The fawn response in people pleasers
If you find yourself wondering “Why is this so hard for me?!” I promise it’s not because you’re uniquely broken, wrong, or deficient.
Connection, approval, love + adoration are basic human needs — without them, our brain believes that our survival is under threat. If you were denied the opportunity for genuine, healthy connection growing up, your developing child brain did the best it could to seek out those needs.
As an adult, you might now recognize that the survival adaptations you came up with as a child aren’t serving you as well as they used to.
But that recognition doesn’t take away the deep neural pathways carved over years of practicing + repeating these same behaviors.
You still need love + approval. And until you establish a more constructive + fulfilling way to meet those needs AND your nervous system realizes that it’s safe to let go of the old ways, you’re likely going to keep returning to what you are familiar with.
That’s 100% normal and 100% okay. Remember to be gentle + patient with the frightened child within you 💗