Do You Care Too Much What Other People Think of You? Avoid Conflict? Say Yes When You Shouldn't? | Dr. Ingrid Clayton, Fawning Expert

27:52And my wife was saying, as soon as I heard about the diagnosis, my anger was reduced by 50%. Now, it doesn't excuse the behavior, but it does explain it and put it in context in a way that can be really clarifying. So I wonder if you think I'm onto something here or I'm off track. No, what comes to mind is that maybe she wasn't validated by that person necessarily because they came back and they said, oh, I'm sorry, you know, I've been such a jerk. But getting that information was a form of validation. Like, oh, this is real, right? I think a lot of times when we're talking about essentially emotional rupture or abuse is it doesn't feel real.

28:35We continue to discount it like, well, if you don't have physical bruises or we have this like measuring stick of harm and we're like, well, is it really that bad? And yet for most of my clients, what they're coming in with are these unseen wounds and bruises that they're carrying around similar to your wife's. And what it's been lacking is someone to say, like, that was real, that happened, and I'm so sorry. Interestingly, just moments ago, when you heard that little snippet of my story, even you just pausing for a moment and being a real human being and saying, I'm sorry that happened to you.

29:10Like, it's not the point of being on podcasts, but I can't tell you how many conversations I've had where that doesn't happen. We are very accustomed to just moving along and on to the next. Winston, being seen is a salve. So I imagine that that was a piece of what she was able to experience. Yeah, I want to come back to the being seen as a salve very quickly. But I do want to say just on what I was trying to point out, in part with having these psychological models that allow you to understand the way we all work. Oh, that's borderline personality disorder, that's narcissism, whatever. It can be weaponized.

29:51Actually, we have a podcast episode coming up about how these psychological terms can be weaponized and misused. But properly understood and properly deployed, it can, I think, turn down the volume on this kind of miasmatic nebulous rage that we feel with people on the world stage who are doing things we disagree with, our neighbors who are saying stupid shit in community board meetings, whatever. If you see it through the lens of what happened to you instead of what's the matter with you. Again, this is not to excuse. This is not to fawn. This is really just about your own inner management so that you can respond more effectively.

30:27What's interesting to me is that you said it brought your wife's rage down 50%. And I go, that sounds about right. Because you're talking about an intellectual understanding. So I was just listening recently to your show with Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing. And what his work tells us, and a lot of work in trauma tells us, is that that part of the brain is actually disconnected from, speaks a different language from where trauma is stored, right, from the wisdom of the gut. and so for those that really identify with the Fawn response what tends to be very common is that we're always looking for the reason oh I know they did that because and then we pretend like that solves the rest of the 50 % of the upset and it does not so now we have to go to the next step and go what does it look like for me to own my anger in fact it tends to be a really important part of this ongoing process.

31:24It's like we're tending this fire that's been dormant in our own body, and yet that is our life force. So that kindling, that reconnection to, I'm allowed to be mad, that was bypassed over and over and over again. And listen, if we could just do the analysis and be done, I would have been healed a long time ago. I can write a story for anyone about why they come by something honestly. And it did not help me heal. It kept me stuck.

31:57Coming up, Dr. Ingrid Clayton talks about owning your anger and how to express it in healthy ways. Some practical steps around how to know if you're a fonder, some steps to unfawn and the crucial goal that might not be so obvious, and the importance of how to move away from binary thinking.

32:18Say a little bit more about owning your anger, because anger in a Buddhist sense in many spiritual and psychological circles is not something that's venerated. Well, you know, my experience with that is actually today, as we're recording, I'm 30 years sober. So I essentially grew up in a 12-step program, which has a spiritual foundation, and I received the same message. In fact, we were told like, anger is a luxury. Resentment is the number one offender and it's going to lead me back to drinking more than anything. And I took that very seriously for a very long time. We only focus on my side of the street, not what anybody else did.

32:59I did that. I wrote a million inventories. And listen, let me be clear. I am so grateful for my sobriety. It's the foundation for everything else. I love that community. It has saved my life. and some of those principles as the founders, 99 men, by the way, as they sort of laid them out, kept me stuck in a chronic fawn response. This message that I meant to get out of myself and help other people. Well, that's all I'd been doing my whole life. I knew how to help other people. I didn't know how to inhabit a self at all just to begin there. So as much as, of course, I didn't want to go back to drinking, ultimately a part of my process was allowing myself to feel the anger.

