Who am I?

Who am I?

When I'm not trying to please other people?

Perfectionist I find safety in being perfect.

I need to be perfect in order to be loved, and the perfectionist often fine and safety through achievement through external validation.

People viewing you as perfect doesn't matter if you know you're not.

As long as other people think you're perfect, we're good.

That's really the heart of the perfectionist.

And then the lone wolf is the last archetype.

The lone wolf silences their needs by disappearing and isolating and pulling away because my needs are so meaningless that I'm just going to be so easy and not inconvenient to you, So that lone wolf craves deep connection but would rather be alone than be disappointed or let down.

I'm so glad we talked about lone wolf, because I think I have misperceived the internal state of someone who's expressed this sort of lone wolf fawn response, and I've mistaken it for apathy for not caring about the relationship with me.

I think you're helping to build my empathy, which is sometimes when someone retreats or doesn't want to engage, it's actually not because they don't care.

They just don't think they're worthy enough to actively engage with the repair required, Yes, yes.

And maybe that lone wolf feels a little bit of those perfectionistic tendencies of I can't be seen in my messiness, I can't be seen needing help, And so often that lone wolf has asked for help and has been let down, And so it's so much safer than to have no needs than to be let down again.

Yeah.

As you've mentioned, fawning is an adaptive human trait.

There are environments in which it is actually necessary to engage in a fawn response in order to survive, or to maintain your job, or to help make peace with a relative.

But what are the harmful effects when fawning has gone too far?

When it becomes to define our response in terms of both our individual well being and then the impact on our relationships.

For our our relationships, when we are constantly avoiding conflict, when we are constantly avoiding uncomfortable conversations or disappearing in the other persons we don't disagree with them, or so they don't think we disagree with them, it can keep our relationships at quite a distance.

Or, by the way, Meg, when we're smothering them, oh, because we're desperate for resolution.

Both I'm speaking on behalf of a friend here, don't mind me.

Yeah hypothetically, of course, this is super hypothetical.

So there's two extreme sort of reassurance seeking.

Constantly are you mad at me?

We're scraping over kind of the content of life and we're not really getting to the emotion beneath it.

It can put quite a strain on our relationships to be on the receiving end of that, because reassurance seeking is quite addictive.

It's like, no, I'm not mad at you.

Oh, few, okay, we're good, And then because that emotion wasn't addressed, it slowly comes back and then we maybe we ask for rasure again because it feels good to be told no, I'm not.

But when the other person starts to get annoyed at that, then maybe they start getting irritable, and then it triggers that part even more.

Oh gosh, they're mad at me.

Yeah, ironically, you might actually make them mad with all the pestering about whether they're mad at you exactly.

So it can push people away, which triggers us to lean in more, and it becomes this cycle of that.

And then the other cycle that happens is if we are avoiding conflict.

So maybe someone is saying there's some resentment in the relationship.

You've been silencing your needs.

Maybe you've just been giving a lot in a friendship and it hasn't been feeling reciprocal, and so you're starting to feel resentful.

You're feeling like your needs aren't being met, but you don't want to bring it up because then you have a conversation about it and that feels way too scary.

What ends up happening is, ironically, to keep the peace, we end up creating war within ourselves and keeping people at a distance because we're not letting people in on what we need, and so in order to keep the p short term, we prioritize avoiding discomfort.

What ends up happening is that resentment festers and it builds, and so we end up long term, actually creating a lot more suffering in that relationship because we're so resentful and we're so annoyed, and we're fake having fake arguments in the shower with this person because we just won't tell them how we're feeling.

On the flip side, when we're able to have honest conversations with safe, healthy relationships in our lives, we actually are showing them.

This is how I can be in relationship to you long term.

I'm letting you in on what I need and what I'm feeling.

And that is such a form of emotional intimacy because it means that I trust you.

It means that I'm showing you the messy parts of me so that we can be in a relationship forever.

An emphasis on safe, healthy relationships because you might be the thinking, well, hello, I cannot have an honest conversation with my volatile parent or this friend that I'm thinking of.

And so that's why I always like to say with being honest, with letting people in on healing the fun response in our relationships, we're either going to have more closeness or we're going to have more clarity.

If we can't have closeness with the other person because they're defensive, they don't want to listen to you, you're going to have clarity about what you can expect from them.

You're going to have clarity and maybe on what you need to grieve in the relationship in order to move forward.

