The 5 Nervous System Response Mechanisms in Love: The Fawning Response (Submission)
197. The 5 Nervous System Response Mechanisms in Love: The Fawning Response (Submission)
The 5 nervous system response mechanisms in love: the fawning response (submission)
This episode is part of a series of 5 episodes on the 5 nervous system response mechanisms and how they impact your relationship, starting at episode 195 and ending at episode 199. If you are new to the podcast and unfamiliar with the influence of the nervous system on your relationships, I invite you to listen to episodes 152 The impact of the nervous system on your relationships, 153 The 4 categories of love patterns and 154 The 3 states of your nervous system and the polyvagal scale.
This episode is for you if you have the feeling of being a people-pleaser, of anticipating the needs of others a lot, of feeling like you have to wear many masks to be socially accepted.
Watch my webinar on how to finally be happy in love
The mechanisms of the fawning response (submission)
- Over-adapting out of fear (to reduce or charm the threat)
- Anticipating the other person’s needs, being like an emotional sponge
- The image of “the cool girl/guy with no problems” (poker face)
- Replaying on loop what you said to the other person and fearing the consequences of your actions on them, constantly justifying yourself or apologising
- Fear of conflict, panic on board if you feel you have irritated or hurt someone
- Making excuses, struggling to judge the other person or the relationship objectively
- At the extreme: no longer knowing what you want, your needs, your limits (no longer feeling them) or who you really are (loss of identity)
If your partner is in this state, you may feel
- That they are constantly trying to please you, erasing themselves or making compromises
- That they are dependent on you and struggle to assert themselves
- Like you have difficulty knowing what they think or want
- That they don’t tell you when something is wrong, that you constantly have to guess
- Like you are being put on a pedestal
- That the relationship lacks clarity and deep meaning because the other person doesn’t dare show who they truly are
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Thoughts in this state
- “If I don’t do what they want, I’ll be abandoned”
- “I have to be the person with no worries, no demands”
- “I have to guess their needs and adapt to avoid the worst”
- “I only exist through the other person”
- “I can’t say no, it’s too hard”
Emotions in this state
- Anxiety about having to please, about “not making mistakes”
- Guilt at the thought of being a bother, showing a need or an emotion
- Difficulty getting angry at others
- Suppressed anger toward yourself or sadness afterwards when you come out of the mechanism and realise you have been playing a role and forgetting yourself
- Numbness to your own needs — you feel nothing when they are not respected
Physiologically, activation of the sympathetic state in dominance, parasympathetic to a lesser degree
- Continuous stress, agitation, tension in the body due to stress hormones secreted
- Hypervigilance to your environment, to people’s facial expressions
- Tense face, forced smile or laugh (poker face)
- Disconnection from your feelings and bodily sensations — you can no longer tell what you want or don’t want
- Sometimes fatigue or exhaustion from over-adapting
- Focus outward, numbness inward
Some possible origins from your past
- A childhood where your needs were little recognised or valued, or where keeping up appearances was important: “better to behave”, responding to “you have to…”
- A family or context where you had to “please”, “meet expectations” to receive love or attention
- Witnessing a parent who sacrificed themselves or didn’t express their true needs
- An authoritarian parent where your protection mechanism was to charm: through your behaviour, your good grades…
How to change this mechanism?
If this is your dominant mechanism
- Learn to recognise and express your needs and desires, and to set your limits
- Learn to be authentic and dare to displease
- Correct your misalignment even if it is after the fact
- Enter into conflict calmly
Physiologically, this means you need to learn to feel your limits (and automatically you will differentiate yourself from others) and your needs. This mechanism will stop expressing itself in dominance when your nervous system has had enough evidence that you can be yourself authentically and continue to be loved. The Day of the Past option that I offer in my programmes Opening Up to Love and Cultivating Love helps you to deprogram the love pattern, through my Somatic Deprogramming method, that makes you use this dominant mechanism in an inappropriate way, and to reprogram a new, more adapted mechanism by being aligned. You will still need to accumulate evidence.
When this is your response mechanism for a given situation
- Identify the physiological signs of fawning: tense face, forced laugh or smile. I call this the “groupie attitude”.
- Before acting, take the time to think your decision through and ask yourself: “Am I doing this for myself or for them?”
- Correct your misalignment even if it is after the fact. Explain the reason for your change of mind to your partner (I am correcting my mechanism, not: I am indecisive or I don’t want to respond to your request).,
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Going further
💕 OPENING UP TO LOVE — if you are single
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🌿 CULTIVATING LOVE — if you are in a couple
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Sandy Kaufmann
is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Editions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “S’ouvrir a l’amour”, ranked in the French top 50 in the relationships category.
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