33:46And listen, there's a difference. I'm not encouraging violence. We still have to be mindful about what we do with that anger. But to act as though that's not just a healthy, vital part of the human condition and process of feeling, it's like weather patterns coming in and moving through to say, oh, no, here's one that's coming and I'm not allowed to go there. It's just not realistic, quite frankly. So I had to reconnect with this anger. To go back to thinking about Peter Levine's work, he has a sort of physicalized this feeling that if someone was coming for you and you weren't allowed to physically fight back, that bracing, that posture, that holding, that stuck place might very well be very entrenched in your body.

34:34And part of the healing then is re-inhabiting it. Maybe it means going up to a stationary wall and slowly just pushing, holding that energy in your body and letting essentially this threat response come to the top and finally go down to the other side. Otherwise, we're left hovering at this midpoint all the time. We can't release it. We can't shake it off. You know, you think about your dog at home when they get spooked, they go, they shake it out of their body, right? We're sitting there holding it like, well, I'm not allowed to feel that. And I can't ruffle anyone's feathers. It's keeping us stuck.

35:12Just drill down on this a little bit more for anybody wondering how to feel their anger and even express it in healthy ways, what do you recommend? Basically, again, if we're taking this focus to the external environment all the time, are you okay? Do I matter? How are you doing? And we're turning that lens back on ourself. This is the essence of healing. We're saying, what do I notice in me right now? What am I experiencing. And one simple but powerful way that I start this process is just by inviting people, maybe put your hand on your own heart, this sort of stance of self-compassion, and just get curious.

35:56You know, we say in every trauma training and therapy that I've ever been a part of, we don't say, what do you think about that? We say, what are you noticing? What are you experiencing. And so we're starting to build a real relationship to self, an embodied relationship to self. For some of us, maybe the first time. And if you start to notice, well, I feel this fire in my belly and I'm pissed. Basically, it's like, okay, can you linger there? What else do you notice? Is there a color? Is there a memory, another sensation? Is it your whole body or is it really just in that one spot? And you might notice what needs or wants to happen.

36:39So it's basically just being in relationship to ourselves. And we can hold the space that maybe no one else has held for us to feel those feelings ever before. It reminds me of for so long, I was told, just love yourself, just sort of show up for yourself. And like a true relationship with myself felt like an awful consolation prize because I'm like, I'm with myself all day long. I want real relationship with other people. But in order for me to have the kind of relationship that I wanted to have with other people, I had to attend to this one first. And it sounds so simple, but I'm telling you these small practices of attuning to yourself and even attuning to the environment with the senses, putting yourself in present tense and present time, present location, noticing what you see or what you hear, and then reflecting how that impacts your somatic experience.

37:40These things are powerful. These small practices you're describing, is there a name for them? Well, I use my specific training in the book, which is in somatic experiencing, Peter Levine's work, Internal Family Systems, Dick Schwartz's model, what's otherwise known as parts work, and also EMDR, which I believe Bruce Perry talks about. These are three very common and probably more accessible trauma therapies. And there are books, workbooks, even for internal family systems or IFS that you can do on your own. But there are so many beyond the scope of my practice, right? So what I basically say is if you feel drawn to something.

38:26Listen to your gut. Notice the nudge of like, oh, that modality seems interesting. And then bring yourself along and notice what you're experiencing as you're engaging in whatever it is. Trust that internal feedback more than someone else's idea of like, you should go do X, Y, and Z. As you noted, I've talked to Peter Levine before. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. I've interviewed Dick Schwartz a couple of times. The internal family systems work is really interesting and we'll put some links to those episodes in the show notes. Okay, I want to get to your book. All of this stuff we've been discussing is discussed in the book, but specifically you have some very practical steps that you recommend in the book.

39:08The first area I want to talk about is around like, how do you know if you're a fawn or either a chronic one or like me, like situationally, you can get into a mode of appeasement or ass kissing as I have many times in my life, usually with my boss. How do you know if this is you? Can you say a little bit about that? Well, I think there's a reason why I lead with personal experience and why I invited seven clients from very different backgrounds and experiences to participate in this book. They have truly shared their whole story. These aren't just little vignettes. And I do that because if you look at fawning that at least one half of us is essentially offline, it can be really hard to identify yourself as a faun or just talking about the theory of it.

