[0:00]Oh, welcome to another Friday night. We started last time looking at fawning and just understanding that for many people from complex trauma, that's really one of the main survival strategies.
[0:13]And yet it's so little understood. And yet it's so prevalent. And so we wanted to do a deep dive into understanding this.
[0:25]And what I wanted to do today is to begin to really look at the characteristics of fawning. So how does fawning take shape, begin to express itself?
[0:40]What does the internal world of a faer look like? It's very easy to look at a faer on the outside and go, wow, what a wonderful person.
[0:52]and validate them and say, this is a hero child, this is a wonderful, they get along with everybody, they're so helpful, all of that. Well, what's their internal world like? That's what we want to understand.
[1:04]And not in a judgmental way, but always in a way that this was the consequence of having to survive this way. They didn't choose this.
[1:17]They didn't have any other options. This was the kind of the final survival option available to them.
[1:23]It worked at keeping them safe somewhat and getting some of their needs met, but in adult life, it begins to cause all kinds of issues.
[1:38]personally in relationships with those that they love. I think it's important to understand that the very core of fawning is shame.
[1:47]So it's really two parts to this. So when a child was abused and neglected and had to fawn in order to survive, they had to become other something else.
[2:00]They couldn't be authentic, they had to wear masks and all of that. What they really heard and felt internally was, it's my fault.
[2:11]The reason I'm being neglected and abused, reason nobody's meeting my needs is I'm not good enough. I I'm I must be a terrible person.
[2:17]I I I must not have any value. I guess I got to earn love. I got to earn value because I don't have any inherently.
[2:27]So they develop a core belief that's often subconscious because they begin to act like they have great value and others validate their actions, but it's all stuff they put on, they're they're acting.
[2:38]So, on the surface it feels like it or looks like they don't have any shame issues that they really like themselves because everybody else seems to like them.
[2:47]But deep down, core inside of themselves, there's a deep belief that they're not good enough just as they are.
[2:57]that they have to earn all of the validation that they get. So shame is this core, core belief of every faer that often operates at a subconscious level.
[3:12]But it becomes so important for them to begin to understand what's driving deep down the ongoing fawning even in adult life when they don't really need to do it anymore.
[3:28]It's that shame, that belief that I'm not good enough on my own, still is driving fawning. So there's a second component.
[3:41]What happens to the person that has the shame belief and has to fawn is they have to become what others want them to become.
[3:49]Adopt other's beliefs. They have to engage in activities that might go against their own value systems, but they got to keep everybody else happy.
[4:00]In other words, they got to prostitute themself in order to stay in other people's good graces.
[4:09]And sometimes they got to do stuff that violates their conscience. They let others use them and abuse them. They lie. They wear masks. They ignore themselves and their own needs.
[4:17]They abandon themselves just to keep others happy. And what is the result of that? It actually feeds the shame.
[4:26]So now they have a shame spiral. They have to they're driven by shame, but they have to do stuff that actually makes them feel even worse about themselves.
[4:36]And that is the sad legacy of fawning. So again, many on the outside appear so self-confident.
[4:47]Appears they don't have any shame that they don't live with any fear that if people saw the real them, they'd be rejected.
[4:55]No, they actually are driven by fear. They're driven by shame.
[5:01]So we really have to understand that.
[5:04]So what I want you to understand right up from is if this is connecting with you, place to begin in healing fawning is not changing a whole bunch of actions, they'll stop people pleasing, they'll stop all of that.
[5:19]You have to start by healing shame. That's the core issue, the heart of change. So let's go to the second characteristic.
[5:29]Fawning always involves making yourself smaller. Thinking that if you make yourself smaller, you'll make other people happier.
[5:42]And then it'll be safer for you. They'll like you more and then they'll meet your needs. So self-minimization is a key characteristic of fawning.
[5:55]Now, let me expand on that a little bit. What you're really believing here goes like this. You're basically organizing your life based on somebody else, the person in authority.
[6:17]And so what you're believing about them is they have to be happy all the time in order for me to be happy and taken care of.
[6:21]So what you're basically saying is, the recipe for them to be happy all the time is, they must always get what they want, always get their own way, never have any difficulties, never sit any in any uncomfortable emotions, have all their problems fixed immediately.
[6:38]In other words, they must have a limbic brain that is constantly in a pleasure state. That is the only way they're going to be happy, and then therefore I'm going to be happy.
[6:54]So I cannot do anything that will upset their limbic brain and I must constantly be attuned to their limbic brain state and then working to fix anything that is put them in the realm of uncomfortable.
[7:11]That is what you're living by. That is a prison. That is a cruel taskmaster that you have adopted.
[7:20]But let me take that farther. What you're basically saying is, I'm in a relationship with this person, I'm giving them 80 to 100% of control of this relationship.
[7:33]Their limbic brain now controls it. So if they're taking up 80 to 100% of the cup, that means I have to become 0 to 20% in the cup.
[7:45]I got to make myself smaller cuz I'm making them bigger. They're taking up more room, so I got to take less room. It's it's a matter of proportion.
[7:55]I have to make my needs matter less and less because their needs matter more and more. My desires must matter less and less cuz their desires matter more and more.
[8:06]Their beliefs are all that matters. Mine must therefore not matter. I must get smaller and that is what a faer does.
[8:15]But then we find ways to justify it. To make it sound like that was the right decision. That we're doing the right thing. And so here's some of the justifications we use.
[8:26]Well, I became smaller and that made them happy, so it must have worked. So it was the right thing to do.