And either way there's something to gain there.

Yeah, yeah, And I mean another downside, irrespective of what kind of fun response you have is that in all cases, some significant fraction of your perception of your self worth and your value in that moment hinges upon another person and their approval of you.

And that's a very precarious position to put ourselves in routinely.

Yeah, we spend so much energy trying to control what people are thinking about us, but it was never in our control in the first place.

But recognizing we're all seeing the world through the lens of our own inner world, which is made up of our fears and beliefs and insecurities, and no matter how perfect we are, we're still going to be perceived through the lens of their inner world, which is not in our control.

And that's super uncomfortable truth to grapple with and is much easier talked about than integrate it.

After the break, Meg and I discuss how to tame our inner people.

Pleaser, We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.

You know you had spent so much of your life in gaging in the fond response.

When did you realize that you needed to revisit this part of yourself because it was bad for you?

Hm?

While I was in college.

I think that was a turning point in recognizing, Okay, I'm no longer living in this environment where being so hypervigilant is necessary.

Of course, I was still in relationship to my parents, but my environment was different.

It was in this time of my life where I feel like I started to see that voice in my head that was so rooted in anxiety and fearful, catastrophic thinking, blaming myself and being self critical.

And once I was no longer in the environment where it was so necessary, my baseline was just so unlivable that that for me was the turning point.

It's interesting because I met my husband young.

We were nineteen when we met, we were in college, and we've been together ever since.

He's a good example of him challenging that belief where he is so steady, he is unconditional on his love.

He feels so safe, like just true safety as a person, and meeting him so young confused me.

I'm like, I don't deserve this.

I need to fix myself first in order to be worthy of this.

But I.

Felt sort of split in two, like my intuitive voice was saying, yes, this is right, this feels safe, but then my wounded voice was like, this isn't what I know.

Like I remember having these thoughts of like, just wait, he's going to flip.

He's going to be someone that you can't expect.

Or he'll come home drunk one night and something horrible will happen and the.

Shoe will drop.

The shoe will drop exactly.

And so I think that's kind of a flipped example of like someone who felt really safe and that felt really confusing to me.

And even still, I sometimes get pulled into friendships where they're pulling back or they're hard to please, and so I find myself having this pull toward them.

I'll catch it, and the prompt I usually like to guide myself there is like what draws me to this person?

Do I lean in more the more they pull back?

Yeah, okay, that's probably a sign I'm reacting from a past, wounded place.

Having awareness of these patterns is everything.

We're still going to have these reactions, yeah, but when we can be aware of them and insert a pause and be curious about it, what's happening here, that's the healing.

So we're not expecting ourselves to never be drawn to these relationships again, but to be conscious of when we are.

Yeah.

I find that this plays out a lot in my professional life.

When it comes to you and a manager or some leader, there is an inbuilt power dynamic and it is their job actually to be critical and to have tough conversations with you, and to maybe be a bit unavailable because you don't have that kind of emotional closeness that you might with a friend or a family member.

So there's one story from your book that I was just like cheering out loud because I was like, yes, nag, preach.

Were you talked about an interaction that you'd had with your boss over slack and it was so relatable.

Oh my gosh, I could have written an entire chapter about this topic of boss mirroring caregiver attachment.

But I remember it was my first job out of college, and I mean, I'm terrified of authority.

I'm so scared of getting in trouble and getting a message from my boss saying can we chat or do you have a second whatever they said, and just this immediate sinking feeling in my stomach of I'm about to get fired, I'm in trouble.

Oh my gosh, who knows what's about to happen?

And of course, I probably walk in and it's like, oh, so are you able to take on this?

It's like just a mundane ask, absolutely, but just this sinking feeling of it's just it's a matter of time before I get in big trouble.

And obviously, okay, we don't have to reach too far for like where that comes from.

But I think this parallel of boss and caregiver is so important because there are some similarities.

Number One, there's an authoritative figure.

Okay, both are authoritative.

Number Two, they both are providing a sense of security and steadiness in our lives.

We need a paycheck to feed ourselves into pay rent.

And in the same way, we need a caregiver to be fed and to be taken care of and to have a roof over our heads.

And so when we are having anxiety with a boss and getting in trouble, I think in many ways, this younger version is remembering how did I have to appease and act in order to satisfy my parent so that I could be safe.

