98: People Pleasing & Kind are NOT the same.
I believe that everyone has an inner leader-that place within that is connected, curious, confident, creative and wise. However, when we are blocked by old stories and childhood conditioning we stop ourselves from standing at the helm of our leadership and allowing our inner leader to LEAD. One of the common ways we block ourselves from activating our inner leader is people pleasing.
What I have found however, is that many people don’t always understand what people pleasing is. Yes we want to be kind. Yes we want to support others, but people pleasing and kind simply are not the same.
People pleasing is one of the key traits of the survival response, fawning. In a nutshell, “fawning” is the use of people-pleasing to diffuse conflict, feel more secure in relationships, and earn the approval of others.
And when we live our life focused on and dancing to appease OTHERS, we lose ourselves.
In this episode, I unpack what some of the fawning traits are as well as ‘types’ of fawners so you might be able to recognize it in yourself.
If you find yourself fawning, don't worry and please don't beat yourself up. You are not alone and this is a common response to complex trauma. You didn't do anything wrong, you're not bad or silly or dumb for developing this response.
You started fawning as a way to cope with a very unstable situation. You did what you needed to do to cope. And now that you know what you're doing, you can start making choices that will help you feel better.
Boundaries are a beautiful way to begin healing from the fawn response-I would love for you to join me at The BUILD BETTER BOUNDARIES workshop happening July 18th
LINKS FROM EPISODE:
EPISODE 62: Let's talk about trauma