“Hey Alexa, Am I Selfish For Saying No To My Friend?”

You can’t sleep, you rewind every moment of that conversation wondering if you did something wrong. Your stomach feels like it's in knots and your eyes start to grow wide while noticing a slight headache when the image of your friend mouthing the words “you are so selfish” when you told her you were not able to make it to her house tonight. You think to yourself, am I selfish? I have always been there for her and all my friends, I have cancelled my plans to be there for her and even went along with what she wanted to do on my birthday! You continue to think out loud, “maybe I should text her again and apologize for not going tonight” but then you start to notice an anger and a heat all over your body as you think about all the times you have  not received the same treatment back.  

Do you send a text with how angry you are at her but then you notice that quieting and start to minimize your feelings. Perhaps, this feels more familiar to your system and that apologizing will possibly keep her as your friend, yet you are so tired of doing this! You want to show up for yourself and stop this cycle of putting other people's feelings and needs first. So you do what a lot of people do, you chat gpt or ask Alexa. 

“Hey Alexa, am I selfish for saying no to my friend?” Alexa responds, “let me think about this.” You can feel your heart beating faster and a rush of energy that makes it hard to wait and your mind starts looping. “Does she think it too?”

“You are so selfish,” hits hard for people that tend to show niceness to others as after all it's something we value. However, we are not being kind towards ourselves and end up feeling worse. Could it be possible that over time our nervous system responded in a constant fawn state to make sure others were comfortable at the expense of our own well-being. 

Hello, I am Jenny Yuzon, Registered Social Worker and creator of Jenuine Therapy, virtual therapy in Ontario, Canada.  I hope this blog gives you a better exploration of  the fawn response, how it may have developed, how it helps us and a mini practice that can help your system shift.

What Is A Fawn Response?

“It's like your system says "danger" and "be nice” at the same time while your true self is in the background-unable to participate (Porges, 2023).” The fawn response is your autonomic nervous system responding very quickly to a perceived threat. Sometimes we actually may have to fawn as it feels safer in a room or our system picks up on an actual dangerous situation and we need to tend and befriend the other person for our survival. The difference is we want our system to see what is the actual danger in that moment and not an automatic response that is based in fear. We don’t want to get rid of as we do need this response, we just want to ensure that your voice, opinions and feelings aren’t put aside continuously. 

How Did It Possibly Develop And How Does It Help?

We are all hard-wired for this nervous system response, for some people their system may have learned overtime that constantly fawning kept them safe or kept things contained.The fawn response may activate more quickly in situations that may not need to actually fawn. There are many different ways that your nervous system learned over time that being quieter, keeping your view to yourself in fear of another person disagreeing, helping others while ignoring your needs was a lot more safe than making yourself bigger or focusing on your own needs and wants. 

As a Certified Brainspotting Therapist and a trained integrative somatic therapist, I see a lot of adult individuals where at a young age they could predict what kind of mood their parents were in and by doing so could make things not get worse by “keeping themselves small.” I have also worked with individuals that were in a toxic relationship as an adult and this made them feel overtime that they didn’t have a right to speak up and if they did, then they would be ignored, yelled at or threatened to harm themselves which created a huge amount of tension in the home and in your mind and body. Perhaps at work, you find yourself going that extra mile even though you are burnt-out or volunteering for more than you can handle as you worry that people on the team won't like you or your boss will think you aren't working hard enough.

What creative ways as a kid or as an adult we found ways to survive and get through this hard moment or collection of many moments.  “If I just comfort my parent (s) while they are mad then the fighting will stop.” “If I learned that asking for something would make more tension in the house then I will stop asking.” “If I don’t speak up and agree with what my partner is saying then he won’t ignore me for days and everything will be ok.” "If I do more at work then I won't look lazy and have to feel this uncomfortable twist in my stomach when I turn down an extra thing."

The challenge is that you weren’t ok but felt like you had to focus on others in that moment for your system to feel ok. This was an incredibly difficult and stressful time for your system that learned to put your own needs in the background and constantly be on survival mode. Their needs became your responsibility which is a huge load for you to carry alone. 

Our system learned over time that having needs= danger, focusing on others needs= safety. 

What Are Some Signs That I Am In A Fawn State?

Everybody is different and by getting to know how your own nervous system responds, things can start to shift. Was there a recent interaction where you noticed you went along with something when you really didn’t want to or thought that you should agree with someone in case they got upset? If so, how could you tell? 

These are some common signs 

• A sense of fear by disagreeing or not "doing enough"
• Jaw clenches and a smile feels forced or can also feel automatic
• Eyes look down or away 
• Nausea or a knot in the stomach
• Hands are clasped or hidden
• Physically trying to make yourself smaller by shrinking your body in, posture changing 
• Internal dialogue of don't say anything even though you really want to
• Over apologizing
• Urgency to fix things
• Rationalizing why its ok to abandon your own needs
• Disconnection from your own emotions
• Parts of you don't want to "just go along" but feel anxious if you don't

How can I respond to these sensations in a more curious way?

1)Pause and observe what you are noticing- “I am noticing  pulling towards the other person right now even though I don’t want to" or “I am noticing that tightness in my gut right now.” Pausing increases a connection to our prefrontal cortex, where emotional regulation and moral reasoning are processed (Siegel, 2020). 

2)Ground yourself- Can we look around the room and find something neutral or pleasant to look at, can we feel our feet on the ground and scrunch the toes or do a few drops of the heels and feel the ground beneath you each time your heels drop. 

3)Ask yourself before responding-What do I actually want to do? Do I actually want to go or is it the sensation telling me I SHOULD? Do I want to do something else that I normally wouldn't do (ex-give myself more time before automatically saying yes, stating what I am willing to do and what I am not)?

Sometimes even asking ourselves what do I want to do can be anxiety provoking or challenging. We don’t always know what we want and maybe it wasn’t safe to know these parts of ourselves so it can feel unfamiliar. You aren’t doing it wrong, if this happens, you are just doing something different.

Feeling guilty is not a bad thing, perhaps we can view it as: GUILT= Doing something different (turning towards me).

How Does Somatic Therapy Help?

As a Certified Brainspotting Therapist who integrates somatic therapy, I have witnessed and experienced how our nervous system responses are embodied and may show up as behaviour or personality traits. When they actually may be learned experiences that are held deep within. Somatic therapy explores how these patterns show up (shrinking, going silent) and practicing in session with an attuned therapist, awareness of sensations, posture shifts and/or movements that feel more empowering or safe internally.

Awareness and action of your needs and feelings start to feel more accessible and believable that it's ok to listen to yourself or to set a boundary. Utilizing somatic practices and supporting self-regulation makes it possible to listen to your needs first and to tolerate discomfort without being extremely overwhelmed or completely shut down.

Alexa finally responds, ”you are not selfish for saying no to your friend, sounds like you were showing self-respect and still learning ways to show up for yourself. I can help you with that, would you like me to connect you with Jenuine Therapy? Ok, please click on the button below.”