Because it's a very similar power dynamic at play, And it's a great example of yeah, yeah, sometimes we need to because again, like we live, we live in capitalism, we have to survive.

Yeah, but managing that anxiety, I think is what's in our control.

I think the most vicious message a boss can send is capital Hey, period, horrible, the meanest thing.

I mean, would you just like to put me down?

Two week notice, I'll do it.

There's nothing after that's just hate.

Period.

And then right back you're like, hey, I'm available two minutes.

You not to have this conversation, and then they don't respond for a while, and then later they're like, you know what, yeah, Maya, I'm actually signing off for the weekend.

Why don't we chat Monday?

And I'm like, oh, oh my god, my palms are sweating.

Yeah, you ruined my life and I will not be having a week end, thank you very much.

I will be thinking about this forever.

And there's that urgency like we got to talk about it now because I will not be okay until we're okay exactly okay.

So Meg, for those of us who instinctively meet moments like this one with a fawn response, what does it look like to actually shift this pattern within ourselves?

Healing really starts with awareness and that these are unconscious patterns that are happening.

We've been doing this for decades.

Probably it's happening unconsciously reactively, so by being aware of it, by pausing, by slowing down, we're bringing this unconscious pattern into the conscious mind.

We can't change anything until that's happened, until we are inserting a pause before we react and maybe trying something new, and maybe we're still fawning and reacting, but even pausing afterward and looking back at like why did I apologize or why did I say yes when I really didn't want to do that, Even if it's after the fact, that's still awareness.

I also view another really important pillar of healing the fun response is slowly and safely increasing our tolerance for discomfort, discomfort within ourselves, being with our anxiety, being with our anger, being with our resentment, and also being with discomfort in our relationships, Practicing being more honest and direct in our relationships, practicing saying no, and I say slowly and safely with such intentionality, Because if you were to try to set a boundary and the first one you've ever said in your life is with your volatile parent, that's not going to go well, right, and that's going to feel like a shock to the body.

The body's going to be like, what was that?

This is why I fond?

What are we doing?

Take me back to what I know?

And so let's not do that.

It's more slowly increasing our tolerance so that we can be uncomfortable but still safe at the same time.

Yeah, what does it look like to slowly build tolerance for discomfort?

So let's say this friend isn't texting you back, and then this starts triggering some are you mad at me?

Thinking did I do something wrong?

They must hate me?

And maybe your familiar instinct is to send them a funny video to break the ice, or to compliment them, or to like just diffuse this perceived tension in some way.

Sitting with discomfort in this example would probably look like pause, put the phone down, take a second.

What's going on here?

And in my book, I have an acronym called nicser, So maybe that's first.

Okay, noticing notice that something has changed for you, Notice that some anxiety was triggered, Notice that you're thinking about these worst case scenarios.

Just acknowledge it, notice it.

It's then I invite it to stay.

This is allowed to be here.

I think our first instinct is to shove our emotions down.

I shouldn't be upset, I shouldn't be anxious.

It's okay, this is allowed to be here.

I'm allowed to feel this, having some sea curiosity.

What triggered this?

Okay, well, she didn't text me back for three hours, and then this triggered this fear that she hates me, or that I said a stupid joke last night and now she's ghosting me or whatever.

Curiosity okay, and then what does that feel like in my body?

My heart's racing, my palms are sweating.

Curiosity and then e embracing this emotion.

This is the most uncomfortable step for many people, which is as if we're kind of wrapping that emotion and anxiety in a blanket.

When I want to hit it with a baseball.

Mats maas, Yeah, you're like, I hate I don't feeling this.

We're not shoving this away.

This is allowed to be here.

This is just some feeling of dysregulation, and I'm safe and having some gentleness and softness with this emotion.

And then, lastly is our return to what's real and true right now?

Okay, so we just went through this scenario.

What's actually happening I'm breathing in my body, my feet are on the ground, there are sounds in the room.

And this our step is so important because we're bringing ourselves through this hypothetical scenario.

We don't even know if she's you.

We don't know maybe she is, and that's its own discomfort.

But in this moment, we don't know anything.

And so by finishing this process, by returning to what's actually true, we're signaling to our body, this is what's actually real.

This scenario feels real because physiologically I'm imagining it and I'm living it.

But here's what's actually true right now.

Just the process of pausing and looking inward.

That's the win.