39:56But when you hear someone's story, you go, oh, I know what they're talking about. So it's why I'm really privileging lived experience. But essentially a lot of the signs and symptoms sort of boil down to like, if you know how to befriend the bully, that might be your boss or whatever. Or if you find that you're always getting smaller in relationship, you shrink in the face of someone else's need. It's almost like relationships are a math problem and everyone else gets to take up 80 % and you kind of figure out how to live in the 20 that's left. If you're chronically conflict avoidant, like the idea of conflict in my body for so long, it ignited just this terror.

40:39That's the word. It was true terror. Like, no, no, no, no, no. I can't have a difference of opinion even. So these are some of the signs that people might be able to see themselves in. I'll list a few of the others that you include in the book. Self-minimization, although you just did kind of cover that. Hypervigilance and anxiety. Shame spirals. Shapeshifting, like sort of being the right person in various contexts. Resentment and caretaking. A deep need to be chosen and or liked. And even sexual fawning, like using sex as a form of currency to appease. These are just some of the key signs and manifestations.

41:15Any of the things that I just listed that you want to say more about? Well, I think most people's ears perk up around sexual fawning. So maybe I'll just speak to that for a moment. Sure. And one way to do it is, again, my personal experience that if I was sexualized when I was so young, which was the case, or, you know, if you're so disempowered and yet some form of power that you are endowed with is your ability to be attractive or to be sexy. of course, fawning is going to borrow from that and use your sex appeal in order to appease or befriend the bully even. And so this was one piece of my experience that I just felt for so long and talk about this feeling of self-betrayal and of trauma reenactment.

41:58I was like, how am I ending up in this situation again? Like, do I have a sandwich board that says inappropriate married men, users and abusers, please apply here. That's sort of what it felt like. And now I know that just like our empathy or our generosity, sexuality can become sort of fused with this fawning where I'm not being sexual or empathic or generous out of conscious choice. I'm doing it because I believe if I don't, I will not be safe. Yeah. Man, we are complicated animals. that's real that's real okay so those are the signs and manifestations but there's a huge emphasis in the book is how to and this is the phrase you use how to unfawn what are the steps there well primarily we've talked about this a little bit it's turning that external focus that constant looking to the horizon to find our safety outside of our own bodies it's starting to build a sense of internal safety from the ground up for the first time ever.

43:08So we don't start unfawning in relationships. I don't say, well, go out and set some healthy boundaries because if you do and it doesn't go well, the body's going to go, see, I told you that doesn't work. That feels horrible. So really half of it is just being in relationship to self, which is why these models like SE and IFS are so important because essentially these are models for how do I connect with my whole being. So that is a huge piece of it. And then once you have a different sense of safety in the world, then we can start to practice. Well, is this a safe enough environment or relationship where I can bring more of my full self?

43:52We start to practice and it might sound silly, but in little ways of like, when the waiter brings me the wrong thing, can I just say, hey, you brought me the wrong thing? Or if a friend says, where do you want to go for dinner? You don't just constantly defer. In other words, you start making these little baby steps into being more of a whole person with opinions, taking up space, right? Not just shrinking in the face of, it's no big deal. I got it, whatever you want. And now the body has experiential feedback, not theoretical. It goes, oh, that went better than I thought it would. Maybe I could take a risk in another place.

44:32Now, all that to say, and I want to make sure that this is clear, if you have a body, you are always going to have access to fight, flight, freeze responses. The goal is never to never fawn again. Okay, so I've now written the book and I talk about this all day, every day, and I probably found yesterday, okay? The goal is that we are not meant to live in survival mode in a threat response 24-7 that is acting as us, whether there's a sense of feeling unsafe or not. This is where we start to discern in this work, is this really dangerous, this relationship, this situation, or is this just uncomfortable, right?

45:20Is this triggering in a way because I'm leaning into having a voice and that sets off my alarm bells like don't do that it's going to make it worse but this is where we start to learn the difference so that our bodies aren't in a constant sense of threat all the time. I'm going to ask some questions that cover some of the things you just mentioned or just like kind of dig deeper a little bit. One of the things you've mentioned throughout this and this seems to be like step number one in unfawning is this paradigm shift, this kind of moving away from binary thinking. Again, you did mention this earlier, but can you say specifically why it's so important in terms of recovering from fawning either as a chronic or episodic fawner?