[8:36]Or they're not happy right now, but I just need to be patient because I'm working over here to fix things that are going to make them happy and they're going to come around.
[8:49]So if I'm just patient, I'll get, it'll pay off in the end. Or we make excuses. Well, they're not happy right now, but that's cuz they have a stressful job.
[9:02]I don't want to put any responsibility on them that they're acting immature, that they don't they're not learning to regulate and manage their own emotions and be responsible for themselves.
[9:11]I always blame somebody else for their emotional state. Or I go, you know what? When they're in a good mood, it is so good.
[9:23]I feel so loved, I feel so connected. It's wonderful. And that happens once in a while.
[9:30]So I just need to do what's necessary to get back there because when it's good, it is so good.
[9:38]Or if I just change a little bit more, then they'll be happy. Then it'll fix everything.
[9:45]I don't require them to change. I just I got to change a little bit more. And so what you find is that means I got to make myself a little bit smaller.
[9:54]Just a little bit smaller and then it'll pay off. So it's always me that has to change.
[10:02]I think what's important to see right here at this point is this is where it can get a little tricky because when you look at fawning, yes, you are minimizing yourself.
[10:16]You're getting smaller and smaller, but many don't see that because in their mind they're actually think they're making themselves bigger.
[10:23]So there's an element of fawning where you're making parts of yourself smaller, but parts of yourself bigger.
[10:30]So let me explain that. So think of the person who they find out that they get validated for being funny.
[10:39]So now they try to be funny all the time. They make that part bigger. And they go, I'm not fawning. I'm putting myself out there.
[10:48]Well, no, they at that moment, have they shut down and become smaller in all the other parts of their life.
[10:55]They're just making their humorous component of their personality bigger and bigger, but all the other parts of their personality smaller and smaller.
[11:06]You think of a person who's pretty and they get validated for that. So now they try to make that bigger.
[11:14]Or a person who is giving and generous and they get validated for that. Now they make that bigger and they're just generous and giving all the time.
[11:25]So in their mind, I'm not fawning, I'm just putting myself out there in a positive way.
[11:34]And so that's where some people get confused and don't see that that's actually a form of fawning because you're finding the one area that gets you validation and making it all of you.
[11:47]Making it bigger. So now every time you start a relationship, you begin with being funny, you begin with being generous by helping people.
[11:59]You begin by being pretty and coy and sexy. All of those things are now how you bring people into relationship.
[12:10]Keep people, it's the glue that holds the relationship together. It's everything depends on that. Meanwhile, your needs, your authentic self have been repressed.
[12:20]Your opinions are shut down, your desires, your creative parts. All of those are shut down.
[12:30]And so there's fawning, it's important to realize that there's a regress part that the shut down part, but there's a progressed part where you overdevelop certain parts of you that got you validation.
[12:43]But all of this is leading somewhere. The smaller you have to get, what you're actually doing in fawning is abandoning yourself.
[12:53]You're becoming totally attuned to the other person, mirroring with the other person, merging with the other person, becoming a clone of the other person.
[13:02]All to make them happy and meet their needs. Well, you deny your own needs, sacrifice your own needs.
[13:13]Abandon your own needs. You abandon your authentic self. All to try and please someone else.
[13:22]And so the self-minimization, eventually basically is fawning is a form of self-abandonment.
[13:32]Third characteristic is fawners are shape shifters. They wear masks. They become chameleons.
[13:43]They will become whatever you want them to be, just so you'll like them and not hurt them and meet some of their needs.
[13:54]And so many of the people that I work with will say they are chameleons in the sense that they can have a hundred different people and they'll become a hundred different people.
[14:01]In order to please each one of those those people.
[14:06]So they can be one way with one person, totally different with another person. It's whatever the person wants them to be.
[14:17]And so they are shape shifters. So what a child in complex trauma has learned early on, which has required them to become shape shifters or mask wearers is authenticity has resulted in rejection.
[14:32]It has not led to connection, it has led to punishment and rejection. And so authenticity in their mind is a bad thing.
[14:42]And so if you're going to have a relationship, if you're going to stay safe, you have to wear masks and become a shape shifter, become what the other person wants.
[14:53]So, that again means being highly attuned to the other person's moods, beliefs, drives, desires, dreams.
[15:07]And then merging with that person. So again, I think it's important to realize that for a child, all of this is ultimately about trying to get their own needs met.
[15:17]Trying to survive. So I will be meet your needs, become whatever you want me to be, but will you please meet my need? Will you please like me?
[15:29]And so the result of all of this for most faers is they get to adult life, and they still are doing that, trying to earn love, trying to get people to like them, trying to get their needs met.
[15:43]But they don't have a clue who they are. They are feeling totally, I know what everybody else wants me to be.
[15:52]I don't have a clue what my authentic self looks like. I don't have a clue what I really think or believe, only what other people think and believe.
[16:00]I don't know what my emotions are. And so a huge part of healing and recovery from fawning is gradually getting to know your authentic self.
[16:14]Finding out who you are. And that is a journey. That's not a instant destination that you get by flipping a switch.
[16:21]It is a gradual journey that begins to happen when we stop fawning. So, those are the first three characteristics of a faer.
[16:31]If those relate to you, I hope you will listen on in the following weeks. For today, that's all we're going to cover.
[16:40]So thank you and again, subscribe, like, share, so many of the people that watch haven't subscribed and it just helps.
[16:49]It gets this video out if you take the time to just subscribe to this channel. Thank you very much. Have a good day.