That's the slowly increasing our tolerance, because in those three minutes that we were having some curiosity about what was happening, there is maybe some agitation, there was maybe some restlessness, and that's the discomfort that we're talking about.

And so then there might be some clarity of I'm going to let this breathe.

I'm not going to text her again, I'm not going to double text her.

I'm just going to put the phone down and move on with my day.

Or maybe you have clarity of no I think I want to talk about this with her, like whatever, the clarity comes through, but to look inward first before immediately trying to dissolve art discomfort through external validation.

Yes, that's the practice.

Okay, I mean double texting.

Who would ever do that?

Meg, I've never hypothetical quable texted someone.

I'm curious to know a story in your recent life where you were finding yourself reverting back to your old fawning ways, and you utilized some of these insights.

You utilized the nicer framework, for example, to break out of those old patterns of behavior, those old patterns of mine.

Actually writing the book about the faun responds helped heal the fun responds the most in me, and that I wrote it thinking my dad would read it, but just thinking that here comes the faun responds, thinking of what will he think of this?

And will he be mad at me?

And will he get really upset about this line?

And seeing it through his eyes instead of my own?

And as I was writing it, I noticed that fear and I would it would come up.

But the difference is I would notice it and I would soothe it and work through it.

And so we're not getting rid of it because let's imagine this faun response part of ourselves as a younger version of us.

I don't want to get rid of my younger version of me.

I want her around.

And if I were to look at that younger version of me and say, what's wrong with you?

Get out of here, I don't want you here.

I'm actually talking to her in the same way I was told growing up, which is something's wrong with you, and I want to have a new relationship with her.

And so for me, when the faun response gets triggered, which it does quite frequently, because that younger version still exists, it's not about erasing that but moving through it, moving through the discomfort of it.

You mentioned that when we fawn excessively anyway, we are abandoning a core part of who we are.

Yeah, who are you, Meg?

Now that you're less of a fauner?

What parts of yourself have you uncovered or discovered that you simply didn't know were there before?

I really thanks for that question.

That's really thoughtful.

First of all, I think this returning to the self is also not fixed.

I think it's a constant getting to know ourselves, knowing that we are always changing and we are always evolving, so I almost feel like coming closer to myself has meant not gripping so hard on who that person is.

But I've also found that when I feel closest to myself, I'm kind of returning to who I was as a kid, Like before people pleasing got a huge hold on me.

I love to be creative.

I love to spend time in nature.

I love to be outside, I love to be cooking.

Like I feel more clear on how I enjoyed to spend my time.

I feel more clear on who I want to spend my time with.

And I also feel that there's less thinking about who I am.

I don't feel myself self analyzing am I this person?

Or am I this person?

Am I this?

Yeah?

I feel just more of it just is and that person comes through, and we all have different parts of ourselves, and I just feel a more easeful allowing of those parts.

Granted I'm check in with me in thirty years.

I'm sure I'll look back on myself now and be like, she had no idea who she was, but no, this is who I feel I am now.

I love that so much.

Think about all of the energy we pour into trying to figure out quote who we ought to be when actually just being is so easeful because you don't have to think about it.

Yes, oh my gosh, and how perfect because the faun response is so rooted and doing more.

I need to do more to be liked.

I need to do more to be approved of and to shift the focus to being, and that it can be easy and more effortless to come back to ourselves.

We don't have to try so hard to return.

What a relief.

Hey, thanks so much for listening.

If you like what you heard, make sure to follow a slight Change of plans wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to pre order a copy of my book, The Other Side of Change wherever you buy books.

You can also find a link in the show notes.

It's hard to believe, but we're just a few weeks away from our final episode of the year.

That means we're also gearing up for our twenty twenty sixth season.

If there's someone that you think we should talk to or a topic you'd like to hear about, we'd love to hear from you.

You can send us an email at slight Change at pushkin dot fm and join me soon for our final episode of the year, when comedian Zarnagar gives us a masterclass embedding on yourself.

And Andrews would not matter in the end.

In the end, all the failures are like the tasting spoons of life.

You know, when you're making a soup, you taste it twenty dives.

You just have to get it perfect by the end, and it will happen if you keep tasting enough.

That's coming up on A Slight Change of Plans.

See you then.

A Slight Change of Plans is created, written and executive produced by me Maya Shunker.

The Slight Changed family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Lubn, and our sound engineer Erica Huang.

Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.

A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.

You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker.

See you next week.

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