46:03Because basically I still have a body that's hardwired for relationships and for safety. The body just prioritizes that 100 % of the time. And what's real is we live in an unsafe world. We don't live in this utopia where everyone has equal access and we can have all these friendly ruptures and repairs and relationship all day long. That's just not true. That discounts the reality of the thing. So that's why the removing that binary is so important because now I go, oh, it just allows it to be the moving, living organism that it actually is. And we're not stigmatizing people for being human beings.

46:49I think about that in terms of, and I've talked to openly on the show about my panic disorder, specifically in like elevators and airplanes. And I think I've been hoping that there is an end of the rainbow. And I think actually some people do, you know, like get over it, but I'm not sure that's going to happen for me. And it's, I think it's just going to be good days, bad days. Sometimes I need to take a medication. Sometimes I can get away with not doing it. Yeah. I think that's a really healthy approach. And then anytime that you don't have that panic, it kind of feels like gravy. It's like, oh, great.

47:22Like, I'm so glad that that worked out, but then you're not shamed for the times that you need more resource or support or it didn't go as well. Yes. In this conversation and in the book, as it pertains to unfawning, you approach it on the two levels. It starts with inner work. It's not in relationship, as you said, and then it moves to outer work. In terms of inner work, you've referenced things like SE, somatic experiencing, and IFS, internal family systems. These are big subjects. We're not going to be able to cover all of it right here. But what can you say that would be a simple practical takeaway for any of us, whether we have complex trauma or not, that would help us either regulate our nervous system or have a different relationship to these deeply wired responses that may be dominating our lives?

48:09Yes, I think accessible approaches to everyone for regulating your nervous system is knowing that the senses are the language of the nervous system. That's why just looking around wherever you are right now and noticing what you see really deliberately coming out of this autopilot that we're in all the time, right? We're scrolling, we're multitasking, we're not in our body. But when I'm literally focused on what do I notice right now in my environment, I become more embodied. Even before I mentioned noticing what I hear, because I've done this enough, my body and my hearing was like, oh, I can hear that the air conditioner is on.

48:50And as I even hear ambient noise, my body goes, I'm coming back more online. You think about the threat responses again from the animal defenses. This is based on Peter's work. He's like, you know, animals should be deeply traumatized. I mean, they are prey. They are running for their lives. And yet they're not. There's this flexibility. They move in and out of these states. Like, why don't we do that? Well, in part, because we're so evolved that we're on this override all the time. So finding a way to drop in. Sometimes I ask people to be curious, is there any time in your life where you really felt like you were safe and connected?

49:33The most you maybe you've ever felt before. And people feel these memories just emerge, maybe sometimes ones that they had forgotten. other times it's what are you drawn to what do you music do you like to listen to do you sing in the shower these tend to be very simple things because regulating your nervous system isn't this magic wand where it's like aha it's these subtle movements towards connection and self from a place of flexibility and walking is my favorite walking in nature just walking in my neighborhood which is very much in the city, I still orient to any natural objects that I see and I notice the color on the tree.

50:16I guarantee you every time I come back, my husband is very grateful that I went and I took a walk because I'm a different person when I come back, right? I'm more regulated. So I hear two things there and they're related, but one is, you know, just tuning in mindfully to what's happening in your environment. I'm a fan of indie rock or punk rock, and there's a bunch of Australian bands right now I love. And there's one band, I think this is the right band, the Teenage Jones, I think they're called. Anyway, they have a song called Five Things I Can Taste, Touch, Hear and Smell. It's quite a catchy song.

50:48And that's what you're talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Getting embodied, being mindful, opening up to the senses. And then there's another thing I heard you say, or I think I heard you say, about kind of imagining places where your nervous system feels safe. And I went when I was on, I cajoled my therapist or one of my therapists, shout out to Paul Green, to coming on a couple of flights with me. I would take these flights as practice flights and unmedicated. He was basically sending me, to use cliched language, to my happy place. Yes, which is the type of thing that, you know, normally I would like to mock.

51:25But I did find it very helpful to imagine there's this picture that somebody took of me and my wife and my son on the night before I retired from ABC News after 21 years. And I'm sitting in a chair and they're both hugging me. And that is a very, that my nervous system was really, you can see it on my face. And so I just would look at that picture when I was stuck on a plane. I'll probably do it again when I have to fly in a couple of days. There's something really powerful about that. It is so powerful. I'm so glad you're bringing it up. You know, this is what Olympic athletes use in their training, even before they do the race, they envision the race.

