OVERVIEW OF THE FAWN RESPONSE

Fawn is a blended state of shutdown and flight. In this state, we have mobilizing energy to flee, run away, and avoid out of fear (usually of rejection or harm), and also have the immobilizing impulse to shut down and suppress our healthy aggression and vitality, our truth, our boundaries, and our authenticity in order to fit in.

 Here, we are guided by fear as we befriend and tend to others to avoid danger. This presents as conflict avoidance through extreme submissiveness, compliance, or being overly accommodating of others. We do this by people pleasing, over-explaining, over-apologizing, or trying to be perfect. This is where codependent tendencies can occur, where you become a chronic caregiver, savior, and/or fixer—thereby losing your identity in others whom you place as more important than yourself. This is also where you abandon your boundaries, avoid confrontation for the sake of keeping the peace, and will say “yes” to anything with the hopes of being accepted—making you more prone to exploitation. When a disagreement does occur, you often retract your opinion out of fear of the consequences. You consistently defer to others to make decisions for you. You’re hypersensitive to others’ somatic cues and are always monitoring their emotional state for signs of threat.

Breaking free from any chronic survival response requires: 

1. Learning the language of your unique nervous system: sensation, emotion, feeling, impulse.
2. Understanding how your nervous system is reenacting these protective patterns and responses in your present day.
3. Somatic completion: allowing the nervous system physiology to do now, what felt too overwhelming to do back then. This turning point happens when you explore Core Wounds work. For example: advocating or setting a boundary, walking away, expressing or emoting, etc.
4. Building nervous system capacity/resilience to tolerate discomfort (anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, shame, etc). This is done through routine experiential practice.
5. Integrating a nervous system-centered lifestyle across your external world: relationships, health & wellbeing, career, finances, etc.