What It Looks Like
You'll do anything to make sure they're okay.
You shrink. You accommodate.
You lose yourself to keep them safe, to keep you safe.
You lose yourself to keep them safe, to keep you safe.
If you can just be what they need, they won't hurt you. You disappear to survive. This is someone who will give themselves to abusive partners, do anything they can to make sure the person doesn't hurt them.
It's a child pattern, like having a scary parent and realising you just have to be on your best behaviour, shrink yourself, lose your own identity so they don't rage at you.
This is pure fawn. A collapsing down (somatic dissociation), losing access to thinking and losing access to any needs or boundaries of the self to merge with whatever the other person thinks or needs.
The impact of this pattern on a relationship is over time it either destroys the intimacy completely (there is no relationship if you aren't in it) or it becomes part of the set up for an abusive dynamic to establish itself.
What The Fawn Needs
In the Moment
Notice the collapse.
Feel how your body is making itself smaller. Your shoulders rounding. Your chest caving.
Notice where you're abandoning yourself.
What need are you ignoring? What boundary are you crossing? What truth are you swallowing?
If you can, pause and ask…
"What do I actually need right now?"
Even if you can't act on it yet, just asking the question, and taking the time to inquire into an answer, matters.
Try saying one true thing.
Even something small. "Actually, I don't want that." "I need a minute."
Any small truth breaks the fawn pattern.
To Come Back to Center
Take deep breaths
Allow yourself to expand back into your body, becoming more solid with every breath.
Breathe energy up.
The fawn tends to shrink downwards, losing contact with their ability to think for themselves.
Breathe energy back up, up into your heart, your threat and yes, contrary to common advice, into your head.
Work to get your thinking back online.
You need to remember yourself. That your thoughts, feelings and needs matter.
Try to think about yourself, what you need, what you think, what you feel.
Take space if you need it.
Taking space is probably one of the most terrifying things you can imagine in this moment.
But even just literal physical space is enough. Take 2-3 steps backwards to move further away.
Move away until you have a chance to feel yourself in your own energy again.
Lengthen your spine.
Take up more space by straightening your body, lifting your spine up erect.
As you do, allow your breath to become more full.
You're allowed to be here. You have the right to exist.
Remind yourself…
"I'm allowed to have needs. I'm allowed to take up space. I'm allowed to matter."
Ground into your body.
Feel your feet. Feel your belly. Reconnect with your physical presence.
You exist.
The Deeper Work
Fawn is about survival through submission. It's running on the misbelief that if you please someone else, you'll be safe from hurt.
This pattern often forms when you had a caregiver (or partner) who was unpredictable, rageful, or dangerous. You learned that the only way to survive was to disappear yourself and become whatever they needed you to be.
The fawn response says: I'll give up me to keep it safe.
But here's what happens over time: you lose contact with who you actually are. Your needs become invisible, even to yourself. You don't even know what you want anymore because you've been so focused on what everyone else wants.
The path forward is learning that you can stay safe while also staying connected to yourself. Learning that you can have needs and still be loved. That taking up space doesn't equal danger.
Practicing small boundaries in low-stakes situations helps build the capacity for this.
Catching It Early:
The moment you see your pattern clearly (when you catch it happening in real-time) everything changes.
Transformation of a pattern always starts with developing awareness of the pattern first.
Your Practice:
Over the next week, your job is simple: catch the moment you abandon yourself.
Watch for:
- Your body making itself smaller
- Your voice getting quieter
- The thought "I just need to make them happy"
- Saying yes when you mean no
- Ignoring your own needs to manage their emotions
When you notice it:
- Name it, even just to yourself: "I'm fawning right now."
- Pause: Take a breath and feel yourself in your body.
- Ask: "What do I actually need here?"
You don't have to be perfect. You just have to catch it. Even if you catch it after you've already fawned, that's still progress. That's awareness building.
The goal isn't to stop your pattern overnight. The goal is to see it more clearly each time.
Journal Prompts for The Fawn
Use these to deepen your awareness:
- "When I fawn, the need I'm abandoning is... (what are you giving up?)"
- "If I spoke my truth instead of fawning, I'm afraid... (what's the fear underneath?)"
- "The last time I fawned, what I actually wanted to say was... (what's your real truth?)"
- "As a child, fawning kept me safe by... (how did this pattern protect you?)"
- "One small boundary I could practice this week is... (what's a low-stakes boundary you could try?)"
- "The earliest sign that I'm about to fawn is... (what's your first body cue?)"
Remember
This pattern isn't who you are. It's a protective response your nervous system learned to keep you safe.
You developed it for a reason. It served you once. It probably kept you safe. It probably allowed you to survive.
And yet this pattern actually blocks you from the things you want (intimacy, safety, connection). Being held, being met, being seen.
Now you get to choose: Does this pattern still serve you? Or is it time to build something new?
The power is in the awareness. And the awareness starts with recognition.
You've got this.
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