52:06And when you light up their brains to see what's going on, all the same places in their imagination are being lit up as when they're actually doing the thing. So we can, in other words, induce these same feelings and experiences just by going there in our imagination. And listen, I'm similar to you. I'm the first person to roll my eyes at something that's like really a safe place or inner child work. But I'm going to tell you right now, this stuff has absolutely saved my life. Like give yourself the chance to experience it. And there's probably a million safe or calm or happy place meditations online.

52:45Look it up, give it a try. If you hate the tone of voice and all of the prompts, we'll find another one or make it up yourself. There really are so many tools that we can access just right now for free. There's a lot to be said for social media that isn't so great, but I will say a lot of the free mental health content there is pretty incredible. So avail yourself of some of those tools. One of my favorite expressions that I did not coin is, if you can't be cheesy, you can't be free. I love that. Oh my God, that's so good. I'm going to take it too. You should take it because it's not mine. It's not even mine to give.

53:24Coming up, Dr. Clayton talks about how to set boundaries, some more tips for unfawning. We talk specifically about fawning at work. And then we talk about how to weave everything we're talking about here into your daily life.

53:44We've been talking about inner work and you also talk about outer work. You did cover earlier, like getting more comfortable with your anger or fight response and then testing it in ways, you know, like with the waiter and polite and small ways. But then you also talk in the book about learning how to set boundaries once you've done your inner work and practiced a little bit with your own anger. How does one do that? Yeah. One way that I liked in the beginning was thinking about a modified boundary, again, moving out of this binary. Like it's either a yes or a no, or I can have you in my life, or I have to cut you out of my life.

54:20It's sort of like, what am I available for? Is there any part of this thing that I'm available for? So put it in a really simple example. It might be like, can you watch my child on Friday night? And maybe I go, oh my gosh, I know I'm going to be so exhausted. You know, I really don't want to do it, but I do really want to be helpful and kind to foster some community, really think about like what parts are you available for and what parts are you're not and see if you can communicate that. I would love to help you out on Friday. Could you be back by nine because dot, dot, dot. So it starts to bring in a little more nuance to this idea of boundaries that made it more accessible.

55:04And I would say, you know, my clients often find the same. Another thing you recommend is vulnerability with safe people. Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah, I mean, hopefully, most of us have at least one safer person. And I think practicing with them, in fact, you might even use this language like, hey, I'm aware that I've been conflict avoidant my whole life. And yet you're someone that I I really value our relationship, our friendship, whatever it is. And I would like to bring more of me to the table. And maybe, I don't know, if you would also like to do the same, if you feel like there are parts of you that you're holding back.

55:45But my greatest hope is that we could be even closer. That's the intention. And that might mean that sometimes I disagree in ways that maybe you've never known me to disagree before, or I have a different opinion. And I'm wondering, do you think our relationship can hold that? So you're kind of building the scaffolding for an ongoing, deeper relationship and inviting other people to do the same by saying, I also am here to hold your difference of opinion or disappointment or whatever it is. It's amazing. As I'm listening to you speak, I'm thinking about how this fond response and many of our our other hardwired or just deeply wired responses can be a briar patch because we need other people, we need authentic relationships in order to be healthy, to be a little cheesy myself here.

56:37But if you've got this fond response, you are blocked from being authentic. So you're just, you can get stuck. I love the briar patch idea. It's literally what I say to people is that this work is maybe going to be some of the hardest that you've ever done for that reason, because I'm inviting you to step into the places that ignited the most terror. It's also why you don't just jump head first. You go like, oh, I'm going to feel that little briar patch under my baby toe and go, how did that feel? Okay, I'm going to go back to the safety of the other side for a moment. That's literally what we're doing.

57:14I'm like, okay, we're going to go walk through fire. talk about re-inhabiting a healthy fight response. Of course, this does not sound appealing. And yet, I would not be talking about this. I would not be recommending it if it wasn't the thing that restored me to a sense of a whole person, if I didn't see it happen so many times in my practice. And if everyone didn't say at the end of the day, it's so worth it. It's so worth it because you also don't stay in that terror, part of stepping into that discomfort and knowing, oh, maybe it isn't danger, maybe it is just discomfort, is that it can start to dissipate.

