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The fawn response: the trauma pattern behind people-pleasing and overgiving.
- Amy Cotterill
- Aug 19
- 5 min read
You cancel your plans because someone else is having a hard day.
You replay that text before hitting send, just in case it comes off the wrong way.
You offer to stay late (again) because someone else is stressed.
You hold back from saying what you really think because you don’t want to sound harsh.
You tell yourself it’s just who you are. That you care. That you’re considerate.
Maybe that’s true. But maybe it’s also something else.
A habit of making sure everyone else is okay... even when it costs you.
A pattern you didn’t choose, but one your body learned to rely on.
A nervous system trying to keep you safe by keeping things smooth and agreeable.
And if you’re standing at the edge of something new, a move, a shift, a decision that feels important, but you can’t seem to take the next step… this could be part of why.
Because fawning doesn’t just drain you, it delays the boldest version of your life. The one you can feel, but don’t yet feel safe stepping into
What is the fawn response?
Fawning is a lesser-known trauma response, right alongside fight, flight, and freeze. It’s what happens when your system senses threat or disconnection, and your safest option is to appease.
Most of us didn’t learn this in adulthood.
We learned it as children, when we didn’t have the power to leave, protest, or push back. So instead, we made ourselves easy. Helpful. Good.
We became the peacemakers. The emotional barometers.
We scanned for signs of tension and did whatever we could to prevent it.
Not because we were kind, but because we were smart.
We adapted.
And unless we’ve had support to work through it, we’re often still doing it - in our jobs, our relationships, our everyday interactions, even when it holds us back.
Kindness vs fawning - there’s a difference
This came up in one of my therapy sessions a few years ago.
I came to my session and shared how I always put my phone away when I see an older person walking towards me on the street. Not just slowly out of consideration, a quick, slightly panicked action. Almost like I was ashamed to be on it at all.
Because I didn’t want to be seen or judged as rude, or glued to my screen, or part of “that generation.”
He asked, “Do you think maybe you’re just a nice person?”
And I didn’t really know what to say.
Because I do think I am a nice person. But the trigger of the action was something else underneath it.
A flicker of panic. A fast calculation.
A nervous energy trying to pre-empt judgement before it could arrive.
It was a reflex. A tiny move to protect myself from being perceived a certain way, even by a stranger I’d never see again.
Kindness is, I want to do this.
Fawning is, I have to do this or something bad will happen.
And that’s what I was trying to explain.
Yes this example is tiny in the scheme of things, but when you are constantly scanning your environment How tiring it is to always be scanning the environment.
Adjusting yourself in micro ways, even in the smallest of moments, just to avoid potential discomfort or imagined conflict.
Not because it’s needed. But because your system’s still wired for it.
How fawning shows up (even when it looks like “being nice”)
You might not even realise you’re doing it.
But it can quietly shape the way you move through the world:
You say yes when you don’t mean it
You offer help before checking in with your own capacity
You soften your tone so your message doesn’t come off too firm
You anticipate other people’s reactions and adjust yourself accordingly
You feel responsible for how others feel (oh boy is this a big one to unpack another time)
You don't keep to your boundaries or avoid setting them altogether
You feel uncomfortable after standing your ground and want to explain or undo it
You stay in dynamics (or jobs) where you’re valued for what you do, not who you are
It can feel like connection.
But often, it’s a quiet form of self-abandonment.
The real cost of people-pleasing
This pattern doesn’t just live in your relationships. It shows up in your ambitions.
When you’re wired to keep others happy, you can start to:
Hold back from going for the promotion because you don’t want to disrupt the team
Delay launching the thing you’ve been dreaming about, because someone might not get it and tell you that
Stay in work that feels wrong, because you don’t want to disappoint anyone
Downplay your success to make others feel more comfortable
Say yes to opportunities that don’t excite you...and no to the ones that scare you in a good way
And the longer it goes on, the more you start to lose touch with yourself.
Over time, it can chip away at your self-worth and erode your confidence.
It can create space for imposter syndrome, or this deeper sense that you’ve somehow drifted from who you really are.
It can take you to quite scary existential places where you’re not sure what you want anymore, so how then can you even trust yourself to choose it.
Your body needs to know it’s safe
The fawn response isn’t about overthinking, it’s a state shift in your nervous system.
Polyvagal theory explains that when your system detects relational threat, even something as subtle as a disapproving look or the possibility of letting someone down, it can drop into a blended state: sympathetic charge (the urgency to appease) and dorsal shutdown (a loss of agency or self).
This is where fawning lives - in that charged-but-collapsed state, where keeping others happy feels safer than being fully yourself.
And the hard part? You can understand exactly what’s happening and still find yourself doing it because your body doesn’t change through logic. It changes through neuroception - the way your nervous system constantly scans for signs of safety or threat, beneath your conscious awareness.
To shift this pattern, your system needs more than insight.
It needs to feel safe in the moments you’d normally over-give, apologise, or abandon yourself.
That kind of shift doesn’t come from forcing a boundary or repeating a mantra. It comes from working with the body, consistently and gently, to interrupt old protective loops and build a new baseline of safety.
This is why nervous system work is so powerful. It gives you access to the part of yourself that fawning bypasses - your voice, your pace, your sense of choice. And from there, things start to shift in a real, embodied way.
This is where you begin to reclaim your voice, your energy, and your next step
You start practising micro-boundaries
Saying no, even when it feels scary
Trusting your sense of what’s right
Taking the next step because it matters to you
This is the work I do with clients every day.
Not just helping them feel calmer, but helping them feel ready.
Ready to take the next step.
Ready to stop holding back.
Ready to follow through.
That’s why I work within my Release, Regulate, Reclaim method.
Releasing old patterns that quietly run the show.
Regulating your system, so you’re no longer reacting from protection.
And Reclaiming your energy, voice, and direction, so you can make the move, start the thing, say yes to the version of life that actually feels like yours.
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