befriending the fawn

I

In When the Body Says No, Gabor Mate writes of German Nazis after World War II, who, upon being sentenced for their war crimes, rather than expressing remorse, said something to the effect of, “But I followed orders so well.”

I read this anecdote a decade ago, but it has haunted me ever since, because I could relate.

While I certainly haven’t committed any Nazi-level war crimes, and being able to see myself in anything a Nazi said is pretty humbling, what these guys were describing about the satisfaction and relief of pleasing an authority figure hit a bit too close to the bone.

Complying to someone more powerful than me was how I’d functioned in every workplace. I’d bent over backwards to appease the boss, laser-focused on staying safe by rushing to meet whatever demands arose.

Compliance was how I navigated the world.

It was a way of being so embedded in who I was, that I thought it was me.

II

Fawning is a trauma response where a person compulsively complies to and pleases others, particularly those in positions of authority, in order to obtain a sense of safety. It’s a common nervous system response to threat for those who embody multiple marginalizations, who find themselves in a one-down position, or holding less power, in relation to those who are one-up, or holding more power, in any given dynamic.

For those of us who find ourselves in this one-down position due to factors such as race, sex, class, disability, or age, it makes a lot of sense that we would adopt a fawning stance: in a world where we’ve been denied power, pleasing and complying can be brilliant ways to mask our vulnerabilities and get our needs met.

But as with any protective strategy, if we engage it too long, or too often, we can burn out.

Compliance may earn us a moment’s respite of safety, but the safety doesn’t tend to stay. We might wake up the next morning feeling like whatever deposits gained from yesterday’s pleasing somehow evaporated overnight; we’re starting at zero and must repeat the process once more: disregarding our own needs and instincts and bowing down to what the authority requires of us.

It's a cycle of progressive exhaustion.

And when we keep doing it, we can lose track of who we are and mistake our tendency to cater to others as the essence of ourselves.

III

As an autistic woman with an ancestral lineage of colonization, fawning became my primary stress response.

In many ways, fawning served me: it kept me safe for many years, kept the paychecks flowing and made me into someone whom many called a wonderful employee.

But it also kept me from speaking up when I didn’t agree, or when a boss’ demands were hurting me.

The part of me that fawned and complied did so regardless of the cost to my health or sanity. Over time, this pattern contributed to a deep burnout that required a recovery period that included a year and a half away from paid employment.  

IV 

To give you an idea of how embedded my compliant part was within me, I have been working with my parts for years, but only recently did I start to see this one clearly. And even when I did, the process took months for me to really understand it.

The unraveling started when I found myself saying to my IFS practitioner, “I feel like a deer, and everyone around me is a wolf.”

For a few months, that’s all that happened: I heard myself voicing distress about feeling weak and vulnerable in a world of predators constantly wanting to devour me. But I felt convinced that the voice that was speaking was my own, and that the carnage the voice was describing was my true experience of the world.

V

I still remember the day that I realized that the voice that felt like a deer wasn’t me, it was a part of me. It was a huge dopamine hit. I actually exclaimed out loud, “It’s a part!”

And I really appreciated that this part that felt like a deer represented the part of me that fawns: my parts often show me symbolic imagery to indicate the jobs that they do.

With this new understanding, space emerged between the part of me that fawns, and my Self, which is what IFS calls the benevolent essence of our consciousness. Self has different names in many different spiritual traditions, from Christ Consciousness, to Buddha Nature, to Atman.

In this new space between Self and part, I could hold the deer, and listen as it told me how hopeless and scared it had always felt.

How it didn’t want to blindly comply with demands, but felt if I stopped doing so, predators would tear me to bits.

As the terrified deer began to trust that I was here, listening to it without judgment, it turned to me, and let me hold it and keep it safe.

That’s when things began to change.

VI

I stopped seeing the world through the eyes of a terrified deer, and I noticed myself making different choices.

In the presence of authority, I noticed an awareness of my inner deer starting to shake, but as it shook, I acknowledged its presence and held it within me. Its shaking calmed down, much like a crying baby being soothed by a mom.

Rather than compulsively saying yes to things, before I even had a chance to evaluate how they felt for me, I was able to take time to listen to the deer’s concerns, and assess my options.

And I began to approach authority figures not from a place of fear, but from a place of my soul, speaking to their soul.

VII

I want to be clear that getting to know my fawning part doesn’t mean the fawning part doesn’t become scared anymore in the face of authority.

It does, sometimes; but if and when that happens now, it knows it’s not alone.

And because I’d spent time witnessing the fawn’s pain and fear, those old unprocessed feelings it had been carrying around for so many years had finally metabolized within me.

It’s like I finally digested a heavy meal, and I’m no longer walking around bloated and uncomfortable.

I can meet each new experience as it comes.

VIII

I also want to be clear that sometimes I still assume a pleasing stance before power, but for the most part, it’s not done compulsively but rather because I made a conscious choice, after surveying my options, that fawning was the safest or most advantageous thing to do in that moment.

The reality is that in the world we live in, for some of us with multiple marginalizations, we may rarely feel safe enough to stop fawning and pleasing others.

And that’s a real reason to grieve.

But I’ve been surprised, over time, as my parts have begun to trust me to lead, at how often I’m able to talk to those with more power than I have, from my Self.

The value of an IFS practice is that the more we hear from our parts, the more they relax. Then we can lead with our Self energy, which can come across as sounding calm, clear, connected, creative, courageous, and compassionate.

IX

When we move from Self energy, the locus of authority shifts away from the person society deems more powerful, whether that is the parent, boss, government, or some other external entity. Instead, our presence, our essence, our connection to all that is: these assume the seat of our real and true authority.

From Self, so much more is possible. When we embody Self energy, we protect ourselves from agreeing to do things that might not be good for us or others, on a spectrum with applications as wide ranging as simply not saying yes to an invite that gives us pause, to literally not becoming a Nazi.

And Self energy is contagious. When we speak from our Self energy, we increase the likelihood that we call forth the Self energy of the other person, thus potentially transforming the outcome of the entire conversation.

In this way, IFS becomes a tool of inner activism that can transform outer events.

Fascism relies on a large demographic of compliant people to take hold. When we befriend our inner fawning, compliant parts, we become one fewer person through which fascism can spread.

My body may remain one that society labels less powerful, but when I operate from my Self energy, I don’t feel so pushed around by power anymore.

Instead, I influence power.