57:54You're not living in that heightened, hypervigilant sense of it's happening again, it's going to happen again all the time. So the rewards, in other words, are profoundly worth whatever I'm inviting you into in terms of this process that can be painful. You mentioned it early. It's like grieve, maybe a little relief, grieve again. You know, you think about stepping into these relationships and maybe seeing them for what they are in reality, not what you've dressed it up to be or what you were waiting for it to be. There's a lot of grieving that's involved in this process too. You go, not only was this not the relationship I thought it was, but it's never going to be.

58:32So there can be a lot of heartbreak. But I think what most people find, because some relationships might have to end, some relationships might change, some relationships might get abundantly better. But at the heart of it is, I would rather have me in my own life than sacrifice that for a relationship with ultimately anybody else. Because it's not a real relationship if I'm not even there to have it. Right. So we've been talking about how to unfawn. I think a lot of the emphasis has been on people who have the chronic fawn response. But what about for the rest of us? Again, I don't think I have complex trauma in my life, but I can think of times when I've appeased or self-minimized in a power relationship especially.

59:20Are there ways to unfawn for me and for the people who I'm describing? It's a great question. And there might be another answer behind this. But my first instinct is to say no. I think primarily what I would encourage you to do is know that your body did the one thing that it thought would be most helpful in the moment. And it chose it in a nanosecond without your conscious consent. Because part of what I think, even with an acute sort of fond response, is we go, why did I do that? I think what lingers, in other words, is the judgment and the shame. And so just being able to understand what happened and why it happened, I think that's the message for people that have an acute fawn response as you go, oh, that's why I did what I did.

1:00:01Okay, well, that makes sense. Okay, but I can think of times where I had acute fawn responses with a boss, for example. But if people listening to this have a boss where they're finding themselves having acute fawn responses, but it's kind of adding up to a chronic situation, whether or not there's complex trauma driving it, it's just like a situational issue. but it's ongoing. How can we deal with the mythical bad boss? Yeah, it's a fair question. So to me, these are the same, by the way. Complex trauma is just relational trauma, relational threat. I think a lot of people don't like the word trauma because it still holds this old idea of what we think trauma is.

1:00:41It's a natural disaster. It's a car crash. But what we actually know is that feeling unsafe in relationship. And if you need a boss to give you a paycheck. I mean, financial security is pretty major on the list of a hierarchy of needs. And you really feel like I have to show up in this particular way. I got to keep this guy on my side. And it's happening day in, day out. You have to leave yourself at the door in order to secure financial security. That's an example of complex trauma in my view. And we don't have to use that terminology if it doesn't resonate with folks. But I think it's the same idea that you might start with asking yourself genuinely, what do I think would happen if I didn't, Fawn?

1:01:27What are the consequences, in other words? And sometimes we have real-time examples and evidence. Well, I know when I didn't, right? This is what happened. And sometimes just that naming and understanding can allow us to be with ourselves, right? Not wholly self-abandoned, but go, okay, I'm doing this for a reason, and actually it is keeping me safe. When I say I probably fawned yesterday, I'm saying it in the sense of, I'm not mad about that. My body went into a fond response and got me through and got me to the other side, and listen, that's the reality, Like I said, of sometimes being in a world that's not designed for my happiness and well-being.

1:02:13Like, Ingrid, what can we do today to make you a little more comfortable and in your own skin? So I think it's similar. I think this work is available to you if you have a body. It's available to you because we all have a nervous system and we all live in environments that at times can feel threatening for lots of different reasons. So what you said there was complex and had some nuance. So I just want to see if I can say it back to you and make sure I understand it correctly. First, one thing you said that I think is very helpful and kind of undid a perhaps a misunderstanding between the two of us throughout the course of this conversation was that when you're referring to complex trauma, a phrase in which I do not see myself, you're saying it's not just you were sexually abused or groomed as a child.

1:03:02Complex trauma could simply be you're in a long-term unhealthy relationship with a malignant boss. 100%. Yes. Ongoing experiences of threat to varying degrees. And complex trauma is not even defined by the event itself. I think that's where most of us get hung up. It's defined by the overwhelm in your nervous system. It's defined by a lack of access to resources and helpful things that could help you move through. So it's defined by the symptom, in other words. That's why I say, well, if you're telling me that you were in this prolonged experience with the boss where you're fawning, I go, well, there's the symptom.

