Day 6 Of Secure By Summer

This track guides you to break the cycle of self-abandonment, helping you transition from survival-based people-pleasing to authentic, secure connection where you can express your true needs without fear of rejection.

Perfect for anyone navigating anxious attachment, childhood trauma conditioning, or the "fawn" response. It directly addresses the subconscious fear of conflict, chronic shrinking, over-accommodating, and the habit of suppressing your voice and boundaries just to keep the peace.

A somatic grounding exercise paired with empowering vocal affirmations, followed by introspective therapeutic journal prompts designed to somaticize safety and uncover the core fears driving the fawn response.

Transcript

Hello and good morning. Welcome to day six. Welcome back. Welcome, Welcome. So today we're talking about the Fawn response. I want to say really quick that I'm so eternally grateful that you're still here. You're still committed. I am so proud of you for being here. And if you make it to day 21, That's great and awesome. But if you just make it to day six, That's great too. And that's something. I do want to say really quick that I made this for the version of me that needed it when she was spiraling and in a really, Really difficult place and needed to heal her anxious attachment. So I hope this helps at least one person. Let's get started. So today we're going into something that I do not think gets nearly enough attention in the attachment and healing space. We talk a lot about the spiral. We talk a lot about anxious attachment and avoidant attachment and chemistry and regulation, But there is a pattern that lives underneath all of that quietly. Consistently costing people everything and nobody is naming it loudly enough. Today we are naming it. Today we talk about the Fawn response and about what happens when you love someone so much or more accurately when you are so afraid of losing someone that you slowly, Quietly, Completely disappear. We have heard, You probably have heard of fight or flight and freeze as trauma responses. Most people have, But there is a fourth one that gets left out of the conversation almost entirely. And it might be the one that resonates with you the most deeply. Fawn response. The fawn response is what happens when your nervous system decides that the safest thing to do in a threatening situation is to make the other person comfortable, To agree, To accommodate. To shrink. To become whatever version of yourself takes up the least amount of space and causes the least amount of friction. It is not called kindness. Even though it looks like kindness from the outside, It is not generosity or love or being easygoing. It is your nervous system running a very old survival program that says if I make myself very small, Agreeable. Easy enough to be around, And then they will not leave. Then I will be safe. Then the connection will still hold strong. The fawn response was first identified by therapist Pete Walker as the fourth trauma response, And research on early childhood experiences shows that fawning typically develops when a child learns that expressing needs or emotions leads to conflict, Or withdrawal, Or even punishment. So the child adapts. They become the peacemaker, The accommodator, The one who reads the room and adjusts accordingly. I want to tell you something personal here because this one I lived completely, And I mean completely. I was in a relationship for three years, Three long years, And looking back I can see now that somewhere in the first few months I started to disappear. Not all at once, But slowly. The way like a tide goes in and out, You know, You do not notice it happening and then suddenly you look up and the shore is completely different. He would make little remarks, Small ones, The kind you could almost convince yourself did not mean anything, And I would not say a word. I would swallow it. Keep the peace. Tell myself it was not worth the conflict. I basically, By the end of it, Morphed into him. I picked up his hobbies, I followed his dreams, I conformed to his life, His schedule, His preferences, His vision for what our time together should look like. I stopped asking what I wanted because I had gotten so good at making what he wanted feel like what I wanted too. And somewhere in those years, I looked up and asked myself a question that genuinely frightened me. Who is Hayley? I didn't know. I could not answer it. I had abandoned my needs, My voice, My truth, My opinions, My desires, All of it. Because I did not want conflict, Because I wanted to keep the peace. Because some part of me believed that if I was easygoing, Agreeable enough, And small enough, He would stay. But we were not okay, Because you cannot build a relationship with a version of yourself that you invented to keep someone comfortable. And you cannot feel loved by someone who has never actually met you. The real you. And guess what? It cost me everything. My sense of self, My identity, My relationship with my own inner world. When it ended, I had to pick up pieces I did not even recognize. I had to ask who am I outside of this? What do I actually like? What do I actually think? What do I actually need? That rebuilding was some of the hardest and most important work I have ever done. Here is what I want you to understand about the fawn response. It is not a personality type. You are not just a people pleaser by nature. Fawning is a nervous system response. It is something your body learned to do under specific conditions. And every other learned response we have talked about this week, It can be unlearned. Let me give you some specific ways it shows up in relationships. See if any of these feel or sound familiar to you. So you agree with things you do not agree with because disagreeing feels too risky. You make yourself available when you do not want to be because saying no feels dangerous. You do not say what you actually need because asking feels like too much. You apologize for things that are not your fault to dissolve tension faster. You take on their mood as if it is your responsibility to manage it. You stop talking about your own life, Your own dreams, Your own feelings because the relationship has quietly become entirely about them. And underneath all of it. Is one core belief. If I am too much, They will leave. If I have needs, I will lose them. If I take up space, Something will go wrong. That belief is not the truth. It is a survival strategy that has outlived its usefulness. Here's the thing about fawning that I really need you to hear. You cannot be truly loved if you are not truly present. Real love requires your real presence, Your actual voice, Your honest needs, Your edges and your opinions and the parts of you that are inconvenient and complicated and fully human. You are not too much, You have been making yourself too little, And there is a real difference. Okay, So your shamanic practice. I want you to stand up wherever you are, Plant both feet on the floor, Hip width apart. Feel the ground. Beneath you. Roll your shoulders back, Lift your chin slightly. Feel the groundedness as you stand. Now, I want you to say these words out loud three times, Even if it feels strange, Especially if it feels strange. I take up space. I am allowed to have needs. My presence matters. Say it to yourself three times. I take up space. I am allowed to have needs. My presence matters. I take up space. I am allowed to have needs. My presence matters. Now I want you to feel the feelings that you're feeling, And while you say it out loud, Notice what happens in your body. Does something resist? Does something soften? Whatever comes up is information. Just notice it. Okay, And your journal prompt today is, Where do you make yourself smaller in relationships? Specifically, Your time, Your voice, Your body, Your standards, Your dreams. Where does the shrinking happen most? And then this question, What are you afraid would happen if you took up more space? What is the fear underneath the fawn? I want you to know that you did not lose yourself because you were weak. You lost yourself because you were trying to survive. Because somewhere along the way you learned that your needs were too much, And that conflict was dangerous, And that love had to be earned by making yourself easy. That was never true. It was just the only map you had. You do not have to earn your place in love. You belong there, Fully, Completely, Exactly as you are. Take a deep breath. I will see you on day seven with so much love, Haley.