1:03:45There's your answer. Yeah, so that's a really helpful clarification. And then to what you were saying further to that is that, well, all the things I was talking about earlier, the inner work and the outer work and the moving beyond the binary healed or unhealed, like you can use all that shit, whether or not you see yourself in the term complex trauma or not. If you're in a situation where you find yourself fawning over and over again, all the things we already discussed, help yourself. And I would just add to that, if you have to go back in the lion's den, I hope that you know that your body is going to lean into whatever response is going to keep you as safe as possible in the moment.

1:04:24In other words, you can do all of this work for the rest of your life like I intend to do. And I'm still going to find, I'm still going to lean into safety in whatever way I can access it. Let me ask the question from a different point of view. while I'm sure that I have been fond in many occasions, I think more often than not, the way I see myself at least is that I am in a position where sometimes people will fond with me or and there are three people very close to me who I've written down on my notes here. I need to send this information to them because I see some like it's unlocking a lot of understanding, I think, of some people very close to me and how they behave.

1:05:06So I'm a boss. I'm a semi-public figure, I guess. I'm a dad. So I'm in situations where I have disproportionate amounts of power. How can I take everything we've just discussed and weave it into how I move through the world? I am in love with this question. I think it's such a powerful one. Yes, when we notice it, when we're aware of our privilege and power, how can we even the playing field? It's sort of why I talked about being a therapist and having to go first. I have to even the playing field and self-disclose or let people know very clearly, hey, it's okay if you disagree. I have to make it safe, in other words, for them to lean in.

1:05:52And so that's a powerful thing that I think all of us have access to is being curious with the people in our lives. It's like, hey, if you notice it in the moment and you think someone's, you know, just kind of going along to get along and you kind of sense they're not really telling me what they actually feel, slow down and be curious and say, hey, I have a sense that you're holding something back. And I want you to know, I genuinely want to know what you're feeling and experiencing right now. It's really important to me. I really value what you have to say. and maybe if you think that that's going to ruffle my feathers, I want you to know that that's just another opportunity for intimacy or real connection.

1:06:36And I value that too, right? So I think we have to go first and let people know that it's safe. I also think it's helpful, like you said, to take those names and give them this information or give them the book so that they can start to absorb this lens and language into their own life. But what a gift, I think, to give to people to say, hey, this is a safe place. Maybe you don't know that and that's okay. You come by that honestly, but I want you to know that that's always my intention. The person who's producing this episode, Marissa, who I wouldn't describe as having a fun response, although I don't know.

1:07:12Marissa, I'm not trying to psychoanalyze you, but she says something that is relevant to this conversation about me, which is that she says that I have a, she doesn't use this term, but I think she said, I have a scary face. I would call it a resting bitch face. And I think it's true. And my wife has observed this too. So I try to be cognizant of that. And what I've tried to do, I think maybe semi-successfully is to reward people on my team for speaking up. So to publicly demonstrate that not only is it safe to question me, but also you will be rewarded for doing it. This is an effort. I'm sure I have a million blind spots, but that's just one way I've tried to operationalize your advice.

1:07:55I love it. And if you're not sure how it's working, I would ask your team. They're holding all the wisdom, right? Hey, how are we doing in terms of like reciprocal, respectful relationships here? Where are the gaps? What is missing? And I'll also give you props that when we logged on today, you didn't say you have a resting bitch face, but you did say, hey, I look down a lot. And it's not because I'm not listening or paying attention. And it did create more of a sense of safety, even in this interview. So you're very trauma-informed and leaning in in a way that is helpful. Just to be clear to the listener, I said to Dr.

1:08:32Clayton that I look down at my notes, not that I look down at people a lot. I look down at my notes. So I break eye contact a lot while I'm interviewing, not because I'm checking my email, but this is a little speech I give before every interview. which you the listener never hear which is I tell people hey just so you know I look down I'm checking my notes I'm taking notes please don't get discouraged if you see that so I guess that's trauma informed okay last question for me before I ask my two um habitual final questions but you said something earlier that I vowed to follow up on quickly but I didn't follow up on quickly I'm gonna follow it on up on it now you said something like being seen as a salve and I've thought about that a lot.

1:09:12Personally, with my own experience, I've been very public about having gone through some business turbulence in my life. And without in any way casting aspersions here, I would call it traumatic. Not that there was a bad guy and I was the good guy, just that it was a traumatic and prolonged confrontation that produced a lot of anxiety and fear for me. And I've thought a lot about the fact that my wife has recommended I get some sort of trauma therapy. And at first, as is my want. I was completely dismissive of that, which is because I'm a shithead sometimes. But there's something I realized over time that I needed, which is just to have somebody say, dude, that sucked.

1:09:51And sometimes my friends will do it. And it's just so, it's such a relief to have that happen. And so what brings me to my question, which is a phrase that you use, a sentence you use in the book, wounding happens in relationship and healing happens in relationship. Can you just say a little bit more about that? Yes, yes. The example that came into my mind as I was listening to you, you know, I identify as a chronic founder and when I went on social media as a therapist, I did not just wear my therapist hat. Hi, I'm Dr. Ingrid Clayton and I have some answers for you. I really knew that I had to lead with being a childhood trauma survivor and also you know before I was a therapist I was a singer songwriter I have a performance background I like to think I have a good sense of humor and can be irreverent and all these things and I really felt called to have all of these parts of me in one place at the same time but being seen in that way I'm telling you 100 % I was like I'm gonna tank my career whatever credibility I have at this point if I go on Instagram and start singing about complex trauma like that's it it's over for me but here's what actually happened and here's the other thing i've said to myself i was like well if that's true because i felt so called to do this if that's true if i lose my career i guess i'm not meant to be a clinical psychologist we'll see where i'm meant to go next but what actually happened is when i allowed my whole self to be seen and this could make me weep, my whole self was seen and it changed my life.

1:11:32It let me know experientially, I don't just have to be these parts of me that can be helpful to you, that can be packaged in a way that you would prefer. I really can be a whole person in the world and it changed my life. And that was relational, right? Because people are commenting and they're reaching out and you know there's the algorithm the craziness there too but the reality is is I did create this sense of community around it and the second thing that comes to mind is the power of seeing ourselves right so before I wrote this book on fawning I wrote a memoir on complex trauma and it's called believing me because after a lifetime of waiting to be validated oh yes that did happen.

1:12:20It never came. And here's the truth for a lot of people, right? So when you say even your friend seeing this traumatic experience and going, yeah, that was horrible, that was real, a lot of us are never going to have that experience. The people that harmed us or the people that were around that are never going to cock to it. But we can see it and own it and name limit ourselves. And when we do, that is the access point into not being so held hostage by it. So I think it's like multi-directional, right? Being seen by others, but also truly, truly being seen by ourselves is powerful. Yeah, it's crazy how much we can do for ourselves that we're not taught about growing up.

1:13:07The two final questions I ask people, one is, is there something you were hoping to get to that we didn't? No, I think we covered a lot of ground. Great. So I'll get to my final question, which is, can you just remind everybody of the name of your new book? You just told us about the preceding book and also anything else that we should know about that you're making or doing. Thank you for that. The new book is called Fawning, Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back. It is available now in bookstores and on Audible and all the things. And I am accessible through my website, IngridClayton.com, through Instagram and Substack and all the places if you want to be in community there.

1:13:48And I just tend to let people know I'm not taking new clients. It takes a lot of courage to reach out and ask for help. And unfortunately, I'm not seeing folks and I can't give referrals, but I hope you will find the right support that you deserve. Dr. Clayton, Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

1:14:10Thanks again to Dr. Ingrid Clayton. Great to talk to her. Before I go, I want to insert some notes here sent to me by senior producer Marissa Schneiderman, who produced this episode. First, she wanted me to say that she is so good at fawning that I didn't even notice. And second, she wants me to point out that while I may have a stony face at times, she herself is actually not afraid of my face, my punim, as they say in Yiddish. Also, a couple of other things to say here. You may have heard us mention Peter Levine, Dick Schwartz, and Dr. Bruce Perry during the course of that conversation. I'll put some links in the show notes to my previous interviews with Peter, Dick, and Bruce so you can hear them.

1:14:48Don't forget, this episode comes with a custom meditation. This one's from Jeff Warren, our Teacher of the Month, and it's all about how to unfawn, how to set boundaries. Also, Jeff and I will be doing a live meditation and Q &A session on December 2nd, 4 p.m. Eastern, our Monday, Wednesday meditation drops and our live meditations on Tuesday. These are all for subscribers at danharris.com. So sign up. And finally, one last reminder. Don't forget what I said at the top of the show about this pods fight poverty thing that we're doing where we're teaming up with other great podcasters to help lift 700 families out of poverty in Rwanda.

1:15:27Go to givedirectly.org slash Dan if you want to get involved, givedirectly.org slash Dan. Finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

1:15:57Thank you.